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BUDGET GAMES

Corporate budgeting consumes executives' time, encourages deception and penalizes honesty, turns business decisions into gaming, creates distrust among colleagues, and distorts incentives. Explore the hidden pitfalls of budgeting in this eye-opening article.

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BUDGET GAMES

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  1. BUDGET GAMES

  2. Corporate Budgeting: the Ugly Side*公司预算:丑陋的一面 • It consumes a huge amount of executives’ time, forcing them into endless rounds of dull meetings and tense negotiations. 预算花费了管理人员大量的时间,迫使他们参与无休止的会议和艰难的协商. • It encourages managers to lie and cheat, lowballing targets and inflating results, and it penalizes them for telling the truth. 预算导致管理者说谎和欺骗,使他们降低目标并夸大结果,而那些说真相的人却要受到惩罚. * The Wall Street Journal

  3. Corporate Budgeting: the Ugly Side • It can turn business decisions into elaborate exercises in gaming. • It has the potential to set colleague against colleague, creating distrust and ill will. 预算可能导致同事间的不团结以及不信任. • It may distort incentives, motivating people to act in ways that run counter to the best interests of the company. • 预算可能使人们不从公司整体利益最佳的角度去开展工作.

  4. The Sandbagger • Comes to the table with a less ambitious plan: “There is no way we . . . can grow by 10%”他毫无计划地来参加会议,告诉大家10%的增长计划根本不可能实现. • When growth exceeds the target the Sandbagger becomes a hero • 而当实际增长超过目标时,他却成了英雄. • Result: Sandbagger is overpaid for performance结果:他得到了很高的报酬. Adapted from "Games Managers Play at Budget Time"

  5. The Magician • Leaves out negative facts and diverts attention to positive items: “There really are no weak spots in our business right now.” • Result: Inconvenient items that the magician tries to hid will eventually reappear and may have disastrous consequences for the company.

  6. The Lone Agent • Contends that the business cannot conform to corporate conventions because of some unique characteristic: “. . . That principle does not apply to our business.” • Result: Lone agents sow mistrust among peers and superiors.

  7. The Visionary • Managers who do not have numbers on their side often appeal to emotions: “I can’t say exactly when, but this is going to be BIG, really BIG.” • Focus is on long term with little said about the short term • Result: Visionaries should be on solid ground; otherwise the company spends money on projects that often fail.

  8. The Hostage Taker • Some managers claim that they can deliver significant returns if they are given a large proportion of the available funds: “If we don’t invest BIG right now, we’ll be left on the sidelines.” • Result: This can have the potential to damage the company in the future if the Hostage Taker’s plans do not turn out as projected.

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