Good swing, bad aim

When I was at Toyota, we had a really interesting compensation model. You would be evaluated on both your results and the process of how you did your work.

Your results correlated to your annual bonus while your process determined your annual raise.

The point was that if you achieved results but did so with a poor process, you’d be rewarded in the short term - and a good process without the desired results would still be compensated over the long term. (of course, you know I always tried for both!).

“Sometimes, you just have to say, ‘good swing, bad aim. Great effort, bad result. So it goes in life.” - Ryan Lavarnway, professional baseball player

Ryan’s quote and Toyota’s system both point to the importance of putting process first. Toyota rewarded you for the correct planning because the company knew that with that, things would eventually succeed.

And baseball players know that even with the best planning in the world, you’re still going to fail in the majority of your at-bats. (The batting champion in the MLB last year was successful in getting a hit slightly over 32% of the time!).

When you launch new products, services and initiatives, there will be some swings and misses. The key will be determining what factors led to missing the desired result. Was there a customer factor you didn’t see? Did preferences change while you were doing the planning?

Understanding that will give you the opportunity to tweak your swing and get back in the batter’s box again.

As A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the former president of India, said: “Excellence is a continuous process and not an accident.”

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