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Eliminate Slogans, Exhortations and Targets

Deming Institute

Distorting the numbers, a form of creative accounting aimed at looking good rather than doing well, is rampant in American business. Related: Where There is Fear You Do Not Get Honest Figures – Eliminate Slogans (motivational poster) – Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature of Data – The Defect Black Market.

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We Can’t Study Short-Termism Without the Right Metrics

Harvard Business Review

What if concentrated market power of a few companies in an industry has made these companies more profitable than usual? For instance, Home Depot, despite a painful housing market–led recession, retained most of its hourly workers and their benefits in 2008–2009. Creative accounting measures.

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Who Gets a Seat at the Table?

Harvard Business Review

The power of redistributing power came home to Whitehurst (and his fellow Delta alum Jackie Yeaney, head of strategy and marketing at Red Hat) in the course of introducing a formal strategic planning process to the fast-growing company. Just as important, those plans were never handed back up the chain of command for "final answers."

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