The more corporate innovators I met, the more I heard about how much faith their bosses put in forecasts as a tool for holding people accountable—even senior managers who (I thought) surely would know better. The “fantasy plan” of the original pitch is often far too optimistic to be used as a real forecast. But managers, lacking any other system to use, need something to hold on to. Without an alternative, they cling to the forecast—even if it’s just made up. You’ve probably started to sense the problem here: An older system of accountability, designed in a very different time and for a very
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