Description: Gaining people management skills from Captain D. Michael Abrashoff's book, "Its Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy"

Description: Based on a decades-long study, honesty is the most important quality in a leader. This article addresses ways to establish trust with their co-workers.

Description: Twelfth installment of a series that applies Buddhist philosophy to actuarial practice. This edition wraps up the author's experience in yoga teacher training.

Description: February issue of The Stepping Stone

Description: This article is a review of the book by Joshua Foer. It covers the history of memory techniques, the way a human brain organizes memory, and various problems and successes in memory recall. The author starts by interviewing memory savants, and learns from them that the ability to perform seemingly impossible memory tricks is simply a matter of studying and practicing proven techniques used for millennia. This review suggests that actuaries can benefit greatly from some of these techniques despite the availability of electronic hand-held devices to recall facts because the person who does not need to rely upon such devices can have a huge perceptual advantage in executive presentations.

Description: Book summary and review of "Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results" by Judith E. Glaser. Summarizes the three main levels of conversation, how conversations can move from trusting to distrusting, and how to achieve conversational intelligence and Level III conversations.

Description: Cassie He and Linda Liu, two actuarial students, invite Mark Freedman, the President-Elect of SOA to share with us his experience as an actuary, the challenges and opportunities facing actuaries and the outlook for the profession as SOA president.