Curious Minds at Work

What stands between us and meaningful work? Email! It is killing our productivity and distracting us from the creative work we crave, yet we spend over a quarter of our work week on it. What is behind our addiction and what can we do about it? Jocelyn Glei, author of the book, Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done, explains the science behind our addiction and offers strategies for prioritizing meaningful work. Jocelyn is the founding editor of 99U and editor of three productivity books, including the bestseller, Manage Your Day-to-Day. In this interview, we talk about:   The challenge of living in an age of distraction Why it is easier to be busy than to focus on meaningful work How, on average, we check email 11 times an hour and process 122 emails daily How we spend over a quarter of work time on email How the random rewards of email keep us addicted How completion bias makes us strive for inbox zero How designs like progress bars and percentages speak to our completion bias How our negativity bias influences every email that we read How empathy, emoticons, and punctuation can compensate for negativity bias The fact that email goes awry because of a missing social feedback loop How empathy goes a long way in overcoming email negativity bias Email is great for asking but awful for declining The difference between an email asker and an email guesser What it means to do creative, meaningful work Steps we can take to ensure meaningful work rules the day The role momentum plays in doing meaningful work Why we need to synchronize calendars with to-do lists How scarcity of time and resources impacts capacity, mindset, and attitude Tech setups to help us avoid frequent email checks How the best way to fail at email is to rely on program defaults Why the more we check our email, the less happy we are How segmenting emails senders helps us decide which emails to ready by when The fact that not all email messages are created equal How quickly we respond to emails sets expectations How to ensure your emails stand out How productivity can be about what we choose not to do Why we need to spend more time deciding than doing Why it is about leaving a legacy Episode Links @jkglei http://jkglei.com/ B. F. Skinner Daniel Goleman and emotional intelligence Mark McGuinness Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much Gloria Mark Manage Your Day to Day Clayton Christensen If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Is there a formula for innovation? Yes! And the most successful individuals, teams, and organizations rely on it to achieve their goals. Innovation psychologist, bestselling author, and Founder of the leading innovation firm in Australia, Inventium, Amantha Imber has worked with organizations like Google, Disney, LEGO, and Virgin. In her book, The Innovation Formula: The 14 Science-backed Keys for Creating a Culture Where Innovation Thrives, she distills the science behind game-changing innovation and offers concrete examples of what leaders can do to cultivate it in their teams. In this interview, we talk about:   What it means to democratize innovation in our organizations Innovation as change that adds value What happens when we assign projects for challenge vs capacity The Imagination Breakthroughs Project at GE The diminishing returns of cash rewards for performance Why leaders are trading cash for time to support innovation Guarding against groupthink in long-standing teams The value in walking in stupid for doing innovative work The kind of leadership that sets the most innovative organizations apart Why leaders should do innovative work rather than delegate it How the Kickbox project helps companies like Adobe spark innovation Why blue-sky brainstorming is a lazy way to innovate Innovative ways Engineers without Borders and Tata Group learn from failure The power of assuming abundance by sharing generously Why we need a certain level of noise to do creative work Hack-in-a-box to support student innovation and entrepreneurship Episode Links @amantha http://www.inventium.com.au/ Jeff Immelt of GE Imagination Breakthroughs at GE Wieden + Kennedy Advertising Originals by Adam Grant Adobe Kickbox project Tata Group Engineers without Borders If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

How do we make time for creative work, and how do we sustain it? Amy Whitaker, author of Art Thinking: How to Carve Out Creative Space in a World of Schedules, Budgets, and Bosses, tells us how. Writer, artist, researcher, and teacher, Amy works at the intersection of art and commerce. She holds an MBA from Yale and an MFA from the Slade School of Fine arts. She is also a professor at New York University. In this interview, we talk about: Why art and creativity are responsible for our greatest human contributions That art is the opposable thumbs equivalent of what makes us human How creativity is about personal discovery and contribution The fact that creativity is not a distant land of mythic geniuses and art theorists The value in taking a wide-angle or systems view for art thinking The role of play and creativity in important scientific discoveries How to develop a habit of studio space for creative work Why it is normal to feel disoriented and vulnerable while creating The importance of working in the weeds to feel alive Why we need to trade discernment for judgment Whether we are standing at the easel versus sitting in the armchair The power of becoming a good noticer How creatives are inventing point B rather than moving toward it When Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile and what it did for running Inspiring ways to manage creatives Why managing is about creating the space for creatives to do their work The importance of good enough versus perfect or right Why creatives need to think about the letter versus the envelope Why we need to have our own metaphors Thoughts on