The Tyranny of Metrics, Jerry Z. Muller
The Tyranny of Metrics, Jerry Z. Muller
1 Rating(s)
List: $15.99 | Sale: $11.20
Club: $7.99

The Tyranny of Metrics

Author: Jerry Z. Muller

Narrator: Matthew Josdal

Unabridged: 5 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/24/2018


Synopsis

How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens our schools, medical care, businesses, and government

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.

About Jerry Z. Muller

Jerry Z. Muller is the author of many books, including The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought, Adam Smith in His Time and Ours, and Capitalism and the Jews. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Literary Supplement, and Foreign Affairs, among other publications. He is professor of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mal on April 18, 2018

I was not surprised by historian Jerry Z. Muller's comments about "metric fixation" in his illuminating new book, The Tyranny of Metrics. Some years ago the chairman and CEO of a Fortune 500 company remarked to me that nobody, not even Jack Welch, the then-idolized leader of General Electric, could p......more

Goodreads review by Tom on October 04, 2018

A sustained critique of what Muller calls "metric fixation" is necessary and long-overdue. Muller captures how the overuse and dependency on metrics and quantification, particularly for evaluating performance, is hollowing out and damaging key social, cultural, political, commercial, and philanthrop......more

Goodreads review by Sebastian on December 22, 2021

I failed to love this book, for several reasons: - the language is very dry, feels like some weasel-consulting presentation - once the author started starting, he couldn't stop ;P literally, ~20% of the book is its intro - the content is very repetitive - yes, they are a few interesting examples (primar......more

Goodreads review by David on January 20, 2018

Too many metrics are killing productivity During the great famine in China, local officials yanked plants out of the ground and raced ahead of Mao’s itinerary to plant them at his next stop, thus fooling the chairman into thinking bumper crops were everywhere. They kept their jobs and their heads, bu......more

Goodreads review by Nelson on January 14, 2023

3.5/5 O título “The Tyranny of Metrics” do professor Jerry Z. Muller é indissociável do título “The Tyranny of Merit” do imensamente mais conhecido professor Michael J. Sandel. Mas em defesa de Muller, o seu livro é de 2018, e o de Sandel de 2020. Mas a aproximação não se fica pelos títulos, vai ao f......more