Curious Minds at Work

In most organizations, moving up means managing projects. And if you want to grow your project management skills, you’ve got a wealth of resources to choose from. Everything from books and podcasts to courses and certifications. What’s much harder to find is information on how to lead a project, not just manage one. It’s the missing piece that may ultimately be more important to your project’s success. That’s why I wanted to interview Anh Dao Pham, author of the book, Glue: How Project Leaders Create Cohesive, Engaged, High-Performing Teams. Anh has decades of experience leading projects for tech companies. But it wasn’t until a conversation with a mentor that she realized the more apt title for her work is project leader, not manager. Adding tangible project leadership skills to her work has made all the difference. And that’s what she shares in her book. The essential leadership skills project leaders need to start, maintain, and end successful projects. It’s a how-to for being the glue your team needs to succeed. Episode Links What Happy People Know by Dan Baker How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie Influence by Robert Cialdini Elementary (TV Series) Give and Take by Adam Grant Grit by Angela Duckworth Rituals Roadmap by Erica Keswin The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show.

For the first time in U.S. history, we have employees from five different generations working side by side. With so many different perspectives and life experiences, conflict is inevitable. Unfortunately, this often leads to stereotyping. We classify colleagues as millennial snowflakes, entitled young people, or clueless boomers. When this happens, we miss out on some of the greatest business opportunities of the twenty-first century. Opportunities to build better products and services informed by a diverse mix of views. Chances to develop better learning experiences where we cross pollinate different generational strengths. Fortunately, Megan Gerhardt’s written a book to help us navigate the shark-filled waters of multi-generational management. It’s called, Gentelligence: The Revolutionary Approach to Leading an Intergenerational Workforce. In it, she shares the hallmarks of each generation, including what motivates and worries them. She also shares insightful ways to lead and build rapport. It’s a resource you’ll return to again and again. Episode Links Protecting My Turf: The Moderating Role of Generational Differences on the Relationships between Self-direction and Hedonism Values and Reactions to Generational Diversity An Exploratory Study of Gender and Motivation to Lead in Millennials Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence Bias Interrupted by Joan Williams and her interview on Curious Minds at Work Leaders Who Coach by Jan Salisbury The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show.

The most successful leaders are always looking for an edge. It could be a competitive edge for their organizations, their teams, even themselves. One of the most effective ways to gain that edge is to notice what others miss. It’s about rethinking accepted wisdom around things like, strategy, planning, and execution. This week’s guest, Roger Martin, is someone who brought that kind of critical thinking to his own successful business and who now brings it to leaders around the world. He shares what he’s learned in his latest book, A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Management Effectiveness. Whether you’ve recently moved into a management position or you’ve been leading for decades, this is a practical and thoughtful resource. It’s a guide to rethinking many of our assumptions about management and leadership. Episode Links John Dewey Randall L Stephenson Isadore Sharp Roger Martin on the Efficiency Myth The Upside of London Tube Strikes Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't by Jeffrey Pfeffer Roger Martin on Medium The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Most of us are productivity junkies. We pride ourselves on how much we accomplish and how long we maintain our focus. But our brains know better. Sooner or later, they start to wander. To the tune of nearly half our waking hours. Moshe Bar, cognitive scientist and author of the book, Mindwandering: How Your Constant Mental Drift Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Creativity, argues that we need these daydreams. They promote connections that inform our sense of self, lift our mood and stimulate creativity. Bar also believes the better we understand how mind wandering works, the more effective we’ll be at accessing it when we need it most. This is a mind-expanding book. It’ll give you a peek into the thought process of a brilliant cognitive scientist and a new appreciation for what you may have thought of as an annoying mental habit. Episode Links Raising the Bar: The Brain Scientist Who Studies the Past to Predict the Future Think Less, Think Better by Moshe Bar Karl Popper Jon Kabat-Zinn Reculturing by Melissa Daimler The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Research shows our desire to fit in is incredibly strong. If you've ever disagreed with a group, but were afraid to speak up, you know the feeling. It means we go along to get along. Unfortunately, these feelings are the rule, not the exception. Millions of people experience them on a regular basis. It’s a phenomena psychologists call pluralistic ignorance, and it distorts how we see the world. From racial segregation to discarding healthy kidneys slated for organ transplants, the effects can be enormous. Todd Rose, author of the book, Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions, believes it’s a much bigger problem than we realize, one that reinforces norms and shapes systems that hold us back. Todd not only explains the science behind it, but offers things we can do to address it, things that, ultimately, will make us happier and healthier in the process. It’s a terrific and timely read! Episode Links Middle Schoolers say they want to be famous Solomon Asch Leon Festinger Rene Girard Populace Story Like You Mean It by Dennis Rebelo The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

The best filmmakers are influencers. They direct your attention using words, sounds, and images, and, within seconds, they’ve got you seeing the world through their eyes. But you don’t have to be a filmmaker to influence someone’s behavior. Whether you’re managing a team or leading an organization, you have access to influence. It’s in the way you frame a conversation. How you negotiate. When you ask. The most influential people spend time planning and practicing these skills in advance. They recognize that these are tools they can learn to use. Yale Professor Zoe Chance understands how influence works, and she knows how to teach it. Her book, Influence is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen, is filled with stories, tips, and exercises that take the mystery out of influence. That’s what I loved the most about the book. That influence is far from mysterious. Instead, it’s a skill we can develop to create value for ourselves and others. Episode Links Learning the Language of Influence and Persuasion The Principle of Commitment and Behavioral Consistency Mastering Influence and Persuasion course at Yale The Door-in-the-Face Technique (procedure for inducing compliance) Pronoun Use Reflects Standings in Social Hierarchies Darren Brown and The Push and The Apocalypse Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast with Matt Abrahams The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

If someone asked what they should do to succeed in their job, you’d probably have a quick response. You might say something like, just do what you’re asked, get your work done on time, or don’t step on anyone’s toes. But what if the question wasn’t about how to succeed, but how to stand out as the best of the best? These are the high performers Liz Wiseman calls “impact players.” They’re the ones who leave an indelible mark on their work and the people around them. Liz spoke with nearly 200 top professionals, and she uncovered 5 behaviors that set them apart. Her findings inform her latest book, Impact Players: How to Take the Lead, Play Bigger, and Multiply Your Impact. Liz Wiseman is CEO of the Wiseman Group, a former corporate executive, and author of the bestselling book on leadership, The Multiplier Effect. No matter what role you’re in, you’ll learn what it takes to develop the skills of the highest impact employees in today’s organizations. Episode Links Accidental Diminisher Quiz Rookie Smarts Quiz Impact Players Quiz Multipliers by Liz Wiseman The Art of Insubordination by Todd Kashdan The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Humans have always lived with anxiety. Thousands of years ago, we feared attacks by wild animals. Today we worry whether we’ll have enough money to retire. It’s not the anxiety that matters, but how we handle it. Our responses can often compound the problem. For example, feeling anxious about a demanding customer, we reward ourselves with a pint of ice cream. As the pressure mounts, it becomes a daily habit, and then, an addiction. At that point, our response to anxiety is no longer giving us the reward we expected. Instead, it makes us feel worse. Judson Brewer offers an alternate path. A medical doctor and researcher, he studies anxiety and addiction. He’s spent his career helping people unwind the habits that amplify their anxiety and lead to unhealthy, addictive behaviors. Judson shares these methods in his latest book, Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind. He argues that we can’t think our way out of anxiety. Instead, through a combination of mindfulness, practice, and understanding our habit loops, we can change our behaviors for life. It’s a thoughtful, compelling approach that will give you a different perspective on anxiety. Episode Links Eric Kandel Reinforcement Learning Thomas Borkovec Default Mode Network (DMN) Yerkes-Dodson Law Flow by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi Dopamine reward prediction error Dana Small Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Imagine that fewer people are buying your organization’s product or service. It’s a shift you didn’t anticipate. To fix it, you study the data, identify the problem, and then take steps to address it. Your plan may include changes in marketing or team incentives. What it won’t include is doing nothing or trying to turn things around with one grand gesture. Yet that’s how we often approach meeting diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. Joan Williams is author of the book, Bias Interrupted: Creating Inclusion for Real and for Good. She’s a Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, where she directs the Center for WorkLife. For decades, she’s studied structural inequality in the workplace. What she’s learned is that the most successful organizations treat diversity as a business goal. I wanted to interview Joan because she offers a fresh perspective on the topic. Through her work, she’s identified the most common ways bias shows up in organizations. She’s also figured out how to make bias training more effective. Finally, she’s learned which question to ask to determine an organization’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. After listening to this interview, I guarantee you’ll walk away with lots of new insights. Episode Links Bias Interrupters Why Companies Should Add Class to Their Diversity Discussions A Winning Parental Leave Policy Can Be Surprisingly Simple How One Company Worked to Root Out Bias from Performance Reviews Data-Driven Diversity Implicit Association Test Class Advantage, Commitment Penalty: The Gendered Effects of Social Class Signals in an Elite Labor Market The Maternal Wall Matrix by Lauren Groff The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Why do we grieve, and what happens when we do? For much of human history, answers to these questions have come primarily from writers and thinkers. While they’ve given us powerful language to describe how we feel, they’ve shed little light on the science behind our feelings. Neuroscientists are changing that. Armed with innovative approaches for studying grief, coupled with modern technologies that capture it, researchers are learning what happens in our brains when we grieve. Their findings reveal not only why we grieve, but the important role learning plays throughout the grieving process. Mary-Frances O’Connor, Director of the Grief, Loss, and Social Stress Lab, and professor at the University of Arizona, has been at the forefront of this research. In her book, The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss, we learn how she and her colleagues are creating a new paradigm for understanding grief and the grieving process. A remarkable writer and storyteller, Mary-Frances has written a compelling book. In it, she corrects many of our misconceptions, while expanding what we know about an experience we all, ultimately, will have. Episode Links The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion M. Katherine Shear and The Columbia Center for Prolonged Grief George A. Bonnano and the Loss, Trauma, and Emotion Lab It's Time to Let the Five Stages of Grief Die The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement Changing Lives of Older Couples Noam Schneck Donald Robinaugh The Power of Fun by Catherine Price The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

