You know the line.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Supposedly something Mark Twain said but he credited the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.
Doesn’t matter. The quote survives because all of us know people in authority often use numbers to hide something else.
Arguably the dimmest person I ever worked for was fond of saying that if something couldn’t be counted, then it couldn’t be managed. God knows this person was all about the management and never about leadership. Lots of important things got ignored or mismanaged in the process, including stuff that could be counted easily. The same person once told me I was wrong about polls based on something a lawyer who knew nothing of polls had said at a dinner party. You get the idea.
Managers count things. That’s all they do. Managers use numbers - statistics - as part of the illusion they create that what they do is valuable. We can call them magic shows since managers almost always seem to follow Penn and Teller’s seven principles of illusion or in magician David Kwong’s version:
Mind the Gap [between what you see and what you believe you see],
Load Up, [do the prep work]
Write the Script, [use words and phrases to lead people where you want them to go]
Control the Frame, [Centre attention on what you want people to see]
Design Free Choice, [Give people the illusion they are in control]
Employ the Familiar, [patterns, ideas, words and phrases]
Conjure an Out. [cover off alternative outcomes]
We’re not going to walk through an announcement using those seven principles although we might another day. Instead, just tear up a recent announcement for the junk it is and see if you can spot some of the Seven Principles of Illusion.
Go Ping!
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