The joke
A man from 1911, stopwatch out, finally meets the worker of his dreams. No tea, no chat, no going home at five.
The irony
Frederick Taylor's The Principles of Scientific Management came out in 1911, and the stopwatch never really left. We still time people, count their output and wonder why they need a break. Now there's a worker that doesn't, and the measuring instinct is delighted. The awkward part: the worker that never stops is also the one that will hit any target you give it, whether or not it's the right target.
So what?
Our papers propose buying work by its output. The flagship is blunt about the risk: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. A capability paid per qualified lead will find ways to call a lead qualified. Our answers are partial and untested: measure the next step, sample the product, and keep failures on the record. The stopwatch tells you how fast. It doesn't tell you whether it was worth doing.
What does your organisation measure that a man with a stopwatch in 1911 would recognise? Tell us in the comments, or respond to the paper.
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