My Expertise
Archive
This page contains various papers I have written that deal entirely or in part with communication. They are written for those interested in the theory behind the techniques I teach and are not a substitute for the practical skills taught during my training sessions. I believe strongly in sharing ideas and open discussion and so would welcome any thoughts you may have after reading these papers. You can email me here
We can think of the mind as a network. This is neurologically accurate, as the mind is a network of neurons, but we can also view the mind as a network of ideas. This paper expands on this insight and shows how it can be used to explain many of the ideas in neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a set of practical psychological and communication techniques. Thinking of the mind as a network provides a useful framework for thinking about communication and helps me develop new communication techniques.
To Lie Or Not To Lie - Harvard PhD Thesis
My Harvard PhD thesis examines the strategic aspects of lying. It is not closely connected with my ideas on communication, but may be of interest to some people. It is very theoretical and quite mathematical.
Perhaps the most interesting insight is that lying iis more risky than telling the truth. Therefore, risk averse people, or more generally those with concave payoff functions, will be more likely to tell the truth.
This has many applications. It predicts, for example, that rewarding managers with options will promote fraud. This is consistent with developments during the 1990s. The paper tests the theory by applying it to the a political scandal in the US. The predictions about which politicians would lie to cover up the scandal were shown to be accurate.