[111] - What we measure changes what we build

A recurring thought wouldn't leave the host alone: what we measure changes what we build. It sounds obvious — the kind of line you'd expect in a boardroom or a fitness plan — but in this episode, the host unpacks how it applies just as much to families, relationships, leadership, and communication. Most of us are measuring ourselves and others against standards we never consciously chose, and those hidden measurements quietly shape our conversations, our culture, and our environment.

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Hello and welcome back. My name is Katie Gotten, and I am a farm business communication advisor, supporting farming families and rural leaders to have the kinds of conversations that protect the legacy. In this podcast, we explore leadership through the lens of communication, the patterns that show up in families and teams, the moments where conversations go sideways, and the small shifts that can bring us back to steady again. Let's get into today's conversation. Hello and welcome back to Communication Unearthed. Grab your cupper, nestle into your seat because today I think is going to be a juicy topic for all of us. So let's dive straight on in. I know that you can all relate to this, is that there are times when you might have this thought that keeps popping into your mind, or maybe something that you keep considering over and over and over again, and it just kind of won't leave you alone. Well, I had one of those very recently, and it's the kind of thought that would pop up when I was driving somewhere, when I was making a coffee, when I was out in the garden, when I was waiting for the boys at school, and it just all of a sudden I realized that I was contemplating it. Now, for those of you who are new to the podcast, I contemplate a lot of things. So this isn't a new habit of mine, but this one thought kept coming through, and so I had to pay attention to it. And it was simply this what we measure changes what we build. Now, I know it's groundbreaking. You guys have probably actually heard it many, many times. And I had two, which is why I found it really peculiar that it kept popping into my mind. And so I just decided that I needed to explore it rather than just keep dismissing it. It was showing up for a reason because I don't know if you know this, but we have over 70,000 thoughts a day, and 90% of them are recycled. And so I knew it was in my awareness that this particular thought was being recycled. And so I thought, okay, let's work out for what purpose, because it's taking up some of my brain space. Now, at first glance, this sounds like something that you'd maybe hear in a business room, a boardroom, something like that. Something that's usually about performance, targets, dashboards, numbers, or maybe you'd find it in your health and wellness, the statistics, how many weights you're lifting, macros, micros, all of those details. But I sat with it because I thought it's come to me for a reason. And the more I contemplated it, I realized that it applies to families, relationships, leadership, communication, just as much as it does to all the other areas of life. Because whether we realize it or not, we are all measuring something all the time. And often we're measuring things we never consciously chose or we don't consciously realize. And this is the part that really interests me the most. Because once we start talking about measurement, the next question then becomes, well, what are we actually measuring it against? What are we measuring ourselves against? Because what I know is that many of us don't actually consciously sit down and decide to do that. Sometimes we do, yes, but there's a lot that's driven unconsciously. Some of these thoughts are sometimes our own expectations. We're measuring up against our own expectations, or sometimes it's expectations of our family, or sometimes it's what we saw growing up. We might be measuring ourselves against what we think successful people do. Or maybe it's sometimes about what social media tells us life should, in quote marks, look like. They shape the conversations that we're willing to have or not willing to have, how we judge ourselves, our progress, other people, our results, uh, how we're showing up, how we're communicating. And how did we even come to these in the first place? I remember this doing this with myself years ago. And when I started contemplating this whole idea, I thought, oh my gosh, it reminded me of this particular time when I stepped into a second-in-charge role within a business. And a small part of that role involved was presenting and delivering training. And it was also facilitating meetings, it was running the team. And when I first stepped into the role, I was actually carrying a fair bit of self-doubt. I knew I wanted to do it, and there was this real drive to be there. And yet I also knew that there was some self-doubt driving behind the scenes as well. Because I'm the kind of person that really wants to do a good job, that really wants to make sure that I know my stuff. And in this particular role, I wanted to be credible. I wanted to engage the people in what I was saying. And I remember becoming increasingly frustrated because no matter how hard I tried, I felt like I just wasn't quite reaching the mark. It just felt like everything I did was just, oh gosh, it was all just out of reach. And it took me a little while. It took me a little while to realize what was actually going on. The question wasn't, am I doing a good job? The question was, what am I measuring this against? And when I really sat with that, I realized that I was measuring myself against the owner of the business, the way that he spoke, the way he carried himself, the way he told stories or engaged the room, the way that he presented things. And that had quietly become the measuring stick. And the problem was that the two of us were completely different people. We had very similar values, we had a playful nature about ourselves, but we definitely had elements that were different about us. There were parts of our personalities that were completely different. We had different strengths, different life experiences, different ways of actually connecting with people. And at some point I realized I was actually trying to become a copy of someone who was already doing a perfectly exquisite job of being themselves, rather than actually becoming a better version and better at being me. And what really shifted things was when I stopped asking, how close am I getting to presenting like him? Which was this unconscious story that was going through. And I started asking, how are people responding to me? And how am I responding to myself? Because people were actually engaging, they were learning, they were connecting. I just couldn't see it because I was measuring myself against the wrong thing. And I think about that often because I wonder how many frustrations in life come back to the measurements that we're using. Not because there isn't progress happening or growth isn't occurring, but because we're comparing it to a standard that was never ours to begin with, or is the mismatch for what we need to be measuring