unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

It was August 2011 when Mitt Romney famously told a crowd at the Iowa State Fair, "corporations are people, my friend." Corporations have had what you could call a civil rights history of their own, which has gone on in parallel to all other civil rights movements. But with so much knowledge in this field publicly available to us, how could this entire history be so poorly understood? This is high...

David Buss is one of the founders of the field of evolutionary psychology, currently at the University of Texas at Austin.  His primary research focus is on strategies of human mating, and he is most well-known for his studies on mate selection, tactics of mate attraction, infidelity, tactics of mate retention, tactics of mate poaching, and the mating emotions of jealousy, lust, and love. David ha...

Whether it's smoking cigarettes or mindlessly buying things on Amazon, breaking bad habits can be incredibly difficult.  Judson Brewer, MD, Ph. D. or “Dr. Jud” is a New York Times best-selling author and thought leader in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery,” who blends over 20 years of experience with mindfulness training and a career in scientific research. He is passionat...

Jordan Ellenberg is the first official mathematician we’ve had on the show, but his work weaves through many different domains. Afterall, whether it's something like game theory or data science, it's all built on math. Jordan Ellenberg is at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics. His research centers on the fields of number theory and al...

We've covered a lot of ground in 163 episodes of unSILOed. We’ve dug into topics like economics, psychology, biology, and many many more. So today we're going to tackle the meaning of life. It's about time, right?! Iddo Landau, Ph. D., is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa. He has written extensively on the meaning of life. His latest book is “Finding Meaning in an Imperfect Worl...

There's a bit of a theme when it comes to Stuart Firestein’s books, with titles like “Failure: Why Science Is So Successful,” and “Ignorance: How It Drives Science.” Stuart Firestein is Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University where he and his colleagues study the vertebrate olfactory system. He says his lab is dedicated to answering that fundamental human question: How do I smell?...

With all of the recent advances in machine learning, what’s left for us humans to do? Well, according to Ken Cukier, there is plenty: humans have not and may not ever be matched when it comes to thinking thru frames and models, using imagination to think through what is not in the data as much as what is in the data.  Ken Cukier is a Senior Editor at The Economist, and host of its weekly podcast o...

When it comes to game theory, the stories we tell can be incredibly powerful, because it's not enough to just analyze a situation and come up with what you think is the right thing to do. You have to convince people to make change.  David McAdams is Professor of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, as well as a Professor of Economics in the Economics Department...

There are many many opinions on how genetic engineering is affecting the future. But Beth Shapiro has an optimistic view of how humans seem to be much more conscious of the impact that they're having, and where genetic engineering fits into that impact.  Beth Shapiro is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology r at the University of C...

From bad teeth to appendix surgeries, it seems like our bodies are breaking down in modern times. So how has society and evolution changed how our bodies work? Alex Bezzerides is a professor of biology at Lewis-Clark State College in Idaho, where he teaches a wide range of biology classes, from human anatomy and physiology to entomology. He is also the author of “ Evolution Gone Wrong: The Curious...

What exactly is science? It's something that philosophers have grappled with quite a bit. Well, the good news is that you don't have to have a philosophical understanding of the foundation of science to understand science.  Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School. He is the au...

We all know the diseases associated with aging: cancer, heart disease, dementia. But what if they are just symptoms of and the disease is aging itself? How would this view affect our approach to medical research? While the last few centuries have extended human lifespan by decades, our healthspan has not kept up. New scientific insights are pointing toward a better understanding of the causes of a...

Robert McCauley is the Kenan University Professor of Philosophy at Emory University with associated appointments in psychology, religion, and anthropology. In his view, our minds are better suited to religious belief than to scientific inquiry because the explanations that religion provides make intuitive sense to us and engage our natural cognitive systems, while science involves abstract thinkin...

In economics and in finance, we're always trying to tease out timeless rules of how markets work. And yet, when we look out in the world, there's a lot of politics, there's a lot of history, there's a lot of particularity.   Our guest today emphasizes the importance of narrative, individual case analysis, and historical exploration.  Charlie Calomiris is Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Instit...

It's a bold claim. And people outside of financial history might wonder how this could possibly be true. Will Goetzmann will elaborate on this claim in today’s episode. He is the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies and Faculty Director of the International Center for Finance at the Yale School of Management. Will’s current research focuses on alternative investing, factor...

At the core of his latest book, Christian Madsbjerg argues that business people focus too much on what we might call the “thin data” and ignore the “thick data.” That we are emphasizing too much the analytical, and ignoring the insights that can come from what some people might call the intuitive. Christian Madsbjerg is a Professor of Applied Humanities at The New School and Co-Founder of the pion...

Scott Anthony says that you say that the most powerful untapped source of energy in the world right now is the innovative energy within large companies that is currently going to waste. Scott is a Senior Partner at Innosight and a visiting professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.. Based in Singapore since 2010, he has led Innosight’s expansion into the Asia-Pacific region as well as its v...

In this episode, we discuss how exposure to disagreement changes how we think. Our guest’s research highlights the perils of consensus and the value of dissent for the quality of decision making and the creativity of solutions. Charlan Nemeth is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at UC Berkeley. She has taught in the areas of persuasion, team decision making, scientific creativity, corpor...

Cognitive science is kind of like the new philosophy. These days, the cognitive scientists are the ones that we look to figure out what the heck is going on. And people like Art Markman are not just simply academically studying things, but they are actually offering up a lot of tools, advice and wisdom too.  Art Markman is the Vice Provost for Continuing and Professional Education and New Educatio...

Which is smarter -- your head or your gut? It's a familiar refrain: you're getting too emotional. Try and think rationally. But is it always good advice? Eyal Winter is the Silverzweig Professor of Economics at the Hebrew University and the Andrews & Elizabeth Brunner Professor at Lancaster University, specializing in Behavioral Economics, Decision Making, Game Theory and Finance.  A member of the...

The pursuit of happiness is a foundational principle of the American democratic experiment, and yet true happiness seems elusive for many Americans. Where does our notion of happiness come from and how did we become a nation of busybodies?  Benjamin Storey is the Jane Gage Hipp Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University. He is also the Director of Furman's Tocqueville Pro...

Humans have gotten healthier and healthier over the years due to modern medicine and the power of antibiotics.. But those same antibiotics, when overused, can lead to a whole new set of ailments, most notably obesity. Martin Blaser holds the Henry Rutgers Chair of the Human Microbiome at Rutgers University, where he also serves as Professor of Medicine and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, and as D...

Geoff Tuff is a principal of Deloitte Consulting LLP and holds various leadership positions across its Sustainability, Innovation, and Strategy practices. In the past, he led Doblin, the firm’s innovation practice, and was a senior partner at Monitor Group, serving as a member of its global Board of Directors before the company was acquired by Deloitte. He has been with some form of Monitor for cl...

Why are so many organizations run by ineffective or toxic leaders? Because it isn't the best leaders that succeed. Its the ones that best understand how to gain power and use power. According to Jeff Pfeffer, the leadership industry has led many prospective leaders astray, providing them with a normative framework that fails to provide an accurate account of how organizations work.  Jeff Pfeffer i...

When we think about ideas like selling or marketing, we usually think of getting people to buy products. But Loran Nordgren is talking about getting people to buy into new ideas. And the biggest obstacle isn't always motivation-its often friction.  Loran Nordgren is a Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His research considers th...