Rearview vs Windshield (Stop Driving While Staring Backwards)

Your exec dashboard shows: last month's revenue, last quarter's pipeline, yesterday's customer count. All lagging indicators—rearview mirror metrics. Leadership meeting: "Revenue was down last month. What happened?" You spend 2 hours explaining the past. Nobody talks about what's coming. It's like driving a car while staring in the rearview mirror—you see where you've been, not where you're going. By the time lagging metrics show problems, it's too late to fix them. You're always reacting, never preventing. The past is useful for learning, but obsessing over it means you'll crash into the future.