unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Donald C. Kieffer, a lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and founder of ShiftGear Work Design, shares insights on transforming work culture. He discusses the importance of dynamic work design, making invisible elements of work visible, and reducing inefficiencies across industries like healthcare and banking. Kieffer warns against the pitfalls of crisis-driven leadership and emphasizes the need for managers to observe real work to enhance flow and engagement. His practical advice includes mapping workflows and focusing on continuous improvements.

In a captivating discussion, Judd Kessler, a Wharton School professor and author of *Lucky by Design*, delves into the intricacies of everyday markets. He reveals how non-price allocation mechanisms affect restaurant reservations, concert tickets, and college admissions. Judd explains the balance of efficiency, equity, and ease in market design, touching on the pitfalls of first-come, first-served systems and exploring innovative solutions like centralized matching. He also shares strategies for navigating these hidden markets to enhance your chances in life.

What strange thing happens when a neuron is left alone? Are there ways to moderate stress and anxiety, and even channel them into productive and helpful signals there to assist you in making good decisions? How can you develop initiative, and what has to change in today’s education landscape to accomplish this? Angus Fletcher is a Professor of Story Science at Project Narrative of Ohio State University. He also teaches screenwriting and is a screenwriter, as well as the author of several books including Primal Intelligence: You Are Smarter Than You Know, Storythinking: The New Science of Narrative Intelligence, and Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature.Greg and Angus discuss the intersection of story science and philosophy, emphasizing the importance of mythos and narrative thinking as opposed to logos, the purely logical, data-driven approaches in areas like decision-making and leadership. Angus outlines how neurophysiology and the brain's natural restlessness contribute to human intelligence and explores the practical applications of narrative cognition in fields ranging from military operations to education and business. He highlights the role of literature in developing imagination, perspective, and emotional intelligence, arguing for its integration into educational systems and other training programs to cultivate better leaders, thinkers, and problem-solvers.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Why fear and anger are the two most powerful emotions41:50: I worked a long time with operators on this, and we particularly worked on fear and anger because those are our two most powerful emotions. Those are our fight-or-flight responses. Fear is flight, and anger is fight. And you know what is going on there? Well, what is going on there is your brain has a bias to action. Your brain always wants to be doing something. The moment that your brain is sitting still, it feels extremely vulnerable, so it always wants to have a plan. And when your brain experiences a severe threat and it realizes this threat is so new, so different, that it does not have a plan that it has confidence in, it does not know what to do here—that is when your brain starts to feel scared. That is when you feel fear. So the question is, why is fear the emotion that your brain evolved? Why did it not evolve some other emotion, like curiosity or whatever? And the answer is just because fear makes you incredibly susceptible to outside influence. The more scared you are, the smarter other people's suggestions sound.Emotion is the smartest thing in your brain41:06: Emotion is the smartest thing in your brain. If you're not using your emotions, you're severely limiting your intelligence. And the reason that we know emotion is the smartest thing in the brain is it's the oldest form of intelligence in the brain, so it's been keeping you alive for hundreds of millions of years.Stories help us imagine alternatives13:11: When you tell someone a story effectively, it allows them to imagine themselves in that position. And then what they do in that position is they imagine, what could I do? And when that's done effectively, what it allows them to do is imagine alternatives—not just alternatives from what they themselves are doing in their own lives, but alternatives to what the individuals did in that situation.Why modern life produces so much anxiety46:21: Why is it that so many people are experiencing over-anxiety in our modern world? Well, the first thing is that too many people spend their time inside these artificially stable environments where they're just not used to anything being unstable. If you spend all your time in the suburbs, and bananas are always there, even in the middle of the winter when you go to the supermarket and the whatnot, you know, then you're not ever coping or having to engage with even a mild amount of instability or volatility. So the moment you encounter any of it, you immediately freak out and think that something must be wrong.Show Links:Recommended Resources:MythosLogosDaniel KahnemanDual Process TheoryI. A. RichardsWilliam ShakespeareCase StudySteve JobsMike TysonRonald CraneNew CriticismPostmodernismPost-StructuralismSchadenfreudeThe Chicago SchoolAeschylusSophoclesFight-or-Flight ResponseGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Ohio State UniversityProject Narrative Profile | Ohio State UniversityAngusFletcher.co | WebsiteAngus Fletcher | Wikipedia PageProfile on LinkedInSocial Profile on InstagramGuest Work:Amazon Author PagePrimal Intelligence: You Are Smarter Than You KnowNarrative Creativity: An Introduction to How and Why (Elements in Creativity and Imagination)Storythinking: The New Science of Narrative Intelligence (No Limits)Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of LiteratureCreative Thinking: A Field Guide to Building Your Strategic CoreComic Democracies: From Ancient Athens to the American RepublicScreenwriting 101: Mastering the Art of StoryEvolving Hamlet: Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy and the Ethics of Natural SelectionAngus Fletcher | IMDB Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. 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Barry Schwartz, Emeritus professor at Swarthmore College and author of influential works on decision-making, dives into the pitfalls of rational choice theory and its overreach in judgment. He discusses how oversimplification can obscure critical insights, urging a blend of intuition and rationality in decision-making. Schwartz critiques how quantification often misrepresents values and stresses the need for ethical considerations in choices. He advocates for teaching practical wisdom in education, framing it as essential for navigating modern complexities.

