Back Distinguish between outputs and outcomes
D. Murali
A BALLAD by Rudyard Kipling begins thus: "Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." One can say that of financial accounting and its distant cousin management accounting. Focus of the former is the past, and that of the latter, the future, explain Hugh Coombs, David Hobbs and Ellis Jenkins in their book Management Accounting: Principles and Applications from Sage (www.indiasage.com). "Who would, for instance, employ a management consultant merely to pick holes in past performance?" they ask. "The whole point is to add value by avoiding similar mistakes in the future, to learn from past experiences and to benefit from the insight of those who have `been there before'." In a chapter about performance management systems, the authors discuss three Es of performance — economy, efficiency and effectiveness. On the last, here is a snatch from a hospital example: "Simple measures such as `number of operations carried out' or `percentage reduction in waiting lists' are readily distorted by creative accounting and may not be directly linked to longer-term objectives... There is the need to distinguish between outputs and outcomes." Useful read for financial accountants too!
CEOs to head ministries!
WHO will bell the cat? This is a question that Ashutosh Rastogi asks in India of our Dreams from UBS Publishers (www.ubspd.com). He is clearly unhappy that the 69 per cent of our population that lives in 6,50,000 villages is not given its due. "Approximately 14 crore families residing in rural India do not have even the basic amenities of bijle, sadak, paani, sampark, education, sanitation and health," he fumes. Resource allocation is not the problem, Rastogi diagnoses. "Lack of vision and poor implementation are the primary factors for the wretched conditions in rural India. The government system of disbursal of funds and implementation of projects is a clear failure." A complete overhaul in system that the author suggests postulates ministries to be headed by CEOs with a term of five years. Ambitious, yet well-argued.
Other's needs as the starting point
CARE is the forgotten economic value domain, states a chapter in Creative Social Research: Rethinking Theories and Methods edited by Ananta Kumar Giri, from Vistaar (www.indiasage.com). "Care expresses contextual values developing between concrete persons on the basis of contingent needs arising from human vulnerability. Care involves people's careful responses to these urgent needs, contributing to a closely interwoven network of social relationships," explains the book. Joan Tronto defines care as "a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our world so that we can live in it as well as possible." It is a perspective of taking the other's needs as the starting point for what must be done. Worth careful reading!
I-T return in 22 minutes
FILE your own income-tax return in 22 minutes, says Shiv N. Majumdar in How to File your Own Income Tax Return with Due Attention and Care from Celerity Consultants (http://file-return.info). Though the book does not cover profits and gains from business and profession, you'd learn from Majumdar how to check your Form 16, and also simplify your next year's work. "Believe it or not, with dependence on computer systems, the number and types of mistakes in tax computation and in deduction certificates has actually gone up... Many employees have unknowingly lost money through such mistakes," informs the author. "These are areas likely to get less audit attention because these mistakes hurt employees personally but they are not going to make any difference to the correctness of the employer's assets and liabilities of income and expenditure." The book provides an example of an employee whose employer charged him much higher value for the company-provided accommodation. "The company's definition of salary for the purpose of perquisite valuation was wrong and this resulted in higher valuation and a higher TDS." Essential read.
Entry-level professions
ON MAKING a living on the street, Parth J. Shah and Naveen Mandava have edited a book titled Law, Liberty and Livelihood from Academic Foundation (www.academicfoundation.com). "Street vendors suffer not just because their poverty deprives them of a strong enough voice but also because they are seen as symbols of degradation in an India that seeks increasingly to be middle class and shining," writes Tavleen Singh in the preface. The book brings together micro studies of "railway porters, street vendors, small shopkeepers, cycle and auto-rickshaw drivers, household-based industries, as well as small school operators," and such entry-level professionals at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Don't miss reading this if you want to know what ails the poor who hope to climb the climb to economic prosperity while providing some of the most essential services to the people.
Spider's web to build better teams
SEVENTY-FIVE games, challenges and activities fill Gary Kroehnert's Games Trainers Play Outdoors from Tata McGraw-Hill (www.tatamcgrawhill.com). "Typically when trainers, or trainees, think of outdoor training, they tend to think of the higher-risk activities where people can fall off ropes, trees or logs many metres above the ground — or fall down a cliff face because someone forgot to hold on to something." No, this book focuses at low to medium risk games. Outdoor learning, according to the author, is any learning activity, exercise or simulation that can be conducted outside the classroom environment. The book begins with `spider's web' — an excellent mix of challenge and fantasy provided you can spot two trees and have plenty of nylon cord on hand. Nitro crossing comes next, with a swing rope to carry one across `riverbanks'. Another game uses tennis balls that participants throw behind them towards a bin placed slightly off centre. To know the levels of risk involved and energy required, there are useful icons. The author discusses the procedure and safety issues, apart from listing sample debriefing questions and variations. Energetic stuff!
Tailpiece
"What's left after the dust settles on the family settlement?"
"Parting of ways and business as usual!"
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