The Tyranny of Metrics -

Jerry Z. Muller

Princeton University Press

2018

240 páginas

8h 0m

ISBN-13: 9780691174952

Today, 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. The result is a tyranny of metrics that threatens the quality of our lives and most important institutions. In this timely and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage our obsession with metrics is causing―and shows how we can begin to fix the problem.

Filled with examples from education, medicine, business and finance, government, the police and military, and philanthropy and foreign aid, this brief and accessible book explains why the seemingly irresistible pressure to quantify performance distorts and distracts, whether by encouraging "gaming the stats" or "teaching to the test." That's because what can and does get measured is not always worth measuring, may not be what we really want to know, and may draw effort away from the things we care about. Along the way, we learn why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But metrics can be good when used as a complement to―rather than a replacement for―judgment based on personal experience, and Muller also gives examples of when metrics have been beneficial.

Complete with a checklist of when and how to use metrics, The Tyranny of Metrics is an essential corrective to a rarely questioned trend that increasingly affects us all.

Resenhas (1)

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“Nem tudo que conta é contável, nem tudo que é contável conta." Einstein.

A economia dos dados tem fixação pelas métricas, mas parece ter o hábito de desprezar os interesses intrínsecos que motivam cada um de nós e os aspectos subjetivos que nos compõem.
Muller aponta o quanto temos direcionado nosso tempo e nossas vidas à consolidação das métricas e o quanto elas são suscetíveis de manipulação, razão pela qual nós também nos tornamos altamente manipuláveis, sobretudo quando há a tendência de as métricas substituírem julgamentos humanos.
A linguagem é simples e fluída, então, a leitura segue um bom fluxo.
Os relatos de casos concretos são muito exemplificativos, além de trazerem fatos históricos que podem estar distantes da nossa realidade, embora com ela guardem confluência.
O enredo apresentado por Muller dialoga profundamente com Einstein, haja vista que ambos expõem que nem tudo que é metrificado tem relevância e nem tudo que é essencial e faz parte do mundo real pode ser absorvido pelas métricas. Vale a pena!