Networking advice

-- Never keep score. If your interactions are ruled by generosity, your rewards will follow.
-- Your relationships with others are your finest, most credible expression of who you are and what you have to offer.
-- Give your time and expertise freely. It is like Miracle-Gro® for networks.
-- The best time to build a network is before you need it.
-- Do your homework. Never pick up the phone or plan an introduction before knowing as much as possible about your contact.
-- There's no need to ponder who picks up the lunch check. Generosity is the key to success. -- With networking, it's better to give before you receive.
-- Don't come to the party empty-handed. You're only as good as what you give away.
-- Social scientists are proving that people who are more connected with other people live longer and are healthier.

Source: Never at alone

Toyota Production Process (3 Steps)

Consider what the Toyota people are attempting to accomplish. They are saying before you (or you all) do work, make clear what you expect to happen (by specifying the design), each time you do work, see that what you expected has actually occurred (by testing with each use), and when there is a difference between what had actually happened and what was predicted, solve problems while the information is still fresh.

Source: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/3512.html

Installments in negotiations (Source HBR)

There are other reasons to make concessions in installments. First, most negotiators expect that they will trade offers back and forth several times, with each side making multiple concessions before the deal is done. If you give away everything in your first offer, the other party may think that you're holding back even though you've been as generous as you can be. The manufacturer who offered a 3 percent wage increase to the employees' union up front faced exactly this problem.

Installments may also lead you to discover that you don't have to make as large a concession as you thought. When you give away a little at a time, you might get everything you want in return before using up your entire concession-making capacity. Whatever is left over is yours to keep—or to use to induce further reciprocity. In the real estate example, you might discover that the initial $30,000 increase in your offer was all that you needed to sign the deal!

Finally, making multiple, small concessions tells the other party that you are flexible and willing to listen to his needs. Each time you make a concession, you have the opportunity to label it and extract goodwill in return.

All of the above strategies are aimed at guaranteeing that the concessions you make are not ignored or exploited. It is important to note, however, that when someone refuses to reciprocate, the refusal often hurts her as much as the party who made the concession. Nonreciprocity sours the relationship, making it difficult for negotiators to trust each other or risk further concessions. Thus, effective negotiators ensure not only that their own concessions are reciprocated but also that they acknowledge and reciprocate the concessions of others.

Negotiation tip

Which of these scenarios would make you happier?

Scenario A:

While walking down the street, you find a $20 bill.

Scenario B:

While walking down the street, you find a $10 bill. The next day, on a different street, you find another $10 bill.

The total amount of money found is the same in each scenario—yet the vast majority of people report that Scenario B would make them happier. More generally, extensive research (beginning with the work of the late Stanford University professor Amos Tversky and the Princeton University professor and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman in the 1970s) demonstrates that while most of us prefer to get bad news all at once, we prefer to get good news in installments.

Rofr sometimes not good for holder

The issue in both contracts, says Roth, who specializes in game theory, experimental economics, and market design, was that the right was structured as what he terms a Before and After Right of First Refusal (BA-ROFR). The right holder is offered an initial deal by the asset owner—the landlord offers to sell the flat to the renter for $100,000, probably a relatively high price. If the tenant rejects the deal, the landlord is free to offer the property to a third party. But the tenant is still in the game. If the owner and a third party agree on a price below the $100,000 originally offered to the tenant, the tenant has the option to acquire the property for that lower price.

Seems like a sweet opportunity for the tenant. But the timing of the deal works in favor of the landlord, who can now present an ultimatum to the third party saying that if the third party offers a price below $100,000 the renter has a right to match the offer. The BA-ROFR not only strengthens the bargaining position of the owner with the third party, but it also allows the initial offer to the tenant to be set high.

Source: HBR

Convertible Bond

The advantage of issuing convertible bonds in a start-up is that the company receives cash and doesn't need to fix the conversion price at issuance.

Usual features:
1) Coupons (might increase over time)
2) % Discount, e.g. note-holder can exchange note at 75% of the next round, into equity
3) Conversion into common or preferred stock
4) Warrant coverage in % of note amount.
5) Conversion of Warrants can also be discounted so that one effectively receives more warrants

Playing for money

From Dr. David Newbourgh:

An older guy was disturbed by playing kids in the yards every day who were playing football for fun. He went out and said: "I give you 5 cents each day if you come - but you must play." The kids came and played. After some time the kids came and said, they will only come if they get 10 cents a day. The guy gave them the money and after some time the kids came back and asked for 25 cents to play each day. The old guy gave the kids the money. After a while the kids came again and said they they can only come every day if they got 1 USD. The guy stopped giving them the money and the kids never came back to play again.

Lesson learned: at the beginning the kids played just for fun and for no money. They got used to the money and changed playing for different reasons. That went on until they only played for the money. At the end they stopped playing altogether. Apply to work situations.

Mozart on writing symphonies

“Well, I always could, and I suspect I wasn’t the only one. It’s not something that can be passed on from one person to another. I remember, late in my short life, an even younger person came to me and said, ‘Maestro, I want to write symphonies. Can you give me some advice?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘my first piece of advice to you is that you wait until you are a bit older. You are too young yet to write symphonies.’ ‘But Maestro, you were writing symphonies when you were nine years old!’ ‘Yes, and I was not asking advice, either.’”

My dog

Quote from a recent book: "I always wanted to be the person my dog thought I am."

