There is a widely used notion in management that says you cannot manage what you cannot measure. True. How do we perceive growth, success or performance gaps without making sense of a clearly informed set of information collected over time? These measurements are instrumental to help us understand our current state of reality and devise interventions to propel growth.
This is the current paradigm, and the thing about paradigms is that we get so used to them that thinking otherwise becomes stunted. For schools to be a place where all its people (staff and pupils) are truly engaged, living with purpose, feeling fulfilled and ultimately being happy, what do we have to count? How will it be like when that reality unfolds?
The decisions to select the very indicators of success becomes critically important, we do not need a multitude of them, but it is really crucial that they are core to our people's business. For if we do not choose carefully what counts, we will be leaning the ladder on the wrong wall.
As Einstein had said, "Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted." In this imperfect world that we live and operate in, we have to be even more focused and deliberate on what we are not counting.
1 comment:
How true. Measurement is critical, it drives behaviours, sometimes in the wrong way.
It is largely believed that what is measured counts. That's the reality. But it does not necessarily mean that it is important. It only confirms that measurements will shape behaviours.
We need to resist this simplistic mindset and move towards serving the core purpose. And often, what really matters cannot be directly measured, as any attempt to measure will change the associated behaviour.
I am blogging about my personal experience with measurement and behaviours and outcomes this week.
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