Not surprisingly with the weekend approaching, your writer’s thoughts turn to golf. Every golfer who plays regularly should have a handicap index. This is probably the most misunderstood statistic that golfers use. The short explanation is that for every round one plays, you (or a computer, usually) figure out the stroke differential between what you shot and the stroke rating of the course. You adjust that for something called the slope rating (a measure of how difficult the course is relative to other courses) and add it on to your list. Your handicap index is 95% of the average of the ten best (lowest) adjusted stroke differentials of your last twenty rounds. Clear? Good, because it’s a great business lesson too.
Tag Archives: Business and Economy
Fuzzy Strategy
Sometimes I’m convinced that the most successful businesses have no idea what they’re doing. Oh sure, if you asked an executive about their strategy, he or she would probably give you whatever is in their planning document verbatim, but I think that’s crap. I think they’re telling you what they believe to be the truth but in fact may only be accurate in their minds for that moment. Instead, I think the most successful companies are masters of dealing with the utter chaos of the business world and not being too anchored to any one detail of a plan. Yes, planning is important, but so is reality, and that often means dealing with something for which we had no plan. So why bother planning? Continue reading
Filed under Helpful Hints, Thinking Aloud
Friendors
To end the week in our usual food-themed way, I want to talk about a piece of advice I was given a long time ago. I thought it concerned shopping and it turns out it’s important business advice as well. I’ll admit that it was given to me in a different time, when much of the food didn’t come from a supermarket the size of several airplane hangers. Shopping involved going to the butcher or the cheese store as well as the larger store where one would get grocery items and the advice was to make friends. Despite the change in store sizes, it’s still great advice for shopping and business. Let me explain.
Filed under food, Helpful Hints

