I learnt last week the ICAEW MI module. I was shocked at the simplicity. The refresher course we were sent in the post started with basic arithmetic and went so far as to explain what an average was.
The course was similar, with rote-learning of a formula for calculating where a straight line between two points (either side of the x-axis) would cross the axis. This is stuff we worked out in maths GCSE without being taught. That was the last chapter, after a week of mental arithmetic (and the exciting revelation that variance analysis has nothing to do with analysis of variance, or even variance, but with differences between numbers. If only I had known before!).
This week's bundle of joy is the Business and Finance module. We started off with a definition of an organisation, for those of us who hadn't quite grasped the language yet. We then learned that an insightful chap called (Robert) Simon has pointed out that businesses don't always make decisions with reference to their primary objective of wealth creation because constraints such as legal issues apply.
Really!? I had no idea! Do laws actually exist? No Wai!!!11!!
Or perhaps 'Simon' is talking rubbish, because the businesses only care about the law because of the fines and penalties that would impede wealth creation and maintenance were the law broken. Or does 'avoiding fines and penalties' count as a secondary objective? Not to worry: discussion isn't allowed in this course, and definition is king, so we'll move on and say no more about it.
By this point I'd finished deriving the formula for the value of a perpetuity, which was troubling me from last week, and we moved on to chapter 2. Here we discovered what 'culture' is. I realise that as accountants we're not expected to be especially exciting people, but I'd have thought that most of us have encountered culture before. We also came close to transcendental enlightenment with such revealing facts as 'top managers are higher in the hierarchy than middle managers'.
Did you know that lubricants count as supplies but tools as capital goods? Don't thank me, it's my public duty to share vital information.
What things would you want to get right if you were procuring something? Got your answer? Well, forget it and learn these five words: quantity, quality, price and lead time. No, synonyms don't count.
The Harvard four cs, the Four Ps, the Seven Ps, the French and Raven powers, the five principles of scientific management, Likert's continuum, Belbin's roles and Tuckman's stages of group development (norming? Really? I justing hoathe meanless neologisms. If you haven't heard of normalising, check whether a word exists already before you make a new one) all spring out on us, unwary adventurers that we are into the world of worthless jargon. Management makes modern philosophy seem plain-speaking.
There are over 15 lists in the chapter, all desperate for criticism and the bin of academic history. But no, ours is not to reason why... ours is but to waste our time. Who cares if some idiot took two incompatible indices, put them at 90 degrees to each other and named the new index 'my grid'? Is this just some elaborate initiation ceremony in which senior accountants snigger to themselves as they torture the juniors with utter rubbish? Does it really matter if it's called participative or authoritarian or impoverished (sorry, that should be 'Participative, Authoritarian and Impoverished)? If I call things bad, commanding and involved, can you really be sure I understand it any less?
The examples are endless: 'technostructure' competes with Fayol's 14 principles of effective functioning for valuable memory space, edging out such wastes of space as cherished memories of my distant childhood. Sadly one of these principles of effective functioning doesn't seem to be not to waste time on the dungheap of management theory. If my staff aren't being paid enough, I find it hard to imagine that knowing Fayol's 13th principle will make me realise this any faster.
The classical compound of 'adhocracy' sounds fun enough, and I suppose it's better than proutocracy (?).
So we have to learn a load of tautologies and obvious observations? So what? Well, the questions really reveal the problem.
'Management belong to the 'classical school' because they adhere to the concept of unity of command. This means that a person should receive orders from one manager, there should be one manager for one activity, authority flows down one chain of command or work should be specialised?'
Really, swearing is the only answer here. Why should I care about the arbitrary definition of an unclear phrase? If you want to say 'one manager per person', feel free. If you want me to understand the pros and cons of such a system, I'm happy to learn and form my own opinion. Did you know that as of today, chocolate cake now means a black gay man? I'm going to test you on that in a week.
