Seth Godin’s recent blog, “Rigor vs Rigid” draws a distinction between two words that share the same Latin root. They began as Latin terms for stiff and unyielding, but Godin says they “sound the same but work in opposite directions.” In short, they’ve diverged: A rigid approach in life and work is easy to describe, […]
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Collaboration Leads to Better Productivity, just ask a Chicken
Playing chicken need not be aggressively competitive or even the best way to have productive chickens or a workplace. A better approach is to engender cooperation and contentment to breed the most productive hens. Professor William M. Muir, the evolutionary biologist at Purdue University, has focused his research on group behavior and measuring productivity. In […]
George Shultz on Trust
These days trust in our compatriots and in our institutions is what we need the most, but sadly, it seems like there is a lot less of it. One person who believed deeply in the value of trust, George Shultz, former Secretary of State and longtime government servant who died at age 101 in February […]
Merck, Johnson & Johnson Collaborate on Manufacture of COVID-19 Vaccine
J&J, Merck collaborate on Covid-19 vaccine production.
Follow Guiding Principles to a Successful Contract
Contracts should embrace a firm grasp of guiding principles as the foundation of business interactions.
A Necessary Era of Creative Destruction
The Depression-era economist and political scientist, Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950), worried about the stagnation of capitalism and globalization long before globalization was a thing (and he wondered whether capitalism would even survive). The term “creative destruction” that Schumpeter championed was a way to describe a process in which the old ways of doing things are destroyed and […]
When Tradeoffs Become Trade-ups
In one of his recent blogs, Seth Godin wrote about the interesting dynamics of tradeoffs, for instance, making a laptop more powerful will probably affect battery life and its weight. So, trade-offs can be a sort of magic if done right —or a double-edged sword, good for some, not so good for others. I submit that […]
Games People Play with Vendors
In what seems like a strange message from a different era, a Harvard Business Review article in 2012 by Reed K. Holden, wrote about the games buyers play with vendors, and the fact that the relationship buyer “has been in steady decline.” Holden, the author of Negotiating with Backbone, contended that the relationship buyer was […]
Contracts and Baggage
I met University of Vermont Law Professor Oliver Goodenough recently at an IACCM/Stanford Law School event that discussed the future of contracts. He posed this question: “Does the term “contract” come with baggage?” The discussion that followed was lively. The simple fact of the matter is today’s mental model of a contract does come with […]
Culture of Innovation
It seems every company recognizes the importance of innovation. This is especially true for the IT industry, where often today’s latest software innovation is yesterday’s news. This is why it is intriguing to see InformationWeek taking a stab at pushing for a “culture of innovation.” A recent post outlined five techniques “to support and encourage entrepreneurship in your […]
