Measurement Beyond Numbers - Organization Value

Most are convinced, measure by numbers is the most effective way to drive individual toward organizational goal, and I do too. But very few have emphasized on individual "organization value" besides numbers, which "intangible asset" somehow could be the most valuable part for the whole organization. So many successful stories from Web 2.0 and World Cafe prove the power of "group intelligence", and have we ever think of utilizing the power within our organization?

Every year when it comes to annual employee performance ranking, I starts to search my memory to recall what my team members had done and performed, and in the end, most likely I'll use their number achievement to be the key reference, because it's the easiest way, or a lazy way to me, to review with team members. From my observation, number-driven-only culture impacts organization's behaviour severely that every one cares nothing but his own numbers, which is no good at all to build a learning organization environment. Even a super sales had gone through high time and low time that number achievement is affected heavily by many things you might not be able to control, such as the goal set by your boss; sudden economic changes; your collaboration team's help, or your customer's budget plan...etc. However, besides hard numbers, what value to the organization also include the initiated ideas, the best practices, team members' actively participation, which are not measured in the performance review at all. So many people would rather spending time in fighting for juicy accounts internally, than devoting ideas to help the team. We keep emphasizing "team collaboration", but the design of measurement doesn't lead the organization toward the way.

If we all believe it's better to include those factors in measurement, then how to make it measurable?

I remember during my primary school, teachers used to give us award tags from time to time to encourage what we did well every day, so we learnt immediately the right behavior. Why don't we bring back this simple and direct method to design a "organization value" award bucket to each employee to collect points, so the management can have active, transparent and frequent communication with his team members during the year; and in the annual performance review, it becomes a easy reference measurement (against your memory), then you just need to put weights to this organization-value performance for your rating reference. So if the team member has a valuable idea that his management can give him award points immediately, or the team member can ask for recognition points from his boss by submitting reference like thank-you letter from other team, or best performance in a training or group discussion...etc.

Personal "Organization Value" needs to be inspired and encouraged. Maybe the management can host an "Organization value CAFE" to brainstorm more great ideas ;-)