One would think. I've known a major corporation to ask me to place a large order (we were a dealer for them), and tell me that we could send it back after theo fiscal quarter was ended. They just wanted numbers on their books to report to Wall Street. This was just one individual's action, due to the pressure he was under to report "numbers". I refused, but this person is now comfortably retired from that corporation. No telling how many others in my position accepted his request. I no longer work in that industry, in no small part because I was pretty much drummed out of it.
Same kind of thing goes on all day, everyday. Business does have a better chance than government of self correcting, and the house of cards eventually falls regardless. But the culprits are almost never punished, and they know it.
But my main point to begin with was that management nowadays has people so busy reporting metrics on their every move, they have no time to actually do their jobs. They are too busy covering their @sses.
That’s the complaint that teachers have about “No Child Left Behind”. Whenever you try to force accountability you end up with lots of statistics, and keeping track of the statistics can actually hinder the mission you’re after.
I know that statistics drive the money. If you want to prove that you’re doing something so you can get funding you’ve got to drive up the numbers. Do you think the push for more (and higher) numbers comes from accountability measures, or from government requirements, or something else?