Lead From the Heart

“Would you like vanilla, chocolate or strawberry?” When presented with simple decisions like these, most of us will instinctively pick our favorite from the three options, without ever considering that there may be many more ice cream flavors available. Columbia Business School professor, Eric Johnson is the lead researcher behind some of the most well-known and cited research on decision-making. And one of his key conclusions is that most of us give insufficient attention to what he calls “choice architecture, the many aspects of how a choice is posed to us that can be manipulated, intentionally or inadvertently, to influence the decisions we make.” Assume you own the ice cream store & have determined that sales of vanilla, chocolate & strawberry scoops earn you the most money. Promoting these flavors alone – and not pushing all the others you have – is in your best interest from a profit standpoint. But it also intentionally fails to inform customers who love Rocky Road & mint chocolate chip that these & other options are available as well. Through his research, Johnson has proven that the choices we make every day – whether it’s buying a health insurance plan, deciding how to invest for our own retirement or ordering a sandwich – are rarely entirely of own making. Whomever designs the “choice architecture” holds great influence in how we decide. And too often, we make choices that are not in our best interests because we don’t realize that we’re being steered in directions that don’t serve us best. We’re influenced by subtle aspects of the way the choice is presented that often make the difference between a good decision & a bad one. Johnson is the author of the new bestseller, “The Elements of Choice: Why The Way We Decide Matters,” & in it, reminds us that we too (especially leaders) are the architects of the choices other people make. And, as designers of decisions, we need to consider all the elements involved in presenting a choice: how many options to offer, how to present those options, how to account for our natural cognitive shortcuts, & much more. These levers are unappreciated, & we are often unaware of just how much they influence our reasoning every day. A recent guest on NPR’s “Hidden Brain” podcast with Shankar Vedantam, Eric Johnson joins us to provide a leadership clinic on “choice architecture.” You’ll be amazed to hear how often the daily decisions you make are not truly of your own, & to learn the informed ways you can make far better choices going forward.   The post Eric Johnson: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Every Day Decisions appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

For much of the pandemic, a familiar ritual played out in workplaces around the globe. Companies set return-to-office dates, only to repeatedly backtrack & delay them due to health concerns. Apple, as one example, was set to have employees back in its offices at the start of 2022, but now has an indefinite target date. And, with COVID cases clearly on the rise again, many other companies including JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo & Goldman Sachs have moved their goal posts as well. But let’s assume for the moment that the worst of the pandemic is behind us & returning to our workplaces has suddenly become viable. Can we assume companies have firmly defined how many days a week they’ll expect employees to be in the office? Have they decided how they’ll specifically manage people differently in the post-COVID era? And, overall, do they know all the ways they’ll pivot at this unprecedented #leadership inflection point? Well, it may or not surprise you that they haven’t. Surveys of CEOs have shown that most top leaders simply don’t know what the future is going to be like and – just like the rest of us – are still trying to figure it all out. Many CEOs even appear to be deliberately waiting to see what postures their competitors take, meaning the waiting game is likely to continue longer. Making things even more challenging is the fact that many employees want to continue working remotely at least some of the time, while for employers, the benefits of people working from home or hybrid approaches seem less obvious. In light of the “Great Resignation,” where millions of workers are quitting jobs every month, workplace leaders have critical decisions to make about how they intend to manage – & they need informed guidance on how best to make them. Truth be told, workers themselves also need informed guidance on what kind of working experience will be best for them. While presently overlooked, there are some very clear downsides to people hoping to work remotely most, if not all of the time, that workers must fully consider. So, we’ve invited Wharton Business School professor, Peter Capelli to join us on the podcast. His prescient new book is called, The Future of the Office: Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We All Face, where he unveils the surprising tradeoffs both employers & employees may have to accept in order to get what they want. His research reveals there is no consensus among business leaders. Even the most high-profile & forward-thinking companies are taking divergent approaches. And his research shows that previous efforts at allowing workers to telecommute and work-from-home didn’t work out as expected. So, what’s the best decision for you and your employer?  We can’t give it to you, of course; but Peter Capelli joins us to explore how we should all think about these choices going forward as well as who wins and who loses in all scenarios. One Final Point: In this interview, Peter Capelli repeatedly challenges common assumptions about the future of the workplace, and is one of the most informed people on this topic in the world.  Listeners will learn much from this conversation! The post Peter Cappelli: Why Most Employers Still Haven’t Decided The Future Of Their Offices appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Success in life is never a question of how many tasks we get done in a day. It’s not even a question of what we manage to achieve. Instead, it’s about knowing our life’s purpose & taking the right steps to fulfill our potential. That all sounds very nice & neat until we come face-to-face with real life, where short-term thinking, short-term gratification & short attention spans often take us off track. We also live in a society that values “busyness” & treats it as a badge of honor. And, so, when we tell ourselves all the time that “we don’t have enough hours in the day,” it’s not really a sign of accomplishment – it’s a sign our lives are out of control & that we’ve lost sight of what truly matters & makes our lives meaningful. These are some of the big ideas from Dorie Clark’s new book, “The Long Game: How To Be A Long-Term Thinker In A Short-Term World,” which launched recently as a Wall Street Journal bestseller. And her conclusion is that if all we do is bumble along reacting to events as they happen, we won’t ever fulfill our life’s dreams or personal potential. Dorie Clark has done a lot of interesting things in her life: She left home at 14 to attend a school for gifted students. She transferred to Smith College, graduating magna cum laude, & then earned a Masters in Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School. She’s been a Presidential campaign staffer, public speaker, musical theater lyricist, leadership author, & today teaches at the Duke University Fuqua school of business. And as she reveals in our discussion, she had a long-term strategy for achieving them all. Read the word “gifted,” & we might assume Clark’s success was pre-ordained & even guaranteed. But the essence of her book is that few people (including her) ever achieve success without also experiencing delays, setbacks, denials & even failures. In effect, she says we need to be nimble & adapt when circumstances change. But long-term thinking is what undergirds everything & enables us to make those adjustments. If we embrace long-term strategy & recognize that the path may change over time — that’s what maximizes our chances of success. Noting there is no such thing as overnight success, Clark’s book reminds us that this doesn’t mean success for us will be illusive. It means we just need a more effective process for achieving it. That’s what this episode is all about: helping you get back on track for achieving all you were meant to. The post Dorie Clark: How To Be A Long-Term Thinker In A Short-Term Focused World appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

As we near the two-year anniversary of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the occasion merits some acknowledgment. The stress, strain, fear & ambiguity we’ve all endured as a result of this ordeal is truly incomparable to any other time in our lives. And even more remarkable is the fact that, no matter where people live in the world, we’ve all had the exact same experience. You may have noticed during this time of great uncertainty that some people appear to be at their wits’ end as a new virus variant appears – & the prospect of a return to normal life is once again snuffed out. We’re seeing more displays of disagreeableness, argumentativeness & anger in society – and all of this confrontational behavior reflects people who’ve grown unable to cope with life as it is today. They simply don’t know what to do with their feelings & are acting out. But something else is true. There are also people who have handled the challenges of the pandemic masterfully. They don’t become unmoored by every news report, they’re not drawn into petty arguments & they routinely manage their emotions successfully. What these people are is grounded. They have a deeper connection to their authentic selves which allows them to remain centered & balanced regardless of what the universe throws their way – & they see the big picture which is that our perceived control over life’s outcomes has always been an illusion. This episode is devoted to better understanding the mindset, tools & practices of people who are deeply grounded – essential knowledge for life & leadership. And our guest is Brad Stulberg, author of the new bestseller, The Practice of Groundedness. To be grounded is to possess a firm & unwavering foundation, a resolute sense of self from which deep & enduring success can flow. It’s the ideal state-of-being from which to operate in the world, & the focus of our entire conversation is on how you can attain it. PS: In the podcast, Mark mentions a new article he wrote for Fast Company Magazine. Here’s the link to it: https://bit.ly/31npe4N The post Brad Stulberg: Remaining Grounded When The Future Is Uncertain appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Longtime Wharton business and law school professor, G. Richard Shell, joins us to do double duty. It was Shell whom Wharton specifically chose to reinvent its entire MBA program curriculum, & our first objective in asking him to be a guest was to explain why one of America’s top ranked business schools intentionally