Trends Beat Targets
Hitting and missing targets lack meaning in isolation
Over the past two weeks I had the privilege of attending Simon Sineks two part series talking about his latest work, The Infinite Game. The premise is that business is not a finite game like sport where there are set rules, players, playing time, and boundaries. Business is an infinite game where there is no start or finish line, there is no winner at the end, and almost everything is dynamic along the way. In an infinite game the aim of the people playing is to perpetuate and remain in the game. For us in our businesses, this means surviving. Remaining in the game to fight another day, hopefully stronger, wiser, and with more relevance as we go.
I left this event with over 20 pages of notes of fantastic insights. A few of us met afterwards to discuss our biggest takeaways, highlights, and how we could apply the learnings - something I encourage everyone to do after any project, learning experience, or interaction of significance. We even set up our own accountability for the things we want to commit to off the back of the events. But the one thing I had to share with you was from the question, what rewards systems work best in the infinite game?
Sinek's answer pointed to a few things I have synthesized:
Goals are required, but only work in context. We can continue to use KPI's and a suite of individual measures to analyse performance and to assist with accountability. But, they can undermine team play and trust if that is all we are looking at. They need to be viewed in context of the overall business goals, the market's needs, and the competitive environment. A mix of individual and team goals is always a good idea too.
Use Peer Review as a data point. When executed well, this can give insights into the mood of teams and can highlight any frictions or patterns occurring with a particular group of people or individual leader. Some cultural cues and qualitative gems can emerge also. But, they come with a warning as they do not give the full picture, and once again need to be placed in context as there are hundreds of variables that skew them for good or for bad.
Reward Trending Data. This was the main point Sinek drove to answering this question. When playing an Infinite Game it is trends that give the biggest value in analysis and recognition systems within businesses. Hitting this quarter's targets tells us little. Gaining a number one ranking for the year can be attributed to many internal and external factors out of one's control. But, trends tell us a lot more. Over the course of a year (or three) we can track the progress of initiatives, ways of working, focuses, and the decision making principals we have invested in from our strategic plans. If this is how we incentivise our people all the way down the chain, then the cultural thinking of an organisation is substantially stronger. Why? Because we are encouraging people to align with each other. We are walking the talk.
This resonated with me deeply. I see a lot of incentive schemes rewarding selfish, protectionist, and aggressive behaviour. And, then we have middle and senior leaders wondering why they are expending so much energy putting out fires almost all the time. By talking trends rather than targets we can motivate, connect, and engage our people for more sharing, collaboration, and inclusiveness. The politics, fear, and competition between employees can be replaced by progressive problem solving where everyone's efforts yield larger gains.
A visual guide to Simon Sinek's The Infinite Game by Dani Saveker