From time to time, I’ll run across creative ways people are using apps I like. It often prompts me to learn more. I’ll watch some videos, read a few articles and, inevitably, what I discover is that I’ve been accessing just a fraction of what the software can do. I got that same feeling while reading award-winning science writer, David Robson’s latest book, The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World. It made me realize that I’m leveraging far fewer of my brain’s features than I could be. That means I’m missing out on a lot. For example, quicker recovery from illness and injury. Better performance from more effective stress management. And adding years to my life with more thoughtful approaches to fitness and aging. What scientists are learning about the connections between the human brain and performance is incredible. And David Robson manages to take this research and organize it into a compelling playbook for a better life. Episode Links Can You Think Yourself Young? How Thinking about ‘Future You’ Can Help You Build a Happier Life The Brain is a Prediction Machine: It Knows How Well We Are Doing Something before We Even Try Believing is Seeing: Using Mindlessness (Mindfully) to Improve Visual Acuity Ellen Langer A Placebo Can Work Even When You Know It’s a Placebo Nocebo Effect Improving Acute Stress Responses: The Power of Reappraisal Jeremy P. Jamieson Veronika Job Can You Ever Get Over a Lingering Grudge? Dr. Michael Greger and nutritionfacts.org The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Confidence seems elusive. We do something that comes easily and we don’t think twice about it. Or we try something new that’s challenging and we can't stop thinking about our mistakes. It can leave us thinking that confidence is something other people just seem to have. All the time. Performance psychologist Nate Zinsser knows that’s just not true. For decades he’s been working with Olympians, professional athletes, military leaders, and other high performers in his role as Director of West Point's Performance Psychology Program. What he’s learned is that confidence is something we need to build, protect, and practice. In his book, The Confident Mind: A Battle-Tested Guide to Unshakable Performance, he shares the methods he’s developed to help us do just that. Reading Nate’s book made me realize how many misconceptions we have about confidence, and they’re the kind of misconceptions that can really hold us back. I think you’ll enjoy the interview and I know you’ll learn a lot from the book. Episode Links How I Avoid Burnout: A West Point Performance Psychologist A Psychologist Who Helps West Point Cadets Develop Mental Strength Shares 3 of His Best Tips Plateaus, Dips, and Leaps: Where to Look for Inventions and Discoveries During Skilled Performance Gender Gap in Orthopedics Remains Relatively Unchanged After-action Review When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

For women who want a career and a family, we might expect things would be easier today. After all, women have greater access to education and job opportunities. We’ve seen advances in reproductive health. And we’ve made inroads in anti-discrimination laws and policies. Yet gaps in pay and promotions remain a problem. Today’s guest, Claudia Goldin, is a Harvard University economist who’s spent her career studying women in the workplace. She believes there’s an important factor we’ve overlooked, namely, greedy work. These are jobs with lots of financial upside and promotion potential for employees who can log long hours and take on big assignments at a moment’s notice. And it’s the work that women with children often take less advantage of compared to their partners. As a result, ambitious career women can find themselves stalled out and earning less. In her book, Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity, Claudia traces how women got here. Drawing on extensive data sets, she reveals five patterns in women’s career and family behaviors: for women graduating from 1900-1910s, it was either career or family; for 1920-1930s graduates, jobs then families; with 1950s graduates, families then jobs; women graduating in the 1970s had careers then families; and, for women graduating in the 1980s-1990s it’s been careers and family. Yet, for today’s ambitious career women juggling career and family, it can mean increasing dissatisfaction with both. And in analyzing the way many careers today are structured, Claudia helps us understand why. It’s an insightful way to understand a problem we’ve been living with for a long time. Episode Links The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi The Other Side of the Mountain: Women's Employment and Earnings over the Family Cycle Assessing Five Statements about the Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Women Marriage Bar The Group by Mary McCarthy The Quiet Revolution that Transformed Women's Employment, Education, and Family The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Most of us have a love-hate relationship with New Year’s resolutions. We love that feeling of a fresh start. But we hate how our commitments seldom make it to Valentine’s Day. So what if this year we had an expert teach us how to do it right? Ayelet Fishbach is that expert. She’s a social psychologist at the University of Chicago and author of the book, Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation. In this interview, we talk about how to choose goals that energize us and how to pair them with incentives that keep us motivated. We also discuss a system for simultaneously working on multiple goals. Finally, we learn about the power of social support and how we can get it. Episode Links Immediate Rewards Predict Adherence to Long-term Goals The Structure of Intrinsic Motivation You Think Failure is Hard? So Is Learning From It Slacking in the Middle Pursuing Goals with Others Marie Curie and Pierre Curie Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

We hear it all the time, that the pace of technological change today is faster than ever before. But what does that really mean, and why does it matter? It means that if you were born in 1920, technologies in your life changed slowly. Think electricity, cars, telephones. At the time, these were huge innovations. But they took over 40 years to reach 3 out of 4 households in the U.S. Compare this to the experience of someone born just 50 years later. Digital technologies like social media took only 11 years to reach 7 of 10 Americans, and smartphones took even less time. This shift to software platforms has meant that today’s tech scales further and faster than 1920s technologies ever could. Yet the policies, laws, and systems we need to protect and guide us haven’t kept up. Our political, economic, and legal institutions were designed for a another time, one with different expectations for labor and privacy. It’s resulted in a growing gap between old-tech regulations and the ones we need to thrive in today’s digital world. Azeem Azhar is someone who’s thought a lot about this. And his book, The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology is Transforming Business, Politics, and Society provides a useful model for thinking about where we’ve come from, where we’re headed, and how to navigate these changes. Episode Links Ray Kurzweil Azeem Azhar’s Exponential View podcast CubeSat The Manhattan Project Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy 1981 Air Traffic Controllers' Strike The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman Horace Dediu The Story of Work by Jan Lucassen The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Just a few years ago, the possibility of working from anywhere made us wistful. With family and friends, we’d play the “what if” game: What if we could work from home? What if we could live somewhere warmer? What if we could move to another country? When the pandemic hit and remote work made “what if” possible, some responded, “why not?” And that’s when things got complicated. Now we’re faced with a different set of questions; Why should we ever return to the office? When we’re not in the office, how do we make friends? How do we create an equitable work experience for remote employees? These are the kinds of questions Anne Helen Petersen and I talk about in this interview. Anne came on the show once before to discuss her book, Can’t Even, about burnout and the millennial generation. I invited her back on to discuss her latest book, Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home. Anne and her co-author, Charlie Warzel argue that, when it comes to what work can look like, we’re living in a time where the answers we arrive at have never been more important. We have an opportunity to make work better. Episode Links Culture Study on Substack by Anne Helen Petersen Galaxy Brain on Substack by Charlie Warzel The Remote Work Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet How to Care Less about Work The Surprising Science of Meetings by Steven Rogelberg Beginner's Mind by Yo-Yo Ma Beyond Collaboration Overload by Rob Cross The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