Chinese proverbes

"People's tendency towards good is as water's tendency is to flow downhill." (Mencius, Chinese philosopher, c.300BC)

"Eat less, taste more." (traditional Chinese proverb)

"Failure lies not in falling down. Failure lies in not getting up." (traditional Chinese proverb)

"The higher my rank, the more humbly I behave. The greater my power, the less I exercise it. The richer my wealth, the more I give away. Thus I avoid, respectively, envy and spite and misery." (Sun Shu Ao, Chinese minister from the Chu Kingdom, Zhou Dynasty, c.600BC)

"Success under a good leader is the people's success." (attributed to Lao Tsu, aka Lao Zi, legendary Chinese Taoist philosopher, supposed to have lived between 600-400BC)

"Do not worry if others do not understand you. Instead worry if you do not understand others." (Confucius, Chinese philosopher, 551-479 BC)

"Softness overcomes hardness." (Zuo Qiuming, court writer of the State of Lu, and contemporary of Confucius, c.500BC)

"The greatest capability of superior people is that of helping other people to be virtuous." (Mencius, Chinese philosopher, c.300BC)

"A great man is hard on himself; a small man is hard on others." (Confucius, Chinese philosopher, 551-479 BC)

"Failure is the mother of success." (traditional Chinese proverb)

"It is not wise for a blind man, riding a blind horse, to approach the edge of a deep pond." (traditional Chinese proverb)

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." (Confucius, Chinese philosopher, 551-479 BC)

"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask is a fool for ever." (traditional Chinese proverb)

"With a strong heart and a ready mind what have I to fear?" (Chu Yuan, aka Qu Yuan, Chinese politician-turned-poet, c.300BC - China's first great poet and considered the father of Chinese poetry, his death by drowning in 278BC is celebrated every year on the Day of Dragon Boat Festival)

"Half and orange tastes as sweet as a whole one." (traditional Chinese proverb)

Pareto Principle

• 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of efforts
• 80 percent of activity will require 20 percent of resources
• 80 percent of usage is by 20 percent of users
• 80 percent of the difficulty in achieving something lies in 20 percent of the challenge
• 80 percent of revenue comes from 20 percent of customers
• 80 percent of problems come from 20 percent of causes
• 80 percent of profit comes from 20 percent of the product range
• 80 percent of complaints come from 20 percent of customers
• 80 percent of sales will come from 20 percent of sales people
• 80 percent of corporate pollution comes from 20 percent of corporations
• 80 percent of work absence is due to 20 percent of staff
• 80 percent of road traffic accidents are cause by 20 percent of drivers
• 80 percent of a restaurant's turnover comes from 20 percent of its menu
• 80 percent of your time spent on this website will be spent on 20 percent of this website

Quotes

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

"Computers in the future will weigh no more than 1.5 tons." (Popular Mechanics, forecasting advance of science, 1949.)

"I think there's a world market for maybe five computers." (Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.)

"I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." (Editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.)

"But what is it good for?" (Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, commenting on the micro chip, 1968)

"There is no reason why anyone would want to have a computer in their home." (Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977.)

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." (Western Union memo, 1876.)

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" (David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920's.)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" (HM Warner, Warner Bros, 1927.)

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say that America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." (Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting the Mrs Fields Cookies business.)

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." (Decca Recording Company rejecting the Beatles, 1962.)

"Heavier than air flying machines are impossible." (Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.)

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." (Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3M PostIt Notepads.)

"So we went to Atari and said, 'We've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' They said 'No'. Then we went to Hewlett-Packard; they said, 'We don't need you. You haven't got through college yet'." (Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.)

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." (Drillers whom Edwin L Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil, 1859.)

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." (Irving Fisher, Economics professor, Yale University, 1929.)

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value". (Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.)

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." (Charles H Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.)

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." (Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.)

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." (Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873.)

"640K ought to be enough for anybody." (Bill Gates of Microsoft, 1981.)

Riding the dead horse

Tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians (so legend has it), passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."

However, in government, education and the corporate world, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Giving horse and rider a good bollocking.
4. Re-structuring the dead horse's reward scale to contain a performance-related element.
5. Suspending the horse's access to the executive grassy meadow until performance targets are met.
6. Making the horse work late shifts and weekends.
7. Scrutising and clawing back a percentage of the horse's past 12 months expenses payments.
8. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
9. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride horses.
10. Convening a dead horse productivity improvement workshop.
11. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
12. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
13. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
14. Outsourcing the management of the dead horse.
15. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
16. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse's performance.
17. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
18. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
19. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses. And the highly effective...
20. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

OODA

Some call the late John Boyd the most original militarystrategist in 1,000 years. True or not, his influence has been profound. His ideas about “maneuverability” as the sine qua non of military effectiveness, long on the back burner (during the Cold War standoff between
sluggish behemoths), have marched front and center in the new age of instability, ambiguity, and terrorism. At the heart of Boyd’s thinking is an idea labeled “OODA Loops.”OODA stands for the Observe-Orient-Decide-Act cycle. In short, the player with the quickest OODA Loops disorients the enemy to an extreme degree. In the world of aerial combat, for example, the confused adversary subjected to an opponent with short OODA cycles often flies into the ground rather than becoming the victim of machine gun fire or a missile. Boyd is careful to distinguish between raw speed and maneuverability. In aerial dogfighting in Korea (Boyd’s incubator), Soviet MiGs flown by Chinese pilots were faster and could climb higher, but our F-86 had “faster transients”—it could change direction more quickly; hence our technically inferior craft (by conventional design standards) achieved a 10:1 kill ratio.

(Read more in Robert Coram’s Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War.)

Where's the bottleneck?

“The bottleneck is at the top of the bottle,” strategy
guru Gary Hamel reminds us.“Where,”he asks
rhetorically,“are you likely to find people with the least
diversity of experience, the largest investment in the
past,and the greatest reverence for industrial
dogma?” His answer, obvious to anyone except the
incumbents:“At the Top.”

How to sell to women

1. Show her “real”women and reliable scenarios.
2. Focus on connection and teamwork.
3.Capture her imagination by using stories.
4.Make it multisensory.
5.Add the little extras.
6.Tap the emotional power of music.
7. Create customer evangelists.
8. Form brand alliances.

