The McNamara Fallacy “The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is okay as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can’t easily be measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can’t be measured easily isn’t important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can’t easily be measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.” —Charles Handy, The Empty Raincoat (1995), describing the Vietnam-era measurement policies of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
