WorkLife with Adam Grant

By TED

Business

What's WorkLife with Adam Grant about?

You spend a quarter of your life at work. You should enjoy it! Organizational psychologist Adam Grant takes you inside the minds of some of the world’s most unusual professionals to discover the keys to a better work life. From learning how to love your rivals to harnessing the power of frustration, one thing’s for sure: You’ll never see your job the same way again. Produced in partnership with Transmitter Media.

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Malcolm Gladwell Experiment...

10.01.2022

This week, we’re sharing a special episode from one of Adam's favorite podcasts, Revisionist History. Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast about things misunderstood and overlooked. This season, Malcolm is obsessed with experiments – natural experiments, scientific experiments, thought experiments. ...

WorkLife with Adam Grant episodes:

10.01.2022 Malcolm Gladwell Experiments with Adam's Class This week, we’re sharing a special episode from one of Adam's favorite podcasts, Revisionist History. Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast about things misunderstood and overlooked. This season, Malcolm is obsessed with experiments – natural experiments, scientific experiments, thought experiments. ...
09.27.2022 Surgeon Atul Gawande wants everyone to have a coach Atul Gawande was advised by a colleague to say yes to every opportunity until he turned 40. Since then he’s been a renowned surgeon, a public health leader and government policymaker, and a bestselling author and “New Yorker” writer. He ...
09.20.2022 How free solo climber Alex Honnold faces fear In 2017, Alex Honnold did what even the world’s best rock climbers thought was impossible. He climbed to the top of El Capitan– a granite rock mountain more than 3,000 feet high– without a rope, harness, or net. His audacious ...
09.13.2022 Mark Cuban doesn’t believe in following your passions Mark Cuban has gone from selling garbage bags door-to-door to selling internet companies for billions, acquiring an NBA team, and becoming a beloved “Shark” on Shark Tank. Mark reveals to Adam how he turns problems into opportunities in entrepreneurship, basketball, ...
09.09.2022 Introducing ReThinking with Adam Grant Great news WorkLifers! You told us you wanted more episodes of Taken for Granted, and we listened. We’ve renamed the show Re:Thinking with Adam Grant, and we’ll be back with more episodes, all year round. In every episode Adam will ...
09.01.2022 Michael Schur on every moral question ever \| The TED Interview Michael Scott, Leslie Knope, Detective Jake Peralta–television producer and writer Michael Schur has created some of TV’s most beloved sitcom characters on shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place. Still, his shows and his philosophy are ...
06.28.2022 How to Change Your Workplace It’s hard to make change at work happen. But wherever you sit in the hierarchy, there are steps you can take to overcome resistance and motivate people to embrace new ideas. In this episode, Adam brings in an education change ...
06.21.2022 The 4 Deadly Sins of Work Culture How do you avoid joining a toxic culture– and build a healthy one once you’ve arrived? In this episode, Adam explores how to recognize the four deadly sins of work culture before you join an organization, and shares strategies that ...
06.14.2022 It’s Time To Stop Ignoring Disability Disability is far more common and far more diverse than we might realize. But often, people are reluctant to reveal their disabilities, and managers don’t know how to address them. In this episode, Adam investigates some extraordinary steps workplaces are ...
06.07.2022 The Do’s And Don'ts Of Returning To The Office It’s been two years since offices around the world were thrown into virtual environments to do their jobs, and now many leaders are itching to get everyone back in the office. But new evidence demonstrates that hybrid work can be ...
05.31.2022 Ava DuVernay is Triumphant Before Ava DuVernay became the first Black woman director to win Sundance and get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, she was a publicist with a little hobby, a big dream, and a lot of patience. Adam talks to ...
05.24.2022 Satya Nadella is building the future Satya Nadella is a modern renaissance man; he’s a cricket enthusiast, poetry lover, oh, and the chairman and CEO of Microsoft with a nearly perfect approval rating on Glassdoor. Satya has led a transformation at Microsoft, up-ending the culture, and ...
05.17.2022 Is Emotional Intelligence Really So Important? \| No Stupid Questions Today, something a little different. We're sharing an episode of No Stupid Questions, a podcast about human behavior hosted by Adam’s colleague and friend Angela Duckworth—a worldwide expert on grit—and Stephen Dubner, host of Freakonomics Radio. In this episode, Angela ...
05.10.2022 Jon Batiste on the art of pushing your limits Jon Batiste has had a record year—he was the most nominated artist at the Grammys, winning five of his ELEVEN nominations across multiple categories, including Album of the Year. When he’s not making musical history, he’s a touring artist, late-night ...
