In short, your own mind acts like a compulsive yes-man who echoes whatever you want to believe. Psychologists call this mental gremlin the "confirmation bias." A recent analysis of psychological studies with nearly 8,000 participants concluded that people are twice as likely to seek information that confirms what they already believe as they are to consider evidence that would challenge those beliefs.

Why is a mind-made-up so hard to penetrate?

"We're all mentally lazy," says psychologist Scott Lilienfeld of Emory University in Atlanta. "It's simply easier to focus our attention on data that supports our hypothesis, rather than to seek out evidence that might disprove it."

The more you learn, the more certain you become that you are right. While gathering more data makes people more confident, it doesn't make their predictions much more accurate. Each new fact makes you more inclined to find another fact that resembles it, reducing the diversity and value of your information.

• For example, visualize how much more dynamic Lincoln's Gettysburg Address would have been with a single simple insert: “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war. But wait, there's more!”
• Or Ronald Reagan: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall. Results 100% guaranteed.”
• Now that we're in gear, let's include Paul Revere: “One if by land. Two if by sea. Three if you call before midnight, June 15.” Or maybe, “The British are coming. Act now.”
• Ah, a classic: “I disagree with what you say, but now, for a limited time only, I shall defend to the death your right to say it.”
• We can bring poetry into the mix. After all, too many Elizabethan poems were flat and colorless. Let's give John Donne some punch: “Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee. For everything else, there's MasterCard.”
• We can't leave the immortal bard gasping for inclusion. Here's Juliet, staring worriedly from her balcony. “O Romeo, Romeo, frankly, I'm puzzled. Wherefore art thou, Romeo?

Few have criticized what he does for a living as ferociously as Peters himself. “I say to people, ‘You got a bad deal, paying money to see me,’” he tells me. “I have utterly nothing new to say. I am simply going to remind you of what you’ve known since the age of 22 and in the heat of battle you forgot. You’d have to be one of those television preachers to believe that you’re going to work with a group of 500 people and change their lives. First of all, most of them agree with you. You’re not going to pay £1,000 [a head] to go and see someone if you think the guy’s a jerk.

“In a room of 500 managers, there are going to be four who are on the verge of doing something really interesting, whether inside or outside the company, and you simply give them the will. In American football terms, they are five yards short and you push them over the line. To claim anything more than that is grotesque egocentrism,” he says.

Fortified, I give him my best shot. Is management getting harder? “No,” he replies firmly – and in defiance of the conventional wisdom. But what about all that new technology, the end of deference, the increased pace of life, and the heightened expectations of employees? Doesn’t that all make management harder?

On the whole, Peters thinks not. We exaggerate the extent of change, he feels. It is the arrogance of modernity to believe that we face unique and unprecedented challenges. What people say now about the internet they used to say about the railways, the telegraph, the radio ...

We are in the midst of a fatigue epidemic that affects health, safety, productivity, and the bottom line. Sleep loss has been shown to increase our inflammatory and stress responses, which naps can bring back to normal levels.

It has been scientifically demonstrated that naps as short as five minutes long can improve alertness and certain memory processes. But the timing of naps is as important as their length. Imagine sleeping for just five minutes in the middle of the night and think about how you would feel upon waking. Probably pretty lousy. This is because all sleep is not equal. We are biologically programmed to sleep not only for a long period in the middle of the night but also for a short period in the middle of the day.

• Avoid caffeine (coffee, tea, soft drinks, chocolate) and nicotine (cigarettes, tobacco products) close to bedtime.
• Avoid alcohol as it can lead to disrupted sleep.
• Exercise regularly, but complete your workout at least 3 hours before bedtime.
• Establish a regular relaxing, not alerting, bedtime routine (e.g. taking a bath or relaxing in a hot tub).
• Create a sleep-conducive environment that is dark, quiet and preferably cool and comfortable.

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Now, I know lately I haven't done a very good job at creating controversy, and I'm sorry for that. You all have so much less to report. I guess that's why you're covering and commenting on my mood -- my quiet, contemplative moments; my feelings during these final months in office. (Laughter.) In that case, you might be interested to know that a film crew has been following me around the White House, documenting my remaining time there.

This is a strange time in the life of any administration, but I think this short film will show that I have come to terms with it. [5:56min]

Tyrants collect money and power, but they also amass bric-a-brac like the rest of us. What, if anything, do their material leanings signify?

Possible motives for collecting abound: compulsion, competition, exhibitionism, desire for immortality and the need for experts' approval.

Stephen Anderson, professor of neurology at the University of Iowa, has come closest to finding a biological basis for the yen to collect. In 2004 he showed that damage to an area of the prefrontal cortex can lead to hoarding—the pathological cousin of collecting. Anderson doubts that's the case with the dictators. "Most people who have injuries to this part of the brain are not going to be successful," he says, "even in a bad-guy way." Still, he wouldn't be surprised if the bad guys' neural wiring were somehow amiss.

	The Man: Saddam Hussein The Stash: Sci-fi fantasy paintings featuring menacing dragons and barely-clad blondes.
	The Man: Adolf Hitler The Stash: Bavarian 18th century furniture. Munich antique dealers were ordered to keep an eye out for him.
	The Man: Kim Jong Il The Stash: 20,000 videos (Daffy Duck cartoons, Star Wars, Liz Taylor and Sean Connery flicks)
	The Man: Idi Amin The Stash: Several racing cars and loads of old film reels of I Love Lucy reruns and Tom and Jerry cartoons
	The Man: Joseph Stalin The Stash: Westerns with Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and John Wayne. Stalin also inherited Joseph Goebbels's films.

"All of our research consistently shows that people in general have three goals at work. First is fairness. They want to feel that they're being recognized and rewarded fairly for what they contribute. Second is achievement. People want to be proud of the organization and of their place in it. And third, camaraderie, meaning good working relationships and a sense of belonging to a team. If these three goals are met, you have enthusiastic employees.

The trouble is that, in most companies, morale among new hires is high and then, by about the six-month point, it has dropped sharply. Management has destroyed it. One thing bad bosses do is to deliberately make people feel insecure about their jobs. Another is, treat employees like children or criminals instead of like responsible adults.

A sign of a really bad boss is micromanaging, which I define as devoting punitive amounts of attention to minutiae. We've seen workplaces where people have to raise their hands if they want to go to the restroom. Another sign of a bad boss is when you hear employees say that they get no positive feedback at all. A common complaint is, "If we make a mistake, we hear about it, but for doing our jobs well, there is never a 'thank you'.