Curious Minds at Work

We all have trouble changing our habits, but the problem isn’t us, it’s our systems.

Whether we want to adopt good habits or avoid bad ones, we need to think beyond willpower or setting bigger goals. Instead, James Clear, author of the book, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, argues that the secret is designing a system of small, repeatable habits. He challenges us to ask ourselves, “How can we make these small changes that we layer on top of each other – these little 1% improvements or tiny advantages – and in the process of integrating them all into a larger system, end up making some really remarkable progress?”

Through compelling stories and brain research, James teaches us how to design game-changing habits and sustainable systems. In addition, he shares ways we can leverage environmental factors and addictive tendencies to our advantage. Finally, he helps us see how a commitment to daily habits leads to the identity we seek: “Every action you take is like a vote for the person that you want to become. Doing one push up or writing one sentence or reading one page, it’s not going to transform you right away. But it does cast a vote for being that kind of person, for reinforcing that kind of identity.”

James is an author and speaker focused on habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Entrepreneur, and on CBS This Morning.

The Host

You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net.

Episode Links

@JamesClear

James’ article on British cycling and marginal gains: This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing by 1 Percent and Here’s What Happened

James’ article on identity and habits: Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to Your Goals This Year

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Hooked by Nir Eyal

The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey

Point and Call safety system in Japan (video)

Habit Scorecard

James’ article on habits and environment: How to Improve Your Health and Productivity Without Thinking

Stick with It by Sean Young

James’ article on motion versus action: The Mistake Smart People Make: Being in Motion vs. Taking Action

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What if there were a better way for us to think through life’s riskiest decisions?

That’s where Allison Schrager comes in. She’s the author of the book, An Economist Walks into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk. An economist, journalist at Quartz, and cofounder of LifeCycle Finance Partners, she led retirement product innovation at Dimensional Fund Advisors and consulted for international organizations, including the OECD and the IMF. Allison has also been a regular contributor to The Economist and Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and she teaches at New York University.

For her book, Alison spent time with high-risk professionals, like big-wave surfers, movie producers, and sex workers. She learned how they manage risk and shares what we can learn from them. Along the way, she learned some surprising things about herself, like what it felt like to play in her first poker tournament: “We start at 8:00, and it’s like midnight, and I’m like ‘When does this game end?’ And people are like ‘When you run out of chips.’ And I’m like, oh my god, I’m going to be here forever.”

When it comes to risk, Allison believes we can learn to overcome our biases and manage risk effectively. She explains, “There’s been so many books [on the topic] …but they always write everyone off as being sort of hopeless when it comes to risk or thinking probabilistically, and I really believe everyone has it in them.”

You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net.

Episode Links

Moonlite BunnyRanch and Dennis Hof

Kat Cole and Focus Brands

Film producer, Ryan Kavanaugh

Idiosyncratic risk versus systematic risk

Top poker player, Phil Hellmuth, and poker staking

How Luck Happens by Janice Kaplan and Barnaby Marsh

Gerd Gigerenzer

Arnold Donald and IoT and AI with Carnival cruises

David Bowie

Magician Belinda Sinclair

Robert C. Merton

Big Wave Risk Assessment Group

H. R. McMaster

Simple Ways to Support the Podcast

If you enjoy the podcast, there are three simple ways you can support our work. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You’ll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping listeners find their next podcast.

A Short List of Places Where You Can Find Curious Minds

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Unconscious racial bias can influence what we see, what we do, and what we remember.

These are topics that Jennifer Eberhardt, author of the book, Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, has been studying for over twenty years. In one of her studies, participants were shown either black or white human faces and then asked to identify a crime-related versus a neutral object. She found that, “black faces facilitated the detection of the crime object, whereas the white faces inhibited their detection of those very same crime objects.”

Jennifer’s research led her to work with police departments, prison inmates, and companies. In each case, she couples awareness instruction with actions people can take. For example, she helped one company address online bias in reporting suspicious people in their neighborhood by shifting their response from “if you see something, say something” to “if you see something suspicious, say something specific.”

Jennifer is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a recipient of a 2014 MacArthur “genius grant.” She has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was named one of Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers. She is co-founder and co-director of SPARQ, a Stanford "do tank" that brings together researchers and practitioners to address significant social problems.

The Host

You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net.

Episode Links

Blindspot by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald

Language from Police Body Language Footage Shows Racial Disparities in Officer Respect

Scientific racism

Jennifer’s 2014 MacArthur Fellow video

The Racist Trope that Won’t Die by Brent Staples

When Resumes are Made ‘Whiter’ to Please Potential Employers by Bourree Lam

Whitened Resumes: Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market by Sonia K. Kang, Katherine A. DeCelles, Andras Tilcsik, and Sora Jun

Simple Ways to Support the Podcast

If you enjoy the podcast, there are three simple ways you can support our work. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You’ll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping listeners find their next podcast.

A Short List of Places Where You Can Find Curious Minds

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Are we making our own decisions or are machine learning algorithms making them for us?

