In on..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/adversarial-vs-collaborative-feedback", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/adversarial-vs-collaborative-feedback", "title": "Adversarial vs Collaborative Feedback", "summary": "How to give feedback and suggestions that are well-received", "date_modified": "2025-04-10T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Even when delivered politely, most negative feedback or suggestions for improvement are inherently adversarial – in the sense that, one way or another, they imply, “You should abandon your way of doing things and adopt mine.”
\nThis immediately triggers defensiveness, even if the suggestion is sound.
\nThe trick is to avoid framing feedback as “me vs you” and instead frame it as “me and you vs a common problem.”
\nLet’s see a trivial example. “Your presentation..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/how-to-kill-a-countrys-economy", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/how-to-kill-a-countrys-economy", "title": "How to kill a country's economy", "summary": "in 10 simple steps", "date_modified": "2025-04-10T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
- \n
- \n
Subsidize unproductive jobs to prevent workers from reallocating to more productive ones.
\n \n - \n
Cap rents, prevent price gouging, and, in general, stomp any incentive to increase supply.
\n \n - \n
Always discuss the urgent, never the important. Never build what’s needed for tomorrow’s success.
\n \n - \n
Use debt to cover structural shortcomings. This will reduce the urgency of solving roo..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/how-to-kill-a-countrys-education", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/how-to-kill-a-countrys-education", "title": "How to kill a country's education system", "summary": "in 10 simple steps", "date_modified": "2025-04-10T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
- \n
- \n
Give teachers tenure, so bad ones can't be fired.
\n \n - \n
Make better students study longer so they spend their prime years off the workforce and delay compounding job skills.
\n \n - \n
Make the same institutions responsible for both education and certification introducing a massive conflict of interest.
\n \n - \n
Mandate all degrees have the same length so that even people studying simpler..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/the-trajectory", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/the-trajectory", "title": "The trajectory", "summary": "A framework for managing underperformance", "date_modified": "2025-04-10T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Many clients of mine share the following pain point: their team leaders do not manage underperforming workers effectively.
\nThe typical scenario unfolds like this. A team member isn't meeting expectations. Their supervisor has a vague conversation about improvement but without specific goals or timelines. The employee knows there's an issue but lacks clear direction. Three months later, little has changed, and the supervisor faces a dilemma—either terminate someone without the confidenc..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/ai-faster-adoption", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/ai-faster-adoption", "title": "The simpler way to get your team to use AI", "summary": "With concrete use cases and applications", "date_modified": "2025-03-16T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
There are two ways to use AI to improve your team's effectiveness: one simple and one complex.
\nThe complex approach involves developing or purchasing specialized AI tools that integrate with existing databases and processes. This path typically requires significant investment, extensive compliance reviews, and coordination across multiple stakeholders.
\nThe second approach consists of giving your employees access to general-purpose AI assistants (such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini,..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/soft-metrics", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/soft-metrics", "title": "Soft metrics", "summary": "An effective tool for team development", "date_modified": "2025-03-15T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Most managers excel at tracking hard metrics—revenue, production volume, and profit margins. Yet the metrics that often drive the most significant improvements in team performance are frequently overlooked: soft metrics.
\nHard vs. Soft metrics
\nHard metrics are quantifiable and objective—revenue generated, units produced, customer acquisition costs. Soft metrics are qualitative assessments of performance areas like meeting effectiveness, communication quality, and team collabora..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/ai-adoption", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/ai-adoption", "title": "Three mistakes that derail AI adoption (and how to fix them)", "summary": "It's not enough to give your workers tools; you must also ensure they use them and use them well. Here is how.", "date_modified": "2025-03-04T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Here are the top three mistakes I see some organizations making while attempting to get AI adopted by their workers (later, we will also see more effective ways of doing so).
\n- \n
- \n
They just focus on providing a tool without also ensuring it gets used and used well.
\n \n - \n
They do not see supervisors (their buy-in and their leadership skills) as the #1 determinant of whether teams adopt new tools and processes.
\n \n - \n
They focus on using AI on a worker’s core ..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/everything-2024", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/everything-2024", "title": "Everything I published in 2024", "summary": "Videos, podcasts, posts, and more", "date_modified": "2024-12-27T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
As usual, here is my yearly recap of every piece of public content I have published over the last 12 months (books, videos, posts, Twitter threads, and more). Enjoy!
\nBooks
\nIn 2024, I published "Winning Long-Term Games," which is probably the book I'm the most proud of.
\nI also started writing a book titled "Poverty and Prosperity," which will likely see the light in 2025.
