Curious Minds at Work

What can older workers contribute to fast-growing companies populated by digital natives? A lot.

Chip Conley, author of the book, Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, believes that older workers provide emotional intelligence, discerning judgment and humble wisdom. But to do this, they need to let go of past identities and adopt a learning mindset. In short, they need to become interns while embracing their positions as mentors.

Chip was the founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, a boutique hotel firm he ran for over 24 years. Most recently, he spent 5 years as Head of Hospitality and Strategy at Airbnb, helping to make it the world’s largest hospitality brand. He’s also author of the NYTimes bestseller, Emotional Equations.

Episode Links

@ChipConley

http://www.chipconley.com/

Ageism

Digital intelligence

Joie de Vivre Hotels

Rumi’s poem, Raw, Well-Cooked and Burnt

Appreciative inquiry

The Difference by Scott Page

The Element of Lavishness: Letters of William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner

Liminal

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

James Baldwin

Emotional intelligence

By reading on our devices, we’re losing abilities it took us thousands of years to develop.

That’s because reading from a screen – a computer, a tablet, a phone – lends itself to skimming. This lack of deep reading alters brain development and erodes essential skills, like critical thinking and empathy, according to literacy expert, Maryanne Wolf.

Author of the book, Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, Maryanne is the Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners and Social Justice at UCLA and past professor of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. She is Co-Founder of Curious Learning, a global literacy project, and she works with the Dyslexia Center at the UCSF School of Medicine.

Maryanne is not opposed to digital reading. Instead, she’s on a mission to help us develop what she calls a "bi-literate brain," that is, a brain suited for digital and analog reading, and she explains how we can teach young people to gain these important skills.

Episode Links

@MaryanneWolf_

NataliePhillips

Ziming Liu

Barbara Oakley’s interview on Curious Minds on Learning How to Learn

The Lost Art of Reading by David Ulin

Internet of Stings by Jennifer Howard

Sam Wineberg

Marilynne Summers

Ann Mangan

Susan B. Neuman

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

You can find the Curious Minds podcast on:

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Overcast

Disastrous events take place all the time, but could many be prevented? For example, could discount retailer, Target, have spared thousands of people their jobs rather than close 58 of its Canadian stores? Could the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe have been avoided?

Chris Clearfield, co-author with Andras Tilcsik of the book, Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It, sees a paradox at work in these events, that is, increasingly complex systems resulting in greater vulnerability. As he walks us through similar meltdowns that have taken place across organizations like, Enron and Three Mile Island, as well as events like the Oscars, he shares steps we can take to anticipate, and even avoid, these disasters.

A former derivatives trader, Chris worked in New York, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. He’s written about catastrophic failure, technology, and finance for The Guardian, Forbes, and the Harvard Kennedy School Review.

In this interview Chris answers questions like:

Why do meltdowns increase as systems grow more complicated?

What advantages do diverse groups have when it comes to avoiding failures?

What are the two biggest factors that contribute to most large-scale disasters?

How does “tight coupling” contribute to meltdowns?

What led to Starbuck’s infamous social media meltdown?

How did snafus in UK post offices result in post masters spending time in jail?

How has the Internet of things (IoT) increased the chance of meltdowns?

In what ways have companies like Enron used complexity to their advantage?

Why did Airbus 330 pilots trade sleek design for the more workmanlike Boeing 737?

How can premortems help us anticipate and avoid failures in our work?

What does the Flint water disaster have to teach us about our cognitive biases?

Why is it so important for us to pay attention to small problems as they arise?

Which is more important for preventing meltdowns, people who speak up or leaders who listen?

How can families take advantage of agile work practices to up their game?

What do flight crews have to teach us about workplace communication?

Links to Episode Topics

@ChrisClearfield

Charles Perrow

Three Mile Island accident

Whiplash by Joi Ito and interview link on Curious Minds

SPIES decision-making method

Superforcasting by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner

Performing a Project Premortem by Gary Klein

Daniel Kahneman

Flint Water Crisis

Marlys Christianson

Agile Practices for Families

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings help others find their next podcast. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. And thank you for listening and sharing!

Many of us strongly identify as supporters of equality, diversity and inclusion. Yet Dolly Chugh’s research suggests that by holding on to this identity too tightly, we may not live up to our own expectations.

