I am always on the lookout for new concepts to use in the analysis of organizations. Often they originate in other disciplines, but can be applied or adapted for use in my consulting work and training sessions (such as my due diligence workshops, the next of which was just announcedtjb research | This one will have some new wrinkles.).| the research puzzle
If you’ve followed my writing or been at one of my presentations, you know that I’m hung up on the narratives that pervade the investment ecosystem.| the research puzzle
In a previous posting,the research puzzle | The posting, “mind the gaps,” was written after my attendance (and presentation) at the 2019 CFA Institute annual conference in London. I wrote that when it comes to manager research, one “field of opportunity is the broad category of intelligence analysis, including innovations and improvements in the processes of investigation and decision making.” The same statement could be applied just as easily to other functions within the investmen...| the research puzzle
Depending on the part of the investment world that you’re involved in, “pay to play” can mean a variety of different things. At the core of most of the situations is a payment for access to and potential influence of those charged with stewarding capital of behalf of others. A variety of intermediaries can be involved; in each of the cases below, asset managers play a role, as do other parties.| the research puzzle
According to Wikipedia, “mind the gap” is “an audible or visual warning phrase issued to rail passengers to take caution while crossing the horizontal, and in some cases vertical, spatial gap between the train door and the station platform.” If you’ve visited London, you’ve undoubtedly had the phrase imprinted on your brain for some time, given its ubiquity there.| the research puzzle
I was going to call this piece “time and motion,” but then I realized that I had already used that title before. In a 2009 posting,the research puzzle | More than a decade ago! I led off with a quote from The Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Winslow Taylor. I didn’t spend too much time on him or his work; I was in a hurry to bewail the dangers of multitasking and the diversion of attention to smart phones, a trend that was supercharged by the opening of Apple’s App...| the research puzzle
In a 2014 profile of Elizabeth Holmes, she began what Ken Auletta termed a “comically vague” description of what happened inside of a Theranos blood-testing machine with the words, “A chemistry is performed.”New Yorker | The quote from Holmes: “A chemistry is performed so that a chemical reaction occurs and generates a signal from the chemical interaction with the sample, which is translated into a result, which is then reviewed by certified laboratory personnel.” You know the...| the research puzzle
A variety of laws and regulations are in place to guide those who provide investment advice, direct management, or stewardship of assets on behalf of others. At the core of them is “the prudent man rule,” which first arose as a concept almost two centuries ago.| the research puzzle
In a recent posting,Epsilon Theory | The title is “Getting Out: A Godfather Story.” Ben Hunt wrote, “My goal as an investor is NOT to maximize my investment returns or to maximize my personal wealth.” Instead, his goal is to “minimize my maximum regret.”| the research puzzle
Quantitative investment management has been around for quite a long time. Three decades ago, changes were often made at a monthly frequency, based upon attributes identified by leading academics and developed into strategies by new units set up at Wall Street firms.| the research puzzle
When investigating and analyzing investment organizations, one of the hardest things to assess is “culture.” In the workshops that I lead on due diligence and manager selection (here’s the next one:tjb research | Make sure to look at the rest of the site for related resources and services for allocators and asset managers.), we spend a fair amount of time on culture, how to analyze it, what makes for a “good” culture, etc.| the research puzzle
I think it’s fair to assert, as a New York Times article did, that “the American business world now fetishizes failure.”New York Times | The article is about colleges helping students experience failure. Books, articles, podcasts, etc. extol the virtues of failure, citing the personal and business stumbles of those who went on to attain wild success — and encourage us to be willing to fail and fail again in pursuit of our dreams.| the research puzzle
Some thirty-five years ago, I wrote a project report for an entrepreneurship class, dealing with the proposed creation (by me) of Idea Consultants, Inc. Its purpose was “to provide organizations with advice on dealing with ideas and issues,” within the conceptual framework of “idea management.”| the research puzzle
