Today's managers are frequently overwhelmed by information. Flat organizations and ever cheaper information technology have resulted in a torrent of data. The challenge is not getting enough information, but sorting through it all to find the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack.
What if you could identify early warning signs by monitoring only a few key pieces of information? Rather than trying to measure everything - often just because it can be measured - focus on a few critical things that act as a red-flag for potential problems. For example, when visiting a factory for the first time I find it helpful to keep an eye on housekeeping, which is frequently a good early warning indicator for maintenance effectiveness.
As Dan and Chip Heath write, your source of data doesn't need to be high tech or numerical. Consider the rock band Van Halen. In its heyday, the band became notorious for a clause in its touring contract that demanded a bowl of M&Ms backstage, but with the brown ones removed. The story is true - confirmed by former lead singer Dave Lee Roth himself - and it became the perfect, appalling symbol of rock-star-diva behavior.
Get ready to reverse your perception. Van Halen did dozens of shows every year, and at each venue, the band would show up with nine 18-wheelers full of gear. Because of the technical complexity of staging a show, the band's standard contract with venues was thick and convoluted with many clauses. Van Halen buried a special clause in the middle of the contract. It read, "There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation." So when Roth would arrive at a new venue, he'd walk backstage and glance at the M&M bowl. If he saw a brown M&M, he'd demand a line check of the entire production. So Roth was no diva, he was an operations expert. He couldn't spend hours every night checking every detail. He needed a way to quickly assess whether the stagehands at each venue were paying attention - whether they had read each line of the contract and taken it seriously.
Ask yourself, what are the brown M&Ms in your business?
