After the Business Roundtable announced last August that the CEOs of many of America’s largest companies were making a “fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders”—and would no longer stand behind the notion that shareholders’ interests should be placed ahead of everyone else’s—the reaction from many quarters was swift: That sounds great. But how are we going to be able to tell if any of this is real?

“As every member of the Business Roundtable assuredly knows, accomplishing anything depends on defining terms, setting goals, and measuring progress,” Gallup observed. “Simply, the members of the Roundtable need new metrics.”

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