This book is not about the evils of measuring. All of this creates tremendous temptations to demonstrate progress in reducing crime by massaging the figures. Conveying marketable skills is a proper role as well. Whatever we select for our library has to excel in one or the other of these two core criteria: Enlightening Youll learn things that will inform and improve your decisions. China Human judgment based on talent and experience-has become unfashionable. A key premise of metric fixation concerns the relationship between measurement and improvement. A capitalist society depends for its flourishing on a variety of institutions that provide a counterweight to the market, with its focus on monetary gain. In search for more data means more data managers, more bureaucracy, more expensive software systems. Similarly, many jobs have multiple facets, and measuring only a few aspects creates incentives to neglect the rest. There is a natural human tendency to try to simplify problems by focusing on the most easily measurable elements. $7.99. That led to what Luttwak called a materialist bias, aimed at measuring inputs and tangible outputs (such as firepower), rather than intangible human factors, such as strategy, leadership, group cohesion, and the morale of servicemen. The tyranny of metrics is a really interesting book, it is a book that will open you eyes up to the use and abuse of numbers in our modern society. Bold Youll find arguments that may break with predominant views. Beijing 100016, P.R. Whether it was sales, profitability, or some other metric, we've been subject to The Tyranny of Metrics. Download The Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Z. Muller Law schools are ranked by USNWR based in part on the LSAT scores and GPAs of their admitted, full-time students. getAbstract Summary: Get the key points from this book in 10 minutes. Our very sense of self is possible only because our thoughts and desires are not transparent to others. United Kingdom Scientific Youll get facts and figures grounded in scientific research. Most organisations have multiple purposes, and that which is measured and rewarded tends to become the focus of attention, at the expense of other essential goals. Or in the formulation of Alfie Kohn, a longtime critic of pay-for-performance, metrics inhibits risk taking, an inevitable concomitant of exploration and creativity. Filled with examples from education, medicine, business and finance, government, the police and military, and philanthropy and foreign aid, this brief and accessible book explains why the seemingly irresistible pressure to quantify performance distorts and distracts, whether by encouraging gaming the stats or teaching to the test. Thats because what can and does get measured is not always worth measuring, may not be what we really want to know, and may draw effort away from the things we care about. But metrics can be good when used as a complement torather than a replacement forjudgment based on personal experience, and Muller also gives examples of when metrics have been beneficial. Quantification is seductive, because it organises and simplifies knowledge. The Tyranny of Metrics Book Summary - Jerry Muller - Wise Words But it cannot be publicly acknowledged, since it represents a threat to the amour propre of other nations. And it provokes the reader into asking further questions. Along the way, we learn why paying for measured performance doesnt work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. Don't Let Metrics Critics Undermine Your Business A helpful and/or enlightening book that is extremely well rounded, has many strengths and no shortcomings worth mentioning. Professor Jerry Z. Muller says todays society has a metric fixation an obsession with measuring, ostensibly to fuel improvements and publicize the results of their tallies in the name of transparency and accountability. Princeton University Press, Feb 6, 2018 - Business & Economics - 240 pages. Eye opening Youll be offered highly surprising insights. United States Muller makes a compelling case for why you shouldnt substitute measurement for personal experience or sound judgment. In the process, the nature of work is transformed in ways that are often pernicious. "Stanley Fish, author of Winning Arguments and Think Again, "Quantification, once only a tool, has become a cult. But there is much more to school than the learning of English and mathematics: not only other academic subjects but also the stimulation of interest in the world, and the cultivation of habits of behaviour (self-control, perseverance, ability to cooperate with others) that increase the likelihood of success in the adult world. It is the emphasis placed on these tests as the major criterion for evaluating schools that creates perverse incentives, including focusing on the tests themselves at the expense of the broader goals of the institution. This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Directions, 99 Banbury Road The result is an essential corrective to a harmful trend that increasingly affects usall. Daniel Miessler is a cybersecurity leader, writer, and founder of Unsupervised Learning. 