I am a tracker. A consummate counter. A measurer, even if I don’t go back and review my progression. I’m the person who logs things – how many pages and what books I’ve read, or how much water I’ve had to drink. When I have personal appointments in my calendar (like going to the gym or meditating), I update them to show how much time I actually spent doing the things. I’m even a little weirder than that – I randomly count. Sometimes I’m counting the number of ticks I hear from my turn signal. Or the number of steps from my front door to the mailbox (58 on average).
I don’t do anything with these numbers, but I have them.
Why do I do these things? Well, part of it is my quirkiness that I’ve come to own (but that’s a post for another day). These actions help reinforce things that I believe about myself and confirm the statements that I make to others. No, I don’t normally tell people how far it is from my house to the mailbox.
- I’m a reader. Yes, I’m surrounded by books in my office, and many more on my Kindle). But my tracking shows that I actually read, not just own a lot of books. I have concrete evidence that I am a reader – and sometimes I read A LOT.
- I’m hydrated… apparently.
- I do work out, and when I go to the gym, I’m there from anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes.
- I try to meditate, but I’m not consistent with it.
I can make these statements and back them up (because nobody has anything better to do than question such inconsequential things, right?). Which leads to today’s leadership topic – you must track and measure things!
Why Should You Track, Measure (and Count)?
Some things you must track and measure in order to show progress.
- Our new hire attrition rate dropped by 10% when we made a change to our training program.
- Sales improved by 5% when we started posting videos of our product instead of pictures.
- Customer satisfaction improved by 20% when we were able to respond to their queries in under 3 minutes.
If you don’t track it, you can’t measure it. And if you don’t measure it, how do you know that it’s changed?
There are some things that I track that are less quantifiable. However, I do it because I then have evidence for things I believe about myself or my environment.
- I monitor how long it’s been since I’ve messaged or talked to someone. Do I follow through on the connections that I claim are important?
- I track what priority tasks I completed in the day, and which tasks keep getting pushed off to another day. Do I really take care of my priorities?
- I pay attention to who I am currently mentoring, and what are they getting out of it? Am I actively advancing the growth and development that I champion with others?
- I journal briefly at the end of every week… what I accomplished, what didn’t go well, how I was feeling. If I ever start to feel like “everything is failing,” do my logs back that up? Or am I just getting bogged down in small negatives and a bad mood?
Taking Action From Your Measurements
So, I’ll say again. You must track and measure things. You need to be able to determine if your tactics are working, and if they are not, have the courage to change them. These things can be almost anything:
- How long it takes you to return an email
- How many people leave your team (and what are they saying about why they’re leaving)
- How often you have a “how are you doing” one-on-one instead of a task focused one-on-one (yes, I know… talking about paying attention to what you’re doing but telling you to talk to your team about how they’re doing instead of what. Hey, it’s all about balance!)
- How many times you had to get up to go to the bathroom in a day because of the water you’re drinking (just kidding… you really don’t need to measure that)
But what should I track?
What you measure for you team(s) can be pretty variable. Sales teams may track number of client contacts per week, number of closed deals, or revenue generation. Technical teams may track system up-time, project schedules and deliverables, or cost reduction efforts. Administrative support teams may track ticket response times, satisfaction scores, or problem resolution rates. Every team is different. Therefore, you need to determine what works best for you and your team.
If you are starting from scratch, and in particular with a team that doesn’t fall neatly into a category with industry standards, it can be hard to “find the corner” on where to begin. In my past, I have tended to take two approaches to this challenge:
- Internal Time Demands – Spiral Up:
- Identify the largest time sinks & demands within your team. This is useful for targeting efficiency measurements. And if it’s a big portion of their work day, it’s a good place to look for things that you can start tracking.
- What systems do they interact with? Systems inherently make tracking easier. If your team uses a ticketing system, use that to track something about the tickets. Or if your team uses the phone systems, find a way to track something about the calls.
- External Expectations – Spiral In:
- Who does your team interact with? What are those customers wanting from your team? Are they relying on your team to resolve problems? Or do they need your team to complete specific tasks within projects? Do your customers like interacting with your team, or do they avoid your group?
- What is your vision for the team? Where should they be going? Look to your vision and strategies to find out what you should be tracking!
Ok, I know the “what” – but how do I find out the target?
You can’t do anything if you don’t know where you’re starting. If someone dropped me blindfolded in a random city and told me to find my way home, I first need to figure out where I am! It’s the same thing for you and your team.
Set up a baseline (if you don’t have one). Let’s say you know your team gets a lot of requests from their customers. It feels like requests are increasing, but you can’t really say by how much. And you’re worried it might be leading your team to burnout. So first things first, track how many requests are coming in. Determine if your belief on the request count is correct.
And then track the average time it takes your team to complete a request. Set up a time study (this can be short-term). This gives you a starting point for a measurement. Once you’ve got your baseline, you can determine if you need it to go up or down. Or you can use this data to help illustrate the workload on your team. Maybe the requests are increasing too fast, and they are at risk for burning out. Or maybe it’s not the request count, but something else leading to stress.
So come up with what’s important to your team & those that depend on them. Then find out your baseline. Figure out where you want to go, who you want to be, and start setting the strategies and tactics to get there. Then measure your results!
