The Other Side
3rd March 2006 by Ryan Williams
I am a survey vendor and a consultant. Measurement is my gig. I see all the pros of doing good research. Codifying data, organizing it, making information into knowledge and applying it to my projects is what I was taught when I started my career. If I started in a corporation would I feel the same way? Done poorly measurement can be risky.
Is measurement too risky in today’s competitive environment? If I survey and the results are negative what can I do? I may embarrass my boss or be on the hook for the outcome.
So why don’t we measure more? Is it budget, competencies, time or the risk of accountability?
Do we need to be courageous to measure?
March 7th, 2006 at 8:31 am
Ryan,
Great question that to be honest, I’m not sure we’ll even have the option in the future. Having been solely in corporations for a long time now, I’m wondering if something is a necessity, can it ever be courageous? To rephrase your question, in today’s competitive environment, can we afford not to be able to prove at least some value to the bottom line and company success. The option not to measure makes a tenuous situation even worse.
I think there is more risk there, but you would never allow any other function in an organization not to measure their impact on the business. Business leaders should be concerned about their communications, as well as they should be concerned about poor sales or inefficiencies or turnover. It all affects the bottom line. As we increase our profile as professionals with value to add to our organizations’ bottom line, I think we must also hold ourselves to some of the standards of our colleagues in the business lines. I do think it’s tricky and difficult, but I don’t think I’ve had the option that I used to when I first began in communications to not measure.
March 9th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
David,
It is good to see that you are focused on providing and proving value. Many of the studies I conduct relate to employee morale. The positive is a correlation between impacting business results, employee engagement and morale. If we engage our audience and measure the results, we should get more satisfaction from our work. Happy communicating:)
Ryan
March 29th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
From an agency perspecitve, I think we need to recruit and secure a better level of clients. Too often, clients don’t understand the value of communications, brand building or marketing, let alone measuring the effectiveness. I think they can use the lack of measurement as a crutch, as an excuse to keep on doing the same old thing they’ve always done.
The clients that understand the value of our work - and are willing to measure it - are already working with someone that’s doing a good job: they’re not looking for any other help.
From an internal perspecitve, I think it’s all about accountability. If research shows that something’s not working - or that something else might work - the decision makers get nervous. They are comfortable living in denial.
That’s what I’ve seen from within both environments.
March 30th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Talking recently to a communication executive of an membership-based organisation, he told me that he didn’t want to measure the relationship and communication needs of members as he was:
“scared as to what he was going to find out”.
And I think that’s key - most people/organisations are just happy “doing” and not worrying about the impact of their activities. As you all have mentioned - people are worried that an evaluation will highlight their own inadequacies.
But this quote from, David Baume, a specialist in education evaluation sums up the response for me:
“There is no virtue in hard work when the effect of that hard work is unknown”
April 7th, 2006 at 4:20 am
[...] This post at the IABC measurement blog caught my attention, as its author asks the question: "So why don’t we measure more? Is it budget, competencies, time or the risk of accountability?" [...]
April 7th, 2006 at 4:24 am
This post at the IABC measurement blog caught my attention, as its author asks the question:
“So why don’t we measure more? Is it budget, competencies, time or the risk of accountability?”
People usually don’t evaluate for various reasons, but the most common excuses I’ve heard are the following:
May 3rd, 2006 at 9:29 am
[...] You can take a look at the original IABC Measurement blog post to read the discussion. [...]