Metrics that Matter

In a world of big data, it can be easy to see the numbers, but miss the story.

While I believe in the power of metrics to help us understand potential issues in our organizations and opportunities for growth. We must take care to realize that numbers are not people. People are much more complicated.

In many organizations, numbers are too small to make huge conclusion leaps without more detailed data. In other organizations, The numbers may be large enough over all, but sometimes the deeper investigation demonstrates a better story than the one the numbers tell up front. The key is to get to the people story producing the numbers.

For example, I once worked for an organization that was maintaining a steady client base number with an overall growth pattern. These numbers seemed positive. We were not just maintaining numbers we were growing. 

However, our organization had an overall desire to help clients over a long period of time, but a deeper dive into the numbers demonstrated that we were maintaining consistent numbers, but the customer base was turning over. In fact, a look historically demonstrated that the customer base was turning over almost every three to four years. Which means our growth was actually being stifled by our inability to maintain long-term relationships with our clients. We were adding slowly, but would have been multiplying growth, if we had looked at the deeper story.

I recently heard about another organization that was struggling to meet its projected goal in the area of customer satisfaction ratings. Their overall goal was good. Their desire to take care of customers was excellent. Still, a few departments were coming up short and their numbers were dragging down the whole. One department in particular had an employee who’s customer satisfaction faction rating was 0%! 

Alarm bells went off for the VP. Why had this employee’s boss not put this person on a coaching program or fired him? He was obviously failing. 

However, a deeper dive revealed, the issue was not with the employee at all. In fact the employee only had 3 customer ratings to decide his numbers by, and in each case, the deep dive revealed an issue with the process the employee was required to follow, not the employee. His numbers revealed an issue with the Vice President's choices not the employee's.

So, how do you know when the issue is a people problem or a numbers problem? You have to ask. This is the work of executives. We must not just look at the numbers and make decisions, we must take the time and give the effort to understanding the people issues that are creating the productivity issues.

This is a much more tedious and difficult process, but at the end of your life, you will not be measured by your spreadsheet, but by your relationships. Choose to pursue the metric that matters most, people. Choose relationship today.