Nicolai J. Foss, a strategy professor at Copenhagen Business School and co-author of "Why Managers Matter: The Perils of the Bossless Company," challenges the idea of bossless firms. He argues that while trendy, these structures often rely on exceptional founders and are unsuitable for many organizations. Foss discusses the essential roles of managers in coordination and crisis management, debunks myths around anti-hierarchy sentiments, and stresses that while bossless models are appealing, they carry real risks in execution.

Fredrik deBoer, a writer and educator known for his critiques on identity politics and class-first left politics, dives deep into the evolution of the American political left. He argues that identity politics distracts from pressing economic issues, weakening potential coalitions. Social media's impact on political engagement is pivotal, where performance often eclipses pragmatism. DeBoer highlights the shift from grassroots movements to nonprofit dominance, advocating for a return to class-first strategies as a way to unite diverse groups for genuine social justice.

Sangeet Paul Choudary, a senior fellow at UC Berkeley and co-author of Platform Revolution, dives deep into AI's transformative potential for businesses. He explains how AI's shifting power dynamics extend beyond mere task automation to redefine corporate strategies and industry structures. Topics include the modularization of workflows, the impact of AI on jobs, and the emerging control points in the economy. Sangeet emphasizes the need for companies to rethink their approach, treating AI as an engine for innovation rather than just a tool for efficiency.

Samuel Arbesman, a scientist at Lux Capital and author of The Magic of Code, dives into the enchanting intersection of technology and humanities. He discusses how programming languages shape our understanding of the world and the importance of balancing fear and wonder in technology. Arbesman explores the rapid evolution of coding, the democratization of software creation, and the need for adaptive learning in a fast-paced world. Plus, he shares insights on how facts change over time and the necessity for curiosity in our constantly changing knowledge landscape.

Walter Scheidel, a Stanford humanities professor and author of acclaimed books, advocates for a transformation in the study of ancient history. He discusses the need to dismantle departmental silos to better understand inequality's roots. Walter argues that historical crises like wars and plagues have played crucial roles in driving societal change. He emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and rethinks the place of the Classics in modern scholarship, ultimately proposing the idea of 'foundational history' to explore shared human challenges.

Georgios Varouxakis, a prominent Professor of Political Thought at Queen Mary University, dives deep into the evolving concept of 'the West.' He debunks myths about its origins and explains how it became a political idea in the 19th century. Varouxakis reflects on Western exclusion, the perception of Russia as a threat, and the roles of lesser-known figures in shaping Western identity. He argues for the West's openness and critiques its self-identity, emphasizing internal criticism as a strength while navigating the complexities of modern geopolitics and cultural alliances.