2018. Select the sections that are relevant to you. The result is a tyranny of metrics that threatens the quality of our lives and most important institutions. Princeton, New Jersey 08540 says that an over-reliance on metrics can lead us to disproportionately value the things that are easiest to measure. Only when multiple compromises have been made and a deal has been reached can it be subjected to public scrutiny, that is, made transparent. What the advocates of greater government accountability metrics overlook is that the very real problem of the increasing costs of college and university education is due in part to the expanding cadres of administrators, many of whom are required in order to comply with government mandates. A key premise of metric fixation concerns the relationship between measurement and improvement. For convenience, lets call it metric fixation. Before we turn to the proper use of measured performance, let us gather together some lessons from our case studies about the recurrent perils of metrics. How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens our schools, medical care, businesses, and government. The Tyranny of Metrics: Muller, Jerry Z.: 9780691191911: Amazon.com: Books Books Science & Math Mathematics Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery Buy new: $10.25 List Price: $18.95 Save: $8.70 (46%) Engaging Youll read or watch this all the way through the end. One vector of the metric fixation was the rise of management consultants, outfitted with the managerial skills of quantitative analysis, whose first maxim was If you cant measure it, you cant manage it? Reliance on numbers and quantitative manipulation not only gave the impression of scientific expertise based on hard evidence, it also minimised the need for specific, intimate knowledge of the institutions to whom advice was being sold. The result is an essential corrective to a harmful trend that increasingly affects us all. Subscribe to receive 30% off your first order. That is the first source of metric dysfunction. Mullers book crisply explains where this fashion came from, why it can be so counterproductive and why we dont learn. getAbstract recommends his practical insights to executives, policy experts and organization leaders trying to escape the metrics trap. eBook. But that simplification may lead to distortion, since making things comparable often means that they are stripped of their context, history, and meaning. Project MUSE - The Tyranny of Metrics The effect is to increase costs or to divert spending from the doers to the administrators-which usually suits the latter just fine. These arguments are mistaken. Rankings create incentives for universities to become more like what the rankings measure. Thus community colleges and other institutions that provide greater access to the less prepared would have been penalised for their low graduation rates. Jerry Muller on the Tyranny of Metrics - Econlib 2023 Project MUSE. To manage the risks of measurement biases, companies . And that too is a matter of judgment. My hope is that others involved in school accountability, including politicians, have the chance to consider its core message. Muller exposes how metrics can mislead and distort, and he details how education, health care, law enforcement, the military, business, finance and nonprofit entities use metrics improperly. In interpersonal relations, even the most intimate ones, success depends on a degree of ambiguity and opacity, on not knowing everything that the other is doing, never mind thinking. A helpful and/or enlightening book that has a substantial number of outstanding qualities without excelling across the board, e.g. Background Youll get contextual knowledge as a frame for informed action or analysis. Visionary Youll get a glimpse of the future and what it might mean for you. 8. It is about the unintended negative consequences of trying to substitute standardised measures of performance for personal judgment based on experience. CEOs, university presidents, and heads of government agencies move from one organisation to another to a greater degree now than in the past. Measurement becomes much less reliable the more its object is human activity, since the objects-people-are self-conscious, and are capable of reacting to the process of being measured. Here's what the ratings mean: 10 Brilliant. These and the many other criticisms of metric fixation the author offers are well argued and will feel all too familiar to teachers and school leaders alike. One way of improving metric scores is by lowering the criteria for scoring. And the second is a similar, more simplified version of the same, by Goodhart: Anything that be measured and rewarded will be gamed. Goal displacement comes in many varieties. Age of Propaganda Book Summary Anthony R. Pratkanis, The Crux Book Summary Richard P. Rumelt. Metrics works best when those measured buy into its purposes and validity. Conquering the tyranny of metrics requires ongoing experimentation and iteration. A helpful and/or enlightening book that combines two or more noteworthy strengths, e.g. Whenever reward is tied to measured performance, metric fixation invites gaming. Nor is making a problem more transparent necessarily a step to its solution. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itselfand this tyranny of metrics now threatens the quality of our organizations and lives. So argues this timely manifesto against measured accountability. And the stakes are high for teachers and principals, whose raises in salary and whose very jobs sometimes depend on this performance indicator. In a vicious circle, a lack of social trust leads to the apotheosis of metrics, and faith in metrics contributes to a declining reliance upon judgment. The Tyranny of Metrics The Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Z. Muller "This book argues that while they are a potentially valuable tool, the virtues of accountability metrics have been oversold, and their costs are often underappreciated." An adaption of Campbell's Law. Compelling the people in an organisation to focus their efforts on the narrow range of what gets measured leads to a degradation of the experience of work. The result is a tyranny of metrics that threatens the quality of our lives and most important institutions. Thus, the power of transparency as a magic formula is such that its counterproductive effects are often ignored. Metric fixation leads to a diversion of resources away from frontline producers toward managers, administrators, and those who gather and manipulate data. By contrast, the more they agree with the goals of those rewards, the more likely they are to react in a way that enhances the measurements validity. Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. This internal use of metrics of performance is of great value in helping hospitals and other medical institutions to enhance the safety and efficacy of their medical care. Rankings (or league tables as they are known in Britain) are an important source of university prestige: alumni and members of the board of trustees are anxious to have their institutions rate highly, as are potential donors and, of course, potential students. With a new preface by the author. As weve seen time and again, measurement is not an alternative to judgment: measurement demands judgment: judgment about whether to measure, what to measure, how to evaluate the significance of whats been measured, whether rewards and penalties will be attached to the results, and to whom to make the measurements available. Numbers and measurements arent substitutes for personal experience and sound judgment. When people are judged by performance metrics, they are incentivised to do what the metrics measure, and what the metrics measure will be some established goal. Entrepreneurship, depends on taking what the economist Frank Knight termed unmeasureable risk, for the potential benefits of an innovation are not subject to precise calculation. Ask why the people at the top of the organisation are demanding performance metrics. The possibility of intimacy depends on our ability to make ourselves more transparent to some people than to others. However, like health and its relationship to the medical system, or education and its relationship to the school system, public safety is only partially dependent on the effectiveness of the police. 7. The more a quantitative metric is visible and used to make important decisions, the more it will be gamedwhich will distort and corrupt the exact processes it was meant to monitor. Kicullen also warns against the use of all input metrics, that is, metrics that count what the army and its allies are doing, for these may be quite distinct from the outcomes of those actions. Performance indicators can certainly aid, but not replace, the key functions of management: thinking ahead, judging, and deciding. Its appropriate to reward such activities through promotions and bonuses-even if it is more difficult to document and requires a greater degree of judgment by those who decide on the rewards. People with a metric fixation claim that exact measurement increases transparency and responsibility. Discover your next favorite book with getAbstract. But there is a difference between promotions (and raises) based on a range of qualities, and direct remuneration based on measured quantities of output. Phone: +86 10 8457 8802 6 Notable. Rewarding individuals for measured performance diminishes the sense of common purpose as well as the social relationships that provide the un-measureable motivation for cooperation and institutional effectiveness. China The core of managerial expertise was now defined as a distinct set of skills and techniques, focused upon a mastery of quantitative methodologies. Decisions based on numbers were viewed as scientific, since numbers were thought to imply objectivity and accuracy. Inspiring Youll want to put into practice what youve read immediately. Of course, the scores on English and math achievement tests cannot measure the full benefits of K-12 education. As Tom Daschle, the Democratic former majority leader of the Senate, has recently observed, the idea that Washington would work better if there were TV cameras monitoring every conversation gets it exactly wrong. Im not convinced this is true in theory, but its definitely true in practical terms given current society and technology. One predictable effect of the weight attributed to future income in college rankings will be to incentivise institutions to channel their students into the most high-paying fields. And the same holds true on the national level. Historian Jerry Muller, in his essential new book The Tyranny of Metrics, offers what might be the best summary of how McNamara-like thinking has pervaded our own; in the same way that Steven Levy . Depending on taste, one could call it a cultural meme an pistme, a discourse, a paradigm, a self-reinforcing rhetorical system, or simply a fashion. Clarity and publicity kill. Professionals tend to resent the impositions of goals that may conflict with their vocational ethos and judgment, and thus morale is lowered. believing that the way to success is to measure performance. When numbers, standardised measurement of performance, and big data are seen as the wave of the future, professional judgment based upon experience and talent are seen as retrograde, almost anachronistic. When individual faculty members, or whole departments, are judged by the number of publications, whether in the form of articles or books, the incentive is to produce more publications, rather than better ones. A one-time assessment is a good start, but it's not enough. As weve noted, the demand for performance measures sometimes flows from the ignorance of executives about the institutions theyve been hired to manage, and that ignorance is often a result of parachuting into an organisation with which one has little experience. Muller argues that public policy and management are overly focused on measurable outcomes as a measure of success. We rate each piece of content on a scale of 110 with regard to these two core criteria. It will make you realise just because something can be measured it doesn't