I do not believe that one can manage a business by reports. I am a figures man,and a quantifier, and one of those people to whom figures talk. I also know that
reports are abstractions, and that they can only tell us what we have determined to ask. They are high-level abstractions. That is all right if we have the
understanding, the meaning, and the perception. One must spend a great deal
of time outside, where the results are. Inside a business one only has costs.
One looks at markets, at customers, at society, and at knowledge, all of which
are outside the business, to see what is really happening. That reports will
never tell you (Flaherty, 1999: 86).