Quick notes to help you find new business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.
In this issue:
- Thoughts on Soft Measures
- Being Human
- Random Stuff
Thoughts on Soft Measures
- Soft measures sound a lot like opinions. This doesn't mean we ignore them. The boss might not have a measure to point to for improving morale, but he can describe ways he'll know it's better. Our job is to note where they are today, and where they want to be tomorrow. (Then remember their words!)
- Organizations, especially the leaders therein, are less interested in qualitative/soft measures than quantitative/hard ones. It's more pronounced in large organizations trying to get thousands or hundreds of thousands of people moving the same direction. Smaller firms can do more with softer measures.
- Soft measures don't travel well because they are hard to put in packages that ship efficiently. At the largest organization levels, like government, we need hard metrics to manage. Lot of them. This doesn't make hard metrics better than soft. They're just different.
- To me, the softest measures are found in poetry, like this simple haiku:
evening beach . . .
finishing
someone's sand castle – poet Jorgen Johansson
Being Human – Do you want to play this game?
“One of the greatest pleasures games offer is a certain existential balm—a momentary shelter from the existential complexities of ordinary life. In a game, for once in my life, I know exactly what it is that I’m supposed to be doing.”
– C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency As Art
What happens when a metric becomes our ultimate goal?
As part of a community, we're given a lot of metrics for being a good citizen. The complexity of living gets boiled down to a few numbers. What happens when one of the numbers becomes our sole focus? One thing great literature tells us is monomania rarely makes for a meaningful life. History is littered with unhappy people who achieved great things.
What do you do with this information? Does this mean metrics are bad? Of course not! It's helpful to remember the complexity of life can't be boiled down to numbers. Quantitative metrics are incredibly helpful for direction, but it's the qualitative measures, which are impossibly hard to nail down, that come closest to helping us achieve life meaning.
At work, managing by metrics makes sense. It's a closed environment compared to being a human in a community. Using metrics helps us maximize efficiencies in whatever particular business space we are in. In a smaller system, like a game, metrics make the most sense. Game environments are much more consistent than work and rely on exact metrics to work.
This year, before blindly putting number targets on everything, consider whether or not you want to be playing this specific game at this particular time. You have choice. After all, you're human, not a rock. And if you decide, yes, I want to play the game, use the metrics and get to your goal. Measuring what you manage works.
Random Stuff
“The more focused you are, the more successful you will be.”
– Tony Robbins talking to my dog
Sometimes, a brisk cold walk is all a man needs. Like this man.
Wilson the ABC is at the door. I just let him out a minute ago. Literally one minute. He stood on the top step for a second, barked toward the neighbor's house, and turned back. I let him back in.
We have a routine where I let him out, he does his business, he comes back and I toss a treat his way. We've done it for years. About 99 of his 100 dog years as a matter of fact. Right now, he's less than enamored with the current treats. Freeze dried liver bites. Six months ago, they were his favorite thing ever. Then Costco stopped selling them and we tried the chicken sausage patty treats instead. He liked those better. Last month Costco went back to freeze dried liver bites and they aren't doing it for him. I know, You're going to try and take him back to the farm now that he's seen Paris?
I'm telling you this story because a half hour ago, to mix things up, I grabbed a chunk of leftover dinner chicken and tossed it in his bowl on top of last night's rejected liver bites. (He is staring at me as I type this, by the way.) After he had the chicken, he paused for a minute, then demanded to go back outside. Then in. He paces around, does a little dance step clicking his nails on the floor to get my attention, and makes a little growly noise. Not getting a treat, he wants back outside, turns around, comes back in. More pacing, more dancing, more growly noises, adding a fake choke-throwup noise. I think he's faking but I rush to let him back out again. He turns and claws at the door to come back in.
The poor guy is stuck in a loop. He desperately wants more chicken. More than anyone will ever know. It's his new purpose in life and he's pulling out all the stops until he gets the right combination of moves to unlock more chicken. Chicken I'd love to give to him.
But here's another thing I've learned over 99 years of Wilson's life: if I give him more chicken, he will have combo up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A-start locked in his brain like a teenage boy playing Nintendo, and I will have no peace. Not today, not this week, not ever, until one of us gives up the ghost.
And this is why I am going for a brisk cold walk in 29 degree weather. I am hoping it resets the old man's brain.
The odds are against me. Wilson is now laying down and clicking his teeth toward me like a Cenobite. That's a new one.
