The hidden gap between what we measure and what actually drives results
I have been noticing a pattern for quite a while now. Once you see it, you really cannot unsee it.
I have had conversations with leaders across industries and organizations of all sizes. Different contexts and different surface-level challenges, but the same core issues keep coming up:
- How do we get employees to actually own the customer experience?
- Why are our teams so siloed?
- Why does everything feel inconsistent to our customers?
At first glance, these sound like customer experience problems.They are not.
They are people problems. More precisely, they are problems rooted in how we manage and measure people.
Something That Never Quite Sat Right
During my time in Corporate America, I kept seeing the same pattern over and over again. The higher people moved up in the organization, the less they resembled strong people leaders.
Some were respected. Many were not. Some were, frankly, a little feared. Yet they kept advancing. Why?
Because they hit their numbers. They had visibility. On paper, they performed and achieved their goals. But if you asked the people working for them, you would hear a very different story.
It didn’t fully click for me until I stepped away from that environment and gained some distance. That’s when the disconnect became clear. As a leader, you are part of your employees’ daily experience. You are literally a dinner conversation when they get home. People talk about their day. And you are part of that story.
The real question is:
Are you the reason they feel better about their work, or worse?
What I Experienced on the Other Side
Throughout my career, I have always focused on developing people and helping them grow. Not because a system required it, but because it felt like the right thing to do.
Over time, patterns started to emerge. The best people wanted to work with me. I didn’t have to recruit them. If there was an opening, they reached out because they knew they would grow.
My network expanded as well, not through intentional networking, but through helping people succeed. Years later, those same individuals became clients, referral sources, and advocates.
The people everyone wanted to keep were the ones who made everyone else better.
And during difficult moments, layoffs, budget cuts, restructuring, there was always a clear, unspoken pattern.
You couldn’t always prove it in a report. You didn’t need to. Everyone knew.
The Gap
This is where the real issue comes into focus.
We have built systems around what’s easy to measure, the numbers and data. But much of what actually drives results doesn’t show up in those systems. In customer experience, that gap becomes even more pronounced.
Because customer experience doesn’t happen in isolation.
It happens in the in-between moments:
- The handoffs between teams
- The assist from a colleague
- The extra effort that never gets documented
That’s where the experience actually lives. And it’s exactly what we almost never measure.
A Better Way to Think About Performance
This realization led me to start asking a better question:
Who is better because this person is on the team?
That question changes everything. Because the highest performers aren’t just the ones delivering results. They’re the ones who elevate everyone around them.
They:
- Build trust
- Share knowledge
- Remove friction
- Make others more effective
Over time, that impact compounds. I call this Collective Lift, the impact one person has on the people around them.
At its core, it’s simple:
Performance isn’t just about what you produce. It’s about how you impact the people around you.
Why This Changes Everything
If we continue measuring only individual output, we will keep promoting the wrong people and reinforcing silos. We will keep wondering why the customer experience feels inconsistent.
But when you start recognizing and valuing the people who make others better, a different kind of organization begins to take shape:
- Teams collaborate instead of compete
- Knowledge flows instead of being hoarded
- Employees feel supported instead of isolated
- Customers experience consistency instead of friction
Because better employee experiences create better customer experiences. Every time.
The Real Takeaway
Most organizations don’t have a performance problem.They have a measurement problem. They are overlooking the behaviors that actually drive long-term success. The leaders who understand this and act on it, don’t just build high-performing teams.They build teams that make everyone around them better. And that’s where real, sustainable results come from.
