If You Can’t Control the Outcome, You’re Tracking the Wrong Thing

During a recent coaching call, a client’s team walked me through one of their biggest frustrations:

Delays from housing authorities and tenant assistance agencies. This causes applications to take longer than necessary. Move-ins to be more complicated. KPIs showing that they were falling short of company expectations.

I asked, “Can you control when the Housing Authority sends over the inspection report?”

Of course not. So why are we holding you accountable for something you can’t control?

KPIs must track what you can do—not what you hope happens.

This is where most teams go wrong. They design KPIs around outcomes. But outcomes aren’t always in your control. You can’t force an agency to call you back.

You can’t make a tenant submit a pay stub.

But you can document that you followed up.

You can control your own actions.

So instead of “Applications completed within 72 hours,” try this:

Number of applications not followed up on daily.

Now we’re talking. That’s a KPI you can own. You can track whether someone on your team called, emailed, or messaged the housing authority that day. You can train for it. You can audit it. You can coach around it.

And when it doesn’t happen, you know exactly where to focus.

KPIs that punish people for things outside their control destroy accountability.

Here’s what happens when you set an unfair metric:

• The team checks out.

• They blame the system.

• They stop trying.

• They stop caring.

Not because they’re lazy. Because they’re smart. Nobody wants to feel like they’re failing when they’re doing everything they can.

The fix: Design KPIs around your team’s actions, not external outcomes.

Want to improve move-in speed for subsidized housing cases? Don’t track “Days to Move-In.” Track this instead:

Number of housing authority files without a daily tenant or case manager follow-up.

That’s a lever your team can pull every single day. KPIs should empower your team. Not trap them.