The cover of the January-February 2018 issue of Harvard Business Review announces the theme of five pieces within it, “The Culture Factor.”Harvard Business Review | The authors are Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price, and J. Yo-Jud Cheng.| the research puzzle
Fifty years ago, in the summer of 1968, Robert Pirsig went on a motorcycle trip with his son Chris that took them from Minnesota to California. Six years later, Pirsig’s account of that trip, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM), was published, after being rejected more than a hundred times by other publishers.| the research puzzle
In an earlier dispatchthe research puzzle | It was called “searching for quality.” in this series of postings inspired by Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM), I wrote about his quest for Quality (with a capital Q) being the main focus of the book. But at one point he wrote, “The subject for analysis, the patient on the table, was no longer Quality, but analysis itself.”| the research puzzle
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM), Robert Pirsig wrote about “getting unstuck” from the “gumption traps” and other impediments that prevent us from moving forward. However the “stuckness” comes about, we need to free ourselves from it.| the research puzzle
“A person filled with gumption doesn’t sit around dissipating and stewing about things. He’s at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see what’s up the tracks and meeting it when it comes. That’s gumption.”| the research puzzle
One of the Merriam-Webster definitions of “philosophy” includes these subparts: “a) pursuit of wisdom, b) a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means, and c) an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs.”Merrium-Webster | Here is the online entry in its entirety.| the research puzzle
Earlier this year, Robert Pirsig died at the age of 88.New York Times | Here’s his obituary from the Times, which includes a photo of him taking a wrench to his motorcycle. He was the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (hereafter ZMM), a landmark book of the 1970s. By chance, I had picked it up once again a few weeks before his death.| the research puzzle
We face a new era of asset management. Passive investment strategies ”“ and factor-based systematic ones ”“ have been gaining market share, putting pressure on traditional active management organizations.| the research puzzle
What makes for a good investment team? How can you analyze the capabilities and dynamics of a team when you don’t see it in operation day to day?| the research puzzle
“A single map can convey enormous amounts of information,” said George Friedman in The World Explained in Maps,Mauldin Economics | The ebook also serves as a marketing piece for Geopolitical Futures, Friedman’s paid service. an informative series of “geopolitical cheat sheets.” The maps and the short explanations that appear along with them provide an easily-accessible wealth of information. In the brief amount of time it took to read the ebook, I saw some global issues in a dif...| the research puzzle
Sometimes you just need to get yourself into the workshop to explore new possibilities.| the research puzzle
I recently came across a report, written almost a year ago, by a group of Goldman Sachs analysts. Part of a series on “Profiles in Innovation,” it is titled “Precision Farming: Cheating Malthus with Digital Architecture.”Doc Drop | At the time of this writing, the report is available online via this site. (If that doesn’t sound interesting to you, be patient. The point I will try to make is a broader one about the investment world.)| the research puzzle
For the first four years of this century, I taught at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. The classes were made up of MBA students who managed real-money equity and fixed income funds that had been established by the school (now totaling around $35 millionCarlson School of Management | The students working on the funds now include undergraduates as well as MBAs.).| the research puzzle
In my work as a consultant advising investment organizations, I generally get access to the people that I would like to interview and am able to see the things that I would like to see. That degree of openness is uncommon for others doing site visits (for the purpose of evaluating an investment in company, for example, or the selection of an asset manager), who face a more daunting challenge.| the research puzzle
In October 2009, McKinsey Quarterly published an article with the intriguing title “Risk: Seeing around the corners.”McKinsey Quarterly | It was written by Eric Lamarre and Martin Pergler. A few months earlier, the world was convulsed by the financial crisis, so the title that accompanied the graphic below — “Companies are susceptible to interconnected cascades of risk” — seemed obvious.| the research puzzle
If you are of a certain age and have attended a significant number of plays and concerts in your time, something is easy to remember about any one of them: where you were sitting and what the scene looked like from your perspective.| the research puzzle