MEASURE WHAT MATTERS
Choose a measurable proxy for what matters. Reward it until it becomes what matters.
Select an indicator that can be compared across people or units. Place it on dashboards, review it frequently and attach visible consequences. Treat unmeasured quality, cooperation and long-term effects as important contextual considerations that remain outside the score.
Reconstructed Handbook series.
Unfortunately, the research…
Claim
Specific goals often improve performance by directing attention and effort, but narrow targets can also cause people to neglect unmeasured dimensions or optimize the indicator rather than the broader objective.
Evidence
Goal-setting research provides strong evidence that specific, challenging goals can improve performance under appropriate conditions. Separate work on side effects and performance indicators warns that narrow targets can redirect attention, encourage short-term optimization and distort the underlying activity. The evidence supports a conditional mechanism rather than a claim that metrics are inherently harmful.
Strength: Strong
Sources
- Locke & Latham (2002) — A theory of goal setting and task motivation
- Ordóñez et al. (2009) — Goals gone wild
The Directive is satire. The research summary is not. Evidence is stated separately and qualified to the underlying literature rather than treated as proof of the joke.