Every department in our company has dozens of KPIs they want to push up to the leadership Scorecard. How do we distinguish between a departmental metric that stays local and a vital company Scorecard metric?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To keep your leadership Scorecard focused on five to fifteen numbers, you must establish a strict boundary between company-level health and departmental operations. Every seat on your Accountability Chart should have its own Scorecard, but only the absolute vital indicators of the entire organization belong on the leadership team Scorecard.

To filter these metrics, ask whether a drop in this specific number requires the attention of the entire leadership team or if it can be resolved entirely within one department. If your customer service team has ten metrics, like first-response time, ticket resolution rate, and customer satisfaction, the leadership team only needs to see the single most predictive metric, such as net promoter score or overall customer retention. The other nine remain on the department level scorecard.

Think of the company Scorecard as the dashboard of an airplane. The pilot needs to see altitude, speed, and fuel. They do not need a dial showing the temperature of the cabin kitchen or the pressure of a single hydraulic line, even though those details matter to the crew.

If a departmental metric goes red, the department head uses their own meetings to solve it. Only when a metric indicates a systemic threat or opportunity that requires cross-functional collaboration does it earn a spot on the leadership Scorecard. Use your Level 10 Meeting to aggressively push non-vital metrics down to the departmental level, freeing your leadership team to focus on the big picture.