Simplifiers and Optimizers, by Dilbert creator Scott Adams

Simplifiers and Optimizers, by Dilbert creator Scott Adams

By Scott Adams at 4:40 pm Mon, Dec 2, 2013

Some people are what I call simplifiers and some are optimizers. A simplifier will prefer the easy way to accomplish a task, while knowing that some amount of extra effort might have produced a better outcome. An optimizer looks for the very best solution even if the extra complexity increases the odds of unexpected problems. I have a bias for simplification, but surely there are situations in which optimizing is the better play. So how do you know which approach works best in a given situation? Read more of this post

A Day in the Life of James Dyson: British inventor and industrial designer James Dyson radically reinvents the familiar

A Day in the Life of James Dyson

British inventor and industrial designer James Dyson radically reinvents the familiar

ALICIA KIRBY

Dec. 5, 2013 12:23 p.m. ET

Dyson examines a prototype of the DC41 Animal vacuum cleaner with a team of his engineers. He has a famously young workforce cherry-picked straight from school. Photography by Ben Roberts for WSJ. Magazine

JAMES DYSON IS BEST KNOWN as the man who made vacuum cleaners sexy. In 1993, the Norfolk native launched the DC01, the world’s first bagless cleaner with cyclone technology, which lets users ogle their dirt as it’s sucked into the machine. Read more of this post

5 Leadership Lessons from Nelson Mandela

5 Leadership Lessons from Nelson Mandela

by Big Fish Presentations on Jul 11, 2013

We’d like to take a break on presentation techniques and share with our viewers a slideshow featuring leadership lessons from former South African President Nelson Mandela.
Transcript Below:
1.) “A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.”
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
2.) “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”
“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
3.) “Long speeches, the shaking of fists, the banging of tables and strongly worded resolutions out of touch with the objective conditions do not bring about mass action and can do a great deal of harm to the organization and the struggle we serve.”
“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
4.) “Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people.”
“Action without vision is only passing time, vision without action is merely day dreaming, but vision with action can change the world.”
5.) “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”
“Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.”

10 Famous Creative Minds That Didn’t Quit Their Day Jobs

10 FAMOUS CREATIVE MINDS THAT DIDN’T QUIT THEIR DAY JOBS

KURT VONNEGUT WORKED AT A CAR DEALER AFTER PUBLISHING HIS FIRST NOVEL, AND PHILIP GLASS WORKED AS A PLUMBER WHILE CRAFTING HIS MUSIC. SO WHILE YOU MAY BE ITCHING TO DITCH YOUR 9 TO 5, TAKE A LESSON FROM THESE LEGENDARY CREATIVES AND PURSUE YOUR PASSIONS WHILE STILL COLLECTING A PAY CHECK.

BY LYDIA DISHMAN

No matter what line of work you’re in, chances are the daily grind of schlepping to work (even if it’s just down the hall) and toiling away in an open office to do a job that doesn’t exactly tickle your fancy every day is enough to stifle your more creative urges. Read more of this post

Leaders Who Can’t Forgive

Leaders Who Can’t Forgive

by Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries  |   8:00 AM December 4, 2013

I had a CEO in one of my leadership coaching seminars recently who seemed to be quite bitter about life. Whatever suggestion I would make, he would put a negative spin on it. Curious about his remarkable negativity, I asked him to tell more about himself. After a little bit of prompting, he was ready to talk about his life, a narrative that wasn’t very pleasant to listen to. Read more of this post

The ‘Circle Of Competence’ Theory Will Help You Make Vastly Smarter Decisions

The ‘Circle Of Competence’ Theory Will Help You Make Vastly Smarter Decisions

FARNAM STREET
DEC. 5, 2013, 1:11 PM 7,773 3

Farnam Street

“I’m no genius. I’m smart in spots—but I stay around those spots.”
— Tom Watson Sr., Founder of IBM

The concept of the “Circle of Competence” has been used over the years by Warren Buffett as a way to focus investors on only operating in areas they knew best. The bones of the concept appear in his 1996 Shareholder Letter: Read more of this post

The four wives in our lives

The four wives in our lives

BUSINESS MATTERS (Beyond the bottom line) By Francis J. Kong (The Philippine Star) | Updated December 7, 2013 – 12:00am

Some stories stand the test of time. I came across this material so many years ago. A lot of religions claim to be the source of this, but Google it and you’ll find that no one could pinpoint the original authorship of this material. The following is called “The Four Wives In Our Lives.” There was a rich merchant who had four wives. He loved the fourth wife the most, and adorned her with rich robes and treated her to delicacies. He took great care of her and gave her nothing but the best. He also loved the third wife very much. He’s very proud of her, and he always wanted to show her off to his friends. However, the merchant is always in great fear that she might run away with some other men. He also loved his second wife. She’s a very considerate person, always patient and, in fact, the merchant’s confidante. Whenever the merchant faced some problems, he always turned to his second wife, and she would always help him out and tide him through difficult times. Read more of this post

How Could I Lose in This Fund? Let Me Count the Ways. Pros suggest how to make sense of lengthy risk disclosures

How Could I Lose in This Fund? Let Me Count the Ways.

