Today’s office workers are only too familiar with the acronym KPI, which stands for Key Performance Indicator.
During performance appraisal season, just before the announcement of increments and bonuses, the acronym KPI is like a magical mantra being chanted by employees and employers alike. And like a magical mantra, the acronym KPI has the power to determine your fate.
Or rather, your increment and bonus for the year! If you met your KPI’s, you should be rewarded by the Company. If you failed to meet them or performed unsatisfactorily, then there are no rewards for you!
A powerful mantra indeed!
It’s no surprise therefore that the acronym KPI is associated with fear and other negative feelings at the office. Incorrectly calibrated KPI’s can serve to demotivate employees and stir up hostility between staff, managers and bosses.
How KPI Can Be A Tool To Your Benefit?
But before we dismiss KPI’s altogether as yet another instrument of torture devised by the Management to make our lives miserable, let’s take a moment to explore the positive potential of KPI’s on a personal level.
Yes, KPI’s can be a useful tool for you personally, as part of your personal development programme.
Fundamentally, KPI’s are targets against which people can benchmark their performance. What this means is that used in a strategic way, KPI’s can help people monitor, improve and enhance what they do in a way that enables them to strive to achieve their personal goals more effectively.
Let’s look at some ways in which setting KPIs can help you make progress on, and reach, your personal goals.
1. Financial
Financial . What are your personal financial goals? Well, for most of us, we would like to save more and spend less. At the same time, we would also like to allocate funds for things that we want, such as consumer goods, entertainment, holidays etc.
So, with these goals in mind, assign KPI’s to yourself. For example, make it one of your KPI’s to save at least x% from your salary, allocate y% towards an “entertainment and purchases” fund, and identify several items from your monthly spend list which you will cut from the list and do without (thereby reducing your expenditure).
2. Career
Career goals could include needing to expand your network, writing articles related to your area of work in order to get them published, building a reputation as a speaker or trainer on work-related areas, or working on specific projects within your company that will increase your personal profile.
Again, break down macro goals into mini-goals and turn each mini-goal into a KPI. Commit to connecting with at least 2 professional contacts a week, set aside an hour a day every day to work on writing or other projects, and make it a point to attend or speak at, at least 1 seminar/workshop/conference a month.
3. Health
Health goals could include generally exercising more, training for a particular event such as a marathon or climbing up a mountain, adopting a more healthy diet, or giving up unhealthy habits such as smoking or drinking.
Whether small-scale or large-scale, all goals need to be broken down into small, manageable steps. To exercise more or train for an event, your KPI should comprise setting aside a specific time in your day to exercise, and completing all the exercises that you have allocated for that session in order to increase your overall stamina and fitness.
To adopt a more healthy diet, your KPI should include setting aside time to plan your meals in advance, shop for what you need, and prepare the meals. To give up an unhealthy habit, your KPI should be to identify and participate in an alternative habit that will replace the habit you are trying to kick.
4. Relationships
Here, maybe your goal is to spend more quality time with your spouse, your parents or your children, or perhaps your extended family or friends. Once again, these macro goals need to be broken down into smaller steps.
Your KPI should include spending an allocated amount of time in each category, per day/week/month/year. As long as you meet the KPI set for yourself, you will know that you are meeting your goal of spending more quality time with the person/group that you have identified.
Hopefully, the above tips will be helpful to you in understanding how KPI’s can be a valuable personal development tool, which if utilised correctly, can help you track, measure and enhance your progress in reaching your personal goals.
In the long-term, the discipline of setting up and working to meet personal KPI’s, will help you improve the quality of your life.
