Behavioral Grooves Podcast

Deborah Small, PhD is a professor of marketing in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research crosses the intersections of psychology and economics, examining fundamental processes that underlie human decision making. In recent years, her work has focused on both altruistic and self-interested motivations for philanthropic behavior. She has examined impediments to effective altruism, bragging about prosocial behavior, and the downsides of conspicuous consumption.  A NOTE TO OUR LISTENERS: We recorded this discussion with Deborah on March 6, 2020, and it was one of the last recordings that Kurt and Tim made in the studio together. On that day, the United States confirmed 311 cases of coronavirus out of roughly 100,000 worldwide. While we were all aware of the virus, the World Health Organization had not labeled it a pandemic, which happened on March 11th. At a little after the 26:00-minute mark, we discuss what was going on as “unfolding,” as it was at that time. Our conversation with D

Rodd Wagner is a Forbes columnist and bestselling author of books on leadership, employee engagement and collaboration. Rodd’s books have been published in 10 languages and his articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, USA Today, ABC News, as well as Globe and Mail in Canada. One of his books was even parodied in Dilbert. In our conversation, we discussed how humans perceive risk, regulation (by the self and by the government), and cumulative probabilities. We’ve known Rodd for many years and always find his perspectives fresh and ripe with curiosity. We were glad to talk with him and hope you find it as insightful as we did. Also, we were struck by a couple of snappy phrases from Rodd that we hope become more common in our lexicon as our language evolves with the crisis: “The virus doesn’t care,” is a phrase Rodd shared that simply caught us off guard with brutal truth; and, “We are usually killed by things we didn’t see coming.” Gnaw on that for a bit as you’r

Annie Duke is an author, corporate speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space. Her most recent book, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts, quickly became a national bestseller and landed on the Behavioral Grooves Top 10 list for 2018!  Prior to her career as a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. And this is Annies third time on Behavioral Grooves – you can hear her in Episode 31 and our 100th episode spectacular!  Over the years that we’ve known Annie, we’ve developed a friendship that reveals itself in this episode as a very conversational exchange among friends sitting around talking about the crisis.  We talked about hedging, the Last Disaster syndrome, and of course, decision making

Ali Fenwick, PhD is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Hult International Business School in London and Dubai. He specializes in applying behavioural traits and behavioral interventions for business improvement, government policy design, communication effectiveness and, among other things, psychographic profiling. According to Ali, “Bulk buying is caused by various psychological and environmental cues which throw rational-thinking out of the window. When in survival mode, we let mainly our emotions drive decisions and are more susceptible to social influences. So, we will rush out and buy more because we believe others are doing the same.” We discussed herd behavior, how the crisis can be framed as “ours” rather than “yours” and, more importantly, the devasting effects isolation can have on the human condition. Ali outlines some terrific tips and we hope you’ll find him as engaging as we did. (c) 2020 Behavioral Grooves Links Connect with Kurt and Tim: Kurt Nelson, PhD: @WhatMotivates  e-mail: kurt@la

James Brewer is the Director of Marketing Platforms and Global Customer Operations for Eli Lilly and Company.  Over the years, Kurt and Tim have worked with James on applying behavioral science insights to his work, and many of his colleagues’ work, at Eli Lilly. James is an avid behavioral science practitioner and also a friend. We started our discussion with James about how his views have shifted from being someone who thought the media was overhyping the pandemic, to being someone who is taking the threat from the coronavirus very seriously. This naturally integrated James’s personal story of being a life-long learner and how he approaches new information. We also discussed some of the potentially unintended consequences of the pandemic – which might include better cleanliness habits for many people – and James’ optimistic take on the future that lies on the other side of the pandemic. Links Connect with Kurt and Tim: Kurt Nelson, PhD: @WhatMotivates  e-mail: kurt@lanterngroup.com Tim Houlihan: @THoulihan

