Use Results Based Thinking vs. Activity Based Thinking To Improve Performance
John Wooden, the famous basketball coach for the UCLA Bruins in the 60's and 70's, once said, "Never confuse activity with accomplishment." I couldn't agree more. Coach Wooden wanted to have quality in his teaching and practice time versus quantity. Another legendary coach Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers added to this concept with one of his most famous quotes, "Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect." The quality of effort delivers results, not the quantity.
I see this confusion between activity and results almost daily in how organizations go about their business and how they measure their performance. We hear all the time, "Work smarter, not harder" and it seems that most organizations do the opposite.
We have a culture right now that loves to talk about how "busy" we are! Things like, "I just got 30 new voice mails this morning or I was out sick and the next day I came back to 300 emails," are said as if they were a badge of honor. The first thing I'd say to these types of comments is, "So What?" As a manager and a leader, I don't care how busy you say you are, I care about what you actually get done and how it makes the organization better or how it helps us achieve our strategic goals. If you are busy doing things that don't matter, then we have some issues to work through.
I recently met with a client and reviewed a significant number of their "supposed" performance measures and found that all of them were activity based. They talked about the number of pieces of paper they processed, the number of phones calls that were taken, the number of new initiatives started, etc. I like to call these "busy-ness" measures since the only focus on volumes of activity.
So what are some things you can do to change from "busy-ness" thinking to results based thinking:
1. Trade In Your Activity Measures - Volume or activity measures are not bad, they're just not that informative. Trade in though measures for more productivity or efficiency based measures. For example, not invoices processed, but invoices processed per person. This will show productivity, allow you to measure trends, set baselines for minimum performance and create a fact based way of rewarding high performers.
2. Eliminate Non Strategic Activities - Make an effort to document, for several days, all of the things you spend time on. My bet is that at least 50% of your time is spent things that have no direct strategic value to the organizations. Start with emails, voice mails and meetings. If you can't find value in them, eliminate them.
3. Do What's Important - Now that you've eliminated unnecessary activities, now you have a bunch of new time to work on things that actually matter. Opportunity costs are the costs associated with not doing something else. Since you've eliminated non-value activity, not you have the "opportunity" to work on higher impact projects and initiatives.
If you honestly evaluate the time you spend daily being busy vs. being effective, you will find lots of opportunities to replace busy-ness with results that will surely be noticed by your peers and your bosses. Good luck!
I see this confusion between activity and results almost daily in how organizations go about their business and how they measure their performance. We hear all the time, "Work smarter, not harder" and it seems that most organizations do the opposite.
We have a culture right now that loves to talk about how "busy" we are! Things like, "I just got 30 new voice mails this morning or I was out sick and the next day I came back to 300 emails," are said as if they were a badge of honor. The first thing I'd say to these types of comments is, "So What?" As a manager and a leader, I don't care how busy you say you are, I care about what you actually get done and how it makes the organization better or how it helps us achieve our strategic goals. If you are busy doing things that don't matter, then we have some issues to work through.
I recently met with a client and reviewed a significant number of their "supposed" performance measures and found that all of them were activity based. They talked about the number of pieces of paper they processed, the number of phones calls that were taken, the number of new initiatives started, etc. I like to call these "busy-ness" measures since the only focus on volumes of activity.
So what are some things you can do to change from "busy-ness" thinking to results based thinking:
1. Trade In Your Activity Measures - Volume or activity measures are not bad, they're just not that informative. Trade in though measures for more productivity or efficiency based measures. For example, not invoices processed, but invoices processed per person. This will show productivity, allow you to measure trends, set baselines for minimum performance and create a fact based way of rewarding high performers.
2. Eliminate Non Strategic Activities - Make an effort to document, for several days, all of the things you spend time on. My bet is that at least 50% of your time is spent things that have no direct strategic value to the organizations. Start with emails, voice mails and meetings. If you can't find value in them, eliminate them.
3. Do What's Important - Now that you've eliminated unnecessary activities, now you have a bunch of new time to work on things that actually matter. Opportunity costs are the costs associated with not doing something else. Since you've eliminated non-value activity, not you have the "opportunity" to work on higher impact projects and initiatives.
If you honestly evaluate the time you spend daily being busy vs. being effective, you will find lots of opportunities to replace busy-ness with results that will surely be noticed by your peers and your bosses. Good luck!
Posted by Derrick Strand at 7/29/2010 10:01 AM 
Categories: Productivity, Management
Tags: Efficiency Alignment Effectiveness Measurement Management Balanced Scorecard Productivity Measures Leadership Performance
Categories: Productivity, Management
Tags: Efficiency Alignment Effectiveness Measurement Management Balanced Scorecard Productivity Measures Leadership Performance
Good post! thank you
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