What’s Your ScoreBoard?
During my first marriage, I thought the goal was to stay married. In jobs, I
thought the goal was to get promoted to the next big title/level/responsibility.
When I used to seriously run, I thought it was all about completing a
marathon.
(The picture is of art by Michelle Scott, who died
way too early. The piece is called Yes, No, Maybe)
What we define as the scoreboard, and reward, we do. That’s a truth. But are
we conscious of the scoreboard ruling our decisions, and our choices? Or, could
it be that we are operating with a “that’s how things are done” default
setting?
Scoreboards. What is it you measure now? What do you think needs to be there, instead?
This lens on life caused a
vise-like grip onto certain outcomes. The wrong outcomes. By defining success as “staying
married”, I would find myself giving up me to be loved by him. By saying work
was about the next rung on the career ladder, I never questioned if I was suited
for the role, and it for me. And by defining running to be about marathons (and,
then, faster marathons), I set the bar so joy came from the milestones, rather
than the inherent pleasure of leaves underfoot while alongside a creek.
In business, the certain outcomes
are undoubtedly this quarter’s results. Companies and their leaders focus on
this almost to the exclusion of whether they are building a company that can
grow. They rob investments from future product categories or potential new
markets to deliver today’s number. If you ask them, they’ll say they are getting
pressure from their institutional investors to deliver (and that most
institutional investors only hold onto stocks for less than 2 years, etc, yada,
yada). We could comment that these CEOs/Boards needs to take back their strings
because they are being led, not leading. But when asked, they will only tell
you, they are doing what they are rewarded for.
(The picture is of art by Michelle Scott, who died
way too early. The piece is called Yes, No, Maybe)
I honor how challenging it is to
choose the lens. I used to think an effective scorecard was ALL about the
outcomes and if anyone said otherwise, I thought they were a wuss who wanted
softer/easier/lighter goals. But after a divorce, and getting
fired, many physical injuries because I pushed too hard, and most recently
killing my own company, I think I’m ready to give up on that type of scoreboard.
Life’s experiences have taught me it is not a sufficient measure of the quality
of life. In my work with
me note, you can see me grappling in front of you, as I shape the new
one.
Results matter. Sure. However,
quantitative results alone are almost always an incomplete picture. To say
quantifiable outcomes is the complete scoreboard is to measure only that which
we can see. It is mechanistic. And routine. It works for the simple measures
that are binary but how many of us are living that life or running that
business? Quantitative measures for our scoreboards miss the measures of things
unseen. For individuals, the unseen part of us includes whether we are
growing, and thriving in relationships, and doing our best to bring forth our
gifts into the world. For business, the unseen measures include whether we are
building growing, and thriving enterprise that can and will bear more fruit,
over time. The success
equation for business that I’ve written about is more than quantifiable
metrics. There is some discussion going on in economic circles that we need to
pick quality
over quantity as our “new American dream”.
The qualitative scoreboards we define for ourselves can reflect more of what
we want. I am no longer committed to being married. And don’t worry, my
2nd (and last) husband knows this. He knows that I am committed to
having a healthy relationship. If that means we can grow together over time,
cool. We believe that for any relationship to thrive and for intimacy to emerge,
each person must be dedicated to growth; otherwise, we each will hit a wall of
deep dissatisfaction. Because I am committed to being fully alive in this
relationship, it means I say the thing that needs to be said, or ask the hard
question I don’t want to know the answer to, or deal with things directly. I
don’t hide me, and he’s never surprised by things cause we talk about them as
pennies and nickels and don’t hoard issues up until they become half-dollar size
problems. Rather than the binary “stay married” quantitatively measured score,
we choose the more subjective and qualitative “healthy relationship” as the
score, that we then evaluate, and measure, and tune, and reward and celebrate.
Sure, it’s more hard to measure, but more true to the point.Scoreboards. What is it you measure now? What do you think needs to be there, instead?
