Ideas & Links
An archive
Friends,
I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.
Now accepting keynotes for 23Q4-24Q2
Every year, I create three main presentations. For 2023, they are:
Delusions of determinism: Why planning for success leads to failure
Regression toward the meme: Why modern leadership continues to fall into old traps
Under pressure: Retail in a new financial era
If you want to book me for your event, workshop, or corporate speaking slot, just send me an email. To make sure I am available, however, please do so at your earliest convenience; my schedule is filling up fast - and I will be raising my prices at the end of the year.
More information can be found here.
A couple of updates before we go-go
In all my years studying law - yes, for those unaware, I was indeed for a time in my career a lawyer working in corporate finance and M&A - there was one piece of legislation that stood tall above all others yet was on no test. I speak, of course, of Murphy’s law.
For anyone unfamiliar with this universal legal principle, it states that “if something can go wrong, it will”. Practitioners have also observed an addendum: “and typically at the worst possible time”.
So once the builders had done their thing and the kitchen was as ready as it could be while we await the countertop, the brand-spanking-new fridge started sounding like a mid-20th-century diesel engine. It would appear that said builders have either done a number on the compressor or put the 203cm x 70cm behemoth too close to the wall.
My wife then decided to have a shower more or less out of sheer frustration (it had been a very long day), when suddenly there was a clonk in the pipes and all downstairs warm water pressure was lost (insert old man’s ailment gag of choice here). So now the plumber too has to come back.
In other words, for those keeping score, we now have no stove, no downstairs shower (and bedroom furniture in the upstairs one), no clothes washing capabilities, no place to eat, a state-of-the-art fridge doing an impression of a Victorian era coal miner with lung disease, and still boxes of all things under the sun eeeeeeverywhere.
Anyway.
Next week, on Thursday October 26, at 10am CET, the first webinar featuring yours truly and Steve will take place. We will discuss some of the eye-opening findings of the new book and, for the first time ever, reveal its name. If you want to join, you must reach out before the event via this email, so that we may send you the link to it.
Moving on.
Item of the week random interval
Jascha Sohl-Dickstein is a principal scientist in Google DeepMind who is most famous for inventing diffusion-based generative models. In this blog post, called Too much efficiency makes everything worse: overfitting and the strong version of Goodhart's law, he provides further illustration of the issues that we have been discussing in the premium section of late (such as requisite inefficiency and the practical challenges of measurement). An easy read most definitely worth a few moments of your time.
If we keep on optimizing the proxy objective, even after our goal stops improving, something more worrying happens. The goal often starts getting worse, even as our proxy objective continues to improve. Not just a little bit worse either — often the goal will diverge towards infinity.
This is an extremely general phenomenon in machine learning. It mostly doesn't matter what our goal and proxy are, or what model architecture we use. If we are very efficient at optimizing a proxy, then we make the thing it is a proxy for grow worse.
What have we done?
Previously on Strategy in Praxis
As we inch ever closer towards the introduction of the new book, I thought today would be as good a time as ever to revisit what has led us to this point. After all, there are many thousands of you now reading (these incoherent ramblings of a malcontent consultant) who have joined along the way. So here is a recap of just some of the things we have covered, free of charge, over the years.
(Nota bene: premium subscribers have seen plenty more of most things, in particular as they pertain to practical illustration and application, but for obvious reasons I am unable to link to the content in question. Those who know, know. Those who do not may find out by clicking the button at the bottom of the page. Hint, hint. Nudge, nudge.)
Models, frameworks, and concepts
Strategic intent (Stephen Bungay)
The strategy kernel (Richard Rumelt)
Where to play/how to win (Roger Martin)
Strategic perspective (Henry Mintzberg)
The business model canvas (Alexander Osterwalder)
Oblique goal-setting (John Kay)
Missioning and visioning (Bob de Wit)
Generic strategies (Michael Porter)
Five forces (Michael Porter)
The Ansoff matrix (Igor Ansoff)
The BCG matrix (Alan Zakon and Bruce Henderson)
Core competencies (C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel)
The resource-based view (Jay Barney)
The 3C model (Kenichi Ohmae)
SWOT (Albert Humphrey)
Cynefin (Dave Snowden)
The 7S model (Tom Peters and Robert Waterman)
Blue ocean strategy (Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne)
PEST (Francis J. Aguilar)
Corporate complexity
Practical illustrations
Markets, marketing, and finance
Interviews and guest posts
There are, of course, many other topics that we have discussed (e.g., culture, pace layers, extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation, sense-making exercises, insights, forecasts, hodling, and much more), but I think I can say - perhaps even without coming across as too much of a self-celebrating twig - that we have covered a lot of ground in our soon three years of weekly newsletters.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for taking part on a journey which is about to reach new heights. I hope to see you on Thursday.
Until then, have the loveliest of weekends.
Onwards and upwards,
JP
This newsletter continues below with additional market analyses exclusive to premium subscribers. To unlock them, an e-book, and a number of lovely perks, simply click the button below. If you would rather try the free version first, click here instead.