> The moral of the story is that people with analyst mindsets play an essential role in our economy, but sometimes giving those people power over large organizations can have disastrous consequences.
I'm gonna cosplay an "analyst mindset":
1. Need to measure costs and benefits of slashing benefits/pay.
2. A benefit-- slashing benefits/pay allows us to hit some obvious financial goal
3. A cost-- Uh oh, I don't yet know how to reliably measure any of the costs.
4. Good analysts don't take action without measuring.
5. I'm a good analyst.
Conclusion: I cannot take the action of slashing benefits/pay
The only way to make it work is to add a step "3b: cherry pick metrics for the costs of slashing benefits/pay such that the phony metrics justify the decision management already wants to make of slashing benefits/pay." But now we've shifted from "analyst mentality" to "the mindset of the little Beetle-like bureaucrats described by George Orwell in 1984."
I'm gonna cosplay an "analyst mindset":
1. Need to measure costs and benefits of slashing benefits/pay.
2. A benefit-- slashing benefits/pay allows us to hit some obvious financial goal
3. A cost-- Uh oh, I don't yet know how to reliably measure any of the costs.
4. Good analysts don't take action without measuring.
5. I'm a good analyst.
Conclusion: I cannot take the action of slashing benefits/pay
The only way to make it work is to add a step "3b: cherry pick metrics for the costs of slashing benefits/pay such that the phony metrics justify the decision management already wants to make of slashing benefits/pay." But now we've shifted from "analyst mentality" to "the mindset of the little Beetle-like bureaucrats described by George Orwell in 1984."