A High-Performance Approach to Reporting

Think about your weekly status meeting. There’s a physical element: you gather, people present slides, spreadsheets get updated with colour codes. There’s a communal element: the same people, same time, same place every week. And there’s a psychological element: over time, this becomes “how we do things around here.”

In research Norton conducted with colleagues and published in Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, they found that group rituals enhanced the meaning people found in their work, not immediately, but over time. As Norton explains: “It’s not that we do rituals and then, magically, we like doing our work later that day. It’s that over time, rituals themselves become meaningful to us, a sense of ‘this is how we do things around here.’ And that meaning is then linked to finding more meaning in the work that we do.”[^1]

This is why simply eliminating reporting meetings often backfires. You’re not just removing an information-sharing mechanism; you’re removing a ritual that provided psychological stability, created shared identity, and helped people feel their work mattered.

But here’s the critical distinction Norton’s research reveals: not all rituals are equally meaningful.

Rituals that feel imposed or purely performative don’t create the same sense of meaning as rituals that feel authentic to the group. The weekly status meeting where everyone reads pre-written updates nobody will remember, that’s ritual without meaning. It checks the structural boxes but fails the psychological function.

Compare that to a team check-in where people actually talk about what they’re struggling with, where the group helps each other solve problems, where there’s psychological safety to be honest. Same structural elements, completely different psychological functions. One creates meaning and connection. The other creates resentment and wasted time.

Norton’s framework also explains why reporting rituals are particularly important during organisational change, like when a Growth-Mandate CEO comes in to restart stalled growth. Rituals provide stability and predictability during uncertainty. The familiar rhythm of weekly check-ins can actually be comforting, as long as those check-ins serve a genuine purpose beyond just maintaining the ritual.

The key insight for leaders: rituals can be redesigned to be more meaningful without being eliminated. Norton recommends observing what teams are already doing naturally. How do they actually start meetings? What do they talk about informally? You codify the good parts whilst eliminating the performative parts.

Some teams naturally start meetings by sharing one thing they learned that week, or one problem they’re facing. When that becomes the ritual opening, not because it was mandated but because it emerged from the group, it serves both the information-sharing function and the psychological function of creating connection and shared purpose.

What Should We Actually Measure: Douglas Hubbard’s Framework

Norton’s work explains why we can’t simply eliminate reporting. But acknowledging that reporting is ritual doesn’t excuse it from being useful. The best rituals serve their psychological functions while also serving their practical functions.

So what should we actually be measuring?

Douglas Hubbard, creator of Applied Information Economics and author of How to Measure Anything, has discovered something shocking: approximately 70% of enterprise metrics provide zero decision value. Organisations are drowning in data while starving for actual insight.

The problem starts with a fundamental misunderstanding of what measurement actually is. Hubbard defines measurement as “an observation that reduces uncertainty about something.” Notice what’s not in that definition: comprehensiveness, precision, or perfection. Measurement is about uncertainty reduction, nothing more and nothing less.[^2]

This immediately clarifies what you should measure: things where (1) you have high uncertainty, and (2) the decision impact is high. Everything else is waste.

Hubbard introduces a critical calculation called “Value of Information”: How much would perfect information on this metric improve your decision, multiplied by the probability you’ll get actionable information? Most organisational metrics fail this test spectacularly. You’re measuring things where you already know the answer (low uncertainty), or where knowing the answer wouldn’t change what you do (low decision impact).

In one case Hubbard describes, a manufacturing company was meticulously tracking 152 operational metrics with elaborate dashboards and weekly reporting. When his team did a Value of Information analysis, they found that only 8 of those metrics were actually informing decisions. The rest were being tracked “because we’ve always tracked them” or “because they might be useful someday.”

But here’s where it gets directly relevant to CEOs trying to restart stalled growth: Hubbard has observed what he calls “the strategic-operational inversion problem.” Organisations typically over-measure low-impact operational activities while under-measuring high-impact strategic progress.

You have elaborate dashboards tracking how many meetings were held, how many hours people worked, how many features were shipped,all operational outputs. But you have almost no measurement of whether those activities are actually moving you toward the strategic outcomes that matter. Are you getting closer to product-market fit? Is your new sales motion working? Are you building the capability to move faster?

