Curious Minds at Work

Think we want creative ideas? Think again. While most of us are swimming in creative ideas, the research shows that we tend to go with what we already know. This love-hate relationship with creativity discourages innovation and causes people and organizations to stagnate. Jennifer Mueller, author of the book Creative Change: Why We Resist It . . . How We Can Embrace It, has spent years studying ho...

Why do some succeed with so little, while others fail with so much? Scott Sonenshein, author of the book, Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less and Achieve More than You Ever Imagined, thinks it happens because we get caught up in a mindset of chasing. A Professor of Management at Rice University, Scott is also a strategy consultant for organizations in healthcare, education, manufacturing, and techno...

Research shows that happiness is elusive. So how can we achieve a deeper, longer lasting sense of joy? Emily Esfahani Smith, author of the book, The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life that Matters, studies the powerful distinction between meaning and happiness and why it matters. An editor at the Hoover Institution, a policy think tank at Stanford University, and a columnist for The New Criterion,...

When we get angry or excited, our emotions can seem automatic. But are they? For decades, scientists have described these feelings as hardwired, beyond our control, and associated with certain parts of the brain. But recent breakthroughs in neuroscience and psychology are upending this classical view, with revolutionary implications for how we understand ourselves and the world. In her book, How E...

Do successful people possess talents that we lack? Or do they just do things that scare the rest of us? Andy Molinsky wants to help us embrace difficult challenges that can lead to growth. He is the author of the book, Reach: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone, Rise to the Challenge, and Build Confidence, and a Professor of Psychology and Organizational Behavior at Brandeis...

Leaders face an onslaught of new challenges that demand increasingly innovative solutions. Yet their approaches to finding them often get stuck in either blue-sky brainstorming or bottom-line decision making. Instead, leaders need a path that blends these two approaches -- a middle road that engages not only the minds of their teams, but also their hearts. To address these challenges, Lisa Kay Sol...

How can we stay on top of changes that are not only getting faster, but more complex? We need strategies to take advantage of breakthroughs in fields as diverse as data mining, artificial intelligence and machine learning, since they are changing the ways we work, research, and live. To navigate this change, Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab and author of Whiplash, shares insights from resear...

Can extraordinary innovation happen in ordinary organizations? Yes, if you know how. In his latest book, Simply Brilliant: How Great Organizations Do Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways, Bill Taylor shines a spotlight on innovation in organizations such as banks, fast-food joints, and nonprofits. And he shares how they do it. Co-founder of Fast Company and bestselling author of the books, Practi...

Innovators often invent the future and some do so by rethinking the past. For example, innovative historical researchers not only help us understand what happened yesterday, they improve how we respond to those issues today. Ibram Kendi is one of those researchers. In his book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, he uncovers the history of racist ideas in...

Employee engagement is at an all-time low, but why? Francesca Gino, an expert on employee engagement and productivity, advises that if we do only one thing to fix it, we should encourage our employees to stop conforming and be themselves. When she and members of her research team introduced small interventions that encouraged people to be more authentic, the results were dramatic. Francesca is a P...

Self-driving cars are just around the corner. Are you ready? With the advent of machine learning and related tech, autonomous cars are more technologically mature than most of us think. Yet old-school policies and regulations are lagging behind, making it difficult for large scale adoption to take place. Essentially, driverless tech has become a people, rather than a technology, problem. To help u...

If you struggle with exercise, Michelle Segar has a secret for you: Stop blaming yourself! Blame the system! After years of studying the science of motivation, Michelle Segar, Ph. D., Director of SHARP -- the Sport, Health, and Activity research and policy center at the University of Michigan -- has created a framework for rethinking exercise that swaps out prescription for meaning. Filled with pr...

Have you ever felt powerless to improve the lives of those less fortunate than you? Mick Ebeling believes that the key to helping many is to start by helping just one. He shares details and examples of this in his book, Not Impossible, The Art and Joy of Doing What Couldn’t be Done. Mick explains that through this philosophy, we not only solve an immediate problem, but we also learn more about wha...

Algorithms make millions of decisions about us every day. For example, they determine our insurance premiums, whether we get a mortgage, and how we perform on the job. Yet, what is more alarming is that data scientists also write the code that fires good teachers, drives up the cost of college degrees and lets criminals evade detection. Their mathematical models are biased in ways that wreak deep...

What is the hidden impact of constant demands on our attention? How does it affect how we think, how we act, and how we live? We have clickbait on our mobile devices and computer screens, ads on buses, and commercials on radio and TV. But as Tim Wu, author and Professor at Columbia University Law School points out, this is a fairly recent development that has turned into a constant monetization of...

Is it possible to lead with full transparency? Can openness be the cornerstone of a large, fast-growing tech organization? These are just some of the questions that Catherine Turco answered when she spent 10 months observing all aspects of a fast-growing, high-tech company determined to build a new form of management. The result was something she calls The Conversational Firm. While she points out...

Gratitude has a dramatic impact on well-being and success, yet many of us are not aware of this research. In this groundbreaking book, The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life, Janice Kaplan explains the science behind the power of gratitude. The author of twelve books, including The New York Times bestselling memoir, I will See you Again, Janice was an...

Everyone benefits from understanding great design. Whether you make products, program apps, or provide services, design plays a critical role in how effectively you accomplish your goals. And if you work in the field of design, there has never been a better time to showcase your skills. In this thought-provoking interview, John Maeda talks about all of this and more. An award-winning designer who...

It is essential to achieve our goals, yet few of us practice it. It is emotional agility -- the ability to navigate the thoughts, feelings, and stories we tell ourselves as challenges arise. This does not mean ignoring how we feel or wallowing in those emotions. And it is certainly not about just being happy all the time. It is about recognizing that the monologue inside our heads is not in contro...

How do breakthroughs happen? Not how we think. Movies, books, and articles, constrained by time and word limits, often leave out the realities --  the messy work, filled with dead ends, abandoned questions, and accidental discoveries. That is what Stuart Firestein, Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, wants to change. He believes that the roles ignorance and failure play in the...

Want to succeed in work and life? Be bad first. Do not confuse this with the familiar call to fail fast (so often heard in the startup world in recent years). This is a longer game. It is about getting comfortable with being novices and of committing to learning new, hard skills that take years to acquire. In a world of rapid-fire change, constant connection, and lots of choices, it is a necessary...

Is pride a deadly sin or a key to our survival? Will it lead us down a destructive path or can it actually help us resist temptation? In this conversation, Jessica Tracy answers these questions and more. Jessica is a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and author of the book, Take Pride: Why the Deadliest Sin Holds the Secret to Human Success. Her research has unearthed f...

We produce more wind and solar power than ever before, yet coal, oil, and gas constitute over 90 percent of our energy sources. Why? Blame it on the grid. While our electrical grid was once an engineering marvel, today it is the Achilles heel of energy efficiency. In her book, The Grid: The Fraying Wires between Americans and Our Energy Future, McGill University Professor Gretchen Bakke explains w...

Do good people discriminate more often than they think? That is exactly what a team of researchers found when they analyzed the thoughts and reactions of millions of people around the world.   Harvard University Professor of Social Ethics, Mahzarin Banaji, author of the book, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, shares surprising findings from Implicit Association Tests taken by over 18 millio...

What stands between us and meaningful work? Email! It is killing our productivity and distracting us from the creative work we crave, yet we spend over a quarter of our work week on it. What is behind our addiction and what can we do about it? Jocelyn Glei, author of the book, Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done, explains the science behind our addict...