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Author: John Kay
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847651852
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
If you want to go in one direction, the best route may involve going in another. This is the concept of 'obliquity': paradoxical as it sounds, many goals are more likely to be achieved when pursued indirectly. The richest men and women are not the most materialistic; the happiest people are not necessarily those who focus on happiness, and the most profitable companies are not always the most profit-oriented as the recent financial crisis showed us. Whether overcoming geographical obstacles, winning decisive battles or meeting sales targets, history shows that oblique approaches are the most successful, especially in difficult terrain. John Kay applies his provocative, universal theory to everything from international business to town planning and from football to managing forest fire.
Author: John Kay
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847651852
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Get Book Here
Book Description
If you want to go in one direction, the best route may involve going in another. This is the concept of 'obliquity': paradoxical as it sounds, many goals are more likely to be achieved when pursued indirectly. The richest men and women are not the most materialistic; the happiest people are not necessarily those who focus on happiness, and the most profitable companies are not always the most profit-oriented as the recent financial crisis showed us. Whether overcoming geographical obstacles, winning decisive battles or meeting sales targets, history shows that oblique approaches are the most successful, especially in difficult terrain. John Kay applies his provocative, universal theory to everything from international business to town planning and from football to managing forest fire.
Author: John Kay
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101476397
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 188
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Book Description
A leading economist charts the indirect road to happiness and wealth. Using dozens of practical examples from the worlds of business, politics, science, sports, literature, even parenting, esteemed economist John Kay proves a notion that feels at once paradoxical and deeply commonsensical: The best way to achieve any complex or broadly defined goal-from happiness to wealth to profit to preventing forest fires-is the indirect way. As Kay points out, we rarely know enough about the intricacies of important problems to tackle them head-on. And our unpredictable interactions with other people and the world at large mean that the path to our goals-and sometimes the goals themselves-will inevitably change. We can learn about our objectives and how to achieve them only through a gradual process of risk taking and discovery-what Kay calls obliquity. Kay traces this pathway to satisfaction as it manifests itself in nearly every aspect of life. The wealthiest people-from Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates-achieved their riches through a passion for their work, not because they set materialistic goals. Research has shown that companies whose goal (as declared in mission statements) is excellent products or service are more profitable than companies whose stated goal is increasing profits. In the personal realm, a large body of evidence shows that parenthood is on a daily basis far more frustrating than happy- making. Yet parents are statistically happier than nonparents. Though their short-term pleasure is often thwarted by the demands of childrearing, the subtle-oblique-rewards of parenthood ultimately make them happier. Once he establishes the ubiquity of obliquity, Kay offers a wealth of practical guidance for avoiding the traps laid by the direct approach to complex problems. Directness blinds us to new information that contradicts our presumptions, fools us into confusing logic with truth, cuts us off from our intuition (which is the subconscious expression of our experience), shunts us away from alternative solutions that may be better than the one we're set on, and more. Kay also shows us how to acknowledge our limitations, redefine our goals to fit our skills, open our minds to new data and solutions, and otherwise live life with obliquity. This bracing manifesto will convince readers-or confirm their conviction-that the best route to satisfaction and success does not run through the bottom line.
Author: Tim Harford
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812977874
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 267
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Book Description
Life sometimes seems illogical. Individuals do strange things: take drugs, have unprotected sex, mug each other. Love seems irrational, and so does divorce. On a larger scale, life seems no fairer or easier to fathom: Why do some neighborhoods thrive and others become ghettos? Why is racism so persistent? Why is your idiot boss paid a fortune for sitting behind a mahogany altar? Thorny questions–and you might be surprised to hear the answers coming from an economist. But award-winning journalist Tim Harford likes to spring surprises. In this deftly reasoned book, he argues that life is logical after all. Under the surface of everyday insanity, hidden incentives are at work, and Harford shows these incentives emerging in the most unlikely places.
Author: John Kay
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1782832696
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
The follies of finance have threatened the stability of the global economy, and the world of finance has become increasingly complex and sophisticated, but also greedy, cynical and self-interested. The Long and the Short of It provides a guide to the complexities of modern finance and explains how to put your finances in the only hands you can confidently trust - your own. In this new, wholly updated edition of The Long and the Short of It, you will learn everything you need to be your own investment manager. You will recognise your investment options, the institutions that try to sell them, and how to distinguish between fact and fiction in what companies say. You will discover the principles of sound investment and the research that supports these principles. Crucially, you will learn a practical investment strategy and how to implement it. Leading economist and hugely successful investor John Kay uses his academic credentials and practical experience to lay out the key principles of investment with characteristic clarity and dry humour. This is the only book about finance and investment anyone needs, and the one book they must have.
Author: V. Dehant
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110709254X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 553
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Book Description
This book describes how changes in the Earth's orientation are observed and computed in terms of tidal forcing and models of the Earth's interior.
Author: P. L. DeBoer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444304046
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 583
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Book Description
Classically orbital cycles have been recognized in pelagic and lacustrine sequences characterized by quiet sedimentation, not disturbed by tectonics. Hoiwever, there is now increasing recognition that orbital cycles do influence climate and oceanography in general terms. There is also increasing acceptance of the possibility at least that the effect should be felt over large parts of the Earth's surface and that orbital cycles may well leave signs in other sedimentary environments that are commonly considered to be dominated by tectonics and eustasy. Containing thirty-one papers from a symposium held at the International Sedimentological Congress in Nottingham in 1990, this volume spans a range of topics from the astronomical theory behind orbital forcing, to field studies dealing with a broad range of sedimentary environments, and to modelling and simulation. State-of-the-art research papers. International expert authorship. The latest research in the highly topical subject of orbital forcing.
