2016 Summer July 19 Tuesday

78 degrees this morning, walk 35:31 minutes

I never can really tell the difference on my walk as to why the times (and sometimes even the distance) vary so much when it seems I take the same walking route each morning.  

To some degree, I can feel when I am draggy, or especially fast, but normally I walk (I think) about the same pace and for about the same distance.  

Maybe that is somewhat like all of life, when we can’t really judge our progress, maybe because we are concerned about things other than judging how we are doing.  

Actually, I think that is good, I think sometimes we spend too much time and effort on “measuring” and not enough on just doing a good job.  

In City Management, there is big emphasis on “measurement”, frequently by citizen surveys etc.  That is good to a degree and I think it has a role in city management.

Feedback (if you listen it) is good and certainly has a role in any type of management  However, again, to some degree the “experts” are considered “experts” for a reason-they are supposed to know the best method of accomplishing something.

I think “testing” and “measurement” too often lead to being too oriented to much to what is being measured.  It is only logical that if you know something is going to be measured, you are going to spend most of your resources what is being measured.  

For example, a “citizens perception survey”, where they same questions are asked each year (the same questions being asked so the “changes can be measured” each year),it is only logical your programs will play to the questions and try to get the highest “Citizen perception” you can.  This can be used as a bragging point and for salary justification etc.  

That is true in any field, not just municipal management, I was using that because I am familiar with it.

Ditto with the “satisfaction surveys” you get from businesses.  It doesn't  mean much if you are expected to give a “10” for just ordinary service.  A “10” should be reserved for really extraordinary service and even then very rarely.

However, like everyone (or almost everyone) I usually give a “10” for good service,even though a “7”  is  perfectly reasonable etc.

Of course, in some cases, the business is only using the  “survey” to get e-mail addresses for marketing etc. (they should advise you of that in advance!) and they really don’t care about whether you are satisfied or not, or at least it isn’t the primary objective. 

What is so sad about that is that a good manager should want, or need, to know what it wrong.  If you point out something wrong and then you get a call from some beaten down supervisor or manager who is being downgraded due to an honest answer, it really defeats the entire purpose of the survey.

It is hard to say that there are problems, but the good manager needs to know the problems.  Maybe they should reward customers for pointing out problems rather than giving a “10” and reward the supervisor or manager for resolving the problem rather than basing salary raises on how many flattering (and false) survey results of “10’ you get.  

I definitely support “citizen surveys’ or customer surveys etc., it is just I think they have been grossly misused and for the wrong purposes.  

Anyway, back to my original measurement comments, I can measure my walking by how farI walked, how fast I walked or how much I enjoyed my walk, and not on any 1-10 scale either!

Obviously, I want measure my walk (and life) on how much I enjoyed it (or whatever), not on some “hard data” 1 to 10 scale!

That’s it of  now, Tuesday, July 19, 2016.