【中英双语】你的KPI到底在衡量什么

没有一位首席执行官(CEO)会怀疑正确衡量公司业绩的重要性。然而，在过去25年多的时间里，我所帮助过的高管团队在应对这一挑战时普遍都很吃力。正如一位CEO对我所说：“当我们说到公司的关键业绩指标(KPIs)时，他们就变得目光呆滞。”或者，又如另一位CEO所说：“他们[经理们]开始寻找逃离的方式。”

No CEO doubts the importance of measuring their company’s performance properly. Yet the executive teams I’ve assisted over more than 25 years generally struggle to engage with the challenge. As one CEO put it to me, “when we get to corporate KPIs their eyes glaze over.” Or, as another said “they [the managers] start looking for the exits.”

当你审视这些KPI通常是什么东西时，你就能够明白为何这么多经理人对这事不感兴趣。捣弄数字的人接管了工作，而且可以用电子表格以及财务结果和产出指标的精确细目让运营经理不知所措。很快，经理们就会感觉他们是在被要求跳过他们并不真正理解的难关——而且他们也不是特别想跳。

When you look at what these KPIs so often are, you can understand why so many managers switch off. The number crunchers take over, and can overwhelm operating managers with spreadsheets and precise breakdowns of financial results and output measures. Pretty soon managers feel like they’re being asked to jump through hoops they don’t really understand — and don’t particularly want to.

为阻止这种事情发生，CEO们需要提醒他们的团队注意几个关于KPI的重要事实。

To stop this happening, CEOs need to remind their teams of a few important truths about KPIs.

KPI涉及关系

KPIs are about relationships.

经理们，尤其是大企业的经理们，花费了大量时间和金钱来评估员工的满意度。人力资源各部门致力于开展员工满意度调查，并确保经理们经常性地对他们的直接下属加以核验。在某种程度上，这种做法不错。可是当我问高管团队企业从中有何收获时，我收获的却是茫然的眼神。

Managers, especially those in large organizations, spend an inordinate amount of time and money measuring the satisfaction levels of their staff. Sections of HR are dedicated to running employee satisfaction surveys and making sure managers conduct frequent check-ins with their direct reports. That’s fine up to a point. But when I ask senior executive teams what the organization is getting out of this, I receive blank stares.

KPI需要反映这样一个事实：价值创造是一条双行道，交易双方都需要从中获益。想想看，你为何希望员工敬业？因为你需要从他们身上得到些东西。弄清关键利益相关者使用了什么决策标准（战略因素）来支持你的实体，以及你希望从他们身上获得什么回报，这一点至关重要。对员工而言，这条双行道是通过企业如何满足员工需求来界定的，这要通过上述一类的工具进行跟踪，并跟踪员工作为一个团体的生产力和创新。多数企业未能围绕这两方面制定指标。

KPIs need to reflect the fact that value creation is a two-way street, and that both sides of the transaction need to get something out of it. Think about it. Why do you want employees to be engaged? Because you need something from them. It’s critical to understand the decision-making criteria (strategic factors) that key stakeholders use to support your entity and what you want from them in return. The two-way street for employees is defined by how well the company delivers on the things that employees want, tracked by tools such as those above, and by tracking the productivity and innovation of employees as a group. Most organizations fail to develop measures around both sides.

你在销售中也能看到同样的问题，人们主要关注的是公司从交易中得到了什么，而不是关注他们给客户带来了什么。一家社区银行的CEO（也是一位客户）格蕾丝(Grace)这样说：“几年前，我们的高管团队讨论的重点是销售额和利润率以及这些数字的细目。可是……一旦我们向利益相关者敞开心扉，我们的月度绩效评估就有了不同视角。我们现在依据销售驱动力来讨论KPI，比如客户服务得分以及由Canstar等机构制定的产品排名。”

You see the same problems with sales, where the focus is largely on what companies get out of the deal rather than on what they’re giving to customers. Grace, the CEO of a community bank (and a client) put it this way: “Years ago, our executive team discussion would focus on sales and margin and a breakdown of those numbers. But…once we opened our minds to stakeholders, our monthly performance reviews took on a different perspective. We now discuss KPIs on the drivers of sales, such as customer service scores and product rankings conducted by organizations such as Canstar.”

格蕾丝承认，数字革命已经让这事容易了许多：“你所处的社会在了解自己想要什么方面成熟优雅多了。因为有了技术（我把社交媒体包括在其中），你表现如何就有了更大透明度。”

Grace acknowledges that the digital revolution has made this a lot easier: “You have a society which is much more sophisticated and elegant in knowing what it wants. With technology, and I include social media in this, there’s a greater degree of transparency about how you’re performing.”

考虑因果关系

Consider causality.

