Newsletter

The Fastest Way to Lose Buy-In? Show the Wrong Metric

Last week, we talked about why no one listens to you—how speaking roadmap while others speak revenue, risk, and retention leads to silence.
In: Newsletter

But even if you do adjust your language, there’s a moment every product leader faces:

“How do we know this is working?”

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If your strategy can’t answer that with metrics that matter to the right people, alignment unravels—fast.


The Right Metrics. The Wrong Audience.

One team I worked with was focused on retention. Smart strategy. Good data.

  • Churn rate (lagging) for leadership
  • Onboarding completion (leading) for teams

But here’s where it broke down:

❌ Execs saw onboarding stats and didn’t care.
❌ Teams saw churn rates and couldn’t act on them.

Once they flipped the script—churn for execs, onboarding for teams—everything clicked.

🚀 Execs saw business impact.
🚀 Teams saw what to focus on daily.


A Selfish Strategy Ignores the Audience

You’re not losing influence because your strategy is weak.
You’re losing it because your metrics don’t translate.

“A selfish strategy isn’t just about ignoring stakeholders—it’s about ignoring how success is measured.”

So if you’re only tracking:

🔸 Lagging indicators? You’re reacting.
🔸 Leading indicators? You’re guessing.
🔸 Neither tied to revenue or cost? You’ve made yourself optional.


This Week’s Clarity Check

✅ One lagging indicator that proves your strategy’s working
✅ One or two leading indicators that predict it
✅ A line to revenue or cost
✅ A version of that story tailored to your audience

Your job isn’t just to build strategy. It’s to make sure the right people believe in it.

Thanks for reading The Adam Thomas Product Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

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