This principle helps explain why people behave differently from what pure logic would predict.
More quotesDumas was paid by the line. He created Grimaud, a servant who spoke in short sentences. When short lines stopped counting, Grimaud died.
That is performance management with a body count.
People respond to the measure that determines reward, even when the measured behaviour drifts away from the intended result. A publisher wanted valuable serialised fiction and purchased line breaks. A campaign wanted help for Darfur and counted joining a Facebook cause; only 0.2% of members donated.
Clicks, members and lines are attractive because they are visible. The real outcomes—understanding, sustained action, useful attention—are slower and argumentative. So the proxy receives a target, and the target receives creativity. Humans become ingenious in exactly the wrong direction.
Before attaching reward, ask how somebody could maximise the number while harming the objective. Run that question with the most inventive cynic available. Then keep the underlying outcome beside the proxy and track the gap. A leading indicator may move first; it still needs an eventual relationship with what matters.
If membership rises while action stays flat, stop announcing reach as impact. If more lines produce thinner writing, pay differently. If the target is easy to hit through useless behaviour, expect someone to discover how.
Grimaud’s short replies once increased Dumas’s fee. Then the rule changed.
Grimaud dies.