Dolly is the author of the book, The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias, suggests An award-winning Professor of Social Psychology at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Dolly encourages us to aim for “good-ish” over good, that is, to view ourselves as works-in-progress, so that we can stay open to making mistakes and learning from them.

Through stories of ordinary people doing just that, Dolly gives us the mindset, the language, and the actions we can take to become the people we want to be.

In this interview we talk about:

Why wanting to be seen as good people makes it harder for us to become better people

The connection between seeing ourselves as “good-ish” and holding a growth mindset

How learning from our mistakes involves listening more deeply and asking more questions

What our social media contacts can reveal about how diverse and inclusive our networks actually are

How our biases limit what we notice and what we process

How the concept of headwinds and tailwinds can help us understand systemic bias

Uncoupling diversity from inclusion

How diversity focuses on numbers while inclusion asks whether those numbers count

How small, inclusive acts add up

How opportunities initiated by people in power can transform headwinds into tailwinds

The 20/60/20 rule for deciding when and how to engage as an ally

Why an audience of undecided listeners may be the reason to engage with people resistant to issues of diversity and inclusion

How personal, humanizing stories of diversity and inclusion often change minds more effectively than cold, hard facts

Links to Episode Topics

http://www.dollychugh.com/

@DollyChugh

Rick Klau

Carol Dweck and fixed vs growth mindset

Perrin Chiles and Adaptive Studios

Story of revival of Project Greenlight in 2014

Brittany Turner

Implicit Association Test

MeToo Movement

Max Bazerman

Blindspot by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald

Debby Irving and headwinds and tailwinds

Bootstrap narrative

The myth of meritocracy

African Americans and the G.I. Bill

Susan Lucia Annunzio

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings help others find their next podcast. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. And thank you for listening and sharing!

It can seem like we’re working harder, yet rarely getting to what matters most. John Zeratsky understands how we feel and wants to help. He’s the co-author with Jake Knapp of the book, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day. Their book is an innovative way to look at our work, inspiring by years of productivity hacks that ultimately left them unfulfilled.

John was a designer for tech companies like YouTube and Google before working at Google Ventures with close to 200 startups. There, he began experimenting with hundreds of teams, in order to help people accomplish their most important goals. What he discovered has been distilled to dozens of bite-sized tips and strategies readers can try out and build into their lives.

John’s first book was the New York Times bestseller Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. He’s also written for The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Wired.

In this interview we talk about:

Why checking off items on a to-do list can make us feel productive yet unfulfilled

Why we need to get off the “busy bandwagon” with meetings, email and chat

How endless streams of content are bottomless “infinity pools” for our attention

The direct connection between our tech’s default settings and attentional exhaustion

How to keep the positive aspects of our tech and lose the not so good parts

A four-part framework for making time for work we value

How choosing a daily highlight can make all the difference on how we spend our time

Why we should trade our to-do lists for might-do lists

How to “bulldoze” our calendars to free up time for our daily highlights

How making simple changes to our tech can help us create barriers to distraction

Why dusting off our wristwatches may be the way to go

Why quiet and boredom our invaluable for our work and our health

Key ways we can design our environment so that the right decision is the easy decision

Links to Episode Topics

@jazer

https://about.me/jazer

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Off the Clock by Laura Vanderkam and you can find her interview here on Curious Minds

Curly Lambeau and Lambeau Field

https://maketimebook.com/

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings help others find their next podcast. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. And thank you for listening and sharing!

Long hours, 24/7 access, and crushing goals have become the norm in many workplaces. Jason Fried, co-author of the book, It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work, thinks we need to stop celebrating this approach and, instead, actively work to create calmer organizations.

Jason is the Co-founder and CEO of Basecamp, an incredibly successful project management and team communication software company. He’s written three other books about work —  Getting Real, Remote, and the New York Times Bestseller, Rework.

