Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Warren Buffett's Simple Three-Step Process for Prioritizing

“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.” [Bruce Lee] It's easy to agree that the greater the number of goals we have, the less likely we'll be able to achieve them all. We may not realize how many goals make it onto our list, because we let other people add many— sometimes we're complicit, others we're not fully aware. But how do we pare them down? How do we prioritize? In Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance psychologist Angela Duckworth says the ideal would be to have one top level professional... Read more →

How Conventional Wisdom can Get in the Way of Achievement

We should practice visualizing failure rather that success. Marvin Minski, the pioneer in Artificial Intelligence (AI), also said there is tremendous value in negative knowledge. For example, looking to never make mistakes. In space, “there is no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse,” says Colonel Chris Hadfield. For over five months or about 4,000 hours, the Canadian Astronaut sent out daily greetings on Twitter from aboard the International Space Station (ISS)—“Good morning, Earth.” Preparation is crucial for space missions, but also in life. There's a lot we can learn from astronauts about problem solving. And it's not... Read more →

Interaction Between People as the Crucial Motor of Change

Acclaimed philosopher and historian Theodore Zeldin has engaged in a lifetime of philosophical study in search of what a full and flourishing life could be. He says that our relationships with others is both the greatest problem and the greatest opportunity of the twenty-first century, “interactions between people are the crucial motor of change.” Our society is full of untapped potential for richer, more creative human interactions. By relating to others we can learn to emerge from established patterns of thought and behavior and experience a fuller life. We do that two at a time—answering the question of who was... Read more →

Navigating the Fine Line on Feedback

We underestimate the power feedback has on us. On one hand, it's useful to learn what others think and how they view our work, on the other, we should not become too attached to what other people say. One set of guideposts is to consider the character and care of the person providing it, and our relationship with them. “The dilemma is that when we don't care at all about what anyone thinks, we lose our capacity for connection, Which automatically opts us out of the many joys of life,” says researcher and storyteller Brené Brown. There's one notable passage... Read more →

Einstein's Letter to Mathematician David Hilbert

“The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man.” [David Hilbert] David Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, from number systems to geometry and extended mathematics to mathematical physics—he was the first to discover the invariant theory. In 1900, Hilbert gave a massive homework assignment to all mathematicians across the world—a list of 23 mathematical problems, many of them still unsolved today. A physicist... Read more →

The Three Pillars of Persuasive Speech: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

The art of persuasion is as old as human kind. Dating back to the 4th century BC, Aristotle's Rhetoric influenced the development of rhetorical theory. The treatise was a collection of the students notes' and demonstrates the Greek philosopher and scientist's commitment to developing the art of “winning the soul through discourse” as a systematic, scientific study. He says: Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic. Both alike are concerned with such things as come, more or less, within the general ken of all men and belong to no definite science. Accordingly all men make use, more or less, of both;... Read more →

We're Unpredictable, and That's How we Serve Our Self-Interest

Another way of saying it is that we're predictably irrational. Social scientists from five or six interrelated fields have developed theories as to why—but we need marketers and strategists to make sure those insights are widely known, appreciated and understood. Ad man Rory Sutherland is one such impresario to do that. In a lengthy conversation with the Edge, Sutherland talks about why we're not so interested in economics —hint: it has to do with math and the belief that neoclassical economics is all there is— and the value of behavioral economics to business. He says: Understanding human behavior is always,... Read more →

Culture is the By-Product of Consistent Behavior

Eric was the CEO of a large international organization. He was hired private equity groups and hired by the board to help align the businesses internally and with market demand, and to grow with a potential divestiture of the business at some point in the not too distant future. Among the many initiatives he asked senior leaders to implement were more frequent internal communications—a newsletter but also town halls broadcast simultaneously to all offices with scripted Q&A sessions (people had to send in questions in advance)—and more customers and partner meetings. In addition to bringing in his own team, the... Read more →

Responding to Adaptive Challenges

For more than two decades, Ronald Heifetz has been teaching and writing about leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. In a series of books, he and his colleagues separated business challenges into technical or adaptive in nature. In a VUCA world, it's critical to understand the difference between the two. As Christ Ertel and Lisa Kay Solomon say in Moments of Impact: Technical challenges involve applying well-hones skills to well-defined problems—such as building a bridge or organizing a production line. Technical challenges may be complex, but they can still be resolved within well understood boundaries. In these situations, more traditional, hierarchical... Read more →

Eudora Welty's Letter to the New Yorker to Inquire for a Staff Job

In March of 1933, a twenty-three-year-old Eudora Welty who was a couple of weeks out of college and six weeks in New York at the time wrote a charming letter to the offices of The New Yorker to apply for a job. She starts: March 15, 1933 Gentlemen, I suppose you'd be more interested in even a sleight-o'-hand trick than you'd be in an application for a position with your magazine, but as usual you can't have the thing you want most. Then talks a bit about herself: I am 23 years old, six weeks on the loose in N.Y.... Read more →