- Maria!
Ela, voltando-se, disse-lhe:
- Raboni.
"There seems to be consensus that the purpose of a business is to make money. In other words, success is equated with money. Therefore, everything is given a price tag including people, humanity, health, safety, organizational culture, work climate, values, morality, ethics, pride of workmanship, and the environment.Consequently, based on theories of operational efficiency, decisions are reduced to an analytic process of determining which solution is economic and which is uneconomic. The one that costs less wins....No one denies the necessity for a commercial enterprise to pursue revenue and a healthy profit margin. The criticism against “making money” is that it should not be professed as the purpose of a business system.
Rather, earning a profit margin is not the purpose of a business but a “prerequisite” for operating a sustainable business. Please do not disregard this distinction between purpose and prerequisite as a matter of semantics, for it is nothing of the sort. Profits are the applause for a job well done, and receiving a standing ovation is the cry for an encore. It is a show of being in demand; it is the proof of a success!...The price people are willing to pay for a product or service is equal to the perceived use value they anticipate receiving from their purchase or investment. Because not everyone has the same perception of what constitutes use value, not everyone is a prospective buyer of your brand or your kind of product or service—hence the recognition of market segmentation and the identification of different target audiences.Rather than creating use value similar to one’s competitors, different expressions of use value can be created by changing the business’s transformation process....The profit margin is thus equal to the utility that a product or service delivers to its intended target audience. Therefore, the challenge of any business, with the exception of monopolies and oligopolies, is to add more utility to its value proposition targeting a specific audience than its immediate competitors. In other words, pursuing this strategy to become that target audience’s “obvious choice” supplier—and thus standing out as the only choice in the hearts and minds of your market segment."
Desde o final da minha adolescência que resumo o ser cristão a duas estórias que Jesus nos contou.
Quando eu era adolescente achava os monges da Idade Média uns verdadeiros tótós. Passarem a vida a ler a Bíblia… come on, lê-se uma vez e está lida. Quando se é adolescente consegue-se ser muito parvo. Há muito que aprendi que nunca é tarde para aprender, mas às vezes é demasiado cedo. Sempre que repetimos uma leitura, as palavras podem ser as mesmas, mas nós somos diferentes. Sim, "Perception is subjective".
Nos últimos anos tenho-me aproximado da pessoa de Simão Pedro. Simão Pedro sou eu, Simão Pedro somos todos nós. Capaz das afirmações mais Uau, para logo a seguir acobardar-se.
No Domingo passado, Domingo de Ramos, o Evangelho relatou a Paixão e Morte de Jesus. Sim, é a morte do Filho de Deus, como exclamou o centurião romano esmagado pelo que via acontecer perante a Cruz, mas a minha atenção foi para Simão Pedro… ao perceber que acabou de negar Jesus pela terceira vez, afastou-se para “chorar amargamente”. Eu desconfio, eu tenho medo de pensar que também teria medo, que também me acobardaria perante um teste a sério. E os testes a sério ocorrem na vida quotidiana, não em momentos extraordinários.
O mesmo Simão Pedro que quando Jesus lhe pergunta pela terceira vez:
- Simão, filho de João, tu amas-Me?
Responde de uma forma que cada vez mais me comove, porque nele revejo-me nas minhas lacunas, nas minhas fraquezas, na minha … maldade:
- Senhor, Tu sabes tudo, bem sabes que Te amo.
E a minha mente acrescenta: Que sentido teria a minha vida sem Ti, em que labirinto estaria perdido sem a Tua orientação.
BTW, logo na cerimónia do lava-pés, sei que vou recordar as palavras de Simão Pedro, segundo o Evangelho de João.
"Perception is subjective. In other words, awareness of a common environment through physical sensations differs from person to person. Therefore, different people have different experiences of reality. Such differences become especially significant when new and unforeseen circumstances unfold before our eyes, such as when events disrupt a business’s normal operating conditions.
...
What we "see" is the result of a successful matchup of patterns in the reality an individual observes and his or her mental programming, which happens throughout our lives and is affected by our education, schooling, cultural habits, customs and traditions, prejudices, interpersonal relationships, work or industry experiences, exposure to different socioeconomic and geopolitical environments, media exposure, travel, and reading.
...
