Tying performance metrics to strategy has become an accepted best practice over the past few decades. Strategy is abstract by definition, but metrics give strategy form, allowing our minds to grasp it more readily. With metrics, Ford Motor Company’s onetime strategy “Quality is job one” could be translated into Six Sigma performance standards. Apple’s “Think different” and Samsung’s “Create the future” could be linked to the amount of sales from new products. If strategy is the blueprint for building an organization, metrics are the concrete, wood, drywall, and bricks.

在過去的幾十年中，將績效指標與戰略掛鉤已成為公認的最佳實踐。 從定義上講，策略是抽象的，但是度量給出了策略的形式，使我們的頭腦更容易掌握它。 利用指標，福特汽車公司的一次性戰略“質量是第一要務”可以轉化為6西格瑪性能標準。 蘋果的“不同思維”和三星的“創造未來”可能與新產品的銷售量有關。 如果說戰略是建立組織的藍圖，那麼指標就是混凝土，木材，石膏板和磚頭。
 

指標在這裡Gelber Apotheker覺得也可以是數據(數字)，現在大數據那麼重要且宣傳，是不是有時過度的看數據卻彌蓋了商業策略?

But there’s a hidden trap in this organizational architecture: A company can easily lose sight of its strategy and instead focus strictly on the metrics that are meant to represent it. For an extreme example of this problem, look to Wells Fargo, where employees opened 3.5 million deposit and credit card accounts without customers’ consent in an effort to implement its now-infamous “cross-selling” strategy.

但是，這種組織架構存在一個隱藏的陷阱：一家公司很容易忽略其戰略，而只專注於旨在代表其戰略的指標。 有關此問題的一個極端示例，請看富國銀行（Wells Fargo），該公司員工未經客戶同意開設了350萬個存款和信用卡帳戶，以實施其如今臭名昭著的“交叉銷售”策略。

The costs from that debacle were enormous, and the bank has yet to see the end of the financial carnage. In addition to paying initial fines ($185 million), reimbursing customers for fees ($6.1 million), and eventually settling a class-action lawsuit to cover damages as far back as 2002 ($142 million), Wells Fargo has faced strong headwinds in attracting new retail customers. In April 2017, it reported that first-quarter credit card applications were down 42% year over year, with new checking-account openings down 35%. Meanwhile, more revelations about unauthorized mortgage modifications and fees, improper auto loan practices, and other missteps surfaced throughout 2017. In the fourth quarter the bank had to set aside a $3.25 billion accrual for future litigation expenses. In February 2018 the Federal Reserve prohibited Wells Fargo from growing its assets any further until it strengthened its governance and risk management. This was followed in April by a joint $1 billion fine from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which led Wells Fargo to increase its litigation accrual by $800 million. While press releases from the CFPB and the OCC tie the agencies’ action only to mortgage fees and auto loan problems, the political context suggests that the penalty’s severity stems in part from public outrage over the original fake-accounts scandal. In the face of the bank’s prolonged difficulties, the CEO who’d taken the helm after the scandal, Timothy Sloan, resigned in March 2019.

這場災難的代價是巨大的，銀行尚未看到金融大屠殺的終結。除了支付初期罰款（1.85億美元），償還客戶費用（610萬美元）以及最終解決集體訴訟以彌補損害賠償（最早可追溯到2002年）（1.42億美元）外，富國銀行在吸引新客戶方面也面臨著巨大的阻力。零售客戶。 2017年4月，該公司報告稱第一季度信用卡申請量同比下降42％，新的支票賬戶開設量下降35％。同時，有關未授權抵押修改和費用，不當汽車貸款做法以及其他失誤的更多信息在整個2017年浮出水面。第四季度，該銀行不得不留出32.5億美元的應計費用用於未來的訴訟費用。 2018年2月，美聯儲禁止富國銀行進一步擴大資產規模，直到其加強治理和風險管理。隨後在4月份，消費者金融保護局（CFPB）和貨幣審計長辦公室（OCC）共同處以10億美元的罰款，這使富國銀行將其訴訟應計額增加了8億美元。儘管CFPB和OCC的新聞稿僅將這些機構的行動與抵押貸款費用和汽車貸款問題聯繫在一起，但政治背景表明，處罰的嚴厲程度部分是由於公眾對原始假帳醜聞的憤怒。面對銀行長期以來的困境，在醜聞蒂莫西·斯隆（Timothy Sloan）於2019年3月辭職後擔任首席執行官的首席執行官。

