The Metrics Mindset: Part 2
| July 15, 2025Not everything worth doing fits on a dashboard. Leadership means seeing the impact that lives between the numbers
In the world of work, especially mission-driven work, we often mistake momentum for progress. A great vibe, a crowded event, a passionate discussion.... It all feels like movement. But as every seasoned manager learns, not all motion is forward. Compliments don’t close deals. Enthusiasm doesn’t ensure results. That’s why you need metrics
HE wasn’t the highest earner. He didn’t manage anyone. And when the efficiency experts handed the CEO a list of recommended layoffs, his name was at the top.
The CEO took one look and shook his head. “You don’t understand,” he told them. “He’s the one who makes people feel welcome. He has a smile and a good word for everyone. When he’s not here, the atmosphere is heavy.”
Rav Avigdor Miller shared this story one Elul, drawing out the deeper truth: Sometimes, the most valuable people are the ones whose worth doesn’t show up on a chart. From the outside, this employee looked expendable. But from the inside, he was the glue that held the staff together.
“Be that person,” Rav Miller urged his listeners. “Even if you aren’t the tzaddik or the talmid chacham, be the one who lights up Hashem’s world, and that will help you on Rosh Hashanah.”
I think of this story when I think about metrics. Metrics are essential. They give us clarity. They help us measure progress, steer strategy, and guide our teams with confidence.
But they’re not the whole story. Not everything worth doing fits on a dashboard. Leadership means seeing the impact that lives between the numbers. And knowing that just because something can’t be measured doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.
In our last column, we spoke about all the reasons metrics can drive a company forward. Today, we’re going to explore what metrics can’t capture — and how to balance the numbers with the intangible.
What the Numbers Don’t Show
A number can tell you what happened. It can show you how many women got hired this month. How many clients signed up. How many calls were made.
But a number can’t tell you what wouldn’t have happened without that first step — or how deeply a small moment might matter later on.
At Temech, we’ve seen this firsthand. Some of the jobs we helped women land were low-paying roles. Not headline-worthy. Not funder-impressive. But they were the first rung on the ladder. They gave women marketable skills and trained them to be confident, competent employees. Those jobs often became springboards.
When we launched our coworking hub, the goal was simple: to provide a professional, pleasant work space for women who preferred not to have internet at home. For a while, our hub was packed.
Then more centers opened — closer to home, tailored to each neighborhood. Ours became less crowded. On paper, it looked like we’d lost momentum. In reality, we had changed the map.
That’s the thing about metrics: They measure the visible. But the deepest impact takes time to surface.
And that doesn’t mean we abandon the numbers. It means we lead with both eyes open — one on the data, and one on the direction it points us in.
The Human Factor
Not all progress is linear. And not all growth is loud.
There’s one computer programmer I think about often. On paper, her journey with us didn’t stand out. She wasn’t the top performer. She didn’t start a business. She missed a few sessions.
But something shifted. Quietly, her mindset changed. She began speaking differently. Thinking differently. Believing differently.
Her daughters noticed. Today, all three of them have solid jobs in tech. One is a talented, sought-after coder.
Would they have ended up there without her? Maybe. Maybe not. But the ripple began with the woman who, on paper, didn’t shine.
Chazal teach us about sechar pesiyos — the reward for every step taken toward a mitzvah, even if the goal isn’t reached. Because in Hashem’s world, effort is never wasted.
When we only measure outcomes, we miss the reward for showing up.
The Metrics-Only Trap
There’s a high that comes from hitting a number. We get a thrill from watching numbers rise. You can feel productive just by checking a dashboard. However, there’s a quiet danger that creeps in when an organization becomes too reliant on metrics.
It starts with good intentions — tracking outcomes, holding people accountable, aligning the team around what matters. But when metrics become the primary language, the message becomes: Only what’s measured counts. And that changes how people work.
Even high performers begin second-guessing themselves. They avoid experiments. They won’t pitch an idea unless they can guarantee ROI (return on investment). Creativity, collaboration, and moral courage — the soft skills that power great teams — start fading from view.
Worse, people begin to feel watched instead of trusted. I’ve seen teams that reported their KPIs (key performance indicators) faithfully, but stopped sharing what they were learning.