Christian Hunt is the founder of Human Risk, a Behavioral Science consulting and training firm specializing in risk, compliance, conduct & culture. Previously, Christian was the head of Behavioral Science at UBS and Chief Operating Officer of the Prudential Regulation Authority.  He is an expert on risk and how people perceive risk.  We wanted to talk to Christian about how we perceive risk and whether or not our human biases are overblowing (or undervaluing) the current pandemic. We also chatted about a concept introduced to us by Deborah Small, a professor at Wharton, called distorted risk perception. And Christian reminded us of one of the most important things to do, now more than ever: the best way to stop spreading the fake news virus is by leveraging our System 2 thinking. Be critical. Be skeptical of the sources of the material you’re reading and hearing. In sum: don’t outsource your critical thinking. © 2020 Behavioral Grooves Links Connect with Kurt and Tim: Kurt Nelson, PhD: @WhatMotivates  e-

Barry Ritholtz is the CIO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and the host of the Bloomberg podcast Masters in Business, where he talks almost as much about markets, investing and business as he does about the behavioral science behind WHY we do what we do. Our first conversation appears in the ever-popular Episode 47. This week, we discussed the financial implications of the financial crisis resulting from the pandemic. It’s not, as Barry notes quite clearly, a one hundred year flood. The market is reacting the way it normally does. While the shifts are dramatic, they were unforeseen and will – over time – return to more stable growth. We also talked about the impact the crisis will have on supply chains, the availability of durable and consumer goods, the way bailouts should be structured, and how important it is to not lie to ourselves in times like these. All of this discussion of finance, as you may imagine, is through a behavioral lens.  © 2020 Behavioral Grooves Links Connect with Kurt and Tim: Kurt Nelson,

Liz Fosslien was our guest on Episode 56 and we asked her back to kick off our series on the behavioral aspects of how life is changing with quarantines, sheltering in place and working from home. Liz is the Head of Content at HUMU, a firm that combines people science and machine learning to create breakthroughs on a wide variety of people-centric measurements. Liz is also the co-author and illustrator of No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work.  We discussed how this crisis has impacted our emotional wellbeing and how to get along while working from home (WFH).  Liz shared many insights and reinforced how working from home limits the informal bump-ins we traditionally get at work, and how to manage them in a digital world. Links Connect with Kurt and Tim: Kurt Nelson, PhD: @WhatMotivates  e-mail: kurt@lanterngroup.com Tim Houlihan: @THoulihan  e-mail: tim@behaioralchemy.com  Lantern Group: http://lanterngroup.com/ BehaviorAlchemy: https://www.behavioralchemy.com/ Behavioral Grooves:

This is an episode originally produced for Weekly Grooves. We hope you enjoy! Coronavirus and the disease it’s created – Covid-19 – is alive and well and getting stronger every day. How bad is it? It’s difficult to say with any certainty in part because it’s constantly changing and it’s very complex. However, when presented with ambiguous information, our minds draw conclusions based on our biases and the decision-making heuristics our ancient brains rely on. In this episode, Kurt and Tim discuss an article by friend and leading behavioral scientist, Michael Hallsworth, PhD. Michael leads the North American Behavioural Insights Team and knows a thing or two about behavior change.  In this article, Michael talks about what behavioral science hacks can be applied to reduce the spread of the virus and, hence, Covid-19.   Links “Handwashing can stop a virus – so why don’t we do it?” by Michael Hallsworth, PhD: https://behavioralscientist.org/handwashing-can-stop-a-virus-so-why-dont-we-do-it-coronavirus-covid-19/

Chiara Varazzani, PhD is the Principal Advisor at the Behavioral Insights Unit in the Victorian Government's Department of Premier and Cabinet in Australia. Chiara is Italian born, French-educated, and employed in Australia, adding her to the list of Italian-born behavioral scientists we’ve had on our show (Cristina Bicchieri, Francesco Gina, and Silvia Saccardo, in case you’re counting). She blew us away with her passion for behavioral science as well as her comments about the way our brain calculates the ratio between effort and reward with dopamine and noradrenaline. It was a reminder that there is hard science behind why we do what we do.  She also wondered why so much of behavioral science interventions rely on what she very passionately described as old school methods. Interesting question! If you’re a marketer or a health care provider, Chiara has insights that prove beneficial to your work. And if you have any ideas on how to use smell in the world of sales incentives, we’d love to talk with you about

