All Green. Zero Wins.

All Green. Zero Wins.

The Houston Texans are 0–4.

But they don’t look like an 0–4 team.

After four games, they have gained exactly as many yards as their opponents: 1,375.

They even have more first downs.

Their quarterback just threw for 347 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

Plenty of numbers look fine.

Some might even be green.

There is only one uncomfortable number:

0–4.

And that made me think about organizations.

We often build dashboards full of measures that tell us how well each part of the system is performing.

Productivity is green.
Quality is green.
Delivery is green.
Training is green.
Projects are green.

And yet somehow, the organization is losing.

Maybe the problem isn’t that the KPIs are wrong.

Maybe they’re measuring pieces while the customer experiences the whole.

A football team can win the yardage battle and lose the game.

A company can hit every departmental target and still miss its purpose.

When every KPI is green but the system is losing, which one should we believe?