The Indigo Podcast

This year has been such a challenge for you, us, and the rest of the world. But there is hope. We discuss in this episode, specifically:

• How 2020 was tremendously challenging
• Why we should have hope going into 2021
• Ways in which we can position ourselves for flourishing this year

Happy New Year to you and yours! SUBSCRIBE TODAY.

Links and Other Information

• COVID-19 data from Johns Hopkins University: click here
• COVID vs the Flu: article
• How Science Beat the Virus: article in The Atlantic

All episodes and more information is available at Indigo Together.

We are taking a pause. Please listen as to why.

More about Vincent William Baran's life, including the eulogy that Ben delivered for him, is online at www.MightyVincent.org

Do veterans make good civilian employees? How do veterans and civilians avoid talking past each other in corporate settings? We discuss this and more with Kristin Saboe who leads employee listening, research, and talent strategy at The Boeing Company. She is responsible for authoring and leading Boeing's Enterprise Veterans and Military Spouses Strategy. She also sits on several national level advisory councils related to veteran employment. Prior to Boeing, Kristin served in the U.S. Army. We'll dive deep into:

• Kristin's areas of focus and work with the military veteran community
• The use of science for making policy
• The current state and potential future of military veteran employment in the United States

Show Notes

https://www.siop.org/About-SIOP/Advocacy/SIOP-Military-and-Veterans-Initiative

https://www.militarypsych.org/

https://www.bushcenter.org/explore-our-work/issues/military-service-initiative.htm

lhttps://ivmf.syracuse.edu/about-ivmf/

https://www.hiringourheroes.org/

https://psycharmor.org/

https://www.easterseals.com/DCMDVA/

John Kroger, a vice president at the Aspen Institute, previously served as the inaugural Chief Learning Officer of the United States Navy and Marine Corps, providing oversight for all education institutions and programs for more than 900,000 civilian and military personnel, with a budget of more than $1.7 billion. Before that, he served as the president of Reed College, the Attorney General of Oregon, Assistant US Attorney, and in several roles as a policy analyst and legislative assistant. He also served in uniform as a U.S. Marine, after which he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in philosophy at Yale University and his law degree from Harvard University.

In this episode, we discussed:

• The importance of learning and education for national security
• The future of higher education, and
• Supporting human thriving in society at large

Links and Other Information

• John Kroger's blog series, Leadership in Higher Education: click here
• The Aspen Institute: website, Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership program (link)
• The U.S. Naval Community College: click here

If you want to motivate people, you need to understand the nature of rewards in the workplace. Otherwise, you might be really missing the mark. You might actually be demotivating your employees. In this episode, we unpack the basics of rewarding employees, including the following:

• Extrinsic versus intrinsic rewards
• Fundamental ideas about employee motivation
• Implications for people, leaders, and organizations

Links and Other Information

• Related episodes: Cort Rudolph on Generational Differences (link), Designing Work that Doesn't Stink (link), Make it RAIN! Money as a Motivator (link)
• Ben's terrible YouTube videos:
  • Equity Theory,
  • Expectancy Theory,
  • Goal-Setting Theory,
  • Social Exchange and Organizational Support Theory
• Accepting an award: Tips from Toastmasters (click here)
• The Four Intrinsic Rewards that Drive Employee Engagement: Article by Kenneth Thomas (click here)
• Lincoln Electric's pay system: Article in the NY Times
• Russ Robert's essay, "The Story of My Life," in which he introduces the idea of thinking of yourself as part of an ensemble instead of as the main character: click here

One way to tilt the odds in your favor is to use evidence when making decisions and choices. But our typical use of evidence isn't optimal. We can do better. In this episode, we talk with one of the world's leading voices regarding evidence-based practice, Rob Briner. He is a professor of organizational psychology at Queen Mary, University of London and the co-founder and scientific director of the Center for Evidence-Based Management. He has received several awards for his work in this area including the British Psychological Society Division of Occupational Psychology Academic Contribution to Practice Award in 2014 and topped HR Magazine's Most Influential Thinker list in 2016. In our conversation we discuss the following (and more):

• What is evidence-based practice and what is it not?
• Why is it difficult and what are some of the barriers?
• How to get started with evidence-based practice

