We assume that good-looking people are smarter and more effective than they really are, and that homely people are the reverse.

No decision-making system is going to guarantee corporate success. The strategic decisions that corporations have to make are of mind-numbing complexity. But we know that the more power you give a single individual in the face of complexity and uncertainty, the more likely it is that bad decisions will get made.

Pop music thrives on repetition. You know a song's a hit when you've heard it so often that you'll be happy never to hear it again.

There does seem to be some evidence that as people get older, they procrastinate less, perhaps because they feel the pressure of time more.

If army ants are wandering around and they get lost, they start to follow a simple rule:Just do what the ant in front of you does. The ants eventually end up in a circle. There's this famous example of one that was 1,200 feet long and lasted for two days; the ants just kept marching around and around in a circle until they died.

We assume that good-looking people are smarter and more effective than they really are, and that homely people are the reverse.

Sometimes even a smart crowd will make a mistake.