Just One More Dataset!
In 1815, Napoleon was going to face the British and their allies in what would become the Battle of Waterloo. The French had many more troops, and certainly could have won. But Napoleon was preoccupied with getting greater certainty by obtaining more information. While he was requesting infantrymen run to the front and bring back […]
The Gathering Snowball of Goals
There is one thing about which we can be very certain at the beginning of every new year. Roughly 75% of New Year’s resolutions will be forgotten by March. Of those that people can even recall, most will never reach fulfillment. The same is true of business goals and the projects that they generate. Yes, a few […]
Janus Strategy
An auto-antonym is a word that has at least 2 meanings that mean the opposite of each other. For example, one definition of “sanction” is to disallow. But another is to bless. Words with this property are sometimes called Janus words. Janus was the Roman God of beginnings, endings, transitions, and doorways. And because of that, […]
Deciding Strategy Despite Uncertainty
Many of today’s leading founders and CEOs have never weathered an economic downturn. It’s been almost 10 years since the recovery from the great recession, and business has been booming. Burt if you listen to the news, it’s hard not to be convinced that recession is around the corner. Yet, the indicators are more ambiguous […]
Stop In The Middle
There is an interesting story about Ernest Hemingway. They say that whenever he walked away from writing for the day he always stopped in the middle of a sentence. With the stress of that unfinished sentence lingering in his mind, he could not wait to get back to work the next morning. Of course, when he […]
Go With Your Gut?
My Friend Holly swims at a public pool. Mothers often bring their 6- or 7-year-old sons into the women’s locker room, where, as you might imagine, women are undressed. Periodically, as a naked woman turns to walk to the shower, she inadvertently finds herself facing the inquisitive face of a 6-year-old boy. Why does this […]
Pandemic Lessons
We’re about a year out from the beginning of the pandemic. Moreover, we see the light at the end of the tunnel when everybody is vaccinated, and life can go back to the pre pandemic times. But now that we have a little bit of perspective, it’s a great time to start thinking about the […]
Self-Loathing Rock Stars
Creating successful startups is hard. Those who sign-on understand that from the beginning. They are making a bet on the future of this enterprise, and in return for that possibility, they stake their energy, time, and an ongoing commitment to it. In return, they hope to create something that has never been done before. To […]
Binary Bias — Video Preview
It’s natural. Humans see the world in binary terms. Good/Evil, Dark/Light, Right/Left. We are simply hard-wired that way. That tendency served us as well in caveman days, when we needed to make snap decisions about whether to fight or flee a saber-toothed tiger. But today in our lives and in our work, it may be […]
We’re So Close I Can’t Hear You
Do you truly know your best friend? What about your wife, or your closest colleague? If you are like most people, you probably emphatically nodded yes. We feel like the people with whom we are closest are also the ones we understand the best. But it’s a funny human idiosyncrasy that, although we spend time […]