In this interview we talk about:

Why it’s invaluable to think of your organization as a product

How curbing our ambition can be good for us and our customers

Why we should understand that “a company is just a collection of choices”

Reasons why leadership needs to defend their employees’ time from distractions

The important role office hours can play in helping people focus

Why we should embrace JOMO over FOMO

The negative aspect of encouraging employees to think of each other as family

What a trust battery can do for our relationships with others at work

Why we should think twice before taking on projects we believe to be low-hanging fruit

Why strong writing skills can be invaluable, no matter a person’s role at work

Why expecting new employees to “hit the ground running” is unfair and inefficient

What job candidates gain when leaders eliminate salary negotiations

The value in supporting employee learning in areas of interest outside of work

What everyone gains when we slow down how we make decisions about new ideas

How to make a decision when team members disagree

How building reading time into the start of a meeting can make the rest of the meeting more productive

Links to Episode Topics

@jasonfried

https://basecamp.com/

Background on concept of disagree and commit

A New York Times article on JOMO

Morten Hansen on his book, Great at Work, on Episode 102 of Curious Minds

Tobi Lutke and Shopify

Article on Jeff Bezos and reading memos at the start of meetings

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings help others find their next podcast. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. And thank you for listening and sharing!

What if you could make better decisions? Even with the biggest, life-altering choices, such as where to live, who to marry, or whether to start a company?

Steven Johnson, author of the book, Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions that Matter the Most, thinks we often face decisions like this with little to no training and that we could use more tools in our decision-making toolbox.  Steven is the bestselling author of ten books, including Wonderland, How we Got to Now, Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, and Everything Bad is Good for You. He is also the host and creator of the PBS and BBC series How We Got to Now.

When it comes to complex decision making, he thinks we can do better, and in this interview about his latest book, Farsighted, he shares strategic approaches to help us get there.

In this interview we discuss:

How our most important decisions are complex and life-defining yet our approach to them is often too simple and quick

Why breaking complex decisions into steps can help us get started

Why you may never use a simple pros and cons list again

How mapping all the variables that influence your decision can provide more wisdom

Why our decision-making blindspots actually limit the kinds of decisions we make

The important role outsiders or non-experts can play in expanding options for decision making

Why diverse teams make more intelligent, thoughtful decisions than homogeneous teams

The important roles uncertainty and lack of confidence play in making smarter decisions

Why we need to take the either-or option off the decision-making table

How influence diagrams can help us map who might be influenced or impacted by our decisions

How charrettes can ensure we’ll get feedback from diverse stakeholders

Why it’s important to speak to group members individually when trying to make a thoughtful decision

The important role daydreaming plays in predicting outcomes in decision making

The characteristics and practices of the most accurate predictors

Why it’s important to map the degree to which we’re uncertain as we make important decisions

How an effective decision-making process can help us work our way into important insights that may never have occurred to us otherwise

Why we should try value models over pros and cons lists

How reading novels provides decision-making simulations that help us practice

Why decision making may be one of the top five skills we need to learn

Links to Episode Topics

https://stevenberlinjohnson.com/

@stevenbjohnson

How We Got to Now|PBS

Collect Pond

Pierre Charles L’Enfant

Paul C. Nutt

Highline in NYC

Katherine W. Phillips

Decisive by Dan and Chip Heath

Influence diagram

Charrette

Simple Rules by Donald Sull

Phillip E. Tetlock

Thomas C. Schelling

Value model

Middlemarch by George Eliot

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings help others find their next podcast. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. And thank you for listening and sharing!

When we try to explain cultural differences, we often turn to descriptions of east versus west, rich versus poor or, in U.S. politics, red versus blue. But Michele Gelfand, author of the book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World, argues that we’re overlooking the most comprehensive explanation of all – how tightly or loosely we adhere to social norms.

Michele is Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and her pioneering research into cultural norms has been cited in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Science, and on NPR. Drawing on decades of research conducted in over 50 countries, Michele shares how these cultural characteristics play out around the world.

In this interview we discuss:

How our unwritten rules of behavior are the glue that holds societies together

How tight cultures typically have stronger social norms than their loose culture counterparts

Just how early we begin to learn social norms – typically by the age of 3

How our social norms affect our behavior from morning to night

How social norms can cause us to follow along even when we don’t agree

Why they play an important role in what we can accomplish as a society

The tradeoffs of tight versus loose cultures when it comes to creativity, safety, openness, and cooperation

How disasters, diseases, and diversity serve as indicators of tight versus loose cultures

The dynamic nature of tight and loose cultures in response to temporary vs long-term environmental threats

The role of social status and power in relation to tight vs loose cultures

The impact of organizational tightness versus looseness on the success of mergers and acquisitions

Why we should seek tight-loose ambidexterity to accommodate change

How culturally ambidextrous leaders are more successful than their rigid counterparts

Times we might compromise or negotiate with others when it comes to tight vs loose

How our social norms will influence robot behavior

Links to Topics Mentioned in the Podcast

@MicheleJGelfand

https://www.michelegelfand.com/

Culture Lab

Solomon Asch

The Secret to Our Success by Joseph Heinrich

Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me!

