Muller, J.Z. (2018). The Argument in A Nutshell, Business and Finance, & Philanthropy and Foreign Aid. The tyranny of metrics (pp. 17-21, 137-156). Princeton University Press.
With so much data easily available now, organizations can fall victim to metric fixation, believing that human judgment can and should be replaced with numerical indicators. However, it’s important to remember that not everything that’s important is measurable, and not everything that’s measurable is important. Things like reputation, employee satisfaction, motivation, loyalty, trust, and cooperation can’t be measured exactly. For instance, using data to determine employee goals and performance pay can stifle innovation, creativity, and risk-taking, and can cause employees to cut corners in the interest of higher pay. Performance pay is a good fit when an employee’s work is repetitive and uncreative, when there’s little possibility that they will have to make choices, and when collaboration isn’t an important part of the job.
Social media goals tend to be very metrics-driven. While numerical goals are certainly helpful, it’s important for some leniency to be built in so that social media creators feel empowered to take risks. Creativity and experimentation are essential in order to have a successful social media presence because trends are constantly changing, and there’s no way to figure out what content will be high-performing except by trying. The impact of metric goals on employees’ desire to be innovative and take risks is important to keep in mind when establishing expectations for social media teams.
Learning Outcome 3: Address complex challenges by collaboratively leading teams across disciplines, distances, and sectors.
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