{"id":3113,"date":"2021-03-18T07:37:51","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T07:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/escp.eu\/thechoice\/?p=3113"},"modified":"2022-02-04T12:49:58","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T10:49:58","slug":"a-critique-of-the-tyranny-of-metrics-and-figures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/escp.eu\/thechoice\/tl-dr\/a-critique-of-the-tyranny-of-metrics-and-figures\/","title":{"rendered":"A critique of the tyranny of metrics and figures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How do we get to the \u201ctruth\u201d of organisations today? Quite simply, by the main avenue: a quantitative assessment. The belief that it is figures, and figures alone, that hold the truth to an organisation has spread like wildfire throughout the global economy<\/mark>, to such an extent that it has become the only legitimate criterion for assessing a company\u2019s health.  In the title of his book published by Princeton University Press<\/a>, American historian Jerry Z. Muller refers to this trend as \u201cThe Tyranny of Metrics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this book, Jerry Muller denounces the excesses, and only the excesses, of this trend to emphasise calculability, which has taken root in many areas, in particular businesses, but in universities and hospitals too. He points to the many organisational absurdities caused by this calculocratic obsession for figures<\/strong>, and the way in which certain measurement systems ultimately accomplish the opposite of what they set out to do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

He cites the example of the Department of Health in England, which adopted a policy to penalise public hospitals in which patients had to wait longer than four hours in waiting rooms. The statistics showed positive results very quickly and the operation was considered a success \u2013 until it was realised that emergency rooms had started making patients wait in ambulances so that they would be not be counted in the waiting rooms\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also gives the example of members of the boards of directors of big American corporations, who are so busy checking the accuracy of their reporting figures since the adoption of the Sarbannes-Oxley Act to reform accounting for listed companies in the United States, that they simply forget to consider their company’s strategy, for lack of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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