Warren Buffett gave a talk to a group of MBA students at the University of Florida in 2007. The video is at the bottom of this post (on the blog). He starts with an interesting question. He says [2:30] “Think for a moment that I granted you the right to buy 10% of the future … Read more
I was on the Air Europa flight back from Madrid sat with JC Duarte and Manuel Vidal-Quadras. At a certain point we watched as JC pulled up an impressive iPhone application that allows him to track his time. This led to a discussion about how to be effective with time. I feel that I am … Read more
I listened to Warren Rustand speak on Leadership to the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia last week. Warren is a man who has fit the experiences of several lifetimes into his own – he has been in public service, in academia, involved in not-for-profits and has been chairman or CEO of 17 organisations. … Read more
Take a look around you. Take a look at the people you work with, the people you meet at parties, even the people you just casually pass in the street. How do they spend their days? Most of them work. They do some other activities as well. They sleep, eat, cook, hang out with friends, … Read more
I was reading a book by Professor Richard Wiseman (nice name for a professor) where he quotes a study by Ellen Langer of Harvard University. Half of the residents in a nursing home were given a houseplant and asked to look after it. The other half were given an identical plant but told that the … Read more
Should we focus on the ends to improve the means or focus on the means to improve the ends? On Monday I spent a couple of hours at IESE in a research seminar where Harvard Professor Julie Battiliana presented her research on professional and organisational identity in two Bolivian commercial microfinance institutions. BancoSol and Banco … Read more
Yep, I have been watching more TED talks. This time… Daniel Pink. Thanks to Tim for the link. Daniel Pink describes a 1945 Karl Duncker social science experiment called the Candle Problem. Subjects are shown into a room and given the objects as seen in the image to the right and are asked to attach … Read more
Most days are much the same. However, great changes in our world don’t come from normal days – they are driven by the extreme events, the outliers. Something like 70% of all the drops in the US stock exchanges are due to 6 particular days of extreme share price drops. The course of my own … Read more
This week we decided where my daughter will go to school – potentially for the next 15 years. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what criteria are important in selecting a school and this blog is a summary of 3-4 months of that reflection. To Prepare One for Living How do you … Read more
I have a monthly tradition of meeting for a 9:30am brioche and coffee in the best brioche place in Barcelona (cannot reveal the secret location) with my french-hungarian friend and entrepreneur Andre Vanyi-Robin (of Bestv and Entrepreneurs’Organisation). We met yesterday. The brioche was good. Andre told me a great story about the 90 10 rule. … Read more