unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Certainly not most academics, and probably not the business students they teach. The common perception around HR is that its focus is getting everyone their benefits and making sure sexual harassment trainings are completed. But there is so much more to this field.  Dr. John Boudreau is a professor emeritus of management and organization and a senior research scientist with the Center for Effectiv...

Our guest today says that the profession of programmer or coder is the most important occupation to have in the 21st century, and yet computer science is developmentally speaking, still a very young field and discipline. Rob Reich is professor of political science and, by courtesy, professor of philosophy and Education, at Stanford University. He is the director of the Center for Ethics in Society...

Leidy Klotz describes himself as an “academic trespasser.” Investigating underexplored intersections between engineering and behavioral science, Leidy is in pursuit of more sustainable systems.  A professor at the University of Virginia, Leidy has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles in venues that include top academic journals in built environment engineering, engineering education, and desig...

The notion of self awareness has been at the heart of philosophy for millenia. Now it’s the subject of research by neuroscientists, and is the focus of research at Steven Fleming’s lab, where he asks: what supports the remarkable capacity for human self-awareness?  To address this question, Steve and his team combine experimental and theoretical approaches to understanding how people become self-a...

When we say “reflection,” what comes to mind? Is it sitting in meditation, in a meadow or a sacred space?. Or is it sitting at your desk, taking a second to look back at your life or career? Either way, its something that no one has time for these days, right? Joseph Badarocco is the John Shad Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School. He has taught courses on business ethics, strate...

Every generation reaches a point where they claim that discourse has gone to hell. But that doesn't mean we’re going to miss out on our chance to complain about it as well. Carl Bergstrom is a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. Though trained in evolutionary biology and mathematical population genetics, Carl is perhaps best known for working across disciplines...

Before the coronavirus pandemic, one of the biggest crises of our time was the global financial crisis. And even though that crisis passed, the underlying issues which gave rise to it have not been resolved.  Anat Admati is the George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford University Graduate School of Business, a director of the Corporations and Society Initiative, and a senio...

Work used to have a rigid structure. You would punch in and out of the factory, leave your work behind at the office and go home. But as the lines between work and home blur, and all hours can easily become working hours, how can we find balance? Lynda Gratton is a Professor of Management Practice at London Business School where she directs the program ‘Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Comp...

Sharing fresh information to empower new thinking. That's the north star behind Aiden McCullen’s podcast The Innovation Show. This podcast is actually what inspired Greg to create unSILOed!  Aidan McCullen is a former Ireland national rugby player and current change consultant, working with organizations to improve how they collaborate and create the environment for change.  He has developed and d...

Some philosophers of science would say that, if you can't fail, you can't learn. If you've got a theory of how the world's going to work, and the world works that way, you haven't learned anything new. And this idea of emphasizing and embracing failure is important in the business world as well.  Tom Eisenmann is the Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business...

It was not too long ago when the first recommendation engines were created, originally to help researchers keep track of articles and information. Now, you probably consult one every single day. Michael Schrage is a Visiting Fellow in the Imperial College Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at MIT, where he examines the various roles of models, prototypes, and simulations as collaborativ...

Our obsession with metrics is causing damage across the board, from education and medicine, to the police, military, and foreign aid. But our guest says we can at least begin to fix the problem. Jerry Muller is professor of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where he is a professor of history. He is the author of five books, including “Capitalism and the Jews”, “The T...

Gluten free or dairy free may just seem like menu options to some, But in fact, food allergies have become a major epidemic. They aren’t restricted by socioeconomics, age, or gender and are increasingly becoming globally pervasive. Dr. Kari Nadeau is one of the nation’s foremost experts in adult and pediatric allergy and asthma. She is the Director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asth...

As collaboration tools and apps become more commonplace in the digital workplace, how can we balance their pros (team mindset, connection) with their cons (burnout, inefficiency)? Our guest tackles this issue in his latest book “Beyond Collaboration Overload: How to Work Smarter, Get Ahead, and Restore Your Well-Being.” For more than 20 years, Rob Cross has studied the underlying networks of effec...

A lot of the smart and successful people in the business world are very good at achieving extrinsic goals of success, fame, money and power. But those types of people are not necessarily very good at the intrinsic goals of happiness, building great relationships, having a sense of ease about life and pursuing meaning. Raj Raghunathan is a Zale Centennial Professor of Business at the McCombs School...

Dario Maestripieri is a Professor in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago, and is also affiliated with the Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge. His books include “Games Primates Play,” “Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World” and “Animal Personalities: Behavior, Physiology and Evolution.” His work currently focuse...

Good jokes, bad jokes, clever jokes, dad jokes — the desire to laugh is universal. But why do we find some gags hilarious, whilst others fall flat?  Jonathan Silvertown attempts to answer this question and more in his most recent work “The Comedy of Error: Why Evolution Made Us Laugh.” Jonathan is a Professor of Evolutionary Ecology and Chair in Technology-Enhanced Science Education in Biological...

Data literacy is now a baseline benchmark for being an intelligent manager. ​​Bill Franks is the Director of the Center for Statistics and Analytical Research within the School of Data Science and Analytics at Kennesaw State University. In this role, he helps companies and governmental agencies pair with faculty and student resources to further research in the area of analytics and data science. ...

How do you develop products differently in the future? How do you organize your companies differently? What are the skill sets required of the leaders who will be taking organizations forward?  According to Robert Siegel, digitization is like breathing, every company is going to have to increasingly integrate it in everything they do.  Robert Siegel is a lecturer at Stanford GSB also a venture cap...

If you're going to succeed in negotiation, It's about arguing with a reason. And what game theory and logic does is allow you to frame the negotiation correctly and figure out the arguments for why you should get more. Barry Nalebuff is a Milton Steinbach Professor at Yale SOM, where for thirty years he has taught negotiation, innovation, strategy, and game theory. He is the co-author of seven boo...

Economists are no longer simply describing and understanding markets, but are often playing the role of “economic engineer”, improving existing markets and sometimes, designing market mechanisms from scratch.  Al Roth is a professor of economics at Stanford University and the author of “Who Gets What ― and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design.” And although this book came out ab...

Douglas Kenrick is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. His research interests include integrating models from evolutionary biology and cognitive science to study the effects of fundamental social motivations on basic cognitive processes.  Among Kenrick's many publications are the books "Sex, Murder and the Meaning of Life" and "Social Psychology," a textbook co...

Binyamin Appelbaum on the editorial board of the New York Times as well as a reporter there. He is also the author of “The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society.” In this book & his work, Binyamin traces the rise of the economists, first in the United States and then around the globe, as their ideas reshaped the modern world, curbing government, unleashing cor...

Today's episode is diving into anthropology, paleontology, archeology, and all of these related disciplines with Ian Tattersall. He is the curator emeritus with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and also the author of a wide range of books, both by himself and with his co-author Rob DeSalle.  The most recent book is “The Accidental Homo Sapiens: Genetics, Behavior, and Free Will,...

The traditional notion is that schools are failing and they need “reforming.” But our guest believes that our education system is obsolete and needs re-imaging. Why? Because our education systems were created at the Dawn of the Industrial Era, and we no longer live in the Industrial Era.  Tony Wagner is at the Learning Policy Institute, and he’s also been at Harvard University and a number of othe...