1891 || spirit of the goal vs. the rewar...

Humans will always focus on the easiest path towards positive feedback (or avoiding negative feedback). We love a little treat. If we're not careful (and we forget the human element), we will get so focused on the reward that we will forget the reason why we started the reward program in the first place.

Sometimes our emotional world's and subjective experiences are what make us MORE reliable, not less.

The focus on getting a high score actually distorts what we're scoring. The problem is not measurement, but a fixation on it. This is why teachers teach to a test, or why cops create fake crime accusations to meet quotas, or why doctors reject patients who need the most care. Quality quickly falls to the wayside to quantity, which is often a bad thing.

More examples: The cobra effect, the Hanoi rat problem, the broken dinosaur bone problem, tax refunds for carbon credits, "bug bounties" for programmers, rage bait being "engagement" on social media, banks selling loans to meet quotas, The McNamara Strategy", "No child left behind", are all examples of well intentioned incentive programs being distorted to meet metrics over spirit.

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." - Goodhart’s Law

The sources:

1. Jerry Z. Muller's The Tyranny of Metrics.
2. https://danielmiessler.com/blog/how-to-create-bad-metrics-incentivize-wrong-behaviors
3. Grading is ineffective (Medium Post)
4. (YouTube) Can Metrics Destroy Societies?
5. Well's Fargo Scandal

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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