unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

What are the nuances of organizational design and risk-taking? What are the roles of both curiosity and trust in fostering an environment ripe for innovation? How can you create serendipity intentionally, and harness its power for your organization?David Cleevely is a British entrepreneur and international telecoms expert who has built and advised many companies, principally in Cambridge, UK. He is also the author of the new book Serendipity: It Doesn't Happen By Accident. Greg and David discuss the concept of engineered serendipity, which involves designing environments and life trajectories that optimize the occurrence of fortunate coincidences. David explains how places like Cambridge, Silicon Valley, and 18th-century Birmingham fostered innovative ecosystems. They explore how engineered structures can increase the likelihood of beneficial outcomes, the role of key individuals in creating networks, and the importance of interdisciplinary interactions. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How can we engineer serendipity?04:23: The thing that we need to do is look at how did those things actually happen? Why did they happen? And is it possible to get some general principles out of this, some insights, so that instead of just relying on chance to do it for us, we can change the odds. And really, serendipity does not act by accident. It is about changing the odds.Randomness in strategy29:09: You need an element of randomness in strategy. So you need to have things that are highly focused, and you need some things that are going to be cross-disciplinary and completely wacky. And you will need different proportions of those.Creating environments for good things to happen02:27: I think we need to do some research, and it's properly cross-disciplinary, 'cause it involves network science, it involves behavioral psychology stuff, all of these things that we need to understand how this stuff actually works. We've been taking this stuff for granted, and actually we need to not just go, oh, that's interesting, and then move on. No, actually we need to investigate this stuff and think, how can we actually create environments in which good things are more likely to happen?Show Links:Recommended Resources:Lunar Society of BirminghamFriedrich HayekStuart KauffmanSanta Fe InstitutePriestley RiotsNapoleonic WarsCambridge WirelessCambridge AngelsACAMSteve JobsDunbar's NumberNicholas ChristakisPride and PrejudiceJohn Maynard SmithGuest Profile:Chemify LimitedWikipedia ProfileLinkedIn ProfileCleevely & PartnersTrinity Hall ProfileCambridge Ahead ProfileGuest Work:ConductingSerendipity.comSerendipity: It Doesn't Happen By Accident Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If ideas and knowledge are the software, then books have always been the longest-running hardware.Author and former publishing executive Joel J. Miller’s latest book, The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future, delves into the history and evolution of books as a physical technology for idea transmission.Joel and Greg discuss the book’s origins from ancient times with Socrates and Plato, to the development of the codex, and the impact of modern digital reading. Joel also shares insights from his experiences in the publishing industry, the importance of physical books in shaping thought, the role of metadata in organizing knowledge, and predictions about the future of books in an increasingly digital world.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Books are hardware for knowledge09:09: I read someone say essentially this definition of a machine, that it is an assembly of parts that are, you know, designed to produce a particular end. And I do think that there is both institutional and cultural kind of degradation of that. And I thought that is what a book does. A book is a thing that is designed to help produce a particular outcome, which looks like a number of things, but one of them is to develop elaborate schemes of thought that would not be able to exist outside of that physical format. If you did not have the physical thing, the hardware, like you said, if you did not have that, the software would not matter because you do not actually have the ability to take all these elaborate thoughts that we have and hold them in our minds. Our working memory is too short, the ability to go back and revisit and revise is non-existent more or less. And so writing enabled us to develop ideas, and we access those through books.Books as vessels of ideas13:24: Ideas live in books. Whether they're arguments, like it's history, it's someone explicating a topic, or it is a novel where somebody is accessing, you know, a kind of a window on another self or things like that. The book is always there to do that for us.On metadata, organization, and libraries as knowledge systems25:16: Data is every bit as wild and unruly, and humans have been trying to figure out ways of getting it under control since the beginning, because we create more information than we can even use. We always have. And the ability to go use a library effectively requires some kind of scheme of organization in order to make it, to make things findable. And so we see that not only in the micro case of a single book, but we can see it blown out across an entire library where people have discovered ways of making ideas findable within them. And at every stage, as the technology has advanced, the job has gotten more complicated and also more interesting because the solutions emerge from that technology that enables us to get even better solutions to the problem.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Maxwell PerkinsHenry Regnery SeptuagintJustin MartyrI. A. RichardsIrenaeusGalenHernando Colon (Ferdinand Columbus)Paul OtletVannevar BushGuest Profile:Staff Profile at Full FocusProfessional WebsiteFocus on This podcastGuest Work:The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How did the US Dollar become the dominant currency internationally? What keeps other currencies, fiat or crypto, from displacing the dollar's role? Does the aggressive use of sanctions by the US Government put the dollar's role at risk?Paul Blustein is with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as an author and journalist. He has written several books including his latest work King Dollar: The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency and previous works, Off Balance: The Travails of Institutions That Govern the Global Financial System, And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina, and Laid Low: Inside the Crisis That Overwhelmed Europe and the IMF.Greg and Paul discuss the reasons behind the US dollar's dominance in global finance, its historical roots stemming from the Bretton Woods Agreement, and the challenges posed by international crises and economic policies. Paul also discusses the role and limitations of the IMF, the geopolitical implications of using the dollar as a financial weapon, and the potential impact of emerging currencies and digital threats. The episode concludes with insights into the phenomena of dollarization and how various economic strategies, including those of China and Russia, intersect with the enduring power of the US dollar.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How the U.S. discovered the power of financial sanctions21:00: No longer was it just going to be the drug lords and, you know, in Colombia and places like that, it was now the government was gonna crack down on terrorists. And so the Treasury, OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, began doing some of that. And they realized that by cutting off banks abroad from access to the dollar system, that correspondent banking system we were just talking about, that, you know, things could really go boom. They could pose a death sentence on banks. And as they began to realize the power of that, they then applied it in the case of North Korea in 2005. And they were absolutely astonished to discover that this really worked. You could really have a big effect on North Korea's financial system by cutting off banks. It was—they went after a bank in Macau that had been—and then they were off to the races. They could use this similar kind of weaponry on Iran and other adversariesResponsible vs irresponsible use of dollar power25:29: You have this power with a dollar; if we use it responsibly, it can be a very good power. And if we use it irresponsibly, it's a bad power. And that's the way I like to look at it.How U.S.–China sanction scenarios are actually gamed out51:59: Some of the hawks in, you know, you don't hear so much from these guys anymore, but the hawks in Congress have tried to game some of these out. You know, I go into this in one of the chapters of the book about how they, you know, they had a red team and a blue team, and they thought, well, we can, you know, we just have done this—imposed drastic sanctions on Russia. So if there's an invasion of Taiwan, here's what we do. And they, I think, have discovered that if you have a really knowledgeable red team playing the Chinese Communist Party, they can come up with a lot, a lot of things that, it preserves Taiwanese democracy but doesn't have us at each other's throats.Show Links:Recommended Resources:United States DollarEuroRenminbiReserve CurrencyNetwork EffectBretton Woods SystemJohn Maynard KeynesHarry Dexter WhiteHerbert SteinFederal ReserveInternational Monetary Fund (IMF)SWIFTEuroclearFiat MoneyXi JinpingShadow FleetGuest Profile:PaulBlustein.comProfessional Profile for CSISLinkedIn ProfileSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageKing Dollar: The Past and Future of the World's Dominant CurrencyOff Balance: The Travails of Institutions That Govern the Global Financial SystemAnd the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of ArgentinaThe Chastening: Inside The Crisis That Rocked The Global Financial System And Humbled The IMFMisadventures of the Most Favored Nations: Clashing Egos, Inflated Ambitions, and the Great Shambles of the World Trade SystemLaid Low: Inside the Crisis That Overwhelmed Europe and the IMFSchism: China, America, and the Fracturing of the Global Trading System Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Unlike some other academic fields, the study of business has always had the challenging task of striking a balance between theory and practice. How can theoretical concepts aid business practitioners in real-world situations? And how can business academics expand their understanding of theory through that real-world application?  