3 Times When Results Don’t Matter

Sacrilege. I know. All I talk about on this blog is measurement and results. But, there are many times when the results of your organization are not a clear reflection of the effectiveness of your organization. Keep reading to find out why (and when) your results just don’t matter.

Far too often organization leaders fall into great results and assume that they are doing something right that got them there. The same holds true in reverse. When bad results come, was it something the leader or organization did poorly?

The problem lies in measuring only lagging indicators. We are only measuring on the surface and that can lead to some very poor assumptions about why our results are good or bad. Here are three examples of times when your results just don’t matter.

  1. You’re the Only One in the Race –Get amazing results last year? Look around you. Did a competitor drop out of your market? Maybe multiple competitors dropped out. Gaining market share in a market that is losing players is a given. Look a little deeper. How many of your competition’s clients did you pick up versus other players in your industry? How many new customers did you add from positive word of mouth about your business, not just because they had no place else to go. The lagging indicator rarely tells the full story. Make sure you dig deeper to find the root cause of the result.
  2. The World is On Its Ear – It used to be that most of us had only read about bad times in the marketplace. Now, most of us have walked through a complete market upheaval. We understand that your sales projections are garbage in light of a market meltdown. But how do we measure our success in a tumultuous marketplace? We’ve got to get to the leading indicators. Has the engagement and satisfaction of our clients improved and they are not buying because their budgets have been slashed? If yes, celebrate the success of the improved engagement. Get your salespeople out and getting referrals from these clients that think so well of you.
    Don’t ever blame your poor (or good) results on the market or environment. Focus on the fundamentals of your business – happy customers, happy employees. How are you executing your plan? Focus on the positive steps you can take to improve your situation in any economy.
  3. Don’t Take Credit for a Bubble – People will buy anything in a bubble. Your clients seem to have more money than they can spend. Credit is easy and life is good. It is very good to be a sales person in a bubble! Here’s the problem. Bubbles burst – and most of those sales orders you’ve got piled up can just go in the trash. Credit will lock down and the sale will never happen. Plenty of your customers will go out of business.

When times are this good, you’ve got to look at your performance relative to your peers. Just having a great year in the midst of a huge economic bubble is not success. How successful were you compared to your competition? How solid are the sales in your pipeline? If the bubble bursts, how many of your sales will vanish immediately? In a bubble, healthy skepticism can make sure your organization weathers the downturn.

These are just three examples of times that lagging indicators (results) can be a poor indicator of success. But misunderstanding results happens all the time, by some of the best organizations in the world.

Make sure your organization looks at your results at a deeper level. Know the leading the indicators that cause success or failure. Benchmark your results against your peers and your industry. Then, you will be ready to succeed in any economy.

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Image courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Matic_Osovnikar_winning_2007.jpg.

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