These strategic questions have high uncertainty (you genuinely don’t know the answers) and high decision impact (knowing would fundamentally change your resource allocation). Yet most companies have no systematic way to measure them.

Why does this happen? According to Hubbard’s analysis, people confuse “hard to measure” with “impossible to measure.” Strategic progress feels fuzzy and qualitative, so organisations default to measuring what’s easy, operational activity.

But Hubbard’s entire career has been built on demonstrating that anything can be measured if you’re willing to think creatively about observation methods.

Take an example: “Are we building an experimentation culture?” feels unmeasurable. But Hubbard would ask: What would you observe if the culture were changing versus not changing?

You might observe: number of experiments run per quarter, average time from hypothesis to test result, percentage of experiments that produce learning regardless of outcome, number of “intelligent failures” publicly celebrated. Each of those is an observation that reduces uncertainty about whether the culture is actually changing. They’re not perfect. They don’t capture everything. But they reduce uncertainty,and that’s what measurement is.

Hubbard also tackles the common CEO fear: “If we measure this, people will game the metric.” His response: That’s a people problem, not a measurement problem. If your culture incentivises gaming metrics rather than achieving outcomes, you have much bigger problems than measurement. The solution isn’t to avoid measurement,it’s to measure the right things (outcomes, not just activities) and create a culture where gaming metrics is more costly than actually improving.

Here’s Hubbard’s framework for building better reporting systems:

First, conduct a “measurement audit.” For every metric you currently track, ask: What decision would I make differently if I had perfect information on this metric? If the answer is “none” or “I’m not sure,” stop measuring it. You’re creating noise, not signal.

Second, identify your highest-uncertainty, highest-impact decisions. These are usually strategic questions, not operational ones. What are you genuinely uncertain about that, if you knew the answer, would fundamentally change what you do?

Third, design observations that reduce uncertainty on those key questions. Don’t aim for perfect measurement; aim for uncertainty reduction. A rough measure of the right thing is infinitely more valuable than a precise measure of the wrong thing.

Fourth, build metrics models that show causal relationships. This is where most organisations completely fail. They track activities and outcomes but have no model of how activities lead to outcomes.

Hubbard uses the metaphor of a “metrics tree”: At the top are ultimate outcomes you care about (revenue growth, customer retention). Those outcomes are driven by intermediate outputs (qualified leads, product adoption). Those outputs are driven by activities (sales calls, feature development). And all of this sits on enablers (team capability, psychological safety, process efficiency).

Most organisations measure leaves on the tree (individual activities) without understanding how those leaves connect to branches (outputs) or the trunk (outcomes). So they have no idea which activities actually matter.

For Growth-Mandate CEOs, this is particularly critical. You’ve been brought in because growth stalled, which means something in the causal chain is broken. But if you don’t have a metrics model showing the chain, you can’t diagnose where the break is. You’re just guessing.

The Culture Your Reporting Reveals: Amy Edmondson’s Research

Even if you fix what you’re measuring, your reporting system will still fail if people don’t feel safe reporting honestly. If “everything’s green until suddenly red,” you have a culture problem that no amount of better metrics will solve.

Amy Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, has spent over two decades studying psychological safety in organisations. Her research reveals something counterintuitive: high-performing teams report more problems, not fewer.[^3]

If your reporting system shows everything running smoothly, you likely have one of two situations: either you’ve achieved such extraordinary execution that problems genuinely don’t exist (rare), or people don’t feel safe reporting problems until they’re impossible to hide (common).

Edmondson defines psychological safety as “a belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking”, specifically, that you can speak up with questions, concerns, mistakes, or half-formed ideas without being humiliated, marginalised, or punished. In reporting contexts, this translates to: Can I report that my project is behind schedule, that our key assumptions were wrong, that I made a mistake, without facing negative consequences?

In her famous study of medical errors, Edmondson found that the best hospital units reported higher error rates than underperforming units,not because they made more mistakes, but because they felt safe acknowledging them. Poor-performing units were making just as many errors; they just weren’t reporting them.

The same pattern shows up in every organisational context. Teams with high psychological safety surface problems early, when they’re small and fixable. Teams with low psychological safety hide problems until they become crises.