Source: Lisa Johnson & Andrea Learned, Don’t Think
Pink:What Really Makes Women Buy and How to
Increase Your Share of This Crucial Market

Women = Opportunity No. 1

Start with women. They buy everything. (Not much of
an exaggeration.) Consider these stats from the U.S.,
UK, Canada,Australia, and New Zealand.Women’s
share of purchases:

Home Furnishings ...94%
Vacations ... 92%
Houses ... 91%
D.I.Y. (major “home projects”) ...80%
Consumer Electronics ...51% (66% home computers)
Cars ... 68%
All consumer purchases ...83%
Bank Account ... 89%
Household investment decisions ...67%
Small business loans/biz starts ... 70%
Health Care ...80%

Richard Branson on Strategy

Follow your passions.
Keep it simple.
Get the best people to help you.
Re-create yourself.
Play.

Have you invested as much this year in your career as in your car?

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”—Eleanor Roosevelt
“Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”—Helen Keller
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”—Mary Oliver
“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”—James Dean
“The two most powerful things in existence: a kind word and a thoughtful
gesture.”—Ken Langone, founder, Home Depot
“The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.”—William James
“If you don’t listen, you don’t sell anything.”—Carolyn Marland/MD/Guardian Group
“If you can’t state your position in eight words or less, you don’t have a
position.”—Seth Godin
“Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the
world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”—Margaret Mead
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”—Oscar Wilde
“Have you invested as much this year in your career as in your car?”—Molly Sargent,
OD consultant and trainer
“The most successful people are those who are good at plan B.”—James Yorke,
mathematician, on chaos theory in The New Scientist
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one
most responsive to change.”—Charles Darwin
“We eat change for breakfast!”—Harry Quadracci, founder, QuadGraphics
“If things seem under control, you’re just not going fast enough.”—Mario Andretti
“We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.”—Herb Kelleher, founder,
Southwest Airlines
“You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend
or not.”—Isabel Allende
“Nobody can prevent you from choosing to be exceptional.”
—Mark Sanborn, The Fred Factor
“A leader is a dealer in hope.”—Napoleon
“Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.”—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.”—Chinese
proverb

People in China and India are starving for your job

“When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me: ʻFinish your dinner—people in China are starving.ʼ I, by contrast, find myself wanting to say to my daughters: ʻFinish your homework—people in China and India are starving for your job.ʼ”

One Sad Dog can Infect a group of 100

Hire/Promote those with ... Sunny Dispositions.
Fire those with perpetually ... Gloomy Dispositions.

(Hint: The farther Up the Organization you go, the more important this gets.)
(Rule: Leaders are not permitted to have “bad days” ... especially on Bad Days!)
(Rule: One Sad Dog can Infect a group of 100.)

Source: Tom Peters

Build on them

“Some people look for things that went wrong and try to fix them. I
look for things that went right and try to build on them.”

—Bob Stone, Mr. ReGo

Chicken story

“In Denmark, eggs from free-range hens have conquered over 50 percent of the market. Consumers do not want hens to live their lives in small, confining cages. ... [They] are happy to pay an additional 15 to 20 percent ... for the story ... about animal ethics. This is what we call classic Dream Society logic. Both kinds of eggs are similar in quality, but consumers prefer eggs with the better story. ... After we debated the issue and stockpiled 50 other examples, the conclusion became evident: Stories and tales speak directly to the heart rather than the brain. In
a century where society is marked by science and rationalism ... the stories and values ... return to the scene.”

—Rolf Jensen/The Dream Society: How the Coming Shift from Information
to Imagination Will Transform Your Business

25.000 USD Consulting fee

A consultant promised a solution to the CEO of a Japanese company on how to improve the decision making process and execution. The CEO agreed and the consultant wrote down to lines:

1) Write down the tasks every morning
2) Do it during the day.

The CEO paid the fee.

Tattoo Brands

Tattoo Brands = % of user that would tattoo the brand on their body. Top 10 Tattoo Brands are:

Harley .… 18.9%
Disney .... 14.8
Coke …. 7.7
Google .... 6.6
Pepsi .... 6.1
Rolex …. 5.6
Nike …. 4.6
Adidas …. 3.1
Absolut …. 2.6
Nintendo …. 1.5

Negotiating

Taken from a negotiating book, Getting to YES!:

• Negotiating requires a lot of skill and practice. It's not enough to read everything about playing golf - at one time you have to practice it. Same holds true for negotiating. Practice, practice, practice.
• "Who is winning in your marriage?" - As strange as this sounds, there will often not be a winner / looser in a negotiation. So try to work out a solution for both.

Business Plan = Portfolio of experiments

Rather than try to predict the future, Gates created a population of competing Business Plans within Microsoft that mirrored the evolutionary competition going on outside in the marketplace. Microsoft thus was able to evolve its way into the future. Eventually, each of the other initiatives was killed off or scaled down, and Windows was amplified to become the focus of the company's operating-system efforts. At the time, Gates was heavily criticized for this portfolio approach. Journalists cried that Microsoft had no strategy and was confused and adrift; they wondered when Gates was going to make up his mind. Likewise, it was difficult for those working inside the company to find themselves competing directly with their colleagues down the hall. There is no evidence that Bill Gates looked to evolutionary theory or was thinking about fitness landscapes when designing this strategy. Yet, regardless of how the approach was specifically developed, the effect was to create an adaptive strategy that was robust against the twists and turns of potential history. Microsoft has continued this approach and today has a portfolio of competing experiments in areas ranging from the Web to corporate computing, home entertainment, and mobile devices.

There are some general lessons that can be learned from a portfolio-of-experiments approach to strategy. First, management needs to create a context for strategy. Constructing a portfolio of experiments requires a collective understanding of the current situation and shared aspirations among the management team. Second, management needs a process for differentiating Business Plans that results in a portfolio of diverse Plans. Third, the organization needs to create a selection environment that mirrors the environment in the market. Fourth and finally, processes need to be established that enable the amplification of successful Business Plans and the elimination of unsuccessful Plans. We will discuss each of these key points in turn.

Source: Eric D. Beinhocker, McKinsey, Book: Creating Wealth, 2006.

