We’re not busy. We’re distracted

We tell ourselves we don’t have enough time. The calendar is full. The inbox never empties. The list grows faster than we work through it. But time is not scarce. Focus is. We have built environments that make sustained attention nearly impossible. Tabs stacked...

Move over

The left lane exists for one reason. To pass. Not to cruise. Not to camp. Not to prove a point about the speed limit. To move through and get out of the way. But watch what happens on any highway. The left lane fills with the comfortable, the distracted, the...

The game we never stop playing

“The speed of the leader is the speed of the pack.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Kids don’t read the memo. They watch. The founder who cuts corners teaches her team that corners exist to be cut. The executive who dismisses questions trains his people to...

Too much, too fast

I think about this often. We are living in the most extraordinary information age in human history, and I am not sure we have fully reckoned with what that means. The access is stunning. In 2012 alone, IBM estimated that 2.5 exabytes of new data were generated every...

One size fits none

McDonald’s built an empire on consistency. Same Big Mac. Same Coke. Same experience in Tokyo as Topeka. And even then, you add condiments. You order diet. You ask for no pickles. So why do service firms still sell one-size solutions? A 2021 Harvard Business...