Lessons

  • More thoughts

    Lesson 25: If you structure the incentives right, people will pursue their personal motivations to the benefit of the overall firm. Lesson 26: Loading more costs into your inventory can affect any future writedowns, which affects expenses shown in a…

  • Another batch

    Lesson 17: The buyer isn’t always the one with the money. Lesson 18: Sometime there’s a tradeoff between having high machine utilization and maintaining low work-in-process inventories. Lesson 19: It’s fine to let your accounts receivable terms get extended, as…

  • More lessons

    Lesson 13: Accounting can’t really capture economic reality. Lesson 14: In many cases good or proper accounting procedures are defined retroactively. Lesson 15: Adequately evaluating labor productivity requires one to disentangle it from capital productivity, which can be extremely difficult….

  • Lessons, continued

    Lesson 9: When pricing, keep in mind that the inherent tension between market share and profitability affects the viability of a new product or business, and these effects are unpredictable in the long-term. Lesson 10: Brands can be highly irrational,…

  • Lessons learned…

    … in a nutshell: 1. Don’t seek out short-term solutions if the problems are long-term. 2. Don’t let those who are indifferent or destructive linger in hopes that they will eventually come around. 3. You really have to trust the…