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BOOK · FOR A COURSE OR TEAMTEN COPIES OR MORE · AN EIGHT-WEEK GUIDE

How Bankers Think, for a course or a team

Ten copies or more, for a university finance course, a firm's graduate intake, a student society or a reading group — and a free eight-week guide that sets each chapter beside a case on this site, so the group reads the reasoning and then argues about a real-looking file.

Ask for a group order →The reading guide (PDF) →

// HOW AN ORDER WORKS

Write to hello@highbankpress.com with the number of copies and where they are going. Highbank Press, the publisher, replies with a price and a delivery date.

Fewer than ten? The book is on four Amazon stores, in all three editions: buy it on Amazon, or see the eight chapters first.

The guide and every case in it are free whether or not you order: the cases are open on this site, and a group can run the guide with copies bought any way it likes.

// THE EIGHT-WEEK GUIDE

One chapter a week, one free case a week. Everyone reads the chapter before the session and makes their call on the case before the senior banker's read opens; the session is the argument about the difference.

  1. WEEK 1 · CHAPTER 1

    Why Bankers Think Differently

    The case: Issue 08 — Basalt Ridge Developments · warm-up: one-minute files

  2. WEEK 2 · CHAPTER 2

    The Hidden Curriculum

    The case: Take the Interview Quiz · warm-up: one-minute files

  3. WEEK 3 · CHAPTER 3

    Reading Real Demand vs. Plugging Holes

    The case: Issue 01 — Pacific Premium Foods · warm-up: one-minute files

  4. WEEK 4 · CHAPTER 4

    Reading the Numbers Behind the Numbers

    The case: Issue 07 — Coastline Retail Group · warm-up: one-minute files

  5. WEEK 5 · CHAPTER 5

    Reading the Industry, Not Just the Borrower

    The case: Issue 03 — Kauri Dairy Holdings · warm-up: one-minute files

  6. WEEK 6 · CHAPTER 6

    Spotting Trouble Before It Spots You

    The case: Issue 09 — The Tuesday List · warm-up: one-minute files

  7. WEEK 7 · CHAPTER 7

    The Deal You Don't Do

    The case: The Walk-Away Framework on the In-Tray

  8. WEEK 8 · CHAPTER 8

    Reading the Room: The Banker as Translator

    The case: Issue 10 — The Dissent · warm-up: one-minute files

EACH SESSION

  1. Before the session, read the chapter, then open the week's case on bankingjudgmentlab.com and make your call. The senior banker's read opens only once you have answered, so answer alone, before anyone says what they chose.
  2. Open with the calls. Go round the room: what each person chose and the one number that decided it. Do not argue yet.
  3. Then read the senior banker's call together, and how the site's other readers answered, which the page shows beside it.
  4. Spend the rest of the hour on the questions below. The chapter is the reference; the case is the evidence.
  5. Optional warm-up: the chapter's one-minute files on the In-Tray, five minutes, answered on phones.

THE QUESTIONS, EVERY WEEK

  1. Where did your call differ from the senior banker's, and which line of the file would have had to read differently for you to agree?
  2. What did you assume about the business that the file never told you?
  3. Which part of this week's chapter did the case test, and which part did it not reach?
  4. Where have you met a file, a client or a decision like this one — at work, in a placement, in a case study?

The whole guide as a printable PDF →