This presentation challenges established performance indicators. It calls for having one indicator that scales up or down on all business activities to reflect their form (fitness and freshness). This is a fractal indicator. The idea of the indicator was inspired from measuring the quality of fruits and vegetables using the Brix Score. It is like the human body: around 360 Celsius it is healthy. One score may tell a lot about the status of the business body. Complex organizations need simple performance indicators and this presentation offers one. Not only that, as the proposed indicator allows reviewing past works to learn from their mistakes and successes alike to plan better for future works.

1. A Challenging
Metaphor of
Business
performance
A Challenging
Metaphor of
Business
performance
Ali Anani, PhDAli Anani, PhD

2. I dedicate this
presentation to
professor Rod King.I
hope the presentation
has the proper
“Fitness Level” to be
worthy of my dedication.

3. Gems are sometimes in
front of our eyes; yet
we don’t see them

4. One gem is the scale
we use to measure the
Brix level of produces.

5. Is this
extensible to
measure the
quality of
employees?
And how?

6. The Brix Scale helps
us figure out the
nutrient and flavor
value of produces:The
higher the value, the
better the produce is

7. Brix values higher
than 12 tell us that we
have a good to
excellent quality
produce

8. For instance, a poor,
sour tasting grape
from poor soil can test
less than 8 BRIX.
In contrast; same
grape, grown on rich,
fertile soil can test 24
or better BRIX

9. It is amazing that
quality of produces
and in spite of their
complexity may be
revealed from one
number and is easily
measured

10. Brixing measures the
solids in the sap of
produces
Just squeeze a drop and
by using a hand-held
refractometer you may
instantly get the Brix
value
See linked
videohttp://www.youtube.com
/user/RealFoodCampaign

11. Can we do the same for
measuring the quality of
businesses?

12. What is equivalent to that
juicy drop of produces to
businesses to reveal their
quality?

13. Juicy creative ideas are
indicative of the quality
of a business

14. The Brix value of a
produce results from
planting the seeds in good
soil, good environment
and in quality
management.

15. Likewise; businesses will
only give juicy ideas
(sap of minds) if the work
environment is healthy,
seeds of ideas are planted
in a good soil and
managerial quality is
highly fit and fresh

16. We want dense and
quality sap from produce
and so are the desired
juice of minds (ideas)

17. The soil must be balanced
in fertilizers and never be
void of micronutrients

18. Similarly, organizations
must never be depleted of
micronutrients - the
talents that ensure the
finished product (ideas)
will be of excellent quality

19. The use of chemical
fertilizers may cause more
pain than delight - flavor
may be depleted and
quality of finished
produce may deteriorate
considerably

20. Business that depends on
manufactured incentives
may actually deplete the
business from talents and
the quality of ideas may
drop significantly

21. produces from poor soil have
a low Brix level.
Poor produces invite insects
and we compound the
problem further by using
insecticides

22. Poor ideas result from poor
business attention to keeping
talents and using natural
incentives and motives.
The result: the business
becomes attractive to
non-performing employees

23. If we eat poor quality
produces our bodies suffer

24. Business that eat their own
poor quality ideas will weaken
the body of the businesses and
the deterioration cycle
escalates.

25. Good produces shall not
deteriorate rapidly on storage
Excellent business ideas shall
not rot and eventually they
shall be ready for yielding
their long-awaited value

26. Each fruit has its own Brix
level or number.
Each employee must have his
Brix number- in keeping with
what is required from
him/her.

27. The business may be producing
Turbid ideas
Clear ideas
Viscous ideas
Gloomy ideas
Foggy ideas

28. Different produce require adaptations, why
not extend the idea to business ideas?
Not all trees are the same and not all
divisions are the same.
So, strengthen each business units while
keeping overall integrity.
Establish a performance chart for the
business like we do for produces- each has
its own Brix numeber

29. The Brix number for
business reflects the
quality of its produce -
the total useful and solid
material in the sap of its
fruity ideas

30. The form of organization =
Freshness + Fitness

31. This idea is borrowed from sports in which,
for example, a rider can be fit at the end of
the Tour De France, but he is very tired, so
not 'fresh' enough to have form.
On the other side of the coin, you might
have ridden your bike for 2 months, and are
very 'fresh', but not very 'fit'. So, the correct
balance of fitness and freshness will create
'form'
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/w
hat-is-the-performance-management-chart

32. 'Fitness' is a response to
training stress. Businesses
must have the fitness to learn
and develop and re-learn

34. Organizations need to be
fresh as well to progress

35. Like the Brix number is
different for fruits than for
leaves of the same tree, so
are the Brix numbers for
business units

36. To insure that the organization is “fit” and
performing at the right level is a difficult
job for leaders of organizations. There are
so many parts to an organization’s fitness
and performance; i.e. financial, sales,
customer service, production and/or
services offered and then of course, the
processes and the right people to make it
all come together.
http://sixdnwo.com/_blog/Our_Blog/post/Org
anizational_Fitness_-_How_Healthy_is_your_O
rganization/

37. Trees are complex systems;
still we have a single number
to measure their
performance.
That is their Brix number

38. Organizations need to have
their Brix number for the
whole organization and for
each unit of it

39. The Brix number alerts us to
where the problems could
arise from. We go back and
analyze to learn with fresh
minds and fitness to learn

40. This is the formulae for success

41. In conclusion, I believe we need to establish
charts for the Brix number for businesses
and their units. The higher the Brix number
is, the sweeter are the ideas generated from
each unit. This, in turn, reflects, much
improved form of businesses.

42. I hope the
Brix score of
this presentation
is above 12