What You Measure Improves

How many of you measure your progress, in some way?

Many business leaders use KPI’s (key performance indicators).  Why?  Because they tend to work.  Sure, not for everyone all the time.  

But personal experience, and actually research, has shown

that what we measure tends to improve more than if we don’t measure.

Those who track their calories tend to do better at managing them.  Ask Weight Watchers.

Those who track their spending tend to manage their finances better.  Ask any financial counselor.

Those who track their fitness activities tend to reach their fitness goals better than those who don’t.  Ask any personal trainer.

Those who are learning a new skill, and then break down that skill into its sub-skills, then measure their improvement of each progressive sub-skill with a useful metric, will learn that skill dramatically faster than those whose learning process is to “just wing it”.  

Ask any middle school band teacher, high school football coach, or coach of any elite level Olympic hopeful.

And, those who are trying to develop a new habit will succeed better if they measure their follow-through with some sort of tracking system.  

It’s just the way our brains work.

What’s your experience with tracking and measuring in these manners?  Does your experience confirm this, or are you saying “Not

me!”

If measuring and tracking hasn’t worked well for you, it could possibly be because:

• you were measuring the wrong thing(s)

• you weren’t using the right metric

You were using the right metric in the

• wrong way

• you just don’t like a lot of structure (hyper-right brain creative folks, for example.  You know who you are).

There are some better, and best practices, but we all have to find our own “way” with this.  My clients and I customize useful metrics based on who THEY are.

If you’re unhappy with your progress and improvement in some area of life–a skill, a habit, an area of performance–consider (or RE-consider) using some sort of tracking system to measure your progress.

Until next time.