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Like many Americans, I’ve developed an addiction to The Pitt, the HBO/Max hit drama that is based in the Emergency Room of a hospital in Pittsburg. If you haven’t watched it, (or even if you have) you might be surprised by the high percentage of the dialog that consists of an incomprehensible steam of numbers. If you aren’t in healthcare, it may take a few episodes to realize that those numbers are key indicators of the condition of an incoming patient, specifically patients’ blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and oxygen levels.

Those numbers tell as complete a story as possible about the health of the patient at that point in time, enabling them to make the best-informed decisions as to what to do next. Given how allergic many communications professionals are to numbers it occurred to me that there’s a lot we need to learn about communicating from the world of healthcare.

With just 4 or 5 numbers that everyone in the ER understands, the crew of The Pitt can communicate a complicated situation in a few seconds. Not too dissimilar from all the communicators I’ve known who have only a minute or two in a monthly leadership meeting, (or the proverbial elevator) to convey their impact. They need to watch the Pitt and take notes  

Let’s start with those 4 or 5 key numbers. We in the PR measurement world have been getting our panties in a twist for three decades about what those numbers should be. After 35+ years of debates, I’ve come to the conclusion that there shouldn’t be any industry standard.

What really matters when you are communicating your results is that everyone knows what you’re talking about and can understand the implications immediately. That starts in your first month of the job (or your new boss’s first month.)  As soon as you can, you need to get consensus on your goals and what those four or five numeric indicators are going to be. Those numbers must be meaningful, trustworthy, and consistent. Most of all they need to be relevant to your organization’s goals, strategy, mission, and the conditions that you are operating under. That’s why standard numbers don’t work.

The purpose of those numbers, whatever they may be, is to convey what’s working, what’s not, what you’re doing to make things better and what resources are required.

  A few suggestions:

• Percent increase in coverage read by key targeted audiences.
• Percent increase in message appearances in media trusted by our target audience.
• Percent increase in quality coverage (see how to define quality)
• Percent share of CEO quotes (aka thought leadership) vs the competition.
• % increase in PR-driven traffic to your website
• % increase in share of SEO/GEO/AEO (or whatever you’re calling search today.
• Establish a baseline.

As the folks on The Pitt rattle off those numbers, they are establishing a baseline — numeric indicators so they know over time whether the patient is getting better or worse.

My physical therapist uses a questionnaire that consists of a series of questions to establish how far from “normal.”  I am. After two shoulder injuries, and a knee replacement in the last two years I’ve gotten used to abnormal.

The researcher in me hates these questions. “Can you perform normal household functions with no difficulty, some difficulty, great difficulty, not at all.”  — My brain immediately goes to “what is a “normal” household “function?”  I view vacuuming as a pain in the ass, so it’s not part of my normal routine, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do it.

Regardless of my flippant answers, I eventually give serious answers that are used by my physical therapist to establish a baseline, so she knows the extent to which I am improving. Not only does that survey assess my health, but more importantly, it assesses her effectiveness as a physical therapist. While I might argue with some of the questions, the numbers are meaningful to their leadership, and that’s all that matters.

We all have our own gauges for progress. If you don’t have any at all, you never know when to celebrate or recalibrate.

For my new knee, a week after surgery I could barely bend my knee 60 degrees. I had no idea how bad or good that was until the doctor told me that if I didn’t get to 110, they’d knock me out and bend it for me. That thought was so gruesome, I immediately did more exercises and made it up to 112. Goals are amazing motivators.

What I have also learned is that when friends ask me how my knee is healing, they don’t have a clue why I’m ecstatic about hitting 112 because they don’t know what that means and they have no context in which to put that number.

I’m willing to bet that half the managers hearing PR presentations are pretty fuzzy about what typical PR results really mean.

Every number you use needs context. It can be a comparison to last quarter, the competition, the economic environment, or the last person who had your job, but whatever it is, you need to put your results into context.

My friends don’t need a detailed explanation of what the angle of bend is or how its calculated. They just need to know what I’m now 93% back to normal. (If you need help doing percent calculations try this.)  What they are really asking is, do I need help driving or walking my dog and can I go dancing? The answer is yes to all three except that getting up off the floor after giving my dog a belly rub is hard so they’re welcome to come help with that.

The lesson for communicators is to get your immediate manager and their boss to agree which metrics are meaningful, so everyone agrees on what “improvement” looks like. Then communicate those numbers first. If you have more than 30 seconds, tell them what’s working, what still needs to change and how you are going to improve.

 We’re not advocating that you need to be a math whiz or a data scientist to prove your impact or ROI. But numbers and data have their place and their usefulness, and we strongly suggest you use them more. For a great read on how to communicate with numbers check out: Making Numbers Count.