The only way we can get performance to improve is to have some quantifiable influence over it. But some areas of performance are so chaotic that any improvement we try to make is swallowed up by the chaos, and we can't quantify (or even see) the change we've made.

Great strategy execution should be about implementing high return-on-investment (ROI) improvement initiatives. But finding that high ROI requires a few mindset shifts about what leverage really means, about the role of data in helping us find leverage, and about where to act to implement leverage.

It's easy to default to the first quantification method that comes to mind when we're designing a measure. But the default isn't always the best choice. Here are some considerations to make a more deliberate decision about whether a measure should be a count, a percentage, or an average.

Our definition of accountability for KPIs, or accountability for performance, profoundly affects people's ownership of performance. This new accountability definition creates ownership...