The One Waste that’s Killing Your Company

If this ‘waste’ isn’t killing your company, it’s slowing it down more than you may realize…even if you’re growing. Most of you have heard about the Seven Traditional Wastes as identified by Lean Methodology. But this one killer waste is more pernicious and prevalent: the use of wrong metrics.

Too many corporate dysfunctions have been created through the use of Efficiency. It drives all sorts of internal-looking, suboptimal actions and decisions that the customers become dissatisfied and the organization lacks alignment and misses creating the overall optimal success for the whole team. Similarly EBITDA and ROI have been great for the short-term but not the long-term success. Even tactical measurements like On-Time Delivery have driven wasteful spending on expedited freight, overtime and excess staffing, excess inventory and so on. There are many more examples.

How many of your metrics are customer-centered? How many are measuring the effectiveness of the organization as a whole, rather than just one part? How many are measuring activity but not results and, worse, measuring activity that doesn’t drive the needed results but the unnecessary results?

We’ve helped companies and non-profits measure the right things that lead to accelerated growth.

Net Engagement Score by Category

alarm clock
It’s Monday Morning….aaaagggghhhh!

Every day your employees decide just how enthusiastic and committed they are to go to work and give their best effort. How often do you think about their decisions? Yearly? Monthly? Weekly? What efforts do you try to improve engagement? Chances are they are the wrong ones. The real keys to driving engagement are rarely mentioned in the articles and books you’ve read and the consultants with whom you’ve talked. There are four things you need to do on a daily basis. Only four.  (We’ll keep it a secret for now but contact us for more.)

What if you could figure out just where your organization is at whether it’s a small- or medium-sized business, non-profit or church? We use Net Engagement Score By Category (trademarked by 4ward Associates). It’s similar to Net Promoter Score (trademarked by Satmetrix, Bain & Co., and Fred Reichheld) and their eNPS but with one major difference.

NES is based on one question and a comment. The net score is determined by subtracting the portion of “disengaged” from the portion of engaged employees (i.e. those that are enthusiastic and committed). A negative score means you have more disengaged than engaged. The comments let you know which of the major areas are the weakest. Are you missing a foundation of organizational trust? Solid leadership? Or failing in the area of daily motivation?

Net Engagement graphic representation showing a NES for each major category and overall. In the example shown in the link, this organization has a NES of 0. There are just as many disengaged (i.e. dreading going to work and apathetic about the company’s success) as there are engaged. Overall success movement will be neutral. It’s going to be hard to create change in a positive direction. This example also indicates that trust is low and steps need to be taken to improve this before anything else.

Contact us at 4ward Associates to learn how to create the success your organization deserves.

The Way ‘It’ Works

If you’re a small business owner or executive (church or non-profit leader), you don’t have time to work on one of the keys to organizational success: employee engagement. Your employees (and you) decide each day when they leave the house whether they’re going to be motivated and engaged (i.e. enthusiastic about doing their best and contributing to the success of your organization–the same sort of question you might ask yourself).

alarm clock
It’s Monday Morning….aaaagggghhhh!

Unfortunately, you probably don’t know how to effectively help their motivation. You can read lots of books, go to workshops and gets some ideas trying to figure out what proportion is self-motivation (intrinsic) and what proportion is your responsibility (extrinsic). We cut through the chaos and have created a framework. We coach you on what’s truly effective. We’ve proven it in our own organizations and with others.

  • Foundation of trustworthiness and good leadership
  • Knowing your team members’ motivators (e.g. the lowest proportion of the population is motivated solely by money)
  • Your own level of engagement (your staff’s is almost always less than yours)
  • Understanding the key drivers for engagement (they’re not what you may have read)
  • Understanding how to influence change
  • Putting all together on a daily basis

Contact us today at scott.ward@4wardassociates.com to drive the success your organization deserves.