The Answer is a Number

It’s a scene I’ve witnessed, in variations, more times than I can count across my decades in this industry. We’d be in a meeting, perhaps a monthly review with a Business Unit manager. The agenda item might be "Sales Performance." My question would usually be simple, almost invariably quantitative. "So, what were the sales figures for last month?" or "How many new customers did we acquire in Q3?"

And often, what I’d get back wasn't a number. Not straight away, at least. I’d get a story.

"Well, John, it was a bit of a mixed bag. You know Jim, our top salesperson in the Midwest, was out sick for two weeks with that nasty flu that’s been going around. And that big deal we were counting on with Acme Corp? Their key decision-maker, Brenda, decided to take an unscheduled two-week holiday to the Bahamas right when we were about to get the signature. But we’re feeling really positive about next month, a couple of things in the pipeline are looking very strong..."

Now, let me be clear. I wasn't sitting there as some sort of emotionless inquisitor, devoid of empathy. I understood that illnesses happen, people take holidays, and pipelines are, by their nature, optimistic. These are all parts of the rich, messy, human tapestry of running a business. And that context, that narrative, is important. Eventually.

But first, I just wanted the number.

My insistence on the number first wasn’t an attempt to be difficult or to dismiss the very real human challenges that crop up in any business. It stemmed from a deeply ingrained belief, probably a hangover from my physics days, that you start with the observation, the data point. The theory, the explanation, the narrative – that comes after you’ve established the fact.

Why? Because numbers, for all their potential to be manipulated if you try hard enough, have a certain stark honesty. They provide an anchor. If sales were, say, $50,000 last month against a target of $70,000, that $50,000 is a fact. It’s the baseline from which all further discussion must flow.

If I got the narrative first – Jim’s flu, Brenda’s Bahaman adventure – my human brain, just like anyone else’s, would start to process those mitigating factors. By the time the $50,000 figure was reluctantly produced, it might already be softened, contextualized, perhaps even excused in my mind before I’d had a chance to simply absorb it. The narrative risks coloring the perception of the number.

I remember coaching one particular BU manager. A bright, energetic chap, full of passion for his product. He was launching a new software module, and we’d set some modest initial targets for adoption. At the first review, I asked, "So, how many sign-ups did we get in the first month?"
He launched into a compelling tale of woe. A key competitor had spread some FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) in the market. A crucial integration piece with a third-party system was delayed. The marketing materials hadn’t quite hit the mark. All perfectly plausible.

I listened patiently. Then I asked again, "And the number of sign-ups?"
He hesitated. "Well, given all that, it was... lower than we hoped."
"And that number was?"
Finally, it came out. "Seven."
Seven. Against a target of, say, fifty.

Now, with the number "seven" firmly on the table, we could look at his narrative. Did the competitor’s FUD and the integration delay fully account for a shortfall from fifty to seven? Perhaps partially. But the starkness of "seven" also forced us to ask other, harder questions. Was the product itself right? Was there genuine market demand? Were our assumptions about the sales cycle correct? The number "seven" opened up lines of inquiry that the narrative alone might have obscured. If he’d told me the story first, and then said "so we got seven, but you can see why," the impact of "seven" would have been diluted.

This isn't about being unkind or putting people on the spot. It’s about intellectual honesty and the discipline required to run a business effectively. Even back in my earliest jobs, cleaning floors at a bakery or shifting boxes in a warehouse, if the target was 100 pallets moved and only 60 were done, the first question from the supervisor wasn't about how tired the crew was; it was "why only 60?" The "why" is critical, but it follows the "what."

The human mind is a fantastic storytelling machine. We’re wired to create narratives to make sense of the world. In a business, that can be a strength – it helps build culture, motivate teams, and communicate vision. But it can also be a weakness if those narratives are used, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid confronting the unvarnished data.

The narrative explains the variance from the expectation, or illuminates the context around the number. But the number itself is the starting point. It’s the most objective piece of information you have. Once you have it, clearly stated and acknowledged, then by all means, let’s hear about Jim’s flu and Brenda’s well-deserved holiday. We need that to understand the picture fully and to make good decisions.

But the answer to "how were sales?" or "how many new customers?" or "what’s the churn rate?" is, first and foremost, a number. Get that on the table. Then we can talk. It cuts through the noise and gives you a solid place to begin the real work of understanding.