Looking into the void for answers

I grew up in Nova Scotia in a card-playing family. My younger brother and I played cards a lot with our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. When we were really young we played Go Fish, and then we moved on to Crazy Eights and Rummy. There were intense Cribbage games with fierce pegging. As we became more competent card players we advanced to trump games. (Trump games have nothing to do with the American Presidential candidate, they are games where the suits have different values and precedence. Typically, one suit is dominant. Auction 45, Bridge, Euchre, and Hearts are all trump games.)

The first trump game we learned was Hearts. While I shall not explain in detail how the game works there are a few key points. First of all, Hearts is like golf – you want a low score. In Hearts, the suit for which the game is named is trump, as is the queen of spades. Only these cards have value, meaning at the end of the game you earn points based on the number of hearts you have in your hand and whether or not you have the Queen of Spades. One way you can win is by getting all of the points, which is called “going for control” or “shooting the moon”, my father’s preferred approach; because, if successful, you are able to assign your points to an opponent. The more frequent approach, my approach, is to take as few points as possible. Both outcomes are best achieved by having a strong dominant, suit, or by having voids in your hand that permit you to influence the other players – often called “short suiting.” More advanced card players will know that when playing Bridge, one will make a bid calculation that considers the voids, as well as the high cards from the dominant suits you may have in your hand.

In summary, when playing trump games, what you don’t have in your hand can be just as important as the cards you do have.

I shall now get to the point of today’s blog. Last week I had an epiphany of sorts. I saw very clearly that in business, as in trump card games, the information you don’t have or don’t think about can be just as important as the information you have readily at hand. In fact, I am inclined to believe that as consultants we gain just as much insight, if not more, from the information that is not readily available from our clients.

Typically, each project we are involved with includes a fact-finding and information gathering phase. We have a list of information we ask for. Typically, clients can provide most of the information quickly and easily but, usually, there are one or two requests clients have difficulty fulfilling because these items are not top-of-mind for their business. Some businesses are focused on employee engagement, others on the customer experience and other financial data.

Every business has to make choices about which metrics it utilizes to determine its success in relation to its goals — on a quarterly and annual basis. (Businesses that do not have clearly defined goals, plans to achieve those goals, and metrics to gauge their success are also more common than you might think.) Businesses also need to identify different metrics that are reviewed much more often – monthly, weekly or sometimes even daily – to understand how things are going on-the-ground so that they can course correct where possible. For example, in a casino if you review carded player visitation frequently, you could identify an issue with your loyal players before it becomes a problem that impacts financial results. Your next step would be to look at other metrics which clearly influence carded participation, such as game data, in order to develop a real-time solution. A restaurant might want to review its covers and the number of each dish sold daily so it can remove menu items that are declining before customers are bored and stop coming.

The challenge is that there are so many possible metrics, which are right for your business? How do you create a holistic picture of your business by using information from various parts of your organization? We have observed that some businesses are so overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices, effectively they do not track anything. There are other businesses that spend all their time on analytics — and reporting on so many metrics — that they do not focus on the day-to-day operations. We have also observed businesses that are so focused on one aspect of the business that they ignore everything else. For example, a casino that is totally focused on customer experience and may ignore essential game data.

Obviously, All-In prefers a middle ground. Today’s advice: take time to think about the information you are not tracking, and consider what those voids say about the things your business values, so that you can be confident that you are not missing opportunities.

There is a lot more to be said about the importance of having clear organizational goals that the entire team can contribute to. To establish the right goals, we have to learn how to ask the right questions in order to identify the best ways to measure success and identify areas for improvement. Stay tuned for more information on this important topic.

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