Measure at the start. Then here's the next counterintuitive thing. Measure something personal that has an impact on you. Another reason we don't like measuring things is that we are supposed to measure big important things. Like money. And as we shall see one of the problems with ROI is that it is a measure no one really relates to.  Hardly anyone gets out of bed and says I must get down to the office to improve the ROI by 10 points any more than they go to the office to raise the share price. Because it isn't in their job description.

Whenever I finish a piece of training these are the questions that I ask people to think about What I'm going to stop doing. Something big I'm going to do differently. Something simple I'm going to change. And the final key question. How will I know when its working?

If I work with that group again and have the time to set up a preliminary exercise then I will ask them to bring in photos or images of the changes that took place following the actions they have taken. This is a powerful way to reinforce change and to make sure that people have indeed made changes or noticed changes in their working practices. One time I did it I got photos of PR spreads that would never have happened without the decisions taken in the previous workshop, stock ordering systems which saved hours of waiting on the phone, and empty shelves as products started to fly off them.

This may seem far too local for those who want to set up big measures. But teams can will progress faster if team members understand what's in it for them and whether it is working or not. There is no point committing to big goals if the team members can't see how they personall will contribute and progress toward the goal. There do of course have to be bigger goals and deadlines but the personal measures are powerful because they are set by the individual who is best placed and motivated to achieve them.