There are countless benefits to collaboration. We get new ideas. Solve problems more quickly. Produce higher quality work. But too much of anything can turn toxic. And it doesn’t have to be that way. Rob Cross, Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College, has spent time with hundreds of leaders who’ve figured out how to collaborate more effectively. What he learned led to him develop a framework to help others do the same. It’s a combination of guardrails and behaviors, all of which lead to more strategic and satisfying collaborations. And Rob shares these insights in his book, Beyond Collaboration Overload: How to Work Smarter, Get Ahead, and Restore Your Well-Being. Episode Links When Collaboration Fails and How to Fix It Collaboration Overload is Sinking Productivity The Secret to Building Resilience Invisible Network Drivers of Women's Success Impact and Effort Matrix Do You Have a Life Outside of Work? The People Who Make Organizations Go - Or Stop Don't Let Micro-Stresses Burn You Out Multipliers and Impact Players by Liz Wiseman The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

We like to think of our identities as singular and stable: I’m an early riser (and will always be), or I’m a foodie (and can’t imagine otherwise). But if we take a step back, we see how we not only hold multiple identities, but how many of these identities change over the course of our lives. Remember when you were a student? Or a time when you were single? While there are some identities we can’t change, like our race or birthplace, there are many that we can. It’s the difference between fixating on “who I am now” and, instead, focusing on “who I want to be.” And that simple shift in mindset can make all the difference when it comes to living a happier, more meaningful life. That’s what makes The Power of Us such an important book, and it’s why I wanted to talk to one of the book’s authors, NYU Professor, Jay Van Bavel. He and his co-author, Lehigh University Professor, Dominic Packer, share helpful ways to navigate the tremendous upsides and challenging downsides of our shared identities. Episode Links Dassler Brothers Feud Social Identity Theory Henri Tajfel 1951 Princeton-Dartmouth Football Game and Group Perception Yael Granot Leon Festinger Charismatic Leadership and Corporate Cultism at Enron Jay Van Bavel NYU Social Identity Lab https://www.powerofus.online/ Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams by Amy Edmondson Extraterrestrial by Avi Loeb The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

How to change someone’s mind. It’s a topic that’s come up a few times before on the podcast. For example, I talked to Jonah Berger about how to make inroads by asking for less. I also spoke with Tali Sharot about how to get further by focusing first on what you have in common. Yet there’s one tip that’s never made the list. And it’s one that’s proven to have an incredible impact. In fact, we’ve seen some of our most compelling entertainers regularly use it to their advantage, performers like comedians, magicians, and script writers. It’s the element of surprise. Michael Rousell writes about it in his book, The Power of Surprise: How Your Brain Secretly Changes Your Beliefs. Teacher, psychologist, and professor emeritus at Southern Oregon University, Michael has studied the topic of surprise for over three decades, and he’s tested it with his students. He makes a compelling case for why we should use it more than we do and provides clear instructions on how we can. Episode Links Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett Sam Harris and Making Belief Confirmation bias Wolfram Schultz and dopamine Elaboration Likelihood Model The Catalyst by Jonah Berger Michael Rousell TEDxSalem Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better by Will Storr The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

We like to think we’re in complete control of the decisions we make. From the sandwich we ordered for lunch to the Netflix show we watched last night. Yet, in each case, we’ve got a hidden partner, one that influences nearly every decision we make. That partner is the designer. Whether we’re reading a restaurant menu or scrolling a website, we’re taking in information that’s been presented to us in a certain way. These conscious – or unconscious – choices that designers make can influence what we decide. In many cases, though, it’s an aspect of decision making we don’t think too much about. It’s this element of decision science that Eric Johnson, Professor at Columbia Business School, has spent his life studying. It’s the focus of his book, The Elements of Choice: Why the Way We Decide Matters, and it is truly fascinating. In fact, I bet you’ll walk away from this interview with at least one insight that gets you thinking about design and decision making. Episode Links The Decision Lab Sleights of Mind Choice Architecture Coffee Meets Bagel Derren Brown Naomi Mandel Query Theory Curse of Choice Experimentation Works by Stefan Thomke Medicine. Do Defaults Save Lives? Endowment Effect Replication Crisis Meta-analysis The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

What do you think makes companies like Amazon or Google so innovative? With Amazon you might say their relentless focus on the customer. With Google, you might point to their powerful search engine or cloud computing. What you might not think about is just how important experiments are to their success. Not just a few experiments, but tens of thousands run annually so they can improve on what they do. And experiments aren’t just for tech companies with lots of data. Running thoughtful experiments can yield innovative results for all kinds of companies, big and small, startup to established, across all kinds of industries. It’s how we think about them – how we design them – that matters. And that’s where science and creativity come in. Stefan Thomke, an innovation expert and Professor at Harvard Business School, is someone who’s spent his career helping companies design and run business experiments. He writes about what he’s learned in his book, Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments. It’s not only a riveting analysis of what it looks like to be an experimentation organization. It's a playbook for building one. Episode Links Building a Culture of Experimentation The Surprising Power of Online Experiments Creating the Experimentation Organization The Netflix Data War The Discipline of Business Experimentation A Smarter Way to Run Business Experiments At Booking.com, Innovation Means Constant Failure Jeff Bezos on Innovation Richard Feynman on the Scientific Method (1964) Novum Organum by Francis Bacon The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking to guests about our relationships at work. For example, we’ve discussed how to listen better, how to navigate conflict, and how to influence others, just to name a few. What I’ve spent less time talking about are the relationships that go beyond work. That’s why I invited Kat Vellos on the show this week to talk about her amazing book, We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships. Kat’s book is more than a callout to the power of friendship. It’s a roadmap for making new friends, and, equally valuable, it’s an owner’s manual for deepening existing friendships. Episode Links How Many Hours Does It Take to Make a Friend by Jeffrey A. Hall Better Than Small Talk The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker Donald Horton and Richard Wohl and Para-Social Communication Loneliness and Social Connections Choke by Sian Beilock Non-Violent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg Kat Vellos TED Talk Happy City by Charles Montgomery Having and Being Had by Eula Biss The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

One of the messages our culture delivers is “not enough.” Not clever enough. Not busy enough. Not successful enough. It’s a cultural mantra that beats just below the surface of many conversations, especially the ones we have with ourselves. That’s what’s so refreshing about Vanessa Bohns’ book, You Have More Influence Than You Think: How We Underestimate our Power of Persuasion and Why It Matters. Vanessa’s message, when it comes to influence and persuasion, is that we’re more than enough. That’s why it’s so important we understand how they work because, like our favorite superheroes, we can use these powers for good or for evil. Vanessa is a professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and Harvard Business Review, among other publications. Episode Links Erica Boothby and The Invisibility Cloak Illusion Thomas Gilovich and The Spotlight Effect Shared Experiences are Amplified Audience-tuning Effects on Memory Saying is Believing Effect Social Media and the Invisible Audience The Benefits of Asking for Help Frank Flynn A Face-to-Face Request is 34 Times More Successful Than An Email Marianne LaFrance Mary Carskadon and Brown University Sleep Lab Prison Book Program Adam Galinsky and Power Perspectives Not Taken The Burden of Power: Construing Power as Responsibility Chatter by Ethan Kross Mindwise by Nicholas Epley Kurt Lewin To Reduce Sexual Misconduct, Help People Understand How Their Advances Might Be Perceived The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

