Curious Minds at Work

What if you could make better decisions? Even with the biggest, life-altering choices, such as where to live, who to marry, or whether to start a company? Steven Johnson, author of the book, Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions that Matter the Most, thinks we often face decisions like this with little to no training and that we could use more tools in our decision-making toolbox.  Steven is the bestselling author of ten books, including Wonderland, How we Got to Now, Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, and Everything Bad is Good for You. He is also the host and creator of the PBS and BBC series How We Got to Now. When it comes to complex decision making, he thinks we can do better, and in this interview about his latest book, Farsighted, he shares strategic approaches to help us get there. In this interview we discuss: How our most important decisions are complex and life-defining yet our approach to them is often too simple and quick Why breaking complex decisions into steps can help us get started Why you may never use a simple pros and cons list again How mapping all the variables that influence your decision can provide more wisdom Why our decision-making blindspots actually limit the kinds of decisions we make The important role outsiders or non-experts can play in expanding options for decision making Why diverse teams make more intelligent, thoughtful decisions than homogeneous teams The important roles uncertainty and lack of confidence play in making smarter decisions Why we need to take the either-or option off the decision-making table How influence diagrams can help us map who might be influenced or impacted by our decisions How charrettes can ensure we’ll get feedback from diverse stakeholders Why it’s important to speak to group members individually when trying to make a thoughtful decision The important role daydreaming plays in predicting outcomes in decision making The characteristics and practices of the most accurate predictors Why it’s important to map the degree to which we’re uncertain as we make important decisions How an effective decision-making process can help us work our way into important insights that may never have occurred to us otherwise Why we should try value models over pros and cons lists How reading novels provides decision-making simulations that help us practice Why decision making may be one of the top five skills we need to learn Links to Episode Topics https://stevenberlinjohnson.com/ @stevenbjohnson How We Got to Now|PBS Collect Pond Pierre Charles L’Enfant Paul C. Nutt Highline in NYC Katherine W. Phillips Decisive by Dan and Chip Heath Influence diagram Charrette Simple Rules by Donald Sull Phillip E. Tetlock Thomas C. Schelling Value model Middlemarch by George Eliot If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings help others find their next podcast. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. And thank you for listening and sharing!

When we try to explain cultural differences, we often turn to descriptions of east versus west, rich versus poor or, in U.S. politics, red versus blue. But Michele Gelfand, author of the book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World, argues that we’re overlooking the most comprehensive explanation of all – how tightly or loosely we adhere to social norms. Michele is Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and her pioneering research into cultural norms has been cited in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Science, and on NPR. Drawing on decades of research conducted in over 50 countries, Michele shares how these cultural characteristics play out around the world. In this interview we discuss: How our unwritten rules of behavior are the glue that holds societies together How tight cultures typically have stronger social norms than their loose culture counterparts Just how early we begin to learn social norms – typically by the age of 3 How our social norms affect our behavior from morning to night How social norms can cause us to follow along even when we don’t agree Why they play an important role in what we can accomplish as a society The tradeoffs of tight versus loose cultures when it comes to creativity, safety, openness, and cooperation How disasters, diseases, and diversity serve as indicators of tight versus loose cultures The dynamic nature of tight and loose cultures in response to temporary vs long-term environmental threats The role of social status and power in relation to tight vs loose cultures The impact of organizational tightness versus looseness on the success of mergers and acquisitions Why we should seek tight-loose ambidexterity to accommodate change How culturally ambidextrous leaders are more successful than their rigid counterparts Times we might compromise or negotiate with others when it comes to tight vs loose How our social norms will influence robot behavior Links to Topics Mentioned in the Podcast @MicheleJGelfand https://www.michelegelfand.com/ Culture Lab Solomon Asch The Secret to Our Success by Joseph Heinrich Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me! Robert Levine The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle Fractal Betty Dukes Tom Curley The Muppets If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. And thank you for listening and sharing!

