Title: "What Gets Measured Gets Done" Turning Strategic Plans into Real World Results. (Lefty's Corner)
Abstract: Boy, did I get a lot of positive feedback about my article on strategic planning. Readers indicated that they thought the article was practical, and their comments led me, once again, to the conclusion that more people are frustrated and disappointed with failed strategic planning efforts than we would care to admit. So, this article is dedicated to a related topic: how can you make sure that your co-op gets the results promised by your strategic planning efforts? While there are no guarantees in life -- except death and taxes -- there is one clarifying statement that will point you in the right direction as you try to turn strategic planning into real world results: What gets measured gets done! If you want to get something done, measure it, because whatever you measure, people will respond to and achieve. The key, though, is to create measures and measurement systems that are easy to understand and easy to maintain. In this article, I'll go through some easy ways that your co-op can implement a series of visual management systems that will: 1) Create a clear vision throughout the organization -- from the Boardroom to the front lines -- as to your key measures. 2) Provide an easy-to-understand performance scorecard that everyone in the organization can review and understand at a glance. 3) Enable your organization to successfully translate the ambitions as outlined in your strategic plan, into real world accomplishments. DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE MEASURES In my last article for the Management Quarterly (Spring 2001, Vol. 42 No. 1), I reviewed the most important part of a strategic plan: creating the measures you will use to track the success of your organization. In that column, I discussed: 1) Effective measures are objective -- the best measures are based on data that can't be fudged or manipulated. 2) Effective measures are credible -- this means that the measures actually address the goal they're supposed to address. 3) Effective measures are timely -- effective measures give the organization and its stakeholders feedback on a regular basis. Creating these measures is critical. Any successful strategic planning effort must produce a limited number of specific measures that your organization is completely dedicated to achieving. Of course, there is an art to determining the right measures for your organization. It's easier to write a long strategic plan than it is to rake the time to boil down your strategic vision into a few clearly stated goals. Having said that, let me provide you with my bias. I think the following goals probably matter to any organization, especially your co-op: 1) Member/customer satisfaction -- this is at the heart of the mission for any co-op. The best and easiest way to measure the satisfaction of members (and customer segments) is using data obtained through a simple customer survey. To determine the feedback from specific customer segments or different regions we often use color-coded mail-in postcards. Anyone who wants a copy of a mail-in customer satisfaction survey that Canyon has used successfully, should simply request one via e-mail This is very simple, and only gets to rudimentary customer satisfaction. Anything more detailed requires a more comprehensive approach involving random sample polling 2) Employee satisfaction -- the satisfaction of different team members, reported in different work groups (by function or by geography), is also a critical variable, since co-op employees are the ones who deliver on the promise of customer satisfaction. This data can also be obtained from simple mail-in employee surveys; 3) Financial -- we can't ignore that fact that coops must remain financially viable. …
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-06-22
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 6
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