I have a confession to make. I enjoy talking to people I don't know. I like learning about them and hearing their stories. I'm sure it explains why I started this podcast nearly six years ago. Yet I know a lot of people who avoid talking to strangers. And if, for any reason, they have to, they dread it. But these feelings of dread work against us. Study after study shows that when we talk to strangers, we nearly always feel good afterwards. And in a time where people feel more isolated and lonely than ever, the good feeling that comes from talking to strangers may be just the thing we need to bring us closer together. That's why I reached out to Joe Keohane to talk to him about his incredibly entertaining and enlightening book, The Power of Strangers: The Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious World. He explains how we got to be so suspicious of strangers and what it's cost us. And for anyone who avoids talking to strangers because they don't know what to say, he's got you covered. Joe shares things he's learned from workshops he attended while writing the book. Episode Links Georgie Nightingall and Trigger Conversations Gillian Sandstrom Nicholas Epley Juliana Schroeder The Lesser Minds Problem Michael Tomasello Douglas Fry Stranger Danger Stanley Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiment led by Philip Zimbardo Oscar Ibarra Theodore Zeldin and The Feast of Strangers Braver Angels The Ezra Klein Show The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Numbers have power. They convey certainty. For example, when we know whether cases of Covid-19 are rising or falling, we feel like we have more control. Like we’ve got the answer. Yet numbers can be slippery too. Sure. Counting the number of people in a sports stadium is objective. But what about race totals in the U.S. Census? The same goes for the number of people who fall below the poverty line or the number of people the Jobs Report counts as unemployed. While those numbers might seem certain, a closer look offers a very different story. We need to ask ourselves: Who decides what’s important enough to count? Who creates the categories we use? And how do the questions we ask – and the ways we ask them – bias the answers? When we ask these kinds of question, we start to realize that the numbers aren’t that objective after all. Instead, we need to investigate each one to understand what’s behind it. That’s why I wanted to speak with Deborah Stone. She’s written an incredibly insightful book to help us do this, and it’s called, Counting: How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters. As she so expertly explains, with so much riding on the data we gather, we owe it to ourselves to think more deeply about what gets counted and why, as well as how we decide to count it. Deborah has taught at Brandeis, MIT, and universities around the world, and her previous book, Policy Paradox, has been a seminal work in the policy field for over three decades. Episode Links Conversation: How Talk Can Change Our Lives by Theodore Zeldin Policy Paradox by Deborah Stone Federalist Paper 54 Three-fifths Compromise Ronald Melzack and gate control theory alternative to pain scale Mollie Orshansky The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

So often, when we try to solve a problem, we focus on what we can add. Let’s say you're moving to a smaller space. Your first thought might be to research shelving or rent a storage unit. But what if, instead, you subtracted? What if you thought about what you’d sell, donate, or just throw out? That’s the question Leidy Klotz answers in his book, Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less. It’s a topic he was inspired to pursue while building a bridge of Legos with his son. Faced with a design challenge, Leidy chose to add Legos, while his son subtracted. That simple action – a highly counterintuitive one – set Leidy on the path to writing this book. It’s since become a lesson he’s working to apply to all kinds of problems, like climate change and sustainability. An Associate Professor of Engineering at the University of Virginia, Leidy studies the overlap between engineering and behavioral science, all in service of more sustainable systems. He’s worked with the Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, the National Institutes of Health, the World Bank, and ideas42. Episode Links The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin Subtract: Why Getting to Less Can Mean Thinking More Why Do Engineers and Behavioral Scientists Have to Learn from Each Other? Using Behavioral Science to Redesign the Built Environment Strider Bike Hazel Rose Marcus Michele Gelfand Pocket Park The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for brain science. I love learning new things about how our brains work and how to get the most out of this amazing organ. That means I'm always scanning for my next book on the topic. And, when I find it, I'm usually placing an order before I've made it through the table of contents. With this week's guest, I barely glanced at her book's title before I clicked "buy." That's because the author is the incredible neuroscientist, Lisa Feldman Barrett. Last time she was on the show, we talked about her mind-blowing book, How Emotions are Made. I learned how her research has led to a complete rethinking of, well, how emotions are made. In this conversation, we talk about her newest book, Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain. At first glance, you might think, what does this have to do with my work? The short answer is . . . everything. What you'll learn about your brain will change how you structure your day and, on an even bigger scale, how you interact with other people. This is a book to savor. It's enlightening. Insightful. And it's downright enjoyable. In fact, you may want to read it in bite-size chunks, like one chapter at a time, because it's a book you may not want to finish too quickly. It's just too good. Lisa Feldman Barrett is an award-winning Professor of Neuroscience at Northeastern University. She has appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. I'm thrilled to have her back on the show. One quick ask before the interview - if you enjoy the podcast, I'd be grateful if you'd take a moment to rate and review the show on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. The team works hard to produce the podcast - and to keep it commercial free -- and it means a lot for us to know that you enjoy it. Speaking of brain science - a positive rating or review gives us the dopamine hits we need to keep on going. This is a re-broadcast of Episode 182 with Lisa Feldman Barrett. Episode Links Lisa Feldman Barrett's Extended Notes for Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain The Accidental Species by Henry Gee The Rationality of Decisions Depends on Behavioural Context Tuning and Pruning Cultural Inheritance Reverse inference problem The Remembered Presence by Gerald Edelman Himba people Hadza people Why We Want to Squeeze Cute, Little Things Wired to Wonder by Todd Kashdan Gray Malin Curious Minds at Work Team Learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support Curious Minds at Work If you're a fan of the show, show your support by: Rating and reviewing the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe Telling someone about the show Subscribing so you never miss an episode Where to Find Curious Minds at Work Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google podcasts Overcast

When you think about courage at work, what comes to mind? Most of us think of the whistleblowers, the people who speak out on illegal corporate practices. Yet many who succeed in changing the workplace, do so on a smaller scale. They push back on sexist comments. Point out bias in hiring. Or challenge unequal promotion practices. Each is an example of courage at work, and it’s a form of courage most of us say we want to see. But research shows many of us don't exercise this kind of courage, even though staying silent is something we regret. So how can we overcome our fears and do what’s needed to create workplaces aligned with our values? Jim Detert tells us how. He’s a Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. After years of studying workplace courage, he knows the steps we can take to do so without jeopardizing our jobs. And he shares these steps in this interview and in his book, Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work. Episode Links Winfred Rembert Stuart Scott Climbing the Courage Ladder The Importance of Courage Cultivating Everyday Courage The Temporal Pattern to the Experience of Regret Sir Walter Scott The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Think of your family, your friends, and your colleagues. In each of these relationships, you can expect to experience conflict from time to time. Sometimes, it's unhealthy conflict that harms our relationships. Other times, it's healthy conflict that strengthens them. High conflict is something different. It happens when we view the conflict as good versus evil. It's when the walls go up. When it's about us versus them. Right versus wrong. We double down on our assumptions, maybe about people we don't even know. Ultimately, we get stuck. It's a volatile place, and a dangerous one, because it's often just a step away from dehumanization. My guest, Amanda Ripley, spent four years studying this conflict. She's an investigative journalist and author of the book, High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. Amanda interviewed ordinary people who got caught up in high conflict, and, with effort and commitment, managed to break free. Through their stories, she explains what conflict is, how we get sucked into it, and, most importantly, how we move through it. Amanda is author of the books, The Smartest Kids in the World and Unthinkable. She writes regularly for The Atlantic and spent a decade writing for Time Magazine. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian. Episode Links Piranesi by Susanna Clarke Mark Lynas Gary Friedman More in Common Baha i Faith Losing Common Ground: Social Sorting and Polarization Kim Binsted Curtis Toler and Team CRED John and Julie Gottman The Difficult Conversations Lab and Peter Coleman Ranked-choice Voting 22 Questions that 'Complicate the Narrative' The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support the Podcast If you like the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe Click here and then scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

