Stats can help a lot – the right metrics are a sixth sense, helping you see through the fog and often giving substance to what your spider-sense is telling you about your organisation (or yourself).
Financial management is a good example – get your chart of accounts right and take the time to understand it and you’ll start to see things that might otherwise be invisible: surprising sources of profit, or things that cost way more than you thought they did and turn out to be liabilities, not assets.
Stats help you see the consequences of your practices now and where they’re likely to take you, allowing you to double down / change course in time to hit the jackpot / avoid the iceberg.
Stats are great. Unless…
Unless the thing you’re measuring becomes your primary concern – you become about the money, rather than who it allows you to serve.
It’s true of money. It’s true of views and visits. Your work isn’t for the money or the numbers. It’s for the people you seek to serve, for your colleagues and your customers.
So here’s an extra driverlesscrocolution: no jetpack (no stats) for a month, and hopefully better thinking, and better writing.