We notice our sales team is hitting their weekly outbound call targets perfectly, but our pipeline of actual qualified opportunities is flatlining. How do we identify when a scorecard metric is being gamed for compliance and restructure it to reflect actual business value?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

People will always optimize for what is measured. If you set a target for outbound phone calls, your team will make the calls, even if they are leaving voicemails for unqualified prospects. When employees game their scorecard metrics, it is a sign that your metrics are too narrow or lack balancing indicators. You must design your scorecard to measure both activity volume and activity quality. To fix a gamed metric, pair it with a balancing metric that ensures integrity. For example, if you track weekly outbound calls, pair it with weekly booked meetings. If the calls are high but the booked meetings are zero, the discrepancy immediately highlights a quality issue. In operations, if you track tickets closed, pair it with customer satisfaction ratings or reopen rates to prevent technicians from rushing through support calls. Review your scorecard regularly to see if green activities are failing to produce green results downstream. If your sales activities are green but your sales revenue is flat, the activity metric is no longer predictive. Use your weekly Level 10 Meeting™ to IDS® the metric itself. Change the target or the definition of the metric so that it forces your team to focus on high-value, honest actions rather than administrative compliance.