The Chessboard Fallacy
“In the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own.” — Adam Smith *** One of our favorite dictums, much referenced here, is an idea by …
Human Nature
Robert Moses and the Oxygen of Pure Competence
Do you know anyone that’s really, really competent? Like really, ridiculously competent? They seem to have a work ethic that’s twice as powerful as yours, they get things done as asked, …
The Many Ways Our Memory Fails Us (Part 2)
(Purchase a copy of the entire 3-part series in one sexy PDF for $3.99) *** In part one, we began a conversation about the trappings of the human memory, using Daniel Schacter’s excellent The …
The Many Ways Our Memory Fails Us (Part 1)
(Purchase a copy of the entire 3-part series in one sexy PDF for $3.99) *** Recently, we discussed some of the net advantages of our faulty, but incredibly useful, memory system. Thanks to …
Why Are No Two People Alike? (Part 2)
(This post is the second in a two-part series on the work of Judith Rich Harris. See the first part here.) As we concluded Part 1 of our exploration of Judith Rich Harris’s work on human …
Why Are No Two People Alike? (Part 1)
“My solution to the mystery is that three perpetrators are involved: three mental systems that go about their business in different ways. Together, these three can answer the hows, whys, whens, …
Civilization and its Fundamental Passions
“To describe a culture is to describe the structure of its institutions.” — Joseph Tussman *** In his book The Burden of Office, the educator and philosopher Joseph Tussman, who brought us …
Lewis Thomas on our Social Nature and “Getting the Air Right”
“What it needs is for the air to be made right. If you want a bee to make honey, you do not issue protocols on solar navigation or carbohydrate chemistry, you put him together with other bees …
Don’t Get “Should” Mixed Up with “Is”
The hardest truth to swallow is that the world isn’t really fair, and it isn’t a world you’d necessarily draw up from scratch. It’s not usually what you suppose it should be. None of what’s around us …
How to Provide Great Feedback When You’re Not In Charge
How often do we give deep thought to how we provide feedback to others? While it seems like something we’d all like to do well, most of the time we stink at it. When was the last time you really felt …
Do Something Syndrome: When Movement Trumps Results
Solving problems almost always starts with ensuring you’re solving the actual problem. When the actions we should take are not obvious, or the problem is difficult, it’s easy to feel the …
Ten Techniques for Quickly Building Trust With Anyone
Trust makes the world go round. Here are ten techniques for building quick trust and rapport with anyone. *** I’m not quite sure how I came across Robin Dreeke‘s It’s Not All About …