Kartik Hosanagar, author of the book, A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay in Control, explains that algorithms are merely a set of steps for making decisions. Yet he points out that artificial intelligence has become so pervasive in our lives that we’re often unaware of just how many decisions machines are making on our behalf: “The algorithms [are] driving 70-80% of the choices that people [make]…[But] if we asked people how much of your choices are driven by algorithms, they might say maybe 10-20%. We think we are…choosing…but in reality, they are curating our world for us.”

In this interview, we talk about what companies should be asked to reveal about their algorithms. We also discuss why we need to educate ourselves about how they work. We also discuss some of the unexpected research findings that arise when machines learn from each other, rather than humans. For example, in one study, a surprising thing happened as machines were learning how to negotiate: Karthik explains that “…the bots were negotiating with each other using words and sentences that made almost no sense to the researchers. The bots had figured out a secret code to communicate with each other that was allowing them to communicate more efficiently.”

Kartik Hosanagar is Professor of Technology and Digital Business and Professor of Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. His writing has appeared in Wired, Forbes, and the Harvard Business Review.

Episode Links

@KHosanagar

Irresistible by Adam Alter

Reporter Carole Cadwalladr’s The Guardian article on Google search bias regarding Jews

A more recent article on Google search algorithm bias

Kevin Gibbs and the Google autocomplete origin story

Code of Hammurabi

Jennifer Logg and her work on algorithmic and human judgment

Berkeley Dietvost, Joe Simmons and Cade Massey’s paper on our how humans avoid algorithms after they make errors

Rene Kizilcec’s paper on the effects of transparency on trust when it comes to algorithms

James Barrat

You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net.

If you enjoy the podcast, there are three simple things you can do to support our work. First, subscribe. That way you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member. You'll always have someone to talk to about the interview. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe. You’ll be helping others find their next podcast.

A Short List of Places Where You Can Find Curious Minds

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How can we change boring, unproductive meetings into gatherings no one would want to miss?

Many of us dread meetings, even when we’re the ones leading them! But there are steps we can take to make them great – steps Steven Rogelberg, author of the book, The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance,has been studying for over two decades.

Though some argue we should get rid of meetings, Steven sees them as essential: “The elimination of meetings is a false goal. Without meetings, employee voice is quieted. Your ability to coordinate, communicate and truly engage in consensus decision making – they’re all compromised without meetings. . . the true goal is to eliminate bad meetings.”

In this interview, Steven shares simple approaches we can take to make meetings great. He offers tips on how to structure meetings to achieve our goals, how to determine who needs to attend, and how to manage meeting energy. For example, he recommends shifting our next meeting agenda from a list of topics to a set of questions. By doing this, he explains, “Now you are actually very clear. You will be done with this meeting when these questions are answered.”

Steven is an award-winning Professor of Organizational Science, Management, and Psychology at the University of North Carolina. His work has been profiled by the Los Angeles Times, Harvard Business Review, and the Wall Street Journal, and he’s worked with organizations such as IBM, TIAA and Procter & Gamble.

Episode Links

@stevenrogelberg

Meeting recovery syndrome

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Parkinson’s Law

Klaxoon

Steven’s book was listed as the #1 leadership book to watch in 2019 in the Washington Post and the #1 business book everyone will be reading in Business Insider

You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net.

If you enjoy the podcast, there are three ways you can support the work we do. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member, so you’ll always have someone to talk to about it. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe, so you can help listeners find their next podcast.

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What if the secret to getting unstuck isn’t the right answer, but the right question?

Hal Gregersen, author of the book, Questions are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life, came to this conclusion after interviewing over 200 high-impact leaders. Through these conversations, he learned they were asking a different kind of question, one he calls catalytic. In this interview, he explains that these kinds of questions “…challenge an assumption that is fundamentally false in a way that provides me and perhaps others around me energy and motivation to do something about it.”

Along the way, Hal’s found that these kinds of questions can help us get unstuck in all aspects of our lives. For example, Hal shares the story of a leader lamenting the distance he feels in his relationship with a teenage daughter. After spending just four minutes on a catalytic questioning activity called a “question burst,” this same leader made a starting realization: “At the beginning of the conversation…I was so focused on how to not lose her…But I was asking the wrong question. I really need to figure out how to help her grow and flourish…[to] let her find her.”

Hal is the Executive Director of the MIT Leadership Center and a senior lecturer in leadership and innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He’s authored or co-authored ten books, including the bestseller, The Innovator’s DNA with Clay Christensen and Jeff Dyer.

Episode Links

Andreas Heinecke and Dialogue in the Dark

Using Catalytic Questioning to Solve Significant Problems by Hal Gregersen

Sociologist Amitai Etzioni

Debby Sterling and Goldieblox

More information on question bursts in this HBR article by Hal

The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson

Video clip of Ed Catmull explaining Pixar’s Brain Trust

Creative Clarity by Jon Kolko

Lior Div and Cybereason

Video clip of Jeff Wilke

Walt Bettinger

Marc Benioff

Bea Perez

Room 13

If you enjoy the podcast, here are three ways you can support the work we do. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member, so you’ll always have someone to talk to about it. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe, so you can help listeners find their next podcast.

