For well over two decades, American society has campaigned to raise self-esteem and self-respect for children and youth. This child-development movement has perhaps been personified by the media formats entitled “Incredible You! 10 Ways to Let Your Greatness Shine Through” by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. Dr. Dyer is certainly joined by hundreds if not thousands of child-development specialists in looking for ways to encourage our youth to think well of themselves and receive supportive feedback.

There has also been debate as to whether or not the “Incredible You” makes the transition into adulthood and more particularly the job situation. At work, the self-esteem and self-respect must be internalized, and specific Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs) become your tools for doing your job. But why do some excel and get promotions while others do not? The answer is most often the “Credible You!”

Credibility is placed in context by the historically well-known broadcaster Edward R. Murrow who said about his role as network news anchor, “To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible, we must be truthful.” 

Unlike the “Incredible You,” which is formed in an environment created by others and granted by you, the “credible you” is created by you and recognized by others as a result of repeated success.

The characteristics that make you credible in the workplace include:
• Knowledge about your job, duties and customers
• Understanding of related influences including the needs of those you supervise and those above you in the hierarchy
• Awareness of past, current and future trends
• The ability to state your goals, strategies and objectives in a clear manner
• Creating clear performance measures for monitoring progress and measuring success.

If you develop these characteristics, you will generally find that you are given the ability to perform your duties on your own terms. That might mean:
• You can establish your own programs because you have done the market research to know what your customers are seeking, and you know what is or will be successful.
• You can justify your budget because your requests are supported by detailed and relevant information.
• You will be allowed to buy the maintenance equipment needed because you can show they will be cost-effective over time.

Unfortunately, it may also be the difference between sustaining your department and losing it. Although in today’s politics, logic and reason do not guarantee success.

In short, it puts you in control of your own work environment. Depending on your career goals, it places you in position for promotions to be responsible for more of the operations. In most cases, credibility is a major characteristic appreciated by those who appoint the top official in the organization.

I once had a volunteer naturalist who would lead wildflower walks. He often said that knowing the names of the various flowers made you knowledgeable, but knowing why the specific plant grew where it grew (sun/shade, acidic/neutral soil, etc.) gave you credibility as a naturalist.

The same is true in the workplace. You can create numbers that appear to measure performance but in actuality don’t measure anything important. 

For example, let’s assume you count the number of participants who attend programs or register for classes (visitors). You now have data that you can present to show an increase of participants for the season or year. However, in terms of your program operation, you still don’t know what that means for space utilization, staffing needs or your revenue picture.

To fully measure your program operations, you need to count the actual hours that the participants are served (visitor hours). This adds magnitude to your workload. If 1,000 visitors register for 10 weeks of hour-long classes, then you have 10,000 visitor hours. You still don’t know what spaces they use and what time slots are taken unless you measure the available spaces and the utilization of each space during open hours.

Why is that important? All empty, nonprogrammed spaces are opportunities for additional revenue. This is also instructive in determining the number of staff, both full-time and part-time, that you need at your facility.

Before the 2013 NRPA Congress in Houston this October, NRPA will release an upgrade of PRORAGIS with numerous changes to increase the database’s functionality and usability. PRORAGIS will continue to offer meaningful comparative data, but now will seek to find new measures for your operations. The prime four data items are shown in the adjacent chart.

At NRPA, we hear concerns that there is not enough data that measures performance in qualitative ways rather than quantitative and often financial means. We are very interested in examining any performance measures that focus on qualitative outcomes. For example, a colleague was hired to develop a qualitative methodology for youth programs. She:
• Engaged participants in each program type (sports, art, etc.) in a discussion of why they were taking this class
• Asked participants to describe what they wanted to achieve
• Helped participants determine their success
• Returned at the end of the program
• Conducted measurements of results established by goals
• Marked each participant’s improvements and recognized their accomplishments
• Conducted a satisfaction survey as well as an instructor evaluation.

This almost clinical approach to measuring participant accomplishments and satisfaction is much more involved than what is found in most public recreation settings, yet it is often how the private fitness industry operates. While qualitative measures may become more difficult to achieve, they certainly increase your credibility with your customers and department management.

If you have examples where you have successfully measured qualitative aspects of your services, please describe the setting, circumstance and measurement process used and send us your examples.

Bill Beckner is NRPA’s Senior Manager of Research.