It’s true. I’ve sometimes heard it said that I’m almost always happy and positive, but this isn’t my natural state. Because of my early experiences I’m a natural pessimist who was programmed to wait for the other painful shoe to drop.   My life script originally was written as an epic tragedy. Instead, to paraphrase Jimmy Buffett, some of it’s tragic, but most of it’s magic, and I’ve had a good life all the way.   How? As I said in my book, it mostly depends on what movie you

Nope. Nor are they intrinsically good. People are just people. They just want to feel good more often than they feel bad, i.e., be happy, so they’re going to maximize their happiness within the options provided by the environment they’re in.   As a business leader, why do you care? Because as Peter Drucker purportedly said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This is great news, because this means that you can create and enforce core values (how we do things around here) a

In the grand scheme of things, simpler is better. For example, in strategic planning increased complexity in a plan results in more opportunities for miscommunication and “pilot error” in implementing the plan.   The main reason for this is that we humans can only hold around seven pieces of information in our minds at any one time. Sure, there may be a great deal of complexity in the calculations that underpin your strategic plan, but at the end of the day humans will be in

This is a no brainer, right? And yet one of the most powerful people in the world is famous for mocking others and calling them pejorative names. Sounds like something a small child would do, doesn’t it? Have you ever wondered why a powerful leader would stoop to such tactics?   Top leaders have a monopoly on power in the organizations they lead. Since they are the final arbiter of rewards and success in the organization, the behavior that they reward increases, and the behav