setting unconventional success criteria
In one of my favorite movies, the Shawshank Redemption, wrongly convicted Andy Dufresne perfectly executes his plan to bust out of prison, withdraw the crooked warden's money, have justice served, and live the rest of his life as a free man in Mexico. Andy was methodical, and undoubtedly he had defined his success criteria for the entire plan. Years later, his best friend, Red, gets paroled from prison, follows Andy's cryptic instructions, and joins his friend in Zawatenayo, Mexico. When Red shows up on the beach in Mexico, I imagine Andy checked off the last box in his plan.
Another one of my favorite movies, The Saint, shows Simon Templar, one of the most wanted thieves in the world, setting out to end his criminal ways once he reaches 50 million dollars in his Swiss bank account.
If fictional characters have success criteria, it's safe to say we all do, even if we dont call them that. Some are formal, others not so formal. Some are public, and some are private. Some are at work, and others are at home. Setting goals at work or home will help keep us focused on what's important. Two of mine this year couldn't be more different: (1) improving my employee experiences scores by 5% over last year and (2) Being present at a minimum of ¾ of my kid's volleyball games.
I'm in the healthcare business, in Information Technology. We have a lot of published success criteria. In healthcare, we commonly track length of stay, Quality of Care, and treatment costs, to name a few. In IT, we commonly track service levels, downtime, and our net performer score. My team dashboard contains goals and success criteria for all to see, but I also measure other items that nobody reviews but me. It is success metrics that matter to me; here are three of them:
Number of unread emails in my inbox at the end of the week
The number of team members I connected with or attempted to connect with during the week.
Percentage of team members who have been promoted during the year
The item I have been tracking the longest is related to career development for those on my team. For fifteen years, I have maintained a list of every person promoted by my IT team. The list is pretty long, and I am beaming every time I add a name to the spreadsheet. It is by far the item I am most proud of in my career. The people on my team and the ability to impact their careers have given me more joy than I could have imagined.
Earlier today, a team member promoted this week responded to my congratulations comment, "Hi Kim! Thank you. I will definitely miss EUS, and it has been quite a journey from being a contractor in 2014, a fte tech in 2016, Cyber Liaison in 2021, and now a CS Analyst. I appreciate you and everyone that helped me reach my goals."
And then, tonight, I was reading my email (I didn't hit that success goal for Friday) and came across one that left me weeping. It was from a former employee moving on to a new promotional opportunity. I am going to share an excerpt from the email:
"I wanted to personally thank you from the bottom of my heart for always being YOU. You have inspired me in more ways than I will ever, everrrrrrrrrr be able to express. Through tears, smiles, laughter, go-live parties, red pants, gifts, and plenty of stressful days. You believed in me at times when I didn't, and your smile and humor is enough to keep anyone going when they are in a rut. I am proud to know you, and am even more proud that I got to personally watch your phenomenal growth here. You have done AMAZING things, and please never stop!
As a woman, you have inspired me to never give up, and to keep going even when the times aren't the best. I have been through some rough times, and you, Bill, and Mark were ALWAYS there for me and picked me up, and never made me feel ashamed of what I was going through. I am where I am today because of YOU."
Now let me be clear, she is where she is today because she is highly talented. She is where she is today because of her hard work; she is great with people and is driven to go after what she wants. I thanked her for her email and immediately told her that her talents got her where she is today. As her leader, here's what I did: I recognized her gifts and encouraged her to use them. I gave her my time. I believed in her and made sure she was in the proper role. I was, and I am, FOR her. People will do amazing things when they know that others are FOR them. I often say, let's stop saying, "I've got your back and start saying, I'm FOR you."
I can have traditional metrics around almost every aspect of my work, but I always feel most fulfilled when I receive an email, text, or comment of appreciation. Receiving feedback from team members is a powerful affirmation that what I do is meaningful.
Success criteria are essential to our work, but let us not confine them to financial metrics, service level agreements, or go-to-market action plans. Think of success criteria as desired outcomes and create personal goals to measure what's important to you. I want my leaders and team members to know I can hit my financial targets and company goals, but beyond that, what is important to me is that I have played a small part in making a positive difference in people's lives.
When creating unconventional success criteria or personal Key Performance Indicators, starting with your why is critical. Why do you work? What motivates and drives you? When you self-examine, what is meaningful to you? I am inspired by mission and people, so my metrics typically center around those things. These goals and behaviors will keep you grounded in your why and help you drive decisions about what matters most. You can start by using the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time. Bound) goal-setting process. Don't overcomplicate this; you probably already have these metrics and simply need to formalize them.
Have you set unconventional success criteria for yourself?
