The best measures of ideal performance are not what you think
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I run a lot. I enjoy running and I’ve been a runner almost all my life. My current goal is to get back to my high school weight and beat the 10K time I posted in middle school. Ultimately, I want to be healthy, happy, energetic and retain the privilege of my pilots license until well past my 80th birthday.
In many ways, improving your running is much like improving your business. The overall measure of success for running is race time. The overall measure of success for business is increased bottom line cash flow. But you can’t use those sole measurements on a day to day basis to drive performance.
Until this past year, I’d always measured my progress based on time markers. What is my pace in time at mile marker 1, 2, 3, etc. Am I faster today than I was the last time I ran? If not, I’m dogging it and I need to push harder.
But how do you account for all of the factors that affect a runner on any given day? In the Spring, you have various blooms of pollen which makes breathing and oxygenation difficult. Rainy days in the Spring are much easier as the pollen count in the air has been dramatically reduced. What about time of day? Early in the morning is when I have the most energy, but if it’s cold, I may wait until mid-afternoon when it is warmer. In mid-summer, the problem is running too late in the day when it is sweltering. Food habits, sleep habits, etc are all factors that need to be weighed against running your absolute best time.
So how do I measure that I’m doing my best? Heart rate. It doesn’t matter what any of the factors I outlined above are in play. For the exact moment in this run, if I’m maintaining a heart rate in the 150s (for me, yours may be different) I know I’m doing my best. If it’s in the 140s, I’m dogging it. If it’s in the 160s, I need to ease up a bit if I want to avoid killing myself prematurely. If I maintain 150s and my overall time is better or worse than the days before, I can reflect on time of day, pollen count, sleep, food, etc and determine where I can do better for the next run. I can also remain happy that I gave it my best when the air is full of pollen and I didn’t sleep well the night before because I ate a Big Mac and Fries the night before at 10pm. If I run every run in the 150s for the month, I guarantee my pace time will improve overall no matter what my day to day pace times were.
What are you measuring in your company? If you are only measuring dollars, then you are not getting to the heart of what makes your organization perform better. Beating last quarters or last years numbers are the big scoreboard numbers, but how do you know your organization is performing it’s best given current internal or external influences? Call me to set up a time to discuss.
© Mark Travis – All Rights Reserved http://www.travis-company.com
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