John Constantine, in a helpful message, makes this one outrageous
misrepresentation of something I wrote:
>John Gunkler offers that the answer is ...
John, I would never begin any response by claiming I have "the" answer.
The most I ever do (I hope this is clear in my messages) is try to offer
"one possible answer/method/way."
That said, let me compliment Constantine for trying to provide some useful
ideas and method. That is also what I usually try to do when people on
this list ask questions. Others on this list, for some reason, seem to
believe that it is somehow a good idea to give "answers" that have little
or no practical value.
When I hear someone asking a question here, I (usually) assume that they
are sincerely attempting to accomplish something in their organization or
their own lives. I attempt to respond with things that, from my own
experience, were helpful. I do not attempt to convince anyone that my
experiences are universal nor that what worked for my clients will
necessarily work for them. I just try to be helpful.
I believe it is helpful to, as Constantine does, suggest to people who are
struggling with performance measurement that they look at the
cause-and-effect relationships in the systems within which people work. I
like to try to diagram these relationships, showing the often circular
chain of causes-and-effects (where each item is both cause and effect),
using stock-and-flow diagrams (from system dynamics.) In such pictures,
if done with some care, the needs for information (and, therefore, for
measurement) usually jump out at you. The high-leverage decision/policy
points are clear and the information required to make the decisions is
also clear.
So, here, I disagree strongly with Constantine when he suggests that we
should "Give it up" and forget about measuring performance. If
high-leverage decision points in a system require information, and this
information happens to be about performance of some particular kind -- how
can you not try to measure that performance? To ignore this system need
is to "fly blind."
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>