Customer Reviews

Make Success Measurable!: A Mindbook-Workbook for Setting Goals and Taking Action

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You can rarely pick up a job description in the public or private sector that does not include a statement seeking "demonstrated experience and success working with the principles of quality management and a commitment to customer service." One of the cornerstones to quality management is the ability to focus on outcomes instead of activities.

Make Success Measurable is filled with practical techniques. Even more, it is a workbook, providing opportunities to apply new concepts to real work. Whether you want to be able to create more focus within your own work unit, be able to demonstrate tangible results to your manager, prioritize your own work by aligning your day to day activities with the most important initiatives, or coach customers who are seeking your expertise in developing performance measures, this book can help.

As a result of reading this book and trying the exercises, you should be able to:

1) Convert new visions, strategies, and directions into achievable outcome-based goals that can better yourself and others in your organization.

2) Set goals that are specific, measurable, aggressive, achievable, relevant, and time bound. (SMART Goals)

3) Set goals that matter to those expecting a return on their funding dollars.

4) Set goals that matter to you personally in terms of opportunities, rewards, and skills.

5) Choose from a variety of management disciplines to achieve your goals.

6) Set goals that matter to customers who want speed, quality, and prompt service.

"I believe you will benefit from this book because the challenge of setting and achieving performance goals has become very confusing". Douglas K. Smith writes, "It has been more than 30 years since Peter Drucker wrote about the importance of managing for results. His work led to the widespread practice of management by objective. But an awful lot has happened in the past 30 years. The world of business and organizations has changed dramatically, turning many of Drucker's specifics (though not his wisdom) upside down. In the aftermath of total quality, customer service, time-based competition, strategic alliances, globalization, reengineering, core competencies, continuous improvement, innovation, teams, horizontal organization, benchmarking, best place to work, information technology, diversity, environmentalism, deregulation and reregulation, eCommerce, and privatization, those of us left standing in today's organizations are unsure about what performance goals and outcomes make the most difference and why. We know that setting performance goals is key to managing ourselves and others, but we no longer know how".

Douglas K. Smith organizes his book in four parts. In the first part (Chapters 1-4), he provides the background, concepts, tools, techniques, and frameworks you need to set specific outcome-based goals that matter to successfully navigate today's most pressing performance challenges. In the second part (Chapters 5-7), he focuses on helping you align and coordinate goals throughout your organization. In the third part (Chapters 8-10), he describes the management disciplines you need to achieve your goals and how to make choices among them. In the fourth part (Chapter 11), he concludes the book with a step-by-step design for building an outcomes management system in your organization.

In this context, in Chapter 10, he reviews the management disciplines you must understand in order to succeed in the face of change, and introduces the critical distinction between decision-diven change and behavior-driven change, and describes how to manage each successfully. Hence, he argues that most change efforts fall far short of their potential. Usually that's because leaders fail to address the deep behavioral changes they are seeking. And thus, he lists the following ten management principles as the heart of any successful change effort:

1. Keep performance results the primary objective of behavior and skill change.

2. Continually increase the number of individuals taking responsibility for their own change.

3. Make sure that each person always knows why his or her performance and change matters to the purpose and results of the whole organization.

4. Put people in a position to learn by doing and provide them with the information and support they need just in time to perform.

5. Embrace improvisation as the best path to both performance and change.

6. Use team performance to drive change whenever demanded.

7. Concentrate organizational designs on the work that people do, not on the decision-making authority they have.

8. Create and focus energy and meaningful language because these are the scarcest resources during periods of change.

9. Stimulate and sustain behavior-driven change by harmonizing initiatives throughout the organization.

10. Practice leadership based on the courage to live the change you wish to bring about.

Finally, he argues that if you expect others to change their behavior, you have to change yours. It's as simple and as hard as that.

I strongly recommend.

Make Success Measurable tells you how to set business goals that matter for shareholders, customers, and employees. That is good advice, and it is backed up by "workbook" exercises that help you focus on what is really important. The "mindbook-workbook" format makes room for exercises that you can work on with your colleagues at the office. I found that the "mindbook" portion held my interest as an individual reader. I started getting REALLY interested about halfway through the book when Smith introduced the concept of "working arenas" - the different groupings of people (sometimes in multiple companies) that are necessary to achieve these goals. Smith explains that you need to shape your goals and methods to fit the appropriate working arena, rather than a pre-set corporate structure. If you work in a complex organization, you should read this book and apply its lessons.

I would compare Make Success Measurable very favorably to the Kaplan and Norton book on The Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard tends to be vague and anecdotal on the subject of how to set measurable goals, and it is hard to finish. In contrast, Smith packs his book with original analysis and specific recommendations on topics like "Vertical versus Horizontal Management Disciplines" and "Injecting Creative and Personal Tension into Goals". The Balanced Scorecard presents a four way cause and effect chain from employees through process improvements, customers, and shareholders. Make Success Measurable presents a three way performance cycle as including employees who provide value to customers who provide rewards to shareholders...who provide rewards to employees and so on. The "process" piece doesn't appear in Smith's analysis, because focusing on process measures doesn't necessarily help anyone. In fact, it is a trap that can lead to meaningless work. Smith encourages us to focus on "outcomes" - measures that matter directly to employees, customers, and shareholders. This brings us quickly to reality and hopefully to consensus with our colleagues. Get real. Get this book.

This is one of those rare books that makes it points clearly and then guides your through exercises that reinforce its key messages.

I found the book incredibly helpful in preparing realistic plans that set you up for success. I have used it extensively to help me design major projects and I am well on my way toward measurable success on those goals.

Make Success Measurable! is definitely becoming the Bible at work. Very well written, and Smith's ideas are well-supported. We've received positive feedback from clients, and we've expanded our client base because of this good word-of-mouth. I strongly recommend Make Success Measurable! It's as good as Guerilla PR: Wired, which focuses on techniques to getting solid public relations coverage, especially nowadays.

Doug Smith has written an excellent book on how to move from activities based planning and have more success through outcome based planning. He starts by sharing how to make your Outcome Goals SMARTer: Specific; Measurable; Aggressive yet Achievable; Relevant and Timebound. "Clear and compellig performance outcomes are the driving force behind teams, not the desire to be a team. Teams that understand the difference between outcomes and activities are teams that are well positioned to learn the discipline needed to perform" (Page 5, Make Success Measurable).
I give this book to all my transformational coaching clients as one of the cornerstones for intentional change. Doug Smith shares many additional tools that users can use to better anticipate the obstacles to success and sharing early wins.
I keep several copies on my bookshelf.
John "Pepper" Bullock
'Helping Leaders Navigate Change'
[...].

Make success measurable is one of the first books I bought when I was promoted to manage people. Performance management is an integral part of people management. But, how do you measure performance and hence success? This book is an awesome guide on how to measure success - regardless the field you're concerned about. A must read to help you understand what you're trying to measure, general guidelines for measuring - basically a holistic approach for measurement.

This book is packed with useful information and has the bonus of being very practical. The book is well written, an easy read, and is organized well. I highly recommend it. It is full of exercises and tips that will help you articulate your goals as SMART goals. I really like that the exercises have examples. In the back of the book is a handy chart that is a good quick reference - eg if you are struggling with activity based goals you can look at the table and it will direct you to the chapter in the book that covers that area and the exercises, tools and techniques to use. I found the book so valuable I did not want to let it go to lend it out and ordered copies for the directors in my dept.