Acumes: The Congruence Platform

Acumes: The Congruence Platform I am the creator of Congruence, the only model, method, and mindset you need to learn to build and manage the best version of any company.

I am a fitness enthusiast and love to eat healthy. So, the recent lack of access to eggs and the price hike get on my ne...
03/16/2025

I am a fitness enthusiast and love to eat healthy. So, the recent lack of access to eggs and the price hike get on my nerves. Compounding that with seeing non-stop ads and articles pushing weight loss drugs on the public makes for a good showdown between two products on opposite ends of the intrinsic value spectrum.

This article, Chickens Strike for Equal Pay: A Duct Tape Economics Case Study, introduces you to the concept of Duct Tape Economics, which I framed in my book: Congruence: The Playmaker's Guide to High Value Companies.
1) How do we value and price eggs?
2) How do weight loss drugs compare in total sales?
3) Why does a product like “weight loss drugs” exist?
4) Should we invest more in egg production or weight-loss drugs?

Complete article: https://www.acumes.com/congruence-catalyst/chickens-strike-for-equal-pay-a-duct-tape-economics-case-study

Congruence (Book) on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Congruence-Playmakers-Guide-Value-Companies-ebook/dp/B0DVJ3YV9Q

Tariffs are one of the most discussed topics right now. What is the surface-level reason for imposing tariffs? What is t...
03/07/2025

Tariffs are one of the most discussed topics right now. What is the surface-level reason for imposing tariffs? What is their intended short-term effect? What is the underlying reason why tariffs become necessary? I will explain using GAC (a Chinese EV manufacturer) as an example.

1️⃣ GAC, a Top 5 Yet Loss-Making Chinese EV Manufacturer, Faces 45% Tariffs.
2️⃣ Do tariffs on EVs make sense for Europe? Yes!
3️⃣ Does it make sense for GAC to build factories in Europe? No!

Here is the complete assessment and framework: https://www.acumes.com/congruence-catalyst/are-tariffs-good-or-bad-tariffs-are-a-tax-on-value-exchange-imbalance




When was the last time you read something that pushed you to reconsider your worldview?It’s a complete product. The engi...
02/19/2025

When was the last time you read something that pushed you to reconsider your worldview?

It’s a complete product. The engine is the same class as in Edition 1, with significant improvements. But the aerodynamics have entirely evolved. It stands alone in any company setting and starts with a comprehensive “why” and “what” that I was honestly afraid to address publicly in Edition 1.

It’s a complete product. The engine is the same class as in Edition 1 with significant improvements. But the aerodynamics have entirely evolved. It stands alone in any company setting and starts with a comprehensive “why” and “what” that I was honestly afraid to address publicly in Edition 1.

It would mean a lot to me if you looked through and told me one or two “aha!” moments you have. Comment below!

Why the new name?
It explains the single fundamental reality that any company requires. And I like it better.
I also realized that all the rules about publishing only ever served publishing houses and never did anything for readers or authors.

Sidebar:
The one big truth I realized during my writing path is that most of what we consume is academic BS or marketing something. It’s rarely fundamentally informative. I always chose what I read based on social proof and reviews; it just meant people liked it or someone popular wrote it. People like stuff that makes them feel better, which is usually confirmation bias. Popular people don’t usually write their books; ghostwriters mostly write them.

If you want to judge a book by its content…

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Congruence-Playmakers-Guide-Value-Companies-ebook/dp/B0DVJ3YV9Q
Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/congruence/id6742147596
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/congruence-john-oommen/1146915250?ean=9798986001241





For the past two days, my condo building has been attempting to resolve an issue. As often happens, two parties – who ar...
01/07/2025

For the past two days, my condo building has been attempting to resolve an issue. As often happens, two parties – who are friends and agree on everything – have been the most reactive to group emails, texts, and calls. They respond to everything within minutes, have a confident answer, and usually say “yes” to spending money quickly.

We had a roofer in the building when the drywall issue came up, and one of the parties I mentioned above is very cozy with the roofer and trusts everything the contractor says. Likely sensing this trust, the contractor proposed an overpriced fix with fancy terms like “scale the high walls,” “copper,” and “welding.”

For the past 48 hours, these two first-time homeowners have defended the proposal, stating that “copper is complex” and “welding at that height is hard” and that the price seems fair. All our conversations have started from the assumption that this proposal actually addresses the issue and we are not being “oversold.”

As an engineer, I’m naturally skeptical and curious whether the solution truly addresses the problem. I have two options: 1) allow another poor decision, or 2) engage in a race against time to find an alternative while also trying to stop our condo association from signing this proposal.

