Turn Small Stuff into Big Stuff

As you begin to measure more and more things, especially with data quality and the seven C’s, you undoubtedly will find metrics that although are very small, require attention.

This leads to another principle:

Never care about less than 1% of anything.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not at all questioning the importance of the 1%. I’m simply saying that it will be more difficult to get people excited to change their behavior over something very small. It will be equally difficult to create excitement by measuring the small number over and over again.

The solution to this is to pair the original small metric with another. In other words, instead of showing that less than 1% of people have a characteristic, show how this small population impacts something that is bigger than 1%, like bottom line, or costs.

For example, telling your audience that you can reduce turnover by 0.5% is not as effective as telling them that...