Were these devastating outcomes simply the natural consequences of having a bad strategy? Closer examination suggests that Wells Fargo never actually had a cross-selling strategy. It had a cross-selling metric. In its third quarter 2016 earnings report, the bank mentions an effort to “best align our cross-sell metric with our strategic focus of long-term retail banking relationships” [emphasis added]. In other words, Wells Fargo had—and still has—a strategy of building long-term customer relationships, and management intended to track the degree to which it was accomplishing that goal by measuring cross-selling. With brutal irony, a focus on the metric unraveled many of the bank’s valuable long-term relationships.

Every day, across almost every organization, strategy is being hijacked by numbers, just as it was at Wells Fargo. It turns out that the tendency to mentally replace strategy with metrics—called surrogation—is quite pervasive. And it can destroy company value.

這些毀滅性的結果難道僅僅是採取不良策略的自然後果嗎？ 仔細檢查表明，富國銀行實際上從未有過交叉銷售策略。 它具有交叉銷售指標。 在2016年第三季度收益報告中，該銀行提到了“使我們的交叉銷售指標與我們長期零售銀行業務關係的戰略重點最佳匹配”的努力。 換句話說，富國銀行曾經並且仍然有建立長期客戶關係的戰略，而管理層則打算通過衡量交叉銷售來跟踪其實現該目標的程度。 具有殘酷諷刺意味的是，對指標的關注揭示了該銀行許多寶貴的長期關係。

每天，幾乎在每個組織中，戰略都被數字所劫持，就像在富國銀行一樣。 事實證明，在心理上以度量代替策略的趨勢（稱為替代）非常普遍。 它會破壞公司價值。

The Surrogation Snare

Of course, we all know that metrics are inherently imperfect at some level. In business the intent behind metrics is usually to capture some underlying intangible goal—and they almost always fail to do this as well as we would like. Your performance management system is full of metrics that are flawed proxies for what you care about.

Here’s a common scenario: A company selects “delighting the customer” as a strategic objective and decides to track progress on it using customer survey scores. The surveys do tell managers something about how well the firm is pleasing customers, but somehow employees start thinking the strategy is to maximize survey scores, rather than to deliver a great customer experience.

It’s easy to see how this could quickly become a problem, because there are plenty of ways to boost scores while actually displeasing customers. For example, what happened the last time you were urged to rate your experience a 10 on a satisfaction survey “because anything but a 10 is considered a failure”? That request may have turned negative feedback into a nonresponse or an artificially high score, and the pressure was probably off-putting. And think about all the pop-up windows, follow-up emails, and robocalls that pester you with surveys you would rather ignore. Such tactics tend to lower a customer’s satisfaction with a company, but surrogation can lead those charged with delighting the customer to use them despite the strategy.

代孕網羅Google Translate這邊Surrogation Snare翻譯成代孕網羅不太合適，Gelber Apotheker在這邊把它翻譯為代替(surrogation)的陷阱，可以把它看成是用指標來代替策略的失誤。

當然，我們都知道指標在某種程度上是天生的不完美。在業務中，指標背後的意圖通常是捕獲一些潛在的無形目標，而它們幾乎總是未能如我們所願地做到這一點。您的績效管理系統中充斥著各種指標，這些指標都是您所關心的東西的有缺陷的代理。

這是一種常見的情況：一家公司選擇“取悅客戶”作為戰略目標，並決定使用客戶調查得分來跟踪進度。調查確實告訴經理有關公司如何取悅客戶的信息，但是員工以某種方式開始認為該策略是最大化調查得分，而不是提供出色的客戶體驗。

很容易看出這很快會成為問題，因為有很多方法可以提高分數，同時又可以使客戶滿意。例如，上次在滿意度調查中被敦促將您的體驗評為10分時發生了什麼事情，“因為10都不算失敗”？該請求可能已將負面反饋轉變為無響應或人為地得分高，並且壓力可能令人反感。考慮一下所有彈出窗口，後續電子郵件和自動通話，它們使您不願忽略的調查困擾您。這種策略往往會降低客戶對公司的滿意度，但代管策略可能會導致那些儘管採取了這種策略但仍使客戶滿意的客戶使用它們。

