Numbers often act as a universal truth; usually, a metric is the first thing we quote to prove a point. Often, numerical measures define how ‘success’ is perceived, shape government policies and steer billion-dollar industries. But did you know that often, the very people who create metrics also question their use? History is littered with examples of widely adopted and institutionalised measures that have been publicly criticised by their own creators. In this article, we will explore the paradox of powerful metrics that, although born out of rigorous thinking and noble intentions, have been deemed problematic by their originators.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Many readers may already be aware of the shortcomings of GDP. However, it was never meant to be a measure of national ‘prosperity’. Economist Simon Kuznets formalised GDP in the thirties as a technical solution to a specific problem: how to quantify economic activity within a country in a standardised way. This was to help policymakers respond to the economic chaos of the Great Depression. However, over time, what began as a tool for measuring production morphed into a symbol of prosperity. A rising GDP came to mean a thriving country: politicians campaigned on it, news outlets headlined it, and then economies were judged by it.

That shift alarmed Kuznets. As early as 1934, he warned that “the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income.” He emphasised that GDP excluded crucial factors, such as income inequality, environmental degradation and unpaid labour – things that deeply affect the real quality of life. The GDP’s greatest strength (its relative simplicity) turned out to be the greatest liability as its political appeal drowned out its founder’s warnings. Decades later, the gap between what GDP was designed to measure and what it is assumed to mean remains just as wide.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS)
You can copy-paste the story of GDP for NPS; just replace governments with corporates. When it was introduced in 2003, NPS promised something revolutionary: a single number to capture customer loyalty. Fred Reichheld, the Bain & Company consultant behind the idea, believed that one deceptively simple question – “How likely are you to recommend us?” – could predict a company’s future growth better than any sprawling satisfaction survey could. NPS offered a clear, quantifiable metric that could be tracked, benchmarked against competitors, and, most importantly, was easy to present to C-suites. Marketers quickly fell in love.

You can probably guess what happened next. A rising NPS score became a symbol of customer-centric success, and companies tied bonuses to the metric. But Reichheld soon expressed frustration with how NPS was used, claiming it was being abused. He said, “They’re making this cancerous decision to link it to compensation and the front line. But within a year or two, it essentially destroys itself, and you get begging and pleading for high scores.” Two decades on, NPS remains everywhere. But its founder’s warning is clear: by focusing on just the score, marketers prioritise measuring loyalty over actually earning it.

IQ Tests
In the early 1900s, there was a debate in France on how to determine whether a child was ‘fit’ to attend regular school. Commissioned by the French government, psychologists Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon created the first practical version of an ‘intelligence’ test aimed at assessing learning readiness, not intellectual ability. This endeavour led to the creation of the Binet-Simon Scale to assess a child’s current level of performance in order to inform educational support. Both creators were forthright about the limitations of the test and firmly believed intelligence was not a permanent trait but something that could develop with time, effort and education.

The Binet-Simon scale was soon distorted and repurposed by psychologists in the US into the Stanford-Binet IQ test and was used to rank individuals (and races) by perceived inherent intelligence, or IQ – and soon IQ scores began to be treated as the definitive verdict of a person’s potential, influencing everything from educational tracking to immigration policy. Binet was horrified and wrote, “Ignorant people may think it [the IQ test] is a measure of innate intelligence, but it’s not.” The IQ score is a cautionary tale: when we turn tools of assessment into measures of human worth, we risk reinforcing the inequalities we hoped to diagnose.

SAT Exams
If you, dear reader, memorised obscure English words and drilled SAT books only to end up with a disappointing score, here’s your vindication. During World War I, psychologist Carl Brigham helped develop early intelligence tests for the US Army. This inspired the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), which he designed in the twenties as a tool for college admissions, particularly at elite institutions, to rank students by intellectual ability. Brigham was also a eugenicist; in 1923, he wrote that recent immigrants and Black Americans scored lower due to innate inferiority, a claim that aligned neatly with the racial biases of the time.

Less than a decade later, Brigham (to his credit) had a change of heart. He recanted his views and admitted that environmental and educational disparities, not biology, explained the test score gaps. He acknowledged that the SAT tested “a composite including schooling, family background, familiarity with English and everything else, relevant and irrelevant.” Despite his reversal, the SAT had already been entrenched in the American education system, often reinforcing the biases Brigham later disavowed. I cannot help but apply the same parallel to Pakistan; SAT scores for admissions are accepted only by private (and more expensive) universities.

Any metric has its limitations. The examples above serve as a reminder that even the most influential frameworks deserve scrutiny. Tools originally meant to guide can outlive their purpose and end up misunderstood or misused. This is summed up by Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” The final irony is that Charles Goodhart himself expressed discomfort at being primarily known for this idea, once remarking, “It does feel slightly odd to have one’s public reputation largely based on a minor footnote.”

Ans Khurram is an analytics and insights professional. anskhurram@gmail.com