Thursday, August 9, 2012

Management is not mathematics

It was my understanding that there would be no math... during the debates. (Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford)

I recently received a communication from a management organization. The organization is obviously not a mathematical organization.

There are more than 4,200 members in 26 chapters worldwide. Slightly more than 3,200 members are in the United States, and more than 1,200 are in international chapters. Close to 70 percent of the membership is from the United States, and nearly 30 percent is international.

While I can deduce that 200 people are members of both domestic and international chapters - jet-setters, you know - I'm at a loss to explain the 1-2% of members who are neither from the United States or international. Are they stateless? Are they illegal/undocumented? Are they from other planets?

Perhaps I'm being too picky. Another professional who saw the message remarked that it is accurate to say that there are more than 4,200 members. The professional also noted that "close to" could technically mean "more than."

Unfortunately, I can't really criticize here. Several years ago, I wrote some release notes for a process improvement that spoke about "qualtiy."
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