This weekend I had a chance to look ahead in my calendar and noticed I have an event scheduled on Friday June 13. In my family, the number 13 is considered lucky so I’ve never been one to suffer from triskaidekaphobia. However, a little Web searching suggests that fear of Friday the 13th might be the most…
I recently decided to reduce my sugar intake but, disappointingly, I just ate the bowl of ice cream they offered me on my flight. I hadn’t planned to eat it but said yes without really thinking about it. Ice cream on a plane has become a habit. According to the research of Wendy Wood, a…
Ever notice that some people get more things done than others? For years, the most popular explanation came from Steve Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey argued that personal character, purpose and self-discipline were the primary characteristics of successful people. The book has been wildly successful, selling more than 20M copies. My only…
Do you have Florida winning the NCAA tournament? Here in the U.S. we are in the middle of March Madness. Even if you’re not a college basketball fan, you can’t avoid the phenomena: stories of Cinderellas, upsets, and comebacks dominate the media. The NCAA basketball tournament has entered the national consciousness to such a degree…
Late last year, I wrote a blog describing an experiment in which rats demonstrated the selfless behavior typical of empathy. If these vilified rodents can exhibit the capacity to understand and feel the emotions experienced by their fellow rats, we humans have little excuse. Judging from your reaction, I touched a nerve. We can also learn something…
In a world filled with electronic devices, I still get great satisfaction by crossing out items on a handwritten to-do list. In fact, I find that I am more likely to complete a task if I write it down on a piece of paper. Much more likely than if it’s on an electronic list or…
After a lot of feedback on my earlier post, here are some more quotes about how failure is the new black: “Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.” Roger Von Oech, American author “There…
Unlocking human potential. It’s a manager’s most important task, but also the hardest to measure and understand. How can leaders empower employees to be free of bureaucracy and top-down management, while maintaining consistency and efficiency across the organization? Gary Hamel, co-founder of the Management Innovation eXchange (MIX), and I discussed these issues and others during…
After weeks of weather on steroids, the twittersphere has been blowing up with tales of the snow-pocalypse. My favorite is the story about a Mister Mom who t-boned his own home with a snowblower because he was taking a selfie while twerking. Hashtag awesome. Yes, it’s that time again. Lake Superior State University (LSSU) released…
With a final score of 43-8, Super Bowl XLVIII was widely considered to be not very super. To give you a sense of how non-competitive the game was, consider these two facts: The Seattle Seahawks spent a Superbowl record 59 minutes, 48 seconds in the lead. In other words, they scored 12 seconds into the game…