An individual’s perception of reality is thus a matter of creating mental images. We create mental images by matching the object of our observation, or our experience of a situation or condition, with our mental programming. Therefore, reality is judged according to the beliefs we were mentally programmed to accept as right or wrong, valid or invalid, or true or false. And we apply those beliefs to our interpretation of successful value-chain governance and to interpret events as they unfold before our eyes."
Trecho retirado de "The Root Cause: Rethink Your Approach to Solving Stubborn Enterprise-Wide Problems" de Hans Norden
“Colonel John R. Boyd said, “He who can handle the quickest rate of change survives,” in which “quick” does not refer to speed but the amount of time that elapses in transitioning the system from one state to another. Hence, when competitors experience similar challenges, fast transients should be conducted asymmetrically, so as to complete a transition from one state to the next in less time than anyone else. Also, Boyd favored abrupt, fast transients that come as a surprise. Consequently, the antidote to uncertainty is adaptability—not certainty.”
Há uma citação atribuída a Lenin:
"Há décadas em que nada acontece, mas há semanas em que décadas acontecem"
A minha versão será:
"Há décadas em que nada acontece, mas há anos em que décadas acontecem"
Por um lado o impacte das mudanças a nível dos consumidores:
"During the pandemic, companies had to pivot quickly to meet new consumer demands
...
However, the pandemic was not the most dangerous time for big companies.
Instead, today is the most fraught for established players,
...
“Customer loyalty has changed. Customer buying habits have changed. Priorities have changed as well,” says Blank,
...
With pandemic restrictions changing in the U.S., Blank says, consumer behavior is due to shift again. But how exactly? Well, he’s not so sure. Companies should prepare for many scenarios.
...
This is a huge opportunity for all the chairs to be rearranged. Market leaders are vulnerable to new entrants. This is a great time to be a new entrant. This is a very dangerous time to be an existing market leader."
Por outro lado as alterações a nível da globalização: The changing nature of globalisation, o impacte da invasão da Ucrânia, a política do Covid zero:
A leitura de "The Root Cause: Rethink Your Approach to Solving Stubborn Enterprise-Wide Problems" de Hans Norden está a ser uma surpresa, por vezes brutal. Toda uma série de hibridações que desenvolvi ao longo dos anos a aparecerem-me, página após página em lingua inglesa.
Já vi muita gente a usar o modelo de cadeia de valor de Porter de muita maneira, mas não assim:
“The value chain is a representation of the process by which input variables are transformed into output variables. Therefore, the value chain’s design, organization or structure, implementation or operation, maintenance, and management are a function of its competitive advantage.Within the value chain, each business function has its own objective that contributes to and supports the realization of the overall purpose of the value chain.”
“Note the difference in perception of a business, and therefore its value chain, as an organism or as a mechanism. The specifications and design of individual component parts that constitute a value chain are less important than their intricately interdependent and synergistic relationships, which determine a business’s character and nature as an organic whole.”
A linguagem que aprendi com Goldratt e Dettmer
“It makes sense to distinguish between the desired state and the current state when they are misaligned—when the value chain experiences change. The root cause can originate from outperforming the aim or by easing up on the aim, or by changing the benchmark for success.”
A doença do eficientismo, a doença de saltar para soluções sem perceber as causas:
“Beware of managers with a finance background who are prone to perceive this altered state as a financial problem in need of a financial solution, which usually means increasing operational efficiency. The unfortunate effect of treating symptoms is ignorance about the magnitude of the problem, jumping to conclusions that might even aggravate the problem, and allowing the problem to linger and fester. As a result, problems will persist, recur, or become a latent condition that can wreak havoc when least expected and tend to arrive at a critical moment in the business’s future.”
"Innovations must either improve the value to customer or provide an existing value at a lower cost. Ideally, they do both. The word "innovation" is primarily associated with technology and new products, and technology is in fact the key factor behind most hidden champions' innovativeness."
Como não recordar o velho ditado deste blogue, "Volume is vanity, profit is sanity". Como não recuar a 2007 e a Correr, correr, correr, só para não sair do sítio...
"BERLIN, April 6 (Reuters) German carmaker Volkswagen will axe many combustion engine models by the end of the decade and sell fewer cars overall to concentrate on producing more profitable premium vehicles, its finance chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
"The key target is not growth, Arno Antlitz told the Financial Times newspaper. "We are (more focused) on quality and on margins, rather than on volume and market share."
