For example, in a scorecard that I use at CMOE, Invoice to Payment, we measure the number of days between when an invoice is sent to a client and the day we received payment.  Most of our clients pay within thirty to forty days.  However, by monitoring the scorecard daily, I noticed that some of our clients were taking to up five months before they paid the invoice.  This made the performance line fall above the target goal of 35 days on our scorecard.  My question was why?

What was happening?
A couple of things came to the surface when I talked with a specific handful of companies about why it was taking so long for us to receive their payments.  The first response usually was that the Accounts Payable team was not getting the invoice.  Were the invoices lost in the mail, or buried on someone’s desk?  We began e-mailing all invoices and past-due notices directly to the person who placed the order in addition to Accounts Payable.  For some reason, people respond more quickly to e-mails.  Almost immediately, I started to get e-mails instructing me on how these companies preferred to have invoices submitted.   Getting the invoices to the right parties made a big difference in the time between invoicing and receiving payment.  International invoicing was entirely another problem.  Through trial and error, we found that by simply adding bank information as a mandatory item to every international invoice, the clients were able to get payments to us in a much more efficient manner.

The End Result
Overall, the average payment score went from 58 days to 28 days in a matter of eight months– that’s Thirty days of improvement!  You may ask, “Why didn’t the AR Aging report say the same thing as a score card?”

Why a Scorecard?
I worked with a biweekly report for three years in order to decrease the number of outstanding invoices.  In 2010 the average still seemed high.  The score card diverted my attention from the number of outstanding invoices to the number of days between invoice took to be paid.  The visual reminder of a scorecard also motivated me to think about this issue on a daily basis and prompted other team members to get involved.  I don’t know if thirty days will make a big difference to your company, but to our Regional Vice Presidents 30 days was huge.  Improved cash flow and the use of measurements allowed them to make more accurate strategic plans for the company.

In a downturn, people look to improve upon roles and responsibilities that they already have. “The economic pressures of the downturn forced companies to re-examine everything they were doing and come up with a new model,” said Harry Griendling, CEO of DoubleStar, a human resources consulting firm. No matter how you say it, the underlying idea is asking for more, but offering less.

This is a good concept in and of itself. But do all of us really need to go down this road? Rumor also has it that the economy is in an upturn. Most economists predict U.S. employers will add about 2.4 million jobs this year. But the Economy is not set to fully recover until around 2014. In the meantime, how does one make sure the many hat wearing workers continue to increase the profit and productivity of their employees in today’s economy? How do those who hold jobs, keep their jobs and increase their value to add tenure in an organization? Instead of buying into the latest gadget, you go back to the basics, like your people and your bottom line.

John Villere said, “Your bottom line starts with your front line.” Sounds like a good place to start to me. CMOE’s Bottom Line Leadership specifically targets front-line leaders, mid-level managers, and senior executives to help organizations build these skills and increase the energy they’ll need to accelerate performance improvement throughout the organization. Once your people in your organization know how what they contribute, effects the bottom line, you will know how to improve your contribution and in essence, wear another hat. Bottom Line Leadersip teaches businesses how to use the resources that they currently have at their disposal in a smarter way.

So get back to the basics: metrics, knowledge base, performance. You will find that the practical application of the most basic processes will gain you the fastest results.

Data however can be useful in helping to identify and create measurements by taking a look at the past so to better understand where to go in the future.  Bottom line measurement is about looking at our effectiveness in real time.  How are we doing today (measurement) as compared to yesterday (data), the past week (data), or past month (data).  They key is to identify a measurement of effectiveness that adds value and contributes to the overall bottom line performance of the organization.  Measurement is about keeping track of the things that are helping us win at work.

Caveat:

People tend to associate measurement as a negative process; measurement of defects, number of safety violations, etc.    However, effective measurement helps us grow and become more effective.  As results based leaders, it is critical to make measurement positive.  If measurement is negative, it becomes one of the quickest paths to demotivating your people.   Measurement needs to encourage more of the same positive, results based behaviors.