Jay Barney is a professor of strategic management at the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business. His work, including numerous books, journal articles, and textbooks, has shaped the field of strategy and entrepreneurship for decades. His most recent book is The Secret of Culture Change: How to Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your Organization.Jay and Greg discuss the evolving role of academia in the business world, the historical and current perceptions of business education, and the various theories that underpin strategic management. Barney delves into resource-based theory, the importance of organizational culture, and the intersection of strategy and practical business applications. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:What really makes a strategy hard to imitate44:56: You're going to have a strategy that's likely to be a source of sustained advantage; you have to figure out how that leverages resources, or capabilities that are socially complex. Why? Because that's harder to imitate, stuff that's developed over long periods of time. That's path dependent. Why? Because that's hard to imitate, or stuff that's costly and ambiguous. Well, you don't know how to develop those capabilities because that makes it hard to imitate. And I can make some empirical predictions that socially complex resources and capabilities should last longer. As long as their value is retained, they should last longer than non–socially complex.Why entrepreneurship is so hard to theorize39:22: Entrepreneurship, one reason that it's under-theorized as a field is because the theory is really hard, because many of the assumptions and attributes that make it possible to theorize in non-entrepreneurial settings do not apply in entrepreneurial settings. And so then we're stuck with this Knightian uncertainty and difficulties associated with that.How strategy escapes the tautology problem46:25: I think that we can avoid the tautology problem by identifying the characteristics that resources and capabilities need to have in order to be sources of sustained advantage. And then, then empirical predictions come out of that. But they do not come out of the tautology, but by definition.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Jay Barney “The Lessons They Didn’t Teach You in Business School” | unSILOed Modigliani-Miller TheoremHawthorne EffectNicholas BloomMichael PorterDavid TeeceWilliam H. MecklingMichael C. JensenJensen and Meckling article 76 JFEGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at University of UtahProfessional Profile on LinkedInWebsiteGuest Work:The Secret of Culture Change: How to Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your OrganizationWhat I Didn't Learn in Business School: How Strategy Works in the Real WorldOrganizational Economics: Toward a New Paradigm for Understanding and Studying OrganizationsGaining and Sustaining Competitive AdvantageStrategic Management and Competitive Advantage, Concepts: Concepts and CasesJay Barney | Google Scholar Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Why might ‘bring your whole self to work’ be terrible professional advice, and what should we be thinking about instead? Why does authenticity come into play more now than in previous generations? Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia. He is also the author of several books, including Don't Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead), Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: (And How to Fix It), and The Talent Delusion: Why Data, Not Intuition, Is the Key to Unlocking Human Potential, I, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique.Greg and Tomas discuss the overemphasis of authenticity in professional and personal settings, the nuanced insights from sociologist Erving Goffman on impression management, and how emotional intelligence often aligns with strategic impression management. Their conversation gets into the impact of AI on human potential and workplace dynamics, as well as the complex interplay between organizational culture and individual behavior, particularly among leaders. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Why do people believe authenticity naturally leads to wellbeing and success?03:08: In a world that is obviously not very authentic, pretending that we value authenticity or encouraging people to just be themselves might be quite fitting. I think it's not very authentic advice to tell people, "Oh, just be yourself. Oh, just bring your whole self to work. Oh, don't worry about what people think of you." But then, if somebody is silly or naive enough to follow that advice, the repercussions for them are not very positive.Self-awareness requires paying attention to others13:33: Professional success and personal development and self-awareness can only be achieved if you are receptive to what other people think of you. So, by the way, as I say in the book [DON’T BE YOURSELF], the notion that, I mean, you know, one of the mantras of authenticity or to authenticity advice, which is "ignore what people tell you," ironically,  the advice is trying to tell us how to behave, right? So you cannot ignore what people tell you. And the difference between somebody who has achieved basic emotional maturity and psychological maturity and somebody who still behaves like a child is that the psychologically mature person pays attention to what other people think of themselves, which doesn't mean being a sort of weak, feeble, conformist sheep. It means being a highly functioning member of society, of work, of community, not being trapped in your own narcissistic delusion.How do you achieve self-awareness?12:20: Self-awareness is actually achieved by internalizing the feedback from others from a very, very early age. We learn about ourselves from internalizing or incorporating the feedback we get from others. So your teachers, your aunt, your uncle, your parents, your older siblings, your friends will tell you, you are good at this, you are bad at that, you are funny. And then you understand that you are funny, right? It's obviously problematic if they're lying to you and then you realize, Ooh, outside my family, nobody laughs with my jokes, right? But there's no answer to who we really are. But the best way to understand who we are in the eyes of others is to not be self-centered and to actually be open to feedback. And that's something that people with high emotional intelligence do very well. Show Links:Recommended Resources:Erving GoffmanCore Self-EvaluationsEmotional LaborEmotional IntelligenceSelf-MonitoringElon MuskDavid Bowie360-degree feedbackCharles Horton CooleyDale CarnegieHenry FordJeffrey PfefferPope FrancisRobert HoganMachiavellianismMax PlanckAmos TverskyDaniel KahnemanJohn Maynard KeynesGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at University College LondonWebsite | DrTomas.comLinkedIn ProfileWikipedia PageSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageDon't Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead)Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: (And How to Fix It)The Talent Delusion: Why Data, Not Intuition, Is the Key to Unlocking Human PotentialI, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us UniqueConfidence: How Much You Really Need and How to Get ItPersonality and Individual Differences, 3rd EditionThe Future of Recruitment: Using the New Science of Talent Analytics to Get Your Hiring Right (The Future of Work)Personality and Intellectual CompetenceThe Psychology of Personnel SelectionPersonality and Individual DifferencesConfidence: Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, Insecurity, and Self-Doubt Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How do evangelism and business go hand in hand? Well, for today’s guest, evangelism is the purest form of sales. Guy Kawasaki is the Chief Evangelist at Canva and former Chief Evangelist for the Macintosh Division at Apple. He’s a prolific author, speaker, and podcaster, with hit books like Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference, Wiser Guy: Life-Changing Revelations and Revisions from Tech's Chief Evangelist, and Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.Guy and Greg discuss his evolving career path, why his work’s focus has shifted over time from how to succeed in business to how to succeed in life, the practicalities of sales, evangelism, and the overlooked necessity of these skills in business education. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Is evangelism the purest form of sales?42:25: I believe that sales is a very necessary and important skill. I would say that maybe evangelism is the purest form of sales. The difference between evangelism and most sales is that in evangelism, you have the other person's best interests at heart, not just yours.Remarkable doesn't mean reach and famous24:45: Remarkable does not mean rich or famous, although you can be rich or famous and remarkable. But it's really about the impact you've made on the world. And I don't mean you have to sell 300 million iPhones or 300 million computers; it's really what have you done?Stop chasing passion, start pursuing interest14:15: So the bar is so high for a passion. So a lot of people are saying, oh my God, I'm 22 years old, I haven't found my passion yet, what's wrong with me? I'm an underachiever. And what I think you should do instead is have your eyes open, you should have your brain open, i.e., a growth mindset. And whatever interests you, you should pursue it until you can discover if you really like it; maybe then it'll turn into a passion. But to look for Passion, capital P, out the gate is doing yourself a disservice.The three general qualities of remarkable people27:29: I've noticed that remarkable people have three general qualities. First of all, they have the growth mindset of Carol Dweck. If you have a growth mindset, you better back that up with a grit mindset of Angela Duckworth, because if you have a growth mindset, you're going to try things like surfing and hockey that you're not good at for years. So you need to persevere and have grit. And then the final thing you need is a grace mindset. So it's growth, grit, grace.