Pros suggest how to make sense of lengthy risk disclosures

VERONICA DAGHER

Updated Dec. 4, 2013 4:01 p.m. ET

What could go wrong when you invest in a mutual fund? Apparently a lot, if you read fund-company disclosures. Fund firms have a legal duty to disclose the risks associated with their products. So just like drug companies’ disclaimers that tell in horrifying detail all of the possible side effects of a medication, fund companies offer an extensive litany of the many ways an investment could go awry. Read more of this post

Robert Shiller Is Smarter Than You Are; If Shiller had his way, consumers would short the value of their homes against a decline in housing prices

Robert Shiller Is Smarter Than You Are

By Peter Coy December 05, 2013

When Robert Shiller collects his Nobel prize for economics in Stockholm on Dec. 8, he will undoubtedly be described as the guy who doesn’t believe in efficient markets. But the man who warned presciently of bubbles in stocks and housing is a huge believer in financial engineering. “Derivative” is not a dirty word to Shiller. Neither is “hybrid security” nor “negative amortization” (paying less than the interest you owe). Read more of this post

Nelson Mandela: the meaning of the Madiba magic

December 5, 2013 10:09 pm

Nelson Mandela: the meaning of the Madiba magic

By Alec Russell

Post-apartheid reconciliation was not a miracle but a carefully planned strategy

The “old man” was angry. His lips were pursed, his head held high, his Olympian gaze stony. When Nelson Mandela finally started speaking, his words were even more clipped than usual. This was not an irrational fury. Rather, it was the admonitory wrath of a headmaster. It was infused with the empathy of one who appreciated all too well the rage of his audience, yet knew that if South Africa was somehow to emerge intact from the ravages of apartheid it had to be tamed.

Read more of this post

In some business circles, the more successful you are the older the model of your mobile

December 5, 2013 4:40 pm

Need a status upgrade? Get an antiquated Nokia handset

By Duncan Robinson

Irish taoiseach Enda Kenny had a Nokia 6310 until he dropped it in a sink earlier this year

Sir Philip Green has all the trappings of a billionaire: the house in Monaco, the yacht, the supermodel-strewn parties – and a decade-old Nokia 6310. Despite being one of Britain’s richest people and running Arcadia Group, one of the country’s biggest retailers, Sir Philip relies on a Finnish phone designed in 2002, which cannot receive email or browse the web.

Read more of this post

A Learning CEO Can Power Through Tough Times: Indra Nooyi

A Learning CEO Can Power Through Tough Times: Indra Nooyi

by Prince Mathews Thomas | Dec 5, 2013

PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi talks to CNBC-TV18 about her personalised leadership style, why CEOs need to constantly renew skills and what India needs to do to attract foreign investors

In volatile times, one needs a learning CEO who surrounds herself with people who can help the company power through the tough times, said PepsiCo Chairperson and CEO Indra Nooyi in her Lessons in Leadership talk with CNBC-TV18, on November 12 in Delhi. Read more of this post

Can you make work joyful?

Can you make work joyful?

December 5, 2013: 11:01 AM ET

By Polly LaBarre

(TheMIX) — For too long, the ruling ideology of too many organizations has been control — controlling people, controlling information, controlling deviations from the norm. Of course, that kind of high fear, low trust culture is exactly the wrong design for unleashing and mobilizing the full potential — the full imagination, initiative, passion—of every single person, every single day. Read more of this post

Inside Jack Welch’s MBA school of tough love; At a time when many business schools are reporting declining enrollment in their full-time MBA programs, Welch’s Management Institute is doing a brisk business. A look at Welch’s approach to B-school

Inside Jack Welch’s MBA school of tough love

December 5, 2013: 10:52 AM ET

At a time when many business schools are reporting declining enrollment in their full-time MBA programs, Welch’s Management Institute is doing a brisk business. A look at Welch’s approach to B-school.