John Fuisz is co-founder of Veriphix and a marketer who believes in building great brands. He does so with a sophisticated system that, on the surface, appears simple and direct; however, it’s built on his astute observations of consumer behavior, the clever use of data, and most importantly, it’s related to Annie Duke’s use of bets to measure future behaviors. We wanted to talk to John because his work tracks the seemingly subtle, yet extremely powerful, ways our buying and voting behaviors can be influenced. Veriphix connects brands with users with three primary tools: First, by tracking emotional vectors, to understand how we feel about things on a weekly basis by asking them to make bets about what they expect to feel. Second by monitoring the emotional triggers that get us to do the things we do. Lastly, he watches for the implicit delta, the measure of the emotional impact of an issue. And he does so with very strict ethical standards. John believes that marketers should elevate their messaging to build

Author and economist Andrew Wagner’s new book, The Economics of Online Gaming, shares how economic decisions get made by players of online games. We discuss how reputations and player behaviors impact success in the game. For instance, a very positive reputation could lead other players to work with you, but it also could lead them to take advantage of you. Andrew discovered, in this game, that while a bad reputation sets people against you, it also provided unforeseen benefits in the game, economically speaking, of course. We agree with Andrew that economics can be intimidating because it is a math-heavy field. To some, economics is simply inaccessible. However, we all love the drama found in video games, so Andrew combined drama with economics in his book. Also, if you’ve not checked out our new podcast channel, Weekly Grooves, please do so. Each weekly episode is short-commute ready (no more than 15 minutes long) and brings behavioral insights to the week’s headlines.  © 2020 Behavioral Grooves Kurt Nelson

In this special edition, bestselling author and Forbes contributor, Rodd Wagner, organized a question-and-answer session with Kurt and Tim in front of a live audience to discuss whether behavioral sciences could be applied to corporate environments in ways that allow leaders to manipulate their employees. And, if so, where does that land on the ethical spectrum? Rodd has grown increasingly intrigued and sometimes concerned that behavioral science has reached a point of refinement and adoption that it could create an unprecedented and unfair imbalance in the social contract between companies and the people who work at them. For example, IBM claims it can predict with 95 percent accuracy whether someone is about to resign and some companies are experimenting with selection systems in which candidates interact first with robots. Rodd, Kurt, and Tim are joined by John Harris, currently the Lead UX Design Researcher in the Healthcare Business Group at 3M and was recently a Projects Director at ideas42, a premi

As a new product and innovation professional, Adam Hansen has always believed in the power of possibility – accepting new approaches, questioning conventional wisdom, and being open to anything. This impulse led him to a career in developing new products for innovative companies such as Mars, Melaleuca and American Harvest, before joining the innovation firm, Ideas To Go, in 2001. Now as a facilitator, Adam is passionate about helping clients understand their own possibilities—even beyond the scope of their projects—so they take the innovative energy and momentum they gained at ITG back to their own organizations. Adam is the co-author of Outsmart Your Instincts – How The Behavioral Innovation™ Approach Drives Your Company Forward, which explores the intersection of behavioral science and innovation, revealing simple ways to get past the nonconscious cognitive biases that make innovation unnecessarily difficult. Adam’s path to innovation process started with an MBA in product management from Indiana Universit

For this episode, we’re republishing a terrific conversation we had with economist and author, Caroline Webb, PhD (in episode 33). We loved her book, How to Have a Good Day, and still do, and we loved talking to her about her work both as an economist and as a musician. On top of that, Caroline is just one of those people that is great to hang out with. Caroline was educated at Oxford, Cambridge, and the Levy Economics Institute. She has worked at McKinsey & Associates, performed at Carnegie Hall, delivered speeches at the Davos World Economic Forum. And more importantly for our discussion today, Caroline as the author of How to Have a Good Day, a terrific how-to guide that has been published in more than 60 countries. It’s worth noting that when we talked about How to Have a Good Day, Caroline said that it was the hardest project she’s ever taken on. In fact, it is literally the result of her lifetime’s worth of research and experience. She even admitted that she doesn’t see another book – at least like

