It is convenient to assume that people without resources are prone to unethical behaviour, especially if you’ve got lots of stuff. You might imagine that someone who lives in a cardboard box is likely to steal, simply because they need to eat. But the opposite is true. If you’ve got the stuff, prepared to be …
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Category:3 The World of Money
Time, money, self-reflection and morality.
A recent paper Time, Money and Morality reviewed in The Economist (Time is not money) offered insight into human behaviour that could help make the world a better place. Authors Francesca Gino of Harvard and Cassie Mogilner of the University of Pennsylvania report the results of studies that show that people primed to think about …
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Does philanthropy work?
Yes, of course it does. But being an analyst, and one who must count the pennies too, it has always been a pertinent question. I’ve always found it difficult to give money to an organisation that has high paid, educated staff taking a third to half the donations in administrative overhead. I know that when …
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Deepak Chopra on putting together good teams.
Chopra on good teams. He hits all the right buttons: Since my life’s work has always focused on self-awareness and well being, I have made those two attributes the criterion for people I want to work with. In my course, The Soul of Leadership, I advise employers not only to get references and bios from …
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Genuine Progress Indicator etc vs GDP, and the outlook for society.
Economic statistics are a critical tool for managing the complex world we live in. The principal indicator has been a measure of national income, “Gross Domestic Product” or “Gross National Product”, and both are reported as aggregate and per person data. There are complexities to GDP calculation, but it is the number politicians, investors and …
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The god and bad of not having enough …
Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir was reviewed by The Economist here. People can succumb to a “scarcity mindset” when they feel they have too few friends, time or calories, as well as too little money. This mindset has benefits because it helps you focus on pressing …
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Global finance is creaking. Maybe it needs a few more women to prop it up.
The chart below (The unsteady march of diversity) from The Economist tells the story that finance made a brief move towards balance a couple of decades ago, but has since reverted to a masculine dominance. Coincidentally, there have been signs of increasing permissiveness, even corruption, and a backlash of patchy regulations which have harmed efficiency …
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Roundup (glyphosate) is a broad based biocide
Here’s just one reason Monsanto is in the hot seat. According to Green Medical News: “ . . . “within the scientific community and educated public alike, there is a growing awareness that Roundup herbicide, and its primary ingredient glyphosate, is actually a broad spectrum biocide, in the etymological sense of the word: “bio” (life) …
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How Money Actually Buys Happiness
But not in the way you think. Have a quick look through this post on the Harvard Business Review blog. (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/06/how_money_actually_buys_happiness.html?goback=.gde_2827692_member_254100025 and it’s copied below in case it’s moved.) Research shows that more stuff does not make you happier, but regularly giving to people without does make you happier. Why? Because empathy is strong in …
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The Bell-Mason Diagnostic explained
A useful introduction to the Bell-Mason diagnostic from http://www.innovationmanagement.org/Wiki/index.php?title=Bell-Mason_Diagnostic THE BELL-MASON DIAGNOSTIC FOR RAISING CAPITAL EXPLAINED Silicon Valley has developed a “genius” business model. You find a genius. You build a business around him. The problem is that geniuses are hard to come by. Perhaps more importantly, this emphasis on inspired, highly caffeinated, insomniac heroes …
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