What are the most important keys to success in your organization?
I was in a discussion with a few colleagues surrounding the hierarchy of key performance indicators and someone introduced the KPI’s of culture. In this Six Sigma, management by metrics era we live in – one does not think of the KPI’s of culture. But, as my statistics professor used to say, just because you do not interpret the statistics does not mean they do not have meaning (if a tree falls …).
So lets try on a few just to hear the tree fall. Average length of tenure. If the average length of tenure is high it could mean a high degree of loyalty [great!]. It could mean a low degree of experience [1 year 10 times versus 10 years – bad!]. It could very well mean corporate leadership and HR are doing a fantastic job on the retain portion of “attract and retain” great talent [good!]. Or, it could mean leadership is resistant to change, prune or improve [GE bottom 10% – bad!].
And how about average training hours per employee per year? If this number is low it could mean people are repeating the same efforts over and over and expecting different results. It could be an indication that some much needed outside training and experience could increase the overall competency of the department or organization.
There are a number of weird and interesting data points that could really provide objective non-biased insight into the true culture of the organization as opposed to the stated culture of the organization – number of internal emails versus number of external emails, number of BCC emails, percentage of clients who answer feedback questionnaires, etc. If you really want to look into the mirror, a quick analysis of numbers could provide the evidence-based answers you are looking for. But be careful, many a man has stared into the abyss and left wanting!