This is McNamara fallacy. Named after Robert McNamara, US Secretary of Defence during the Vietnam War. His strategy was simple: measure everything. Enemy body counts, bombing tonnage, territory controlled. The numbers looked incredible. America was winning by every measurable metric. But they were ignoring what they could not count: civilian trust, enemy morale, political will, the determination of all people. They were all invisible to the metrics.
The fallacy works in four steps:
- Measure what is easy to measure.
- Ignore what is hard to measure.
- Assume what you cannot measure is not important.
- Declare that what you cannot measure does not exist.
Companies track revenue but miss employee burnout. Hospitals count procedures, but ignore patient wellbeing. Schools measure scores, but they ignore curiosity.
The conclusion: Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.