Key Performance Indicators

 Key Performance Indicators.  KPIs.  People who love to measure organizations, processes, and effectiveness adore KPIs.  Simply put, it is the variable that is measured in order to demonstrate success.  That’s my loose definition.  You can do your own research on Google and Wikipedia.

A KPI certainly serves a purpose.  There is value in measurement.  I have friends who spend their careers measuring and staring at KPIs in an effort to demonstrate how good or bad performance is.  A well-defined KPI can tell you exactly how that latest process tweak improved productivity or that cool new internet advertisement increased web traffic to your sales site.  If you can find a thing to measure, tie it to a desired outcome or result, and actually get meaningful data…well, that’s a KPI.

The problem arises when KPIs are applied to the human elements of interactions.  There is no KPI for how much you like someone or how loyal you feel towards a particular brand.  There is no KPI to measure love, and there is no KPI that can detect infidelity.  You can’t read a report to figure out if your best friend is feeling suicidal or if your spouse secretly hates your guts.

Likewise, there isn’t a KPI to tell you how much an employee likes working for you.  There are no KPIs to illustrate just how quickly key members of your team are going to jump ship once the economy improves.  I looked but couldn’t find a KPI to measure how easy it is to strip an employee of their dignity by disrespecting them and treating them like a cog in some giant, oily machine.  No, there are no real KPIs for such things.

Instead, spirit and connection and empathy and the dying art of intuitive action number among the capabilities that, if developed and nurtured, can provide a leader with the power to effect meaningful change.  I’ve never really believed that a statistic or a survey can give you true insight into the shared soul of a group of people.  Only a leader, with eyes wide open, can give that insight.  

How many insightful, empathetic, intuitive, spirited leaders do you know?  There aren’t as many as we would like to think.  Bummer isn’t it?  No wonder our places of work suck.  I wish they would get their acts together.

Sound familiar?  I hope it doesn’t.  If it does, then maybe you’ve pinpointed the source of the real problem.

In my estimation, the question shouldn’t be how many insightful, empathetic, intuitive, spirited leaders do you know?  In my estimation, the far more significant question is how many times have you been that insightful, empathetic, intuitive, spirited leader?

How many times has it been you?  Or…is that not your job?  Is that for somebody else to do?

Your answer to that question can change the world.