Playing to strengths

Buy low; sell high 

Two things, very simple; makes sense. In 40 years in finance I rarely found people who were consistently good at both. The industry has a natural bent to invest rather than divest. In early years as an analyst, people asked me what to buy; few asked what to sell. 

Some were better at shorting, ie selling, but not always good at covering the short, ie buying. When natural buyers or natural sellers had to do the opposite of their strength, it was often too early or too late.

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Smart men, smarter women

How diversity counters complexity.

The real driver behind the diversity debate is not social justice for women or minorities; it’s the need for better decision-making. The business environment is not just more complicated. It’s also more complex. Managing complexity requires diverse input.

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Buying into yourself

Invest in a business, not in a dream

How unfashionable is this statement? The sole mission of any business is to optimise value for shareholders.

Try dropping that into a politically correct dinner party, or, for the really brave, putting it on a placard and joining an anti-Wall St demo.

You don’t have to go that far. Shareholders are hardly flavor of the month anywhere.

Yet most of us are shareholders one way or another. Anyone who has a pension scheme probably holds shares in a bank, whether they chose to or not.

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Add some risk to your career or business

Why you should dabble

A career and a business have a lot in common. Both are the focus of your working life; both largely determine your financial position; success in either can depend on the skills you bring to the party.

They also have another thing in common. We regularly question whether we can get more out of the cards we have been dealt.

Entrepreneurs with sound businesses look askance at more successful firms in alternative sectors; career individuals often plateau, wondering whether they should have done something else. The trouble is, they don’t know what.

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