I've got a riddle for you. What do we need to get better at our jobs? To maintain relationships with family and friends? To find our keys? The answer is memory. Yet when it comes to what it is and how to get the most out of it, we may not know as much as we'd like. And that's too bad, because knowing even a little about how our memory works can give us a lot, including peace of mind. That's what made me pick up Lisa Genova's latest book, Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting. Lisa's a Ph.D. neuroscientist and bestselling author of the book, Still Alice, which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film. Remember is an incredible resource that combines the science of memory with the compelling storytelling she's known for. Episode Links Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein Still Alice by Lisa Genova Automaticity Semantic memory Episodic memory Prospective memory A Powerful Way to Improve Memory and Learning The Science of Learning to Learn and Self-Testing Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer Method of Loci or Memory Palace Phantom Flashbulbs: False Recollections of Hearing the News about Challenger The Neuroscience of Memory: Implications for the Courtroom Elizabeth Loftus Forgetting is Part of Remembering He Ate All the Pi: Japanese Man Memorizes Pi to 111,700 Digits Learning and Memory Under Stress The Impact of Sleep on Learning and Memory and About Sleep's Role in Memory The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. How to Support the Podcast If you'd like to support the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Ways to Subscribe Click here and scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Change happens through action. For example, if we want to solve the hunger problem in our local community, we donate to a food drive. We volunteer at a food bank. We do things that solve the problem. But often the hurdle to taking action is knowing what action to take. Research shows that bystanders are often unsure of what to do. And when they don't know what to do, they tend to do nothing. That's why I wanted to talk to David Smith and Brad Johnson about their book, Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace. Brad and David share specific steps individuals and organizations can take to support women in the workplace. It's a male ally playbook. And a playbook is desperately needed. One of the biggest workplace challenges today is how few women, particularly women of color, hold leadership roles. Though women make up nearly 50 percent of the workforce, in 2020, they held only 38 percent of managerial positions, 33 percent of senior manager/director roles and 21 percent of C-suite titles. David is a professor of sociology in the College of Leadership and Ethics at the U.S. Naval War College. Brad is a professor of psychology in the Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law at the U.S. Naval Academy and a faculty associate in the Graduate School of Education at Johns Hopkins University. Episode Links Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong Structured exposure 30-5-1 The invisible knapsack Impostor Syndrome Let's Talk by Therese Huston Athena Rising by W. Brad Johnson and David G. Smith Bystander effect The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. How to Support the Podcast If you'd like to support the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Ways to Subscribe Click here and scroll down for a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Most of us have a voice in our heads. On some days, it builds our confidence. On others, it tears us down. Our inner voice is an invisible force that has a big effect on our work and our lives. I've often been curious about this voice. What shapes it? What makes it louder? If we understood it better, could we get it to work for us, rather than against us? Ethan Kross has spent the bulk of his career studying the power and perils of this voice. He's an award-winning psychology professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. His enlightening book on the topic is, Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It. What his research reveals is that there are simple things we can do to amplify the positive aspects of our inner voice. Equally important, there are things we can do to quiet the chatter - ways we can turn down the volume on self-talk that works against us. Episode Links Brood X Andrew Irving My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor Rick Ankiel Analysis paralysis Simone Biles Solomon's Paradox Fred Rogers The Toolbox Project The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. How to Support Us If you'd like to support the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the podcast. Ways to Subscribe Click here and scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

For many of us, public speaking creates a lot of anxiety. And like all phobias, it comes at a cost. Researchers have linked a fear of public speaking to lower college graduation rates, lower wages, and fewer promotions. But I think the biggest price we pay is the loss of our voice. It robs us of the ability to share our ideas. And it diminishes an important way for us to have an impact on the world. I've known this was a topic I wanted to discuss on the podcast, but the challenge has been finding the right author. So I was thrilled when I came across John Bowe's book, I Have Something to Say: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking in an Age of Disconnection. I saw how John was coming at the topic in a completely different way, and it moved me. First, he shares in a very vulnerable and, I think, courageous way, his own experience of learning public speaking skills. Second, he delves into the history of public speaking, taking us back to ancient Greece and the important role public speaking played in people's lives. Third, he describes what it was like for him to learn these skills at Toastmasters, the nonprofit that operates public speaking clubs around the globe. I'll admit that this final point really sealed the deal. I'm a big fan of Toastmasters. I've been a member and, from the first time I attended one of their meetings, I was not only impressed by how they teach public speaking, but I was wowed by the dedication of the people who join. John Bowe has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, GQ, This American Life, McSweeney's, and more. He is the author of Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy, editor of Us: Americans Talk about Love, and co-editor of Gig: Americans Talk about Their Jobs. Episode Links A World on the Wing by Scott Weidensaul Toastmasters history A Brief History of Public Speaking Quiet by Susan Cain The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. How to Support Us If you'd like to support the show, please rate and review it on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Ways to Subscribe Click here and scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

A hundred years ago, if you asked someone about burnout, they wouldn't know what you were talking about. Fast forward to today and there's a good chance they'd say they've experienced it. Burnout's a term psychologist Herbert Freudenberger popularized in the 1970s. He used it to describe the experience of doctors and nurses exposed to long periods of stress and overwork. Over the past 20 years, use of the term has expanded to include people in other industries and roles. And today, during the pandemic, it's become an everyday reference. But just because we know what burnout is, or what it feels like, doesn't mean we know what to do about it. And the advice we often get to "work less" or "have more fun" seems a little too simple. Too binary. That's where the Nagoski sisters come in. My guest, Amelia, and her sibling, Emily, are co-authors of the book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. It's a book filled with remarkable insights. One of the central ones is this: while we often associate stress with burnout, we're unclear on the relationship between them. Amelia and Emily explain that most stress isn't the problem. Instead, it's the stress cycle that kicks in when we don't work through the emotions that accompany our stress. That's the problem. And it's what leads to burnout. Fortunately, in this interview, Amelia not only walks us through the stress cycle, she also explains what we can do to break it. Equally important, she discusses how to avoid it in the first place. Amelia Nagoski holds a doctorate in musical arts and is an Assistant Professor at Western New England University. Her co-author and sister, Emily Nagoski, holds a doctorate in health behavior and is an award-winning author of the bestselling book, Come as You Are. Episode Links The World: A Brief Introduction by Richard Haas Down Girl by Kate Manne Cognitive Reappraisal and Acceptance: Effects on Emotion, Physiology, and Perceived Cognitive Costs Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality Requiem by Andrew Lloyd Webber The Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. How to Support Us If you'd like to support the show, please rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Ways to Subscribe Click here and scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

Most of us are hungry for feedback. Whether it's from bosses, teachers, family, or friends, we know it's the key to getting better. And the research supports this: frequent, effective feedback improves our motivation and our performance. Yet, when we become managers, we often forget this lesson, which means most of the people we manage don't get enough feedback. And it's not because we don't think it helps. It's often because we're afraid. We worry about hurting people's feelings, demotivating them, or creating conflict. That's why I wanted to read Therese Huston's latest book, Let's Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower. What I like about her approach is how she humanizes feedback. She asks us to think about our goals. Why are we sharing this feedback, with this particular person, at this time? Then she asks us to think about what's in it for them to receive our feedback. The result is a genuine conversation. It starts with us sharing why we care about their growth and development. It continues with us sharing the challenge or gap as we see it. Then it means listening to understand their point of view, so that we can work together on a solution. Approaching feedback this way can break down barriers. It can also help us overcome our hesitation. Ultimately, it can lead to stronger relationships and higher quality work. Therese was the founding director of the Center for Faculty Development at Seattle University. She's written for The New York Times and Harvard Business Review. I spoke to Therese on the podcast about her previous book, How Women Decide. Episode Links Avraham N. Kluger Why Do So Many Managers Avoid Giving Praise by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman Nine Lies about Work by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall The Ideal Praise-to-Criticism Ratio by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer The 1, 2, 3 Newsletter 6 Things Employees Want to Hear from Their Bosses The Little Things that Make Employees Feel Appreciated by Kerry Roberts Gibson, Kate O'Leary, and Joseph R. Weintraub Research: Men Get More Actionable Feedback Than Women by Elena Doldor, Madeleine Wyatt, and Jo Silvester Why Most Performance Evaluations are Biased and How to Fix Them by Lori Nishiura Mackenzie, JoAnne Wehner, Shelley J. Correll Shelley Correll Katherine Hilton and Stanford Researcher Examines How People Perceive Interruptions in Conversation Michael Bungay Stanier Crucial Conversations Our Team Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here. How to Support Us If you'd like to support the show, please rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you subscribe, and tell a friend or family member about the show. Ways to Subscribe Click here and scroll down to see a sample of sites where you can subscribe.