In reporting terms: Does your weekly status report show five projects “green,” two “yellow,” and none “red” until one suddenly shifts from green to red? That’s low psychological safety. Does your report show honest assessments,”we’re yellow because we discovered our core assumption was wrong, and we’re testing a new approach”? That’s high psychological safety.

Edmondson’s framework identifies four organisational zones based on two dimensions: psychological safety and accountability.

The Apathy Zone (low safety, low accountability): Nobody cares what gets reported because nothing matters. Reporting is pure compliance theatre.

The Anxiety Zone (low safety, high accountability): People are held accountable for results but don’t feel safe reporting problems. This produces “everything’s green until it’s red” reporting. People hide issues until they can’t be hidden.

The Comfort Zone (high safety, low accountability): People feel safe reporting anything, but there are no consequences for performance. Reporting becomes confession without improvement.

The Learning Zone (high safety, high accountability): People feel safe reporting problems AND are held accountable for outcomes. This is where high performance happens.

For Growth-Mandate CEOs, this framework is crucial. You’ve been brought in to restart stalled growth, which means you need to diagnose what’s actually not working. But if your organisation is in the Anxiety Zone, your reporting system will actively hide the truth from you. Everyone will tell you everything’s fine until it obviously isn’t.

Edmondson’s research identifies specific leader behaviours that create psychological safety in reporting contexts:

Frame the work as learning problems, not execution problems. When you say “we need to figure out why growth stalled,” you’re inviting inquiry. When you say “we need to hit these numbers,” you’re inviting performance anxiety. Both are necessary, but the learning frame must come first.

Acknowledge your own fallibility explicitly. Leaders who said things like “I may miss something,I need to hear from you” created dramatically more psychological safety than leaders who projected certainty. In reporting contexts: “My job is to make good decisions, and I need accurate information to do that. I’d rather hear bad news early when we can do something about it than late when we can’t.”

Ask genuine questions. Not rhetorical questions that communicate disappointment (“Really? We’re behind schedule?”) but genuine curiosity questions (“What did we learn that changed our timeline? What do we know now that we didn’t know before?”).

Respond productively to bad news. This is where most leaders fail. Someone reports a problem honestly, and the leader’s reaction, even if unintentional, communicates disappointment or frustration. Edmondson’s research is clear: You get what you reward. If you want honest reporting, you must reward honesty even when the news is bad.

The framework Edmondson uses: Distinguish between preventable failures, complex failures, and intelligent failures.

Preventable failures (someone didn’t follow a known process) deserve accountability and process improvement.

Complex failures (system breakdowns despite following process) deserve systemic analysis, not individual blame.

Intelligent failures (experiments or tests that didn’t work) deserve celebration, because you learned something valuable.

When reporting systems don’t make these distinctions, everything gets treated as preventable failure. So people hide complex failures and intelligent failures because they fear being blamed. And then you never learn what’s actually not working.

Different Jobs Need Different Reporting Approaches

Synthesising these three perspectives reveals why reporting feels like waste: we’re performing rituals that don’t serve their practical functions, measuring things that don’t inform decisions, and operating in cultures where honest reporting feels risky.

But they also show us the path forward. Different jobs need different reporting approaches:

Strategic Progress (Your OKRs)

This needs both metrics and narrative. You’re measuring outcomes you’re trying to achieve, but you’re equally interested in the learning,what assumptions changed, what you discovered, what you’d do differently.

Weekly check-ins should focus on confidence levels and learning, not just numbers. “We’re at 60% confidence this objective is achievable because we discovered X, which changes our approach to Y.”

Quarterly reviews should celebrate pivots and honest assessments as much as achievement. “We achieved 70% of this key result, and more importantly, we learned that our core assumption about customer behaviour was wrong. Here’s what we’re testing now.”

The ritual function: This is where leadership models learning and adaptation. When executives openly discuss what they learned and how their thinking changed, it creates permission for everyone else to do the same.

Enabling Initiatives (Building Organisational Capabilities)

When you’re building organisational capabilities, experimentation culture, psychological safety, meeting effectiveness, and cross-team collaboration, you need metrics that prove capability is being built.

