Replying to LO28877 --
Hi Chris,
I don't think that a profitable company can rely on just figures. There is
always a debate, sometimes behind screens, sometimes at boardroom level.
In some cases companies/organizations misuse figures. That is plain fraud,
but it will come out and looking at Worldcom we all see where that will
end. Figures are there to support buisness cases and to help steering the
organization (KPI"s/balanced scorecard).
I think iit is far more dangerous that companies are steered by managers
or board that decide on gut feeling or think their impression of what is
ging on is the exact truth. Last year I did a change management program
for a client where that was the case. Board had certain impressions and
the specific diroctor each time had to convince the board that what they
thought was not the case. Figures and benchmarking helped that client to
provide a more rational view and some material to back up the story of the
director, but it still was a hell of a job to get ahead.
Regards
Gijs Houtzagers
Programmamanager PeopleSoft
tel.: 31 23 565 9 319
cellphone: 31 622 934 676
Check for articles on HR and HR related topics on www.houtzagers.com
<http://www.houtzagers.com/>
>I dont know Kohn's work and it sounds as if I better take a look. Maybe
>he goes too far but equally let's been absolutely clear about the big
>picture of the transparency/responsibility debate - which goes far beyond
>the corrupt few to the awesome truth that almost all managers and leaders
>in large organisations have become culturally blinded by numbers
--"Gijs Houtzagers" <gijs@houtzagers.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.