Episodes

Ed and Ron are honored to interview Alessandra Lezama, CEO of AbacusNext, a sponsor of The Soul of Enterprise. Alessandra possesses strategic hands-on leadership skills, drawing on extensive cross-industry experience, sustainable strategies, thorough growth and market analysis, and a focus on process improvement. She has extensive and significant expertise in start-up and under performing businesses, revitalizing organizations and scaling business operations cost effectively. She has built high-...

Ron and Ed have talked project management before, but the focus was always around project planning and scope creation. In this episode, they conversation shifts to project execution and the tools needed as well as some actual predictive indicators for project completion that are NOT time based. If you have ever asked, What replaces the timesheet? this episode is for you.

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

Ron and Ed are pleased to welcome Dr. Mary Ruwart to the show to discuss her new book, Death by Regulation. During this episode we will explore how the FDA is directly affecting your life and the lives of millions, if not billions of people because of the 1962 Amendments to the Food & Drug Act which have shaved at least five years off of your lifespan without making drugs safer and more effective. In her new book, Death by Regulation: How We Were Robbed of a Golden Age of Health and How We Can C...

Ed and Ron are honored to interview Phil Rosenzweig, the author of one our all-time favorite business books, The Halo Effect and the Eight Other Business Delusions that Deceive Managers, originally published in 2007. We discussed the book on Episode #42, Best Business Books, May 2015. The book has a profound effect on our thinking, as it challenges many of the business books out there that propagate these delusions that give business leaders the illusion of control and what it takes to succeed.

Ed and Ron are honored to interview economist Michael C. Munger, whose recent books include Choosing in Groups (coauthored with his son, Kevin Munger) and The Thing Itself, both in 2015. His research interests include the study of the morality of exchange and the working of the new Middleman Economy. Much of his recent work has been in philosophy, examining the concept of truly voluntary exchange, a concept for which he coined the term euvoluntary. His newest book addresses the sharing economy, ...

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

We are honored to interview Blair Enns, another crusader for Value Pricing and burying the billable hour. He wrote the fantastic book, The Win Without Picthing Manifesto, and his latest is Pricing Creativity: A Guide to Profit Beyond the Billable Hour. Take your pricing competency to the next level and don’t miss this show.

Ron and Ed are thrilled to interview Donald Boudreaux. Prof. Boudreaux is an economist, author, professor, and co-director of the Program on the American Economy and Globalization at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Boudreaux was an Assistant Professor of Economics at George Mason University from 1985 to 1989. He was an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Economics at Clemson University from 1992 to 1997, and President of the Foundation for Economic Education from 1997 to 200...

This episode is dedicated to the possibility that quality is not objective goodness but rather conformance to a requirement. For a professional this means the customer's requirement, not just professional standards. Viewing quality in the light is challenging to our minds and not something easily grasped. If you want to think along with Ron and Ed more deeply about the issue of quality and its relationship to both the professional and the customer, you are invited to listen to this episode of th...

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

Ed and I are honored to be able to interview Professor Thomas Hazlett, one of the country's leading economists in the are of the wireless spectrum, FCC regulation, etc. We will discuss his most recent book: The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone, which was published in May 2017. If you want to understand net neutrality, along with the history of government regulation of the spectrum and its impact on innovation, don't miss ...

Full disclosure: We prerecorded this episode. In our opinion, it is phenomenal. Peter Block is just incredible. Do yourself and your customers and your neighbors and your family, a favor and give this one a listen. This episode is dedicated to the possibility that a professional can increase their effectiveness in working with their customers (not clients) if they adopt some of behaviors espoused by Peter Block. Adopting these behaviors is not easy as it requires us to think differently than we ...

Without the value conversation, there can be NO value pricing. Without the ability to have this conversation, value pricing is dead on arrival. Without knowing what the perceived value is, there is no way to use it as the primary influence in the setting of a price. So why do professionals not engage in the value conversation? The answer is simple: it is difficult to do (a secondary reason: they fear they don’t provide anything of real value; that what they do is a “commodity”). There is no ques...

“Trickle Down Economics” is hurled around as a pejorative by politicians, the media, and other opponents of free markets. Yet there is no such theory in learned histories of economic thought. It’s a non-existent theory, a caricature of reality. So why is it continually used to describe supply-side economic policies, such as tax cuts, deregulation, and other policies to incentivize more risk taking, capital investment, and entrepreneurship? Join Ed and Ron as they discuss how economies and wealth...

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

For 2,400 years patients believed doctors were doing good; for 2,300 years they were wrong. Until the invention of antibiotics in the 1940s doctors, in general, did their patients more harm than good. Why do bad ideas die hard? Why do professions and professionals cling to ineffective theories and methods? Join Ed and Ron as they discuss two important books that illustrate the need for us to constantly challenge our core assumptions about the way world works: Bad Medicine: Doctors Doing Harm Sin...

Ron and Ed are thrilled to be interviewing Barry Melancon, President & CEO, American Institute of CPAs and CEO, Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. Barry joined the AICPA in 1995 when he was 37 years old, and is now the longest serving CEO in the organization’s 129 year history. Under his tenure, the AICPA has grown to become the largest membership body of CPAs in the world and has spearheaded a number of initiatives to benefit not only the profession, but also inves...

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

Peter Senge posits the Laws of Systems Thinking in Chapter 4 of in his seminal work, The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. During this show, Ron and Ed will introduce you to the basic concepts of Systems Thinking and discuss the laws by giving specific examples of how they manifest themselves in business today.

Thousands of business books are published each year. Some are worthless, fewer still have lasting value, but a handful possess the ability to transform your business (and possibly, your life). Yet with today’s busy and demanding schedules, do you feel you don’t devote enough time to reading and absorbing new ideas? Then this show is for you. Ed and Ron will explore the best business books they read in 2017.

Ed and Ron will discuss some of their favorite shows from 2017; discuss a selection of best books that they read during the year; comment on the notable people we lost in 2017 as well as some other topics.

The last Friday of every month Ed and Ron will do “Free-Rider Friday.” Most of our shows are “topic” driven, where we dive deep into one subject. Free-Rider Fridays are designed to be “event” driven, whatever issues are in the news that we (or you) find worthy of commentary. In economics, free riding means reaping the benefits from the actions of others and consequently refusing to bear the full costs of those actions. This means Ed and Ron will free ride off of the news, and each other, with no...

The Soul of Enterprise Interviews Johan Norberg.