Doing things right or doing the right things in your business?

The move towards a results-only work environment (ROWE) has been accelerated by the recent pandemic.

But it’s important to understand the key components which allow ROWE to flourish, otherwise you as a business owner or manager will struggle to make it a success for your business, your team and your customers.

20^th century thinking taught you all about the bottom line, but here in the 21^st century is it really just results that you're worried about?

You look at results and make assessments, judgements. In sport, the result is everything – the one true arbiter of “how you did”.

But should you be focusing just on the result? The problem with thinking like this is that it ignores the sequence of events and actions which all contribute towards the outcome, or result.

The issue becomes clearer when you look at how you manage your team.

The role of a manager is complex and subject to many definitions. Ultimately though, you can sum up the role as one of getting the best out of those who report to you.

Compare and contrast two different ends of the spectrum:

• When an objective is clear, but the behaviours/culture are not, people will do whatever they perceive to be right in order to achieve the objective.
• When the behaviours and culture are clear, but the objective is not, people will perform the right way but not necessarily in pursuit of the right objective.

So, the trick is not only being clear about the objective but also how you go about achieving that objective.

In other words, the objective is WHAT, the way you achieve it is HOW.

And each is equally important!

Another way to look at this is KPIs, an acronym commonly adopted in organisations and which is usually defined as Key Performance Indicators. Such a definition is encouraging you to focus on the result, the score.

Whereas if you install and measure Key Predictive Indicators, you are instead focused on measuring the behaviours which should yield the correct result.

And by looking at input and outputs, you get a much more rounded picture of how someone is performing.

So perhaps your role as a manager is twofold:

1. Be crystal clear on your objective
2. Then spend most of your time on inputs – encouraging, motivating and demonstrating the right behaviours at every step. Effectively ensuring that your team are doing things the right way.

And if those behaviours are properly aligned with the objective, the result should simply be a function of everyone doing things right.

The pandemic has thrust upon you a lack of control over your teams; an inability to “see” what they’re doing. If you are serious about offering your team an environment where they have complete flexibility about hours and are measured on output, you need three things:

1. Strong culture
2. Clear objectives
3. Key predictive indicators which show the right way to achieve objectives    

The businesses which achieve this make themselves far more flexible; attractive to workers and also protect against future lockdowns.

Doing things right AND doing the right things.

Read more about Key Predictive Indicators and future focused behaviours here.