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Revised on February 24, 2026
Define the destination before choosing the instrument
decision-making
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“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” — Charles Goodhart, 1975
Originally observed in monetary policy: once central banks started targeting money supply directly, the measure lost its predictive power because the system adapted around it.
The law generalizes to any context. Metrics are simplifications of reality — they work as long as they stay in the background, pointing at something real. The moment they become the objective, the map replaces the territory.
This is why Define the destination before choosing the instrument: if you start from a clear goal, the metric stays in its proper place — a signal, not a destination.
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