Once your people know what’s critical to success, they must then understand what they can do to drive that success. Identifying the Right Drivers helps everyone begin to understand what they can do—both individually and as a team—to influence the Critical Number. It gives them line of sight from their daily actions and decisions directly to the most important goals of the organization.
Since at first many (or most) employees may not be familiar with reading and acting on financial information, nonfinancial drivers or measures are the key to teaching managers and employees how to connect their work to the financial outcomes of the company.
Getting people in every corner of the company to think about how they could move the needle is a matter of identifying the Right Drivers—in other words, the specific strategies that could be acted on to directly affect the Critical Number. Every department across the company—from sales to materials—identified its respective drivers, including enhanced inventory management, better buying, controlled capital spending, and improved shop efficiencies. When you get everyone working together, focused on the Critical Number, and acting on the Right Drivers, obstacles don’t stand a chance.