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Dr. Robert Cialdini | Remarkable People podcast Dr. Robert Cialdini | unSILOed podcastInfluence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert CialdiniIf You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda UelandCarol DweckAngela DuckworthGuest Profile:Professional WebsiteRemarkable People podcastGuest Work:Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a DifferenceWiser Guy: Life-Changing Revelations and Revisions from Tech's Chief EvangelistEnchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and ActionsThe Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting AnythingRules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and ServicesThe Macintosh Way Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What practical advice could leaders and managers implement right now in their organizations to increase productivity and decrease friction between disparate elements of their companies? How can managers reexamine legacy processes that have remained in place simply because they were, and reimagine them for the specific challenges of today’s business environment?Donald C. Kieffer is  a lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, the founder of consulting firm ShiftGear Work Design, and the author of the new book There's Got to Be a Better Way: How to Deliver Results and Get Rid of the Stuff That Gets in the Way of Real Work.Greg and Donald discuss the concept of dynamic work design. Donald shares stories of challenges in work design across various industries, including healthcare, banking, and software. He also explains how dynamic work design focuses on understanding and improving human work by making the invisible elements of work visible, reducing inefficiencies, and promoting incremental improvements. With a bit of attention to detail and careful setup, systems and processes can be honed to better serve their businesses. Donald points to mistaken beliefs that senior managers often hold about work processes and emphasizes the importance of regulating work to maintain flow, avoiding the political dynamics that arise from inefficiencies, and managing by observing and understanding the real work, allowing organizations to work smarter and harder. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Injecting discovery into work09:15: If you're firefighting to run the day-to-day business, you have no time to think about the future, to even think about the strategy or think about what's happening. So, we're much more about improvement, about incremental improvement. What we are about is discovery. So the idea is that every action that you take in business, be it at whatever level, at the strategic level or the frontline level, is based on the assumptions that activity will cause an improvement. And so we run it as an experiment and say, instead of measuring the plan, we measure: did the activity actually do what you thought? And if it did, great, let's do more. If it didn't, why not? And so we inject discovery into the whole idea of doing, of human work against the target at every level.If you can't draw the work you can’t fix it16:14: I have a saying I use all the time that I love, which is, if you can't draw the work, you don't understand it, and you certainly can't fix it. And it comes from... [16:46] And I think we ask leaders all the time, can you draw it? Can you show it? They can't do it. They think they do it in their head. And this is the thing—why these tools, like A3 and different problem-solving tools, work—is that when you have to write down the problem statement, or when you have to draw the work, it moves it from that pattern-matching part of your brain, where you think you know it, to the rational part of your brain, where it shows you, I'm not really sure.Why we blame people instead of the work design the work36:53: If you see a problem, you tend to blame the person who's nearest the problem, even though it could have been caused way far away, because most of the time there could have been something they did, they could have done to keep it from happening. But you know, if there are like 500 opportunities per problem to happen, one or two of them are gonna get through, even though they're not that person's fault. So I think it's just something very human in us, which is why we call this work design. This is not about people; this is about the design of the work that's usually been ad hoc.On helping people do good work57:23: People want to do good work, meaningful work. Go find the stuff that's getting in their way, even if it's stuff you've put in the way, and get out of the way. Help them. Help them with the design of work. I know it's good for business. There are stories galore in the book about how points on the board, but I'll tell you why I do it when I should be sitting on the back porch collecting Social Security and drinking beer. It's because of the look on people's faces. We can actually go to work and be productive no matter what their level is and feel like they're part of something good and doing.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Takashi TanakaRoss PerotHarley-DavidsonClayton ChristensenDaniel KahnemanFrederick Winslow TaylorJugaadSteven J. Spear PodcastWilliam S. HarleyFive WhysNUMMISeagull ManagementGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at MIT Management | Sloan SchoolShift Gear Work DesignGuest Work:There's Got to Be a Better Way: How to Deliver Results and Get Rid of the Stuff That Gets in the Way of Real WorkGet Work Back on Track With Visual Management | ArticleHow to Rescue an Overloaded Organization | Article Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What if you could find a strategy for gaming the systems all around to work more in your favor? If you did, then things like coveted restaurant reservations, scarce concert tickets, landing the dream job, or even admission to top colleges could become much more in reach. Judd Kessler is a professor of business economics and public policy at the Wharton School and the author of Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want. The book acts as a guide for not only participants in the everyday markets that shape our lives, but also the designers of those markets. Judd and Greg discuss the hidden markets that dictate restaurant reservations, concert tickets, college admissions, and even dating. They explore different market design strategies like allocation mechanisms, centralized clearinghouses, and signaling.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Why some markets don’t play by price rules03:51: So many of the markets that we play in do not resolve themselves with the price rising. Either the price stays low because the seller wants it that way, and there's going to be excess demand—more people that want the thing than there are units available at that price—or we have decided as a society that we're not going to use prices to do the allocations, that it would be fundamentally unfair, or it would be fundamentally inefficient because we don't think your willingness to pay truly captures how much you value it.How market participants get ahead by knowing the rules01:33: When you are a market participant, you can do better by understanding the market rules and thinking about how to play in them.The three E’s of a good market13:59: A good market will achieve the three E's: efficiency, equity, and being easy for market participants. And so what you've just tapped into is efficiency. And that's what makes this subfield of economics interesting, that there is no mechanism that satisfies all three of those perfectly all the time.Show Links:Recommended Resources:LabubuBetter Online Tickets Sales ActAlvin E. RothNational Resident Matching ProgramAmerican Economic AssociationDonald Mackenzie | unSILOedGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Wharton School of BusinessProfessional WebsiteLinkedIn ProfileX Profile Guest Work:Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What strange thing happens when a neuron is left alone? Are there ways to moderate stress and anxiety, and even channel them into productive and helpful signals there to assist you in making good decisions? How can you develop initiative, and what has to change in today’s education landscape to accomplish this? Angus Fletcher is a Professor of Story Science at Project Narrative of Ohio State University. He also teaches screenwriting and is a screenwriter, as well as the author of several books including Primal Intelligence: You Are Smarter Than You Know, Storythinking: The New Science of Narrative Intelligence, and Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature.Greg and Angus discuss the intersection of story science and philosophy, emphasizing the importance of mythos and narrative thinking as opposed to logos, the purely logical, data-driven approaches in areas like decision-making and leadership. Angus outlines how neurophysiology and the brain's natural restlessness contribute to human intelligence and explores the practical applications of narrative cognition in fields ranging from military operations to education and business. He highlights the role of literature in developing imagination, perspective, and emotional intelligence, arguing for its integration into educational systems and other training programs to cultivate better leaders, thinkers, and problem-solvers.