It’s not what you do, it’s what you don’t do that matters.
Steve Jobs once said: “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”
It is this razor-sharp focus that Steve used to save Apple when he became interim CEO in 1997. The insight comes from one of the most interesting chapters in Walter Isaacson’s biography. …
You need more than a yes or no answer…
The worst reassurance you can get is a binary one.
A binary assurance gives us one of two answers — yes or no. This muttered word from a friend brings only the false confidence of certainty. It is a belief-driven from the ignorance of incomplete information.
When you think about…
Are you prepared?
Steve Jobs once said: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”
The line is one spoken by Steve at his commencement address at Stanford on the 14th of June 2005. The speech was significant because the story of the dots offers a crucial…
How do you see luck?
Kimi Raikkonen (the F1 driver) once said: “It’s always the same question about bad luck. It’s nothing I can change.”
The words reveal much about Kimi’s mindset. When he references the question about bad luck, he resolves it with one defining statement. It’s nothing I can change. He knows there…
Why you need to be able to explain what is going on
How often do you ask yourself are you thinking well?
A vital part of decision-making is thinking. The process of thinking critically, of thinking deeply about a decision can make all the difference. But how often do we take the time to assess the quality of our thoughts?
When do…
Inversion and the definition of strategy — its all you need
Most business strategies suck.
Don’t believe me, check out the statistics on the numbers of businesses that cease trading every year. If you’re a new business — a start-up — well good luck, 20% fail in the first year, with a further 60% not making it past year two.
The…
My mum didn’t wait
It seems so obvious. And yet, we wait. We hide, we defer, and we even use excuses — all so we can wait for something to happen. It is an act of denial — just one we don’t want to admit. The denial exists because we have a choice: to…
First, it helps to know what the good — and bad points of confirmation bias are.
Recently, I suggested that biases like confirmation bias are like the dark side of the force in Star Wars. The post was well-received except for one, who pushed back. “I disagree,” he declared. He argued that our bias towards action over non-action, as in our sense of fight, flight, or…
It’s curious, seeing a strategic thinker at work.
I didn’t expect a film could teach me anything about strategic thinking. As I watched on, this trauma consultant was certainly thinking strategically. He was looking on from the foot of the bed, observing the patient, and listening to his colleagues as they told him what they had done. He…
It’s time to accept uncertainty when deciding
Timing is everything right? — But when is the right time?
Although we have little appreciation of it, too much time is like a bad curse. You see, when we have time, we begin to believe it’s a cure for the uncertainty that lingers around every decision.
No decision is…
