Numeracy Skills are Undervalued

Posted by Rich Crowley in common sense, Personal Improvement, thinking

I believe that the most important attribute for any business person to possess is great communication skills. However, this is followed closely by numeracy skills. Numeracy is defined as “the ability to use numbers, especially in arithmetical operations”. Communication and numeracy skills are very different in that there is a very broad range of communications skills but with numeracy, it has been my experience that you are either strong in this area or you aren’t.

Here’s an example. You are a manager of a customer service area. Your people are telling you that many of the pieces of client correspondence your organization sends to clients contain errors. This could be form letters, annual statements, templated email responses, etc. You ask your people to quantify “many”. Your people respond that approximately 25% contain errors. Does this help you? I have seen time and again where managers will stop at this point and look for solutions to the underlying problem. They believe this 25% number is relevant and meaningful. It seems like a big number so we should fix it right away.

Simply put – this number is meaningless on its own. 25% of what? Does this represent the number of different types of correspondence? If your organization has 47 different types of correspondence, this metric would suggest approximately 12 contain errors. (Being able to calculate that number quickly in your head is numeracy in its simplest form.) However, assuming there are different volumes for each type, the 25% is meaningless. If the correspondence types with errors are the lowest volume of the 50, one could argue the 25% metric overstates the problem. Also, do the errors show on each of these 12 every time they are produced or only on a subset, based on some logic that governs what gets produced on these 13?

Another example, and one that shocks me, is when people tell you their car gets great gas mileage because it goes from here to Somewhereville on a just over a tank of gas. Their lack of appreciation for the fact that not all gas tanks are created equal in size is lost on them. Yikes!

I believe being “a numbers person” is valuable. Numbers people are probably those who liked and excelled in math during their formal education years. Our society still seems to paint those with such interest and skills as geeks. It’s a shame. Numeracy skills are every bit as important as literacy and having them can make your life a whole lot better, and can make you much more valuable to your organization.