There’s an old adage that “what gets measured gets managed.”
The choice of what to measure, the thinking goes, is itself an act of prioritization: since this is important enough to measure, we’re going to pay attention to it. And that will create a reinforcing feedback loop.
The problem is, in a world with a proliferation of data, the old adage no longer holds.
So much is getting measured that the act of measuring itself is insufficient. Tons of things are getting measured that are not getting managed.
What we need now is more than measurement: measurement PLUS attention, focus, and inquiry.
It’s simple, actually: to raise something in priority, we must regularly look at the numbers, inquire about why they did or did not change, get a feel for them and regularly insert them into conversation.
Otherwise they just sit there, inert, at best serving as a warning light when things get way off track.
But by then its too late.
Here’s a quick test. Do you know:
- What the 5 most important numbers are for your organization?
- What the 3 most important numbers are for each function?
On the second one, the only way to really say “yes” is:
- Am I looking at these numbers a few times a week?
- Am I discussing them with my team, and with my boss?
- Does this regular inquiry lead to concrete action?
Only this level of engagement transforms data into a management tool. Only this level of engagement evolves into intuition about what these numbers mean, what makes them move the way you want them to move, and whether they’re the right numbers at all for running your organization.
