Business Intelligence

Everyday Values We Learned as Children (But May Have Forgotten)

by Jon M. Huntsman (14700)

To get ahead in business and stay there long-term, reconnect with and live the values you first learned as a child and that you’ve probably assumed no longer apply in business.

For most people regardless of their culture or upbringing, the values they learned as children were:

1. Before you act, always stop and check your moral compass.
2. Compete aggressively, but always play by the rules.
3. In leadership roles, set a good example.
4. Always keep your word, no matter what the consequences.
5. Surround yourself with advisors who will say no when needed.
6. Forget about revenge. Move onwards and upwards.
7. Treat everyone with respect — customers, employees, etc.
8. Always operate your business as if your name is on the door.
9. Give something back to the community. Return the favors.

There never needs to be a disconnect between the values you have in your own life and what you do at work. You just don’t have to cut corners, fudge the numbers or cheat in large ways or small to stay competitive. What’s needed most is that you reconnect with and live the values you had as a child.

Winners Never Cheat

And Why They Can’t Make You Street Smart

by Mark H. McCormack (08900)

A business school can’t teach you how to be street-smart. You have to go out and get experience for yourself in the business world to start developing the ability to make the most of your business strengths.

Business is a competition, and any high-level, sophisticated competition is played more in the head than it is in the office. By keeping your eyes open to experiences happening all around you, and by thinking clearly about your own career and company, you can learn the effective techniques of salesmanship, negotiating skills, starting, building and running a business, managing people and getting things done.

The people making the most money in any business field are those who are at the cutting edge of their particular industry. Taking that edge requires innovative and creative thinking combined with intuitive business knowledge. The process is hard, but the payoff is worthwhile.

As an introduction to business, a Law degree or an MBA (Master of Business Administration) are worthwhile endeavors. However, as an education, both degrees are at best a foundation and worst a naive form of arrogance. The best lesson anyone can learn from a business school is an awareness of what it can’t teach you — all the ins and outs of everyday business life.

This is really about street smarts — the ability to make active, positive use of your insights, instincts and perceptions. Street smarts are simply applied people sense, the basis of any business association. Street smarts involves reading people and using that knowledge to get what you want.

Business demands innovation, of being on the leading edge of any field of business expertise. Intellect, intelligence or graduate degrees will never be substitutes for common sense, people sense and street smarts.

What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School
What They Still Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School

The Way to Personal Achievement

by Napoleon Hill (08400)

All achievement, including every fortune ever built, have their beginning in an idea. The wealth comes from turning the idea from something we can see in our mind’s eye alone into something that serves other people, and for which they are willing to pay. This is done through auto-suggestion, organized planning, mastermind association and an inner harmony between the thoughts of your mind and the actions and achievements of your life.

You literally become and achieve what you think about all day long. To control your life, control your thoughts.

“The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.”

“Success requires no explanations. Failure permits no alibis.”

“Happiness is found in doing, not merely in possessing.”

“Anybody can wish for riches, and most people do, but only a few know that a definite plan, plus a burning desire for wealth, are the one dependable means of accumulating wealth.”

Ten Things You Need to Do Now to Have Money and the Time to Enjoy It
Michael LeBoeuf (04700)

At the end of the twentieth century, one in every fourteen U.S. households had a net worth of $1 million or more. In practical terms, that means the opportunity to obtain the financial freedom to do whatever you want is statistically closer now than at any other time in history.

For most people, however, the goal is not simply to achieve millionaire status, but to have sufficient time and money to do whatever they feel passionate about. In other words, money alone, without the time to enjoy it, is not so great.

Put differently, true financial freedom means to have enough money and enough time to enjoy it. To achieve that in practice, you have to master four different skill sets:

1. You need to make enough money so you have discretionary funds to invest.
2. You have to learn how to save money rather than spending every dime you make (and borrowing still more).
3. You must master how to invest your money in such a way it will continue to appreciate in value regardless of the market cycles.
4. You need to know how to enjouy your money — something most people consider a no-brainer.

Relatively few people manage to master all four skills, but until you do, financial freedom will remain just like a mirage, which is consistently beyond your grasp. And yet, if you commit to learning and doing everything that’s requjired, you almost certainly will become a millionaire.

So how do you create the millionaire that already lies inside you?

1. See the possibilities, which lie in abundance everywhere around you every single day.
2. Do what it takes to create your fortune using your unique set of skills, talents and interests.
3. Know when to step back, celebrate your financial freedom and enjoy it.

The Millionnaire in You

12 Practical Steps to Taking Smarter Risks in Business

by Eileen Shapiro and Howard Stevenson (14300)

To make your own luck and thereby have better control of your destiny, focus on increasing your “predictive intelligence” — your ability to act in the face of uncertainty to create the future you desire. Predictive intelligence grows when the four-step process is followed:

Orient
Organize
Plan
Act!

Predictive intelligence is not something you’re either born with or you’re not. Rather, predictive intelligence is generated by a set of twelve orient-organize-plan-act! skills that can be improved and enhanced, just like any other business skills.

All our work is based on the premise that every purposive action is a bet; one acts now on the expectation or hope, but not the certainty, or the results that will be achieved in the future. Humans are gambling animals. We all gamble all the time. Every time we act, we invest time, or reputation, or effort, or money with no guarantee that the results we seek, no matter how likely they may seem, will occur as we have planned — or as we will desire when the results occur. Once we’ve placed any of our assets at risk, we’ve placed a bet. No matter what our preferences, none of us can avoid gambling as we live our lives. What we can do is use our Predictive Intelligence to up the odds that over time, the portfolio of bets we place will lead to the kind of future or futures we envision or desire. Then we can go from depending on dumb luck to making our own luck and taking more control over our destinies. The higher your Predictive Intelligence, the more agile and fast you will be at making your own luck by identifying the best bets and then taking action when and while opportunities are available. This is more than being lucky; people with high PI consistently make their own luck; they take whatever circumstances they are in and create bets with the best odds for getting them closer to the outcomes they seek. You can think of Predictive Intelligence as a kind of consistent street smarts applied to a series of goals

–Eileen Shapiro and Howard Stevenson

Make Your Own Luck