Manipulação de estatísticas

"Strategic performance measurement systems facilitate managers’ decision-making by translating strategy into performance measures. A critical feature of these measurement systems is that the strategically linked performance measures be transparent, allowing managers to ‘‘see through’’ the measures back to the strategy. This transparency allows managers to infer the firm’s desired course of action, gauge the appropriateness of the strategy, and adjust the strategy as deemed necessary. Ideally, managers see measures for what they are—imperfect proxies for intangible, over-arching strategic constructs. However, managers may fail to fully appreciate the fact that measures are merely representations of the true constructs of interest, ultimately acting as if the imperfect measures are the constructs of interest. This behavior—which we label surrogation—potentially hinders managers’ ability to make appropriate strategy-related judgments and decisions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate managers’ propensity to exhibit surrogation when using a strategic performance measurement system."

Ler isto e pensar nos políticos e na manipulação das estatísticas... como não recuar a 2008 e aprender a lição sueca, "Lições da Suécia" 

Trecho retirado de "Lost in Translation: The Effects of Incentive Compensation on Strategy Surrogation"

"to confuse what’s being measured with the metric being used"

Em "Don’t Let Metrics Undermine Your Business" aborda-se um problema relevante para quem trabalha com indicadores. E eu sou um fanático por indicadores, ou não fosse o tipo do balanced scorecard.

"Companies that work hard on their strategies and carefully monitor their progress often run into spectacular trouble.
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People have a behavioral tendency—known as surrogation—to confuse what’s being measured with the metric being used.
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To reduce the risk of surrogation, make sure that the people executing your strategy had a role in formulating it, don’t link incentives too tightly to strategy metrics, and use multiple metrics to assess performance. [Moi ici: Lembrei-me logo de uma das críticas ao balanced scorecard, a de Lippe e Salterio que referi aqui em Fevereiro de 2007 em "A eficácia é mais importante do que a eficiência". Não é só o problema de quem executa não ter sido envolvido ou informado convenientemente sobre a estratégia e a sua contribuição para a mesma. Talvez mais grave são os gestores/líderes que entram num autocarro em andamento e não viveram as dores de parto da estratégia. Por isso, quando lêem o documento estratégico são como eu. A minha mulher compra toalha e eu digo: "Que azul esquisito!". E ela responde: "Azul?! A toalha é verde!". Sim, lembram-se da realidade aumentada e da nossa incapacidade para ver a realidade? Sim, Abril de 2017 "Para assentar ideias" ]
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Tying performance metrics to strategy has become an accepted best practice over the past few decades. [Moi ici: O truque do Balanced Scorecard eficaz e os conselhos de Ittner e Larcker"] Strategy is abstract by definition, but metrics give strategy form, allowing our minds to grasp it more readily.
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If strategy is the blueprint for building an organization, metrics are the concrete, wood, drywall, and bricks.
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But there’s a hidden trap in this organizational architecture: A company can easily lose sight of its strategy and instead focus strictly on the metrics that are meant to represent it.
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Every day, across almost every organization, strategy is being hijacked by numbers ... It turns out that the tendency to mentally replace strategy with metrics—called surrogation—is quite pervasive. And it can destroy company value.
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Here’s a common scenario: A company selects “delighting the customer” as a strategic objective and decides to track progress on it using customer survey scores. The surveys do tell managers something about how well the firm is pleasing customers, but somehow employees start thinking the strategy is to maximize survey scores, rather than to deliver a great customer experience. [Moi ici: Como não recordar a correlação que estragou o sorriso ao senhor P. O indicador "satisfação dos clientes crescia há 3 anos seguidos e há 3 anos seguidos que as vendas baixavam]
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It’s easy to see how this could quickly become a problem, because there are plenty of ways to boost scores while actually displeasing customers."

A estratégia pode dar um terrível resultado se as pessoas responsáveis por executá-la não participarem da sua criação.