\n..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/static-thinking-idiotic-policy-making", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/static-thinking-idiotic-policy-making", "title": "Static thinking is idiotic policy making", "summary": "Forgetting about dollars and instead reasoning in terms of goods and services would produce much smarter policy-making", "date_modified": "2024-12-14T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Most stupid policy ideas begin with the assumption that demand, supply, and prices are immutable. If the supply of goods is immutable, taxing producers or capping prices has no externalities and is, therefore, a no-brainer. Similarly, if the supply of crimes is immutable, enforcing the law has little benefit and is, therefore, immoral toward criminals.
\nThis tendency toward static thinking was formally identified by Italian economist Sandro Brusco in his Superfix Model. But why is it so..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/chess-paradox", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/chess-paradox", "title": "The Chess Paradox", "summary": "Whenever there is imperfect information, there is a luck element, even in fully deterministic contexts.", "date_modified": "2024-12-01T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
At first sight, it looks like the game of chess is all about skill. After all, there is no randomness in the board setup or the interaction between the pieces. The game is fully deterministic.
\nYet, chess also contains a luck component.
\nWe know it does because if chess were solely about skill, we would expect the stronger opponent to win all games. Instead, when players are of similar ability, the stronger one only wins a small fraction of games. For example, in the latest Chess ..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/maintenance-paradox", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/maintenance-paradox", "title": "The Maintenance Paradox", "summary": "Maintenance never makes sense in the short term, yet it is indispensable in the long term.", "date_modified": "2024-12-01T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Most machines, including cars and the human body, require periodic maintenance and rest.
\nIt never feels like a good time to perform maintenance, as there is always something more productive to do instead. Yet, you will not go far without it: eventually, your machine will break.
\nMaintenance never makes sense in the short term, yet it is indispensable in the long term.
\nPlenty of activities share this characteristic: working out, spending time with your love..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/planner-and-gatekeeper", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/planner-and-gatekeeper", "title": "The Planner and the Gatekeeper", "summary": "The difference between decision-making and action-taking", "date_modified": "2024-12-01T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Our brain contains not one but two decision-makers: the Planner (our cortex, which suggests what we should do) and the Gatekeeper (our basal ganglia, which decides whether to do it).
\nThe interaction between the two, depicted below, determines most of human behavior.
\n
\n![\"The](\"/figures/planner-and-gatekeeper/circuit-open.png\")
A common example
\nImagine our cortex (the Planner) decides we should hit the gy..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/reproducible-success-strategies", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/reproducible-success-strategies", "title": "Reproducible Success Strategies", "summary": "The 3 properties for long-term Success", "date_modified": "2024-12-01T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
The three properties of long-term strategies
\nGood long-term strategies have three properties.
\n- \n
- \n
They are sustainable. They do not require risks or sacrifices that you cannot take for long without severe consequences or that would clash with your other long-term goals.
\n \n - \n
They are constructive. They play iterated games and build, instead of consuming, the long-term assets that bring long-term success (such as trust, know-ho..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/bad-good-great", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/bad-good-great", "title": "Bad, good, great", "summary": "A fantastic framework for communication", "date_modified": "2024-11-30T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Here are three frameworks for delegating a task, from worst to best:
\nWorse: "Here is what I want you to do…"
\nThis approach is prone to miscommunication. You and your delegate probably have different definitions of "good enough."
\nDecent: "Here is what I want you to do… this is what a bad result looks like, and this is what a good result looks like."
\nThis is better. It explicitly defines "good enoug..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/five-thoughts-on-management", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/five-thoughts-on-management", "title": "Five thoughts on management", "summary": "1) People perform up to your clarity.", "date_modified": "2024-11-28T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
1. People perform up to your clarity
\nLack of clarity shows up as paralysis, busywork, demotivation, and other forms of friction
\n2. People believe you up to your consistency.
\nIf you delegate a task saying it's important but then don't check whether it got done, people won't believe it was important, and won't believe you the next time you say something is important.
\n3. People listen to you up to your helpfulness.
\nIf your feedback isn't helpful, people w..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/hobby-mode", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/hobby-mode", "title": "Hobby Mode", "summary": "Not all the time we dedicate to work is work time. Sometimes, we are in hobby mode. The key is to correctly label it as such and be deliberate about it.", "date_modified": "2024-11-26T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Not all the time I dedicate to work, I spend working. Sometimes, I’m in hobby mode.
\nFor example:
\n- \n
- \n
I polish a presentation deck more than the attendance will care.
\n \n - \n
I spend hours researching a topic that’s only tangentially related to my work.
\n \n - \n
I get nerd-sniped and spend one hour developing a script that will save me thirty minutes.
\n \n
In all three cases, I do something work-related, but for the benefit of my pure enjoym..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/selection-effects", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/selection-effects", "title": "Selection Effects", "summary": "Are attractive people less funny? And other stereotypes", "date_modified": "2024-11-21T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
There's a common belief that attractive people aren't funny, and funny people aren't attractive. But this apparent pattern might be more illusion than reality.