Gatherings play a big role in our lives. Weekly work meetings. Weddings. Holiday dinners. But over time, our gatherings can have a ho-hum feel. Priya Parker, author of the book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, thinks it doesn’t have to be that way. Priya is the founder of Thrive Labs, an organization that draws on her training and experience in conflict resolution, organizational design, and public policy to help others create transformative gatherings. From the momentous convening of the World Economic Forum to a light-hearted picnic in the park, she walks us through new ways of bringing people together, including who to invite, how many, and even how to start. In this interview we discuss: How the category of a gathering – like a wedding or networking event – should never supersede its purpose Why knowing why we’re meetings should drive everything else about the gathering How an innovative justice center in Red Hook, Brooklyn rethought its purpose for gathering in order to solve problems of poverty and crime Why the New York Times had to replace ritual with purpose in its infamous “Page One” meetings The kinds of questions we can ask when planning a meaningful gathering Why “the more the merrier” works against effective meetings The connection between purpose and the number of people we invite to a meeting Why we need to think about the ratio of meeting space to number of people attending The responsibilities a host has once the gathering begins How we can use simple rules to create the feeling of a temporary alternative world How to start a gathering (and how not to) How an activity like “15 Toasts” drives connection Why the end of a meeting is just as important as the beginning Why gathering is an act of courage, rather than an act of perfection Why we need to stop hiding as we plan and lead meetings of purpose  Links to Episode Topics @priyaparker Priya Parker’s website Red Hook Community Justice Center New York Times “Page One” Meeting Dean Baquet Jonathan Cook The Power of Moments by Dan and Chip Heath Young Presidents Association Presidio in San Francisco Alamo Drafthouse Cinema “I am here” days Jill Soloway Transparent 15 Toasts Ocean’s 11 movie If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. And thank you for listening and sharing!

Do we know what others think? What about our partners or closest friends? Nick Epley, author of the book, Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want, explains that we can read the minds of others, but not nearly as well as we think. In fact, we can barely read our own minds.  Nicholas Epley is Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His research has appeared in more than two dozen journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and his work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Wired, NPR, and on CNN. In this interview we discuss: The fact that we aren’t as good at understanding others -- even those closest to us -- as we think we are How our predictions of what a group thinks of us is are, on average, more accurate than what we think any one individual in that group thinks of us Why our confidence in how well we understand people we spend a lot of time with outstrips the accuracy with which we actually do understand them How the faster we decide what another person thinks can cause us to be that much more confident in our assessment, even if we’re wrong The gap between what we think we’ll do in a particular situation and the ways we behave when we’re actually in that situation How we’re really making up stories or guessing when we attempt to explain why we feel a certain way or take a particular action Why a surefire way to ensure we won’t understand others is to dismiss their capabilities, dehumanize them and, in general, distance ourselves from them How we can misunderstand others just by paying attention to different things or focusing on something else Why interpreting information differently from others -- seeing the same situation in a different way -- makes it difficult to understand their perspective How body language reveals much less than we assume when it comes to understanding what others are thinking The importance of perspective getting over perspective taking -- how we need to test out our understanding by asking the other person what their experience was like, listen to what they have to say and then repeat it back to ensure our understanding, rather than work from the stories we’ve made up in our minds How we’re happier connecting with strangers on trains, buses, and in cabs, though we predict we’d be happier if we kept to ourselves Links to Episode Topics Nicholas Epley at Chicago Booth Richard LaPiere The Influential Mind by Tali Sharot If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

