# Measuring What Authentically Matters By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2022-10-05 Two common management mantras are measure what matters and you can't manage what you can't measure. Let's take a deeper look at each one of these. First up is to measure what matters. If organizations follow this, it is clear that most organizations care about [[money]]. In particular, how much they do or do not have. Other business metrics include counts of things like the number of customers, downloads, and employees, but these often are viewed as leading indicators of their financial position. Rarely are organizations measuring things like meaning, purpose, solidarity, or fulfillment. This may be because these ultimately don't matter to them or because of the second mantra: you can't manage what you can't measure. It is easy to say that you can't measure meaning, purpose, solidarity, or fulfillment. And you might be right, but does that mean organizations shouldn't try to measure it if they care about it? How else are they to manage these things? I've seen plenty of convoluted metrics that attempt to measure similar scientifically vague notions like happiness and engagement. Furthermore, based on the mission statements of many organizations and workplace policies, the ideas of meaning, purpose, solidarity, and fulfillment appear to exist. If it is important to them, then they would measure it because organizations innately want to manage things. By excluding the development of metrics around these ideas, they are actively signaling their intentions by their own self-selected management mantras. One way to view this behavior is to say that organizations aren't measuring these things because they do not wish to manage them. Then why make statements about missions and values at all? A pessimistic view is that these are just marketing gimmicks and ways to appease their workforce. An optimistic view is that these organizations are misguided in their understanding of human nature and organizational philosophy. Either way, I see two potential paths to organizational authenticity as it relates to metrics and management. The first path is to embrace business realities and drop the mission, vision, and values statements altogether. If you must have one, it should be true to the metrics that matter. In most cases, the mission statement would be something like: be financially profitable. Everybody already knows this is what matters, so embrace it. How you go about doing that is a different story. Society will judge your actions accordingly regardless of the flowery language on the walls at headquarters. Just pick your questionable organization of [[choice]] and search for its mission statement. The second path is organizationally strange for us to think about but follows the existential idea that to survive is to find meaning. Instead of creating a mission statement to define your purpose, you perform works to discover your mission statement. Therefore, measuring the progression and discovery of your mission statement through work becomes the metric that matters. You measure the work performed and how that work defines and reshapes your purpose. For example, if you get [[together]] with some people and feed the homeless, then you measure how much that work helps you discover your collective purpose. Over time, your purpose will grow and change with your work. That is perfectly fine and the point. This is how you measure progress. Just as with the first path, there are organizational and societal realities one must face. However, this is a more authentic path to managing and measuring what matters that coincides with natural evolution and not against it. Regardless of the path, authenticity creates an opportunity to make an organization progress faster than pretending to be something that everyone knows is not true. #### Related Items [[Metrics]] [[Management]] [[Business]] [[Existential]] [[Authenticity]] [[Authentic management]] [[Mission Statements]]