Curious Minds at Work

Can we achieve greater success in life by choosing to generalize rather than to specialize? If you want to be the best at something, the story goes something like this: Begin as early as you can. Focus on nothing else. And practice as if your life depends on it. It’s the story we associate with sports heroes and chess grandmasters. But David Epstein, author of the book, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, argues that this story is incomplete. It never mentions the fact that activities like chess and golf take place in “kind” learning environments, where learners have perfect information, operate with clear goals, and experience immediate feedback. In contrast, most of us operate in what are called “wicked” environments. There, as David explains, “…not all information is clear. People don’t wait for each other to take turns. . . Goals may be unclear. Feedback may be intermittent, nonexistent . . . it may be inaccurate and it may be delayed.” David also reveals that many top performers were not, in fact, specialists from an early age. They were generalists who took the time to explore multiple paths, and many delayed choosing a focus until they found the right fit: “They pinballed around . . . They didn’t focus on the long term . . . Instead, they said here’s who I am right now, here are the skills I have, here’s what I want to learn, here are the opportunities in front of me right now…” David has worked as an investigative reporter for ProPublica and a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. His first book was the bestseller, The Sports Gene. The Host You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen, and Producer, Rob Mancabelli, by visiting @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net. Episode Links David Epstein and Malcolm Gladwell on 10,000 Hours vs The Sports Gene What the Childhood Years of Tiger Woods and Roger Federer Can Teach Us about Success by David Epstein The Two Settings of Kind and Wicked Learning Environments by Robin M. Hogarth, Tomas Lejarraga, and Emre Soyer Gary A. Klein Daniel Kahneman on adversarial collaborations Flynn effect Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to Professors by Scott E. Carrell and James E. West Recent Research on Human Learning Challenges Conventional Instructional Strategies by Doug Rohrer and Harold Pashler on spacing, interleaving and testing Structure Mapping in Analogy and Similarity by Dedre Gentner and Arthur B. Markman Integrated Science Program at Northwestern University Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader by Herminia Ibarra Beware the “Inside View” by Daniel Kahneman Here is What It Takes to Become a CEO, According to 12,000 LinkedIn Profiles How Scientists Think by Kevin Dunbar Drop Your Tools: An Allegory for Organizational Studies by Karl E. Weick You Don’t Want a Child Prodigy by David Epstein on headstarts and falling behind The Darkhorse Project What You’ll Wish You’d Known by Paul Graham includes concept of premature optimization Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder is 45 by Pierre Azoulay, Benjamin Jones, J. Daniel Kim, and Javier Miranda Jhumpa Lahiri on Writing in Italian by Cressida Leyshon Simple Ways to Support the Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, there are three simple ways you can support our work. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You’ll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping listeners find their next podcast. Look for the Curious Minds podcast on: Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

What if we entered negotiations with the goal of benefitting both sides, not just ours? For many, the word negotiation conjures up images of a heated exchange, of master manipulators, expert wordsmiths, and of winners and losers. Victors earn the spoils by outsmarting opponents and preying on their weaknesses. It’s a daunting picture. But Brian Gunia, author of the book, The Bartering Mindset: A Mostly Forgotten Framework for Mastering Your Next Negotiation, shows that this mindset is not only short-sighted, but can also be ineffective. He argues that we’d be much more successful – and enjoy the negotiation process more – if we spent as much time thinking of the other person’s needs as our own. He encourages us to “…think about negotiations not as opportunities to fight with the other side about one fixed outcome, like money, but as the opportunity to find issues to trade things with the other side that benefit both of us at the same time.” Brian is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School. His research has been featured in publications like Fast Company, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker. In this interview, he shares his five-step process for applying a bartering mindset to our next negotiation and explains why it works: “…negotiators who spend more time and make more of an effort to figure out what’s going on in the other side’s head, tend to do a lot better.” The Host You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen, and Producer, Rob Mancabelli, by visiting @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net. Episode Links @briangunia Mindwise by Nicholas Epley Distributive versus integrative negotiation Double coincidence of wants Multiple equivalent simultaneous offers (MESOs) and their benefits Simple Ways to Support the Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, there are three simple ways you can support our work. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You’ll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping listeners find their next podcast. A Short List of Places Where You Can Find Curious Minds: Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

