Category: Best Business Practices
-
Demographics and market predictions – where Austrian reality trumps Keynesian mythology
Real people = = real demand = real cash flow. It’s a simple equation. Here is Robert Kiyosaki interviewing the great Harry S. Dent Jr. in a timely reminder of the importance of demographics. This is relevant in our covid-19 panic stricken world amid collapsing interest rates and voluminous fiat stimulus. The irony of our…
Written by
-
Having an Agenda – to build something
The agenda – do you take it or do you give it?
Written by
-
The Economics of Good Team Work – The Easy Way to Improve Business Profits for the Long Term
When teams hum, success flows. I wrote this article for the Al Jarida newspaper and it was published on Saturday 21 February 2015. This article took a full page to discuss the economics of good team work for a business. It is published here: Al Jarida Article 21 Feb 2015 (Go to page 12) The Economics of…
Written by
-
The End of Oil? Oil Pricing for 2015 and the Rise of Solar Energy
Best Business Practices, Energy, Global Issues Affecting all of Us, Money, Solar Power, Technology, The Middle EastAn Arabic prophesy half way in the making? of a monetary glitch in the status quo? I wrote the article for the Al Jarida newspaper of Kuwait and it was published on Saturday 24 January 2015. It’s a further development of my previous blog on how technology is changing the way the energy market operates…
Written by
-
Seasons Greetings and Financial Events for 2014
Setting the scene for 2015 based on what has happened in 2014 As we close the chapter on 2014 and turn our attention to what lies ahead for 2015, I think I can safely say that 2014 has been like no other. I’ve been studying the financial markets for several years and the signs are…
Written by
-
Do You Find Business Hard or Easy?
For business minded people success starts with starting I’ll say something about what I observe about business. People starting out for the first time with little business history of their own or in their family believe they have to do it themselves. That they can’t trust anyone. And they are frequently trying to prove something…
Written by
-
Discussion with Kuwaiti Member of Parliament
An insiders view of the workings of the only democracy of the Arab world. A few nights ago I met up with recently elected member of Kuwait parliament the Right Honourable Nawaf Al Fuzaia. We discussed many things, one of which was about the prospect of doubling of the budget for the Government of Kuwait over the next 10…
Written by
-
Eight Principles – Participative Management
Group Think and Group Management? It’s not as easy as you think. This article draws from something I read recently by Joan Lancourt and Charles Savage called Organizational Transformation and the Changing Role of the Human Resource Function What is participative management? I call it the humanising style of management that I advocate and endorse.…
Written by
-
Advice from Richard Branson: give your employees freedom
Insights from one of the world’s most successful men, by Jack Preston of Virgin You won’t come across many people who have never had a boss. The thought of not having someone to answer to at work is a peculiar one for most people, however for Richard Branson it’s a natural state of affairs.”Having always worked…
Written by
-
The Climb Takes Effort
Your can’t get there by standing still. Focus, concentration, endeavour, planning. All of these things are needed to reach any height, obtain any position different to where you are currently. Realise that anyone who has anything in this life has obtained it through some effort of some kind. Even in supreme creation, what I call…
Written by
-
Doing the Stuff that Matters – Box Number One!
How Steve Covey elegantly organises my day I remember a few years ago some very resonating training I received from Steve Covey (via a book, CD, DVD or something like that). It’s all about prioritising your work and revolves around two key concepts: Urgency and Importance. Importance means alignment to your strategy, your goals, your…
Written by
-
Social Engineering: Self-Organising, Collaborating Groups, or Sociocracy for short
When you really want your project, family and community to hum, and not screach. How do you improve human group dynamics, and allow people be more productive, business to be more profitable, groups to be more self reliant, whilst at the same time have it be more satisfying, more rewarding and straight out more enjoyable…
Written by
-
Piracy? Or Different Rules of the Game
How sharing ideas expands society and how keeping them secret shrinks it. This was a good read about so-called “piracy” in China (link here). What people do not understand is that this is not pirating. This has been labelled such by business lobbyists, out to protect their future revenue streams. Being a “Pirate” is taking something from…
Written by
-
It’s all in how we learn…
Only by learning what “not to do”, can you do The best learning is in the field; “on the job”, “through the school of hard knocks”. Getting getting lots and lots of “Nos” is how you work out what is right. The more Nos, the more you learn. This is how nature learns. Go watch…
Written by
-
Lessons Everywhere – the comparative value of knowledge
Saving a life in Kuwait by simply changing a tyre I changed a tyre today. It wasn’t my tyre. It belonged to an Egyptian vet, well he said he was egyptian and the back of his car was full of needles and drugs for camels so I assumed that was his occupation. He waved me…
Written by
-
Ricardo Semler on Salaries
Lessons on how to set boundaries with paying employees. I found this summary concise and appropriate. The kind of conversation that can be held with a clear and level playing field. We set salaries like this: A lot of our people belong to unions, and they negotiate their salaries collectively. Everyone else’s salary involves an…
Written by
-
Ricardo Semler on Compensation
How Semler eliminated Fredrick Winslow Talyor Through many years of practice and looking back on history, Semler and his colleagues devised the most natural way to work together. Employers began hiring workers by the hour during the Industrial Revolution. Their reasons were simple and rapacious. Say you ran out of cotton thread at 11:30 in…
Written by
-
Managing without Managers – Ricardo Semler
How to give authority to everyone removes unnecessary layers of management I have found Semler’s work inspirational on many levels. I know that you will too. This was written by Ricardo Semler in the Sept-Oct 1989 Harvard Business Review. Over to you Ricardo… In Brazil, where paternalism and the family business fiefdom still flourish, I…
Written by
-
Read The Manual
How decades of toil were spoilt by simply not reading the plan A handful of years ago I was asked to join Western Mining and build a major part of their new AUD 1 billion fertiliser facility in far north western Queensland. Western Mining was then led by two icons of the Australian mining industry,…
Written by
-
Flying Solo or Craftsman, or Businessman??
Do you define your job or does your job define you? This is a great discussion between Robert Gerrish or FlyingSolo and Michael Gerber, of E-Myth fame. Michael Gerber Interview by Robert Gerrish I made some comments to the interview: Business is a system. People working in the system have a “job”. Many solo runners…
Written by