\nThat’s because, even if there were no real connection between looks and humor, we'd still notice many cases where highly attractive people seem less funny than average. It's simple mathematics at work, and the following example explains why.
\nLet’s imagine that there is no relationship between attractiveness and funniness...." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/the-managers-role", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/the-managers-role", "title": "The Manager's Role from the employees' point of view", "summary": "The role of a manager is often defined from a business point of view only. But what about the role of a manager from the employee's point of view?", "date_modified": "2024-10-07T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
The role of a manager is often defined from a business point of view only. But what about the role of a manager from the employee's point of view?
\n- \n
- \n
Managers proactively let their people know where they’re spending time and effort on the unnecessary.
\n \n - \n
Managers give ambitious employees tasks that are ambitious enough so that, if the employee succeeds at them, there is enough windfall to reward them with career growth.
\n \n - \n
Managers give early and fr..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/democracies-and-long-term-games", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/democracies-and-long-term-games", "title": "Democracies and Long-Term Games", "summary": "What do pre-autocracies look like, and how can we prevent our democracies from devolving into them?", "date_modified": "2024-09-06T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Asked about whether he thinks democracy works, Dominic Cummings recently said: “It’s like asking questions about 250 BC in 100 BC about the Roman Republic. Well, the Roman Republic has lasted for a century so far. You certainly can’t say now that democracy has proved to work.”
\nI tend to agree with Cummings. In school, we spend quite some time discussing the differences between autocracies and democracies. However, we do not cover how the former arises from the latter. How does a pre-a..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/how-to-get-feedback", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/how-to-get-feedback", "title": "How to get feedback from your team", "summary": "Three simple steps to get more helpful feedback", "date_modified": "2024-09-04T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
1. Ask a specific question
\nBad: "What could I improve?"
\nGood: "What could I improve about the way I run weekly meetings?"
\nA generic question is likely to elicit generic, thus useless, answers.
\nConversely, a specific question not only elicits more useful information but also helps the other person come up with suggestions.
\n2. Ask a question that implies there is something you could improve
\nBad: "What could I improve about t..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/coaching", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/coaching", "title": "Coaches should be experts", "summary": "Luca's thoughts on coaching", "date_modified": "2024-09-02T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Coaching often gets a bad reputation, and that's mostly because plenty of coaches lack an understanding of their clients' jobs and industries.
\nThe result is that they limit their coaching motivation, prioritization, and accountability. While useful, this is only a small part of coaching and will only be useful if the coachee's bottleneck is motivation, prioritization, or accountability.
\nHowever, often, the coachee's problem is not one of these three but rather a lack of skills o..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/dellanna-method", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/dellanna-method", "title": "The Dellanna Method", "summary": "How to develop competence fast", "date_modified": "2024-09-02T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
The problem
\nA core reason employees don’t receive enough training is that it is very time-consuming, and many teams are already overworked.
\nMoreover, most trainers “push” pre-prepared content onto the team. Because such content is pre-prepared and used to train many different teams, it cannot be very relevant to the specific team being trained today.
\nAs a result, the team nods during the training but then goes back to their workstations and faces the same obstacles and ..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/five-marks-of-good-managers", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/five-marks-of-good-managers", "title": "Five telltale signs of good managers", "summary": "Good managers dig deep, they front-load clarity…", "date_modified": "2024-09-02T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
1. Good managers dig deep
\nThey know metrics are crucial but incomplete without first-hand observations. Hence, they regularly visit operations, observe customers, and engage with workers at their workplaces.
\nThis is not just because learning about the details of the business uncovers problems and opportunities (and might reveal that some metrics are collected in a way that misrepresents reality), but also because employees do not take seriously leaders who do not dig ..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/values-time-horizons-and-social-technologies", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/values-time-horizons-and-social-technologies", "title": "Values, Time Horizons, and Social Technologies", "summary": "Values require long time horizons; how to create them?", "date_modified": "2024-09-02T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
All Values, such as Honesty, Respect, and Sustainability, are investments: they come with short-term costs and long-term benefits.
\nThey represent a belief that it is worth forgoing some type of short-term opportunity because it would come with long-term costs or that it is worth paying some investment today to get a future payoff.
\nBecause all Values come with short-term costs and long-term benefits, they only make sense over long enough time horizons. Hence, onl..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/adulthood", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/adulthood", "title": "What it means to be an adult", "summary": "Being an adult is about taking responsibility and learning how to commit.", "date_modified": "2024-08-27T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
\"The goal of adulthood is to let go of the other possible existences and to make the best of the one. A successful adult is one who understands that it doesn’t matter which life you ultimately pick, only that you live it well.\" – The Last Psychiatrist
\nYesterday, I was asked about what it means to be an adult.
