Simple. Fun. Nostalgic. A Lego Bonsai tree can teach us a lot of about good design and customer satisfaction.

Intentionally choosing not to act is different from passive inaction. Understanding the benefits and tradeoffs of inaction is crucial. Whether in business or personal situations, informed inaction can be powerful. Making intentional, informed decisions, even to not act, provides control and advantage.

Storytelling is important. But not just in fantasy books and movies. It’s important in our everyday interactions… when we talk about what we care about… what we work on… and how that ties back to the people and organizations we choose to work with.

David never questioned what he was doing nor how he was doing it. He was given a brute force process that he never challenged.

The spreadsheet contained over 5,000 calculations that he updated by hand. Let me say that again: he was updating over 5,000 calculations, every quarter, by hand, one spreadsheet cell at a time.

We are hardwired to not like holes in our memory. So much so that our brains have evolved to quite effectively fill in data that is missing, to literally invent memories to smooth out the edges of our experiences. This is one of the reasons that eyewitness accounts are so unreliable.