Malcolm Gladwell showed us in Outliers, research led by psychologist Anders Ericsson reveals that attaining expertise in a domain typically requires ten thousand hours of deliberate practice.
When we have an original idea to invent a product or start a company, we’re encouraged to be the first mover. There are, of course, clear advantages to speed: we can be sure to finish what we start an...
This doesn’t feel like I’m persuading you. As Aronson explains, you’ve been convinced by someone you already like and trust: Yourself.
The customer service agents who accepted the defaults of Internet Explorer and Safari approached their job the same way. They stayed on script in sales calls and followed standard operating procedures...
Speak softly, but carry a big stick. —Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. president
Of course, natural talent also matters, but once you have a pool of candidates above the threshold of necessary potential, grit is a major factor that predicts how close they get to achieving their po...
If you’re gonna make connections which are innovative, Steve Jobs said back in 1982, you have to not have the same bag of experience as everyone else does. Working
If you’re going to build a strong culture, it’s paramount to make diversity one of your core values. This is what separates Bridgewater’s strong culture from a cult: The commitment is to promoting dis...
Even with a receptive audience, dominance is a zero-sum game: the more power and authority I have, the less you have.
But when I looked at the evidence, I was dismayed to discover that even today, speaking while female remains notoriously difficult. Across
Advice seeking is a form of powerless communication that combines expressing vulnerability, asking questions, and talking tentatively.
Responsibility bias occurs because we have more information about our own contributions than others’.
When we’ve developed an idea, we’re typically too close to our own tastes—and too far from the audience’s taste—to evaluate it accurately. We’re
We’re driven to question defaults when we experience vuja de, the opposite of déjà vu. Déjà vu occurs when we encounter something new, but it feels as if we’ve seen it before. Vuja de is the reverse—w...
We were in the audience, your closest colleagues and devoted associates, who worked hard and faithfully for the same goal that you desired, Youngner began. Do you remember whom you mentioned and whom...
We prefer the regular photos of our friends, because that’s how we’re used to seeing them, but we like the inverted photos of ourselves, because that’s how we see ourselves when we look in the mirror....
Today, we have compelling evidence that interest precedes the development of talent. It turns out that motivation is the reason that people develop talent in the first place.
Three decades of research show that receiving support from colleagues is a robust antidote to burnout.
This is called the Sarick Effect, named after the social scientist Leslie Sarick. In both situations, Griscom was presenting ideas to people who had more power than he had, and trying to convince them...
Teaching at any level on any subject is the most rewarding thing you can do, Inman told Thompson. I just love to see the expression on the face of a student who gets it for the first time. Just watchi...