Surrogation is especially harmful when the metric and the strategy are poorly aligned. The greater the mismatch, the larger the potential damage. When a production manager’s success at achieving the strategic objective “make high-quality products” is measured by using very precise quality standards (such as “ball bearings must be 10 millimeters in diameter, plus or minus 0.0001 millimeters”), surrogation might not be a problem. However, if success at the objective is measured by the number of customer returns, the production manager might find creative ways to avoid returns. For example, he or she might connect directly with the purchasing departments of clientele, offering to personally handle any product concerns so that returns are registered as rework rather than returns. Or the manager might be willing to gamble a bit, pushing beyond acceptable (or even safe) quality standards, knowing that while the lower quality will increase the likelihood of a return, it may not actually trigger one. Furthermore, when a single metric is used more widely—for example, to gauge the performance of multiple managers overseeing various components of a complex product—surrogation can have a far bigger impact and do much greater harm.

當度量標準和策略不一致時，代孕代替(surrogation)特別有害。不匹配越大，潛在的損害越大。當通過使用非常精確的質量標準（例如“滾珠軸承的直徑必須為10毫米，正負0.0001毫米”）來衡量生產經理在實現“製造高質量產品”這一戰略目標方面的成功時，替代品可能就不會一個問題。但是，如果目標成功與否取決於客戶退貨的數量，則生產經理可能會找到創造性的方法來避免退貨。例如，他或她可以直接與客戶的採購部門聯繫，主動親自處理任何產品問題，以便將退貨註冊為返工而不是退貨。或者，經理可能會願意賭博，超越可接受的（甚至是安全的）質量標準，因為知道較低的質量會增加退貨的可能性，但實際上可能不會觸發退貨。此外，當單個度量標準被更廣泛地使用時（例如，為了評估監督複雜產品的各個組成部分的多個經理的績效），代孕代替(surrogation)會產生更大的影響，並造成更大的危害。

到這邊我們可以休息一下，再來看看Harvard Business Review的編輯 Michael Harris 跟Bill Tayler怎麼解釋富國銀行的情況。

What Happened at Wells Fargo

Several explanations have been provided for how things went awry at Wells Fargo. The most widely accepted theory lays the blame on the company’s incentive system. In the words of Richard Cordray, the former CFPB director involved in imposing an early fine on the bank: “What happened here…is that Wells Fargo built an incentive-compensation program that made it possible for its employees to pursue underhanded sales practices.”

But was the compensation approach actually the root of Wells Fargo’s problems—or was it simply a symptom of a more insidious ailment? Another culprit might have been the combination of challenging sales quotas and relentless pressure to meet them. Indeed, employees under investigation cited pressure more often than incentives as a cause for misconduct. Another possible cause was a permissive sales culture. A key finding of an internal investigation was that management espoused the philosophy that “it was acceptable to sell 10 low-quality accounts to realize one good one.” The investigation found that managers referred to products that the customer did not need (or want) as “slippage” and that a certain amount of slippage was deemed “the cost of doing business in any retail environment.” But again, sales pressure and questionable culture could merely have been symptoms of a more pervasive and pernicious problem.

富國銀行發生了什麼

富國銀行（Wells Fargo）對問題如何做出了幾種解釋。最為廣泛接受的理論將責任歸咎於公司的激勵體系。用前CFPB的前主管理查德·科德雷（Richard Cordray）的話說，他對銀行處以早期罰款：“這裡發生的事情……是富國銀行建立了激勵補償計劃，使員工有可能實行卑鄙的銷售做法。”

但是補償方法實際上是富國銀行問題的根源嗎？還是僅僅是隱性疾病的徵兆？另一個罪魁禍首可能是具有挑戰性的銷售配額和要實現這些目標的不懈壓力的結合。確實，被調查的員工更多地將壓力而不是激勵作為不當行為的原因。另一個可能的原因是允許的銷售文化。內部調查的一個重要發現是，管理層擁護一種哲學，即“出售10個低質量帳戶以實現一個好帳戶是可以接受的。”調查發現，經理們提到了客戶不需要（或想要）的產品。被稱為“滑點”，並且一定程度的滑點被認為是“在任何零售環境中開展業務的成本。”但是同樣，銷售壓力和可疑的文化可能僅僅是更普遍和有害問題的症狀。

