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> The Spreadsheet Mentality comes from the age-old executive wisdom of “Only what’s measured is what matters.” As a result of that wisdom, the underlying assump
by bambax 4y ago
> The Spreadsheet Mentality comes from the age-old executive wisdom of “Only what’s measured is what matters.” As a result of that wisdom, the underlying assumption becomes: “If it can be tracked, it’s important. If it can’t be tracked, it’s less important.”
A better formulation, that more accurately describes what happens, is: if you can't track what's important, you think that what you can track is important. This leads to total catastrophes (such as, for instance, the beginning of the Vietnam war where the number of enemy deaths became the measure of success).
"What can be tracked" doesn't matter; what matters is what matters. If that can't be tracked, well then we need to find a way to track it. It can be hard, but it's almost always possible.
- _the_inflator 4y agoI agree with you. Don't confuse the map with the territory. There needs to be someone, who can combine and explain the reasoning behind all the numbers. After all, they should serve a strategy. For example, you could judge an iPhone by its specs and/or by using it. Spec wars lead to Intel boasting GHz numbers, while Apple focused on customer experience, where a fast CPU is only part of the equitation.
- beckingz 4y agoA sufficiently advanced map is indistinguishable from the territory. Perception often becomes reality. But also the map is not the territory.
- ianmcgowan 4y agoA book I found interesting on that is: How to measure anything [ https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/how-to-measure-anything-finding-the-value-of-intangibles-in-business_douglas-w-hubbard_david-drummond/311234/item/8769754/#edition=6738591&idiq=33703382 https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/how-to-measure-anything-findin... ] There were certain areas that seemed unquantifiable before reading this and it has some good suggestions for how to tackle things like measuring risk and other intangibles.
- Terr_ 4y ago>Vietnam war Sometimes referred to as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
- bambax 4y agoAh yes, absolutely. I think it's very important to remember that McNamara was one of the most brilliant minds of his generation. The "smartest guy in the room". In any room. But the mind is just a tool. If you don't know where you're going, all it's going to do is get you lost faster.