How to Know It Worked

Abstract

Every organisation that takes the ring seriously meets the same afternoon. The first honest number comes in, and it is worse than the one in last year's report. The energy use that the sustainability page described as falling turns out to have fallen per pound of revenue and risen in kilowatt-hours. The share of suppliers paid on time, which nobody had counted, turns out to be under half. The staff survey that reported high engagement turns out to have been answered by a third of the staff, mostly the happiest third. That afternoon decides whether the work continues. A team that reads the first honest number as a failure will, within a quarter, find a way to make the number look better without changing what it measures. A team that reads it as the first accurate picture it has ever had will keep going. This chapter is about the difference: what to count, in which units, and how to read the result honestly when it disappoints. It is the chapter most books on this subject leave out, and it is the one a leader most needs.