When metrics are out of alignment, even “success” can hurt your business.

When your metrics are out of sync, growth stalls—even when everything looks good on paper. Here are three examples from just this week (this issue is way too common).

A new client has internal KPIs that clearly reward compliance above all else. Managers who run the tightest ships and avoid risk get promoted. Not surprisingly, their business has flatlined. No innovation, no urgency, no progress. Just a lot of comfy managers producing polished reports about processes that aren’t delivering results.

In another case, an enterprise software company is being held back because sales, marketing, and implementation teams are all measured differently. Marketing is rewarded for lead volume, not quality. Sales rushes month-end closes regardless of complexity. Implementation is treated as a giveaway to close sales (and underfunded as a result). Each group is “performing”—but the handoffs are sloppy, internal trust has eroded, and customers ultimately pay the price. Everyone is doing their job. But they aren’t pulling in the same direction.

And then there’s the SaaS company that ties sales comp to securing multi-year, high-license-count deals up front. It’s an aggressive metric designed to drive revenue and please investors. But when you push for too much too soon—before value is proven—you drive away good customers. Or worse, you land them, but they spend the next 5 years regretting it.

Growth metrics can’t live in isolation.

They must be in sync with your customer’s reality.
They need to support—not stifle—your internal culture.
And they need to align with each other so your whole business pulls in the same direction.

The sad thing is, it's not hard to do this right. So why do so many companies get it wrong?