What kind of self-talk can best help us achieve our goals? When we run into challenges, the voice inside our heads can be harsh and critical. Kristin Neff, Associate Professor in Human Development at the University of Texas, Austin, explains that this kind of self-talk does us more harm than good. What works instead, she says, is to speak to ourselves as we would to a close friend -- with kindness and understanding. Kristin is the author of the book, Self-compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. She is a pioneer in the research on self-compassion and first established it as a field of study almost a decade ago. She also makes it clear that we shouldn’t confuse self-compassion with self-pity or lowering our expectations. Instead, we should see it as a strategy that’s been proven effective for achieving our goals. In this interview we discuss: The important differences between sympathy, empathy and compassion How compassion shifts our response from understanding how someone feels -- being empathetic -- to taking action by providing care and support The important role mindfulness plays in allowing us to remain open to ourselves and others when difficult feelings arise The ways self-compassion gives us permission to be kind to ourselves and to show support and understanding, while recognizing our struggles are part of the human condition How self-compassion differs from self-pity and emotional self-indulgence Why self-compassion is more helpful than self-judgment or self-criticism as it allows us to view mistakes and failure as part of the learning process How asking ourselves, what would you say to a good friend in this situation, can shift our perspective from one of harshness and judgment to compassion The importance of recognizing that being human means we are imperfect, we will make mistakes, and difficult things will happen to us and to others -- that we are not alone How our self-talk - the kinds of things we say to ourselves, our inner voice - should be that of a supportive, caring friend rather than a harsh critic The importance of having our own back -- of having an inner ally --  and how that gives us the strength to cope with difficult things in life How veterans’ level of self-compassion was more predictive of whether or not they developed PTSD than how much combat they’d seen Why the advantage of self-compassion over self-esteem is that it is not dependent on our success or what others think of us How self-compassion gives us the freedom to cultivate a learning mindset because it frees us up to make mistakes and try again How self-compassion allows us to accepts ourselves without being complacent How “the texture of wisdom is gratitude” Links to Episode Topics @self_compassion Kristin Neff’s website Emiliana Simon-Thomas The Greater Good Science Center Chris Germer The Mindful Self-compassion Workbook by Kristin Neff and Chris Germer If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

When it comes to time, most of us feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Yet we’ve probably got more time than we think. It's just that the way to win back more hours is counterintuitive. That’s what Laura Vanderkam reveals in her latest book, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done. In it, she shares research on how our brains perceive time, interpret new experiences, and make memories. She explains how this knowledge can change our relationship with time, especially if we analyze how we spend it. Laura’s written 5 other books, including, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, and her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Fortune. Her TED Talk, How to Gain Control of Your Free Time, has been viewed over 5 million times, and she’s co-host of the podcast, Best of Both Worlds. In this interview we discuss: Why knowing how we spend our time helps us enjoy our down time that much more How tracking our time -- even for a few days -- gives us the data we need to be more mindful Why, to change our relationship with time, we need to take charge of it How a program that tracked a veteran school principal’s time helped him focus more of his attention on instruction How we can each make every day a "realistic ideal day" within the framework of our lives How one way to stretch time is to add more memorable activities into your life Why we need to manage our experiencing selves in order to make more memories that expand our sense of time How we can woo good memories to make our lives feel fuller and richer Why we should leave blank spaces in our calendars, so that we can reflect, slow down, and connect with others in the workplace How savoring increases our enjoyment of an experience as we plan something enjoyable, take the time to anticipate it and then share it with others How we can invest in our happiness by examining the pain points in our lives and, wherever possible, spending wisely to alleviate them How taking the time to exercise gives us energy to enjoy our time more Why taking time to reflect can help us step outside the stream of time so we can ask ourselves if we like how we’re spending it How a better-than-nothing goal, or BTN, can help us accomplish big goals by committing to small daily activities that add up over time, like writing 400 words or running one mile a day How spending time with the people in our lives expands our sense of time and means we should deliberately build time with others into our schedules A simple way of building a network over the course of a year by reaching out to one person a day with a question, a tip, or a helpful article or piece of information Episode Resources @lvanderkam https://lauravanderkam.com/ National SAM Innovation Project Daniel Kahneman Unsubscribe by Jocelyn Glei Fred Bryant 10 Steps to Savoring the Good Things in Life Molly Ford Beck Redbook If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

