Ep. 6 Can Managers Improve Soft Skills with the Right Metrics? (Ft. J.D. Qualley)

Somewhere in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the Clinton Library, rests the plaque below. This article examines a theory on management that proposes that applying the right metrics to measure a manager’s performance can also help assess influence, and even help guide those managers who struggle with “soft skills” At the individual contributor level, employees are measured on their activity or production. For example, companies track the number of emails employees send out, how many leads they generate, how many customer service calls they make, how many tires an assembly line puts out in an hour, or other metrics that may be relevant to a role. This process ideally results in more productivity, efficiency, or sales leads. Meanwhile, managers may evaluate KPI's (key performance indicators) as defined as some composite result with value added information. In their roles, instead of monitoring just the numerical metric such as producing 50 screws in one hour, they might be measuring the number of screws produced per hour without defect. These are great business methods for constant improvement, but what do these managers do while they're waiting for employees to push out those 50 screws? Do they sit by idly, or in meetings, until they have the days’ results to determine what to do with them, pressing the stereotype that managers don't do very much of anything? Maybe some managers might get away with that, but effective managers will be more engaged with employees, and that is exactly what we're looking to measure. In this era of technological change, and big data, the principle on the plaque that stood out most to me was: "Results you can measure are the only results that matter." Many questions ran through my mind when I read that line. "What can't you measure?" "What about less tangible concepts like kindness, empathy, and active listening?" There is much talk about "Emotional Intelligence," but it seems to be an intangible, somewhat subjective set of traits. The rabbit hole goes deep, but let's fast forward a few weeks later to a conversation with an organizational leader at work. As I spoke with the leader, they mentioned to me that their job is to influence teams to perform. The memory of this plaque suddenly popped into my head, and I asked "interesting you say that (then I told the story of the plaque), how exactly do you measure influence?" They replied that it was related to how much we as individuals achieve. There is truth in that because that is what managers and great leaders do, they help others and the business live to their fullest potential. But I was interested in numbers. Not as a challenge to the leader, but moreso out of my own curiosity. I wanted to come up with a measurable aspect of this leader’s performance that could prove they were influential. It was difficult to answer at the time. Let's first define "influence" from dictionary.com as "the action or process of producing effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of another or others." We often sit in awe, at those who are able to command an audience, and move them towards some common goal. The question now is; how does a manager go about influencing their team? Chances are it's not accomplished by hiding away in some corner of the office e-mailing. The great leaders are arguably more involved with their teams, handling the complexity of emotions, bad days, career aspirations, financial concerns, and more. Let us use a few examples. In order to begin creating "metrics" for managers to practice influence, we must first explicitly define certain concepts that may be influential. We can take one of Daniel Goleman's thoughts on Emotional Intelligence to begin: Social Skill. How do we measure social skill? What if we measured the number of times a leader smiled during meetings? Could this be translated into a happier team? While salespeople are not explicitly measured by their smiles, there are many sales teams that put mirrors in front of their sales