Expert Interview Archives - Mind Tools: Recent Episodes
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Do “great minds think alike”? No, not really. Neuroscience has found that every mind is different – to the point that a scan of someone’s brain is as recognizable as a fingerprint.
There are some commonalities, however. Most brains work similarly enough to have common ground and establish common working practices that fit most people, most of the time. But what about those of us who fall through the cracks? Those of us who process information differently?
Ed Thompson, founder and CEO of Uptimize, is dedicated to increasing awareness and support for employees who think differently, including individuals with autism, ADHD and dyslexia. Humanity can be described as “neurodiverse,” while these individuals are “neurodivergent,” thinking differently from most.
Thompson’s new book, “A Hidden Force: Unlocking the Potential of Neurodiversity at Work,” explores the rise of the neurodiversity movement, as well as the strengths that neurodivergent workers bring to the table. It also suggests some strategies that we can all adopt to make our companies more supportive and inclusive of diverse thinkers.
Looking Beyond “Hiring for Culture Fit” In this clip from our Expert Interview, Thompson discusses how the hiring process often unintentionally works against neurodivergent talent. (You can stream the audio clip below or read a transcript here.)
I think back to the jobs I’ve been hired for. Often, the managers had common ground with me socially, and it felt more like I’d passed a "fit test" than an objective assessment of my capabilities. I was no less capable of doing other jobs where I’d been turned down… and usually, in those cases, I likely didn’t resemble the hiring managers’ ideal candidate or "click" with them in conversation.
But not everyone finds it easy to “click” with an interviewer. Many neurodivergent individuals find it hard to read people and navigate what can look like an opaque and confusing social script. Interviews are a test of social competency, which might have nothing to do with the job that managers are hiring someone to perform!
Neurodiversity Means Untapped Skills Since the 2010s, I’ve been involved with neurodivergent communities, including an adult autism support group and conferences on specific learning disabilities.
And this past year, I was part of Mind Tools’ neurodiversity lived experience panel. This initiative brought together neurodivergent and a few neurotypical colleagues to share experiences of navigating the workplace. We also helped to shape the resources that Mind Tools created to educate customers about neurodiversity at work.
It’s been a privilege to connect with these groups, and I’ve learned an immense amount from everyone’s perspectives and strengths. I’ve also seen how challenging it is for many people with atypically wired brains to navigate a world designed for the majority.
Unintentional Exclusion There is so much power and brilliance in neurodivergent communities. So why has it been so hard for many of the people I've met to find and keep work?
Well, to start, many job descriptions ask for generalists – when many talents come in specialist form. For example, do you really need “strong communication skills” to program a computer? Thompson argues that often, hiring managers lack knowledge and awareness of neurodiversity, and as a result will add a bunch of nice-to-have skills to their job descriptions when they’re not necessary to perform the work. Unfortunately, it's often these criteria that unintentionally excludes different types of minds.
Second, employment history can look like another red flag to those doing the hiring. Many neurodivergent workers, especially older ones, may have found it difficult to follow a smooth employment trajectory, often for reasons outside of their control. This means that their talents may be obscured by a non-standard CV.
Supporting Neurodiversity in Working Practices So how can we redesign workplaces to be more neuro-inclusive?
Thompson says that education is a good first step. Most people have no training in neurodiversity and neuro-inclusion, but firms like Uptimize can fill that gap. Companies can tweak the dreaded hiring process – adding skills-based assessment, for example, and making sure the job description matches only what’s required for the job.
It’s also important to build in flexibility. Thompson stresses the need for “universal design.” Creating work environments that support varying needs and preferences will make neurodivergent employees – and all of us – more comfortable and productive.
Organizations can offer small adjustments for sensory needs, such as noise-canceling headphones, to any employee who wants them, along with flexible working options. And, on an individual basis, they can maintain proactive openness. Thompson’s book lists an example of one employee who requested and received a weighted blanket, for example. Individual needs vary, and neuro-inclusion involves respecting that.