How do you feel about asking for help? For most of us, asking for help feels uncomfortable, mainly because we expect we’ll be rejected when we ask. Yet there's a good chance we're wrong. Heidi Grant, social psychologist and author of the book, Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You, explains that a lot more people want to help us than we tend to predict. It’s the way we ask for help that determines the result, and that’s where Heidi’s practical tips can make all the difference. Heidi is Chief Science Officer of the NeuroLeadership Institute and Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at Columbia University. She’s the author of a number of books, including No One Understands You and What to Do about It and Nine Things Successful People Do Differently. In this interview we discuss: How our brains process social pain -- rejection, exclusion, not feeling valued or respected -- using some of the same areas of the brain as physical pain Why fears of social pain -- rejection, exclusion, not feeling valued or respected -- can prevent us from asking for help How we’re twice as likely to get help from strangers as we think -- we tend to underestimate how much others want to help us How we often underestimate the likelihood that someone will help is because we focus on how onerous the task is We also underestimate the social cost of someone saying no to our request How helping others feeds into a desire to connect and feel good about supporting someone else in their work There are three responses we can have when someone asks for our help: (1) no; (2) yes, but I don’t want to because I have to; and (3) yes, and I want to and it feels rewarding When you ask for help, don’t make it weird by being overly apologetic -- it makes the helper feel uncomfortable How offering a reward can make the helper feel like it’s an exchange or a transaction rather than something they’d want to do for you How offering a reward for someone’s help can shift the motivation they have from wanting to help for the sake of helping to wanting to help only if they get something in return Why we should ask again even if someone has already turned us down -- especially if they’ve turned us down - because they often feel guilty and will want to help the next time How we may not be getting the help we need because we aren’t letting others know we need their help -- they may be completely unaware The fact that nothing goes without saying, since others can’t read our minds to know we need their help The fact that someone may want to help but holds off so as not to offend Why we should be specific in asking for what we need and in asking the right person, rather than making general asks to a group of people Why your requests to meet up with someone just to pick their brain or chat may not be getting you the results you want Why it’s so helpful to communicate what you have in common with the person whose help you’re requesting, like shared goals, experiences, or identities How others are more inclined to help when they’re aware of the impact they’ll be having Why it’s so important to go the extra mile to make the help you seek rewarding to the other person -- that way it’s a win-win for both of you Episode Links  http://www.heidigrantphd.com/ @heidigrantphd NeuroLeadership Institute Motivation Science Center at Columbia Business School Reach by Andy Molinsky Illusion of transparency Diffusion of responsibility If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

In times of rapid change, people who can think creatively are invaluable. Leonard Mlodinow, author of the book, Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change, calls this type of thinking elastic. It is a bottom up approach that unleashes new ideas, and he believes anyone can employ it, since it is innate to us. Leonard’s previous books include Subliminal (winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award), The Drunkard’s Walk (a New York Times Notable Book) and The Grand Design with Stephen Hawking. He’s also written for the TV Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation. During our conversation he shares more about what elastic thinking is, why we need to cultivate it, and concrete ways to do just that. In this interview we discuss: Elastic thinking as a way of making new or breaking already-established rules, as well as framing or reframing problems The fact that we need elastic thinking now more than ever in a world of rapid change How bottom up thinking serves as the basis for artificial intelligence and machine learning Why humans, with our 100 billion neurons, still outdo computers when it comes to elastic thinking How our point of view can preclude us from solving a problem, so that we constantly need to challenge our hidden assumptions, in order to see things differently Ways to broaden our thinking include asking about the least popular dish at a restaurant and then trying it, talking to people not normally in our social circles, questioning a strongly held belief, and thinking about times we made a mistake How giving our brains down time to make associations, generate ideas and relax our mental filters can improve our problem-solving abilities Episode Links @lmlodinow http://leonardmlodinow.com/ Encyclopedia Britannica Wikipedia Caltech Ellen Langer The Net and the Butterfly by Olivia Fox Cabane and Judah Pollack Natural neural networks Google translate Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Doolittle Raid If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Tech addictions don’t just happen to certain kinds of people. Increasingly we’re finding they can happen to any of us. In today’s technology-rich world, many of us check our phones obsessively, binge watch television programs and pour over social media. Author and New York University Professor Adam Alter calls this behavioral addiction, an area of psychology he’s studied in relation to the irresistible games, apps and other software