against. And now, not only does this happen in business, I see this in families all the time too. Maybe you know someone that you see this is happening to them and they don't see it yet. But in families, some families seem to place a massive value on achievement or maybe harmony, contribution, independence, loyalty, hard work. Now, these none of these are actually right or wrong, good or bad. But whatever receives attention tends to grow. And over time, what grows starts shaping the culture around it. It starts influencing what people talk about, uh, what they celebrate or avoid, how they move forward, how they show up, how they make decisions. And sometimes without even realizing it, we can start measuring things against other metrics that shouldn't even be put together. They're like polar opposites. And for example, it could be where parents start actually measuring their children. I saw this a lot in the in the education system was that parents would come in and they would measure their kids, that the child was more independent, one was more organized, one was more outgoing, one was more driven, and before long we're comparing completely different humans against a measurement that was never designed for either of them. When really, if we sit with it, the question might be compared to who they were six months ago, are they growing? Now, this happens to all of us. I know that I've compared my kids at times, and then I bring myself back into they're totally different humans. Compare him to himself, compare the other one to himself, because growth and comparison are very different measurements and they build very different environments. And the same thing happens in the workplace and teams. So I've also worked with teams who genuinely believed they valued collaboration. But what happened when we looked a little closer, what was actually being rewarded was individual performance. So collaboration was the thing that they were talking about and that was in their values. But what was being rewarded was individual performance. And the message wasn't intentional. They didn't do this intentionally. No one sat down and said out loud that, oh, we're going to reward all the individuals for their performance. But the environment was teaching people something different. It was actually teaching them to protect their patch, uh, to make less mistakes, to not share what insights and things are working for them or not working for them, and it would keep them safe. And over time, people began responding to the environment that they were experiencing rather than the values written on the wall. Now, honestly, I also think this happens inside of ourselves as well. And this is probably the part that fascinates me even more because sometimes we don't realize what we're measuring until we stop to look at it, as I said before. Measuring productivity, perfection. Some people are even measuring whether everybody likes them. I know that's one of mine, is that I can get caught in my profiling that I will measure myself around whether other people like me. Um, measuring whether I've disappointed anyone. Sometimes people are measuring whether they're doing enough or whether they're growing. And the interesting thing is that different measurements create different experiences, and how we talk about those experiences also adds to that. Now, humans are far too complex for simple formulas. What I love to look at are the patterns that are worth paying attention to. And I've noticed that when people become highly focused on blame, defensiveness can start appearing. Have you seen that before? Not all the time, sometimes, more often than not, because people become more concerned with protecting themselves than understanding what's actually happening. And on the flip side, when learning becomes a thing people are paying attention to, capacity can often start growing. Now, again, not every time, please don't put rules around these conversations. But quite often it's just worth noticing, paying attention. What are the patterns that are appearing? Because whatever we're repeating, whatever we're repeatedly paying attention to starts influencing the environment around us. And this is where I think communication really enters the conversation because someone might tell me, um, and I hear this quite often, I just want better communication. I want to be a better communicator. And I find myself wondering, what are we actually measuring underneath that? How are they measuring that? What are they looking at to be a better communicator? Because there's got to be some sort of measure. And so my inquiry is, well, what are what is your measurement of better communication? Is it being understood? Is it connection? Is it efficiency? Is it control? Is it harmony? Is it how um how often you're in agreement or there's no disagreements? Like what is that measure? And is that measure functional? Because depending on what we're measuring, we'll build very different conversations, different relationships, and very different environments within that system. And I don't know, maybe that's why it stayed with me and I had to contemplate this because what we measure doesn't just shape outcomes. What we're measuring internally, this is this internal measurement. It shapes our attention, our behavior, and communication is a behavior. It shapes our culture, and a huge part of our culture is communication. It shapes our standards, and eventually it starts shaping the whole environment that we're living inside of, whether we intend it to or not. So I want to leave this conversation here today because I think it's a big conversation and it's worth some contemplation because the measurements that we are creating, consciously or unconsciously, are shaping our experience of life and our relationships and our work environments across the board. And so if something is feeling unstable in your life, in your business, in the way you're showing up, one of the questions you could ask could be around today's conversation. So take the time, do some considering, pause it, re-listen to it, and see what your thoughts are. If this has landed with you as well, if there's something inside of this that has landed for you, or you think might land with someone else, please share this with your family members and get them, get the conversation started around what this could be because the hidden pieces in our communication are quite often the ones that make the profound difference when we address them. Thanks for joining me for this conversation. If something in this episode was useful to you or gave you a new way of looking at a conversation in your world, I am so glad that you were here. And if it's the kind of conversation someone else in your family or team would love to hear as well, feel free to share this episode with them. And as always, please feel free to reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook via katy.godden. I really enjoy hearing what conversations people are navigating out there and what they also take away from these conversations. So until next time, take care and remember strong farming businesses are built on strong conversations. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.