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The quarterly numbers have missed the target again. The leadership team isn’t complacent, quite the opposite. Processes have been reviewed, meetings have been held, and targets have been clarified. People are working hard, in some cases harder than ever. Yet the outcome remains stubbornly unchanged.
Most leaders have experienced some version of this. A project that looked under control until delivery slowed unexpectedly. A team that appeared aligned in the meeting but behaved differently under pressure. An organisation that hit every milestone on paper and still failed to achieve the result it wanted.
When that happens, the natural response is to search for the most visible cause. The financial metric. The organisational structure. The process. The headcount.
These are sensible places to look because they are visible, measurable, and familiar. The problem is that they are often not where the issue began.
The problem isn’t that organisations don’t work hard enough. It’s that they’re managing the wrong layer of the system.
When results deteriorate, leaders are expected to act. That expectation creates a challenge because the things that are easiest to see are often the things that are easiest to change.
Budgets can be reduced. Structures can be redesigned. Processes can be rewritten. Targets can be increased. All of these actions create the appearance of progress because something visible is happening.
Sometimes they are necessary.
Often they are not sufficient.
A cost-reduction programme may improve the numbers temporarily whilst leaving the underlying causes untouched. A restructure may move reporting lines around without changing how people actually work together. A new process may introduce additional control whilst increasing friction between teams.
None of these actions are inherently wrong. The instinct behind them is perfectly rational. Finance provides clear signals. Organisational charts create a sense of order. Process maps offer certainty.
The diagnosis simply becomes incomplete when we assume these visible elements are the source of the problem. In reality, they are often reporting on something deeper.
The most visible lever isn’t always the right one.
Sometimes it isn’t even connected to the root cause.
Visible metrics are important. The challenge is assuming they are the cause rather than the consequence
Over time, we began to notice a recurring pattern.
Organisations struggling with results often focused their attention on the layer they could see most clearly. Yet sustainable improvement tended to come from somewhere else.
Before talking about financial performance, it was necessary to understand operational performance. Before talking about operational performance, it was necessary to understand the conditions that allowed people to perform in the first place.
Three layers kept appearing.
Performance. Teamwork. Finance.
Not as separate subjects, but as parts of the same system.
At YourBigPic we call this the Comet Model.
Performance at the nucleus. Teamwork surrounding it. Finance following behind.
Not because organisations resemble comets, but because the metaphor helps explain the relationship between these three layers.
Performance sits at the nucleus. It is the thing the organisation is actually trying to achieve. The products created. The services delivered. The decisions made. The value generated.
Teamwork forms the surrounding field. It creates the conditions that allow performance to happen consistently. Trust. Communication. Clarity. Accountability. Alignment.
Finance becomes the tail. Essential. Measurable. Valuable.
But still a consequence of what came before.
The physics of a comet provide a useful reminder. The tail follows the comet. It does not drive it.
The same is true in organisations.
Financial outcomes matter enormously. AND they are often telling us about the health of the system that produced them.
Performance sits at the nucleus. Teamwork creates the surrounding field. Finance follows as the measurable outcome. You cannot pull the tail to move the comet!
The value of the Comet Model is not in the metaphor itself. The value is in understanding what each layer actually means.
Performance is often mistaken for a target. In reality, performance is capability. It is the organisation’s ability to reliably produce a desired outcome.
The question is not whether a target was achieved this quarter. The question is whether the organisation is becoming more capable of delivering what matters.
That capability grows when people understand the purpose of their work, when unnecessary friction is removed, and when the environment allows them to contribute at their best.
Teamwork is frequently misunderstood as well. Many people hear the word and think of team-building activities, away days, or social events.
Those things may help.
But teamwork is really an operational reality.
It is what happens when people need to work together under pressure. Do they trust one another? Do they communicate clearly? Do they understand ownership? Can they make decisions without unnecessary delay? Can disagreement exist without damaging relationships?
The strongest teams are not necessarily the closest.
They are the teams that understand each other well enough to perform together when it matters.
I learned that lesson long before I worked in finance. Playing rugby taught me that successful teams are rarely built on enthusiasm alone. They are built on clarity, trust, and shared understanding. Under pressure, those qualities become visible very quickly.
The same pattern appears inside organisations.
And then there is finance.
Finance is often treated as the primary driver of organisational performance. In our experience, it is more useful to think of it as a report card.
Coming from a finance background, I know exactly how seductive those numbers are. And exactly why chasing them directly rarely works.
When financial performance deteriorates, the most important question is not:
“What should we do to the numbers?”
It is:
“Which layer of the system is producing those numbers?”
The answer may sit in operational capability. It may sit in teamwork. It may sit somewhere else entirely.
But until the underlying layer is understood, the financial symptom often persists.
Three layers.
One system.
“The strongest teams aren’t always the closest. They’re the ones that understand each other well enough to perform together under pressure.”
Understanding the system is one thing. Diagnosing its current condition is another.
This is where the Traffic Light Framework becomes useful.
Leaders often know where they want to go. What is less common is an honest assessment of where they actually are.
The framework provides a simple diagnostic across Performance, Teamwork, and Finance.
Red represents a starting point.
Amber indicates progress.
Green suggests things are broadly on track.
The value is not in the colours themselves. The value is in the conversations they create.
Too often organisations feel pressure to present Green. Yet improvement rarely starts there.
It starts with honesty.
A Red assessment is not failure.
It is information.
It is a shared recognition that something needs attention.
Without that honesty, organisations risk building plans on assumptions rather than reality.
The most effective improvements usually begin with a simple question:
Where are we really?
Honesty about Red is not failure. It’s the beginning of improvement.
Many years ago, I delivered a lesson that had worked successfully before. The content was sound. The structure was familiar. Yet the result was completely different.
Eventually I realised something important.
The lesson wasn’t the problem.
The room was.
That observation has stayed with me throughout my career.
Whether in education, sport, leadership, or finance, the same principle appears repeatedly. Results are rarely created by one thing. They emerge from systems.
Most organisations do not need more effort.
They need a better understanding of the system producing the outcomes they currently experience.
Performance is not an event.
It is a system.
And understanding that system is often the first step towards improving it.
Hywel Griffiths
Performance-Led Partner, YourBigPic
Drawing on experience across sport, education, leadership, international business, and finance, Hywel helps organisations improve performance by understanding the systems that create it.
If you’d like to explore what this looks like in your organisation, connect with Hywel Griffiths and start a conversation.
If you’d like a simple one-page summary of the Comet Model and how to apply it, download the companion guide here:
