When the Score Becomes the Goal
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
One of the most important ideas I’ve carried with me throughout my career isn’t from business school. It’s a simple observation from economist Charles Goodhart.
I’ve watched this play out in almost every industry I’ve worked in.
Return on Expectations
Years ago, I worked as an eLearning specialist. We weren’t selling software or machinery. We were helping organizations build stronger communication, better leadership, and healthier teams.
The first question from executives was always the same.
“What’s the ROI?” It was a fair question.
The investment was easy to calculate. The return wasn’t.
If Angela became a better manager after a leadership workshop, how many dollars was that worth? If Louie learned how to summarize complex information more clearly and customers trusted him more because of it, which future sale should receive the credit?
A spreadsheet could never answer those questions. So consultants—including me—began talking about ROE: Return on Expectations and the conversation shifted.
Instead of asking, “Did this training generate exactly $87,432?” we asked, “What did you expect to be different six months from now?”
Would customer conversations improve? Would teams collaborate more effectively? Would managers spend less time resolving conflict? Would salespeople build more trust? Yes, those were subjective questions, but they were often the right ones.
Don’t Confuse the Measurement With the Mission
Looking back, though, I realize we were wrestling with something much larger.
We were trying to avoid confusing the measurement with the mission.
I’ve seen what happens when that distinction disappears.
When Test Scores Become the Target
Public education offers one of the clearest examples. The goal was noble: improve educational outcomes and make sure no student fell through the cracks.
But somewhere along the way, test scores became the target—instead of the innumerable ways schools and teachers make our communities kinder, stronger, and smarter.
Teachers adapted to the system they were given. Schools optimized for the metrics that determined funding, rankings, and public perception. Entire communities became defined by numbers that were never designed to capture the full complexity of a child, a classroom, or a neighborhood.
The measure became the mission.
And once that happened, the measure stopped measuring what everyone actually cared about.
Every Metric Changes Behavior
Business falls into the same trap. Customer satisfaction becomes a survey score. Employee engagement becomes a participation percentage. Innovation becomes the number of ideas submitted. Sales become calls made instead of relationships built.
Every metric changes behavior. That’s what makes metrics powerful—and dangerous.
The question isn’t whether we should measure. We should.
The question is whether the people doing the work still remember why the measurement exists. The healthiest organizations I’ve been part of never worshipped dashboards. They treated metrics as conversations, not verdicts.
A Number Should Invite a Question
A number should invite a question. It should never end one. Because the things that matter most—trust, curiosity, confidence, communication, belonging—have always been difficult to measure.
That doesn’t make them less valuable. It simply reminds us that some of the most important outcomes in life and business can never be fully captured by a spreadsheet.