I’ve built a lot of accountability systems for teams.
Big ones. Fancy ones.
Owners. Check-in days. SOPs for the SOPs.
And they worked.
Sort of.
Because they were also a pain to keep alive. Like a fish tank. Looks great on day one. By week six, something is floating.
Sound familiar?
So I dug deeper. I wanted to know, what is the thing that keeps people accountable and keeps business simple…
And the answer was not a job title.
It was not a clear list of responsibilities.
Or a weekly report of everything they’re doing.
Don't get me wrong. Responsibilities matter. SOPs matter. Knowing what "good" looks like matters.
They just matter a lot LESS than this one thing...
Owning a metric.
And the less metrics, the better.
That's it.
The thing you measure to know, without guessing, if something went amazing or very wrong.
Not a feeling. Not "I think it's going fine."
A number.
Now here's where it gets fun.
You have a way you like to do things, right?
You also have a way you like OTHER people to do things.
Now picture this:
You order a pizza. The driver takes a weird road.
Do you care? Maybe a little.
But you care that the pizza is hot and shows up on time.
That's the metric. The route is his problem.
Work is the same.
If a task got done in a totally different way and you still got the result, do you really care?
If you DO care, then pause. Maybe there’s another metric worth tracking.
Maybe it's not about speed. Maybe it's about quality, or how the customer feels.
Fine. Name it. Measure it.
It’s easier than it sounds.
1. Pick a process
2. Identify the metric
3. Decide what makes it green, yellow, or red
Then, hand it to someone and let them drive.
Sure, train them if you have to. Give them the SOPs. Show them the ropes in onboarding.
Then let them fly.
Metric is green? Cool. Move on.
Metric is yellow or red? Now you dig in.
That's the whole system.
You stop worrying about how it gets done. You start caring about whether it got done well.
Want to try it this week with your team? Here’s exactly how:
Ask your team to do a brain dump. Every single thing they are responsible for. Big, small, weird, all of it.
Then ask one question for each item.
"What metric does this move?"
Some will have an answer.
Some won't. And that's a flag.
That task is either not needed, or you need to dig deeper to find out why it matters.
Don't worry yet about what red, yellow, and green look like. You can sort that out later.
First, just find the metrics.
What should be measured.
And what doesn't need to be measured or cared about at all.
You may be surprised how much of the list falls off.
(Correction, you will be surprised)
Poor to-do list. It had a good run.
Surprise number two is often…
“How does no one on the team own this?”
Now, one more thing.
Most of the owners I talk to have this same problem…
In their leads, sales, and operations.
If you want help systemizing your biz, in a really simple and beautiful way, book a call here at https://calendly.com/thomas-125/free-systems-call and we’ll create a plan together.
