The Dawn of Leading By Spreadsheet

Twenty-five years ago, a client gave me this button…

…explaining “Never underestimate the power of numbers and spreadsheets. If you wanna sell senior execs, make sure you do it through numbers.”

There is so little thinking today by most decision-makers. It’s all about whose numbers can outdo the other guy’s numbers. When and how did this come to pass? According to Steven Levy, in A Spreadsheet Way of Knowledge, we all have Harvard MBA student Dan Bricklin to thank for the dawn of the Spreadsheet Era, back in the spring of 1978.

Bricklin and Bob Frankston created the VisiCalc spreadsheet program. Says Levy, once that program took off, “Businessmen [let their] spreadsheets do the talking. Because a spreadsheet looks so authoritative…the hypothetical models get accepted as gospel. This use of spreadsheets has less to do with productivity or insightful analysis than with the art of persuasion.”

The end of true critical thinking died in 1978, and ushered in the era of Leading and Managing By Spreadsheet. How sad for all of us.

Question for us all as we enter the Future of Work…

If the past 38 years failed to create an Age of Enlightenment, where corporate leaders used those numbers to create deep conversations about what was behind the numbers — to truly understand human needs and passions and humanity itself…

What makes us think the Cognitive Era, the AI Era, the Analytics Era, will be any different?

Asked another way…

Dear Future of Work Leaders: 
What will your legacy be?
Which numbers will matter most in your legacy?

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 — Bill Jensen owes so much to all the people he’s interviewed and surveyed over the past three decades, over a million. Thank you!! #NewWaytoWork #FutureOfWork
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Bill’s latest book, Future Strong, is about the five deeply personal choices each of us must make to be ready for all the disruptive tomorrows heading our way.