If this HBR IdeaCast with author of Fixing the Game, Roger Martin does not drive home the need for us to change our measures than what will? Martin, shares a powerful metaphor to illustrate how misguided our corporate performance measures have become. He brilliantly drives home just how normalized we have become to ignore such radically irrational behaviours. His NFL analogy is both clever and simple, I loved it!
This awareness presents us with a great opportunity to rethink our corporate key performance indicators. We need to start measuring what matters. What matters is the Shared Value we create and the consequences of the Customer Experience we create. We also need to change our emphasis of measure, while setting goals is essential, what matters most is not whether or not we fully meet our goals but rather our improvement factor. The example Martin provides with Google is tragic, how can we not celebrate and reward a growth of 27% for a $30 billion company with a 21% return on equity and 17% increase in earnings?
Bottom line, we need to rethink what we measure and how we measure it in context of what matters today, in terms of impact and sustainability.