For those who may have missed the May 22 SIG webinar on the Ten Ailments–or if you want to hear it again!–here’s the playback link. Many thanks to all the folks at SIG who made this this such a success.
12 Ailments
Collaborative Outsourcing and Trust: A New Tack for MSPs
Charles Weaver, CEO of the MSP Alliance, last month wrote about a common problem that managed service providers encounter with their internal IT departments—“inherent suspicions” about the real motives of an MSP. “For as long as I can remember,” he says, “MSPs have struggled with how to disarm the threat of internal IT departments and […]
Pat Summitt: It’s Always About The People!
In business and outsourcing the best plan will always fail without the right people that have the ability to implement the plan and see it through. I think about this when I think about Pat Summitt, the legendary coach of the University of Tennessee’s Lady Vols basketball team. You probably know of my connection to […]
The Psychology of Outsourcing, Part 10: Daniel Kahneman – Bridging Economics and Psychology
I’ll close this 10-part series with a bang: a Nobel Laureate in economics who also happens to be a psychologist, Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman, a professor emeritus of Psychology at Princeton University, questioned the assumption of rationality behind the decision-making process and the “cognitive traps” that make it virtually impossible to think clearly about happiness and […]
The Psychology of Outsourcing, Part 9: Daniel Gilbert, Perception and Bias
Business relationships obviously are based on economic assumptions and expectations, but they are also based on the human perceptions and biases we bring to the table. And that’s where we can go wrong. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology, is a social psychologist who focuses on the nature of perception, belief, forecasting and cognitive biases […]
Psychology of Outsourcing, Part 8: Thomas D. Gilovich, Decisions and Behavioral Economics
Many of the mistakes we make when outsourcing stem from a failure to recognize and account for the psychology that surrounds decision-making. Then businesses compound the problem by using poor judgment when reacting to the results of those decisions. Psychologist Thomas D. Gilovich (born 1954) is a professor of psychology at Cornell University who has researched […]
The Psychology of Outsourcing, Part 4: Albert Mehrabian and Comminication
Sometimes I get the feeling that this series connecting the work of the giants in psychology with Vested Outsourcing is a little “out there.” But the more I dig into the thought leadership in this space, the more I am convinced there is a tremendous amount of insights that outsourcing professionals can apply to helping […]
Psychology of Outsourcing, Part 2: Eric Berne and the Games People—and Companies!—Play
Last time I kicked-off what I think will be an enlightening series on the “psychology of outsourcing” based on the work of modern psychological thinkers and how their theories and analyses—which mainly apply to personal and social interactions—also contain definite lessons for the business world. More than 50 years ago Eric Berne’s classic and powerful […]
Dilbert Nails the Activity Trap
Monday’s Dilbert cartoon has a pitch-perfect take on one of the common problems that occur in outsourcing agreements, something that I call the Activity Trap. “I don’t want you to be more efficient. You’re working on a government contract and billing by the hour.” That in a nutshell is the Activity Trap. But it’s […]
Consider the Outsourcing “Not” List
Most people in this industry, me included, tend to write about what outsourcing is, or should be. That’s a natural and normal approach, especially as we develop concepts and systems and the right way to outsource—such as (ahem) the Vested Outsourcing way! But sometimes looking through the other end of the lens can bring a […]
