How to negotiate fund manager behavioural hurdles

The SLI MyFolio Fund Solutions team explain why it is imperative to distinguish between fund manager ‘charisma' and real investment skill.

In 1959, the sociologist Erving Goffman founded the concept of ‘front stage’ and ‘back stage’ for use in understanding human interactions.  Pre-mortems: Taking the emotion out of fund selection The central premise was there is a clear delineation between an individual’s behaviour when ‘performing’ to an audience and when shielded from public view. While Goffman’s work initially focused on waiters and kitchen staff in a hotel; the theory is broadly applicable and relevant to the assessment of fund managers.   Communication  As fund selectors, we are interested predominantly in the...