make it important as well as how metrics create incentive systems that may have run away side effects. The Tyranny of Merit was initially published in 2020 by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, with a revised paperback edition quickly following in 2021. At getAbstract, we summarize books* that help people understand the world and make it better. The author provides examples on the metrics that were used in Military, Academics, schools and corporate, where the dominance of metrics has boomeranged. I can think of no better deprogrammer than Jerry Muller, whose renowned skills in dissecting political and social doctrines are evident here. Kindle Edition. Metrics are a tempting means of dealing with this bounded rationality, and engaging with matters beyond ones comprehension. But what about goals that are less measureable but no less important, such as instilling good behaviour, inspiring a curiosity about the world, and fostering creative thought? If we distinguish training, which is oriented to production and survival, from education, which is oriented to making survival meaningful, then the College Scorecard is only about the former. The attempt to measure performance while pocked with pitfalls, as we will see-is intrinsically desirable. Kindle Edition. It means that people are rewarded or penalised for outcomes that are actually independent of their efforts. Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. That is also why effective politicians must to some degree be two-faced, pursuing more flexibility in closed negotiations than in their public advocacy. Helpful Youll take-away practical advice that will help you get better at what you do. Concrete Examples Youll get practical advice illustrated with examples of real-world applications or anecdotes. The politicians, in turn, put pressure on their police chiefs to reduce the crime rate, who in turn put pressure on those below them in the police hierarchy. Directions, Princeton Asia (Beijing) Consulting Co., Ltd. To put it another way, ask your self, is what you are measuring a proxy for what you really want to know? contains uncommonly novel ideas and presents them in an engaging manner. The Tyranny of Metrics - The Key Point Indeed, as the economist Frank Knight noted almost a century ago, entrepreneurship entails immeasurable uncertainty, which is not susceptible to metric calculation. There are things that can be measured. Focusing measurement on just one responsibility or goal often leads to deceptive results. There are things that are worth measuring. getAbstract offers a free trial to qualifying organizations that want to empower their workforce with curated expert knowledge. Then read Jerry Muller's new book and you will understand such folly as one more instance of an unhappy, massive trendabandoning the situated judgment of experienced professionals in favor of the supposedly objective judgment promised (but not delivered) by the magic bullet of metrics: standardized measures and huge data banks touted as generating insight and wisdom all by themselves. Those at the top face to a greater degree than most of us a cognitive constraint that confronts all of us: making decisions despite having limited time and ability to deal with information overload. Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide. Overview Youll get a broad treatment of the subject matter, mentioning all its major aspects. A helpful and/or enlightening book that stands out by at least one aspect, e.g. Available as But metrics tend to be most successful for those interventions and outcomes that are almost entirely controlled by and within the organisations medical system, as in the case of checklists of procedures to minimise central line-induced infections. And public safety also depends on the ease of committing crime. Insofar as individuals are agents out to maximise their own interests, there are inevitable drawbacks to all schemes of measured reward. High-stakes testing leads to other dysfunctions as well, such as creaming: studies of schools in Texas and in Florida showed that average achievement levels were increased by reclassifying weaker students as disabled, thus removing them from the assessment pool. Or out and out cheating, as teachers alter student answers, or toss out tests by students likely to be low scorers, these phenomena are well documented in Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, Washington, D.C., and other cities. Directions. 9. In addition to expenditures that do nothing to raise the quality of teaching or research, the growing salience of rankings has led to ever new varieties of gaming through creaming and improving numbers through omission or distortion of data. Those are, of course, legitimate considerations: college costs eat up an increasing percentage of familial income or entail the student taking on debt; and making a living is among the most important tasks in life. Metrics are a good way to align a team around a goal. Learn more. But by a sort of linguistic sleight of hand, accountability has come to mean demonstrating success through standardised measurement, as if only that which can be counted really counts. Yet that is the ideal of education that the College Scorecard embodies and encourages, as do similar metrics. And measurement may provide us with distorted knowledge-knowledge that seems solid but is actually deceptive. A common flaw is measuring what's easiest You don't want to measure the simple, when the outcome you want is complex Measuring inputs rather than outputs Gaming through creaming is when you find simpler targets or only choose inputs where you're likely to have good metrics And be prepared to go digging, since the negative effects could be well-hidden.
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