How can paying more attention to the world around us increase our engagement and creativity? Most of us are fighting a daily tug-of-war with distraction – from phone alerts to streaming video to open office plans. Yet, when it comes to what we can do about it, we're mainly encouraged to manage our tech and prioritize productivity. Rob Walker offers a different goal, along with a very different set of solutions. Author of the book, The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday, he contends that our lives become richer when we engage more fully with the world around us. In fact, he reveals what most creatives already know, namely, that paying attention to the everyday can refuel us: “It’s kind of just a basic building block of having a distinct point of view or creating something new or coming up with an innovation of almost any kind.” In this interview, Rob shares practices we can use to become more observant and more connected. One example involves taking a moment to notice which phase the moon is in: “Most people have no idea, which is kind of astonishing, because there was a time when everyone on the planet knew what phase the moon was in.” Rob is a columnist for Life Hacker and contributor to The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, and Bloomberg Businessweek. He’s also author of the books, Buying In and Significant Objects, and he serves on the faculty at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. The Host You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen, and Producer, Rob Mancabelli, by visiting @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net. Episode Links @notrobwalker School of Visual Arts in Manhattan The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu and link to my interview with him A Painting Only You Can See by Randy Kennedy Davy Rothbart and Found Magazine John Cage and 4’33” Marcel Duchamp and the concept of Infrathin On Looking by Alexander Horowitz Roman Mars 99% Invisible The SLANT method Letters to Strangers Rick Prelinger Ian Bogost Easy Ways to Support the Podcast First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You’ll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping listeners find their next podcast. A Short List of Places Where You Can Find Curious Minds: Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

How can we ensure we not only respect people’s dignity, but also protect our own? Violations of dignity lie at the heart of many conflicts, from the global stage to the corner office. Yet, dignity is a concept we rarely discuss. Donna Hicks, author of the book, Leading with Dignity: How to Create a Culture that Brings out the Best in People, believes it all starts with understanding the difference between dignity and respect: “Respect is something that has to be earned, whereas dignity is something that each and every one of us deserves. We are born with it.” Drawing on her extensive experience in international conflict resolution, and insights from psychology and neuroscience, she shares the essential elements of dignity and how to respond effectively when our dignity is violated. And she explains the importance of learning these skills in today’s workplace. In this interview, Donna also reveals how past behavior can prevent us from leading with dignity: “If you want to lead your life with dignity, one of the things that I think gets in the way of that is feeling ashamed and embarrassed by the ways in which we’ve violated people’s dignity.” Donna is a conflict resolution specialist who has facilitated diplomatic efforts in the Middle East and other high-conflict regions. She’s also an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Her first book is titled, Dignity: Its Essential Role in Resolving Conflict. The Host You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net. Episode Links @drdonnahicks Nelson Mandela and Archibishop Desmond Tutu Start with Why by Simon Sinek What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team by Charles Duhigg The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson An Everyone Culture by Robert Kegan No Hard Feelings by Lis Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy, Episode 124 of Curious Minds William James’ I vs Me Barbara Frederickson Simple Ways to Support the Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, there are three simple ways you can support our work. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You’ll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping listeners find their next podcast. A Short List of Places Where You Can Find Curious Minds: Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

We all have trouble changing our habits, but the problem isn’t us, it’s our systems. Whether we want to adopt good habits or avoid bad ones, we need to think beyond willpower or setting bigger goals. Instead, James Clear, author of the book, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, argues that the secret is designing a system of small, repeatable habits. He challenges us to ask ourselves, “How can we make these small changes that we layer on top of each other – these little 1% improvements or tiny advantages – and in the process of integrating them all into a larger system, end up making some really remarkable progress?” Through compelling stories and brain research, James teaches us how to design game-changing habits and sustainable systems. In addition, he shares ways we can leverage environmental factors and addictive tendencies to our advantage. Finally, he helps us see how a commitment to daily habits leads to the identity we seek: “Every action you take is like a vote for the person that you want to become. Doing one push up or writing one sentence or reading one page, it’s not going to transform you right away. But it does cast a vote for being that kind of person, for reinforcing that kind of identity.” James is an author and speaker focused on habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Entrepreneur, and on CBS This Morning. The Host You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net. Episode Links @JamesClear James’ article on British cycling and marginal gains: This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing by 1 Percent and Here’s What Happened James’ article on identity and habits: Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to Your Goals This Year The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg Hooked by Nir Eyal The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey Point and Call safety system in Japan (video) Habit Scorecard James’ article on habits and environment: How to Improve Your Health and Productivity Without Thinking Stick with It by Sean Young James’ article on motion versus action: The Mistake Smart People Make: Being in Motion vs. Taking Action Simple Ways to Support the Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, there are three simple ways you can support our work. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You’ll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping listeners find their next podcast. A Short List of Places to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

