Excellence vs. Grades and Measurement

Quantitive analysis, useful though it be, is frequently problematic. Grades are an excellent example.

Imagine an airline, XYZ Airlines, advertising “Fly XYZ, where 9 out of ten planes land safely!” 90% -- an A minus! Pretty good, no? Or how about this: “Eat at Joe’s , where only 1 in 10 people get sick.” Imagine your favorite music. What would happen if the musicians played one of every 100 notes incorrectly? Get those bozos off the stage!

Suppose you buy a toaster. When you get it home, will you accept that it “mostly” makes toast? Or “eventually” makes toast? Probably not--if it doesn’t make perfect toast on demand, you’ll be back at the store with attitude. And when you’re there, will you care that they worked really hard on it? Or that they had a difficult week? I think not. Here’s the problem with clinging to grades, to numbers—yet people do.

That is, as long as it suits them. When a management consultant team moves into the workplace and purports to measure performance, the employee response is generally “You can’t really measure what we do.” As Kenneth Blanchard puts it, “Well, if we can’t measure any difference, then why don’t we just eliminate it?” People get interested in measuring performance quickly.

On the other hand, all too often a “survey” or “study” is reduced to a questionnaire. Easy to collate data, yes, but such approaches, all to common, also amount to little more than leading questions. The form’s authors assume the position they’ll find, thereby dictating them. Thus, what should have been a learning experience becomes nothing more than self-affirment, not merely ignoring, but preventing all unforeseen views—and the messy, time-consuming process of collecting that information.

What’s the point of setting out to learn what you think you already know?

Excellence and its measurement don’t match.

Writer

Creative Dissonance

Dissonance. I like the word.

My colleague used it today as I described changes to my thinking about teaching my fall courses. “You’ve always been a good teacher,” she noted, “but there’s a dissonance,” referring to a mismatch between my nature and my approach. I know. I’ve felt it for quite some time.

My students feel it too. I’ve noticed that when I’m just blunt, frankly expressing my thoughts about their work, students blossom. Not intimidated in the least, even though I’m then at my most forceful, they simply accept and respond positively, thoughtfully, even creatively—rather than the resistance or timidity they can too often exhibit otherwise. I believe here they see me as truly genuine.

This week, some former students presented their work in one of my courses at a conference. They noted challenges, difficulties, discouraging tasks—and then urged their fellow students to follow the same path and take the course. Other students, current students, definitely not my best students, registered for my advanced writing courses, saying “Yeah, there’s a lot of writing, but you hardly notice it,” and “It’s kind of fun.” Interesting. And late today, a community leader contacted me about the “real world” writing my classes produce—referred enthusiastically by one of my students. I think I may have been looking in the wrong direction.

Years ago, a Toronto pianist gave me a book as a thank you gift that outlined the theory of Creative Tension, the idea that dissonance between where we are and where we want to be motivates creative action. Again, interesting. Sufi musician Hazrat Inayat Khan describes people as tones, some harmonious, some dissonant—for example, C and B are dissonant notes, but adding E and G produces a poignant, relaxing chord. Yet again, interesting.

I think we’re on to something. Viva la dissonance.

Writer