Curious Minds at Work

Which work environments are the most effective at leveraging their people’s talents, skills and abilities? Amy Edmondson, award-winning Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and author of the book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth, has spent her career trying to answer that question. What she’s...

What can older workers contribute to fast-growing companies populated by digital natives? A lot. Chip Conley, author of the book, Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, believes that older workers provide emotional intelligence, discerning judgment and humble wisdom. But to do this, they need to let go of past identities and adopt a learning mindset. In short, they need to become interns wh...

By reading on our devices, we’re losing abilities it took us thousands of years to develop. That’s because reading from a screen – a computer, a tablet, a phone – lends itself to skimming. This lack of deep reading alters brain development and erodes essential skills, like critical thinking and empathy, according to literacy expert, Maryanne Wolf. Author of the book, Reader Come Home: The Reading...

Disastrous events take place all the time, but could many be prevented? For example, could discount retailer, Target, have spared thousands of people their jobs rather than close 58 of its Canadian stores? Could the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe have been avoided? Chris Clearfield, co-author with Andras Tilcsik of the book, Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It, sees a paradox...

Many of us strongly identify as supporters of equality, diversity and inclusion. Yet Dolly Chugh’s research suggests that by holding on to this identity too tightly, we may not live up to our own expectations. Dolly is the author of the book, The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias, suggests An award-winning Professor of Social Psychology at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Dolly enco...

It can seem like we’re working harder, yet rarely getting to what matters most. John Zeratsky understands how we feel and wants to help. He’s the co-author with Jake Knapp of the book, Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day. Their book is an innovative way to look at our work, inspiring by years of productivity hacks that ultimately left them unfulfilled. John was a designer for tech co...

Long hours, 24/7 access, and crushing goals have become the norm in many workplaces. Jason Fried, co-author of the book, It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work, thinks we need to stop celebrating this approach and, instead, actively work to create calmer organizations. Jason is the Co-founder and CEO of Basecamp, an incredibly successful project management and team communication software company. He’...

What if you could make better decisions? Even with the biggest, life-altering choices, such as where to live, who to marry, or whether to start a company? Steven Johnson, author of the book, Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions that Matter the Most, thinks we often face decisions like this with little to no training and that we could use more tools in our decision-making toolbox.  Steven is the b...

When we try to explain cultural differences, we often turn to descriptions of east versus west, rich versus poor or, in U.S. politics, red versus blue. But Michele Gelfand, author of the book Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World, argues that we’re overlooking the most comprehensive explanation of all – how tightly or loosely we adhere to social norms. Michele is...

Gatherings play a big role in our lives. Weekly work meetings. Weddings. Holiday dinners. But over time, our gatherings can have a ho-hum feel. Priya Parker, author of the book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, thinks it doesn’t have to be that way. Priya is the founder of Thrive Labs, an organization that draws on her training and experience in conflict resolution, organizati...

Do we know what others think? What about our partners or closest friends? Nick Epley, author of the book, Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want, explains that we can read the minds of others, but not nearly as well as we think. In fact, we can barely read our own minds.  Nicholas Epley is Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School...

What kind of self-talk can best help us achieve our goals? When we run into challenges, the voice inside our heads can be harsh and critical. Kristin Neff, Associate Professor in Human Development at the University of Texas, Austin, explains that this kind of self-talk does us more harm than good. What works instead, she says, is to speak to ourselves as we would to a close friend -- with kindness...

When it comes to time, most of us feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Yet we’ve probably got more time than we think. It's just that the way to win back more hours is counterintuitive. That’s what Laura Vanderkam reveals in her latest book, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done. In it, she shares research on how our brains perceive time, interpret new experiences,...

How do you feel about asking for help? For most of us, asking for help feels uncomfortable, mainly because we expect we’ll be rejected when we ask. Yet there's a good chance we're wrong. Heidi Grant, social psychologist and author of the book, Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You, explains that a lot more people want to help us than we tend to predict. It’s the way we ask for help that de...

In times of rapid change, people who can think creatively are invaluable. Leonard Mlodinow, author of the book, Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change, calls this type of thinking elastic. It is a bottom up approach that unleashes new ideas, and he believes anyone can employ it, since it is innate to us. Leonard’s previous books include Subliminal (winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Sc...

Tech addictions don’t just happen to certain kinds of people. Increasingly we’re finding they can happen to any of us. In today’s technology-rich world, many of us check our phones obsessively, binge watch television programs and pour over social media. Author and New York University Professor Adam Alter calls this behavioral addiction, an area of psychology he’s studied in relation to the irresis...

Unhappiness at work is at an all-time high. While some might blame bad attitudes or a lack of motivation, Daniel Cable offers another perspective. He believes that the routines of the modern workplace are simply out of step with how our brains are wired to explore and experiment. Daniel Cable is Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School and author of the book, Alive at Work: T...

Can facts change someone’s mind? Most times, this approach is a dead end, especially when we try to convince those with top-notch analytical skills. In fact, neuroscience shows that analytical people will tend to use data to find fault with facts they don’t like. If we want to bring someone closer to our way of thinking, Tali Sharot suggests another way in her book, The Influential Mind: What the...

We all know people who seem especially lucky or, in some cases, unlucky. Janice Kaplan wondered whether this was due to random chance or luck overlooked, so she co-authored the book, How Luck Happens: Using the Science of Luck to Transform Work, Love, and Life. In writing the book, she learned how we can tilt the scales in our favor, even in cases where the odds are long. Janice is the former edit...

How do we build remarkable teams, the kind that are more than the sum of their parts? Daniel Coyle answers that question in his latest book, The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. After talking to some of the greatest teams, such as the Navy Seals, IDEO, the San Antonio Spurs, and Pixar, Dan found a replicable pattern of three behaviors shared by these dynamic cultures. They ea...

What sets top workplace performers apart? To answer this question, Morten Hansen, Professor at University of California, Berkeley, studied over 5,000 U.S. corporate employees for his book, Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More. Through his research, he found that top performers engage in 7 key practices that explain 66 percent of the differences in their level of...

Sometimes an outsider can offer a game-changing take on a tried-and-true process. When it comes to performance, that person is Idan Ravin, author of the bestselling book, The Hoops Whisperer: On the Courts and Inside the Heads of Basketball's Best Players. Over the course of his career, Idan has worked with athletes like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry. Though he never pla...

Many of us view motivation as the spark we need to achieve our goals. But Jeff Haden, author of The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win, explains that it is actually the reverse. To feel motivated, we actually need to take action, that is, to complete at least one small task toward our goal. That is because accomplishing an initial task causes our brains to release...

What is the secret to changing our habits? Too often, we are led to believe that we need to study successful people and then use our willpower to act like they do. But UCLA Medical School Professor, Sean Young, reveals that this approach mainly leads to failure. Instead, Young and his colleagues point us to seven forces that succeed in creating lasting change. Sean is the author of the book, Stick...

What if you are creative, but your organization is not? Many of us have worked in places that have tried to adopt more creative practices, and we know that it doesn’t always produce the desired results. In fact, if we introduce creativity, it can even seem to backfire. But Jon Kolko has devised a formula for injecting creativity into resistant organizations. Author of the book, Creative Clarity: A...