Category: Decision Making
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There are no solutions, only trade-offs.
“CEOs are in the business of making decisions” Sam Reese, Vistage CEO I’ve been reflecting this week on a quote from Economist Thomas Sowell “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” I work with CEOs. They take decisions. They feel responsible for the consequences of these decisions. They often wait to find a “perfect solution” rather…
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Most people prefer a problem they can’t fix to a solution they don’t like
“Most people prefer a problem they can’t fix to a solution they don’t like” Lee Thayer This sentence is mad…. but there is a certain truth to it. Lee Thayer is the author of several books on the practice of Leadership. He was a big proponent of working to integrate thinking, being and doing into…
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The $5 Challenge – A Stanford Strategy Story…
Back in 2009, Stanford prof Tina Seelig split students in the school of engineering into teams and gave them an envelope containing $5. Teams had only two hours to generate as much money as possible. Each team would get three minutes to present their project to the entire class. Here is Tina’s own article explaining the experience: The $5…
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Be careful of Lazy thinking
We have a wonderful capacity to mess up our lives through lazy or fantasy thinking. We make blanket black and white statements… rather than seeking the shades of grey. “I hate my job” -> what parts exactly? Life is richer than black and white. You don’t hate every single part, activity, person in your job……
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Days vs Years
Our emotional experience of life can depend on the time horizon we choose to look at our lives. If you look at the progress of your life each day, there are many wild swings. If you look at the progress of your life over longer time horizons, the wild swings blur into the background and…
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“No one is coming to save us”
In 1972, a plane carrying rugby team from Uruguay crashed in the high Andes. 25 passengers survived the crash… and then found themselves trapped high on a glacier. Initially they waited for search parties to arrive. On day 10, they heard on the radio “the search has been called off”. This day they realised that…
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The Tyranny of Convenience
Convenience makes things easy… but what is easy is not always whats most important, valuable or effective. We choose between the options we see, not all the options… we’ve got to be increasingly careful that we don’t choose the path that is just easiest to see. Convenience food… is not health food. Tech companies work…
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IESE Instagram Live: How Writing Helps your Career
This is the recording of a session I did yesterday with IESE Business School on the topic of writing as a tool to help your career. In this context, writing is not so much about writing for magazines or in a blog… but writing to set goals, to stay focussed, to identify what is important,…
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What evidence would change your mind?
I was listening to Shane Parrish interview Adam Grant on his knowledge project podcast last week. Adam was speaking of the loss of rationality in many public domains. Politics, gender, science, global warming, race relations… are all domains where it has become dangerous to ask questions or engage with open curiosity. As Adam was speaking…
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Uncommon sense
Charlie Munger on uncommon sense… Competence – you can only be trusted as competent if you clearly understand the limits of your competence. The great danger of experts is they forget the limits of their expertise – “it is better to trust a man of 130 IQ who thinks he is 125 IQ, than to…