Does storytelling have a role to play in financial and economic analysis? Many approaches to forecasting either narrowly assume that the future will simply be a repetition of past events or are based on a biased view of how the future will unfold. Scenario analysis helps business decision makers plan strategy by imagining and presenting […]
When many people of think of the concept of innovation they think of dramatic, transformative changes in the way things are imagined or done. While large jumps in how things work attract a great deal of attention, the bulk of innovation generally involves making very small improvements to designs, processes and routine tasks that are […]
How would Socrates run a Fortune 500 company? While philosophy is not generally viewed as a business tool, in fact the rigorous application of philosophical approaches, such as the Socratic Method, can be of great use in improving business decision-making. Theaetetus, I have the heard the view at times that philosophy and business are fundamentally […]
Regardless of what profession we are engaged in, all of our work can be divided into discrete, concrete tasks. For a salesman, that might involve deeply studying a product’s features, identifying potential customers and making sales presentations; for an actor, that might involve taking voice lessons, studying acting methods and memorizing scripts. How well these […]
Business success depends on good decisions and effective leadership requires awareness of the many factors that can lead to poor choices. While there is no magic formula for making right decisions, one way to improve them is to surround ourselves with able advisors who are not afraid to point out when we are wrong. The […]
A large part of risk management involves trying to reduce or eliminate the negative impact of possible future events. This blog post discusses ways to manage risk under conditions of uncertainty. In Plato’s socratic dialogue Meno, Socrates sets forth what has become known as Meno’s Paradox. This paradox states that it is not possible for […]
Despite the large threat it can pose and the amount of resources that are spent in trying to eliminate it, risk continues to be one of the corporate world’s most damaging and elusive concepts. This blog post talks about risk and why it can be so difficult to define. Just as in ancient times when […]
Is more money always good for your business? This may sound like a trick question but from a financial perspective the answer is not as straightforward as you might think. Looking at capital value through the lens of cost benefit analysis, this blog post suggests that capital can hurt businesses as well as help them. […]