Links and Other Information

• Rob Briner: website, YouTube channel, Twitter, LinkedIn
• The Basics of Evidence-Based Practice: article in People + Strategy
• Center for Evidence-Based Management: website
• Why Don't We Need the Whole Truth? Click here
• Banana guards: Click here

What can managers do to make work more satisfying and more motivational? Does it matter if people find their jobs satisfying? Why or why not? We explore these and related topics in this episode, including:

• What job satisfaction is and why it matters
• Five different facets of job satisfaction
• The job characteristics model and how managers can make work more satisfying and motivating

Links and Other Information

• Man's Search for Meaning: book
• The Chimp Paradox: book
• Judge, T. A., Thoresen, C. J., Bono, J. E., & Patton, G. K. (2001). The job satisfaction–job performance relationship: A qualitative and quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 127(3), 376. Click here
• Fried, Y., & Ferris, G. R. (1987). The validity of the job characteristics model: A review and meta‐analysis. Personnel Psychology, 40(2), 287-322. Click here

In this eye-opening episode, Cort Rudolph of St. Louis University pulls back the curtain on generational differences at work. Simply put, they don't exist. And it's tough to even make the claim that generations themselves exist. We discuss these topics, drawing upon Cort's recently published article on the topic in the Journal of Business and Psychology. Specifically, we explore:

• What are generations, do they even exist, and do they matter?
• Myths about generations and generational differences
• Implications for people, leaders, and organizations

Links and Other Information

• Rudolph, C. W., Rauvola, R. S., Costanza, D. P., & Zacher, H. (2020). Generations and generational differences: Debunking myths in organizational science and practice and paving new paths forward. Journal of Business and Psychology, 1-23. Click here
• Cort Rudolph: website and Twitter

First impressions, in some research studies, are measured in milliseconds. Let that sink in. In fractions of a second, we make judgments about each other. In fractions of a second, people make judgments about us. In this episode, we explore impression management. Specifically, we discuss:

• What is impression management
• How do we shape impressions and can we change them
• Implications for people, leaders, organizations

We may or may not also discuss Greek yogurt.

Links and Other Information

• Bar, M., Neta, M., & Linz, H. (2006). Very first impressions. Emotion, 6(2), 269. Click here
• Bolino, M. C. (1999). Citizenship and impression management: Good soldiers or good actors?. Academy of Management Review, 24(1), 82-98. Click here
• Leary, M. R., & Kowalski, R. M. (1990). Impression management: A literature review and two-component model. Psychological Bulletin, 107(1), 34. Click here
• Mann, T. C., & Ferguson, M. J. (2015). Can we undo our first impressions? The role of reinterpretation in reversing implicit evaluations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(6), 823. Click here
• Wayne, S. J., & Liden, R. C. (1995). Effects of impression management on performance ratings: A longitudinal study. Academy of Management Journal, 38(1), 232-260. Click here
• Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First impressions: Making up your mind after a 100-ms exposure to a face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592-598. Click here

Decisions are fascinating, and Neil Shortland is an expert on them. He's an assistant professor of Criminology and Justice Studies and the director of the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. In this episode, we explore decisions and decision-making, including details about:

• Making hard decisions
• Decision-making in policing and business
• How the research on decision-making can apply to all of our lives

Links and Other Information

• More about Neil Shortland: website, Twitter, and YouTube
• Ground Truth: Communication, decision-making, leadership, and risk for law enforcement, emergency services, military, and security services. Click here
• Neil's book, Conflict: click here
• Shortland, N., Alison, L., & Thompson, L. (In press). Military maximizers: Examining the effect of individual differences in maximization on military decision-making. Personality and Individual Differences. Click here
• Shortland, N., Thompson, L., & Alison, L. (In press). Police Perfection: Examining the Effect of Trait Maximization on Police Decision-Making. Frontiers in Psychology. Click here
• Cohen, M. S., & Lipshitz, R. (2011). Three roads to commitment: A trimodal theory of decision making. Click here
• Shortland, N., Alison, L., & Barrett-Pink, C. (2018). Military (in) decision-making process: a psychological framework to examine decision inertia in military operations. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 19(6), 752-772. Click here
• Larsen, R. P. (2001). Decision making by military students under severe stress. Military Psychology, 13(2), 89-98. Click here
• Klein, G. A. (2017). Sources of power: How people make decisions. MIT press. Click here