The hypnotic danger of Management Information

Capturing and presenting too much data about the performance of our businesses is just as harmful as not presenting enough. As the amount of data being captured increases exponentially, we need to apply some simple principles to what we capture and what we don’t; What we ask our people to monitor and what we don’t.

Management Information (M.I.) has, arguably, been around since Joseph Marie Jacquard invented punch cards, to store and replicate patterns on his looms, in 1804. The arrival of mainframe and minicomputers, in the 1950’s and 60’s, made large scale data capture and retrieval possible for the first time and, with the arrival of the Apple 2 personal computer, and it’s “Visicalc” spreadsheet programme, in 1979, the Management Information revolution began.

Since then, advances in technology have enabled mind-boggling quantities of data about our businesses and results to be collected and broadcast.

“According to a Forbes Magazine article in May 2018, 90% of the data that
has ever been created was created in the last 2 years.”

But does the availability of all this data actually make our lives any better? Can we honestly say that our effectiveness has increased at anything like the rate at which all this data has accrued?

As I travel around the world, helping organisations improve their ability to focus and execute on their main goals, I regularly hear people complaining that they are spending too much of their time on measurement and reporting of their work and not enough doing the work itself.

Giving our people enough information to be able to optimise their performance, without giving them so much that distraction reduces their performance, is a delicate balance that is not easy to maintain.

Curare Plant

Curare, a South American plant extract, is extremely effective at relieving muscular contractions and convulsions but, if the optimal dose is exceeded, it can lead to paralysis and the death of the patient.

In many ways, M.I. is the curare of the business world. In the right dose it has the ability to increase the health of an organisation but, too much of it can paralyse our teams by distraction and results can suffer. The problem is that defining the right dose turns out to be pretty difficult.

Humans have never been able to multitask successfully but a surprising number of us still cling to the belief that it is possible. A Texas college student inadvertently provided a sobering example of this faulty thinking in 2011 when he drove his truck off a bridge and crashed into a ravine, just seconds after texting his friend to say:

“I need to quit texting because I could die in a car accident.”

Fortunately, he survived, despite significant injuries, and has now devoted himself to campaigning against the use of mobile devices whilst driving.

Meanwhile, this same belief - that we can divide our attention without consequence - costs businesses millions of pounds every year because of the poor quality of work we produce when we try to focus on more than one task at a time.

Distraction is probably the main performance inhibitor at work in the modern office, but a surprising percentage of the distractions that rob us of performance are actually well-intended. For instance, every piece of data we capture and display is potentially useful but it also represents a potential distraction from the work we are hired to do. The keys to both greatness and disaster are hidden in amongst all that information and our challenge is to separate them from the background noise.

So what should we do with all this data? How do we limit the dose to the medicinal level?

Here are three simple principles that can help us calibrate the flow of information in our businesses:

1. Only measure if it matters

“Businesses mostly measure the most easily measured things”

We measure a lot of things, just because we can, but that doesn’t mean we should. The decision to measure and monitor should be taken on the basis of the impact on the bottom line; not the ease of measurement. So, instead of starting out with a list of all the things our systems can measure, why not start out by deciding upon the smallest possible number of data you absolutely need in order to run your part of the business successfully and then work out how to measure and monitor them?

The decision not to monitor a particular metric (especially when it is easy to measure) takes courage but is often more effective than trying to monitor everything. As with all prioritising systems, it is what you say “no” to that makes the biggest difference.

2. It only matters if it motivates

It can be argued that information only matters to the degree that it motivates our people to change the way they operate. Humans are very poor at retaining information but they are surprisingly good at remembering how the information made them feel. In other words:

“Meaning matters more than metrics”

So, we should only present meaningful information and we should present that information as meaningfully as possible. The way we present this meaningful information must highlight the meaning and importance of the data. We should not leave that to the viewer.

If there is no immediate and compelling reason to respond to the information being offered, we should not present it. If the audience do not see the compelling aspect of the data you are presenting, very few of them will remember or care about what they are seeing. This is not bad behaviour - it is human nature.

“Just in case…” is the absolute worst reason to show data. It relies on the audience retaining the information until such time as it becomes relevant and compelling and the truth is, they simply won’t do it.

3. Many things that matter can’t be measured with numbers

There are many metrics that are important to our businesses but are very hard to measure. For instance, what are the units of measurement of loyalty? Or, how do you quantify an employee’s adherence to the values of your organisation?

I remember being shocked when a manager at a very large multinational client of mine told me how disappointed he was that his score for being a team player had gone down from a 4.8 to a 4.6.

“How can you possibly measure team spirit to a decimal place?”

Of course, the answer is that you can’t. However, because most computer-based M.I. systems can only handle numbers, we have become conditioned to think that, to be valid, M.I. must be numerically based. And so, we see people attributing meaningless numbers to important metrics, simply so they can be entered in to their reporting system.

The truth is that, in certain cases, anecdotal information is the only useful way to measure performance and contribution and it should not matter that this information cannot be plotted on a graph. What matters is that people’s effort and their outcomes are recognised and appreciated.

A simple statement, along the lines of, “I really like the way you stepped in to cover for your sick colleague” is just as accurate, and probably much more effective, than an arbitrary numerical score for being a team player.

The curare test

Curare and Management Information both have the potential to do good or harm and it all depends on finding the right dose. The optimum volume of data will vary from business to business: team to team but, an easy way to check that the dosage is correct is to ask the patients.

So, why not begin your quest for data perfection by asking your team what they think about the volume of data they are being asked to handle? You could also ask them which data they think are unnecessary and if there are any pieces of data that they need but don’t have. This same, reductive, thinking can be applied to the information they are asked to supply or report on and the meetings they have to attend to discuss the M.I. from their part of the business.

Relevance can often be as big a problem as volume. Being asked to log performance data or compile reports, for which there is no obvious benefit, is one of the most common frustrations I encounter. It is all too easy for leaders and managers to assume that there is always time to “quickly” enter this data or write that report but, the truth is, every time we ask our people to undertake these “small” tasks, we are asking them to say “no” to something else.

So, having asked our teams what they think, perhaps we should get into the habit of asking ourselves if we are really sure that each new piece of data we want to capture, report on or present will really deliver a tangible result to the bottom line that is greater than the cost of the time, frustration and distraction it will take to obtain it.

Will it relax the patient or kill them?