Business Thinking

How even legendary conglomerator Henry Singleton got caught out by competitive arbitrage at the end of his career.

An answer to a puzzle: why is that some businesses go down the Deming path, become data driven, achieve operational excellence, and die, and others acquire Process Power and win?

Continuous Improvement sounds simple, even obvious. And yet there's a profound secret at its heart that doesn't seem to get talked about.

A comprehensive summary of W. Edwards Deming's ideas, whose System of Profound Knowledge is one of the most powerful things you'll find on the Operations side of the business expertise triad. Read this, so you don't have to read multiple books to apply his ideas.

People often say things like "become data driven" without explaining what that means or how to do it. This is everything you need to know to actually become data driven, from scratch, using the same first principles that Amazon, Koch, and Toyota used back in their day.

If the most unlikely, most un-businesslike person could become a masterful capital allocator late in her life, then perhaps you could, too.

How Koch Industries became an empire. We draw on ideas from both the Becoming Data Driven series and the Capital Expertise series.

The creation of Marvel Studios was contingent on some very creative financial dealmaking. A story of superb capital expertise in action.

Two examples of operators who were strong on the capital side of the business expertise triad, but weak in just about everything else.

Andy Beal's story is an astounding story of capital allocation, incidentally making him America's richest banker. A guest post by Frederik Gieschen.