Incentives, pressure to meet quotas, and sales culture were all tied to a system employed throughout Wells Fargo at the time. In fact, it’s one found at almost every company. It’s the performance measurement system, used to monitor everyday business activities, from the organizational level on down to the individual-employee level. There could be no sales incentives at Wells Fargo without rigorous tracking of sales numbers. There would have been no accounts-per-household goals, pressure to meet them, or culture surrounding them if customers’ accounts were never counted. Ex-CEO John Stumpf’s now-infamous mantra, “Eight is great” (the goal was to have eight Wells Fargo products per customer), was based on this common denominator.

The real source of Wells Fargo’s problems was measurement. When the bank decided to actively track daily cross-sales numbers, employees rationally responded by working to maximize them. Throw in financial incentives, a permissive culture, and intense demands for performance, and they might even illegally open some unauthorized accounts, all in the name of advancing the “strategy” of cross-selling.

激勵，滿足配額的壓力以及銷售文化都與當時富國銀行所採用的系統相關。實際上，幾乎所有公司都可以找到它。它是一種績效衡量系統，用於監控從組織級別到個人員工級別的日常業務活動。如果沒有嚴格跟踪銷售數字，富國銀行就不會有任何銷售激勵措施。如果從不計入客戶的帳戶，就不會有每個家庭帳戶的目標，實現這些目標的壓力或圍繞它們的文化。前首席執行官約翰·斯湯普（John Stumpf）如今臭名昭著的口號“八很棒”（目標是每個客戶擁有八種Wells Fargo產品），正是基於這一共同點。

用度量代替策略的心理傾向會破壞公司價值。

富國銀行問題的真正根源是測量。當銀行決定積極跟踪每日交叉銷售數字時，員工會做出合理的反應，努力實現最大的交叉銷售數字。出於財務動機，寬鬆的文化以及對績效的強烈要求，他們甚至可能以推進交叉銷售的“策略”為名非法開設一些未經授權的帳戶。

Gelber Apotheker在Tilly's(美國滑板流行服飾店，風格包含Vans，Nike板鞋和眾多滑板品牌)打工的時候，Store Manager他們也在這拱激勵體系下，只要店面達到多少的賣出金額，他們就可以拿到一定的金額，所以每工作一段時間，manager就會跟你說我們今天現在的銷售的金額是多少，還要賣多少可以達到設定的金額，我想這個機制應該蠻雷同。

Don’t get us wrong. We’re not suggesting that measurement is a bad thing. It’s not, and there’s a reason it’s ubiquitous in business: It’s the only way we can make sense of our environment, our results, and our strategic objectives, which we must do if we are to succeed. Metrics provide clearly defined direction where strategy may otherwise seem too amorphous to have an impact. Because they can coordinate behaviors and actions, metrics are crucial. But as the Wells Fargo case shows, unless the inherent distortions of metrics are understood, they can be dangerous—and the distortions can be amplified precisely because the flawed metrics coordinate behaviors.

Guarding Against Surrogation

To prevent surrogation, we must first understand how it happens. Two recent studies on surrogation—one using fMRI machines to measure blood flow in the brain to better understand how people make decisions, and the other using video games to examine surrogation in a nonbusiness setting—suggest that surrogation is a common subconscious bias: Whenever metrics are present, people tend to surrogate. Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman and Yale professor Shane Frederick postulate that three conditions are necessary to produce the type of substitution we see with surrogation:

不要誤會我們的意思。我們並不是說測量是一件壞事。並非如此，這在業務上無處不在是有原因的：這是我們了解環境，成果和戰略目標的唯一方法，要想成功，我們必須做這些事情。指標提供了明確定義的方向，否則策略可能顯得過於不確定而不會產生影響。由於指標可以協調行為和行動，因此至關重要。但是，正如富國銀行（Wells Fargo）案所顯示的那樣，除非了解度量標準的固有失真，否則它們很危險，而且由於缺陷度量標準會協調行為，因此失真可以被精確放大。

