SMART GROWTH | LEADERSHIP & PERFORMANCE
Here’s something I see time and time again with business owners and sales leaders: they know their numbers aren’t where they need to be, they can feel it, but they’re still reluctant to put a proper measurement system in place.
Why? Because they’re worried about how the team will react.
They’re worried the team will feel watched. That people will feel called out. That it’ll create a weird, uncomfortable atmosphere in the office. Sound familiar?
Here’s the reframe: the problem isn’t the numbers. The problem is the story we’ve told ourselves about what numbers mean.
KPIs, benchmarks of success, team dashboards, call them whatever you like, they aren’t about catching people out. They’re about giving your team something genuinely valuable: the chance to own their own success.
It’s the Last Month of Q1. What Are You Actually Measuring?
We’re already in March. The last month of the first quarter of the calendar year. The last month of Q3 of the financial year. And this time of year is always a good moment to pause and ask yourself honestly: do we have the right structures in place to know whether we’re actually moving the dial?
Not vague feelings. Not gut instinct. Actual data.
If you don’t have clear benchmarks of success in place right now, this is your sign. And if you do have them, this is your reminder to review whether they’re actually working, because KPIs are never a set-and-forget exercise.
Why Businesses Resist Putting Numbers in Place
In my work with clients, there are a few common barriers that come up when we start talking about introducing or reviewing KPIs. I want to name them, because once you can see them clearly, they lose their grip.
- “The team will feel awkward if their results are visible on a dashboard.”
- “We don’t know how to define the right KPIs for our type of business.”
- “We’re worried about how people will react to being held to account.”
- “KPIs feel old-school, or too ‘sales-y’ for what we do.”
I get it. These concerns are real. But here’s what they’re actually telling you: they’re signalling what might be holding your team back from stepping into a truly high-performing culture.
The discomfort isn’t a reason to avoid measurement. It’s a reason to pay attention.
What a Benchmark of Success Actually Does
A KPI, or what I often call a Benchmark of Success (or a BOS, which I love), is simply a metric that shows whether you’re moving towards your goals. That’s it. No more complicated than that.
Three to five clear, meaningful indicators. No more than five. Any more and they lose their power.
But here’s the piece that gets missed: when you give someone a number to own, you’re not just creating accountability. You’re giving them the opportunity to feel genuine achievement. You’re giving them the gift of knowing exactly what success looks like in their role.
Think about that. How many people on your team could clearly tell you right now what a brilliant week looks like in their role? If the answer is ‘not many’, that’s something worth fixing.
Stats are data. Data shows results. Results tell the story of whether you’re heading in the right direction, individually and collectively. Why would we not want that clarity?
The Fear Factor: What’s Really Going On
When team members resist KPIs, there are usually a few things happening beneath the surface. The first is past experience: if someone has worked in an environment where numbers were weaponised rather than coached, they’re going to bring that fear into your business. That’s understandable.
The second is more confronting. Sometimes, deep down, people know they’re not doing what’s expected. And transparency is going to surface that.
And the third? It’s a bit like starting a new job in an open-plan office. When everyone can hear your calls at first, it feels incredibly exposed. But within a few weeks? You’ve adapted. You don’t even notice it anymore.
The same thing happens with performance visibility. Given time, given the right culture, it just becomes the rhythm of how you operate.
How to Roll It Out Without Creating Fear
If you’re introducing benchmarks of success for the first time, or reintroducing them after a period of being a bit loosey-goosey with the numbers, here’s what I’d recommend:
- Start by explaining the why. Make it about the individual’s growth and success, not surveillance.
- Give a grace period. You’re testing and tweaking the numbers. Make that transparent.
- Have fortnightly or monthly check-ins that are coaching-focused, not punitive.
- Celebrate the wins out loud. Publicly. This is how you shift the culture.
- Review the numbers quarterly. They should evolve as the business does.
This isn’t a one-time rollout. It’s an ongoing, open dialogue between you and your leadership team and the wider team. You’ll find yourself needing to tweak things. That’s normal. That’s healthy. What you’re building is a cadence, a rhythm of performance that eventually becomes part of how your business breathes.
What Happens on the Other Side
When it works, and it does work, here’s what you start to see:
People step up. They become more autonomous because they know what they’re responsible for. High performance becomes visible and rewarded. Low performance becomes equally visible, and the conversations that need to happen, happen.
Sometimes KPIs reveal that the issue isn’t the person. It’s a gap in training, a broken process, or an unclear system. That’s incredibly valuable information. It means you can fix the actual problem instead of wondering why things aren’t clicking.
And from where you sit as a senior leader? You can step away for a full day, a conference, a holiday, and know that your team knows exactly what to do. They have their numbers. They have their check-ins. They have the support structure to get there.
That’s what Smart Growth looks like. Not just revenue. Confidence. Clarity. A business that runs because it’s built right.
A Reflection to Take Into Q1 Close
We’re heading into the final stretch of Q1 and the end of Q3 in the financial year. What a perfect time to get honest about your measurement systems.
If you don’t have benchmarks of success in place yet: start thinking about it now so you can implement properly heading into the new financial year in July.
If you do have them in place: this is your check-in. Are the numbers still right? Is the coaching cadence supporting the team? Is there balance between training and development alongside the accountability structure?
It’s not just about getting the numbers in place. It’s about the conversations that happen around those numbers. And then it’s about going above and beyond to support your people so that “above and beyond” eventually becomes just… the way things are done.
Ready to Build Your Performance Framework?
If this article has got you thinking about where your business is sitting with its KPIs and benchmarks of success, I’d love to hear from you. What’s come up? What needs to be tweaked, introduced, or completely rebuilt?
Reach out. Let’s talk about what Smart Growth looks like in your business between now and the end of financial year 2026. Because whether you’re mid-career, scaling, or just trying to get clarity back in the numbers, the foundations matter, and now is a great time to build them right.
Listen to the full Smart Business Growth podcast episode that inspired this article here
I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