What if there were a better way for us to think through life’s riskiest decisions? That’s where Allison Schrager comes in. She’s the author of the book, An Economist Walks into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk. An economist, journalist at Quartz, and cofounder of LifeCycle Finance Partners, she led retirement product innovation at Dimensional Fund Advisors and consulted for international organizations, including the OECD and the IMF. Allison has also been a regular contributor to The Economist and Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and she teaches at New York University. For her book, Alison spent time with high-risk professionals, like big-wave surfers, movie producers, and sex workers. She learned how they manage risk and shares what we can learn from them. Along the way, she learned some surprising things about herself, like what it felt like to play in her first poker tournament: “We start at 8:00, and it’s like midnight, and I’m like ‘When does this game end?’ And people are like ‘When you run out of chips.’ And I’m like, oh my god, I’m going to be here forever.” When it comes to risk, Allison believes we can learn to overcome our biases and manage risk effectively. She explains, “There’s been so many books [on the topic] …but they always write everyone off as being sort of hopeless when it comes to risk or thinking probabilistically, and I really believe everyone has it in them.” You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net. Episode Links Moonlite BunnyRanch and Dennis Hof Kat Cole and Focus Brands Film producer, Ryan Kavanaugh Idiosyncratic risk versus systematic risk Top poker player, Phil Hellmuth, and poker staking How Luck Happens by Janice Kaplan and Barnaby Marsh Gerd Gigerenzer Arnold Donald and IoT and AI with Carnival cruises David Bowie Magician Belinda Sinclair Robert C. Merton Big Wave Risk Assessment Group H. R. McMaster Simple Ways to Support the Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, there are three simple ways you can support our work. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You’ll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping listeners find their next podcast. A Short List of Places Where You Can Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

Unconscious racial bias can influence what we see, what we do, and what we remember. These are topics that Jennifer Eberhardt, author of the book, Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, has been studying for over twenty years. In one of her studies, participants were shown either black or white human faces and then asked to identify a crime-related versus a neutral object. She found that, “black faces facilitated the detection of the crime object, whereas the white faces inhibited their detection of those very same crime objects.” Jennifer’s research led her to work with police departments, prison inmates, and companies. In each case, she couples awareness instruction with actions people can take. For example, she helped one company address online bias in reporting suspicious people in their neighborhood by shifting their response from “if you see something, say something” to “if you see something suspicious, say something specific.” Jennifer is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a recipient of a 2014 MacArthur “genius grant.” She has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers. She is co-founder and co-director of SPARQ, a Stanford "do tank" that brings together researchers and practitioners to address significant social problems. The Host You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net. Episode Links Blindspot by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald Language from Police Body Language Footage Shows Racial Disparities in Officer Respect Scientific racism Jennifer’s 2014 MacArthur Fellow video The Racist Trope that Won’t Die by Brent Staples When Resumes are Made ‘Whiter’ to Please Potential Employers by Bourree Lam Whitened Resumes: Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market by Sonia K. Kang, Katherine A. DeCelles, Andras Tilcsik, and Sora Jun Simple Ways to Support the Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, there are three simple ways you can support our work. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You’ll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping listeners find their next podcast. A Short List of Places Where You Can Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

