An Apology Without a Lawyer
The public ritual of apology often turns into an explanation of why the guilty party is barely guilty and the injured party took it all too hard. A good apology…
Authority without self-promotion
Society teaches you to announce yourself: to display confidence, honesty, leadership and a personal brand. But authority is poorly built by direct announcement — it accumulates out of repeated acts.…
After the formulas
The book can be assembled into a sequence of checks. First you need to define the observable quantity: attention, desire, duration, jealousy or relationship quality. Then the binding constraint: a…
Is Love Chemistry?
Love: a temporary insanity curable by marriage. — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary In a supplement shop you can find a “trust spray” with oxytocin. The description promises heightened closeness,…
Planning backwards
A big goal gets clearer if you start from the last step. The decision researcher Gary Klein proposed a simple technique — the premortem. The team imagines that the project…
The Cherry Stone
You cannot force a tree to bear fruit. You can choose the spot, prepare the soil, water it, protect it from pests and prune it in good time. Between effort…