Why You Shouldn't Measure, Just For The Sake of Knowing

This one is for my fellow control-freaks, perfectionists and self-improvement addicts! If you are anything like me, you love feedback, quantifiable gains and structure. I get it, it makes sense.

In the journey of self-mastery, most of us assume it is key to know where we stand so we can determine how much is left to get to the point where we want to be, right!?

Spoiler alert: There is not here nor there, just becoming, remembering and delivering. Allow me to explain myself. But first, since this is that would be the outcome, let's talk about the process behind it first. Let's reflect on measuring our progress.

I remember my days as a Community Catalyst a.k.a Digital Marketing Officer running social media accounts, ads and communities around different causes. It was so easy to get caught up in all the different metrics: number of impressions, action rates, number of followers, length of video watched, and all that good stuff.

By the way, did you know that in Facebook alone there are 33 metrics you can use to assess an ad's performance? Insane, right!?

As a business owner, I promise you, you don't need all of them, all the time.

The only reason why we measure anything is so we can improve it!

With the abundance of metrics available today you have to determine what matters the most to you and to your business, what best represents success and what you are willing to measure and therefore change if needed.

So, why do Facebook and many other online platforms offer so many metric options? The answer is simple:

1. Some metrics allow you to improve the subject (content);
2. Others help you improve the process (content interacting with an audience and context);
3. But only a few help you improve your return on investment - ROI (profit per content for an audience in a specific context)

While they are all important, you should not spend too much time on the metrics that don't really matter. As most high-performing entrepreneurs and professions call them - Vanity Metrics! They are good for your ego but say little to nothing about your ROI.

You see, it is so easy to focus on metrics that hold no relevance for your end goals and get stuck in the never-ending loop of continuous improvement without a return on our investment - that time in quality management is really showing off here, huh!?

This is not a Marketing specif issue either. Even when I think about the entrepreneurs and business owners I support, so often I found them focused on metrics such as business revenue, employee productivity and asset creation. While these are good, they are not great. What do you think it happens when I challenge them to consider focusing on business profit, employee engagement, and asset valuation?

Te answer to that question is the main reason why measuring just so you know is not doing any good (or should I say great?) for you. On the contrary, it can harm you by getting you to think your business is doing great, while in reality, it's not. Or the other way around. Check out my last article on Action, Effort and Awareness to understand how knowing holds no meaning without action.

So, no need to go all nerdy, knowing a thousand numbers and one about your business. Just focus on what matters as a leader, let the rest for your team to ace! Don't need to say that you should have a team you can trust in the first place plus building the security measures to protect your business as well.

This conversation gets an additional layer if you are running a social business. Mainly because, measuring takes times, money and effort. Over measuring ends up increasing your costs and lowering the budget to have to deliver or the money to go to your profit - if you are a social enterprise for profit! And you want to measure key performance indicators that tell you how much of an impact you are creating. This is a great segway for me to explain myself when I say that is no here and there.

I genuinely believe we are fulfilment looking for a need and to the other way around. In this mind frame, we have what it take to be happy, to impact our community and live life in our terms. There is not here, not here. We do have some work to do, though. We need to remember our power, develop it, nurture our relationship with it as we pour it into our work.

My intention with this article is that you become more mindful about what you are measuring and why. The how comes in my next upcoming piece.

If you resonated with this message, if you know you want to deliver massive impact, and most important of all, you are ready to play full-out, let me know, send me a message, I would love to get you started in your journey of greatness.

--

Julio Maria Muhorro is a global citizen born in Mozambique. Julio is on a mission is to enable powerful personal transformations to drive life, business, and career fulfilment. He is the founder of Sharing Knowledge International a company offering business advisory, transformational coaching, career and executive counselling, training, speaking engagements, and knowledge consultancy.