In order for you to hire the right (A) people, you need to build a scorecard defining their mission, expected outcomes and key competencies (reference is Who). This serves two benefits:

  1. It allows you to objectively compare candidates,
  2. It makes it clear to the new hire, what you want them to do.

This flows from your corporate strategy which when compared to your current staffing levels will determine who you need to hire to achieve your vision.

So really, you should have a scorecard for all of your key employees. For us and the way we are set up, all our employees are pretty key to our success, but they might not all be directly tied to your strategy; some are focused on tactical work.

A scorecard is pretty much a performance management tool. Knowing what you want your staff to accomplish and communicating it to them seems to be an obvious and critical step in executing strategy.

The book gives one example of a question posed to 200 CEOs. "How many of you have in place written objectives for your direct reports? Only 10% raised their hands." So obvious and critical does not equal in common use.

If you further asked how many of you review and update the objectives and progress on a regular basis (i.e. more often than the annual performance review) I am guessing the number would drop.

So it seems to me that:

  • Your business strategy should drive your people strategy,
  • Your people should be clear on what they are there to accomplish and how it will be measured,
  • All of this should be a two way communication as much as possible,
  • You should be able to track progress along the way,
  • This system can also drive out your hiring and training requirements.

Oh, and let's make it a living, breathing document (and process) so it is never stale; the last thing you want is more documentation that sits on the shelf.

And remember, business owners and most key employees are busy people, so let's not make it too time consuming or difficult to use.

(P.S. This Spring we will be launching our version of a tool that does this while trying to keep things simple.)