“You don’t even must make profitability a KPI,” says Veejay Madhavan. “That’s simply fundamental hygiene.”
For somebody who spent a long time as a company CEO, Veejay is disarmingly blunt in regards to the sacred cows of enterprise efficiency. Amongst them: Key Efficiency Indicators, or KPIs.
“We’re given monetary KPIs like income and margins,” he continues, “but when the corporate isn’t worthwhile, nobody has a job. That’s foundational. That must be a dashboard merchandise, not a KPI.”
In his view, immediately’s metrics usually miss the mark—not as a result of numbers don’t matter, however as a result of the folks executing in opposition to these numbers are neither aligned nor outfitted to succeed. Because the founding father of Oulbyz, a consulting agency targeted on constructing high-performing, multigenerational groups within the age of AI, Veejay has turned his consideration to a quietly failing layer of most organizations: center administration.
“In case your KPIs don’t make sense to the people who find themselves imagined to ship them, what are they good for?”
The disconnect between technique and execution
On the coronary heart of Veejay Madhavan’s critique is an easy disconnect: boards and executives set high-level monetary targets, however these mandates are hardly ever translated into actionable goals for these beneath.
“We can’t block, copy-paste a KPI that the board has given and say, ‘Okay, that is our KPI on the management stage.’ The management stage has to take a look at all the pieces. That’s their job. Nevertheless it doesn’t imply the identical KPI ought to trickle down unchanged.”
This, he says, is the place most organizations falter. Metrics that may be strategically legitimate on the prime lose coherence additional down the chain. Worse, they usually grow to be sources of confusion or inertia.
He affords a state of affairs: “Say you give somebody a KPI of producing $100 million in income. They don’t management that. They’ll’t decide how a lot a buyer will spend, which package deal they’ll select, or whether or not they even keep. However in the event you say, ‘We have to discover 100,000 company clients who’ve the ache factors we remedy,’ that is sensible. That’s one thing they will do.”
In different phrases, KPIs ought to replicate management and affect, not simply ambition.
On why managers really feel misplaced
The results of this misalignment? Exhausted, confused center managers.
“The whole lot in an organization appears to be pressing and essential,” he says. “How can there be 100 issues which might be pressing? If all the pieces’s pressing, one thing is improper.”
He paints an image of managers consistently pulled in all instructions—upward to management, downward to their groups, and sideways throughout features—with no readability on the place their true priorities lie.
He likens the state of affairs to an overburdened air visitors management tower. “If the folks managing the fleet don’t know which airplane to fly, which route to take off from, and so they’re solely given one runway, what occurs? You get a backlog of planes. Everyone seems to be ready. And you then park a giant airplane in entrance of a small one, and the small one has to attend as a result of there’ll be turbulence.”
He makes use of aviation analogies all through his apply as a result of they provide a visceral approach to perceive programs considering and organizational stream. The purpose is obvious: if leaders can’t prioritize and talk clearly, their managers can’t execute successfully.
“The judgment comes quick,” he provides. “You’re requested, ‘Why haven’t you taken off but?’ However nobody stops to see that there’s a triple-seven flying proper in entrance of you.”
The KPI nobody owns
In Veejay’s work, some of the frequent breakdowns is possession. KPIs grow to be disconnected from the truth of each day work, and once they don’t replicate what staff really do or can do, they grow to be meaningless.
“We see workforce members saying, ‘I’ve completed my job. I’m ready for another person to complete theirs.’ That’s not collaboration. That’s leakage,” he says. “Their KPIs had been set that means. In order that they didn’t really feel like a part of a workforce; they only accomplished a job.”
He calls this an “vitality leak”: a second when functionality, perception, or initiative is withheld as a result of somebody doesn’t really feel accountable for the broader objective.
“In the event you give somebody a goal and say, ‘That’s your job,’ they gained’t step exterior of it. Even when they can assist. Even when they’ve perception.”
For Veejay, a very high-performing workforce behaves in a different way. The engineer doesn’t simply write code. The ops particular person doesn’t simply monitor dashboards. Everyone seems to be aligned round a shared goal and empowered to contribute throughout silos.
“If we are saying the workforce’s objective is to develop the shopper base by 3x, then everybody shares it. Not from their perform, however as a workforce. That’s what actual possession seems like.”
Refurbishing the company plane
This shift from particular person KPIs to team-level possession requires structural change. And that, he says, is the place most firms resist.
“You wish to fly from Singapore to New York, however your airplane remains to be a 737. Nobody’s going to sit down in an financial system seat for 18 hours with out consolation. It’s essential to refurbish the airplane.”
In his analogy, the plane is the corporate’s inside working system—its buildings, processes, and methods of measuring efficiency. You may’t anticipate long-haul efficiency with short-haul infrastructure.
“All of us wish to fly far, quick, however we’re not asking if our airplane is prepared. Is it outfitted? Is the crew educated? Are the KPIs designed for that journey? More often than not, they’re not.”
The implication: KPI reform is about reengineering how groups are structured, how success is outlined, and the way accountability is shared.
Readability within the center: A systemic repair
At Oulbyz, Veejay Madhavan begins each engagement the identical means: with a discovery dialog.
“We ask one factor: in the event you might repair only one or two issues, what would they be to stage up your group?”
From there, the method unfolds into alignment workshops, functionality assessments, and one thing he calls the “readability workshop.” The objective is to detect the place directions are breaking down and why managers aren’t translating technique into execution.
“Generally it’s not a talent downside,” he explains. “HR and distributors do a very good job on that. The problem is folks don’t even know what they’re imagined to deal with.”
He remembers a consumer engagement the place center managers had been juggling ten simultaneous priorities with no steerage. “All they hear is pressing, pressing, pressing. However when all the pieces’s pressing, it means nothing is.”
That’s when he steps in: to recalibrate not simply the workforce, however the management above them.
“We assist them ask the fundamental query: ‘Which three issues matter most proper now?’ As a result of in the event you don’t ask, you’re flying blind.”
Generally, the reply reveals a extra uncomfortable reality.
“There are occasions we stroll away,” he says. “We’ve advised purchasers, ‘Your situation isn’t with the workforce. It’s with you.’”
‘Cease outsourcing readability’
In Veejay’s view, the KPI disaster isn’t nearly metrics. It’s about possession of that means.
“In case your folks don’t even know who they’re, how can they know what they’re imagined to do?”
To repair the issue, firms want greater than smarter spreadsheets. They want honesty, alignment, and leaders keen to prioritize readability over management.
“We aren’t a band-aid. We’re a mirror. We present you what you’ve patched over, and what’s festering beneath. Whether or not you act on it or not is as much as you.”
In an age obsessive about efficiency, Veejay Madhavan’s message is quietly radical: readability is the core infrastructure for all the pieces else.
For extra insights from Veejay Madhavan and his work, comply with him on LinkedIn and Medium.
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