became more humanistic? When we think of business schools in the past – and Wharton especially – we recall students being taught arcane accounting and quantitative analysis techniques exclusively, & virtually nothing on how to successfully manage human beings in the workplace. It’s no wonder so many companies over the past few decades have been quick to lay off workers whenever financial performance lagged. Their top managers were only trained to focus on numbers, not on people. So, our first objective for this episode is to give you an insider’s view into the future of leadership development, in hopes you’ll gain a deeper awareness on how you might seek to further grow your own managerial skill-set for the future. There’s a clear reason Wharton has evolved in what it believes comprises a comprehensive MBA education. And Shell is also a very successful author whose new book, The Conscience Code: Lead With Your Values & Advance Your Career tackles a truly challenging workplace dilemma: How to speak up for your values when you observe or experience unethical behavior at work. According to research Shell cites in his book, 40% of US workers witness unethical or illegal conduct on the job in any given year. And 25% report feeling pressured by their own bosses to behave unethically or even illegally. Here are some real-world examples that Wharton School, MBA students have experienced in their young careers: A fast-track colleague elbows their way up the corporate ladder by faking sales reports. An entrepreneur boss asks employees to lie to would-be investors. A team leader is a serial sexual harasser. The question in all of these scenarios is what should you do in response? According to Shell, few people have ever been trained or prepared to deal with this unsavory part of professional life – and when they do occur, they’re faced with the gut-wrenching choice: do they “go along to get along” or risk their job by speaking up for what they know is right? We all know how we should behave in these kinds of situations, but not necessarily how to maneuver in ways that will allow us to speak our conscience without having to face severe career consequences. So, the second part of our conversation is focused on how you can recognize when these conflicts might be coming, know how to spot them, and learn how to skillfully resolve them. This is an episode that taps the wisdom and profound knowledge of one of the Wharton Business Schools’ longest tenured, and most revered professors. The post G. Richard Shell: How To Stand Up For Your Values At Work Without Paying A Dear Price appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

We’ve all been frustrated by people who were difficult, angry & arbitrary. And we’ve all had hard-to-please bosses not to mention work colleagues who consistently got under our skin. It’s easy to point the finger at people who push our buttons – & judge them harshly. But what if there were something about our own psychology that unconsciously influenced how we reacted – & that made us more sensitive to certain people & their behaviors? What if some people trigger us because we have a blind spot to what motivates our own actions & responses to other people? These are the questions London based psychotherapist Naomi Shragai (Shra-Guy) poses in her new global bestseller, ”The Man Who Mistook His Job For His Life, How To Thrive While Leaving Your Emotional Baggage Behind,” & her work is so interesting, we asked her to provide some free counseling as our podcast guest. Few of us recognize this, but every working day we replay & re-enact conflicts, dynamics & relationships from our past. We spend eighteen or more formative years living with our family & building our personality, & some of that experience unconsciously plays a huge role in how we interact with people we work with. For example, we might be driven to please a demanding boss without realizing it’s really our never-satisfied father whose approval we’re seeking. Without any awareness, we act on repressed experiences rather than actual realities – & this behavior is very often the source of confusion & often friction at work. While Shragai very much wants us all to discover the childhood influences that still unwittingly hold sway over as adults, she also points out that what is true for us is true for all. Everyone around us is unwittingly operating out of their childhood selves when it comes to work. We’re are all trapped in our own upbringings & the patterns of behavior we learned while growing up. And this can at times lead us to misinterpreting people along with situations we’re in. The leadership win that comes from listening to this episode will be profound not only because you’ll come away with greater understanding of your own behavior at work, but also because you’ll learn better ways of navigating situations with your bosses, employees & peers who previously might have triggered a negative reaction. Shragai’s wisdom will prove invaluable & she summarizes our discussion – not to mention her book – this way: “If you want to understand your colleague’s irrational behavior, you must first understand your own.” The post Naomi Shragai: To Understand Your Colleague’s Irrational Behavior, You Must First Understand Your Own. appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

