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. 

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. 

Taya Cohen is an associate professor of organizational behavior and theory at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. She studies moral character in the workplace, including the predictive power of guilt proneness in individuals. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," Taya discusses why highly guilt prone individuals may have a moral advantage and shares her perspective on individuals’ proclivities toward ethical behavior and honesty, as well as how to hire for these traits.

David Grosse is responsible for conduct risk, culture and behavior at HSBC Global Banking and Markets. A long-time banker, he became convinced that understanding human behavior was central to understanding what was happening at a bank, and went back to school to earn an MSc in Behavioral Science. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," David tells us about his own experiences with context and group behaviors – including at rugby and soccer matches.

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.

Mikael Down worked as the Executive Director for Assessment, Policy and Insights at the Financial Services Culture Board, an industry body that assesses culture at financial institutions in the UK and helps to design cultural interventions at member firms. In this episode of "Banking Culture Reform: Norms, Mindsets, and Decision-Making," Mikael shares his perspective on how cultural norms in the UK banking sector have evolved in recent years, including the pandemic’s impact on firms’ relationships with their employees.

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.

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.

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.

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.