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. These two myths of creativity raise two questions.

Creative Accounting 15

Creative Accounting Creativity GAAP Balanced Scorecard 15

Deming Institute

APRIL 7, 2016

If the focus is just on meeting a target improving the system is not a sensible strategy. Distorting the numbers, a form of creative accounting aimed at looking good rather than doing well, is rampant in American business. Improving the system is by far the most difficult.

Deming 28

Deming System Incentives Short-term 28

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 13, 2011

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. And third, "we improved the flexibility and adaptability of the strategy." The effect?

COO 12

COO Learning-by-Doing Bureaucracy Strategy 12

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 5, 2017

Creative accounting measures. Similarly, a good indicator for myopia is a company’s use of performance measures that are not compliant with generally accepted accounting principles , as it may effectively spin the financial results.

EPS 8

EPS Metrics Depreciation Short-term 8