By Larry Wigger We humans love to argue; how we could have better navigated the exit from Afghanistan, to what degree the Mayor is succeeding in his personal campaign against potholes, whether the Kansas City Chief’s offensive line is now sufficiently deep to protect our precious Patrick Mahomes. In a different time, the debate du […]
Bloch Idea Salon: Last Dance Series
The Bloch Idea Salon is a diverse community of intellectually curious individuals who enjoy engaging in interesting conversations on leadership, business, strategy, civic issues, and more. The salon was launched with a four part series on leadership using the Michael Jordan Documentary, The Last Dance, as a case study. The discussion was led by local […]
Managing Virtual Teams
Gary O’Bannon With new emphasis on telecommuting comes a new reality: Teams need a strategy for communicating digitally, and leaders must adapt quickly to effectively manage their people and meetings remotely. The virtual world appears user-friendly on the surface but many have now discovered that even with great technology, it’s a world full of complexity, […]
Three Things When Reading A Study
Dr. Brian Anderson We see a lot of studies in the media and in our organizations in normal circumstances. We are seeing even more now with the pandemic’s effect reverberating across the globe. Policy makers, executives, leaders—people—are relying on some of these studies to make decisions about their personal and professional activities as we navigate […]
Re-Opening Pandora’s Box (safely this time)
By Larry Wigger While much is yet unknown about Covid-19, its transmission, potential immunity, or efficacy of treatments, the world’s energies are turning more and more to the business of re-starting economic engines. Here in the U.S., our libertarian roots are showing, with public angst against any extended prohibitions on business and public activities. What […]
Is the Supply Chain Broken?
By Anthony Vatterott A few weeks ago I wrote a small piece on the supply chain challenges during interruptions both natural and man-made. If you recall, I stated that the food supply chain is relatively stable and safe from negative implications of larger supply chain interruptions because most of the food products we consume (dairy, […]
Bias in datasets for AI+ML: why we also need to pay attention to the other side of the coin that is fairness in AI + ML
By Bryan Boots In May 2019, Bryan presented on “Bias in Datasets for AI+ML” at the annual Code for America Summit in Oakland, CA. This article is adapted from that presentation. You may have heard a lot about a push to reduce or remove bias in algorithms used for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning […]
3 Things to Watch in Supply Chains
By Larry Wigger It is nearly impossible to digest the latest coverage of Covid-19, without reading or hearing of severe supply chain disruptions. Whether it is tales of toilet paper shortages at the grocer, delays in Amazon Prime deliveries, or critically low stock of ventilators and masks, everyone is painfully aware of gaps in supply […]
Being a Better Consumer of Data and Models
Dr. Brian Anderson Data and models are part of our daily life–now more than ever. But it can be challenging to evaluate how useful a model, particularly when different models of the same problem make very different predictions. In this session, Dr. Brian Anderson outlines three things to help you be a better consumer of […]
Making Digital Transformations Stick
Dr. Brian Anderson The closure of campus in response to the new coronavirus world forced innovation and creativity as Bloch worked to rapidly adapt our critical processes to a fully digital workflow. It is—for the most part—working, and for many processes far better than we would have imagined. We are seeing that the digitization often […]
Supply Chain Disruption
By Anthony Vatterott There is a lot we can learn from disruption. In supply chains, the firms that correct disruptions quickest grow fastest. The ones that wait for the supply chain to catch up will not survive. There are plenty of stories from disruptions past that help us understand that much of what we are […]
What The %$!# Is Data Science?
Dr. Brian Anderson It’s certainly a buzzword—perhaps THE buzzword—from the C-Suite to the front line. The word conjures visions of dashboards, big data, and whiz-kid programmers and statisticians turning ones and zeros into insights and ideas that will unleash new strategies, productivity gains, and innovation. Except that’s not what data science is. Yes, applied statistics […]
Establishing a causal relationship is hard. Evaluating a causal claim isn’t as difficult.
Dr. Brian Anderson In a recent WSJ column, Christopher Mims borrows from behavioral economics to offer an explanation for “Why the world seems worse than it is.” The details of the column aren’t important for this post, but a passage caught my attention… Sometimes known as the availability heuristic, this bias is one reason parents […]
“First rule of leadership: everything is your fault.” Hopper, A Bugs Life
Dan Stifter, MBA Everyone looks in the mirror and think they’re looking at a natural born leader with all the best attributes of Captain America and Wonder Woman. But according to Gallup, 82% of managers are pretty much complete failures. Less than 1 out of 10 are really qualify as “leaders.” While “managing” is different […]
People are Not Problems to be Solved
by Dr. Nicole Price Many leaders are promoted to leadership because they are amazing problem solvers as individual contributors. In fact, when asked, no fewer than half of all leaders say that they are rewarded for problem solving even in their current roles. The challenge with this disposition to problem solving is that people are […]
Brain over Belly: Experiments for Decision Making
America’s leading companies have been moving away from decisions based on intuition and towards data for more than a decade. Amazon, Google, Netflix and Facebook are constantly running experiments in an effort to make better decisions. Experiments are no longer the sole domain of scientists in labs. Today’s leading enterprises employ and master the science […]