One way you can address this is by intentionally carving out space for what I call “untracked wins.” These are the important moments that have no number attached to them — a woman who stood up for herself in a salary negotiation, a company who shifted their mindset about hiring chareidi women, a team member who quietly mentored a colleague through a rough month. When these moments are acknowledged, shared, and celebrated, you’re showing that you appreciate that which goes beyond the numbers.
Another strategy is to embed learning into the rhythm of the work. At the end of a project or quarter, ask, “What did we learn?” When people know that reflection is expected, that insights will be noticed and valued, they begin to approach the work differently. They’re more likely to try new things, to question, to grow.
Finally, make sure your review cycles leave space for both short-term and long-term thinking. Numbers tend to reward the quick win — the spike in sales, the uptick in clicks. But if all you track is what happened this week, you might miss what’s unfolding over the next year. Good leadership balances both: the urgency of the now, and the patience to build what lasts.
Buried Under the Dashboard
You open the metrics report. Page after page. Chart after chart. It’s all being tracked — attendance, engagement, bounce rates, revenue by region. But instead of clarity, you feel overwhelmed.
This is termed “metric fatigue.” It’s not the result of laziness or resistance to accountability, but of overcommitment to tracking everything.
John Doerr, the legendary venture capitalist who helped bring OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) into mainstream business thinking, built his philosophy around one core principle: “Measure what matters.”
At Google, at the Gates Foundation, at dozens of startups he funded, Doerr saw that when teams picked a few clear, meaningful goals, and tracked only the results that directly drove those goals, performance surged.
But when the list got too long, the opposite happened. Teams stopped owning the numbers and productivity dipped.
Doerr saw it in tech startups. We’ve seen it in nonprofits. If you try to track everything, you end up managing nothing. That’s why strong organizations build in reviews. Just as you revisit goals and budgets, you need to audit your metrics.
Ask yourself: Are they still aligned with your mission? Are they currently producing insight? Are they helping your team make decisions — or just adding pressure to prove performance? And most importantly: Are they still shaping behavior in the right direction?
Metrics should be active levers. Choose just a few, choose them carefully, and revisit them regularly.
Metrics as a Conversation, Not a Verdict
There’s a difference between looking at a chart and seeing what it means. Mihir A. Desai, a professor at Harvard Business School, illustrates this beautifully in his finance course.
He hands students real data sets from major companies like Citibank and Amazon — but strips away the labels. Then he asks them to match the data to a short list of anonymous company profiles.
The result? The students begin to think differently. They stop scanning for confirmation and start digging for insight. Because when you don’t know what you’re looking at, you’re forced to look at it differently.
I once watched a presenter apply this idea in a leadership setting. Instead of showing data to prove a point, he displayed the numbers without explanation and asked the executives in the room, “What do you see here?” That single shift turned a passive presentation into a lively, collaborative strategy session.
That’s the kind of culture great teams build. When people help interpret the numbers, they own the outcomes. Conversation uncovers insight — and the meaning that numbers alone can’t show.
Designing for Nuance
The best metrics do more than count. They connect. But even the best ones need context.
You track job placements and see the growth plateau but zoom out, and the women now earn twice as much. You track course completions and feel underwhelmed — until you learn that those who did complete the course landed jobs with stronger-than-usual growth trajectory, and that one alumna was promoted and hired two others from her community.
It’s not about abandoning metrics. It’s about pairing them with meaning.
Here’s what that might look like:
Revenue → Return customer rate
Job placements → Confidence or income growth
Course completions → Skill application
Attendance → Post-event behavior change
Strong metrics show you results. Paired metrics help you understand impact. As my mentors remind me, and I often remind my team: Some of our biggest shifts only make sense when you zoom out. If you’re too focused on the numbers, you’ll miss the arc.
So don’t throw away your dashboards. But don’t stop there, either. Add dimension. Add depth. Let the data guide you, but never let it limit you.
Gvira Milworm, CEO of Temech, draws on her experience of more than 30 years in the workforce to share her insights and the valuable lessons she’s learned about managing teams and companies, to help you be an effective leader and create the ideal workplace.
(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1070)
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