Chess player

The play of a great chess player is qualitatively different from the play of a merely accomplished one. The great player sees the board differently, he processes information differently, and he recognizes meaningful patterns almost instantly. If you show a chess expert and an amateur a board with a chess game in progress on it, the expert will be able to re-create from memory the layout of the entire game. The amateur won't. Yet, if you show that same expert a board with chess pieces irregularly and haphazardly placed on it, he will not be able to re-create the layout. This demonstrates how thoroughly chess is imprinted on the minds of succesful players. But it also shows , how limited the scope of their expertise is.

Source: Wisdom of crowds, page 32.

Nonmarket paradox

The fundamental paradox of any corporation is that even though it competes in the marketplace, it uses nonmarket instruments - plans, commands, controls - to accomplish its goals.

Example: When Zara (Spanish fashion retailer and label) wants to design a new dress, for instance, it doesn't put the project up for a bid to different outside treams to find out which one will give it the best price. Instead, one of its managers tells it design teams to design a new dress. The company trusts its designers to do a good job for their employer, and the designers trust the company not to make them bargain for a job every time a need arises.

Diclaimer

"CEs should come with the same disclosure as mutual funds: Past success is no guarantee of future success."

Source: Wisdom of crowds

Perfectly designed

Interesting thought:

"Each company is perfectly designed to fulfill the task that it is currently producing." Or in other words: your company is (only) as good as it is currently operating. Don't assume your company is actually doing better than it is.

Lemon (juice)

Some quotes I overheard:

• Try to turn 'lemons' into lemonjuice. (~ a la from good to great)
  
• "Don't wrestle with pigs. You'll get all dirty and the pigs will love it."
• "The claim to faim."
  

Real Estate Strategy

From a friend of mine:

• Use 50% equity to keep interest payments low
• Use rental income to cover mortgage payments and provide sufficient buffer
• USD 250.000 can be used for singles tax-free of the gain if one lived in the building for at least two years
  
• USD 500.000 if married
• Make use of re-investment: this will defer the real-estate gain to later period
• Bid 20% below asking price but don't scare seller off
• Houses will usually sell for 5% below asking price
• Do your research with comps!
  

Drilling for oil

“This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is amazing how few oil people really understand that you only find oil if you drill wells. You may think you’re finding it when you’re drawing maps and

studying logs, but you have to drill.”
Source: Tom Peters blog, June 2006.

“The most successful people are those who
are good at plan B.”

James Yorke, mathematician, on chaos theory
in The New Scientist

Speed bump

Dae-in Cha, class of 2006 wrote: "No is a point of view and not a closed door." No is a valuable feedback. It implies that something is missing from what you are offering. If you can get people to tell you the reason for their no, even better. Those reasons help you refine your thoughts , redesign your plan, and perhaps save some meony you would have invested in an imperfect concept. So for me, I've learned [at Darden] to consciously interpret "no" as a speed-bump, and not as a closed door.

Large trees

Being No 1 in a specific market space doesn't create value by itself. One might as well consider not being No 2 as one avoids hefty competition. In fact, in China there's a company who's goal it is to be No 11. A Chinese proverb covers this idea well: "A large tree collects the most wind".

Licence payments

There are various forms of licence payments that are often applied in combination:

• Initial payment
• Minimum (royalty) payment, e.g. USD 25.000 p.a.
• Regulary annual royalty payment (e.g. 5% of net sales)
• Milestone payments (e.g. for first sale of product)

Since the licnsor has in interest that the licensee truly enteres business and generates revenues, both parties oftentimes negotiate "diligence milestones", e.g. operational targets that the licenssee should strive to achieve.

In case of sublicence agreements it is often customary to

• Share sublicence fees with the original licensor (e.g. 40% of sublicence fees go to licensor)
  

Tank mine strategy

This strategy is used in a military context to "take-out" tanks on a battlefield:

• Slow down a tank with a tank mine (small device doesn't destroy tank in total)
  
• Slow tank is easier target and can be taken out with a bazooka.

In other words: some times it can be useful to use a catalyst or an intermediate step to reach your goal. One tool might not be useful in a givin situation but maybe one can change the setting and then apply adequate tools.

Black swan problem

You may have heard of the black swan problem. It relates to the theory of induction put forth by Sir Karl Popper and later by David Hume.

It was, however, John Stuart Mill, an economist and philosopher, who put it in perspective: "No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion."

How does this link to the above issue on stocks? That stocks have outperformed all investments in the long run (and therefore less risky) does not necessarily mean that it will continue to do so in the future. In other words, your decision should not be based just on history.

Live lessons

From my dean Robert F. Bruner

Your success going forward will rely on your attention to these attributes?

• Total integrity: Business people are severely tested in their capacity for truth-telling, trust-building and social awareness. You are your own brand. What brand reputation do you want?
• Work ethic. Hard workers are the first hired and the last fired. Thomas Jefferson said, "I believe in luch, and I find that the harder I work, the more of it I have."
• Sensible risk taking: Take risk, but be sensible. Go where the competition is not: you won't create a lot of wealth in highly competitive markets. Borrow sparingly; but what you need (not what you want); save.
• Learning. Continue to invest in your intellectual capital. Job security is associated with keeping your human capital near the forefront of your chosen field.
• Joy. All weather people bring to their work a spark and energy that carries them through good times and bad.

(List is not comprehensive)

In a Balloon

A man in a hot air balloon is lost. He sees a man on the ground and reduces height to speak to him.
"Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"
"You're in a hot air balloon hovering thirty feet above this field," comes the reply.
"You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist.
"I do," says the man, "How did you know?"
"Well," says the balloonist, "Everything you told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone."
"You must be in business," says the man.
"I am," says the balloonist, "How did you know?"
"Well," says the man, "You don't know where you are, you don't know where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

What is an elephant?

