Curious Minds at Work

Average is a myth, so why should it control our lives? We measure ourselves -- and others -- against averages all the time. Think GPAs, personality tests, standardized test results, performance review ratings. These are average measures that tell us little about what makes us unique. And this is not just a feel-good argument. It is a mathematical fact. In his bestselling book, The End of Average:...

Do we shape tech or does it shape us? Turns out it is both. And that is just 1 of the 12 big ideas Kevin Kelly explores in his latest bestseller, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future. The Inevitable is a playbook to guide us through the seismic changes in life and work, caused by technologies becoming exponentially faster and smarter. Kelly, Co-found...

Are you prepared to live to 100? Research shows that it is becoming the norm, but that few of us are planning for it. Many are surprised to learn that it not only requires rethinking saving and retirement, but also education, jobs, and relationships. To guide us, London Business School Professor and future of work expert, Lynda Gratton, has written The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age o...

More than 99 percent of our decisions are shaped by others. From the clothing we buy to the cars we drive to the political candidates we vote for, our choices are the results of the invisible influence of those around us. And once we recognize that, we start to see our behavior -- and the behavior of others -- in a whole new way. Jonah Berger, marketing professor at the Wharton School of the Unive...

Want to hire, evaluate, and collaborate more effectively? The same design principles that are changing how we think about products and services can improve our talent management. Iris Bohnet, author of What Works and Professor of Behavioral Economics at Harvard University, tells us how. In this interview, Bohnet shares fast and inexpensive ways we can de-bias our organizations. She pinpoints how s...

What if our distractions are robbing us of our individuality? Philosopher-machinist Michael B. Crawford noticed just how much attention we give up -- often against our will -- to all the distractions strategically placed in front of us, from commercials on ATM screens to blaring airport televisions. He has written a guidebook to identifying the sources of lost attention, and he makes suggestions f...

Do you fear becoming obsolete? Liz Wiseman offers a solution. Rather than run from challenging roles, seek them out. In fact, in a world where 85 percent of your knowledge could be irrelevant in as little as 5 years, this strategy may be the key to maintaining and advancing a successful career. Liz is the bestselling author of Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work. She...

When it comes to risk, confidence, and stress, who handles them better, men or women? Believe it or not, just asking this question shows we have a lot to learn. Turns out it is not about better, but about different. And while conventional wisdom often has us thinking women are indecisive, risk averse, and fragile, those perceptions are far from what research reveals. In her groundbreaking book, Ho...

If you are searching for your natural talents, think again. Award-winning psychologist, Anders Ericsson, is reshaping our conception of innate ability versus learned skills. Anders has spent decades unearthing the secrets of expertise, and his research shows that the experts sitting at the top of most fields do not have more innate ability than their peers, they have more time spent in guided prac...

We like to think that cheating is limited to criminals and other wrongdoers. But what if it were true that the majority of people cheated most of the time? That is exactly what has been revealed in the extensive research of Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. Dan has found that not only do most people cheat, but that it is true even of the service provi...

Steve Case, co-founder of America Online, believes that Internet companies have grown in three successive waves. Tech entrepreneurs spent the first wave getting us on the Internet. They spent the second wave connecting us to the apps and platforms they built on top of it. Now, in the third wave, innovative partnerships and policies will help entrepreneurs rethink large parts of our daily life, suc...

While bitcoin and blockchain may sound like something from science fiction, they have become powerful tools to help us rethink banking and finance. What began as a cypherpunk vision has become a viable model of currency and exchange for everyone with access to a Smartphone, from the unbanked in Afghanistan to the urban hipster in New York City. Eager to learn more about where bitcoin and blockchai...

Productivity strategies do not work if we are focused on the wrong things. What we really need is an effective system for determining what is absolutely essential and the discipline to work on that thing. We need criteria that empower us to select our highest priority, and a strategy for eliminating everything else. My guest, Greg McKeown has designed this system, and he has written about it in hi...

We may believe that successful entrepreneurs possess innate abilities that set them apart, but what if those skills are just the result of practice and experience? That is the conclusion of Amy Wilkinson, bestselling author of The Creators Code: The Six Essential Skills of Extraordinary Entrepreneurs. She performed five years of interviews with the founders of organizations such as LinkedIn, eBay,...

Fear of job obsolescence ranks higher for most people than their fear of dying! Only half of workers today believe their skills will be valuable three years from now, and of this group, only a third feels their companies are providing the kinds of training they need to do anything about it. That means the learning is on us, and we need strategies for navigating this strange new world. Karie Willye...

Named one of ten most influential thinkers in the world by MIT, Doug Rushkoff asks some seriously big questions on this episode of Curious Minds. The biggest one is: what if an economy predicated on growth is unsustainable? Growth at companies like General Electric (GE) used to mean jobs for hundreds of thousands of people. That same growth, at companies like Facebook and Google, yields, at most,...

Technology and globalization are reshaping work, but what can we do about it? What approaches should we take as organizations do more with fewer employees? How can we think about our careers as we hold more jobs over the course of our lives, often from different fields? What skills do we need and what mindsets should we hold? Farai Chideya, author of The Episodic Career: How to Thrive at Work in t...

We each have work we were born to do, but it can take time and effort to find it. Becoming comfortable with the search is half the battle, because we need to try different kinds of jobs and work environments. With each experience we gain greater insight into the skills and knowledge we have to share, and we find our perfect blend of work, skills and meaning. In his latest book, Born for This, Chri...

We are taught to think before we act. But what happens when we need to act in order for that thinking to make sense? Herminia Ibarra’s research suggests that is exactly the case when learning to lead. Based on decades of research, teaching, experience, and interviews, her latest book, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, outlines ways that we can assume larger leadership roles. Her work also co...

Should we expect distractions at work? Or are we unwittingly cooperating in our own ineffectiveness? In this conversation, Cal Newport, bestselling author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, shares how deep work has become the superpower of the 21st century. Cal argues that today’s workplace is a minefield of distractions. With email, open floor plans, and instant messag...

Why do we love certain foods? What role do families and memories play in our tastes? How can we help our children to eat well and wisely? While we may think our food preferences are innate, most are learned when we are young. And that also means we can change our preferences if we choose. In her bestselling book First Bite: How We Learn to Eat, Bee Wilson helps us rethink everything we thought we...

How can you better forecast the future? What are the characteristics and habits of mind of those who are the best in the world at doing it? And why are those people rarely the forecasters featured in the national and international media? In their  bestselling book Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner have shared their research on the elite few who cor...

If you are going to have a boss (or be a boss), make it a Superboss. Why? Because a Superboss leads individuals, teams, and organizations in ways that move the world. Sydney Finkelstein, bestselling author of Super Bosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, shares these insights in our interview. Sydney is Professor of Management and Faculty Director of the Tuck Executive Program a...

Abraham Lincoln, Lucy Stone, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Steve Jobs: What set them apart and helped them achieve such world-altering success? In his latest book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Adam Grant  shares the research on the mindsets, behaviors, and emotional resilience that lead to incredible breakthroughs in innovation and creativity. He also explains how we can apply the...

Every day we have problems to solve and decisions to make. Too often, the steps we take to address them result in more complexity, rather than less. That is where simple rules come in. Donald Sull, bestselling author of Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World offers a six-step framework for better decision-making that has been tested with individuals and with organizations. An expert in glo...