Social Media and Its Dishonesty - Michael Schrage - Harvard Business Review

Would I lie to you? Read on.... Probably not, but forgive me for preserving the option. Would you conceal a damaging truth from your boss? I wouldn't presume to guess. But one person's "discretion" is another person's "dishonest." It's getting harder to determine where one ends and the other begins. That's why the virtues of transparency have been wildly oversold by digital utopians. The (social) networks to organizational hell are wired with good intentions. The let's-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya arguments that "the more information we share the better off we are" are demonstrably rubbish. All too often, far greater transparency guarantees far greater conflicts. In fact, legitimate tensions between professional privacy and personal visibility are unavoidable. Confusing transparency with integrity and honesty is a recipe for disaster.

Click to read more ...

The Best Business Model in the World - Anthony Tjan - Harvard Business Review

One of the "golden rules" of investing we have at our firm, Cue Ball, is that we value the business model over the financial plan. In fact, we value the business model over any particular sector for investment and like to say that we are "business model driven" (versus sector-driven). There is not necessarily a consistent definition for business model, but the Wiki definition is good enough. It says a business model is "the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value." Consistent with this definition, we see the business model as the explanation of how a firm translates an idea into value, or more bluntly, into money. There is no doubt that at the heart of a business model is the monetization model. Over the years we have learned that having a business does not necessarily mean that you have a business model. Think of the dot-com heyday, when shipping 89-cent pet foot in an $18 Fed Ex package was a business.

Click to read more ...

Break Group Think, Outsiders Can Help You to See Things - Paul Sloane

How can you break out of the group-think that affects most large organizations? How can you escape from the corporate frameworks that shape discussions and ideas? Philips is moving from a high-volume electronics manufacturere to a design-led, lifestyle technology company. It needs help to get there so it set up a 'simplicity board'. Philips reckoned it needed a fresh perspective from creative types with no ties to the company. So it formed the simplicity board, a group of external specialists in health care, fashion, design, and architecture. "Philips was too inward-looking," says Andrea Ragnetti, Chief Marketing Offier. "To really embed simplicity into the company's DNA, we needed an element of vision."

Click to read more ...

Groupthink, Self Serving Subordinates and Uncertainty - Can They Be Overcome

In this article, Martin Evans considers the barriers to accurate information gathering in large organizations. “I expect to get valid information … I can’t make good decisions unless I get valid information” George W. Bush, April 13th 2004. George Bush’s cry is echoed by every organizational manager in the world. Looking back on the Presidency of George W. Bush we can see many information failures. Every manager would like to be sure that the information received was both timely and accurate. Every good manager knows it’s their responsibility to make sure that information received is timely and accurate. Despite his Yale education, George W. Bush did not learn this. Every good manager knows about the three major barriers to the realization of good information: group think, self-serving subordinates, and uncertainty absorption. Despite his Harvard Business School Education, George W. Bush failed to grasp this. Good managers are proactive to ensure that these barriers are overcome. Despite his years of management experience, George W. Bush did not learn this. In this article I will deal with the three barriers:

Click to read more ...

The Innovation Delusion - Ralph Gomory, the Huffington Post

In the United States, innovation has become almost synonymous with economic competitiveness. Even more remarkable, we often hear that our economic salvation can only be through innovation. We hear that because of low Asian wages we must innovate because we cannot really compete in anything else. Inventive Americans will do the R&D and let the rest of the world, usually China, do the dull work of actually making things. Or we'll do programming design but let the rest of the world, usually India, do low-level programming. This is a totally mistaken belief and one that, if accepted, will consign this nation to second- or third-class status. The latest offender to advance this line of thought is Thomas Friedman, who has prominently displayed this familiar and entirely incorrect line of thought in the New York Times. Unfortunately, this idea is one that is widely accepted without careful thought about either its truthfulness or its consequences.

Click to read more ...