Six blind men were discussing exactly what they believed an elephant to be, since each had heard how strange the creature was, yet none had ever seen one before. So the blind men agreed to find an elephant and discover what the animal was really like.
It didn't take the blind men long to find an elephant at a nearby market. The first blind man approached the beast and felt the animal's firm flat side. "It seems to me that the elephant is just like a wall," he said to his friends.
The second blind man reached out and touched one of the elephant's tusks. "No, this is round and smooth and sharp - the elephant is like a spear."
Intrigued, the third blind man stepped up to the elephant and touched its trunk. "Well, I can't agree with either of you; I feel a squirming writhing thing - surely the elephant is just like a snake."
The fourth blind man was of course by now quite puzzled. So he reached out, and felt the elephant's leg. "You are all talking complete nonsense," he said, "because clearly the elephant is just like a tree."
Utterly confused, the fifth blind man stepped forward and grabbed one of the elephant's ears. "You must all be mad - an elephant is exactly like a fan."
Duly, the sixth man approached, and, holding the beast's tail, disagreed again. "It's nothing like any of your descriptions - the elephant is just like a rope."
And all six blind men continued to argue, based on their own particular experiences, as to what they thought an elephant was like. It was an argument that they were never able to resolve. Each of them was concerned only with their own idea. None of them had the full picture, and none could see any of the other's point of view. Each man saw the elephant as something quite different, and while in part each blind man was right, none was wholly correct.
There is never just one way to look at something - there are always different perspectives, meanings, and perceptions, depending on who is looking

Who packed your parachute?

Charles Plumb was a navy jet pilot. On his seventy-sixth combat mission, he was shot down and parachuted into enemy territory. He was captured and spent six years in prison. He survived and now lectures on the lessons he learned from his experiences.
One day, a man in approached Plumb and his wife in a restaurant, and said, "Are you Plumb the navy pilot?"
"Yes, how did you know?" asked Plumb.
"I packed your parachute," the man replied.
Plumb was amazed - and grateful: "If the chute you packed hadn't worked I wouldn't be here today..."
Plumb refers to this in his lectures: his realisation that the anonymous sailors who packed the parachutes held the pilots' lives in their hands, and yet the pilots never gave these sailors a second thought; never even said hello, let alone said thanks.
Now Plumb asks his audiences, "Who packs your parachutes?..... Who helps you through your life?.... Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually?....... Think about who helps you; recognise them and say thanks."

Customer service

A bank had introduced a charge to be levied when people paid in money to be credited to an account held by a different bank. The charge was 50p and had been in force for about 6 months or so. A well to do, upper-class lady enters the bank and presents the cashier a cheque (check) which she asks to be paid into an account held by a different bank. The cashier duly tells the lady that there will be a charge of 50p. Indignantly, she tells him, "I wasn't charged the last time."
To which the cashier immediately replies, "Well that will be a pound then..."

Change your perspective (No exit story)

A person checks into a hotel for the first time in his life, and goes up to his room.
Five minutes later he calls the reception desk and says: "You've given me a room with no exit. How do I leave?"
The desk clerk says, "Sir, that's absurd. Have you looked for the door?"
The person says, "Well, there's one door that leads to the bathroom. There's a second door that goes into the closet. And there's a door I haven't tried, but it has a 'do not disturb' sign on it."

Six Sigma DMAICT steps

D - Define opportunity
M - Measure performance
A - Analyse opportunity
I - Improve performance
C - Control performance, and optionally:
T - Transfer best practice

The rocks in bucket time management story

Use this time management story to show how planning is the key to time management.

• Start with a bucket, some big rocks enough to fill it, some small stones, some sand and water.
• Put the big rocks in the bucket - is it full?
• Put the small stones in around the big rocks - is it full?
• Put the sand in and give it a shake - is it full?
• Put the water in. Now it's full.

The point is: unless you put the big rocks in first, you won't get them in at all.
In other words: Plan time-slots for your big issues before anything else, or the inevitable sand and water issues will fill up your days and you won't fit the big issues in (a big issue doesn't necessarily have to be a work task - it could be your child's sports-day, or a holiday).

Conscious / competence learning matrix

The progression is from quadrant 1 through 2 and 3 to 4. It is not possible to jump stages. For some skills, especially advanced ones, people can regress to previous stages, particularly from 4 to 3, or from 3 to 2, if they fail to practise and exercise their new skills. A person regressing from 4, back through 3, to 2, will need to develop again through 3 to achieve stage 4 - unconscious competence again.

1. unconscious incompetence
   the person is not aware of the existence or relevance of the skill area
   the person is not aware that they have a particular deficiency in the area concerned
   the person might deny the relevance or usefulness of the new skill
   the person must become conscious of their incompetence before development of the new skill or learning can begin the aim of the trainee or learner and the trainer or teacher is to move the person into the 'conscious competence' stage, by demonstrating the skill or ability and the benefit that it will bring to the person's effectiveness
2. conscious incompetence
   the person becomes aware of the existence and relevance of the skill
   the person is therefore also aware of their deficiency in this area, ideally by attempting or trying to use the skill
   the person realises that by improving their skill or ability in this area their effectiveness will improve
   ideally the person has a measure of the extent of their deficiency in the relevant skill, and a measure of what level of skill is required for their own competence
   the person ideally makes a commitment to learn and practice the new skill, and to move to the 'conscious competence' stage
3. conscious competence
   the person achieves 'conscious competence' in a skill when they can perform it reliably at will
   the person will need to concentrate and think in order to perform the skill
   the person can perform the skill without assistance
   the person will not reliably perform the skill unless thinking about it - the skill is not yet 'second nature' or 'automatic'
   the person should be able to demonstrate the skill to another, but is unlikely to be able to teach it well to another person
   the person should ideally continue to practise the new skill, and if appropriate commit to becoming 'unconsciously competent' at the new skill
   practise is the singlemost effective way to move from stage 3 to 4
4. unconscious competence
   the skill becomes so practised that it enters the unconscious parts of the brain - it becomes 'second nature'
   common examples are driving, sports activities, typing, manual dexterity tasks, listening and communicating
   it becomes possible for certain skills to be performed while doing something else, for example, knitting while reading a book
   the person might now be able to teach others in the skill concerned, although after some time of being unconsciously competent the person might actually have difficulty in explaining exactly how they do it - the skill has become largely instinctual this arguably gives rise to the need for long-standing unconscious competence to be checked periodically against new standards
   

