Bring your inputs to the table

Revenue, profit and retention share one problem: by the time they show up on a financial statement, it’s too late to change them. They are lagging indicators. The work that produced them happened months earlier.

Even so, most leadership meetings spend nearly all their time on the scoreboard.

Companies that grow consistently turn that around. They pick a handful of leading indicators, the activities that reliably produce results down the road, and they track them every week. Calls made. Proposals sent. Follow-ups completed. Quotes turned around in 24 hours. One-on-ones held.

I saw a simple version of this at home. Two of my boys were recognized for academic excellence. The award was the lagging indicator. The leading indicators were months of extra reading and practice that never looked like much on any single day.

To build your own short list:

• Start with the result you want and work backward. What has to happen 90 days before a sale closes?
• Pick three to five indicators. Twenty is a report nobody reads.
• Make each one countable, and give each one an owner.
• Review them every week, and spend more of the meeting on inputs than on results.

A council works the same way. When you report back each month, the useful question is rarely “What was revenue?” It’s “What did you do this month that will show up six months from now?” Owners who answer that one honestly tend to see the results follow.