When faced with a project there are three places to thrash: Early—before the project begins. Middle—as the project is proceeding. Late—as the project ends. When you (or your team) thrashes early, brainstorming becomes a way to develop new ideas. Speed and immediacy become the primary goals of early thrashing: Speed Read more…
We lose a little of ourselves when we outsource our memory to Google. But not in the obvious way that we think of. What we lose in the privacy (some would say inaccuracy) of memory is the ability to forget. And to be forgotten. The privacy of memory and the Read more…
Loyalty is not a byproduct of trust. We fundamentally miss this fact in human interactions. Trust occurs because a relationship builds over time into a state whereby transactional withdrawals can be made from the invisible account of engagement. Loyalty occurs when people choose to engage with each other out of Read more…
There was once two women, who both claimed ownership of one child. In an attempt to determine to whom, the baby actually belonged, (or who was the biological mother) the king decided to physically threaten the child in the presence of the two women through proposing to bisect the child. Read more…
Think for a moment about product packaging: Everything that we buy, from dish soap to artesian water, comes in some type of package. Being the rational consumers that we are, we often tell ourselves that the shape of the container, the way that the container is delivered to us, or Read more…
Emotions then judgment then language. The old advice no longer holds in addressing the language of conflict. The new advice can best be articulated as “Sticks and stones may break my bones, and words will really hurt me.” We often focus on the language of conflict, to avoid addressing the Read more…
Thin slicing happens when the human mind shifts quickly through first impressions, intuition based on past experiences, and current information, and makes a judgment about a message, a person, or an idea. Thin slicing is at the root of snap judgments, continuing conflicts, nagging disagreements, and fights that never seem Read more…
In a world with responsive, predictive artificial intelligence, operating behind the veneer of the world in which humans operate, a philosophical question arises: Will the very human tendency toward conflicts increase or decrease in a world where the frictions between us and the objects we have created is reduced? From Read more…
The human eye is a powerful bundle of tissues, nerves and liquid. As the most complicated mechanism (short of the brain) in the human body, the human eye can see, take in information and transmit that information for interpretation in the brain. One of the first things that a practicing Read more…
There are 5 workplace conflict stories that we tell ourselves. They are based on the five typical stories that people have always told themselves, whether camped around a fire in the woods, or in the dark watching a Hollywood blockbuster. Except that these stories have different acts, because…well…they happen at Read more…