that compel us to play, watch, read, and respond. Adam is author of the book, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, and Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He’s also author of the New York Times bestseller, Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces that Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave, and he’s written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Atlantic, WIRED, and Slate. In this interview we discuss: How advances in the fields of psychology and design have made our tech so much harder to resist The fact that most of us dramatically underestimate how much time we spend online and how little joy it often brings us How the presence of an iPhone on a table undermines our ability to connect The fact that our tech-rich work, travel and home environments actually set us up for addiction Why screen time poses a threat to children’s ability to learn empathy How addiction is a form of learning where a seemingly pleasurable activity becomes a learned behavior Important research on want vs like when it comes to addiction How tech designers take advantage of the destructive and addictive side of goal achievement How breaking goals into small steps helps us feel success daily, rather than failure until the larger goal is achieved Why the lack of natural break points in online articles and programming sets us up for addictive online behaviors How tech and online designers tap into our preoccupation with closing loops and completing tasks to hook us Why it is so important that we carve out daily time to put our tech away How we wouldn't give most people the ability to interrupt us, yet we continually give our tech that power Episode Links @adamleealter Adam Alter Kevin Holesh and Moment app Your Smartphone Reduces Your Brainpower, Even If It’s Just Sitting There by Robinson Meyer Technology Addiction - How Should It Be Treated? Lee Robins’ Studies of Heroin Use Among U.S. Vietnam Veterans James Olds Peter Milner Reward system Deep Work by Cal Newport Aryeh Routtenberg Kent Berridge Natasha Dow Schull Scott Adams on systems vs goals Benjamin Franklin and the to-do list Social comparison theory Zeigarnik Effect - Bluma Zeigarnik - cliffhanger The Sopranos The Italian Job Angry Birds by Rovio American Academy of Pediatrics If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Unhappiness at work is at an all-time high. While some might blame bad attitudes or a lack of motivation, Daniel Cable offers another perspective. He believes that the routines of the modern workplace are simply out of step with how our brains are wired to explore and experiment. Daniel Cable is Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School and author of the book, Alive at Work: The Neuroscience of Helping Your People Love What They Do. He believes our biological urge to learn and discover is what’s needed in today’s fast-paced work world. He also thinks that the organizations that will most benefit from it are those willing to redesign how they operate. In this interview we discuss: How our brain’s urge to explore and discover is an asset in today’s workplaces The fact that most workplaces fail to tap into our innate abilities to innovate and problem solve The kinds of rewards organizations might gain for customers, workplace cultures, and the bottom line by tapping into what our seeking systems innately crave How our brain’s reward system is triggered when others take the time to understand our perspective and unique strengths How trying something new and novel also triggers our brain’s reward system Why it’s so important for us to see the impact of our work on others -- to understand our purpose How our seeking system is a feature and not the bug that Henry Ford believed it to be as he built scalable systems for repetitive work How fear in the workplace can create learned helplessness The fact that play is an important way for us to learn what we are capable of Why encouraging employees to bring their best selves to work significantly increases their long-term retention and engagement, while also increasing customer delight How team members problem solve more effectively when they share in advance when they have been at their best Why it’s so important that leaders be willing to learn from employee experimentation, since it may not always go as planned -- and that’s part of the learning process How servant or humble leadership works best in supporting employees’ desire to explore, discover, and innovate How the role of the leader is to get the most out of their people at work by providing resources, removing obstacles, modeling psychological safety and modeling a growth mindset How our perceived resistance to change flies in the face of our building flying machines and developing cures for diseases and so much more Episode Links @DanCable1 Dan Cable Dan-cable.com Jaak Panksepp Ventral striatum KPIs Martin Seligman Henry Ford Frederick Taylor In the Lab of Happy Rats video - Jaak Panksepp Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi How to Activate Your Best Self and What Happens When You Do by Dan Cable Wipro Harvard Kennedy School Let Your Workers Rebel by Francesca Gino William B. Swann Jeffrey T. Polzer Osteria Francescana and Massimo Bottura Creative Change by Jennifer Mueller KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and KLM Surprise and KLM’s ‘Adios Amigos’ Tweet Servant leadership The Power Paradox by Dacher Keltner Growth mindset and Carol Dweck If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!