Is it the case that once we've learned the jargon, we'll then be taught why it's worthwhile? Why split it that way? We're a load of educated, thoughtful trainees, selected for our high levels of critical intelligence. If you want automata, write a computer programme and save some money. In this course we've been taught that people need a number of things from a job... and stimulation and a challenge are among them. The requirement to learn without analysis a load of data doesn't equate to learning information (another lesson of the course: information is processed data).
If I have the option to store meaningful information or a collection of data, I'd rather store information. When it comes to my memory, it's not merely a sensible preference, but a mental requirement, as enunciated by some management theorist whose work I'd have thought was obvious. Since it hasn't filtered through to the hopefully senior accountants who decide what future accountants need to know, maybe it was worth pointing out. Sadly, however, simply enunciating the fact doesn't mean that the course developers understand it, another conclusion that has relevance for the module. Repetition is not the same as understanding. Sir Ken Robinson has been saying so for a long time, and research backs this up. And, for those who want to quibble, it's also clear that understanding and being able to use that understanding is the more important skill for the real world.
It gets worse. The 4 Ss, 4Ds, PESTEL, 9 Ms and SWOT all follow in rapid succession. What does SWOT stand for? Strengths, weaknesses, oppportunities and threats. You know what? It would never have occurred to me to consider the weaknesses of my business if I hadn't had the handy SWOT mnemonic sitting in my mind.
Let me throw in another definition for the management-minded: a sarchasm is the gulf between the user of sarcasm and those who don't get it.
Why should I learn to call a (probably) unprofitable product a dog, rather than a cash cow? What is so special about Boston Consulting Group's terminology? Why not call it 'bad'? Dogs are loyal, beautiful and very successful as a species.
'The area outside an information systems boundary is known as the: location, setting, context or environment?'
I wouldn't have made this up before I came here. I'd have thought that this would be too extreme: so stupid that no-one would actually put it in an exam. These words are effectively synonyms. They mean the same thing. I can feel my brain rotting away just from reading this stuff.
Next up: '[Insert name here] is advising the MD of [amusing name here] plc of the advantages of setting standards and targets to specify the levels of performance that underpin the company's control system. Which three are the main components of that control system: 'measurement of actual performance and comparison against targets', 'identification of deviations from the plan', 'establishment of standards or targets to express planned performance', 'follow-up action to correct adverse results or to exploit favourable variances [sic]', 'measurement of ideal performance' or 'devising the plan'?
It turns out it's 1,2 and 4. Who cares that you can't identify deviations from something that you haven't devised, nor compare to targets you haven't established? What matters is whether you successfully learned by rote the sentences summarising the 'main components' of a control system. That you understand how a control system works doesn't matter, nor that if you were shipped off to an alien race you could introduce and implement one. You just need to know that some guy in an office somewhere decreed that this definition of this step is a main component, rather than a different arbitrary division of the process into descriptions.
One more, please: 'According to Neil Cowan, which two of the following should be considered key aspects of business ethics? Transparency, a duty of care, real acceptance of responsibility, honesty and fair-mindedness.'
The answer includes two sneaky entries from Ms Foster-Back, who also created a list of key aspects of business ethics. Since when did it matter who said which theory? Does a theory not stand or fall on its merits (in these cases, fall)? Honesty and fair-mindedness seem like good ideas to me, even if Neil Cowan missed them out.
This moronic pile of tautologies, common sense, jargon, pointless definitions and theorists claiming credit for insight worthy of a five year-old counts towards one of the professional qualifications of our society. As we have learned this week, accountants are vital for providing and providing assurance about financial data. If they've been taught to have the common sense of a computer, memorise rubbish by rote because authority says so and forgo any understanding or insightful thought it's no surprise that our financial system is in such a mess.
If the training structure of knowledge modules followed by application modules leads to having this module, it's time to rethink the structure even if the application module is a perfect return to sensible teaching. Sadly, however, I doubt it is. Application will be about remembering these 'management tools' and simply writing them out, rather than criticising them, improving on them or devising perfectly sane and effective equivalent systems.
The real world has long loved to criticise management jargon as pointless and silly. I am here to tell you that it's worse than you ever imagined.
For those who are interested, Ken Robinson makes his point well here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
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