Having taught performance measurement and benchmarking for many years, a common trap students fall into is making inappropriate comparisons – the ‘apples and pears‘ problem. There are many studies of space standards, for example, which produce a simple average amount of office space per person. But this is a hugely generalised metric and comparing countries with very different cultural and business expectations is meaningless. I remember working for a US client who wanted to achieve a global corporate space standard of 15m2. But at that time in Oslo, where I was working one week in four, the minimum government standard was over 20m2 per person.
Also, how can you compare something like PR, with high degrees of interaction and collaborative working with a call centre – the context of work as well as geography makes such comparisons meaningless.
This leads me to my first rant !
Why is there so much in the news comparing the economic situation of the current pandemic crisis with either the Global Financial Crisis or the Great Depression. It is meaningless nonsense, in an ‘Apples and Pears‘ context it is like comparing an apple to a fruit from another planet that when picked instantly transforms into the perfect chocolate fondant complete with gooey centre and cutlery! Never have countries the world over, collapsed the economy intentionally to protect our health; never has the world changed literally overnight; and never has trillions of dollars, pounds and euros been pumped into the economic system overnight. Apart from the fact that all of this money, much of it on a perpetual bond basis, which may never be paid back, is borrowed at the lowest (in some cases negative) interest rates in history – so even the cost of borrowing cannot be compared to previous crises.
So please everyone remember the ‘apples and pears‘ rule – this crisis has no yard stick in history to measure it against – so let’s try to not make artificial comparisons.
Nick Nunnington 