I just finished a fun listen on Audible of “The Tyranny of Metrics”, the gist of which can be read here in a WSJ article by the author—history professor Jerry Muller. It was a great ‘read’ to accomplish while commuting to and from work because I could yell “yes!” at every point Muller made without disturbing anyone at the office or at home (only passing drivers seeing me expostulating alarmingly).
In a nutshell, the book shoots down these two dictums:
- “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it” (Lord Kelvin) and
- “What gets measured gets done.” (Tom Peters)
In actuality, what gets measured gets gamed—the prime example being the sales quotas that ruined Wells Fargo ban by incenting their employees into opening millions of fake customer accounts. Muller provides plenty of other perverse effects of measurement in healthcare, education and other arenas.
I think this admonition aimed at the quants on Wall Street, passed along in “The Tyranny of Metrics” from British historian Niall Ferguson, says it all about going overboard on measurement:
“Those that the gods want to destroy they first teach math.”
Spoken like a true professor of liberal arts.