Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. Ron Friedman is an award
Speaker 1: winning psychologist and founder of Ignite eighty, a consulting firm
Speaker 1: that helps smart leaders build extraordinary workplaces. An expert on
Speaker 1: human motivation, Friedman has served on the faculty of the
Speaker 1: University of Rochester, Nazareth College, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
Speaker 1: He contributes to the blogs of Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Forbes,
Speaker 1: and Psychology Today. His latest book, which we're going to
Speaker 1: talk a lot about today, is The Best Place to Work,
Speaker 1: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace. Ron,
Speaker 1: thanks for talking to you today. My pleasure. I'm a
Speaker 1: fan of the show. It's exciting to be part of it.
Speaker 1: Oh really, you like the Psychology Podcast? I do? Is
Speaker 1: that so surprising? You know what? I'll tell you something.
Speaker 1: You're the first guest to ever say that. It's not surprising,
Speaker 1: but you're literally the first guest where they actually said
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of the show. Oh, You've got a
Speaker 1: lot of great guests and always insightful. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: Tell me a bit a little bit about your background.
Speaker 1: Are you a psychologist? I am a psychologist. I studied
Speaker 1: with ed dec and Richard Ryan, who some of your
Speaker 1: listeners might be familiar with those names. They're the guys
Speaker 1: who are the inspiration for Daniel Pingk's drive amazing. And
Speaker 1: so there are researchers who came up with the idea
Speaker 1: of self determination theory, which suggests that we have three
Speaker 1: basic human psychological needs. So in the best place to work,
Speaker 1: I take a lot of their research and frankly thousands
Speaker 1: of other studies and apply it to how we can
Speaker 1: all work more effectively. Why do you get interested in
Speaker 1: the workplace? Well, you know, it was largely due to
Speaker 1: the experiences I had, so I, as I mentioned it,
Speaker 1: was a psychologist. I taught at a number of colleges
Speaker 1: and universities and studied human motivation in the lab, and
Speaker 1: then I frankly got a little bored of it, so
Speaker 1: I intended to become a tenure track professor, got on
Speaker 1: that path, started teaching, and came to recognize that as
Speaker 1: a professor, you're essentially teaching the same thing again and
Speaker 1: again and again. So it's kind of like that. The
Speaker 1: analogy I give is that it's kind of like being
Speaker 1: in a really, really good class and then being stuck
Speaker 1: in that class for the rest of your life and
Speaker 1: never being able to take another class. And so what
Speaker 1: got me interested in education and being an academic is
Speaker 1: learning new things. So I found that the experience of
Speaker 1: being an academic wasn't as energizing as I had hoped.
Speaker 1: So I decided I'm going to take the educational experience
Speaker 1: that I had and apply it to the real world.
Speaker 1: So I decided I'm going to go off and get
Speaker 1: a job in a corporate environment and become a polster.
Speaker 1: So my job was to measure public opinion, figure out
Speaker 1: what people thought, and then make recommendations to organizations about
Speaker 1: how they can persuade people to you know, buy a
Speaker 1: product or donate, you know, volunteer, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1: And I love that job. It's frankly something I continue
Speaker 1: to do today. But probably the greatest and most striking
Speaker 1: finding for me in that experience was coming to recognize
Speaker 1: the massive divide between what psychologists like you and I
Speaker 1: know are the factors that lead people to be motivated
Speaker 1: and engaged and productive and creative, and how most organizations
Speaker 1: actually operate. And so recognizing that gap is what led
Speaker 1: me to write The Best Place to Work, which attempts
Speaker 1: to take over a thousand academic studies, distill them down,
Speaker 1: translate them into plain English, and make recommendations. How about
Speaker 1: how anybody can apply them to become more effective at
Speaker 1: their job. Well, it sounds like you've done in an
Speaker 1: interview before in your lifetime. Thank your responses make it
Speaker 1: easier for me to not actually I have to ask
Speaker 1: specific questions. That's awesome. Yeah, no, totally, so I can
Speaker 1: skip three questions now you just answered. You know, when
Speaker 1: you talk about at the extraordinary workplace, are you necessarily
Speaker 1: referring to happiness workplace? Like? Can you be an extra
Speaker 1: your workplace? But everyone be kind of miserable, not miserable.
