Tag: Strategy
Darwin’s humbling lesson for business
The match between capabilities and environment is the key to the success of the tortoise. It is also the key to successful business strategy, the effectiveness of institutions, and to personal development.
Enduring lessons from the legend of Rothschild’s carrier pigeon
Why do we devote more resources to training carrier pigeons and building fibreoptic links than to understanding military and business strategy?
On the brink of a shadow drink industry
Restriction of business on moral grounds is not always unsuccessful but measures have to be applied with great care.
Politicians bow to pressures to bend data
For a time, the coalition government seemed willing to let figures tell their own story rather than one written by their political advisers; but that time seems to have passed.
The wrong sort of competition in energy
Some complexity is unavoidable, but much of the complexity consumers experience is not.
The brashness and bravado in big deals
Commercial decisions often reflect policy-based evidence, not evidence-based policy. Doing the deal is what matters; justification comes afterwards.
Reforming Equity Markets to Support Corporate Performance
John will be launching the final report of his review of UK Equity Markets and Long-Term Decision Making on the 23rd July, at the...
Avoiding fluff is surest route to success
Good strategy begins with diagnosis. And diagnosis is analysis, not a description of symptoms. You don’t go to your doctor to be told you have a sore throat.
Kipling’s game theory lessons for Greece
In the dollar bill auction, one party eventually scores a pyrrhic victory and takes possession of the dollar bill. Both parties lose, but the smaller loser is the person who sticks out longest. That is not usually the rational player.
Drugs companies have lost far more than their health
When an industry model is broken, the best business strategy may be to manage its decline.