Talk Cocktail

We’ve recently seen year end lists of the best places to work.  Free food, massage, pets, and a beautiful campus are all contributing factors.  However, research, behavioral analysis and science can also tell us what make a workplace effective, productive, and more innovative.
The famed management consultant Peter Drucker said that “culture eats strategy for lunch.” Affirming a long held conviction that the culture of a company, even more than its smarts or its products, drive its success or failure.Part of that culture, built into the DNA of every company, it the work environments it provides its people.
That where my gust Social Psychologist Ron Friedman picks up the story in The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace
My conversation with Ron Friedman:

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While the origins of the quote are sketchy, Harry Truman, frustrated by the problems he faced in the White House, is reported to have said that “if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”
Today the same might be said of our pets in general, or in the politically correct parlance of the day, our companion animals.  Be they dogs, or cats.
With all the talk about  the amount of money spend on our pets, it’s easy to lose sight of the real power of our relationships with them.  Sometimes exalted, sometimes mocked, the fact is that in a society where alienation is common, where complexity often rules, where self absorption defines a whole generation, those human/animal connections can be transcendent.
That’s the personal story and the connection that Lissa Warren writes about in The Good Luck Cat: How a Cat Saved a Family, and a Family Saved a Cat.
My conversation with Lissa Warren:

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Back in the 1940’s theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote the serenity prayer. You all know it. It tells us to accept those things that we can’t change and the courage to change those we can and the wisdom to know the difference. Over the years, it’s been adopted by AA and various other groups. But it might also be the coda for Cheryl Strayed's fantastically successful book  Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
The story of her trek on the Pacific Crest Trail, it’s also the story of coming of age and Cheryl's journey out of her own heart of darkness. The book is out in paperback and it is now a major motion picture.
My conversation with Cheryl Strayed:

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During the recent Ebola scare, we were often reminded of the dozens of science fiction thrillers that set the stage for our fears.  From the Andromeda Strain, to World War Z, The Stand and The Hot Zone, to name just a few.
Today, the cutting edge of genetic manipulation, often provides the basis for similar fears.  The brave new world of Bioengineering, plays upon our most primal instincts of what makes us human.
Jamie Metzl a former member of the National Security Council,  has added his new thriller to this long tradition.  Set against the worlds of politics, finance and religion,     Genesis Code, takes its place in fuelling our paranoia.
My conversation with Jamie Metzl:

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We live in an ironic age.  The speed of modern communication, juxtaposed with the traditional entrenched problems we face, provides a disconnect that only humor can bridge.
Think about it this way. How often has humor engaged us to better understand tragedy?  How long after certain tragedies, do we hear the first joke?  Not out of disrespect, but out of a way to get our arms around something that our brains have trouble comprehending.
When David Letterman asked, after 9/11, if we would ever laugh again, he was going to the heart of the role humor and satire play in our society.
From Mark Twain to Will Rogers, from Mort Sahl to Stephen Colbert, satire has been a translator of the American experience. 
Sophia McClennen dishes it up in Is Satire Saving Our Nation?: Mockery and American Politics.
My conversation with Sophia McClennen:

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Even amidst the concerns about the impact of cattle on global warming, the disgrace of industrialized farming and slaughterhouses, and the increased worldwide population that has sworn off beef, it’s still very much a part of our diet.  
And perhaps it should be.  But is there a better, more sustainable, more humane way to process that beef and bring it to market? 
In what too often seems to be world of black and white thinking, can we find a middle ground?  A way in which beef is healthy, sustainable, humane and actually good for us and the environment?  Nicolette Hahn Niman thinks so. Her book about what she has discovered is Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production
My conversation with Nicolette Hahn Niman:

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John Wanamaker, the famous department store magnate, once said that he knew that at least half of his advertising budget was wasted.  Problem was, he didn’t know which half. 
For anybody that’s in business today, you know how difficult it is making your product or service stand out among the competition and noise of today’s marketplace. It’s a lot tougher than it was for Don Draper.
Advertising is everywhere.  Television, radio, billboards, digital, banners, mobile, native advertising, telemarketing, and pop ups.  It’s on everything that isn’t implanted into us….and that may be not that far away.
So what works.  What is, in the buzzword of the day, authentic, effective and creates real Return on Investment?  
One of the most powerful tools of the marketer has always been word of mouth.  Social media and things like Yelp, have only amplified that power. 
But is word of mouth marketing just some random confluence of events, or can it be shaped, molded and directed in ways that are both authentic, and beneficial to both seller and buyer?
This has been the work that Ted Wright talks about in Fizz: Harness the Power of Word of Mouth Marketing to Drive Brand Growth
My conversation with Ted Wright:

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I can’t even count the number of times that guests on this program have spoken about what’s become known as the Marshmallow Experiments.  In conversations ranging from business, to public policy, to personal psychology, the impact of this experiment in determining self control, executive function, the predilection for addiction and even intelligence, has been profound.
Walter Mischel started thinking about this experiment when he was in graduate school. Later, in the 60’s at Stanford, he devised what's become known as the Marshmallow Experiment, to assess the ability of children to delay gratification.
Since then, 50 years of in depth research have both enhanced and expanded the scope and knowledge that began with this simple experiment.  After all these years, Mischel has written about it in The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control.
My conversation with Walter Mischel:

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We live in an information age.  The goal of virtually every App on our phone, and most websites, is perfect information; about the world, about our neighbors, about our friends and about ourselves.
So how is it, that with all this information, the world is so much more dangerous.  That secrets are sometimes so much deeper, that bad actors, and even good ones turned bad, can often outsmart, out run and out maneuver the CIA, the very agency designed to ferret out those secrets and keep us safe.
Even as the very first tenants move into the new World Trade Center, we’ve come to appreciate the importance and value of human intelligence.  But those that engage in it are often at risk both from their enemies and their friends.
Few understand this better than former CIA operative Valerie Palme.  Her life and career was derailed, in public view, as much by friends as by her enemies. Valerie Plame’s career continues through the work and efforts of her fictional alter ego Vanessa Pierson.
Pierson made her debut in Blowback, and now she’s back in Burned.
My conversation with Valerie Plame:

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It was actually Winston Churchill, not Rahm Emanuel who said that we should never let a serious crisis go to waste.
A crisis often creates a great opportunity to face, to talk about, and even sometimes to act on issues that had been previously frozen
Or, as Donald Rumsfeld once inarticulately put it, “sometimes the only solution to an unsolvable problem, is to create a bigger problem.”
But often these problems come out of the blue; in life and in business.  When they do, when those pivotal moments happen, it’s the culture, the people, the mission, in short the underpinning of the organization itself, that must become its survival mechanism, as well as the jumping off point for its future.
So just as we might prep for physical disasters, why not prepare and build an origination for the stress of those moments. That's one of the lessons from Malachi O'Connor and Barry Dornfeld in The Moment You Can't Ignore: When Big Trouble Leads to a Great Future.
My conversation with Malachi O'Connor and Barry Dornfeld:

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