Luca Dellanna's Blog

Most training, be it at work or at college, is supposed to be designed for the trainee/student, but is actually designed for the trainer/teacher.

Italian scholar [Pasquale Cirillo](https://twitter.com/DrCirillo) clearly explains the Fence Paradox with the following illustration.

Most managers should communicate more clearly.

1.

Some managers feel that their feedback to their team is not listened to.

All Values, such as Honesty, Respect, and Sustainability, are investments: they come with short-term costs and long-term benefits.

There's a common belief that attractive people aren't funny, and funny people aren't attractive.

A reader who’s a risk manager on large physical infrastructure projects (tunnels, bridges, etc.) asked me the following question.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared the following article on my mailing list: [“The Role of the Manager From the Employee’s Point of View.”]

Last week, I wrote [a tweet](https://x.com/DellAnnaLuca/status/1958906686628053117) on the importance of tacit knowledge: the knowledge, skills, and abilities an individual gains through experience that are often difficult to put into words or otherwise c…

Every time I’m in a crowded hospital waiting room, I wonder how the idea of cramming the sick and vulnerable together in a small indoor space survived a century and a half of germ theory.

Insurance is a "bad bet" by expected value standards.

"Take risks early in your career" is common advice.

## Speeches I held a few lectures and speeches around the world.

I recently read the following headline: “Delta’s CEO said AI will boost profits by 50% by setting a different ticket price for every passenger in real time.”

It appears that screwworms, a type of maggot that lays eggs in livestock, which the US eradicated in the 1950s, have returned to the country.

There are several reasons why change initiatives fail, but one often overlooked factor is whether the affected population trusts that the change is permanent.

In the 2024 Olympics, 0.005 seconds separated the gold and silver medalists of the 100-meter men’s.

Managers who send mixed messages to their teams get mixed results.

### 1.

Many leaders, almost by default, reach for incentives when they want to improve performance.

Years ago, I believed that driving change within organizations required charisma and motivational speeches.

High-agency people get things done, even in the presence of obstacles and unknowns.

People are antifragile.

Our brain contains not one but two decision-makers: the Planner (our cortex, which suggests what we should do) and the Gatekeeper (our basal ganglia, which decides whether to do it).

Even when delivered politely, most negative feedback or suggestions for improvement are inherently adversarial – in the sense that, one way or another, they imply, “You should abandon your way of doing things and adopt mine.”

Rory Sutherland [recently wrote](https://x.com/rorysutherland/status/2091505291401576703): "Regulators are obsessed with reducing prices, not increasing quality.

Every time I participate in a high school reunion, I have a choice in how I compare myself to others.

**Risk management is like car brakes: brakes are not for slowing cars down, but for enabling them to drive fast.

[Last week's essay](https://luca-dellanna.com/posts/culture-outlast) contained a paragraph on the difference between virtues-based and values-based cultures.

I look at five factors to determine whether an organization's culture is likely to outlast its founder: ### 1) Who's in charge of it, HR or Managers?

Elementary, middle, and high schools are designed around the assumption that academic skills must be taught, while social skills will somehow teach themselves.

An office, through the sheer proximity between managers and their people, supplies continuous clarity about what to do and why, and feedback on how it is going.

**Hiring checklists fail when they screen for skills and experience rather than for the ability to drive outcomes.** That's the difference between screening for "managerial skills" and screening for "can lead our sales team to achieve this outcome this ye…

Imagine a country where children had to study soccer history and soccer theory until they turned 18, with no playing allowed before then.

When employee retention is low, leadership usually reaches for perks and teambuilding activities.

When managers feel overwhelmed, a likely problem is that all of their team's hours, including their own, go to getting things done and to correcting what went wrong, and none go to ensuring that, next month, things can get done better, faster, and without…

If your team isn't using the AI yet despite a team-wide or company-wide rollout, the problem is probably neither the tool nor your people, but that the rollout treated adoption as a tooling problem, whereas it is a training and leadership problem.

The problem with Performance Improvement Plans is that they are too slow.

In 2024, the UK restricted XL Bullies, a breed of dogs known for violent behavior: existing owners could keep them only if they met strict conditions, including third-party liability insurance.

Many managers relegate training to ad hoc group sessions, but these are often too generic, too theory-heavy, and too detached from day-to-day application to be effective.

I often read that fertility is low because people cannot afford to have children.

When prompting an AI, giving it some background information and references helps it produce better answers.

You probably already use skills: files holding your instructions, your format rules, your domain context, so you do not restate them every session in which you use AI.

Most people get mediocre results from LLMs because they treat them like vending machines: insert prompt, expect finished work.

I recently came across David Eagleman's theory that dreaming is a maintenance function for the visual cortex.

Tim Urban recently [posted](https://x.com/waitbutwhy/status/2047710215265730755) the following poll: "Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button.

There is no difference between ego investment and addiction: in both cases, we outsource decision-making to what has been good for us in the past (drugs, people, social circles, etc.).

A common argument against AI is that it "doesn't really think."

A common delegation pattern goes like this: the manager explains a task, the employee nods, the manager asks whether there are any questions, and the employee says no.