InnovateVirtual - Targeted Communication

CORE MEASURES
What are measures?
Performance measures: Leader performance measures are often criticized because of how subjective
they can be due to the lack of clear expectation not being communicated. The measures align to business
results and are both important and urgent to improve, given the current strategic direction. The strategic
direction of the organization is like the Sun where gravity pulls the relevant measures from all levels of
space of the organization into alignment with the current goals. Core competencies executed to a clear
expected standard are one of these measures and driver of business results.
Industry measures: I identify these as political measures because of unknown quantities. They are
another subset within the universe of measures. As measures to business results go it is like Pluto— not
as important to the (universe of planets) external stakeholders of the organization. Industry benchmark
measures are measures of business results that are shared across similar organizations. Being measured
against ourselves is much more accurate and can be justified and therefore is urgent for the organization
to produce.
More often than not, industry measures are different from performance measures, because of how they
influence the board and align more to the strategic comparison needs of the administration, and not so
much to the strategic needs of the organization’s stakeholders and culture. So for the organization itself,
they are not important. They are an information product provided for external use only and not something
you should need or want to ever buy.
Sometimes industry benchmark measures can be performance measures, but only when they align directly
with the strategic direction of the organization. Industry measures tend to intersect a lot with other
political measures. So again, they monitor business results that aren’t particularly important to improve,
from the perspective of the organization itself. But there can be an urgency to produce them for the sake
of the external stakeholders, they are important too. When measuring yourself against the industry or
similar organizations it is important to note that there are variables that cannot be confirmed therefore be
the standard. There is strength measuring against one’s self.
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