Thomas Wright

Modern management is obsessed with data. We track everything from customer satisfaction scores to daily production outputs. However, when an organization decides that a specific metric represents its ultimate goal, employees will optimize for the measurement itself, completely destroying the underlying value. This is the perilous trap of surrogation. This book breaks down the severe disconnect between strategy and execution.
When doctors are penalized for long wait times, they rush patients out the door; when customer service agents are measured by call volume, they hang up on complex problems. Surrogation transforms well-meaning Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) into weapons of corporate self-sabotage. The narrative provides a detailed autopsy of data-driven disasters across finance, healthcare, and software development.
You will learn to identify the exact moment a useful proxy measure mutates into an operational cancer that incentivizes toxic behavior. Redefine how you define success. Equip your leadership team with the frameworks necessary to design holistic evaluation systems that reward actual value creation rather than the mere manipulation of numbers.