Worklife with Molly Graham

We spend more time at work than we do on just about anything else, so how you spend your time at work matters. In this first episode of the How to Get What You Want at Work series, Molly sits down with journalist Simone Stolzoff, author of The Good Enough Job and How to Not Know, to unpack the first fundamental question of finding the right job for you: what do you actually want? Simone breaks down the extrinsic and intrinsic motivations that drive us to show up for work, and offers guidance on how to tell the difference between what you really want and what you think you should. He also shares practical tips for clarifying your values, crafting your current job to be more like the one you want, and interrogating your choices before you make them.

Connect with the team

• Follow Molly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at glueclub.com/
• Subscribe to Molly’s Substack Lesson
• Watch WorkLife videos on YouTube at TEDPods
• Follow TED on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok

For the full text transcript, visit https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife-transcripts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you’re tasked with a big project at work, your first instinct is probably to put your head down, be as productive as possible, and nail it on the first try. But while this approach is often rewarded, it can get in the way of real creativity and innovation. Astro Teller is the head of the X team at Alphabet, a company that creates radical technologies to help solve some of the world’s largest problems. His official title is Captain of Moonshots, and he frequently leads a “bad ideas brainstorm” session to produce radical innovation in his team. In this episode, Molly attends one of these sessions and sits down with Astro to learn more about his “innovation machine” at X’s Moonshot Factory. Astro emphasizes the importance of taking real risks and celebrating failure, and shares 5 principles any organization can use to help drive innovation. He also points out things around X’s office that encourage creativity, and explains why employees there have to break a simple rule to get into the building.

Connect with the team

• Follow Molly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at glueclub.com/
• Subscribe to Molly’s Substack Lesson
• Watch WorkLife videos on YouTube at TEDPods
• Follow TED on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok

For the full text transcript, visit https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife-transcripts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If a team isn’t working well, everybody feels it. But when problems arise in your team, the issue usually runs deeper than the people experiencing it. In this episode, Molly breaks down the Waterline Model, a framework developed by organizational psychologist Roger Harrison to help diagnose workplace problems by looking beneath the surface at the systems and dynamics that shape the way an organization functions. She explains the 4 layers of dysfunction that are often the root cause of workplace issues and how to address them, emphasises the importance of clear communication and definition of goals and roles, and shares how the Waterline Model has helped her throughout her career, including as a wilderness instructor at the National Outdoor Leadership School.

Connect with the team

• Follow Molly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at glueclub.com/
• Subscribe to Molly’s Substack Lesson
• Watch WorkLife videos on YouTube at TEDPods
• Follow TED on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok

For the full text transcript, visit https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife-transcripts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether you’re working on Wall Street or bussing tables, every job has something to teach you—and no job is more full of learning opportunities than your first. In this new Storytime segment, Molly invites Ashley Murphy back to swap stories about their first experiences in the working world and share advice for people navigating a new position. They break down how to set yourself up for success on day one, emphasise the importance of listening and asking dumb questions early on, and reflect on a story from past guest Claire Hughes Johnson about her very first job and how it shaped her mindset for the rest of her career.

Featured guest

• Follow Ashley Murphy on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Glue Club

Connect with the team

• Follow Molly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at glueclub.com/
• Subscribe to Molly’s Substack Lesson
• Watch WorkLife videos on YouTube at TEDPods
• Follow TED on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok

For the full text transcript, visit https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife-transcripts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many people approach job searches backwards, trying to squeeze themselves into the mold of what a company is looking for in a candidate. But there are two sides to every hiring decision, and who you are and what you want is just as important as the job description. Jamie Tilotta Green is one of the most respected recruiters in Silicon Valley, and has helped some of the world’s most influential tech companies find their senior leaders. In this episode, Jamie joins Molly to take a closer look at what it actually means to be a good fit for a job, and how to effectively and authentically tell your story in an interview. She also offers advice on how to identify your key strengths, shares strategies for finding out the truth about what a company is actually like before you take the job, and reflects on the things that never change about hiring.