Antlitz said VW would reduce its range of petrol and diesel cars, consisting of at least 100 models spread across several brands, by 60% in Europe over the next eight years.
The paper said VW's new strategy was a sign of profound changes in the auto sector, which has attempted for decades to increase profits by selling more cars each year, even if that required heavy discounting.
Former VW chief executive Martin Winterkorn, who resigned in the wake of a diesel emissions scandal, had made it his goal to beat Toyota and General Motors to the title of "volume number one" by 2018."
Trechos retirados de "VW to scrap models and focus on premium market -CFO tells FT"
Quando esta semana li a notícia, num jornal português que não consigo precisar, pensei logo nas muitas análises de contexto que vejo nas empresas.
Por causa da ISO 9001 as organizações fazem, ou supostamente fazem, análises de contexto. Listam factores internos e externos mas depois ... o que fazem com isso? Nada, ou quase nada, ou folclore para auditor.
Quantas empresas certificadas e envolvidas no universo de fornecedores da VW vão reflectir sobre isto? E recuo a 2009 e a Perspectivar o futuro:
"As equipas de gestão dedicam, em média, menos de 1 hora por mês a discutir a sua estratégia!!!
Os autores não falam sobre as equipas de gestão do nosso país, referem-se aos Estados Unidos.
Pois bem, ontem descobri mais uma citação do mesmo calibre, desta vez atribuída a Hamel:
“On average senior managers devote less than 3 percent ... of their time to building a corporate perspective on their future.” [Hamel 1995] Hamel goes on to point out that some companies devote even less, and suggests that such efforts are far too little to generate helpful projections about the future.”"
Que pode um auditor dizer quando vê uma análise de contexto feita de forma infantil ou de forma negligente? Recordo Deming: "Survival is not mandatory" e também "It Isn’t Illegal to Be Stupid" (parte V).
Recordo Por que não fazer o exercício agora? e o muito recente O risco da complacência.
"Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road, and you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club, and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.Or you can go that way and you can do something—something for your country and for your organization and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?"
Ontem de manhã, no Jornal de Negócios, li:
"O que explica que, sendo o décimo pais que mais fundos recebe face ao PIB, Portugal tenha dos piores desempenhos económicos na UE?
- Portugal está praticamente estagnado desde 2000 porque não tem tido uma boa performance no que toca a crescimento sustentado."
Depois, durante a minha caminhada matinal sublinhei:
"Complexity, in combination with unfolding new and unforeseen circumstances, produces systemic problems that manifest themselves throughout the enterprise.
...
Systemic problems tend to be stubborn because their root cause(s) are not obvious; it takes a deliberate and concerted effort to diagnose them and create authentic solutions. Unfortunately, only a few CEOs deliberately choose to initiate and sustain such an effort. The majority of CEOs tend to favor investing in the same familiar solutions that caused the systemic problems in the first place because they find them prudent, safer, and easily defensible because others have already opted for the same solution. This is precisely why systemic problems are so costly and why they can linger in the system for such a long period of time. Nothing changes until someone intervenes with innovative and effective solutions, or until these problems unleash a destructive chain reaction-whichever comes first.
...
Treatment of symptoms - without knowing their root cause(s)-is malpractice. Root causes can only be solved with solutions which efficacy is grounded in proven cause-and-effect relationships, thus predicting to restore integrity to the system. That is what distinguishes them as authentic solutions.
...
The obstacle standing between a CEO’s experience of confusion and disorder and solving systemic problems is the individual’s own mental programming—in other words, the principles and methods she or he accepts because of a belief that they are valid and true and those she or he rejects because of a belief that they are invalid and untrue."
E recordei-me de "- Drop your tools!!! Ou porque não era o verdadeiro socialismo"
Trechos retirados de "The Root Cause: Rethink Your Approach to Solving Stubborn Enterprise-Wide Problems" de Hans Norden.
Este artigo, "Leading Change Means Changing How You Lead", começa assim:
"To develop effective strategy amid constant change, leaders must hone their ability to determine which changes will boost their organization's competitiveness. This series examines data from companies worldwide to provide practical insights for business leaders seeking advantage as they navigate complexity and change."
