Reflection and Quantification

As usual when the end of the year draws closer, many of us begin to reflect on what we tried to accomplish over the course of this year, and what we would like to accomplish in the next. And, in the course of this reflection, we gain a more objective perspective of our goals that allows us to start to build our strategy for the New Year - a strategy that takes into account things we have learned that will help direct us where we want to go.

Here at E-Myth, we not only advocate reflection, we see it as an indispensable part of the business development process of innovation, orchestration and quantification. The latter is particularly important, because without quantification you won't know if your innovation has worked, and you lack the controls to orchestrate it properly. So, if you need quantification to allow you to reflect on what has happened in the business throughout a given time period, what exactly should we quantify?

The short answer is - pretty much everything. As the strategic leader of your organization you should try to identify the results being produced. Everything in your business needs to be tracked and monitored to allow for a clear set of system results.

Below you will find some guidelines for building an effective quantification system that will work efficiently and relatively easily:

• Strategic Thinking: As a leader, your main goal is to fulfill your strategic objective -- the vision you have for your business. You will want to track the things that are most critical to successfully realizing this vision, such as your people, production, customer satisfaction, administration and many more.
• Slow and steady wins the race: This may seem contradictory, but you don't want to overwhelm yourself or your employees with measurement and tracking. Having balance is important. So, you will want to integrate the quantification process into your organization slowly. Thinking about what information will best serve you now -- and what can be saved for tomorrow - will save both your sanity, and those of your employees.
• Be realistic: When you set off to measure something, make sure that what you see is truly reality. Too many mistakes are made when one quantifies something inaccurately.
• Make it simple: Design the quantification process to work simply, with as little hands on work as necessary. If it takes too much effort, no one will want to take part in it... especially you. So, design as simple a template and reporting process as possible, without losing valuable information. Try to design a balanced system that supports the information the company needs to make decisions, while minimizing the work that employees and managers have to do to get it.
• Make it Matter: You will want to quantify everything that is going to allow you to make effective strategic decisions that will grow and move the company towards your vision. But be wise in what you choose to track, so as to not lose sight of your end goal. Only you as the organization's leader can see the whole landscape, therefore it is up to you to decide what needs to be quantified, and how.

The end result of reflecting on what you achieved or tried to achieve in the past year will help you get perspective on where you need or want to go in the New Year. Clearly, implementing a strategy to get there will be greatly helped along by implementing an effective and objective quantification system.