\nI answered that to be an adult means to take responsibility and have learned how to commit.
\nTaking responsibility means acknowledging that one’s actions (or ..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/long-term-risks", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/long-term-risks", "title": "Long-term risks in investing", "summary": "A simple story explaining a fundamental concept.", "date_modified": "2024-08-25T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Imagine two fund managers, Alice and Bob. Alice takes more risks and therefore has both a higher growth rate and a higher rate of collapse. Conversely, Bob is more conservative.
\nWho gets wealthier?
\nFor such a small sample, a lot depends of luck. So, let's imagine there are a hundred Alices and a hundred Bobs.
\nWho gets wealthier?
\nThe answer is counterintuitive
\nOn average, the wealthiest person will be an Alice, but Bobs will be wealthier on aggregate.
\n<..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/pulled-forward-growth", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/pulled-forward-growth", "title": "Pulled-forward growth", "summary": "Why it backfires and what to do instead", "date_modified": "2024-08-24T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "We often pull growth forward, taking the time we should dedicate to building skills and instead use it to meet prospects or do more work.
\nThis always backfires.
\nI get it, though. Bosses, investors, peers, society, and our egos set aggressive objectives, which pressure us into adopting short-term tactics. Moreover, when we look left and right and see those around us pursuing short-term objectives, we feel like we’re falling behind, which also pressures us into adopting short-term..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/culture-wars", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/culture-wars", "title": "Culture Wars", "summary": "The real culture war is between people who want to win (a more prosperous country) vs people who want to win the argument (more status even if it means less prosperity).", "date_modified": "2024-08-18T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
The real culture war isn’t left vs right, urban vs rural, capitalism vs communism, etc.
\nThe real culture war is between people who want to win (a more prosperous country) vs people who want to win the argument (more status even if it means less prosperity).
\nPositive-sum vs negative-sum people.
\nWho won the elections?
\nIf you look within a country, it’s easy to see who won the elections. It’s either this or that party.
\nHowever, if you look from outside the co..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/learning-from-losses", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/learning-from-losses", "title": "What’s better, learning from Ws or Ls?", "summary": "Studying losers helps you avoid mistakes", "date_modified": "2024-08-13T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
The hidden assumption of most business books is that if you learn from the Winners and do what they did, you will win, too.
\nThis way of thinking has a major problem, and it’s not just survivorship bias. It’s that when you study winners, it is hard to know what exactly, out of everything they did, made them win. You might study your favorite author, imitate their writing in all its details, and still fail to publish a bestseller – because writing a good book is only part of what’s requi..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/dellanna-diagrams", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/dellanna-diagrams", "title": "The Dellanna Diagrams", "summary": "A visual framework to understand antifragility", "date_modified": "2024-06-24T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
People are antifragile. It’s a concept first defined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his homonymous book, and it describes what benefits from problems and variation.
\nTo facilitate the understanding of this complex topic, I created a simple visual tool, which my students came to call the Dellanna Diagram.
\n
\n![\"The](\"/figures/dellanna-diagram-the-antifragile.png\")
For example, this muscle describe..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/short-term-activism", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/short-term-activism", "title": "Short-Term Activism", "summary": "Trying to achieve long-term goals through short-term tactics is a dead end.", "date_modified": "2024-06-21T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
The activists vandalizing paintings and monuments are short-term players. They pick their tactics based on short-term evaluations (how much engagement they generate today) and neglect long-term considerations (how much they antagonize the population whose support they need to achieve their goals).
\nThis is a common mistake we often make in our careers and lives. We choose what to do next based on whether it generates progress with no regard as to whether that progress leads to a dead en..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/reversing-the-arrow-of-time", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/reversing-the-arrow-of-time", "title": "Reversing the Arrow of Time", "summary": "A thought experiment to resolve the debate about whether the world has gotten worse.", "date_modified": "2024-05-23T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Some people believe that the world has gotten worse.
\nI disagree. Observe what would happen if the arrow of time reversed. We would progressively lose tech, social rights, access to services, and abundance that we now take for granted.
\nFor example, go back in time 30 years, and we lose smartphones and the internet. Cars get worse and more polluting. Houses get smaller and worse equipped.
\nThis effect is even worse for the bottom parts of society. Go back in time 15 years, a..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/mentorship-meetings", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/mentorship-meetings", "title": "Mentorship Meetings", "summary": "Most mentorship meetings are a waste of time because they are not structured. Here’s how to make the most of them.", "date_modified": "2024-03-05T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
\nDownload the checklist
\nHere is the checklist mentioned in the video (PDF file).
\n" }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/agency", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/agency", "title": "Agency is trainable", "summary": "Proven techniques to make your team more proactive.", "date_modified": "2024-01-10T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "High-agency people get things done, even in the presence of obstacles and unknowns. They constantly look for a way forward and own their mistakes and outcomes.