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25 Responses to What’s Your ScoreBoard?
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- - September 27, 2011 [...] Found at What’s Your ScoreBoard? | Yes & Know. [...]
- - October 7, 2011 [...] have issues with metrics. I have friends that have issues with metrics; Jamie Notter and Nilofer Merchant to name a couple. Actually, I think that my issue is with our use of metrics more so than the [...]
- - November 4, 2011 [...] might refocus on our own work and the community with which we get that work done. We might learn to define success in our own terms. We might even come up with our own mantra around [...]
- - November 5, 2011 [...] might refocus on our own work and the community with which we get that work done. We might learn to define success in our own terms. We might even come up with our own mantra around [...]
- - April 9, 2012 [...] might refocus on our own work and the community with which we get that work done. We might learn to define success in our own terms. We might even come up with our own mantra around [...]
Looking at above, that’s a lot of words. Let me know if any of them make sense as assembled.
Nilofer
Let me wander down another path and see if it gets somewhere. A coaching client tells me they want to earn another $10,000 this quarter. Okay, great. What for? What is it that you really want? Well, I want to buy new furniture for the living room. Great. That sounds fun! Now, let’s explore 2 paths. 1. How can you indeed earn or get another $10,000 this quarter. And 2. What will having new furniture get for you. Addressing the first is easy. Simple problem solving and brainstorming then accountabilities. The second is hard and yet transformative – digging into the series of iterative questions – and what will that get for you? And what will having that get for you? And when we get to THAT answer, we can make a better judgment about whether furniture meets that need/desire or something else is better suited. As well as how to address that need/desire even if the goal of $10,000 isn’t met. When we get to the core needs and desires, they are never numerical. They are things like love, trust, companionship, safety, a sense of possibility, etc. And we can also get into the real mud of our souls – the why of our desires – I want that because I am afraid. I want it because I feel inadequate. I want it because I am jealous. I want it because I need to feel desirable. There and then, that is where the soul breaks free, if you dare.
I’ve never much for the ScoreBoards you mention. I’ve never been married, never worked for a company in which a promotion was a desirable option, and never run a marathon (though I did complete the half marathon on the Great Wall a few years back.)
Several people tell me I should create more specific, quantifiable goals. Your post reminds me that I should make sure these are on a ScoreBoard that actually matters to me. Thanks.
My best to our continued clarity . . .and dare I say joy?,
Jennifer
What I experience and take away from this post is in essence the difference between knowing and living. We all know that we should balance our lives, and that quality of living should be considered when making life choices.
Somehow we have to suffer pain, injustice, public and private humiliation to become who we are. It is like some acid has to strip off the veneer that is our “persona” to reveal the human inside.
However, this is one of the most rewarding personal growth experiences I have ever encountered, and as you (and some of the commentators) rightly highlight, some of the most challenging moments of our lives. Sometimes it feels like you are learning to be an engineer and repairing the rocket engine during the launch phase. Overwhelming sometimes falls well short as a descriptor.
The funniest thing emerges from this growth process for me. It is the indisputable realisation that organisations are indeed living entities too. They experience all the things we do as the grow, adapt and mature without the benefit of a singular spokesman.
I thank you for this and I hope that this message will be read by thousands of influential people who will engage their brains, emotional intelligence and situational awareness and apply that to their lives and business.
Have a Happy Day.
(stop by anytime…)
Nilofer
—
Albert Einstein
Nice company.
I also appreciate the push toward continuous versus either or measures. As my students often note (and then I put a line through the sentence), “It’s hard to measure…” Yes, it is often hard – but that’s what we do.
You challenged me to leave a response here, since my twitter comment in turn challenged some of the thinking here – but really, 140 characters didn’t do my thinking – my questioning – justice. I said I’d reply in the morning when fresh, but of course am not, as I have not slept for pondering my reply.
