Reflection on practice
(Photo above: Mirror Lake, in Yosemite National Park – a special place for me ever since my Dad took me there when I was 10). Any professional or leader should regularly reflect on their practice – that is, on how they undertake the key activities of their profession – so as to keep growing and […]
For me the news is different now – musings on Paris 2015
Header image “#AttenatsParis” by Le Figaro cartoonist @dmascret. If you’re of a certain age, you’re able to answer the question “Where were you when you heard JFK had been shot”? For me and my generation that question is more “Where were you when you heard Princess Di had been killed?” or “Where were you whe
Emergence: why groups can think more clearly than individuals
I’m reading psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Righteous Mind – why good people are divided by politics and religion“. In many ways it’s a depressing read. One of Haidt’s basic claims is that people use their reasoning to defend political and ethical decisions they’ve already arrived at intuitively. They us
Five great email productivity tips from readers
Last week’s post on why you should give “inbox to zero” a try drew a lot of responses from readers. People had some great suggestions on how to tame email and increase personal productivity. So, I thought I’d use this week’s post to capture those ideas while we’re all still thinking about email. The problem […]
Why you should give “inbox to zero” a try
This is the start of an occasional series of posts on “new year’s resolutions to help you think more clearly”. Over the next two months, every now and then, I’ll do my weekly post on a technique for thinking clearly. If you like the technique, you may want to adopt it as one of your […]
Is creativity a “discovery” process or a “construction” process?
When I create something new, do I construct it myself, or was it “out there” already and I just happened to be the one to discover it? This may seem like impractical philosophy, but it does have impacts on how you go about creative work. For example, this paper from 2007, by A Alvarez and […]
Bonus post – another way to work out the odds of rolling a 1 with two dice
I was contacted last week by a couple of people about my claim that the odds of rolling a 1 with two dice is 11/36, not 1/3. This post contains two different proofs that it’s 11/36. An elegant proof Remember that we were trying to work out the odds of me hitting a counter of […]
Reframing as a fundamental tool of creativity – lessons from a game of backgammon
Reframing a situation remains one of the best ways to see a new solution in strategy. As I said a few weeks ago, because strategy occurs in the domain of “wickedness”, the way you choose to describe the strategic problem you’re facing will drive the solution you come up with. But reframing is a fundamental […]
Don Draper and “subconscious work”
My family and I are belatedly catching up with “Mad Men” on Netflix – we missed it the first time round. Something that Don Draper said to Peggy Olsen the other day really struck me. You’ll recall that Don Draper is the (anti)hero of the series: the experienced ad executive. And Peggy Olsen (who I […]
Five areas where choosing the “difficult path” pays off
“The best protection is always to be working on hard problems.” “The best protection is always to be working on hard problems”. This is advice to school students from Paul Graham, one of the founders of Y Combinator. The whole speech is worth reading in full. Graham’s point here is simply that at school, and […]