The Blue Line Imperative: What Managing for Value Really Means

Chapter Eight

Creating a Blue Line Culture

Returning to our original premise, humans see value in the form of happiness, and the businesses whose job it is to deliver that happiness see value – if they are looking at it properly – as the expected future free cash flows discounted at the opportunity cost of capital. In other words, in both cases the principal goal is to allocate energy to pursuits where the expected return more than compensates for the opportunity cost of using that energy. Doing so leads always to survival; not doing so leads always to death.

You know by now that the former behavior represents blue line thinking and the latter red line thinking, and we have hopefully convinced you that companies which uphold the Blue Line Imperative ...