Beyond Revenue and P&L: Rethinking What Good Performance Looks Like

Financial markets have long equated strong workplace performance with financial results. But this thinking comes with hidden costs – significant ones, which can undermine long-term business health, stability, team health, and ultimately profitability. While the industry continues to undergo seismic shifts in so many areas, now might also be a good time to consider redefining high performance. Martina Doherty discusses.

As a new year begins financial organisations are entering performance appraisal season – one where conversations traditionally centre around output: revenue generated, P&L delivered, deals closed or costs saved – all of which should be achieved without exposing the organisation to risk. These metrics are neat, comparable, and undeniably important, but they are also incomplete.

Each year, organisations celebrate, promote and reward their top revenue generators almost solely for their commercial contribution. Yet alongside these stars, teams often struggle with burnout, job dissatisfaction, and turnover. Revenue is visible; culture is not. P&L is quantifiable; morale is harder to capture. Deals can be counted; employee disengagement often appears too late.

All of this raises a crucial and rarely asked question: What if the very people driving the numbers are also creating or sustaining the problems?

The Limits of Traditional Performance Metrics

The archetypal Markets high performer is well known as quick, sharp, commercially driven, and assertive. They know how to deliver results and rarely hesitate in doing so. While they may shine brightly on the financial scorecard, however, they often cast shadows across their teams through qualities and behaviours that don’t have a line item on a spreadsheet i.e. how they communicate, support others, and influence the environment around them. Generally known as the “gifted a**hole”. 

Then there’s the “coasting captain”, the disengaged leader; technically on the job, in meetings, and ostensibly in charge but mentally checked out, because there is nowhere further to climb on the corporate ladder or they “job hug” until retirement. Revenue still looks strong, but it is their team that produces the results while the captain contributes little to decision-making, mentorship, or culture. Over time, this passive disengagement quietly erodes team motivation, stifles innovation, and normalises minimal leadership effort – again, a cost invisible to the usual metrics.

Financial markets will always revolve around numbers and data, and performance systems are no different. But when people are rewarded by what is easiest to measure, not the most valuable, it communicates an implicit and damaging message: effort and effective leadership are optional.

The Hidden Costs of One-Dimensional Performance

Behind many top revenue generators, hidden costs of their behaviour often lurk: namely, staff turnover and the loss of expertise; demotivated teams and falling morale; and conduct and reputational risk.
One commercially productive but difficult leader can trigger a domino effect of departures, yet this attrition rarely factors into their appraisal. Every resignation carries multiple costs: knowledge walking out the door, disruption to clients, recruitment fees, and months for new hires to reach full productivity. Recurrent turnover multiplies these costs.

Equally, high staff turnover might be a red flag for bad management, but length of service is not necessarily an indicator of a happy workforce either. Many senior employees often stay in positions because leaving is difficult, not because they feel fulfilled. A coasting captain can create a team of coasters as the ripple effect of evaporating motivation and morale filters down through the ranks.

Finally, high-revenue individuals whose behaviour drives employee turnover or disengagement are not assets. They are well-disguised liabilities, and ignoring their bad behaviour or indifference sends a message: production outweighs principles. In a regulatory environment that increasingly scrutinises culture, this is a strategic miscalculation.

I recently met a brilliant Head of People at a bank, who spoke about the “privilege” of people leadership. In her previous organisation, she advised her CEO to remove the “people privilege” from a senior leader whose moods and behaviours were destructive. While he retained his technical responsibilities, he lost managerial oversight. A difficult conversation no doubt, but a brave and necessary decision that set a clear precedent: leadership accountability is non-negotiable.

Reframing Performance

In an era of constant change where AI is levelling the playing field and regulators continue to place more emphasis on culture, people will increasingly define an organisation’s competitive edge. That means financial institutions need to take heed and broaden their definition of good performance, and embed that into practice.

This calls for a different evaluation framework; one that properly balances traditional financial KPIs with behaviours, people leadership, and long-term value. Something along the lines of this:

1. Output metrics
   Revenue, P&L, deal origination, operational efficiency. Still critical, but no longer the whole story.
2. Behavioural metrics
   Decision quality, conduct, communication, risk awareness, contribution to a positive culture, and reliability under pressure.
3. People & culture metrics
4. Long-term value metrics
   Sustainability of performance, client trust, contributions to systemic improvements, innovation, and risk mitigation.

   Such metrics would identify leaders who strengthen teams rather than pursuing individual heroics or self-serving activities.

For people managers, their leadership capabilities should be visible, measurable, and non-negotiable through KPIs such as

• Retention of high-potential staff (e.g., ≤5% regretted loss per year)
• Team engagement scores that include qualitative insights as well as visible actions that feedback has been acted upon
• Effective succession planning (clear successors for ≥80% of critical roles)
• Time-to-productivity for new hires
• Internal mobility support, such as progression into stretch roles
• Evidence of capability development, e.g., juniors stepping up during team absences

The Future

Financial markets will always revolve around numbers – but defining good performance must evolve. Valuable high performers are not just revenue generators; they are individuals whose presence strengthens the entire system and that capability needs to be formally recognised.

In an AI era where people will be more of an organisational competitive edge than ever before, firms have the opportunity to acknowledge this and redefine high performance by:

• Stopping the reward of “gifted a**holes” and “coasting captains” and start promoting “performance multipliers” who elevate team capability
• Holding leaders accountable for problematic behaviour or lack of active engagement
• Considering turnover, disengagement, and employee morale as accountable metrics in evaluations

High performers of the future can really only be those who deliver results while creating conditions for others to do the same.