The key benefits of working remotely are clear to all of us. Not having to commute into an office every day frees us up to get more sleep, spend more time with family & get in regular work-outs in. And left alone most of the day – separate from attending a lot of ZOOM calls – we can focus on our work & be more productive. While all this sounds great, there are some hidden downsides of working remotely that are essential for workers & managers alike to understand. And much of them have to do with the science which shows human beings are hard-wired to thrive by connecting frequently with other people face-to-face. And that means the loss of true connection we get during the 8-10 hours we work alone each day has the potential to do us long term harm. Our guest for this episode is Jon Levy. He’s a behavioral scientist whose new book, “You’re Invited: The Art and Science of Cultivating Relationships” is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal & USA Today bestseller. Brigham Young research has found that the most important predictor of living a long life is “social integration” – meaning how many people we connect with every day. And a brand-new University of Chicago study confirms it’s the routine interactions we have with many people, including with our work colleagues, the dry cleaner, people at yoga class, etcetera that contribute to human well-being. The interesting conclusion is that people who have frequent interactions with others throughout the day – even when these experiences are especially brief or inconsequential – experience far less depression & better mental health. As you’ll hear Jon say in this episode, the “great super power” for people working on remote teams is the sense that they belong & matter personally. Consequently, it’s absolutely essential that workplace managers are intentional is fostering that “belonging.” And much of the discussion features highly informed ways of accomplishing this. Another great challenge of working remotely is our compromised ability to build meaningful connections with people when we see them less frequently or not at all. And Jon has unique perspective on how we might achieve this both personally & professionally. He’s famous for creating what he calls “influencer dinners.” As part of an unusual social experiment, he began inviting people from widely disparate backgrounds to his home for dinners. But the twist was that those whom he invited did all the cooking – & they didn’t learn anyone else’s identity or occupation until they sat down to eat. And the goal of these gatherings, was not to network, but to build meaningful & lasting relationships We cover a lot of ground in this episode & the insight you’ll hear will prove invaluable especially if you dream of working remotely most of the time or manage a remote working team. The post Jon Levy: Why A Sense Of Belonging Is Essential To The Well Being Of People Who Work Remotely appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

One of the recurring themes of our podcast series is the idea that society largely believes that all human cognition occurs in our brains & ignores the emerging science which proves human intelligence is distributed throughout our bodies – including even in our hearts. When we’re faced with a big problem or challenge, we’re urged to use our heads to figure out a solution – even though feelings that emanate from outside the brain can provide additional & valuable insight & lead us to achieving far more informed decisions. As tapping into intelligence that transcends the brain proves to be a profoundly important skill in maneuvering & succeeding in life & leadership, this episode is intended to be a clinic for introducing you to methods of enhancing your own personal intelligence in ways you may never have known existed. And it’s based on the work of our guest, acclaimed science writer, Annie Murphy Paul, whose new book, “The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside The Brain” was just named by Amazon as one of the best books of 2021 so far. Daniel Pink, Adam Grant, Susan Cain & Malcolm Gladwell – as part of their “Next Big Idea Club” – have also named it one of their favorite books of the year. We’re all used to hearing that the brain operates just like a computer – & we’ve all been told that the brain is like a muscle that gets stronger with rigorous use. But in recent years, IQ scores have actually stopped rising or have even dropped in several major countries. And brain stimulating exercises have shown mediocre results so far. The implication is that the brain in our heads may already be operating at or near optimal capacity. But what Paul’s research proves is that the mind doesn’t stop at the standard demarcations of skin & skull. And the truth is humanity has achieved its most impressive feats by thinking outside of the brain: by extending the brain’s power with resources borrowed from the body, other people & the material world. Studies even show that top performers don’t really do it all in their heads; they achieve their superior results by integrating internal & external resources. What you’re about to hear is by no means a dry science class. Instead, it’s a discussion with a marvelous conversationalist who explains how you can use sensations in your body to make more sound decisions, how moving your body in certain ways will help you think more intelligently, & why our brains & bodies are designed to perform optimally outdoors. When we intentionally cultivate the capacity to think outside the brain, a new world of possibility opens up – & we gain access to reserves of intuition, memory, attention & motivation that aren’t available to the naked brain. Thinking outside the brain isn’t a skill we’ve intentionally been taught