Bank Notes

Cognitive psychologist Gary Klein discusses the PreMortem Method of Risk Assessment, exploring the challenges of integrating a culture of curiosity, the importance of building cultures of curiosity and learning in organizations, and the effectiveness of the shadow box method in improving decision-making skills.

How can organizations avoid reinforcing mistakes or bad behavior? Why is it crucial for upper management to understand the daily realities and social norms at a localized, team-by-team level? And how might removing the pressure surrounding results actually lead to better outcomes, including meaningful systemic improvements? In this episode, behavioral risk expert Wieke Scholten walks us through the ins-and-outs of turning negative events into positive opportunities for learning.

Alison Taylor, Executive Director of Ethical Systems at NYU, explores pressing questions about workplace culture. She discusses the unpredictable impact of remote work on organizational ethics and the often disappointing results of corporate responsibility initiatives. Taylor emphasizes fostering authenticity and inclusion and warns against imposing uniform values. She highlights the necessity of adapting to new workforce expectations, particularly from younger generations, to build a more engaged and motivated workforce.

How can co-workers adopting each other's perspective address complex organizational problems? What are the tangible benefits to establishing a psychologically safe environment in the workplace? And why might establishing trust be irrelevant when it comes to ensuring successful collaborations? In this episode, engineer-turned-strategy consultant Per Hugander shares how he's worked with corporate leaders to embrace so-called "soft skills" to garner solid results.

What can natural language processing tell management teams about the priorities of their employees? Do assumptions built over time more often lead to successful or unsuccessful outcomes? Does a speaker's choice of words carry more weight for their audience than the substance of what they're saying? Pointing to new developments in linguistics analysis and computational learning, professors Sameer Srivastava at UC Berkeley and Amir Goldberg at Stanford deliver some cutting-edge insights.

John C. Williams is the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In this brief introductory episode, John touches on the perspectives that listeners can expect to hear in this season of Bank Notes, "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," as well as the importance of culture in shaping decisions at the individual and institution-wide levels.

Betsy Levy Paluck is a Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She studies the way group norms are shaped and changed, including how social perceptions and networks can be used to influence behavior. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," Betsy explains – among other things -- why we're really all just middle schoolers at heart.

Mark Roe is the Head of Risk Culture at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). With a background in Criminology, he brings a unique perspective to the supervision of governance, behavior and culture. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," Mark shares his perspective on why risk culture matters and how organizations can impact decision-making among staff.

Mark Mortensen is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD. He studies collaboration, team dynamics, and communication, with a particular focus on remote and distributed work. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," Mark tells us what drew him from engineering to behavioral science, why we can't rely on rules to drive good decisions, and the critical importance of psychological safety in building strong cultures.

Holly Ridings is the Chief Flight Director at NASA, an institution that's spent more than six decades thinking about how culture connects to outcomes. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," she talks about putting safety and mission first, the importance of having humility to learn from past mistakes, and how NASA's culture helps directors of human space flight develop their command presence and remain laser-focused.