If I asked a business owner or C-level leader if their business has financial statements, they would respond, of course we do. If I asked them to show me their formal process for measuring employee engagement and innovation, at least 95% would respond we don’t measure that. This failure to measure engagement and innovation levels is inconsistent with the need to have financial statements and a highly successful company.

“Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.”
W. Edwards Deming

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”
Peter Drucker

All empirical data shows that employee engagement leads to greater productivity, lower turnover, fewer safety incidents, and significantly greater levels of innovation. Employee engagement and innovation are two of the greatest contributing factors to highly successful companies.

According to Gallup’s 2018 study, 13% of employees are actively disengaged, 53% are not engaged, and 34% engaged. Where does your business fall in terms of employee engagement? Do you have 13% of your employees actively trying to sink your ship?

In 2018 a research paper titled, Innovation By All, was published by Great Place To Work. Their research found that conventional approaches to innovation used by business today is failing to keep up to today’s rapidly changing market. Great Place to Work discovered that companies that have an innovation by all culture generate more high-quality ideas and have 5.5 times the revenue growth of peers with a less inclusive approach to innovation. Do you have an innovation by all culture?

Fundamental #4 – always measure your engagement and innovation levels provides the important data required to make informed decisions. Practicing #1 -possessing a zero tolerance for waste, and #2 – habitually overcoming your limiting paradigms addresses the root cause of the problem: Personal accountability.

The bottom line: If your business isn’t achieving the success it needs, evaluate the fundamentals of your business culture. You are what you repeatedly do!