# Dashboard Essentiality By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-11-17 Dashboards capture and summarize the essentials into easily consumed components. When driving a car, a dashboard quickly summarizes how fast one is going, how much fuel remains, and if there are any engine failures. One uses the dashboard frequently when driving to check in on the essential things to keep the car operational and compliant. However, no one uses the dashboard to drive the vehicle. If one only looks at the dashboard, one will go nowhere. If one drives without looking at the dashboard, one will eventually run out of gas or kill the engine. Driving the car and checking the dashboard are done best in collaboration. This is obvious to anyone with a driver's license. Yet, something changes when managers attempt to run organizations and use dashboards. Most people do not think of business dashboards in the same way. Instead of showing the essentials to keep the organization operational, most business dashboards are nonexistent, show every detail, or are merely a scoreboard of wins and losses. The reasons for this are many, but if one wishes to know the health of an organization, look only as far as their dashboards. Nonexistent dashboards are a symptom of immaturity, detailed dashboards are a symptom of lack of focus and understanding, and scoreboards pretending to be dashboards are a symptom of poor organizational leadership and performance. As further evidence, consider how these situations translate to driving. If one does not look at the dashboard or the dashboard does not exist, the driver or the car is immature. If the car's dashboard had every detail about the car's operation shown, the driver clearly does not understand the essential driving elements. If the car's dashboard only shows one position in the race, one does not understand what it takes to improve and win beyond "just go faster." Dashboards are not everything, but they say an awful lot in short order about an organization. Even if they are misused, they still have the power to capture and summarize something essential: the flaws of their makers. #### Related Items [[Dashboards]] [[Organization]] [[Essence]] [[Management]] [[Decision-making]] [[Operations]] [[Diagnosis]]