Category: Living in trouble
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Seeing the cultural ‘gotcha’
We frequently hear sweeping and inaccurate comments about a company's culture. The entire article by Justin Fox (linked below) is highly recommended to suggest the nuances. Anytime a company becomes large, it also becomes culturally complex, and it becomes more and more difficult to find consistency. Fox recommends a book I had not encountered before,…
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Wisdom seekers commenting on wisdom seekers
Scott Adams' new book continues to attract wonderful commentary. I'll have to read it soon. In the meantime, these comments reinforce my plan to think about more about having good routines, than about goals, than about anything else really. Farnam Street blog: How to Fail at Almost Everything… by Scott Adams, 2013-Dec-19 by Shane Parrish…
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Insufficiently rearranged
The business world has started changing so fast that resources do not get efficiently rearranged in time. We have more and better information than we've ever had before, and fewer and fewer people with the time to study and understand it. Be one of the few! The Media Audit Blog: Evolution, Irony, and Opportunities in…
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In defense of complex models of decision-making (i.e., wisdom)
Learning to make sound decisions in the face of uncertainty has to be the most important skill a manager person can have. Knowledge of what worked in the past is fundamental. Ability to recognize potential bias is the hallmark of a more experienced decision-maker. But nothing can make uncertainty disappear. We have to decide in…
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How growing is more important than knowing
As a learning junkie, I have always wanted to know as much as I can. Recently, I've had to put my student-self in rehab and focus more on trying things to see what works. It can be nerve-wracking, but if you are conscious of what you doing—testing hypothesis—you'll find that you've never grown so fast.…
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Why future profits depend on current customers
A customer you have in the future cannot fund your growth and profits. You can gamble on the future by chasing prospective customers, and you may win big. But you acquire new customers by spending the money made on the old ones. If you reinvest profits into helping your current customers, you will be learning…
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Dim-witted Behavior
Dim-witted behavior is the obverse of the DIY 'do-it-yourself' culture. Think of it as the "do-it-myself' stubborn denial of opportunities to collaborate. I see it in myself all the time, and I watch it unfold across Houston. Houston is a great place to start something. The culture is open to people with new ideas. No…
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A guide to leveraging the social world in managing your business (and career) from Nilofer Merchant
When I feel overwhelmed by micro-managers and conservatives, I can re-read this and see a better side of being in business.
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TFS: A premortem to strengthen every project
We can improve our planning. We can fight back against competitor blindness and irrational optimism. Daniel Kahneman recommends an idea developed by Gary Klein called a premortem. A typical premortem begins after the team has been briefed on the plan. The leader starts the exercise by informing everyone that the project has failed spectacularly. Over…
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Marketing is a Wicked Environment
According to Robin Hogarth, a 'wicked environment' is one where "feedback on decisions is infrequent, it can be distorted (e.g., biased by unexpected events), and [decision makers] cannot learn from the decisions they did not take." [Emphasis mine.] Hogarth wrote one of my favorite books, Educating Intuition, and is mentioned admiringly by Daniel Kahneman in…
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