I was out on one of my frequent birding walks last week, trying to track an Eastern Towhee I could hear in the brush, when I had one of those annoying experiences: I was having a work-related idea. Luckily, it didn’t spoil my mood this time, rather, I was inspired to revisit this very newsletter even though I’d already written it.
What snuck into my brain with that Towhee was strangely related to metrics. This was not my first Towhee, they are very common in my neighborhood and I usually see a few anytime I go up to my local park. But I was jazzed to see him anyway.
A gorgeous Eastern Towhee, by Patrice Bouchard on Unsplash
There are a lot of different kinds of birders, but there’s two ‘styles’ I got to thinking about. One is listers, people who are chasing the high of finding new birds they’ve never seen and filling out that life list. The other is more like a ‘day-lister’. I fall in the second bucket, when I bird, I keep track of my sightings, but what I love to see is just how many different birds I find anytime I’m out. I keep the life list too, but my goals are much more oriented around: days I spend birding and number of birds I see in a day. It makes finding the Towhee exciting every time instead of just the first time.
What I was reminded of on my walk was this: what we measure fundamentally changes our behaviors. Because I measure the day-list, I go birding locally more often, and I’m almost as delighted by the Rock Pigeon as I am the Summer Tanager I saw awhile back. If I only cared about and measured the life list? Well, my walks would look a lot different.
The same applies to our work. The things we choose to measure - sales made, calls reduced, new users - each one ends up shifting the work we prioritize and the strategies and compromises we make. A team that only measures calls reduced without looking at other factors can be incentivized to do things like hide the customer service number. That’s the easiest way to the metric they want after all. But, if they are measuring calls and customer satisfaction, the choices are going to shift. Balance, in a way, is restored.
This is one of the reasons I really like Google’s HEART framework. HEART stands for Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention and Task Success. It’s a nice spread of different ways to think about product success that inherently puts some balance into what we measure and how we build products and experiences. But what makes it even more powerful is the methodology for how to get to the metrics that actually matter:
Goals: You start by clearly defining what you are hoping to achieve, the human behavior that you want to change.
Signals: Then you shift gears to look at the signals, what changes in the real world. What looks and feels different? This is the step most of us skip.
Metrics: After those signals are defined, then you can start translating them into actual metrics.
When I introduced this framework to a team I was consulting with on Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging initiatives it was like a cloud had lifted. One of the folks on a training call spoke to me after saying it was the first time she wasn’t completely overwhelmed by data. Part of that was because, for the first time, the metrics were about what actually mattered to the team. They were grounded in their values and goals while still being real, impactful, and tied to business impact. The OKRs they created that year were empowering while also being strategically sound.
So yes, you can treat culture like a product without it being gross or exploitative. The trick is to stay human-centered and values-driven in how you anchor your goals - the metrics will follow.
Which is great advice any day. Be human-centered. Hold on to your empathy. Even when you’re doing math. It’ll make your life in corporate America a little better.
All the best,
Ray
PS: In case you were wondering, since I started counting birds back in February I’ve had 429 sightings and 88 unique birds. The Towhee is still one of my favorites.
Did this resonate with you? Pass it along!
This week’s cat photo. Because we can all use a little warmth in our lives right?
Cthulhu enjoying a sunbeam. She only gets to bird watch from indoors, poor thing.