Everyone Has A Number

Imagine the original Godfather, Marlon Brandon, saying, "Michael... Everyone has a number."(Shakes his left hand like he's holding some salt)

I'm not the Godfather. And this has nothing to do with the mafia.

But everyone DOES have a number.

It's not a number to pay them off to do the wrong thing. It's a number to give them purpose and meaning in their role.

One of my favourite books of recent years is Traction by Gino Wickman (Amazon link). Every entrepreneur I know who's read this book has found the framework helpful.

I particularly love the idea of giving every employee (or volunteer) one number to hit.

In the book there's an example of a receptionist. How could you like a number from reception to the overall goal, mission etc of the company? Well they focused on how many rings before a call was answered.

Anything more than 2 rings means some people would hang up or the call would be missed. So the number for a receptionist was 2. Answer every phone call by 2 rings.

This number '2' became the receptionist's number.

This idea is powerful because it gives everyone a concrete measurement for their role.

Just like the saleswoman who knows she needs to close $300,000 a month to be successful, having a number gives you clarity on where you are compared to where you're going.

So my challenge for you today is: What's YOUR number?

And what could be the number for each of your team members?

If you can find one number to measure by and revisit that number again and again and again, it helps to make work measurable.

And when our work is measurable, we're more engaged in our work.