I'll admit it. I'm a sucker for brain science. I love learning new things about how our brains work and how to get the most out of this amazing organ. That means I'm always scanning for my next book on the topic. And, when I find it, I'm usually placing an order before I've made it through the table of contents. With this week's guest, I barely glanced at her book's title before I clicked "buy." That's because the author is the incredible neuroscientist, Lisa Feldman Barrett. Last time she was on the show, we talked about her mind-blowing book, How Emotions are Made. I learned how her research has led to a complete rethinking of, well, how emotions are made. In this conversation, we talk about her newest book, Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain. At first glance, you might think, what does this have to do with my work? The short answer is . . . everything. What you'll learn about your brain will change how you structure your day and, on an even bigger scale, how you interact with other people. This is a book to savor. It's enlightening. Insightful. And it's downright enjoyable. In fact, you may want to read it in bite-size chunks, like one chapter at a time, because it's a book you may not want to finish too quickly. It's just too good. Lisa Feldman Barrett is an award-winning Professor of Neuroscience at Northeastern University. She has appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. I'm thrilled to have her back on the show. One quick ask before the interview - if you enjoy the podcast, I'd be grateful if you'd take a moment to rate and review the show on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. The team works hard to produce the podcast - and to keep it commercial free -- and it means a lot for us to know that you enjoy it. Speaking of brain science - a positive rating or review gives us the dopamine hits we need to keep on going. Episode Links Lisa Feldman Barrett's Extended Notes for Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain The Accidental Species by Henry Gee The Rationality of Decisions Depends on Behavioural Context Tuning and Pruning Cultural Inheritance Reverse inference problem The Remembered Presence by Gerald Edelman Himba people Hadza people Why We Want to Squeeze Cute, Little Things Wired to Wonder by Todd Kashdan Gray Malin Curious Minds at Work Team Learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support Curious Minds at Work If you're a fan of the show, show your support by: Rating and reviewing the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe Telling someone about the show Subscribing so you never miss an episode Where to Find Curious Minds at Work Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google podcasts Overcast

For a good part of my life, I believed that focusing on my weaknesses was the key to achieving success. In fact, I didn't realize how much I'd embraced this way of thinking until I began working with an executive coach. Soon after we started working together, my coach made an observation I've never forgotten. She said, "Gayle, you're great at pointing out your weaknesses - all the ways you feel you don't measure up - but I never hear you talk about your strengths." That's when I realized how this way of thinking had become my default setting. I had to work hard to change it. That's why, when I picked up Dan Cable's latest book, Exceptional: Build Your Personal Highlight Reel and Unlock Your Potential, I knew I wanted to have him back on the show. He captured my old way of thinking with his first sentence, "Many of us think the best path to self-improvement is to face the cold truth about ourselves at our worst." Yet, what Dan quickly points out is that, far from motivating us, this relentless focus on identifying and fixing our weaknesses can create a lot of anxiety, along with feelings of overwhelm, even helplessness. That sounds like a far cry from a path to success, right? Dan's a Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School. Since his last book, Alive at Work, he's been studying what happens when we uncover our strengths through others' eyes, through current and former colleagues, bosses, friends, and family members. Dan's approach is fascinating and his research findings are incredible. Episode Links You Need a Personal Highlight Reel by Dan Cable What You Should Follow Instead of Your Passion by Dan Cable Stop Sleepwalking through Life by Dan Cable and Mel Bradman Alive at Work by Dan Cable Post-traumatic growth What Job Crafting Looks Like by Jane E. Dutton and Amy Wrzesniewski Impostor Syndrome Curious Minds at Work Learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support Curious Minds at Work If you're a fan of the show, you can show your support by: Rating and reviewing the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. Telling someone about the show. Subscribing so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds at Work Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google podcasts Overcast

Meaningful conversations can be a creative lab space. At their best, they're a place to share perspectives and be heard. They can also be a place to stress test new ideas and catch the limits in our thinking. When conversations work, we gain a stronger connection to the people we work with. We feel like we understand each other better and that we're channeling each other's knowledge and skills to achieve a bigger goal. Yet these kinds of conversations are far too rare. And I don't think it's intentional. I think it's because we don't know how to design them. That's what motivated me to read Fred Dust's latest book, Making Conversation: Seven Essential Elements of Meaningful Communication. A former senior partner and global managing director at international design firm, IDEO, Fred's designed these kinds of conversations for hundreds of organizations across multiple industries. Fred gives us permission to make better conversations a priority, and he shares insights on how to do it effectively. Episode Links Where Do Ideas Come From? Fred Dust at Aspen Ideas Active Listening Frank Osborn on Brainstorming Responsive Classroom The Op Ed Project Courtney E. Martin Curious Minds at Work Team Learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support Curious Minds at Work If you're a fan of the show, you can show your support by: Rating and reviewing the show on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. Telling someone about the show. Subscribing so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds at Work Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google podcasts Overcast

For most of us, networking is a topic that brings up a lot of strong feelings. And most of those feelings aren't all that positive. Ultimately, we know we should network. But just thinking about it can make us uncomfortable. In fact, research shows that many of us associate networking with something dirty. On top of that, we feel guilty for not devoting more time to it. That's why I wanted to interview Marissa King. Author of the book, Social Chemistry: Decoding the Elements of Human Connection, Marissa is Professor of Organizational Behavior at Yale School of Management and an expert on social networks. Marissa's take on networking is refreshing because she emphasizes the relational aspect. She also provides tools for gauging how we network, so that we can easily see how well our approach is working. Her discussion of networking and her strategies for how to reframe it more positively help us to walk away without feeling icky. At the same time, her tips inspire us to tend to our professional network the way we would our personal one. If you're looking for a fresh take on networking, I think you'll enjoy hearing what Marissa has to say. Episode Links Shout-out to Heather Cox Richardson for her Letters from an American Professional Networking Makes People Feel Dirty by Carmen Nobel Do People Mix at Mixers? by Paul Ingram and Michael W. Morris Marissa King's site for assessing your networking approach as convener, broker, or expansionist Self-monitoring How to Build a Better Social Network and the work of Ronald Burt Why Do People Gossip? by Sophia Gottfried and the work of Robin Dunbar Yo-Yo Ma and Silkroad Homophily Heidi Roizen Curious Minds at Work Team You can learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support Curious Minds at Work If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to show your support: Rate and review on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. Tell a friend, colleague, or family member about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds at Work Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google podcasts Overcast

When challenging situations arise, how do we make the shift from bystander to helper? What are the factors that determine whether or not we take action? And what if helping means disobeying an authority figure? These are the kinds of questions that made me want to read Catherine Sanderson's latest book, Why We Act: Turning Bystanders into Moral Rebels, and to interview her on the show. In particular, her discussion of the Milgram Shock Experiment, a study that's always fascinated me, got me thinking more deeply about those pivotal moments when we decide whether or not we're going to speak up or step in, rather than stand by. For some background, the Milgram Shock Experiment was first conducted in the 1960s by Stanley Milgram, a psychology professor at Yale. He wanted to find out how far people would go in obeying an authority figure when their obedience knowingly caused harm to another person. In the study, participants delivered an electric shock to a subject they couldn't see. The voltage increased with every wrong answer given. If they refused to administer the shock, a member of the research team - the authority figure - responded with one of four scripted statements. The electric shocks weren't real, but the participant in the study didn't know that. If they refused to administer the shock, the authority figure would recite one of the four scripted statements, for example, "The experiment requires that you continue," or "You have not other choice but to continue." Aside from statements like these, the authority figure never forced participants to deliver the shocks. Yet every participant did. Not one refused. Even when the person receiving the shocks sounded out in pain with moans, shouts, even pleas to stop, the participants kept going. What Catherine talks about in her book, though, are the many participants who wanted to stop. The ones who communicated, at some point along the way, that they didn't want to continue. That's the moment I'm curious about. What would it have taken for them to disobey authority? And what would I have done in that same situation? Catherine is a professor at Amherst College. She's studied what neuroscientists and psychologists have learned about why we stand by and why we speak up. She's also studied what leaders can do to make it safer for people to speak up, which training programs work best for teaching these skills, and what drives the brave souls who always speak up. Episode Links This week's shout-out goes to Emily Levesque, author of the book, The Last Stargazers Bystander effect Young Children Show the Bystander Effect in Helping Situations Social loafing Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart The Pain of Social Rejection KiVa anti-bullying program Curious Minds Team You can learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support Curious Minds If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. Tell a friend, colleague, or family member about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google podcasts Overcast