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Why fear and anger are the two most powerful emotions41:50: I worked a long time with operators on this, and we particularly worked on fear and anger because those are our two most powerful emotions. Those are our fight-or-flight responses. Fear is flight, and anger is fight. And you know what is going on there? Well, what is going on there is your brain has a bias to action. Your brain always wants to be doing something. The moment that your brain is sitting still, it feels extremely vulnerable, so it always wants to have a plan. And when your brain experiences a severe threat and it realizes this threat is so new, so different, that it does not have a plan that it has confidence in, it does not know what to do here—that is when your brain starts to feel scared. That is when you feel fear. So the question is, why is fear the emotion that your brain evolved? Why did it not evolve some other emotion, like curiosity or whatever? And the answer is just because fear makes you incredibly susceptible to outside influence. The more scared you are, the smarter other people's suggestions sound.Emotion is the smartest thing in your brain41:06: Emotion is the smartest thing in your brain. If you're not using your emotions, you're severely limiting your intelligence. And the reason that we know emotion is the smartest thing in the brain is it's the oldest form of intelligence in the brain, so it's been keeping you alive for hundreds of millions of years.Stories help us imagine alternatives13:11: When you tell someone a story effectively, it allows them to imagine themselves in that position. And then what they do in that position is they imagine, what could I do? And when that's done effectively, what it allows them to do is imagine alternatives—not just alternatives from what they themselves are doing in their own lives, but alternatives to what the individuals did in that situation.Why modern life produces so much anxiety46:21: Why is it that so many people are experiencing over-anxiety in our modern world? Well, the first thing is that too many people spend their time inside these artificially stable environments where they're just not used to anything being unstable. If you spend all your time in the suburbs, and bananas are always there, even in the middle of the winter when you go to the supermarket and the whatnot, you know, then you're not ever coping or having to engage with even a mild amount of instability or volatility. So the moment you encounter any of it, you immediately freak out and think that something must be wrong.Show Links:Recommended Resources:MythosLogosDaniel KahnemanDual Process TheoryI. A. RichardsWilliam ShakespeareCase StudySteve JobsMike TysonRonald CraneNew CriticismPostmodernismPost-StructuralismSchadenfreudeThe Chicago SchoolAeschylusSophoclesFight-or-Flight ResponseGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Ohio State UniversityProject Narrative Profile | Ohio State UniversityAngusFletcher.co | WebsiteAngus Fletcher | Wikipedia PageProfile on LinkedInSocial Profile on InstagramGuest Work:Amazon Author PagePrimal Intelligence: You Are Smarter Than You KnowNarrative Creativity: An Introduction to How and Why (Elements in Creativity and Imagination)Storythinking: The New Science of Narrative Intelligence (No Limits)Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of LiteratureCreative Thinking: A Field Guide to Building Your Strategic CoreComic Democracies: From Ancient Athens to the American RepublicScreenwriting 101: Mastering the Art of StoryEvolving Hamlet: Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy and the Ethics of Natural SelectionAngus Fletcher | IMDB Page Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How has rational choice theory come to dominate both our understanding of the world and our view of good judgment, and why is that a problem? What are the benefits of remembering to zoom in and out to get a better picture of problems and solutions? Why do we prefer reducing things to numbers even if that abstracts useful levels of data?Barry Schwartz is a professor Emeritus at Swarthmore College and the prolific author of many books. His latest titles include Choose Wisely: Rationality, Ethics, and the Art of Decision-Making and Wisdom: How to Discover Your Path in Work and Life.Greg and Barry discuss the limitations of rational choice theory, the importance of practical wisdom, and the role of judgment in making decisions. They also touch on the broader implications of rational choice theory across various fields, the history of economic and social science paradigms, and the necessity of incorporating ethical considerations into people’s decision-making. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The way we think about the world changes the world10:47: The argument in the book [Choose Wisely] was, the way we think about the world changes the world. And it is true that the way we think about the world changes the world, but it changes the world materially. It does not just change the world because of the ideas we have running around in our heads; it changes the material world. Yeah. The factory did not exist, and then it did. And as a result, what it meant to work changed. That was not in our heads. That was, you know, a structure that was out in the world that made demands on the people who walked in the door every day. So it was not idealism. The argument was that ideas change not just how people think, but what kinds of things people are able to do. And I think the same thing is true with rational choice theory, though it is a bit more abstract. You know, you cannot do a rational choice analysis without being able to quantify.Why we can’t game the way to design incentives14:16: People somehow think that there is a bulletproof way to design incentives, so that they will not distort why they gave us the incentives they are designed to encourage. And, the bad news is there is no such thing, and there is no system that cannot be gamed.How economics changes the way we think07:22: There is a general, more general problem in social science, which is that, unlike planets, people are affected by claims that are made about what they are like. And so, the more we read social science, and the more economics, the king of the social sciences, dominates the news, the more inclined we are to think like and act like economists. So, does this tell us that the economists have discovered something? No. I mean, maybe. But it is just as likely that what economists have done is create something. They have created a way of approaching decisions and value assessment and so on that is consistent with their framework and changed people as a result.What we miss when we measure everything42:15: Rational choice theory is not neutral about what stays in the frame and what goes outside it. Things that go outside the frame are the ones that are most difficult to quantify using the same scale that you are using for everything else. And so, in the case of the price of a pound of beef, you could add the amount of money that our taxes contribute to subsidies. You could factor in the costs of the fertilizers that enable the corn to grow enough so that the cows can get fattened up. How do you quantify exactly the cost to human health? You can do it. How many more dollars do we pay per year because of antibiotic-resistant bacteria? But does that capture the cost in health? No. It only captures the dollar cost in health.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Rational Choice ModelDaniel KahnemanReinforcement LearningB. F. SkinnerReflexivity (Social Theory)Karl PopperGeorge SorosGoodhart's lawThe Omnivore's DilemmaAnnie DukePhronesisTelosSwarthmore CollegeAdnan KhashoggiGuest Profile:Wikipedia PageFaculty Profile at Swarthmore CollegeProfile at The Decision LabSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageChoose Wisely: Rationality, Ethics, and the Art of Decision-MakingWhy We Work (TED Books)Wisdom: How to Discover Your Path in Work and LifeBrilliant: The Art and Science of Making Better DecisionsThe Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, Revised EditionPractical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right ThingAre We Happy Yet? Happiness in an Age of Abundance (Cato Unbound)The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is LessThe Costs of LivingThe Battle for Human Nature: Science, Morality and Modern LifeRelated unSILOed episodes:Barry Schwartz - Why We Work: Breaking Down the Psychological and Economic Factors of a Great WorkplaceDonald MacKenzie - Trading at Light Speed: The Impact of Ultra-Fast Algorithms on Financial Markets Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For organizations that are tempted to throw out the classic organizational management handbook in favor of a structure with no managers – think again. Nicolai J. Foss is a professor of strategy at Copenhagen Business School and the co-author of Why Managers Matter: The Perils of the Bossless Company. The book pushes back on the notion that the key to breakthrough success for organizations is through flat, leaderless structures akin to today’s trendy startups, and makes the case for why companies need hierarchies to function. Nicolai and Greg discuss the feasibility and realities of operating without traditional hierarchies, why these models often rely heavily on exceptional founders and are not suited for all business types, and the essential roles managers play in coordination, cooperation, and maintaining effective workflows, especially during times of crisis. