Betterment

The tenured philosophy professor at Princeton might not even be half as effective a teacher as the adjunct at the community college. The head of surgery might be relatively better at meetings and p…

Last month, I shared the reading list from my month-long effort to better understand nutrition. After reading about a dozen books (including two textbooks), I frankly admit there’s a lot I still don’t know. And also, I feel like I gained a decent understanding of the current mainstream scientific perspective. Predictably, and disappointingly, a lot […]

Is it possible to develop innovative ideas when you're not part of the institutions where the expertise resides? In this article we examine perspectives.

15 hard lessons learned from a Software Engineering Director at Oracle!

Some facts and assertions about healthcare (particularly in the US) and then an outline of a change agent that could improve health, perhaps dramatically. We spend an enormous amount of time and mo…

Doing what? When we choose which job to apply for, what career to commit to, which business to start, it might be worth a moment (or a few moments) to get at the heart of what a day well spent prod…

Brian Marick posted on Mastodon the other day about resilience in the context of governmental efficiency. Reading that inspired me to write about some more general observations about resilience. No…

The tough reality of being a "glue person":

There’s a delay between the time something goes wrong and when we notice it. Sometimes, it can take years. Part of the art of project management is noticing things more quickly. And it helps …

It’s just a week until Valentine’s Day, a multi-billion dollar spending jamboree. As often happens, the people we depend on for much of it get the short end of the deal, but a little mi…

Of course you’re going to get wet, that’s part of the sport. And yet, only the hard core surfers show up in the rain. If your project is about making things better, organizing the disor…

Here’s a fun game: Here are four lines from four famous speeches. “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears…” "Four score and seven years ago our

Once life gets busy, it’s sort of inevitable that we begin to sort the work to be done. And the most natural sort is to focus on the urgent. After all, if that plate is about to break, it&#82…

This quote pretty much sums up what happens to successful people as they grow older. They lose the ability to risk it all. The more successful they are, the more they want to protect what they have…

What’s the best speed to drive? I was caught in a snowstorm the other day. Visibility was low, so I was going about 25 mph. Someone passed me on the highway, doing 30. Not 55 or 75, but fast …

Somebody just gave the 31st upvote to my answer to the Quora question “What do you regret as you get older?” So I thought it might be worth repeating. Here’s a short list: Not learning …

If you’re the client or the boss, it’s possible that someone is going to create creative work for you. Sooner or later, you’ll get something that doesn’t work. You might wan…

This is not a real word, but it’s useful nonetheless. When we default to doing what we did without examining our options, we’re ‘usualing.’ It’s a helpful way to save …

This is a complicated promise. It’s about commitment and connection and most of all, time. If we’re saying that we’ll do what’s in our short-term interest and convenient, th…

Have you ever noticed how some of the best ideas come from spite? Take potato chips. As the story goes, they were born from a chef’s frustration.  A

This was an article sent to 512 Pixels members last month. Learn more about membership here. At the end of every year, I publish a photo on Instagram cataloging the Field Notes notebooks I used over the previous 12 months. Here is the most recent picture: Every year, I get questions about this. I wrote a bit about […]

Training should not just be about presenting material. Trainers need to anticipate where people can get confused and then skillfully introduce contrast sets to foster expertise.

Process Design DOWNLOAD A GUIDE TO THE TOOL Chaordic Stepping Stones (English) Chaordic Stepping Stones (Spanish) Chaordic Stepping Stones (Japanese) DOWNLOAD A COMPREHENSIVE WORKBOOK Chaordic Step…

Working too hard can backfire on you, but there are other paths to office stardom

The knowledge of a carpenter is in his hands. The apprentice must work with his own to discover it. Here is some terrible advice: “If you can't explain it to a 6-year-old, you don't understand it yourself.”

Gain knowledge about the five hazardous attitudes in aviation and ways to recognize and manage them for flight safety.

Stop having boring status updates that everyone hates and start having career-changing conversations!