INNERGISE!

I recently shared my experiences working at one of the world’s biggest iron ore mines, from which there emerged a clear message –what gets measured gets done.

My advice was, when looking for change, to make sure that all of your performance measures are driving change in the desired direction. This certainly applies at corporate and team level, but is equally important on a personal level in terms of personal goals and performance indicators.

It is the individuals within an organisation that make change happen, by changing the way that they go about their daily tasks. It is therefore essential to build at least one performance indicator into each individual’s appraisal mechanism to assess the amount of effort being put into change and personal development.

If the theory that “what gets measured gets done” is indeed sound, then by measuring change at the individual level, the implication is that change will happen. But, will it really?

Having helped numerous organisations with programmes of change, the question that I hear most often is “when am I going to find the time to do this?”

The (relatively) easy bit about programmes of change is knowing what to change and how. People often grasp the concept of change and quickly “get it” in terms of what has to happen, but the really hard bit, always, is finding the time to do it.

A common mistake in many organisations is that they assume that “change” and “improvement” activities will somehow be subsumed into people’s daily routines. They assume that people will be able to pull an extra 10% or 15% “out of the hat”.

For change to happen we must actively and formally make the time to do it. This does not mean simply asking people to “just do it”, nor does it mean that people should work longer each day. What it means is that change must be declared as an integral part of everyone’s job, it must be allocated time on a formal basis and it must be monitored in the same way as any other key aspect of an individual’s performance.

The message is simple; senior management must make it absolutely clear that every individual in the organisation is expected to spend at least 10% -15% of their normal time working on ways of getting better at their job.

“Yes, yes, yes!!” I hear you all saying, but are you really doing it.   Ask yourself these simple questions:

• Are “change activities” and “personal development” explicitly written in to every individual’s job description?
• Does every individual have specific performance indicators in their appraisal mechanism to monitor the effort put into, and results achieved from “change” activities?

If you cannot, with all honesty, answer yes to both of these questions, isn’t it time you did something about it?

For many managers this is a really hard call. They are so used to being driven for results that it is inconceivable to spend 15% of your time on activities that don’t provide immediate benefit to the bottom line.

They know that they should, but there simply isn’t the incentive – until now!!