Fred,
I find it interesting that you pick this up. I am very interested in your
views of the use of measures in the companies that you deal with.
My assessement, mainly from the health industry, is that measures can be
very useful when they are controlled and interpreted by people who are
close to the activity, but tend to become quite perverse when imposed or
used by people who have little real understanding of what is really
involved. There are probably several reasons for this. One is context -
meaning is given by the situations around the numbers. The other is the
politics of control and resistance to control.
However, context is usually applied rather intuitively - and people are
often not aware of the different interpretations that can be given to
measures by others with very different understandings. They think measures
carry some absolute meaning.
The real problem comes from people who are quite removed from the process
who think they can gain some real understanding by collecting a select few
measures. This, it seems, is inherent in the balanced score card, and is
common in approaches to policy and public accountability.
Yours
Gray Southon
At 08:04 AM 4/17/02 -0400, you wrote:
>The exchange between Gray Southon and Amanda Martin, although tied to
>organizational indicators and measurements of innovation, is also
>applicable to individual performance reviews or appraisals. I am
>especially taken by this comment from Gray:
>
>>I realise that there are many demands for indicators to demonstrate level
>>of performance from both managers and public. But there is a very real
>>issue of how validly one can present a complex process by a few parameters.
>>It seems many assume that if you present some information that is better
>>than nothing. However, a few convenient parameters may grossly distort
>>reality, especially if they are used as incentives (e.g. mortality figures
>>for hospitals act as an incentive to minimise critical admissions).
>>
>>Not that measure are necessarily bad, but there is plenty of evidence that
>>they are often highly problematic, and i see little evidence that people
>>are aware of the complexities of measures.
>>
>>Yours
>>
>>Gray Southon
>
>
>Regards,
>
>Fred Nickols
>740.397.2363
>
nickols@att.net
>"Assistance at A Distance"
>http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm
>
-----------------------------------------------------------
Gray Southon
Honorary Research Associate
University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Director, Southon Consulting.
Ph 02 9524 7822, mobile: 0416 295 056 Fax 02 9531 0781
email:
gsouthon@ozemail.com.au
Personal Web Site
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~gsouthon/