The issue here is that people appreciate beauty and respond more positively when things ‘look right’
Without exposure to beauty, people don’t feel right, information doesn’t feel right and so therefore decisions made or conclusions drawn leave the user with a sense of unease. If things don’t look right there is a depression of spirit and an unnecessary compromise by the receiver of the information that means they have to work harder to accept ugly truth.
This can manifest itself in all kinds of strange reactions to the information produced ranging from destructive criticism of the author – they can’t produce a ‘decent report’ to straightforward denial of the information that is put in front of them- that number is wrong.
An experience of beauty is a two way process, firstly there is the objective reality of the author- an underlying desire to ‘tell the truth’, however unpalatable that may be, and a subjective receptivity of only wanting to hear good news or indeed only interested in a small part of the information to suit their own needs or reinforce existing beliefs
As in most forms of accounting there is a balance to be struck and an attempt made to find the balance in the accounting information that appeals to a universal truth of the author and the user.
What the accountant wants to produce should be the result of a perfectly formed and well trusted process by which numbers are assimilated. What the user sees in the accounting information is a view of the world and, hopefully, an aesthetically pleasing set of numbers that make sense. What is then required is a more active interaction with these numbers that is equally pleasing.
So again we are faced with a trade- off, on the one hand to get an aesthetically ‘right’ document may take time which the occasion may not have, the report may have been wanted by yesterday and so there is no luxury time available to dot and cross the document. Nevertheless the information, although imperfect, may be fit for purpose.
This is what Soccer managers say when they say ‘winning ugly’ the performance of the team may not be great but the overall result was a win (desired outcome), it is the same with accounting information. Provided the desired outcome is achieved, the style, content and layout may have to be compromised for a variety of reasons.
Aesthetic accounting is about hitting the right balance with the resources available to get the perfect message across, even if it means imperfect information, again it is part of the accountants ability to compromise his own view of aesthetic beauty and maybe not get too involved in the aesthetics of process, provided that the end result is good enough not to spread dis-ease in the eyes of the beholder.
Accountants will recognise this dilemma if they have read many CEOs reports in support of financial information and may have taken exception to the way the information has been interpreted by the CEO. What is happening here is the CEO living in another aesthetic existence and wanting everything to be perfect, so the issue here is not to get too upset about perceived and subjective use of information provided the end result is aesthetically pleasing. This doesn’t mean the form , layout and content of accounting information has to be a work of Art, it means that the ultimate decision of action on which the information is based is a ‘universal truth’ ( in the sense that the immediate stakeholders involved in the action/decision have a consistent view on what constitutes ‘ truth and or beauty’ )
I suppose the message here is to find the balance between getting the message across and a communication style that works for everyone. So somewhere along the line compromises have to be made and that notions of beauty or ugliness are subjective issues based on circumstance. A beautiful football game may not produce a beautiful result, so winning ugly is always an alternative, but the beauty of winning the league in that year may compensate for ugliness along the way.