“In this idea of really embracing the neurodiverse team,” Thompson says, “good things happen.”
The post Supporting Neurodiversity at Work: Our Expert Interview With Ed Thompson appeared first on Mind Tools.
For five years at the end of the last century, my grandfather delighted in being the oldest living All Black. The All Blacks are New Zealand’s national rugby union team, often regarded as the most successful sports team in history.
As it happened, my grandpa only played one match for them before injury put paid to his rugby career. That was in 1921, but he wore this affiliation like a badge of honor right up until his death at the age of 99.
The All Blacks were revered a hundred years ago, and they still are. This makes them a perfect case study for Professor Alex Hill, co-founder and director of the Centre for High Performance, a collaboration between Kingston University London, Duke University, London Business School, and the University of Oxford.
Building Centennial OrganizationsFor more than a decade, he’s researched organizations that have outperformed their peers for over 100 years. In addition to the New Zealand All Blacks, he’s studied NASA, Eton College and the Royal Shakespeare Company, among other household names.
Hill has identified 12 habits they share, looking at how they analyze success and failure, recruit great talent, and create new products and ideas. He lays these out in his new book, “Centennials,” and offers advice for others who aspire to such longevity today.
In this clip from our Expert Interview, Hill reflects on how corporate behavior can embed itself from generation to generation. (You can stream the audio clip below or read a transcript here.)
The How and Why of Centennial OrganizationsHill acknowledges that not all organizations are in it for the long haul. Some don’t want to last 100 years, so for them, a focus on short-term returns is appropriate.
“A lot of management thinking comes from business, and actually those principles and ideas are great if you want to burn bright, but then disappear,” he says. “But if you don’t want to do that and you want to build something that’s going to last, then you have to think in a very different way.”
And this is a worthy goal, he believes, as “centennial” organizations deliver benefits for communities and society as a whole, as well as for themselves.
“They help us solve bigger, more complex questions, things like climate change or poverty or health or education, where actually you’re building a collective knowledge in an institution that is growing over time. And you’re solving a problem which can’t just be solved quickly, where actually it might take many decades or many generations to actually work out how to fix it,” he explains.
The 12 habits in Hill’s book provide a framework for organizations with such ambitions. The first six help to build a stable core, identifying a strong purpose for the work, developing stewardship, and fostering an open attitude toward the world. The last six focus on what he calls the “disruptive edge.” These habits encourage new ideas that propel organizations forward.
The Power of Performing in PublicI was particularly struck by habit five, “perform in public,” about harnessing the power of strangers. Within an organization, it’s hard to see what you’re doing well – or not so well. Whereas, if you perform to a trusted stranger, you can learn a lot from their feedback, which may include fresh ideas from the outside, too. And of course, when we’re being watched, we almost always raise our game.
“They’ve done lots of different studies around this, [and] they found that if you have a stranger present in a group, the group feels that they need to perform better,” says Hill. “So they will often be more rigorous in their discussion or their debates, they will explain things more clearly, they make [fewer] mistakes, and they often perform at a higher level because of that.”
As a freelance producer, I’ve seen this firsthand. Often, I’m the stranger, going into organizations to record a podcast or interview employees. In these situations, I’ve noticed that people do tend to make an effort to act as professionally as they can.
A few years ago, I produced a series of educational podcasts for a U.K.-based university. Each episode consisted of a roundtable discussion between academics teaching on a particular degree course. As soon as the microphones were set up, all the participants switched into “performance” mode.
They listened attentively to one another, articulated their views with clarity and verve, and sometimes asked to redo something if they felt it could have been expressed better. If I hadn’t been there, the discussion may have been a bit more relaxed. But it might not have been as useful for the audience of students.
Outside Observation Brings Centennial ResultsHill says he’s seen performance work in all sorts of situations.
“You start to realize that every high-performing organization has a performance, and sometimes it happens very naturally, like an Olympic Games or a World Cup or a moon landing – this moment where they have to really perform,” he says.
