Entrepreneur Owner Managers:
Practice vs Theory? Or Practice + Theory?
“In theory there’s no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”
-Martin E.P. Seligman, psychologist, author and Director of the Penn Positive Psychology Center
“For real people, if something works in theory, but not in practice, it doesn’t work. For academics, if something works in practice, but not in theory, it doesn’t exist.”
-Nassim N. Taleb, essayist, scholar, mathematical statistician, and former option trader and risk analyst
“Theory can be very practical. Gravity is a theory for example. It allows you to predict that if you step off a cliff you will fall. You don’t have to experience that.”
-Clayton M. Christensen, academic and business consultant who developed the theory of “disruptive innovation”
At Bigelow, since we work exclusively with Entrepreneur Owner-Managers (EOMs) to build and capture Enterprise Value, we have a lot of practical techniques and skills we have developed to do that successfully. We are committed to being masters of our craft, however, we are compelled to complement and enhance our practical experience with the latest thinking in the theoretical foundations of behavioral finance, and positive psychology, which have massive implications for EOMs.
Don’t misunderstand—we are completely attuned to the need to be practical but supplement that with state-of-the-art scholarship. Applying this research prospectively has taught us a great deal. It is highly rewarding, but also at times humbling.
In this 4 minute video, we headline some of our foundational research and why we engaged in it.
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