How Are Sports and The Corporate World Related?

Ever since my son was 9 years old he diligently collected statistics on players in every major league sport: football players, baseball players, basketball players, and even players from Major League Soccer in the U.S.

By the time he was 11 he was accurately predicting who would be in the Final Four of the NCAA college basketball championships.

We’re crazy about our sports statistics, and can quote them as easily as English majors can quote Shakespeare.

But when it comes to measuring our own performance, and the performance of our companies, we wince. We see efforts to measure our own performance as excuses to criticize us, or if we”re company owners we think it’s too difficult and we’d prefer to rely on our instinct, hard work, passion and vision to take our companies to the next level.

As Dean Spitzer says in his book “Transforming Performance Measurement,”

Too much traditional performance measurement has been seen as “the reward for the few, punishment for the many, and a search for the guilty.”

Even though performance measurement is the single most motivational strategy in sports, Spitzer says that in the corporate environment it has a negative connotation.

His book sets out to change all that, and so does his upcoming webinar on June 29th, at 9am CDT.

Measurement as Motivation

In the introduction to his book, Spitzer asks business owners and managers some very pointed questions about performance measurement. Here are a few examples:

• Are you confident that the most important factors for the present and future success of the organization are being effectively measured?
• Do people in the organization proactively seek and welcome measurement based feedback?
• Is performance measurement information in the organization timely and easy to understand?
• Is there frequent interactivity and positive dialogues about performance measurement in staff and management meetings?

And much more…

To read all the questions buy the book…at the end of the introduction you get a chance to tally up your score to the 20 questions he asks and see how your company “measures up” on the Transformational Measurement Quotient.

And by the way, did you know that there are now no excuses for a company not to implement a performance measurement system? Read here to find out how Business Intelligence systems have come down in price and have become easier for small businesses to implement and use.

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