Performance targets become ends in themselves wherever they are imposed

Evidence

In a strange compulsion to repeat, the ostensibly anti-Stalinist neoliberal New Labour government has shown the same tendency to implement initiatives in which real world effects matter only insofar as they register at the level of (PR) appearance. The notorious ‘targets’ which the New Labour government was so enthusiastic in imposing are a case in point. In a process that repeats itself with iron predictability everywhere that they are installed, targets quickly cease to be a way of measuring performance and become ends in themselves. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 93

In a strange compulsion to repeat, the ostensibly anti-Stalinist neoliberal New Labour government has shown the same tendency to implement initiatives in which real world effects matter only insofar as they register at the level of (PR) appearance. The notorious ‘targets’ which the New Labour government was so enthusiastic in imposing are a case in point. In a process that repeats itself with iron predictability everywhere that they are installed, targets quickly cease to be a way of measuring performance and become ends in themselves. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 93

Categorization

• XREF: Campbell’s law (targets corrupt measurements) and Goodhart’s law — this is a concrete, well-illustrated instance of a familiar social-law idea. — connects to: Audited representation displaces actual performance as work’s real goal — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 91; Performance targets distort actual work toward what is measured — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 93; Optimizing for stated goals produces monstrous outcomes — , The Braided Reading EPUB: 5-Year…, 655 (+2 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 93

Related

• Performance targets distort actual work toward what is measured (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Performance targets distort actual work toward what is measured #corroborates (0.95) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 93
• Optimizing for stated goals produces monstrous outcomes #expands (0.85) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 655
• Bilndly pursued goals lose their meaning because goals are defined along the way #corroborates (0.80)
• End-goal-only rewards make learning impractically slow #exemplifies (0.80) — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 672