When you congratulate your team for having a good day (week or month) …
Is it based on feeling or a fact?
That’s the question that Craig Alexander poses for us today.
Because as he points out, some kind of ‘random busy’ (like, ‘we have had 60 men on site’; all of our equipment is out on hire’; ‘the phones been ringing off the hook‘) doesn’t necessarily mean it’s actually been a good day.
Because all of that busy-ness may not have actually translated into profit – which is for most people, quite an important KPI 🙂
Now, this isn’t to say that hard work shouldn’t be recognized, but perhaps ‘congratulations’ should be reserved for those times when a meaningful KPI has being achieved.
Of course, this assumes that you have established meaningful KPIs for your business.
In consulting with businesses, both Craig and I have seen many instances where KPIs for profitability or just as importantly cash flow, have not been established.
Without these kind of KPIs you are flying by the seat of your pants, trying to use guesswork or instinct to determine what constitutes a good or bad period and might just end up congratulating yourself into serious trouble.
You can’t hope that your people will focus on the right things unless you do.
Establishing and sharing meaningful KPIs enables you to control people’s focus.