[hutzlibu]

"and it was surprisingly difficult to quantify the impact that terminating an employee or cutting benefits would have on morale/culture/performance"

I think it is not surprising, when you consider that a precise weather forecast for more than 3 days is usually considered impossible.

When you deal with very complex systems, where small changes can have a big effect via self enforcing feedback loops - how can you expect to calculate all that?

And human social dynamics seem to be at least as complicated as the global weather.

[jscode]

I agree. Considering the complexity within organizations, imagine pleading your case to a couple of Stanford MBAs that are 1) incredibly smart, 2) operate in a PE culture that rewards managers that provide others with "negative feedback" to get results, and 3) believe in their hearts that cutting benefits is "optimizing" the business to maximize shareholder value. They can make a compelling counter-argument for just about anything.

[hutzlibu]

I did not meant it as criticism. And I can imagine that situation, which is why I choose a different path, to not be in that position in the first place.

Not saying that my path is better, definitely not money wise, but I knew early, that I do not get along with a culture, that is focused on assigning oversimplificated numbers to people, which is what MBA's seems to be mainly about.

[jscode]

I agreed with what you were saying and updated my previous comment for clarity.