Measure What Matters: Why Organisations Need Meaningful Metrics, Not More Metrics

Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, India, is one of the world’s most astonishing astronomical observatories. Built in the early 18th century, its giant instruments measure time, track celestial bodies, predict eclipses and calculate planetary movements with surprising accuracy. What makes Jantar Mantar extraordinary isn’t the complexity of its structures but their intention: every instrument was built to measure something meaningful.

This is where modern organisations stumble.

Companies today generate enormous amounts of data — dashboards, KPIs, scorecards, customer satisfaction numbers, financial trackers, utilisation percentages, churn rates, and more. Yet despite this abundance, leaders frequently feel misaligned, overwhelmed, or blind to the real drivers of performance. Metrics multiply, but insight rarely deepens.

Jantar Mantar teaches us that measurement is not about volume.
Measurement is about value.

Each instrument in the observatory was constructed with clear purpose. The architect, Maharaja Jai Singh II, did not build for aesthetics; he built for accuracy, relevance and clarity. There were no unnecessary structures, no vanity instruments and no metrics that served decorative rather than functional roles.

At Engaged Strategy, we encounter organisations drowning in KPIs yet starving for strategic insight. Teams often chase metrics that look impressive, but do not actually guide decision-making or improve customer outcomes. Leaders evaluate performance on indicators that are disconnected from what truly drives customer loyalty or employee motivation.

This is why when NPS is implemented with discipline, it becomes transformative.
It doesn’t measure everything.
It measures what matters:

  • the emotional connection customers have with your brand; and,
  • the likelihood that they will stay longer with your brand, spend more, and advocate.

Similarly, our employee engagement models reveal not just whether employees are happy, but what emotional and functional factors influence their performance and commitment. These insights empower leaders to focus on the levers that genuinely move culture and customer experience.

Jantar Mantar’s brilliance lies in its simplicity of purpose.
It eliminates noise.
It focuses attention.
It transforms data into directional clarity.

Organisations that embrace meaningful measurement benefit in profound ways:

  • Teams work on the right problems instead of the loudest ones.
  • Leaders identify trends early instead of reacting late.
  • Resources flow to initiatives that build loyalty rather than those that simply look impressive.
  • Experiences become consistent because expectations are aligned.
  • Transformation accelerates because everyone understands what success actually looks like.

In NPS and CX work, precision matters.
Emotional drivers matter.
Patterns matter.
The “why” behind the number matters more than the number itself.

Jantar Mantar stands as a reminder that insight emerges when measurement is intentional. Organisations must build fewer metrics, but better ones. They must track what influences loyalty, not what fills dashboards.

Measurement should illuminate, not overwhelm.
It should direct, not distract.
Measure what matters — and the path forward becomes unmistakably clear.

 

NPS®, Net Promoter® and Net Promoter Score® are registered trademarks of NICE Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld.