Britt Gage

“I think about decisions in three ways: hats, haircuts, and tattoos.

Most decisions are like hats. Try one and if you don’t like it, put it back and try another. The cost of a mistake is low, so move quickly and try a bunch of hats.

Some decisions are like haircuts. You can fix a bad one, but it won’t be quick and you might feel foolish for awhile.... See more

There’s wisdom to not talking about our goals. See Derek Sivers TED Talk. It could make you feel closer to your achievement than you are. But a spoken goal, the big one you feel in your bones, the one you’re afraid to say out loud because to not achieve it would be crushing. That takes courage. We reward courage by rooting for you. Some people call... See more

If I were to add up all the “lost” years of my life when I studied, worked on, or invested in things that didn’t end up directly contributing to the handful of life-changing turning points, it wouldn’t just be a few lost years. It would be “lost” decades. But here’s the kicker: No one cares!

We all invest our time, efforts, and money into the... See more

Artificial intelligence will spur two fundamental changes in our relationship with technology. The first is that voice—already the most natural interface for human interaction—will become a dominant interface. Imagine latency reduced to less than half a second, a stark contrast to the sluggishness of touch-based devices. Even silent voice is on the... See more

“You’ll probably surprise yourself with what you can accomplish—if you’re focused on one thing.

You’ll probably frustrate yourself with what you fail to accomplish—if you’re doing 5 or 7 or 10 things.

Nobody performs well when stretched in a half dozen directions.”

Over the years, as I’ve aged and made smarter friends, I’ve gradually grown dumber relative to my peers. I’ve compensated by dialing up my agency, which I think of as “manifest determination to make things happen.”

Fast learns, slow remembers. Fast proposes, slow disposes. Fast is discontinuous, slow is continuous. Fast and small instructs slow and big by accrued innovation and by occasional revolution. Slow and big controls small and fast by constraint and constancy. Fast gets all our attention, slow has all the power.

The skills-based approach rests on two important frameworks. The first is the late Edgar Schein’s organizational culture model, in which culture builds upon a foundation of basic underlying assumptions — employees’ shared assumptions about what drives successful outcomes to challenges in their organization’s specific context. Underlying assumptions... See more

It is no coincidence that these three skills – managing the pace of change, elevating the next generation of leaders, and enabling the entire company to hit its goals – often make the difference between a functional leader topping out as an SVP and a cross-functional leader accelerating their trajectory as part of the C-Suite.