\nConversely, low-agency people follow the default path. When faced with an obstacle, they wait to be told what to do. Because they only work on someone else’s to-do list, they do not own their mistakes or outcomes.
\nObviously, you would like your team to be high-agency.
\nHowever, most managers believe that agency is n..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/cars-efficiency", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/cars-efficiency", "title": "Cars, efficiency, and drivers", "summary": "Cars are inefficient, but people are willing to pay a premium for them.", "date_modified": "2024-01-07T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
I’ve recently come across a post claiming that cars are inefficient by showing that a typical EU car is parked 92% of the time, its 5 seats only move 1.5 people, and 86% of its fuel never reaches the wheels and when it does, it moves the car, not the people.
\nApart from the fact that, as Mark Baker noted, electric toasters are used even less.
\nThe unspoken issue here is that if you ask a driver whether thei..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/derisk-exercise", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/derisk-exercise", "title": "A one-minute exercise to de-risk your life", "summary": "The most effective exercise I know of.", "date_modified": "2023-11-13T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
- \n
- Imagine you wake up in a hospital. What could have been the most likely reason? Is there anything you can do today to prevent that? \n
- Imagine your partner breaks up with you. What could have been the most likely reason? Is there anything you can do today to prevent that? \n
- Imagine you lose your job. What could have been the most likely reason? Is there anything you can do today to prevent that? \n
- Imagine you..."
},
{
"id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/culture-is-the-track-record",
"url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/culture-is-the-track-record",
"title": "Culture is the track record",
"summary": "Organizational culture is not a set of concepts but a track record of actions and reactions.",
"date_modified": "2023-09-23T00:00:00.000Z",
"content_html": "\n
Leaders who think organizational culture is a set of concepts attempt to change it using words and concepts – and inevitably fail, because organizational culture is not a set of concepts.
\nIt’s a track record.
\nIn particular, it’s the track record of which behaviors are a waste of time and which lead to good personal outcomes.
\nFor example, what happens when someone raises a hand – do they get listene..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/twitter-network", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/twitter-network", "title": "How I built a Twitter network from scratch", "summary": "How I went from 0 to 24,000+ Twitter followers from scratch – never knowing any of them in real life first, living in an isolated city, and without cold-contacting any of them.", "date_modified": "2023-08-23T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "I went from 0 to 24,000+ Twitter followers from scratch – never knowing any of them in real life first, living in an isolated city, and without cold-contacting any of them. Perhaps more importantly, my followers and readers include some of the smartest and wisest people on the planet.
\nHere is how I did it and the principles I followed.
\nMy first 1,000 followers
\nBuilding a following from scratch is hard because no one sees the content you post.
\nTherefore, it’s crit..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/races-to-the-bottom", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/races-to-the-bottom", "title": "Races to the bottom", "summary": "Careers, communities, and activities that eventually became a competition for who’s willing to sacrifice more.", "date_modified": "2023-08-11T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Life is full of races to the bottom: some careers, businesses, communities, and activities that eventually became a competition for who’s willing to sacrifice more.
\nDuring the first years, skill and a decent work ethic are enough to get ahead. This lures many into believing they have an easy shot at winning.
\nHowever, as the race progresses, competition becomes fiercer. Skill and a decent work ethic aren’t enough anymore. Keeping up requires an unreasonable work ethic, and gettin..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/metapractice", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/metapractice", "title": "Metapractice", "summary": "Practice your practice", "date_modified": "2023-06-13T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Why do some people become masters at their craft while others seem never to improve?
\nPeople who achieve mastery do two things differently: they practice more, and they adjust their practice more frequently. During each session, not only do they work to improve their skills but also to improve their practice.
\nMetapractice – the ability to tweak one’s practice to maximize its effectiveness – is the most underrated skill of them all. After all, if one is bad at met..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/mixed-signals-mixed-results", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/mixed-signals-mixed-results", "title": "Mixed Signals, Mixed Results", "summary": "Managers who give their teams mixed messages get mixed results.", "date_modified": "2023-06-05T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Managers who give their teams mixed messages get mixed results.
\nExamples include:
\n- \n
- Asking for feedback and then deflecting critiques. \n
- Asking to focus on quality but also speed and cost. \n
- Asking to prioritize a critical task but not following up. \n
In all examples above, employees receive mixed signals. Does my manager really want me to say what I think? Is quality really the priority? Is the task really critical?
\n\"When you give your brain..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/why-people-do-not-listen-to-feedback", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/why-people-do-not-listen-to-feedback", "title": "Why people do not listen to your feedback", "summary": "It's about building a track record of being helpful", "date_modified": "2023-04-19T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Some managers feel that their feedback to their team is not listened to. It’s often for two reasons:
\n- \n
- \n
You didn’t demonstrate a track record of being helpful. Perhaps, your past feedback created more problems than it solved. Or perhaps, your team doesn’t have reasons to trust you know their job. Or maybe, you have a history of self-centeredness. Either way, unless you have a track record of being helpful, your people will be reluctant to listen to your feedback.
