As we were designing the latest ZingTrain seminar (Small Giants: Creating a Vision of Greatness, based on the book by Bo Burlingham), one of the areas we wanted to address was the importance of non-financial measures of success. After all, the definition of a “Small Giant” is an organization that defines success as something other than just growing “as big as possible as fast as possible.” What, exactly, that “something other” is depends very much on the organization’s leader and that person’s vision of what success looks like.

For some Small Giants, success means being able to give back to their communities – either in terms of jobs created/saved or in terms of financial support. When Ani DiFranco and her partner decided to locate their company, Righteous Babe Records, in their hometown of Buffalo, they not only renovated key real estate, but also created jobs in a city that had extremely high unemployment. Clif Bar’s 2080 program donates the equivalent of one full time person (2080 hours/year) to pay employees for volunteer work within the community, working for causes of the employee’s choosing.

Another criteria of success can be managing growth in a way that allows traditional production methods to be maintained, rather than sacrificed to meet increased demand. Fritz Maytag chose to ration beer rather then contract out production until the new Anchor Steam Brewing Co. facility was completed and online.

For every Small Giant, customer satisfaction ranks right up there with (and is sometimes more important than) maximizing profit. Danny Meyers’ Union Square Hospitality Group practices “enlightened hospitality” which they credit for their consistently high ratings in the Zagat Survey. At Zingerman’s, we’ve always considered Great Service one of our three bottom lines (along with Great Food and Great Finance) and looked for service measures that would keep our finger on the pulse of customer satisfaction. (More on our current customer service measures coming up in the March-April OnTrack.)

In addition to non-financial measures of business success, we believe that successful business visions take into account how owners want to be spending their time; what they’re doing day in and day out. When I first conceived ZingTrain, back in 1994, I wasn’t sure exactly what products and services we’d be offering. But I knew that one of the ways I’d know we were successful would be if I was spending my days doing engaging, meaningful work, while still having time to enjoy my sons’ childhoods. When I was the only ZingTrain employee, I didn’t have any formal measurement of whether I was achieving my desired “personal/professional balance” – I just listened to my gut, noticed what it was telling me and adjusted as best I could.

Since ZingTrain has grown, I can no longer personally judge whether each person who works here is “in balance,” but that is still an organizational priority. Each ZingTrain staff person is expected to do a weekly gut check and quantify his or her balance for our DOR (Department Operating Report). We came up with scores of O for “in balance,” W for “out of balance” towards the work side and H for “out of balance” towards the home/personal side of things. Over time, our scoring system has evolved to reflect the degree out of balance. So, for example, H3 is more out of balance than H1. And H2/W2 indicates that a person is feeling more pressure than is comfortable, although it is coming equally from both personal and professional pressures.

How do we use this score? Well, some of us are better at masking our stress than others, and reporting a personal/ professional balance score every week puts us all on equal footing and clarifies who may need some help – either by off-loading specific tasks or by re-prioritizing. Sometimes there’s nothing specific we can do to help, especially when the out of balance is driven from events at home–e.g., caring for an ill child, spouse or parent–but being able to articulate that source of stress can be a help, in and of itself. And the rest of us can be more supportive if we know what is going on.

ZingTrain’s rapid growth over the past year has taken a toll on our staff’s personal/professional balance, and it has shown in our DOR scores. But, thanks to those metrics, we know that re-visiting our work flow and allocation of tasks will be a prime focus for our business in the months ahead.

What non-financial measures are you using to track the success of your business? And, just as important, do you have a vision for how you want to be spending your time – and how are you measuring yourself against that target?