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Performance Measure Development Sheets

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StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measures Best Practice ArticleEffective performance measurement systems consist of high-quality individual measures associated with a strongly interrelated framework. Using this deliberately developed framework, leaders ascertain organizational performance quickly and accurately. The system itself should be economic to maintain and provide readily available updates typically necessitating a degree of automation. Quality systems present the same view of performance to a broad number of individuals within the organization concurrently. To achieve all of these qualities, each measure must be well thought-out and developed individually and then integrated into the collective system.

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Additional Information

Additional information on the individual characteristics of quality performance measures and their construction can be found in the following StrategyDriven articles and documents:

Articles

Documents

  • Organizational Performance Measures – Types
  • Organizational Performance Measures – Construction

About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

I’d rather have no advice than bad advice.

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I can’t help it. I read some bad sales advice today and I gotta say something. I’ll try to keep it positive, but my tongue is already bleeding from biting it.

The title read: When sales calls stall.

Every salesperson has experienced that barrier in one form or another, so I wondered what this “expert” had to say.

NOTE WELL: I try not to read current sales material because I don’t want to copy, or be accused of copying someone else’s work or ideas.

It started with the usual sales dialog: you have a meeting with a prospective customer, they’re hot, hot, hot, for your product or service, they ask for a proposal, you quickly oblige, and a week later you call the hot customer, and they have evaporated. Won’t return your calls or emails.

What to do?

Get ready – here comes this guy’s (name withheld) expert advice:

He recommends every manipulative “sales technique” from implying urgency, buy today or the deal goes away, to getting creative (whatever that means – no explanation or examples given), to use intrigue, to connect (no explanation or examples given). He advises: be prepared like a boy scout, appeal to a higher authority, assume all is well and they are just busy, use the admin as an ally, and a bunch of sales talk mumbo jumbo that any seasoned executive or their assistant would smell like a skunk that hasn’t bathed, and laugh at you. And oh by-the-way, NEVER take your call again, let alone buy from you.

This is why this type of approach to a reluctant or otherwise busy buyer will NEVER work…

FIRST: The prospect is not returning your calls for a reason. Wouldn’t it be important to find out why? If you could discover that, it would help your next 1,000 sales calls.

SECOND: Why did you ever offer a proposal without making a firm face-to-face follow-up sales appointment in the first place? This is one of the most powerful – yet mostly overlooked – elements of the sales cycle.

THIRD: Stop trying to sell. Stop trying to be cute. Stop trying to be manipulative.

FOURTH: For goodness sake, stop trying to butter up the admin or executive assistant. These people are smarter than your lingo and loyal to their employers, not you.

FIFTH: The salesperson (not you of course) did a lousy job in the presentation, left some holes, never discovered the prospects real motive to purchase, was subjected (relegated) to a proposal/bidding process, never followed relationship-based strategies, was more hungry for the sale and the commission than to uncover what would build a relationship. You didn’t connect – you didn’t engage. Why are you blaming the prospect for not calling you? Why don’t you take responsibility for doing a poor job, and taking a lesson? Not a just a sales lesson, a relationship lesson.

POINT FIVE CAUTION: Maybe their daddy decides, and you never met daddy let alone know who he is. Maybe someone else higher up the ladder told your prospect “NO,” and your prospect is embarrassed, or doesn’t care, to tell you.

SALES REALITY CHECK: In sales you have ONE CHANCE. One chance to engage, one chance to build rapport, one chance to connect, one chance to be believable, one chance to be trustworthy, and one chance to meet with the real decision-maker. One chance to differentiate yourself, one chance to prove your value, and one chance to ask for (or better, confirm) the sale.

BAD NEWS: If you miss your chance, or blow your chance, recovery chances are slim. OK, none.

Not being able to reconnect with a prospect is not a problem, it’s a symptom. And it’s a report card on how well you’re doing. Or not doing. How well the relationship is going. Or not going.

GOOD NEWS: Lost sales and sales gone wrong are the BEST places to learn.

BETER NEWS: If you make a firm commitment to meet a few days later – not by phone – to meet face-to-face, you have a better chance of discovering the truth,

BEST NEWS: Once you get to TRUTH, you have a chance at SALE. Or better stated, you will have created the atmosphere where someone wants to BUY from you.

Sales techniques are increasingly becoming passé. So are the people that stress using them, rather than emphasizing the relationship and value based side.

I grew up selling, and I grew out of it.

If you have lost a connection, or if a hot prospect evaporates, or refuses to call you back or respond to you, the WORST thing you can do is try a sales technique. Why don’t you try something new? Try being honest. No, not just with the customer, with yourself.

I promise that a harsh self-discovery lesson may not help you reconnect with who you lost, but it’s connection insurance for the next thousand. Take a chance. It’s the best one you’ve got.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Honoring Our Fallen Patriots

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Honoring Our Fallen Patriots
Freedom demands sacrifice. Throughout our history, brave men and women served to secure for us the blessings of liberty; many giving the last full measure of their devotion.
 
We are grateful for the ongoing support our friends, colleagues, business partners, clients, and LinkedIn community members provide our active duty service members, veterans, and their families.

As a Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB), StrategyDriven remains committed to those who have given so much and asked for so little. For the month of June, StrategyDriven will donate 100 percent of all profits from our Sevian Business Program documents, Business Gold books, and Insights Library subscriptions to the Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation; supporting the families of those who gave their lives defending our freedom.

Please help us spread the work about StrategyDriven’s Memorial Day Gift Program as together we can make a greater difference in the lives of these patriots’ families.

