The Business Canon

Episode 80: Freedom vs. Frameworks: The Netflix "No Rules" vs. Dalio's "Principles"

What is the best way to build a high-performance culture? This episode stages a Debate between two radically different but equally successful philosophies. One host, drawing on Reed Hastings's No Rules Rules, argues for a culture of maximum freedom and responsibility, where you hire the best people and then get out of their way. The other host, channeling the ideas of Ray Dalio's Principles, argues for a culture built on a highly structured and systematic framework, where every decision is guided by a clear and explicit set of rules. The debate explores the fundamental tension between employee freedom and organizational control.

Episode 81: The Effective Executive (Part 1): Managing Your Time

We begin our multi-part series on the timeless wisdom of Peter Drucker with his most practical work, The Effective Executive. In this first episode, our hosts do a deep dive into Drucker's first and most critical practice of effectiveness: managing your time. The conversation explores Drucker's counter-intuitive argument that effective executives must start by understanding where their time actually goes. We analyze his practical advice for diagnosing your time, cutting out unproductive tasks ("time-wasters"), and consolidating your discretionary time into large, continuous blocks. This is a foundational lesson in the one resource that you cannot create more of.

Episode 82: What Can I Contribute? The Secret to Effectiveness

The key to being an effective executive is not to focus on your efforts, but on your contribution. In this essential Brief, we distill one of the most powerful questions from Peter Drucker's The Effective Executive. Our hosts quickly explain why the simple question, "What can I contribute that will significantly affect the performance and results of the institution I serve?" is the secret to unlocking your effectiveness. You will learn how this outward-looking focus shifts you from being a subordinate to being a true senior manager. In just a few minutes, you’ll have a powerful principle to guide your career and your work.

Episode 83: A Critique of Drucker: Is His Wisdom Still Relevant?

Peter Drucker is the undisputed father of modern management, but are his ideas, many of them developed in the mid-20th century, still relevant in today's fast-paced, digital, and globalized world? In this Critique episode, we analyze the legacy of Drucker's work. Our hosts acknowledge the timeless and profound nature of his core principles on effectiveness, purpose, and the customer. However, we also offer a constructive critique. We question whether his model of the large, stable, hierarchical corporation is a sufficient guide for the more agile, networked, and entrepreneurial organizations that dominate today's economy.

Episode 84: The Individual vs. The System

Where should a company focus its improvement efforts: on making its individual executives more effective, or on improving the overall system in which they work? This episode presents a classic Debate between two giants of management thought. One host, drawing on the ideas of Peter Drucker's The Effective Executive, argues that the key to performance is the discipline and effectiveness of the individual knowledge worker. The other host, channeling the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming's Out of the Crisis, argues that individual performance is largely determined by the system, and that any effort to improve results must start with improving the process itself.

Episode 85: Thinking, Fast and Slow (Part 4): Prospect Theory

In the final part of our series on Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, we explore the groundbreaking work that won him the Nobel Prize: Prospect Theory. Our hosts do a deep dive into this descriptive model of how people actually make decisions under risk. The conversation unpacks the key concepts of loss aversion—our tendency to feel the pain of a loss more acutely than the pleasure of an equivalent gain—and the certainty effect. We analyze why this theory was a revolutionary challenge to the classical economic idea of the rational, utility-maximizing actor. This is a look at a powerful theory that has profound implications for economics, finance, and marketing.

Episode 86: The Power of Loss Aversion

Why does losing $100 feel so much worse than gaining $100 feels good? In this concise and powerful Brief, we distill the single most important concept from Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory: Loss Aversion. Our hosts quickly explain this fundamental asymmetry in our psychological experience of gains and losses. You will learn how this powerful bias affects our behavior in everything from financial markets and contract negotiations to marketing and personal decision-making. In just a few minutes, you’ll have a clear understanding of one of the most potent and predictable forces in human psychology.

Episode 87: The Replication Crisis: A Critique of Pop Psychology

Many of the most famous and fascinating ideas in business psychology—from priming to power poses—have come under fire in the "replication crisis." In this important Critique episode, we analyze the foundations of the pop psychology that fills our business bookshelves, using some of the concepts from Thinking, Fast and Slow as a starting point. Our hosts explore how the pressure to publish novel, surprising results can lead to studies that are not robust or replicable. We discuss the importance of intellectual humility and a healthy skepticism towards claims that are based on a single, small study. This is a look at the difficult but essential process of scientific self-correction.

Episode 88: The Rational vs. The Irrational Actor

What is the most useful model for understanding human economic behavior? This episode stages a foundational Debate between two opposing views of human nature. One host, channeling the ideas of Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, argues for the model of the rational actor. They contend that while not perfect, a model of people as rational agents pursuing their own self-interest is the most powerful and predictive tool for understanding markets and economies. The other host, drawing on the research of Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow, argues that this model is fundamentally flawed. They believe that a model based on the predictable irrationality of human psychology provides a much more accurate and useful picture of how people actually behave.

Episode 89: The Art of War (Part 1): The Calculations

We begin our multi-part series on Sun Tzu's ancient classic, The Art of War, by focusing on its first and most important principle: the crucial role of calculation and preparation before any conflict begins. Our hosts do a deep dive into the five fundamental factors that Sun Tzu argues must be assessed: The Way, Heaven, Earth, Command, and Discipline. The conversation explores how these ancient concepts can be translated into a modern business context, from understanding your company's moral purpose (The Way) to analyzing the competitive landscape (Earth). This is a lesson in the timeless wisdom of doing your homework before you ever make a strategic move.