Quantify Or Wordify?
Tech industry thrives in numbers. Data and quantification are everywhere, and since data and the tools for data processing are easily accessible, most organizations choose to rely on numbers and on data as their primary tool for communication and decision-making.
However, at the same time there’s an ever-present woe that is experienced by many companies, established corporations, and start-ups alike, and that woe is called … Lack of Communication. I’ve been in the industry long enough, and I remember people citing lack of communication as a routine excuse for any and all mishaps. A delayed or a failed release? “Ahh, we’ve done everything right, there must have been some lack of communication somewhere”. Losing a major customer or an account? “Oops, there’s certainly been some lack of communication.“
What I haven’t seen much of is the resolve and tenacity to dig to the root causes of the said “lack of communication” which literally plagues the industry, with the goal of fixing it. Well, perhaps, one could reason, it’s more comfortable for tech folks to keep citing “lack of communication” as a valid excuse for bottlenecks, as compared to unearthing the root causes. Maybe, this happens due to the fact that some of the root cases are… very, very uncomfortable to deal with. In fact, I’ve done an in-depth cause & effect analysis for some of the cases and the root causes, and I intend to share this narrative with the readers some day. Today, I want to go simple, and draw a connection between the tech’s industry love affair with numbers & data and … a failed relationship with Communication.
I’m gonna need some help from Amazon now, and this wouldn’t be about ordering consumer goods from them. Someone at Amazon — or Jeff Bezos himself — is cited as having said the following:
The traditional kind of corporate meeting starts with a presentation. Somebody gets up in front of the room and presents with a PowerPoint presentation, some type of slide show. In our view you get very little information, you get bullet points. This is easy for the presenter, but difficult for the audience. -source
Many of us have been witnesses to such scenes: after a PowerPoint presentation (which is indeed an easier format for the presenter) at an org’s meeting presenters call for questions. And, you can literally feel how the audience elicits the question mark fluids (fellow empaths, high five). However, the format of the presentation — and the time constraints — allow little room for the audience to give enough thinking to formulating their questions, and — in some cases — presenters might not be ready to answer the questions right away as well. As a result, the Lack of Communication demon gets more food. The audience leaves the gathering with their questions unanswered, and — if there are too many gatherings which run in such fashion — the demon can eventually provoke some massive explosions (I wrote on that here).
And, as I see this, hypothetically, as a bullet in a PowerPoint presentation: “More autonomy will be given to ensure the best possible outcomes… etc. “ the following questions pop up in my mind immediately: “What was wrong with the autonomy before? How exactly it didn’t work well for the business and for the people? How more autonomy is going to ensure better outcomes, and what is actually implied by “more autonomy”? The same goes about the word combo “data-driven decision-making”. What exactly is implied? Are we talking about data-driven, or about data-informed decision-making here? And, when a team says that they want “a better definition” of some goals, incentives, and/or initiatives, shouldn’t they be more explicit in voicing their concerns and questions? “A better definition” or “a better understanding” sound just as misleading to those who are expected to provide this very “better definition” and “better understanding”, and I know only one remedy: concrete questions, and concrete answers, and all done in writing. In an async, not sync way. Talk is ethereal, and once a question is asked, and an answer is given, they might just as well dissolve in the air. With async communication, the one-time acts of writing by those who ask questions and give answers save tons of teammates’ time by helping them stay informed, as opposed to wasting their energy — or time — in an effort to get answers to the questions that might have already been answered at an org’s meeting or at a gathering.
Now, more on love for numbers and failed romance with communication. I’ve noted the trend for quantifying things that might not be innately quantifiable, and this one is about being subjective vs. objective. Some goals are objective and quantifiable, that is, they can be measured in numbers, and their percentage to completion can be measured in numbers as well. Some goals are subjective, and deal with the abstract concepts, or, to be more precise, with the subjective definition that people decide to attribute to an abstract concept. And, that’s where they go to great lengths to invent a way to quantify something that is innately, well, unquantifiable. My advice here would be this:
Unquantify wherever possible.
Or, better yet:
“Wordify first, consider if it’s worthwhile quantifying, and only then quantify”
Think for a minute: is there a way to quantify how an org walks its talk with attending to the company values? Or, what’s the numerical progress measure to giving a clear and unequivocal definition of those, and would such a metric be applicable at all? Point is, as numbers and abbreviations are tossed and shuffled with ease… human beings, innately, are more responsive to words, to genuine, rational, engaging stories and narratives. Including those that tell things about the org they’re at.
If we weigh the time and mental/emotional energy that we invest into setting/devising, registering, reporting the numbers on some of the things that are unquantifiable against The Value that this said quantification is realistically providing to the org’s well-being, success, and profitability, what would we discover? How about we take a long hard look at the things that we’ve made quantifiable, and consider: “Is this activity a waste, or not (hello, lean)?” What if there’s a simpler way to diagnose the health of some initiative and/or activity than grooming all kinds of quantifications? Wouldn’t our energy be better used if we take some uninterrupted personal time to ourselves, to think of things, then put our thoughts in writing, before getting together to discuss things, then discuss, and see what can be done? Well, this activity might look like lots of time wasted, but again — weigh this uninterrupted time against the interrupted chunks of energy and the debris of shattered focused work which, inevitably, come as a consequence to the interruptions.
I’m forever admiring Jeff Bezos’ management team 6-page memo rule, and the way Jeff himself describes the paragon for such memos: ”the clarity of angels singing”. In terms of clarity nothing beats numbers, in certain cases. But… numbers are of little use in the domain of human speak, if not in the angels’ domain. And, when numbers are applied to those areas where Words would do a much better job, we end up with what can be dubbed as Waste. Again, I perfectly see the human reasons for the way things are. Tech people are better off dealing with numbers. And… not any tech person is as apt with operating words as they are with operating numbers. But… aren’t we supposed to learn things? And, no one expects that we all become perfect at writing. If our folks understand us, and get the information that they need from what we write, I’ll call it a job well done.
I know that written exercises in “why-what for-for what reason” questioning — and answering — might seem tedious, or a drag, or quite a nitpicky endeavour at the least. But we gotta be meticulous with things that matter not only for our org’s well-being, but to our personal well-being and health, even more so. And, people‘s health deteriorates from exposure to work environments which are, well, plagued by the No-Clarity and Lack-of-Communication monsters.
Only defining all those small unclarities and nailing down each and every bit of them would represent an effort well-spent. And, only then, once the meticulous job of defining and addressing each tiny question and unclarity is done, only then will we have a solid base to proceed to resolving the org’s bottlenecks, or to reaching the org’s goals — and, if applicable, using the numbers and data to support our actions, initiatives, and decisions.
From what I know, as the result of this massive question-answering, done in writing, bottlenecks and/or goals receive a thorough definition, or come up to the surface, and represent a much more accurate pack to work with — and this is all due to the fact that the job done with the Written Words makes them a lot easier to handle.
Related:
The Origins of the Big Data Trend
Prioritization and Big Data? Think Human Nature
Small Talks and Hidden Killers
The Dietitians of Info-Sharing
Further reading:
How Jeff Bezos Turned Narrative into Amazon’s Competitive Advantage (much recommended; and, here’s another piece which tells an astounding story of how Amazon’s CEO rescinds quantification, in some cases)
KPI’s and Corporate Stupidity (despite — or should I say “because of”? :) — the strong-worded heading this piece from Forbes delivers a sensible, rational, pragmatic, and at the same time humane message)
