These days with the economy being on the news on a daily basis – when was the last time the stock market moves made main headlines every single day anyway? – it’s good to put one thing into perspective: analysts.
As I write, I’m listening to CNN stating that “According to analysts…” this and that. I’m also reading one of the, if not the, best management book ever, “What were they thinking?” by Jeffrey Pfeffer. More about this later, but I just wanted to pick out the following quote from there. This is just passingly mentioned when talking about companies’ obsessive, misplaced focus on shareholder return, but is a gem in its own right:
..the fact that running a company to please the analysts means, for the most part, running a company to satisfy the demands of relatively young individuals with little or no experience actually running anything or even with much detailed knowledge about the products and the customers in the industry they cover.
That’s just priceless. And something to keep in mind with the constant barrage of “According to analysts…”