05.03.2022 Breaking Up with Perfectionism Perfectionism is on the rise–and not just in job interviews when people claim it’s their greatest weakness. But the desire to be flawless is not always productive—or healthy. As a recovering perfectionist, Adam dives into how he managed to abandon ...
04.26.2022 How To Pitch Your Best Ideas Great pitches can seem like genius or magic. But you don’t have to be a great salesperson to give a great pitch. Whether you’re floating an idea at a team meeting, looking for investors for your startup, or applying for ...
04.19.2022 Rethinking Flexibility at Work “Flexibility” is the number one request people are making from employers. But flexibility is much more than WHERE you work–it also means having the freedom to make choices about what you work on, who you work with, and when and ...
04.12.2022 The Not-So-Great Resignation Over the past year, the Great Resignation has been all over the news. Many people are celebrating quitting their jobs… but it’s a decision some will come to regret. So when’s the right time to leave? How do you quit ...
04.05.2022 Dolly Parton is burning up, not burning out Dolly Parton is a living legend. Her hit songs like “9 to 5”, “Jolene”, and “I Will Always Love You” have captured generation after generation, and her career is far from slowing down. Her latest project, “Run, Rose, Run” is ...
03.29.2022 Leadership lessons from Zelenskyy and Putin As Russia continues to attack Ukraine, the whole world is watching a momentous clash of leadership styles. No one is more qualified to analyze the situation than political scientist and former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. In this episode, ...
03.22.2022 A Glimpse Into The Future \| TED Radio Hour This hour, futurist Amy Webb guides us through innovations that give a glimpse into the future of transportation, wellness, tech, commerce, and travel ... and the impacts they'll have on our lives. This is an episode of the TED Radio ...
03.16.2022 Annie Murphy Paul \| The Next Big Idea WorkLife will be back on March 29 with new episodes including an incredible conversation with Dolly Parton, and an episode on the (not so) Great Resignation. For now, here's an episode of another show that Adam frequently appears on. It's ...
11.09.2021 Esther Duflo wants you to think like a plumber When Esther Duflo took her first economics class, she hated it. In 2019, she won a Nobel Prize in economics. Esther talks with Adam about her groundbreaking experiments to fight poverty, busts myths about what motivates people, and reveals how ...
11.02.2021 Indra Nooyi Says It’s Time for Leaders to Care PepsiCo's trailblazing former CEO drove record profits—but did so while investing in employee well-being, consumer health, and environmental sustainability. In their second conversation, she and Adam are on stage for a lively, entertaining dialogue about how to improve our work ...
10.26.2021 Indra Nooyi wants us to reimagine the return to work The longtime PepsiCo CEO is one of the world’s most powerful women and Time’s 100 most influential people. In the first of two rich conversations, she explains why she wrote more than 400 letters about her direct reports… to their ...
10.19.2021 Allyson Felix on defeating disappointment and savoring success At the age of 18, Allyson Felix took home the Olympic silver medal in the 200 meter dash. She was devastated. Where others saw “second-best in the world,” she only saw “not first.” That race lit a fire that would ...
10.13.2021 How to stop languishing and start finding flow \| TED Talks Daily We're back soon with new episodes of Taken for Granted, but for now, here's a TED Talk Adam gave recently. Have you found yourself staying up late, joylessly bingeing TV shows and doomscrolling through the news, or simply navigating your ...
07.27.2021 We should allow sad days, not just sick days People are finally paying attention to mental health at work, but some major myths are holding us back. Adam breaks down what we get wrong about mental health at work, what individuals and organizations can do to start getting it ...
07.20.2021 Is it Safe to Speak Up at Work? Are you afraid to share bad news, ask for help, or admit you were wrong? These are signs of being in a psychologically unsafe work environment. Adam breaks down the importance of psychological safety in preventing errors and promoting innovation ...
06.29.2021 Lin-Manuel Miranda Daydreams, and His Dad Gets Things Done In a world obsessed with efficiency, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash Broadway hits Hamilton and In the Heights began with idle curiosity. Adam interviews Lin together with his father, Luis, about finding harmony between creativity and productivity—and rhythm between work and life. ...
06.22.2021 John Green Wants You to Pay Attention to Your Attention Do you pay attention to your attention? John Green is the beloved author of The Fault In Our Stars, and when he started tracking his attention, he realized he was obsessed with evaluating human progress. He decided to start rating ...
06.15.2021 Mellody Hobson on Taking Tough Feedback Criticism rarely comes wrapped in a shiny gift box, tied with a bow. As a trailblazing leader, one of Mellody Hobson’s gifts is finding the diamond in the rough. She and Adam unpack how to look for the grain of ...
