In a previously posted article, Scorekeeping and Leaderboards to Drive Performance, the author discussed how measuring for performance cannot build fear and negativity into employees. Driving bottom line performance with the right measurement will engage people and get people excited and committed to push performance levels. Our experience with a retailer in Columbia, SC. proved that the right incentive can create a culture ready for the challenge. In this case a large part of the company’s business plan was to increase their sales per guest visit. The effort was a grass roots effort in which each employee picked a small, inexpensive item of the week that they would promote throughout the day. At stake for the company was a goal of 2% overall increase in sales based adding an item of the week to one out of fifteen customer visits. At stake for the employees was a pair of tickets to an upcoming NASCAR event. It’s important to point out here that, for many folks from Columbia and points south, NASCAR is life.
To keep score they painted a miniature oval on the floor in the back office. Each person got to choose a miniature car with the number of their favorite NASCAR driver. Once the dust settled over who was going to get #3, Dale Earnhardt’s old number, the race was on.
Each time an associate sold their item of the week they got to advance their car one length. The first ‘car’ to the checkered flag won.
It was a raucous week. Lot’s of fun, lots of incremental sales, and the store increased its sales for the week by over 6.5% which was an unqualified success.
In addition to making the scorecard fun by picking a game board that the team related to and had an interest in, this team captured the essence of effective scorecards as motivators. To be effective, a scorecard:
• Has to be about what I do
• Has to “talk” to me
• I Have to touch it and own it to believe it
• At some point is has to make me feel successful, whether it is hitting a target, showing improvement, or reinforncing my contribution
Simple, daily profit focused scorekeeping can be and should be fun.
Leave a comment telling us what was the most unique or innovative score keeping method you have seen in your company or another?
Or read this example of a poorly done scorecard: Scorekeeping and Leaderboards to Drive Performance
Your people drive your business. Most have the best of intentions when it comes to making a solid contribution to the overall success of the enterprise. They do good work so you give them more work to do. They were your best account rep, your best payables clerk, best welder or project engineer so you made them leaders of people. The problem is that these outstanding individuals have neither the experience nor the training to be outstanding leaders, leaving them ill prepared for the job that they didn’t sign on for in the first place.
