As we head into 2020, our team has been talking a lot about company goals. We’ve found value in taking pause to reassess not only our goals, tasks, and initiatives, but to closely examine the exact value that each one adds to the company. We have no doubt that any task, event, or choice we make could add some type of value, but we have collaboratively decided to measure our choices differently this year than we have in years past.
Individually, we asked ourselves the following questions:
- Is what I’m doing adding value, or am I doing it because that’s just how I’ve always done things?
- Is there an element of obligation in my choices?
- Are my projects having as big of an impact as I think they are?
As a group we were able to ask, what is one thing I am doing or I see a team member doing that doesn’t seem to have a huge impact?
In order to make our choices more deliberate this year, we have decided to base our choices around a new measure: impact rather than volume.
Higher Volume Does Not Equal Success
One way to measure success may be to measure volume, with the goal always being to add ‘more’. Examples of volume measurements could be:
- Number of clients
- Amount of events scheduled on your calendar
- Digits in your inbox’s total mail count
- You and your team’s stress levels
Many companies, including ourselves at times, measure success by volume. Exclusively measuring by volume is not always sustainable. Measuring success solely in this way will ultimately lead to burnout, unhealthy competition, and low retention rates.
Higher Impact Equals Success
An alternative to measuring success by volume is measuring success by impact. Examples of impact measurements could include:
- Impact to the customer: Improved marketing collateral, revenue growth per division, active users for a given product or offering, customer satisfaction ratings
- Impact to the company: improved operational process that resulted in bottom line savings, pain points that were addressed to create more pipeline efficiency
- Impact to the employees: improved employee engagement, higher retention rates, improved satisfaction around topics like managerial relationships or personal growth
As a result of our recent strategic planning session, we decided to make all of our commitments for 2020 by first asking ourselves, does this fit with our commitment to ‘Do Less, Impact More’. We’re a team of ‘doers’ which makes this very challenging, but it’s already proving its importance and value.
One accountability method we’ve found helpful is to create a “Do Less” board. We use this board as a record of every time we’ve said ‘no’ to a project. This has helped us to shift the stigma of saying ‘no’. We plan to celebrate as our Do Less board grows. For us, this is an indication that we are prioritizing the highest impact initiatives.
We want to challenge you to join us in 2020 and do less, to impact more.
