Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

How to Think About Diversity

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” [Plato] Diversity is not just thinking about why women continue to be edited out, or groups that don't consider anyone other than the usual suspects, or issues with age up and down the spectrum. It's a term that captures the differences in perception we have between how we view ourselves, our story, and how others see or perceive us. Diversity is about how individuals are wired differently. What does it mean to be wired differently? The first time Jim Collins talked publicly at length about the research that led... Read more →

What Motivates us to Work?

What makes us feel good about work? Big bonuses don't always work, says behavioral economist Dan Ariely. Because we are what we do -- our identity is tied to the fruit of our labor -- we care about certain conditions: most of us thrive by making constant progress and feeling a sense of purpose when we put effort into something, we like to see it realized, or at a minimum share it with others ignoring people's performance is almost as bad as shredding their effort in front of their eyes The inspiration to learn more about the meaning of labor... Read more →

Three Ideas for Creating Better Habits in Business

“Organized common (or uncommon) sense — very basic knowledge — is an enormously powerful tool.” [Charlie Munger] In our communications we often use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of something unfamiliar -- we use metaphors. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance. By this mechanism, we elevate some terms from describing a specific thing to representing a category -- for example, ‘shark’ becomes a generality then a conventional term to... Read more →