Leonardo da Vinci if he were alive today Why we need to find language for the middle space Episode Links http://www.amywhit.com/ @theamywhit Thomas J. Fogarty Takahiko Masuda Target blindness Brene Brown Amy Poehler Harper Lee Actor-observer bias Truman Capote Reframe: Shift the Way You Work, Innovate, and Think by Mona Patel Kristian Still Dialectical behavioral therapy Amy Schumer Cubism Brexit Roger Bannister and YouTube video of him breaking the 4-minute mile Donald Keough and New Coke If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Smart machines are coming, so what are we doing about it? Instead of cowering in fear, what if we took a proactive approach? What if there were a playbook we could use to anticipate and thrive in an increasingly automated world? In his book, Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines, Thomas Davenport, offers ways to accomplish that goal. His book is a guide for employees and students who want to know what they can do to work successfully with smart machines. Tom is a Professor in Management and Information Technology at Babson College and co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics. He is also a Fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a Senior Advisor to Deloitte Analytics. He teaches analytics and big data at Babson, Harvard, MIT, and Boston University and has written over 17 books In this interview, we talk about: What the number of bank tellers working today can tell us about smart machines 10 reasons to look over your shoulder for smart machines in your own work What separates humans from machines The 4 markers of machine smartness and which one we are living now Why employers should aim for augmentation vs automation wherever possible How smart machines can liberate us to do more creative and valuable work Augmentation at its best in freestyle chess How we can step in with machines in the workplace Why we would want to step up with machines in the workplace What it looks like to step forward with machines in the workplace How we might step aside with machines in the workplace How some are stepping narrowly with machines in the workplace Why every organization needs an Automation Leader Why we need to get past STEM as the only solution The important role organizations play in providing professional learning Why Tom argues against universal basic income How companies can be more resilient in a digital age with increased competition The fact that so few of our political leaders are talking about this big shift Episode Links @tdav http://www.tomdavenport.com/ Oxford Study on The Future of Employment Bricklaying Robots Ex Machina Freestyle chess Former WaMu Risk Officer Stretch by Karie Willyerd 2020 Workplace Report If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Multitasking is a myth. And we are poorer for trying to do it. The research shows that we have less productivity, more stress, diminished creativity,  and poorer relationships when we try to do many things at once. And yet, in a hyper-connected world, we can often feel like we have no other choice. And yet, if we honored how are brains are designed, we would see that singletasking is the answer. That is the message and the research that Devora Zack, author of Singletasking: Get More Done -- One Thing at a Time, wants you to hear. And she gives practical tips about how to do it even in the most frenetic of moments. Devora is the author of two previous books, Networking for People Who Hate Networking and Managing for People Who Hate Managing, and CEO of Only Connect Consulting. She’s worked with clients at Cornell University, London Business School, and Deloitte, and is a visiting faculty member at Cornell University. Her work has been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal. In this interview, we talk about: The myth of multitasking How single tasking ups our productivity and creativity and state of flow Using time shifting to avoid a multitasking mindset The price we pay for multitasking The fact that excessive media multitaskers have trouble remembering Why single tasking requires us to commit to a choice Tips for starting small with single tasking The three different ways most of us make sense of the world and why they matter How accessibility and our need to please can prevent us from single tasking Why single tasking lets us bring the best version of ourselves to what we do The fact that some prefer to shock themselves than sit in silence How device-free staff meetings can increase focus and productivity A great tip for being more fully present with friends and family Ways to build fences to prevent interruptions before they occur The power of cluster tasking with tasks we do daily What we can do and say when colleagues interrupt us Tips for open plan offices and colleague interruptions What team members think and feel about leaders who single task The connection between happiness and single tasking Episode Links @Devora_Zack http://www.myonlyconnect.com/ Deep Work by Cal Newport People Prefer Electric Shocks to Being Alone with Their Thoughts Slow Reading Club If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Can you trust your memory? Probably not. Research shows that we can be convinced fairly easily that we are guilty of a crime we did not commit. We not only misremember information, but we can misremember information about the wrong person. Add to that the fact that when someone else tells us how they remember something, it can alter our memory of that same event, person, or situation. These insights, along with many others from memory research, are changing how we think about law and order, learning, and what makes us human. False memory researcher and criminal psychologist, Julia Shaw, is one of only a handful of experts in the field. A senior lecturer and researcher in the Department of Law and Social Sciences at London South Bank University and author of