Positive EBITDA is a consequence, not a goal.

Measuring success by EBITDA per employee is just a polite way of putting a person in a spreadsheet cell. The number is the consequence of a healthy team, never the goal.

Is EBITDA per employee a good measure of success? It's a useful readout of health and a poor goal to chase, and the difference matters enormously. The moment you turn it into the target, you begin treating people as interchangeable units of output, and you erode the very thing that produces the number. A healthy EBITDA is the consequence of a healthy, harmonious team pulling towards a shared purpose. Get the music right, and the money follows.

Notice what the metric quietly assumes. The unit is per employee; as if each person were an identical, swappable cell in a spreadsheet, each expected to yield the same slice of profit. That framing isn't neutral. It shapes how you lead, and it points you in exactly the wrong direction.

No one has ever judged an orchestra by notes per musician. A great performance is not the sum of individual outputs - it is what happens when a room full of distinct virtuosi, each excellent on their own instrument, each irreplaceable - are brought into harmony and led towards one thing. Reduce those players to output-per-head and you optimise away the only thing that made the music worth hearing: the listening between them, the give and take, the shared interpretation. You would have a more "efficient" orchestra and no one would buy a ticket.

This is the inversion at the heart of it. EBITDA is a consequence, not a goal. Chase the ratio directly and you summon the behaviours that game it, thin the headcount, overload the players who remain, cut the unglamorous things that build cohesion and trust, and you quietly dismantle the ensemble. You can lift the number for a quarter or two while hollowing out the company that produces it. The spreadsheet improves as the music dies.

So what actually creates a strong number? First, harmony between different individuals who each excel in their own field, led towards one common goal. And that goal cannot itself be numeric. People do not give their best to a target; they give it to a why; the difference they are making, the meaning in the work, the reason it matters that they, specifically, showed up today. Name a number and you earn compliance. Name a why and you earn devotion. The maestro's task was never to extract more notes per player. It was to make a hundred different people want to play the same piece, beautifully, together.

None of this dismisses EBITDA. Ignore it and there is no orchestra to lead; a company that can't sustain itself financially can't do anything else either. But the number belongs where a scoreboard belongs; as a reading of health, not the definition of it. Measure it. Don't worship it. And never, ever mistake the person for the ratio.

Get the harmony right, give people a why worth playing for, and the number takes care of itself. Reverse the order, put the number first and the people in cells and you will hit the target for a quarter, lose the music, and then, in time, lose the number too. The people contributing to the organisation were always the most important thing. Lead them well, and the money follows.

Key takeaways

• EBITDA per employee is a useful readout of health and a damaging goal, as a target it treats people as interchangeable units and invites gaming.

• No one judges an orchestra by notes per musician; reducing people to output-per-head optimises away the harmony that creates the result.

• The number is a consequence, not a goal. Chase it directly and you dismantle the team that produces it.

• Build harmony and a shared why first; the money follows. Reverse the order and you lose both.

Frequently asked questions

Is EBITDA per employee a good measure of success? It's a useful readout of health and a poor goal. As a target it pushes you to treat people as interchangeable units of output and to game the ratio - cutting headcount, overloading the rest - which erodes the very team that produces the number.

Should companies focus on profit or people? It isn't either/or, but the order matters. Profit is the consequence of a healthy, harmonious team united by a shared purpose, so you build that first and the numbers follow. Reverse the order and you get a good quarter and a hollow company.

Why shouldn't a company's goal be a number? Because people give their best to a "why," not a target. A numeric goal earns compliance; a shared purpose earns commitment. The number is more reliably reached as a by-product of meaning than pursued directly.