Discipline makes Daring possible.

Questions

Questions

People are asking big questions about accountancy.

Both from a technology perspective, as in this paper from Deloitte, and from a more existential perspective, exemplified by Professor Richard Murphy and the Corporate Accountability Network.

Big changes create great opportunities to re-think our models of the world as consumers and as producers.

Where do you think accountancy should go?   What should accountants do?  For whom?  What do we want from accountants?   Most importantly, what could we want?  What should we want?

Big questions, now is a good time to ask them.

Decisions

Decisions

One of the easiest ways to overcomplicate a process that is designed to be run by humans is to spell out every possible decision.

That’s not to say decision trees like the one above aren’t useful in helping people to think through options or scenarios, they are.  But often it’s impossible to pre-identify every possible scenario – especially where other living things are involved – and the attempt to include everything we can imagine in a process simply slows down its execution.

For the most part, simple, black & white, truly binary decisions can be automated.

For everything else we want people to think before they act.   In which case the best instruction starts with “Use your judgement and experience, together with your knowledge of our purpose and values”.

 

Reification

Reification

Humans are very good at taking ideas or feelings that are abstract, implicit, unexpressed, and possibly inexpressible, and giving them a concrete form, so that we can reason about them as if they have a real physical presence.

We do it all the time, with maps; forms; questionnaires, diagrams; musical scores; plans; and especially software.  Those familiar icons on your phone or laptop screen are reifications of the idea of a dustbin, or a filing system, just as the original dustbin was a reification of the idea of ‘a place to collect rubbish’.

This is OK when we know that we are doing it.   When we look at a map, we know it isn’t the territory.   But when we give the map a voice that tells us where to go next, we forget that it is a map, and treat it as if it is real – more real than the territory.

But the most dangerous thing about this aspect of reification is that some ideas and feelings are possibly inexpressible, which means that in order to capture them, we must simplify them, reduce them, lose nuance – lose meaning.

We’ve all filled in questionnaires, for serious purposes or for fun, where some of the answers don’t really fit with our experience.   But we have to choose one, so we go with an answer that is the nearest, or which captures one aspect of it.  By the time everyone does that, the people who formulated the questionnaire have created a model of the group of questionnaire answerers that in fact does not capture the reality at all.

That’s fine if it was just for fun, but what if that model is then used to build the ‘systems’ (not necessarily software) and institutions that surround us?  It becomes the reality, and woe betide you if you don’t quite fit.

So, it’s important to be aware that the map is not the territory.  The way we model the world around us is not the world, and other models are available – even if we haven’t dreamed them up yet.

And, I think, its important to leave inexpressible things unexpressed.   Some parts of the score should be left to the imagination of the musician.  They’re usually the most memorable parts of each performance.

 

 

Learned carelessness

Learned carelessness

Here’s a scary thought.   When their satnav says there is a road, but all they can see is water, drivers will believe the satnav, rather than their own eyes, and end up having to be rescued.

Luckily, most of the time the results of such satnav errors are not drastic – they simply start the conversation after a late arrival – “You won’t believe where the satnav took us!”

But the phenomenon behind these stories – automation bias or “learned carelessness” – is a serious problem.   Confronted with a ‘black box’, whose workings we don’t understand, and which seems on the whole to be reliable, we humans switch off, stop monitoring, and stop thinking.  “Computer says no.”

There are ways to prevent this.

You can de-mystify the ‘black box’, so people understand that it is part of a system designed and built by humans to achieve certain ends; you can frame the information provided by the system as support or advice rather than instruction, and you can engage the human brain by making the human do some of the work – especially where there are other humans involved.

Automation is great, but I want the best of both worlds.

Thanks to James Bridle for sparking this one.

 

 

 

 

Why do I need good people if I have process? Evolution.

Why do I need good people if I have process? Evolution.

Why do I need good people if I have process?

No process can be designed to deal with every possible scenario, exception or eventuality.

Without good people a process-based business gradually fossilises and becomes irrelevant, or worse, gets completely out of step with its environment.

Good people can handle exceptions appropriately when they occur.   They can also identify when those exceptions are due to environmental changes that need to be dealt with by adjusting the process.

Good people spark off constraints (such as a process), they ad-lib, improvise, invent workarounds, dream up ridiculous scenarios that open up new opportunities.

With a solid framework to play in, good people bring a business to life – they make it human.

Why do I need process if I have good people? Detachment

Why do I need process if I have good people? Detachment

Why do I need process if I have good people?

As Japanese businesses know well, process embodies the ‘thing’ a group of people are working on – whether that’s a play, a car, a building or a service.

This allows a certain level of separation between ‘what I am trying to achieve’ and ‘who I am’, which makes it much easier for everyone involved to discuss and agree improvements, because it’s ‘the thing’ that’s being judged, not ‘me’.

Free from the fear of personal criticism, your good people can eagerly look for ways to make things better.

Why do I need process if I have good people? Responsibility

Why do I need process if I have good people? Responsibility

Why do I need process if I have good people?

Having a process to follow while they learn, gives people confidence that they are doing the right thing.

Once people are confident that they know what they are doing, they don’t wait to be made accountable – they take responsibility.

With the confidence of a process behind them, your good people can pretty much manage themselves.

 

Why do I need process if I have good people? Emotion.

Why do I need process if I have good people? Emotion.

Most modern businesses, large and small, involve interactions of some kind – with other employees, customers, and suppliers.

These interactions require emotional labour – listening; empathising, being present to the other person as well as intellectual labour – pattern-matching, imagining potential scenarios, reviewing possible solutions etc..

Without a process interactions become harder than they need to be, because every interaction is treated as unique, where in fact they fall into common patterns, with unique features.

Process captures what has to happen in the common patterns, giving your people a framework to work from that doesn’t need much thinking about.

Process frees up intellectual and emotional energy to be spent on the unique and personal aspects of regular interactions, and on the exceptions that either prove the rule, or highlight the start of a new pattern.

With their heads cleared of the routine, your good people can use their hearts to exceed your promises.

Why do I need process if I have good people? Memory

Why do I need process if I have good people? Memory

Why do I need process if I have good people?

Without a process, some of the knowledge of “what we do here” and as importantly, “how we do things round here” and “why we do what we do” gets lost every time one of your ‘good people’ leaves.   This knowledge also gets changed as new people join.

This can be overcome by a founder that spends time and energy ‘policing’ the culture (think Steve Jobs), but one day even the founder will disappear.

Process gives your business a memory of its own.

That memory needn’t be prescriptive.  The most detailed score still leaves room for interpretation, and you can make it more improv if that’s your style.

If the business always remembers the “what”, “how” and “why”, your people don’t need to make it up as they go along.