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The Power of Good Measures

Guest post by: Robert Whipple

Article Overview: Most organizations have a TQM (Total Quality Management) Program. It is the quality of the measures in this effort that will determine the success or failure of it. Here is a short paper I wrote on some interesting aspects of measures.

The Power of Good Measures

Measures, done well, can be a huge impetus for improved performance. The old saying, "what gets measured, gets done," is true. Without measures you have no way to identify progress toward your vision. That prevents the all important reinforcement of achievement which is the glue holding efforts together in the tough times. So, we need to think of measures and measurement systems as our friend. The only caution is to make sure our friend is always on our side and not actually undermining our efforts. To accomplish this, the key word is flexibility. Measures get to be an albatross when they are negotiated ad-nauseum and set in concrete for an entire cycle (usually a year). Enlightened leaders, consider the measurements as fluid tools to help us drive performance. They allow current conditions to dictate the measures that make sense for us now. They focus on what we are trying to achieve and refuse to let measures drive wrong behavior. They establish simple measures that people understand.

Great leaders use measures to communicate the health of the TQM system. Benchmark companies have measures so easy to understand and visible that all employees have a "gut feel" every day how thing are progressing. There is no mystery about some complicated formula or ratio that no one can comprehend.

Let me give an example. We discussed earlier ways to measure morale within the workforce. This is also called employee "engagement" in the TQM process. Through the years I have seen dozens of measures that attempt to put a "hard" number on this very "soft" (but very important) metric.

I never found anything that came close to measuring the real thing. Finally, out of desperation, I invented my own metric. It really works. I call it the "Whipple Engage-O-Meter."

Picture this. The meter is like a voltmeter. It has an arrow that can point to several different levels of engagement from left to right. The levels are:

Nobody home

Getting started

Gaining on it

Committed

Super Committed

All you need to do is plug the Engage-O-Meter into a typical team meeting and it will automatically read the correct level (no batteries needed since the team supplies all the power required). I'm sure you are asking, "Just how do you "Plug" this meter into a group in order to take the reading. Get ready for a surprising answer. All you need to do is walk in the room and observe what is going on !! The people don't even need to speak and you can tell in about 8 seconds whether this team is at 1 or 5 on the "Whipple Engage-O-Meter." Does that seem far fetched? Well, it isn't.

When you walk into a team meeting, look at the body language of the people. You can immediately tell if they have high regard for one another and are supportive. It is there in the way they look at each other. It is on their face, and the softness in the eyes. It is in the smiles and free flowing deference for one another. When they speak, it is a dead give away. A level 5 group is focused on the challenges and recognizes they have all the power necessary to overcome any challenge. They support each other with great glee. When there is a difficult assignment, there are lots of volunteers immediately and others who are willing to help out. The atmosphere is one of love for one another. It sounds hokey, but such teams really do exist. I was a member of several of them during my career and you can recognize the hallmarks in seconds.

The contrast with a team at level one or two is pretty stark. You walk into the room and people look bored or angry. There is no sense of group process. Every person is watching out for his or her own interests and has no trust in anybody else. When people speak, they back-stab each other. They try to elevate their own performance at the expense of other team members. Management, to these people, is a three headed monster that is out to rob them of their precious entitlements. If someone asks for a volunteer, all you see is folded arms and frowns. There is no love between people unless it's some kind of clandestine sexual affair. Trying to get work done with a group like this is like shoveling coal in Hell. It can be done, but only through incredible effort or bribery. What an awful way to spend 1/3 of your life!! Yet, that is exactly how many groups exist.

Obviously as a leader or team member, you would choose to work in a level 4 or 5 group if you could. The good news in that you can !! What is required is a leader that knows how to bring out the best in people and teams. If properly engineered and applied, the systems and measures can help accomplish this. But measures are only the scorecard. They aren't the adrenalin. For that, if you are in a leadership position, you need a magic wand. Oh great, you say, "where do I pick up one of these magic wands, and how much do they cost?" Well, the magic wands are all around us and they are free !!

The famous motivation expert, Earl Nightingale used to tell a story of a farmer in Africa (Nightingale, 1978). The story goes that the farmer was trying to make a living on a rather large plot of land in Africa, but it wasn't very fertile. He sold it for a few hundred dollars to a prospector so he could go and look for diamonds in another part of the country. A few years later, the prospector saw something gleaming in a stream on the property. He reached into the water and pulled out a large diamond. It turned out that the farmer had already owned one of the richest diamond areas in the world, but didn't realize it. He had been sitting in "acres of diamonds", but was unable to harvest them because he didn't look hard enough. Instead, he sold off and went elsewhere to eek out a meager living as a hired hand.

Wherever you work, you are sitting in the middle of acres of diamonds. It is in the people you work with. Properly guided with a TQM philosophy and an appropriate set of measures, they will blossom forth with the passion to become an incredible competitive force. It is up to the leaders to make the transformation.

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Article Tags: Flexibility, Leadership, Measures, Quality Metrics, TQM, Trust



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