As the lead facilitator of hundreds of Business Simulation-Centric Business Acumen workshops I answer dozens of questions a week from our participants about the critical elements of learning around business strategy and financial management.

It’s inevitable. One of the very first questions always asked in a foundational Business Acumen learning workshop is about the concept of Goodwill.

If making rationale an actionable sense of the current global financial situation is extremely difficult for professionals who do it for a living, it is near impossible for the typical business professional who is managing budgets, making forecasts, and working to stay one step ahead of the competition to understand it and then use the understanding to make the right business decisions for their companies and their careers.

My friend passed away last week at the way-too-young age of 48.  He has left a beautiful wife and two great kids. He passed from colorectal cancer which is an insidious and horrible type of cancer to which there is no cure yet.  It is all our hopes that the amazing scientists who wake up every day and go to work find a cure for this and all other cancers will do so within the next fifty years.

In the book 2008 book Innovation to the Core, authors Rowan Gibson and Peter Skarzynski share tips on how business organizations can design, develop, and deliver best-selling, profitable products by prototyping, launching, and learning before making large investments in new product ideas that could turn out to be costly mistakes.