“But other organizations where it doesn’t happen naturally will artificially create it. So, like the Royal College of Art has open studios, where strangers can walk through, or they’ll get students to do shows where people can come.”
It’s an effective way for organizations to practice the mindset they need to last for 100 years.
The post The Centennial Mindset: My Expert Interview With Alex Hill appeared first on Mind Tools.
I met a recent graduate the other day, who told me that her friends were sending out résumés for every advertised role they could possibly see themselves doing. Hundreds of them – scattershot.
It brought to mind my recent Expert Interview with organizational psychologist André Martin, whose book "Wrong Fit, Right Fit" encourages people to take exactly the opposite approach when developing their careers.
Writing With Our Dominant HandIn his view, for a long-lasting, fulfilling experience at work, it pays to think carefully before applying for a job. That gives us a better chance of finding an opportunity that actually fits – which he says feels like writing "with our dominant hand" as opposed to "our non-dominant hand."
This matters for employers and companies as much as for candidates, Martin told me – and now more than ever. Here's a clip from our Expert Interview. (You can stream the audio clip below or read a transcript here.)
Martin's book is a practical guide to help people fit at work, not just "fit in." Because there's a difference, Martin says.
Fit feels natural and authentic, while "fitting in is when you change the way you do work or the way you show up at work in an effort to be successful, be seen, or belong." He calls this "wrong fit," and it feels "like a slog."
Self-Reflection Is Key for Finding FitTo avoid wrong fit, Martin recommends embarking on eight "excursions," which he lays out in his book. These are in-depth exercises exploring personal values, motivation, goals, attributes, and more. After working through these excursions, you'll be better placed to find a job and workplace that fits.
"When talent talks about wrong-fit experiences, the thing they wish they would have done almost universally was more self-reflection before they started looking for a job," Martin observes. "So the excursions were really meant to get us to pause, take three steps back, open our eyes really wide, and ask the question of 'What are we looking for beyond a job title?'"
The Story of a Wrong-Fit WorkplaceThis reminds me of a former job where I was uncomfortable from the minute the workday started to the second it ended, every single day. I was a reporter for an international newswire based in a Latin American capital city. I'd been approached to apply for the job, and I took it partly because I felt flattered.
I had done none of the self-reflection advocated by Martin, and from day one, it was clearly a wrong fit in all the obvious metrics: how people worked together, solved problems, prioritized, managed time, and measured progress.
Among my worst memories of this job was the pointless presenteeism. All the reporters were required to be at their desks for 10 hours a day, on rolling start times of either 7 a.m., 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. We were covering financial markets, so most of the reporting had to be done when markets were open. When they were closed, there wasn't a whole lot to do, but we had to be there anyway.
One of my colleagues spent hours on the phone to friends most days, bending their ears about how she was still at her desk late into the evening, or there super early. She implied she was ludicrously busy, mistaking being at work with actually working.
As well as the schedule constraints, there was a presumption of incompetence that I never understood. Once, one of my colleagues was proofing an article I'd written, and he mused aloud: "You really need to make fewer mistakes, Rachel."
Startled, I asked him for some examples in the article he was reading. He could only point to a single typo. I still don't know how this gave the impression of multiple errors.
Know Your MotivationOne of Martin's excursions to find fit helps you identify the main driver for your career. He asks: are you motivated by craft, company or cause?
My job at the financial newswire would have been a great fit for someone who wanted to have a global media company on their résumé, or someone who was passionate about financial markets and their influence on economic growth.
But my primary motivation is craft, so for me, this job was a terrible fit. There was no scope for me to develop my skills, and my confidence took a battering. I left within a few weeks, with a huge sigh of relief.
My next role was as bureau chief of a U.S.-based business magazine, based in the same city. I could work from home, keep my own hours, and write articles on whatever I thought would interest the readers. My colleagues valued what I brought to the company, and together we produced some good work.
A bit of self-reflection before applying for a job can save a lot of hassle and heartache, and lead to a much better, longer-lasting fit, with zero need to fit in.
