Curious Minds at Work

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!

Neuroscientist Tali Sharot discusses how to change minds without facts. She explores confirmation bias, seeking like-minded opinions, and how expertise influences belief acceptance. Starting with common ground can lead to successful persuasion by creating a sense of similarity and understanding others' perspectives.

We all know people who seem especially lucky or, in some cases, unlucky. Janice Kaplan wondered whether this was due to random chance or luck overlooked, so she co-authored the book, How Luck Happens: Using the Science of Luck to Transform Work, Love, and Life. In writing the book, she learned how we can tilt the scales in our favor, even in cases where the odds are long. Janice is the former editor in chief of Parade magazine and author of 13 popular books, including the New York Times bestseller, The Gratitude Diaries. In this interview we discuss: How there are aspects of luck within our control How a winning combination of talent, hard work, and knowing your goals can increase your luck How optimism and a belief in making our own luck makes good things happen Why an optimistic mindset ensures we will apply the effort it takes to make our own luck Why we need to toggle between focused and wide-ranging attention to see events as opportunities What it means to choose the statistic we want to be How we can put ourselves in a position where luck can find us The fact that our weak ties have a greater chance of helping us achieve our goals Why we may need to zig versus zag or try out a different lane to be successful How revisiting what we thought of as dead ends can help us see new possibilities Why goals and knowing what we want are paramount to making our own luck How lucky breaks can actually be small events that make a big difference if we know how to take full advantage of them Why it can be helpful to navigate life with a compass, rather than a map The key role curiosity plays in helping us do things differently in order to make a lucky moment out of something that does not seem that way at first   Episode Links Barnaby Marsh Martin Seligman Doug Rauch Lara Galinsky Mike Darnell American Idol Steven Strogatz Six degrees of separation Joi Ito 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 we build remarkable teams, the kind that are more than the sum of their parts? Daniel Coyle answers that question in his latest book, The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. After talking to some of the greatest teams, such as the Navy Seals, IDEO, the San Antonio Spurs, and Pixar, Dan found a replicable pattern of three behaviors shared by these dynamic cultures. They each actively work to (1) Build Safety, (2) Share Vulnerability and (3) Establish Purpose. Dan shares how our teams can do this, too. Dan is also the author of The Talent Code, The Little Book of Talent, The Secret Race, and Hardball: A Season in the Projects. In this interview we discuss: Why certain groups add up to way more than the sum of their parts What kindergartners can teach us about group performance How status management undermines group performance How culture is something we do, not something we are Why culture is about moving together toward a common goal The three key skills of group performance - vulnerability, safety, and purpose How bad apples chip away at psychological safety and derail groups Why we need to be intolerant of brilliant jerks The outsized impact of warmth as a counter to negativity Key indicators of high-performing groups, like rapid speech, light physical touch, laughter, and high energy, which indicated safety and connection The incredible value of collective intelligence in groups as they share information, problem solve, and connect the dots Why belonging cues are so powerful for group performance How great coaches, like Gregg Popovich, exude curiosity and care for their teams The role emotional control can play in supporting team members How Navy Seals use the vulnerability loop to amplify team safety and boost performance How an after-action review - a discussion of what went right, what went wrong, and what will happen next time -- helps teams improve performance The value of warm candor - telling a hard truth but emphasizing connection - over brutal honesty Why cheesy catch phrases can be stronger indicators of group performance than we might think Why we should focus on the first five seconds when we interact with someone for the first time, especially when it comes to our energy level, eye contact, facial expressions, and engagement How asking our team members about one thing we should keep on doing and one thing we should stop doing can help us get better at what we do Episode Links Navy Seals IDEO San Antonio Spurs Gregg Popovich Pixar Peter Skillman Alexander Pentland Sociometer Collective intelligence The Captain Class by Sam Walker Draper Kauffman Gramercy Tavern Danny Meyer Laszlo Bock 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 sets top workplace performers apart? To answer this question, Morten Hansen, Professor at University of California, Berkeley, studied over 5,000 U.S. corporate employees for his book, Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More. Through his research, he found that top performers engage in 7 key practices that explain 66 percent of the differences in their level of performance. Co-author with Jim Collins of the highly acclaimed book, Great by Choice, Morten is also the author of the book, Collaboration, and he has been ranked one of the most influential global management thinkers by Thinkers50. In this interview we discuss: Why working longer hours is not enough to achieve high levels of performance How seven work-smart practices can explain 66 percent of the differences between top performers and their peers Why we need to do less and then obsess to produce exceptional work How an obsession with sled dogs led one explorer to reach the South Pole before his highly competitive and well-resourced peer Why Jiro, the famous sushi maker, is one of the best examples of someone who does less and obsesses his way to a Michelin star The key question employees need to ask their bosses in order to do less and obsess: which of these projects is of the highest priority for achieving our goals? How a lack of prioritization can be the linchpin to doing less and obsessing over it to provide key value How a high school principal architected a work redesign that epitomizes what it means to start with delivering value and then determining goals The value of redesigning our work without spending more or adding staff Why our goals should emerge from the value we seek to deliver How focus on fewer work projects allows you to ask deeper questions and provide more value Why a focus on passion and purpose allows us to contribute more than passion alone The fact that the goal of collaboration is better performance, not better collaboration Why we need to avoid over collaborating and under collaborating and, instead, focus on disciplined collaboration to achieve our goals How small changes can help us achieve big results, especially when it comes to focusing more, saying no to some things, setting better priorities, and collaborating more strategically Episode Links Robert Falcon Scott Roald Amundsen Jiro Dreams of Sushi Psyched Up by Dan McGinn A Flipped School and Greg Green Hartman Goertz and Tangier Terminal Berkeley Executive Education Genevieve Guay Curious George 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!

Sometimes an outsider can offer a game-changing take on a tried-and-true process. When it comes to performance, that person is Idan Ravin, author of the bestselling book, The Hoops Whisperer: On the Courts and Inside the Heads of Basketball's Best Players. Over the course of his career, Idan has worked with athletes like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry. Though he never played for or coached a professional basketball team, his outsider status coupled with his passion for learning and performance science, have made him a one-of-a-kind teacher. In this interview we discuss: How some of the most impactful teachers can come from unexpected places How his outsider status and commitment to self-teaching made him the incredible teacher he is today Why teaching young people served him well in teaching professional basketball players The importance of seeing people for who they can be vs who they are not Why seeing what others never notice in performance is akin to the approach a plastic surgeon takes How high performing athletes can lose their love of the game and why Idan works so hard to recapture it Why he combines high intensity with sensory overload approaches to improve performance Why learning requires the comfort of safe spaces where we can make mistakes Why learning also requires the discomfort that comes with stretching ourselves to gain new skills The humility and modesty that comes with being vulnerable in our learning How rewiring our brains takes time, can be incremental, and is often far from linear Why he wants to redefine the word selfish to include reaching for something because you have earned it through self-reliance and responsibility Why the best teachers help us gain the skills we need and then support us in ways we express them Why he believes dreams are a luxury while faith is something you can control and act on The meaningful exchange that can take place when we teach and learn from those we teach The importance of taking action to achieve our goals How some of the most credentialed and strongly affiliated individuals can also be the least knowledgeable when it comes to learning and performance Episode Links Carmelo Anthony New York Knicks Nike commercial Peak by Anders Ericsson Adam Levine The Voice 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!