Q, Q, Q (Quotes, Quotes, Quotes)

• You have to go fast in order to fly
• You eat what you kill (colleague)
• In each company there are 20 peope who run it - rest are workers (Danaher guys)
• Sense comes from non-sense (Jamaican guy in Negril)
• I treat my wife like a queen but she doesn't feel like it (Brandt Allen)
• Strategy is not about planning - it's about thinking (Henry Termeer)

Gorilla experiment

Subjects in one experiment, as reported in Scientific American in March 2004, were told to focus on how many passes a basketball team made in a one-minute video. About halfway through the video, a gorilla emerged and walked across the basketball court. Half the participants in the experiment did not see the gorilla. The more you focus on something, the less able you become to see unexpected or unanticipated happenings. Just as when you drive you have to frequently use the rear- and side-view mirrors while focusing on the road ahead, so do you have to make yourself aware, even if only peripherally, of what may be coming up alongside or behind you.

Steve Covey

Quote: "One who never reads is not better off than one who doesn't know how to read."

Sweet November

Two good quotes from the movie "Sweet November":

"The meaning of life, is to give life meaning."
"You are living in a box - I have to open the lid!"

How to create a learning culture

1. Get clear on valuing learning (= commit)
2. Get started
3. Get informed - create a learning audit
4. Get practical - adult learners want practical learning
5. Get together - social learning is very important
6. Get consistent - support learning not as a fad

How to create innovation

1. Make it the norm
2. Put aside ego
3. Mix people up
4. Don't fear failure
5. Hire outsiders
6. Abandon the crowd
7. Let go of your ideads
8. Don't underestimate science
9. Fight negativity
10. Ask "What if?"
11. Merge patience and passion
12. Outsmart the customers (you can do better)
13. Experiment like crazy
14. Make it meaningful
15. Stop the bickering
16. Don't innovate. Solve problems.

MIT Model of change

1. Persuasive model of communication
2. Participation
3. Use of expectation
4. Role modeling
5. Using extrinsic rewards
6. Making structural and organizational changes
7. Coercing

Kotter's change model (How to...)

1. Establish sense of urgency
2. Create a coalition
3. Develop a clear and powerful vision
4. Communicate the vision everywhere
5. Redesign the organization to remove obstacles to change
6. Find short-term wins to celebrate
7. Consolidate short term wins into new change initiatives
8. Ensure the changes are incorporated into the underlying organizational culture

4 P's of change

1. Purpose (explain why the change is necessary)
2. Picture (help them visualize where you are going)
3. Plan (show them the plan how to get there)
4. Part (show them their part in the change process)

Leading the change process

Steps:
1. Claryfying the disconfirming data
2. Build a change team
3. Designing and leading change experiments
4. Reinforcing results with the new vision

Model of change: C = D x M X P > CC

C = Volume of change
D = Dissatisfaction with the status quo
M = Model for the future
P = Process of change
CC = Cost of change

Roles in change process:

1. Change leader = initiates change
2. Change agent = causes change to begin
3. Change manager = Day to day responsibility
4. Change model = exemplifies the change
5. Changees = people who are asked to change

Source: Jim Clawson, Level 3 Leadership.

Feedback framework

Steps in giving effective feedback

1. Cultivate constructive attitude
2. Focus on specific behavior
3. Focus on impact of behavior
4. Elicit feedback
5. Establish a dialogue about feedback

Steps in receiving feedback

1. Be specific about feedback
2. Be open to feedback
3. Summarize your understanding of the feedback
4. Share your reaction to the feedback

Reward systems

1. Expectancy theory: Motivation is a multiplicative function of
1. Expectancy (that effort will lead to performance), times:
   
2. Expectancy (that performance will be rewarded), times:
   
3. Valence (Different outcomes will be noticed and rewarded)
2. Equity theory:
1. People evaluate and compare the ratio of what they contribute to a situation (input) and an outcome (output) with a ratio for a comparative referent. If the ratio equal than equity exists. If the ratios are unequal than people have a tendency to adjust the ratios.
2. Five possible action levels:
1. Change actual outcomes (e.g. ask for raise, stealing office supplies, etc.)
   
2. Change actual inputs (working less hard, longer breaks, less team player, etc.)
   
3. Change other's outcomes
   
4. Affect other's inputs (distracting them from work, taking credit for her contributions, etc.)
   
5. Leave the situation
   

Also consider the reward mix (fixed, variable, benefits) and reward process. New reward innovations include:

1. Cafeteria-style benefits
2. Broad banding (increase pay steps with job title)
3. Team reward (align own and team goals)
4. Profit sharing
5. ESOP/ Stock options
   

Job Characteristics Model

This model states that 1. creates 2. and then leads to 3.:

1. Core Job Dimensions
   
1. Skill Variety
2. Task Identity
3. Task Significance
4. Autonomy
5. Feedback
2. Psychological states
1. Experience meaningfulness of work
2. Experience responsibility for work outcome
3. Knowledge of the actual results
3. Personal and work outcomes
1. High internal work motivation
2. High quality work performance
3. High satisfaction with the work
4. Low absenteeism and turnover
   

Humor = Barometer

The amount of humor within teams works like a barometer that gauges team integration.

Pies in the US and Japan

One study found that in negotiations in the US, managers are more concerned about splitting the pie equally. Whereas in Japan it was more important to increase the pie and less important to split it later in equal parts.

Communication = Tennis = Bowling

Japanese saying: "He who speaks first at a meeting is a dumb ass."

"Communication in the US is like playing tennis. In Japan, it's more like bowling. You do not face one other and you can set your own pace."

