We speak so often of metrics, key performance indicators, and monitoring improvement, but I continue to search for ways to conceptualize and measure progress. How does one capture those moments that add up to results that are certainly desired though not quantifiable, such as momentum and collaboration? How does one know if attitudes are changing, if more is being offered from people’s stores of energy and graciousness? What if the people involved in the project or program are themselves changed—their stores of energy renewed? (as should be if change is to ripple throughout a system and destruct the status quo in creating processes more responsive, more dynamic) These questions are many things—impossible to answer, philosophical, even ignored—but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to get at them.

I think Jonathan Larson discovered one of the best answers to this suite of related questions in Rent, but a workplace cannot place the same merit on claims that are usually phrased as morale or “culture change,” as it can good, hard numbers. Now, I love numbers. I adore dashboards (for a great example, Ladislas’ work is incredibly inspiring). There is a power in declaring a number achieved, stripping down hard work into something solid, even if that number does not reach the benchmark. In turn, I loathe that I have so few numbers at my disposal to measure these things of which I write as much as I detest claims of culture change put forth because the numbers tell a different story. Yet, I cannot tell the story of my work, of our work, without something else, and I cannot find an effective or systematic way to track that progress, to document it, to remember it, even for myself.

As I write, referencing moments I have jotted down these past few months, I think perhaps I could keep a journal just for the moments that feel like progress. I know moments are not the whole, but moments are what we replay as we lay down our heads to hope for sweet dreams, and moments are how we tell the stories of our lives—the moment we knew we loved someone, the moment we felt a calling toward something bigger or different, the moment we knew life would never be what it once was. Moments can be more powerful than something measured reliably, the same way across space and time, though perhaps not more accurate. That’s the problem, isn’t it?—and now we’re back at square one, sentence one.

I could easily keep a journal of the frustrating moments, such as conversations that feel like a retread of the same impasse discussed months previously, and compare the two, but that too is incredibly subjective. I know anthropology offers a set of tools to tease apart textual responses, but those tools seem reserved for studies of groups and organizations after the fact—I want to be in the present, analyzing and getting feedback that helps us be effective now, not able to write the insightful case study of what went wrong. Surveys and interviews that produce this text could be useful, but they could also distill any effect, or create one because it is being studied. Even when I know the answer is yes to many of the questions I first posed, I want to affirm it, show it, share it. I want to prove I’m not imagining changes in people, in processes, because I want there to be a ripple, something that lasts beyond the scope of one project, something that keeps turning the wheel of progress after my fellowship is over, something that has greased the wheel for the next initiative.

One of my favorite moments this year was the simple utterance, “That was actually a good meeting,” after we had several engaged discussions in a new, routine meeting we held for managing our enrollment assistance for the Affordable Care Act. This moment struck me, because we did not agree throughout the meeting.  Real conversation, respectful rapport, delving into difficult issues without clear-cut answers and emerging with our professional relationships intact and even strengthened? That felt like a checkmark for progress compared to our first meetings, where we were overwhelmed, looking for answers where we had to create them ourselves, and finding frustration with each other because we understood our responsibilities differently. As we put together guidance for next year’s ACA enrollment team, though, how do we incorporate not just warnings about our missteps, but a way for the team to know they are working through them?

A colleague has another answer for me: his metric for our work as well as his life. We should measure our progress by “who we serve—that’s what is important.” He uttered this in reference to my playing with those very people, the toddlers in the Women, Infants, and Children waiting room, and I had the sad foolishness to wonder if I should be taking these few wonderful moments away from planning a better framework for our enrollment assistance. If there is no better answer than that, than to know that to serve the people, the children, is “why we are here,” then perhaps my time considering how to discover, articulate, and measure organizational changes is better spent among wooden blocks of red, blue, yellow, green, and orange. Maybe we can just regularly ask ourselves who we are serving, do things that help us remember and show the clients we remember—whether conceptualizing our process from the point of view of the client, or spending time (playing) with the clients—and ultimately believe that if we remember who we are serving, we must be turning the wheel towards progress.

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