For years, companies have measured their performance with endless reports. Excel spreadsheets filled with figures accumulate every week or month. These documents give the illusion of control, but do nothing to change the decisions made or practices in the field. 

In many teams, we find the same observation: too many figures, not enough meaning. Managers spend more time commenting on discrepancies than understanding what's causing them. Indicators exist, but they don't really help us make progress.

Today, the stakes have changed. It's no longer a question of producing ever more data, but of knowing how to transform it into learning. The central question is: how can we move from a logic of control to one of collective progress?

1. The limits of conventional reporting

A control tool stuck in the past

Reporting was originally conceived as a means of verification and accountability. For example, in a large service company, branch managers received a twenty-page file every Monday. Too long, too dense. Managers admitted to spending only a few minutes on it. The document reassured management, but provided no concrete help to the teams in the field.

This is the major limitation of reporting: it produces a clear but fixed picture. In an industrial IT department, an availability rate of 99% gave the impression of stability. In reality, critical incidents were recurring week after week, slowing down hundreds of employees. The indicator masked the root causes and prevented action.

Too many indicators, not enough meaning

In some companies, management committees monitor 50 or 60 indicators a month. On paper, everything is measured. In practice, fewer than a dozen really guide decisions. The rest blur the signal and divert attention from key issues.

As a result, management meetings drag on over secondary figures, with everyone defending "their" indicator. Managers drown in details, and field teams no longer know where to focus their efforts. This information overload weakens decision-making and encourages short-term management, focused on what's easy to measure rather than on what really counts.

2. Using measurement as a learning tool

Prioritize the right indicators

A useful dashboard is no more than 5 to 10 KPIs. They must be unambiguously linked to strategic priorities, otherwise they become noise. Too many indicators end up blurring the message and creating an illusion of steering, when no clear course is set.

For example, one SaaS startup had accumulated almost 30 metrics: CAC, MRR, churn, number of demos, support response time, rate of bugs fixed, etc. Each team tracked its own, but no one had an overall view. Each team tracked its own, but no one had an overall view. Discussions in management committees turned into a catalog of figures with no conclusion.

Management decided to simplify radically. Three indicators have been selected:

• NPS to monitor customer satisfaction,
• retention rate to measure loyalty,
• the CAC to keep profitability under control.

Within three months, all the teams were speaking the same language. Budgetary arbitration accelerated, priorities became clearer, and decisions became more coherent. Simplification transformed a confusing dashboard into a genuine shared management tool. This logic is in line with the fundamentals of management : giving teams simple, aligned benchmarks that are adapted to the real issues at stake. 

Combining figures and the field

Numbers don't tell the whole story. Quantitative data must be complemented by qualitative feedback.

Let's take the example of a factory, where the productivity of a line has been falling for several months. Reports point to a technical problem. After discussions with the operators, another cause emerges: a new maintenance procedure, poorly understood, lengthens the restarts. In the end, the problem was not technical, but human. Without feedback, it would have remained invisible.

Including the collective dimension

Performance is not just about the individual. It also depends on a team's ability to learn and grow together. An organization that only looks at financial or operational results misses out on a key element: the quality of cooperation.

One consulting firm decided to review its project evaluation criteria. Three axes were selected:

• profitability, to track economic efficiency,
• customer satisfaction, to measure perceived value,
• internal cohesion, assessed through systematic feedback from the consultants involved.

The results soon spoke for themselves. Some projects were highly profitable, and well received by customers, yet had poor cohesion scores. Teams complained of excessive pressure, coordination problems and a lack of recognition.

The company reacted simply: a better distribution of workloads, more regular monitoring of the team climate, and a greater presence of managers. Management was no longer limited to immediate financial results. It took into account team health and the ability to last over time.

3. Best practices and pitfalls to avoid

Three best practices

For performance measurement to become a learning tool, three principles are essential:

1. Simplify and make visible. A clear dashboard, no more than ten indicators, understandable at a glance. Too many figures dilute attention and make it hard to distinguish what really counts. Simplification doesn't mean losing information, but giving teams a tool they can use immediately.
2. Create sharing rituals. An indicator is only of value if it feeds a collective discussion. In one industrial company, a quarterly "performance lab" brings together managers and operators. Results are reviewed together, discrepancies are explained and actions are decided directly in the meeting. This ritual has transformed the way teams perceive figures: from a report imposed by head office, they have become a tool for dialogue.
3. Linking measurement to action. Indicators are used to test hypotheses. In a service company, a falling customer satisfaction score led to a review of the telephone reception script. Two versions were tested over a three-month period, with rigorous follow-up. The NPS improved by 12 points on the most effective version, which was then generalized. The indicator ceased to be a simple thermometer and became a decision-making tool.

By combining these three principles - clarity, sharing and action - performance measurement ceases to be an administrative exercise. It becomes a concrete lever for learning, progressing and aligning the organization with its real objectives.

Common mistakes

Some practices reduce performance measurement to a bureaucratic exercise. There are three main pitfalls:

• The infobesity of indicators: too many figures drown out priorities.
• Lack of follow-up: a commitment barometer published but never followed up by action discredits the initiative.
• Control logic: using KPIs solely to monitor destroys confidence and discourages initiative.

The time for tick-the-box reporting is over. Successful companies transform their indicators into learning levers. They simplify, they cross-reference figures with feedback from the field, and they create spaces where data becomes actionable. Performance measurement should no longer be an instrument of control, but an engine for collective progress.