We understand that our weekly scorecard should focus on leading indicators, but our leadership team keeps falling back on backward-looking financial metrics because they are easier to pull. How do we systematically audit our current scorecard to replace these lagging results with actionable, forward-looking activities?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Lagging indicators tell you what happened last month or last quarter. They are like looking in the rearview mirror while driving. If you only track revenue, net profit, or completed projects on your weekly scorecard, you will only find out you are in trouble when it is too late to fix it.

To fix this, look at every lagging indicator on your scorecard and trace it backward to the activities that create it. For example, if your lagging indicator is signed contracts, ask what activity must happen immediately before a contract is signed. The answer might be sending proposals. What happens before that? Conducting discovery calls. What happens before discovery calls? Outbound reach or lead generation.

The leading indicators you want to put on your scorecard are those upstream activities, such as weekly discovery calls booked or proposals sent. These are numbers your team can actively influence in the next seven days. If discovery calls drop this week, you know your sales pipeline will dry up in thirty days.

Audit your scorecard by categorizing every metric as either leading or lagging. If more than twenty percent of your scorecard consists of lagging financial results, challenge your seat owners to replace them with the critical, weekly, activity-based metrics that drive those financial outcomes.