Category: 200 words project

Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from this Morningstar article on the value of doing nothing.

Michael Bar-Eli et al analyzed 286 penalty kicks in top soccer leagues and championships worldwide. As the ball takes approximately 0.2 seconds to reach the goal, the keeper has to decide whether to jump about the same time as the kicker chooses where to direct the ball. The researchers found that the goalkeeper almost always jumped left or right as they typically choose action over inaction. But, interestingly, the data revealed that the optimal strategy for the goalkeeper was to stay in the centre of the goal.

Just like the goalkeeper, investment professionals too feel compelled to play every trade that is out there in the market. The median holding period of the top 100 stocks by market capitalisation in the U.S. has shrunk to a third from about 600 days to 200 days over the last two decades.

As far as investing goes, there is high value in doing nothing. After all, as Warren Buffett says, benign neglect, bordering on sloth, remains the hallmark of his investment process.

Source and thanks to: www.EBSketchin.com
Related source for all interested in personal finance and investing – Our learnographic on personal finance

‘”Do nothing” are the two most powerful – and underused – words in investing. The urge to act has transferred an inconceivable amount of wealth from investors to brokers.’ | Morgan Housel

Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from Steve Faktor’s articles (1, 2) on the Harvard Business Review

When the National Organization for Research at the University of Chicago asked which jobs made people happiest, most of the top-10 occupations involved creating a product, engaging the senses, or helping others.

The ten most hated jobs, on the other hand, had a significant proportion of people stuck on a laptop.

In his article “How office dwellers can become doers,” Steve Faktor argues that we need to improve happiness at workplaces by enabling people to do all of this.

For product companies, engage employees more in the product building – send them to factories, keep prototypes and samples lying around, and allow for “building projects” like decorating the office.

Engaging the senses can be done by livening up work spaces, introducing more plants, having 15-minute stand up meetings and standing desks, and killing unnecessary document preparation. Allow for more employee interaction and mutual help with office sports leagues and team cook-offs.

As Steve points out, happiness at work cannot be downloaded. We need to make it happen.

‘My last traditional office job was leading growth and innovation at a Fortune 100 company. From the outside, you might think my job was a cauldron of experimentation that at any moment could produce a cure for cancer or The Incredible Hulk. No such luck. Most days were a potpourri of emails, meetings, and sensory dead-ends.’ | Steve Faktor

Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from The Everything Store by Brad Stone and Jeff Bezos’ talk @ Princeton.

Even as a 10-year-old boy, Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon.com) had a passion for crunching numbers. During a summer road trip with his grandparents, young Jeff got fed up with his grandmother’s smoking in the car. He recalled an ad campaign about smoking and calculated how many cigarettes per day his grandmother smoked, how many puffs she took per cigarette, the health risk of each puff, and then tapped her on her shoulder and proudly proclaimed “You’ve taken nine years off your life!”

 Bezos expected to be applauded for his arithmetic skills. Instead, his grandmother burst into tears. His grandfather pulled the car off to the side of the road and asked him to step out. And then his grandfather taught a lesson that this now-billionaire decided to share with the  Princeton graduating class of 2010: “My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, ‘Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.’”

Source and thanks to: www.EBSketchin.com

‘Be kind. The world will roll on without you.’  | Dave Crowley

Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from To Sell is Human by Dan Pink

While one might imagine Pixar story writers conjuring up amazing stories without constraints, every Pixar story is tested with and uses the following frame –Once upon a time… (there lived a fish called Nemo with his widowed father)
Every day… (his widowed father warned him about dangers in the sea)
And then one day… (Nemo swam out and got lost)
Because of that…(he was captured..)
And because of that… (Dad went to search for Nemo)
Until one day.. (they found each other and realized..)

This simple framework ensures the stories has the requisite twists and turns to be a successful film. If a story lacks any of these elements, the framework will call it into focus and help the team fix it.

Perhaps we should work on creating simple frames for our pitches, presentations and meetings (e.g. current state, planned future state, plans to bridge the gap).

Source and thanks to: www.EBSketchin.com

‘Shakespeare wrote his sonnets within a strict discipline, fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming in three quatrains and couplet. Were his sonnets dull? Mozart wrote his sonatas within an equally rigid discipline: exposition, development, and recapitulation. Were they dull?’ | David Oligvy