We noticed our sales team is hitting their weekly outbound dials target on the Scorecard, but our pipeline value is flatlining because they are calling inactive accounts just to hit their activity numbers. How do we restructure our sales activity metrics to prevent this gaming behavior?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

People will always behave according to how they are measured. If you put a low-value activity like raw outbound dials on your weekly Scorecard without any quality filters, your team will dial inactive accounts or speed-run conversations to hit their target. They protect their seat by making the scorecard look green while your business flatlines. To stop this gaming loop, you must pair your activity metric with a quality or outcome-based counter-metric. Instead of tracking raw outbound dials, track outbound conversations lasting longer than two minutes, or outbound dials that result in a booked discovery meeting. Another approach is to track pipeline value added weekly. This forces the sales seat to focus on high-value targets rather than empty activity. Your Scorecard should never measure activity for the sake of activity. It must measure progress. When you identify a gamed metric, do not blame the employee for following the incentive structure you created. Drop the metric down to your issues list during your next Level 10 Meeting™ and redesign the row so that gaming the system is harder than simply doing the job well.