The Institute for Supply Management’s “Term of the Day” feature recently addressed a contract dispute resolution procedure known as the mini-trial, which immediately got me thinking about the Vested approach to resolving differences between companies and their service providers. According to ISM, a mini-trial is a contract dispute resolution process “in which each party, usually [...]
This is the time of year for trend lists and predictions. Usually they are mostly wrong or well, predictable. There are some that are worth paying attention to however. One is the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals’ Top Outsourcing Trends for 2012. For instance, IAOP says we should watch out for more M&As and consolidation [...]
The old adage that the more things change the more they stay the same probably should be revised when it comes to contract terms: the more things stay the same the worse they get. Tim Cummins, CEO of the International Association for Contract & Commercial Management (IACCM), expressed that thought in a recent Commitment Matters [...]
Listening to Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” (song and lyrics here) brings together a number of thoughts about how we deal with ourselves and each other, both in our personal and business relationships. Specifically, I’m thinking about the need for cooperation, self-knowledge and the absolute necessity for honesty. It’s a great song with a great beat [...]
For the most part the economics of outsourcing series has examined the big thinkers in economics who have influenced the development of modern outsourcing. Today I’ll put the focus on Joseph E. Stiglitz, whose work has the power to influence how companies think about globalization. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University, received the [...]
Business relationships obviously are based on economic assumptions and expectations, but they are also based on the human perceptions and biases we bring to the table. And that’s where we can go wrong. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology, is a social psychologist who focuses on the nature of perception, belief, forecasting and cognitive biases [...]
Many of the mistakes we make when outsourcing stem from a failure to recognize and account for the psychology that surrounds decision-making. Then businesses compound the problem by using poor judgment when reacting to the results of those decisions. Psychologist Thomas D. Gilovich (born 1954) is a professor of psychology at Cornell University who has researched [...]
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), a founding father of humanistic psychology, has more to do with outsourcing than you might think. He is famous for his breakthrough work on the “hierarchy of needs,” featured in his book: Toward a Psychology of Being. His premise was simple, yet profound: human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and certain lower needs must be satisfied [...]
Wayne Dyer, widely known for his new-agey and somewhat metaphysical teachings on self-development, is also known as the “father of motivation.” In a very real sense this highly aphoristic spiritual guru and author of more than 30 books has a lot to say about the business and outsourcing mindset. Much of what Dyer says boils [...]
Last time I kicked-off what I think will be an enlightening series on the “psychology of outsourcing” based on the work of modern psychological thinkers and how their theories and analyses—which mainly apply to personal and social interactions—also contain definite lessons for the business world. More than 50 years ago Eric Berne’s classic and powerful [...]