Featured guest

• Follow Jamie Tilotta Green on LinkedIn

Connect with the team

• Follow Molly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at glueclub.com/
• Subscribe to Molly’s Substack Lesson
• Watch WorkLife videos on YouTube at TEDPods
• Follow TED on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok

For the full text transcript, visit https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife-transcripts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Molly Graham is back for round two, and this one is even more powerful. Molly has spent more than 20 years helping organizations and the humans inside them navigate growth and change. She’s held leadership roles at Google, Facebook, Quip, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and is the host of TED’s WorkLife podcast (which she took over from Adam Grant). She also runs Glue Club, a leadership community for senior operators, and writes a popular newsletter called Lessons.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:

1. Why Molly’s famous “give away your Legos” career advice no longer holds true in an AI world
2. The grief, loneliness, and burnout sweeping through the tech industry right now
3. Why delegating to AI is fundamentally different from delegating to a human
4. The fear narrative around AI job displacement, and why it’s overblown
5. Which Legos you should never give to AI
6. What the best managers are doing right now

For the full text transcript, visit https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife-transcripts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Technology has been promising to revolutionize education for a long time. Online learning, smartphones, and even asynchronous classes during COVID seemed for a while like they might finally transform what learning can look like, but all we really learned was that changing education is slower and harder than anyone wants it to be. Could AI finally be the unlock we’ve been looking for? Leah Belsky has spent nearly 20 years at the intersection of education and technology. She helped lead Coursera during the rise of online learning, and is now the head of education at OpenAI. In this episode, Molly sits down with Leah to find out what AI really has to offer as a learning tool, and where it falls short of the hype. Leah shares what she’s learned as both a leader in the ed tech world and a parent of AI-curious kids, and offers tips for how to coach kids to use AI as an empowering tool without getting in the way of their learning.

Featured guest

• Follow Leah Belsky on LinkedIn

Connect with the team

• Follow Molly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at glueclub.com/
• Subscribe to Molly’s Substack Lesson
• Watch WorkLife videos on YouTube at TEDPods
• Follow TED on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok

For the full text transcript, visit https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife-transcripts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We all know the stereotypical story of the midlife crisis: leave your spouse, buy the red convertible, start from scratch and blow up your whole life. But for most people, the transitional period of midlife is a little more complicated, and it doesn’t have to feel like a crisis. Chip Conley founded Joie de Vivre Hospitality in his 20s, and built it into one of the largest boutique hotel companies in the country—but then the Great Recession, a near-death experience, and other personal tragedies forced him to reevaluate his ambitions. Now Chip is the founder of the Modern Elder Academy, where he’s spent the last eight years working with people in the middle of their lives who are trying to figure out what the next chapter of their work and life is supposed to look like. In this episode, Chip and Molly explore different ways to frame the midlife crisis as a joyful and important transition. Chip shares a “midlife atrium” framework to promote taking time to step back, ask bigger questions, and curate the second half of your life, and Molly reflects on how she broke out of the success scripts prescribed to her in her youth. Chip also shares a “wisdom hack” for reflecting on what he’s learned throughout his career, and breaks down the three stages of a healthy transition.

Featured guest

• Follow Chip Conley on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at his website
• Buy Learning to Love Midlife

Connect with the team

• Follow Molly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at glueclub.com/
• Subscribe to Molly’s Substack Lesson
• Watch WorkLife videos on YouTube at TEDPods
• Follow TED on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok

For the full text transcript, visit https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife-transcripts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The term “nepo baby” has been used in recent years to describe people who are born into successful families and industries with advantages that aren’t available to the average person. What does your success mean if you weren’t the one to earn it? Bryce Dallas Howard is the daughter of famous actor and director Ron Howard, and now a successful actress and director in her own right, having earned a Golden Globe nomination for her film adaptation of As You Like It and starring as Claire Dearing in the Jurassic World franchise. In this episode, Molly and Bryce share their experiences growing up in the shadow of their families’ legacies, and ponder what it means to own your own successes when you know you were given a head start. Bryce reflects on the biggest lessons she learned from watching her dad at work, and explains why people are often blind to their own privilege and ashamed to admit their unfair advantage. She also emphasizes the importance of finding ways to share your unique edge with others, and that while you can’t pick where you come from, you can decide what to do with it. 

Featured guest

• Follow Bryce Dallas Howard on Instagram and at her website

Connect with the team

• Follow Molly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at glueclub.com/
• Subscribe to Molly’s Substack Lesson
• Watch WorkLife videos on YouTube at TEDPods
• Follow TED on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok

For the full text transcript, visit https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife-transcripts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a world filled with requests, many of us are struggling to stay afloat. Even if you’re not a people-pleaser, the desire to maintain a positive reputation can make it hard to turn others down. In this episode, Adam explores the art and science of delivering an effective “no.” He highlights strategies for setting boundaries with others to create space for yourself—and healthier relationships with those around you. Guests: psychologist Vanessa Bohns, author of You Have More Influence Than You Think; Sherri Lu, founder of Eldest Daughter Club; playwright Topher Payne, author of The Tree Who Set Healthy Boundaries.

For the full text transcript, visit https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife-transcripts

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.