An Old Saying: A saying I grew up with was, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” I wasn’t far into a college education when I figured out that that was a lousy saying. I knew what it meant—if you didn’t know about a tragedy or pending trauma, then you can’t worry about it. However, these days, some folks appear to take that saying literally. They stay willfully ignorant.
Not Just Google: Some business leaders have watched with a mix of envy and consternation as the technology firms, and large retailers, have taken advantage of big data. Until now, smaller firms have not been able to afford significant data science operations. However, predictions are that this year and next will be the year when Small to Mid-sized Enterprises (SMEs) …
Chrystal Ball Many of us have heard about doing a postmortem on projects, initiatives, and business plans. After implementation, we are interested in determining what went right and what went sideways. Perhaps fewer of us have heard about a premortem. In its simplest form, a premortem is planning ahead for a disaster. Those of us who work for or with …
Business is a risk: The trick is to figure out how to measure the risk. Then to do what we can to mitigate the risk. And finally to decide if the Return On the Investment (ROI) for taking the risk is positive in our minds. Insurance companies are, of course, in the business of doing just that—measuring risk and calculating …
Business Is A Risk We have lots of sayings about this topic, such as: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” And “Fail forward faster.” Or “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” One of my favorites is “A ship may be safe at the shore – but that is NOT what we built it for.” How about, “If you …
A colleague mentioned that he was not able to meet with me over the weekend. He was attending a “Wisdom Weekend” course and would be tied up. Really? Wisdom in only one weekend? I chuckled and made some comment about how he’d be really scary if he had any more wisdom and wondered if he was teaching the course. But …
The great corporate counselors I have encountered gauged the business owner’s or executive team’s tolerance for risk, presented their ideas for balancing the risk with the business goals and then helped the decision makers move the company forward. It’s the same with the the best financial professionals I’ve met. Rather than simply account for transactional history, or be a roadblock …
Abkowitz has compiled an impressive number of high profile case studies to illustrate our need to pay attention to the risks we have in our business operations, and for that matter, our personal lives. But unlike the multiple points of view found in the Harvard Business Review case studies, Abkowitz provides definitive analysis of “what went wrong” and allows us …
John Shaw has written a hands-on management book that will be of use for managers at all levels – from the “C Suite” to the production supervisors. He provides clear definitions and an excellent model of Corporate Governance and operations. He then uses that model as an outline for his book. The result is a logical and easily understood flow …