Speaker 1: But I don't think people have to be ecstatic all
Speaker 1: the time either. What I mean by it is when
Speaker 1: people have experiences that make them feel like they're growing
Speaker 1: their competence on a regular basis, feeling like they're connected
Speaker 1: to the people around them in a meaningful way, and
Speaker 1: having opportunities for experiencing autonomy, So feeling like they have
Speaker 1: some say in the projects they pursue and how they
Speaker 1: go about pursuing them. That's my definition of what makes
Speaker 1: for a great workplace. And I think that in that
Speaker 1: question that you ask, I think a lot of people, frankly,
Speaker 1: have gotten somewhat confused about what it means to have
Speaker 1: a good organization, because I think it's become very fashionable
Speaker 1: to mimic what these companies that we see in the
Speaker 1: news a lot, the places like Google, which I think,
Speaker 1: from everything I've read, seems like a great place to work.
Speaker 1: But I think what people have taken away from places
Speaker 1: like Google is that we need to have a volleyball court,
Speaker 1: and we need a bowling alley, and we need restaurants
Speaker 1: that cater to people twenty four to seven. And I
Speaker 1: don't think that perks are what makes for a great workplace.
Speaker 1: I think that psychological needs are what makes for a
Speaker 1: great workplace. Yeah, no, for sure. And so what was
Speaker 1: your dissertation on? Nothing to do with this? Oh? Ok?
Speaker 1: I'll tell you though. My dissertation was about unconscious influences
Speaker 1: on people's motivations. So I looked at how sound influences
Speaker 1: people's willingness to take on achievement goals. Wow, that's neat.
Speaker 1: I mean your background, your scientific background is really put
Speaker 1: you in a good position to talk about what you
Speaker 1: talk about. Yeah. Thanks, And you know, I have to
Speaker 1: tell you though, it wasn't just the academic background. It
Speaker 1: was the combination of the two skills. So you know,
Speaker 1: as psychologist, we could say, okay, well you know how
Speaker 1: to read a journal article, and that's valuable. But what
Speaker 1: really I think put me in a position to write
Speaker 1: this book is having the experiences of working as a consultant.
Speaker 1: And what you recognize as a consultant is that people
Speaker 1: like theory, they enjoy hearing about theory, but when it
Speaker 1: comes down to what they find most valuable, it's the
Speaker 1: action item. So if you're delivering a report or a presentation, well,
Speaker 1: people are really going to tune in to in a
Speaker 1: very extreme way, are the recommendations you make at the
Speaker 1: end and say, here are the executive action items that
Speaker 1: I'm recommending you take here. And so what I try
Speaker 1: to do in the book, and frankly, in anything that
Speaker 1: I do is make the material actionable for everyday people.
Speaker 1: How do you apply it? So regardless of whether you're
Speaker 1: a manager or whether you're just someone frankly who's an
Speaker 1: intern who's just starting out in their first job, there
Speaker 1: are loads of insights that we have on how you
Speaker 1: could be more effective at work. Yeah, so let's talk
Speaker 1: about some of that. How can you design an extornay
Speaker 1: workplace experience? I mean, you don't have the answer like
Speaker 1: every possible way of thereight now, well pick one for me,
Speaker 1: like open offices, Like, tell me about that. Well, the
Speaker 1: way that we design offices is not ideal, right, so
Speaker 1: we have and frankly, it's not an easily solvable problem.
Speaker 1: So we have one variation of it is the open office.
Speaker 1: And open offices are not ideal because you get bombarded
Speaker 1: with all sorts of stimuli that can be distracting and
Speaker 1: stressful and prevent you from doing good work. So what
Speaker 1: ends up happening is you end up working on the evenings,
Speaker 1: come into work early, working on the weekend, and that's
Speaker 1: just not sustainable. So it really says something about an
Speaker 1: organization where the only way for people to feel effective
Speaker 1: is to go home, right, that's not Alternatively, we have
Speaker 1: private offices, and private offices also have a downside, which
Speaker 1: is that you now don't have the benefit of having
Speaker 1: frequent interactions. If you want to have a meeting with someone,
Speaker 1: you have to get on their outlook calendar, and that
Speaker 1: presents all sorts of barriers to having collaboration and all
Speaker 1: of those fortuitous events that happen when you talk about
Speaker 1: things that maybe aren't necessarily the focus for that day.
Speaker 1: So what I recommended the book is really looking at
Speaker 1: the college campus model and seeing how you can apply
Speaker 1: some of the benefits of the college campus model to
Speaker 1: your organization. So what do we have at the college campus.
