If you can't see it, how can you make it better?

It doesn't pay to say to the CFO: These numbers on the P&L aren't true.

And arguing with Walmart or Target about your market share stats doesn't work either.

You can't make things better if you can't agree on the data.

Real breakthroughs are sometimes accompanied by new data, by new metrics, by new ways of measurement. But unless we agree in advance on what's happening, it's difficult to accomplish much.

If you don't like what's happening, an easy way out appears to be to blame the messenger. After all, if the data (whether it's an event, a result or a law of physics) isn't true, you're off the hook.

The argument is pretty easy to make: if the data has ever been wrong before, if there's ever been bias, or a mistake, or a theory that's been improved, well, then, who's to say that it's right this time?

"Throw it all out." That's the cowardly and selfish thing to do. Don't believe anything that makes you look bad. All video is suspect, as is anything that is reported, journaled or computed.

The problem is becoming more and more clear: once we begin to doubt the messenger, we stop having a clear way to see reality. The conspiracy theories begin to multiply. If everyone is entitled to their own facts and their own narrative, then what exists other than direct emotional experience?

And if all we've got is direct emotional experience, our particular statement of reality, how can we possibly make things better?

If we don't know what's happened, if we don't know what's happening, and worst of all, if we can't figure out what's likely to happen next, how do take action?

No successful organization works this way. It's impossible to imagine a well-functioning team of people where there's a fundamental disagreement about the data.

Demand that those you trust and those you work with accept the ref's calls, the validity of the x-ray and the reality of what's actually happening. Anything less than that is a shortcut to chaos.

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/465686706/0/sethsblog~If-you-cant-see-it-how-can-you-make-it-better.html