208 Posts Found

Correlation isn’t causation, but it sure is a hint.

Content: Quotation | Author: Edward Tufte | Subject: Trends / Analysis

What you are trying to develop in a manager is a kind of inductive skill in reading the terrain; of knowing intuitively when the paradigms are about to change or bust up—or endure.

Content: Quotation | Author: Peter Cappelli | Source: “strategy+business” | Subjects: Decision Making, Future, Management, Trends / Analysis

Saras Sarasvathy, a professor at the Darden School, at the University of Virginia, has researched the differences between how entrepreneurs and very good senior managers at Fortune 500 firms think. She gives them a scenario about a new-product introduction. The typical Fortune 500 manager will run projections from the market data. But the entrepreneur says, “I don’t trust the data. I’d find a customer and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Chip Heath, Saras Sarasvathy | Source: “McKinsey Quarterly” | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Management, Trends / Analysis

Our intuitions can lead us badly astray in a way that is as surprising as it is straightforward. Kahneman identifies two types of mental processes. “Type 1” mental processes are fairly automatic, effortless and place a premium on “associative coherence.” In contrast, “Type 2” mental processes are controlled, effortful and place a premium on logical coherence. Although we fancy ourselves primarily Type 2 creatures, many … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: James Guszcza, John Lucker | Source: “Deloitte Review” | Subjects: Decision Making, Organizational Behavior, Personality / Behavior, Thought, Trends / Analysis

Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.

Content: Quotation | Source: “Deloitte Review” | Subjects: Decision Making, Trends / Analysis

Is it because people are not widgets, and out of respect for their free will and humanity it’s unfair or wrong to use the same logic for workforce decisions as we use for decisions about more inanimate objectives like inventories and machines? No. In fact, it’s arguably more unfair and disrespectful to employees and job applicants to make important decisions about where to invest in … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: John Boudreau | Source: “Ivey Business Journal” | Subjects: Human Resources, Management, Trends / Analysis

The most dangerous thing is not having the wrong answer, it is asking the wrong question.

Content: Quotation | Author: Peter F. Drucker | Source: “Ivey Business Journal” | Subjects: Decision Making, Trends / Analysis

The common belief that we gain “historical perspective” with increasing distance seems to me to utterly misrepresent the actual situation. “What we gain is merely confidence in generalization that we would never dare to make if we had access to the real wealth of contemporary evidence.

Content: Quotation | Source: “strategy+business” | Subjects: Decision Making, History, Trends / Analysis

The highest compliment, I’ve come to understand, is, ‘Oh, that’s obvious.’ “I used to get really mad about that, but now I understand that’s the goal — to take a complex problem and make it seem really clear and obvious.

Content: Quotation | Author: Michael E. Porter | Source: “FORTUNE” | Subjects: Communication, Problems / Solutions, Trends / Analysis

One of the most powerful words in the English language is why. When asked as an interrogatory, why has the power to change assumptions, preconceptions and mindsets. It has the power to initiate change as well as the power to affirm the right course. It is a word that should be used frequently but with great care. When used the proper way, it can be … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: John Baldoni | Source: “Darwin Magazine” | Subjects: Leadership, Thought, Trends / Analysis

Analytics is the science of better decision-making; and decision-making is the heart of business.

Content: Quotation | Authors: James Guszcza, John Lucker | Source: “Deloitte Review” | Subjects: Decision Making, Trends / Analysis

Businesses thrive on stability and repeatability. Stable and repeatable processes justify large-scale capital expenses; they justify large-scale employee training; and they reduce cognitive overhead because processes and decisions do not change and hence their rationale does not have to be explained repeatedly.

By contrast, an analytically based enterprise of the future will have to be designed around volatility rather than repeatability. Volatility—or rapidly changing decisions that … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Kishore S. Swaminathan | Source: “Outlook Journal (Accenture)” | Subjects: Process, Trends / Analysis

There are three very distinct ways that organizations can fall into the analysis-paralysis trap. One is a managerial tendency to “over-fit the curve”—a statistical term that refers to the diminishing value of additional data once a pattern (or curve, in the graphic sense) has been found. Data collection has a price, inaction has a price and an analytically literate organization will clearly understand the cost … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Kishore S. Swaminathan | Source: “Outlook Journal (Accenture)” | Subjects: Decision Making, Organizational Behavior, Trends / Analysis

In trying to make sense of economic uncertainty, it pays to look beyond conventional wisdom for an explanatory theory of the hidden fundamentals that can drive or hinder growth. Hence this interview.

Mark Anderson is the editor, publisher, and chief correspondent of the Strategic News Service newsletter, one of the most incisive publications in its field. Ostensibly about the future of the computer and communications industries, … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Authors: Art Kleiner, Mark Anderson | Source: “strategy+business” | Subjects: Economics, Trends / Analysis

We have to rely both on analysis and synthesis. Analysis—taking complex things and studying and understanding them—is very useful for knowing how well something is going to work and how you might improve it or make it more efficient. It’s not very good for coming up with major new ideas. There we have to be able to synthesize many competing ideas or competing insights—even if … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Tim Brown | Source: “The Conference Board Review” | Subjects: Design, Innovation, Trends / Analysis

Bob Sutton discusses the questionable value of books about how to build great companies.

Content: Article | Author: Robert I. Sutton | Subjects: Management, Trends / Analysis

Over the years, I have found that most executives are smart and hardworking, and want to do the right thing. But they are terrible at critical thinking and analytical rigor — usually because they confuse the factors that lead to high performance with attributions based on that performance. They confuse drivers and results. We see this in everything from corporate culture to leadership to employee … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Phil Rosenzweig | Source: “strategy+business” | Subjects: Thought, Trends / Analysis

Cost-benefit analysis can be an effective tool to analyze simple, one-dimensional problems, such as whether to install dividers on dangerous stretches of highway, where relatively unambiguous data is in abundant supply and there is little controversy. It also is a good way to elucidate the trade-offs for a given policy or regulation, or to produce a summary statistic about its economic efficiency.

But the cost-benefit method … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Denise Caruso | Source: “strategy+business” | Subjects: Decision Making, Risk Management, Trends / Analysis

If you can explain one thing and its opposite using the same data you don’t have an explanation. It takes a lot of courage to keep silent.

Content: Quotation | Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Source: “Edge Foundation” | Subject: Trends / Analysis

Human beings are information omnivores: we are constantly collecting, labeling, and organizing data. But today, the shift from the physical to the digital is mixing, burning, and ripping our lives apart. In the past, everything had its one place–the physical world demanded it–but now everything has its places: multiple categories, multiple shelves. Simply put, everything is suddenly miscellaneous.

In Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger charts the … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: David Weinberger | Subject: Trends / Analysis