這裡的失真(distortion)解釋為度量指標制度的失真

防止代孕代替

為了防止代孕代替，我們必須首先了解它是如何發生的。最近的兩項代孕代替研究（一項使用功能磁共振成像儀測量大腦中的血流以更好地理解人們如何做出決定，另一項使用視頻遊戲檢查在非商業環境中的代孕代替研究）則建議代孕代替是一種常見的潛意識偏見：在場，人們傾向於代孕代替。諾貝爾獎獲得者丹尼爾·卡尼曼（Daniel Kahneman）和耶魯大學（Yale）教授謝恩·弗雷德里克（Shane Frederick）提出，要產生我們看到的替代類型，必須具備三個條件：

1. The objective or strategy is fairly abstract.
2. The metric of the strategy is concrete and conspicuous.
3. The employee accepts, at least subconsciously, the substitution of the metric for the strategy.

1.目標或策略是相當抽象的。
2.該策略的指標是具體而顯眼的。
3. 員工至少在潛意識中接受度量替代策略。

Multiple research studies have helped demonstrate how these conditions combine to produce surrogation. Knowledge of them supplies us with the means to combat the problem. Just as fire is stifled when the heat, fuel, or oxygen necessary for combustion is removed, surrogation can be suppressed by cutting off one or more of its key ingredients. Here’s how to do that:

Get the people responsible for implementing strategy to help formulate it.

This helps reduce surrogation because those involved in executing the strategy will then be better able to grasp it, despite its abstract nature—and to avoid replacing it with metrics. It’s particularly crucial to bring the executives and senior managers who are charged with communicating strategy into this process. Research that one of us, Bill, did with Willie Choi of the University of Wisconsin and Gary Hecht of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, suggests that simply talking about strategy with people is not sufficient. In other words you can’t just invite them to boardroom briefings and hang signs around the building promoting the strategy—you need to involve people in its development.

Consider the experiences of one organization Bill advised, Intermountain Healthcare. Its goal is to provide high-quality, low-cost care. One of the battlegrounds for this type of “value-based care” is the treatment of lower back pain. It turns out that most lower back pain goes away on its own in a few weeks. Medication and surgery can help, but they can also hurt—and they can be very costly. The data suggests that once a patient presents with lower back pain, the ideal response is to wait. So, with the involvement and advice of practicing physicians, Intermountain recently formulated a strategy aimed at reducing unnecessary interventions. To measure performance on the strategy, Intermountain began tracking whether doctors waited at least four weeks after meeting with a patient with lower back pain to recommend an X-ray, MRI, or another, more invasive diagnosis or treatment method.

多項研究已幫助證明這些條件如何結合產生代孕代替(surrogation)。對它們的了解為我們提供了解決問題的手段。正如消除燃燒所需的熱量，燃料或氧氣時會抑制火勢一樣，可以通過切斷一種或多種關鍵成分來抑制代孕代替(surrogation)。方法如下：
讓負責實施策略的人員來幫助制定策略。

這有助於減少替代，因為參與戰略實施的人員儘管具有抽象的性質，但隨後將能夠更好地掌握它，並避免將其替換為指標，儘管戰略的抽象性。這裡修改了一下Google Translate的內容(despite its abstract nature)。

將負責溝通戰略的高管和高級管理人員納入這一過程尤為關鍵。我們中的一個人，比爾（Bill）與威斯康星大學（University of Wisconsin）的Willie Choi和伊利諾伊大學香檳（Irbinois-Champaign）的加里·赫希特（Gary Hecht）進行的一項研究表明，僅僅與人談論戰略是不夠的。換句話說，您不能只邀請他們參加董事會簡報並在建築物周圍懸掛標牌來宣傳該策略，您需要讓人們參與到該策略的製定中。

考慮一下比爾建議的組織Intermountain Healthcare的經驗。其目標是提供高質量，低成本的護理。這類“基於價值的護理”的戰場之一是下腰痛的治療。事實證明，大多數下背部疼痛會在幾週內自行消失。藥物治療和手術可以提供幫助，但也會造成傷害，而且成本很高。數據表明，一旦患者出現下背部疼痛，理想的反應就是等待。因此，在執業醫師的參與和建議下，Intermountain最近制定了一項旨在減少不必要干預的策略。為了衡量該策略的性能，Intermountain開始跟踪醫生是否在與腰背痛患者會面後至少等待了四個星期，以推薦X光，MRI或其他更具侵入性的診斷或治療方法。

Loosen the link between metrics and incentives.

