by Warren Hayford
Successful organizations achieve their goals. Unsuccessful organizations do not. What makes successful organizations successful is the ability to keep everyone in the organization focused on the goals. This focus helps them make decisions and keep their actions focused on achieving the goal.
There are three ways charts can be used to help your organization achieve its goals.
- Analyzing and defining your goals
- Presenting your goals
- Providing the feedback
Charts force you to convert your goals from platitudes to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Converting your strategies and tactics and other actions into KPIs allows you to show their impact on your goals.
Charting the of your goals makes them real to your team. Charts show your attention to the application resources on strategies and actions that impact your goals. The focus also reduces the resources committed to actions that don’t affect your goals.
Having clearly identified goals does not by itself drive results. You need to communicate your goals. You need to show your business units, what their targets are. You may need to show your investors and creditors what you’re doing to achieve your goals.
The charts presenting specific KPIs measuring your goals and the actions you’re taking to your goals fill this need. A different set of charts can be presented to each audience allowing the focus to give them exactly what they need to see.
Finally, if you want to encourage people to continue focus on goals, you have to provide them with feedback. The same charts you used to communicate your goals and actions to reach them become a tool for reinforcing focus on your goals.
Using weekly, monthly and quarterly updates on performance let your team know you are paying attention. The result is a renewed focus on your goals.
The flexibility of charts allows you to fine tune your feedback. You can tweak your charts as needed to adapt them for different business units within the organization. The result is more specific and relevant feedback to each business unit. This approach is far more effective than broadcasting a general set of feedback reports or charts.
So,, if you want to improve your organization’s performance convert your numbers to charts. Use charts to identify your goals and tactics. Communicate your goals and relevant KPIs through charts. And chart ongoing performance against your goals and tactics to give targeted specific feedback to each business unit within your organization. Use charts for all three purposes and you will increase your organization’s ability to achieve goals.