Para já concentro-me na situação das organizações bem sucedidas que não se apercebem da mudança e das suas implicações:
"When a business is performing well on fit to purpose and relative advantage, the leader needs to recognize the twin dangers of complacency (believing that there's no need for change) and hubris (overconfidence in the quality of one's leadership). Contextually effective leaders combat complacency by continually striving for change, and they combat hubris by recognizing that their own opinion is less significant than the opinions of key stakeholders."
E recuei a 2007/2008 e a um caso ... desenhei um cenário sobre um futuro que me parecia claro. O cenário foi desprezado e eu vi o projecto terminado. Menos de 28 meses depois grande parte do cenário concretizou-se e a organização viu o seu mundo desabar, literalmente.
Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV e parte V
"The hidden champions' customers are very demanding and have complex requirements. Fig. 5.3 shows the importance of 13 performance attributes.
...
...The findings indicate that the hidden champions do not have to compete primarily through price. Their customers are far more interested in quality and economy."
Trechos retirados de "Hidden Champions of the Twenty-First Century Success Strategies of Unknown World Market Leaders" de Hermann Simon.
"Personalization is not only a crucial capability, it's one that punches above its weight, no matter whether the company is a digital native, a brick-and-mortar player, or a behind-the-scenes producer or supplier.
Consumers don't just want personalization, they demand it. With store and product loyalty more elusive, getting it right matters. Roughly 75 percent of consumers tried a new shopping behavior in the last 18 months, and more than 80 percent of those intend to continue with new behaviors.
Furthermore, our research found that companies that excel at personalization generate 40 percent more revenue from those activities than average players."
Ainda esta semana tive uma interacção com uma empresa... ao fim de muitas barreiras consegui chegar a um humano que resolveu o problema.
Trecho retirado de "The value of getting personalization right-or wrong--is multiplying"
Parte I, parte II, parte III e parte IV.
Mais um conjunto de lições a reter dos "hidden champions":
"How does a company ascend to world market leadership? Certainly not by staying at home and waiting for customers to call on it. Instead, the hidden champions venture into the world and offer their products wherever their customers are. This process of globalization typically takes generations and requires unending stamina. In the preceding chapter we learned that the hidden champions operate in narrowly defined and therefore relatively small markets. To expand these markets, the hidden champions have chosen globalization as the second pillar of their strategy besides focus. This means that they are narrow in the substance of their business and wide in the regional dimension. The hidden champions' world markets are far larger than their respective home markets.
...
The consequences of narrow market definition are even more pronounced for supernichists and market owners. Even in large countries, niche markets can become tiny. The hidden champions would be doomed to remain small without the possibility of regional expansion. Consequently, globalization is the second pillar of their strategy.
...
The narrow market definition based on application, technology, target group or other criteria is coupled with a wide market definition regarding the regional dimension. These are the two major pillars of the hidden champion strategy: specialization in product and know-how combined with breadth in the regional market coverage, normally on a global scale.
...
The hidden champions have extremely close relationships with their customers, due to the complexity of the products and services they offer. Three-quarters of the companies practice direct sales. Five times as many employees in hidden champion companies have regular contact with customers than in large corporations, leading to the pronounced closeness.
...
Many hidden champions cooperate very closely with their top customers and benefit from them as drivers of performance and as references. The customers' demands are aimed primarily at high performance rather than at low prices. The products and services supplied by the hidden champions offer not only top quality with high-tech content, but also increasingly comprehensive advice and systems solutions. Prices are clearly above market level.
...
The hidden champions' relationships with their customers are close and interactive. The main reason is that, in general, they offer complex product and service programs, often even systems solutions. Such programs cannot be sold off the peg, but require detailed consultation processes."
Trechos retirados de "Hidden Champions of the Twenty-First Century Success Strategies of Unknown World Market Leaders" de Hermann Simon.
O primeiro livro de Kaplan e Norton sobre o balanced scorecard (BSC), "The balanced scorecard", foi publicado em 1996.
O segundo, "The strategy-focused organization", foi publicado em 2001. Depois de ler "The strategy-focused organization" despertei para a função do BSC não como instrumento de monitorização, mas como promotor da transformação estratégica das organizações. Quando na BSC Euro Summit de 2004 o terceiro livro foi distribuído, "Strategy Maps", já a ideia em mim estava bem enraizada.