Listen to the Full StoryYou can listen to or read my full 30-minute interview with André Martin if you're a Mind Tools member or if your employer is a Mind Tools for Business licensee.
If you're not already a member, join Mind Tools now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews. Or you can find out more about Mind Tools for whole organizations, big or small, by contacting our enterprise team.
Meanwhile, catch more excerpts and insights from my guests by searching our Expert Interview blog topic.
The post How to Find a Right-Fit Job: My Expert Interview With André Martin appeared first on Mind Tools.
"The best leaders, the ones who make the most change, know that communications is not a soft skill but a rock-hard competency." -Sally Susman
The post Communicating and Making Change: My Expert Interview With Sally Susman appeared first on Mind Tools.
"Several factors can make or break a project schedule and budget, most of them to do with planning."
The post Plan With Purpose: My Expert Interview With Dan Gardner appeared first on Mind Tools.
"For some people, anxiety is a constant companion, even in situations where there’s no obvious reason for it. And it often goes hand in hand with a desire to achieve."
The post Aim for Excellent, Not Perfect: My Expert Interview With Morra Aarons-Mele appeared first on Mind Tools.
Most of us don’t choose our coworkers. Yet we have to get along with them, whether we like them or not. If we can’t work together productively, there can be serious consequences, from mental health problems to business breakdown.
Author Amy Gallo has assessed this issue over many years and has published her findings and insights in a new book, “Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People).”
It’s packed with tips for dealing with specific types of difficult personality. But it also takes a bird's-eye view of the complexity of workplace relationships, and the importance of looking after your own mental health as you navigate them.
Hang On to Your IntegrityI spoke to Gallo for our Mind Tools Expert Interview, and she spoke about staying true to yourself as you deal with difficult people.
Here's an excerpt. (You can stream the audio clip below or read a transcript here.)
Gallo’s book examines eight archetypes of difficult people: the insecure boss, the pessimist, the victim, the passive aggressive peer, the know-it-all, the tormentor, the biased co-worker, and the political operator.
Most people will have worked with one or more of these archetypes. I certainly have. And after talking to Gallo, I realize that I could have handled those situations better.
From Pessimist to "Disagreer-in-Chief"For instance, I remember one pessimist I worked alongside in a busy radio newsroom, who became a figure of fun for the rest of us. We laughed at her constant whining, usually behind her back, and never took the time to listen properly to her concerns.
If we had, we might have learned something. And she’d have felt like a valued member of the team and better able to do her best work. She might even have complained less.
Gallo points out that if you’re able to look beyond their difficult behavior, pessimists can serve a useful purpose, because they may flag up serious problems that the rest of us can’t see.
“You do want to hear those contrarian perspectives. You do want to hear someone who’s pointing out potential roadblocks or obstacles and what [might] happen,” she says.
“We don’t want to let it dampen the mood of the team or the motivation of the team. We don’t want them to have more power than anyone else on the team. But, if we can sort of right-size their role and hear their perspective, I think it benefits everyone.”
Gallo suggests that in some cases, pessimists could be given the role of “Disagreer-in-Chief,” charged with looking for the holes in plans or possible pitfalls ahead. That can lead to crucial conversations about mitigating the risks that they highlight.
From Victim to ValidationAs well as pessimists, I’ve worked with my share of victims, who can be a tiresome suck on energy. Unlike the complaints of the doom-monger pessimist, the victim’s moaning is always just about them, and of very little use to others.
One “victim” writer I worked with – Kate – was convinced that her editor didn’t take her experience seriously. She acted like every edit was a personal slight, and went into an obvious sulk if major rewrites were requested.
Part of Gallo’s advice for working well with victims is to encourage them to take responsibility for whatever is upsetting them. Ask them directly why they believe they’re not to blame – and importantly, listen to the answer.
Kate left her job after a few painful months. If I reflect on that situation now, I can see that she may have had a point. She didn’t get on with the capricious editor-in-chief, who – yes, in retrospect – didn’t value Kate’s eclectic experience. He probably did give her a harder time than other writers on the team.
