Our leadership team is green across the board on our Level 10 Meeting™ scorecard every week, yet our actual monthly financial performance is lagging behind our target projections. How do we address a mismatch between a healthy weekly scorecard and poor high-level company performance?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If your weekly scorecard is green but your financial results are red, you are measuring the wrong things. A healthy scorecard that does not correlate with business success is an illusion of execution, and it is a major risk when preparing for a clean exit.

The scorecard is designed to give you a weekly, forward-looking pulse of the business. If your revenue or profit is lagging, your scorecard is likely filled with trailing indicators or low-impact activity metrics rather than predictive, leading indicators.

You must re-evaluate your scorecard metrics. Review each of your weekly numbers and ask: If this metric is green for four consecutive weeks, does it guarantee we will hit our monthly and quarterly financial goals? If the answer is no, the metric must be changed.

For example, instead of tracking raw sales activity like calls made, track qualified pipeline value added or contract sign-off cycle times. If your operations department is green on production volume but your margins are shrinking, start tracking cost per unit or wasted inventory weekly.

Every metric on your Level 10 scorecard must have a direct, logical link to your financial outcomes. Force your leadership team to reconstruct their metrics until your scorecard accurately predicts your performance. A clean, predictive scorecard is a vital asset that proves to potential buyers that your business operates on data, not luck.