58, 60, 63, 64.2 and holding…

Yeah baby! 64.2 km/h, or 40.6 mph. Not bad.

The water was like glass, the sun was warm and low in the sky, and I was enjoying the last day on the lake in my 1962 Chris Craft. I had the original 283 c.i. small block Chevy engine rebuilt, but I had not determined how fast the boat could go.

The original 6 gauge dashboard did not include a speedometer, only a tachometer, and I wanted to know what my top speed is as well as what my speed is at certain RPMs.

As I sat there at idle trying to figure out how to measure my speed I assumed there must be an app for my I-phone that could help me with this. Sure enough, I was able to download a sweet little free app that enables me to measure everything I want – in km/h, mph and knots per hour as well. Maximum speed, average speed, distance covered, compass heading, elevation, everything I needed to measure was being done by this great app. 2,000 rpms is approximately 20 mph, 2,500 rpms is approximately 25 mph, 3,500 rpms is approximately 35 mph and 5,000 rpms is approximately 40 mph.

It felt so good to finally settle this issue. Prior to this I was always guesstimating when it came to the speed of the boat. I knew exactly what my rpms were, but not my speed. As I sat there relaxing in the boat, floating in the sun, my speed run got me thinking about “measurement”.

“What gets measured gets done.”, came to mind – a classic business adage. If it is important to the business then we need to measure it. Measurement matters. We typically call these measurements “KPIs”, or Key Performance Indicators.

Successful businesses have determined what the KPIs are that lead to the achievement of their objectives. Number of prospects in the hopper, number of calls made, number of appointments set-up, number of sales per month, number of sales per presentation (close rate), number of new leads from the website, number of injury free days, number of days from order to delivery, letter grades for employee rankings, net profit, gross profit, debt/equity ratios…the number of KPIs is limitless.

What is important to you? Measure it.

Do you want happy engaged employees? Measure it. Do you want “A” rated employees? Make sure you identify the criteria you are looking for in exceptional employees, then set up a methodology to measure those criteria to determine you’re A’s, B’s, C’s, etc. Do you want a certain growth rate in sales each month? Then determine your close rate and your average sale, so you know how many presentations need to be made in order accomplish your sales growth objectives.

Measurement can be quantified and qualified – both are relevant.

I recently had the privilege of sitting in on the morning briefing of a well-run business where the leadership team takes 15 minutes every day to run through their KPIs to ensure they are on track and on task. They have determined close to 20 KPIs they regularly measure. They measure these because they recognize how important these behaviors are to accomplish their bottom line profit objectives.

It is important to ensure your KPIs are not just sales and profit related. KPIs specific to each area of the business can also help to create employee engagement for areas of the business not directly connected to sales. Identifying KPIs and measuring the behaviour helps employees see how what they do contributes to the overall growth and profitability of the company.

It doesn’t need to be cumbersome, but it does take some thought for you and your leadership team to sit down to determine your KPis for each department within the organization. What behaviours will contribute to the ultimate growth and profit objectives of the firm? Identify and measure them, then ensure everyone who contributes to each KPI is in the communication loop so they are aware of what is going on. Measure, then mentor them into high performance.

If it’s important, measure it. What gets measured gets done.

Measurement matters.