The Fifth Mission

The Fifth Mission

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Measuring performance?

In General Conference many years ago, President Thomas S. Monson famously taught, "A cardinal principle of industrial management teaches: “When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates.”
(1970, October, Priesthood (Session Five), Thomas S. Monson, ¶35 • CR90)

This is a principle not only of industrial management, but in every aspect of our lives. When we don't measure our performance, our minds allow us to believe we are making progress. Cognitive tools such as wishful thinking, bias confirmation, and overestimating the probability of favorable outcomes while underestimating the probability of unfavorable outcomes lead us to complacency. 

And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well
(2 Nephi 28:21)

So far as I know, there is no measurement underway for our performance in establishing Zion. We don't even count visits any longer. We're flying blind in terms of managing our performance in the mission of establishing Zion.

An anonymous article on the Seminary and Institute page offers some important guidelines on applying President Monson's counsel:

You will find more success in virtually any effort by setting and steadily working toward concrete goals. President Thomas S. Monson has given this counsel: “It is not enough to want to make the effort and to say we’ll make the effort. We must actually make the effort. It’s in the doing, not just the thinking, that we accomplish our goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them fulfilled. Someone put it this way: Live only for tomorrow, and you will have a lot of empty yesterdays today” (“A Royal Priesthood,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2007, 59).

President Monson has also taught: “When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1970, 107).

You will be more successful when you have concrete goals you are working toward and clear indicators of whether you are reaching those goals. By measuring your performance and then determining whether your efforts have achieved the desired results, you can know if you are being effective now and it will also help you to be even better in the future.

...make sure that you have clear, measurable objectives that will help you to know if you are reaching the goals you have set. Set SMART goals—goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. As you work toward your goals, report back to those involved. Make accountability a significant and regular part of what you do. Your supervisors should build opportunities for reporting into their plans....

As President Monson said, if you will regularly evaluate and report your efforts, you will continually become better.

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