Over at scale|free, Anu is having a healthy reaction to fluffy bunnys, bloggy goodness and non-quant analysis.
“I think measurement is essential, otherwise all you’ve got is a warm fuzzy story that may actually be completely incorrect. It’s a little like the “New Economy” of the dot.com era, where profits didn’t matter as long as you had a good story to tell. Bzzzzzt. Didn’t work that time, and won’t work this time either.
The question really is what do you measure, and how do you measure it.”
Now, this may not seem relevant at first sight, but bear with me … Yesterday, I was having a chat with a colleague about warehouse staff and logistics, specifically for the retail industry, and the different styles different companies had. What I learnt was is this:
- Those that invest heavily in technology don’t necessarily do particularly well in terms of efficiency
- The best performer is extremely professional in its role allocations: regimented, tightly managed and OK technologically. It does, though, suffer from warehouse staff not turning up
- The second best performer is less professional, but makes up the ground with an abnormally high employee turnup. It manages to do this by focusing on employee engagement
[Let me double check to see if I can say the names and then if yes I’ll fill them in]
Anyway, back to Anu’s point, one metric which is suitably quant but managed through non-quant means is employee engagement. From the above, there is a very basic productivity boost achievable simply by getting people engaged, and I see no reason why this shouldn’t apply to more typical knowledge worker environments.
And as to its measurability, take a look at an article by Steve Crabtree of Gallup. It’s called Getting Personal in the Workplace
Are negative relationships squelching productivity in your company?. Gallup have developed 12 questions that help them assess employee’s levels of engagements.
# Do you know what is expected of you at work?
# Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
# At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
# In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
# Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
# Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
# At work, do your opinions seem to count?
# Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
# Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
# Do you have a best friend at work?
# In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
# In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
[For more on this, there is another Gallup article called “Feedback for Real” by John Thackray.]If you can make a definite link between engagement and productivity (which I think you probably can) and a definite link between whatever brand of bloggy goodness you’re trying to implement and engagement, then you may well be there in terms of, ahem, ROI.
However,
“I think measurement is essential, otherwise all you’ve got is a warm fuzzy story that may actually be completely incorrect.”
In my experience that is infinitely preferable to measuring numbers that tell a completely incorrect or irrelevant story. Trouble with numbers and rational logic is they are hard to argue against, right or wrong.
Ian
Or alternatively as your thread continues – yes measure, quantify and evaluate the things you need to manage, but don’t assume they are the things that reduce to numbers easily. The worst mistake is to manage such numbers.
Was it Einstein that said. “What counts cannot necessarily be counted, and what can be counted does not necessarily count” ?
Hi Ian,
Completely agree with the initial sentiment. I suppose the point for me is that if we can use the hard-to-argue against numbers and rational logic to show that the warm fuzzy stories are having an impact on engagement, then that (for my money) is a good thing.
If the impact is good, then great – the fuzzy stuff is working, if it’s not, then might that not indicate a need for another ‘warmer’ story. But like you say (I think), the numbers act as a temperature gauge – they don’t on their own show what needs to be done to get a better reading.
And yes, the big moustache was depressingly bright! 🙂
How well can you concentrate?
On a bizarre experiment on concentration and why it might mean there is no perception without attention