If someone had listened at the time, Kate could have been assigned to a different editor. The rewrite requests might have continued, but coming from someone else, they might have felt like valuable feedback, rather than a personal insult. This small change would have saved a lot of time and hassle recruiting her replacement.
Understanding Others' PerspectivesDealing with other people is complicated. Emotions flare up, positions get entrenched. But it always helps to remember that the person with the difficult behavior might be right. And we might be wrong.
Gallo says we should beware of “naïve realism”: when we think we’re seeing the truth, clear as day, but what we’re actually seeing is our own point of view.
“There are many other ways to view the situation,” Gallo says. “There’s the way your colleague sees it. There’s the way people outside the dynamic see it, your boss sees it. And those will all be different perspectives and that’s okay.”
After all, we don’t all need to agree on everything to get along. We just need to agree to get along.
Listen to the Full StoryYou can listen to or read my full 30-minute interview with Amy Gallo if you're a Mind Tools member or if your employer is a Mind Tools for Business licensee.
If you're not already a member, join Mind Tools now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews. Or find out more about Mind Tools for whole organizations, big or small, by contacting our enterprise team.
Meanwhile, catch more excerpts and insights from my guests by searching our Expert Interview blog topic and by signing up free to the Mind Tools Expert Voices podcast.
The post Collaborating With Challenging Colleagues: My Expert Interview With Amy Gallo appeared first on Mind Tools.
We’ve heard a lot about the pros and cons of remote work in the last few years. But the business leader and author Liam Martin thinks it’s more useful to talk about "asynchronous" work.
This is all about when you do your work, rather than where you do it. And it’s usually remote, but not always.
With a traditional synchronous model, you and your team will keep similar hours, meeting and working together in real time – maybe online, maybe face to face. With asynchronous work, people do their part whenever they want or need to. And rather than talking to colleagues, they find out what to do by tapping into systems and databases.
Does that sound appealing to you, or a little bit isolating? Well, according to Martin, it depends on how it’s done.
The Asynchronous MindsetMartin recently shared his experiences and tips in a new book, co-written with his business partner Rob Rawson, called “Running Remote: Master the Lessons From the World’s Most Successful Remote-Work Pioneers.” And it's a Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly Bestseller.
When I talked to him for the latest Mind Tools Expert Interview, Martin explained the “asynch mindset,” based on “deliberate over-communication, democratized workflow, and detailed metrics."
Here's an excerpt. (You can stream the audio clip below or read a transcript here.)
My Experience of Asynchronous WorkingAs an independent journalist, I’ve spent many years working remotely and asynchronously, with mixed results.
When I was doing a master’s degree in the UK, asynchronous work offered a financial lifeline. I was an associate editor for a New York-based magazine, and I edited articles while my editor slept, sending completed work in time for when he switched on in the morning. This situation suited all of us.
Earlier in my career, I was the Mexico correspondent of an American business magazine. Based in Mexico City, I worked alone, day after day, keeping in touch with my editor in Houston via email and occasionally text and phone.
I thrived on the autonomy this gave me, and loved coming up with new ideas for the magazine that I could run with, without anyone else weighing in. This kind of grassroots decision making is one of the positive features of asynchronous working, according to Martin.
But on the downside, it was sometimes difficult to motivate myself, and the days could drag. And if I needed a quick answer to something specific and unusual, which wasn’t in any policy or guidance document, well, “quick” was rarely an option. I had to wait until my editor came back online.
In-Person Communication WinsLooking back on these experiences, I find the faces of my editors swimming into focus. Because we did meet up occasionally, and it is those face-to-face interactions that stand out most vividly when I think of those jobs.
Although a passionate advocate of asynchronous working, Martin agrees that synchronous communication remains an important piece of the remote-working puzzle. In fact, in his own hierarchy of communication, “in-person” comes top, and every year, his own company holds a face-to-face retreat for all its employees.
“We’ve recognized that synchronous time is so important to be able to, number one, build rapport between all of our different team members and trust, but also allow us to be able to really close the chapter on one year of the business and open up another chapter in the business,” he explains.
