Posted on

Why Cooperation Beats Competition If You Design It Right

We praise competition because it slings us awake, but the quiet truth is that cooperation does the heavy lifting. It stitches days together, forges talent into reliability, and turns cleverness into outcomes you can touch. You see it most clearly where failure costs blood or bread. Think of the night shift in a busy hospital: rounds, handoffs, an attending who catches what a resident almost missed because the culture expects second looks instead of blaming first movers. The system works not by goodwill alone but by rules that force repetition and reputational memory: chart audits, morbidity and mortality conferences, and the knowledge that you will see the same colleagues tomorrow. That is how fragile human kindness hardens into durable care.

Continue reading → Why Cooperation Beats Competition If You Design It Right

Posted on

Quantifying Ubiquity: You Are Eight in Eight Million

There is a fun old saying — “You’re One in a Million” — that is meant to convey a specialness using data-driven facts.  What I find most interesting in the million specialness is how absolutely non-special you are depending where you happen to live in the world.

For example, in my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska — with a population of 160,000 while I was growing up — I was super-extra-crispy special, because it would take 6.25 times my city’s population to make me unique one time in a million tries.

In New York City, the story is different. There are currently 8.3 million people in The Big City — and that means my specialness is drained in the larger lake from my small pond pool of the Midwest.

Instead of being “One in a Million” in NYC, I’m now, actually, eight in 8.3 million — and that’s a pretty sobering number.

Continue reading → Quantifying Ubiquity: You Are Eight in Eight Million

Posted on

Trilling, Albee and Pinter: On Marriage as a Competition

In 1962, Edward Albee debuted his play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to stunned audiences everywhere.  We were not used to seeing a married couple fight in mixed company.  The play was unsettling, audacious, and successful.

Continue reading → Trilling, Albee and Pinter: On Marriage as a Competition

Posted on

Marlee Matlin Dancing Deaf with the Stars

Marlee Matlin — a gorgeous and talented 43-year-old Deaf actress and Academy Award winner — made her debut last night on Dancing with the Stars, but few people realize the magnitude and the magnificence of her accomplishment.

Continue reading → Marlee Matlin Dancing Deaf with the Stars