Sean Murphy's Page

It is happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust
Samuel Johnson in The Rambler (1750)
I went to a very interesting lecture recently by Prof. Madan Pillutla of the London Business School; he invited the class to consider the situation as set out below.
A game with two players
Initiator starts off with a sum of money, say £100. They can send some or all of it to the responder.
Any money that is sent will be tripled on its way to them. E.g., if the initiator sends them £1, the responder w… Continue

Rummy Was Right
We all remember first hearing the then Secretary Of State for Defence Donald Rumsfeld proclaim ‘There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But then there are also unknown unknowns. These are things that we do not know we don’t know’
Rummy was widely ridiculed and lampooned for a while. There was a great sport collecting his sayings and ranking them… Continue

Never Apologise Never Explain

Last week we had a couple of contrasts. Four Masters of the Universe competed with each other in abject grovelling and Gordon Brown pursuing his ‘Leith Laundry List’ style of argument interspersed with continuing claims of messianic abilities.
You could argue that the former Masters of the Universe had no option with the tumbrils rolling to the door of the Thatcher room and the assembled gawkers taking up knitting. This was a ritual in which everyone knew th… Continue

Feedback-a Rolls Royce solution?

Conventional wisdom says feedback is key to development of managerial talent and performance. If we’re lucky at some stage in our careers we’ve had an excellent boss or colleague who has really helped us move forward with timely, accurate and practical feedback.
Rypple (see below) offers a novel way of collecting feedback from a trusted network of key peers, mentors and managers. Through accurately framed short questions (e.g.) what do you think of how I chaired… Continue

In The Tent Or Out
So Barack has appointed Hillary (and Bill) as Secretary Of State. This has prompted much fury amongst some of his supporters who had hoped for a clean break and genuine change, as promised, by Barack on the stump.
It prompted thoughts and questions about whether former rivals for the top job in a country or a company can ever work successfully together.
Mrs Thatcher dealt decisively and contemptuously for a time with her rivals, in dismissing them as ' wets '. It came back to… Continue