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Strategy

5 Mental Models to Remove (Some of) the Confusion from Parenting

We often talk about mental models in the context of business, investing, and careers. But mental models can also help with other areas, like parenting. Here are 5 principle-based models you can apply …

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Why We Focus on Trivial Things: The Bikeshed Effect

Bikeshedding is a metaphor to illustrate the strange tendency we have to spend excessive time on trivial matters, often glossing over important ones. Here’s why we do it, and how to stop. *** How can …

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Strategy vs. Tactics: Why the Difference Matters

In order to do anything meaningful, you have to know where you are going. Strategy and tactics are two terms that get thrown around a lot, and are often used interchangeably in numerous contexts. But …

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OODA LOOP: What You Can Learn from Fighter Pilots About Making Fast and Accurate Decisions

What techniques do people use in the most extreme situations to make decisions? What can we learn from them to help us make more rational and quick decisions? If these techniques work in the most …

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The Metagame: How Bill Belichick and Warren Buffett Play a Different Game

The metagame is playing a different game than your competitors. A game they can’t play. The metagame is a strategy that involves understanding the structural or unconscious reasons that things …

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Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

Most great thinkers have speculated about the kind of leadership that might give rise to a better society, analyzing it through what’s sometimes called a “normative” lens: What …

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Simple Rules for Business Strategy

The book Simple Rules by Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt has a very interesting chapter on strategy, which tries to answer the following question: How do you translate your broad objectives into a …

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Lee Kuan Yew’s Rule

Lee Kuan Yew, the “Father of Modern Singapore”, who took a nation from “Third World to First” in his own lifetime, has a simple idea about using theory and philosophy. Here it …

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Luck Meets Perseverance: The Creation of IBM’s Competitive Advantage

On Monday October 28, 1929, the stock market took one of the worst single-day tumbles anyone alive might have seen, with the Dow Jones averages falling about 13%. The next day, October 29th, the …

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Culture Eats Strategy: Nucor’s Ken Iverson on Building a Different Kind of Company

The problem with most management, leadership, and business books is that many of them harp on the same self-evident points, overconfident in the usefulness of their prescriptions for would-be …

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Six Common Strategy Traps

Strategy could be the most over-used word since leadership. How many strategies can one organization have? A lot of people say “strategy” when they really mean a goal or objective. This is …

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Avoiding Stupidity is Easier than Seeking Brilliance

We often focus on trying to be brilliant, yet many great people get far more mileage out of avoiding making stupid mistakes. Amateurs win the game when their opponent loses points, experts win the …

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The “Ink Spot” Strategy That Propels Wal-Mart And Counterinsurgency

I thought this was interesting. Here is Sam Walton, in his own words, detailing the Wal-Mart Strategy from the earliest days. What was novel at the time is now a somewhat common way for businesses to …

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16 Leadership Lessons from a Four Star General

“We like to equate leaders with values we admire, but the two can be separate and distinct.” *** Say what you want about General Stanley McChrystal and the Rolling Stone article that led …

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Are tactics the same thing as strategy?

Some interesting nuggets of wisdom from Pandolfini’s Ultimate Guide to Chess. Make no mistake, the insights we can draw from this book transcend the chess board. Are tactics the same thing as …

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Eisenhower Matrix: Master Productivity and Eliminate Noise

The Eisenhower Matrix is a powerful mental model that helps you work on the most important thing and get more done. Let’s explore how it works so you can put it to use today. Dwight Eisenhower …

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