\n \n - \n..."
},
{
"id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/lindy-for-managers",
"url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/lindy-for-managers",
"title": "Lindy for Managers",
"summary": "The longer a problem has been around, the longer it is expected to stick around in the future.",
"date_modified": "2023-03-10T00:00:00.000Z",
"content_html": "
The Lindy Effect says that the longer an idea or technology has been around, the longer it is expected to stick around in the future.
\nI first learned about the Lindy Effect, also called Lindy’s Law, in Taleb’s book “Antifragile.”
\nSome examples of what is Lindy and what isn’t
\nBefore discussing how managers can use it, let’s see a few examples of what is Lindy and what isn’t.
\n- \n
- The non-perishable (e.g., ideas, technol..."
},
{
"id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/wittgensteins-ruler-and-business-metrics",
"url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/wittgensteins-ruler-and-business-metrics",
"title": "Wittgenstein's Ruler and business metrics",
"summary": "The more free parameters, the less you know what is being measured. Hence, always couple metrics cannot be relied upon with direct qualitative observations",
"date_modified": "2023-03-09T00:00:00.000Z",
"content_html": "
\"Unless you have confidence in the ruler’s reliability, if you use a ruler to measure a table you may also be using the table to measure the ruler.\" – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
\nThis heuristic is called “Wittgenstein’s Ruler.” I like to formulate it more
\n
\nprecisely as follows:The more free parameters, the less you know what is being measured.
\nSome examples of Wittgenstein’s Ruler
\n- \n
- \n
When priz..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/ergodicity-non-binary", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/ergodicity-non-binary", "title": "Ergodicity as a non-binary property", "summary": "Traditionally, ergodicity is defined as a binary property, but it can be better understood as a spectrum.", "date_modified": "2023-02-28T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Traditionally, ergodicity is defined as a binary property. This definition, useful in theoretical matters, is useless for decision-making in the real world, as almost all real-world processes are non-ergodic.
\nHere, I introduce the concept of ergodicity as a non-binary property and suggest a few real-world applications.
\n\nThe purpose of studying ergodicity
\nEr..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/email-coaching", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/email-coaching", "title": "Coach your team to write more effective emails", "summary": "A low-hanging fruit to make your team more effective.", "date_modified": "2023-02-20T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
If your workers send emails as part of their job, coaching them on writing emails more effectively is a low-hanging fruit, and failing to do so is a massive missed opportunity. Yet, almost no one does.
\nThe impact of better email writing
\nIf your team is excessively polite and formal in their internal emails, wasting twenty seconds to add a few unnecessary lines, and they send twenty emails a day, addressing this would save three workdays a year. (20 emails a day times 20 second..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/presentation-tips", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/presentation-tips", "title": "Ten tips to become a better presenter", "summary": "A collection of tips on how to improve your presentation skills.", "date_modified": "2022-11-25T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
- \n
- \n
If you need a script because you can’t remember it, your audience won’t remember your talk either.
\n \n - \n
If you need to write it in the slides to remember it, your audience won’t remember it either.
\n \n - \n
The purpose of presentations is to get the audience to do something.
\n
\nIf your presentation is not actionable, or actionable but not acted upon, it’s near useless – at least for the audience. \n - \n
Ask your people to do things, then do not check whether they did them.
\n \n - \n
Ask your people to do things more carefully, then punish them for being slow.
\n \n - \n
Do not explain your decisions. Let your team think you didn’t have valid reasons.
\n \n - \n
When someone shows motivation, do not give them opportunities to put it to use.
\n \n - \n
When choosing goals, be conservative. This way, even if your people achieve them, there won’t be enough ..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/3-catalyzers-for-change", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/3-catalyzers-for-change", "title": "3 Catalyzers For Change", "summary": "How to drive long-lasting change within your organization", "date_modified": "2022-03-14T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Years ago, I believed that driving change within organizations required charisma and motivational speeches.
\nNowadays, after having worked with many managers that repeatedly fought inertia and achieved long-lasting results, I changed my mind.
\nFighting inertia mostly consists in overcoming three key obstacles:
\n- \n
- The doubt that efforts will go to waste. Most employees have witnessed change initiatives that created much disruption but didn’t achieve any c..."
},
{
"id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/micromanagement",
"url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/micromanagement",
"title": "Too much micromanagement or too little management?",
"summary": "Micromanagement might be bad, but not doing enough management for fear of micromanaging is also bad.",
"date_modified": "2021-11-21T00:00:00.000Z",
"content_html": "
I often get asked, “Luca, how do I know what is too much micromanagement?”
