Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

"Creative accounting" is really bad. For me, it evokes a wonderful old New Yorker cartoon by Robert Weber , where a small, meek accountant stands before the desk of an overfed chief executive exhorting the accountant to rescue the company: "It's up to you now, Miller. Except when it's good.

Creative Accounting 14

Creative Accounting Creativity GAAP Balanced Scorecard 14

Deming Institute

APRIL 7, 2016

Distorting the numbers, a form of creative accounting aimed at looking good rather than doing well, is rampant in American business. Of course, every other sports team that lost also had such a slogan and didn’t succeed. Improving the system is by far the most difficult.

Deming 28

Deming System Incentives Short-term 28

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 13, 2011

Jim Whitehurst got a short course in doing just that when he arrived as CEO of the rough-and tumble Red Hat from his post as COO of the rather more buttoned-up Delta Airlines four years ago. Yeaney cites three key benefits: First, the process generated "more creativity, accountability, and commitment." The effect?

COO 12

COO Learning-by-Doing Bureaucracy Strategy 12