Blindsided by metrics

He felt as though he had been sucked into a machine that was dismembering him into impersonal, general components before the question of his guilt or innocence came up at all. His name, the most intellectually meaningless yet most emotionally charged words in the language for him, meant nothing here. His works, which had secured his reputation in the scientific world, a world ordinarily of such solid standing, here did not exist; he was not asked about them even once. His face counted only as an aggregate of officially describable features—it seemed to him that he had never before pondered the fact that his eyes were gray eyes, one of the four officially recognized kinds of eyes, one pair among millions; his hair was blond, his build tall, his face oval, and his distinguishing marks none, although he had his own opinion on that point. His own feeling was that he was tall and broad-shouldered, with a chest curving like a filled sail on the mast, and joints fastening his muscles like small links of steel whenever he was angry or fighting or when Bonadea was clinging to him; but that he was slender, fine-boned, dark, and as soft as a jellyfish floating in the water whenever he was reading a book that moved him or felt touched by a breath of that great homeless love whose presence in the world he had never been able to understand. So he could, even at such a moment as this, himself appreciate this statistical demystification of his person and feel inspired by the quantitative and descriptive procedures applied to him by the police apparatus as if it were a love lyric invented by Satan. The most amazing thing about it was that the police could not only dismantle a man so that nothing was left of him, they could also put him together again, recognizably and unmistakably, out of the same worthless components.
"The man without qualities", by Robert Musil

Take your time to fully grasp these two ideas before moving on:

You build what you measure.

Measurements cannot fully characterise people, including you.

Running a startup, I was always chasing metrics. The difference between success and failure is in doing what truly matters as fast and efficiently as possible. And the odds are against you. So you want to distil what is essential in a handful of metrics you can measure weekly.

As for many of my early-parenthood adult days, a startup can feel like unmanageable chaos. You are steering a tiny ship into rough seas and focusing so much on staying afloat that you forget why you were at sea in the first place and which harbour you wanted to dock in. Plus, who has the time for that?

Some days were borderline absurd. Here is an unfiltered excerpt from my to-do-list for one of those days as a founder:

• Make sure to finalise all the regulatory things around the clinical trial: requirements and gap analysis;
• The last iteration of the commercial agreement: formalise all input from lawyers;
• Inspire at the daily company standup;
• Reread background information before the two interviews;
• Block 30 minutes to iterate the 30-second pitch before filming.

That same day, I got a mail before breakfast about an urgent administrative deadline that week.

There were many of those days, and I recall them with terror and excitement. It is the best and worse part of being a founder.

In all of this, how are you supposed to keep the strategic and leadership perspective? Metrics can give you an anchoring point and act as a compass for you and your team. Suddenly everyone can focus on a few manageable parameters that gauge progress. All the rest can wait. The unmanageable chaos turns into a meaningful journey to a common goal. Everyone will be doing their job in prioritising independently. What could cause tremendous levels of anxiety becomes a bonding positive stress factor.

However.

What happens when you do it for too long? Quarter after quarter?

The focus of the company becomes unbalanced on only what can be measured. Everything that couldn't be tracked and reported in a dashboard with weekly updates fell out. I was looking for what could be measured and discarding everything else.

What's the problem with that?

A breaking point arrived for the company, and we were facing tough decisions. Those decisions could mean life and death for our company. Cash was running low, and our metrics did not guarantee us a quick way out of the cash crunch. As a CEO, I was feeling the expectation to take the lead and handle this crisis. Of course, I turned to what was closest to my day-to-day focus: metrics.

How can we extend the runway?

Given where we stand now, how can we restructure an organisation to face the future?

Which priorities should we focus on?

Will our company be well-positioned for the next inflexion point if those priorities are met?

All of that is important.

However, that didn't save our company. What did it?

Culture and relationships.

Shared experiences and vision.

Trust and long-term commitment to each other.

If you mindlessly focus on metrics, you might neglect the most important and fulfilling part of building your company. You will create a brittle giant.

We academics in technical sciences and engineering are particularly prone to being blindsided by quantitative parameters. We have been educated to assume abstract modelling and metrics as accurate and exhaustive descriptors of a system. Our current mainstream culture compounds that line of thought. What is missing is the value of the experienced life and what it means to be human.

When tough times come, returning to your safe space and focusing on data is instinctual. You are pressed for results, everyone is stressed, and cash on account dictates your focus. You stop communicating and creating a shared experience. Your employees and shareholders feel something is wrong but cannot fully grasp it or share their concerns. You feel even more tension in your interactions and focus more on data. And so it goes on.

My advice?

Take a step back and get in touch with yourself at regular intervals. Keep in contact with your feelings and your biases. Share them with people you trust and ask them to keep yourself accountable. Develop a habit of regularly spending time curiously examining your inner life.

Build an experienced sense of cohesion and trust throughout the whole journey. Define a shared bar for communication and some regular gatherings. Book them in advance in your calendar (it is way easier to feel generous with your calendar slots in 6 months than in 6 days). Celebrate everything that goes well, invest in an inclusive culture, and focus on what brings everyone together. If you need quantification to get you going, consider it an emotional buffer you can access when conflicts and crises come.

Create a company you and talented people would want to work in. Show that you care. Your customer will feel it. Your employees will feel it too.