Surrogation

The individual chose to stay in a failing situation. The explanation involved the amount already invested — not the amount available to be recovered.

Losing sight of the strategic construct that a measure is intended to represent, and subsequently acting as though the measure is the construct of interest.

What it means and how it works

The metric becomes cognitively salient and is substituted for the abstract construct due to ease of processing and feedback, causing individuals to treat the metric as the end goal rather than a proxy.

Surrogation occurs when decision-makers focus on a metric or indicator as if it were the actual goal they are trying to achieve, neglecting the underlying construct the metric was designed to reflect. This shift can happen because the metric is more tangible, easier to track, or more immediately rewarding, leading to behavior that optimizes the measure rather than the true strategic objective.

Why it matters

When surrogation takes hold, efforts to improve the metric may not advance—and can even undermine—the intended strategic outcome, resulting in wasted resources, misaligned incentives, and failure to achieve real objectives.

The verified research on this pattern supports the following:

• Surrogation occurs when decision-makers treat a metric as if it were the underlying strategic construct it is meant to measure.
• When surrogation happens, organizations may pursue actions that improve the metric but do not advance the true strategic objective.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding 1: Surrogation is simply measurement error or noise.

Misunderstanding 2: Only quantitative metrics can be subject to surrogation.