Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations

Chapter Seventeen. The Measurement Disease

The model presented in this book implies that many leading-edge management methods are inappropriate for their organizational contexts. For many such methods, it is not difficult to find examples of mistaken analogies and of individuals profiting from perpetuation of flawed notions and methods. Three popular but flawed methods are examined in this chapter. Analysis of the three methods in the context of the model reveals how dramatically counter to conventional management wisdom recommendations derived from the model can be and how different are this book’s explanation of why these methods are so popular. The three methods are the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the ISO 9000 certification process, ...