How Do I Keep Score?

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Scene: You are in a Quarterly Business Review and a manager is standing in front of a busy dashboard which displays 20 color-coded metrics on one screen. Seventeen of the metrics are green. Three are red.

Is this manager winning or losing? Will the executive team ask any questions about the strategies and tactics that produced green results or will questions about the three red indicators dominate the discussion?

In most organizations, the red will attract all the attention - even when those particular metrics are the least important ones. The sales manager who exceeded revenue goals, exceeded pipeline generation goals, and exceeded hiring/retention goals may get this feedback from her executives: "Good job on revenue, but your team is red on their annual code of conduct compliance training and I expect you to turn that green by next week!" There is an assumed expectation that you are only winning if every single metric is green. Any red is evidence that you are losing.

The best leaders communicate clearly which metrics matter most. "We may measure twenty things, but winning in your job means that these three metrics matter more than the others. If you have to make trade offs, optimize to ensure that these three are green." If every metric is equally important, then none of them are important and execution suffers.

When we imagine other leaders in the scenario above, it's easy to see how unhealthy and unproductive this kind of leadership is. We are much worse, though, in how we do this to ourselves. We are keeping score on dozens of metrics, across several dimensions of our lives - work, romantic relationships, friendships, parenting, finances - and beating ourselves up for not making every one of those green at all times.

As you scroll through your LinkedIn feed, the first post reminds you that you are red in publishing content, the second post reminds you that you are red in the size of your network, the third post reminds you that you are red in your title, the fifth post reminds you that you are red in your income, and then the last past makes you feel guilty as a parent (or guilty for not being a parent). Social media algorithms are intentionally designed to turn your scoreboard red. The algorithm thrives off of your anger and disappointment and sadness. Green is boring. Red keeps you scrolling and coming back often. (How twisted is this?!)

I would advise the executives from the dashboard scenario to simplify their dashboard and focus only on the two or three metrics that matter most. I would advise you to do the same in your personal dashboard. Life forces a series of tradeoffs. In one chapter, career may need to be red so that your health can be green. In another chapter, you may decide that relationships will temporarily turn red so that finances can be green. Where people experience regret is when they sacrifice something that matters a lot in exchange for something that won't matter at all.

Be kind(er) to yourself. Celebrate those aspects of your life that are green. Stop beating yourself up because some aspects of how you measure yourself are red (for now). Millions of people would trade their combination of reds and greens for yours. Pay attention to which metrics - those ways that you compare yourself to others - are getting most of your attention and challenge yourself to reconsider whether those are the things that matter most to you. A great life comes from being clear about a few things that you want to make green (and then ignoring a long tail or red indicators for things that won't matter years from now).

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