The 4 Disciplines Of Execution®. Discipline 3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard

 

People and teams play differently when they are keeping score.

The right kind of scoreboard motivate players to win. People play differently when they are keeping score. If you doubt this, watch a group of teenagers playing basketball. See how the game changes the minute scorekeeping begins.

The lag and lead measures won’t have much meaning to the team unless they can see the progress in real time. Bowling through a curtain is not that much fun. Discipline 3 is the discipline of engagement. People perform best when they are emotionally engaged, and the highest level of engagement comes when people know whether they are winning or losing.

The best scoreboard is designed for and often by the players. A player’s scoreboard is quite different from the complex scoreboard that coaches love to make.

Keep a compelling scoreboard

The scoreboard is not just for the leaders. The scoreboard is for the whole team. To drive execution, you need a players’ scoreboard with a few simple graphs indicating where you need to be and where you are right now.

With a successful scoreboard, anyone looking at it can determine in five seconds or less whether the team is winning or losing.

Great teams know at every moment whether or not they are winning. They must know, otherwise, they don’t know what they have to do to win the game.

— Chris McChesney, Co-author of The 4 Disciplines of Execution

People Play Differently When Keeping Score

The third discipline is to make sure everyone knows the score at all times so that they can tell whether or not they're winning. This is the discipline of engagement. If the lead and lag measures are not captured on a visual scoreboard and updated regularly, they will disappear into the whirlwind.

People disengage when they don't know the score. 

Great teams know, at every moment, whether or not they're winning. They must know, otherwise, they don't know what they have to do to win the game. A compelling scoreboard tells the team where they are and where they should be, information essential to team problem solving and decision-making. 

When team members themselves are keeping score, they truly understand the connection between their performance and reaching their goal, and this changes the level at which they play. 

Four questions to create a compelling scoreboard

1. Is it simple?

Think about how many pieces of data the coach is tracking on the sideline. Coaches need this data to manage the game, but the scoreboard on the field shows only the data needed to play the game. 

2. Can I see it easily?

It has to be visible to the team. The results become personally important to the team when the scoreboard is displayed where it can be seen by everyone. 

3. Does it show lead and lag measures?

The lead measure is what the team can affect. The lag measure is the result they want. 

4. Can I tell at a glance if I'm winning?

If you can' tell within five seconds whether you're winning or losing, you haven't passed this test.

The 4 Disciplines and Team Engagement

Many believe that engagement drives results, and so do we. However, we know now that the results drive engagement. Nothing affects morale and engagement more powerfully than when a person feels that they are winning. 

People will work for money and they will quit over money, but many teams are filled with people who are both well paid and miserable in their jobs. 

A winning team doesn't need artificial morale-boosting. All the psyching up and rah-rah exercises companies do to raise morale aren't nearly as effective in engaging people as the satisfaction that comes from executing with excellence a goal that really matters. 

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