How to Use Metrics Instead of Being Used by Them
Two new books take on performance measurement from different angles and end up in a similar place.
Time to retire.
Photographer: Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images
Jerry Z. Muller is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America known for his finely wrought accounts of capitalism’s intellectual origins. John Doerr is the billionaire chairman of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, known for his early investments in the likes of Amazon.com Inc. and Google. They both have new books out about performance measurement. Muller’s is titled “The Tyranny of Metrics.” Doerr’s is “Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs.”
Muller’s book is, as you might expect, more elegant and erudite than Doerr’s. It is also, as you might not expect, shorter. Here’s what I really didn’t expect, though: Muller and Doerr more or less agree about the use and misuse of metrics.