Productive Measurement Discussions

Yesterday, we sent out an email blast about today’s Comm Convo on measuring impact, and I was horrified to see a small error in the message preview.

It gets worse.

It turns out that was the second time it’d happened – a communicator’s worst nightmare.

I had a flashback to several years ago when I’d sent out a companywide email that was on a sensitive subject and that I’d worked really hard to craft and get all the reviews done.

Of course, I didn’t catch a grammar mistake until after it went out.

Too late.

A senior leader had already complained about it to my boss.

I was so frustrated with the situation and disappointed in myself.

Then I realized that the reason this leader was so upset is because they saw a minor mistake like this as a sign of carelessness, a mark of negligence – despite my scores of prior spotless deliverables.

I wrote a note directly to this leader expressing how deeply I cared about my job and the impact on our employees.

This helped lower the temperature in the proverbial room, allowing us to move forward productively.

I’m sharing this story now because many of us are preparing for year-end report-outs, budget requests for next year, and 2025 strategic planning.

We have all kinds of accomplishments and dashboards to show off to the powers that be, to make our case.

But none of this will do any good if we gloss over the quirks and preconceptions of our leaders.

So, before we finish polishing those metrics – even if we’re proud of them – let’s remind ourselves to take a deep breath and first address any innate barriers that could stop us in our tracks before we really get started.