Finding Your One Thing

What one metric could transform your business? In Continental Airlines' remarkable story, a new CEO took the company from ranking 20th in customer satisfaction to becoming a top performer by focusing exclusively on improving on-time departures. This powerful example demonstrates how finding the right measurement can completely change your business trajectory.

In this episode, Bill talks about how to incorporate four distinct types of metrics: leading indicators (activities that predict future results), lagging indicators (outcome measurements), people indicators (team performance metrics), and productivity measurements (typically output divided by input). When combined with effective reporting methods and strong accountability systems, these metrics create a powerful engine for business transformation. Just as with personal goals like weight loss, business improvement requires clear targets, consistent tracking, and someone to hold you accountable.

Ready to implement this in your business? Get a free copy of my book "The Coach Approach" at GiftFromBill.com or download our Scoreboard Optimizer tool by responding with "optimizer." If you're in the Western North Carolina area, consider joining our business community that meets monthly to work through these exact challenges. The right metrics, properly tracked and consistently addressed, truly can transform your business.

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me at https://billgilliland.actioncoach.com/

All the best!
Bill

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All the best!

Bill

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, there, there's a great story about a former CEO
of Continental Airlines, andContinental was ranking super
low in all the customersatisfaction rankings and they
were like 20th in the USairlines, and it just wasn't
acceptable.
So new CEO comes in and decideshey, what is something that we

(00:29):
can concentrate on, what is onething we can fix that will
completely change the game forus?
And what he came up with was weneed to start improving on-time
departures.
And so that was the numberon-time departures, and so that
was the number on-timedepartures.

(00:49):
And so everybody on the teamwas working to improve on-time
departures, and they were 20 fora while and gradually it began
to grow and I think they got itall the way to third or fourth
of all the American airlines.
And it was all because theyfound the one measurement to
focus on.

(01:10):
Now I've talked to a lot ofclients and I've asked them to
do a lot of homework, andusually I have to sit down and
work through this with them onhow to pick a proper metric, and
so I'm going to go over it withyou now.
I want you to know that all ofthis is in my book, the Coach
Approach, and if you want a freecopy of it.
All you got to do is go to GiveFrom Bill.

(01:30):
If you want to get a hardcovercopy of it, then you're going to
want to go to Amazon and justlook up the Coach Approach.
It'll pop up and you can justorder it from there.
It's a very short book, butthis chapter that we're talking
about is called the NumbersDon't Lie, and it's about
picking metrics that are goingto help you improve your
business.
So you're going to want to payattention.

(01:51):
This is often kind of a drysubject, but it's out there, so
I'm going to go over exactly howto do it.
And then we've got a thingcalled the Scoreboard Optimizer,
which we are happy to sharewith you.
We created a tool that you candownload or that you can request

(02:11):
, and we'll email it to you.
So let me tell you how you do it.
The first thing you do is youchoose a problem, something you
want to solve, something youwant to improve, an opportunity,
anything like that, that youwant to get better at.
The second thing is what isyour desired outcome?
So let me just give you anexample.
I'm going to use weight as anexample.

(02:31):
So what do you want to improve?
Well, an improvement in weightor fitness.
Let's say you want to lose 10pounds.
So the outcome you want iswhatever weight you want to get
to.
So if you're at 175 and youwant to be 165, then 165 would
be the outcome.
What are the actions you'regoing to have to take?
Well, the actions you want toget specific here.

(02:52):
But in general, to lose weight,you need to either eat less,
get more exercise or do both.
So you want to have specificplans for that.
But let's just say that'sbasically what you have.
So what's the current situation?
Well, if I'm trying to get to165 and I weigh 175, the current
situation is 175.

(03:12):
Then you want to come up withyour measurements, and so
there's four kinds ofmeasurements.
There's leading measurements,there's lagging measurements,
there's people measurements andthen there's productivity
measurements.
So leading measurements aresomething like an activity that
was going to lead to an outcome.
Lagging would be lagging.
So, for example, in this case,leading would be maybe how many

(03:34):
calories intake or how manyhours of walking I did, or
something along the lines.
That would be input.
Lagging is going to be theactual weight People indicators.
That's how you would measure aperson, you'd measure a team,
you'd measure maybe the wholecompany on certain people
indicators, and then you haveproductivity indicators, which
is generally an outcome over anincome.

(03:56):
So, more in-depth, if you'dlike some help around
understanding those or puttingthem into your business KPIs
from top to bottom, then you'regoing to want to reach out to us
.
We'll sit down, we'll have abit of a chat with you and we'll
talk about how we can help youdo that.
The next thing you want to do isfigure out how you're going to
report it.
So, is it going to be a chart?
Is it going to be a graph?
Is it going to be just numbersin an Excel spreadsheet?

(04:17):
Whatever Excel spreadsheet,whatever it is.
And then you got to set upaccountability.
So what is the accountabilityLike?
Who's going to hold youaccountable?
Well, if I were losing weight,I'd want a buddy or my wife or
somebody that I could have toreport this to.
Then what do I need to learn?
Well, I probably need to learnhow to eat better and need to do
certain workouts.
Whatever it is, I am going toneed to learn something to

(04:41):
improve this thing.
So that's how you do it.
It's all on the optimizer.
If you'd like a free copy ofthe optimizer.
Just put optimizer in thereturn email or in the chat,
depending on where you'rewatching this, and we'll be glad
to get you a free copy of theoptimizer and you can begin to

(05:01):
put numbers into your business.
Now.
This came home to us because weget our clients together every
Tuesday or every second Tuesdayof the month.
So, by the way, if you'reanywhere in the sort of Western
North Carolina area and within acouple hours of here and you'd
like to join us for a day, thenlet me know.

(05:22):
We'll be happy to invite you tocome in and check out our
community.
We get great work done.
We worked right through thisand helped all of them get at
least one metric for them towork on, so one thing for them
to improve and one metric tomeasure.
Generally we had four or fivemetrics, but that was how it all
worked out.
So if you'd like some more helpwith that, just reach out to us

(05:43):
.
Hey, and I hope you have afantastic week and until next
week, all the best.