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...

"Business decisions, as many of our colleagues in business and your own experience can attest, are frequently based on hope or fear, what others seem to be doing, what senior leaders have done and believe has worked in the past, and their dearly held ideologies - in short, on lots of things other than the facts... If doctors practiced medicine the way many companies practice management, there w...