The Performance Myth reduces individuals to commodities or “performers,” whose value is contingent on meeting predefined metrics. This leads to a workplace culture where employees are constantly evaluated not for their creativity, integrity, or contributions to collective well-being, but for their ability to meet targets that may or may not be aligned with deeper organisational or societal values. – Mike Chitty

During the Vietnam War, the American military faced a problem: how do you measure success when the front lines are invisible and territory is meaningless?

It was easy in World War II and the Korean War, when military success was clearly quantifiable by traditional metrics:

• Territorial Gains: Capturing key cities, strategic hills, and advancing front lines.
• Destruction of Enemy Infrastructure: Bombing factories, rail lines, and military installations.
• Surrender of Enemy Forces: Forcing large enemy units to capitulate.

These were all tangible, visible signs of progress.

However, the Vietnam War was a completely different kind of conflict. The North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong fought a guerrilla war. They did not hold fixed positions or defend territory in the traditional sense. A U.S. unit could fight to take a hill, suffer casualties, and then abandon it, only for the enemy to reoccupy it a few hours later. This made the conventional metrics of success meaningless.

Faced with this unfamiliar type of warfare, and under pressure to demonstrate to both the public and political leaders that the war was being won, the military command fell back on a quantifiable metric they could understand and report: a “kill ratio.” This led to the adoption of the body count as the primary indicator of progress, a way of applying a conventional war metric to an unconventional conflict.

But this focus on a single, flawed number created a catastrophic distortion. To produce the figures demanded by high command, officers inflated reports, and the distinction between enemy combatants and innocent civilians blurred. The pursuit of a higher body count led to atrocities and alienated the very population the U.S. was there to protect.

Misaligned metrics make good organisations go bad.

And the belief that metrics always improve performance is one of the biggest myths of the modern workplace.

This powerful ideology, ‘the performance myth’ asserts that a relentless focus on quantitative metrics and targets will automatically lead to superior outcomes, efficiency, and success.

It is so deeply ingrained that if you are to suggest any other way of approaching work, you may be regarded as insane.

Despite its pervasive influence and promises of productivity, the performance myth has largely failed to deliver its anticipated benefits, especially within the public sector. The expected enhancements in performance, accountability, and service quality have remained elusive, often yielding mixed results and a decline in ‘productivity’.

A key reason for this disconnect is the misapplied analogy of transplanting private-sector performance models into the fundamentally different environment of the social sector.

Unlike private companies focused primarily on shareholders, public sector organisations serve a broader, often conflicting, array of stakeholders including citizens, taxpayers, and political leaders. They are often monopolies – with no obvious walk away point.

The distinctions between public and private sectors reveal an inherent mismatch between the tools (private sector metrics) and the context (public sector realities). This mismatch inevitably leads to dysfunctional responses, where individuals or teams, acting rationally within flawed incentive structures, optimise for the measure itself rather than the true organisational goal. This is called sub-optimisation, where individual units meet their targets at the expense of the overall goals of looking after their fellow humans.

Today, as many of us seek to explore a more human-centered approach, exemplified by concepts like citizen-centric focus, or place-based working, the time has come to challenge the belief that metrics drive performance.

Bromford Flagship are currently at the early stages of writing a new organisational strategy for a new organisation that is to make a shift to place based ways of working. It will require , actually demand, that we shift away from our past model and indeed the cycle of our sector.

In an excellent article Mike Chitty proposes a “new mythology” rooted in values of sustainability, care, and collective well-being. This aligns perfectly with the shift towards citizen-centric, place-based working, which seeks to reimagine public sector performance beyond a metric-obsessed culture.

This approach fundamentally reorients performance measurement by prioritising the needs and expectations of citizens in service design and delivery, rather than the expectations of managers.

This is a paradigm shift that moves away from simply counting outputs to assessing actual outcomes and long-term impact on citizens and society. Qualitative measures become indispensable, capturing nuanced aspects of lived experience that purely numerical data misses.

Moving beyond metric-obsessed cultures requires a profound cultural transformation. It means rebuilding trust and valuing the professionalism of frontline staff, empowering them to exercise judgment rather than rigidly adhering to metrics.

As Mike Chitty suggests, it means embracing a “myth of connection and belonging,” where human relationships and community are primary indicators of success, fostering collaboration over competition. It’s a shift towards a “myth of purpose and service,” where work contributes to the common good, and a “myth of trust and autonomy”. Finally, it embodies a “myth of reciprocity and care,” valuing each person as a whole being and recognising that success is co-created through mutual support.

How do you measure relationships and connection?

How do you measure co-operation?

How do you measure joy?

The performance myth crumbles when faced with the true complexity of public service. Metrics can measure activity, but they often fail to capture genuine value or the subtle human factors at play. The real measure of success isn’t in a dashboard, but in the strength of our connections—the trust we foster, the relationships we build, and our ability to work collaboratively to serve the public.

To move forward, we must look beyond rigid targets and embrace a more holistic view. A view where success is defined by citizen experience, professional judgment, and the deep, often unquantifiable, work of building a better society together.

Photo by Declan Sun on Unsplash