Kindness + The Accounting of Words and Value Investing
February 26, 2013 Leave a comment
I was just discussing this afternoon about how can one “measure/quantify” the criteria of “kindness”. This is in relation to Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer scrapping the “work-from-home” policy which would affect several working mothers and the policy does not seem aligned with a culture of kindness and trust to foster productivity and innovations. And there are reports that Marissa Mayer paid to have a nursery built in her office; “not all Yahoos have that kind of money and clout” was the feedback gathered by journalist Nicholas Carson from some Yahoo staff. In the R.E.S.-ilience framework of Bamboo Innovators, R stands for Rootedness in a Kindness culture. Perhaps the lack of Kindness can be “quantified” by the disproportionate size of the office and size of perks to the top executives and managers. In a positive way, Kindness can be “measured” by the “number of jokes/humor” in annual reports and company publications, just like Warren Buffett’s folky humor in his widely-followed Berkshire Hathaway’s Letter to Shareholders. Words can reveal kindness and there is growing awareness of how linguistic/textual analysis can be used to highlight the intentions of managers and leaders. Talk about using unorthodox “data”. Below is a brief article “The Accounting of Words and Value Investing” that I wrote in September 2010 which also has relevance to investigating Bamboo Innovators.
Koon Boon
26 Feb 2013
Singapore
27 September 2010 (Updated 22 March 2013)
The Accounting of Words and Value Investing for Bamboo Innovators
By KEE Koon Boon
Have taken down this article as i am submitting this for a posting at a media outlet for a 1-month exclusivity period. Will update accordingly. Thank you.
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