If you play some type of management role or have read a fair amount of business writing, you’ve most likely run across W. Edwards Deming’s famous quote in one form or another: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This quote is actually not what Deming originally intended. The full quote is: “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it — a costly myth.” That is quite a difference if you ask me.

That said, the great business management thinker and writer Peter Drucker also has a quote you’ve undoubtedly run across that goes something like: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” While this might seem at odds with Deming’s quote to some degree, it is true that quantifiable improvements can only be made to something that you measure in the first place. 

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