The ‘Matrix’ of Measurement

The world over there is a constant need and urge, whether at an organisation level or individual level, to measure impact. Measurement in everyday life, as in science, is the act of using an instrument to assign a value on a scale to an object or event (1).

To measure organisations and their success, beyond the financial numbers, our understanding and abilities seem to be limited. Measures of the building blocks of organisation like culture, environment-social-governance, people etc. are still not commonly prevalent and accepted. Even in the financial areas, as an illustration, goodwill is an intangible asset, but it is accounted and represented financially as per the Accounting Standards. So does it make it a good measure or the assumptions make the measurement incomplete and misleading? Therefore, judgement comes in when the measures are seeming to be inadequate.

Judgment is described as measurement in which the instrument is a human mind. However, measures with the mind are tricky. In Pancadasi, the mind is defined as vimarsharoopam (2) i.e. the mind is irresolute and is a flood of thoughts.

Hence it is important to understand the inadequacies in measurement (based on judgement) and be mindful of our overt dependence on 'measures' out there. So let’s explore some myths about measurement in the domain of judgement.

1.?Measurement is objective

Objective is defined as not being influenced by personal feelings or opinions. By definition, therefore judgement which is completely from the mental arena, cannot be independent of the thoughts, conditionings etc. Even the very act of measurement, actually impacts the item being measured. You may have many such phenomenon in the field of psychology, but even in quantum physics, the inaccuracy of measurement is part of the Uncertainty Principle.

“...Hence, there is a trade-off: the more precisely we know an object's position at the time of measurement, the less we know about its present whereabouts. This uncertainty cannot be eliminated by designing better instruments; it is inherent in the laws of quantum physics. One significant test of the Heisenberg principle can be thought of in philosophical terms: Let's say we could measure both the position and velocity of every sub-atomic particle with infinite accuracy. Then we could measure the position and velocity of every particle in your body and predict the future positions and velocities of every particle in your body. In other words, we could predict exactly what you are going to do for the indefinite future; you would have a deterministic world which precludes free will. The Uncertainty Principle is the physical reason why free will is possible." (3)

Even in anthropology ("the science of humanity") there is a rule followed of reducing the effect of the study itself on the subjects! Hence, the sense of absoluteness to any measures and that it represents an objective representation of the reality leads to a false sense of accomplishment and security. The narrative around the same gives a sense of complacency which will be misplaced and hence will deter a further process of learning and delivering.

2. The best measurement is quantitative

By bringing in a quantitative aspect to the measures, there is a belief that now it is more real and captures the variable better. However, it has been repeatedly brought out in different books about how our mind is incapable of an unbiased view of things around us. Therefore, what a quantitative assessment does is that it skews the numbers based on our preferences, conditionings etc.

The more underlying negative phenomenon in these measures is that in addition to bias there is also "noise". Noise in the system is the variability you cannot control and which is inherent with-in and with-out and is present in all the situations and judgements.?“Although accuracy is the goal, perfection in achieving this goal is never achieved even in scientific measurement, much less in judgment. There is always some error, some of which is bias and some of which is noise.” (1)

Even with controlling for noise and bias, quantifying an intangible can affect the quality of decision- making adversely by giving a false sense of control and diverting the attention away from the nuances of the intangible variable. This therefore leaves the teams or individuals unprepared and not in a learning mode.

In the Paradox Theory propounded by Dr. Harrison as well as in the "7 Tensions" in HBR (4), the ability of leaders to balance various paradoxes are mentioned as an integral part of their success. I think the most important paradox is being able to gauge and judge the impact through both quantitative and qualitative measures. Importantly the wisdom to differentiate between those variables that are tangible, and those that are intangible, is equally necessary.

3.?Measurement is everything.

The need for control is what drives us to measure everything around us. But what it does is we end up just measuring what is measurable at the cost of what is required to be measured. The popular quote (not by Einstein apparently!) not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

Because of this misplaced sense of importance or relevance of measurement, we end up dumbing down the scale onto just a time scale, for the want of a 'objective', 'quantitative' measure. Everything in life therefore becomes about time – if you cannot measure it, just time it and that is success! The faster you achieve something that is deemed as successful. I heard about a person saying that "I am 25 years and have not yet written a book!" The unintended consequence of this obsessions with time as a measure has been well captured by Standing (5).

“Man respected its (time’s) rhythms and spasmodic variations…With the transition from rural societies to national markets based on industry and from that to a global market system geared to services, two changes in time occurred. The first was a growing disrespect for the 24-hour body clock….A result is crowding out of activities that have social or personal value ..It may be summed up as a loss of control over knowledge, ethics and time.”

The other facets of human life which lead to human growth and development like contemplation, social interactions etc. are therefore ignored in this mad hurry or rush to make it and make it fast. It is no longer about the early bird catching the worm, but the fastest bird!

Endnote

Defining and distinguishing for success in the external world, whether it is about individual achievements or valuations of start-ups or progress of countries, is based on these misconceptions about measurement. As part of our Public Journeys (6), anything that can be measured gives a sense of accomplishment and attracts recognition from others. and this sense of achievement creates the chemical Serotonin in our body which can generate strong, positive emotions. This is important for survival and maybe that is what keeps us going every day or every week.

However, respecting the fallacy of measurement, will bring in humility and inclusion which is much required in today’s world. It will bring in cognisance of the costs that we are living with, which mostly fall in the domain of the 'un-measurable'. And with that heightened awareness the choices we make will be full and complete.

So as we enter a new year, do take your New Year promises, but go beyond 'objective' 'quantitative' measures of the promise!

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” ― Marcus Aurelius

References

1.?Cass R. Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, and Olivier Sibony, Noise, 2021

2.?Tejomayananda, Commentary on Tattva Vivekah - Pancadasi, CCMT 2012

3.?https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-scientific-pr/

4.?https://hbr-org.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/hbr.org/amp/2020/02/every-leader-needs-to-navigate-these-7-tensions

5.?Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, 2011

6. https://www.bioss.com/our-approaches/four-journeys/

(The views expressed here are of the author only)