You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net.

What if instead of improving our lives, our technology is actually making them less meaningful?

Many of us live in a hyperconnected world. Hourly, we’re responding to messages, writing emails, browsing social media, and combing the Internet. By the end of the day, we’re left wondering why we feel so unproductive and exhausted. These are feelings that Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, associates with the addictive nature of our devices.

Cal believes our tech addictions have set us on a path for lives that feel less meaningful and less in our control. In this interview, he argues that, “It’s this sense of losing autonomy. That you signed up for these things…then you look up years later and see that you’re using them more than is useful…feeling like it’s manipulating the way that you feel and what you believe.”

But rather than providing simplistic solutions, Cal describes a robust philosophy he calls digital minimalism. He explains how it challenges us to ask bigger questions like, “Do I like my life? Am I living a life worth living? Do I feel meaning and satisfaction? Do I feel a sense of authentic engagement?”

Cal Newport is Associate Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University. He writes the Study Hacks Blog and is the author of five other books, including: So Good They Can’t Ignore You, and Deep Work.

Episode Links

Steve Jobs announcing the first iPhone in 2007

Adam Alter

Tim Wu

Leah Pearlman on the perils of Facebook’s “like” button

Tristan Harris

Sean Parker

Digital minimalism defined

Matthew B. Crawford

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

All Things Shining by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly

The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu

Curious Minds interview with Tim Wu

Lead Yourself First by Raymond M. Kethledge, Michael s. Erwin, and Jim Collins

Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

Crossfit

Benjamin Franklin’s and the Junto for structured social gatherings

Generation Z

Tim Berners-Lee

The Slow Media Manifesto

If you enjoy the podcast, here are three ways you can support the work we do. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member, so you’ll always have someone to talk to about it. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe, so you can help listeners find their next podcast.

Which emotions should we bring to work and which ones should we leave at home?

When it comes to most workplaces, it’s a difficult question to answer. That’s what drove Liz Fosslien and her co-author, Mollie West Duffy, to write their book, No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. It’s a compelling guide for validating and managing our feelings in the workplace.

In this interview, Liz challenges the myth that emotions and work don’t mix: “This traditional notion that you can check your feelings at the door when you come into a job is biologically impossible.”

She also shares advice on how we can handle our feelings, for example: “…when you are making a choice, write down everything that you’re feeling and really look at each feeling and say, is this because of something that I’m thinking about in this choice, or am I just feeling all of these irrelevant things…”

Liz is a strategy and design consultant who’s worked with organizations like Salesforce, Ernst & Young, and the Stanford d.School. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Life Hacker, the Freakonomics blog, and on NPR.

Episode Links

@fosslien

@molliewest

Martin Seligman

Emotional Agility by Susan David

Curious Minds interview with Susan David

Steven Pinker

Emotional contagion

If you enjoy the podcast, here are three ways you can support the work we do. First, subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode. Second, tell a friend or family member, so you’ll always have someone to talk to about it. Third, rate and review the podcast wherever you subscribe, so you can help listeners find their next podcast.

How can we reclaim our attention in a world that’s increasingly filled with digital distractions?

Chris Bailey, author of the book, Hyperfocus: How to be More Productive in a World of Distraction, has some answers. He is a productivity expert whose work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company. His first book was The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy.

In this interview, he shares ways we can increase our productivity. These include: multitasking strategically, meditating consistently, and creating a distraction-free environment.

Episode Links

@Chris_Bailey

Deep Work by Cal Newport – Episode 28 interview on Curious Minds

Gloria Mark

Mary Czerwinski

Parkinson’s law

Shawn Achor

Which work environments are the most effective at leveraging their people’s talents, skills and abilities?

Amy Edmondson, award-winning Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and author of the book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth, has spent her career trying to answer that question. What she’s learned is that organizations that prioritize psychological safety do it best.

Amy has written three other books, as well as over 70 articles and case studies, on leadership, teams, innovation, and organizational learning. Her findings have been corroborated by a number of studies, including Google’s recent multi-year research on its teams. In their quest to uncover which traits accounted for the highest-performing teams, Google learned that, among five important traits, psychological safety was the single most important.

As Amy explains in this interview: “Psychological safety isn’t a nice to have, it’s must have for excellence. Only in psychologically safe environments are we going to be able to energetically, and openly, and candidly work well together to get the job done.”

Episode Links

@AmyCEdmondson

Amy’s HBS faculty profile

Psychological safety

Edgar Schein

Warren Bennis

William Kahn

What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team by Charles Duhigg

Volkswagen emissions scandal

Curious Minds interview with Jason Fried of Basecamp

Inside the Pixar Brain Trust

The Leader’s Toolkit

Julianne Morath