Tying compensation to a metric-based target tends to increase surrogation—an unfortunate side effect of pay for performance. Besides tapping into any monetary motivations people might have, this approach makes the metric much more visible, which means employees are more likely to focus on it at the expense of the strategy.

To think about how to get around this problem, let’s look again at Intermountain’s lower-back-pain metric. If management had done the obvious and just informed physicians that they would be paid a small bonus each time they required a patient to wait four weeks before receiving any costly tests or treatments, it probably would have driven even the most well-meaning doctors away from the true strategy of reducing unnecessary interventions and toward maximization of the metric. But the people overseeing the program didn’t tie compensation to the metric, because they recognized that most doctors are already intrinsically motivated to provide high-value care. In addition, they set the target for the percentage of patients who waited four weeks before medical intervention at 80%. This served as a reminder to doctors that high-quality, low-cost care for most patients meant waiting for lower back pain to resolve itself, but for some patients—for example, those who waited a month before seeing the doctor in the first place—immediate treatment was warranted. The target reflected the imperfect nature of the metric and drew physicians’ attention back to the underlying strategy.

放鬆指標與激勵措施之間的聯繫。

將補償與基於指標的目標聯繫在一起往往會增加替代，這是績效報酬的不幸副作用。除了利用人們可能具有的任何金錢動機外，這種方法還使指標更加可見，這意味著員工更有可能專注於該指標而以策略為代價。

為了思考如何解決這個問題，讓我們再次看看Intermountain的下腰痛指標 (lower-back-pain metric)。如果管理層做了明顯而又剛剛通知醫生的事情，即每當他們要求患者在接受任何昂貴的測試或治療之前需要等待四個星期，他們就會獲得一筆小額獎金，這甚至可能使最善良的醫生遠離減少不必要干預並實現指標最大化的真正策略。但是，負責監督該計劃的人們並未將補償與該指標掛鉤，因為他們認識到大多數醫生已經具有提供高價值護理的內在動力。此外，他們將醫療干預前等待四個星期的患者的百分比目標設定為80％。這提醒了醫生，對於大多數患者而言，高質量，低成本的護理意味著等待下背疼痛自行解決，但對於某些患者，例如，那些在一個月後才去看醫生的患者-保證立即治療。該目標反映了該指標的不完善特性，並引起了醫生對基礎策略的關注。

Use multiple metrics.

Another study Bill did with Choi and Hecht shows that people surrogate less when they’re compensated for meeting targets on multiple metrics of a strategy rather than just one. This approach highlights the fact that no single metric completely captures the strategy, which makes people more likely to consciously reject substituting it for the strategy. At Intermountain overall physician performance is assessed with a myriad of metrics, including patient satisfaction, condition-specific quality metrics (such as average A1C levels of diabetes patients), health outcomes (such as hospital readmittance), preventive efforts (such as appropriately timed mammograms), and total cost of care. No lone metric is used to quantify the competence or contribution of the medical staff. Multiple yardsticks do add complexity to the task of performance evaluation, but they’re essential to keeping people focused on the true strategy and avoiding surrogation.

使用多個指標。

比爾與Choi和Hecht進行的另一項研究表明，人們在為滿足一項戰略的多個指標而不僅僅是一個目標而獲得補償時，替代(surrogation)的人就更少了。 這種方法強調了一個事實，即沒有任何一個指標可以完全捕獲該策略，這使人們更有可能自覺拒絕將其替換為策略。 在Intermountain，將通過眾多指標來評估醫生的整體表現，包括患者滿意度，針對特定病情的質量指標（例如糖尿病患者的平均A1C水平），健康結果（例如醫院入院率），預防工作（例如適當的乳房X線照片） ），以及總護理費用。 沒有單獨的指標可用於量化醫務人員的能力或貢獻。 多個基準確實增加了績效評估的難度，但是對於使人們專注於真正的戰略並避免替代品至關重要。

Wells Fargo Revisited

To see if Wells Fargo remains vulnerable to surrogation, let’s look at the actions it has taken in the wake of its crisis. As far as we can tell, the bank is heading in the right direction with its damage-control efforts.

