“Those unmeasurable intangibles are dismissed by technocrats as “feeling” behavior prized by people to sloppy to appreciate precision.”

Subjectivity is not the measurement of quality. It is the measurement of beauty, sometimes referred to as aesthetics. Quality encompasses both the subjective and the objective. Objective qualities are facts; Subjective qualities are impressions. To properly distinguish between good and bad one must take into account both the objective and the subjective.

See Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

The first cars require a mechanic to sit in the car an constantly make adjustment depending upon the situation and how long the car was on the road. We don’t need that now because all those activities are now part of the cars system. It allows us to focus on what is really important and as a result we can go faster, safer, and with more reliability.

The same goes for business measurements. When they are dealing with a new business environment or situation we need the measurements to understand what choices to make and directions to take, but as soon as we learn from then we should be able to “program” our business activities and get back to the imaginative and creative aspects of business.