Author: John Kay
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610396049
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
The finance sector of Western economies is too large and attracts too many of the smartest college graduates. Financialization over the past three decades has created a structure that lacks resilience and supports absurd volumes of trading. The finance sector devotes too little attention to the search for new investment opportunities and the stewardship of existing ones, and far too much to secondary-market dealing in existing assets. Regulation has contributed more to the problems than the solutions. Why? What is finance for? John Kay, with wide practical and academic experience in the world of finance, understands the operation of the financial sector better than most. He believes in good banks and effective asset managers, but good banks and effective asset managers are not what he sees. In a dazzling and revelatory tour of the financial world as it has emerged from the wreckage of the 2008 crisis, Kay does not flinch in his criticism: we do need some of the things that Citigroup and Goldman Sachs do, but we do not need Citigroup and Goldman to do them. And many of the things done by Citigroup and Goldman do not need to be done at all. The finance sector needs to be reminded of its primary purpose: to manage other people's money for the benefit of businesses and households. It is an aberration when the some of the finest mathematical and scientific minds are tasked with devising algorithms for the sole purpose of exploiting the weakness of other algorithms for computerized trading in securities. To travel further down that road leads to ruin. A Financial Times Book of the Year, 2015 An Economist Best Book of the Year, 2015 A Bloomberg Best Book of the Year, 2015
Author: R. Srinivasan
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811628386
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
This book introduces platform firms as unique business models. Leveraging on the early literature on network economics and strategy frameworks, this book explores how platform business firms evolve in the modern business world. Taking a strategic perspective, this book engages the reader with core concepts, case studies, and frameworks for analyzing platform business firms. This book differentiates platform business firms from traditional pipeline firms; explores engagement with different actors, value creation, and operations of platforms; elucidates resources and capabilities of platform firms that provide them sustained competitive advantage; analyzes performance levers in operating platform business models, including complementarities with other business models; and discusses the sustainability of platform business models, in the face of regulatory and societal challenges, among others. The book is designed as a primer for entrepreneurs setting up and operating platform business firms, senior managers in large corporations repurposing their resources to initiate network dynamics in their businesses, early career managers, and professionals engaging with myriad platform firms for their professional and personal needs. This book intends to provide a decision-maker with a portfolio of decisions to make to create, operate, sustain, and generate value out of a platform business firm. It is also useful for policy professionals to appreciate the economics and policy implications of regulating and governing platforms in a post-digital world.
Author: Robert M. Haberle
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110817938X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 613
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Book Description
Humanity has long been fascinated by the planet Mars. Was its climate ever conducive to life? What is the atmosphere like today and why did it change so dramatically over time? Eleven spacecraft have successfully flown to Mars since the Viking mission of the 1970s and early 1980s. These orbiters, landers and rovers have generated vast amounts of data that now span a Martian decade (roughly eighteen years). This new volume brings together the many new ideas about the atmosphere and climate system that have emerged, including the complex interplay of the volatile and dust cycles, the atmosphere-surface interactions that connect them over time, and the diversity of the planet's environment and its complex history. Including tutorials and explanations of complicated ideas, students, researchers and non-specialists alike are able to use this resource to gain a thorough and up-to-date understanding of this most Earth-like of planetary neighbours.
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 1617750816
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
Discover the darker side of the Garden State with this anthology of gritty mystery stories. Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each volume is compromised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct location within the geographical area of the book. In New Jersey Noir, a star-studded cast of authors sifts through the hidden dirt of the Garden State. Featuring brand-new stories (and a few poems) by Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Safran Foer, Robert Pinsky, Edmund White & Michael Carroll, Richard Burgin, Pulitzer Prize–winner Paul Muldoon, Sheila Kohler, C.K. Williams, Gerald Stern, Lou Manfredo, S.A. Solomon, Bradford Morrow, Jonathan Santlofer, Jeffrey Ford, S.J. Rozan, Barry N. Malzberg & Bill Pronzini, Hirsh Sawhney, and Robert Arellano. Praise for New Jersey Noir “Oates’s introduction to Akashic’s noir volume dedicated to the Garden State, with its evocative definition of the genre, is alone worth the price of the book . . . Highlights include Lou Manfredo’s “Soul Anatomy,” in which a politically connected rookie cop is involved in a fatal shooting in Camden; S.J. Rozan’s “New Day Newark,” in which an elderly woman takes a stand against two drug-dealing gangs; and Jonathan Santlofer’s “Lola,” in which a struggling Hoboken artist finds his muse . . . . Poems by C.K. Williams, Paul Muldoon, and others—plus photos by Gerald Slota—enhance this distinguished entry.” —Publishers Weekly “It was inevitable that this fine noir series would reach New Jersey. It took longer than some readers might have wanted, but, oh boy, was it worth the wait . . . More than most of the entries in the series, this volume is about mood and atmosphere more than it is about plot and character . . . It should go without saying that regular readers of the noir series will seek this one out, but beyond that, the book also serves as a very good introduction to what is a popular but often misunderstood term and style of writing.” —Booklist, Starred Review “A lovingly collected assortment of tales and poems that range from the disturbing to the darkly humorous.” —Shelf Awareness
