When Indiana University’s (IU) Kelley School of Business built their online MBA program, they actively avoided comparing themselves to other programs.

In the eyes of the program development team, comparison would threaten their ability to produce something truly innovative. 

The challenge with making comparisons is that it often brings...

“Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Too often, this is the response that’s given when conventional activities are put into question. 

This is not a good response, and it lacks any comprehension about why we do what we do. 

Here’s a thought: the prerequisite to participating...

While at the beach in San Diego last week, I became obsessed with watching how surfers handled wiping out. 

For the more experienced surfers, there would always appear to be a moment at the end of each wave where they knew they were going to wipeout. And instead of...

In 2016, my manager (and now mentor) wrote “fall in love with the problem, not the solution” on a post-it note and promptly placed it just below the keyboard on my laptop that I’d just received from the IT department.

I was an infant in the world of professional work...

The terms “we” and “I” perform two important and complementary functions:

Everything relating to the outcomes your team is driving towards should be described with we. 

We implies unity of effort; it implies that “we’re in this together to achieve a common goal”. 

Everything relating to the specific...

Last Friday evening I had the privilege of getting to see John Williams conduct some of his most famous pieces at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. 

The event was packed — every single seat of the 17,500-seat venue appeared to be occupied. 

As you can...

In April, The Journal of Controversial Ideas released its first issue.

Like any academic journal, it undergoes rigorous peer review. Unlike other academic journals, it allows authors to publish under an alias. 

The creation of the journal is driven by two motivations: 

1) To protect academics who might...

There are plenty of things that we dread doing at the outset, but later end up being grateful we did them: Preparing for a marathon.

Getting a new degree. 

Switching careers. 

This is the wisdom of hindsight — we generally only fully appreciate this phenomenon looking back.

I’ve...

A forcing function is something that aligns short term incentives with longterm goals. 

Some forcing functions work — but only in a very narrow sense: 

A football coach imposing a penalty for anyone who shows up late to practice is a forcing function that encourages team members to...

In 2014, Dr. Hengchen Dai, her doctoral advisor Dr. Katy Milkman, and Dr. Jason Riis published a study called “The Fresh Start Effect”. 

The main finding of the study was that specific dates — birthdays, new semesters, new years, etc — empowered people to more effectively set and achieve...