Return on investment is the investment of time, money and energy. There is only so much time and money and just like time and money, energy can be exhausted too. It’s easy to measure how much time we have and how much money we have left, but energy is something that is hard to explain, much less tie to business results. Until now.

I have an analytical view of the world and therefore bring an analytical thought process to an area where we are told analytics don’t belong. Without this important view of business, we resort to managing over mentoring because we tell ourselves we cannot manage what we cannot measure. But you can mentor over manage (and like it) if you see business through a different lens. The new lens is ROE.

ROI is only half of the equation for operating a successful business, but it is ninety percent of our focus! ROE™, or Return On Energy® is as much a factor on positive business performance as ROI. I would actually argue, it more important than time or money. If you increase your ROE, you will power up and increase your ROI too. If you increase your ROE, you will increase the performance of the human capital that drives the business. This outlook helps build a well-balanced business. How many businesses do you know that are well funded, have the same about of time as the competition, but struggle to keep up or ultimately fail?

If you truly want to create sustainable ROI, you first must become aware of ROE. Knowing something exists is one thing, but being disciplined enough to learn it, practice it and improve from it is a completely different story. Personal development is the cornerstone of this methodology.

What is exciting to consider are the results of increased ROI as a result of focusing on ROE. Sure ROI is about increasing time and money, but consider the other benefits. Better innovation, employee engagement, a higher level of passion from all the seats in the organization.

ROE is made up of three ways of thinking and communicating. Way One, Way Two and Way Three. It is critical to align the Ways in the right order. A Way is described as a way-of-thought as well as a position or title one occupies (your seat on the bus if you will).

Each Way in a company, regardless of the size of the company or the position one may occupy, has only two desired results. The first result is a ‘people result’ and the second is a ‘position result’ in that order of importance. This is the first shift in thinking to power ROI with the ROE methodology.

A ‘people result’ is first taking an interest in your own personal development and second mentoring someone else, usually a direct report or an individual on your team. If that person too is investing in himself or herself, then they will value being mentored by someone who has similar personal development values. We may sometimes refer to these people as ‘learners.’ Once that mentee advances to a level of management where they are responsible for other people, not just themselves, they apply their experiences to continuing to develop themselves in their new role and pay it forward by becoming the mentor.

A ‘position result’ is how we measure someone’s performance, be it a sales quota, number of parts made per shift or how many tax returns you filed this season. Position results are usually tied to pay incentives and bonuses. This is absolutely necessary in any position in any business. But, if you want to increase position results, invest in people, increase engagement in the organization and position results will sore.

Each Way has a specific people result and a specific position result. You can only connect a Way to one of his or her two desired results if you know which Way someone is more inclined to think and not so much what seat they occupy. People walk around with the wrong titles all the time, so title is a poor indicator of how someone is predetermined to think much less your expectation of how they should communicate.

There are three Ways and two results for each Way.

Each of the Ways are naturally connected in the ROE communication delivery chain. This is contrary to the traditional structure of the top down, bottom up organizational model we see today. Think this sounds too simple? Keep reading, because simple does not mean easy. And this simple methodology will have a profound impact on your career and your company.

Employee engagement is one of a company’s biggest management challenges. The world’s top-performing organizations understand that employee engagement is a force that drives performance outcomes. In the best organizations, engagement is more than a human resources initiative — it is a strategic foundation for the way they do business. .

Vision and strategy must be effectively translated across the organization touching every Way in every seat. Getting the right resources in the right roles, getting staff buy-in across the organization, driving ideas to positive action, finding top talent and keeping top talent is paramount to any organization. Just as important are effective internal communications in the organization and each of its departments.