Paul Krugman’s NY Times article, Easy Useless Economics, brings to light a very important principle for problem solving—make sure you have identified the problem so you’re not wasting energy solving symptoms. Perhaps a simple example will help explain. Consider that the computer screen remains black when you press the on-button. What do you do? [...]
Archive for the ‘Economy’ Category
Lost in the Leaves
Posted in Economy, Problem Solving, Systems Thinking, tagged Leadership, Economy, Problem Solving, Systems Thinking, Decision-making, Critical Thinking, Business of business on May 25, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Parasite Or Partner
Posted in Economy, Leadership, Morality/Ethics, partnership, Quality, tagged Business of business, Critical Thinking, Economy, human spirit, Leadership, Moral Values, partnership, Progress, Quality, relationships, Systems Thinking on May 8, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Doing More For Less (of us) Getting the most out of people is not a bad thing but in the extreme it translates into squeezing the life out of them. As Deming exclaimed, “beat horses and they will run faster—for a while.” Doing more with less implies squeezing more and more out of people until [...]
Capitalism’s Morality
Posted in Economy, Life, Morality/Ethics, tagged Business of business, Critical Thinking, Culture, Economy, Ethical Principles, Moral Values on March 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
In an article titled “The difference between private and public morality” Robert Reich states the “economy is built on a foundation of shared morality.” So where is shared morality addressed among the precepts of our economic system? Though Reich notes, Adam Smith considered himself a moral philosopher—writing Theory of Moral Sentiments—I must add he also [...]
Mindset Not Market Failure
Posted in Change, Economy, Life, Problem Solving, Systems Thinking, tagged Business of business, Change, Critical Thinking, Decision-making, Economy, Education, human spirit, Leadership, Moral Values, partnership, relationships, Systems Thinking on February 25, 2012 | 1 Comment »
In an article on Harvard Business Review Blog, titled U.S. Companies Versus the U.S. Economy, Thomas Kochan (of MIT Sloan School of Management) argues the disconnect between U.S. companies and the U.S. economy is the result of market failure. While the management of each business corporation makes decisions believing the unit of survival is the [...]
Time to Get Heretical
Posted in Change, Economy, Life, Progress, tagged Business of business, Change, Critical Thinking, Economy, human spirit, Problem Solving, Progress, Quality, Systems Thinking on January 28, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Capitalism is so much held in reverence that for some it is like a religion. In fact people proudly proclaim I’m a capitalist! Seemingly it provides the guiding principle for behavior and thus the basis for how to structure life. In effect (putting their faith in capitalism) people have allowed the pursuit of (personal) wealth [...]
Rethinking a Fixed System
Posted in Change, Economy, Life, Problem Solving, Progress, Quality, tagged Business of business, Change, Critical Thinking, Decision-making, Economy, human spirit, Leadership, Learning, Moral Values, partnership, Problem Solving, Progress, Quality, relationships, Systems Thinking on January 21, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Is the system broken? No, not at all! It is fixed just as desired. Our economic system has no (explicit) concern for ‘we’ in its design, it is all about ‘me’ getting what I can for ‘myself’—it is best labeled an egoistic economic system. The pursuit of material self-interest is the guiding principle for [...]
What’s a Frog To Do?
Posted in Economy, Life, Systems Thinking, tagged Business of business, Change, Economy, Ethical Principles, Progress, Systems Thinking on January 8, 2012 | 2 Comments »
I assume most are familiar with the parable of the boiled frog. Briefly, just to refresh your memory, a frog placed in a cool and comfortable body of water that is continually rising in temperature will not sense the incremental temperature change from the immediate past to present moment and remain in the water until [...]
Reflection #3 on Occupy Wall Street
Posted in Change, Economy, Life, Progress, tagged Change, Critical Thinking, Economy, human spirit, Progress, Systems Thinking on November 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
If the Occupy movement is to succeed then it must lead us to understand that the economic system is not broken but that it is fundamentally flawed. What we are experiencing is nothing but an ill-conceived system taken to its inevitable conclusion: The privatization of society and the growing divide between the haves and the [...]
Education, Work and Quality
Posted in Economy, Education, Quality on November 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Jared Bernstein offers valuable thoughts on the relationship between education and work. He argues quite credibly that the wage return on higher education has leveled off since about the 1990’s. Bernstein asserts this is not because of a mismatch between what corporations need and what higher education institutions provide. However he does claim “we’d have [...]
What If
Posted in Economy, Life, Progress, tagged Change, Economy, human spirit, Learning, Progress on October 31, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Jonathan Askin, Professor at Brooklyn Law, characterizes the people of Occupy Wall Street as a 21st Century reincarnation of the What If Generation of the 1960’s Vietnam Protesters. As Askin noted, instead of asking, “what if there was a war and nobody came” today’s protesters are asking such questions as “what if we had bailed [...]
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