"What gets measured is what gets done" is an old business maxim that's as relevant today as ever. Sure, companies that win big today play by different rules. But they still have to keep score -- whether they're building for future growth or living on past accomplishments. What's particularly interesting about companies that change the game is that they often find new ways to measure their performance.

We asked the leaders of 12 organizations -- from the CEO of Sun Microsystems to the dean of the London Business School to the commissioner of the Women's National Basketball Association -- to identify the metrics that matter most to them. What indicators do they track to determine whether their organization measures up? Read their comments, and then decide for yourself: What are the measurements that matter to you?

Scott McNealy

Chairman, President, and CEO
Sun Microsystems Inc.
Palo Alto, California

There are few metrics to which I pay closer attention than "system uptime" -- how often Sun systems are up and running at customer sites. The most important commitment that we can make as a company is to share our customers' risk. Most of our customers face the same risk: computer systems that go down when people need them.

I wish I could say that the concept of focusing on system uptime came to me in a flash of brilliance. But it didn't; it came straight from a customer. One of the most eye-opening customer comments that I've heard was "You have to understand that we guarantee the availability of our solutions to our customers at much higher levels than you ever guarantee your systems to us."

That's why we assemble real-time data on system availability at customer sites. We use that data to determine the causes of downtime. We also use that information to educate people, to improve processes, to implement enhancements: whatever it takes to help our customers maximize uptime -- which, in turn, maximizes their ability to serve their customers.

We also try to be as honest as we can about this metric. We don't generate results from internal tests in a sealed lab. We go for hard data that comes right off our customers' systems. We neither massage the data to make Sun look good nor throw out ugly results. We face the facts head-on, because we know that our customers have to face their problems head-on.

Understanding the real needs of our customers -- and how well we're meeting those needs -- has a huge impact on our performance. The measures that matter to us are the measures that our customers use. When you align your metrics as closely as you can with your customers, you win.

Scott McNealy helped found Sun Microsystems in 1982 and became its CEO in 1984. Sun is one of the world's leading computer manufacturers, with annual revenues exceeding $9 billion. More than 900,000 developers work with its Java programming language.