were dissatisfied because it took too lon

Know Where You Stand and Are Heading to Accomplish 20 Times More Business Articles | September 16 Uomo Nike Air Presto Essential Nere Italia , 2007
Many bad habits that harm performance can be overcome by having measurements that your organization understands, pays attention to, and knows how to respond to. This essay explains how to create a universal understanding of how to use measurements to eliminate stalls and point the way to more rapid progress.


A 2,000 percent solution accomplishes 20 times more with the same time Nike Air Presto SE Woven Nere Italia , effort, and resources. How do you develop such great improvements?


Follow these steps:


1. Understand the importance of measuring performance.


2. Decide what to measure.


3. Identify the future best practice and measure it.


4. Implement beyond the future best practice.


5. Identify the ideal best practice.


6. Pursue the ideal best practice.


7. Select the right people and provide the right motivation.


8. Continually repeat the first seven steps.


In this essay, I'll focus on the first step


Measurements Help Erase Complacency


Most people view the measuring process too narrowly. Here's an example: A corporate planner went to a seminar given by corporate strategist Peter Drucker. The planner asked Drucker to pick the best single measure of corporate performance. Drucker replied, "My dear sir Uomo Nike Air Presto Nere Italia , you obviously know nothing. There is no single measure of corporate performance that is any good. Use them all and try to develop new ones, and each will teach you something you need to know." Drucker's point was that measurements are highly subjective and imperfect. Would-be stallbusters need lots more measures.


I'd Rather Not Know That!


One CEO tells another Peter Drucker story about measurements. Drucker had presented a personal improvement seminar to the CEO's U.S. Air Force group years earlier. Each man was instructed to measure in great detail how he spent his time for a week. The CEO found this task to be a life-changing experience. The measurements revealed all of his bad habits and put the CEO on guard to avoid those bad habits. Unfortunately, this CEO's example is rarely followed.


Try this exercise for yourself. Measure how much time you spend each week on the telephone, in meetings Donna Nike Air Presto BR Rosa Italia , doing each routine task, commuting, watching reruns on television, sleeping Off-White x Nike Vapormax Nere Bianche Italia , and so forth. Then look at how much you accomplished. You will see that measurements can help redirect your efforts into more productive activities.


A Perpetual Measuring Machine


Visitors to the finance and data processing staffs of a large company were astonished to note that each cubicle's walls were literally covered with performance measurements. The idea was to encourage more focus on expanding productivity. Almost all of the measurements had been developed by the workers for their own use. By looking at each others' measurements, staff members could see how well they were doing in comparison. Colleagues pitched in to help lower performers improve so that everyone could earn larger department-wide, performance-based bonuses.


How did they do? Personal productivity gains of 25 percent were not unusual. Furthermore, corporate productivity in these same areas grew by a similar degree. By comparison Off-White x Nike Air Vapormax Bianche Nere Italia , most organizations shoot for 2 to 3 percent annual productivity increases. Those low targets telegraph to everyone that they can take it easy.


End Results Versus Causes


Management of a luxury hotel chain learned that guests were dissatisfied because it took too long for room service breakfast orders to arrive. The chain jumped in to solve the problem. It added more room service waiters. It even added more kitchen staff. But complaints increased, not decreased. Finally, they looked at how long it took for a waiter to make a delivery and return to the kitchen. Wait! Here was something. The round trips took much too long. Management asked the room service waiters why. The bottleneck was quickly spotted. The waiters were delayed by as much as eight minutes by slow elevator arrivals at the kitchen and the guest room floors.


What was going on? Housekeepers were delivering a day's worth of clean sheets and towels at the same time. Because housekeepers had to unload large amounts of linen on each floor, they usually stopped the elevators while the unloading occurred.


Understanding the cause Off-White x Nike Air Vapormax Nere Italia , linen deliveries were rescheduled to another time. Room-service complaints were virtually eliminated.


With enough of the right measurements to find the causes of your performance, you'll soon be working on the right things, too.


Almost Perfect Is Often Not Good Enough


After many American manufacturers found that their quality badly lagged non-American competitors in the 1980s, quality improvement became an obsession. Soon Uomo Off-White x Air Jordan 1 The Ten Bianche Nere Italia , many companies were bragging that they performed at Six Sigma levels (hardly any errors per million activities). Closer examination suggested that some of these companies had missed the boat. They had only achieved being nearly perfect in delivering outmoded offerings. Motorola, for instance, the renowned Six Sigma innovator, saw its