"We’ve recognized that synchronous time is so important to build rapport and trust."
Liam Martin
There are two reasons why they don’t do it more often: cost and efficiency. It’s expensive to get everyone in the same place, and it takes much longer to disseminate information in real time, rather than via a prepared document. Plus, with written information, you know that every recipient gets exactly the same message, and people can refer to it as often as they like.
Martin’s hierarchy of communication continues with voice and video calls, instant messaging, and finally email, as the foundation holding up the pyramid.
Be in Tune if Not in SynchBut however you communicate in asynchronous teams, perhaps what matters most is the attitude of team members.
I once worked with a graphic designer whose location changed from week to week. Over the course of one project, he moved from Spain to Mexico to Colombia.
The time zone changed, but his efficiency and excellent communication didn’t. The project ran smoothly, with great results. But I know that if he’d dropped the ball, even for one day, I would have railed against his digital nomad lifestyle!
Liam Martin’s model of remote asynchronous work relies on every member of the team being a hardworking self-starter, who will always read attachments to emails, no matter how long and dense they look, and will never feel sub-par or distracted or lonely.
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that working in isolation doesn’t suit everyone. So I can understand why managers continue with the synchronous model, despite the allure of its opposite. It may be slower and more costly, but it fits how humans behave. And while it’s still humans doing much of the work, that makes a lot of sense.
Listen to the Full StoryYou can listen to or read my full 30-minute interview with Liam Martin if you're a Mind Tools Club member or if your employer is a Mind Tools for Business licensee.
Martin and Rawson's book carries a prominent endorsement by Cal Newport, another expert we've already featured on Mind Tools. Search his name at the top of this page, and you'll find our in-depth review of his book "Deep Work" and our exclusive Expert Interview with him.
If you're not already a member, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews. Or find out more about Mind Tools for whole organizations, big or small, by contacting our enterprise team.
Meanwhile, catch more excerpts and insights from my guests by searching our Expert Interview blog topic and by signing up free to the Mind Tools Expert Voices podcast.
The post "Trust your employees!" Liam Martin on Asynchronous Work appeared first on Mind Tools.
I recently spoke with the disability rights advocate Emily Ladau for a Mind Tools Expert Interview, and she opened my eyes to the ableism that is all around us.
Only the other day I was on a busy train, with very few spare seats. One couple had a surprising amount of space, occupying a table for four, with their bags spread around them. I watched as passenger after passenger walked past that table, their eyes flicking away, rather than asking the pair to move their things.
And, this time, I wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that the man had dwarfism. Could this really be why no one sat with them?
Disability in an Ableist WorldSome ableism is systemic, like a lack of accessible infrastructure in schools, offices and transportation hubs. It can also be internalized.
We may talk over a neurodivergent colleague, mistaking a pause for the end of her point. Or avoid someone who looks different on a train, as I witnessed.
According to Ladau, this is about our perception of disability and disabled people – sometimes as superhuman, more commonly as subhuman. But we can change that.
Here’s what she told me, in our interview. (You can stream the audio clip below or download a transcript here.)
To explore these ideas, I’d recommend reading Emily Ladau’s book, "Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally." It’s a clear, nonjudgmental guide to helping make the world a more accessible and inclusive place.
The idea of "allyship" is central to this goal, but what does that really mean?
"Demystifying Disability" book cover designHow (Not) to Be a Disability Ally"We can very easily fall into the trap of looking at it as a title that we give ourselves," Ladau notes. "But… it’s really about taking meaningful action."
In fact, she suggests that we think of the word "ally" as a verb, not a noun, because it’s about doing things, not just talking about it. We should actively educate ourselves, with an open mind, and learn about experiences beyond our own.
Part of that is recognizing that every disabled person is an individual, with a host of different characteristics and support needs. Or, in Ladau’s words, "If you’ve met one disabled person, you’ve met one disabled person."