Leading organizations, 3Q 2006.

Change Matrix

Useful 2x2 matrix to discover strengths and weaknesses:

1. Dimension: Change within you / Change cause by you within your organization
2. Dimension: Success / Failure

Source: Leading organziations class, 3Q 2006.

Barriers to change

• Lack of enough effort
• Longer tenure -> can't think outside the box
• Not buying in
• Lack of mentor
• Fear of failure
• Lack of endurance

Source: Leadership class, 3Q 2006.

Resonance

Jim Clawson's 5 key questions on resonance:

1. How do I want to feel today?
2. What does it take to get that feeling?
3. What keeps me from that feeling?
4. How can I get that back?
5. Am I willing to work for it? (point 2!)

Disorientation Take-aways

• Every exit is an entry (Bruner)
  
• Meaning brings an exit to a good end (Bruner)
  
• Always deliver your best result (Clawson)
• Leadership is about managing energy in companies
• Be a net contributer of energy in companies
• If you start dragging yourself to work, you will only deliver mediocre results (Clawson)
  

Four energy zones

There are two dimension of energy zones:
1. Intensity of energy level
2. Quality of energy level

This yields four possible 'zones':

1. Passion zone (high / high)
2. Aggression zone (high / low)
3. Resignation zone (low / low)
4. Comfort zone (low / high)

Companies in the passion or aggression zon are more likely to have success, companies in the resignation zone have nearly given up. Companies in the comfort zone are living on past success.

There are three energy traps:

1. Acceleration trap: efforts to accelerate can lead to a burn-out. This yields issues in prioritizing.
2. Intertia trap: weakening a company's ability to leverage resources. This can come from past successes in a changing environment.
3. Corrosion trap: not chanelling forces together but used to fight internal fights.

How to unleash Organizational energy:
Radical change either yields in reaching the passion (winning the princess) or aggression (slaying the dragon) zone.

Slaying the dragon
Articulate threat, release strong, negative emotions to overcome threat. Requires high-energy, brave and commanding leaders. This approach is often the only choice for a company when they battle for survival.

Winning the princess
Strong positive energy to move people into passion zone. Create an objective desire (the princess) and invoke passion in employees. Requires calm, gentle, inspiring and empathic leaders.

From: Unleashing organizational energy, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2003.

Darden Quotes

• "We asked them to reach the other side of the lake, but we didn't tell them how to do it." - Danaher employee during company visit
• "I continue while you think about it." - Brandt Allen
• "A sign with 'Cat' on my dog, doesn't make it a 'cat'." - Brandt Allen
• "How did you know to do it in this way." - Favorite quote of a student from Elliot Weiss
• "If you haven't tried it - how do you know it doesn't work?" - Danaher guys
• S-I-P-O-C = Supplier, Inputs, Process, Output, Customer - Consultant in Operations class
• "Experience is seeing things that other people don't see" - Brandt Allen
• "Poka-Yoke" - A process that is so designed that it cannot fail.
• "I'm not so much investing in the horse as in the jockey." - Private Equity Investor
  

Pirat vs. Navy

Steve Jobs once said: "I'd rather be a pirat than work for the Navy!"

Reputation & Character

The 1957 alumni class said: "Reputation is how you are seen by others, character is how you are seen in front of yourself."

Ten commandments of Manufacturing excellence

1. Pull production stingily through the factory pipeline instead of mindlessly pushing material and labor into it.
2. Build and ship rapidly to improve manufacturing productivity, rather than storing and moving inventory.
3. Squeeze time out of the cycle from order recepit through shipment by eliminating redundant taks and tasks that do not contribute directly to output or quality.
4. Improve product design to enhance manufacturability and provide increased functionality and reliability to the customer.
5. Reduce per-unit consumption of purchased material and supplies.
6. Refine the production process to promote simplicity and decrease resource consumption.
7. Identify and Eliminate manufacturing errors at point of commission.
8. Simplify information and control systems; integrate them efficiently with design and production.
9. Cooperate and Coordinate with suppliers and service providers to share knowledge and increase joint effectiveness
10. Strive continually for incremental improvements in all activities involved with design and delivery of the product to the customer.

Sense from Nonsense

A Jamaican guy claimed to me that "one can learn a lot (i.e. make sense) from people that speak nonsense". Interesting.

Management confusion

"Management often confuses what it wants to achieve and what it wants to be. " - A targeted 20% growth rate won't tell you if you are doing the right thing.

Control Theory

The general believe how to lead or change other people's believe follows the "control theory":

1. I know what's right for you
2. I have a right to tell you what is right for you
3. I have a right to punish you if you don't do what is right for you

In contrast, "choice theory" seems to be more appropriate and ethical than control theory.

Reinforcement Theory

We learn through rewarded behaviors - if an organizations rewards the "command-control" leader then he'll keep exhibiting that behavior.

Diamond Model

A framework from my leadership class:
1. Leader
2. Others
3. Tasks
4. Organizations

Important are all the part and the relationships between the four parts.

Choice theory

The book choice theory from is part of the reading seminar for the 2nd year. The take-aways are as follows:

1. The only person whose behavior we can control is our own.
2. All we can give another person is information.
3. All long-lasting psychological problems are relationship problems.
4. The problem relationship is always part of our present life.
5. What happened in the past has everything to do with what we are today, but we can only satisfy our basic needs right now and plan to continue satisfying them in the future.
6. We can only satisfy our needs by satisfying the pictures in our Quality World.
7. All we do is behave.
8. All behavior is Total Behavior and is made up of four components: acting, thinking, feeling and physiology.
9. All Total Behavior is chosen, but we only have direct control over the acting and thinking components. We can only control our feeling and physiology indirectly through how we choose to act and think.
10. All Total Behavior is designated by verbs and named by the part that is the most recognizable.

Strategy vs. operative effectiveness

Operatitve effectiveness means performing similar activities better than rivals perform them. In contrast, strategic positioning means performing different activities in different ways.

