Breaking the word "Measure" up, we get Me - a - Sure... so maybe that was the actual meaning behind the word, but whatever may be the true origin doesn´t matter.  Many articles, business reviews and the like deal with the question of research and measurement being important, vital, unimportant, a waste of money, and even goes as far as accusing measuring being something that interferes with pure business savvy, creativity, luck, and whatever else you can possibly think of (it´s called being human - look for faults and negativity and you will find it). 

The questions we should really be asking is not whether to measure or not, but: 

1)     What do we measure

2)     What is nice to know and what is NEED to know

3)     How do we measure

4)     When do we measure

5)     Uhm, and what do we do with the data/results 

Let´s look at a trivialised example for the sake of simplifying this short discussion.  Let´s say, for argument´s sake, you own a Shop-around-the-Corner and sell all sorts of goodies, household stuff for the local community.  Coffee, sugar, canned beans, detergents, cloths, batteries, fire lighters, cigarettes - what else can one find in a little shop around the corner? 

Besides that, you have also opened a coffee shop inside your shop and it seemed business boomed after doing this.  Being a fallible human being like all of us, you immediately assume that business must be booming because of the coffee shop you opened, but after a while you suddenly experience some cash flow problems in your shop-around-the-corner.  Everyone in business probably knows that cash flow is king, right. 

The first question you have to ask yourself is: 

1)     Have I suddenly incurred huge business expenses, or

2)     Have I suddenly realised that I´m experiencing some business losses. 

Clearly there is a big difference between the two statements.  So, what´s next to do... you ponder this point for a while after contemplating just how much you want to stress about the current situation.  Immediately thereafter, the first cost saving you can see protruding from your books is to cut staff.  So now saving costs becomes an HR issue.  Inevitably your biggest salary expense comes from the coffee shop because you have three waiters on duty, 2 temporary students and also 2 cashiers on alternate days.

Hell yes!  This is where the problem lies, so we cut staff.  After a month or two you´re still sitting with the very same cash flow problem.  Darn, what can be wrong?  You go through the books again.  STAFF costs, yet again.  Eventually you decide that the coffee shop with all its staff, etc must go.  You close down the operation and continue running your store, selling all the household oddities you have sold before you opened the coffee shop inside your shop. 

To your astonishment you´re still battling with the very same cash flow problem.  You actually feel like running away now.  You have closed down the coffee shop, retrenched all the staff working in the coffee shop.  What else can be wrong! 

What you have failed to do was measure the right thing in the right way and knowing what to make of the data you read on your statements, and so-called final analysis, cost benefit analysis, force field analysis, and whatever else you may want to call it, or use as a tool for measuring success. 

Closer inspection and measurement would have clearly pointed out to you that 75 percent of your sales inside your shop actually came from customers who just came to have a sip of coffee in your coffee shop.  Part of that 75 percent included current customers who invited business colleagues for a cup of coffee at your coffee shop, who then became regular customers of your shop, buying their odd groceries there on the way home. 

Closer inspection would have also pointed out to you that your cash flow problem was actually caused by the fact that your 2 staff members in the shop, not the 7 in the coffee shop, were the problem.  They did not take proper inventories and also never noted down how much stock they/you threw away because the shelf life had expired, or because of whatever other reason for fall-off (their job-spec included getting rid of old stock and ordering new stock, not noting it down.  It´s called human nature once again).  You have also not taken into account that these two staff members stole from you, in ways you couldn´t even imagine in your most creative ways.  In actual fact your biggest business expense and loss came from the actual shop and not from the coffee shop. 

It was vital that the two business ventures ran side-by-side.  The coffee shop generated sales for the shop, and the shop generated feet to the coffee shop because of convenience and the fact that people already knew your shop and staff.  What you didn´t take into account were the somewhat hidden costs incurred by chucking an old can of beans in a bin, or giving 1-day old milk away to the local community hall. 

Now your shop has to also close down.  You´re without an income, your staff is without salaries, and the local community hall can´t find a new sponsor for milk and beans and whatever else you sponsored, plus the community don´t have the convenience of having your shop and coffee shop just around the corner any longer.  Big stuff up, all because of measuring the wrong thing in the wrong way, yaicks! 

Yup, you guessed it, of course this was, as usual, a very farfetched and trivial example, and larger organizations, multi-nationals, etc run on far larger scales, however, like the principles of marketing, the principles of leadership, the principles of Human Resources Management, the principles of science, the principles of whatever else: Once you understand and practice the basics, the complexity of bigger problems become just so much easier to understand, measure and control.  If you can´t measure it, you can´t control it! 

Lehan Stemmet is one of those rare people who studies one thing and ends up doing something else. His brother reckons: Shrinks are mad, Scientists are eccentric, Marketing people are dilly and Authors just completely lost touch with reality... so much can be said about this bloke who studied biochemistry, microbiology, psychology and industrial psychology, who ended up in marketing and well, who got his first book (Deal With It - emotional empowerment) published in the USA. After a very diverse career in Biotechnology, Operations Management, Sales and Marketing, Trade Marketing, Research, and even Politics, Lehan has finally decided to settle down for a bit to pursue further post graduate studies in the many interesting things we do and experience in business.  He is also a member of the Psychological Society of South Africa, PsySSA, and completing a second book dealing with emotions and all that soppy kind of stuff.  Besides all of the academic stuff he likes to challenge, a day or two in nature amongst the wild animals of Africa, or visiting some or other cave or historical site with his lovely wife, Fredericka, is another one of his great passions. For more details:  Lehans@mweb.co.za / Dealwithit@mweb.co.za