For experimentation culture: number of experiments run, average time from hypothesis to test result, percentage of experiments that produce learning regardless of outcome, number of “intelligent failures” publicly celebrated.

For psychological safety: problems surfaced per week, time from problem discovery to problem visibility, percentage of issues raised in public forums vs. private conversations.

For meeting effectiveness: hours saved through eliminated or shortened meetings, decision velocity (time from issue surfacing to decision), and meeting satisfaction scores.

These initiatives succeed when the capability becomes self-sustaining, not when the “project” is complete. Your reporting should measure whether the behaviour is actually changing.

The ritual function: This is where you celebrate cultural evolution and capability building. Recognition of teams who run great experiments (even when they fail), celebration of someone surfacing a hard problem early, and acknowledgement of teams who dramatically improved their meeting efficiency.

Operational Health (Your KPIs)

This should be automated, dashboard-driven, and exception-based. If systems are functioning normally, no narrative is needed. Only investigate when something goes outside the normal range.

Think of this like your car’s dashboard. You don’t need a daily report on whether your engine is functioning; you need a warning light when it’s not. The same principle applies to operational metrics.

The ritual function is minimal here. You’re not trying to create meaning or identity through operational dashboards. You’re monitoring for exceptions so you can focus human attention on strategic progress and capability building.

Projects

Time-bound efforts with clear deliverables need lightweight reporting focused on blockers and decisions needed. Weekly updates should take minutes, not hours.

The key questions: What progress did we make? What’s blocking us? What decisions do we need from leadership? What help do we need from other teams?

The ritual function: Quick coordination, removing obstacles, maintaining momentum. The meeting should feel productive and enabling, not bureaucratic.

Incentive Alignment

What gets measured gets gamed, unless what gets rewarded is genuine outcomes, not manipulated metrics. 

Compensation should tie to strategic outcomes (OKRs), not operational activities, in addition to operational team health and personal performance. A balanced approach.

Recognition should celebrate truth-telling, early problem-surfacing, and learning velocity, not just hitting targets. When someone says “we’re behind schedule because we discovered we were solving the wrong problem,” that should be praised as excellent reporting, not punished as failure.

This is how you get out of the Anxiety Zone (where people hide problems) and into the Learning Zone (where problems surface early).

What This Looks Like in Practice

Here’s how this framework changes your reporting systems:

You stop conflating these different jobs. For example, strategic progress reporting doesn’t look like operational health reporting. Each serves a different purpose with a different format and cadence.

You conduct Hubbard’s Value of Information analysis on everything you’re currently measuring. For each metric, ask: “What decision would I make differently if I had perfect information on this?” If the answer is “none” or “I’m not sure,” stop measuring it.

Seventy per cent of what you’re currently measuring will fail this test. Stop doing it. Focus your energy on the high-uncertainty, high-impact questions that actually drive decisions.

You build metrics models that show how activities lead to outputs, which lead to outcomes. This lets you diagnose where the break is when growth stalls. Without the model, you’re just guessing. 

You actively build psychological safety into your reporting rituals. You frame work as learning, acknowledge your own fallibility, ask genuine questions, and respond productively to bad news. You distinguish between preventable failures (accountability), complex failures (systemic analysis), and intelligent failures (celebration).

You preserve the valuable ritual functions while dramatically improving the decision-making functions. Your reporting rituals should create stability, meaning, and identity while also producing information that drives decisions and enables learning.

The Fundamental Question

Most importantly, you recognise that great reporting systems aren’t about comprehensive coverage, they’re about learning velocity and decision quality.

The question isn’t, “are we reporting everything?”

The question is, “are we learning fast and deciding well?”

When reporting serves that purpose and simultaneously serves the ritual functions of creating stability, meaning, and identity, it stops feeling like waste and starts feeling like one of your most valuable organisational systems.

So here’s your reflection question: What job is your current reporting system actually doing? Not what job you intended it to do, what job is it actually doing?

Is it providing the psychological stability of ritual while producing information that drives decisions and enables learning? Or is it performing ritual without meaning while measuring things that don’t matter and hiding problems until they become crises?

Once you answer that honestly, you’ll know where to start.