Measuring To Increase Personal Productivity Team Building-Management Tools
How effective are you in managing the systems and processes which your team is using to achieve their goals? Do you sometimes feel that instead of taking calculated risks and setting measurable expectations that you are engaging in mere hopeful guess work? How would you like to be able to harness the true power and potential of your team and build a well functioning system for achieving your collective goals? If these are solutions which you have been seeking, then here is a process which can help to build your team and to set and achieve goals which will empower them.
The first thing to do is to get a very clear written understanding of where your team is in relation to both results and activity. Measuring only results will not help you to determine the best means to repeat them increase them, and measuring activity is a waste of time. The idea is to get enough clarity to where you can begin to work with the resources which you already have and also to set something to measure your future results against. Many organizations do not get where they want to simply because they do not have a clear enough picture of where they are and why they are there.
The next step is to look for areas where there is a lot of activity but not many results. Too often, leaders will hang on to routines and procedures long after they have stopped producing results. If there are areas where the activity is out of proportion to the results then that is time and energy which could be better spent on things which are more effective. This will also help to identify the things which people may be doing in order to look busy instead of focusing on what really matters. Either way, ironing out the weak spots will leave room to develop the strengths.
Finally, establish a long term goal which your team can work towards by fulfilling short term goals. This will ensure that you will be able to measure results and correct course along the way and reach the long term objective. During this process it is important to continue the first two actions: recording results and activities and examining the areas which are activity heavy and lacking in results. This will ensure that there will be no backsliding into the old patterns which will lead you right back to where you were before. It will also help to clarify expectations for your team.
In the implementation of these steps, the most important rule is to be consistent in applying each one as needed. Inconsistency breeds uncertainty and uncertainty is death to the momentum of a team. However, if you are consistent you will find that it is much easier to gauge what is going to produce long term results and what is only going to waste time and energy. Even a little bit consistent beats doing a lot on an inconsistent basis. This will ensure that your team will be managed effectively and that your goals will be reached.
