Case study: Establishing a culture of metrics-driven leadership

Success depends on more than hard work – it requires clarity, alignment and measurable progress.

For Hemingway Wealth, the path forward began with defining specific metrics.  

When CEO Cheryl called him with a job offer, Jim jumped at the opportunity to join Hemingway Wealth as COO. Jim had always respected the team and the brand at Hemingway – it was known in the community as a company of standup people.

Jim’s first order of business? Getting the firm organized by outlining ‘metrics that matter.’ Despite successfully serving clients for decades, Hemingway was not very diligent about setting business objectives or tracking performance metrics.

Jim was especially excited to lead the group in a strategic planning exercise to hash things out, build alignment and get to work. He knew that the work would make a big impact. He filled up his coffee cup and got to work outlining next steps.

Quotes from the team

COO, Jim: Over time, this work is going to take our firm from ‘good’ execution to ‘great’ execution.

CEO, Cheryl: It would feel amazing to get our metrics/results laid out clearly. I feel comfortable making gut decisions. But my broader leadership team would be more effective strategically if they were armed with data.

Client Service Manager, Chris: I have a general idea of how efficient we are. But I don’t have great numbers to back it up. For example, I couldn’t tell you our responsiveness times to client requests. Or how much time we spend on each household, per quarter.

Business Development Manager, Barry: I’d like to get a better handle on reasons won/reasons lost during our sales process.

Marketing Manager, Michelle: It would be great if we could see insights around where our leads are coming from. So that we can do more of what’s working and less of what is not.

CFO, Greg:  Every time we have a management meeting, it takes a lot of prep. Anything we can do to automate/ simplify that work would be fantastic.

IT Manager, Ira: We need to think about roles, permissions and security. For example, which employees should get access to the data? Is there a way to restrict access to contain it to only designated people/roles?

Questions to consider

1. How should the COO go about getting input from his new team?
2. How might the team at Hemingway Wealth use technology to help in this endeavor, such as dashboards?
3. How does your leadership team set goals and track progress?
4. What are the ‘metrics that matter most’ to your firm? How do you measure them and manage your team to them?
5. Assess your firm’s “metrics-driven leadership” approach – where are you doing well, versus where would you like to improve?