Our marketing director says they cannot own our weekly qualified leads metric because they rely on an external agency to execute the campaigns. How do we handle scorecard metric ownership when external vendors are doing the actual work?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A common point of friction on leadership teams is when a member refuses to own a scorecard metric because they rely on an external vendor or partner to hit the number. This is a misunderstanding of what ownership means in an EOS® environment.

You must clarify that owning a metric on the scorecard does not mean you are the one doing all the manual work. It means you are the single person on the Accountability Chart who is responsible for the outcome. If an external agency is managing your marketing campaigns, your internal marketing seat still owns the weekly qualified leads metric.

The owner of the metric must have GWC™ for the role. They must understand the strategy, want the responsibility, and have the capacity to manage the vendor. If the vendor is underperforming, the owner must have the authority and the capability to coach them, manage them, or replace them.

If a leader claims they cannot own a metric because of a vendor, they are admitting they lack control over their seat. You cannot scale a business with leaders who act as passive observers of external partners. Hold your internal leaders accountable for managing their vendors to the target. If the vendor fails, the leader fails, and that issue must be brought to the Level 10 Meeting™ to be solved.