\nI get this question. Too much micromanagement is bad. However, not doing enough management for fear of micromanaging is also bad.
\nIt is important to distinguish between the two. Here are three rules of thumb:
\n1. Feedback on methods (how you would have done the task) might be micromanagement.
\n2. Feedback on outcomes (“That’s below standard” o..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/career-tips", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/career-tips", "title": "23 tips for a better career as an employee", "summary": "Many people are stuck in their careers at the office because they don’t know the unspoken rules of promotions. Here are a few principles that I learned during my time as an employee.", "date_modified": "2021-01-30T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Many people are stuck in their careers at the office because they don’t know the unspoken rules of promotions. Here are a few principles that I learned during my time as an employee, before I became an entrepreneur.
\nDisclaimer: nothing here is professional advice or advice of any kind – take everything with a grain of salt and do what works for you in your situation, according to your values and objectives. This is just a map – you decide whether it fits where you are, where you wa..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/lindy", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/lindy", "title": "The Lindy Effect", "summary": "Basics and generalization across space and other dimensions.", "date_modified": "2020-12-06T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
How can you estimate which technology might remain relevant in the future? How can you prioritize which books to read?
\nThe Lindy Effect, from Taleb’s book “Antifragile,” can help you.
\nThe Lindy Effect: what is it?
\nThe Lindy effect, sometimes also called “Lindy’s Law,” relates age to life expectancy.
\nFor people, every year of life DECREASES its remaining life expectancy. A 70-year-old is expected to live 14.4 more years, and a..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/just-in-time", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/just-in-time", "title": "Just In Time", "summary": "How to get its productivity gains without also making your organization more fragile", "date_modified": "2020-09-06T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Traditionally, companies use warehouses to stock the components required to manufacture their products.
\n
\nThis is problematic for two reasons.- \n
- \n
Warehouses are expensive. They occupy precious land, are expensive to build and maintain, locks capital into inventory, and require personnel.
\n \n - \n
Warehouses hide problems. If the suppliers have a late delivery but the warehouse still has stock, no one will notice. Therefore, suppliers are allowed to operate sloppily.\"Unless you have confidence in the ruler’s reliability, if you use a ruler to measure a table you may also be using the table to measure the ruler.\" – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
\nExamples of Wittgenstein’s Ruler
\nThe Nobel Prize for Economics being awarded to someone can mean two things: either that the receiver is very smart or that the judges are very dumb.
\nAt the moment of the award, we probably didn’t know which of the two possibilities was correct. Sure, the recei..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/mimetic-societies", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/mimetic-societies", "title": "Mimetic Societies", "summary": "In mimetic societies, hierarchies are defined by one's ability to perform rituals. Because of the above, mimetic societies label themselves as meritocracies.", "date_modified": "2020-03-28T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
- \n
- The leaders of mimetic societies create rituals mimicking some aspects of what they observe having worked in the past. Not because they think it might work, but because their followers think so. \n
- In mimetic societies, hierarchies are defined by one’s ability to perform rituals. \n
- Because of the above, mimetic societies label themselves as meritocracies. \n
- In mimetic societies, 'do the right thing' corresponds to 'perform the right ritual'. \n
- Some mimetic soc..."
},
{
"id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/critical-mass",
"url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/critical-mass",
"title": "Critical Mass",
"summary": "The magic of obsessive consistency.",
"date_modified": "2019-11-10T00:00:00.000Z",
"content_html": "
An operations manager had a problem.
\nMechanical parts and components were scattered on the warehouse floor at all times. Employees even had trouble walking without stepping on something. For months, he repeatedly told his employees never to leave parts on the floor and always store them properly.
\nThey never did.
\nThe problem was that the warehouse was too big, and the manager was too busy to consistently enforce the standards they asked his employees to follow.
\nSo, ..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/bottom-up-manifesto", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/bottom-up-manifesto", "title": "Bottom-Up Manifesto", "summary": "Long-lasting progress is always bottom-up, because the bottom-up becomes adopted after having being proven to work.", "date_modified": "2019-10-16T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
The top-down is the imposition of a pattern from one to the many regardless of whether it works – for example, country-wide policies.
\nThe top-down gets selected because it makes sense, not because it works.
\nThe top-down fails because it is applied to scale before having been tested in the conditions it will be applied to and in the conditions it will find itself after the environment reacts to its introduction.
\nThe bottom-up is the voluntary adoption of a pattern because ..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/fragilization", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/fragilization", "title": "Fragilization", "summary": "How the antifragile breaks", "date_modified": "2018-08-15T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Update: since I wrote this essay, I’ve been thinking a lot about antifragility and damage. Since then, I wrote a paper which provides a more detailed, clear and correct description of how things break and how they adapt.
