Measuring what matters will keep your employees focused on the tasks and activities that give your organization the best chance of getting where you want to go.

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When people understand where the organization is headed and are aligned with what it takes to get there, you spend a lot less time putting out fires and redirecting people to the appropriate tasks and activities.

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But with many laboratory tasks being automated, there should also be scope to begin new activities, and the partners believe one key role for the ISS going forward will be as a development platform for deep space exploration.

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If it is true that more mines are being lifted annually than are being laid, then by Ms. Williams's own logic there is no justification for the ICBL's focus on political activities, and every reason to shift the emphasis to the practical tasks of clearance, medical aid and rehabilitation of the wounded and of their land.

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Sales and marketing still focus on their own tasks, but they collaborate more often on key activities.

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For a trip to be deductible, you must put in 40 hours of work a week. (Keep a log in case you're audited.) Tasks can range from genteel drudgery such as observing, measuring and cataloging, to more taxing activities, say, hiking to 17, 000 feet in the Himalayas to study Nepalese snow leopards.

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This lack of clarity is partly because knowledge work involves more diverse and amorphous tasks than do production or clerical positions, where the relatively clear-cut, predictable activities make jobs easier to automate or streamline.

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