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:We still need managers41:33 [Managers] They're doing a lot of good stuff. They are coordinating, and they are cooperating at the most abstract level. I mean, activities need to be coordinated in the sense of, we have to figure out what those activities should be, how they should change in response to outside disturbances. Activities have to be linked. Activities have to be rethought. And once we have figured all that out, which is, of course, an ongoing struggle, then people have to be motivated to cooperate inside those, and actually carry out those activities in the best possible way and in a dynamic reality. This is a never-ending quest.No human system run itself11:44: No human system works itself or runs itself. It has to be supported, maintained. There has to be support, scaffolding, or whatever you want to call it. Same goes for firms—and perhaps all different ones.Organization is about coordinated cooperation02:40: At the end of the day, organization is about coordinated cooperation, and the right question to ask is, what exactly is the role of managers in bringing about coordinated cooperation?Boselessness is not for every company20:43: [Bosslessness] It works for some companies, typically those that have a more modular kind of underlying technology, where there is no high need for mutual adaptation between units or activities or processes. But it works much less well for a traditional industrial company.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Organizational theoryPrincipal–agent problemFirst, Let’s Fire All the Managers by Gary HamelJensen HuangElon Musk by Walter IsaacsonCan you run a company as a perfect free market? Inside Disco Corp Morningstar, Inc.Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them by Gary Hamel and Michele ZaniniValve CorporationThe Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (film)Guest Profile:Faculty Profile at Copenhagen Business SchoolProfessional Profile on LinkedInGuest Work:Why Managers Matter: The Perils of the Bossless Company Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How have politics changed from the  Bill Clinton era to that of  Donald Trump? How have identity politics diverted attention from economic issues, and how have the educated elites derailed activism?Fredrik deBoer is the author of both fiction and nonfiction works, including The Mind Reels, The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice, and How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement.Greg and Fredrik discuss the American political left and why the left-right dichotomy fails to tell the complete story.  Fredrik provides a critical examination of the internal divisions within the political left, identity politics, and the impact of social media on political engagement. He argues that the left's preoccupation with symbolic issues often undermines its ability to build broad-based coalitions, and suggests a return to class-first politics as a more effective strategy. They also touch on the role of nonprofits, the evolution of meritocracy in education, and the challenges of achieving genuine economic and social justice.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How social media turned politics into identity performance45:28: What makes all of this particularly more pernicious in the 21st century is, it's not just now your immediate peer group of people you see face-to-face. You've got to answer to a couple thousand people on social media who know your name and who know where you work, and who will yell at you if you have the, quote-unquote, wrong position. Right? And this is a thing that has happened all over the world of the left, which is, cultural issues began to be foregrounded above economic issues to an extreme extent. There was a development of a very narrow sort of list of approved opinions that you could hold on cultural and social issues. They came to be seen as sort of outside of the realm of politics, and without anyone actually intending for it to happen, what the sort of default young Democrat in politics was shifted over time in an extreme identitarian direction.When politics becomes a team sport, everyone loses nuance29:18: I think we are just training generations of young people who do not understand politics as anything other than a sort of blood sport, organized around a very simplistic binary.The heart of politics is empathy, not ideology07:23: I have a very long list of disagreements with Bill Clinton, but he was a political genius, and everyone knows, his signature phrase is, I feel your pain. And to me, that's the heart of politics. It's saying, I understand that you need something, and I'm here for you. In that sense, the identity politics on the left in the last 15 years has been about telling large groups of people that they do not have real problems, right? So, if you go show up to a university campus and you start to talk about some of the problems that afflict, for example, the white working class, you'll be told quite directly, oh, to center the white working class, right, is to privilege racism and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? It's saying directly to these people, your problems are not real problems. And so, like, that's the perfect example of where you are sacrificing potential allies for a benefit that I just do not even understand.Show Links:Recommended Resources:SocialismMarxismProgressivismSingle-Payer HealthcareBill ClintonDonald TrumpAdolph L. Reed Jr.Paul IngrassiaOccupy Wall StreetIron Law of OligarchyRobert ReichBarack ObamaGuest Profile:FredrikdeBoer.comWikipedia ProfileFredrik deBoer SubstackGuest Work:Amazon Author PageThe Mind ReelsThe Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social InjusticeHow Elites Ate the Social Justice MovementRelated UnSILOed episodes:Michael Spence - A Deep Dive into Signaling and Market Dynamics Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How will AI change the size, shape, and structure of companies? Where will we see new leverage points in the AI economy? How does AI move beyond task automation and into the coordination of tasks? How does a manager keep from becoming just a cog in a system of automations?Sangeet Paul Choudary is a senior fellow at UC Berkeley, a consultant, and the author and co-author of several books. His latest work is titled, Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy.Greg and Sangeet discuss Sangeet’s latest book, as well as the work he co-authored, Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You. Sangeet emphasizes how AI's transformative impacts extend beyond automating tasks to fundamentally altering industry structures, competitive advantages, and corporate strategies. The conversation also covers even broader implications of continued AI adoption like modularity in business, the shifting roles in professional services, and the creation of new economic control points. They provide a comprehensive look at how businesses can realign their strategies around AI as an engine driving innovation and competitive advantage for the future.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:AI as a tool vs. AI as an engine22:28: The idea of using AI as a tool versus AI as an engine is that a tool is typically something that you bolt onto your existing workflows—pick a tool from the toolbox, and it helps you speed up a task, perform it faster, better, cheaper. But if you're really using an engine, you're constantly thinking about how to redesign your entire workflow and your entire organization, your business model, around the capabilities of the engine.Bridging the gap in AI through storytelling and narrative54:19: Storytelling and narrative, in general, are such important skills today because we are in an age where we are information-rich but attention-poor. And the way to harness that attention is to have compelling storytelling and narratives that bridge that gap.How is the basis of competition shifting?29:09: The impact of AI does not play out only at the level of tasks—tasks that are inside workflows. So workflows get transformed. Workflows are organized through organizational mechanisms, so new organizational systems will have to come into place. And organizations, essentially, compete in an ecosystem. They help firms compete in an ecosystem. And so the starting point would be to ask ourselves—with AI coming in and with other forces at play—how is the basis of competition shifting? What was the basis on which firms previously competed? What was our basis of differentiation and competition? And does that change? Do some of those assumptions no longer hold true? And on that basis, if we can lay out some clear hypotheses and heuristics on what’s changing in terms of the basis of competition, what does that mean in terms of the capabilities we need to have in place?...All of those need to come into question and need to be evaluated.Show Links:Recommended Resources:WalmartSheinPlatform EconomyLarge Language ModelTikTokSocial GraphThe Open Graph protocolErik BrynjolfssonGeneral ElectricPerplexity AIOpenAIBest BuyAmazon AlexaGuest Profile:Profile on Platform Thinking LabsProfile on LinkedInProfile on WikipediaSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageReshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge EconomyThe Fast Future Blur: Discover Transformative Interconnections Shaping the FuturePlatform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for YouPlatform Scale: How an emerging business model helps startups build large empires with minimum investmentMediumSubstackRelated unSILOed Episodes:Geoff Parker | Will Every Business Become a Platform Business?Marc Levinson | How the Container Changed the World Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How does code, like language, shape the way we see the world? How can we rediscover enchantment in our technology?? How can we determine the half-life of knowledge as we continue to learn and discover new things?Samuel Arbesman is a scientist in residence at Lux Capital, a fellow at Case Western School of Management, and the author of three books, The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World—and Shapes Our Future, Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension, and The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date.Greg and Samuel discuss Samuel’s newest book, The Magic of Code, and how programming languages have evolved and continue to evolve over time. Samuel explores society’s enchantment and disenchantment with technology, the evolution of programming languages, the intersection of computer science and humanities, and the ongoing shift towards more democratized software creation. They also go over Samuel’s  earlier works, highlighting the temporary nature of facts and the continual necessity for adaptive learning in a rapidly evolving world.