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An organisation can improve its performance while learning too little about whether its objective is still worth pursuing. Bad news about an investment can make its author put more money into it. In Barry Staw’s experiment, 240 business students allocated research funds within a fictional company. Some chose the original investment; others inherited it. Those who had chosen it and then received unfavourable results committed the most additional resources to the same division.

Promotion changes what a person must judge, and sometimes removes the feedback that taught them to judge well. At 131 US firms, the salespeople with stronger sales records were more likely to become managers. Among those promoted, however, stronger previous sales were associated with a smaller estimated contribution to their subordinates’ sales. The record that helped someone get the appointment pointed in the opposite direction when researchers examined performance in the ne

A leader’s private standards can become other people’s working conditions before anyone agrees that they should. A private-equity partner told researchers that if he failed to answer an email within an hour, people started wondering whether something was wrong. His previous responsiveness had become a reference point against which silence looked unusual. The interview belonged to a study of 48 knowledge professionals using mobile email devices. They valued the freedom to work

Ambition becomes harder to correct when disappointing results threaten the person we are trying to become. In a Berkeley experiment, students took a deliberately difficult vocabulary test, received the correct answers, and had an opportunity to study for another. Some also received a message acknowledging that struggling was common and encouraging them to avoid being too hard on themselves. These students spent longer studying than those given no such message. Their subsequen

Why serious improvement begins when a system stops defending its own assumptions. Someone in the meeting points to the number, and for a moment the room relaxes. It has moved in the right direction. That is enough to lower the tension. The awkward questions can wait because the evidence seems to have settled the matter before anyone has had to examine it closely. Nobody has to say that the work feels thinner than it did three months ago, or that people have become unusually c

Why clarity, memory, and judgement have to be designed before people can use what they know It happens everywhere: in classrooms, meetings, onboarding sessions, strategy decks, product briefings, pitches, public policy, coaching, and creative work. A plan is explained in language that is technically correct and apparently complete; nothing has been concealed, and every relevant detail seems to be present. Yet the work continues as though understanding were automatic, as thoug

Research-backed guide to better decision-making: A decision never really ends at the moment we make it. It keeps travelling. It enters the team, changes what people pay attention to, creates new habits, rewards some behaviours, unintentionally punishes others, and sometimes returns months later wearing a completely different face. That is why a choice can feel sensible on Monday and become expensive by December. This is the real value of second-order thinking: In the episode,

Purpose is often mistaken for motivation. It may be more useful to think of it as a hierarchy: a way of deciding what deserves your attention before everything else begins competing for it. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from a day in which you did almost everything except the thing you meant to do. By late afternoon, the day has been nibbled away rather than spent. A message that seemed impolite to leave unanswered turned into a whole thread. A “quick qu

Some mistakes are surprises. Many are not. They happen because nobody asked the uncomfortable question early enough: what would make this fail? That is the power of inversion. Instead of only asking how to get a good result, you turn the problem around and ask how to avoid a bad one. This sounds simple, but it changes the quality of your thinking. It pulls hidden risks into view. It turns vague ambition into practical safeguards. The inversion mental model has been used in ma

Most bad decisions look reasonable at first. A rushed discount boosts sales, then trains customers to wait for discounts. A strict new rule improves one metric, then damages trust. A quick apology calms a problem, then creates a precedent no one meant to set. That is the gap second-order thinking tries to close. It asks a simple but demanding question: And then what? First-order thinking looks at the immediate result. Second-order thinking looks at the result after the result

Most problems are not solved badly because people lack intelligence. They are solved badly because people start in the wrong place. They begin with habits, assumptions, industry rules, competitor behaviour, old budgets, inherited processes, or “how we have always done it”. First principles thinking cuts through that. It asks a sharper question: What do we know is true, and what can we build from there? That sounds simple. It is not. Done well, it can change how teams design p

Article Good thinking is not about having a high IQ. It is about using better tools. Mental models are those tools. They are the reusable ideas, patterns, and frameworks that help you understand how the world works. A good model helps you ask better questions, avoid predictable mistakes, and make decisions with less noise. No single model is enough. The point is to build a “latticework”, a term often associated with Charlie Munger, where ideas from psychology, physics, econom

