As I have discussed before there seems a lot to learn about social interactions, and that includes markets, from biology. Scientists in that area have long thought about problems that concern markets. For example, how can selection work to change a population? Or how can you interpret messages when those sending the messages have an…
Category: Management Theory
Messaging About Sustainability
Jason Hickel wants a fundamentally changed world which he discusses in Less is More. Other posts have noted technical and historical challenges in his work. For this post let us consider how Hickel thinks his ideas can be implemented. What is his messaging about sustainability? For the sake of argument let’s assume that you think…
Sustainability And Grand Historical Sweeps
One way of arguing for the value of sustainability is to suggest that we (humans, westerners, whatever) have declined from a past that was more in touch with nature. Jason Hickel does this by combining ideas about sustainability and grand historical sweeps. History Is Very Much In The Past This isn’t the approach I would…
Modern Business And Sustainability
I was disappointed by Jason Hickel’s Less Is More. I had a number of concerns that fit under three headings, lack of economic/business understanding, lack of historical understanding, and divorce from political reality. Today I’ll discuss the technical business elements of my complaint about Hickel’s book. Let us discuss modern business and sustainability Modern Business…
Using Data In Decisions
It is important to have good intuition when using data in decisions, and this intuition can be improved. This is a central message of a book that recently emerged from teaching these topics at Columbia University. The message makes a lot of sense and is likely, if anything, to make even more sense as time…
Communicating Numbers
Chip Heath and Karla Starr have a book on communicating numbers. It makes a lot of sensible points. Some might seem obvious but it is easy to get these sort of things wrong. I certainly have in the past, so the advice is worth paying attention to. They even put a mention into their book…
In Praise Of Redundant Capacity
I think evolutionary thinking has a lot to offer strategic discussions. We shouldn’t be too simple and expect perfect matchings from biology. Still, good ideas can carry over neatly to give things to consider. Here I examine a piece in the Harvard Business Review that looks at firm strategy in unpredictable times. I want to…
Managing For Stakeholders
My second post on Paul Polman’s (former Unilever CEO) and Andrew Winston’s great book, Net Positive, covers a random bunch of advice and ideas that they give on managing for stakeholders. How best to manage a firm with more than just the shareholders in mind? Better Business Practice Can Lead To Better Opportunities Many in…
Net Positive Business
In the world of sustainable business Paul Polman seems to be the nearest thing to a superstar. Hence his book with Andrew Winston, Net Positive, will get a big audience which is a very good thing. It seeks to give Polman’s view of business which was central to his tenure as Unilever CEO, a net…
Planning For Sustainability
Bill Gates has a really useful book about what we might call planning for sustainability. It is a practical approach on what we can hope to achieve. The book has a lot of critical information conveyed in a relatively easy-to-understand form. I’d certainly recommend it. Before we start it is worth noting that some people…
