Culture: The Quantified Self And The Qualitative Self

A buzzphrase of the moment is the quantified self. It's hot because technology development is in overdrive with the release of multi-pull wearable devices, not least the Apple Watch. Although still a minority sport, what might it mean for the world of work? I'm going to argue we ignore the qualitative self at our peril as we enter these new waters.

According to Wikipedia,

The Quantified Self is a movement to incorporate technology into data acquisition on aspects of a person's daily life in terms of inputs (e.g. food consumed, quality of surrounding air), states (e.g. mood, arousal, blood oxygen levels), and performance (mental and physical). Such self-monitoring and self-sensing, which combines wearable sensors and wearable computing, is also known as lifelogging.

In a recent Forbes article, Josh Bersin of Deloitte outlined how the quantified self meets the quantified employee. He identified three ways this is already affecting the workplace:

1. Employee monitoring - what we do, who we know and how we behave (similar to how we're trading information about ourselves online with corporate and social media giants).
2. Real time employee engagement - moving away from slow annual surveys to speaking up in real time about how you feel at work.
3. Employee retention - mining social data and applying intelligence to figure out if you’re thinking about changing jobs.

He also quoted research that 21% of all adults now use technology to track their own activities for exercise or fitness. For example, I use Endomondo to track my running.

Berson states that this movement is accelerating and moving into different spheres of our lives. We can already track our every tweet and post on Twitter and Facebook among many others. Health professionals predict that the increase in self-monitoring through technology will create a more informed and 'intelligent' service user who will have a better idea when something is unusual in their health and when to seek help from a doctor.

This is truly empowering at a personal level and also has the potential for huge cost savings at a system level. The relationship between 'experts' and people who have sought their expertise has been changing for some time. We are no longer passive recipients in a hierarchy of two. The erosion of trust in professionals and institutions has been well documented.

I welcome the advantages and potential the quantified self movement brings. There are downsides too. A strength overplayed can be a weakness. I can imagine analysis and perfectionism allied with an obsessive personality having the potential for addiction.

This is where the qualitative self can be a welcome balance. That means understanding who we are, what makes us tick, when we are at our best and, significantly for this discussion, knowing the warning signs on our personal mental and physical dashboard and taking action to adjust as necessary.

The qualitative self is taking centre stage in other forms such as the current focus on mindfulness. It's a response to the consequence of life appearing to get faster and accelerating. John Naughton, technology commentator of The Observer, debunks this as a myth in a recent article, citing sociologist Judy Wacjman who says leisure time has increased and the average weekly employment hours of Americans changed minimally between the 1970s and 2010s. As Naughton observes, we set the priorities, not our technology:

Information technology does enable us to do many things more efficiently than before, but we adjust to that by raising our expectations of what we can do.

Dan Pink astutely hits on the tension between the qualitative and quantitative selves when he asks

Why do we tend to avoid opportunities for mindfulness and sustained attention in favour of busy-ness and distraction? Is the reason ourselves or our circumstances?

If the quantified self is "self-knowledge through self-tracking with technology" (Wikipedia), then the qualitative self is self-awareness through self-reflecting with feedback. One is about knowing what to do, the other is about knowing how to be. Mastering both and finding ways to integrate the two in our lives will give individuals competitive advantage in job and career success in the coming years.

What are your qualitative and quantified selves? How will you integrate the two going forward? What personal and professional development opportunities do they present for you?

Photo via Pinterest. Graphic via Author.

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David (@David_Shindler) is an independent coach, blogger and speaker, associate with several consultancies, founder of The Employability Hub (free resources for students and graduates), author of Learning to Leap: a guide to being more employable, Digital Bad Hair Days and co-author with Mark Babbitt of 21 Century Internships. His commitment and energy is in promoting lifelong personal and professional development and in tackling youth unemployment. He works with young people and professionals in education and business.

To read more of his work - visit the Learning to Leap blog.

And check out his other published articles on LinkedIn:

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