How to drive goal alignment all the way through the front lines

In this week’s issue, I’ll share a simple way to think about aligning operating KPIs that will help improve the outcomes most operating leaders want to drive.

Working in operations for two decades, I have seen times where alignment was missing and we fell short of our ambition but I have also seen times where for example on a freight-related cost, I saw a ~30% improvement in an outcome by developing and focusing on the right leading KPI for that metric and getting alignment with our front-line teams.

As you go into the following year, you’ll have a chance to reflect and hopefully confirm your existing leading KPIs are sufficient or take the opportunity to revisit them

The challenge sometimes is we spend too much time on the outcome but not on the activity required to achieve it.

What lever will you pull (and where) to achieve the outcome?

The key is working through 1 simple but not easy question.

What actions drive the outcome you want at each level between you and your front-line teams?

Simply it is understanding what task needs to be done and monitored to support the outcome at each level in your team.

It varies for different teams as shown below but the image is an example of what a manufacturing business may consider

Looking at this example for a manufacturing business closer, here’s what aligning would look like from the leadership team all the way to the front-line team member:

• At the highest level, the chief financial officer may pay attention to Labor costs as a percentage of revenue.

• At the next level down from the CFO, the operations manager will be looking at the labor cost per worked hour.

• At the next level down from the Operations Manager, the supervisor will be looking at the units completed per hour

• At the next level down the team lead will be focused on the units per individual

The point here is to take the time to get clarity on the KPIs at each level so that you have alignment and your outcome ultimately gets achieved.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week!

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