CategoryDecision Making

Leadership Lessons from “The Charge of the Light Brigade”

By Sean P. Murray
September 22, 2020
8 Min read
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The Charge of the Light Brigade on October 25, 1854 was a disastrous mistake, the result of misinformation and miscommunication. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered.” Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade, immortalizes an ill-fated British cavalry charge during the Crimean War. The poem mostly celebrates the bravery and glory of the officers who participated in the charge, but in a famous...

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Action This Day

By Sean P. Murray
August 13, 2020
3 Min read
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Original “Action This Day” label used by Winston Churchill during WWII. Churchill’s life provides so many stories and examples of grand leadership (See: 7 Leadership Lessons from Winston Churchill), that it’s easy to overlook some of the simple yet powerful productivity practices he utilized to successfully administer the War effort for Britain during World War II. One of my favorites is what he called: “Action This Day.” Upon becoming Prime Minster in 1941, the situation in England...

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My 10 Favorite Books of 2019

By Sean P. Murray
December 17, 2019
8 Min read
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As the year comes to a close, it’s helpful to look back on what you’ve read and take stock of the learning.  Here are my favorite books of 2019.  Note, not all of these books were published this year, some were published in 2018 and I only got around to reading this this year.  In no particular order, here is the best of what I read: 1. Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living A Better Life by Ryan Patrick Hanley.  This book has the most “wisdom per page” of any book I read this...

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Steve Jobs’ Most Important Decision Making Tip

By Sean P. Murray
November 8, 2019
4 Min read
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Our lives are defined by our decisions.  Try this thought experiment: consider your life as separate from the decisions you have made.  You can’t.  They are one in the same. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and the author of the book Principles, put it eloquently: “The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our decisions.” If Dalio is right, and I believe he is, then the study of decision making should take up a much larger percentage of our education and...

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When Technology Meets Community

By Sean P. Murray
January 31, 2019
4 Min read
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A co-op grocery chain in Seattle began dismantling their self-checkout kiosks this month. After considerable investment in the technology over the past few years, the PCC Community Market, made the decision to remove the automated stations.  Here is how the store describes the reasoning behind the decision: “A kiosk doesn’t create community or connections. So we wanted to take those out so that when someone comes into our stores, they have a human connection with someone and an interaction...

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In Search of the Good Life

By Sean P. Murray
November 16, 2018
5 Min read
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“Happiness is what you get right before you want more happiness.” – Don Draper, Mad Men As humans, we are not very good at predicting how future events will impact our life. We tend to overestimate the degree to which misfortune (divorce, loss of a job, death of a loved one) will set us back. However, when you talk with someone who has lived through such experiences, you’ll find they came through the ordeal intact. Humans have a tremendous capacity for adaptation. It’s a survival mechanism...

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Jeff Bezos and the Role of Intuition in Decision Making

By Sean P. Murray
October 9, 2018
7 Min read
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When it comes to decision making, Jeff Bezos is quite comfortable relying on his intuition. This may come as a surprise given Amazon’s reputation for data analytics. Bezos has said in the past, “Our success at Amazon is a function of how many experiments we do per year, per month, per week, per day.” Judging from this quote alone one might imagine that employees at Amazon are like scientist in the lab, carefully tracking results from experiments and analyzing the date to make each decision...

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What Baseball Can Teach Us About Team Chemistry

By Sean P. Murray
September 10, 2018
5 Min read
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In the movie, Miracle about the 1980 US men’s Olympic hockey team, there is a scene where head coach Herb Brooks is evaluating talent. At one point he turns to his assistant coach Craig Patrick and says: “I’m not looking for the best players, Craig. I’m looking for the right ones.” Brooks was searching for that elusive element: Team Chemistry. What is Team Chemistry exactly? It is something that has vexed coaches, players and fans for ages. It appears that successful teams have Team Chemistry...

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50 Days of Silence: Lessons from Adventurer Erling Kagge

By Sean P. Murray
September 5, 2018
5 Min read
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In the early 1990s, Erling Kagge completed the first unsupported solo expedition to the South Pole. He covered 815 miles in 50 days. During that time he had no radio contact and no support from the outside world. He was completely alone. What hit him the hardest was the silence. At first his mind was racing with thoughts and worries. He found the silence disturbing. “Everything seemed completely flat and white, kilometre after kilometre all the way to the horizon…Eventually, in...

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If You Want to Succeed, First Define Success

By Sean P. Murray
August 24, 2018
4 Min read
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In 1934, an English teacher in South Bend, IN was discouraged by parents who complained when their son or daughter received a “C.”  It seems “C” was perfectly fine for their neighbor’s children, because it was average and the neighbor’s children were, of course, average. However, for their own children, a “C” was disappointing, and the parents would try to make the teacher and student feel like they had failed. The teacher didn’t feel this was right. He could see that...

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