What If Politicians Were Measured by KPIs?

In the business world success is measured by many parameters. Among them may be profit, number of new clients, number of inquiries received, number of new prospects contacted, and the list goes on. How those are measured are usually by KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators.

I remember a meeting I attended some years ago in Atlanta at a gathering of international trade representatives of the Georgia Department of Commerce.  There was a new Secretary of Commerce on board and he shared his expectations with us and how those of us abroad would be evaluated. At one point, he held up a single sheet of paper with a performance chart.  Each overseas office was listed down the side, while across the top were his KPIs for all of us. How many Georgia companies have you helped, how much export sales have occurred because of your activity, how many trade missions have you hosted, etc. He commented that, to him, this was the only piece of paper (in those days we still had pieces of paper) he was interested in…..in a word, without saying as much, did we or did we not meet our KPIs?

What if government was measured by the same standard?  For example, our prime minister stated that one of Israel’s goals is to eliminate Hamas from Gaza?  What is the KPI for that?  How is that to be measured?  And once that is determined are we approaching that goal? Can that even be measured?

And what about getting the hostages returned which is another goal of this government.  What is the KPI for that and are we on target?  I think not.

Then there is the current US president who promised to end the Ukraine war on day one after his inauguration.   If that was his KPI he failed big time for sure.    He also promised to end our war with Hamas and we know where that went.

It seems to me that the populace would be well served by political leadership that would agree to establish KPIs for their objectives in governing by which their success could easily be measured.  Of course, the system is not fool proof.   If people know they are going to be measured against their predictions of success, human nature will force them to lower their expectations so they have a higher probability of meeting their goals.  That is always a risk although such activity will be clearly seen by the voting public as a transparent attempt to avoid failure.

Perhaps the next time we have elections here in Israel the voting public could, first of all, demand to know on what platform the candidates for prime minister, for example, will be basing their decision making if elected.  I believe it has been many election cycles since we actually were provided a platform to review.

As a follow up the State Comptroller in his/her annual review would then note whether or not the elected officials being monitored met their KPIs or not.  Now wouldn’t that be a revolution?

Towards that end I am reminded of former US Congressman John Lewis of blessed memory, who was beaten and arrested in the 1963 civil rights march on Selma, Alabama and later served in the US House of Representatives from 1987 until he died in 2020.  He said: “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”  We need people in Israel who are willing to get in “good trouble” and help redeem the political soul of Israel. Winning the war will not be enough, we also need to win the peace that will follow.