Britt Gage

People are most receptive to feedback from people they like and trust. Therefore, a foundational part of subtle influence is keeping the relationship strong and making sure it doesn’t lead to a situation where most of your interactions are about trying to get the person to change.

The main way to do this is to make sure that you continue to have... See more

Beliefs are more about belonging than they are about truth.

“It’s the everlasting switching that’s the dangerous thing, not what they choose — while others actually build a life in which things gain meaning and significance, this is not true for the restless.” writes Sheila Heti in How should a person be. She continues with “The antidote — to build on things they have begun and not abandon their plans as... See more

Getting executives to act requires art as much as science. Data has a role, but the path from analysis to alignment runs through compelling stories, keen emotional intelligence, and anticipating concerns. Master these, and your spreadsheets will shape strategy.

Teams that adopt DRICE notice a difference in the projects they end up prioritizing. Many “promising” projects turn out to be defeated by a half-hour investigation, while “nice to have” features that would have been left on the cutting-room floor end up becoming high-ROI winners.

Dropbox case study

A particularly clear example of this comes from... See more

End every meeting or conversation with the feeling and optimism you’d like to have at the start of your next conversation with the person. If you envision running into this person again and how you want that to go, it’ll undoubtedly influence how you navigate a present conversation — usually for the better

People act like having a startup fail is the worst thing that can happen to you. And man, that's not even in the top 10. It's bad, I've done it, it's awful. It's really bad, but far worse is to be in a company that won't die, a zombie, undead company that you hate, but you can't leave. Oof, have I met people like that, and we're having a mental... See more

Once you choose a project, you are confined to a relatively narrow band of impact (

Figure 1

B); barring an unexpected surprise, the solution to a mediocre problem will have incremental impact, whereas solving an important problem will have greater impact. Even if you execute well, it is hard to make the solution to a middling problem interesting. In... See more