The Game of Work / Coonradt 46-49

49 Too many middle managers today feel impotent in their ability to manage, to talk, to create, to discipline, to go, to move, to build with people. Our traditional American management philosophy to manage by exception, to focus on problems, to put out fires, results in a reluctance to regularly compliment and praise. We talk about he things that are going wrong instead of the things that are going right. As a result, subordinates are depreciated with more emphasis on shortcoming that accomplishments.

Scorekeeping exists primarily so that we know when to begin to party.

A good scorekeeping system allows the worker or manager to establish his own self-worth in the eyes of his peers, subordinates, and supervisors. Everybody becomes more accurately and justly rewarded, stroked, or chastised, based on accurate performance records or scorecards.

The Game of Work / Coonradt 42-46

43 Cash flow is the barometer of business health.

45 Good farmers don't eat the seed corn.

46 Basics of good scorekeeping.

1. Scorekeeping must be simple and objective.

2. Scorekeeping must be self-administered. Self-administered graphing and scorekeeping is best.

When people keep their own scorecards, they know whether they won or lost that day and also how much they improved, regardless of whether or not the coach had a bad day.

3. Scorekeeping must offer a comparison between current personal performance, pas personal performance, and an accepted standard.

The success of a scorekeeping system is recreation depends upon how well it compares current performance with past performance and with the accepted national average. Too often in business we generate a scorekeeping system that tells how well we did only in comparison to an arbitrary, artificially imposed standard.

4. Scorekeeping should be dynamic. It should allow players to review performance during the game.

Business no longer have to wait until the end of the month to know how they are doing. They can know daily, even hourly. Yet most businesses still have twelve accounting periods just like before WW II. You don't know what you did in March until the middle of April--too late to make any adjustments for March.

The Game of Work / Coonradt 40-42

41 People play and modify their behavior based on the feedback of their progress against an acceptable standard - the score card.

Winners keep track of results. Losers keep track of reasons.

42 You cannot sit by as a spectator in the game of work.

Management by measurement is facing the truth.

If you have the courage to keep score, even when you are losing, you will win more in the long run. The elimination of uncertainty through scorekeeping increases the ability to take calculated risks.

The Game of Work / Coonradt 39-40

40 First, measurement is relevant to the process. It tells you what happened, especially on the bottom line.

Second, measurement is usually exact. By that I mean when you measure something, you get the real numbers. You know where you stand. You are always better off when you know where you stand.

Third, exact measurements make work as enjoyable as play because participants have a way to win. When specific measurements are employed, it suddenly becomes possible for the employee to win.

There is no way to win without a score. There are three kinds of workers or players.

1. Those who know they are winning.

2. Those who know they are losing

3.Those who don't know the score.

It is a fact of life that those who keep score, whether they are winning or losing, win more over the long run.