Be Careful What You Measure

Here is something that I just read about (again) and have long known it even though I haven’t always thought about it.

“People don’t pay much attention to what management says; they pay attention to what management measures.”

Management is constantly trying to reward and punish behavior in the non-systems-thinking world; they stare common-cause variability straight in the face and see a person. So, what happens is they create benchmarks their employees must adhere to and ding those who miss the lower threshold, and praise those that exceed the upper thresholds. I’ve seen cases where taking these rewards and punishments away had zero effect on variability simply because the praise and punishment came after the fact, and had no impact whatsoever on the subsequent iteration.

However, when it comes to measurement of your business, here is something else that is important to consider: no matter what goals you’ve set, or outcomes you are seeking, be very careful what you measure because that i…