Reading Time: 2 minutes To follow on from underrated skills. In a remote world where everything’s changed and long-term is next month, which skills have gained in importance? Starting with “I’m not sure“ False certainty can be a huge risk at the best of times, even more so when the world has changed and no-one really knows for sure … More Uprated skills
Reading Time: < 1 minute Or the reasons why we place our trust in complex things we do not technically understand. The flushable toilet is not a modern invention by any stretch. It was first described in 1596, and began to appear in homes in the 1880s. Pretty much all of us will be fairly familiar with them. I reckon … More Why do people get on planes?
Reading Time: < 1 minute We put knowledge into silos But there’s value in the wisdom that comes from “thinking like” someone else (from the work of @ShaneAParrish @JamesClear @ScottAdamsSays ) Think like a behavioral psychologist: what are the incentives? What are the relevant cognitive biases in play? What are the second order effects Like an evolutionary biologist: what are … More Think like a …
Reading Time: < 1 minute At the start of the current decade … We had a labour prime minister in Downing Street and a democrat president in the white house. The FTSE was at 5400 (today, 7400) the S&P 500 at 1100 (today 3100) and (10 year) gilt yields were above 4%. The largest companies in the world were, Walmart, … More Notes on a decade
Reading Time: 4 minutes The end of the year is a great time for reflection, the end of the decade, is the sort of milestone that only comes around a handful of times in our adult life and is special indeed. This is a rare chance – if we choose to take it – to look back, reflect on … More The Days are Long but the Years are Short – How to Reflect on a Decade
Reading Time: 2 minutes Prisoners of Geography This book was a massive “AHA” moment for me: rivers, mountains, seas, plains, boundaries and why they mean, almost everything. Shoe Dog I’ll never look at a pair of Nikes the same way again. A business non-fiction that reads like a novel. A great real life tale combining sports and business entrepreneurship … More My Top 6 Books of 2018
Reading Time: 2 minutes The end of the year is a great time for real reflection, which can actually be surprisingly powerful in learning and developing (whether you define that as being better at work, at home being happier or more fulfilled etc). Sure you say, I know that and I’ll reflect at some point, on the train home … More 20 Questions to Reflect Professionally and Personally on 2018
Reading Time: 5 minutes Wiser – how group decisions can let us down 50 years since the term “groupthink” was first coined it is still alive and well in the corridors of power in government, business, finance and elsewhere. This readable book by Cass Sunstein & Reid Hastie systematically unpicks the aspects of human nature that can lead … More 15 Things that changed my perspective so far this year
Reading Time: 3 minutes Authors Cass Sunstein and Reid Hastie have put together an excellent and readable taxonomy of the “bugs” that can afflict group decision making and cause groups to blunder in their book Wiser. In the first part of this blog I discussed their dissection of the causes of group decision making failure. How can we make … More [Books] Wiser (part 2) – getting past groupthink to better outcomes
Reading Time: 7 minutes So this is about strategies and tactics to understand and get past I am right you are wrong type situations and get to better outcomes. Specifically I am going to address this through three vignettes. But before we start I’d like to ask you to picture a recent example of a disagreement. I’m sure you can … More I am right, you are wrong…
