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person2000–present

Graham Duncan

Disciplines:
psychology/organizational psychology
finance
investing
management/talent assessment

Summary

Founder of East Rock Capital and prominent allocator known for his frameworks on talent assessment, investor psychology, and what he calls the 'grip' on one's work.

Core Contribution

Developed a practitioner framework for talent assessment in investment management that distinguishes between skill, character, and temperament — and introduced the 'grip' metaphor for the healthy relationship between effort and outcome.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Grip as Performance Diagnostic (uses the tennis metaphor of grip pressure — too tight produces error, too loose loses control — to describe the healthy relationship between striving and detachment in investment work)
  • Talent Assessment Over Track Record (believes that understanding how someone processes failure, uncertainty, and feedback reveals more about future performance than their historical returns)

Historical Influences

Carl Jung Charlie Munger Michael Mauboussin

Intellectual Lineage

Value Investing Tradition Organizational Psychology Jungian Analytical Psychology

Contemporaries & Peers

Howard Marks Michael Mauboussin Ted Seides Brad Gerstner

Minds Influenced

No recorded minds influenced.

Intellectual Posterity

'Grip' concept in investor psychology

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