Speaker 1: We have, and you know this because you work at
Speaker 1: a university, is we provide students with an array of
Speaker 1: different environments that they can then choose to best suit
Speaker 1: the work that they're trying to do. So they have
Speaker 1: the option of working in a dorm room, which allows
Speaker 1: them some privacy. They can go into the library with
Speaker 1: again for doing focus work. If they want to be
Speaker 1: around others, they can go to the cafeteria, they can
Speaker 1: go out to the quad, and they can go to
Speaker 1: the gym when they feel like they need to re
Speaker 1: energize and take care of themselves personally. All of those
Speaker 1: things are environments that we can frankly provide for people
Speaker 1: at work. And when we provide people with an option
Speaker 1: of allowing them to find the environment that best suits
Speaker 1: the work they're trying to do, they're going to be
Speaker 1: much more effective in doing it. Yeah. No, I think
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. So why are people then resistant to
Speaker 1: why are we doing it the old way? Well, I
Speaker 1: think it's a couple of things. I think, for one thing,
Speaker 1: we have inherited a factory model that doesn't work. So
Speaker 1: once upon a time you would come in at nine
Speaker 1: o'clock and you would leave at five o'clock, and when
Speaker 1: you left work you could be at home. That world
Speaker 1: no longer exists. We now all carry out around an
Speaker 1: office with us in our pocket in the form of
Speaker 1: a smartphone. We work all the time, and we continue
Speaker 1: to operate offices that don't account for the fact that
Speaker 1: work no longer is limited to just the office. That's
Speaker 1: one thing, And I think another thing is that that's
Speaker 1: preventing people from offering these sorts of variations of spaces
Speaker 1: is that we don't have leaders in organizations who are
Speaker 1: very familiar with the research, and so I think if
Speaker 1: they were aware of the fact that people are not
Speaker 1: able to work at their best in the environments that
Speaker 1: they're given, and that their productivity in many cases could
Speaker 1: double if they give them a range of different environments,
Speaker 1: I think they'd be very open to those insights. And
Speaker 1: the case I make whenever I give talks or do
Speaker 1: presentations to various leaders is that, frankly, you guys all
Speaker 1: want to know how to build a great workplace. And
Speaker 1: it's not that you don't care, it's that you don't
Speaker 1: have time to pour over academic journal articles. And even
Speaker 1: if you did, it'd be hard for you to make
Speaker 1: sense of them because they're not written for people in
Speaker 1: the working world. They're written for other academics and you
Speaker 1: and I know this. I mean, academics don't write journal
Speaker 1: articles in order to appeal to a mass audience, and
Speaker 1: in fact, in some circles that's looked down upon. And
Speaker 1: so we need people who are willing to be translators
Speaker 1: and offer people action items that they can actually put
Speaker 1: to use. Yeah, how do you know all this stuff?
Speaker 1: Which stuff in particular, Yeah, I mean there's there's so
Speaker 1: many things in this book that are there's such a
Speaker 1: drawl in like such different literatures, and you bring it
Speaker 1: all together in one way. Well, I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: noting that. Yeah, it took a long time to write
Speaker 1: this book, Scott, how good it take? It took a
Speaker 1: year and a half. Okay, I mean, but I was long.
Speaker 1: It felt long. I know. I would literally print out
Speaker 1: as many articles as I could find around a topic,
Speaker 1: go to the library and read. And it was a struggle, frankly,
Speaker 1: but you know, it was worth it. I think if
Speaker 1: I were to summarize my style, it would probably be
Speaker 1: unapologetically broad. Yeah, and I really like that. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I like books that allow you to see all kinds
Speaker 1: of perspectives that you never even considered because you've been
Speaker 1: looking at it, you know, in a very kind of
Speaker 1: narrow lens. I try to be as broad as I can.
Speaker 1: But thank you for the compliment. Yeah, no problem. So
Speaker 1: you were like, we're going to cover some of these things,
Speaker 1: So why is it good to think like a hostage
Speaker 1: to goiator? Oh? Well, that's a topic that I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. It's research looking at how you can
Speaker 1: be persuasive and what hostage negotiators know about persuasion. And
Speaker 1: we all have instances in our work when we're collaborating
Speaker 1: with colleagues with whom we don't particularly agree. And so
Speaker 1: what do you do when you're experiencing those moments where
Speaker 1: you feel like you're absolutely right and the other person
Speaker 1: just has it completely wrong? How do you persuade them?
Speaker 1: And that's where we can all take a page from
Speaker 1: hostage negotiators, And what hostage negotiators know is that you
Speaker 1: don't convince people by bombarding them with facts and by
Speaker 1: getting emotional. Rather it's by listening. And so there's all
Speaker 1: this research showing that listeners are far more persuasive than
Speaker 1: anyone else. And the other key takeaway here is that
Speaker 1: often if you want to be persuasive, you're not going
Speaker 1: to be persuasive over the course of the particular conversation.
Speaker 1: You're going to be persuasive over time. People don't change
Speaker 1: their mind within a conversation, it's because they want to
Speaker 1: save face, so they don't want to say you're right,
Speaker 1: I was wrong. They go away, they take a shower,
Speaker 1: they take a walk, and then a few days later
Speaker 1: they start to see your perspective, and so there are
Speaker 1: all of these insights about hostage negotiators and how they
Speaker 1: communicate more effectively and how we can apply that to
Speaker 1: the way that we have communications with our colleagues at work.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting, Yeah, because there are people like That's
Speaker 1: what they study in life, is those tactics and things
Speaker 1: like that, and they probably would find it really interesting
Speaker 1: that you've applied it to the workplace situation. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about active listening and how what
Speaker 1: that actually means, and it means being more mentally present
Speaker 1: if we tell you that in our positive psychology class. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite tips in the book is
Speaker 1: if you want to be a better listener, then here's
Speaker 1: something you can consciously focus on, and that is shrinking
Speaker 1: your talking to listening ratio. In other words, make sure
Speaker 1: and I'm not doing a very good job of it
Speaker 1: during this podcast, but you're doing a phenomenal job. Well
Speaker 1: that's the whole point of the interviewing you so all good.
Speaker 1: And then you know, doing things like asking open ended questions.
Speaker 1: Open ended questions are things that you know we don't
Speaker 1: do enough of. Is if somebody is trying to persuade
Speaker 1: you ask them some questions about how can they intend
Speaker 1: to apply some of their thinking what that would mean
Speaker 1: for certain areas of the business. It's by asking questions
Speaker 1: that you actually position yourself to be more persuasive later on,
Speaker 1: because when people feel heard, they're more willing to be convinced. Okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough. So I'm trying to really a transition from
Speaker 1: there to play, and I'm having trouble coming up with
Speaker 1: a clever way of transitioning into it. So just let
Speaker 1: me jump in there to the importance of play. So,
Speaker 1: so not all of the workplaces negotiating in a hostage
Speaker 1: sort of situation like way, right, So tell me about
Speaker 1: a little bit about play. Well, play is not it's
Speaker 1: something that we don't do enough of at work. And
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily mean let's, you know, let's let's take
Speaker 1: a game of risk into the conference room and spend
Speaker 1: our afternoons doing that. But what I mean is when
Speaker 1: we are in a mindset of play. So let me
Speaker 1: take that back for a second. So where I think
Speaker 1: a lot of organizations have misinterpreted the lessons of places
Speaker 1: like Google is they think we need a football table
Speaker 1: or we need a ping pong table because then everyone
Speaker 1: will have this atmosphere of play, we'll all be more
Speaker 1: creative and will be more successful. But in fact, play
Speaker 1: is not about an activity. It's more of a mindset.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean. It means being curious about
Speaker 1: different ideas and having the freedom to pursue those interests
Speaker 1: without feeling like you need to be productive all the time.
Speaker 1: And what happens when we engage in activities like play
Speaker 1: is we have opportunities for unconscious thinking. That's when we
Speaker 1: have some of our deepest insights. We're also placed in
Speaker 1: an environment where we're rewarded for taking risks and we
Speaker 1: open ourselves up to alternative ways of thinking. And so
Speaker 1: having an attitude of play in an organization again not
Speaker 1: something that is driven by having play like activities, but
Speaker 1: rather having managers and leaders who encourage us to pursue
Speaker 1: our curiosities. Well, you know I'm done with that. I'd
Speaker 1: imagine you would be. And so how does that lead
Speaker 1: to the important of video games for increasing motivation? So
Speaker 1: video games, I use the analogy of video games in
Speaker 1: a very specific way, and that is to show that
Speaker 1: many of the features that are inherent in video games
Speaker 1: are the very things we seek in our everyday jobs
Speaker 1: and that are missing. So, for example, what happens when
Speaker 1: you play video games like Tetris, for example, kind of
Speaker 1: a classic game everyone plays, Angry Birds. These are great
Speaker 1: examples of video games that have features that we desperately
Speaker 1: seek in our jobs. What are those features? When we
Speaker 1: play video games, we get immediate feedback on our performance.
