In a criminal trial, the outcome hinges on the credibility of the witnesses called upon by the prosecution and the defense. Throughout the trial, jurors scrutinize each person who takes the stand, attempting to discern whether or not their words can be trusted. As they decide the case, jurors weigh heavily the statements given by believable witnesses, but they discard…
In 1940 two brothers, Dick and Mac McDonald, started McDonald’s Barbeque Restaurant in San Bernardino, CA. Typical of the drive-ins of its time, McDonald’s offered an expansive menu from which customers could order and then be serviced by carhops. Through time, the brothers noticed a trend in their sales. A small number of items on the menu accounted for a…
William Henry Harrison gave the longest inaugural address of any U.S. President, taking two hours to plod through a whopping 8,445-word speech. Even though the speech was delivered outdoors on a frigid and rainy day, the President stubbornly refused to wear an overcoat or hat. As a result, he caught a cold that developed into pneumonia, and he died a…
At Chernobyl, the massive explosion of a Soviet nuclear reactor released radioactive fallout 400 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. While the suddenness and spectacular nature of the Chernobyl disaster drew the world’s attention, another catastrophe in the Soviet Union passed by largely unnoticed. In the 1960s Soviet engineers diverted the two main rivers feeding the Aral…
How do leaders generate positive momentum? It’s very simple: by learning and then applying what they have learned. In the knowledge economy, leaders are distinguished by their ability to process information and put it to use.There are three ways in which leaders interact with information, and each impacts momentum. 1) Ignorance The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with…
California redwoods are enormous, majestic trees that can grow taller than a 30-story building. A full-grown California redwood is estimated to weigh greater than one million pounds. The massive redwoods can be so wide that in some places tunnel-like roads have been built through their tree trunks. A mature California redwood tree is virtually indestructible. It has no known diseases,…
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