Steve McKee is a BusinessWeek.com columnist and chief blogger at StalledStuckorStale.com.

The other night I had the most amazing bite of peanut butter chocolate cheesecake. I say “bite” because, while I did my best to clean my plate, by the time the slice was halfway done I was all done. It was too rich to finish, and I went from shoveling it in to shoving it away in a matter of minutes. You might say that the cheesecake functioned well in terms of “peak performance,” but it certainly wouldn’t have been a good choice for a meal.

In a recent article entitled “Measurements that Mislead,” The Wall Street Journal’s Jonah Lehrer pulled together a wide variety of studies that demonstrated the danger of making decisions based on peak performance evaluations. If you’re someone who hires and fires or buys and sells, it should send a chill down your spine. It did mine.

Think about this: (more…)