Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

When a performer doesn’t perform as predicted, the predictor is in the wrong. Too bad that we usually fail to recognize that.

I write this the week after all the big tech companies posted their quarterly financial reports. Some companies didn’t perform as expected, i.e., as predicted. The result was that the stock price, i.e., the value of the company fell the next day. The company was punished for not performing as predicted.

I find that odd. What I see is that the predictors were wrong. They predicted one future, while the future was something else. They need to adjust their predictions so that they are closer to reality the next time.

I work with several non-profit organizations that depend on volunteers. Sometimes the volunteers don’t volunteer as many resources as someone predicts. The result is that the volunteers are harangued with pep talks that hope to encourage them to meet the predictions of the predictors. Again, I see the fault in the predictors. They need to learn something and improve their predictions.

I don’t understand why the performs—the companies and the volunteers in these examples—are the ones “punished.” Why aren’t the predictors taken to task? My guess at the answer is that the predictors are the ones who have the power to punish, and we know that we don’t punish ourselves when there is someone else handy.