Dive into the archives.
- Titanic Flaw in Reality Testing
Reporting on Davos, Simon Johnson presents a grim picture of CEO reality. What is even grimmer is that it lines up squarely with Gillian Tett’s report last week on the need, among CEO’s for therapeutic bonding, with Davos as group therapy. The incursion of clinical psychology into the world of corporate finance is insidious. It [...]
- The Essential Psychology Within Financial Investment
We know corporations are legally bound to maximize self-interest. What about investors? The act of investment is in “laying out money or capital in an enterprise with the expectation of profit” ( wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). Investment in financial markets occurs through the purchase of financial instruments. Profit is expected is through some combination of interest, income, and [...]
- twitter’s dynamic organization
Its been productive in linking me to thinking (writing) in areas of interest. And its follower-following network allows quick blasts to all and sundry. Here’s my first thought: dynamic principles about individuals and groups certainly apply. The same way a business or corporate entity follows a shortened human developmental line from start-up to mastery and [...]
- Agility at the Edge: Initial Hypothesis on Chinese Leadership
Today’s New York Times reports on Xi Jinping, next in line to assume leadership of China. Xi’s rise has been founded on ” political acumen, family connections and ideological dexterity”. Nice combination. Political acumen and ideological dexterity translate to “agility”, that critical capacity for negotiating turbulent environments as Chinese political power has become more diffuse. [...]
- Bitterness, Happiness and the Clash of Methodology
Had a jangled kind of deja vu tonight, reading an article by Professor Stephen Kinsella called “The Economy of Bitterness”. Sounding alot like NAMA, the Irish “Bad Bank”, Professor K proposes a fanciful economy for pricing and shucking-off the units of bitterness that bring those little clouds of night to the brightest of our days. [...]
- Locating Reality and the Shock of Financial Statements
Larry brought the monthly letters sent by his investment advisor together with his monthly profit and loss statements. Though the firm’s profits had soared since the market crash a couple of years ago, and accounts remained 18% below their 2008 high, the shocker was that since 2005, Larry had been losing .75% of his investment [...]
- Surfing the Oily Waves of Information: Parsing BP
Like most of the folks I know, I have spent the last months surfing the waves of information coming at me about BP. I come away with a story about the dynamics of blame. Characters in no special order include: Transocean, Haliburton, BP, Tony Haywood, Obama, Congressional Democrats, Congressional Republicans, Hillary Clinton, the new and [...]
- Globalization at Home
I spent this languid, hot, July 4 weekend, reading Paul Theroux’s “Great Railway Bazaar”. More than 30 years old, its slow pace matched my reduced speed: like Freud’s directive to say whatever comes to mind, as if looking out of the train window at the passing countryside. So a few thoughts: 1) Globalization. Theroux’s post-Vietnam [...]
- It Had Been Awhile and then: Paul Valery
Blogging friends had warned me that my early enthusiasms would wane. “You’ll stop writing one day,” they said. “There are more addresses out there than there are bloggers.” Ghost writers, or perhaps Zombie sites. And they were right. Consulting projects and teaching assignments claimed my attention. Until, one day, last week, it occurred to me [...]
- WKI: Minding the Reluctant Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is as old as time. Its rules of engagement are as culturally embedded as Monday Night Football. For late-comers to entrepreneurship, our municipalities sponsor public entrepreneurship centers, our universities sponsor executive MBAs, and mini-MBAs or “boot camps” proliferate both as private enterprise and through grass-root outreach. The Working Knowledge Initiative approaches entrepreneurship under a [...]
