Discipline #2 of “The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals” is “Act on Lead Measures” not “Lag Measures”.
Most of the time we tend to focus on”Lag Measures” or numbers that tell us how well we did toward our goal in the PAST. In apartment management, examples of lagging measures would be occupancy, Outstanding Late Rent (OLR) percentage or Net Operating Income (NOI) or our cash on cash return.
“Lead Measures” are the things you can do NOW that will drive FUTURE performance. The trouble with “Lag Measurements” is that they reflect the PAST, which is dead and gone and can’t be impacted, only learned from.
“Lead Measures” might be clean hallways, common areas and crisp grounds, service requests response rates, vacant turn rates, team member retention percentage; all of which are drivers of Customer Satisfaction which in turn impact renewals or new leasing which in turn increase occupancy, raise revenue and reduce long term costs.
Closing Quote:
“A good lead measure has 2 basic characteristics;
– It’s predictive of achieving the goal and
– it can be influenced by the team members.
Consider the simple goal of losing weight. While the lag measure is pounds lost, two lead measures might be;
– a specific limit on calories per day and
– a specific number of hours of exercise per week.
These lead measures are predictive because by performing to them,
you can predict what the scale (the lag measure) will tell you next week.
They are influenceable because both of these new behaviors are within your control.”
– The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals
By Chris McChesney, Sean Covey & Jim Huling