Privileges And Responsibilities

This week we encountered a number of situations that drove me back to metrics. In business we should spend some time measuring, we should measure sales, profits, growth rates, ROI (return on investment) and rate of growth. An issue with many of these metrics is that they report history rather than being a tool to create history.

This week a few things occurred that caused me to pause and consider, privileges and responsibilities. Kirk Cousins the senior quarterback for Michigan State spoke at the Big 10 media days, Scott Stallings won his PGA victory and I spent 48 hours with a lifelong New Jersey friend.

Metrics, key operating indicator (KOI), balanced score cards and customer relationship analysis (CRA), customer valuation, Digital Silhouettes, PMML (Predictive Model Markup Language) are all in the lexicon of metrics.

When Kirk Cousins spoke to the media he quoted the Luke 12:48. “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” He wanted to remind his fellow athletes and coaches those privileges; like playing major college football, getting a free college education and being on national TV come with responsibilities not entitlements.

Scott Stallings won his first PGA event last week at the Greenbrier. He blogged about “The Obstacle between You and Success? Excuses;” Stallings wrote of the annual 4 day torture test called the Titleist Performance Institute and how he used to dread it. Every year at the end of the PGA season, Titleist brings it’s golfers in and measures them. Titleist has metrics on all the golfers they sponsor. Metrics on diet, exercise, blood pressure swing speed and lots more. This is not the old PGA. Stallings now trains six days a week and has finished in the top twenty-five in two events and just won his first event. If we can measure it we can achieve it.

Much has been written on privileges and responsibilities, a key to both is choice. Eisenhower is quoted saying, “The history of free men is never written by chance, but by choice—their choice.”
My friend from New Jersey, a tenured Superior Court Judge, with a successful career as a prosecutor and in private practice spoke of metrics. The Judge shared a story of how early on he worked incredibly long hours and traveled a great deal. One of his daughters complained about the times when he was at home. She related the incident when she was not permitted to spend the evening at a friend’s to spend time with Dad and then the Judge spent the evening on the phone watching sports and no time with his daughter! Hearing this he actually started to measure the hours he spent with his family, without phone, TV or interruption. He actually kept a chart. If we can measure it we can achieve it.

We must choose to succeed; we must choose to accept the privileges of position. Many people are without jobs, benefits and work for firms that are not owned and managed by great Families. Our jobs are a privilege. Our Families are a privilege. Each privilege comes with responsibility, not entitlement. Like Kirk Cousins, Scott Stalling and my friend we must chose and be responsible for our gifts and talents. We need to find the metrics and measure our improvement –knowing each day, each one of you makes yourself better; you make us all a better company.

All the runners in a race compete. Only one wins-Run to w