Lead & Lag Measures

Hey - It’s Michael.

Had a spectacular dance weekend in Prague & writing this after some solid Viennese Schnitzel. Enjoy the newsletter!

You get up and work. And work. And work. Yet another day goes by but you don’t see any apparent results from all the effort you put into this project or that life dream.

Suppose you know what you want - then you’re already ahead of most people. The question then becomes: how do you really know whether you move closer towards that goal? And how can you feel happy about it?

Depending on what your goal is, it might take months, years or even a decade to see results.

Therefore, understand the difference between lead & lag measures.

Lead measures are daily actions you do now that influence the result later.

Lag measures are the results you see later after doing those daily actions.

Here’s a simple example:

If you’re a sales manager and your goal is more sales, then:

The lag measure is the monthly revenue you bring in.

The lead measure could be anything from the number of sales calls you do, the follow ups you send to the time you spend on conferences talking to customers.

In essence: Lag messures tell you whether you won. Lead measures tell you what to do to win.

Being a big fan of stoicism you can look at it this way: lead measures are the actions that are within your control to achieve an outcome (= a lag measure). Lag measures however are very often outside of your direct control and influenced by many different factors.

This is why many of the great athletes learn to love the process, not the outcome. They focus on training and the immediate next game - not on how many medals they won.

Principle:

Focus on the right lead measures to get your desired lag measures.

After identifying a goal that is worth wanting (a science & art of its own), be sure to think a good and long time to figure out which lead measures take you most effectively to your goal.

Then execute & track them rigorously.

Stop Rule

Stop being concerned with the (end-)goal and focus on improving daily actions towards that goal.

I’m convinced healthy high performance is only possible if you learn to love the process and improve your daily actions & habits.

Otherwise it’ll be extremely difficult to endure & overcome the pain that is necessary for the growth you need to achieve truly challenging goals.

My favorite part about lead measures is the following: you define your own success criteria, that are now fully under your control. This means that common stress sources by society’s norms (money, status,..) fall away. This in turn will release a lot of inner strength and power.

“I can only control my own performance. If I do my best, then I can feel good at the end of the day.” - Michael Phelps

What do I really want? Which daily habit would get me there? Do I like this daily habit?

See you next week - Michael