Rory Sutherland Offers 4 Interesting Reads
I asked Rory Sutherland (Vice Chairman: Ogilvy & Mather) what books stood out for him last year. I’ve had the privilege of chatting with Rory a few times now and I think you’ll agree, …
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Billy Beane on Making Better Decisions, Challenging Entrenched Thinking, and Avoiding Biases
Billy Beane was put in the spotlight when Brad Pitt played him in the movie rendition of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Sports fans, however, knew long before Moneyball that Beane was …
How Situations Influence Decisions
Michael Mauboussin, the first guest on our podcast, The Knowledge Project, explains how our situations influence our decisions enormously in Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition. …
Regression Toward the Mean: An Introduction with Examples
Regression to the mean is a common statistical phenomenon that can mislead us when we observe the world. Learning to recognize when regression to the mean is at play can help us avoid misinterpreting …
Ten Pairs of Opposite Traits That Creative People Exhibit
This beautiful excerpt from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention beautifully illustrates why it’s so hard to pin down creativity and …
Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World
“Simple rules are shortcut strategies that save time and effort by focusing our attention and simplifying the way we process information. The rules aren’t universal— they’re tailored to the …
Turning Towards Failure
Our resistance to thinking about failure is especially curious in light of the fact that failure is so ubiquitous. ‘Failure is the distinguishing feature of corporate life,’ writes the economist Paul …
Winifred Gallagher On Living a Focused Life
“The American dream is no longer just to get rich quick, but also to enjoy doing it, the new captains of industry offer various best-selling decalogue for achieving this goal. Their tips range from …
How David Allen increased Drew Carey’s Productivity
Comedian Drew Carey outsourced the development of his productivity strategy to David Allen, author of the cult classic, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, who “taught him …
The Wisdom of Crowds and The Expert Squeeze
As networks harness the wisdom of crowds, the ability of experts to add value in their predictions is steadily declining. This is the expert squeeze. *** In Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of …
David Whyte on The Three Marriages of Work, Self, and Relationship
“We are each a river with a particular abiding character, but we show radically different aspects of our self according to the territory through which we travel.” *** The most difficult of …
Garrett Hardin: The Other Side of Expertise
From Garrett Hardin‘s mind-blowingly awesome Filters Against Folly. In our highly technological society we cannot do without experts. We accept this fact of life, but not without anxiety. There …
The Three Essential Properties of the Engineering Mind-Set
Engineers use a unique mode of thinking based on seeing everything as a system. They see structures that aren’t apparent to the layperson, they know how to design under constraints, and they …
Why it’s easier to describe “what makes us happy” than answer the question “what is happiness?”
A passage from Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide explaining, in part, why it’s easier to describe what makes us happy than answer the question what is happiness. I can say that I’m happy …
13 Practical Ideas That Have Helped Me Make Better Decisions
This article is a collaboration between Mark Steed and myself. He did most of the work. Mark was a participant at the last Re:Think Decision Making event as well as a member of the Good Judgment …
Stress Management
I’ve come across this short story a few times recently but I can’t track down the origins. If you know the source please contact me. A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress …