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Focus On Impact

boz.com · 645 words · saved by 1 readers

Imagine you run a call center and you want to provide the team with productivity targets. You start with the number of calls people take, but your reps start hanging up on people so they will call back and double their volume. Next you go with customer satisfaction but your reps start giving everyone refunds even when it isn’t merited. You try length of time spent on calls and suddenly all your customers are on hold for hours. This problem is the foundation of Goodhart’s law, which states that “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” This law applies to more than just productivity targets. If you target clicks in News Feed you get clickbait. If you target comments you get quizzes. If you create a bounty to get rid of snakes in your town people start breeding snakes and the population goes up instead of down. You get the idea. I believe I have observed a novel form of this law: when a company slogan becomes an article of faith, it ceases to be a good slogan. Fo

Focus On Impact Imagine you run a call center and you want to provide the team with productivity targets. You start with the number of calls people take, but your reps start hanging up on people so they will call back and double their volume. Next you go with customer satisfaction but your reps start giving everyone refunds even when it isn’t merited. You try length of time spent on calls and suddenly all your customers are on hold for hours. This problem is the foundation of Goodhart’s law, which states that “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” This law applies t

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