Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
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 …
Career changes are some of the biggest moves we will ever make, but they don’t have to be daunting. Using mental models to make decisions we determine where we want to go and how to get there. The …
Performance reviews are designed to motivate and bring the best out of our teams, but they often do the opposite. Here’s how to bring out the best in your people. *** If you ask people what’s wrong …
Why do you go to work? Chances are it’s got something to do with money. But as most of us know, it’s more complicated than that. “There is a spectrum of reasons why people do their …
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 …
“The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It’s very easy to say yes.” — Tony Blair Tony Blair isn’t the only one who thinks that. So does Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett. …
In this excerpt from Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?, Louis V. Gerstner Jr. says something I wish tech companies would heed. I said something at the press conference that turned out to be the …
Seymour Schulich, one of Canada’s most successful businessmen and author of Get Smarter: Life and Business Lessons offers some indispensable business wisdom. Business is a means to an end not an …
“Get it right, get it fast, get it out, get it over.” *** In an interview with Jeff Cunningham, Warren Buffett hits on two principles that elude most of us. Interviewer: I was reading a …
Aristotle talked about three kinds of work: theoretical, practical, and poetical. The first searches for truth. The second is practical with an objective around action. The third, however, is lost in …
It’s one thing to set big stretch goals. It’s another thing entirely to acknowledge the tension and incentives they create within an organization. Charlie Munger, speaking at the 2000 …
The first chapter in Seymour Schulich‘s book, Get Smarter: Life and Business Lessons, offers a decision tool that adds to the simple pro-and-con list that many of us have used to make decisions. …
I’ll elaborate on this below but here are the contrasts between good organizations and bad ones. Which one do you work for? In good organizations people can focus on the work and not office …
While I’m not all that interested in military doctrine and tactics in and of themselves, I am interested in complex systems, how the weak win wars, and the lessons military leaders offer (for …
In isolation, good ideas alone are not enough to produce something great. The right people are what make ideas work. Read on to learn about how Pixar used that principle as the basis of its amazing …
We’re not designed for multitasking and we’re certainly not designed to work continuously without a break. We’re designed to pulse, that is alternate between expending energy and …