“When a measure becomes a target …

... it ceases to be a good measure."

If you care about reaching your goals, this matters.

It's a common expression of what's called "Goodhart's law.”

If you know anyone with kids in public schools, you might have heard this as a common critique of standardized testing regimes and “teaching to the test.” It goes like this:

• Tests are meant as an assessment of learning.

• That assessment value is lost when teachers focus on helping kids pass the tests instead of helping them to learn the material itself.

By "teaching to the test," we've changed the goal. It's no longer "helping kids understand history." It's now, "helping kids pass history tests."

Why this matters to you:

Goals matter. Goals motivate us. Goals help us assess our progress and improve our methods.

We believe that if we do more of X, we can accomplish more of Y. Say, if we increase newsletter subscriptions, we can (somehow) stimulate more potential donors to give.

A long as we remember that increased subscrber count is not really valuable in itself, it can be one of several useful metrics in our strategy to increase donations. But on its own, it's not a meaningful target.

Indeed, is even "increased donations" a goal in itself? Even that is probably just a step on the path to your real mission of changing lives.

Here's the thing:

"Lives changed" is hard to measure. "Subscriber count" and "donation total" are easy.

The metrics are useful, and important, and worth your attention.

But only in the context of the real goal.

All the best,
A.