Stop Counting Passes. Start Scoring Goals.
You’re measuring the wrong thing.
Imagine a soccer team obsessed with pass completion. Crisp footwork, great team work, looks impressive. But what if they never score? Feels ridiculous.
That’s exactly how most product, growth, and small business teams operate. They track tasks, close tickets, ship features, and celebrate output. Meanwhile, impact? Nowhere to be found.
John Cutler calls this the “feels like progress” trap. More work doesn’t mean more results. And “getting things done” is pointless if those things don’t move the needle. Here’s how to stop playing the wrong game:
1. Stop Measuring the Work. Start Measuring the Win.
Your success metric isn’t:
🚫 Features shipped
🚫 A/B tests run
🚫 Jira tickets closed
Your success metric is:
✅ Revenue
✅ Retention
✅ Customers who actually care
Everything else? Just passing the ball around.
2. Kill Fake Productivity.
John Cutler’s visual says it best:
Starting feels productive. Finishing is productive.
Doing more things at once feels fast. Focusing on fewer things gets results.
Individual effort looks efficient. Working together creates impact.
Busy ≠ effective. Let’s move on.
3. Shift from Work to Outcomes.
Your team isn’t here to check boxes. They’re here to win. That means:
Impact > Activity. Ten features that change nothing are worse than one that does.
Speed = Faster Learning. Not doing more. Figuring out what works, sooner.
Deep Work Matters. The best break throughs happen when you give them room.
4. Measure What Matters.
Running hard in the wrong direction doesn’t get you bonus points. Stop tracking internal vanity metrics (tasks completed, hours logged). Shift to external ones (customer conversion, retention, expansion). If it doesn’t tie back to business goals, it’s just noise.
5. Fix Problems, Not Just Backlogs.
When your team hits a problem, don’t just go around it, fix it. Solving blockers means pulling the right people together to remove obstacles now, instead of pretending they don’t exist for weeks.
You Don’t Need to Do More. You Need to Win More.
Your team’s success isn’t measured by how busy they look. It’s measured by outcomes. Stop celebrating passes. Start scoring goals.
Want to talk more about this? Message me.