Volto a recordar isto depois de ler "How the Wrong KPIs Doom Digital Transformation", onde sublinhei:
"Most legacy companies treat KPIs as reporting and accounting mechanisms rather than strategic decision drivers; they're used more to keep score than change the game. Clinging to these legacy KPI perspectives gets in the way of successful digital transformation strategies; these KPIs are literally counterproductive.
We argue that KPIs should lead, not track, digital initiatives. Top management must define and communicate both the key performance that is required to execute its strategic plan and the digital capabilities that will enable that performance."
Duas posturas completamente diferentes, como o puxar versus empurrar. Puxar significa estar mentalmente no futuro, a puxar para que a organização faça a transição que transforma esse local imaginário num local real.
"When firms (or persons) assert a purpose, they have to choose between aspiring to help others, and seeking their own self-interest.
...
The largest and most successful firms in the world today... are explicitly obsessed with delivering value to customers,
...
It’s easy to become cynical about business, when we hear outrageous claims made for their products, and the stretching of the truth of how socially responsive their regular business is.
...
Many firms try to strike a balance between exploitation and exploration. The firm is “built to minimize risk and keep people in their boxes and silos,” as business school professor John Kotter writes. People “are working with a system that is designed to get today’s job done—a system that asks most people, usually benignly, to be quiet, take orders, and do their jobs in a repetitive way.” Such a workplace can never be life-inspiring. The answer though is not to add an extraneous purpose on top. The firm has to make co-creation of customer value the central thrust of everything the company does.
...
Managing a big firm today is driven by figures and statistics, for which high-powered brainpower is the sine qua non. Yet such dry analyses are missing the dimension that is necessary to excite customers. Firm must activate their own hearts if they wish to reach the hearts of their staff and their customers and create life-inspiring firms. The brain alone won’t get the job done."
Trechos retirados de "Six Steps To Creating A Life-Inspiring Corporation"
Ontem, 29 de Março de 2022 o Público publicou "Investimento na: auto-estradas ajudou à litoralização e suburbanização do país".
Recordo 26 de Novembro de 2009, este blogue publicou "Folhas na corrente (parte VII)". Mais completo este outro postal de 2018, "Really, karma is a bitch!".
"To be effective, though, goals and metrics need to be clear and simple, and the fewer the better.
...
But we realized that going all in on a KPI without putting some sort of check on it could have serious unintended consequences. We knew that any primary goal had to be bounded by a constraint, as in, "Maximize X without reducing Y.""
Trechos retirados de "The Quest for a Killer KPI".
"It is widely believed that restructuring has boosted productivity by displacing low-skilled workers and creating jobs for the high skilled."Mas, e como isto é profundo:"In essence, creative destruction means that low productivity plants are displaced by high productivity plants." Por favor voltar a trás e reler esta última afirmação.
.
"Lovaglia’s Law: The more important the outcome of a decision, the more people will resist using evidence to make it."
"If an organisation is too stable it can ossify, but if it is too unstable it can disintegrate. Successful organisations work between these two conditions or states, in what Stacey called ‘the chaos zone’."
"If the customer doesn't care about the price, then the retailer shouldn't care about the cost,"
“It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required”.
"Das Leben, das uns gegeben ist, ist uns nicht als etwas Fertiges gegeben, sondern wir müssen es uns gestalten, und zwar jeder sein eigenes."
"Eine Regierung, die nichts wert ist, kostet am meisten."
"Forget trying to persuade them; light their pants on fire."
"O futuro é o que importa. O futuro é a base do significado, é de onde vem o projecto que alguém tem para si próprio"
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
"o Marketing só existe a partir do pensamento estratégico, caso contrário "não resulta""
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it"
"Perder diversidade é como arrancar páginas de um livro. Quantas páginas poderemos arrancar até deixar de compreender o enredo?"
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
"By strategy, I mean a cohesive response to a challenge. A real strategy is neither a document nor a forecast but rather an overall approach based on a diagnosis of a challenge. The most important element of a strategy is a coherent viewpoint about the forces at work, not a plan."
