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 [...]
- Organizational Dysfunction, Outplacing Emotion and a Man Called “Lynch”
In the movie version of the low-budget tv series, “The A-Team”, there is a running gag about CIA agents who all identify themselves– whether in Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, or home in the good ole USA, as “Mr Lynch”. The Kafka-esque or perhaps, Beckettian (thinking of Godot…) nature of the joke resonated deeply with [...]
- Executive Coaching, Greek Sovereign Debt, & Market Bubbles
This week’s mighty global market turbulence gripped both our attention and stomachs. Naturally, it entered consulting discussions as clients reflected on their relation to markets. Some thoughts: plentiful and current over-supplies of information, facilitated by technology, allow market participants to react more quickly (also helped by technology) than ever before while we react to momentary [...]
- Working Knowledge Initiative: Entrepreneurship is Making Use of Reciprocity
A question from a client who’d worked in the non-profit sector throughout her professional life got me to thinking. She was adamant that entrepreneurship meant exploitation. And committed to community building, she was concerned that personal gain meant diminution of the common good. On reflection, what she’d left out was reciprocity. The only way that [...]
- 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 [...]
- The Financial Psychology of Everyday Life
All of us responsible for steering families and loved ones through the increasing tangle of income, saving, and investment, should take a look at Mohammed El-Erian’s “Comfy old ways will not see us through” in today’s FT. He reminds us that we operate with incomplete and wrongly-framed valuation models which themselves focus on growth expectations [...]
