Seth Godin wrote a post recently called "The Illusion of Control." As with all Seth’s posts, it prompts great thoughts.

The gist of the post is that we delude ourselves when we tell each other, tell our children, tell our employees, tell our management team that we have control over the future. We don’t. Plain and simple.

All we can control are our actions. The things we choose to do. If we choose wisely, we can greatly influence the future. But that is all. Just like with your cholesterol. What you eat will influence whether your bad cholesterol goes up or down. Not what the exact number is. And exercise, of course.

Pressure is often seen by employees and managers as negative. But what if it isn’t?  What if people thrive on pressure? 

High performance demands a certain amount of pressure. Imagine you’re training for a 10K race. If you put no pressure on yourself, you don’t train, you don’t hire a coach or plan your calendar to prepare for the race, you will undoubtedly perform poorly. Conversely, if you put too much pressure on yourself, over-train and stress out, perhaps injuring yourself, you may not show up at the starting line. 

With many new clients and new Implementers added to our Implementer team lately there have been a lot of new scorecards created out there which is what prompts this urgent message.

Most entrepreneurs are flying blind – running their businesses on vague sensations, feelings and emotions, rather than data. During a week in which a company wins a big order, gets some positive feedback from a key client, and finally finds the right person to fill a key seat – the company’s owner(s) feel as though they run the very best business in the world. The following week, when the company loses a big sale, gets negative feedback from a client and has to deal with a few people issues – the owner(s) feel as though they run the most troubled company out there.

Recently several of my clients asked for help putting together company or departmental scorecards. For many organizations and leaders, finding the right set of 5 to 15 leading indicators that provide an absolute pulse on the business (or the department) is a difficult challenge. Often it takes several months or longer to truly fall in love with your Scorecard.