SNWJ: As We Enter Holiday Season, Remember Quality over Quantity.
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As We Enter Holiday Season, Remember Quality over Quantity
John Paul Derryberry
Want to do the equivalent of running your nails over a chalkboard in my world? Talk about how many people you provide services to, how much money you have made, or how many followers you have on whatever social media platform you call home. I remember the first time my skin crawled as I heard someone brag about quantity. I was sitting in a large company meeting, and the speaker boasted about how many people we had helped that year. It was just a raw number in the thousands and everyone self-congratulated and applauded.
My table of co-workers scoffed because we knew how skewed that number was. There was no mention of the people we kicked out of our services, no mention of failed cases, no mention of our outcomes. Just a celebration of how many times people in need ended up in front of our staff. Those numbers will only tell half the story on a good day and most days they tell less than a quarter. Another time that I felt that nails-on-a-chalkboard effect was when a friend of mine bragged about knowing a guy who had made a lot of money. Somehow, just the sheer number in his bank account was supposed to be a reason to be impressed. There was no mention of whether he had earned his money morally. Had he been given a giant head start by having a wealthy family? How about us having a discussion as to whether he had used his wealth to better those around him?
A focus on sheer numbers of people, money, houses, cars, or whatever else you think proves success will have us chasing a culture where there is more drug use, mental health symptoms, poverty, and homelessness. Despite all those dedicated shelter programs, a great economy over the last year, and an increase in wealth for numerous Americans, homelessness increased in 2017 and is set to increase again in 2018. More people live below the poverty line, everyone has seen the news about the opioid issue we face, and we all have felt the increase in gun violence.
So here we sit closing out 2018, watching everything going in the opposite direction. We know certain groups have more of everything, yet other groups have more problems. I feel this is a result of the obsession of quantity over quality. We no longer celebrate the non-profit that only helps a limited number of people but diligently chases postie outcomes. Instead, we want them to help as many people as possible, even though it means diminishing returns. We only judge a business by its bottom line, which leads to practices that emphasize how much money you can make. Imagine a culture where our judgment of worth came from an equation of profit, treatment of employees, and how the community around them grows from their footprint.
As we head into the holiday season, we are supposed to be thankful for what we have. Yet, only hours after thanksgiving we will trample each other for stuff we are convinced that we need. Gifts will be opened on Christmas we will dismiss as bad because it wasn’t exactly what we wanted. Maybe, just maybe, if we tilt our focus to quality, we will change our hiring patterns, change our culture, and perhaps produce outcomes that lead to the results we want: a more inclusive society where we celebrate each other, not the stuff we have accumulated.
As I have matured and grown over the years, I realize try as I might I get sucked into this tailspin of quality of quantity. I, however, do not spin out of control forgetting quality over quantity. I spin out of control with biting and simmering anger at the world not interacting for the betterment of others. My wife reminds me of the large soap box I climb often to lecture and how it turns people away. I wrote a blog about it earlier this year (http://jpderryberry.com/blog/uplifting). Before I posted this blog, I realized I crossed into lecturing. I’m proud of myself for noticing before my wife gave me the nudge. As my dad used to say, everyone is either getting better or worse, no one stays the same.
There are seven Sunday Night with John’s left this year. My vow over the next seven weeks to fully engage in “Chasing the Invisible” This world where I celebrate great things in my life, get people to think without the lecture, and share stories that make my world, and hopefully your world a better place. I will not be able to lecture the world around into a better place. I must rely on friends, family, and my determination to create change. My best skill has and will always be in showing others how amazing they are, and providing a space for them to figure out who they want to be. I will allow those traits to be my guide and spend seven quality weeks showing you all, amazing people who always deliver quality over quantity.