Speaker 1: What happens when you write a memo at the office,
Speaker 1: Sometimes you have to wait six months to find out
Speaker 1: if anybody even read it right, Like, you just don't
Speaker 1: have that immediate feedback very often, and if you do,
Speaker 1: you get it in the form of the annual review,
Speaker 1: and that comes such a delay from your actual actions
Speaker 1: that it often feels like it's coming out of left field.
Speaker 1: So you know that thing you did last year, great job,
Speaker 1: that's not helpful. I need immediate feedback if I'm going
Speaker 1: to be engaged. The other thing that video games do
Speaker 1: well is that they provide recognition when we're successful, and
Speaker 1: they provide something that is critical and that is progressive difficulty.
Speaker 1: So if you start off with Tetris, the first board,
Speaker 1: you're going to crush it, the second board, you're going
Speaker 1: to crush it. By the tenth or twentieth board, it
Speaker 1: starts to get a little difficult, and by the fiftieth board,
Speaker 1: it gets impossible. The same is true for angry birds.
Speaker 1: That's what keeps us engaged. That's the addictive property of
Speaker 1: video games is that it gets harder and harder as
Speaker 1: you do it. At most jobs, we have the opposite trajectory.
Speaker 1: So we start a job and it's really really difficult
Speaker 1: right out of the gate, and it's because you're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what's expected of you. You're trying to
Speaker 1: navigate the organizational culture. And then after a couple of years,
Speaker 1: your job becomes predictable, and then it becomes boring. What
Speaker 1: happens when a job becomes boring, it's when you start
Speaker 1: thinking about what am I doing in the evenings, what
Speaker 1: am I having for dinner? Where am I going on
Speaker 1: the weekend, where's my next vacation off to? And that's
Speaker 1: where engagement stops. And so if we want to keep
Speaker 1: people engaged, we can learn a lot from video games,
Speaker 1: and it's by giving people opportunities to continuously grow their
Speaker 1: skills in a way that enables them to feel like
Speaker 1: they're encountering progressive difficulty. That's a really good point. It's
Speaker 1: a really good point. It also increased the flow state
Speaker 1: exactly consciousness. That's precisely right what we want to get into.
Speaker 1: That's great. Okay, So I want you to tell me
Speaker 1: a story. Let me pick one of the stories I
Speaker 1: liked for your book. Okay, so tell me about the
Speaker 1: president who brought down the world's most dangerous criminal. Can
Speaker 1: you guys do it is? By the way, no, I can't. Actually,
Speaker 1: So it's Barack Obama. How he came to the decision
Speaker 1: of I realized that most recent was that yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: after Osama bin Laden. And in that story, what you
Speaker 1: see is that when Obama struggles with a decision, he
Speaker 1: doesn't kind of go about it in a relentless way.
Speaker 1: He actually allows for unconscious thinking to happen. So there's
Speaker 1: the example of him being in White House situation room
Speaker 1: with Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and the entire top brass
Speaker 1: and they're all analyzing all this data. They're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what they need to do, and Obama says,
Speaker 1: let's stop here, I'm going to sleep on it. And
Speaker 1: from there I talk about the research on sleep and
Speaker 1: how unconscious thinking often happens when we're away from the activities.
Speaker 1: So you've taken all the information, you go do something
Speaker 1: completely different, and then you analyze the information, you'll often
Speaker 1: reach a better decision. And that's not something that's often
Speaker 1: rewarded at most workplaces. Right. Nobody says, you know, come
Speaker 1: back to me in a decision, but don't tell me
Speaker 1: to me now, come back in a week. And it's
Speaker 1: just a great example of how when we start applying
Speaker 1: some of the research that we have on optimal performance
Speaker 1: to the way that we work, we're going to be
Speaker 1: a lot more effective, both on an individual level and
Speaker 1: also for our organizations as a whole. That was very
Speaker 1: well said. Oh absolutely, so okay, So tell me about
Speaker 1: the inventor of the cubicle. The inventor of the cubicle.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm trying to keep you on your toes,
Speaker 1: Ron you are, make sure you remember your stories. Would
Speaker 1: you ask me about Monica Sellis. That's a good one. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me about Monica Selas. So Monica Sellis is sixteen
Speaker 1: years old. I think it's nineteen ninety. She is playing
Speaker 1: for the French Open title against Stefie Graff and she
Speaker 1: is way down in the score sheets. I think she's
Speaker 1: a couple of points away from losing the entire match,
Speaker 1: and she makes this remarkable comeback, and at the end
Speaker 1: of the match, she had essentially altered a social norm.
