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Opinions July 6, 2000: Stress and budgeting - personal
considerations on what budgeting involves
 | With the summer holiday season here for all but the budget community (there is never a
holiday season for this community), I have given some thought as to why this may be.
Budgeting, after all is said and done, is about human relationships, and these
relationships cannot stand a steady diet of stress. However, why is this so in
budgeting? Much of the literature related to budgeting deals with some aspects of
this problem, and I assume that it will do so in the future. |
| From a practitioner's point of view, budgeting involves the following elements that can
lead to stressful personal and organizational situations:
 | Budgeting involves communication. These communications are carried out by human
beings, with resulting breakdowns which are compounded by the, in many cases, unreasonable
time constraints (see, for example, the current "transition budget" process
outlined elsewhere). Issues related to breakdowns in communications and what is
communicated abound in budgeting. Some of the stress and problems related to
budgeting is associated with the "bad news" aspects of the work - after all, you
don't get everything. (Bearers of bad news used to be killed in some cultures -
"killing" the budget people is not as infrequent as we may wish.) But a
large part is also due to simply poor communication. |
| Budgeting involves power relationships, in their various manifestations. Issues of
subordinacy abound. Budgeting is carried out within organizations, which are
hierarchical. This is so with a vengeance in the Federal budgeting world.
After all, the President of the United States is not a member of a "team"
- he is the supreme commander, etc. Ditto for assorted political appointees, not to
mention the 535 individual sovereigns who deal with appropriations and carry out
oversight. The nature of the top levels of organizations is transferred down the
line and affects all organizational activities. In addition, there are winners and
losers in the budget process, and conflict. |
| Related to communication and the power relationships there are matters of documentation,
summarization, and conveying of information - by and large, the "paperwork"
associated with formulating and executing budgets. Necessities include
"filtering" of information and the use of information technology, which in turn
influence communications and power relationships - withholding or giving information is
clearly an exercise of power. |
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| I will be exploring aspects of this puzzle in future opinion pieces. If you have
thoughts on these matters that you would like to share, please write me at Laszlo@budgetanalyst.com. |
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