Women are more likely to volunteer for a non-promotable task at work, than men. Why? What repercussions does this have on women and on the organization? And how can workplaces fix this inequity?

The culture we live in has an invisible influence over our individual and collective behaviors. The tendency to openness or order in a society is expressed by Michele Gelfand, as the looseness or tightness of a culture. How loose or tight a country is can correlate to the amount of threat the nation has faced in the past, and in turn, can indicate how its people will respond to a new threat, such as a global pandemic.

Processes decrease our cognitive load and increase our productivity. On Behavioral Grooves we have talked a lot with guests about habits and routines, but not so much about the processes behind them. In this bitesize episode we discuss the psychological benefits of using processes and how you can leverage them in your life.

Transporting humans from A to B is about more than just speed, efficiency and duration. Comfort, Wi-Fi access, entertainment and our habits, among many other factors, influence our choice of transportation. As we become increasingly aware of the way our travel decisions affect climate change, how can behavioral science positively impact the journeys we make?

Read Nudge and you are inspired by how behavioral science works. But how can we translate and scale behavioral science effectively into policies and organizations? Indeed, can all academic research be applied “in the wild”?

Personality or wealth are often assumed to be prerequisites to gaining power, something that is only garnered by having control over others. An organization chart in a company, however, does not illustrate who has power within the workplace, it only tells you who has authority. And as we learn in this episode, authority and power are not the same.

Do you strike up a conversation with a stranger on a plane or while waiting in line? If you don’t already, you will after listening to Nick Epley in this episode. Nick talks through his extensive research about talking to people we encounter and how it actually boosts our wellbeing.

As the political divide between left and right widens in the US and around the world, we seem to spend increasing amounts of time focusing on the idea that other people are wrong. But what if we stopped arguing about facts and talked about improving ourselves instead? “All of my knowledge is temporary, pending new information” - a motto that guest Peter Montoya lives by, which questions our own ego and behavior, more than other people’s.

We are always learning, whether it’s changing careers or learning a new instrument. But how do we transition from the curiosity stage, to completely mastering the skill? It turns out it’s a rather predictable process. The growth and learning journey we all embark on, many times in our life, can, according to Whitney Johnson, be visualized on the S Curve of Learning. The growth and learning journey comes in three phases: the Launch Point, the Sweet Spot, and Mastery.

Creating a motivating mindset is the most important component of any sales role. In fact, it’s a critical component of everything we do, but Donald C. Kelly enthusiastically reminds us in this episode that it’s a vital step in the sales process. Adopting a sales mindset can elevate you from a good sales person to a great sales person. Learn from Donald about how to get into the zone of a sales mindset.