Speaker 1: Back in the nineteen nineties, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: were watching tennis back then, I was, and just about
Speaker 1: no other player besides Monica Sellas was grunting. And now
Speaker 1: today you watch tennis and they're all grunting. And it's
Speaker 1: an example of how when a leader in a particular
Speaker 1: field adopts a particular behavior, it tends to get mimicked
Speaker 1: by everyone else. And it's an example of how so
Speaker 1: Monica Selas essentially altered social norms within tennis, and I
Speaker 1: think it's a great example of how leaders at the organization,
Speaker 1: they're the ones who have the opportunity for shaping cultural norms.
Speaker 1: And it's when a leader changes his or her behaviors
Speaker 1: that something becomes more readily accepted. So you can go
Speaker 1: ahead and change the values that are printed on the
Speaker 1: walls of your company and as much as you want,
Speaker 1: but unless you're changing your behaviors as a leader, you're
Speaker 1: not going to be changing anyone's behaviors. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: learning so much from like your book and let's talk
Speaker 1: to you right now. This is kind of a different
Speaker 1: world that I inhabit, but it's not that different. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm interested in education. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of how a lot of things you're saying can apply
Speaker 1: these principles to make more engaged students. Right, Have you
Speaker 1: put any thought into that? Well? You know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because I've come from the educational background, and so much
Speaker 1: of the work that I had read was about how
Speaker 1: when we have more autonomy supported teachers, how much better
Speaker 1: students do. And you know, when students feel like they're
Speaker 1: heard and they feel appreciated, that's when they learn. And
Speaker 1: so for me, the jump was more about how do
Speaker 1: we apply this to you know, sitting in front of
Speaker 1: computer all day? So, right, that was the part that
Speaker 1: was new And I almost take for granted, much like
Speaker 1: I did when I went into the corporate world. I
Speaker 1: assume everybody knew all these things about motivation and creativity
Speaker 1: and they didn't. And I kind of take, maybe I
Speaker 1: take for granted the fact that everybody understands this in
Speaker 1: the world of education, and probably they don't. Well, one thing,
Speaker 1: there might be a good parallel is when you talk
Speaker 1: about practices for interviewing people and admittance into positions and
Speaker 1: you've used the word true potential, you use that phrase,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? What is true potential? What does
Speaker 1: that even mean? And how can you eliminate the some
Speaker 1: blind spots that we have. Well, when it comes to hiring,
Speaker 1: if you think about how we hire people, what do
Speaker 1: we generally do? We invite them in for an interview,
Speaker 1: and interviews are a disastrous tool for choosing the most
Speaker 1: qualified individual and it's for a few reasons. For one thing,
Speaker 1: it's because we have all of these unconscious biases and
Speaker 1: how we interpret someone's qualifications based on their appearance. So,
Speaker 1: for example, if someone's tall, we assume that they have
Speaker 1: high leadership abilities, where as someone's short, they probably have
Speaker 1: lower leadership abilities. If someone is good looking, we assume
Speaker 1: them to be more competent than they otherwise might be.
Speaker 1: And if someone has a deep voice, we assume that
Speaker 1: that person is more trustworthy than they actually are. True,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. Yeah, So that's a great example
Speaker 1: of how all of these things kind of throw us
Speaker 1: off the scenter of well, who's really a good candidate?
Speaker 1: And so it's not just that this thing is happening
Speaker 1: in the back of our minds and we're not aware
Speaker 1: of it. It also impacts the questions that we ask.
Speaker 1: So if someone if I, for example, I think that
Speaker 1: you might be extroverted, I might say to you, tell
Speaker 1: me about your experiences leading people in your organization. But
Speaker 1: if I perceive you to be introverted, I'm now going
Speaker 1: to ask you a slight variation on the same question
Speaker 1: I'm going to I'm not longer going to ask you
Speaker 1: tell me about your leadership experiences. Now I'm going to say,
Speaker 1: are you comfortable in front of large groups? And my question,
Speaker 1: because it's been shaped by my unconscious bias, then impacts
Speaker 1: the answers that I get from you, which then confirms
Speaker 1: my initial impression. So interviews are not a very effective tool.
