Ideas Worth
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When Control Creates Chaos
A perverse incentive is when you reward one behavior… and accidentally create another. Basically the Law of Unintended Consequences in action. One classic example comes …
Ridiculous Is The Future
If you worked in banking in the mid-20th century, using a calculator could’ve gotten you fired. Those are for people who don’t get numbers, not …
Power Corrupts, Then Again So Does Gravity
“Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Lord Acton famously said. When leaders become “corrupted,” it’s easy to blame it on “They got greedy” or “They’re …
All Maps Lie
Early in Amazon’s history, Jeff Bezos was sitting in a weekly business review, studying performance metrics with his leadership team. He’d heard whispers that customers …
Show Don’t Sell
When George Washington wanted to get his men to cross the icy Delaware River on Christmas Day to ambush the Crown’s mercenaries camping on the …
Yesterday +1
Kodak engineers invented the digital camera in 1975. The executive team said meh. Digital is cool, sure, but cameras are analog. Everyone knows that. So, …
You’re Not Stuck *In* Traffic, You *Are* Traffic
You find yourself stuck in traffic, looks like you’re going to be late for work. Sure, traffic is a problem, but you are part of …
Today’s Clever is Tomorrow’s Cringe
Imagine you’re at dinner with some friends. Someone makes a joke, it lands, people laugh, all’s well and good. Ten minutes later, the aspiring comedian …
Symbols Beat Slogans
Have you seen the LEGO Formula 1 car? Not the $30 set. The actual, functioning F1 car, driven by actual F1 drivers, built with actual …
An Ode To Giving Up
Pop quiz: What’s Viagra? What are Post-it notes? What is Slack? If you answered “a medically induced erection, little slips of paper you can stick …
How to Survive Your Own Death
Marcus Aurelius. Charlemagne. Suleiman the Magnificent. Peter the Great. History calls them great, but they all ultimately failed. Not in the ruling part. The leaving …
Culture Bank: Insufficient Funds
In the early 2000s, one of the top-ten largest companies in America had the following words carved in marble in their office lobby: “Integrity. Communication. …
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