ABSTRACT
Numerate decision-making is a far cry from the Stonehenge type of decision-making, but the evolution of the former from the latter can be traced. Industrial historians tell a story mainly of gradual change, growth and evolution over many centuries. The need for numeracy has arisen partly as a consequence of natural evolution, but more explosively as a consequence of the second industrial revolution. The factors involved in the situations facing the manager are both more numerous and more complex. Numeracy similarly consists of an awareness of the power of expressions, to describe the relationship of events and the strengths of the influences affecting them. Numeracy operates on a broad front and never isolates any area, but always considers it in relation to all other relevant areas which it is its concern to identify and measure.
