Targets as they are currently set and tied to incentives, promote bad behaviours that ultimately make the results unsustainable.
The only target required in most organisations should be geared towards the reliability of data, but that is boring.
Every leader wants to show more hunger, and one of the symbols of that hunger is audacious targets. Win now, apologise later.
Immediately a target is set, reliable data that tells us what is going on, becomes unreliable. I have seen this so often and everyone I talk to in leadership acknowledges it, but we all keep on setting targets, because we must show that we are hungry. Audacious targets prevail.
Goodhart’s law puts it better, “When a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure.”
Is there another way? Yes, many others.
For one, incentivise reliability of data and drive activities that improve reliability. If the data is reliable, data drives decision making.
Currently, most systems incentivise targets and drive activities that align numbers. If the numbers are aligned, decision making drives data.
– Osasu Oviawe