For Discussion

Get better, stop bowling in the fog

Peter Hutchinson, Bush Foundation

Peter Hutchinson Peter C. Hutchinson is president of the Bush Foundation, St. Paul. Prior to coming to Bush in 2007, he was co-founder of the Public Strategies Group, a St. Paul company that redesigns and transforms governments throughout the world. In 2006, he was the Independence Party candidate for Minnesota Governor.

When you're in the dark, things can look a lot better than they really are. The problem is, if you're trying to solve problems in the dark, you might as well be bowling in the fog.

You grab your ball. You walk up to the line, rear back and let it fly. It disappears into the fog. The next thing you know you hear the pins fly. But you can't see how many pins or which ones have fallen. Have you hit a strike or been left with an impossible split? Are you even bowling in the right lane?

Data and information are terrific tools to pierce through the fog. Once the fog clears, you can tell pretty quickly if you've thrown a strike or a gutter ball. Data and information will tell us when we're doing well or that we're off course.

Take improving health, for instance. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, 50 percent of poor health among Americans is caused by our own behaviors. Conversely, improving health care access uses 88 percent of the available funding while lack of access is responsible for poor health outcomes only 10 percent of the time.

Facts are sometimes inconvenient -- they don't always tell us what we want to hear. But "knowing" how you're doing (instead of just "hoping" you're doing well) is invaluable when you're trying to get better at making an impact.

Opinions in the For Discussion columns are the authors' alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Minnesota Compass. Compass welcomes a range of views about issues pertaining to quality of life in Minnesota.