With our gratitude,
Honoring Our Fallen Patriots

Nathan Ives
President and CEO
StrategyDriven Enterprises

Lieutenant, United States Navy
United States Naval Academy Class of 1992

Five ways to create a culture of innovation

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Does your business have a culture in which innovation thrives? Do you encourage your team to challenge the status quo? Or do you struggle to find time to listen to and seek out new ideas?

Building a culture of innovation is hard work. However, the scientific research into how to create a culture where innovation thrives is both plentiful and precise. Following are five of the most impactful drivers of an innovation culture.

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About the Author

Amantha ImberDr. Amantha Imber is the Founder of Inventium, a leading innovation consultancy that uses scientifically-proven techniques for boosting innovation performance. Her latest book, The Innovation Formula: The 14 Science-Based Keys for Creating a Culture Where Innovation Thrives, tackles the topic of how organisations can create a culture where innovation thrives. Amantha can be contacted at [email protected].

The Arrogance of Listening

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When researching my book on the gap between what’s said and what’s heard (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?) I discovered that most people believe they listen accurately, and that any miscommunication or misunderstanding is the fault of the Other.

When my book came out, 20,000 people downloaded it in the first 3 months. I received hundreds of emails from readers profusely thanking me for the book, saying they were going to give it to their spouses/colleagues/clients so THEY could learn to hear to these readers without bias or misunderstanding. Did readers not grasp how our brains are wired to make it highly unlikely we understand what others mean without bias? How was it possible that they missed the fact that ALL brains operate this way, even their own?

I also received calls from managers saying they wanted me to train their teams so they could better listen to each other, and to their clients. Yet none of them hired me. Why? Their teams believed they didn’t need training cuz they listened just fine, thanks, that any miscommunication lie on the side of the client/colleague.

How Often Do We Misunderstand What’s Meant

There are two issues here.

Truth: our brains have constructed unconscious, subjective filters (biases, assumptions, triggers) over the course of our entire lifetimes, making it highly improbable to accurately hear some percentage of what others mean to convey (percentages vary according to how far they are from our own subjective biases). Additionally, our brains subjectively and habitually match what they hear, to stored, historic conversations we’ve had (some from decades ago, some wildly out of context), thereby altering our Communication Partner’s meaning – and what we think they’ve said – accordingly. Unfortunately for us all, it happens at the unconscious, making it difficult for us to change/fix/recognize.

Reality: because our brain only offers us the interpretation it has constructed, (and we have no idea what percentage of this is correct), we believe we ‘hear’ accurately. So if I say ABL and your brain tells you I’ve said ABP, you will fight me to the death that you heard ‘right’, or that I just didn’t remember what I said, without realizing that your brain may have altered the transmission all on its own, without telling you. I had one Active Listening professor wildly mishear and misrepresent what I said, yet claimed I was probably having a Freudian Slip (he actually said that) because what he ‘heard’ was ‘accurate’ and I was mistaken.

Sadly it’s impossible to accurately hear the full extent of what our Communication Partners mean to convey (although we might hear the words [which we remember for 3 seconds]). Obviously with folks we’re in contact with regularly, our brain recognizes those unique communication patterns via habits and memories and does a better job for us. Not so much with people not in our immediate sphere, or when we enter conversations with assumptions and biases that restrict the entire dialogue.

Sometimes We’re Just Wrong

But haven’t we all been burned over time with misunderstandings or assumptions? Haven’t we all realized that maybe, just occasionally, maybe sometimes, that we might have, on a bad day, misunderstood someone? And that it was actually our fault? What’s the deal about needing to be ‘right’?

In a recent conversation with my friend Carol Kinsey Goman (body language guru) we couldn’t figure out why the word ‘listening’ elicited so much denial. Why don’t companies demand their employees listen without bias? To hear clients without assumptions? To walk away from meetings with To-Do lists that actually represent what was agreed to at the meeting? Why is ‘listening’ a ‘soft skill’ when it informs all client interactions, team productivity, and creativity? Why do we assume we listen accurately?

Misunderstanding, misrepresenting, distorting what others say costs us all a lot – in personal capital, money, and possibility. So I ask you:

  • What needs to happen for each of us to recognize that we share 100% of our 50% of conversations? That when one person ‘mishears’ maybe there is a problem between both Communication Partners? That there is a probability of some distortion, and nip it in the bud after every conversation?
  • How will we know that it’s time to check in with our Communication Partner to ensure we’ve understood the same things – before we use the data we collected, or during an intense negotiation, or during/after a conversation or coaching session or employee review?
  • At what point in any misunderstanding or confusion might we be willing to say, “Could you please say that to me a different way?” to make sure you’ve understood the importance of what has been said? What will we hear/feel to recognize there is a problem?
  • What would you need to believe about yourself to admit that you, like every human being with a brain, are at best a mediocre listener? Because once you believe this is true, you might – you just might – be willing to be someone who occasionally misunderstands, or once-in-a-while makes a wrong assumption or mishears. Being Right is an expensive position to hold. At what point is the Greater Good more important than Being Right?

Until we’re all – all – willing to admit that we’re biologically inadequate listeners, and be willing/able to include in dialogues some check points of agreed understanding (not to mention the occasional apology), or learn how to supersede our biases, we will suffer from Arrogance of Listening, and our lives, our relationships, and our incomes, will be restricted.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

To contact Sharon Drew at [email protected] or go to www.didihearyou.com to choose your favorite digital site to download your free book.