By nature, human beings are illogical and irrational.

survival meant thinking quickly, not methodically. Making a life-saving decision was more important than making a 100% accurate one, so the human brain developed an array of mental shortcuts.

these shortcuts -- called cognitive biases or heuristics -- are numerous and innate.

If you want to optimize the impacts of your global development organization, I can’t stress enough the value of in-depth communications made possible when nonprofit leaders prioritize local language skills. Language skills need to be a priority for international nonprofits and should be something that is invested in. While for some organizations, making language fluency a prerequisite for employment may be a good idea, language is something that can always be learned. I have seen organizations provide their staff with three months of language classes as part of their initial orientations. Good language skills lead to better community engagement and can avoid the potential for things to get lost in translation.