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Reenchanting technology through humanities 03:24: I think the larger perspective of the book [The Magic of Code] is to also recognize that, in addition to this wonder and delight, also recognizing that when we think about computing competition, it doesn’t need to just be this branch of engineering or this thing of computer science. It really is this almost humanistic liberal art that, when you think about it properly, should connect to language and philosophy and biology and art and how we think and the nature of reality and all these different kinds of things. And for me, those are the windows and the lenses that allow us to actually kind of re-enchant, not even just computing, but in turn many aspects of our own lives, and hopefully can repair at least a little bit of that kind of broken relationship.On the magic of code06:31:  We actually have this weird information stuff that can actually work in the real world. That’s amazing. And we should pause at least and say, wow, that really is incredible.Why democratizing software is powerful26:56: This idea of being able to democratize software creation is incredibly powerful. And actually, in going back to the analogy with magic, I mean, yes, in many of the tales of magic, it did require a great deal of effort. You had to apprentice, or you had to, I don’t know, go to Hogwarts for seven years or whatever it is. But there also were stories of magic for everyone; there were spells that could be used by people if they, like in the Middle Ages, had lost their cattle and needed to recover it. And I think we need that same kind of thing in the software realm as well, which is, we need spells and code that can be used by everyone. And now, with this ability, it’s unbelievable to see.Ideas are always in draft form53:41: A professor of mine, when I was in graduate school, told me this story. This was already after I had left grad school. He was telling me this story that he was teaching some course, came in on Tuesday, and gave a lecture on some topic. Then, the next day, he read a paper that invalidated the lecture he had given the day before. So he went in on Thursday and said, “Remember what I taught you on Tuesday? It’s wrong. And if that bothers you, you need to get out of science.” And I think that kind of idea—that science, or what we know, is constantly in draft form—is a very powerful idea.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Max WeberDuneiPhone (1st generation)ChatGPTH. P. LovecraftFantasiaGuido van RossumLarry WallSapir–Whorf HypothesisList of Programming LanguagesBrainfuckFortranPerlVibe CodingRobin SloanVIC-20Pierre-Simon LaplaceVannevar BushDon R. SwansonLuis Walter AlvarezMarc BenioffThe Unaccountability MachineIsaac AsimovGuest Profile:Arbesman.netProfessional Profile for  LuxCapitaLinkedIn AccountSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageThe Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World—and Shapes Our FutureOvercomplicated: Technology at the Limits of ComprehensionThe Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration DateWired ArticlesSubstack - Cabinet of Wonders Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Is it time to overhaul the way we study and teach ancient history? Are we limiting our ability to understand fully how the past informs the present in ways like inequality if we keep these disciplines siloed?Walter Scheidel is a professor of humanities, classics, and history at Stanford University. He’s the author of more than a dozen books, including What Is Ancient History? and The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century.Walter and Greg discuss methodological divides between departments studying ancient history, the relevance of the Classics today, and the case for a new discipline on “foundational history.” They also explore the origins of inequality and how war, plagues, and technological advancements are the primary drivers for equality shifts. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How ancient innovations still shape the modern world13:37: People face similar challenges, and they should be studied accordingly. And we should try to understand how people, at the time of many thousands of years ago, put all kinds of innovations in place and bundled them together in very specific ways that really create our world—in terms of material culture, in terms of social arrangements, institutions, cognitive frameworks, if you will. Writing and literature and world religions and other belief systems, and so on, are still very much with us. They really shape everything that we do today. So the world we inhabit today is like a supercharged version of what people set up in this formative period. But they did it all over the place.Why ancient studies need a paradigm shift10:08: Unless there is some major paradigm shift or some major other shock to the system, there's really no sufficient force to reconfigure the way we approach the study of the ancient world.Redefining ancient history beyond Greece and Rome03:03: If you're a historian, you may want to ask, well, why isn't ancient history, like Roman history, part of our history patterns more generally? And to go beyond that, what do we mean mostly by Greece and Rome when we say ancient history? I think we mean two things when we evoke ancient history. One is Greeks and Romans, maybe Egyptians and Nas if you're lucky, but not, you know, Maya or early China and that sort of thing. Or, more commonly, you refer to something you think is irrelevant and obsolete. You say that's ancient history whenever you want to dismiss something—it's like, that's ancient history. So my book is about both of these meanings and why neither one of them really does any justice to the subject matter and to what our understanding should be of this particular part of history. I want to redefine it as a truly transformative, foundational phase—not so much a period, but a phase of human development that unfolded on a planetary scale and needs to be studied accordingly.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Gini coefficientBranko MilanovićKuznets curveGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Stanford UniversityProfessional WebsiteProfessional Profile on XGuest Work:What Is Ancient History?The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)Part of: The Princeton Economic History of the Western World (55 books)The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy (Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World)Part of: Cambridge Companions to the Ancient Athens (17 books) The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World by Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, et al.The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium (Oxford Studies in Early Empires) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When it comes to the concept of The West, its scope and principles have been criticized both contemporarily and historically. How did the West emerge as a coherent concept, and what has it meant over time?Georgios Varouxakis is a Professor in the History of Political Thought at Queen Mary University of London, where he is also the Co-director of the Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought. He is also the author of several books, and his newest book is titled The West: The History of an Idea.Greg and Georgios discuss Giorgios’s new book, 'The West: The History of an Idea,' and explore the origins, evolution, and various interpretations of the concept of 'the West.' Their conversation covers some popular misconceptions about the West, reasons behind its historical development, and the roles nations like Greece, Russia, and Ukraine have played in shaping the West's identity. Giorgios emphasizes how the West has been a flexible and evolving idea, open to new members and continuously redefined through history. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The two myths of the West’s origins03:06: The popular conceptions are that the West must have always existed. People take for granted that at least since the ancient Greeks, there is a West that has resisted the invasion of Asia through the Persian Empire and that in the Battle of Marathon, the West defined itself and defeated. A projection of things that people later imagined. In this sense, ancient Greeks saw themselves as Greeks. They did not see themselves as West or Europe or anything else. The other end of the spectrum is that the West must have begun with a Cold War, that surely the West is a creation of the post–First World War situation where the United States leads a group of peoples versus the Soviet Union, and that is the West. These are the two popular extremes. Popular conceptions that I consider, the two ends of the spectrum.The West as an open-ended idea17:14: The West had inherent from its inception an open-endedness that was not based on just ethnic descent or just religion.Richard Wright: The gadfly of the West37:14: [Richard Wright] says, "I'm Western, but I now realize I'm more Western than the West. I'm more advanced than the West. I believe in the Western principles and values, and constitutional and political and other philosophical ideas. I was taught, I believe in freedom of speech, separation of, and the of. These are not necessarily practiced much of the time by Western governments and elites. So he becomes literally like Socrates was the gadfly of Athenian democracy. Richard Wright becomes the gadfly of the West, saying, 'I'm criticizing you because you're not doing the Western thing. You're not Western enough.' Literally, he says, 'The West is not Western enough.'"Why the West should be