Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
Michael Abrashoff was in his mid-thirties when he took command of the USS Benfold, a guided missile destroyer and one of the worst-performing ships in the Navy. Despite her potency, the …
Too often we reward people who solve problems while ignoring those who prevent them in the first place. This incentivizes creating problems. According to poet David Whyte, the key to taking initiative …
We tend to measure performance by what happens when things are going well. Yet how people, organizations, companies, leaders, and other things do on their best day isn’t all that instructive. To find …
Our desire to fit in with others means we don’t always say what we think. We only express opinions that seem safe. Here’s how the spiral of silence works and how we can discover what people really …
Directing a film involves getting an enormous group of people to work together on turning the image inside your head into a reality. In this 1970 interview, director Jean Renoir dispenses time-tested …
The Pygmalion Effect is a powerful secret weapon. Without even realizing it, we can nudge others towards success. In this article, discover how expectations can influence performance for better or …
Consider two contrasting daily schedules. Novelist Haruki Murakami starts writing at 4am and writes for about 5-6 hours straight. Then he runs or swims, and reads or listens to music before a 9pm …
* Hanlon’s razor is a mental safeguard against the temptation to label behavior as malicious when incompetence is the most common response. It reminds us that people are not out to get us, and it’s …
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) published his masterpiece, The Prophet, in 1923. The work endures as a timeless meditation on the art of living. Gibran’s thoughts on love and giving offer a glimpse …
Have you ever wondered about internal organization dynamics and why some groups of people (who aren’t on the same team) are more successful than others? Why different “tribes” inside …
“I am certain in the belief that the average man who scrupulously follows this course of action is bound to win great success.” *** George Marshall must be one of, if not the most under …
The author Marshall Goldsmith has a gift for taking classic theories and adding to them, or slightly modifying them, to construct something new and interesting. A good example of this is what he does …
Imagine a sprinter running an Olympic race. He’s competing in the 1600 meter run. The first two laps he runs at a steady but hard pace, trying to keep himself consistently near the head, or at least …
We’ve written before about the legendary businessman Ken Iverson, the former CEO of Nucor Steel, who took it from a tiny steel operation to a true steel powerhouse in his own lifetime. To recap, …
“Geniuses are dangerous.” — James March How many organizations would deny that they want more creativity, more genius, and more divergent thinking among their constituents? The great …
Our first President and Commander-in-Chief, George Washington, is not known as an intellectual, the way Ben Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and some of his other Revolutionary counterparts …