Want to communicate effectively at work? Eliminate these cognitive distortions

"In short, detach inputs from outputs. "

Good luck with that until you have to interview using the S.T.A.R. technique.

A: Action R: Results

Suddenly, inputs and outputs matter.

As a consultant, I almost fell into the curse of knowledge. I'm working on instructions for manufacturing, namely drawings. There is a law that must never be violated: Never give the shop a choice.

Choosing the most specific instructions clarifies your own thoughts and prevents many unfortunate mistakes. And when a mistake occurs, or a part doesn't work in application, changes are simpler since the documentation, proven wrong or incomplete, is already relatively unambiguous.

Now I thought everyone knew this. I learned it in the first Mechanical Engineering textbook I bought, as physicist, where many concepts are unknown. I was amazed that my boss, who has owned his company for 25 years, and sourced many components, had never heard this.

I explained all the reasons. Now he knows it.

Fallacy of change aka you can take a horse to water but can't make it drink. I hit that so often, as a person with the curse of knowledge too, I'm leaving the company, which was relying on me to fix their problems after the horse has died rather than just simply drinking the water in the first place.

Four of the five were excellent.

The first? Bullshit.

Heaven’s reward fallacy arises from the old boomer maxim of “if you work hard and apply yourself, you will be rewarded”. Unfortunately, while this may have been applicable at one time, it is now absolutely bogus.

In today’s employment environment, going above and beyond does absolutely nothing but get you exploited and taken advantage of. You will not see anything arise out of it other than burnout and resentment, as all your hard work signifies that you are a sucker that can be targeted to have any amount of work piled on top without having to increase your pay to compensate. That you will slave away to make the company owners stupidly wealthy without asking for anything more than what you previously got with much lower effort levels.

Wake up and touch some grass.

Stop being a rube, stop being a sucker, stop being hoodwinked by boomer lies and work to your wage -- and not a single cent more. Because you will never see any benefit from that extra effort. Never. It’s all wasted time and effort on your part, when your life can be better spent on yourself.

After all, no-one ever lay on their deathbed thinking “man, I should have worked more hours in my life instead of spending time with my family”.

That graphic at the top has at least three different fonts and it is chaotic. I don’t see why you would want more than two fonts here. There’s a natural hierarchy in the content, but it’s obscured with graphics that are too clever for their own good, the font sizes that have no relation to significance, and groups that are read in seemingly random directions. The graphic is almost unreadable.