Host: Maximiliano Fabres Guest: Ian Evans Location: Bristol, UK Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdGr08B6Q0Y Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6kDONO2XwnyD9yZCnh3aOa?si=f7b60e48920c411f - Maximiliano: Hello guys, welcome back to Beyond the Horizon podcast and the podcast where you go beyond uh the knowledge that you currently have. Well, that didn't work. That was expanding people's horizons. Nathaniel: Sorry, my bad, guys. Okay, we're still working on that. M

Host: Maximiliano Fabres Guest: Mark Detzler Location: Bristol, UK Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1yigBSQNdQ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/23t8ZRBKWpJTC8o6k69soN?si=f7dffe9f35f94f29 - Maximiliano: Hello guys, welcome back to uh Beyond the Horizon podcast where we uh well where you expand your views on life, um with me uh today uh very important uh not not only important but incredible guest. Mark: Thank you very much, I'm very I'm very flattered. Maximi

Host: Maximiliano Fabres Guest: Zac Payne Location: Bristol, UK Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyzQJvVkLVE&t=2426s Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5gOYC63X1jwxiiwfnFfh7I?si=3fb69d523a51441f - Maximiliano: So So if if it would be for me, I would live in a hut in the middle of the woods. Zac: Yeah. Maximiliano: I don't mind it. Like I I really would love that. Have some chickens. Zac: Have some. Maximiliano: Like I would love Zac: I would love that as well.

Host: Maximiliano Fabres Guest: Zac Payne Location: Bristol, UK Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyzQJvVkLVE&t=2426s Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5gOYC63X1jwxiiwfnFfh7I?si=3fb69d523a51441f - Maximiliano: Hello guys. Uh, welcome back to Beyond the Horizon podcast. Uh, thank you very much for listening again uh for the Well, I don't know. Well, anyways, um, thank you very much. I'm just here uh with our new guest. Uh, so yes, Zack. Zac: Zack. Yeah. Maximili

Host: Maximiliano Fabres Location: Bristol, UK Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmAO5PF6bPo&t=1557s&pp=0gcJCaMLAYcqIYzv - Maximiliano: Maximiliano Fabres Question: Question Maximiliano: Hello guys, welcome back to uh Beyond the Horizon podcast uh the podcast uh where you expand your horizons on life uh with uh you today uh your one and only guest uh Maxim Fes Aes. Yeah, I know I got two surnames uh but yeah, well uh I'm Latin American so that's why. Uh well uh today i

Host: Maximiliano Fabres Guest: Jamie Tipper Location: Bristol, UK Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvljpfXs_JM Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/07TMZfwHyURDsHY9dSL6dk?si=b289291abf7147c5 - Maximiliano: Hello guys, welcome back to Beyond the Horizon podcast. Uh the podcast where you expand your horizons of knowledge. Um with me uh today uh Jamie Tipper. Jamie: Yes. Maximiliano: Uh so Jamie uh would you like to start with a candle? Lighting off the candle. Jam

Host: Maximiliano Fabres Guest: Dr. Ignacio Deza Location: Bristol, UK Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd5uusiNw9o&t=4s Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5z1Krpg0zttNZa1Xq7I4Jw?si=60ccc1e11b424e65 - Maximiliano: Hello guys, welcome back uh to Beyond the Horizon podcast. Uh the podcast where you expand your horizons of knowledge. Uh I am your host Maximana Faves and with me today uh our guest Ignasio Desa. Uh so Ignasio, who who are you? Dr. Deza: Well, I'm a

Host: Maximiliano Fabres Guest: Ian Evans Location: Bristol, UK Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxJ1hzp1aJw&t=765s Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6CIDLAd0PnFIX54vaAAUIa?si=57a46b4f74b144fc - Maximiliano: Hello guys, welcome back to Beyond the Horizon podcast. Uh the podcast where you uh expand your horizons of knowledge. Uh with me today, uh Ian Evans. Ian: Hi. Maximiliano: Uh so Ian, uh who are you? Ian: Um I'm Yeah, Ian. And I do ultra marathons. Well, I