Do Numbers Inspire You?

“Our vision is to deliver Y, to X people, across X markets, in the next X year(s).’’

With such a vision, we know where we are now, and we can clearly appreciate the magnitude of the path ahead.

Indeed, we all have targets – time to deliver, revenue to generate, calls to complete, markets to penetrate.

Some of us are inspired by these numbers. We see our targets in terms of numbers, and these numbers excite us. We calculate how we are going to get there. We might even take joy in the patterns we see in the numbers. In short, numbers help us manage our work and put things in perspective.

The question is, do the numbers themselves inspire and motivate us, or is what lies behind the numbers the source of our inspiration?

There is the Sales Head who shared, in a matter of fact manner, “I don’t chase numbers. I think of our customers and have a general feeling of where we are going and what we need to do to get there.’’

Or take the example of the finance professor who confessed, “You can make numbers say whatever you like, so I always look beyond the numbers.”

And the shop assistant, a star performer when there was a fixed salary, who lost his ability to serve with sincerity when commission-based pay was introduced. The image of the numbers, became the bigger, somewhat threatening picture, rather than the desire to serve.

When numbers – targets and goals – determine a lot of our focus, we need to understand our source of inspiration.

How do you align yourself - to the numbers as a target, the bigger picture, or both?