From Twenty-Eighth to Number One

“What you measure is what you get.”

— Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton

The Trophy I Claimed a Year Early

On January 15, 2001, I attended a regional conference one day after being promoted to branch manager at EFU Life Assurance in Rahim Yar Khan. Trophies were being presented to managers who had already produced the results required for recognition.

When I was invited to speak as one of the newly appointed managers, I made a commitment that was much larger than my evidence. I pointed toward the top-position trophy and told the senior manager, Mr. Sri Chand, that I intended to receive that trophy the following year.

The problem appeared as soon as the words were spoken. I was not taking charge of a leading branch. According to the ranking I was working from at the time, Rahim Yar Khan stood twenty-eighth nationally. I had publicly committed to moving it to number one.

Back at the branch, the team saw the gap immediately. They wanted to know how such a result could possibly be produced. Their doubt was reasonable. A manager can announce an ambitious destination in seconds; the people expected to deliver it still need a credible route.

I asked those who believed we could become number one to remain in the room. One by one, people left until I was alone.

That empty room gave me more useful information than another motivational speech could have provided. The problem was not simply that the team lacked belief. Management had not yet earned belief by showing a credible route from the current position to the required result.

A target can create direction. A public promise can create pressure. Neither tells a sales organization what it must repeatedly do to close the distance between its present position and the required result.

Before asking the team to believe, I needed to answer a more practical management question:

From Ambition to Evidence

The next morning, I stopped treating doubt as a motivation problem.

The team had questioned the commitment because I had given them a destination without evidence that the destination could be reached. More pressure would not solve that. I needed to replace assertion with information.

I obtained historical company performance data and began studying the branches that had finished at the top. I was not looking for slogans or personalities. I wanted to understand what stronger performance looked like in observable terms.

Instead of asking, “How do I make this team believe we can become number one?” I began asking, “What evidence would show us what number-one performance actually requires?”

The difference was practical. Ambition could establish direction, but evidence could begin to establish a route.

Once the target was examined against historical performance rather than enthusiasm, the commitment became something management could start designing around.

Turn the Result into a Realistic Operating Plan

The historical records changed the target from a declaration into a planning problem.

In the company data I reviewed, the branch finishing first nationally had typically led the country in three individual months. I did not treat that pattern as a universal formula or a guarantee. It was the historical reference available for planning.

Instead of planning for three winning months, I planned for four. The fourth month was deliberate. It created protection against execution risk, the possibility that one planned result might not occur when expected.

That decision gave the annual ambition intermediate outcomes. “Become number one” was too distant to manage directly. “Create enough winning months to compete for the annual position” gave management an operating requirement that could begin to be translated into work.

A realistic plan does not assume that everything will go right. It uses evidence, identifies intermediate requirements, and allows room for execution risk.

CONTINUE READING

This is only the beginning of Chapter 1.

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