I was recently in a business coaching call with a creator where we were discussing new KPIs that made sense for him to track in 2025. If you're unfamiliar with KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), they're metrics a business tracks on a regular basis in order to determine the health and growth of the business. They also provide insights into what levers to pull if the business starts declining.
Because this creator values his family and how he leads in his home, he asked:
"What are good KPIs to know if my family is winning or not?"
Oh man, great question. Can KPIs be used to determine the health of a family and what levers to pull if relationships decline? Or, if you're making progress on taking new ground together on the family vision? Or, if the family just kind of feels like it's in maintenance mode, could KPIs reveal what's lacking and where to direct your attention in order to improve it?
In business, it's usually clear on whether there's growth or not. You look at KPIs like traffic, conversion rates, customer churn, things like that. (FWIW, I think revenue is a result of other KPIs, not typically a KPI in and of itself.) There's some clearly definable metrics and revenue shows if it's working or not.
But what does that look like in a family setting? It's probably easy to get a finger-in-the-air reading on if your family is losing, but winning?
If I take a similar approach to answering this question for families as I do to answer it in business, I start by defining the win.
What does a win look like for you and your family?
For the sake of this discussion, let's say we define a win as something like, "A family that actively deepens its connection with each other while learning to navigate conflict with grace and honesty." (I made that up. You could probably start from anywhere.)
So maybe we break that down into a two categories with KPIs for each. For example, given the definition of "winning" above:
📈 Connection Depth Indicators
CDIs for short?
- Number of meaningful conversations per week where family members share vulnerabilities, dreams, or concerns, not just logistics.
- Amount of time spent in focused, device-free family activities where each person is fully present.
- Number of shared meals together each week.
- Individual one-on-one time spent each week with each family member.
- Number of times when help was asked for and received.
- Number of thoughtful acts of service done for each other.
- Frequency of expressing appreciation and gratitude for something specific.
📈 Conflict Resolution Indicators
CRIs for short?
- Average time to resolution after disagreements. (Start a clock? I probably wouldn't do that, but maybe just a quick guess after both parties agree that it's been resolved?)
- Frequency of using healthy communication patterns (like "I feel" statements vs. "You always." Another post coming later about the "Rules for Fighting" Dana and I follow.)
- Number of times family members proactively address issues before they become larger problems.
Of course, if the metrics become the goal instead of deepened relationships, then this whole idea probably has a negative impact on the family instead of a positive one.
And I certainly wouldn't recommend taking on this many KPIs at once. Maybe just start with one of these per month and see how it goes?
Different families have different dynamics, so I could see how, in my family, deciding on just one of them could work ok. We'd discuss the idea in general, figure out which KPI we feel makes the most sense, and then come up with a way of tracking it together. For example, if we took on, "Number of shared meals together each week," I'd probably just print out a calendar for the month, put, "Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner," in each box, and we'll circle whichever meals we had together. At the end of the month, we write the total number of meals and then do it again the next month to see if we can beat it.
Or maybe something entirely different. I don't know. This is all theoretical at this point. You get the idea, though.
Our family used to create OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) as a goal-setting framework for each month that often tied into relational objectives, but that rhythm has fallen off our radar. Picking just one KPI like this might be a more sustainable solution, so I'll present it to my family and see what happens. I'll share a follow-up post later.
👉 I'd love to hear your reaction to an idea like this. Please comment below! Let's wrestle through this one together.