This mirrors many corporate decision-making scenarios. We often prioritize having quick and confident answers – and then defending them – over investing the time and mindshare in finding the correct answer.

Question of the day: How much of your time goes into disproving bad ideas?
________________

My name is John Oommen. I am the creator of Congruence: The Playmaker’s Guide to High Value Companies. Five congruence capabilities – Book, Course, Advisory, Resources, and Community – empower you to conquer new frontiers of excellence for companies through congruent value exchange and efficient use of capital.

Website: www.acumes.com
LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/congruence-catalyst-7235768599804530688/





I find beauty in simple ideas that transcend many situations and types of people. One of those ideas is that we behave d...
01/06/2025

I find beauty in simple ideas that transcend many situations and types of people. One of those ideas is that we behave differently when we are observed.
In physics, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle states that we can never definitively know the properties of a particle and its position at the same time. We have to hit a particle, like an electron, with a light particle to learn about its properties. But the light particle then also bumps that electron to a new position, just like hitting one billiard ball with another. So, by learning about it, we have changed where it is.
The same reality applies to people. When we try to learn about people and their actions, we often make them aware that we are observing them. Consciously and subconsciously, people behave differently.
Do you find yourself dressing differently at home when you are alone compared to when others are around?

Question of the day: When you measure people or groups of people, whether workers or customers, do you account for the inevitable reality that they will act differently because you are observing them?

____________________

My name is John Oommen. I am the creator of Congruence: The Playmaker’s Guide to High Value Companies. Five congruence capabilities – Book, Course, Advisory, Resources, and Community – empower you to conquer new frontiers of excellence for companies through congruent value exchange and efficient use of capital.
Website: buff.ly/4j1kx3Z
LinkedIn Newsletter: https://buff.ly/3W4tMXe




🔗 Read (https://zurl.co/aPBW) or listen (https://zurl.co/ng0X) to the complete article.👇 Share your views in the comment...
04/07/2023

🔗 Read (https://zurl.co/aPBW) or listen (https://zurl.co/ng0X) to the complete article.

👇 Share your views in the comments below.

Summary:
“AI” readiness is a fundamental assessment of individual and societal readiness.

🤖 Given recent excitement and apprehension around “artificial intelligence” (“AI”) triggered by the public release of ChatGPT, the popular platform powered by OpenAI’s algorithm, we must parse reality from sensation and prepare for pretenders jumping in to clutter the powerful and dangerous space. Internalizing what really constitutes “AI”, what can “AI” really do for us, and what should scare us will simplify the conversation.

🧐 Considerations:
Why is ChatGPT passing the Turing Test even as a language processing research model?
What is our problem definition that “artificial intelligence” will solve?

📦 Key insight:
Every living thing or object, including technology, follows the same simple equation: Input + Process = Output.

We control tools if we understand the inputs that go into creating them and the integrity of the process that transforms those inputs into outputs. Taking the output of a predictive model at face value without critical thinking leads to poor productivity and investment allocation on the docile end. The implications on the harmful end are unthinkable.

📢 Call to action:
We can choose to be a master of tools during the upcoming “AI” wave.

First, ensure that we internalize the answer to these three fundamental questions to protect ourselves from touching misleading "AI" tools or overbuying tools we don't need.

Second, let's embrace humility and put ourselves through a two-point critical thinking test to see how ready we are to use the “AI” tools we consider useful to avoid being taken for a ride by pretenders.

➕ If we sidestep the “AI” buzz, today’s most relevant consideration is what I am calling The Productivity Crisis. As I finish a series of articles, read (https://zurl.co/Cjmv ) or listen (https://zurl.co/Rg0x ) to the prequel I published last year: What is capital engineering and why is it unproductive?

05/25/2022

🌐🌐 WHAT IS A HOLISTIC COMPANY? 🌐🌐

I recently published The Spiral Stairway: The System To Build A Holistic Company (https://zcu.io/6pVY) to encourage a much-needed focus on fundamentals (not the free cash flow kind), intrinsic value creation (not extrinsic market value), and profitable sustainability (not the ESG kind).

Words are important. So, let’s define a Holistic Company.

ADAM SMITH vs. JOHN NASH

Adam Smith is considered the father of modern economics and his political economics theory can be summarized as: Every person, entity, and nation must do what's in their own best interest and the overall outcomes would be the best.

John Nash revised Adam Smith to frame that the best outcomes happen when each player in the ecosystem considers the downside and upside of all the other players and makes a choice that is likely to benefit themselves AND others. This is a highly simplistic explanation of The Nash Equilibrium.

The Spiral Stairway is not an economics or political science book. It is a practical methodology that answers—How must we build and manage a company?