Robert Levine

The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

Fractal

Betty Dukes

Tom Curley

The Muppets

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. And thank you for listening and sharing!

Gatherings play a big role in our lives. Weekly work meetings. Weddings. Holiday dinners. But over time, our gatherings can have a ho-hum feel. Priya Parker, author of the book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, thinks it doesn’t have to be that way.

Priya is the founder of Thrive Labs, an organization that draws on her training and experience in conflict resolution, organizational design, and public policy to help others create transformative gatherings. From the momentous convening of the World Economic Forum to a light-hearted picnic in the park, she walks us through new ways of bringing people together, including who to invite, how many, and even how to start.

In this interview we discuss:

How the category of a gathering – like a wedding or networking event – should never supersede its purpose

Why knowing why we’re meetings should drive everything else about the gathering

How an innovative justice center in Red Hook, Brooklyn rethought its purpose for gathering in order to solve problems of poverty and crime

Why the New York Times had to replace ritual with purpose in its infamous “Page One” meetings

The kinds of questions we can ask when planning a meaningful gathering

Why “the more the merrier” works against effective meetings

The connection between purpose and the number of people we invite to a meeting

Why we need to think about the ratio of meeting space to number of people attending

The responsibilities a host has once the gathering begins

How we can use simple rules to create the feeling of a temporary alternative world

How to start a gathering (and how not to)

How an activity like “15 Toasts” drives connection

Why the end of a meeting is just as important as the beginning

Why gathering is an act of courage, rather than an act of perfection

Why we need to stop hiding as we plan and lead meetings of purpose 

Links to Episode Topics

@priyaparker

Priya Parker’s website

Red Hook Community Justice Center

New York Times “Page One” Meeting

Dean Baquet

Jonathan Cook

The Power of Moments by Dan and Chip Heath

Young Presidents Association

Presidio in San Francisco

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

“I am here” days

Jill Soloway

Transparent

15 Toasts

Ocean’s 11 movie

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. And thank you for listening and sharing!

Do we know what others think? What about our partners or closest friends?

Nick Epley, author of the book, Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want, explains that we can read the minds of others, but not nearly as well as we think. In fact, we can barely read our own minds. 

Nicholas Epley is Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His research has appeared in more than two dozen journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and his work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Wired, NPR, and on CNN.

In this interview we discuss:

The fact that we aren’t as good at understanding others -- even those closest to us -- as we think we are

How our predictions of what a group thinks of us is are, on average, more accurate than what we think any one individual in that group thinks of us

Why our confidence in how well we understand people we spend a lot of time with outstrips the accuracy with which we actually do understand them

How the faster we decide what another person thinks can cause us to be that much more confident in our assessment, even if we’re wrong

The gap between what we think we’ll do in a particular situation and the ways we behave when we’re actually in that situation

How we’re really making up stories or guessing when we attempt to explain why we feel a certain way or take a particular action

Why a surefire way to ensure we won’t understand others is to dismiss their capabilities, dehumanize them and, in general, distance ourselves from them

How we can misunderstand others just by paying attention to different things or focusing on something else

Why interpreting information differently from others -- seeing the same situation in a different way -- makes it difficult to understand their perspective

How body language reveals much less than we assume when it comes to understanding what others are thinking

The importance of perspective getting over perspective taking -- how we need to test out our understanding by asking the other person what their experience was like, listen to what they have to say and then repeat it back to ensure our understanding, rather than work from the stories we’ve made up in our minds

How we’re happier connecting with strangers on trains, buses, and in cabs, though we predict we’d be happier if we kept to ourselves

Links to Episode Topics

Nicholas Epley at Chicago Booth

Richard LaPiere

The Influential Mind by Tali Sharot

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!