Here we'll explore where we might be placing too much emphasis on the numbers. With a reflection activity, we’ll focus on taking back our power and recentering our values.
In early March 2020, right before the pandemic, I was planning a big ten-year celebration for the Beautiful Social Research Collaborative, a community writing program I direct where we collaborate with nonprofits and community-based organizations. Throughout the planning phase for this 10-year anniversary, I emphasized the number of completed projects. It meant a lot to say that we accomplished 100 projects in the first ten years. There was going to be a "100" in jumbo mylar balloons.
We even took on an extra community project that year to achieve this feat. No one ever questioned this — it all seemed very self-evident. "100 in 2020" had a nice, impressive-sounding ring to it. I believed that it gave the enterprise legitimacy.
Then the pandemic hit, and that celebration plan quietly dissolved, like so many things. This is when I encountered Tema Okun's work on how white supremacy operates in organizations.
Thanks to Okun's work — especially with her maxims "Progress is bigger, more," and "Quantity over quality" — I began to reassess my approach to the Beautiful Social Research Collaborative. To my surprise, I realized that I was caught up in a mindset that prioritized quantity and progress over quality and process.
Ok, but is that really a problem? So I completed a few more community partner projects than I would have - how is that so bad? It's doing more good for the community, right? Yes, but no.
This writing program is a large part of what I do professionally. I write a community engagement report about the collaborative's work each year for various stakeholders at the university. But in accounting for this work, no one ever said to me that numbers are a direct measure of success. No one ever told me that more is better. I was the one emphasizing quantity over quality. Because I assumed that was what people would appreciate!
This belief was unsubstantiated. I was following some vision of what I thought I was supposed to be doing.
I was in an achievement mindset when no one else was counting. I had been giving away my power to write the narrative and decide what matters for this organization. Where in our lives might we be letting others decide what matters?
Shifting focus from measurable goals to quality relationships
In pursuing measurable goals, I had to contemplate the organization’s values more deeply than I had been doing. I quickly realized that I valued building quality relationships within our community more than the projects themselves. While numbers (how many projects, followers, or likes) may have seemed important, true success (for us) lies in the depth and authenticity of our connections in the community. By valuing the quality of relationships and the extent of our ability to co-create with our community partners, we can foster an environment that nurtures trust, collaboration, and genuine engagement. The relationship is what I want people to take away from the program - not the number of projects we accomplish.
We can establish a living values statement that guides our day-to-day work, emphasizing what we value and how we will live up to those values.
See a list of core values here.
What better way to bring contemplative communication to an organization than through the intentional process of creating a values statement? But values statements need not be just for organizations. What if we all had one to guide our day-to-day “operations?”
Our values statement
"We are driven by the beautiful, social, and collaborative aspects of our work. We value community engagement, collaboration, and transformative change. Through our community-engaged writing program, we bring together students and local nonprofit/community-based organizations to co-create media-rich research projects that address identified issues. We provide free support in various areas, supporting organizations in achieving their goals. Our commitment to making a positive social impact drives us to continue our work with passion, integrity, and dedication."
In doing this exercise, I learned that progress doesn’t have to be measured by the size of our organization or the number of projects we accomplish. Instead, we can consider the quality of the services we provide and our impact on individuals and the community as a whole. Expanding our program or adding more projects might do little to accomplish our end goal - building meaningful collaborative relationships with community organizations as we work together to create transformative change.
Embracing the Indigenous concept of "Seventh Generation Thinking" allows us to consider the long-term implications of our actions. We can ask ourselves how our decisions today will affect people seven generations from now. Progress is no longer defined by our growth but by the positive change we create in the lives of individuals and the community.
Overall, these shifts in mindset allowed the Beautiful Social Research Collaborative to focus on fostering meaningful connections within the community. The organization recognized the value of relationships, process goals, and a long-term perspective, ensuring our work is guided by our values and commitment to transformative change.
Creating a living values statement changes our day-to-day operations in some important ways. For example, we say we value co-creation. This means we need to prioritize collaborative sessions between students and partner organizations to brainstorm ideas, set goals, and plan project activities. Here’s what we need to be doing regularly to ensure this happens:
Guide students and partner organizations through the process of co-creating media-rich research projects.
Provide support and resources for designing and implementing research methodologies, surveys, interviews, or data analysis.
Foster an inclusive environment that values diverse perspectives and encourages active participation from all stakeholders in all phases of the partnership.
Instead of using objective numbers for evaluation, we can assess the level of satisfaction among partner organizations and students and the lasting impact of projects on the community. We can use our “living values statement” to make informed decisions, refine strategies, and drive the program toward greater success, impact, and alignment with our values.
Your turn
Contemplation is purposeful reflection.
Where might you be emphasizing the numbers over the values? Could it be in the number of projects completed? Awards received? Publications? Followers or likes? Hours worked? Weight? Salary? Age?
What is behind the preoccupation with the numbers?
How much of your worth is tied up in the numbers?
Have you been letting others decide what matters? Have you been letting others decide what is worthy of your time and energy, what is important, and what to measure?
Is there a deeper core value that might serve you better and more authentically?
Share any insights in the comments, I would love to hear them.
Another fantastic post!
For me, I’ve had to shift toward reseeing quantitative data as surrogate or proxy indicators of that which I’m trying to achieve. The most notable place that happens for me is in my personal health. I used to get pretty bent out of shape when my resting heart rate wasn’t as low as I thought was desirable. I used to think this meant I needed to workout MORE so I could be in BETTER shape. I finally had to fully accept that what I actually needed was REST. A simple day of rest almost always yields a lower resting HR. Just a small, silly example…but possibly indicative of how numbers might signify something totally different from what you think it signifies.