Measuring What is Assumed to be Un-Measurable

Public trust in institutions is eroding. Across governments, companies, and civil society, people are questioning the systems built to serve them. In an era like this, the values that hold societies together, such as trust, fairness, and integrity, have never mattered more. Yet despite their importance, they are examples of the concepts that are almost never measured.

Companies, organizations, and politicians may talk about these kinds of values in mission statements and speeches, but they rarely provide any evidence for them. They rarely really measure them. They sound good and feel right, but without measurement, they remain ideas rather than commitments. This erodes public trust in leaders, organizations, and brands.

At Luminata, we always ask a simple but crucial question: What if we actually tried to measure them?

It sounds impossible at first. How can you measure something as abstract as trust? How can you provide KPIs for equality, democracy, fairness, success, and impact? 

However, at Luminata, we believe that ultimately, these “invisible” values are forces that determine whether societies work or fall apart. If we never learn to measure our values, we can’t know whether we’re living up to them.

When measured correctly, values do not lose their meaning. They gain structure, language, and visibility. They become something leaders can strengthen instead of simply aspiring to.

This blog post explores why measuring values matters, how we have done it in practice, and what it can teach us about building systems that people can genuinely believe in.

Why Measure What Seems Unmeasurable

Many institutions avoid measuring values because they believe they are too “soft” to quantify. But without evidence, even the most sincere commitments become slogans. For example, Values like Integrity can become a word on a poster. Fairness can become a promise no one can test.

Measurement, when done carefully, does not simplify complexity. It gives it shape. It makes meaning visible.

When organizations measure their values, they are not reducing them. They are revealing them. They are turning intentions into insight. Without that visibility, values risk drifting into abstraction. With it, they become part of how people actually work, decide, and lead.

Choosing to measure values is also a choice to build trust. People lose faith when they hear values repeated but see no proof of progress. Measurement provides that proof. It helps leaders and teams show, not just say, what integrity, fairness, or transparency look like in action.

Measurement also creates direction. It offers a shared language and a roadmap for improvement, connecting ideals to everyday behavior. It does not close down complexity. It helps navigate it.

Aha reflection: Values resist measurement only when they remain undefined.

Examples of how we at Luminata have measured the unmeasurable:

Measuring Democracy Where It Happens

If trust in governance has a heartbeat, it beats in cities. That is where people feel fairness and accountability most directly.

Working with an NGO focused on strengthening democracy, we created a framework to measure how democracy functions at the municipal level.

It looked at six dimensions: checks and balances, trust, participation, transparency, consultation, and representation. The framework combined city-level data with citizen surveys to connect institutional design with lived experience.

What we learned was revealing. Many cities had systems for consultation but no way to measure whether feedback led to change. People were asked for input but never shown how it affected decisions. Others had smaller mechanisms but built genuine trust through consistent communication.

The difference mattered. Cities that closed the feedback loop built more durable trust. Those that did not often saw participation turn into frustration.

“Trust does not grow from visibility alone. It grows from response.”

Aha reflection: Transparency without responsiveness does not build trust. It breaks it.

Each time we measure democracy locally, we learn more about how participation feels, not just how it is designed.

Each time we measure democracy locally, we learn more about how participation feels, not just how it is designed. At the national level, those same questions about fairness and accountability become questions about governance itself.

Developing the First Measure for Good Governance

Good governance has always been treated as something important, but almost impossible to measure. Everyone agrees it matters, but few have ever tried to define what it actually looks like in practice. We wanted to change that.

Working with a group of public agencies and research partners, we developed the first real framework to measure good governance in action. It was built to turn broad values like fairness, transparency, integrity, and responsiveness into things you could actually observe and track.

We started by asking: what does good governance look like when it’s happening? The framework broke this down into clear signs, from how decisions are explained to how institutions listen and respond to feedback. It helped show the gap between what organizations say they do and what they actually do in practice.

By connecting what people experience to what institutions claim, the framework made invisible values visible. Agencies could see where their systems supported learning and where they shut it down. Over time, that visibility helped leaders use measurement not only to prove progress but to guide it.

What began as a simple idea of measuring good governance became a practical way to understand how democracy works in practice. It reminded us that governance isn’t static. It’s alive. It happens in the daily relationships between policies, decisions, and the people affected by them.

“Good governance does not live in principles alone. It lives in the choices people make when no one is watching.” Aha reflection: Measuring governance turns ideals into evidence and evidence into learning.

Measuring Trust From Regulators

We saw this again when working with a multinational company that operates under heavy regulatory oversight. Most companies measure customer trust or brand reputation, but few ever stop to ask: do our regulators trust us?

Together, we built a way to measure that trust. Through surveys, interviews, and behavioral data, we looked at how regulators viewed the company’s integrity, transparency, and responsiveness. We wanted to understand what actually drives confidence between the two sides.

The findings changed how the company thought about oversight. Regulators cared less about how many reports were filed and more about how quickly and honestly the company communicated when issues came up. The real driver of trust was responsiveness—listening, acknowledging, and following through.

This insight shifted everything. The company started tracking responsiveness as seriously as compliance. It created open channels with regulators, shared more data upfront, and treated oversight as a shared responsibility instead of an external test. Over time, the relationship became less about control and more about cooperation.

Measuring trust turned what used to be an assumption into something concrete. It showed that trust can be built, maintained, and even repaired when both sides have evidence of good faith.

“Trust between regulators and the regulated is not found in rules. It grows in the space where listening replaces defensiveness.” Aha reflection: Measuring trust externally helps institutions strengthen integrity internally.

Both projects point to the same lesson. When values are defined and made visible, they stop being abstract. They start to shape how people actually work, decide, and lead. Measurement becomes a way for institutions to see themselves clearly, to notice what is working and what is not, and to align what they say with what they do.

Here are some ways that you can begin measuring your values:

Policymakers and regulators: Track not only how often citizens participate but whether that participation leads to real changes in policy or outcomes. This helps close the gap between consultation and impact, turning participation into a tool for accountability rather than a symbolic gesture.

Cities and local governments: Measure responsiveness with the same care and attention given to transparency. Transparency shows what institutions are doing, but responsiveness shows that they are listening. Together, they form the foundation of trust between people and their local leaders.

NGOs and civil society organizations: Link moral purpose to measurable processes. Demonstrate how ethical commitments shape decision-making and outcomes. When organizations can show how values guide their choices, they strengthen both their legitimacy and their ability to influence others.

Corporations: Treat stakeholder trust as a genuine performance indicator, not as a communications goal. Measuring trust alongside profit, innovation, and efficiency signals that responsibility is part of long-term value creation, not a separate activity.

Funders: Support organizations that can demonstrate not only what they achieve but how they achieve it, transparently and inclusively. Funding approaches that reward integrity, learning, and openness help embed values into the system itself.

The point is not to measure everything. It is to measure what matters most. When trust becomes evidence-based, integrity becomes visible.

“Good measurement is not about compliance. It is about learning.”

Conclusion

For a long time, institutions treated trust, fairness, and integrity as too moral to measure and too fragile for evidence. But our experience has shown the opposite. Measuring values does not destroy them. It brings them to life.

When we define what trust looks like, observe how it operates, and identify where it breaks, we can strengthen it.

Measurement, done with care, becomes a form of attention. It reflects a willingness to look closely, to listen deeply, and to learn from what we see.

We have learned that trust, fairness, and integrity are not too fragile for evidence. They are the foundation on which evidence stands.

The real question is how far we are willing to take that idea, and what might change if we do.

Strengthening governance through evidence. #Trust #Governance #PublicIntegrity #EvidenceForImpact #Democracy #Luminata