A Simple Ratio For Leaders To Use For Understanding Organizational Health

Most Organizations have Useless Metrics.

Having metrics themselves is needed, but most of them serve NO Purpose.

For instance, in the Return-To-Office "Mandates", we have seen some TRULY Useless Metrics.

For Instance, it has become more common for Leaders to track Badge Swipes and the Number of Hours in the Office.

But do these Metrics correlate to any form of Success?

Absolutely Not.

We are seeing the rise of Coffee Badging where Employees only show up to the Office long enough to be seen, before leaving again.

We also know that just because an Employee is sitting in the Office doesn't mean they are being Productive.

For decades we've known this is True because the Statistics around Disengagement and Active Disengagement have increased despite increases in Hours Worked.

At the end of the day, these don't help a Business at all, except "maybe" as a Vanity Metric.

If you run your Organization by Vanity Metrics though, you'll lose.

It's that simple.

So, what is a better Metric that will actually serve Leaders toward Success?

Let's start with this one.

Team's Flow-to-Strain Ratio.

What does this Ratio look like in practice?

Well, first let's look at what Flow is.

Flow States are the Psychophysiological States where we are Most:

• Productive
• Creative
• Innovative
• Purpose Driven
• Best at Problem Solving

Just to name a few of the Positive Aspects of Flow.

Essentially, it is where you NEED your Team to get to in order to gain the Success that every Business is looking for.

However, there are a few other fascinating reasons this Ratio is Important.

For instance, if you understand the Flow Cycle, you'll be able to see that the Flow-to-Strain Ratio keeps people Honest about how their work is going.

See, if you want to get to Flow States, there is a specific Cycle you MUST go through to get there.

The first step is Struggle.

Second is Release.

Then we have the Flow State itself.

After that, you must go through a Recovery phase.

Then you can go through it again.

Something Important to understand is that you MUST have "some" Struggle to get to Flow.

If you don't Struggle, you won't get to Flow.

The Best-Case scenario you can get, without Struggle, is Boredom.

Another word for Struggle is Strain.

So, if you have people on your Team(s) claiming not to have any Strain, but also claiming to have Flow States, you know they are not being Honest.

The Team may be afraid to state the Reality of their Situation for a Variety of Reasons, such as Fear of Retaliation, but seeing this would be an indicator that something is EXTREMELY wrong.

It could also be Indicating that you are looking at Yes-People, who are just giving you what they "Believe" you want to hear.

Both of these are not Beneficial to Success.

However, we can go even further with how this Ratio works.

Let's say that Employees "truly" are not Struggling, but also are not getting to Flow States.

This means that your Ratio is 0:0 or a total score of 0%.

What does this mean?

Your Team is being Underutilized.

Their work is too easy for the Skills they have - the work isn't hard for the Employees, but it also will not get them to their Best.

It gives Leaders a clue that they should look at how to Challenge their Employees toward their Strengths.

We find more Flow States where our Strengths are.

If Employees are not getting to Flow, then their Strengths are not being utilized.

However, the Reality is that this is NOT the case for most Organizations in Today's World.

What more often will be seen is a Ratio where the Strain will be EXTREMELY HIGH.

We know this to be True because the highest level of Strain is called Burnout, which 80% of Employees are Facing.

Whether it is a 0:2,400 Ratio (All Strain, No Flow, Assuming 40 hour workweek), or even if you are doing significantly better at a 60:2,340 Ratio.

In both of these scenarios, we are looking at a 3% or less Ratio, while also making a MASSIVE assumption that Employees are only working 40 hours.

In many Organizations, it is "Encouraged" and even "Praised" to work 50-60 hour weeks, despite the overwhelming Statistics showing this is horrible for Productivity.

This means many Organizations are running closer to a 0:3,600 Ratio.

What do these Ratios tell us?

They Indicate to us that Organizational Health is Horrendous.

This is where Burnout is Rampant, you likely have an excessively Underproductive Team, that is highly likely to be Actively Disengaged.

Only bad things will occur on the Team, with no Hope of attaining things like Innovation or Creative Problem Solving.

From a Psychophysiological Perspective, the Team is blocked from Flow States, and likely the Environment is getting more Toxic by the second.

This is where the Vast Majority of Organizations currently fall in our World.

So, what kind of a Ratio would be Optimal?

In Theory, you would want your Team to be reaching around a 1,800:200 Ratio in a 40-hour work week or a 900% Ratio.

Some things to Realize:

• You'll never have Flow States 100% of the time due to how the Flow Cycle Works
• You MUST have some Strain (aka Struggle) to get to Flow
• Your Team also NEEDS Recovery, which should be neither Flow nor Strain but is still Necessary.

With these in mind, most people reaching toward their Potential daily will be around 900%.

However, even at a 100% Ratio, you'll have SIGNIFICANTLY more Success than just about Every Major Organization in today's world.

The takeaway is this - the closer we are to 0%, the Worse the Organizational Health is.

The Higher the Ratio, the Better your Team will Perform and it becomes SIGNIFICANTLY more likely that you will get what every Organization is Struggling to find.

You can even combine Team Scores to get an overall Team's Health.

What becomes MORE interesting when you get the Team Score is that a higher number becomes an Indicator of a Higher Likelihood of Group Flow.

Group Flow should be the Psychophysiological Goal for ALL Teams.

You can think of Group Flow as a Multiplier to Success.

All of the Positive Aspects of Flow become Multiplied Significantly the more people are in Flow States together.

This is a Ratio that has Real Merit in the world of Business today.