Measuring in the Messiness: from metrics to meaning in organisational change

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This episode follows Mayvin’s November alumni event “Measuring in the Messiness”. A conversation that set out to talk about evaluation and somehow ended up being… surprisingly enjoyable.

Sophie Tidman and Carolyn pick up where the event left off, exploring why evaluation so often feels heavy, awkward or quietly avoided. And what changes when you stop treating it as a final judgement and start using it as a way of noticing what’s really going on as work unfolds.

They talk about how what gets measured quietly shapes behaviour and why the most important shifts are often the hardest to name. And how developing better language and sharper patterns of noticing helps people make sense of those shifts, rather than losing them because they don’t fit existing measures.

Along the way, they draw on Sharon Varney’s work on leadership in complexity and the limits of looking only in the rear-view mirror. Erin Manning’s idea of the minor gesture, the subtle movements where change actually starts. And Nora Bateson’s notion of warm data, the relational, context-rich information that helps organisations make sense of themselves without pretending things are tidy.

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