Sue:
Some of your comments really got the wheels in my head turning. In order
to better clarify the need for measurement, I first have to clarify why
improved performance measurement is nescessary. The service we need to
improve is the skills of our sales staff. We are in a somewhat
specialized area, where it is crucial that our people know their product
extremely well. It is also the trump card that we carry on our
competition, and that is that we focus on having great service from great
employees. We do have measurement systems in place, but faced with a weak
bottom line, something has to give.
AS we come to the financial year end, admittedly a tough year for us, as
we knew it would be with a great deal of competition in our field, we find
that our senior managment team is looking for bottom line results from our
training program. Unfortunatley this year we have experienced problems
with buying, a new information system and a poor consumer economy. A
strong arguement can be made that these, or a combination of, these areas
have caused our weak bottom line. The "feel" in the field is that our
people are better than they ever have been, but as you well know, feel
does not take you far.
The accountants, however, are the only ones holding tangible results in
their hands. I am ready to step up to argue the point, and I am confident
that we will go forward with our programs. I would like to continue
developing the program, this has been a great learning experience in
itself. I am in the process of developing those measurable goals at this
time.
I'm not sure that I really am looking for specifics for my particular
situation, although the feedback is most helpful. The reason I feel that
this is such an important topic for a group like this is quite simple.
How can you progress, if you don't know where you are. We need to see the
big picture and not the trees around us, or we will fail to learn and
evolve. Measuring performance and applying it to the the learning
organization is critical. It may be what allows us to learn in the first
place, the recognition of where we can go from where we are. Developing
the learning culture within the organization is one thing, seeing how
effective it is can be quite another.
Thanks for you feedback.
Chris Speyer
speyerc@cadvision.com
--Chris Speyer <speyerc@cadvision.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>