Governing

The Importance of Key Results

You've documented what you're measuring. Both you and the person you've recruited to help have agreed to their responsibility—the goal, the authorities and constraints, and the key results that define success.

Here's a glimpse at the level level: leaders monitor supporting responsibilities.

This is where real-world governing happens. This is where you maintain alignment, catch problems early, and create the conditions for fair evaluation.

For Team Leaders, Key Results Serve Two Purposes

First, key results monitor the actual progress of every subordinate responsibility that's helping you deliver on your own outcome. For the Contributor who owns your subordinate responsibility, of course these matter. They need to know whether the pieces are coming together the way they expected. They need to know if their strategy is working. 

But for you, the Lead, not all metrics matter equally. As a Lead, you'll choose which key results you actually watch. Which ones would change your thinking if they moved? Which ones signal whether your strategy is working? Which ones tell you something's going wrong before it becomes a crisis? Those are the ones you monitor intentionally.

Here’s an example - as CEO, there are many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of key results that are being tracked somewhere below you. But, only a few truly matter to you at the moment. Because cash flow has become vitally important, you’re monitoring the number of days it takes to receive funds following a shipment. The person actually recording these invoices is 6 levels below you on the org chart. But that’s the metric that gives you the best insight about cash flow. 

This requires wisdom—knowing what actually signals the health of your specific responsibility. It requires patience—some metrics take time to move. And it requires trust—you're monitoring outcomes, not managing execution details.

Second, key results allow transparent evaluation. When it's time to assess whether your direct team member delivered on what they committed, you have shared data. Did they hit the key results? Did they stay within the constraints? The metrics tell the story.

Monitoring for Early Signal

The power of transparent key results is that they can surface problems before they become failures.

If you're both watching the same metrics, and a metric starts to diverge from expectations, you each see it. There's no hidden problem festering.

This is where remedial conversations happen. Not as a signal to jump in and fix things. But as an opening to ask: "I'm seeing this metric moving in a way I didn't expect. What's happening? What do you think we should do?"

Even if the particular metric is several levels below you, this conversation should occur with the person who’s directly supporting you—the person you delegated to. They owe you the outcome you need. And they need to be in a position to understand what's happening with their team or their work. They own the conversation with the people below them.

It’s best when you trust them to surface issues and take action. Your role is to ask good questions and stay informed, not to fix things yourself.

Which Metrics Matter?

You can't monitor everything. You shouldn't try to.

Be intentional about which key results you actually track. Which ones would change your thinking about your own strategy if they moved? Which ones signal that your approach isn't working? Which ones are just noise—indicators that matter for the person executing but not for your strategic view?

Let the noise go. Follow the metrics that matter to your outcome.

This intentionality prevents micromanagement while maintaining real visibility. You're not watching everything they do. You're watching the things that tell you whether your strategy is working.

When Problems Surface: The Renegotiation Conversation

Transparency means problems don't stay hidden for long. When a metric shows something's going wrong, it surfaces early.

At that point, you have a choice. You can adjust your approach. You can help the person figure out a new strategy. You can modify the responsibility itself.

But here's what's critical: if the responsibility needs to change—if the goal is becoming unrealistic, if a constraint is no longer workable, if a key result isn't telling the true story—you need to discuss this openly with the person who owns the subordinate responsibility in good faith and document it. The two of you need to figure out what needs to be adjusted and revive the responsibility’s momentum in order to retrieve the needed outcome. 

The Accountability Question

The Contributor owns their responsibility. Period. 

If circumstances arise that they believe prevent them from delivering, their recourse is to discuss it with their Lead. They can’t, of course, unilaterally hand the responsibility back. But they should raise the issue.

Your obligation as the Lead is to engage in that discussion in good faith. And if the responsibility needs to change, you document the updated responsibility agreement together.

That's non-negotiable. That's what fairness requires.

If the Contributor fails to raise an issue they see—if they choose to proceed knowing there's a problem, without discussing it—that's on them. They owned that choice.

If you, as the Lead, refuse to discuss in good faith or fail to document when a responsibility needs to change, that's on you. You broke the fairness contract. And, just to be clear, you don’t need to ‘give in’ and allow the Contributor whatever they ask for. Just use your judgment about what’s best for the organization. And document the discussion as you did the original responsibility agreement. 

Beyond that, the metrics and the documentation tell the story.

Transparent Evaluation

When it's time to evaluate your team member’s performance, you have a shared record of what was committed and what changed. Success is straightforward: did they deliver against the key results? Did they stay within the constraints?

When performance falls short, root cause matters. Did the strategy fail? Did execution fail? Did oversight fail? But you're not parsing this alone. You have transparent metrics and a documented history of discussions.

Root causes matter. The very process of cooperatively talking through any point of failure helps build a trusting relationship. In the end, you may not both agree. But it will all be based on objective metrics and documentation, not subjective standards like “You didn’t communicate sufficiently.” 

The documentation makes evaluation possible—not just possible, but fair.

Why This Matters for Trust

This whole approach—transparent metrics, early conversations, documented renegotiations, fair evaluation—this is what creates trust structurally.

Not trust because you're a nice person. Trust because the system itself is transparent and fair.

The person you delegated to knows they'll be evaluated against what was actually agreed. They know problems surface early through the metrics. They know if they raise an issue, you'll discuss it in good faith. They know if something changes, it gets documented.

That structural fairness is what enables people to own their work.``

The Next Step

You're monitoring. You're having conversations. You're documenting when things change.

Now you need to think about evaluation and what happens when performance doesn't match expectations. That's where we'll go next.