The Tyranny of Metrics

This is a timely and important critique of the pervasive tendency to define success in terms of quantifying human performance, accountability and transparency, a trend that has invaded every profession. It makes clear that measuring has an important role, but focuses on 'the unintended negative consequences of trying to substitute standardised measures of performance for personal judgement based on experience.' Precisely this judgement based on experience is the hallmark of an accomplished professional in every field, but this obsession with measurement has not only diminished professional standing, but also undermined trust and demoralised practitioners. As an academic, the author has his own take and experience, devoting a long chapter to colleges and universities, and another to schools. There are also chapters on medicine, policing, the military, business and finance, philanthropy and foreign aid.

The author explains the origins of measuring and paying for performance, and why metrics became so popular. He makes the important point that it highlights extrinsic rather than intrinsic motivation, money rather than love. Culturally, it is interesting to note that Matthew Arnold attacked the narrow and mechanistic conception of education in his own day. Among the recurring flaws identified are measuring the most easily measurable, degrading information quality through standardisation, and improving numbers by lowering standards - which one sees in the ever rising proportion of first-class and 2-1 degrees in universities (24% of degrees in 2017 were Firsts). Readers will no doubt be familiar with the proliferation of procedures for reporting and decision-making in their own fields, requiring ever more meetings, reports and coordination, all of which leaves less time for actual teaching and research. Metrics also produce a narrowing of focus, for instance in teaching to the test and concentrating ever more exclusively on exams and results. Technically, the author defines this as goal displacement through diversion of effort to what gets measured, which also tends to promote short-termism and generally degrades the quality of experience of working as well as productivity. He ends with a useful checklist of when and how to use metrics. The book is an incisive corrective to a trend that should now be contained.