What will the world look like when we're living and working with robots every day? Robots work on assembly lines. They zoom around warehouses. And they even fly planes. Most of us aren't surprised to hear these stories anymore. But how will we work with robots when they're driving our cars or delivering our food? When millions of robots populate our sidewalks, offices, and residential buildings - when they move beyond the factory floor - we'll need to learn how to interact with them, even teach them. Julie Shah, co-author of the book, What to Expect When You're Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration, believes we'll need to tap into our ability to create, problem solve, and learn from experience, in order to "transfer those insights to machines and integrate machines into our work and our everyday lives." She also believes we'll need to think differently about how we design robots and how we gather and share robot data. In particular, she argues that industry and government will need to work more closely together so they can share information on robot performance. This information will help us make rapid improvements, so we can integrate robots more quickly and safely into society. She explains, "The capability of these systems is so dependent on the data used to train them. Being able to share learnings across companies and across an industry is equally important." Julie Shah is a roboticist who directs the Interactive Robotics Group at MIT, where she is also the associate dean of social and ethic responsibilities of computing. Episode Links Inner Workings: Can Robots Make Good Teammates? by Carolyn Beans Integrating Robots into Team-Oriented Environments by Julie Shah Don Norman Three-body problem You Look Like a Thing and I Love You by Janelle Shane Affordance Aviation Safety Reporting System - NASA MIT Schwarzman College of Computing Julie Shah's co-author Laura Major Curious Minds Team You can learn about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support Curious Minds If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. Tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google podcasts Overcast

What if mathematics could help us rethink gender equality by questioning how society is structured? Women are often told that, to succeed, they need to be more. More competitive. More confident. Even more resilient. In other words, women need to fit themselves into environments created mostly by men. But Eugenia Cheng, author of the book, x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender, argues that it's not about what women lack but about how society operates. For her, the question is not, "society is like this, how can women become more successful in it?" Instead, it's about asking "why is society like this in the first place?" Eugenia rejects associating certain traits with traditional, binary gender roles. For example, she doesn't think it's helpful to think of men as more competitive or women as more caring. She disagrees with the notion that there's only one way to achieve success, such as the myth of the resilient individual achiever who's unaffected by criticism. Instead, she argues that we're stronger and more resilient when we "build networks of people to help support [us], rather than just having to be strong all by [ourselves]." Eugenia Cheng is Scientist in Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and honorary visiting fellow at City University of London. Her previous books include, How to Bake Pi, Beyond Infinity, and The Art of Logic. Episode Links Higher-dimensional algebra Mean, median, mode Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez No Contest by Alfie Kohn Equity: A Mathematician Shares Her Solution by Jory Lerback Curious Minds Team You can learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support Curious Minds If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. Tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google podcasts Overcast

What's driven our relentless obsession with economic efficiency and who are its winners and losers? For much of the twentieth century, the U.S. economy benefited most individuals and families, no matter their social class. In recent decades, that's not been the case. Roger Martin examines this shift in his latest book, When More is Not Better: Overcoming America's Obsession with Economic Efficiency. He shares data indicating that, while the wealthy continue to prosper, the average American family does not. While Roger is concerned with what lies ahead for these families, he is equally concerned about the future of the U.S. economic system. He says, "What set off the project behind this book is that the median family, who is also the swing voter, is going to give up on capitalism as the system it wants to have run this country." Professor of Strategic Management, Emeritus, at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, Roger previously served as Dean and Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute. In addition, he's published eleven books, written numerous articles for Harvard Business Review, and has been named the number one management thinker by Thinkers50. Based on his extensive research and his work with hundreds of companies, Roger believes organizational leaders can change things for the better. In this interview, he shares examples of how companies, like Southwest Airlines, have done just that. At the same time, Roger discusses how our longstanding model of the U.S. economy as machine got us here. He points out, "It's kind of an accident. We've done some things based on models we thought were good that have gotten us in places we don't like at all." Episode Links Why Information Grows by Cesar Hidalgo The Persona Project Wassily Leontief Pareto Distribution David Ricardo and comparative advantage Cristiano Rinaldo Curious Minds Team You can learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support Curious Minds If you're a fan of the show, here are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. Tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google podcasts Overcast

How did humans, a species of self-centered apes, come to care deeply about complete strangers? From an evolutionary standpoint, we shouldn't be kind to strangers. Yet, history shows, time and again, we are. Scientists see it as a puzzle to solve. Michael McCullough, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, believes it's what sets us apart. He says, "[We] love to talk about ways in which humans are biologically unique, and there's a million ways. But I really do think that our regard for strangers, absolute strangers, is one of them." Michael is author of the book, The Kindness of Strangers: How a Selfish Ape Invented a Moral Code. Drawing on multiple fields, he crafts a story of how our empathy for strangers has changed over time. He covers a lot of ground, moving from ancient history to modern psychology. Ultimately, he arrives at the pandemic present, where he asks, "How are you going to bring the tools of reasoning, ethics, and science all together to make rational choices about collective courses of action?" A Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Michael is also the author of two previous books, To Forgive is Human and Beyond Revenge. Episode Links The War for Kindness by Jamil Zaki The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins David Sloan Wilson Group Selection Behavioral game theory Robert Trivers Code of Hammurabi Curious Minds Team You can learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Support Curious Minds If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. Tell a friend or family member about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google podcasts Overcast

We recognize the biases we hold around race, class, and gender, but what about language? Katherine Kinzler, author of the book, How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do - and What It Says about You, explains, "The language you speak, and the accent or dialect you use to speak it, is such a foundational part of social life." Yet speech and language are often overlooked aspects of social identity. In fact, Katherine's research reveals that the way we speak can "determine who you might connect with, but also the judgments you make about other people, and the judgments they might be making about you." In her book, Katherine discusses how language, accents, and speech influence life experience and outcomes. In particular, they can be tools for social division, discrimination in hiring and firing, and other forms of bias and prejudice. It's one of the reasons Katherine advocates language learning in school. She says, "a lot of times, we think of language [learning] as 'icing on the cake'...nice to have but not really a fundamental part of learning. I think we could do so much more if we changed how we thought about the necessity of more than one language." Katherine Kinzler is Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. She holds degrees from Yale and Harvard, has written for the New York Times, and was recently named a Young Scientist by the World Economic Forum, one of the 50 scientists under 40 working to shape the future. Episode Links Bilingual Brains Better Equipped to Process Information Neuroplasticity as a Function of Second Language Learning by Ping Li, Jennifer Legault, and Kaitlyn a. Litcofsky Want to be More Rational? Learn Another Language by Rob Smith How Speaking a Second Language Affects the Way You Think by David Ludden How Ruth Bader Ginsburg Found Her Voice by Katy Steinmetz Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World by Olga Khazan Meyer v. State of Nebraska Emotions Shape the Language We Use, but Second Languages Reveal a Shortcut around Them by Beth Daley The War against German-American Culture: The Removal of German-Language from Indianapolis Schools, 1917-1919 Linguistic Insecurity Bilingual Children's Social Preferences Hinge on Accent by Jasmine M. DeJesus, Hyesung G. Hwang, Jocelyn B. Dautel, and Katherine D. Kinzler The Native Language of Social Cognition by Katherine D. Kinzler, Emmanuel Dupoux, and Elizabeth S. Spelke Research: How Speech Patterns Lead to Hiring Bias by Michael W. Kraus, Brittany Torrez, and Jun Won Park Multilingual Environments Enrich Our Understanding of Others by Christopher Bergland Jane Elliott Ways to Support the Podcast If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. This week, tell one person about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Podcasts Overcast Curious Minds Team Learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here.

