Category Archives: Book Review

Measurement that Creates Problems

Book Review, Business Book, Planning

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

Albert Einstein

This week we continue our look at the knowing-doing gap and how it relates to our personal lives and not just to businesses.

Measures need to be about developing knowledge and turning knowledge into action. Measures by their nature focus attention.   There is an old saying that what gets measured gets done and what is not measured gets ignored.  We have to be very careful therefore what we measure. For example in business if there is a quarterly focus on results then this will divert the focus away from long term results to short tern actions.  Another problem with measurements is that they can become too complicated.   Remember to Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS).  If you are trying to measure too many things at once (e.g. performance indicators) then people cannot focus and are likely to give up.  Measurement systems need to be simple enough to focus attention on key elements and also be objective.   Attention also needs to focus on in-process measurements and not on outcomes.  If I am sitting for exams I should not focus on the final results but focus on how many hours of study I did today (that is an in-process measurement).   Focusing on in-process measures of performance is much less stressful.   Measures should also not be fixed in stone – they need to evolve and be refined depending on the needs of the business.

So what can we learn?

What can we learn to apply in your own life?  How do you measure your own performance?  Choose carefully what you measure because that is where your attention will be.   Keep it simple – if its too complicated you will likely give up.   An example is writing three key things to get done today and doing them.  That is simple and actionable.  Focus on what you can do today because you can only live in today.  Make each day great and you will have a great life!  These are your in-process measurements of performance – your inputs today.  If you are writing a book don’t focus on having the book written by X date.  Focus on how many pages you will write everyday.  Don’t focus on the outcomes (the book).  Finally is what you are measuring serving you?  If not change what you are measuring.  Your weekly AAR (After Action Review) is a good time to reflect on that question.

Next Week:  When internal competition turns friends into enemies.

Ref: ‘The Knowing-Doing Gap – How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton. Harvard Business School Press, 2000

FEAR and the Knowing-Doing Gap

Book Review, Business Book, Failure
The knowing-doing gap and fear

 

When fear prevents acting on knowledge

This week we continue looking at the knowing-doing gap in business and how this can relate to our own lives (Ref: The Knowing-Doing Gap by J. Pfeffer and R Sutton – see below).

So you have a problem in the organisation or business and you have information on the problem and you know what to do to solve the problem but there is a culture within the organisation where you fear to take the necessary action because you could get into trouble.   That sounds crazy but it does happen.  In particular if there is an element of risk in your solution or it involves doing something new.  Employees can fear for there jobs or their self-esteem or they don’t want to jeopardise their mortgage.  What they will do is stick to what they’ve done in the past so they recreate past mistakes even though they know there are better ways of doing the work.  The organisational culture doesn’t support doing things differently!  We are back to ‘that’s not the way we do things around here‘ type thinking that we saw in the last article.

Some organisations also have fear based management systems which assume that fear is a good thing to keep staff on their toes and make them work hard.  There is a general sense of distrust for staff.

Interestingly there is something called the MUM effect where staff distance themselves from bad news.  People don’t want to deliver bad news to others because they feel they would be blamed by association!  An example given in the book was where an executive assistant of one CEO who was interviewed as part of the research said that she screened out bad news from her boss!  Why?  Because her job would become less pleasant if the boss got bad news and was in a bad mood.  So to keep the CEO in a good mood she would schedule appointments with people who would not deliver bad news to him about how things were going in the company.  This tendency for gatekeepers to screen out bad news ends up creating leaders who have a very inaccurate image of what’s going on in the business.   Top management can have a very rosy and inaccurate view of what is going on.  People who are afraid of their bosses will not want to deliver bad news and will also have an incentive to lie about what is going on.  All this leads to falsification of information and the inability to learn and the inability to improve.  I think all of us can relate to having a boss that you would want to keep happy!

How to tackle fear and inaction in orgaisations
  • Encourage, praise and promote people who deliver bad news to their bosses
  • The only failure is failure to act.  Punish inaction and not unsuccessful actions.
  • Learn from mistakes
  • Encourage people to try new things
  • Encourage leaders to talk about their failures and what they have learned from them.
What lessons for our personal lives?

I think one of the big lessons we can learn is that the only real failure is not to try at all.  Our failures should not be feared and brushed under the carpet as if we are embarrassed by them.  No, we should be open about our failures and most importantly what we have learned from our failures and how we have applied this learning in taking new actions.

Next Week:  When measurement obstructs good judgement and taking action.

Ref: ‘The Knowing-Doing Gap – How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton. Harvard Business School Press, 2000