Are intelligence and rationality different?
How can someone so smart be so stupid? We’ve all asked this question after watching a perfectly intelligent friend or relative pull a boneheaded move. “There is a narrow set of cognitive skills that …
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What Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else
Practice activities are worthless without useful feedback about the results. Here is a wonderful excerpt from Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else: The …
The Ten Most Popular Posts of 2010
How Apple Plays the Pricing Game How To Tell When a CEO is Lying? Jamie Dimon’s Summer Reading List Sin Tax Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be More Persuasive What is The …
The Mask of Sanity
Last week I picked up a copy of Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work and found myself quickly immersed. On the surface psychopaths appear normal, sane, and in control; in fact, many are quite …
The Inevitable Failure of Organizational Planning
A beautiful excerpt from Herbert Simon’s Strategy and Organizational Evolution: Anticipating the future means detecting, preferably prospectively,novel features in the environment that may …
The Hidden Link Between Scientific Research and Investing
This is a fascinating expert from “How Managers Express Their Creativity” by Herbert Simon that deals with the value of information. Simon compares successful scientific research …
Opinion Warning Signs
Robin Hanson makes a list of “Signs that your opinions function more to signal loyalty and ability than to estimate truth:” You find it hard to be enthusiastic for something until you know …
Choice Under Uncertainty
We use heuristics – rules of thumb – to make judgments. These can lead to certain predictable biases. These can lead to certain predictable biases. For instance, we classify situations …
The Ikea Effect: Why Doing Things Ourselves Makes us Happier
The IKEA effect is a super-interesting part of our psychological wiring that has all sorts of implications. In short, basically, people who voluntarily undergo a great deal of pain, discomfort, or …
Solution By Recognition
In his autobiography, legendary scientist Herber Simon attempts to explain the difference between experienced decision-makers and novices. What is it that the expert has that the novice lacks? Simon …
How Will You Measure Your Life?
Clayton M. Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, teaches Strategy at HBS. On the last day of class, he asks his students to turn theoretical lenses on themselves, to find cogent …
The Colonel Blotto Game: How Underdogs Can Win
If you’ve ever wondered why underdogs win or how to improve your odds of winning when you’re the underdog, this article on The Colonel Blotto Game is for you. *** There is a rich tradition …
Fortune’s Summer CEO Reading List
Right after Jamie Dimon unveiled his summer reading list for interns, Fortune polled a number of executives to find out what’s on their summer reading list. Brad Alford, Chairman and CEO, Nestlé …
Youngme Moon: On Business Competition and Escaping the Competitive Herd
There are many ways companies compete with one another. Unfortunately, a lot of those ways seem like nothing more than an expensive route to commoditization. Companies are relentless in their pursuit …
Jamie Dimon’s Summer Reading List for Intern’s
JP Morgan Chase had a town hall for summer interns yesterday. Apparently quite a few people asked Dimon for a reading list. He e-mailed them back the following list of his favorite books “which …
Behavioral Economics Reading List
Are you looking for good books to read on Behavioral Economics or Behavioral Psychology? This is a list of my best Behavioral Economics books of all time. If you only want to read a few, check out the …