Business reporting is not dealing with objects, it is dealing

Host: The office was nearly dark, lit only by the blue glow of a dozen monitors and the hum of machines that never slept. Outside, the city skyline blinked like a constellation of restless thoughts — each light a story of someone still awake, still building, still trying.

The clock read 2:14 a.m. The spreadsheets on the wall-sized screen were endless: numbers, graphs, projections — a symphony of logic that somehow still felt like chaos.

Jack sat hunched at the table, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, his face pale from the cold light of the monitors. Jeeny stood by the whiteboard, a marker in hand, surrounded by a battlefield of formulas, data flows, and words like “relational insight,” “systems,” “patterns.”

Host: They looked less like business analysts and more like two philosophers trapped inside a machine.

Jeeny: “Hasso Plattner once said, ‘Business reporting is not dealing with objects — it is dealing with relationships between objects.’”
She drew two circles on the board, then a line connecting them. “You see? The data’s not the story. The connection is.”

Jack: rubbing his eyes “You’re romanticizing analytics again. We’re not poets, Jeeny. We’re just measuring performance.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Exactly. Measuring — not understanding.”

Jack: “Same thing.”

Jeeny: “Not even close. Measuring is about counting. Understanding is about meaning. You can count ten thousand transactions and still not see a single human.”

Host: Her voice echoed softly in the dim room. Outside, a light drizzle began against the windows — the sound of a world that kept turning even when they didn’t.

Jack stared at the data chart projected on the wall — a galaxy of figures, lines, and percentages.

Jack: “So what are you saying? That numbers can feel?”

Jeeny: “No. But they represent people who do. Behind every number is a choice, a failure, a hope, a relationship — even in business.”

Jack: dryly “Tell that to the CFO.”

Jeeny: “I would. But he’s too busy looking at objects.”

Host: She capped the marker, walking slowly toward the massive screen. The light reflected in her eyes — blue, shimmering, alive with thought.

Jeeny: “Plattner was right. We keep pretending that reports show us reality. But they only show us relationships. Revenue relates to trust. Loss relates to neglect. Productivity relates to purpose. You can’t separate the numbers from the connections that create them.”

Jack: “You sound like a philosopher disguised as a data scientist.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like a cynic who’s forgotten that data came from people.”

Jack: “People make mistakes. Data doesn’t.”

Jeeny: “Then explain why we always misinterpret it.”

Host: The air between them thickened — not hostile, but charged. Like two currents clashing over truth. The rain outside grew heavier, the window shimmering with streaks of light.

Jack turned to the monitor and highlighted a section — revenue drop, quarter four.

Jack: “So what does this relationship tell you, then?”

Jeeny: “That we stopped listening.”

Jack: “To who?”

Jeeny: “To our customers. To our employees. To ourselves.”

Jack: leaning back, skeptical “Or maybe the market just shifted.”

Jeeny: “Markets don’t shift by magic. They shift because people change — their needs, their trust, their attention. That’s what this number means: the relationship fractured.”

Host: Jack stood, stretching his tired frame, walking over to the window. The rain blurred the city below into abstract color.

Jack: “You know, you talk like relationships can be graphed. But they can’t. They’re messy, emotional, unpredictable.”

Jeeny: “That’s the irony. So is business. We pretend it’s rational, but it’s all built on trust — invisible, fragile, human trust. You can’t quantify it, but you can feel when it’s gone.”

Jack: “You think data can show that?”

Jeeny: “Not directly. But the patterns change when the relationships do. It’s like music. You can’t measure emotion, but you can see the waveform tremble when the heart does.”

Jack: quietly “You really believe that?”

Jeeny: “I have to. Otherwise all of this —” she gestured at the screens, the spreadsheets, the sleepless nights “— is meaningless.”

Host: For a long moment, there was silence — just the rain, the hum of the computers, and the faint pulse of the monitors like electronic heartbeats.

Jack: “You know, I used to think reporting was about control. You take the chaos of a business and turn it into something measurable. Something manageable.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now it feels like translation. Like we’re trying to interpret a language we don’t fully understand.”

Jeeny: nodding “Exactly. Business reporting isn’t just arithmetic — it’s anthropology. It’s the study of how people build, break, and rebuild systems of value.”

Jack: “That’s poetic.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s human.”

Host: She turned the board around, revealing a messy diagram that looked like a web — arrows connecting customers, employees, suppliers, feedback loops.

Jeeny: “Look at this. Each node’s a person. A team. A story. If one point collapses, the network bends. If too many collapse, the whole thing breaks.”

Jack: “And you think a spreadsheet can capture that?”

Jeeny: “No. But a good analyst can feel it. The same way an artist senses when a line on canvas is wrong. Reporting isn’t just input-output — it’s intuition sharpened by evidence.”

Jack: half-smiling “You should trademark that.”

Jeeny: grinning back “I’d rather teach it.”

Host: The monitors behind them flickered — one screen updating automatically, lines shifting, new figures sliding into place. The future, reconfiguring itself in real time.

Jack: “You ever think we’re just reading modern hieroglyphs? Trying to find meaning where there might not be any?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But even the Egyptians drew to explain what they loved, feared, and built. We do the same — just with data instead of stone.”

Jack: “So numbers are our new gods?”

Jeeny: “No. They’re our mirrors.”

Host: The rain softened, the first light of dawn bleeding through the glass, turning everything a quiet silver. The air smelled faintly of ozone and coffee.

Jack: “You know, you might be right. Maybe success isn’t about the numbers at all. Maybe it’s about how those numbers connect.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Reporting isn’t about objects — it’s about the space between them. The tension, the influence, the story.”

Jack: “And that story changes everything.”

Jeeny: “It always does.”

Host: The monitors dimmed, the screensaver blooming with patterns that looked like constellations — systems within systems, relationships within relationships.

Jeeny packed up her laptop, glancing once more at the web of connections on the board.

Jeeny: “Plattner understood that the future of business isn’t in numbers — it’s in empathy. In understanding how things affect each other, not just how much.”

Jack: quietly, smiling “Empathy as a business model. Now that’s revolutionary.”

Jeeny: “No. That’s evolution.”

Host: The two of them walked out into the early morning light, the world still damp, still shimmering. The city below began to stir — deliveries, footsteps, beginnings.

And as they stepped into the day, the essence of Hasso Plattner’s truth pulsed quietly behind them —
that success, in business as in life,
is never about the objects we count,
but the connections we nurture —
the invisible web of trust, attention, and understanding
that binds every number
to something profoundly human.