Measure What Matters

Being in a leadership role, I am constantly setting goals, chasing numbers, and tracking performance. But there’s a quiet trap hidden in all this—a principle called Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

Why? Because a good measure is meant to reflect reality. A target, on the other hand, becomes something we chase, often at the cost of the bigger picture.

A typical weight loss example is a great way to illustrate this idea.

The goal is to be healthy and fit. But once the number on the scale becomes an obsession, people crash diet, cut corners, and end up worse off. The behavior gets distorted.

It’s the same at work.

Focus only on revenue, and teams may cut corners to deliver.

Focus only on speed, and quality suffers.

Targets become proxies that miss the richness of good outcomes.

So what can we do?

• Choose measures that reflect meaningful outcomes, not just convenient outputs
• Pair targets with context-what should not be compromised
• Regularly ask- are we chasing the number or the purpose?

Measure what matters. But never lose sight of why it matters.