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Getting Information to the People Who Need It

In his essay "The Use of Knowledge in Society", Hayek made a point that lands harder the bigger your company gets. No single mind, and no central planner, ever…

Getting Information to the People Who Need It

In his essay "The Use of Knowledge in Society", Hayek made a point that lands harder the bigger your company gets. No single mind, and no central planner, ever…

Why Good Companies Make Bad Decisions

The comforting story about corporate failure is that the people in charge were fools. It is usually not true, which is what makes the subject worth taking…

Why Good Companies Make Bad Decisions

The comforting story about corporate failure is that the people in charge were fools. It is usually not true, which is what makes the subject worth taking…

KPIs That Corrupt

In the previous tier of this series I argued that a KPI is a map, a useful simplification of the business. This post is about what happens to the map...

KPIs That Corrupt

In the previous tier of this series I argued that a KPI is a map, a useful simplification of the business. This post is about what happens to the map...

Crafting Your Map

Every metric you choose is a reduction. You take a sprawling, partly unknowable business and you draw a small picture of it that fits on a screen. That is the…

Crafting Your Map

Every metric you choose is a reduction. You take a sprawling, partly unknowable business and you draw a small picture of it that fits on a screen. That is the…

The Illusory Truth

Because our "selfish genes" love to conserve calories we use mental shortcuts (heuristics) to avoid the calorie intensive work of thinking and we often end up with something that seems...

The Illusory Truth

Because our "selfish genes" love to conserve calories we use mental shortcuts (heuristics) to avoid the calorie intensive work of thinking and we often end up with something that seems...

How to Brief an Analyst

Most briefs ask for description and quietly hope for a recommendation. "What's our best-performing channel?" has the shape of a decision question but behaves like a description question. It asks...

How to Brief an Analyst

Most briefs ask for description and quietly hope for a recommendation. "What's our best-performing channel?" has the shape of a decision question but behaves like a description question. It asks...