"Un desastre està punt de succeir a Espanya. El malentès de la gravetat de la crisi costarà car als inversors, ja que tindrà profundes conseqüències per a tot el sistema bancari europeu", afirma.
Entre d'altres coses, Mauldin diu que "els inversors estan fumant crack si creuen que els bancs espanyols són entre els més forts d'Europa, ja que estan amagant les seves pèrdues".
“… there are no “sunset” industries condemned to disappear in high wage economies, although there are certainly sunset and condemned strategies, among them building a business on the advantages to be gained by cheap labor”
"o vencedor da vida, o optimista que vive em incesto com o próprio ego, é o traço mais frágil do líder"
"We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much
that we have done was very foolish."
You may not be able to change the world but can at least get some entertainment & make a living out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race.
"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
“Trust your guts. But not too much!”
"Customers will try 'low-cost providers,' because the majors have not given them any clear reason not to." "
"Natal é quando as Crianças pedem e os Pais pagam. Défices é quando os Pais pedem e as Crianças pagam."
"A imprevidência dos povos é infinita, a dos governos é legal"
"What a man sees depends both upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him to see"
“The leaders first task is to be the trumpet that sounds a clear sound”
"lamented the lack of any systematic data on the scale of unfunded IOUs that care-free politicians have handed out like confetti."
"Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul..."
O problema não é o consumo. O problema é o consumo assente em endividamento."
"There are designations, like "economist", "prostitute", or "consultant" for which additional characterization doesn't add information."
When it becomes more difficult to suffer than change, you will change"
"Hope is not a strategy and a crisis is a terrible thing to waste"
The more you can see of the present, the more you can see of the future"
Yes, You can change the future, but only changing the present"
"Entrepreneurship is 'Having aspirations greater than your resources'"
“The single biggest reason companies fail is they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be."
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that"
"A estabilidade é uma ilusão"
"When we create the conditions of possibility, the universe becomes our co-conspirator"
Thinking about doing is not doing. Talking about doing is not doing. Doing is doing."
"'God has created me to do him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another'.
...
"Each of us has a mission, each of us is called to change the world, to work for a culture of life, a culture forged by love and respect for the dignity of each human person.
"As our Lord tells us in the Gospel we have just heard, our light must shine in the sight of all, so that, seeing our good works, they may give praise to our heavenly Father."
"The future is not there waiting for us. We create it by the power of imagination."
"confusing testosterone with strategy is a bad idea"
"Much consulting involves the application of models to a system, as opposed to getting involved in the system as a positive change agent""
"O Portugal que pára sem orçamento é precisamente aquele que vive dele e que há todo o interesse em parar."
"credibilidade da política financeira e dos seus executores está ao nível da credibilidade de uma barraca das farturas"
"The role of the manager is thought to be reduction of uncertainty rather than the capacity to live creatively in it"
"today an entrepreneur is closer to artists than managers"
"A business without a path to profit isn’t a business, it’s a hobby"
"If no one’s upset by what you’re saying, you’re probably not pushing hard enough. (And you’re probably boring, too.)"
"Storytelling isn’t just how we construct our identities, stories are our identities"
"'He who has a why to live can bear almost any how' "
"They can because they think they can"
"Se há coisa que não suporto é misturar catequese com negócios, é a incapacidade para calçar os sapatos do outro e só pensar na nossa posição de coitadinhos, pobres vítimas indefesas dos maus e que por isso precisamos do Estado todo poderoso para nos proteger e, nem percebem na volta, os juros que o Estado cobra por esse serviço mafioso de protecção que, ainda por cima não resolve nada."
"Empathy is like a universal solvent. Any problem immersed in empathy becomes soluble."
"In victory, do not brag; in defeat, do not weep"
"Value it's a feeling not a calculation"
"An economist is someone who has had a human being described to him, but has never actually seen one."
"Don't finish first--it's not about running a rat race. Start with a better ending in mind."
"If you sit in on a poker game and don’t see a sucker, get up. You’re the sucker.”
"The 'value added' for most any company, tiny or enormous, comes from the Quality of Experience provided."
"Crediting government with the success of entrepreneurs is like crediting the guy who built Bill Gates’ garage with the success of Microsoft."
"I have found that assuming social scientists understand the difference between correlation and causality is not generally a good one."
"Promising never to raise taxes, without reaching a deal on spending, really means a high and rising commitment to future taxes."
