Why Measure Anyway?
Well, the two old axioms state that “you are what you measure” and “what gets measured gets managed.” Without a way to establish an internal benchmark for continual improvement, it becomes harder to innovate, advance and proactively respond to stakeholder expectations. Key advantages to monitor and measure environmental and organizational performance include:
- Setting Effective and Value-Added Priorities
- Benchmarking to Continuously Improve
- Encouragement of Bottom Up, Organization-wide Innovation
- Reinforcing Personal and Organizational Accountability
- Strengthening Strategic Planning and Goal-Setting Processes
- Improved Internal and External Communication
Metrics can do one of two things: They can tell you what you should do, or they can tell you what you should have done. If you use them to tell you what to do, you’ll be using them to measure your successes. But if you use them to tell you what you should have done, you’ll be using them to measure your failures. So clearly it’s the first approach, not the latter, that forward-thinking companies should focus on.
Read the article at Environmental Leader