In order to see the benefits of this same level of dedication at work, leaders and managers need to help their employees find a workplace version of Annapurna. Leaders need to provide their employees with opportunities to be challenged, situations that require them to reach well beyond what is expected of them and truly excel. People love to achieve difficult goals, and they love to up the ante. Once they have reached one summit, they will be ready to move on to the next. Achieving easy goals is boring, no matter what the environment. And inside the workplace, requiring employees to reach higher levels of performance makes the work they do more rewarding, resulting in greater job satisfaction, deeper dedication to the organization, and a heftier, healthier bottom line results. So give your employees the chance to sink their teeth into bigger, better challenges. Search for that next summit, find that next challenge, reward your people for striving to reach the top. They can make it, and you’ll find the proof in your bottom line.

In a recent conversation with a colleague we discussed the ideas of the Psychoanalytical theory and whether it is relevant in today’s society, specifically with regard to the ideas of positive reinforcement. As I thought a little more deeply about this concept, I realized that these ideas are clearly applicable and prevalent in the workplace today.
Do you see the effects of positive reinforcement in your organization? Are your employees being recognized for their hard work? Or are they starving for a little appreciation? If the theory of Positive Reinforcement is applicable in the workplace, and we recognize our employees for their hard work, employees will become more motivated and easier to coach, and will help the business grow over the long term. By taking the time to recognize the effort your employees put forth, they will naturally become more dedicated and will want to achieve your organization’s goals. With the right goals, scorecards, and metrics, you truly can make a difference to your bottom line performance.

So what are some ways that you can acknowledge your employees? I have witnessed a number of ways in which you can recognize employees in order to motivate them and make them more coachable. Here is a list of five very quick, very simple ways to show your employees that you notice and appreciate what they do for you:

1. Simply say “thank you”
2. Take the time, even if it’s in passing, to learn of their successes
3. Reward effort as well as success
4. Publicly announce their success
5. Offer the right incentives to succeed

There are many other ways to show appreciation to and acknowledge your employees for their hard work, efforts, and success. Just remember that by recognizing their labor, you can help your business grow and ultimately achieve the result you want and a boost to your bottom line.

I prepare my mind and body for months before embarking on such a journey. I begin by figuring out what my “bottom line” is, exactly what it is I want to accomplish. Different runners measure accomplishment in different ways: some may simply want to cross that finish line, while others may try to finish the race in a certain amount of time either for personal gratification or so that they qualify for the Boston Marathon. Marathon runners map out every element of their training programs. Designing their workout regimens, eating plans, and sleep cycles according to their personal goals. They plan out how they will handle elevation changes and how fast they want to run each mile in the race. Every detail of the marathon is planned out very specifically, very strategically, and to the very last detail.

After spending months on the preparation stage, marathon runners apply their strategic planning to the race itself, the 26.2-mile journey. Although the marathon itself can take time, be difficult, and throw unexpected obstacles at the runners, their careful strategic planning allows them to handle any unexpected stumbling block with grace. I have run in races in which I had to deal with inclement weather, health problems, and in one instance, a fractured foot. When runners come across barriers on their path to success, they must strategically alter their carefully laid out plans to still achieve the desired bottom-line. If I had not been flexible during my training program, willing to change, and attentive to what worked best for me and my body, I would not have been able to finish the race, especially in a way that brought about the result I desired.

If you pay attention to the world of work, you will observe that this them is quite prevalent.  It is likely it exists among employees in your own organization (if you haven’t seen it already).  It is likely present with your clients, the vendors who serve you, and even at your favorite lunch spot.   You don’t have to look hard or far to find those people who truly hope that business is slow today.

Generally speaking, these people aren’t bad people, free loaders, or poor hires.  The fact is many of them fail to see or have not been given the full picture of how they help the organization and why they matter.  Leaders and managers must be on the look-out for people who hope business is slow, and make an effort to help motivate these individuals and help them understand how important they are to the organization.  Couple this with frequent coaching (formal and informal) and a creating a culture of feedback, and you’ll soon find your employee are engage to have a productive day at work with a focus on the bottom line.

As we walk the halls of the companies with which we work, we often see the “metrics wall”.  This wall is usually in a high-traffic area.  Many employees walk by the “metrics wall” on a regular basis, but how many employees actually stop to look at it?  Our observation has been that not many bother to take the time.

