Seth Godin repost: Profit taking is lazy
Once an organization reaches scale, particularly if it feels like a monopoly, it’s tempting to “take profits.” This means less investment, fewer staff and a lot less care. Those things are expensive. Easier to simply keep the money. And those things involve emotional effort. Easier to simply point to the bottom line, as if that’s the point. Lazy managers dump the emotional labor on overworked frontline staff instead of creating systems that create value for everyone. And lazy shareholders reward quarterly earnings instead of understanding the long-term ramifications of failing to serve customers. “We don’t care, we don’t have to,” is often the last slogan once-great institutions have emblazoned on their door
Price is irrelevant, if they want you
How much is potato worth to you right now? What about if you were full? And if you haven't eaten for 3 weeks? So, do things even have an objective price? No, we're ready to pay the price, no matter what it is, if we have enough money AND if we can't get the thing that we're buying elsewhere for cheaper. If you live in the developed world you probably spend less than 50% of your income on your needs (food, shelter, electricity, water). You can spend the rest for your wants. This is probably more money than selling price of most of the things that you're considering buying. This leaves us with the second part of the equation. You're [...]
On risk
Media praises entrepreneurs as people who pulled it off in spite of all the odds against them. Surely, entrepreneurs are risk takers, right? If there is a 90+% chance that you lose your earnings, reputation, career opportunities, possibly even your family, you must be a lunatic to do it, right? It depends. If entrepreneur is motivated by some external reward (money, career, status, fame) then yes, he has to be an extreme risk taker to begin entrepreneurial journey. However, a true entrepreneur, the one who’s above all motivated by developing a product or service that would innovatively solve a certain problem, wouldn’t think that going on an entrepreneurial journey is risky at all. To the contrary, becoming an entrepreneur [...]
Invisible strings
I've recently read an article in which the author mentioned a story. There was an elephant trainer, who kept his elephants captive by only a thin string. A curious man asked him, howcome the creatures don't simply tear the string and escape. The trainer answered that young baby elephants are tied up with the same string. When they're young, the string is strong enough to withstand their attempts to tear it apart. They slowly accept that they cannot tear the string. By the time they grow big they have already internalised their beliefs and never again question them. Have you ever asked yourself, which of your beliefs are only a thin string?
Goalkeepers
Goalkeepers have a problem. They are rately appreciated for the work that prevented the disaster from happening. Also, it is in human nature to crave for shocking news and it is normally the failure that we perceive more shocking than successes. So, when they do a mistake, they are often made a scapegoat for everything that went wrong. Is there a solution? I have yet to find it. But it is good to be consciously aware of the problem if it bothers you. Then you can look for a position that are not aimed at damage prevention or damage control. Other professions that often remind me of the goalkeepers are lawyers, IT security specialists and doctors. [...]
Price/ Performance is not objective criterium
Producers and sellers of technical goods (bikes, electronics, machines, cars etc.) are constantly persuading you that there is a best Price/ Performance product. Is that truly so? Let's say a Tour de France rider and average Joe were buying bikes and they both had only 20.000 EUR to spend for every need and want they have. Would they both be looking for the best Price/ Performance bike? Yes, they're both rational. Would they buy the same bike? No. If Price/ Performance was an objective criterium they should have both bought the same bike! Heck, if Price/ Performance was truly an objective criterium and we were rational, we should all be buying the same stuff. Obviously bike performance is much [...]
