When Metrics Mislead the Way

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

An adage often attributed to the British economist Charles Goodhart is as applicable today as in 1975.

In a world obsessed with metrics, we often manipulate the system to gain short-term benefits, compromising our long-term vision.

This is where Goodhart's Law helps nudge us into the right path.

In this blog post, I'll discuss the prevalent problems of a metric-focused society and suggest ways for you to progress meaningfully.

Let's begin with:

The problem with metrics

Metrics are helpful. They allow us to see things clearly and project our future options and plans.

The problem appears when we get too wrapped up in it.

Obsessing over numbers often detaches us from the goal we began with — especially if we're focused too much on chasing the wrong metrics. We aim to game the system to meet a target number rather than making progress in the right direction.

A prime example of this practice is the modern workplace, where managers incentivise their teams to focus more on metrics than meaningful work.

I've witnessed this firsthand in the last company I worked at.

Managers unanimously directed their teams in their one-on-one sessions to focus on creating “visibility” within the team. Simply put, this means advertising yourself enough to be noticed by the higher-ups, which would help make a strong case for your promotion.

On the surface, this might seem like a sound idea. When working in a company with thousands of employees, you must showcase your work to advance and progress on the corporate ladder.

But this creates a new breed of problems.

Visibility, a measure of good work, has transformed into a target to be abused. People start focusing on how to advertise their name more often rather than doing good work.

And this is precisely what I saw some of my team members do.

We had a process for every new feature development of our app where a team would understand the business requirements, convert that into an RFC document illustrating how the practical implementation would look and discuss with the entire team for their input before proceeding with the development.

People hell-bent too much on “creating visibility” for themselves focused on the number of comments they could leave on the RFC document instead of thinking deeply about the implementation and contributing helpful ideas.

This led to two problems:

1. For the commentator: They were robbing themselves of the opportunity to think diversely and grow as software engineers because, to them, the important thing was that they put a comment to their name on a shared document. Some comments and questions were so redundant that if the author had read the entire RFC before punching in their comments, they would've found their questions already addressed a few paragraphs below.
2. For the team: Plenty of time was lost answering the redundant questions in a time-limited session, leaving the thoughtful, out-of-the-box queries unattended or pushed for shallow reviews.

And the problem seeps beyond the realm of team discussions.

Employees often focus more on doing superficial work to chase metrics rather than focusing on building good products:

Moving beyond the workplace, today's social media is another example where chasing metrics goes horribly wrong.

Social media platforms like Threads and X pay people cash based on how many impressions and how much engagement their posts get on the platform.

Again, this seems valid on the surface. You get paid directly from the platform for your work.

However, this has led to a flood of engagement baits on both platforms, suppressing the fruitful posts and candid discussions that are the ethos of a thriving town square.

Nowadays, it's rare to scroll through social media feeds without encountering silly, often copied engagement baits that are getting far more attention than genuine posts.

This creates a subpar experience for the platform's users, degrading its trust and quality over time. The problem has been so rampant that Meta has finally acknowledged this behaviour and is working on combating the issue.

Platform aside, chasing engagement on social media might propel someone a few yards ahead now, but it rarely works as a long-term strategy.

On most of the viral engagement bait posts with thousands of likes and hundreds of comments I've seen on these platforms, the author rarely gained followers or had meaningful replies on their posts during their stints.

Why?

Because people look to other people for their quality work, not engagement hooks.

Another clear example of this practice is in search engine optimisation.

I've seen websites that once received hundreds of thousands of visitors from Google search drop to near zero after a Google search algorithm update.

When this happens, people complain that Google killed their business, when the truth is that they did it themselves by starting to focus on writing to game search engine algorithms instead of writing to help fellow humans.

They focused too much on the metrics and forgot about their purpose — why they wanted to write an article in the first place.

On a personal level, health tracking is an area where Goodhart's Law is a wake-up call.

The invention of personal health trackers, such as fitness bands, glucose monitoring patches, and sleep tracker rings, has caused more stress and turmoil than it has contributed to good health.

Take sleep tracking, for example. You slip on a fitness band on your arm or a smart ring like Oura on your finger and go to bed, hoping for a good night's sleep.

Once you wake up the next day, the first thing you do is track how well you slept last night. The app says you scored 70% on the recommended sleep statistics.

It's okay, but not good. You think, “Why didn't I score above 90%?”

This creates anxiety and unnecessary pressure when you go to bed again. You have to score better tonight.

Unfortunately, you score even less than your first night's sleep because your mind's too troubled with optimising your sleep for an external metric rather than being on rest.

What was supposed to be a period of rest, peace, and recovery has now turned into this vicious game that's silently impacting your health and making you miserable.

This isn't a hypothetical situation; the problem is very much real and even has a name: orthosomnia.

A supposedly good measure becomes a target and ceases to be a good measure.

But in a world hyped with numbers and tracking oneself at work and home, what's the way out?

The answer is:

Emphasising principles over directionless metrics

For years, I have prioritised North Star principles over chasing metrics in my work, and they have worked well.

Take this blog as an example. This blog has been around for the last four years. According to the standard publishing frequency, most writers aim to write at least one blog post per week when growing a blog from scratch. That's well over 200 blog posts in four years.

