Recently I’ve been reminiscing about my past life as a Corporate Planning and Performance Reporting Minion.

They were happy days, but thankfully I’ve been ‘clean’ for over 20 years.

I’m not dropping my guard though. I know that all it takes is one email (cc’d to your boss) and I’ll be ‘off the wagon’.

Before you can say ‘Three Year Plan’ I’ll be demanding quarterly KPI returns. Updates for the Leadership Team Dashboard (cc’d to your bosses boss) and ‘cascading linked spreadsheets’ of ‘mandatory’ information. I was a happy Minion.

Missing the Box Lid. What prompted the nostalgia was a conversation with a wise owl. They explained what it was like to produce the Annual Report in their world…

“the corporate reporting job is a bit like putting together the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, relatively straightforward…” (lovely, I get this)

“however, we don’t have the picture from the lid of the box the jigsaw puzzle came in”…  (oh dear, that sounds familiar)

“in fact, I’m not even sure there is a box lid, and if there was, the picture probably wouldn’t make any sense” (sigh!) 

This got me thinking. Is the ‘missing jigsaw box lid method’ a reality of corporate reporting?

Even more interesting, is it a situation where different people imagine a different picture on the jigsaw box lid? For some it’s a highly complicated picture of Picasso’s Three Musicians. An example of Synthetic Cubism.

For others the corporate report ‘picture’ is very simple, a 10 piece Children’s Wooden Elephant Jigsaw (Early Learning Centre). I think we used to call these ‘Balanced Scorecards’ back in the day…

Have a look at this picture and please tell me you get what I’m blathering on about.

Synthetic Cubism = Corporate Reporting. You might now be wondering, what has Cubism has to do with corporate reporting? Well have a ponder on this definition; ‘In Cubist artwork, objects are analysed, broken up and reassembled in an abstract form – instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in greater context’

Many years after my corporate planning experiences this is a revelation! I now understand. I wasn’t just a Corporate Planning Minion, I was an Artist – a Cubism Artist!

Consider the definition of cubism through the lens of corporate reporting …

• ‘objects are analysed, broken up and reassembled’…… data and information is collected, analysed and reported.
• ‘the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints’…. information is presented in a variety of ways.
• ‘to represent the subject in greater context’….. to meet the requirements of the audience.

That makes me feel much better. I now know why I felt so uncomfortable, I was an artist in a world of scientists. Retrospective coherence (making sense of things with the benefit of hindsight) is a great thing.

There is a serious point to all this. The conversations I’ve been having years after leaving corporate reporting ‘engine room’, suggested that things might not have changed very much. As far as I could see there are two big issues, which conflict with each other.

• People have very different expectations. The ‘bosses’ quite often think of corporate reporting as a 10 piece wooden jigsaw. However, the Minions know it’s a bit more like Picasso’s Three Musicians. The drive towards the 10 piece elephant jigsaw can result in the large-scale aggregation of information and the risk that things become ‘averaged out’, over simplified and too abstract. Sometimes you need to see the detail of what is happening at the ‘coal face’, even at Board level.
• Almost everyone wants to keep adding things into the system – just to provide that bit more assurance. This ends up making the picture even more complicated and the jigsaw ever more difficult to complete.

The Integrated Reporting Movement…..this might just help. If you haven’t switched off yet, this is worth a look. The Integrated Reporting ‘Movement’ is all about improving how organisations “communicate a clear, concise integrated story that explains how ALL of their resources create value”. It’s all explained in-depth on the Integrated Reporting website.

There are some important messages here about sustainability, not just the ‘green stuff’. How to focus areas like the impact upon society and the viability of the organisation in the long-term (20 – 30 years). When you add the emphasis on clear and concise reporting there’s quite a lot to get excited about.

If you prefer your information via video, here’s link to Professor Mervyn King from South Africa taking about Integrated Reporting. Thanks to Mike Palmer for pointing me in the direction of this.

So, what’s the PONT?

1. Corporate reporting can feel like more of an art than a science – perhaps it’s a bit of both?
2. Seeing the ‘big picture’ ‘jigsaw box lid’ is important, to understanding where things might fit together.
3. Beware of over- simplification. A 10 Piece Wooden Elephant is different to synthetic cubism.