TL;DR / What You Need to Know:
- Goodhart’s Law says that when a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
- In inflatable manufacturing, bonuses based purely on quantity can destroy seam quality and customer satisfaction.
- Paired metrics (quantity + quality, speed + satisfaction) protect your business from incentive traps.
- Before creating a bonus, ask: “If someone were extremely efficient at increasing this number, could they harm what really matters?”
- If the answer is yes, you don’t have a target, you have a trap.
Why optimising a single number can destroy your inflatable business
Imagine you run an inflatable factory. You have a dedicated sewing team, a large-format printer that runs every day, and a client base that ranges from children’s play parks to corporate events. One month, you decide you need to increase production. You pick an indicator: number of units sewn per day. The higher, the better. You promise a bonus to whoever sews the most inflatables.
The indicator goes up. Production skyrockets. But weeks later, customers start calling: there are air leaks at the joints, seams give way after only a few uses, and the printing is misaligned with the PVC. The company hit its production target and, at the same time, created a reputational problem that will take months to fix.
This is Goodhart’s Law in action: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. The British economist Charles Goodhart formulated this idea in the 1970s, and it applies today with uncomfortable precision to the inflatables sector.
What Goodhart’s Law means for inflatable manufacturers
The problem isn’t the metric, it’s the incentive
The production metric didn’t “break.” What changed was people’s behaviour. When you attach a financial reward to a number, the team starts optimising that number, and not necessarily what it was supposed to represent. In the case of inflatables, the number of units produced should represent value delivered to the customer. But if the incentive is quantity alone, the team can cut sewing time, skip pressure-check steps, or use fewer reinforcements at the joints.
The result is predictable: more inflatables leave the factory, but each one is less durable. The customer who bought an inflatable for their play park discovers an air leak after two weeks. They return the product. They ask for a refund. They leave a negative review. And the cost of fixing that problem, collection, repair, sending a replacement, eats up the profit the bonus was supposed to generate.
An indicator is always an approximation of reality. When it becomes the goal, people start playing the indicator game. And that game rarely aligns with the business game.
Practical examples from day-to-day life in an inflatable factory
Let’s look at concrete examples you might recognise in your own operation.
Example 1, Sales measured by number of contracts closed. If a salesperson receives a bonus based only on the number of inflatables sold, they may offer aggressive discounts to close the deal. The customer buys a 6-metre inflatable at a price that barely covers the PVC and the sewing. Months later, that customer cancels maintenance or asks for changes that weren’t in the quote. Contract volume goes up, but margin per project plummets.
Example 2, Productivity measured only in metres of stitching. If the factory rewards whoever sews the most metres per shift, the team may speed up the sewing machine. The result? Less uniform seams, greater tension on the PVC, and points of failure that only appear when the inflatable is fully inflated. Material waste increases, and rework consumes hours that could have been used on new projects.
Example 3, Printing speed. If the indicator is metres printed per hour, the large-format printer operator may reduce resolution or apply ink layers unevenly. The inflatable comes out with colours that look vibrant at first glance, but the print peels off after a few months of sun exposure. The customer demands a reprint, and the cost falls on the factory.
In all these cases, the metric improved. The actual result got worse. The question you should be asking isn’t “which number do we want to increase?” but rather: “if someone were extremely efficient at increasing this number, could they harm what really matters?”
How to create incentives that don’t sabotage your business
The paired metrics system
Mature companies in the inflatables sector rarely rely on a single metric to define success. Instead, they pair indicators that balance each other out. Quantity comes with quality. Speed with satisfaction. Sales with retention. Productivity with rework.
In practice, this means the production bonus is only awarded if, in parallel, the number of complaints about air leaks stays below a threshold. The sales bonus is only paid if the customer renews their order or recommends the company to another customer. The printing bonus is only granted if the rework rate for misalignment or peeling stays low.
This system demands more data and more monitoring. But it protects you from a silent trap: hitting targets while destroying the customer base that sustains the business.
Three steps to implement paired metrics in your factory
- Identify what really matters to the customer. In the case of inflatables, that means seam durability, print precision, meeting deadlines, and ease of repair. Ask your best customers what keeps them coming back.
- Choose two indicators per team. One that measures volume or speed. Another that measures quality, retention, or satisfaction. Never rely on just one.
- Set clear thresholds. If the quality indicator falls below an acceptable level, the volume bonus isn’t paid. This sends a clear message: it’s not worth speeding up if the end result doesn’t serve the customer.
Between the lines
Goodhart’s Law isn’t an abstract theory. It’s present in every bonus you create, every target you set, every indicator you choose to measure your inflatable factory’s success. The metric isn’t the problem. The problem is forgetting that it’s merely a shadow of reality, and that when we turn it into a target, people start playing the shadow game instead of the business game.
Before you create your next incentive, ask the most important question: “Which indicator in my company could be manipulated without the real result improving?” If you can answer that question honestly, you’re on the right track to building a metrics system that protects what really matters: customers who come back, inflatables that last, and a reputation built seam by seam.
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