Our marketing and sales directors are arguing over who should own the Qualified Leads Converted metric on our leadership Scorecard, as both seats directly impact it. How do we assign single-seat ownership to a metric that spans multiple departments without creating friction?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

In the EOS operating system, there is a fundamental rule: only one person can own a metric on the Scorecard. When two leaders claim ownership, or when they point fingers because a metric spans multiple departments, it means you have not clearly defined the handoff point on your Accountability Chart.

The Qualified Leads Converted metric measures the transition from marketing to sales. To resolve the dispute, you must clarify who owns the actual conversion event.

If the marketing seat is responsible for delivering marketing qualified leads, and the sales seat is responsible for accepting and converting those leads into sales qualified leads, you must split the metric into two distinct, clean numbers.
- Marketing owns the number of marketing qualified leads delivered weekly.
- Sales owns the conversion rate of those delivered leads into active sales opportunities.

By splitting the metric, you create total clarity. Marketing cannot blame sales for poor closing rates if they delivered high-quality leads that met your agreed definitions. Sales cannot blame marketing for low sales volume if they failed to convert the leads that were delivered.

Assigning single-seat ownership removes the gray area. It stops the debating during your Level 10 Meeting and allows you to use the IDS process to solve the real issue: whether the lead definition is wrong or the sales follow-up process is failing.