Good points you make, They mirrow some work I have just been doing in health and social care, where what actually matters to people is very fuzzy as it is so wrapped up in their lives, relatives, and historical situations. The managers struggled greatly with the question of how to measure this.
The answer was simple, but not easy; the measure ment can only happen at the point of intervention with the person. However, the direction of the value work being performed can be measured if we allow ourselves to discover what matters to each person, and then test that against the work being performed. The ‘measures’ are emergent and they depend on the situation at that emerges.
This is an issue for command & control managers, where they have to learn:
- about complexity and its characteristics, and undo their current thinking about measures.
- then they have to learn to get into the work to understand the value work and outcomes.
- then to trust and delegate the value work to those closest to the work. Thats a tough one, and can only be performed if the current system is challenged and altered.
