Ever get to Friday and think, “I was busy all week, but did I actually accomplish anything that mattered?” I think a lot of fee appraisers, reviewers and chief appraisers live there.
Reports and reviews got finished. Then Monday shows up and we do it again. Busy is easy to measure. Meaningfulness is harder.
Mark Abbott is founder of Ninety, an EOS software company and my friend. He’s so smart that I creatively call him “Smart Mark.”
Smart Mark wrote Work 9.0: The Evolution of Work. It is an optimistic book based on a central question. How can organizations create more meaningful, fulfilling lives for employees?
He starts with agreements. People need to know what they own. They need to understand what success looks like. They need a visible scorecard. They need to see where they are winning, where they are falling short and what needs to happen next.
A bank vendor scorecard says:
“Here’s how I’m measuring you.”
An agreements-based scorecard says:
“Here’s what we agreed winning looks like.”
For a fee appraiser, winning be: “I completed three reports this week, 100% on time, clearly explained how the property fit into its local market and zero preventable revisions.”
For a reviewer: “I helped the bank make five sound collateral decisions, identified two material issues and had four of five reports move through review without unnecessary back-and-forth.”
For a chief appraiser: “My department delivered 95% of assignments on time, pushed revision rates down to 10% and surfaced three valuation issues early enough to proactively act on them.”
What does good look like? Who owns what? How do we measure quality? What happens when the score slips?
Those questions sound operational but they’re really about meaning. People want to know that their effort matters, that they are getting better and that good work is recognized as good work.
What does success really look like? Going home on Friday knowing whether you had a rewarding week.