The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory, she works with members of the military and law enforcement. She is also a regular contributor to Scientific American. In this interview, we talk about: What the blue-gold dress phenomenon revealed about how our brains work Why we need less evidence to convict someone who looks less trustworthy Why we form stronger memories when others are same race, age, or gender Why we reminisce most strongly about moments from our teens and 20s Why we have rosy memories of most of our firsts in life What actually happens in our brains when we form a memory How memories get stamped in our brains The fact that we simply cannot multitask - it is humanly impossible - and why Why it is that whenever we remember we also forget How to get someone to think they saw Bugs Bunny at Disneyland Why we should write things down rather than try to remember them Why understanding how unreliable our memories can be is liberating How attention is the glue between reality and your memory The vital importance of sleep to build lasting memories How we all suffer from overconfidence when it comes to our memories Why there is a right way to ask questions when we need to gather information How to avoid asking leading questions that may create false memories How photos can prompt false memories The fact that we implant false memories in each other all the time How creating memories with others may ensure more accurate memories How social media can result in muddled memories Why we need to continually update memories to learn Why the flexibility of our brains -- and our memories -- is a beautiful thing How we can convince people they committed crimes that never happened How false memory research can change the legal system How we can mistake the false memories of others for lying Episode Links http://www.drjuliashaw.com/ @drjuliashaw London South Bank University The Dress Own race bias Reminiscence bump Rohypnol Retrieval-induced forgetting The Honest Truth about Dishonesty by Dan Ariely If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

We all share, but today, millions get paid for it. Is this new trend just a fad or is it radical rethink for how we work? When we catch a ride with an Uber driver or contract with someone on Upwork, we marvel at the convenience. What we often overlook is the amount of trust it takes to ride with a stranger or to work with someone we may never meet. Yet that level of trust is what is driving the sharing economy, a form of commerce that harkens back to the 11th-century Maghribi traders. In his book, The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-based Capitalism, NYU Stern Professor Arun Sundararajan provides the context and the history for how we got here. He also paints a picture for where we are headed, particularly when it comes to labor and safety policies and regulations. A recognized authority on the sharing economy, he has written for the New York Times, Wired, the Financial Times, and Harvard Business Review. In this interview, we talk about: What makes the sharing economy similar to 18th-century commerce How we are making the shift away from corporate buying to peer purchasing How the sharing economy is blurring the lines between personal and professional How the pendulum is swinging back to relationships, connections, and gifts How the sharing economy speaks to our yearning for making and connection What the 11th-century Maghribi traders can teach us about trust and commerce Ways the sharing economy encourages us to do a better job Whether the sharing economy can reduce inequality How the sharing economy requires different labor regulations and policies How the government can partner with platforms to rethink regulations How labor regulations were designed for an era of full-time workers Why our economy will increasingly rely on stakeholders other than government How blockchain tech promises a world where crowd is market maker Why trust is embedded in this economic shift How new forms of trust will enable new forms of commerce What is it about digital cues that help us trust one another? Episode Links Arun Sundararajan @DigitalArun The Gift by Lewis Hyde Robert Nesbitt Sherry Turkle Karl Marx Emile Durkheim Maghribi Traders Capital by Thomas Piketty The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly New York University Stern School of Business Upcounsel HourlyNerd Gigster Upwork BlaBlaCar Blockchain technology If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Is there a secret to lasting power? Yes, and Dacher Keltner has been teaching leaders about it for decades. And the secret is not the ruthless, manipulative approach associated with 15th-century politician and writer Niccolo Machiavelli. It is actually the opposite. As a University of California, Berkeley, Professor of Psychology, and Founder and Director of the Greater Good Science Center, Dacher Keltner shares research-based insights he has gained. And in his latest book, The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence, he discusses a new science of power and 20 guiding power principles. In this interview, we talk about: How the legacy of Niccolo Machiavelli continues to inform power Why power is about so much more than dominance, manipulation, and ruthlessness Why we need to question a coercive model of power The short- versus long-term impact of different kinds of power Why power is about lifting others up Why lasting power is given, not grabbed The important role that reputation, gossip and esteem play in who gains power How, within days, group members already know who holds the power What makes for enduring power How our body language and words speak volumes about power Why Abraham Lincoln is a fascinating study of empathetic power The fact that great and powerful leaders are incredible storytellers How feeling powerful makes us less aware of risk How feeling powerful makes us less empathetic, attentive