"What we see depends mainly on what we look for." -- John LubbockOne of my clients (let's call him Mike) was telling me how important it is to him that he sell long-term maintenance contracts, not just ad hoc projects.
Makes sense. The long-term contracts provide some stability and predictable cash flow. They assist in getting closer to his clients. They also help him to borrow funds more easily.
So far, so good.
When I asked him how many of these long-term maintenance contracts he has already, he couldn't tell me. He didn't know! He said he's been too busy to track
number of such agreements.
Wait a minute! If this type of agreement is so important to Mike's growth strategy, how can he not know status?
The fact is that most owners and CEOs know what's important to their enterprise, but can't (or don't) measure those things.
You've heard old maxim: "You can't manage what you don't measure." You have also likely read story of "Hawthorne Effect".
In late 1950s, GE plant in Hawthorne, California brought in some consultants to measure effect of brighter lighting on productivity of their factory workers. The consultants first took productivity measurements to establish a baseline. Then they intensified brightness of lighting and measured again.
Productivity increased.
They increased brightness even more and productivity went up again. After raising brightness two more times, they saw two more increases in productivity. On a hunch, they lowered lighting and measured one more time. Productivity went up!
They figured out that productivity gains were not related to brightness of lights, but to act of measuring. They were paying a lot of attention to effectiveness of their workers. And guess what? The workers responded by working more effectively.
What do you pay a lot of attention to? What are you constantly measuring, asking your employees about, talking about and looking at?
When your team knows what's truly important to you, they'll likely pay more attention to those things, too.
