The last couple of weeks I have been working on Data.
Numbers.
Quantifying any and everything.
Figuring out where we could find the right numbers, the right data.
Trying to make sense of them to build a narrative.
What we accomplished over the years?
What we missed?
How much progress we have made over time?
Where we are, where we should have been, where we want to be, where we should be?
It was fascinating.
An eye-opener!
It feels so satisfying when numbers can reveal something. No?
But does it reveal everything?
Does it tell us how something was accomplished or not?
Let's see.
Does it tell us how someone had just moved cities and started a new job while trying to settle in a new city without their family and yet giving all they have to meet a "number"?
Does it tell us how a young associate is going through a terrible heartbreak and yet putting in their probable best to focus here at work because this is all they have at this moment?
Does it tell us how someone battling depression and anxiety unable to focus on anything is trying harder by just showing up?
And, does it tell us how someone is doing being under pressure to deliver because of such high expectations of them despite trying their best?
Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't.
They say Data is the new oil. But you don't cook food with petrol.
My point is, data is great. Data gives us wings. It help us to aim, and to soar. To know where we are, and where we want to be.
And that is truly enabling. And, much needed in our pursuit to get better.
What's more important is to know that there's more to us, to what we do, to how we do what we do that doesn't get captured or quantified. At work, as in life.
While no one may care for it, and consider it, it is important we care for it and consider it, for our own sakes. At times, by being kind to ourselves.
Can we measure it all?
