Category: Blue line learning
-
The Deep Dive — Innovation and hierarchy at Ideo
When Kevin and I talk about WL Gore, one of our favorite companies, many of the participants in our programs wonder how such a non-hierarchical firm works in practice. Our friend and colleague Ben Bensaou turned us on to this fascinating video about Ideo, one of the world’s leading design firms. One of its most […]
-
Cash is King
In this interview, David and I present the case for managing the cash and working capital of the company for long-term value. This sometimes contrasts quite sharply with working capital practices in many companies.
-
The Importance of Valuation
In this interview, Kevin discusses the role of value creation in causing the global financial crisis and in management generally, and makes the case for more wide spread, and higher level of integrity, use of valuation techniques to support decision-making
-
Are you creating value for your firm?
It’s a tough world out there and only firms that succeed in creating value will survive in the long-term. The key is to focus on what your customers really want.
-
Value Defined
Value and value creation. When I poll a room of executives for their definition of “value”, we quickly observe that there are approximately as many definitions for “value” as there are people in the room. But if we can’t agree on what “value” is, how can we possibly manage for it, or organize ourselves along […]
-
Opinions vs. Learning
As we all know quite well, and as is discussed in other posts here, any two people will always disagree on some level on any interesting topic or decision. As we discuss in the post on “Leadership and Hierarchy”, the result is the need for hierarchy in order to resolve these differences and take the […]
-
The Opportunity Cost of Capital
The universe is comprised of a lot of energy, of the type we sort of understand and of types we sort of understand a little bit less (so called “dark” energy is causing the accelerating expansion of the universe). While there is a lot of energy, it appears that it is nonetheless in limited supply. […]
-
Intro to Blue Line Management
When I teach value creation to executives in the classroom, I often begin with the question “how many of you have knowingly destroyed value in order to hit a target or objective on an indicator or KPI?” When responding honestly (sometimes requires that a senior executive is not present), the normal frequency of respondents answering […]