My boss (aka World’s Best Boss):“You cannot improve what you cannot measure.”
Me: I’ll buy, “You cannot measure improvement on something you cannot measure”. But not the inability to improve a measureless thing.
WBB: Give me an example. And don’t use touchy-feely things like “self-esteem”.
Help!
Well, to “improve” means that you are taking something which had a starting point, and changing it to something else, something better than it was.
In order to know where you have improved, you have to know where you started, therefore, some sort of ability to measure MUST be available, in order to state that there has been improvement.
Can something have been improved without it having been measured as to a starting point first? I’d say yes, but how would you KNOW that improvement has taken place? But can you actively PURPOSELY improve something you can’t measure? I’d say no.
Did that help? Or make it even worse? 
Oookay, here goes…
What about taste? The taste of, let’s say. a soup?
You taste is. In your opinion it tastes good. But you add something like spices. Then, again in your opinion it tastes better. But can you measure how good it tastes?
I don’t think so, because it’s an opinion. And opinions differ from one person to the next.
Just my two cents.
Well, you could theoretically measure out all the ingredients and other attributes (such as heat) in a bowl of soup, and then you could measure the soup-drinker’s pleasure (perhaps measuring the activity in the pleasure centers in the soup-drinker’s brain). I know, I know. But still . . .
Theoretically, anything can be measured somehow. In real life, though, we can improve things that we can’t really measure all the time. I can move a line on a drawing and improve a picture. And there’s no practical way to measure the “goodness” of a picture, at least without going to the same wacky lengths required to measure the “goodness” of soup.
In this argument, I think the boss would win, but it would come down to semantic quibbling (“but you could measure taste,” etc.) and science fiction measuring devices. In the realm in which most of us live, however, yes, you can improve things you cannot measure–the taste of soup and the appeal of specific works of art, for example.
You may be able to improve something, but without measurement you’d never be able to know.
Most importantly, if you WANT to improve something (or make sure it doesn’t degrade), the first step is to measure it.
So, I’m with your boss. But then I’m a boss, for what it’s worth.
Here’s something that he’ll like. How do you objectively measure customer service?
You could take polls. But those polls will only measure one customer at a time. You can’t know anything about Customer Carol’s experience simply because you measured Customer Carl’s. And even if you tried to improve your customer service, until Customer Carl comes back in and answers the poll a second time, you don’t have any way to objectively compare prior service to present service. And if he does so, that only tells you the experience of one customer over time—it doesn’t tell you anything about overall improvement over time, does it?
I don’t know that this necessarily applies, but what about art?
Can you measure art? Not really. When I was about three my mom was working on a landscape done in oils. When she wasn’t looking I snuck in and grabbed a big handful of yellow ochre and smeared it on the painting. At first she was pissed, but later after she figured out how to salvage it she said that particular color actually improved it. Thus the beginning of my life as an artist ::g::
I don’t suppose in that example that you could really measure the piece as a whole, nor could you measure the ‘improvement’, but nonetheless it was (in the sworn testimony of my mother) an improvement.
you obviously can’t improve what you can’t measure. The answer to that though, is find a way to measure it. if you’re a company, presumably you have customers. Measure things based on what they want.
so what can’t be measured in some way? Everything can be and is measured in some way by each of us.
It would be more correct to say: "You can’t necessarily apply a standard measure to an improvement.
A persoanl opinion is still a valid measurement even if it may not apply to all. Often a “measurement” is simply a comparison to the past. For instance, My wife and I have greatly improved our marriage over the last few years. You could’nt measure that by say number of arguments/month, but my wife and I can compare our feelings before with our feelings now and can say with confidence that our marriage has improved.
Same way with the example of taste. I can tell whether something is improved in my opinion. It is an internal measurement comparing one taste to another and deciding which I prefer. My measurement may not be useful to someone else, but then again, my measurement can just as easily coincide with others who may agree that something has been improved.
Anyway my point is that there are many ways to take somethings measure. Without an agreed upon standard, measurement of anything may be difficult or may be essentially “non-transferable”, but a measure is still taken…
Not everything can be quantatively or objectively measured.
I had a good example until I realized that it confirmed your boss’s view on the matter.
However, I still see your boss’s position as untenable. Consider this: I have three envelopes with unknown amounts of money in each. I give you one. Your envelope may have more or less or the same amount as each of the other two that I retained. You have no measure of the value of the envelopes, yet you can conceviably improve your postition by giving me your envelope and taking one of mine.
To put another way, you may improve something just by chance. If you can’t measure it, then you won’t know if it has improved–but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t improved.
Others already said the same thing, basically, but you can make a song better.
Even a sad song.
js_africanus wrote
It’s the old sound-of-a-tree-falling-in-the-forest routine. And the answer is that if noone hears it fall then it didn’t make a sound, because sound is someone perceiving it. If noone knows the difference between the envelope you get and the envelope you traded it for, then there is no improvement. If anyone does know, they only knew because they measured the value of each and compared them.
Measurement is required to define “better”.
More importantly, the bosses point is about conscious improvement, not random ones. And making conscious improvements is impossible if one doesn’t know where one currently is.
Ask your boss if he’s ever had good sex, then ask him if he’s ever had great sex.
Looks like I’m arguing a losing battle, eh?
So, I haven’t improved my Win/Loss position when it comes to disagreements with my boss. But, by facing the likelihood of the truth of the statement, I am improving my wisdom…
can we measure that?
Ha… well, I **do ** give up, unless someone comes up with something even more creative!
Thanks,
Sue
Just remember to let her into your heart.
Agreed–if we assume that the boss is making that point. A firm that fails to measure customer satisfaction won’t be able to systematically make improvements in it. A king who relies on rotten burroughs for his demographic data will not be able to make the people better off, except by chance. And anybody who tells you that you have a bad attitude, without being able to operationally define what the hell “attitude” is, is just being silly.
I would disagree that because we have no measurement to define “better,” that moving from worse to better is not possible–but like I said, it would only be possible in pure chance (IMO) as opposed to a deliberate effort as you indicated. But that disagreement is just for fun.
I think your only argument is to force your boss to give you some examples of things that cannot be measured. If your boss cannot give you an example of something that cannot be measured, there is no way to prove or disprove the statement.
You cannot improve X.
If your boss cannot give you an example of X, the argument doesn’t get started.
Your boss can turn around and give you examples of things that can be measured and improved, but keep in mind that his argument is about things that cannot be measured.
Your boss can argue that you cannot measure what doesn’t exist. The argument against this would be, “No shit. Thanks for pointing that out.”
It’s almost a circular definition. Improvement is a subjective term that requires a measurement. Thus, your boss is saying that you cannot do something that requires a measurement with something that cannot be measured.
My wife farts in the car. I open the window. I am 100% sure I have improved the air quality, but I cannot measure it.