Do you need a piece of rope to find your way out of your office? Can you ready draw on accurate information about your business or an individual job?
Without proper paper flow and strong administration your business will flounder and never reach its full potential. Your administration serves as the “Control Panel” for your business and needs to be kept in good order if you want to stay in control of your business. Strong administration allows you step back and make more informed decisions about your business.
Would you like to install a system that allows you to discover, check and regulate your team’s Key Performance Indicators?
Strong administration also allows you to regulate your Team’s performance in key areas. Once you and your team are ready to start using KPI’s for your business, you must focus on the areas of business that need urgent attention, keeping in mind that KPI’s expose weaknesses and areas of improvement. Remember, the main goal is to ensure that 80% of your results come from 20% of your abilities.
For more specifics on how we can help your business in this area, contact us direct to book in for your free “Strategy Session” with one of our expert Business Coaches. Lets talk about your business and see how we can take you to the next level.
CaseStudy:
The Challenge – Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Tim’s building company has been through a lot of ups and downs over the past 15 years. Being the proactive guy that he was, Tim constantly looked for ways to improve his business, particularly regarding the performance of his team on-site. 12 months previously Tim decided to change the direction of the business and chose renovations as his niche. He set his sights on becoming the number one renovations company in the state and made it the company goal to exceed customer expectations on every job. This was a lofty ideal, which Tim wanted every member of his team subscribe to, to collectively raise the performance standards of the company. Following the launch of the new vision for Tim’s business there was a significant change in the behaviour and attitude of his team on-site. The efficiency was up, absenteeism was down, and everyone worked together like a close-knit team. The outcome resulted in improved profits for individual jobs and the company as a whole. However, the success was short-lived. In the space of a few months, the newly acquired performance standards started to drop, and his team fell back into their old habits.
This caused Tim untold stress and frustration. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why his team couldn’t apply themselves consistently and maintain the level of performance they’d held for the previous eight weeks. The question running through Tim’s mind was, “How can I measure the performance of my team so that I can hold them accountable to the newly assigned performance standard and keep it there?”
The Cause:
Tim lacked a measurement system in place to track the performance of his team or the ‘critical distinctions’ in his business. This gave Tim no way to ‘back stop’ the new performance standards his team achieved. Although Tim directed a lot of his frustration at his team, in fairness to them, they were only human and, like all people, they need accountability, focus, guidance and direction.
People are creatures of habit, good habits die quickly and bad habits die-hard. Because of this, Tim recognised his lack of systems for measuring the ‘critical distinctions’ or ‘key performance’ areas of their work performance.
The Business Pain:
Although most of the jobs Tim’s team completed were of good quality, they struggled to maintain the consistency that he was after. Tim felt intense frustration and often anger when he received complains from clients due to poor workmanship. Lost profits on jobs due to basic mistakes was another thing that angered Tim. He also noticed that when he was on-site or close to the ‘coalface’, performance automatically improved. This also frustrated Tim because his objective was to spend less time on-site and more time working on strategic areas of his business.
The Personal Pain:
After 15 years in business Tim felt like he was going around in circles. If he wanted efficiency and job quality to improve, he had to roll up his sleeves and do it himself. As soon as he stepped back, things automatically slipped back into their old ways. His relationship with certain team members started to sour and caught himself snapping at people and often felt bad afterwards.
Tim’s bad work relationships spilled over into his personal life and his relationship with his partner Sue was deteriorating as he often took his bad mood home with him.
The Solution:
Tim sat down with his coach and reviewed the critical areas of his business and followed the following steps to identify and measure his KPIs.
- He started with the bigger areas and narrowed it down to the more specific ‘critical distinctions’ in his business he needed to improve. First he got clear on the KPIs for his business, then each department or area of the business, and finally each individual within the business. Tim found the KPI selector his coach gave him very helpful with this exercise
- Once the KPIs were identified, Tim needed to put a system of measurement in place for each KPI.
- The selected KPIs were then drawn up for each team member.
- Each team member received their KPIs in a one-on-one, face-to-face session, which also explained what the KPIs were and the benefits of the KPIs to them as team members.
- KPIs were measured and recorded by each of the relevant managers or team members and the results reviewed each week, month and quarter at the quarterly reviews.
- Finally, the top 10% of KPIs were identified and team members were given incentives on their performance with these KPIs.
The Outcome:
By putting meaningful KPIs in place, Tim had a new level of control over his business. He now knew exactly which areas of his business were performing well and which weren’t. This allowed him to channel his resources into the areas that needed it most.
Team members were accountable to achieving results with their respective KPIs. Those who did were given incentives and received promotion, while those who didn’t received the relevant training or were moved into more suitable positions.
Finally, Tim was able to step back from his business and had the peace of mind that it was no longer dependent on him. He was able to achieve new performance standards and backstop the performance of his team with stricter adherence to KPIs. Subsequently, Tim’s home life became a lot more tolerable for everyone. Tim was also able to take time away from the business to travel with his family and he was playing golf one afternoon a week again. Tim was back in love with his business and now he understood what people meant when they said business is a game.
For more specifics on how we can help your business in this area, contact us direct to book in for your free “Strategy Session” with one of our expert Business Coaches. Lets talk about your business and see how we can take you to the next level.