First, the new management’s emphasis on rebuilding trust with customers after the scandal has made the long-term relationship strategy much more clear and prominent. Second, the bank has stopped paying employees to cross-sell and has eliminated all sales goals. That may sound extreme, but it was appropriate for Wells Fargo because an obsession with sales quotas had become so entrenched at the bank. To address that issue, the cross-selling metric and everything related to it needed to go. Finally, Wells Fargo now gauges strategic success using at least a dozen metrics related to its customer focus, emphasizing that no single number tells the whole story and encouraging employees to consciously reject surrogation.

That progress notwithstanding, this episode in Wells Fargo’s history was devastating in terms of both quantifiable out-of-pocket costs and less measurable (but truly colossal) reputational costs, and there’s no indication yet that the bank is close to full recovery. However, at the very least, the new steps Wells Fargo has taken seem likely to remind tomorrow’s managers and employees that performance metrics are mere representations of strategy, not the strategy itself.

Conclusion

Many managers learn the hard way that surrogation can spoil strategy, and if you don’t take action to protect against it, it’s very likely that sooner or later personal experience will lead you to the same realization. If you’re using performance metrics, surrogation is probably already happening—the mere presence of a metric, even absent any compensation, is enough to induce some level of the behavior. So it’s time to take a hard look internally to see which metrics might be most prone to surrogation and consider where it might cause the most damage. As the Wells Fargo case illustrates, preventing the disease is far preferable to treating its symptoms.

再探富國銀行

要查看富國銀行是否仍然容易受到代孕代替(surrogation)的困擾，讓我們看一下危機發生後採取的行動。據我們所知，銀行在控制損失方面正朝著正確的方向前進。

首先，在醜聞使長期關係戰略變得更加清晰和突出之後，新管理層強調與客戶建立信任。其次，該銀行已停止向員工支付(進行)交叉銷售費用，並取消了所有(交叉銷售)銷售目標。這聽起來可能是極端的，但對富國銀行來說是合適的，因為對銷售配額的痴迷已經深深地紮根於銀行。為了解決這個問題，需要採用(取消)交叉銷售指標以及與此相關的所有內容。最後，富國銀行現在至少使用與客戶關注有關的十幾個指標來衡量戰略成功，強調沒有一個數字能說明整個故事，並鼓勵員工自覺拒絕代孕代替(surrogation)。

儘管取得了這一進展，但富國銀行歷史上的這一事件在可量化的自付費用和可衡量的（但實際上是巨大的）聲譽成本方面都是毀滅性的，並且尚無跡象表明該銀行已接近完全復甦。但是，至少，富國銀行採取的新措施似乎可以提醒明天的管理人員和員工，績效指標只是戰略的代表，而不是戰略本身。
結論

許多管理人員都知道代孕代替(surrogation)會破壞策略的艱辛方法，如果您不採取行動來抵制策略，那麼早晚的個人經歷很可能會導致您實現同樣的目標。如果您使用的是績效指標，則替代可能已經在發生-僅僅存在一個指標，甚至沒有任何補償，就足以引起某種程度的行為。因此，是時候內部仔細研究一下哪些指標最容易代孕，並考慮可能在哪些方面造成最大的損害。正如富國銀行（Wells Fargo）案所說明的那樣，預防該疾病遠勝於治療其症狀。

本文的一個版本出現在《哈佛商業評論》 2019年9月至10月期中。

邁克爾·哈里斯（Michael Harris）是北卡羅來納大學Kenan-Flagler商學院的博士研究生。

Bill Tayler是楊百翰大學萬豪商學院的Robert J. Smith教授。

原文:

https://hbr.org/2019/09/dont-let-metrics-undermine-your-business

大家可以做些研究，對於WELLS FARGO的情況來建立策略，這應該就是MBA裡的CASE STUDY，也是Harvard Business Online Course的一種教學我準備來做些研究!大家也可以反思自己的BUSINESS是不是有這樣的問題，可以討論!

Gelber Apotheker