Replying to LO28918 --
I didnt want to make this too long...so I have heavily extracted this
correspondence to add a few links that are part of the context from my
side of the conversation. If the topic interests at a more granular level
of detail either go back to Terje's mail date 29/7 4.49 am to see what I
extracted from or maybe we should form a mini-conversation group and then
report back
chris macrae wcbn007@easynet.co.uk
www.valuetrue.com Transparency Standards Community
----- Original Message -----
From: "Terje A. Tonsberg" <tatonsberg@hotmail.com>
.1) Terje wrote:
When it comes to "numbers people," I am not quite sure who you mean. This
all comes back to numeracy as I have discussed it before.
Chris Replies: In a world where corporate measurement monopoly of numbers
wasnt operating, the next remark would be more balanced but :
- given stockmarket/corporate USA is the mother of all transparency
crises
- because I want to investigate what's systemically wrong beyond overt
corruption
I think that we currently have 2 types of professionals and you cannot be
in both groups: either you must take responsibility to cross-examine every
business number -as guilty of opaquness until proven transparent - that
passes before you, or you submit to believing every number
so numbers men = professions1.0 whose main goal is monetising - see Maister
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/58/shortcourse.html
=those who gain from short-term analysis rather than system sustainable
analysis= those who gain from numbers being the monopoly corporate
governance scorecard=masters of opaque administration
VERSUS
interrogate-the-numbers-people= profession 2.0 open to sharing every bit of
knowledge with every other professional= relationship system age
mappers=Transparency Standardisers as our community at www.valuetrue.com
seeks to build the case that every large organization needs 2 sorts of
corporate governance numbers + system map - we'll not be satisfied until the
system map has at least half of every behavioural decision impact in an
organisation instead of numbers having 100%. This is actually what
intangibles age or knowledge/networking age's new productivity gains needs
to revolve and learn to organise round
2 Chris said:
> > Various Professions herded by accountants and MBA-trainers and Merchant
> > Bankers abandoned that principle years ago for reasons that are muddled
> > mixture but probably include:
> > - wanted to maintain dominant relationship with boardroom
> > - didn't realise how intangibles (meaning people connecting processes
> > such as knowledge, services and networks) were not only becoming the
main
> > economics/productivity drivers but were making separable transaction
> > accounting less useful until it got to be at best drowning the woods
> > in the trees and at worst the province of very opaque people including
the
> > corrupt which are some of the lurkers of opacity
Terje wrote: The first reason is political, and has little to do with the
numbers themselves. I think paying less attention to numbers might very
well make this worse.
Chris writes. Agree about 'political' but rest of what you say is "Not in
my book". The following mindset needs first share of voice today precisely
because its all but been extinguished from many corporate's flow of
behaviours. Possible book opening (open copyright asserted by Transparency
Community at www.valuetrue.com and co-authors of "The Map that Changes Our
World - Wiley 2003):
Early Draft Chapter 1: Where in the world can transparent business people
meet?...
"Simply speaking Transparency valuers are concerned with the truth of what
organisations do to people. All organisations that impact you most from
the big global ones to those you would like to commit to building through
your career or social life. The kinds of organisations you would like your
children to encounter as soon as they have organisational encounters all
through learning, growing up, becoming accomplished family providers, and
people which in whatever way you measure it: you are proud to have shared
your time with.
We who are transparency professionals have a dream. One day, sooner than
some would credit, the truth of what organisations do to people will be so
simple to see that evil organisations will be ignored until they disappear
like Cheshire cats without a smile, and people will invest their time,
money, knowledge, guts and souls in organisations that do good and make a
difference, and yes even bring happiness, fulfillment."
3) Chris said:
the law that operates in some US States that a CEO can be sued by
shareholders if he acts too socially responsibly is ... unethical (as well
as unconstitutional by my reading of first 10 lines of Dec of Independence)
Terje wrote:Hmmm. This depends entirely on what is meant by "socially
responsible." It is not his money.
Chris writes: You miss lots of my other points. Middle-term system
sustainability is what creates the most value for all investors interested
in anything more than short-term manipulation. Systems law says ye who
tamper with 90 days numbers reduce the value of the whole over time. The
way you tamper with numbers ultimately transactions/lies/exploits peoples
like of knowledge/does other opaque things whereas true value is organised
around learning systems, relationships worth trusting, transparency of
information. If you want a book on this read an accountant who defected:
Thomas Johnson, Profit Beyond Measure
Most of us are pensioners, investors in society/environment/(the world
existing without extreme hatreds or total desperate poverty. Terje : it is
our money, our human world
4) Chris said: related the following quote, saying:
..accounting's laws are the modern day Vietnam that young people
must rebel against with any prank their brains can come up with.
Terje says:
>My comment:
> This seems too simple. If you get rid of the accounting laws, then what?
> Is that going to stop greed, stop the gambling mentality of the
> stockmarkets, stop conspicuous consumption? I don't understand.
Chris says:
One of the worst of the other things not yet mentioned about accountancy
laws is that they give themselves the right to eg say most inventory
counts as a plus not a cost whereas most people training counts as a cost
not a plus in each 90 days summary. The truth: either the estimate
shouldnt be made or its very context specific or indeed non-linear: so a
little inventory is needed, a lot should be charged as a cost. However,
the accounting system that's reported to the outside world and subject of
lots of hasty uniformed analysis requires these blanket judgments cost or
gain , most of which are wrong at least in the system sense.
So yes we'd be better off today if we raised most accounting to the
ground; simplified it to cashflow; worked out what really makes sense as
90 day static reports (why 90 days - you'd agree issuing accounting
reports daily would be totally mad; unfortunately vis a vis system value
issuing 90 day reports to the dynamic of soundbiting media, analysts,
commentators most of whom also gain from volatility not sustainability is
not a system in which you can build organisations. In fact I'd go as far
as saying that the average stockmarket company finds itself in as system
context where its value can only reduce over time (its not uniquely
putting its own unique in the world investment purpose/vision forward as
its raison d'etre because the reporting environment and the vested
interests of all the numbers men have put it in value-subtracting prison)
ok a little of the above may be exaggerated but this comes from context
where 99% of conventional opinion/conversation isnt digging below the
surface to the sorts of system overlaps I'm trying to point to. Argyris's
books on double loop learning handicaps of organsiations 10 years ago
revealed how many were starting to move into such a prison. 10 years of
compounded trucks of those who until October would have been applauded for
saying Enron was the best of free capitalism...never , ever was...that's
how system blind we have become and our first responsibility or cure is to
question every number (its guilty of opaqueness, system-value destruction
until explained how it was made, by whom with what possible vested
interests, etc)
Further references at Transparency Standard Community Home Page Matrix:
Row 1 col 1 : downsize half of the 65 bn dollar markets whose vested
interest is short-term numbers before people relationships
Row 2 col 2 : look at the rotten trick : the common language of numbers
folk coins many terms to sound the opposite of what they do - eg most
Shareholder Value Analysis is Pensioner Value Destruction unless you've
interrogated every assumption built into the excelled model
Row 2 col 4: If the engineering blueprint of a plane had as many
unmaintained weakspots as today's typical global organization system map,
you'd send the plane's owner to jail or a madhouse, and wonder why the
media/government etc didnt spot this earlier
Row 4 col 4 : we must find friendly ways of teaching kids every system
lesson we can so we never let communities be pied pipered by numbers men
again, or by forgeting the one common law (relationship reciprocity)
connecting all the world's religions: our civilisation will burn out
because wel all turned too passive an eye to too much numbers fiddling
howevr melodious it seemed in the short-term
--"Chris MACRAE" <wcbn007@easynet.co.uk>
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