For years, performance metrics gave leaders a kind of shared language. They made tough decisions easier to carry — promotions, compensation, strategic bets — because you could point to the numbers and say, this is why. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped decisions land.
Lately, though, I’ve been noticing something different in my conversations with leaders. The data is still there. The dashboards are still full. And yet, more often than not, they’re saying: this doesn’t quite explain it anymore.
In this episode with my Notebook LM podcast team, we talk about what happens next. Not in theory, but in practice. When systems stop doing the heavy lifting, trust starts to move. Decisions begin to rest on people — on judgment, credibility, and the willingness to stand behind a call when there’s no metric to point to. We explore why adding more process rarely helps, and why this moment isn’t about abandoning rigor. It’s about what leadership looks like when responsibility becomes visible again.
