A recent debate stirred up by a Wall Street Journal sports article got me to thinking about the importance of choosing measures to determine the impact performance is having on your organization.

To summarize the article from Aug. 13, "The Obvious MVP ... in 1991," for you, it argued that the New York Yankees' Curtis Granderson would be the favorite for the American League's Most Valuable Player (MVP) award if it were 1991 because he was tied for first in runs batted in (RBI), second in home runs, led the league in triples, and even had 22 stolen bases. However, over the last 20 years, the major statistics (measures) by which MVP voters gauge a baseball player's value have shifted, largely due to the Sabermetrics movement led by Bill James and Billy Beane.

I promised an update of some of Dr. Norton's materials from his presentation in Mexico back in July. One of the first topics he spoke about is the concept of "managing strategy." It doesn't sound very revolutionary, but most organizations go through a process of developing a strategy every 3 to 5 years and then putting that strategy on a shelf. They may look at the strategy annually and then go through the strategy refresh process again in 3-5 years. Best practice organizations, according to David Norton, spend time managing their strategy.

Army Strong

The Few. The Proud.

Aim High ... Fly-Fight-Win

A Global Force For Good

Always Ready

So the cover story of the Fall 2011 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review is called "The Missing Link in School Reform." At Ascendant, we help a lot of schools to improve performance, so the article caught my eye. In the article, author Carrie Leana introduces the concept of Social Capital. She says that it may be more important than Human Capital in improving schools.

DURHAM, North Carolina - August 8, 2011

After a significant effort to compile performance data supporting its Strategic Plan, Durham is now inviting members of the Durham community to see the latest information online.

Last week I took a class titled "Public Speaking Mastery," a two-day course designed to help people polish their public speaking skills. It was a great course for a consultant who has to speak in front of groups of people all the time and is always looking to hone his skills.

However, the performance measurement part of my brain asked, "How will I know if I actually learn anything from this course? How will I know if I improve over these days?" I wanted to know what the measure was for improved public speaking ability.

Have you ever thought of an employee as a raw material to making your business successful? If employees are one of the key ingredients to success, then having the highest quality of employee at all levels is critical to your business's success. This makes sense, right? So what do you do if your company requires many skilled laborers, but the community where you operate doesn't have enough qualified candidates? For companies in Southwest Alabama, you get involved in workforce development, and that is where SAWDC fits in.

Now that the lockout is officially over, the amount of conversations revolving around football has picked up significantly. Football is something that I enjoy very much and like talking about whenever I get the chance. As a consultant, I also enjoy conversations centered on strategic management and the excitement that comes with each client. Over the weekend, I was talking to a friend about my job and, as most conversations between two, twenty-four year old males do, the topic eventually turned to football. In some odd way, this got me thinking about the similarities between football and strategic management. I know, a weird comparison, but stick with me and I think you will see where these thoughts came from.

So, last weekend, I was restocking wardrobe essentials like t-shirts, socks, etc. As is the case with most guys, shopping is not one of my strong suits. I delay and delay until there is no choice but to retire those trusty but threadbare socks and replace them with a fresh pair.

While I was shopping, the gentleman working the counter struck up a conversation. He said he recently finished college and has been working at the store for almost a year now. I mentioned something about how tough jobs are to find and he said it seems to be getting better- if his sales numbers are any indicator of the overall economy. As a data cruncher, I had to ask how his numbers were tracked and the answer was pretty surprising...

Over the past weekend, I was able to spend some time with one of my younger brothers. As younger siblings will do, he began asking me random questions. Eventually, the conversation turned to my work as an associate consultant with Ascendant. He became intrigued by the Balanced Scorecard and continued to ask general questions about the framework. As the conversation moved into more detail, a majority of the questions centered on the specific words and phrases that I was using. In response to these questions, I have decided to define some of the basic vocabulary that I use on a daily basis.

Strategy Map : Communicates on one piece of paper the critical strategic objectives of an organization. It tells the story of your organization.

Buy-in : Yes, this term can refer to the minimum amount of chips required to enter a poker game, but in terms of strategic management, it is when members of an organization (management, staff, etc.) agree with, and embrace, the strategic changes within the organization.

Mission : An organization's unique reason for existence that reflects the values and priorities of the strategy.

Purpose Statement : Outlines the overarching goal that the strategy was designed to achieve, the means by which it will get there, and the scope of the operations.

Objectives : A key element of the strategy that outlines the behavior you want to see in your organization. They are critical success points in achieving the strategy for which measurable results can be obtained. Typically, they are written as an action statement in the verb + adjective + noun format.

Measures : Define the key areas of focus and help answer the question "how are we doing on achieving our strategy?" Each strategy has driver and outcome measures.

Driver Measure : These are input-oriented measures that should have an impact on the outcome measures.

Outcome Measure : These are results-oriented measures that can be difficult to have a direct impact on.

Targets : Goals that define the level of performance or rate of improvement needed.

Initiatives : Key projects or action programs that are required to achieve the strategic objectives. They state what must get done and when.

Perspectives : An organizing framework highlighting common management disciplines. There are four common perspectives, and each asks a different question:

• Customer : "To achieve our mission, how must we look to our customers?"
• Financial : "If we succeed, how will we look to our donors or taxpayers?"
• Internal : "To satisfy our customers and financial donors, which business processes must we excel at?"
• Learning and Growth : "To achieve our mission, how must our organization learn and improve?"

Themes : Illustrate the cause and effect relationships between the strategic objectives.

KPIs : (Key performance indicators) Measurements that are used to quantify objectives and reflect the critical success factors of an organization.

S.M.A.R.T. : This framework can be used to help in developing effective measures.

• Specific : Clearly and precisely state what will be measured
• Measurable : Every measure should be numeric and able to be graphed
• Actionable : The results are easy to interpret and you should understand the actions that will affect the measure
• Repeatable : You need to be able to consistently gather the information over time
• Timely : It needs to be measure at a reasonable frequency

The above list is not intended to be comprehensive, but it would have been helpful for my brother during our conversation, and anyone else looking to understand some of the basic terminology behind the Balanced Scorecard. Please feel free to comment and continue expanding the scope of this list.