and responsive to others How feeling powerful actually overrides the part of our brain that signals empathy How drivers of more expensive cars (46 percent) tend to ignore pedestrians How powerful people often tell themselves stories to justify hierarchies The price we pay for powerlessness Concrete ways we can cultivate enduring, empathetic power Gender and power Why the key to parenting is to empower children to have a voice in the world Episode Links Dacher Keltner Greater Good Science Center Frans de Waal The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli Thomas Clarkson and the abolition movement Why Civil Resistance Works by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan House of Cards The 100-Year Life by Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott What Works by Iris Bohnet Arturo Behar and Facebook Greater Good in Action Science of Happiness course on edX If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Average is a myth, so why should it control our lives? We measure ourselves -- and others -- against averages all the time. Think GPAs, personality tests, standardized test results, performance review ratings. These are average measures that tell us little about what makes us unique. And this is not just a feel-good argument. It is a mathematical fact. In his bestselling book, The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World that Values Sameness, researcher, professor, and president of The Center for Individual Opportunity at Harvard, Todd Rose, explains the history of average and how it became so embedded in our culture. He goes on to explain why now, more than ever, we need to move beyond its impact on our schools and our workplaces. In this interview, we talk about: How the concept of average has done us more harm than good The courage of a brilliant scientist to question average for the greater good What newborns and chubby thighs can teach us about the limitations of average How innovative organizations are tapping into the wisdom of jaggedness for hiring Why organizations are relying on CodeFu to find great programming talent Why the personality test industry is bigger than ever and more bankrupt Why personality traits are context dependent, not inherent or static Why unlocking the context of behavior can be game changing in helping kids The important connection between environment and self control Why faster does not equal smarter Why we need to get rid of fixed-pace learning in schools Thoughts on competency-based versus grade-based learning Shifting from diplomas to micro-based credentials Giving individuals more say in their learning pathways What Todd Rose thinks about personalized learning and personalization Why we need to keep equity at the forefront What dark horses may have to teach us Episode Links @ltoddrose http://www.toddrose.com/ The Center for Individual Opportunity Adolphe Quetelet Francis Galton Edward Thorndike Peter Molenaar Esther Thelen and her study on newborn stepping reflex IGN CodeFu Matthew B. Crawford and The World Beyond Your Head: Individuality in an Age of Distraction Yuichi Shoda Celeste Kidd Khan Academy Equifinality Ogi Ogas Kevin Kelly and Wired If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!

Do we shape tech or does it shape us? Turns out it is both. And that is just 1 of the 12 big ideas Kevin Kelly explores in his latest bestseller, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future. The Inevitable is a playbook to guide us through the seismic changes in life and work, caused by technologies becoming exponentially faster and smarter. Kelly, Co-founder, former Executive Editor, and now Senior Maverick at Wired Magazine, takes us on a futuristic -- and highly believable ride -- from start to finish. Former publisher and editor of Whole Earth Review and Cool Tools, he is the author of other thought-provoking and visionary books, like New Rules for the New Economy, Out of Control, The Silver Cord, and What Technology Wants. Kelly embodies what it means to be curious! In this interview, we talk about: Why continual tech upgrades will make us perpetual newbies Why Kevin favors protopia, instead of utopia or dystopia What it means to cognify Why artificial intelligence is a feature, not a bug Why we want and need the different kinds of intelligence that comes with AI How we will work with robots to solve big problems How robots will free us up to be artists, scientists, inventors, and creatives How many of our jobs will be to invent jobs for the robots around us How our technology places us in streams and flows that are dynamic, interactive, and chronological Why personalization and immediacy will be better than free How filters may negotiate on our behalf and sharpen our understanding of who we are Why virtual reality is about presence and, more importantly, interactivity Why one day anything that is not interactive will be considered broken How interactivity will one day extend beyond our bodies to our emotions, facial expressions, voices, and more Why if it matters, we will be able to tell whether it is human or nonhuman Why tracking is inevitable and transparency around our data is a must What Kevin means by covalence when it comes to our data How we will come to a deeper, more nuanced understanding of privacy Two things Kevin worries about As AIs become more capable and integrated into our lives, how will we treat them? As cyber conflicts and cyber wars continue, what rules will we establish? How will our technology change us? The importance of thinking much longer term than a generation or a corporate quarter What a global government might look like and how we might get there Episode Links @kevin2kelly http://kk.org/ Wired Whole Earth Review Protopia Game of Thrones The Third Wave by Steve Case The Quantified Self The Fitbit Blockchain Bitcoin Boston Dynamics Quadrupeds Star Trek If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!