How can we escape the time traps that keep us from living our best lives? These are the traps that make us feel like there are never enough hours in the day. They leave us time poor, a term Ashley Whillans talks about in her book, Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life. Ashley is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and a leading scholar on time and happiness research. She explains the negative impact feeling time poor can have on our health, our productivity, and our relationships. In contrast, when we prioritize how we spend our time, we gain many positive results, no matter where we reside in the world. Ashley says, "People who value time report greater happiness, less stress, less negative emotion. Doesn't matter where I study this, in India, in Kenya, in the U.S., in Canada, in Denmark, focusing on time is an important path to happiness." Ashley designed tools to help us rethink our relationship with time. These include self-assessments and checklists for making smarter decisions about how we use our time. She explains how incorporating them into our lives can prompt us to ask, "not only how much would that decision cost you, but how much time would it cost." Ashley Whillans is part of the Workplace and Well-Being Initiative at Harvard, and she advises organizations on workplace and well-being strategies. Her work has appeared in publications like, the New York Times, The Atlantic, and the Wall Street Journal. Curious Minds Team Learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Episode Links Daniel Gilbert Time poverty Autonomy paradox Time confetti and Brigid Schulte Yes-damn effect Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky Mere urgency effect Psychological safety Time affluence Time is Tight: How Higher Economic Value of Time Increases Feelings of Time Pressure by Sanford Devoe and Jeffrey Pfeffer Ways to Support the Podcast If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. In the next week, tell one person about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Podcasts Overcast

How did we get to a place where life's become an endless treadmill of work? In her latest book, Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, Anne Helen Petersen tackles this question. Her book is for anyone who feels their life has become an endless to-do list. In particular, Petersen describes the plight of today's millennials, a generation she believes is under constant pressure to perform. She explains how, for many millennials, it begins in childhood, when activities originally intended for fun get repurposed for resume building. She argues, "You're taking things that are meant to be leisure, that are meant to be those joyful corners of your life that are not work, and you're turning them into work." Petersen discusses the social and economic forces that have led to this cultural shift, including the demise of labor unions, increasing reliance on contract workers, and the rise of the gig economy. In each case, she points out how companies benefit, while workers struggle to make ends meet. At the same time, she wonders if millennials are the generation that can break the cycle. She muses, "I'm curious if we can refigure our relationship to work. I am curious if millennials are broken, if we are just too far down this road, or if we can take a different road." Anne Helen Petersen is a senior culture writer for BuzzFeed. A former academic, she received a Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin, where she focused on the history of celebrity gossip. Her previous books, Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud and Scandals of Classic Hollywood, were featured on NPR, Elle, and The Atlantic. Curious Minds Team Learn more about creator and host, Gayle Allen, and producer and editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Episode Links The Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace by Lindsey Pollak How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen Annette Lareau Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary by Louis Hyman The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can be Done to Improve It by David Weil The Effects of 'Clopening' on Employees: What Employers Can Do by Tom Starner Are You Just LARPing Your Job by John Herrman How Does Your Ugly Garden Grow? by Anne Helen Petersen Ways to Support the Podcast If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. In the next week, tell one person about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Podcasts Overcast

Is the onslaught of online information eroding our brain's ability to think deeply and creatively? In 2008, Nicholas Carr, asked the provocative question, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Two years later, he delved more deeply into this topic in his Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Writing at the dawn of the smartphone era, Carr was concerned about the shift many of us were making from deep reading to online scanning. It made him question the Internet's impact on our long-term memory and reasoning skills. Carr muses, "we find ourselves...gathering information...but never slowing down to...mull over it...and when we lose...the ability to concentrate and be attentive...we short-circuit memory consolidation and end up with a...shallow mind." In the decade since the book's release, brain researchers have validated a number of Carr's insights. At the same time, many of today's challenges speak directly to his concerns. He argues, "if you look at problems...with...'fake news'...or...the...rush to...dismiss information that doesn't fit into your existing worldview, I think this is...about...[not]...building this rich interconnected set of knowledge...[in] our...minds." Nick Carr has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and Wired. He is also author of the books, The Glass Cage, and Utopia is Creepy. Curious Minds Team Learn more about Host and Creator, Gayle Allen, and Producer and Editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Episode Links How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf Memory consolidation Frederick Winslow Taylor Flynn effect Joseph Weizenbaum Salience network Cynthia Ozick Ways to Support the Podcast If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. In the next week, tell one person about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

What happens in our minds when we dehumanize others, and how can we resist it? These are the kinds of questions David Livingstone Smith, author of the book, On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It, has found himself asking throughout his career. Most of us are familiar with events of mass violence in recent history, such as the Holocaust, slavery in America, and the Rwandan genocide. David wants to know what motivates us to commit these atrocities. By studying dehumanization, he's learned what a powerful tool it is. He explains, "If people can convince others that those whom they wish to harm are not really human beings at all, but are, in fact, dangerous animals, then this makes it acceptable to harm them." David helps us unpack dehumanization's building blocks, including the dangerous myths of race science and biological hierarchies. And he shares how each of us can resist the urge to dehumanize. To begin, he urges us to recognize that no one is immune: "If politicians scare us or flatter us into thinking of others as, essentially, less than human, we're all capable of doing terrible things. David Livingstone Smith is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine. He has written or edited eight books, including Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others, which won the 2012 Anisfield-Wolf award for nonfiction. Curious Minds Team Learn more about Host and Creator, Gayle Allen, and Producer and Editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Episode Links Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi Kwame Anthony Appiah The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson Caste by Isabel Wilkerson Roger Money-Kyrle The Wall by John Lanchester Cornel West Ways to Support the Podcast If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. In the next week, tell one person about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast

What can a simple street address reveal about a person’s identity, race, wealth and power? For many of us, an address is something we don't spend a lot of time thinking about. It may be a string of numbers and letters we type into a GPS. A place we call home. Or just a placeholder where we get our mail. Yet, for others, it can mean much more. A way out of poverty. A signal of economic status. Or an indicator of race and social history. Street addresses can change lives. Deirdre Mask, author of the book, The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, explains, "Billions of people in the world don't have reliable addresses, and having an address is one of the cheapest ways of lifting people out of poverty." At the same time, Deirdre argues, street addresses don't always change lives for the better. While they can stop epidemics and help the poor get bank accounts, they can also entrench racism and empower authoritarian governments. In this interview, one of the examples we discuss is the negative stereotype associated with streets name for Martin Luther King, Jr. Deirdre asks, "Is it really that MLK streets all deserve this bad reputation or is it that, because we associate MLK streets with Blackness, that we seem them as bad, whether they're nice or not?" Deirdre is a writer, lawyer, and academic. Her work has appeared in publications like, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Economist. Curious Minds Team Learn more about Host and Creator, Gayle Allen, and Producer and Editor, Rob Mancabelli, here. Episode Links Addressing the Unaddressed Physician John Snow Zip codes and Robert Moon Empress Maria Theresa Lost in Translation film Learning from the Japanese City by Barrie Shelton The Years that Matter Most by Paul Tough Susan Hiller Hollywood, Florida Paul Laurence Dunbar Nathan Bedford Forrest Shelby Foote Frederick Douglass by David Blight Derek Alderman Sarah Golabek-Goldman and Homelessness what3words.com Maoz Azaryahu The Black Lives Matter Movement is Being Written into the Streetscape by Deirdre Mask Performative Utterances Ways to Support the Podcast If you're a fan of the show, there are three simple things you can do to support our work: Rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you subscribe. In the next week, tell one person about the show. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Where to Find Curious Minds Spotify iTunes Tunein Stitcher Google Play Overcast