9 Rules to increase productivity and reduce the drama!!!

increase productivity

Have you ever wished you had a self-policing culture in your business and sleep well at night? What do most successful leaders do? They use dashboards with data that gives them insight into the future of their business so they are able to predict – “whoever predicts wins”!

Align your team behind common goals with a common tool, using a common language and increase productivity by following these 9 rules for creating forward-looking dashboards:

▼ 1. Start with the right questions

You have heard that “what gets measured gets done”. True! But how do you know what to measure?

Ask the right questions – what are the warning signs for a train wreck in your business?
Translate the questions into KPIs – putting scores in subjective areas can make them more objective, resulting in less drama
Design a dashboard for 3 key categories: Company, Employee, Customers using weeks as time measure.

▼ 2. Put numbers on everything

Design dashboard process that measures regularly and consistently
Assign a score and rate everything on a scale, even the subjective items.

▼ 3. Red, Yellow, Green it with clear success criteria

Red is a warning sign a train wreck
Yellow means difficulty that requires intervention form external advisers or management
Green indicates that things are good.

▼ 4. Display publicly

Publicly displayed dashboards provide:

Focus on the right issues, not people
A system designed for candid conversations to solve problems using collective intelligence
Faster solutions, decisions and ultimately larger profits
Communication vehicle and catalyst for fast action.

▼ 5. Measure weekly

Ensure the dashboards are updated and displayed publicly every week, without exception. It takes energy and drive to enforce process that develops the right habits within an organisation. Do not give up!

▼ 6. Focus on the problems, not the people

Develop the right conversations around the dashboard. Stay focused on attacking problems. Stay away from attacking people.
Get the whole team to think how to turn reds and yellows into greens.

▼ 7. Give a “get out of jail free” card when the baseline dashboard is displayed

Use the first dashboard as the baseline to work from and improve, so people are not embarrassed by the Red on their dashboards
This approach focuses the attention and energy on turning the reds into greens.

▼ 8. Make it a helpful and actionable tool, not a management club

For the leader, the dashboard is early warning system to prevent potential train wrecks
For the team, the dashboard gives insight into the actions they need to be taken without being managed and a reminder of what is important.