Speaker 1: Not saying don't do interviews, I'm just saying they should
Speaker 1: come further down in the chain of things that you
Speaker 1: do when you're trying to learn about a person. So
Speaker 1: in the book, I talk about the example of blind auditions,
Speaker 1: which is the tool that orchestras use when determining who
Speaker 1: to hire for a particular position. And the reason they
Speaker 1: use this is because back in the nineteen twenties, there
Speaker 1: was massive bias that probably is to some extent but
Speaker 1: much less so today about hiring female musicians, and so
Speaker 1: they determined that a better method of selecting between musicians
Speaker 1: was to have them audition behind a screen so that
Speaker 1: you weren't able to identify who the person was, and
Speaker 1: it had a profound impact on the rate at which
Speaker 1: female musicians were hired. So the obvious question is, well,
Speaker 1: how do you apply this to the workplace. You're not
Speaker 1: going to put people behind a blind screen, but what
Speaker 1: you can do is develop your own blind audition. So,
Speaker 1: for example, Scott, if you're hiring a web designer, rather
Speaker 1: than bringing that person in for an interview, have them
Speaker 1: design a landing page for you, Or if you're about
Speaker 1: to hire a salesperson, have them come in and sell
Speaker 1: you on your company. The key is to figure out
Speaker 1: what activity is going to give you an objective metric
Speaker 1: of that person's abilities, and use that as the thing
Speaker 1: by which you first determine how effective the person's going
Speaker 1: to be, and only then have the interview. That's really interesting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do that for college admissions, like a project to
Speaker 1: base arting or something in high school. Well, in college asdmission,
Speaker 1: we have people write their personal essay, which is probably
Speaker 1: not a very effective technique because you have no idea
Speaker 1: who wrote the essay for right, right, So I think
Speaker 1: there are a wide variety of tools that you can
Speaker 1: now use. For example, why don't you have that person?
Speaker 1: I have to think about this. Frankly, I can't just
Speaker 1: come up with an answer, but I'd imagine you have
Speaker 1: to first determine what are the kinds of students you're
Speaker 1: looking for, because not every university is looking for the
Speaker 1: same type of students. So figure out what are the
Speaker 1: types of students you're looking for. So, if you're looking
Speaker 1: for people who are going to be BookSmart, for example,
Speaker 1: I can see some variation of the SAT being quite frankly,
Speaker 1: quite effective if that's what you're looking for. But if
Speaker 1: you're looking for people who are more open to generating
Speaker 1: new ideas, I can see you having some creativity tasks.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for someone who's a good communicator, I
Speaker 1: can see you interviewing them over Skype. I can see
Speaker 1: a lot of variations of this, But the key is
Speaker 1: that we need to first figure out what is it
Speaker 1: that we're looking for in the person and then design
Speaker 1: a task that measures the actual thing that we're looking to. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we're now in the midst of these presidential debates. Scott,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you watched last night there was
Speaker 1: a Republican debate in Texas. Oh boy, and what you did? Okay?
Speaker 1: So I watched it for two and a half hours.
Speaker 1: I watched it. I can never have those that time
Speaker 1: back in my life. Two and a half hours. I
Speaker 1: watch this and what struck me, not for the first time,
Speaker 1: because I've been giving this some thought for a few
Speaker 1: years now, is the way in which we select presidents
Speaker 1: in this country is ridiculous. Yeah, what do we do?
Speaker 1: We take very intelligent people, some of them less so,
Speaker 1: and we have them fight with each other in front
Speaker 1: of millions of people, and that, in some alternative universe
Speaker 1: is supposed to tell us who's going to be the
Speaker 1: most effective president. What does debating have to do with
Speaker 1: being a president? I don't know. And so we put
Speaker 1: people in situations where frankly, there's a reason why Donald
Speaker 1: Trump does well at these things is because he has
Speaker 1: the skills that make for a good debater, you know,
Speaker 1: and so he draws a reaction and so he's effective
Speaker 1: at these debates, does that mean he's going to be
Speaker 1: a good president. I don't know. It's not for me
Speaker 1: to comment, but I do think that debates are at
Speaker 1: the very least a very small fraction of what represents
Speaker 1: the qualities you're looking for in a president. Well, you
Speaker 1: said that you're very polite in what you what you
Speaker 1: said these are a very polite way. But I think
Speaker 1: that's exactly correct. I'm want to ask you a couple
Speaker 1: more questions. Sure you're right that employee of the Month
Speaker 1: awards can make employees less motivated work? Why is that?
