Nature of Investing: Resilient Investment Strategies Through Biomimicry 1st Edition

With The Nature of Investing, Katherine Collins has delivered a useful and welcome introduction to thinking about the problem of investing and economics in terms of Nature’s elegant methods.Using basic principles and guides Collins compares and contrast where things go wrong and what to look for when they are right. Her approach frames companies, products and solutions as trade offs between six pairs of solution metrics: The efficient vs. effective, the synthetic vs. simple, maximized vs. optimized, disconnected vs. reconnected, mechanical vs. mindful and finally the static vs. the dynamic. By looking at economic and investment problems from these mechanistic versus natural solution types; Collins offers simple but profound ways of probing the sustainability and resilience of companies and economies likely outcomes.She questions GDP growth as an absolute good, correctly identifying faults in GDP which includes growth in prisons, guns and arms but doesn’t measure important qualities, such as the strength of our family ties, well being and our relationships with each other and our future legacy.Her nature based approach using basic questions allows her to explore worthy critiques of pointless trading, math models gone wild in finance, and other examples of complex economic activity adding broad economic risk with narrowly distributed minimal returns. Finance specialists innovatively chasing their own tails on such scale rarely end well.A critique of this book is its length. More could have been shared leaving the reader wishing for an even deeper investigation into such an interesting theme and Collins perspective on it. This reader looks forward to following Collin’s work for some time.

A very thoughtful perspective that will help me think and act more intentionally when investing. The key points being that we need to understand our original reason for investing and the implications of our investment actions.Ms. Collins takes what is often viewed as an individual action (investing) and makes it clear that it is really a systematic action that has broad ramifications. She also describes many if the flaws in our current investment system in an easily understood manner. Well worth the read.

Whoa, not the investment book I was expecting. This is a must read, game changer. Here's how I'd sum it up:Tired of flat screen, algorithm-driven, mechanized financial markets that feel increasingly disconnected from daily life?Wouldn't it be nice if instead the world of finance were: effective, resilient, elegantly simple & naturally optimized?By connecting real-world finance with a deeply rooted, scientifically valid framework (biomimicry) Katherine Collins shows us how investing can be returned to its core purpose of mutual exchange and mutual purpose.If this sounds mind-blowing, it is. Collins' underlying point is that its time for us to refocus investing on its essential, connected form - relational not transactional, regenerative not extractive, optimized, not maximized, resilient not rigid.As Collins notes - we are all investors. Whether wearing our hats at citizens, consumers, and/or business people... with each decision about how we spend our time, energy, and money, we are investing.Alas, our current global financial system is in need of a serious course correct. By asking "WWND" (What Would Nature Do?) Collins presents a compelling, innovative, and highly actionable vision of a new investment path, one which emulates nature's genius. Highly recommend this delightfully readable book.

Katherine has written a very unusual book that goes beyond the usual boundaries of ESG or SRI investing to a broader requiem for mindful behavior in our financial decisions. Her anecdotes about the insights and clarity lost in the maze of of current risk modeling structures rings very true. While there is clear value in quantitative modeling, we can also lose touch with a simpler and often more powerful logic engine and Katherine's biomimicry framework is a wonderful path through which to reinsert common sense into those decisions. Katherine is also quick to point out that nature's systems are not judgmental and often red in tooth and claw. Biomimicry is not all touchy freely. However, there is a broader point in here that one must keep clear goals and priorities in the front if one's decision making process or they will be lost in the fog of complexity. In doing so, it can also be a path to incorporating a more ethical framework to investing (including any other life "investments" of time and energy). Complex stuff, but again, Katherine's recipe for distilling these multi-variable choices down to their essence through natural models is really wonderful.

This is a thought provoking investment book which is, in the author’s words, a “call to think.” She encourages the reader to consider a framework that is a durable, healthy contribution to all involved. More than a high level framework for thinking, Katherine Collins analyzes specific activities in the investment world as practical applications. With the credibility of a successful career in this business she shows that additional consultation can impede, that the most intricate processes may not justify the time to be understood, that speed may not improve an existing process, that additional market activity may have unintended consequences, that precision can dim clarity, that good ideas stretched too far may be precarious. This is a different type of investment read. Overall, this book really does call on the reader to look at the world in a different way--to stop and think.