Goal displacement occurs when the original objectives of an organization are overshadowed by new goals that serve the organization itself and not on the mission of the organization itself. It's the organizational version of [[Instrumental Convergence]]. For example: * A charity might focus more on fundraising events than on helping people * A school might prioritize test scores over actual learning * An engineering group might invent work to get more head count * A marketing group might spend budget at end of year even if it has questionable returns, to get the same budget for next year A large part of organizational planning is aligning everything to minimize displacement, with things like OKRs, metrics, KPIs. But even with those the challenge will persist due to [[Goodhart's Law]] and [[McNamara Fallacy]]. #published 2025-01-26