At the risk of over-disclosure, over the past 6 weeks, I have lost quite a lot of weight. There is a work related aspect to this post - I'll get to it! 

Despite being fairly active last year, I couldn’t shift the additional weight I’d picked up. No matter how much I ran, I couldn’t lose the weight.

Towards the end of last year, I bought a new suit in a larger size because my old suit no longer fit me and I couldn't see a way back to it. I just assumed that my metabolism had slowed down, and this was the new reality.

However, over Christmas, our son told us how he had slimmed down while building his strength using the MyFitnessPal app. Tell me more I said…

If you haven’t heard of it, it’s very clever but simple.

All it really does is help you to set a goal weight, and then measure the amount of calories you consume and the amount of calories you use up to guide you towards reaching your goal.

Simply put, consume fewer calories than you use up, and you will lose weight.

Almost instantly, I could see that if I continued the basic level of exercise that I was already doing but chopped out some of the crappy eating that I was doing for no reason, it was pretty easy to hit or beat the target calories. Hence the weight loss.

Why am I telling you this?

Not because I have achieved any amazing results or anything unique, but to note that it is another example of three key principles:

• What gets measured gets done.
• Great is the enemy of good - a good improvement is better than nothing.
• If you want different results, you have to try different things.

Relevance to work...?

In my work life, we focus on helping our customers to improve and automate their processes to achieve better outcomes. I regularly see organisations that talk about wanting to achieve better outcomes but continue doing things that are harmful to achieving their desired results. While it may be obvious to me that they are shooting themselves in the foot, they don’t have any data on the right things to see for themselves.

In the case of law firms, what they are measuring rigorously – time - continues to be the main focus and driver of outcomes and obscures what they could be doing if they focus on what creates the most value for their clients and them.

Just as a nutritionist would have seen how obvious it was that I was never going to lose weight with what I was previously doing, I needed to see the data for myself.

Whether you’re trying to lose weight in your personal capacity (in which case I highly recommend this app) or you want to make improvements in your business outcomes, the key thing I recommend is to set a goal. Then work out the key metrics and lead indicators that will help you measure what you are doing, and whether you are doing the right things to get the results that you want.

You should find it much easier to get immediate results once you know what to measure and change what you do as a result.

If you want help to lose weight, just get the app! If you want to improve your processes and get better outcomes, that’s something I can help with, so please get in touch!