by david allan van nostrand | Feb 22, 2021 | Human Behavior, Organizational Behavior, The Myopia of Experts
Governor-general and city builder Grigory Potemkin built fake villages along the banks of the Dneiper River to impress Russian Empress Catherine the Great during her journey to Crimea in 1787. The structures would be secretly disassembled after she passed and...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 1, 2021 | Human Behavior, Misinformation traps, Organizational Behavior
William Lederer and Eugene Burdick wrote a fictional novel called The Ugly American*. The title refers to the world’s belief that typical Americans are insensitive to the languages, customs, traditions, religions, and backgrounds of peoples of other lands and...
by david allan van nostrand | Jan 25, 2021 | Feasibility studies, Organizational Behavior, Strategy
It was the thirteenth day in a row the temperature was over one hundred degrees. The air was so heavy and wet it was like we were wearing it. I was riding with Joe Hudson in his rusted Chevrolet. On its last legs, it had no A/C or shock absorbers. It lurched and...
by david allan van nostrand | Jan 11, 2021 | Misinformation traps, Organizational Behavior, Shoot the messenger
More than 2,000 years ago in Greece, a playwright named Sophocles wrote about strong-willed, highly principled characters who encountered seemingly insurmountable ethical problems. Sophocles’ interest was in individuals who would not compromise their principles,...
by david allan van nostrand | Oct 19, 2020 | Misinformation traps, Organizational Behavior, Unintended Consequences
When interviewing study subjects, researchers hear many of the same themes and comments repeated, as you can easily imagine. No one liked how cassette tapes snarled, for example, and everyone hates long wait times. The temptation for impatient researchers and study...
by david allan van nostrand | Sep 7, 2020 | Artificial Intelligence, Organizational Behavior, Using Information
Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s aunt Edith Bouvier lived in a 28-room house with 300 cats. The home was so cluttered that 26 of the rooms were uninhabitable, leaving Big Edie and her daughter Little Edie to live in only one bedroom. When sanitation workers...