对多数经理来说，一套业绩指标看上去不过像一张数字表格而已。由于它们似乎是并存的，因此经理们很少质疑每一项指标如何随时间的推移而影响其他指标。不过，领先指标应该可以预测未来。如果你的企业现在与员工的关系处理得好，那将在其他利益相关者（如明天的客户）身上产生成效。如果你的企业明天与客户相处得很好，那么股东的业绩将在后天得到改善。

To most managers, a set of performance measures just looks like a table of numbers. Since they appear to be concurrent, managers rarely question the way each measure impacts the others over time. But leading indicators should predict the future. If your organization does well with employees now, that drives results for other stakeholders such as customers tomorrow. If your organization does well with customers tomorrow, then shareholder outcomes will be improved the day after.

一旦经理们明白了这就是KPI应该做的事情，他们就会开始问自己一些关系业务如何运作的有趣问题。我的一个客户是一个合作社，它从农民会员那里收集鳄梨并进行分级，之后再分发到零售店。总经理布莱恩(Brian)和他的管理团队制定了他们业务的KPI。

Once managers get that this is what KPIs are supposed to do, they start asking themselves some really interesting questions about how their business works.   One of my clients is a cooperative which collects and grades avocados from member farmers for distribution to retail stores. Brian, the Managing Director, and his management team mapped their business KPIs.

他表示：“制定我们的KPI让我们看到了分级过程对我们有多么重要。店面里的分级[分为优质、一级、二级或次品]的准确性会影响到种植者的报酬，报酬因水果等级而异。它还与我们的客户、主要连锁超市质量可靠的声誉有关。这些结果反过来又会影响到我们企业的销量和利润。”

He said, “Mapping our KPIs opened our eyes to how critical the grading process is to us. The accuracy of the grading [into premium, first, second or reject grade] on the shop floor impacts grower payments, which varies according to the grade of fruit. It’s also linked to the reputation of our customers, the major supermarket chains, for reliable quality. These results, in turn, impact our business’ sales and profitability.”

数字永远不是全部

The numbers are never the whole story.

KPI只是对事物的部分衡量。任何一套指标都是不完整的。“指标”一词就说明了这一点。

Key performance indicators are only partial measures of something. Any set is incomplete. The word “indicator” gives that away.

十多年前，我帮助一个非营利协会开发了一个KPI记分卡。该组织为自闭症儿童开办学校，并为这些孩子的家庭提供支持。其CEO最近向我表示，只有在连续使用和复审的情况下，该组织的记分卡才有意义。“每年，”他说，“随着环境的改变，我们都会对我们的记分卡进行微调，使其变得更好。”与客户结果相关性“弱”的指标——它们已经被放弃——包括媒体对该组织的报道数量、该组织目前开展的研究项目数量以及资本投资。这些已经被企业赞助和志愿者筹款等指标所取代。该组织还试图保持KPI数量的可控制性，并将其清单从16个缩减为12个。

Over a decade ago I helped a not-for-profit association develop a KPI scorecard. The organization operates schools for children with autism and supports the families of those children. The CEO recently informed me that it is only with continued use and review that the organization’s scorecard remains relevant. “Each year,” he says, “as circumstances change, we tweak our scorecard to make it just that bit better.” Measures found to have a “weak” correlation with client outcomes — and which have been dropped — include the number of media stories about the organization, the number of current research projects undertaken by the organization, and capital investments. These have been replaced by measures such as corporate sponsorship and fundraising by volunteers. The organization also tries to keep the number of KPIs manageable and has shrunk the list from 16 to 12.

当你的企业、部门或科室周边的情况发生变化时，请准备好改变你的绩效衡量标准。这是设定与重置，而非设定与遗忘。正如银行CEO格蕾丝所言，你的企业运营环境动态一直在随着数字创新、社交媒体和疫情的出现而变化。现在是时候重新思考如何制定你的业绩指标了。请将业绩看作是一条双行道，观察指标之间的联系以及一个指标对另一个指标的影响。最重要的是，要做好准备适应不断变化的环境。

As the conditions around your organization, department, or section alter, be prepared to morph your performance measures. It’s set and reset, not set and forget. As bank CEO Grace observed, the dynamics of your business operating environment are changing all the time in response to digital innovation, social media, and the emergence of Covid-19. It’s time to rethink how you develop your performance measures. Look at performance as a two-way street and watch for the linkages between indicators and the impact of one upon another. And most importantly, be ready to adapt to changing circumstances.

格雷厄姆·肯尼(Graham Kenny) | 文

格雷厄姆·肯尼作为Strategic Factors的CEO是公认的战略与业绩评估专家，他帮助经理人、高管和董事会在私有、公共及非营利部门创建成功企业。

刘隽 | 编辑