Original article
Here are five metrics that great teams should measure:
Here are five metrics that great teams should measure:
Metric 1: Flow State Percentage
Jobs that require a lot of brainpower—software programming
for instance—also demand deep concentration. You know that feeling when you’re
“in the zone,” cranking on something. That is flow, a term coined by
psychologist Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi. Unfortunately, most of us are constantly
interrupted during the day with meetings, emails, texts, or colleagues who want
to talk about stuff. These interruptions that move us out of “flow state”
increase R&D cycle times and costs dramatically. Studies have shown that
each time flow state is disrupted it takes fifteen minutes to get back into
flow, if you can get back at all. And programmers who work in the top quartile
of proper (ie uninterrupted) work environments are several times more
productive than those who don’t.
Ideally programmers and other knowledge workers can spend
30% – 50% of their day in uninterrupted concentration. Most office environments
don’t even come close. To get started, ask your engineers to track for a few
days their personal flow state percentages: how many hours each day are they in
flow, divided by the number of total hours they’re at the office. And then
brainstorm ways that the team can move this number up. For example, perhaps
there’s a little paper sign at each person’s desk that says “Go Away, I’m
Cranking.” Or maybe you have a day where no meetings are allowed. Tom Demarco
has written insightfully on the topic of flow.
Metric 2: The Anxiety-Boredom Continuum
Years ago, back when I was younger and cooler, I took a
salsa class with my wife-to-be where the instructor said something that really
stuck with me. He said that his goal was to keep all of his students in the
pocket between boredom and anxiety – but closer to anxiety. In other words, we
shouldn’t be so overwhelmed that we break down and give up, but we also
shouldn’t be coasting either. He kept the rhythm fast enough so that we were
challenged, but not so difficult that we lost the steps completely. And he kept
tuning the difficulty level of the class to stretch but not break us.
This same anxiety-to-boredom continuum also applies to
managing people. Star performers can get bored easily, and often function best
when they’re expected to rise to great challenges. You want expectations to be
high, but not completely overwhelming. With this in mind, check in with your
employees periodically about where they are on this continuum, while also
keeping an eye out for signs of where they stand. If they have low energy, or
are showing up late and leaving early, they may be bored. If they’re responding
to small setbacks with anger or frustration, or getting sick a lot, they may be
pushing too hard.
Metric 3: Meeting Promoter Score
Most meetings suck. And they’re expensive: a one-hour
meeting of six software engineers costs $1,000 at least. People who don’t have
the authority to buy paperclips are allowed to call meetings every day that
cost far more than that. Nobody tracks whether meetings are useful, or how they
could get better. And all you have to do is ask.
In the last minute of a meeting, ask the participants to
each rate from 1 to 10 how effective the meeting was, with one suggestion for
making the meeting better. It can be on a scrap of paper, or a simple web form.
Verne Harnish has some good ideas about running better meetings.
Metric 4: Compound Weekly Learning Rate
My three year old son just asked me what the word “expert”
means. When I answered, he nodded and asked “so am I an expert about
superheroes yet?” The best leaders hold on to this relentless curiosity. Joi
Ito wrote recently about “neotony”, the retention of childlike attributes in
adulthood. This ability to learn is like the compounding interest on an
investment: after two or three years, a relentless learner stands head and
shoulders above his peers. Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, referred me to
Joi’s posting. Jeff is one of the most relentless learners I know, and this
quality is an essential element of his success and the success of his teams. So
try asking your team this question: how did you get 1% better this week? Did
you learn something valuable from our customers, or make a change to our
product that drove better results? As your team gets into a learning rhythm,
you can review this as a group. 1% per week adds up.
Metric 5: Positive Feedback Ratio
You can learn as much from John Gottman as you can from John
F. Kennedy about being a great communicator. Gottman, a psychologist, is the
author of “Why Marriages Succeed or Fail”.
In his research, he found that marriages that succeed tend
to have five times as many positive interactions as negative ones. And when a
couple falls below that ratio, their relationship falls down too.
The same is true at the office, where you’re often connected
for years in relationships with people who can either become wary of your
criticisms or eager to give you their best effort. Catch people doing good
things. Never miss a chance to say something nice, even if you feel a little
silly. Then when you have feedback on areas to improve, they‘ll really listen.
It may be hard to manage to the 5:1 ratio at the office, but you should be
mindful of the balance.
So, there you have it, 5 metrics that will never show up in
the best companies’ financial statements or a Wall Street Journal article, but
are the kinds of reasons those companies succeed. Tracking these five metrics
isn’t glamorous. But it’s something everyone can do. And it really works.
