Tracking Helps the Naughty and the Nice

In the 1989 film “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” Clark Griswold announces to his loved ones assembled around the table for Christmas Eve dinner that he heard on the news that an airline pilot spotted Santa’s sleigh on its way in from New York.

If you remember the scene, the kids around the table smile excitedly and get big eyes, the grown-ups “ooh” and “ahh” in knowing conspiracy, and Clark’s dimwitted brother-in-law Eddie scoops up a mouthful of lime-green Jell-O salad and asks, “Are you serious, Clark?”

Clark rewards Eddie’s question with a withering glare.

Whether or not you believe in Santa, one truth you can take to the bank is that tracking performance helps drive performance.

And this year, the Santa Tracker turns 70.

Santa and the Cold War

Following World War II as Cold War tensions escalated between America and Russia, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) was established in 1948 to provide an early warning system for any Soviet air or maritime missile attack. The CONAD command and control center evolved to become the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which today is maintained by American and Canadian forces.  

In its first year of operation, the CONAD commander issued a communique on December 24, 1948, noting an “early warning radar net to the north” had detected “one unidentified sleigh, powered by eight reindeer, at 14,000 feet [4,300 meters], heading 180 degrees.”

The Associated Press published this “report,” marking the first time a branch of the U.S. armed forces issued a statement about Santa’s Christmas Eve travels. Not much happened and the report was not repeated for seven years.

Then in 1955, a Sears department store placed an advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper notifying kids they could call Santa Claus. The helpful advertisement even provided a phone number.

One digit was misprinted: the number was actually a number for Colorado Springs’  Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center.

The line between fact and fiction is occasionally blurred but there’s enough evidence to confirm that sometime in December 1955, a little girl placed a call that eventually reached Colonel Harry Shoup, the commander of CONAD.

The little girl asked Shoup if he was Santa Claus. Thinking the call might be a practical joke, Shoup had to think twice before realizing the little girl was serious so he asked to speak to the child’s mother who told him about the advertisement.

Sensing a public relations opportunity, Shoup instructed his public affairs officer to issue a statement informing news media that CONAD was tracking Santa’s sleigh, adding that “CONAD, Army, Navy, and Marine Air Forces will continue to track and guard Santa and his sleigh on his trip to and from the U.S. against possible attack from those who do not believe in Christmas.”

There were no plans to repeat the publicity stunt in 1956 until Shoup learned the Associated Press and United Press International were waiting for Santa Claus updates from CONAD.

And that’s how an event begun in 1955 has become an annual tradition.

Today, NORAD and Google, the world’s largest search engine, both track Santa’s Christmas Eve journey.

According to NORAD, “fifteen hundred volunteers staff telephones and computers to answer calls and e-mails from children” on Christmas Eve, drawing more than nine million inquiries from two hundred countries.

Google’s version of the Santa Tracker was released in 2004 based on Google Maps. Google and the government site entered into a partnership in 2007, though the two trackers maintain their respective identities and brands.

The formulas each organization use are different and arrive at slightly different results, but both sources track Santa’s Christmas Eve mileage at around 200,000 miles to deliver more than seven billion gifts.

Whichever source you use, it’s clear Santa is a busy guy.

Who’s Naughty? Who’s Nice?

Clarity is a great motivator.

I’ve said for years, “Clarity creates confidence. Confusion causes chaos.”

Ambiguity is a great de-motivator, at least to your high-performing employees.

Tracking is your mechanism for communicating clearly and unambiguously the performance occurring at the enter­prise, business unit, departmental, functional and individual levels.

It’s what your best employees want.

And tracking is a tool to help underperforming employees see where they’re falling short.

When you make your list of who’s naughty and nice, start by reviewing your tracking systems.

Reviewing data is a good first step toward figuring out who to coach, what to coach, and how to coach people.

When it’s time to reward your best employees, remember the most thoughtful gift is the one they want—not the reward you think they want.

And when it’s time to address those who are struggling, remember to bring the Christmas spirit into your coaching approach to address them in a way that offers a path forward for self-improvement.

We all need some help, some encouragement and the gift of a person who believes in another.

Choose to believe.

Merry Christmas.