Re:The Cost Center Trap
by rm_-rf_slash on Monday November 20, 2017 @01:05PM
(#15741795)
The given “best” solution - change accounting/metrics - is also one that is most difficult to meaningfully change.
Everybody has a disagreement with metrics until it suits them. Metrics justify mid-level management to upper management, which then justify themselves to top management, then the board of directors, then the shareholders. “Look at the numbers!”
It’s similar to a grumbling slogan of fund managers in the 1980s about the then-consistently poor stock performance of IBM: “Nobody gets fired for buying Big Blue.”
Everybody has a disagreement with metrics until it suits them. Metrics justify mid-level management to upper management, which then justify themselves to top management, then the board of directors, then the shareholders. “Look at the numbers!”
It’s similar to a grumbling slogan of fund managers in the 1980s about the then-consistently poor stock performance of IBM: “Nobody gets fired for buying Big Blue.”