The Tyranny of Metrics With a new preface by the autor
“[Muller] says that an over-reliance on metrics can lead us to disproportionately value the things that are easiest to measure....These and the many other criticisms of metric fixation the author offers are well argued and will feel all too familiar to teachers and school leaders alike.” —JAMES BOWE...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Princeton ; Oxford
Princeton University Press
2019, ©2018
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| Collection: | DeGruyter MPG Collection - Collection details see MPG.ReNa |
| Summary: | “[Muller] says that an over-reliance on metrics can lead us to disproportionately value the things that are easiest to measure....These and the many other criticisms of metric fixation the author offers are well argued and will feel all too familiar to teachers and school leaders alike.” —JAMES BOWEN,Times Education Supplement -- “A timely and important critique of the pervasive tendency to define success in terms of quantifying human performance, accountability and transparency, a trend that has invaded every profession.”—Paradigm Explorer -- “Short, unpretentious, scholarly, and full of insights.”—PIERRE LEMIEUX, Regulation -- “For every quantification, there’s a way of gaming it. So argues this timely manifesto against measured accountability.”—Kirkus Reviews -- “In this clear and compelling book, Jerry Muller shows how our attempts to improve organizational outcomes through quantitative measures have metastasized into a culture of gaming and manipulation. Through carefully researched case studies on education, healthcare, and compensation, The Tyranny of Metrics makes a convincing case that we need to restore judgment and ethical considerations at a time when shallow quantification threatens the integrity of our most important institutions.” —RAKESH KHURANA, Harvard Business School -- “In The Tyranny of Metrics, Jerry Muller has brought to life the many ways in which numerical evaluations result in deleterious performance: in our schools, our universities, our hospitals, our military, and our businesses. This book addresses a major problem.”—GEORGE A. AKERLOF, Nobel Prize–winning economis How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens business, medicine, education, government—and the quality of our livesToday, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself—and this tyranny of metrics now threatens the quality of our organizations and lives. In this brief, accessible, and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage metrics are causing and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from business, medicine, education, government, and other fields, the book explains why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But Muller also shows that, when used as a complement to judgment based on personal experience, metrics can be beneficial, and he includes an invaluable checklist of when and how to use them. The result is an essential corrective to a harmful trend that increasingly affects us all. |
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| ISBN: | 978-1-4008-8943-3 |