Are we making our own decisions or are machine learning algorithms making them for us? Kartik Hosanagar, author of the book, A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay in Control, explains that algorithms are merely a set of steps for making decisions. Yet he points out that artificial intelligence has become so pervasive in our lives that we’re often unaware of just how many decisions machines are making on our behalf: “The algorithms [are] driving 70-80% of the choices that people [make]…[But] if we asked people how much of your choices are driven by algorithms, they might say maybe 10-20%. We think we are…choosing…but in reality, they are curating our world for us.” In this interview, we talk about what companies should be asked to reveal about their algorithms. We also discuss why we need to educate ourselves about how they work. We also discuss some of the unexpected research findings that arise when machines learn from each other, rather than humans. For example, in one study, a surprising thing happened as machines were learning how to negotiate: Karthik explains that “…the bots were negotiating with each other using words and sentences that made almost no sense to the researchers. The bots had figured out a secret code to communicate with each other that was allowing them to communicate more efficiently.” Kartik Hosanagar is Professor of Technology and Digital Business and Professor of Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. His writing has appeared in Wired, Forbes, and the Harvard Business Review. Episode Links @KHosanagar Irresistible by Adam Alter Reporter Carole Cadwalladr’s The Guardian article on Google search bias regarding Jews A more recent article on Google search algorithm bias Kevin Gibbs and the Google autocomplete origin story Code of Hammurabi Jennifer Logg and her work on algorithmic and human judgment Berkeley Dietvost, Joe Simmons and Cade Massey’s paper on our how humans avoid algorithms after they make errors Rene Kizilcec’s paper on the effects of transparency on trust when it comes to algorithms James Barrat You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net. If you enjoy the podcast, there are three simple things you can do to support our work. First, subscribe. That way you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You'll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping others find their next podcast. A Short List of Places Where You Can Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

How can we change boring, unproductive meetings into gatherings no one would want to miss? Many of us dread meetings, even when we’re the ones leading them! But there are steps we can take to make them great – steps Steven Rogelberg, author of the book, The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance,has been studying for over two decades. Though some argue we should get rid of meetings, Steven sees them as essential: “The elimination of meetings is a false goal. Without meetings, employee voice is quieted. Your ability to coordinate, communicate and truly engage in consensus decision making – they’re all compromised without meetings. . . the true goal is to eliminate bad meetings.” In this interview, Steven shares simple approaches we can take to make meetings great. He offers tips on how to structure meetings to achieve our goals, how to determine who needs to attend, and how to manage meeting energy. For example, he recommends shifting our next meeting agenda from a list of topics to a set of questions. By doing this, he explains, “Now you are actually very clear. You will be done with this meeting when these questions are answered.” Steven is an award-winning Professor of Organizational Science, Management, and Psychology at the University of North Carolina. His work has been profiled by the Los Angeles Times, Harvard Business Review, and the Wall Street Journal, and he’s worked with organizations such as IBM, TIAA and Procter & Gamble. Episode Links @stevenrogelberg Meeting recovery syndrome The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker Parkinson’s Law Klaxoon Steven’s book was listed as the #1 leadership book to watch in 2019 in the Washington Post and the #1 business book everyone will be reading in Business Insider You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net. If you enjoy the podcast, there are three ways you can support the work we do. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member, so you’ll always have someone to talk to about it. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe, so you can help listeners find their next podcast. Look for the Curious Minds podcast on: Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

What if the secret to getting unstuck isn’t the right answer, but the right question? Hal Gregersen, author of the book, Questions are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life, came to this conclusion after interviewing over 200 high-impact leaders. Through these conversations, he learned they were asking a different kind of question, one he calls catalytic. In this interview, he explains that these kinds of questions “…challenge an assumption that is fundamentally false in a way that provides me and perhaps others around me energy and motivation to do something about it.” Along the way, Hal’s found that these kinds of questions can help us get unstuck in all aspects of our lives. For example, Hal shares the story of a leader lamenting the distance he feels in his relationship with a teenage daughter. After spending just four minutes on a catalytic questioning activity called a “question burst,” this same leader made a starting realization: “At the beginning of the conversation…I was so focused on how to not lose her…But I was asking the wrong question. I really need to figure out how to help her grow and flourish…[to] let her find her.” Hal is the Executive Director of the MIT Leadership Center and a senior lecturer in leadership and innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He’s authored or co-authored ten books, including the bestseller, The Innovator’s DNA with Clay Christensen and Jeff Dyer. Episode Links Andreas Heinecke and Dialogue in the Dark Using Catalytic Questioning to Solve Significant Problems by Hal Gregersen Sociologist Amitai Etzioni Debby Sterling and Goldieblox More information on question bursts in this HBR article by Hal The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson Video clip of Ed Catmull explaining Pixar’s Brain Trust Creative Clarity by Jon Kolko Lior Div and Cybereason Video clip of Jeff Wilke Walt Bettinger Marc Benioff Bea Perez Room 13 If you enjoy the podcast, here are three ways you can support the work we do. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member, so you’ll always have someone to talk to about it. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe, so you can help listeners find their next podcast. You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net.