Time's Up!

18Measurements and Moral Hazards

Grown‐ups love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you “What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?” Instead they demand “How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?” Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.

—Antoine de Saint‐Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943

In the sixteenth century, a new word appeared in English dictionaries—pantometry, which means universal measurement. Ever since, man has been obsessed with counting things, from people and sheep to the amount of cars imported and the number of McDonald's hamburgers served. Being able to count and measure is one of the traits separating man from animals.

The problem for the pantometrists is the same one facing businesspeople today: What should be measured? Facts and figures do not provide a context or reveal truth; we still need our observations, imaginations, and creativity. If we only focus on what we can measure, we will become prisoners of our past, because it would be impossible to create a future that would be different from an extrapolated and precisely measured past. If everything important has to be quantified to be comprehended, how are we to understand art, music, poetry, literature—indeed, our own human feelings? Or new innovations, since ...