Over dinner, a former client and now dear friend shared that he was working on “scoreboarding” less. He explained that for too long, he had been too focused on what he achieved and how these goals were displayed to the world around him. He confessed that this obsession had changed how he worked, what he pursued, where he was willing to grow and how he was/wasn’t proud of his work.
While having clear outcomes is important to measure progress and stay focused in a world with many competing, and at times, conflicting demands, he was concerned about the significant long-term costs of being so focused on the scoreboard alone. He’s had successes (raising millions for a startup in 2000) and significant failures (the company eventually folded). His confession left me thinking about where and when I scoreboard too.
Having grown up in a competitive family, where there was a sense that love was finite (more love for one person meant less love for another person), I have worked very hard to move out of competitive environments. Although I love to run, I rarely run races. Although I like to play games, I’m very selective about which games I embrace and with whom I play with. Candidly, even fun competition nurtures some seeds within me that don’t bring out my best self. With this self-knowledge, I became very curious: When does scoreboarding work for me versus against me?
Metrics Matter
Scoreboarding is actually very important when it comes to tracking progress. It is a way to focus on what matters most and assess whether you’re moving the dial. Seeing progress is vital to happiness too. It makes us happier to see progress rather than to achieve outcomes.
But of course, it is important that we are measuring the right things. Pick metrics that matter: ones that move you closer to your priorities. Avoid scoreboarding everything and every interaction.
Get In The Learning Zone
I could dunk basketballs all day as long as I was playing on a kid’s court. The key is to raise the bar so that you are challenged. You need to be stretched to grow and learn but not so stretched that you will get frustrated and burn out. Yes, dream big—set lofty goals! Be willing to go after what matters most and what will move the dial. When you’re doing this, stay focused on more than the scoreboard. Focus on the smaller victories too.
Prepare And Struggle Purposefully
The only thing more important than having a scoreboard is making sure you’re measuring the right things. To begin, ask yourself: Am I measuring important deliverables? Am I measuring things that will really move the dial? This is where struggle might enter the picture.
I see time and again that people feel a tremendous sense of urgency to achieve goals. That’s great, but in the process, they sometimes bypass the preparation phase and underestimate the importance of struggle.
Preparation is vital to getting a lay of the land and capturing all the things that need to be done. Along with assessing which metrics are most important, the second aspect of preparation is breaking a project down into small, viable, actionable steps. This is absolutely vital because it shifts you from planning to execution. It helps you focus on what is most important.
Notably, we rely on different parts of our brains at different stages of any project. There is a part that goes out to scan all the different demands and responsibilities coming our way and which captions these need. There is also another part of our brain that focuses on prioritization optimization of those tasks that are most important. And there’s yet another part that drills down and says, “OK, what actually needs to happen to execute this work?”
The struggle is to find a way to identify goals, prioritize them, and break them down into small and manageable steps. When I meet executives who are exhausted, they are often clear on their goals yet fail to prioritize and honor preparation and struggle. In other words, they are so busy staring at their own scoreboard, they are no longer able to move forward.
What’s the solution? Don’t tear down your scoreboard. It’s vital to your work and well-being. But don’t let your scoreboard distract you from what you need to be doing in the present.