100% KPI AchievemAnt

Once upon a time, in a colony of ants, lived a very creative and innovative ant named InvAnt. InvAnt would cheerfully go about its day, always bursting with energy. It was always floating ideas and working on new things, thus bringing about path-breaking inventions that the ant colony was very proud of.  Of course, InvAnt had its reasonable share of failures but like its guru EdisAnt, InvAnt had no fear of failure. Its genius seemed to surge in the face of failure!

Seeing its wonderful inventions, the leader of the ant colony ManagemAnt started taking interest in InvAnt’s work. ManagemAnt thought to itself – if InvAnt could invent so well on its own, how much better would it do with a set of key performance indicators and a boss who could track the stages of InvAnt’s creations and make a structured progress report!

So ManagemAnt hired CompliAnt as the head of the innovation department, which currently had InvAnt, BrilliAnt and DifferAnt. The brief given to CompliAnt was to implement Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPI and track hours spent on innovation. CompliAnt had earned a reputation of never missing a KPI. Achieved 99.9% KPI – its resume flaunted!

After its appointment, the first set of things CompliAnt did was to introduce a list of KPIs, implement a time-tracker and buy an ergonomic chair for itself.

Now InvAnt, BrilliAnt and DifferAnt recorded every activity to fit in to the KPIs. They tracked every hour of their day. Their entry, exit, lunch break, coffee breaks, smoke breaks, chat breaks, bio breaks – everything had to be logged into the time-tracker.

InvAnt hated this new plethora of documentation and expressed its dissatisfaction to CompliAnt. But CompliAnt did not pay much attention; it was busy presenting the success of meeting 99.9% KPIs to ManagemAnt.

DifferAnt, always the rebel, decided to stop filling in all trackers. CompliAnt had never much liked DifferAnt. DifferAnt did not fit into CompliAnt’s idea of a good worker ant. In a meeting, DifferAnt had turned up with its antennae colored purple! DifferAnt forever questioned everything. Once it had declared – if one has to create a different future, or do something that has never been done before – one cannot KPI that. DifferAnt also said productivity could not be measured through a time tracker.

Now CompliAnt got the perfect excuse to fire DifferAnt, and so it did. BrilliAnt seeing DifferAnt being fired went into a state of shock and hid under the rocks, never to be seen again.

CompliAnt hired ReplicAnt and DuplicAnt to replace DifferAnt  and BrilliAnt. InvAnt felt that these new ants were solely focused on meeting KPIs and were shying away from taking risks or pursuing unconventional ideas for the fear of failure. InvAnt felt that real innovation was dying under the weight of the anxiety of meeting every KPI and tracking every minute.

It expressed its concern to CompliAnt. But again, CompliAnt did not pay much attention, it was busy presenting the success of meeting 99.9% KPIs to ManagemAnt.

Time passed. Any missed KPI, which currently was at 0.1% was condemned hard and harsh and would have to be explained with multiple charts, blurbs, and comments. InvAnt would now cheerlessly go about its day, always busy with a plethora of documentation, always in fear of failure. Failure of not a missed invention but of a missed KPI!

Some more time passed. CompliAnt presented the success of meeting 99.9% KPIs to ManagemAnt.

Where are the new inventions? hollered ManagemAnt. InvAnt has lost its touch and needs to be replaced. Let us get InstAnt!

CompliAnt nodded. With DuplicAnt and ReplicAnt already there, every KPI would now be met 100% with InstAnt.

Good choice, thought CompliAnt, as it sat up in its ergonomic chair.

Achieved 100% KPI- now its resume flaunted!