Most quarterly priorities fail not because they were wrong, but because nobody owned them. A goal without an owner is a wish. A priority without a deadline is a preference. Bearings are different.
What makes a Bearing
A Bearing has three required elements: a specific, completable title; a named owner (one person, not a team); and a quarter it belongs to. At the end of the quarter, it gets a score from 0 to 100. 70 or above means done. Below 70 means missed.
The score is not a conversation. It is a number. This is intentional.
The naming discipline
Bearings must be completable. "Improve sales" is not a Bearing. "Close 5 new accounts in Q2" is a Bearing. The test: could you score it at the end of the quarter without an argument? If not, it needs to be rewritten.
How many Bearings
3 to 5. Never more. The discipline of choosing only 5 priorities for an entire quarter is itself the point. If everything is a priority, nothing is.
The scoring conversation
Scoring Bearings at the Quarterly Review is often the hardest part of Centerline. People want to tell the story of why a Bearing didn't get done. The system doesn't care about the story. It cares about the number. A missed Bearing is information. Use it to set better Bearings next quarter.