The strategic contribution of individual employees can and should be measured. Why? Too often, companies invest heavily in articulating their Mission, Vision, and Values, but stop short of clarifying and clearly communicating how each employee can play a roll. A company’s employees execute that company’s Mission, Vision, and Values on a daily basis by virtue of their daily activities. Those activities are the strategy…and ultimately enable the company to realize its Mission, Vision, and Values.

Hence, understanding the strategic importance of each position, and each corresponding set of activities of each position with respect to its strategic impact on the company is paramount. Further, each employee individually contributes (more or less), and collectively, the aggregated contribution will determine the company’s success or failure in the marketplace.

The key to elevating the collective strategic contribution of employees is to elevate their individual contribution. If one were able to point to the strategically important positions, and further, the strategically important activities of said positions, and improve those…one would have harnessed the lever that makes dominating a market, or market segment possible.

How? Start by defining the organization’s strategy. According to Michael Porter: “The essence of strategy is in the activities—choosing to perform activities differently or to perform different activities than rivals—activities are the basic units of competitive advantage.”

Choose the strategically important positions. Create an inventory of positions by functional role. Complete questionnaire to identify strategically important positions. Identify strategic links.

Choose the strategically important activities within said positions. Create an inventory of activities of each strategically important position. Complete questionnaire to identify strategically important activities. Identify strategic links.

Measure each employee’s performance. A distributed performance will emerge, with some employees out/under-performing their peers in these strategically critical activities.

Identify differentiators. Determine the key performance differentiators. What do the highest performers do/know that the lower performers do not.

Share and Learn. Equip the lower performers with the knowledge/know-how deployed by the highest performers for each given activity.

Measure each employee’s performance. As the individual performances improve, the collective performance improves…as the collective performance improves, the organization grows stronger.