Read Between the Lines

HOW TO MEASURE ANYTHING – Finding the Value of “Intangibles” in Business

Author: Douglas W. Hubbard

Title:

HOW TO MEASURE ANYTHING – Finding the Value of “Intangibles” in Business

Author:

Douglas W. Hubbard

Style:

For me, this book was a very difficult read. I’m not a fan of any thought process that has to redefine its key terms in order to make them support its proposed theory – which is my perception of the book’s early chapters.

In order to support his claim that anything can be measured, one of the first things Hubbard redefines is the word “measurement.” Following his lead, I came up with the following example of my own:

Suppose I have an unidentified block of metal 4 feet long by 3 feet wide by 2 feet high, sitting on one tray of an industrial balance. I want to know if I can move it by myself, if I need a few other people to help me, if I need a forklift, or if I need an industrial crane. So I drive my Honda Civic onto the other balance tray. The tray with the Honda lowers and the tray with the metal block rises, slowly. So now I know that the block of metal weighs less than my Honda.

Hubbard’s new definition is that “measurement” is any action that gives us information we didn’t have before. By this definition, learning that the metal block weighs less than my Honda is a measurement –

– not terribly accurate – I don’t know how much less the block weighs than my Honda,

– not terribly precise – I don’t know how much the block itself actually weighs,

– not terribly informative – I don’t know if I should check the deductible on my health insurance,

– not terribly helpful – I still don’t know how many people or what equipment will be needed to move the block,

but a measurement nonetheless.

The following chapters apply Hubbard’s theory to a number of different items that most people think “can’t” be measured. From my perspective, these are not items people really think “can’t” be measured, but are more likely things that people think can’t be measured in a way, or toward a result, that is worth the time or cost the measurement takes.

Achieved Objective:

The author’s claim is that anything you can think of can be measured to produce new information that informs a decision you are considering. I think Hubbard provides ample demonstration of this if you are someone who finds appeal in the minutiae – the small or trifling details that mesmerize a very small segment of the population – and if you don’t mind a constant redefining of terms to suit the example.

Compared to Other Books on the Same Subject:

I can’t compare this book to other books on the same subject; I’ve never seen another book on the same subject. Treating the subject as a philosophical way of looking at something we should perhaps all do often, the first comparison that comes to mind is “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” by Malcolm Gladwell, but I believe that “How to Measure Anything” suffers in the comparison.

Recommendation:

If you love data for data’s sake, if you need to discover how many ways a hair can be split, if you truly wonder how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or if “analysis paralysis” is your preferred state of mind, this book is for you. For the rest of us, we should go back to Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble and browse the business section again.


Read Between the Lines is a quarterly contribution by industry expert, Bernie Siben of Siben Consult, LLC