EP-8: What Gets Measured Gets Done

 

Tom Peters, the author of In Search of Excellence and A Passion for Excellence, is often quoted

What Gets Measured, Gets Done! -- Tom Peters Click To Tweet

 

 

Read his Essay on his website http://tompeters.com/columns/what-gets-measured-gets-done/

Quantification and measurements is used in all aspects of business.

 

Checklists are crucial to ensuring success.  Pilots perform pre-flight checks to ensure a safe flight.  

 

One of my favorite books and seminars is by Air Force Fighter Pilots that started the company, Afterburner, Inc.

Their book, Flawless Execution talks about the execution of ideas, projects and goals and using checklists to measure the effectiveness.  In their seminar and the book, they recommend setting up checklists to measure what needs to get done so you can ensure it gets done.

 

It is also important in Goal Setting. The M in SMART Goals is Measurable. When you set goals, they need to be able to be tracked and quantified.

 

Many businesses recommend and use measurement tools to track goals.  When I attended Xinnix, The Mortgage Academy, we were trained to use a measurement tool to track our success as loan officers.

 

It used some of the same techniques that I learned in my training in Goal Setting and Success Achievement.  I had been using these techniques for several years and they work really well. 

 

It used some of the same techniques I teach in the Goal Getting, Don’t Just Set’em, Get’em Program to track and measure your goals so it was easy for me to adapt to the program.

Click Here to Get Your Worksheet

In No Lights, No Camera, Just Action, episode-7 – we talked about creating an action plan. In the Goal Setting Worksheet we offered at GoalGettingPodcast.com/action, we asked you to start defining the action steps you need to take to achieve the goals you set.  Define the How, the action steps for each goal.  

Once you define what you need to do to achieve your goal, we can start creating the measurements to ensure that you can track them to completion.

For those listening without the worksheet I am going to go through in some detail to give you an idea of what I am recommending be done. Remember, when you get to a computer, you can download your copy at GoalGettingPodcast.com/measure and then you can follow along later.  

11 Keys to Success for Goal Tracking

1. Track it Daily.  Each Worksheet is for one week, but you want to track what you do each day!

2. Major and Minor Steps.  Set up Major Steps and Specific Action Steps, if necessary.
I set up the Major steps above as the eat Less, exercise More categories for Reducing Calories, Calories Burned and Calorie Deficit. These are major goals and accomplishments so I made them major steps/tasks and pay their achievement accordingly.

3. A Meaningful Measurement – Motivation, Miles, Money – REWARD

Many lender sales teams use the “Top Gun” concept for rewarding Top Producers in their organization, especially those that are trained at Xinnix.  Xinnix used the same concept and we were trained to track our goals using Miles….The more miles you had the better skilled a pilot you are

The measurement I use and recommend is Money.  Dollars.  Currency.  Money Motivates!

What gets measured gets done. What gets measured and fed back gets done well, what gets rewarded get repeated.”
    — John E. Jones

4. Goals for each Step / Task

What specific actions are potentially or goal producing activities. For instance, in the sample above, weight loss is the goal. Tasks that should be measured are those that will result in either burning calories or reducing calorie intake.If you are in sales, activities such as calling people in your database, doing presentations, following up on email or calls are steps or tasks that should be measured.

5. Minimum Weekly Targets for each Step – What do I want to do this week?

6. Weekly Totals for each step – How did I do this week?

7. Daily Totals of all steps – How did I do today?

8. Totals for all steps for the Week – How much did I do this week.

9. Total Accumulated Measurements – Keep totals for entire length of time

10. Average Weekly Measurement – Average Total over the length of time.

11. Signature and Date – Commitment, when you sign your name, symbolizes your commitment. This is one of the most important parts of this worksheet. The commitment to do what you need to do to succeed.