Tag Archives: Business

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Three Things Making Work Fulfilling

Those three things—au­ton­omy, com­plex­ity, and a con­nec­tion be­tween ef­fort and re­ward—are, most peo­ple agree, the three qual­i­ties that work has to have if it is to be sat­is­fy­ing. It is not how much money we make that ul­ti­mately makes us happy be­tween nine and five. It’s whether our work ful­fills us. If I of­fered you a choice be­tween being an ar­chi­tect for $75,000 a year and work­ing in a toll­booth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take?

Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

[Part 3/3] Reading through the Lens of Porter’s Five Forces

In a prior post I began to describe how Michael Porter’s Five Forces, a mainstay in corporate strategy, can be applied to analyze why my brother cannot seem to finish the Harry Potter series and why I have a mounting pile of books on my to-read list.  Then in a footnote I explained why corporate competition and personal activities are in many ways analogous.

The final part of the discussion follows. Continue reading

[Footnote] Reading through the Lens of Porter’s Five Forces

In a prior post I began to describe how Michael Porter’s Five Forces, a mainstay in corporate strategy, can be applied to analyze why my brother cannot seem to finish the Harry Potter series and why I have a mounting pile of books on my to-read list.

The analogy between organizational attention and reading works because our minds run on attention span a lot like how organizations run on currency and resources.
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[Part 2/3] Reading through the Lens of Porter’s Five Forces

In this prior post I described how Substitution is a competitive force that applies to reading.

The discussion continues below.
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[Part 1/3] Reading through the Lens of Porter’s Five Forces

My brother has been trying to finish a book for three years, and I have been trying to figure out why for two years and eleven months.  What is stopping you from finishing that great book sitting on the coffee table? Continue reading

Optimizing Your Failures

Traditional wisdom teaches us to learn from our mistakes, “learn from your mistakes” “What doesn’t kill your makes you stronger.” The old sayings are incomplete, of course. Sometimes mistakes and misfortunes in life can also give us PTSD, lead to bodily harm, or change our lives forever (see: pretty much every book by Ian McEwan). Continue reading