If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
Peter Drucker
This resonates with us in business and in personal life, lots of productivity experts have been looking at it. And what we’ve been doing is trying to figure out ways to measure just about everything. But does it mean whatever that cannot be measured, cannot be improved?
Yet at the same time, we know measurement and improvement is distinctly different; efforts invested in measurement cannot translate to improvement by itself. The measurement is in essence just a state of awareness that can really be achieve with varying degrees of precision.
What that means is that many aspects of growth is going to be moving because of things other than measurement. It will have to do with our habits, thoughts, behavioral patterns. How do you improve confidence, or trust, or responsibility? These are all non-measureable yet we know when these things are improving. Is it because we have some kind of barometer inside us to make that measure but no scale to synchronise towards?
How do we respond to that then? We make sure we are aware. Our awareness is our measurement; and that is why self-awareness is so important. And being able to observe yourself: your thought process, your behaviours, is such an important ability. Awareness, is that first step to growth.