Money is what people without talent use to keep score - Jeremy C. Epworth
This is common in many domains, where the underlying technology or work processes are beyond the comprehension of management. I have direct experience with this in the Earned Value Management consulting business. When management does not "walk the walk," with some form of hands on experience with the tools and processes of getting the CPR out the door every month.
The result is manage turns to dollars as the measure of performance. Having dollars is an outcome of performance not the measure of performance. In the consulting world, the conversation goes like this - how many hour did you guys bill this period? If we billed the planned hours, then management is happy. In the EV paradigm this is the indicator of naïve thinking. This starts with the question what was our actual cost this period, rather than what is our "performance" this period. This performance is the "earned value."
The "value" earned during the period against the "planned budget" for that planned performance. This BTW is the factual definition of EV - EV earns it's budgeted cost - BCWP = BCWS x Percent Complete.
What these means against the quote, is when management or anyone measures "value" by asking how much something cost or how much money is involved, the value returned from this actual cost is lost in the conversation.
This is the basis of the Steve Jobs paradigm of delighting the customer and the revenue will come. If we delight the customer the billable hours will come, the continued work will come, and the customer satisfaction will drive revenue.