It's Not About YouIf we don’t focus on the individual, we can make all sorts of wrong assumptions that can end up causing problems. We might think we’re being an ally by steering a blind person across a road, or pushing someone’s wheelchair up a slope. But if we’d just asked that person, we might have discovered they didn’t want that. And they may have needed something else.
So the action allies take must be collaborative, not well-meaning gestures they impose on a person or group. As Ladau points out, doing something for disabled people and working with them are two very different things.
"In one, you are essentially erasing the very person who you’re claiming to advocate for, whereas when you’re doing things side by side, what you’re doing is you’re amplifying the perspective of the person who you’re trying to be an ally to. And I think it’s essential to recognize that difference."
It’s a mindset shift that can only happen through open conversation.
Disability Inclusion or Exclusion?As someone who "navigates the world on wheels," as she puts it, Ladau has had a lifetime of dealing with ableism. I’m still thinking about a particular example from her book – it encapsulates a lot of the issues she’s working to change...
When Ladau was at college, a resident assistant in her dorm was running a disability awareness event. Did this person invite Ladau along to talk with participants about her life on wheels? No. Instead, they asked to borrow Ladau’s wheelchair, so that participants could use it to go around an obstacle course they’d set up in the lounge.
What was Ladau supposed to do while her expensive mobility equipment – her only means of getting about – was being used like a toy? She declined the request, saddened by this missed opportunity to engage with and educate nondisabled people about her experiences, herself.
“I remember feeling like less of a person in that moment,” Ladau writes.
"I remember feeling like less of a person in that moment."
Ableism makes people feel like that, as well as causing numerous practical and logistical problems for disabled people as they go about their day-to-day lives. Allies can help change that, person by person, moment by moment.
Beyond the Infrastructure In the workplace, managers can be allies by “creating an environment where people feel safe and welcome to show up as their whole selves at work and to be open about their disability experiences... giving people the space to speak up for what they need to thrive.”
But Ladau concludes, "I want people to understand that allyship is very much a journey and not a destination.
"You can listen to a podcast episode, you can read an article, you can watch a documentary, you can attend a webinar or have a conversation with a disabled person. But that doesn’t mean that you stop there.
"My best advice is to keep learning, to keep going, to seek out new resources and new ways to learn and new ways to engage."
The Full StoryYou can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Emily Ladau if you're a Mind Tools Club member, or a Mind Tools for Business licensee. You'll hear about her time on iconic children's TV show "Sesame Street" and how being disabled cuts across all other identities. As ever, the audio comes with a full transcript.
If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews. Or find out more about Mind Tools for whole organizations, big or small, by contacting our enterprise team.
Meanwhile, catch more excerpts and insights from my guests by searching the Expert Interview blog topic and by signing up to the new Mind Tools Expert Voices podcast.
The post "I'm Not More or Less: I Just Am" – Emily Ladau on Disability appeared first on Mind Tools.
Sometimes it feels as if we're living in a science fiction or fantasy movie.
We've become accustomed to digital assistants that recognize our voice to conjure up information on demand. And we're as comfortable to use fingerprint scanners to unlock our phones as to accept facial recognition technology to cross a border or to catch a criminal.
The pace of technological change is fast and phenomenal. But how afraid should we be that it will run away with us, creating a world where our identities are swallowed up and reshaped for profit and control?
This is a question for a futurist – someone like Tracey Follows, the author of a new book titled "The Future of You: Can Your Identity Survive 21st-Century Technology?"
When I spoke to her for the latest Mind Tools Expert Interview, she stressed the importance of engaging with the march of technological progress, rather than ignoring or resisting it. Each of us, she says, has to "operate as a digital persona" to function in today's world, whether we like it or not.
Below is an audio clip from our conversation. You can download a transcript here.
As Follows emphasizes, "if our identity is being digitized, then we want to be in control of it."
Technology: Possible, Probable or Preferable? According to Follows, members of the "futuring community" can be divided into those who think you can predict the future, and those who think you can't, but you can do some useful preparation for what might come. She's the second kind.