When you put ‘scoreboard’ in a title, any sport nut (well, male sport nut – am I still allowed to say that?) will take this very literally. And here’s the point of my twitter reply: Without the scoreboard (yes, a binary, quantitative thing), how do you know if you’re winning? The scoreboard is an essential part of the game; it’s not the point of the game, and it can’t tell you what’s going on, the subtlety of the plays, the mental, physical, emotional, moral state of the players or teams, but without it there is just pointless running around (and if you follow England football – that’s ‘soccer’ – you’ll see enough of that anyway).
So, my bottom line number one is that the quantitative scoreboard really really matters, and it’s really really important to keep it up to date. Businesses need to keep turning a profit, individuals need income greater than outgoings. Simples. When Tom Osenton writes about the ‘qualitative revolution’, whilst I get all the points that he makes about how we measure things, I come up against this point: We have to find jobs for people (or they create them themselves, one or the other), and when push comes shove, the quantitative trumps the qualitative.
Now, I know that your argument is rather more subtle than I may have portrayed it, and that you acknowledge the need for quantitative measures. It’s the same in sport – it’s not ‘win at all costs’. There are teams we support or play for because of the manner in which they play, because in some sense their ‘values’ match our own. But in our sporting life, our hobby life, we can be that indulgent – we can go on supporting a side that loses and loses because we have other ties. But life’s not like that, and under pressure – and ultimately, everything is under pressure – we are forced to fall back onto the quantitative. Values don’t feed baby.
So, I suppose my second bottom line is this: I worry that talk of a ‘qualitative revolution’ IS simply indulgent, a product of us somehow thinking that in 2011 we must have evolved beyond the ‘rat race’. And some will say that we have, that we can live this ‘balanced’ life. And it will work for a few, but not the many. We may sit behind desks and run Hi-Tech companies, but all we are still trying to do is get the harvest in before winter. And you can’t eat the leaves underfoot by the creek.
OK, so I’m probably being too binary and bleak (“We’re all doomed!”). More rationally, I think you may be guilty in this post of setting up false opposites. “Staying married” and “Having a healthy relationship” aren’t opposites. “Staying married” is the goal; “having a healthy relationship” is the means. Staying married is the scorecard; having a healthy relationship is the way you have decided to play the game. “Staying married” is binary; having a healthy relationship will be played differently by each team (married couple). Going with the analogy – not thrusting my moral universe down anyone’s throat – we all have to stay married, if we can choose the manner, great, but if we can’t, well, that’s life. You can’t get divorced from economic activity.
On a personal level, our society largely reinforces seriously quantitative “do I have a big job, big house, branded car” stuff, and that diminishes the soul if we are unhappy at what we do, overstretched in all we attempt, and focused more on the outer life than the inner life. I am not saying we don’t need jobs or to earn money or to pay our mortgage. I am saying that we can be intentional about our personal choices because this need not be a either/or thing.
On a business level, I’m seeing too many “leaders” saying it’s about this quarter’s results, yet they are not investing in the future growth. They measure the thing they get rewarded on rather than the things that make the organization viable. It’s just lame when you look at it in this binary way but it is the dominant construct of our market dynamics right now.
Our job is to move from binary to complex thinking (Roger Martin’s work, The Opposable Mind, was quite useful to help me language this many years ago.) And of course to give ourselves permission to define for ourselves what “success” looks like. And from a business point of view, there’s some deeper systemic work to be done. Let’s at least start with ourselves.
Nilofer
Kick yourself all day about the stupid thing you said, the bug you introduced, the promise you failed to keep. That’s pretty common.
Perhaps you should think about the stock you didn’t buy, the innovation you didn’t pursue, the compliment you didn’t give?
Way more productive, I think, to push yourself to be more in the world, not to encourage yourself to hide.
We respond to what we keep track of. Too bad we’re not better at keeping track of how many failures we incorrectly predicted, how many innovations we failed to notice and how many apparently risky steps we failed to take.
HIs point of course is about meaning and purpose and doing what know you need to do.