improved, not abolished47:48: My argument is peoples and their leaderships make decisions, and they may change allegiances. They may adopt institutions, alliances, and cultural references that their ancestors did not have a century or two ago, come from a country that. An experiment in that these experiments may change. You know, things may change, but I do not think anytime soon Greece will join some Eastern or whatever alliance. So to the extent that what anyone can predict, the attractiveness of the West is exactly this combination of, and an entity. As we keep saying, it should be criticized and improved. So it is not abolishing the West that I would recommend, it is improving the West and making the West live up to more of its aspirations and principles.Show Links:Recommended Resources:John Stuart MillAuguste ComteOttoman EmpirePeter the GreatCatherine the GreatGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelAhmed RızaOliver GoldsmithJean-Jacques RousseauGermaine de StaëlThomas MannFrancis LieberDonald TrumpSteve BannonOswald SpenglerWestern CivilizationWalter LippmannW. E. B. Du BoisRichard WrightFrancis FukuyamaGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Queen Mary University of LondonLinkedIn ProfileGuest Work:Amazon Author PageThe West: The History of an IdeaLiberty Abroad: J. S. Mill on International RelationsMill on NationalityVictorian Political Thought on France and the FrenchPhilPapers.org Profile Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Why is historical context so important when looking at topics from the past? What role does a broader appreciation of the humanities play in understanding contemporary issues?Darrin M. McMahon is a professor of history at Dartmouth College and the author of several books. Recent titles include Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea and the Divine Fury: A History of Genius book.Greg and Darrin discuss Darrin’s intellectual journey and his approach to longue durée intellectual history. Darrin provides insights into his books on happiness, genius, and equality, exploring themes like the evolution of concepts over time, the intersection of words and ideas, and the roles of intellectual historians. Their conversation examines the connections between religious traditions and modern concepts, the interplay of born versus made attributes, and the historical perspectives on the concepts of happiness and genius. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Are genius, happiness, and equality born or made?41:06: Are geniuses born, or are they made? You know, can you play the guitar for 10,000 hours, à la Malcolm Gladwell, and become a Beatle? Or, you know, is there just something in you? And that turns out to be a kind of central conflict all the way back to the ancients. Same, as you say, with happiness, right? Is happiness just in our genes? We know some people are wired to just be cheery in the morning. Right? I'm not one of those people. Or does it happen to you? Right? Or can you make it? Right? Can you control your life in such a way so that you can bring about happiness? And the same with equality, right? Are we born equals? Are we made equals in political circumstance? Are we intended to be equal? This too gets tied up with debates around it, around the concept from very early on. And they never really entirely go away. So again, it's a nice way of kind of pointing out continuities, but then also marking points of departure and change.Why equality creates inequality29:37: Equality always serves, or always brings into being, new forms of inequality. That very assertion of equals then creates the space then for thinking or measuring others against that standard, and relegating to place.Intellectual history teaches us how to love49:28: Intellectual history teaches you to get inside the minds of others who see the world in radically different ways from how you do. And that is what love is all about: trying to get inside the mind of a person who sees the world differently from you, and to empathize even when you do not agree, to understand even when you do not condone. That is crucial. It is a crucial human endeavor, and I think intellectual history teaches that very well.The arc of equality isn't as straight as we think30:29: Equality leads to us, and then it's going to spread, and, you know, spill down to more and more people. It will expand and get wider. I grew up in California. I was born in 1965 with that kind of vague idea, and no one said it was going to be easy. Martin Luther King certainly knew it was not going to be easy, and yet, as you say, the arc of history bends towards justice, bends towards equality. We're gradually extending equality to wider and wider circles of people. And that's just how it will go. And I think we were deceived by our own rhetoric. And it was really a rude awakening in 2016 to wake up and realize, oh gosh, you know, it does not quite work that way. And as rude an awakening as that's been, I think it also provides an opportunity then to go back and examine a concept like equality that we thought we knew in some ways, but that really turns out to be much more complicated and fraught than I think we fully appreciated.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Longue DuréeRobert DarntonArthur Oncken LovejoyAnglo-SaxonsPlatoSubjective Well-beingJeremy BenthamThe Happiness HypothesisAge of EnlightenmentSocratesDaemonDoctor FaustusMichelangeloMichel FoucaultMemento MoriFascesTeresa BejanMartin Luther King Jr.Tall Poppy SyndromeChristopher BoehmBranko MilanovićKarl MarxJean-Jacques RousseauArthur SchopenhauerFriedrich NietzscheThomas CarlyleAugustine of HippoPresentismGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Dartmouth UniversityDarrinMcMahon.comWikipedia ProfileGuest Work:Amazon Author PageEquality: The History of an Elusive IdeaHistory and Human FlourishingDivine Fury: A History of GeniusHappiness: A HistoryEnemies of the Enlightenment: The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There is a misconception that liberalism lacks a vision of ‘the good life,’ but liberalism is more ingrained in society than often recognized. It affects media, education, and personal beliefs of those in society both directly and indirectly.Alexandre Lefebvre is a professor of politics and philosophy at the University of Sydney in Australia, and the author and editor of several books.  His latest work is Liberalism as a Way of Life.Greg and Alex discuss the historical and philosophical critiques of liberalism, discussing whether liberalism needs a theory of ‘the good life’ to remain relevant and compelling. Alexandre argues that liberalism has permeated various aspects of modern life, contradicting the common view that it is merely a procedural framework. They also explore John Rawls's philosophy, particularly his concepts of the original position and reflective equilibrium, and examine how these ideas can serve as spiritual exercises for cultivating a liberal ethos. Alexandre highlights the need for liberals to live up to their principles and examines the future challenges and opportunities for liberalism in a pluralistic society.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:What are the goods of the liberal way of life?36:14: What are the goods of the liberal way of life? I do think that they are real goods and, at the heart of it, I would say. I mean, I think any conception of the good life kind of parks two or three virtues, kind of limit at four, I know, at the heart of what it means to live well. And then they have kind of derivative qualities and virtues flowing out from that. So, I take liberals at their word that the two major commitments they have are, let's say, to liberty and liberality, or to freedom and fairness as a kind of interpretation of what it means to be generous. And out of that comes a whole personality structure. That's what I believe. A whole psychology emanates from that. And it behooves us as liberals to cultivate that, not just because it makes us not jerks and not hypocrites, but because living according to those values and those virtues is intrinsically rewarding and joyful. [37:09] So, that's the first thing I want to say: that the liberal personality isn't just a political thing. I want to say that it disseminates into all aspects of our life, from how we deal with our wife or our husband, our romantic partners, how we raise our kids, to the kind of jokes we laugh at, the kind of stuff that makes us upset, et cetera, et cetera.Why liberalism needs more than rules09:14: If liberalism can't compel ethical assent and robust commitment, then what are we talking about? We’re done for, we can't campaign forever on just a set of rules, however noble they are. There has to be a there, there.Why do people reject liberalism?34:27: I think that a lot of people saying no to liberalism, it's not because they can't live up to its demands, but because they look at the ideals and say, no, not for me, that this is not the kind of life I want. And that the vision of the good life and the good quality is in a different direction. And I think that those are principled rejections of liberalism that make, for me, a lot of sense. And that if we want to understand the attraction of illiberalism, postliberal, all that stuff, we can't just think that these people are either cowards or afraid, or that their leaders are just motivated by the goods of tyranny—kind of sex, power, money, all that stuff. That is part of the picture, no doubt, but they're motivated by genuine ideals that liberalism crowds out.Liberalism as a way of life27:16: Philosophy is a way of life. And what I try to do in my book [Liberalism as a Way of Life] is suggest that liberalism could be seen, sort of, in the same vein.Show Links:Recommended Resources: LiberalismJohn RawlsAdrian VermeuleKarl MarxSøren KierkegaardEpicureanismLiberal DemocracyA Theory of JusticeAlexis de TocquevilleLast ManJudith N. ShklarMisanthropyPierre HadotIris MurdochDave ChappelleHannah GadsbyPatrick DeneenFrench RevolutionCult of ReasonGuest Profile:AlexLefebvre.comFaculty