How creative is your definition of success?
/Nothing succeeds like a good definition of success.
Bringing your vision to life begins with a strong pool of ideas. In order to succeed, you need clear criteria to tell you what good enough looks like, when you’ve arrived at your goal, when you’re “done”.
Traditional definitions of business success are financial:
How will this initiative impact our bottom line, our revenue, our customer sat?
And how much should we invest to achieve that impact?
Is this the right time? Can we afford it?
That’s simple stuff—business 101 if you like. But if you stop here, you’re passing on the opportunity for greater gains. Gains that will enrich your organization, improve your chances of success this time around, and put you in a better place for the next push. And the one after that.
Here are a few examples …
Objective—confidence: all teams get stronger with victories. Lay a path of quick wins to your overall goals and you will bolster confidence. Bolder teams win more often.
Objective—understanding: Your plan won’t work—no plan ever does. Things change from day 1 as you learn more about the challenge at hand. Recognize what you don’t know, and plan to learn it at the earliest opportunity. Big risks should be addressed before you assume the answer.
Objective—completeness: Take care that your initiative does not simply move the problem elsewhere. If your nurses need more room to gather notes, for a solution that doesn’t halve your doctor’s productivity. Think of your business as a system and know that any change in one area will impact others. Make sure those impacts are not negative.
Once you’ve established a definition of success that builds confidence, removes risk, ensures completeness, or any number of other criteria, you can measure performance against those goals.
Look after the soft goals and the financial goals will take care of themselves.
Check out Trusting Technology if you want to go deeper on defining success—and achieving it.
Add your own creative criteria
Consider the examples below. What peripheral value can you add to your success criteria for operations AND upgrades?
Trusting Technology is a book about forming ideas, exploring opportunities with customers and colleagues, and building your future together. Order your copy here.