Ideas

About This Post:
This post explains how organizations can use system signals to understand changing conditions that may affect their goals, outcomes, and KPIs. It offers five practical questions and simple team exercises for choosing useful signals, connecting them to outcomes, incorporating them into existing routines, deciding when to act, and building shared understanding.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for When KPIs Aren’t Enough: Leading Through Change with System Signals and to those who shared questions before and during the webinar. We appreciated the thoughtful questions and requests for practical examples about applying system signals in real-world settings. While we couldn’t explore every question during our time together, we noticed several common themes that reflect challenges many organizations are navigating today.

Whether you attended the webinar, plan to watch the recording, or are just beginning to explore this topic, we hope the following will help as you consider how to lead, learn, and make decisions when the world is changing faster than our measurement systems can keep up. We grouped the questions into five themes and hope these responses continue the conversation and support your work.

Want to explore these ideas in more depth? The webinar When KPIs Aren’t Enough: Leading Through Change with System Signals walks through the full framework, real-world examples, and practical tools for applying system signals in your organization. Watch the webinar recording here.

1. How do I know which system signals deserve my attention?

The short answer: Start with what you’re trying to change, not with the signals themselves.

One of the most common concerns we heard was, “There is already so much information. How do I know what’s meaningful?” It’s a fair question. Most organizations have more information than they can realistically use. They struggle because they have too much competing for their attention. The goal isn’t to notice everything happening around you. It’s to notice what matters most for the outcomes and conditions you’re trying to influence.

Start by asking: What are we ultimately working to change? Those answers are often already reflected in your mission, strategic plan, or key performance indicators. They might include improving educational outcomes, strengthening community health, increasing economic mobility, reducing disparities, or building stronger partnerships. Once those outcomes are clear, ask: What conditions need to be true for us to get there? Those conditions become the places to look for signals.

For example, if your goal is to strengthen workforce retention, meaningful signals might include changes in staff workload, shifts in partner engagement, new funding opportunities, or emerging policy discussions. These conditions influence whether those outcomes improve over time.

A helpful place to start is with three to five meaningful signals connected to your priorities. Trying to monitor everything often creates more noise than insight. As we shared during the webinar, you can’t boil the ocean—you’ll just end up with a handful of salt.

Try this: At your next team meeting, identify one priority outcome your organization is working toward. Then ask, “What are three early signs that might tell us we’re moving toward—or away from—that outcome?” Start there, learn together, and adjust over time.

2. How do system signals help us achieve the outcomes we’re working toward?

The short answer: System signals help explain the conditions that influence your outcomes and KPIs.

Many organizations already have clear goals. They know what success looks like because it’s reflected in their mission, strategic plan, or performance measures. The challenge is that outcomes often tell us what changed, but not always why it changed or what might happen next. This is where system signals add value.

Think of your outcomes as the destination and system signals as the information that helps you navigate the journey. Signals highlight the relationships, capacities, policies, community needs, and other conditions that influence progress before those changes show up in your dashboards.

For example, imagine your organization is working to increase access to affordable housing. You may already track outcomes such as the number of affordable units created or families served. System signals might include new partnerships forming, changes in local zoning discussions, shifts in community priorities, increasing construction costs, or growing resident participation in planning meetings. Together, these signals help explain whether conditions are becoming more or less beneficial for achieving your goals.
By connecting signals to the outcomes you’re working toward, organizations can identify barriers earlier, recognize emerging opportunities, and make thoughtful adjustments before performance measures begin to change.

Try this: Choose one outcome your organization is working toward. Then ask your team, “What conditions need to be true for us to achieve this?” Identify three to five signals that could help you monitor whether those conditions are strengthening, weakening, or beginning to shift.

3. How do we build system signals into the way we already work?

The short answer: Build system signals into the conversations and routines your organization already uses to learn, reflect, and make decisions.

Many people asked whether using system signals requires a new dashboard, software platform, or reporting process. It doesn’t require a new dashboard or another reporting process. It strengthens how your organization makes sense of what it’s already seeing.
Most organizations already notice signals every day. The opportunity is to make those observations more intentional, shared, and actionable. Look for places where your team already reflects and makes decisions. Team meetings, strategy check-ins, learning agenda discussions, quarterly reviews, and partnership conversations all provide natural opportunities to pause and ask, “What are we noticing?” and “What might this mean for our work?”

Over time, these conversations build a shared understanding of changing conditions. They help teams recognize patterns, identify emerging opportunities, and make informed adjustments before challenges become crises. A consistent practice of noticing, interpreting, and responding together strengthens organizational learning over time.
Try this: Add one standing question to an existing meeting agenda: “What signals are we noticing that could affect our work?” Spend five minutes discussing what people are seeing, what it might mean, and whether any action is needed. Start small and build the habit over time.

4. How do we know when to stay the course, pivot, or act?

The short answer: System signals help you recognize when it’s time to ask different questions and consider different actions.

Many leaders told us they aren’t looking for more information—they’re trying to decide what to do when conditions are changing. Should we stay the course? Make a small adjustment? Or is it time to rethink our approach altogether? There isn’t a formula for answering those questions. But system signals can help you make those decisions with greater confidence.

One signal may simply spark curiosity. As similar signals begin to appear across different conversations, data sources, or parts of the system, they can reveal patterns worth exploring. Those patterns invite teams to pause, reflect, and ask whether conditions have changed enough to warrant a different response.
Instead of reacting to every new piece of information, ask:

• Is this an isolated event or part of a broader pattern?
• How closely does it relate to the outcomes we’re trying to achieve?
• What could happen if we ignore it?
• What is one small step we could take to learn more before making a larger change?

Sometimes those conversations confirm you’re on the right path. Other times they point to a small adjustment, a new partnership, or a different strategy. Respond thoughtfully.

Try this: The next time your team notices something unexpected, resist the urge to solve it immediately. Spend ten minutes exploring what the signal might mean, what assumptions it challenges, and whether it points to a larger pattern before deciding on a course of action.

5. How do we help others see what we’re seeing?

The short answer: Create opportunities for people to make sense of signals together instead of expecting everyone to see them the same way from the start.

One of the questions we heard most often was how to bring leadership teams, boards, funders, partners, or staff along when conditions are changing but the evidence isn’t yet obvious. This is challenging because people bring different experiences, responsibilities, and perspectives to the same situation. It’s common for one person to see an emerging opportunity while another sees uncertainty or risk.

System signals create an opportunity for shared sensemaking. Instead of trying to convince others that your interpretation is correct, invite people to explore what they’re noticing together. Ask what patterns they’re seeing, what surprises them, and what they think those changes might mean for the organization’s work. These conversations often surface insights that no one person could have identified alone.

Shared interpretation builds stronger decisions. When people have the opportunity to connect observations, ask questions, and examine assumptions together, they’re more likely to develop a common understanding of changing conditions and a shared commitment to the actions that follow.

Try this: The next time your leadership team, board, or partners meet, spend the first ten minutes asking one simple question: “What changes are you noticing that could affect our work over the next six to twelve months?” Listen for patterns before jumping to solutions.

Building the capacity to notice, interpret, and respond to change is an ongoing practice—not a one-time exercise. We hope these questions spark practical conversations and new ideas within your organization. If you’d like to continue exploring how system signals can strengthen strategy, organizational learning, or evaluation, reach out to Amber Trout or Michelle HaynesBaratz here. We’d welcome the opportunity to learn about your work and explore how system signals can support your goals.

About the Authors