In this grooving session, Kurt and Tim share how to conduct a behavioral diagnosis. A behavioral diagnosis is a tool we use to uncover the underlying drivers of behavior inside an organization to bring about meaningful change, all with the use of applied behavioral science. Kurt and Tim have been conducting behavioral diagnoses for many years and have found that leaders often don’t understand why their employees behave the way they do – particularly when it comes to employees response to changes in the workplace.  Leaders all too often expect announcements of corporate changes will be met by rational responses from the employees. However, people are not always rational, and to make things more difficult, don’t understand their own motivational drives. This renders surveys and employee satisfaction studies irrelevant because theses tools don’t get to the heart of the behavioral beast. In order understand the drivers of employee behavior, you must go below the surface. That’s where the behavioral diagnosis come

Kurt and Tim are producing a new podcast called Weekly Grooves, launching January 31, 2020. Weekly Grooves is the weekly podcast that offers insights into the headlines through a behavioral lens. Kurt and Tim will be applying their more than 40 years of combined experience in behavioral work to give the headlines more relevance and meaning. We are going to put more meat in your sauce! Check it on Podbean or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. We want YOU to be one of first the Weekly Grooves listeners. And we're giving away a prize to the FIRST person who emails us, tweets us or sends us a message on LinkedIn stating that they listened to Weekly Grooves.  We hope you enjoy!

Stephen Martin and Joe Marks, PhD dive deep into one of the most important eye-openers about communication in our world today: the importance of WHO delivers the message. Their book, “Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don’t, and Why,” is a major revamp on the claim made by Marshall McLuhan in 1964 that, “The Medium IS the Message.” While Steve and Joe are hard-pressed to say McLuhan’s refrain is dead, it’s being outsized by a more contemporary and relevant one: “The Messenger IS the Message.” In our conversation with Steve and Joe, we discussed the way they’ve broken down their research and organized their book. The first section is on what they refer to as Hard Messenger Traits: Socio-Economic Position, Competence, Dominance, and Attractiveness. The second section works its way through the Soft Messenger Traits: Warmth, Vulnerability, Trustworthiness, and Charisma.  Their comments deconstruct how motivated reasoning is more than just aligning our tolerance for untruth with our desires; more importantly, i

Melina Palmer is the host of The Brainy Business podcast and she has dedicated her career to seeking answers to these questions for herself and her clients. Melina uses behavioral economics to help everyone from global corporations to entrepreneurs understand the psychology of why people buy, unlocking the secrets of small changes that make a big difference via her podcast, public speaking, and column on Inc.com. The result is messaging, branding, advertisements, pricing and products that are more “brain-friendly” (meaning more leads, conversions, and revenue). Our conversation with Melina covered the anchoring effect and what a powerful tool it can be for both sellers and buyers alike. We also chatted about her John Mayer playlist on Pandora and some of the things she’s doing to make the world a better place through the education of behavioral economics and neuroscience. Kurt and Tim are also announcing our newest podcast, Weekly Grooves, which will be launching shortly, and we hope you’ll check it out. Groo

Too often, in our estimation, people make recommendations to us with the intent to improve our life but the effect on us is the opposite of that. Rather than completely engaging us, some recommendations or pieces of advice actually overpower any enthusiasm we might for following up. This is especially true when the recommendation is too big to get our heads around. Casual comments like, “Oh, you should read that book,” or, “You should go to Malaysia,” or, “You should check out that podcast series,” are often too much for us to process. They’re all well-intended, and could be terrific recommendations, but thinking about starting a massive new book in an already jam-packed life can be the opposite of engaging: sometimes, it’s demotivating.    So in this Grooving Session, we use a behavioral science hack to START SMALL and we’re recommending our favorite podcast episodes (produced by other podcasters!) to our listeners. We think you’ll like these specific podcast episodes by some of our favorite hosts on some of