The first step is to measure whatever can easily be measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the dangers of over-relying on quantifiable measures and dismissing the importance of the immeasurable.
Charles Handy warns against the pitfalls of attempting to measure everything with ease, which often leads to a misunderstanding of significance. He outlines a progression of flawed reasoning that begins with quantifying what can be measured, continues with the dismissal of the unquantifiable, and culminates in the denial of the existence or importance of what cannot be easily measured. This highlights the need for a broader perspective on value and existence beyond mere numbers.
In practice
In a discussion about the limitations of metrics in education, this quote can illustrate the need to value qualitative experiences.
The companies that survive longest are the one's that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.
Why don't we teach our children in school what they are? We should say to them, 'You are unique... you have the capacity for anything. You are a marvel'.
To learn anything other than the stuff you find in books, you need to be able to experiment, to make mistakes, to accept feedback, and to try again. It doesn't matter whether you are learning to ride a bike or starting a new career, the cycle of experiment, feedback, and new experiment is always there.
We cannot wait for great visions from great people, for they are in short supply. It is up to us to light our own small fires in the darkness.
I believe that a lot of our striving after the symbols and levers of success is due to a basic insecurity, a need to prove ourselves. That done, grown up at last, we are free to stop pretending.
Creativity needs a bit of untidiness. Make everything too neat and there is no room for experiment.
Although I usually think I know what I'm going to be writing about, what I'm going to say, most of the time it doesn't happen that way at all. At some point I get misled down a garden path, I get surprised by an idea that I hadn't anticipated getting, which is a little bit like being in a laboratory.
Meditation is to dive all the way within, beyond thought, to the source of thought and pure consciousness. It enlarges the container, every time you transcend. When you come out, you come out refreshed, filled with energy and enthusiasm for life.
The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.
The struggle ends when the gratitude begins. The search is over when the finding starts. And the finding is not a finding at all, but a creating. You cannot find what you have been struggling for, but you can create it. And the jump-start of creation is gratitude.
A lot of people go off and have fun adventures, or hard adventures, and their impulse is to write about them right away. What really makes a difference is having some perspective on what happened.
The place one's in, though, doesn't make any contribution to peace of mind: it's the spirit that makes everything agreeable to oneself.
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