RABOBANK – Rodenberg Tillman & Associates

Highlights from “It Can’t Be True”

September 15, 2015

The book “It Can’t Be True”, published in February 2015, was based on 2 years of research from over 200 in-depth interviews in the City of London. In his book. Luyendijk makes comparisons with the world of animals: traders are baboons, investment bankers are tigers, back-office employees are hard-working beavers and the departments of compliance and risk management are ants. The majority of the employees in the sector are therefore beavers and ants whose task is to control the tigers and baboons. Mission impossible!

Antifragility

June 1, 2015

Joseph Rodenberg

A World View, Intelligence Briefings

Black swans are large-scale unpredictable and irregular events that have a massive consequence. Examples are a tsunami, huge storms like Sandy in 2012, 9/11, Madrid 2004, and the loss of MH17. Antifragility means randomness, uncertainty, dealing with the unknown, doing things without understanding them and doing them well. However, it is easier to find out if something is fragile.

Too many companies like the comfort zone when working on strategy

January 15, 2015

Joseph Rodenberg

A World View, Intelligence Briefings

Choosing a strategy entails making decisions that explicitly cut off possibilities and options. It is a natural reaction to make the challenge less daunting by turning it into a problem that can be solved with tried and tested tools. The strategic plan is supported with detailed spreadsheets that project costs and revenues quite far into the future. At the end of this strategy process everyone feels much less scared; so this is about coping with fear of the unknown.

It’s an illusion that you are able to keep pace with all changes

November 15, 2014

Joseph Rodenberg

A World View, Intelligence Briefings

Peter Diamandis founded the prestigious US Singularity University, active in research on new technologies and author of the bestseller “Abundance”. One of his visions is that technology developments do not just follow the linear curve of growth, but do, however, follow the curve exponentially. Many Boards underestimate the speed of technology change and when this happens exponentially the company loses ground. There are numerous examples where this occurs, the latest being Blackberry and Nokia.

Banks: misplaced, misleading, and mistaken false arrogance

November 1, 2014

Joseph Rodenberg

A World View, Intelligence Briefings

In November 2013, Professor Admati was in Amsterdam presenting her book “The Bankers’ New Clothes” and speaking about the false lobby of the Dutch National Employer’s Organization VNO-NCW on Dutch banks. The professor sees herself as “a voice in the wilderness” because banks in the Netherlands and Europe want to keep to the 3% requirement of equity on total assets.