Doug Kreitzberg

Death by Dashboard

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Two years ago, I had all the operations in my business put together dashboards — metrics on many aspects of our business (from sales calls to retention) — that could help us understand what was working and not working before we saw the results in our P&Ls. Since then, the dashboards have been extremely helpful in focusing our attention and adding more energy and resources where needed.

But dashboards, as helpful as they might be, are no substitute for thinking broadly. Dashboards (or metrics, or formulas or whatever set of tools you have which measures your business) are constructed based on your business model, your knowledge of the model and your ability to gather data with respects to that model as it exists today. Dashboards do not discriminate between good or bad models; they simply describe it.

And what they describe are the hundreds of critical tasks that managers and employees need to pay attention to every day. These are the “Critical but not Important” tasks Stephen Covey writes about. You can’t ignore them. They need to be done. However, these tasks may not be the ones needed to deal with something unforeseen or to exploit the next new opportunity.

Most financial dashboards did not describe the financial collapse of 2008 because they were not built to describe it — it was not in their models. Likewise, many health insurance brokers are scrambling to define themselves in the new world of Health Care Reform; a world in which the old dashboards did not anticipate.

Clay Shirky writes in his blogpost “The Collapse of Complex Business Models”, that businesses begin to fail when they become too complex to deal with changing realities. I actually think it’s simpler than that. Businesses (or individuals) begin to fail when they misread the processes and metrics used to describe the success of their model for the world itself. They fail when they focus too much inward. If complexity is an issue, it’s an issue if it impedes the ability to communicate with (and receive communication from) the world outside the model. It doesn’t matter if you’re AT&T or the florist on the corner. If you’re not paying attention to how people are buying and how their buying activities are beginning to change, your business will suffer.

Don’t get me wrong. Dashboards are important; they are good at telling you whether a process is on track or not. But they can’t be confused — and they often are — as an accurate forecast tool to predict how your business overall will fare in the future. A dashboard is no substitute for strategy. Dashboards are linear, specific, measurable. The world is nonlinear, chaotic, and challenging to determine ahead of time which cause will lead to which effect.

The key is to do what is critical, but raise your eyes to look over the dashboard and really look around you. Leave time to play around with what the world tells you is important. And “play” is the operative word, because if you want to predict something which cannot be predicted, you’ll have to make up a lot of stuff (and test them out in your make-believe world) as you go along.

Three O’Clock Breeze

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I’ve spent this Memorial Day opening our place up in Montana.  It’s not a tough job and I get more than a few of hours of time enjoying the lake, learning how successful the resident loons have been in building and maintaining its nest, exploring the logging roads and being continually amazed by the views of the Swann and Mission mountain ranges in the distance.

Our place sits on the edge of a lake, tucked in a corner rarely used by water skiers and abutting a marsh from which we typically see cranes, osprey, blue heron, bald eagles and loons.  In the mornings, the lake is still, reflecting the sunrise against the tamarack and ponderosa that surround its shoreline.  However, each afternoon, typically around three pm, a breeze from the southeast picks up and surface of the lake is broken by unending waves.

My family has been coming to this lake for over sixty years. During that time, the 3 o’clock breeze has been a constant.  The nesting loons, bald eagles, osprey, blue heron and cranes have been a constant.  And it’s no small stretch to imagine that all have existed for far longer than we have been around.

In our world of increasing change, we are quick to ask, “what is the next new thing?”  We want to be on the leading edge of innovation, because, we feel, that is where success lies.  Heros are made by discovering new worlds and doing new deeds, not reliving past experiences.

I am not immune to these siren calls.  I, too, want to be able to see what’s around the corner and be there before the rest of the crowd arrives.   But, determining what innovation to pursue requires an ability to fine tune out static, to down play what’s sexy and the identify that which has the capacity to endure.  And, in order to do that, you need to have an innate sense of what remains permanent.  Because, when you come right down to it, change is nothing but a reaffirmation of certain unchanging rhythms, whether they reflect natural selection, the need for man to be a social animal, or, the desire of man to push himself beyond limits.

When you become aware of these rhythms, you then can be aware of what changes occurring around you are worth your attention.  You will also be in a better position to take advantage of that change.

I hope you have used this holiday to take a pause, to reconnect with your own 3 o’clock breezes, to be aware of the permanent so you can be in a better position to welcome the change ahead.

Stationary Movement

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I’m a big fan of Joseph Campbell. Campbell reviewed religions and mythologies around the world to identify the common stories we tell to better understand ourselves and our place in the cosmos.  One point that Campbell made regarding Buddhism has stuck with me for many years. It’s the concept that every moment of time contains eternity, which for me means that every second contains a rich multitude of possibilities during which anything can be accomplished.

Time is not something you have, because it’s an artificial construct.  Conversely, you can’t lose time, because you didn’t have it to begin with.  What you do have (if fact, the only thing you really have) is energy.  If you remember your high school physics, there is potential energy (energy which has been stored) and kinetic energy (energy which is released).  Life is about storing and releasing energy. Success is about releasing that energy in a positive direction. When I hear people say, “I don’t have enough time,”  what they are actually saying is “I don’t have enough energy.”  The energy they expend is unfocused and dissipated, and the energy they store is compromised and low-grade, clouded by beliefs and other mental baggage.

I don’t think anyone working today would say they aren’t working hard.  But even in today’s economy, there are some who are successful and there are some who are not. Some of those who are not successful are pedaling fast on a stationary bike.  They’re sweating and puffing and grimacing and they’re not going anywhere.  The results are flat, if not falling.  Their first response to how to change things is to pedal faster.  So they huff and puff even harder and end up right where they were.  Their next response to how to change things then becomes, “let’s hire more people.”  Unfortunately, what you usually end up with then is more people pedaling fast on more stationary bikes.  A lot of work.  A lot of people. Going nowhere.  Every so often the response becomes, “Let’s Reorganize!”  Let’s move the stationary bikes around and put the people back on them.  You know the result.

As individuals, many of us are also stuck to our own mental stationary bikes.  We feel squeezed out of ourselves, that time and chores have taken over our lives.  So we focus on time management so that we can get more accomplished on our stationary bikes.

Those who are successful have a focused energy, and energy built around two simple questions: “Where do I want to go?” and “Who do I want to be along the way?”  Their kinetic energy is solely expressed in trying to address those questions.  And their potential energy is created through a continual feedback loop of reflecting, acting, listening, reflecting….

If you want to grow, you need to get off your stationary, focus your energies around passions and the interaction you have with world around you.  You don’t have time.  You have energy.  Make the most of it.