You’d think that after just a couple of these flops, American leaders would have learned the lesson.
But the problem isn’t that they didn’t know this stuff is bad for business.
The problem is they knew and didn’t care.
In fact, ESG (environmental, social, governance) investing was created to provide metrics that companies could claim to be excelling at, even as their actions drove profits down.
I'll tell you this from my own experience as a data-driven manager: Whatever you measure, you incentivize. Whatever you don't measure, you disincentivize. When you choose metrics, you are choosing your set of incentives. Either you choose to make your metrics customer-focused or you choose to make them internally-focused. The former yields a tough environment that drives performance in line with consumer expectations. The latter gets you a lot of boat drinks at company events.
The boat drinks have been winning. Until now.
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