By John A. Byrne

(Poets&Quants) — He’s there in the flesh. Jack Welch, the legendary chairman and CEO of General Electric Co. Well, maybe not exactly in the flesh. But certainly live, unplugged, and on a computer screen, with his trademark tell-it-like-it-is persona, a trace of the Salem, Mass. accent still in his scratchy voice at the age of 78. Read more of this post

Why universities are money pits: Tuition rates are rising, but colleges and universities are still not bringing in enough revenue to make ends meet. What gives?

Why universities are money pits

By Nin-Hai Tseng, Writer December 5, 2013: 11:55 AM ET

Tuition rates are rising, but colleges and universities are still not bringing in enough revenue to make ends meet. What gives?

FORTUNE — If you listen closely enough, you can almost hear the collective sigh of resignation among the throngs of parents and college-bound students who face higher tuition bills and, with it, more debt. Read more of this post

The Irony of Despair: The rise in suicide rates prompts a sober confrontation of old and new questions around the will to overcome. As our friend Nietzsche observed, he who has a why to live for can withstand any how

December 5, 2013

The Irony of Despair

By DAVID BROOKS

We’ve made some progress in understanding mental illnesses over the past few decades, and even come up with drugs to help ameliorate their effects. But we have not made any headway against suicide. Read more of this post

Our Compass: Who are the moral leaders for these times?

November 27, 2013

Our Compass

In each issue, the editors of Turning Points invite contributors to explore one of the big questions of the year. For 2013 we asked Elif Shafak, Salam Fayyad, Liao Yiwu, Rowan Williams, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Mata Amritanandamayi Devi: Who are the moral leaders for these times?

Elif Shafak — A Turkish author whose most recent novel is “The Forty Rules of Love.”

Few people can connect with fellow human beings as beautifully and powerfully as Rumi did. Born in the 13th century in Afghanistan, he spent most of his life in Turkey and wrote in Persian. A man of myriad cultures, his writings cut across national, religious and gender boundaries. Read more of this post

Thriving with the crowd: Marketing with (and against) the New Influence Peddlers

Thriving with the crowd: Marketing with (and against) the New Influence Peddlers

by Joshua Bellin and Paul F. Nunes | Dec 6, 2013

Moving at the speed of the crowd has become mandatory for any company that is on the web (which is just about every company). These companies must understand how influence gets peddled in the marketplace today (and constantly refresh their understanding) – and they must constantly reevaluate how customers are influenced and what the appropriate response should be. Readers will learn what the responses should be in this article Read more of this post

The Truth About Pork and How America Feeds Itself

The Truth About Pork and How America Feeds Itself

By Ted Genoways December 05, 2013

The Hormel Foods (HRL) plant in Fremont, Neb., is a sprawling complex, just across the Union Pacific tracks on the southern edge of town. Every day of the week, some 1,400 workers arrive before dawn and emerge in the midafternoon, chatting briefly in the parking lot before fanning out onto the highway. It’s a routine with few surprises, but inside the plant, a grand, if largely ignored, experiment is under way, one that is testing the limits of industrial production—and worker and food safety. Read more of this post

New York: A concrete legacy; After 12 years at City Hall, Michael Bloomberg is heading for the exit. But the Bloomberg era continues

December 4, 2013 6:52 pm

New York: A concrete legacy

By Gary Silverman

After 12 years at City Hall, Michael Bloomberg is heading for the exit. But the Bloomberg era continues

New York is a city of five boroughs – the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. It is a measure of Michael Bloomberg that during his years as mayor he surveyed this territory and imagined a sixth. The “sixth borough” is the term Mr Bloomberg uses to describe the city’s waterfront. This shoreline runs along 520 miles of ocean, inlets, rivers and bays – an expanse five times the length of the Anglo-Scottish border – and by the time Mr Bloomberg took office at the start of 2002, it had seen better days. Read more of this post

Scopely CEO: To excel at business, create a narrative; There’s no need to knock a creative writing degree when it comes to honing business acumen

Scopely CEO: To excel at business, create a narrative

By Fortune Editors December 3, 2013: 2:48 PM ET

There’s no need to knock a creative writing degree when it comes to honing business acumen, Scopely founder and chief executive Walter Driver says.

By Chanelle Bessette, reporter

FORTUNE — Walter Driver is a longtime social gaming entrepreneur whose company, Scopely, works with independent gaming studios to co-develop, distribute, market, and monetize multiplayer games. Prior to Scopely, Walter founded and served as CEO of O Negative Media, where he developed social network gaming applications. Before that, he co-founded Ignition Interactive, one of the first developers of third party applications on the Facebook platform. Read more of this post