at school or work, but it’s one that we all can acquire. And you’re about to learn how in ways I hope will deeply inspire you & elevate your performance in all aspects of your life. The post Annie Murphy Paul: The Key To Superior Performance Lies In Thinking Outside The Brain appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Are you a manager, coach, or teacher who aims to help other people make meaningful change in their lives? Are you someone who’s currently struggling to kick-start change in your own? If you are either of these – or both – this episode will introduce you to state-of-the-art methods that will take you from where you are to where you really want to be. Award-winning Wharton Professor Katy Milkman has devoted her career to studying behavior change – and her new book, “How To Change: The Science Of Getting From Where You Are To Where You Are Meant To Be” has just been named one of Amazon’s “Best Books of 2021 So Far.” Daniel Pink, Adam Grant, Susan Cain and Malcolm Gladwell – as part of their “Next Big Idea Club” – have also named it one of their favorite books of the year. Milkman, who also teaches at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, says that change comes most readily when we understand what’s standing between us and success – and then tailor our solution to that roadblock. If we want to work out more but find exercise difficult and boring, for example, downloading a goal-setting app probably won’t help. But by reframing our idea of working out so that it becomes a source of pleasure for us instead of a chore, we inherently turn an uphill battle into a downhill one. There’s a lot of research which shows that we humans tend to be over-confident about how easy it is to be self-disciplined. It’s why we buy expensive gym memberships and register for online classes we’ll never complete. We mysteriously think the “future me” will be able to make good choices, and ignore that, too often, the “present me” succumbs to temptation. There are many common reasons people struggle with making desired changes including procrastination, impulsivity, forgetfulness and laziness – and in our discussion, Milkman shares strategic methods for identifying and overcoming all of these barriers – many of which will surprise you. The overriding theme of this episode in how you can leverage new scientific discoveries to stack the deck in your favor when implementing change. And these are the same tools you can use to help others around you succeed in making their desired changes as well. The post Katy Milkman: The Science Of Getting From Where You Are To Where You Are Meant To Be appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently said that every leader in the world must read “Lights Out: Pride, Delusion and the Fall of General Electric.” Written by two masterful Wall Street Journal reporters, Tom Gryta and Ted Mann, it’s an astonishingly true tale of how GE went from being one of the world’s sustainably great companies to nearly going under due to stunning failures of leadership at the top of the organization. As Gates himself wrote in a blog about the book, “General Electric is a mythical corporation.” It was founded in 1892, by innovator Thomas Edison & financier J.P. Morgan, & famously went on to make appliances, light bulbs, diesel trains & jet plane engines for generations. “We bring good things to life” was GE’s longstanding brand motto, & for over a century, it was one of the world’s most trusted & admired companies. In fact, just twenty years ago, GE was the largest, most powerful company in the world worth over $600 billion. Even its CEO at that time, the legendary Jack Welch – who later wrote five bestselling books on leadership – was held up in the media, & in business, as being one of the greatest corporate chief executives of all time. But as Gryta & Mann inform us, it turns out that the word “mythic” is the perfect word to describe GE. The corporation came crashing to Earth in one of the greatest downfalls in business history – largely as a result of either flawed or questionably ethical leadership practices of Welch & his hand-picked successor Jeffrey Immelt. While Wall Street long admired Jack Welch for consistently ensuring that GE met its quarterly earnings projections, GE’s own Board of Directors failed to ever look under the hood – or provide any oversight at all. As one Board member said, “Our job is simply to applaud.” This lack of proper scrutiny allowed Welch to use accounting tricks and deception to ensure GE met its earnings targets quarter after quarter for years. And his successor, Jeff Immelt had his own leadership flaws: a penchant for not just ignoring bad news – but for punishing executives who offered alternative views or tried to warn him of potential problems – & an ego-driven demand to be given the royal treatment everywhere he went. GE’s experience is a cautionary tale for all leaders to absorb. It’s share price has fallen nearly 80% from where it was 20 years ago. In 2018, GE was dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average after being a continuous member since 1907. And as the company has struggled to remain a going concern, tens of thousands more GE employees have since lost their jobs. So what are the most essential lessons to be learned from Jack Welch, Jeff Immelt and General Electric’s tragic downfall?  Listen in for the answers! The post Tom Gryta & Ted Mann: The Leadership Failures Of Two CEOs Who Steered GE Into Its Tragic Fall appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.