Force your clients to measure?

Check out Seth Godin's latest two blog posts: Measure That  and But Don't Measure This.  His big point:  "There's no doubt that you should measure things that are both important and measurable. When you do, it's inevitable that what you measure improves."  After all the research that I and others have done on the positive ROI of measuring ROI, this sounds like preaching to the choir. 

But Godin touches on a point that could be a big deal for PSF marketers.  First, he talks about getting clients (for PSFs, this would be the firm's professionals) to like measurement by forcing them to do it first.  Once you do (Godin cites Google ads as an example), clients will see how fantastic measurement is, and they'll demand it every time. 

Okay, could someone please tell me how forcing our internal clients to measure would ever be a good idea in professional service firms?  Yes, measurement is still a young science in the professional service sector, and it will take some internal education to get traction for measurement as a regularly-funded and -resourced initiative.  Sure, marketers could refuse to undertake a marketing initiative unless an evaluation metric were built in to the program.  (Shades of Lysistrata and her friends refusing all sexual favors until Greek men stopped making war!) 

But geez, wouldn't offering to pilot a measurement initiative be smarter than forcing it?  Must we resort to this kind of "violence" in order to get our colleagues to say YES to measurement?  Does Google know something about human nature that PSF marketers need to heed?