What Gets Measured, Gets Managed?
Why This Common Quote is Dangerously Misunderstood
We’ve all heard the quote “What gets measured gets managed,” but this oversimplification of the original research from which the concept originates can guide leaders in exactly the wrong direction. While the top search results attribute the quote to management guru Peter Drucker, there’s no evidence that he ever said it. Similarly, most people interpret it to mean that leaders must measure anything they want to be prioritized, and this is exactly the opposite of what the research suggests.
In reality, the likely origins of the phrase are in a 1956 paper by V.F. Ridgway titled “Dysfunctional Consequences of Performance Measurements.” Contrary to the popular interpretation, he was warning against overreliance on quantitative measures. A more complete version of his statement is:
“Quantitative measures of performance are tools, and are undoubtedly useful. However research indicates that indiscriminate use and undue confidence and reliance in them result from insufficient knowledge of the full effects and consequences. Judicious use of a tool requires awareness of possible side effects and reactions. Otherwise, indiscriminate use may result in side effects and reactions outweighing the benefits (…) The cure is sometimes worse than the disease.”
This is a little wordy, but fortunately, it was summarized by journalist Simon Caulkin: “What gets measured gets managed—even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organization to do so.” Whichever version you prefer, people who actually study the role of performance measurement in organizations agree: that quantitative measures have their place, but they can also cause problems when applied indiscriminately.
We see this problem constantly in military settings. Training meetings consistently feature “stoplight charts” with important metrics labeled as green (good to go), yellow (trending sub-optimal), or red (not meeting standards). Officers everywhere are conditioned to fear the dreaded “red chicklets.” You can be sure that these measures drive management in a very direct way. Unfortunately, these measures are only proxies for complex concepts like “readiness” and “lethality” and hyperfocusing on only what can be quantified and measured can lead us to miss out on crucial issues that tend towards the qualitative as opposed to quantitative.
As an example, military senior leaders have been heavily focused on issues surrounding resilience and suicide prevention. The protective factors in this space (sense of purpose, sense of belonging, etc.) are notoriously hard to quantify. So instead we measure things like completion rates for mandatory annual training. Does this training influence the outcomes we’re looking for? That’s hard to say, but there is a significant body of evidence to suggest that many of our current programs are not moving the needle on these problems.
When we interviewed Google’s Director of Health and Performance Newton Cheng, he said that their performance programs do not track any particular metrics to justify their impact, and that if they could measure something it would simply be meaningful social connections. This stands in stark contrast to how the military only measures the value of performance programs in terms of how they can impact quantifiable measures of performance.
Tying this back to the mental health conversation, we recently interviewed Charles Vogl (Yale Divinity School graduate and author of The Art of Community) for a forthcoming podcast episode, and he repeatedly emphasized that traditional metrics used to measure community (attendance numbers at events, tracking engagement rates) incentivize leaders to do explicitly counterproductive things that do not bring their people together in any meaningful way. A sense of belongingness within a community is a powerful protector against many mental health conditions and even suicidality, but our “what gets measured gets managed” mindset can become a frustrating obstacle in the way of making meaningful change.
Drew has proposed his very own version of V.F. Ridgway’s original observation, dubbing it Hammond’s Law:
“What gets measured gets managed, but what needs managing isn’t always measurable.”
Often this is because the most important things to manage are subjective and qualitative, making it very difficult to chart them on PowerPoint slides. Perhaps highlighting the fallacy of the original quote can help guide us in a more productive direction.