Why is that?  For many employees, the “metrics wall” is just another wall.  More often than not, those employees who walk by without stopping have no idea what it is that the metrics are tracking.  They don’t know how to read the charts and graphs; they don’t understand what the numbers indicate.  Those few who do understand what the charts, graphs, and numbers mean often don’t feel like the information has any real correlation to the impact that they have on the organization.

Making Them More Effective

How can we make the “metrics wall” more effective and motivating?  A good place to start is making sure each employee understands what it is that they contribute to the organization.  Each employee must recognize what they are paid to accomplish.  Once employees understand how they contribute to the organization’s bottom line, understanding how metrics reflect their accomplishment becomes much easier.

Another idea is to create individual scorecards or metrics that reflect each employee’s unique jobs and responsibilities.  Making the scorecards personal and specific increases accountability and responsibility for results.  Once Employees create their scorecards, they can place the scorecards on their cubicle walls or office doors, giving leaders a way to quickly see how the employee is doing and an opportunity to give the employee feedback on his/her work.

Is Is About Employee Engagement

Metrics, when done the right way, can be very motivating to employees.  The key is to ensure that employees understand what the numbers indicate and why the specific action is being tracked.  Using metrics or scorecards in combination with effective and frequent coaching, feedback, and goal-setting can result in rapid improvements to overall productivity and profitability, meaning that your business will become and remain more competitive over the long term.

The most important discovery we have made over the course of many years is that the data alone won’t drive your business to the next level of bottom line performance. We have learned that the way the data is used by leaders has a direct impact on whether the results they see are ordinary or extraordinary. The way leaders interact with the individuals with whom they work either has a negative or positive impact on the results that leaders so desperately seek. The key to leveraging the metrics and boosting employee performance is making the data meaningful to people. It doesn’t matter if you are a scientist or an assembly worker: if you know how your efforts contribute to key results, what those results mean, and how to make the scoreboard move in your favor, you tend to become more engaged and motivated by your work. The magic of metrics is all about how leaders coach, communicate, and solve problems with other members of the organization. They have to help people interpret the data and create metrics that feed business results, and they need to make it personal. If leaders can connect individuals to the metrics driving the business’ success at the very core, if they can help employees see how they fit and why they matter, then every person will suddenly become personally invested in helping the organization improve its bottom line.

The trick is having the ability to position, explain, and use the data in a way that motivates and inspires people. This power resides in the leader’s ability to support, coach, and assist employees, as well as work through the barriers and interference that they will inevitably encounter. There is no inherent value in data. Motivation doesn’t come from analyzing the numbers. Business performance takes a sudden leap when trusted coaches help the people around them figure out ways to be challenged and stretched beyond their perceived abilities. If people gather relevant data about themselves, about the factors that are critical to their own success, analyze those factors with a coach, and then set realistic, meaningful goals grounded in the information they have gathered, they are more likely to want to perform in a superior way.

If you already have a system to measure performance, help your leaders learn how to use that information to its maximum effect, motivating members of your organization at all levels to perform to the very best of their abilities. We can help you enhance you bottom line leadership using the resources you already have at your disposal—your people.

Did you watch the video or did you rush ahead to continue reading? Hopefully you took the time to watch Joshua Bell, an internationally recognized, Grammy award winning violinist. He made an unexpected appearance at a Washington DC metro station. For approximately one hour, he played some of the greatest and most demanding classical music for nearly 1,100 people. He played these fine pieces of music on his rare and coveted Stradivarius violin, worth close to $3.5 million dollars. Of those 1,100 people, only 7 individuals stopped long enough to listen. The entrance fee for this rare and intimate performance was simply time and recognition of great work.

As leaders, managers, or supervisors, who get results, do you acknowledge who those who put forth a great performance? It is my belief that if we paused long enough to recognize great work and reinforce the behaviors of those with great performance, it will be repeated. Conversely, if we don’t see the value of people who are improving, or give lack luster recognition and celebration, organizations will continue to be average, often in survival mode with little drive and motivation from employees.

IF A GREAT MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?
It’s an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?

The full article, written by Gene Weingarten titled Pearls for Breakfast was published in the Washington Post. To read the article in its entirety, click here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html\