What is Your Measuring Stick?

How you measure is as important as what you measure.

One of the items I crossed off my bucket list this year was surfing. I went surfing a couple of times last week. The first day was pretty good. I rode some waves and was able to make an improvement over the last time I went out. But I caught just two waves on the second day, and I did not ride those very well. That was my first time going out without a teacher. I couldn’t stand on a crest. I mistimed many incoming waves and spent more time waiting for waves than riding them. Still, I would consider the day a success.

Why? Because I challenged more skill sets than I had in my previous sessions. And I was able to converse in Japanese with the locals. It’s all about what you are measuring.

Every day we meet challenges. We have opportunities to enhance our skills. We can often plan for these and evaluate them after. However, understanding progress is difficult unless we set measurement metrics and then check our progress against them.

When I saw others riding the few waves there were, I was tempted to give up in frustration. But, I understood it was useless to compare my progress to the abilities of others. We have all had different experiences. My six or seven surfing opportunities in tiny waves, for example, are quite different from the person who went out to those same waves for years or surfed bigger waves in the past. The way to measure success is against your previous situations, not others. More challenging circumstances predicted some waves and had a good time. That is a victory.

Ask some questions to set your expectations. Those can include — How did you do last time? What is a micro-skill you’d like to see some progress in? How can you take something you do well and make it even better? These types of questions will help you set realistic expectations for your performance. Then you too will be able to chart some victories.

You can’t use someone else’s measuring stick to chart your progress, the scale is different. They may be measuring centimeters while you are working at a millimeter pace. Therefore, you have to create your own scale. Decide on the next interval of improvement. Then decide not to give up on yourself. It may take longer to get there than you imagined, but if you continue to invest your effort you will get closer with each attempt. Even if it seems that you are moving further away: Do, check, and correct. Little by little, you will achieve the progress you seek.

This month I did my first training for my new employer. I have been working there for five months now, and I have been preparing for this event for about six weeks. My assignment was to introduce our products to 75 newly hired engineers. Many of these fresh out-of-school employees have never held a professional position before. Most of their training to date had been e-courses, watching videos with quizzes at the end, or attending seminars.

The training I was to deliver was more hands-on. The two-day intensive included lecture, demonstrations, and labs. Previously, I had done similar training in the communication space for global investment banks. However, teaching technology was new for me.

During my preparation, I presented to my colleagues who hammered me for product knowledge. That was to be expected. As a result, I really had low expectations. If I could just get through the first round of training, I would have something to measure the other remaining days against. My company had provided a different version of this training previously. So, there was also that expectation firmly planted in the HR department’s minds.

In addition to the expectations placed on me by others, I also set some for myself. My objectives were 1) To have my new colleagues know more about our products after the training than they did at the beginning. 2) Increase their enthusiasm about working for the company. And 3) for them to enjoy the process.

During the first day of training, there were many technical problems. Now, besides standing up in front of a group of trainees, I also had to coordinate the IT challenges that were mounting with each assigned task. Fortunately, our staff on the ground (they were in India, and I was in Japan) expertly handled the problems. Before I knew it, we were up again, and the students were working on their assignments.

By the second day, the HR manager asked if we could record and share the training. The support team was saying it was one of the best training they had ever had. The new employees were talking about their training in the hallways. And their managers were asking if they could take the training too.

Everyone had different expectations, and I hit them all. That was only possible because I knew the measuring stick each group was using. My teammates were using the new guy matrix. They had all been there before. If I could navigate explanations of our products, get the trainees to do the labs, and stay cool under pressure; then the training would be a success.

The local team’s expectations were that the participants would understand our products better and that this time would be as good as last time.

My personal expectation was quite a bit higher. I expected that I could manage the project effectively (not just the training), communicate across the organization during all phases of the project, and deliver training that had something a little extra (a lesson on professionalism).

Not only did I meet the expectations, I exceeded them. That is the importance of understanding how you are being measured. Next time, before you get started, take a little time to set realistic yet challenging expectations for your performance. You’ll be happier with the results.

What is something you would like to do better? What is the next step? How do you measure that? Let me know in the comments.