A few years ago, I was speaking with a farmer in my home town. It was just before harvest season, and I asked him a seemingly obvious question: “Are you expecting a good yield this year?”
He smiled and said something that stayed with me.
“If I start worrying about the harvest now, I’m already too late.
The harvest was decided months ago—when I chose the seeds, prepared the soil, and managed the water.”
That insight captures a fundamental truth about business.
Most of us fixate on the harvest.
Very few obsess over the soil.
Let me explain.
Outcomes vs Drivers
In business, market share, revenue, brand equity, customer satisfaction—these are lagging indicators. They are outcomes (harvest). They reflect decisions and actions that have already played out.
Yet, they dominate most leadership conversations.
But the most effective business leaders I’ve worked with—as a strategy consultant and board advisor—operate differently. They focus on leading indicators: the underlying levers that produce those outcomes.
They don’t chase the number.
They design the system that makes the number inevitable.
A Simple Example: The Illusion of “Chasing ₹250 Crore”
Take a common ambition:
“We want to reach ₹250 crore in revenue.”
On the surface, it sounds like a clear goal. But revenue, by itself, is not actionable. You cannot “do” revenue.
What you can do is influence the drivers that create it.
Leaders who understand this shift their focus to questions like:
- Which market segment is structurally aligned with our product?
- What is the specific need-state or context we are solving?
- How do we craft a compelling narrative that resonates with that segment?
- Is our pricing architecture aligned with perceived value?
- Are we investing in the right media channels for efficient reach and frequency?
- Is the product available in the right distribution channels, at the right moments of consumption?
These are leading indicators.
When these are designed well, revenue is no longer a target to chase—it becomes a byproduct.
What Separates Effective Leaders
The leaders who consistently outperform don’t get distracted by dashboards full of outputs.
They go one layer deeper.
They ask:
“What must be true in the system for this number to move?”
And then they work relentlessly on those variables.
This requires a different mindset:
- From reporting numbers → to engineering drivers
- From reviewing performance → to designing causality
- From short-term reaction → to structural intervention
Example from Brand Management
In brand discussions, I often see teams fixated on brand awareness scores or market share shifts.
But strong brand builders don’t start there.
They focus on:
- Distinctive brand assets (colors, shapes, cues that aid recall)
- Category entry points (when and why consumers think of the category)
- Consistency of messaging across touchpoints
- Share of voice vs share of market
These are leading indicators of mental availability.
If these are built deliberately, brand recall and preference follow naturally.
Trying to directly “increase awareness” without strengthening these inputs is like trying to increase harvest without tending to the soil.
The Deeper Insight
Lagging indicators are seductive because they are visible and measurable.
But they are also too late.
By the time they move, the underlying system has already been set in motion.
Leading indicators, on the other hand, require:
- Understanding the cause – the underlying drivers that produce the desired effect through better diagnosis
- Then align all the tactical efforts on those drivers
- Measure those leading indicators diligently.
This give you something far more valuable: control over outcomes.
In every business I’ve worked with, the turning point comes when leadership shifts its attention:
From: “Why are our numbers not improving?”
To: “Which drivers are we not getting right?”
That is the moment strategy begins to work.
Because in the end, outcomes are not managed.
They are designed.