But the main theme of the book is that we must build Holistic Companies. Holistic Companies satisfy the Nash Equilibrium. Oddly, to quote my own book, "holistic companies… maintain an equilibrium between the incentives of all stakeholders — customers, investors, employees, partners, and society — and are self-sufficient." There is a way for all of us to win together. But it requires us to be disciplined and objective.

You might say this is obvious. But is it, though? Look at some real data points:

For instance, most LinkedIn employee posts or "professional conversations" these days focus on the self and our own stakeholder groups and sub-groups within. I can imagine that it is nice to advocate for our own needs when we firmly fit into a group. But it is also a US vs. Them attitude.

What if everyone operates under me-first and my-stakeholder-group-is-most-important mindset? Do we really want to go into a war of attrition with every other stakeholder group? Adam Smith required revision because the most likely outcome in such games is usually mutually assured destruction.

The investor-first mindset doesn't work for the rest of the ecosystem either. Here are some figures (https://zcu.io/aTqs) about our growth-at-any-cost era. Employees, customers, partners, and even society, in the form of public shareholders, lost to enable a victory for private shareholders of rapid-scaled companies.

We will never find an equilibrium if we play with myopia. The result is today's dissatisfaction with "companies" from everyone. We will always have “companies” and we need them to be effective and appreciated so that we can focus more on creating value than drone on about why they aren’t effective.

Now, what do we mean by a "company"? That's for another day. Happy Wednesday! 🙂

Dear friends,People who know me well understand that I have been a fervent critic of the growth-at-any-cost culture of t...
05/10/2022

Dear friends,
People who know me well understand that I have been a fervent critic of the growth-at-any-cost culture of the last decade and a half. The numbers and incentive structure simply didn't add up.

Now that we have arrived at a global economic stall-point [US GDP shrank last quarter] after having expired all available monetary and fiscal tools, it's time to start grown-up conversations about companies. 15 years of low-interest rates AND quantitative easing for much of that period as well as unfathomable amounts of fiscal stimulus that have ballooned most OECD countries’ debt to near-unserviceable levels imply that we are now in trouble, and defenseless.

I believe that fundamentals and focus on intrinsic value creation are the most accurate predictors of sustainable profitability and growth, not flaky short-term extrinsic valuations and fundraising trends.

With these underlying themes as a backdrop, I have published my book on how we must build and manage companies – The Spiral Stairway: The System To Build A Holistic Company.
Amazon: https://zcu.io/YJIv
Barnes & Noble: https://zcu.io/FheF
Kobo: https://zcu.io/wZpm
(Available at other retail outlets soon)

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
The vast majority of private companies that went public in the last few years are now valued well below their IPO valuation AND are unprofitable. Most acquired companies are also placing significant downward pressure on the valuations of the companies that acquired them because they overpaid. Younger companies along this path will face significant headwinds because the myth is busted.

We have heard repeated use of the terms “Supply Chain,” “Inflation,” and “Russia” to explain the capitulation of company valuations. But buildings must be constructed to withstand predictable levels of rain, wind, and temperature shocks.

The real reason for the recent (and likely continued) market sell-off, upcoming survival-focused consolidation among companies, and resulting cost-cutting (which means job losses) is the overdue acceptance that many recent creations are built on quicksand using cheap materials and bad design because the above-mentioned fiscal and monetary policy choices allowed it.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
We can build and manage holistic companies.

I wrote The Spiral Stairway with the hope and prayer that the next decade and more will be focused on creating companies that balance the incentives of all stakeholders and focus on tangible intrinsic value creation rather than efforts to make a quick buck by handing off artificially inflated companies without realistic long-term prospects to the masses.

I am not backed by brands or famous people. But I know smart people like you. So, please help by sharing this with your friends and acquaintances. Please take a few minutes to purchase a copy of The Spiral Stairway and put a [5*] review in.

Thank you for your support! I sincerely appreciate it 🙏

05/01/2019

We are launching Turnaround Science as an advisory firm to meet a critical market need for fast-growing, small- and mid-sized companies. Turnaround Science - the firm and the underlying concept - is a growth mindset and a problem-solving approach, backed by a comprehensive and cohesive Growth Framework and three foundational Growth Philosophies.

The firm has a dual mission:
1) Work with investors and senior executives of rapid-growth, small- and mid-sized companies to improve fundamentals through strategy, operations, and culture; thus, achieve sustainable growth.
2) Broadly advocate for the necessity of foundational strength at rapid-growth companies by disseminating thought leadership that can be leveraged by all stakeholders.

Watch this launch video to understand the thinking that spawned Turnaround Science. Stay engaged going forward by following us.

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