High Performing Teams Balance 3 Es

 

Struggling with Low Performing Teams? Unit costs going up? Experiencing low employee engagement scores? Seeing an increase in turnover or burnout?

It's easy to chase a single metric, especially when we live in a world where the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Ironically our instinct to "laser focus on solving the problem" which is often what causes additional problems, and wastes the investment made on improvement.

Savy leaders measure, balance and invest in all three E's of their teams' performance.

💡 Effectiveness - A team's ability to regularly achieve their assigned outcomes (be it business or customer outcomes); often measured by ROI, NPS, Revenue/Profit growth, etc.

💡 Efficiency - A team’s use of their available resources, and their ability to continuously improve their ability create value; often measured by throughput, cycle time, defect rate, or a cost-per metric of some kind.

💡 Engagement - A team's psychological safety, alignment and sense of belonging and empowerment; often measured by a team health score, employee NPS, turnover rates, etc.

Focusing efforts to improve any single "E" often has the unintended result of degrading one or both of the other "Es." It's important to measure and balance all three.

What to do?

✔️ Ask - Request a balanced view of all three Es. (Including measures of Effectiveness, Efficiency and Engagement)

✔️ Assign - Challenge the team to develop recommendations on how to improve their three Es.

✔️ Allocate- Invest resources into conducting these experiments. Be sure that the team is regularly monitoring not only the results of their efforts on the primary measure, but also measures for the other two Es.

✔️ Assess - Monitor how the experiments are impacting all three Es, and continually reinforce the importance of a balanced approach.

✔️ Again - Create an expectation that reviewing and continuously improving all three Es is a critical part of any team's delivery cycle.

Quit chasing single metric improvements and encourage a culture that measures and improves all three Es and your teams will thrive.

❔ Will you commit to looking at your team metrics more holistically?