06.08.2021 Merve Emre on Emotional Intelligence as Corporate Control It’s been 25 years since the concept of emotional intelligence exploded onto the scene. Cultural critic Merve Emre makes a bold case that in the wrong hands, it can be used to exploit people. We unpack the surprising roots of ...
06.01.2021 Your Insecurities Aren’t What You Think They Are “I can’t do this.” “I didn’t deserve this promotion.” “When will they find me out?” If you’ve had thoughts like these, you aren’t alone. Nearly 70% of people have experienced imposter syndrome—even some of the most successful ones! The difference ...
05.25.2021 Who's the Boss? Workers are now expecting more from their employers beyond a paycheck and benefits. Employees want an employer who lines up with their values outside of work and stands up in the name of justice. And when they don’t, employees are ...
05.18.2021 How to Bust Bias at Work We’ve all been to bias training, but it rarely works—and sometimes backfires. Science suggests that to drive real change, it’s not enough to run one-off workshops. We need to change individual and organizational habits. Find out how people can overcome ...
05.11.2021 Why it Pays to Raise Pay When employees are paid more, they give more. Going above market pay might sound like a fantasy, but in a growing number of companies it’s becoming a profitable reality. Peek inside workplaces that have reinvented their pay structures to give ...
05.04.2021 Dax Shepard Doesn't Believe in Regret Comedian, actor, and Armchair Expert host Dax Shepard steps into the hot seat for a conversation with Adam on Clubhouse. They discuss what he's learned over the course of 300+ interviews, how he thinks about humor at work, and how ...
05.03.2021 Bonus: That Blah You’re Feeling Is Called Languishing Adam wrote a viral article for The New York Times on a feeling many of us are struggling with right now. It's somewhere between burnout and depression: languishing. This neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and ...
04.27.2021 Glennon Doyle Wants you to Abandon Identity Author and activist Glennon Doyle used to say “I am a Christian. I am straight. I am an addict.” Now she simply says “I am.” In this episode, Doyle sits down with Adam to discuss letting go of past identities ...
04.20.2021 How to Build an Inclusive Workplace Over the last year, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, many companies have paid lip service to racial inclusion. But what does it actually take to change individuals — and the structures and cultures of organizations? In the first ...
04.13.2021 The Science of Productive Conflict Whether it's over a project, politics, or pizza toppings, conflict with colleagues is inevitable. The goal is not to eliminate it; it’s to handle it better. There’s a whole science of managing individual and team conflicts, and it suggests that ...
04.06.2021 Navigating Career Turbulence Everyone’s career will hit some turbulence at some point. The past year has left us all reacting to dramatic change. Instead of pushing harder against the headwinds, we’re sometimes better off tilting our rudder and charting a new course. In ...
03.30.2021 How to Rethink a Bad Decision In life and work, we have a hard time changing course. When we wind up in a miserable job, a failing project, or a floundering romantic relationship, we rationalize, make excuses, and stick with our bad decisions—even when the writing's ...
03.16.2021 Daniel Kahneman Doesn't Trust Your Intuition Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel Prize winner who transformed our understanding of the biases that cloud our thinking. In this conversation, he and Adam explore when to trust our intuition and when to second-guess it. Danny explains how he finds ...
03.09.2021 Malcolm Gladwell Questions Everything When Adam Grant and Malcolm Gladwell sit down to challenge each other, everything is fair game. Sit ringside for this collegial cage match in which two preeminent writers rethink each other's ideas in an insatiable quest to get closer to ...
03.02.2021 Jane Goodall on Leadership Lessons from Primates Have you ever felt your work colleagues sometimes act like animals? In this conversation, Jane and Adam take that idea literally, exploring what Jane's expertise on chimp behavior can teach us about how humans relate and organize. With grace and ...
02.23.2021 Brené Brown on What Vulnerability Isn't We usually wear our thickest armor at work, and Brené Brown has blazed the trail of teaching us why—and how to shed it. In this conversation, Adam and Brené unpack the power of showing vulnerability at work—and explore how much ...
01.31.2021 Think Again: JJ Abrams Takes Adam’s Job JJ Abrams joins as the interviewer for an exclusive first look at Adam's forthcoming book: “Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know.” Together, they illuminate strategies for maintaining humility, curiosity, and mental flexibility in a world that ...
05.13.2020 How Science Can Fix Remote Work Remote work was a trend that some companies and gig workers were trying out, even as others resisted. Then the pandemic made it an overnight reality for many of us. This feels like uncharted territory, but there’s already plenty of ...

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