How do you foster a culture of learning and innovation from your KPI results and feedback?

Good KPIs are SMART Great KPIs are SMART and typically 1-2 degrees away from bottom-line impact. Often teams create KPIs which are way too abstracted from the core company goals, this can lead to a divergence between vision and outcomes especially when you go deeper into the organization

Defining the KPIs is good, aligning them across the organisation is excellent, but you have to integrate the KPIs into the organisational fabric and incorporate them into your organisation's vocabulary. It's important to constructively discuss their tangible impact regularly.

🎯 KPI Culture: Start with Alignment 1️⃣ Define & Align: Vision 👁️ Mission 🚀 Values 💡 2️⃣ Reflect Organizational Priorities: 📈 Most important goals 🔗 Connect with objectives 3️⃣ Create SMART KPIs: 🎯 Specific 📏 Measurable 🏆 Achievable 🌟 Relevant ⏰ Time-bound 4️⃣ KPI-Strategy Integration: 🔄 Ensure alignment 🌐 Unify team direction 👥 Clarify roles & contributions 🔑 Key: Align KPIs with strategy, boost efficiency & success 🏁

Innovation and KPIs are a recipe for disaster! If you expect innovation to hit predefined metrics, then you are NOT innovating; you are evolving. Innovation needs the space to be messy. Vayner Bush was right in the phase separation of innovation and core business. This enables the innovation efforts to have separate measures from the core business operations. They require a different mindset and culture than the ones that favor incremental improvements or adaptations.

KPI’s are often the “measurable” component of SMART objectives. One of the best objectives and KPI’s I have seen and used is sales as percentage of portfolio lifecycle. This way an organisation focussed on innovating its offer can actually measure its success. For clarity this not an individual or team’s KPI as responsibility crosses departments but rather a business metric

🗣️ Communicate & Visualize KPIs: Engage & Empower 1️⃣ Display KPIs: 📊 Dashboards 📄 Reports 🎙️ Presentations 2️⃣ Make it Engaging: 📖 Stories 😄 Anecdotes 🎯 Examples 3️⃣ Foster Awareness & Transparency: 🔎 Clear visuals 🌟 Increased understanding 4️⃣ Accountability & Feedback: ✅ Ownership 🔄 Continuous improvement 5️⃣ Encourage Collaboration & Learning: 💡 Share insights 🌱 Growth mindset 🔑 Key: Visualize & communicate KPIs to boost awareness, accountability, and collaboration 🤝

I saw alignment of KPIs (the previous step) as encompassing the communication and visualisation. In larger organisations (with hundreds or thousands of people), there may be a small team accountable for overall strategy that is implemented, but this small team cannot be responsible. Hence, unless your corporate culture is that of top-down, no-nonsense, no-disagreement allowed, those responsible for strategy implementation must be aligned first.

From my experience, dashboards, reports, and presentations are great for information. In order the the KPIs to matter to the folk doing the work, they need to see how their contribution impacts the business KPIs. This should be modeled by supervisors, managers, and up the chain, and reinforced with through coaching, training, and incentives that reinforce the importance of meeting the KPI requirements.

🔍 Review & Analyze KPIs: Data-Driven Decisions 1️⃣ Regular & Systematic: 📆 Consistent intervals 2️⃣ Data Analysis Tools: 📊 Excel 💡 Power BI 📈 Google Analytics 3️⃣ Track & Compare: ⏳ Time 🧩 Segments 📐 Dimensions 4️⃣ Qualitative Methods: 📝 Surveys 🗣️ Interviews 💬 Focus groups 5️⃣ Identify & Understand: 📉 Trends 🔁 Patterns 🕳️ Gaps 🔑 Key: Regular KPI analysis fosters data-driven decisions and uncovers performance drivers 📈

Reviews of plans is a must. There is a Chinese saying, that your plans can never catch up to changes. Yet, plan anyway. Planning is the process of identifying what’s important, what are the assumptions, and the review keeps the assumptions grounded in reality.

🎉 Celebrate & Reward KPI Success: Motivate & Reinforce 1️⃣ Acknowledge Achievements: 👏 Recognition 🎁 Appreciation 🏆 Incentives 2️⃣ Share & Showcase: 🎈 Celebrations 📅 Events 🎓 Ceremonies 3️⃣ Positive Culture: 🌞 Supportive environment 🌟 Excellence & innovation 🔑 Key: Celebrate & reward KPI success to foster motivation and reinforce a positive, high-performance culture 🚀

Keep feedback often. Even if KPIs are not met, but there is progress - reward and recognise. If there are good criticism from the ground that brings new insights to the assumptions and goals - reward and recognise, even if it means initial plans have to be revised. This is critical - better to know something doesn’t work early then to wait till a big failure and end up having to justify why something failed (not a nice process). Explaining why the risks were greater than initially expected, within a culture that allows discovery, will need to be the way forward in our VUCA environment. No one “knows it all”.

Missed KPIs aren't failures; they're opportunities for critical introspection. Ask 'why' before 'what's next.' 🔄 Use Feedback Loops: Make feedback an ongoing dialogue, not a monologue. Invite your team into the analytical journey to collectively find solutions. 🚀 Low-Risk Experiments: Pilot new ideas aimed at specific KPI challenges. It minimizes risk while maximizing creative freedom. 🌟 Mentor to Fill Gaps: Address KPI pain-points through targeted coaching. Offer actionable roadmaps, not just theoretical advice. Unmet KPIs can be catalysts for change if we pivot our approach. So, are your KPIs stop signs or stepping stones? 🤔

KPIs can be improved with a focus for strategic and operational improvement, creating an analytical basis for decision making and help focus attention on what matters most. It targets all the three aspects of Strategic, functional and operational areas. Of course with an eye on the elimination of waste. Using the correct toolkit and implementation through the IOT processes.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are modified primarily due to realignment with strategic objectives which defines the overarching business goals. This typically entails process recalibration to develop desired indicators to be measured and standards to be applied. Current state data analysis is a good starting point.

In my experience, KPI improvement can be enhanced by using the lean management tools such as value stream mapping (VSM). Also, solving problems with the help of ‘Go and See’ at the shop floor and using 5Whys technique to understand root cause. Both VSMs and 5 Why’s tool bring significant learning to the workforce to revisit the KPI.

Never forget that there’s no perfect measure for success. Value the relationships that were built in the process of formulating, tracking, and celebrating the journey of KPIs.

🌟 Bonus Insights: Enriching KPI Culture 1️⃣ Employee Involvement: 👥 Co-create KPIs 🗳️ Encourage feedback 2️⃣ Continuous Improvement: 🔁 Adjust KPIs as needed 🎯 Stay aligned with strategy 3️⃣ Cross-functional Collaboration: 🤝 Break silos 🔄 Share knowledge & resources 4️⃣ Technology & Tools: 🛠️ Utilize software to track KPIs 🌐 Centralize data access 5️⃣ Leadership Commitment: 🏅 Set the example 📣 Champion KPI culture 🔑 Key: Foster a holistic approach to KPI culture, valuing involvement, adaptability, collaboration, and leadership 🌱

Spend some time reading the internal intranet. Do you notice that all the news posts were when things went right, everything is rainbows and butterflies. We don't learn from our successes - we learn from our failures, then why are the failures never shared? It is radical, but if we want our teams to believe that the firm is genuinely a learning organization, then we need to start sharing the real struggles of projects and efforts. Be authentic, and you will be surprised by how engaged people are.