A basketball coach wouldn't recruit players without reviewing a measure of their performance.
Yet, business executives nationwide make million-dollar decisions without the benefit of such information. Without it, they're doomed to make bad decisions, says business consultant Will Kaydos."Can you imagine a coach recruiting people without looking at some numbers? It wouldn't happen. But there's a lot of managers operating fat, dumb and happy without knowing the capabilities of their operations, their departments and systems. They're totally blind," Kaydos said in a telephone interview Thursday.
Kaydos suggests that managers who don't have performance measures in place don't know what's happening in their area of responsibility.
"Invariably, when I get involved with a company and start getting some measures of performance in place, it really opens up a lot of eyes," he said.
Workers at a company for which Kaydos performed consulting work estimated the company's product reject rate was 10 percent to 12 percent.
"When I got involved and put in some measures, we discovered the true reject rate was 30 percent," Kaydos said. "When I told that to the president, he almost had a heart attack and fell out of his chair."
Kaydos will conduct a seminar titled "The Art and Science of Measuring Performance" March 22 and 23 at the Redwood Campus of Salt Lake Community College.
He will cover the basic principles of performance measurement and practical procedures for implementing effective measurement systems in business. He also will help managers identify flaws in their management systems and steps to correct the shortcomings with the ultimate goal of improving productivity and quality.
Kaydos said performance measures also are important employee teaching tools.
"People only learn if you give them some feedback. Knowing where you are and where you want to be are very basic to our survival as humans. For example, when you drive a car, your eyes see the difference between where you are and where you're headed."
Kaydos, author of `Measuring, Managing and Maximizing Performance," runs a business consulting group based in Charlotte, N.C. He has more than 25 years' experience as a manager and consultant in manufacturing and administrative positions.
For registration information about the conference, call 461-3429. Monday, March 15, is the registration deadline.