By Jason Tunbridge

Picture this: you set a target for your team, you talk about it in the Monday stand up meeting, you send the email, you hope for progress. But weeks pass, and you realise nothing’s changed. Why?

Because your hoped for target wasn’t measured. Without measurement, there’s no accountability, and without accountability, there’s no consequence for not meeting the target. I’ve seen it many times: when you don’t hold the team accountable for meeting the target, they’ll take that as a green light to interpret “target” however they like.

Because what gets measured, gets done. And what doesn’t get measured, is not deemed as important.

Here are two solid real-world examples:

Sales Context: The “10 new clients a quarter” target

Revenue needs a boost. You set your BD team a target: “We need 10 new clients this quarter.” You leave it at that. Weeks later, you ask how it’s going and you get generic responses: “We’ve got a couple of leads” or “We’re working on it”. That’s because you never measured interim steps.

No one tracked number of calls, number of meetings booked, number of proposals submitted. Without the “how many” at each stage, your team lacks clarity, and you lack visibility.

So, you change tack and get specific. You define the metrics:

• Minimum 50 outbound calls per week
• Minimum 10 discovery meetings per month
• Minimum 5 proposals submitted per month
• Minimum 10 new clients with at least a $40k spend each by the end of quarter.

Each metric is measured weekly. You walk into the meeting with the numbers. You visibly log them. You comment on them. Suddenly the team says: “We’re tracking, we’re seeing progress, we know where we stand.” Results appear. Because you measured it, they did it.

Service Context: The “resolve 90 % of customer support tickets within 24 hours” target

Customer experience is drifting. Your NPS score is down. You set your Customer Service team a target: “We’ll resolve 90 % of customer tickets within 24 hours.” It sounds good, but if you don’t measure the number of tickets opened, the number resolved in 24 hours, the number breached (i.e., resolved after 24 hours) and you don’t review it weekly – well, you’ve given your team a nice target, but no accountability. Without the tracking, your team interpret the target loosely “It’s an aspirational target.” Because there’s no visible scoreboard.

Now you clarify the metrics you want to see:

• Number of tickets opened per day
• Number of tickets resolved within 24 hrs
• Number of tickets that breached the 24-hr window
• Weekly trend of breach rate.

You sit down every Monday, look at the scoreboard, ask “What happened with the 17 that breached? What did we learn? What will we do this week to get back under target?” The team responds: “Give us autonomy to authorise returns of up to $30 value without escalation; we can also update our knowledge base to reduce repeat issues.”  Because you measured it — they acted on it.

Final Thoughts

If you don’t measure something, you’re effectively saying “we hope you’ll do it” rather than “this is an expectation”. And in business, hope doesn’t move the needle. When you measure clearly, create visible tracking, and follow up consistently, you send a signal that accountability and action matters. That’s when targets are continually met because everyone knows “we’re doing it” and can see the proof.

So, pick a key metric. Make it visible. Review it regularly. Overtly measure the team’s progress. Because what gets measured, gets done.