Speaker 1: What happens when you have an Employee of the Month
Speaker 1: award is, especially with a team with a large number
Speaker 1: of people, is that you have one winner who's recognized
Speaker 1: every month and ninety nine people. Let' say if you
Speaker 1: have a team of one hundred, ninety nine people walk
Speaker 1: off every month feeling like this month's efforts weren't recognized.
Speaker 1: And so even for the person who's just won the award,
Speaker 1: in the back of their minds, they're thinking, why I
Speaker 1: just wanted this month? How many more months in a
Speaker 1: row am I going to win this thing? So the
Speaker 1: chances of me winning it again next month, probably not
Speaker 1: going to happen. I don't need to work as hard anymore.
Speaker 1: And so in that culture of we provide recognition in
Speaker 1: this organization from the top down, that I think is
Speaker 1: not a recipe for success. Much better is to create
Speaker 1: a culture where recognition comes from other employees to one another.
Speaker 1: And so if you can have it in a way
Speaker 1: that's not tied to a particular timeline, I think that's
Speaker 1: going to be much more effective. Oh cool, that's that's
Speaker 1: we learn something new as well with that one. I
Speaker 1: guess I've never been in a position where I've ever
Speaker 1: been employee of the month. They don't have that at
Speaker 1: the University of Pennsylvania. They should they shouldn't. So what
Speaker 1: will the workplace look like ten years? For now? So
Speaker 1: I'll tell you three things that I think are going
Speaker 1: to change about the future of the workplace. And some
Speaker 1: of them come from the organizational perspective, and some of
Speaker 1: them I think are going to change in the way
Speaker 1: that we ourselves decide that we're going to work. So
Speaker 1: the first thing is, I think we're going to get
Speaker 1: a lot better at applying some of the analytics to
Speaker 1: the way that we make decisions about how we work. So,
Speaker 1: for example, we have data that shows that working from
Speaker 1: home makes us more productive having that flexibility, being able
Speaker 1: to work from home, we do no longer have to
Speaker 1: guess about whether that's an effective technique. We have data
Speaker 1: that shows it's effective. I think we're going to get
Speaker 1: much better and much smarter about working in ways that
Speaker 1: allow us to frankly, you know, leverage the energy that
Speaker 1: we have. Another example of this is that we also
Speaker 1: know that we're, on average, we tend to be much
Speaker 1: more effective in the mornings than we are in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: and so when we become tired, we actually become more creative.
Speaker 1: And you know this because you're a creativity expert. And
Speaker 1: so I think we're going to get smarter at devoting
Speaker 1: specific hours of the day and calibrating the work that
Speaker 1: we do to specific hours, because we know we're going
Speaker 1: to be more effective doing it that way. The other
Speaker 1: thing that I would say is I think you're going
Speaker 1: to see more and more organizations encouraging people and paying
Speaker 1: people to actively disconnect. You know, already you see examples
Speaker 1: of this of organizations that are paying people to not
Speaker 1: check their email when they go on vacations and to
Speaker 1: do things like having auto responders so that when you
Speaker 1: are away, so that the messages don't even make it
Speaker 1: to the server, so you're not even able to see
Speaker 1: those messages and have them disrupt your vacation. And all
Speaker 1: these practices are being put to use because we have
Speaker 1: evidence that shows that people are much more effective at
Speaker 1: their jobs when they have opportunities for disconnecting. And it's
Speaker 1: not just because they're more effective, as you well know,
Speaker 1: and you know, they also become you also become more
Speaker 1: creative when we have the opportunity to disconnect. And I
Speaker 1: think all of those things are reflective of ways the
Speaker 1: workplace is going to change. Well, those are really great suggestions.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for talking to me today. Ron,
Speaker 1: my pleasure, Scott, thanks for having me. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I
Speaker 1: hope you found this episode just as thought provoking and
Speaker 1: interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the
Speaker 1: show notes for this episode, or here are past episodes,
Speaker 1: you can go to the Psychology Podcast dot com at