What Do We Leave in People?

Organizations measure almost everything: revenues, costs, productivity, customer satisfaction and employee engagement. Hospitals measure clinical outcomes; universities measure academic performance; public institutions measure expenditure and efficiency. These indicators matter. No organization survives for long without producing results. But are results sufficient to define success? A company can increase its profits while creating anxiety among the people who work there. A hospital can achieve excellent clinical outcomes while leaving patients feeling unseen. A university can prepare students to pass examinations without helping them discover their talents. A public institution can digitalize a service while making it harder for citizens to understand. Perhaps we have become very effective at measuring what organizations produce, and much less capable of measuring what they produce in people.