Dive into the archives.
- On Twitter: Productive Narcissism
I am a late adaptor. A post-Luddite. Yesterday, I sent my first tweet. And my wife now claims that she is a “twidow”. There is some truth to this. I’m fascinated by the bricolage: the carnival and the possibility. This morning, having replied to a posting sent from an Irish academic, he and I exchanged [...]
- Aporia: On knowing. On not knowing.
It is 8:05 AM: my cup of coffee and Financial Times are before me as I prepare for US markets to open. Andrew Hill, writing the “On management” column today, presents a chilling precis on BP and the snail’s pace of corporate culture change with far wider implications for investors: “A safety survey of the [...]
- The Electronic Herd and the Market as Open System
The current sway, within market systems, of what journalist Thomas Friedman called “the electronic herd” has revolutionized the way in which retail investors must approach the market. No longer are the benchmarks of financial statement analysis and technical analysis sufficient to judge the attractiveness of equity offerings. Rather, because of sudden and turbulent shifts of [...]
- DayTrading & Managing Our Own Minds
Increasingly, clients have described their turn to trading in volatile and uncertain markets, as their corporate incomes have vanished and their assessments of possible return to their former workforce positions have darkened. Day trading. Paradoxically, they have embraced uncertainty as their former sense of loyalty to firm and task has been disappointed. Their “security”, they [...]
- Thinking Out Loud: Making Explicit Individual & Organizational Similarity
An ongoing interest of mine is in linking the similarities across different psychological systems. Individual, group, and organizational systems share a number of common attributes. These include: a recognizable systemic identity; distinct rituals and practices; differences between the subject and other entities; specific intra-system roles and specializations; a capability to change; the fact that change [...]
- Case Study: Uncertainty and the Questionable Productivity of Certainty
Certainty is a momentary phenomenon of rootedness in the passing of time. The certain is the unchangeable, the fact of the present as it recedes into history. Beyond the unchangeable, looking forward, is the highly probable. Given what we know in the present, what do we see coming next? With slightly more uncertainty, we enter [...]
- Working Knowledge Initiative: Security and Temporary Organization
I woke up in the middle of the night with a singular dream image in my thoughts: it was an egg carton. Thinking about it, I started to chuckle. I recalled it exactly. It had been about 40 years ago— and the first time I’d travelled outside the United States. I had been investigating the [...]
- Working Knowledge Initiative: The Midlife “NO!”
The first hurdle facing consideration of independent employment for the midlife professional is internal. Its that assertive inner voice that says, “Hey—I’m 45, 50, 55, 60 years old. If I were a risk-taking entrepreneur, I would have been doing it years ago. I wouldn’t have worked the way I’ve worked, throughout my work life.” The [...]
- Working Knowledge Initiative: Q&A
Q: “Okay, I’ve read the writeup, seen the “movie” and might come on November 3. But what’s the real deal here?” A: The Working Knowledge Initiative will begin its Manhattan, Community-Wide program on November 3 under the sponsorship of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun and the Accord Advisory Group. The current recession has caused much anguish and [...]
- Keynes and Business Consultation as a Temporary Work Organization
As a business psychologist, reading Keynes’ “General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money” is a thrilling ride. Its like discovering that James Joyce’s “Ulysses” takes Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams” on the road to the living, breathing, web of a city and its people, going about their daily business. And its not just Keynes’ brilliant Chapter [...]
