6 Chapter 2. Improving Performance In this lesson, you'll learn how to establish performance measures. You'll also learn about common mistakes associated with performance measures and how these measures promote continuous improvement. Measuring Performance The phrase "performance measure" is intuitively satisfying, yet frighteningly vague. Simultane- ously, you feel comforted by the thought of being able to measure results and distressed by the prospect of having to create the measure. The key to avoiding this conflict lies in understanding how measures are created. The natural tendency is to measure the end result. There are a couple of problems with this ap- proach: 1. 2. Not all results are measurable. Other useful measures are overlooked. Not All Results Are Measurable Let's assume your goal is to improve employee morale. That's tough to measure. Sure, you can survey your employees before and after an initiative, but there are a lot of factors that influence morale besides your effort. One of the most important is your employee's frame of mind on the days surveyed. Did the employee just fight with his spouse? How was traffic that morning? Are the kids ill? Did the car break down? Or did the employee wake up feeling that everything is right with the world? All these factors influence the employee's morale on the date surveyed. The presence of these external influences makes the value of the surveys suspect. Other Useful Measures Are Overlooked recent years we've seen a dramatic increase in the use of process mapping and activity-based costing to define performance measures. Both tools are designed to identify redundancies and in- efficiencies in systems and approaches. In Plain English Process mapping is a method used to examine the effectiveness of the current approach used in accomplishing a task. It's called process mapping because it provides a visual map of the various steps in a process. These steps are listed in the order performed, then ana- lyzed with an eye to increasing efficiency.