The timer was a digital guillotine, silently counting down from 288 seconds. Sarah could hear the customer’s frustration building, a low hum of static anger crackling through her headset. He had a legitimate problem, a recurring billing error that Mostarle’s automated system kept spitting back. But Sarah’s primary directive, the one plastered on every wall and whispered in every team lead meeting, was Average Handle Time. Below 288 seconds. Always.

It was a perverse ballet. The customer wanted resolution. Sarah wanted to provide it. But a cold, algorithmic eye, entirely indifferent to human need, watched. Every extra second spent trying to genuinely help was a tick mark against her performance, a tiny chip out of her bonus, a data point that screamed ‘inefficiency’ in a dashboard somewhere. So, she began the careful dance of ‘de-escalation through expedited closure,’ which usually meant a polite but firm redirection back to the very automated system that had failed him in the first time, all while the meter pulsed red at 28 seconds remaining. It was a victory, in a way. For the metric, at least.

The Tyranny of Targets

This isn’t a story about Sarah; it’s a story about us. It’s a story about how Goodhart’s Law, once a niche academic observation, has become the central operating system of our modern world. When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. It’s no longer just a theory, it’s a lived, grinding reality for millions, a silent tyranny that dictates behavior and distorts intention. And the more we chase these targets, the further we drift from the actual meaning of our work.

We tell ourselves that quantifying everything brings objectivity, a clean, unblemished truth. We believe that KPIs-Key Performance Indicators-will illuminate the path to efficiency and success. But what if they do the opposite? What if, in our relentless pursuit of the measurable, we create an elaborate, self-defeating game where the score is everything and the purpose is forgotten?

I’ve seen it myself, not just in others, but in my own past endeavors. There was a time when I managed a small project, focused solely on reducing one specific cost metric. We hit that target, celebrated it, patted ourselves on the back. Only much later, 18 months down the line, did we realize that by squeezing that one cost to an unprecedented 88% reduction, we’d inadvertently crippled an essential, intangible quality that ended up costing us an estimated $878 in customer goodwill and future revenue. The numbers told a triumphant story, but the underlying reality was a slow, quiet sabotage. We optimized for the metric, and we paid for it.

The Algorithm Auditors

Meet Sam P.K. Sam is an algorithm auditor, a relatively new profession born from this very problem. His job is to scrutinize the digital overlords, to check the code and the logic behind the metrics that govern everything from logistics to employee performance. He tells me stories that would make your hair stand on end. Companies obsessed with ‘engagement rates’ on internal communication platforms, leading employees to post meaningless updates just to tick a box. Hospitals penalized for patient readmission rates, leading to premature discharges that put lives at risk. The list goes on, a chilling testament to the ingenuity with which humans will game any system thrown at them.

Sam once audited a sales team whose commission structure was tied to the number of calls made. Not successful calls, not deals closed, simply *calls made*. So, what happened? Salespeople started making 388 eight-second calls to random numbers, hanging up just as someone answered. Their ‘call volume’ metric soared to 98%, their commissions increased, and the company’s actual sales stagnated. It was a classic Goodhart trap, perfectly sprung.

“The system isn’t broken,” Sam observed dryly, “it’s doing exactly what we told it to do. It’s just that what we told it to do has nothing to do with what we *actually* want it to achieve.”

Sometimes, Sam finds himself needing a break from the abstract, the numbers, the endless loops of flawed logic. He’ll turn off his screens, put on some music – usually something with a persistent, almost hypnotic beat that gets stuck in your head for 48 hours – and pull out one of his 3D metal puzzles. He spends hours carefully detaching the tiny, intricate pieces, bending them, fitting them together. The satisfaction isn’t in a ‘time to completion’ metric, or how many pieces he’s assembled in an hour. It’s in the tactile feedback of metal, the slow, deliberate process of bringing a complex, beautiful object into existence. He builds spaceships, intricate architectural models, and various animals. Each one a testament to tangible quality, to an intrinsic value that no KPI could ever capture. It’s a quiet rebellion, a reminder that some things are simply good because they are, not because a dashboard says so.

You can see some of the incredible designs he’s built on the mostarle website, a world away from the spreadsheets and algorithms he battles daily.

When the Map Replaces the Territory

This isn’t to say all measurement is bad. Data can be incredibly powerful, a lamp that illuminates where we truly stand. The problem arises when the lamp becomes the destination, when the map replaces the territory. We mistake the proxy for the real thing, and then we begin to worship the proxy. It’s an easy mistake to make, a seductive one even, promising clarity and control in an unpredictable world. But it’s a trap that slowly chokes the life out of genuine endeavor.

We need to relearn how to trust our judgment, our intuition, and yes, our *feelings* about what constitutes good work. We need to design systems that reward genuine effort and true impact, even if they are harder to perfectly quantify. This might mean accepting a bit more ambiguity, a touch more subjective assessment, and a willingness to step away from the absolute certainty of a number that, frankly, often lies. Perhaps the most profound measure of success isn’t how well we hit our targets, but how much meaning we find in the work itself, how many real problems we solve, and how many times we resist the urge to just let the digital guillotine fall.