BRANDS ARE AS MUCH a part of our daily lives as our workplaces and neighborhood landmarks. Big, enduring brands become icons—not just of corporations, but of whole cultures. Coca-Cola not only has the most recognized logo in the world, but the logo also has become a symbol of the Western way of life. Today the […]

In February 2003, Brad Smith had just been hired as a new executive at Intuit. The hiring had entailed some drama, with a claim from one of Brad’s former employers that by joining Intuit Brad had violated some non-compete agreements. It took some time, lawyering, and money to work things out. Not long after the […]

Something unusual was going on at Jim Simons’s hedge fund in 2001. Profits were piling up as Renaissance began digesting new kinds of information. The team collected every trade order, including those that hadn’t been completed, along with annual and quarterly earnings reports, records of stock trades by corporate executives, government reports, and economic predictions […]

Paul Meehl was a strange and wonderful character, and one of the most versatile psychologists of the twentieth century. Among the departments in which he had faculty appointments at the University of Minnesota were psychology, law, psychiatry, neurology, and philosophy. He also wrote on religion, political science, and learning in rats. A statistically sophisticated researcher […]

We arrive now at the final part of this book, where the length could double, even triple, as we glance at a motley crew of creatures generated when Marxism went cultural and sexual in the twentieth century. Karl Marx desired to ruthlesslycriticize all that exists, to blow up traditional absolutes, and to invent an entirely […]

THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO, THERE WAS A HUMAN just like you and me who lived near a city surrounded by mountains. The human was studying to become a medicine man, to learn the knowledge of his ancestors, but he didn’tcompletely agree with everything he was learning. In his heart, he felt there must be something […]

WHEN I BEGAN to write and speak about data indicating that athletes who go on to become elite are usually not early specializers, the reactions (particularly from parents) reliably fell into two categories: (1) Simple disbelief, can’t be true; and (2) “So, in one sentence, what is the advice?” What one sentence of advice can […]

This chapter draws on previous chapters to present a portrait of the major changes in the condition of ecosystems, the services they provide, the drivers of change, and the prospects for sustainability. It is organized around major questions and issues rather than around services and systems per se. The time frame for considering these issues […]

The first element of individual conflict competence deals with the cognitive aspects of conflict, including improving current attitudes about conflict, appreciating the value of managing conflict effectively, and understanding how you currently respond to conflict. This chapter explores ways of improving cognitive skills in these areas. CONFLICT ATTITUDES In our programs and presentations, we often […]

Now for the really bad news. Even though candor is vital to winning, it is hard and time-consuming to instill in any group, not matter what size. “ Hard because you are fighting human nature and entrenched organizational behaviors, and time-consuming, as in years and years. At GE, it took us close to a decade […]