Against metrics: how measuring performance by numbers backfires - Jerry Z Muller | Aeon Ideas

Metric fixation can make employees ignore the real values and goals of the company and focus on their short-term weekly or monthly goals so that they keep their jobs, get a pay raise or have their stock options out at the right time.

On a macro level, metric fixation can lead to companies focussing on the quarterly report while ignoring any real R&D work, that takes years to provide any result.

Companies also suffer millions of hours of productivity loss due to employees maintaining performance records, a lot of expenses spent on recording and tracking tools, and the time it takes to read or analyze the numbers.