Pilots don’t use Profit & Loss statements to fly airplanes.  Airlines provide pilots with gauges, checklists and co-pilots to help them make the right decisions.  Organizations, like airliners, are complex and to navigate them to profitable destinations executives need the right gauges.  With the right gauges in place and available to everyone change can happen quickly and will be lasting.  As Peter Drucker said, “What gets measured gets improved.”

Imagine to the right of your laptop on your desk is a small dashboard like one from a classic car but without the steering wheel.  The set of gauges facing you are specifically designed for your organization, its vision, mission, strategies and tactics.  The gauges are updated in real time as actions are taking place by your staff in your organization.  What’s truly critical to the success of your organization is right there ever-present on your desk and from now on nothing escapes your eye. 

These gauges were carefully tailored for you and your organization.  These are the right gauges guaranteed to deliver the success you’ve been aiming for.  Because of this expert gauge tailoring you and your staff are now very clear about what needs to be done.  If the needle on just one gauge falls below target, even for a few seconds, everyone instantly knows about it and everyone knows that if something isn’t done ASAP they can expect a call from you asking what their recovery action is and when the gauge will be back to normal.  You know when the problem has been addressed correctly because out of the corner of your eye you can see the gauge has recovered. 

Now that you’ve had the gauges in place for a bit you discover that operations all over your company are running smoother than ever before.  You’re not engaged in as much firefighting as in the past.  People are taking responsibility like never before and things are just happening.  There are still meetings to resolve the really tough challenges but even those meetings run better because there’s a really clear focus on what needs to happen to get the gauge back to where it needs to be.  The old posturing, dodging, finger-pointing and not following up is gone.  Things just get done and improvements happen almost like clockwork.

You start to notice that your time is more your own than ever before.  You’ve started to think about what your business needs to look like in the future.  Markets and technology are always changing and now you have the time to keep up.  You’ve been able to set up a few real world experiments inside your company to test yourselves and the markets to see where you’ll be able to be successful in the future.   You’re starting to see what kind of company you need to build to succeed in the future and you have the time to start building it today.  

And to think that it all started with making a commitment to building the right gauges to pilot your organization to a successful destination.  Make that commitment today.