Our leadership team agrees we need a weekly customer acquisition cost metric on our Scorecard, but marketing, sales, and finance all touch this and refuse to be the sole owner. How do we assign a single owner to a cross-functional efficiency metric?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

In EOS®, we have a strict rule: every single number on your Scorecard must have one, and only one, owner. When you try to make a metric shared, you guarantee that nobody takes responsibility when that number goes red. For a cross-functional metric like customer acquisition cost, the debate usually stems from confusion between who does the work versus who owns the number on the leadership team.

To resolve this, look at your Accountability Chart. Identify which seat is ultimately accountable for the overall efficiency of your business development engine. While marketing generates the leads and finance calculates the overall spend, the sales seat or the marketing seat must own this metric because they have the direct authority to adjust the strategies that drive that number. If marketing is spending too much on bad channels, the marketing leader owns the customer acquisition cost target.

The owner does not have to manually calculate the number or do all the underlying work. They simply own the accountability for ensuring the target is met. If the number goes red, they are the one who must bring it to the Level 10 Meeting™ and own the problem. They will lead the IDS® process to solve it, even if the solution requires help from finance or sales. Keep the accountability clean. When you assign single ownership, you eliminate the finger pointing and drive real operational performance.