One of the biggest challenges in golf is keeping score. That’s right, keeping score. Golfers keep a scorecard and record the score for each hole. Many golfers keep a score based on the situation they encounter. Let me explain. How many times do you say to yourself or your playing partners: “Since we didn’t warm up, let’s take a mulligan on the first tee.” Or you hit a beautiful drive but it lands in a divot, or behind a tree, and you use your foot wedge to give you a better next shot. For those non golfers reading this, a foot wedge is using your foot to move the ball to a better lie without taking a penalty stroke. Or how about the most infamous of all, the “gimmee.” This is where your putt is close to the hole and you say “that’s good” and, while you count the stroke, you pick up the ball without putting it in.

When you write the score on your scorecard the score depended on the situation. In essence your score is incorrect. Because of this, you will find it difficult to improve.

The same is true of the leader of an organization. A leader who uses data to make his organization look better than it really is utilizes situational scoring. For example, an organization isn’t able to deliver a product on the date promised because a supplier did not deliver the raw materials to make the product. The customer is advised of the delay; the revised delivery date is entered into the system, the product is shipped when it is finally ready, yet it is recorded as being shipped “on time.” When an organization moves the “commitment date” to accommodate a new schedule, the customer is usually not satisfied but the company’s reports look accurate. In organizations it’s called “file maintenance” and it is to organizations what a mulligan is to golf. It hides what your real score is and doesn’t provide the information to improve your score.

File maintenance is much like “handicap maintenance.” Handicap maintenance is when golfers record only high scores in order to keep a higher handicap rating, thus gaining a competitive advantage in tournaments or when a bet is at stake. Depending on their ego, low handicappers turn in only lower scores to keep their handicap low and look impressive. Similarly, file maintenance makes it look like you’re doing better than you really are. But the total score doesn’t tell you whether you need to work on tee shots, long irons, short irons or putting. Without complete information, a golfer will not necessarily know how well they are doing in their overall game.

Golfers will look at the final score, which may not necessarily be accurate, to see how well they have done. In organizations many look at the financial score, such as Sales, Cost of Goods Sold and Profit & Loss. While this information is necessary, it doesn’t necessarily tell you how you are doing. Golf scores and organization indicators tell you how you have done, not how you are doing nor how you will do in the future. In golf we often hear a golfer say, “I wonder which golfer will show up today; the one who shoots in the 70′s or the one who shoots in the 90′s”.

If you want to improve your golf game you go to the practice range to work on that area of the game that needs improvement, be it driving, iron shots, chipping or putting. It is important to know which area to work on so you are not just hitting golf balls. Just looking at your typical scorecard, which has the aggregate scores by hole and the total score will not help. It’s like looking at the standard financial statement and trying to figure out which areas need improvement. The question is: What information do you need to help you improve? Keeping track of the distance of every shot, whether it sliced or hooked, whether it was a sand shot or how many putts per hole would require more time than you want to take. It would make golf work and not fun.

Putting is what improves your golf score more than anything, even more than hitting long tee shots. It is the macro metric of golf. A good business scorecard, like a golf scorecard, can help you tackle your business macro metric and show you how well you are doing. What you need to do is find out what the macro metric of your organization is. What is the “putting” equivalent of your leadership or organization that will improve it?

The financial statements mentioned above only measure your company’s performance (overall score) but not its financial handicap. Your macro metric, however, might be: Customer Satisfaction Data, Employee Satisfaction Data, Performance Data and Individual Division Data, to name a few. Whichever data is used, it has to be presented in a way that has meaning. The substance is what is important, not the form. To be meaningful, it should include data for customers, employees and the bottom line.

The point of this hole is to show that in golf, as in leading an organization, you can’t improve by simply keeping score. You have to keep the right score, the accurate score.

I hope you are enjoying playing this course. I’ll see you next month when we’ll see how judgment and emotional intelligence affect your game and your leadership skills.

While we wait on the seventh tee, is there a valued employee in your organization with a lot of potential but needs work on some leadership abilities? I can help. Call me to discuss how.