Today’s Book: Secrets of the Moneylab: How Understanding People Will Increase Your Profits – by Kay-Yut Chen, Marina Krakovsky.

This book could help you become your own Strategy Consultant / Business Coach!

Let us dive in with a radical provocative thought: Does having good reputation help? But, what if your “great” reputation trapped your business into fixed behavior (you can’t risk your reputation, right?) not allowing you the flexibility and agility that are so essential these days?

Here is another radical thought: Provide much more to your employees (than you think they can return in value, at least in the short term) in terms or salary or privileges.

If you did that would you go bankrupt or could that skyrocket staff performance and help your business prosper and flourish?

Now, here is a thought on the totally opposite side of the behaviour spectrum. Quoting from the book:

“A chain of trust is only as strong as its weakest link.”

Implying that if you blindly trusted your staff and vendors, and, if they did similarly, in turn, then the entire organization can crumble if only one person chooses to betray the trust.

Trust can fail. Generosity may not workout. Tight situation, isn’t it?

Need answers? Nobody better to do that than the author, Kay-Yut Chen – an experimental economist (behavioral economics) who setup an experimental economics lab (first time ever) at HP Labs.

The book is collection of numerous non-intuitive insights. But, More importantly, the book may not give you ready answers for your own business. It provides many case studies, frameworks and tools to help you conduct your own experiments at your organization.