I titled this series “Stats Lie.” And they do sometimes.
But sometimes they don’t!
Sometimes we do.
But sometimes measurements are so clear and so powerfully self-evident that there’s not a whole lot that people can do to skew them. And there’s a whole lot of measurements we better pay attention to!
Say your blood pressure gets tested at 180/100. How are you going to confuse that for anything else than you better get some help fast!
Say your gas tank is on E and the light’s on – you know you only have a small window to refill before you pay the price.
Say your checking account is lower than what you’re outgoing bills are. Well – the numbers speak for themselves.
In all phases of life, we have measurements and we use numbers to gauge health or progress. It’s a necessity and we can’t avoid it. To avoid measurements is to either live in a world of wishful thinking (fantasy) or deep denial.
Those who reject responsible metrics are those who are rejecting adulthood, truth, and accountability.
Measurements, used properly, connect us to reality – and reality is our friend (if we hope to be leading towards any kind of meaningful future). So just because some stats or measurements are somewhat malleable in the hands of leaders and people does not mean we should throw them all out the window. You’ll find yourself lost if that be the case.
Several years back we uncovered the fact that a large percentage of our staff were significantly underfunded with also significant amounts of personal debt. While it hurt us short term, would it do us good to ignore that stat or explain it away? No. We had to engage and do the hard work of leading into the exposed area of needed leadership. And those efforts have paid off.
Some measurements are somewhat self-evident and there’s not a lot of interpretive work needed. Most measurements in ministry leadership often do need a lot of interpretive work. That’s doesn’t diminish the need for measurements, just speaks to the complex sociological and spiritual and human nature of how things work together systemically.
There’s more to come on things that affect the interpretation of statistics and thus the the theme of how stats can lie. But know this – stats hardly ever do damage by themselves, it’s how they’re interpreted and used that can be good or bad.
And some measurements scream loudly enough to overcome even the most ignorant or biased perspectives we can bring to the table.
What measurements do you think are helpful and scream the loudest in your context?
What measurements do you think are highly contextual and thus more subject to human interpretation?
