In his book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, author Kevin Dutton argues that psychopathic traits are not always negative and that, in fact, some of the most successful people in the world exhibit many of the same traits as psychopaths. Dutton defines a psychopath as […]
In his book “Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes”, Jacques Ellul posits that propaganda is one of the most powerful tools available to those who want to control the masses. He defines propaganda as “the effort to affect, manipulate, or control the thoughts, emotions, and behavior of a group in order to benefit the sponsor […]
In “The Art of War”, Sun Tzu lays out a framework for success in military conflict that is as relevant today as it was when it was first written over two thousand years ago. From the principles of deception and surprise to the importance of knowing your enemy, Sun Tzu’s treatise is a must-read for […]
In his book, “The End of Wisdom: Why Most Advice is Useless,” Smiley makes a number of important points. However, the most important point he makes is that most advice is useless because it does not take into account the specific circumstances of the person receiving the advice. The best advice is tailored to the […]
Today we take for granted the idea that businesses are supposed to be consumer-centric. This wasn’t always the case. One of the men who introduced a revolutionary idea was Theodore Levitt who wrote a very influential article titled, “Marketing myopia.” The reason an industry declines is not because demand declines, but because the same needs […]
Every entrepreneur’s dream is to innovate – to create a new product that no one else is offering. But that’s not so easy. One idea that could help came from W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborne. Red oceans are filled with competition. They are cut throat and bloody – hence the color “red.” Blue oceans […]
Causing disruption Innovation, much prized by management thinkers, can put others out of business. Technology that eventually destroys the dominant product is known as “disruptive” and its chief chronicler is Harvard professor Clayton Christensen. Disruptive innovation, as Christensen points out in The Innovator’s Dilemma, takes a number of forms. One is “low-end” disruption, where the […]
Business slowly adjusts to the new, but when it does, it captilasizes very aggressively. But some think that “this time is different” – although there are others who disagree. Back in the 1960’s, the communications possibilities of packet-switching and networking emerged. The first network of computers that communicated over a phone line was built in […]
An adhocracy is the direct opposite of bureaucracy. The former is unstructured, decentralized and, at least in theory, responsive. In a bureaucracy, the structure is more important than the people. An adhocracy, on the other hand, is designed to bring out the best in people. A bureaucracy is “a hierarchical administrative system designed to deal […]
Ideation Unexpected results. If you find a guy who succeeds at something even though he is nothing like his competition, then figure out why. Incongruity: Find the difference between what reality is – and what it ought to be. Uber started out by questioning whether hailing a cab (the reality) was the way it should […]
The School of Poker 