Hulry, however, has around 80 posts published in the last four years.

Why?

I haven't been chasing a metric; instead, I have been focusing on publishing good pieces worth someone's 5–10 minutes of reading time.

In the last four years, my principle has always been to publish helpful pieces rather than meeting a strict schedule and publishing subpar work.

Hulry doesn't have 200 blog posts, but each of the 80 posts is well-thought-out and provides some value to the reader instead of being a complete time-waster.

Thankfully, many readers who've emailed me over the years think so, too. I'm glad this blog has somehow helped strangers in tiny corners of this planet.

But I'm no saint, and temptations are strong.

Recently, to boost my social media presence, I set a goal of posting something on Hulry's Threads account every Monday through Saturday, ideally twice daily.

While this started on a good note because I had a backlog of helpful tips and tricks to share, the quality dwindled when I started keeping up with my set target, even though I didn't have anything interesting to share.

I tried a few posts to keep the engine running, but they didn't help my audience much and were poorly received because the measure became the target.

Since then, I've reduced my posting frequency to be more flexible and accommodate sharing ideas and tips that genuinely help the person on the other end of this long internet tunnel. This practice has relieved me of undue pressure and rejuvenated my profile on Threads like clockwork.

Returning to the RFC example we discussed earlier, embracing principles over metrics allows one to focus on doing good work rather than only adding points to their promotion parcel.

When you do good work, it will speak for itself, ultimately appearing on your performance review — and helping you grow in the process.

If you're a manager, aligning your team to focus on solving actual problems, like making customer experience better or solving existing problems in the system, will help form a cohesive team where every member works collectively to solve a problem rather than race each other to come out on top of a vanity contest.

Lean teams often make the most breakthroughs because they work together on a meaningful problem instead of chasing superficial metrics. This helps not only the company but also the individuals, who gain enviable skills in solving complex problems and growing further in their careers.

In business, this could mean spending time and energy focusing on your ideal customer, understanding their needs and the holes in your current product, and developing a product that genuinely helps them rather than engaging in a contest to ship more features or squeeze more revenue.

The recent rotting of Google search is a classic example.

Even until a few years ago, the search experience on Google was unparalleled. You could find what you wanted in seconds, presented neatly on a clean, minimal webpage.

But over the years, to squeeze more money from search ads, Google has been sacrificing its principle of good user experience over a metric — revenue.

Search result pages today are littered with too many ads, taking attention away from the helpful results and duping the user into clicking ads for revenue:

Ironically, decades earlier, Google's clean, ad-free, or ad-minimal experience set it apart from its competitors, Yahoo and AltaVista and propelled it to where it is today.

But when revenue turned from being a measure to a target, the rot began to form.

Now that Google faces competition from AI products like ChatGPT and Perplexity, it's even more vital that Google readjusts their target to follow its long-lost principle of good experience to keep its dominant position in the search engine market.

Lastly, moving to a personal level, shifting focus from optimising for good fitness scores to targeting overall good health will help you maintain a healthy life without stressing too much about the small stuff.

You'll sleep far better if you follow the core principles of eating well, worrying less, and exercising regularly rather than trying to hit your daily sleep goal.

Some days will be rough, and you'll sleep less than usual, but it will all average over time if you zoom out.

The same goes for measuring your glucose levels or everything you eat.

If you eat a balanced diet 90% of the time, you can enjoy the occasional treats without feeling too guilty about missing the mark.

On the plus side, a flexible approach like this is more likely to succeed than being too focused on numbers, which can lead to burnout and relapse quickly.

Remember: principles and long-term goals over purposeless metrics.

With that in mind, take some time to:

Recalibrate what you're chasing

My most recent recalibration has been shifting my attitude toward fitness from metrics like target body weight and fat percentage to aiming for overall good health.

Sure, my body weight and muscle-fat ratio could measure my progress, but they don't define my goals. This shift in perspective has given me the flexibility to develop a long-term fitness habit.

There are days when I might miss working out at the gym because I have a deadline, am not feeling well, or have an urgent commitment I can't turn down, but that's okay.

When I'm short on time, I substitute light stretching or a 7-minute workout for my regular weightlifting routine or simply skip exercising for the day.

I know that as long as I'm eating well and incorporating even a bit of exercise or walking into my routine, it'll compound to good health over the long term.

Here's what you can do:

Take an hour or a few to understand your current targets in areas like work, family, health and personal growth.

Are you focused on a long-term vision or principle, or are you chasing some external metric that might not even matter in the long run?

Having a North Star principle or purpose for every corner of your life helps here.

For example, if you want to learn more things this year, reading five books well instead of fifty would be a better target. Your North Star principle is to gain knowledge, not read as many books as possible.

There's no point if you rush through fifty books without retaining any of the knowledge you encountered along the way.

Skimming through fifty books in a year will give you bragging rights. Reading five books well will enlighten you in ways you haven't imagined.

Remember Goodhart's Law when setting targets and goals:

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Focus on what matters to you — your work, business, and health — rather than chasing an arbitrary target that doesn't even make sense.

Good luck.