Quantitative analysis is important for businesses, but Evan Rosen, author of The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to the Culture of Collaboration, says measurement needs to encourage participation and collaboration.

“Many organizations are measuring themselves to death,” he says. “We must employ measurement counter-measures to prevent measurement from reinforcing command-and-control.”

In the latest issue of MDM Premium, Rosen explained what he meant by “command-and-control”:

“During the Industrial Age, command-and-control made more sense because barriers of time and distance were significant. It was more efficient to send down orders from headquarters and pay a few people to think and pay everybody else to carry out orders.

“Now we’re in the Information Age, and technology has made time and distance barriers far less significant. … We can create far greater value by coming together in concert than by sending work down the line or sending requests for decision up the line.”

Rosen wants companies to align what they are measuring with the realities of doing business today. “One of the right things to measure is business drivers,” he says. “One of the wrong things to measure is people. Measuring business drivers is objective, while measuring people is largely subjective and distracts the organization.”

Rosen says that the more companies measure people, the less value is created.

“When a manager gives a mediocre rating to a team member who performs and contributes, how likely is the team member to remain motivated and inspired and collaboratively create value for the organization? Not very,” he says.

Read my interview with Rosen in the latest issue of MDM Premium: Building a Collaborative Culture