"Some things are so foolish that only an intellectual could believe them, for no ordinary man could be such a fool"
"os bancos não financiam a economia, a poupança sim"
"I do not know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody"
"Never be afraid to try, remember... Amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic."
"terms such as 'experiment' and 'observation' cover complex processes containing many strands. 'Facts' come from negotiations between different parties and the final product - the published report - is influenced by physical events, dataprocessors, compromises, exhaustion, lack of money, national pride and so on."
"'science in the making' is 'the consequence of [a] settlement' of 'controversies'."
"If the state wishes to spend more, it can do so only by borrowing your savings or taxing you more. And it's no good thinking someone else will pay, that someone else is you."
"All failures of strategy are rooted in the assumption that outcomes are predictable."
"Doing things like your bigger competitors is how to get killed in the wars out there"
“Uma moeda boa e forte é como a saúde. Só lhe damos verdadeiramente valor quando não a temos.”
"Life’s tough. It’s tougher if you’re stupid"
"O homem de bem exige tudo de si próprio; o homem medíocre espera tudo dos outros"
"Change is a threat when done to me, but an opportunity when done by me."
"As elites foram deixando de falar das exportações à medida que se foi percebendo que o país consegue exportar sem elas"
"Your toughest competition is the little voice inside your head telling you to stop"
"Pain is just weakness leaving your body"
"Built to last" is bad economics. Built to do something great" is the better idea. Think: "Creative destruction."
"the world is an uncertain place no matter how many Greek letter equations you affix to a problem."
"You never change things by fighting existing reality. To change s.th., build a new model making the existing model obsolete"
“No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical.”
"Success is not a destination. It's the trail you leave behind you."
"Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event."
“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology – not the other way around”
"Strategy as the "smallest set of - intended or actual - choices and decisions sufficient to guide all other choices and decisions sufficient to guide all other choices and decisions."
"When something is commoditized, an adjacent market becomes valuable"
"nature evolves away from constraints, not toward goals"
"There aren't any textbooks on what to stop doing!"
"With great power comes great irresponsibility "
"Weird things happen when you take price out of the equation for consumers"
"‘It’s so damn complex. If you ever think you have the solution to this, you’re wrong and you’re dangerous.’"
"Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love."
"Increasing stuff that doesn't add value dilutes existing value."
"O federalismo não é a alternativa à troika, é a troika para sempre."
"Never underestimate the difficulty of changing false beliefs by facts"
"Stressors are information"
“If you hear a “prominent” economist using the word ‘equilibrium,’ or ‘normal distribution,’ do not argue with him; just ignore him, or try to put a rat down his shirt.”
"The advantage of experiences over things for most of us is that we can make them seem unique, which = scarce, which = value"
"Pedras no caminho?
Guardo todas, um dia vou construir um castelo"
"Without risk, faith is an impossibility."
"Não posso com quem vive a achar que os outros lhe devem sempre alguma coisa."
"In a world of increasing automation, our ability to perform tasks is not nearly as important as our ability to dream. The questions we need to ask are not ones of action, but ones of meaning"
"Me arrancam tudo a força e depois me chamam de contribuinte."
"Letting people vote for expensive programs that “somebody else” will finance is a good recipe for getting people to vote irresponsibly"
"what's fairness gotta do with pricing based in value?"
"The epic battle of our generation is between the status quo of mass and the never-ceasing tide of weird."
“Price is emotional”
"There will always be a reason why you can't pursue it, until competitors create a reason why you must."
"The most important thing to study is opening theory"
"The greater the contrast, the greater the potential"
“Customers don't care about your solution, they care about their problems.”
"Todos querem conhecer a verdade, mas o que desejam é que lhes contem uma mentira em que não sejam protagonistas."
"Execution efficiency strangles innovation in the crib, but not with malice, by default.”
"Our obsession with scalability is getting in the way of unleashing the potential of the 21st century."
"The system is optimized to mitigate risk, not create value"
"Champions are made when no one is looking"
"Don't bargain on value. Half as expensive is often twice as cheap."
"Customers care about outcomes, not effort, technology, or originality."
"
"You don't have to pick between 1) playing the game and 2) not playing the game. You can *change* the game."
""The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool." "