Profile at the University of SydneyLinkedIn ProfileSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageLiberalism as a Way of LifeHuman Rights and the Care of the SelfHuman Rights as a Way of Life: On Bergson's Political PhilosophyThe Image of Law: Deleuze, Bergson, SpinozaFreedom: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1904–1905Interpreting Bergson: Critical EssaysThe Subject of Human RightsHenri BergsonBergson, Politics, and ReligionWant more like this? Give these episodes a listen:Helena RosenblattSamuel Moyn Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Business leaders need to be versatile, critical thinkers capable of questioning the status quo while integrating actionable frameworks to drive innovation. How does this align with the principles today’s business school graduates are learning and will they be capable of integrating actionable frameworks to drive innovation in the future?Scott D. Anthony is a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and the author of several books. His latest work is titled Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World.Greg and Scott discuss Scott's latest book, Epic Disruptions, as well as his previous works, including Dual Transformations and Eat, Sleep, Innovate. Their conversation examines the intricacies of disruption theory, its need for an update, and the complexity of business models in today's ecosystem-focused world. Scott shares insights from his extensive research and consulting experience, touching on historical examples like the iPhone, Tesla, and Julia Child, and emphasizing the importance of adapting mental models to navigate uncertainty. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Innovation is predictably unpredictable39:59: Scott: Randomness is absolutely a feature of every innovation story that you'll study. And the conclusion I drew from the research is that innovation has become more predictable, but it's not perfectly predictable. So I called it predictably unpredictable in that—Greg: Now, is it more predictable because we have better tools and better frameworks?Scott: I think so. I think A, we have better tools and better frameworks, and B, we really have learned the discipline of scientific method applied to strategy through lean startup, emergent strategy, and so on. So that does not mean that we can predict exactly. It does not mean that we know what is going to happen beforehand, but it means that we can confront the uncertainty in a more practiced, more methodical sort of way, so we can manage it in a different sort of way. I think that is a huge change in the innovation world. So, a combination of two things: better understanding, better research, which gives us better tools and frameworks, and then an active way to go and chip away at the things that we still will not know. But still, there is lots of unpredictability in it.Disruption changes the game08:52: The important thing about disruption is it changes the game, and by changing the game, it drives explosive growth.Why business schools must teach wisdom, not just tools44:28: There is a fundamental question of how do we make sure that it is connected to the modern world and what it needs to do? And second, technical tools are pretty easy to learn, and tools like ChatGPT, et cetera, can take it really well. We need to make sure that our students are critical thinkers that are really able to be what we are aspiring our students to be—wise, decisive leaders that better the world through business. We need to teach wisdom. We need to teach curiosity. We need to make sure that people go out with the right mindset, and that is really hard. That is not an easy thing to do in traditional classroom settings with case-based methods. I think there is still a huge role for that, and a role for simulations, experiential things—things that really push people to uncomfortable places where they learn and give them the humility, the wisdom to be able to confront an incredibly challenging world.On Florence Nightingale as a disruptor36:17: She [Florence Nightingale] goes and opens up nursing hospitals, enabling a broader population to be nurses. And like nightingales, they fly through the world. So she comes up with a really clear vision that is communicated clearly. She gives people step-by-step instructions, and she creates a cadre of people that can go and follow those instructions. And by doing so, she drives massive system change. This is disruption in healthcare—enabling a lesser-trained, lesser-skilled group of people to provide high-quality care, moving from treating bad things to preventing them from ever happening. So I love the story, because you think of her as a nurse. You think of her as somebody who helped people in a dire situation. Yes, she did all of that, but she also used data, used words, used teaching and training to change the world. Show Links:Recommended Resources:Clayton ChristensenDisruptive InnovationAlixPartnersSteve JobsAndrew GroveENIACiPhoneRita Gunther McGrathhttps://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/1156427Julia ChildFlorence NightingaleFrancis BaconScientific MethodBethlehem SteelDBS BankWilliam FarrCase MethodGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Tuck School of BusinessInnosight ProfileLinkedIn ProfileSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Amazon Author PageEpic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern WorldThe Innovator's Solution, with a New Foreword: Creating and Sustaining Successful GrowthEat, Sleep, Innovate: How to Make Creativity an Everyday Habit Inside Your OrganizationThe Little Black Book of Innovation: How It Works, How to Do ItDual Transformation: How to Reposition Today's Business While Creating the FutureThe First Mile: A Launch Manual for Getting Great Ideas into the MarketBuilding a Growth FactoryThe Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain TimesThe Innovator's Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to WorkSeeing What's Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. 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How did political and social pressures affect public health decisions during the pandemic, and how did media reporting amplify those effects? What is the cost when experts detach from evidence-based medicine for policymaking and defer decisions to those without the proper expertise?David Zweig is a journalist, novelist, and musician. He is also the author of An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions.Greg and David discuss David’s journey from working on a different book during the pandemic to documenting the school closure policies and their implications. They cover various topics, including public health, expertise, the state of science, partisanship, tribalism in academia and the public sector, and how those factors influenced the policy and decisions during COVID. David talks about the decision-making processes behind prolonged school closures despite falling hospitalization rates, the role of media coverage, the politicization of public health recommendations, and the long-term impact on children’s education and mental health. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The failure of the expert class30:39: One of the reasons that I felt motivated to spend years writing this book [An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions], and just painstakingly trying to create a document. So I am hoping that, if I am not too big for my britches here, I hope in a decade, or a couple of decades or more from now, people will look back at the book and use this as a tool to understand: How does something like this happen, where science and evidence are ignored? And not only is it ignored, but it is ignored by the people who ostensibly are the experts who should know better. I do not spend a lot of time criticizing Trump, or, you know, Alex Jones, or conspiracy theorist people, because that's boring. I already do not expect them to know what is going on, but I do expect people with advanced degrees. I do expect physicians, I do expect these public health experts. And my book, in many ways, is a study of how those people—it is the failure of the expert class.Intuition over data15:28: Real-world, like empirical evidence, was ignored almost entirely. And when it was acknowledged, even in a minimal way, it was dismissed with a bunch of really contrived reasons that were based again on the expert's intuition. None of this was based on any evidence or data.When models reflect privilege01:07:54: It's quite important to note that the people who made the models also tended to be the people who did the best in the pandemic. That's what this guy Eric Berg's philosopher, who I interviewed, pointed out to me many times. Like, boy, that's pretty ironic that the people who chose how to create these models, they were the ones who were in comfortable homes. They were the ones who had their kid. They probably had one or another parent at home with the kid to help them with their studying. Maybe they could pay for a tutor. Maybe they went to their vacation home somewhere. If the people designing the pandemic response were in a studio apartment in the Bronx with four children, with one absent parent, and with one of the kids sick and with a learning disability, I'm pretty darn sure that their recommendations would have been quite different if those were the circumstances they were living in.Show Links:Recommended Resources:COVID-19Andrew CuomoAnthony FauciDonald TrumpCenters for Disease Control and PreventionThe New York TimesMegan RanneyWired (magazine)Graham AllisonEvidence-Based MedicineMIS-CVladimir Kogan ProfileEmily OsterDeborah BirxGuest Profile:DavidZweig.comProfile on WikipediaSocial Profile on XSocial Profile on FacebookGuest Work:Amazon Author PageAn Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad DecisionsInvisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-PromotionSwimming Inside the SunArticles for The AtlanticSubstack Newsletter Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.