Lead Measures: Managing Execution Every Week, Not Every Quarter

Why quarterly results are not enough to manage by#

A branch learns at the end of the quarter that its complaints have gone up. A contact centre finds out at the end of the month that satisfaction has fallen. By then, the customers concerned have left, the files are closed and the team can no longer change what produced the figure.

Lag measures are essential: they tell you whether the strategy is working. But they are poor tools for managing the week, for two reasons. They arrive late, and the team cannot move them directly. A team that is simply asked to improve satisfaction does not know what to do on Monday morning.

This matters directly for Moroccan businesses. The World Bank's 2023 Enterprise Survey puts Morocco's management practices index at 32 out of 100, against 46 for the Middle East and North Africa region. The index covers practices such as tracking indicators and setting targets, in other words precisely how an organisation follows its numbers and acts on them.

Lag and lead: the distinction#

In The 4 Disciplines of Execution (2012), Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling brought this distinction to a wide management audience. Their approach rests on four ideas: focus on a small number of goals, act on lead measures, keep a visible scoreboard, and hold a regular meeting where everyone accounts for their commitments. These ideas match the way the KAPER Cadence works.

The two properties of a good lead measure#

A useful lead measure must be both:

• influenceable: the team can improve it through its own actions, without waiting for a decision from another department;
• predictive: when it improves, the result being pursued is likely to follow.

Many measures meet only one condition. The number of calls handled can be influenced but predicts quality poorly. Last week's satisfaction score predicts loyalty but can hardly be influenced within the week. Good candidates are often found in pending work, internal lead times and checks that have or have not been carried out.

Choosing a lead measure is first and foremost a hypothesis. Write it down as one: "if we call back the same day every customer who contacted us again, repeat contacts will fall next month".

Examples in three Moroccan settings#

These examples are starting points, not templates to copy. The right measures depend on the real cause of the problem, which the diagnostic must establish first. For a contact centre, our guide to contact-centre quality describes the most useful lag measures, and the page on first-contact resolution shows how to measure it honestly.

The team-owned scoreboard#

A scoreboard is not a senior management dashboard. It is designed for the team and kept by the team.

• Simple: two or three lead measures, one or two lag measures, a target for each.
• Visible: displayed where the team works, or shared on a single screen; everyone should see in a few seconds whether the team is ahead or behind.
• Updated by the team: when the team enters its own figures, it owns them; when they come from a central department, they remain someone else's numbers.
• Defined in writing: formula, source, frequency and owner for each measure, so that time is not lost arguing about the calculation.

The cadence of accountability#

A scoreboard nobody looks at changes nothing. Every week, in a short meeting, each team member says what they had promised to do, what they did, and what they commit to doing the following week to move a lead measure. Obstacles beyond the team's reach are escalated with an owner and a date.

That is the role of the KAPER Cadence: lead measures are reviewed in the Know step, and commitments are checked in the Reflect step.

The limits: when the measure becomes the target#

A well-known formulation in management, inspired by the economist Charles Goodhart (1975), sums it up: a measure stops being reliable once it becomes a target that people are pressed to hit. Lead measures are no exception.

• Gaming. A measure such as "files handled within five days" can encourage closing files too early. Pair it with a quality check, for example the reopening rate.
• The link to bonuses. Tying a lead measure mechanically to pay speeds up gaming. Our guide to sales incentives explains how to avoid this.
• Wear and tear. A measure that has been on target for weeks no longer teaches you anything. Replace it.
• The wrong hypothesis. If the lead measure improves and the result does not follow, the hypothesis was wrong. Change it without looking for someone to blame.

Revising measures is part of the system. Do it at least every quarter, and more broadly at the 90-day execution review.

Getting started in six weeks#

1. Week 1: choose the result. One or two lag measures, with their baseline.
2. Week 2: state the hypotheses. List the actions that, according to the team and the data, move that result; keep two or three.
3. Week 3: define and equip. A definition sheet for each measure, the scoreboard, the data source.
4. Weeks 4 to 6: hold the meeting. Every week, read the scoreboard, take individual commitments, check the previous ones.
5. After two to three months: test the hypotheses. Have the lead measures moved the result? Keep, adjust or replace.

Your checklist#

• One or two lag measures, with their baseline.
• Two or three lead measures that the team can influence, written down as hypotheses.
• A definition sheet for each measure.
• A visible scoreboard, updated by the team.
• A weekly meeting where commitments are checked.
• A quality check paired with every measure exposed to gaming.
• A date for reviewing the hypotheses.