Human, all too human

A pervasive view infects modern management consultancy that a business enterprise can be reduced to its data points: broadly, inputs and outputs; a balance sheet of assets and liabilities, and any activity or chattel of the firm can be articulated as one or the other.

The specifications for farmers growing the potatoes that McDonald’s turns into French fries run to 30 pages.

Certainly; ram materials have a price

The higher you fly, the easier it is to see your organisation this way. The chief executive has little choice - but even he will find that dystopian analytsis breaks down when his gaze falls aupon his own executive suite. Well; it must do.