How to Go Bankrupt

How to Go Bankrupt

“How did you go Bankrupt?” “Two Ways…gradually…then suddenly.” (The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway) Subject: financial planning Ernest Hemingway, apparently knew more about business failure than some executives, scholars, and politicians gathered around the recent...
Current Construction Recovery

Current Construction Recovery

Current Construction Recovery Top Line vs. Bottom Line   Since 2012 the construction industry has been enjoying a robust recovery. In this blog I have been alerting contractors to the business risks hidden in the euphoria of construction market upswings. Now that we...
A Negative Bias

A Negative Bias

A Negative Bias We called this blog “Let’s Talk Business” (letstalkbusiness.net) because we wanted to emphasize business management issues in construction as opposed to operations, engineering, or design. Many senior managers in the construction industry started as...
Ten Minute MBA

Ten Minute MBA

Ten Minute MBA   The iconic comedian George Carlin brought down the house with a routine he called, “The 10 Minute University”. He proposed that colleges should limit course content to only what students remembered five years after they had graduated. It would save...
The Big Dig

The Big Dig

The Big Dig   No discussion of the failure rate of megaprojects would be complete without a careful look at Boston’s Big Dig, the largest and most challenging highway project in the history of the United States. Few megaprojects have been accused by so many of taking...