Those who know me or the Vested business model know the importance of Rule #1 – an Outcome vs. Transaction Based Business Model. Transaction-based business models create perverse incentives because they encourage an ailment I call the activity trap. In my speeches and classes I use the example of a rat on a treadmill when […]
Kate Vitasek
Getting to a Shared Purpose Partnership
Mark Bonchek, chief catalyst of ORBIT+Co., writes in a post for the HBR Blog Network about the benefits of having a corporate purpose. Many are starting to profess the importance of purpose—for instance Simon Sinek, who has a powerful model for inspirational leadership that starts with with a golden circle and the question, “Why?” (His […]
Stalling Might Work in Basketball, Not in Partnerships
If you’re a college basketball fan—and who isn’t during March Madness?— you’ve probably heard of the four corners offense, a stalling strategy designed to ensure victory for the team using this type of offense. For the uninitiated, four players would stand at the corners of the offensive half-court while the fifth would dribble the ball in the middle—endlessly. The […]
Dell’s Journey to Vested Innovation
Dell is much in the news lately, and for good reason, what with founder Michael S. Dell’s controversial plan to buy out the company and take it private for $24.4 billion coupled with mounting opposition to his plan from no less an eminence than the financier Carl Icahn and other major shareholders. I’m not here […]
Clinton: Getting Into the Tomorrow Business
As you no doubt know by now I’ve been saying that the future of outsourcing and business success lies in collaboration, so it’s timely and nice when a former president also strongly endorses this idea. At the recent Dell World users’ conference in Austin, TX, President Bill Clinton’s lively keynote address before about 5,000 people […]
Ronald Dworkin: Moral Significance, Trust and Law
When I learned of Ronald Dworkin’s death last week in London at age 81, I was immediately saddened and then struck by how much his thinking on morality and law means to the Vested philosophy and the principles behind Getting to We. Mr. Dworkin, who died of leukemia, was a liberal scholar unafraid to tackle […]
Boeing Needs a Vested Approach
A report in a recent Sunday Seattle Times reported Boeing faces an indefinite grounding of the Dreamliner – its newest jet—because of a battery fire on a 787 in Boston and the smoldering of another battery on a flight in Japan a week later. The article quoted anonymous Boeing engineers who are blaming the company’s […]
Vested and Value Creation
There’s a short quote about creating value—along with a cute cartoon—that’s gone viral on the internet. It goes like this this: “I met a man with a dollar. We exchanged dollars. We each still had one dollar. Then I met a man with an idea. We exchanged ideas. Now we each have two ideas.” The […]
Coase: Are Economists Becoming Irrelevant?
Followers of this blog and the “economics of outsourcing” series know how much I admire Ronald Coase and the contributions he has made to economic thought regarding transaction costs, total costs, getting the math right and the emergence of modern outsource contracting. His groundbreaking work, stretching back to the 1930s, shed light on a new […]
Hands Down, Santa is the Top Outsourcer
We know that UPS loves logistics. At this time of the year UPA commercials stress the beauty of logistics — and don’t forget their jingle sung to the tune of “That’s Amore!” UPSers really have to love their job! They work extended hours seven days a week to make it happen. Warehouses add seasonal workers. […]