\nBelow, you will find the text of the old essay, for reference purposes.
\nThe basics of antifragility
\nAntifragility is a concept first..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/paretoing", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/paretoing", "title": "Ruthlessly Pareto", "summary": "If you’re reading the same percentage of pages for each book, you’re doing it wrong. Etc.", "date_modified": "2018-08-07T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Pareto’s law states that, in many contexts, 80% of the impact is produced by 20% of the items. For example, 20% of your customers might be responsible for 80% of your profits, or 20% of the lectures you attended contained 80% of the know-how you later use.
\nGiven that 80% of the rewards are contained in 20% of the activities, if you divide your time and resources equally between activities, you’re doing it wrong. You are negating the existence of Pareto’s law.
\n\n ..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/pain-signal-vulnerability", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/pain-signal-vulnerability", "title": "Pain is a signal of vulnerability", "summary": "Pain is not a signal of damage but of possible future damage regardless of present damage. This explains psychosomatic/psychogenic pain.", "date_modified": "2017-08-02T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
\nDisclaimer: I am not a medical professional and this is not medical advice. This post only states my beliefs as a result of my research on the topic. Full disclaimer here..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/optimizing-for-the-wrong-metric", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/optimizing-for-the-wrong-metric", "title": "Bad decisions in life arise from having optimized for the wrong metric", "summary": "Regretful choices arise from using a widely-accepted metric for success instead of a personally defined one.", "date_modified": "2017-07-17T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
Something I have noticed:
\n- \n
- \n
Unfulfillment arises from using metrics chosen by others as proxies for personal success (e.g. a new car as a proxy for happiness).
\n \n - \n
Sustainability problems arise from using short-term success as a proxy for long-term one (e.g. boosting sales this quarter by delivering false promises to customers).
\n \n - \n
Failed relationships arise from choosing a person using widely-desirable traits as a proxy for personally-desirable one..." } ] }
- \n
- \n
- The doubt that efforts will go to waste. Most employees have witnessed change initiatives that created much disruption but didn’t achieve any c..."
},
{
"id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/micromanagement",
"url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/micromanagement",
"title": "Too much micromanagement or too little management?",
"summary": "Micromanagement might be bad, but not doing enough management for fear of micromanaging is also bad.",
"date_modified": "2021-11-21T00:00:00.000Z",
"content_html": "
If you are clear enough to be understandable but not so clear that you cannot be misunderstood, your subordinates might misunderstand you. If it happens and the misunderstanding isn’t clarified immediately, it will lead to blame and resentment. Hence the need to be super-clear: not just enough so that you can be understood but cl..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/first-order-thinking-bias", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/first-order-thinking-bias", "title": "The First-Order Thinking Bias", "summary": "Short term bias and negativity bias are actually first-order-thinking biases.", "date_modified": "2022-06-18T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
We often hear that humans are biased towards short-term thinking and negative experiences. But what if these aren't separate biases at all? What if they're both symptoms of a more fundamental limitation in how our brains work?
\nThe real issue is simpler: our minds naturally favor what I call "first-order thinking" – looking at things exactly as we experience them right now, without considering how they might change over time.
\nThink about your first day at the gym. Your ..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/musk-luck", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/musk-luck", "title": "Skill, Luck, and Imitation [Did Elon Musk get lucky?]", "summary": "If you don’t take extreme risks, even if you’re the most skilled person, you will be outperformed by someone who did. And if you take extreme risks, you will have worse average outcomes than if you didn’t.", "date_modified": "2022-06-18T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
If you don’t take extreme risks, even if you’re the most skilled person, you will be outperformed by someone who did. And if you take extreme risks, you will have worse average outcomes than if you didn’t (competing for the first place often means using strategies that reduce your average outcome).
\nA recent comment by Nassim Taleb made me reflect on extreme performers and what we can learn from them:
\n\"Elon Musk illustrates my point: solid financial success is la..." }, { "id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/10-ways-to-kill-motivation-as-a-manager", "url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/10-ways-to-kill-motivation-as-a-manager", "title": "10 ways to kill motivation as a manager", "summary": "Number one – ask your people to do things, then do not check whether they did them.", "date_modified": "2022-05-11T00:00:00.000Z", "content_html": "
- \n
- \n
- \n
- The non-perishable (e.g., ideas, technol..."
},
{
"id": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/wittgensteins-ruler-and-business-metrics",
"url": "https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/wittgensteins-ruler-and-business-metrics",
"title": "Wittgenstein's Ruler and business metrics",
"summary": "The more free parameters, the less you know what is being measured. Hence, always couple metrics cannot be relied upon with direct qualitative observations",
"date_modified": "2023-03-09T00:00:00.000Z",
"content_html": "
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n