 A metric is a system or standard of measurement. A business metric is a system or standard of measurement used to gauge an organization's success, whether it be a question of efficiency, productivity, attendance, or any other measurable elements. According to the experts, the key to effectiveness is to avoid what they call so what metrics. You know, I think you have to just be really emotionally intelligent about your audience. I mean, the so what metric is when you pull some data out in front of an audience and they say so what ultimately you're trying to tell a story and those stories are tied to some type of action, you know, overload of data, you know, I think ultimately is detrimental to you. So I actually avoid collecting data, analyzing anything and reporting anything unless there's a root question we're answering. Because there's a root question driving that metric, I really don't have to worry about this. So what attitude? Because I'm not presenting them just for the purpose of presenting, I'm presenting them their answers. It's also important that you're choosing the right elements to measure, even though it may seem like a logical direction. Measuring against your competition can often be more harmful than helpful. We want to compare to somebody else. And I much rather, much rather you start you off comparing against yourself. How good were you last year? How good were you last month? Let's set a baseline and that'll be our benchmark versus benchmarking against another institution and then see how you improve. Now once you're happy and your customers are happy and you're meeting customers' expectations and you know you're doing a good job, if you'd like to go see how that compares to other organizations, that's fine. And how do metrics align with strategy? So the conversation that you have around all of this stuff is really where the value at is. You know, it's not about just producing things that's set on shelf. It really is about trying to understand complex problems and bringing people together around those understandings. Operationally, if I'm trying to get an insight to something, that should logically influence my strategic view, right? It's going to tell me things like operationally we're either doing well in this area, having problems in this area, this is a pain point, this is something I need to adjust, this is something I need to visit. Well those things should then inform my plans on a strategic longer range level. And vice versa. Another pitfall of using metrics to measure your organization's success is using the collected data and benchmarks wisely. A lot of people right now, the catchphrase is data driven decisions, and that scares me to death. I don't want you making decisions based on the data, I want you being informed by the information that you gather, by the measures that you analyze, and then you put together your picture. Some of the more difficult times when you're having conversations around data is when the data either speaks in a way that was unexpected or counter to people's best guess or their instincts. So having your act together and having your numbers exactly right is incredibly important in those circumstances. So let's review. Metrics are measures. Metrics should be driven by questions or purpose. Metrics should be used to tell a story to your audience, not a number dump. Data from metrics should not be used to drive decisions, but simply inform decisions. The real value of metrics is opening conversation and collaboration about complex subjects and problems. And metrics should help operations reflect strategy and vice versa. And that's where I think the real impact is. What actions are you going to take from this data? What priorities are you going to set? And how are you going to respond to the answers to the questions that you've found? And then once you've finished, you start the whole process over again.