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Every time a new metric is added, organizations unknowingly sign up for a series of ongoing costs that can drain resources and consume valuable human capital. ~ Matt Brooks
As we begin a new year, there seems to be, in much of the western world at least, a realisation that we have hit a productivity brick wall.
In the UK, the Government is calling for more “innovators and disruptors” in public service. The Prime Minister , the chancellor and business secretary have written to the UK’s main regulators asking them to come up with ideas for reform that could boost economic growth.
Both of these calls have been mocked by some, but I think it’s necessary. To solve a problem, you need to admit there is one. Much of the public sector is in a frankly awful state, and in desperate need of reform.
Acknowledging public sector and government waste should not be a partisan issue. Indeed, in the US, the cost-cutting agenda of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy has attracted support from voices such as Bernie Sanders.
My idea for 2025 is to go to war on meaningless measurement.
The long quoted adage that ‘What gets measured, gets done’ is bullshit.
As Nuno Reis points out on LinkedIn, we’ve been lied to:
“It started with V. F. Ridgway’s 1956 quote: “What gets measured gets managed”
Yet, Ridgway was WARNING how metrics distort and damage organizations
“What gets measured gets managed—even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so”
Correct: there is an opportunity cost to measurement. It can set a very odd behaviour pattern in organisations where the act of measuring becomes as important, or more important, than the organisational purpose.
Steve Schefer delves into this a little deeper and finds that our working worlds seem to be obsessed with measurement, to the detriment of getting on with doing obvious things. He suggests that “Executives (and those in positions of organisational authority) should be using their nous (ref. brains, intelligence) – foresight- and getting on with things…and seeing how this then shows up in the numbers.”
An overabundance of metrics actually shifts the gaze of Boards and Executives away from the third horizon (where are we going? what does the environment look like in 5-10 years time? How do we need to innovate?)
Instead, it focuses them on the first horizon (what’s happened yesterday? How do we fix the latest crisis?). The answer to that question is usually to put pressure on people to hit a target, whether or not it’s a meaningful measure.
Goodhart’s Law states: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
In his book The Tyranny of Metrics Jerry Z. Muller puts Goodhart’s Law into very simple terms:
“Anything that can be measured and rewarded will be gamed”.
Muller argues that while metrics can be useful tools, our society has developed an unhealthy obsession with them – a phenomenon he calls “metric fixation.” He cautions against the overreliance on metrics and standardised measures, especially when they replace informed professional judgment and lead to unintended consequences.
Most importantly, he explains that the pressure for accountability and the desire for easily quantifiable measures of success often lead boards to focus heavily on metrics, which then cascades down through the organisation.
A ‘metric waterfall’ that flows through an organisation is debilitating for innovation and creativity. Leadership time is spent feeding an inexorable metric machine. A system has now been established that views anything new or uncontrolled as a threat.
Muller advocates for a balanced approach that combines quantitative data with qualitative insights and professional judgment.
Much of the work that we are involved in at the moment is about exploring how to fix broken systems. You cannot move to a new place whilst obsessing about legacy measures. Indeed, I was recently told by a colleague that their team ‘couldn’t explore’ a new way of working, as it would mess with the metrics.
When the work becomes a metric, the metrics become the work.
In our move to a different way of working we are trying to also move away from the constraints of metrics. Instead we can work with data science to take massive amounts of raw data and use their skills to find hidden patterns, trends, and insights. This means we can then ask useful questions. As my colleague Henry Waters says in the latest Bromford Lab webinar, data scientists are essentially detectives of the digital world.
Instead of hanging everything on a metric we can be more data detective.
This year, we need to go war on meaningless metrics.
We can balance data with what we see with our own eyes.
We can devolve power to teams to make decisions based upon local conditions.
Just because you can measure something, doesn’t mean you should.
If we spent less time measuring, and more time exploring, thinking and testing, we might find the productivity problem goes away.
Related: Reciprocity and the Social Contract: Discussing Tomorrow, Today