skills

Empathy / Empatía

Empathy

Empathy is defined as “the ability to recognize, understand and share the thoughts and feelings of another person”. It helps us work with others, build relationships and, as it shapes our morality, plays an important role in the decision-making process. In general, empathy is necessary to develop positive behaviors that benefit society, individuals, and relationships. …

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Make decisions / Tomar decisiones

Make decisions

How do you make decisions in this team? A few days ago, I asked this question to a team of students working on a not-so-simple project for one of my classes. By majority vote – they said. We talk about the problem and then we vote. And what happens if you are not all there …

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Precision questioning / Preguntas precisas

Precision questioning

Making decisions is the main job of managers. Often they are not experts on the subject, yet they have to make decisions. Precision questioning is a method to help people make decisions, and it can be considered a tool for critical thinking and problem-solving. When the right questions are asked, the decision becomes clear in …

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creativity / creatividad

Creativity

Creativity is one of the evolutionary forces. Without it, humanity wouldn’t be able to solve problems or come up with new ideas. Robert Fritz, in his book The Path of least resistance, says, “much of what you learned growing up was what not to do and what to avoid”. That is, people are trained to …

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Intuition / Intuición

Intuition

Does intuition play a part in a decision-making process? Making decisions is generally hard due to the inherent uncertainty and the complexity of the problem and the pressure of time. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of our intuition to make sound decisions. Intuition is when we instinctively know that something is right or wrong. In …

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Second orden thinking / pensamiento de segundo orden

Second order thinking

Deciding is often a tension between a long-term want and a short-term need, thus most times is a difficult process where a second order thinking is needed to unravel hidden implications of our decision in the future, preventing unintentional outcomes to occur. The question is now how we can identify second order impacts. The straightest …

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Ockham's razor / La navaja de Ockham

Ockham’s razor

It is said that simplest explanations are usually the right ones. This statement is known as the Ockham’s razor – after an English philosopher named William of Ockham. The rationale behind is easy to understand: why should we complicate things that apparently have a quite straight reasoning? This fallacy is so powerful that it’s easy …

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the future of work / el futuro del trabajo

The future of work

This week, I gave some lecturers about the future of work, and the effects of digitalization on the workplace. Now I want to share some ideas with you. Being a trending topic today, there are many people wondering what to expect in the coming years. Two years ago, the World Economic Forum releases a list with …

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Meta-learning / Meta-aprendizaje

Meta-learning

After listening to an interesting TED Talk from Ray Dalio,  this question stuck with me: how do I know I’m right? As arrogant as it can sound, I’m usually right in assessing situations, which makes it easier taking decisions. And yet, I never questioned myself how I do know. This kind of meta-learning is far …

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Conflict / Conflicto

Conflict

Many people fear conflict, and yet it is part of life and part of our long-term relationships. Every time we are surrounded by people, there’s a potential occasion for conflict because they might want or need something different from what we want. This is why we should learn how to deal with it. Basically, a …

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