Among professionals, high achievers, experts in all fields of endeavour, there is one thing they all have in common in respective of the field. That one thing is measuring.

From the Cambridge dictionary, measuring means “to discover the exact size or amount of something”.

In life, measuring is the fundamental and primary tool used by professionals, expert to assess growth, excel and win in their fields of endeavour over and over again.  What you cannot measure, you cannot scale up.  Growth is hinged on measurement.

Measuring helps with the following:

• Focus attention on what is important in decision making
• Monitor performance and ensure improvement
• Uncover the existing gap between where you are (point A) and where you are anticipating to be (point B)
• Seen and face the reality of what needs to be improved, corrected or changed in your career
• Clarity of what needs to be done on a daily or weekly basis to move from where you are now to where you want to be
• Estimating based on previous records or precedents.

Tricks to effective measuring:

-Know the exact outcome you want or what you want to achieve

-Have a comparison tool to know where you are exactly (point A) towards where you want to be (point B)

– Monitor trends of why things are better or worse, and then focus on the critical drivers

– Frequency is major

-Always communicate your findings to the appropriate people to ensure the effectiveness of change or correction

-Do not hesitate to say what needs to be said to your team. Nothing can change until the unsaid is spoken.

In conclusion, what gets measured, is what gets done, and it’s what gets managed. What gets measured and reported can be improved exponentially.

Therefore, know what to measure, when to measure and Progress to monitor and records.  Focus on bankable KPI etc.

It’s the goal you want to achieve or what you are optimizing for that determines what you’ll use to measure. The goal you set for yourself translates to the standard for your measurement.

EXCERPTS. The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham