Many of you know that I’ve been following the progress of G. Willikers, a toy shop that opened in Sacramento, CA, in the summer of 2006. I got interested in their story initially by an… Read more »
Uncategorized
Expose Your Company’s Blind Spots
Rita McGrath has posted at the Harvard Business Review blog. Is your company unintentionally keeping your most senior people from getting the feedback they most need? It can easily happen as an unintended consequence of… Read more »
Debt got way out of hand
It’s stunning to read about how leveraged our economy is, and how painful the de-leveraging process is likely to be. Still, there are bound to be opportunities for the enterprising in all the pain around… Read more »
Analysts’ asymmetrical recommendations
One of the most interesting aspects of our financial markets is a fundamental asymmetry in reality versus analyst recommendations. Simple math suggests that half of all stocks will under-perform the market average, yet analysts persist… Read more »
The case against case studies
In a terrific article which just came out in the February 4, 2008 edition of Business Week, author Geoff Gloeckler describes how Columbia Business School is getting away from conventional case studies, instead using ‘decision… Read more »
MarketBusters out in Russian!
We’re very pleased that MarketBusters has now been translated into many languages – including Japanese, Chinese (3 versions!), Thai, Portugese and others. The latest (at least I think) is a version in Russian, which arrived… Read more »
Pfizer’s Office of the Future and the Great Irony of Information Work
It has long fascinated me that an entire class of information work that used to be done by trained professionals is now being muddled through by the rest of us. I’m referring of course to… Read more »
Private Equity players having to actually run businesses – Comment 2.0
Last summer, I thought it hilarious that the CEO’s of private equity firms were being marveled over – that they actually had to run their companies to create value rather than simply engaging in financial… Read more »
Prediction is hard, especially about the future – guru department
How wrong can a guru be? Every so often, I run across some confident—but wrong statement regarding the state of something or other, and just this afternoon (while hunting for something else) ran across one… Read more »
When you get results – the right time to celebrate
Doesn’t it drive you crazy when people hold big celebrations for nothing more than starting a big strategic move? Like the champagne that flows when M&A deals are announced, or the party accompanying a project… Read more »
Tips for Cognitive Fitness
An article in the November Harvard Business Review recommends the following program for exercising your brain: Manage by walking about Read funny books Play games Act out (improvisation and acting) Find what you’re not learning… Read more »
Here’s a scary statistic – consumer debt on revolving credit
For years, it has bugged me that there seems to be no political will to set up rules that would keep people from getting in over their heads on credit card debt, or that would… Read more »