Source: Michael Porter, HBR, December 1996.

Core

Develop your "core", not only in your business but also in yourself.

"Develop your professionalism", Ming-Jer Chen, 2006.

Strategy Take-away

Strategy = Formulation + Execution

Do it with Determination and Persistency

3 Magic Questions

1) Why are we here? (Who am I?)
2) Why should we care? (What do I want?)
3) How and where do we apply? (Where do I begin?)

Source: my Strategy professor at Darden, Ming-Jer Chen, 2006.

The span of immediate memory

Let me summarize the situation in this way. There is a clear and definite limit to the accuracy with which we can identify absolutely the magnitude of a unidimensional stimulus variable. I would propose to call this limit the span of absolute judgment, and I maintain that for unidimensional judgments this span is usually somewhere in the neighborhood of seven.

George A. Miller

Miller's law

Miller's Law (from psychologist George Miller) goes like this:

"In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true, and try to imagine what it could be true of."

(In an interview with Elizabeth Hall; Hall 1980)

That is: The proper response when someone says, "My toaster is talking to me!" is "What is your toaster saying?", followed by very careful and attentive listening.

Three kinds of people

From Strategy class: There are people who...

1. Make things happen.
2. See things happening.
3. Wonder what happens.

Decision Traps

In decision making, one is subject to several decision traps:

1. Overconfidence
2. Shortsighted shortcuts
3. Overconfidence your judgement
4. Confirmation bias

E.g. there is a basis to overestimate the true value of people who are "sure", i.e. confident of their opinion. It might be a better idea to believe and trust people who are not sure and who are able to research the true result.

From 'Decision Traps', J. Edward Russo and Paul J.h. Schoemaker, Doubleday.

How difficult can execution be?

Leadership class:
"You can listen to a music piece and read the notes, it will still be very difficult to play the music piece on an instrument although you have all the information."

Execution is still the most difficult part, even if you have the exact instructions. That's especially true in dealing with other people.

Same Result - Different cause

Quote from my leadership class:

There are kinds of people:
1. Those, who read the New Yorker
2. Those, who stopped reading the New Yorker
3. Those, who never read the New Yorker.

2. and 3. look the same as they don't read the New Yorker, but they did it (or did not) for different reasons. Therefore it's important not to look only at results but also on how and why they occured.

Lifecycle of teams

There are 4 lifecycles for a team:

1. Forming (e.g. Roles are still undefined)
2. Storming
3. Norming
4. Performing

In addition, one can break out 4 types of team-members:

1. Tasks (i.e. the workhorse)
2. Pragmatic (i.e. the projectmanager)
3. Process (i.e. the moderator/facilitator)
4. Creatives (i.e. the resource person, agitator or synthesizer)

All four are essential and beneficial to a team.

Abilene Paradox

"Groups of people do things that later they say they didn't want to do but went ahead because they thought everyone else wanted to." - Dialogue (Dia from latin "through"; logos from latin "word") can help to avoid making hasty decisions based on faulty assumptions.

Jerry B. Harvey, The Abilene Paradox, Lexington Books, 1988.

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene (53 miles away) for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."

The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it." The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.

Loop learning

Leading organization class:

• Single-loop learning: A single question that one-dimensionally answers a one dimensional question, e.g. like a "thermostat": If it's too warm, the heater is turned off and vice-versa.
• Double-loop learning: "Why should the temperatur trigger be at this temperatur?"
• Triple-loop learning: "Am I measuring with the right method? Should I look at other measures, e.h. humidity?"

More info from Chris Argyris, "Double Loop Learning in Organizations", HBR, 1977.

The Winner's curse

Savvy bidders will avoid the winner's curse by bid shading, or placing a bid that is below what they believe the good is worth. This may make it less likely that the bidder will win the auction, but it also protects them from overpaying in the cases where they do win. A savvy bidder knows that they don't want to win if it means they will pay more than a good is worth.

I'm ok - you're ok

Dr. Thomas Harris introduces the concept of the four different life positions that each of us adopts at any given time. All of us apparently go through four life positions ending up with the last one in a sequential manner except some of us get stuck in the earlier stages (this results in problems that typically need therapy). These four positions are -

1. I'm Not OK, You're OK
2. I'm Not OK, You're Not OK
3. I'm OK, You're Not OK
4. I'm OK, You're OK

In "adult"-mode we have confidence in ourselves and in others - and treat both with respect. The goal should be to be more often is this last "cell", i.e. adult mode.

Positioning in 2 Dimensions

2 Dimensional positioning for American Airlines (AA) and JetBlue.

Dealing with competitors

Comment from my strategy class: "Don't crash your competitor so much that he can restructure and is stronger than before."

Monticello Visit

This is it. Jefferson's home on Monticello, ital. for small mountain. The weather was great although chilly at times. Karen is having a great time wheras I am cold and tired fromt the party at home.

Johari's Window

Another model from the Leadership class.

Darden Brand Challenge

Thanks to my buddy Dan, I received a generous dontation from Nespresso. 300 capsules, Nespresso machine (Wahoo design!) and a carrying case arrived in Charlottesville just a day before the Darden Brand Challenge.

JT impressed by the design although he hasn't been a big coffee junkie before.

Elephant circle

Heard of a cool story in my leadership class:

Elephant trainers use a very interesting technique to harness their animals. When the elephant is still very young, the trainers attach one end of a strong chain to one of the elephants legs, and the other end to a stake firmly driven into the ground. This allows the animal the freedom of a very defined circle. While harnessed day after day, the elephant learns that this circle is its only territory. As the years go by, the chain is exchanged for thinner and thinner ropes. The trainers know that the elephant could walk away at any time, but the elephant does not catch on, and so remains within the defined circle. What is your circle? What are your self-limiting beliefs?

CFA!

Alright. After three years I finally got the CFA designation awarded. My ego-wall is filling up.

First step

Alright - this is a cool idea to post all my stuff and especially my pics here on one place.