The Value of Asking Good Questions

In today's conversation, I am joined by Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, an international authority in psychological profiling, talent management, leadership development, and people analytics. His commercial work focuses on the creation of science-based tools that improve organizations' ability to predict performance, and people's ability to understand themselves. He is currently the Chief Innovation Officer at Manpower Group, co-founder of Deeper Signals and Metaprofiling, and Professor of Business Psychology at University College London and Columbia University. He has previously held academic positions at New York University and the London School of Economics and lectured at Harvard, Stanford, and London Business Schools, Johns Hopkins, IMD, and INSEAD, as well as being the co-founder and CEO of BrazenX and the CEO at Hogan Assessment Systems.

 Dr. Tomas has written 11 books and over 150 scientific papers on the psychology of talent, leadership, innovation, and AI, making him one of the most prolific social scientists of his generation. His work has received awards by the American Psychological Association, the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, and the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology, to which he is a Fellow. Dr. Tomas is also the founding director of University College London's IndustrialOrganizational and Business Psychology program, and the Chief Psychometric Advisor to Harvard's Entrepreneurial Finance Lab.

 Over the past 20 years, he has consulted to a range of clients. His media career comprises over 100 TV appearances and he is a keynote speaker for the Institute of Economic Affairs. I am so beyond delighted and honored that he is joining me on the show today to discuss his newest book, I, Human.

• [00:43] In today's conversation, I am joined by Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, an international authority in psychological profiling, talent management, leadership development, and people analytics. 
• [01:41] Dr. Tomas has written 11 books and over 150 scientific papers on the psychology of talent, leadership, innovation, and AI. 
• [04:07] Dr. Tomas shares his experience, his work, and how he found himself doing the work he does now. His background is in psychology.
• [06:37] It is generally more useful to be smarter than not, but there are many other things that contribute to peoples’ success in any area of life.
• [09:33] Very sought after strengths can come with limitations and turn into weaknesses if overused. 
• [12:24] Humans are naturally tribal and we want to construct very coherent identities. With that comes the subjective experience that we belong to some groups and we don’t belong to others. 
• [13:21] We also strive to feel very rational and consistent. It is a lot simpler and generally more pleasant to hold attitudes, beliefs, and values that are compatible with each other. 
• [15:07] So much of this world can be changed or modified a little bit if we convince people to spend time with others who don’t think like them. 
• [17:34] We tend to pick leaders based on their confidence instead of their competence. (Dunning-Kruger Effect)
• [18:11] A surplus of confidence really dilutes self awareness. The better you think you are at something the worse you probably are at that thing.
• [20:39] Instead of blaming women for not behaving overconfidently (more like the often incompetent men who move forward when they don’t have the talents to back it up). We should instead stop falling for men who do that. 
• [21:47] If leadership selection was gender blind you would end up with 60-65% of women in charge because of things like emotional intelligence, heart skills, qualifications, and absence of dark side traits. The actual frequency is 80-20 in favor of men.
• [23:37] Gender diversity and inclusion interventions have become more data driven in the last five years. 
• [26:13] The entire world seems to be talking about Chat GPT. Tomas shares how that relates to his new book, I Human. 
• [29:02] Three avenues to protect and preserve our expertise are to focus more on asking questions, really pick one or two areas of expertise that you invest in, and go from insights to actions.  
• [30:42] Machines and technologies have always pushed us to upgrade ourselves. 
• [33:30] In the book he answers the question of what it means to be human in this day and age when all the focus is on artificial intelligence and machines are clearly evolving and advancing. 
• [34:59] The book has two parts. The first part highlights some of the worst behaviors that we have already seen humans display as a consequence of being so dependent on AI and related technologies. 
• [37:25] The second and last parts of the book are a request for us to rediscover and reclaim the qualities that make us special, unique, and different from machines. 
• [39:45] The shift really needs to be much more prominent from teaching information to teaching skills, behaviors, and ethics. 
• [41:33] Organizations, nonprofits, institutions, governments, and societies need to sort out the issue of reskilling and upskilling so people are not made useless or redundant. 
• [43:45] Businesses should find ways to really humanize work in the age of machines and AI is really important. 
• [44:56] Find the time to ask questions. Don’t take facts at face value. Focus on the things that you find interesting and useful. 
• [47:31] Melina’s closing thoughts 
• [49:26] A forced shift in teaching methods and how we test knowledge and show intelligence isn’t inherently bad. There are some real opportunities there. 
• [52:42] Try to understand your own brain’s tendencies and not believe everything you hear, see, or read. Find ways to do your own fact-checking whenever possible. 

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Get the Books Mentioned on (or related to) this Episode:

• I, Human, by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
• Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How To Fix It), by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
• Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely
• Both/And Thinking, by Wendy Smith & Marianne Lewis
• Beautiful Questions in the Classroom, by Warren Berger

Connect with Tomas: 

• Tomas’ Website
• Tomas on Twitter

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