The theory of comparative advantage In 1817 the economist David Ricardo developed the theory of comparative advantage. It explains why nations trade. He gave this example to explain it: Scenario 1. Imagine the economy consists of two countries that produce both cloth and wine; Portugal and England. Though their output is of equal quality, Portugal is […]
Rule 19: Look after the Workforce
You don’t understand the work You might think you have a tight grip of how your operation is working… but you just don’t. How can you? You spend your days in meetings. Picking up actions to write PowerPoints you can present at more meetings. You are rarely in the workplace. The workforce understand the work […]
How to Listen
I was once a bright young thing Don’t laugh, we are talking 20 make that 25 years ago I was a management trainee for a FTSE 100 company I had a First Class Degree And I was MBA educated The world was my oyster I thought I could conquer everything, I was going to be the next […]
The Potato King
They were dying of hunger In 18th Century Prussia bread was expensive, people were malnourished and famine wasn’t uncommon. The King at the time was Frederick the Great. He was wise enough to realise that unfed subjects were not a good thing — it is hard to run a kingdom effectively if people keep dying of starvation — […]
The Problem with Solutions
Clever management phrases When I was a graduate trainee I had a manager who loved to say: “Do not come to me with problems, come with solutions” He believed it was a clever and motivational sort of thing to say. It would make me more creative, I would start to think ahead and develop my own solutions, and — […]