Thought provoking. Short text from the Arbinger Institute tells a fictional business story side by side teaching a business lesson. The gist of the book is that people are not objects, self deception makes us treat people like objects and self deception originates from a deeper phenomenon than behavior. As such the solution lies in something deeper than behavior. You’d have to read the book to find these out.
I enjoyed the simplicity in the language of Leadership and Self Deception. I also found the text to be very useful. The ideas shared resulted in a deeper self appraisal. My only issue was that there was only one blank sheet for note taking in my version of the book. Maybe this is what I get for purchasing the paperback version of the book!
I highly recommend Leadership and Self Deception to you.
08
Mar 10
Book 51: Leadership and Self Deception
06
Mar 10
Giving Survey
- Volunteers are a charities best friends. There should be a focus in creating programs that bring more people through the door. Getting donors directly involved in a charities activity is superior marketing tool to traditional fund raising methods.
- There is a large pool of volunteers waiting to be tapped. volunteer programs ought to seek out ways to minimize hurdles encountered in the sign up process. Breaking out tasks into smaller chunks will encourage more people who can not make long term commitments to sign up. Getting individuals to sign up to give their time is as important as getting them to fill out donation envelopes. There may be gains in implementing technology solution that minimize the costs of managing volunteers.
- Charities need refined story telling. Many Americans say that they can not find charities that match their interests. These charities exist they are just not telling the stories in digestible formats.
- Not for Profits look too much like big business. This is mostly the result of a lack of openness in the part of charities. Opening up the activities and encouraging all staff to be act as marketing officers. The message of doing good does not have to super complicated.
04
Mar 10
03042010 Links
Scott Anthony writes about analysis paralysis. I like this simple story, with a little modification of my own. Rigorous analysis should not be discouraged in the name of innovation, asking tough question should be encourage but pushed a bit further up the process of innovation. Past the idea generation phase, but acting as a filter in the development phase. This will save the entire firm the headache of running with different ideas in too many direction. How to Kill Innovation.
Does your firm collect data because they are available or are does you data tell a story. Do You Need All That Data?
Daniel Pink on the Pronoun Test.
24
Feb 10
Self Deception
I am reading Leadership and Self Deception – getting out of the box. This book is from the Abinger Institute. So far I have enjoyed reading this text, although I am just 15 pages deep. This quote from the book caught my attention, I found it doodle worthy (above). It is by Black Elk, ” It is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost”. I hope you like it.
18
Feb 10
Selling Tricks
I broke a tiny trackball off my phone. I then received a $40 (20% of the total cost of the device) quote from a company with a physical store. Their main claim was the expertise in fixing trackballs. Dissatisfied with this quote, I scooted over to youtube. Watched a few short videos about fixing trackballs. I then swung by amazon.com and picked up the trackball for $9 postage included. 4 days later my device was as good as brand new.
The firm that gave me the $40 quote (700% markup) was the sole authorized dealer in Atlanta. Since they were the only game in town it was easy for them to engage in careless rent seeking behavior. Just a few year ago I would have had no choice but to fork over $40 plus tax. Today, the Internet has swung the balance of power in my favor where I now have a say in a transaction that traditional I would have been left to the mercy of the service provider.
The end is near for firms that specialize in the business of lack of / the distortion of information. How many more times does does this scene have to play out before some businesses realize that, in a short time, there will be no business in their present business. How many businesses can survive on only the payments to their factors of production with no additional income from their rent seeking practices. Only those will exist in post Internet world. We inch further to perfect competition in some industries everyday.
11
Feb 10
So What’s Going On?
Twitter wants to know ”what’s happening?” Google Buzz wants in on “what you thinking” and Facebook attempts to figure out “What’s on your mind”. More and more readers answer these questions all days long, on twitter in 140 characters, Facebook in short burst of status updates and Buzz even offers inline display of the embedded content so that you do not have to click-before-you-see. There has never been a time where there is so much information available for consumption both online and off. Since we all have 24 hours to our name, the need to get to the point increases daily.
Narrative in the print media on the other hand has not changed. Same long convoluted story telling in the name of contextualizing a story. Flowery sentences that only seem to get to the point in a round and about manner. Print editors claim that stories have to be put in context and often going as far as drawing inference on the readers’ behalf. It looks to me that the human may have evolved away from long form news reporting, while the newspapers were unable to break out due to systemic inertia. The Internet may have killed newspapers but it is obvious it was not the lone culprit; the newspaper killing squad did received a helping hand from journalists and editors.
Mr. Kinsley’s article in the Atlantic (a must read) takes this a step further.
“ONE REASON SEEKERS of news are abandoning print newspapers for the Internet has nothing directly to do with technology. It’s that newspaper articles are too long. On the Internet, news articles get to the point. Newspaper writing, by contrast, is encrusted with conventions that don’t add to your understanding of the news. Newspaper writers are not to blame. These conventions are traditional, even mandatory.” - Cut This Story
05
Feb 10
Jason Fried on Big Think
Jason Fried, author of “Rework,” as well as the ‘minimalist manifesto,’ “Getting Real” talks about the Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application”.
04
Feb 10
Forecast
The chart above shows the budget forecast for the US economy overlaid with what really happened in the last 28 years. The whiskers are the predictions and the solid line shows what really happened. Macro economic forecasts are useful but are mostly inaccurate. Why then are public debates conducted as if budget forecast were the Holy Grail?
When next you hear anyone make authoritative statements about the future if the US economy, just remember that chances are that they are wrong. And the farther into the future those predictions go the more certain you can be that they will miss the mark.
Macro economic forecasts are right as long as there are no economic corrections. On the other hand corrections are what make capitalism tick.
03
Feb 10
Fixed To Flexible
Tod Sattersten has written an e-book. Fixed to Flexible is about cost, price, margin, and the options we have for how to sell. Check it out Fixed to Flexible.
29
Jan 10
A Business Book Is A Tool, Period
Business books are tools. These books solve specific enterprise or personal problems. If you do not have or do not anticipate having the problems that a business book addresses, the text has no value to you. A mason is not excited about a new hair dryer that claims to cut hair drying time in half. Neither is he interested in the latest version of SharePoint from Microsoft. A new digital level for his brick work however, will totally float his boat.
This is why dropping a business book after reading just a few chapters is advisable. There is not enough time in the world to master tools that would not be used.
28
Jan 10
Curious
‘curiosity’ from Nic Askew on Vimeo.
I enjoyed watching this video of Seth Godin produced by Nick Askew. I hope you do too.
