My Personal Dashboard
I had a great conversation, if only by text, with the incredible Alex Charfen this weekend and he made a comment about metrics to measure in my personal life, which got me wondering about creating for myself a personal dashboard. The concept of a dashboard in my business is not a new thing to me. In fact, I’m a huge proponent of and speak to entrepreneur audiences often about having a set of leading indicators that can be measured on a daily basis to track your company’s performance in key areas. As entrepreneurs, we often get caught in the trap of tracking our success based on the performance of our financial statements annually, quarterly, or perhaps even monthly. Some entrepreneurs get stuck in the trap of tracking success based on the balance of their bank accounts. Both methods of measurement are downright dangerous. First, the financial statements are lagging indicators. Meaning they are indicators of what HAPPENED in the business, and the damage has already been done. So if something went wrong, you’d see profits shrink, expenses grow, or assets dwindle. In any of those circumstances, you’d then have to “figure out” what went wrong – while it’s entirely possible that it would still be happening at the time of the discovery and would keep on happening until it was discovered. This becomes an awfully expensive way to solve problems. In the case of using the bank account balance to measure progress – well that’s just flawed. Without understanding the basis for how the money got there, where it’s set to go, and what’s outstanding the bank account balance is almost the same as driving completely blindly. Better than both examples, is to look at leading indicators of future performance. Things like new leads generated this week or other pipeline metrics, progress in production cycles, inventory on hand, quality control measures, AR and AP measures, Labor Efficiency Ratio, and others form the basis of weekly measurements that any leadership team can use to modify behaviors and determine issues before they hit the Income Statement or Balance Sheet. To be clear – I’m not saying that analyzing the Income Statement and Balance Sheet are unimportant or irrelevant, but leading your business solely on this basis would be like driving a car by only looking at the rearview mirror. You have to be looking forwards through the windshield that you get when you have strong leading indicators. So back to the texts from Alex. Alex suggested that there were metrics in my personal life like time, energy, effort, and focus that could be controlled. He added that there were others like experience, intelligence, wisdom, skills, and motivation that were mine forever and could never “reduce” in value. With this incredible revelation I started to wonder out loud whether or not cash, success, health, and happiness were lagging indicators and I had been focused on some of the wrong things in my life as a whole. What an incredible thought. What if instead of just measuring those – I cleaned my windshield and started to measure the leading indicators of my life, just like I do in the businesses. So, starting today, I’m putting time into creating a weekly dashboard where I measure how I performed along the following leading indicators. To build them, I’ve started with my Core Values, which act as filters for everything in my life. My Core Purpose (my personal Why?) also plays a role in these filters. Finally, to take a page from what Alex and I were discussing, I’m going to measure how I’m adding to the “bank” that truly cannot be taken from me or diminish in value over time. Understandably, some of these are binary “yes-no” type measures. Others will develop over time. Here’s what I’ve got on my Personal Dashboard so far:
Drive – did I do more with less never quit until I delivered?
Impact – was I a difference maker?
Approach – was I balanced in my approach? Was family first? Did I have fun with what I did?
Leadership – did I take responsibility for everything?
Passion – did I fully engage with everyone I encountered this week?
Purpose – did I help make small changes that can make a big difference?
Time – how did I spend my time this week, did I waste time on frivolous activities?
How much time did I invest in Leadership, My Health, My Family, My Wife?
Did I invest in My Education/Ongoing Learning? My Experiences? My Wisdom/My Network? My Skills? My Motivation?
Energy – how well did I manage my energy this week?
Effort – where did I put my effort?
Focus – where was my attention? On Business? Personal? Family? Community? Other? Wasted? I know there’s a lot there and it will get more refined in time. As it is with all things, this is just the start. Peter Drucker once said that you can't manage what you can't measure. I'd go further to say you can't improve what you won't measure. From now on, I'm making sure that I know how I measure up so I can start to lead myself. What would go on your Personal Dashboard? Where will you lead yourself? Better yet, how will you help lead your team, your network, your community, and your family to become similarly empowered?
Comments