When the numbers turn, the table does not ask what to do. It asks how much it will cost

When the numbers turn, the table does not ask what to do. It asks how much it will cost.

January 2023. Year-end close, Board Members and partners at the table, me with one year as CEO. Until the next slide: the price of the goods was falling and within the quarter the drop would reach 30% of the value sold in December. The year would open with a loss already declared. The happy faces disappeared and what remained was anger and worry. The only weapon was a lean inventory: sell it off fast, and the loss would not reach the projected 70%.

It was decided right there: sell it off before it drops further.

Then came the blunt question, almost in unison. How much will we lose. Nobody knew when it would stop falling. What came out of that room was a committee to follow sales monthly until inventory stabilized.

The number the table asks for at that moment does not exist. The request does.

A committee created to answer a question that has no answer does not control risk. It spreads the weight of a decision already made.

• a committee born from the wrong question measures last month and calls it control
• the impossible number comes back on the agenda at the next meeting, and the one after
• and cash finances every month between the question and what has already been decided

The meeting ended bitter.

The committee worked, just not for what it was created for. It did not find the number, it shortened the reaction time.