Mira: I recently realised that I track almost everything. My watch records my steps, sleep, heart rate, and exercise. My phone tells me how much time I spend on different apps. At work, I track tasks completed, meetings attended, and hours spent on projects. Jonah: Does that information help you? Mira: Sometimes. Data can reveal patterns that memory misses. I discovered that I sleep less on days when I work late, even when I believe I am resting normally. But I have also noticed that once a number appears, I start treating it as a judgement. Jonah: What do you mean? Mira: Take my step count. My watch encourages me to reach eight thousand steps. That is a convenient target, and it often motivates me to walk. But if I finish the day with seven thousand eight hundred, I feel as if I failed, even though the difference has almost no meaning. Jonah: The target is not necessarily the problem. Without a number, people may never notice how inactive they are. Mira: True, but the number can quietly replace the original goal. The goal was to move more and feel healthier. Instead, the goal becomes making the screen display a particular number. I have walked around my apartment before bed just to complete the circle. Jonah: I have done that too. But perhaps that small pressure creates useful behaviour. Mira: Sometimes it does. The problem begins when the behaviour looks successful according to the metric but does not produce the result we actually wanted. Jonah: That sounds more serious in the workplace. Mira: It can be. A company I worked with wanted its customer support team to respond faster. Management began measuring how many tickets each employee closed every day. At first, there was visible improvement. The number of closed tickets increased. Jonah: So the measurement worked. Mira: Only on the surface. Employees began choosing simple questions first because they could close them quickly. Complicated cases waited longer. Some employees sent short replies instead of fully solving the customer’s problem. The metric improved, but the service became less reliable. Jonah: Then the company chose the wrong measurement. Mira: Partly. But even a better measurement can create new problems. If you add customer satisfaction, employees may avoid difficult customers who are unlikely to give a high score. If you measure speed and satisfaction together, people may still find ways to optimise the numbers. Jonah: So should companies stop using performance data? Mira: No. Data is essential. It helps managers notice changes, compare results, and investigate problems. But a number gives a simplified picture. It cannot explain everything happening behind it. Jonah: I suppose that is why productivity software can be misleading too. A person who sends fifty messages and attends six meetings may look more active than someone who spends three quiet hours solving one important problem. Mira: Exactly. Some valuable work is difficult to count: mentoring a colleague, preventing a mistake, thinking carefully, or asking difficult questions before a project begins. Jonah: But organisations still need evidence. A manager cannot evaluate everyone only through personal impressions. Mira: I agree. Personal judgement can be unfair as well. The answer is not to choose between numbers and judgement. It is to use both and understand their weaknesses. Jonah: What would that look like in practice? Mira: Start with the real purpose. Ask what result you actually care about. Then choose a small number of measures that provide a useful signal. After that, speak to the people doing the work and examine examples, not only totals. Jonah: So if support tickets are being closed faster, a manager should also read some conversations and check whether the problems were truly solved. Mira: Yes. And the team should know why the data is being collected. When people feel that every number will be used against them, behaviour changes. They may hide problems or focus only on activities that are measured. Jonah: I have seen that with working hours. If a company rewards people for staying online late, employees may work fewer hours efficiently during the day and then remain visible in the evening. Mira: Which proves that a metric does not simply describe behaviour. It can shape behaviour. Jonah: Then perhaps the danger is not measurement itself. It is forgetting that every measurement leaves something out. Mira: That is how I see it. Numbers are useful when they begin a conversation. They become dangerous when they end it. Jonah: So your watch can tell you that you slept badly, but it cannot tell you whether the cause was stress, noise, illness, or too much coffee. Mira: Exactly. A number can point toward a question. It should not automatically provide the answer. Jonah: And it should not replace judgement. Mira: Right. We measure because we want clarity. But if we measure everything without thinking, we can become extremely precise about the wrong things.