"Obviously, anything societal or cultural is a lot more difficult to predict, and so that's really more about preparing," she explains. "So you're preparing for different possible outcomes or different possible futures, as we would call them, not just the probable future."
In her book, she brings together research and insight about several aspects of our identities in the 21st century, in chapters that indicate their focus. There's "Knowing You," about data collection; "Watching You," about digital surveillance; "Creating You," about our online personas; and "Connecting You," about communication. The others are "Replacing You," "Enhancing You," and "Destroying You."
This builds a mostly dystopian vision of the future, where governments and companies can influence who you are and what you do. I asked Follows if people can opt out of this by simply not using technology. After all, not everyone has an online life. Her answer? It's not that simple.
"It doesn't really matter how much or how little you're using technology. Society is using technology and the state certainly is using technology. And that obviously has ramifications for not only who you are, but how you are treated and how you are assumed to be someone you are," she says.
Creating "You" Through TechnologySo what can we control? Our social media personas, for one. We can curate a digital image of ourselves that is close to the reality, or very far from it. Or something in between – a better version of ourselves, if you will. And while this may be fun, it can also have a fascinating impact on our day-to-day lives, back on Planet Earth.
Follows explores this in the chapter "Creating You," in a discussion about avatars. This stood out for me, with its logical and tantalizing upside.
She cites research by Jeremy Bailenson at Stanford University, looking at how people represented by avatars behave in virtual environments.
"What he found was that their own behavior was very much affected by the avatar they thought they were. So how they thought they showed up affected their own behavior," she reports.
"If they thought they were a really tall person in a virtual reality space, they might be much more confident. He found that they were, I think, better negotiators, because they felt like they were more imposing when they were taller. And if they felt like they were very small avatars, they acted differently. Likewise, if they were more 'attractive,' they would be much more confident."
Follows encountered a similar effect among people in Tokyo who spent a lot of time on live social media feeds. The avatars they chose allowed them to be "discovered" – and in more ways than one.
"Sometimes when they are themselves on some of these social platforms, they are less confident," she says. "And if they can take on an avatar suddenly, they're able to turn up in these environments and sing their heart out or play the piano, and they've found these amazing talents."
Tech to Hide Behind or to Shine ThroughAn avatar can be a mask that hides a person's identity, but it can also enable people to adopt a new identity, with the power to draw out new strengths. It's an intriguing idea, particularly since we increasingly communicate online.
"Who we turn up as, who we represent ourselves as, how we profile ourselves, is obviously having a really fundamental and quite profound effect on our communication and our interaction in lots and lots of different ways," Follows reflects.
Granted, there are moral dilemmas and even mental health risks if "we build ourselves a wardrobe of avatars" for different situations, or to deal with different people in different ways. But on the positive side, unlike some of the other scenarios presented in Follows' book, this is one technological advance that we can manage – and benefit from – ourselves.
Transhumanism and Transparent GovernmentMind Tools Club members and Mind Tools for Business licensees can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Tracey Follows. In it, she also touches on the use (and abuse) of technology for democracy, physical and mental augmentation, creativity, and more. It comes with a complete transcript.
If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ audio Expert Interviews. And to find out more about Mind Tools' enterprise solutions, you can book a demo with one of our team.
Meanwhile, you can read more from me, Rachel Salaman, by searching the Expert Interview blog topic.
Your Turn!How do you use technology to enable your life? How in control of your identity online do you feel? What should businesses do to manage the risks while not stifling innovation? Share your thoughts and queries in the Comments, below!
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The pandemic shook up our lives and prompted a rethink for many of us. For author and entrepreneur Faisal Hoque, it led to a new book: “LIFT: Fostering the Leader in You Amid Revolutionary Global Change.”
Hoque realized that the disruption caused by COVID-19 was one of four huge changes we’re experiencing at the moment, the others being climate change, technological advances, and misinformation. To navigate these choppy waters, he advocates transformational leadership, combined with systemic thinking and experiential learning.
When I spoke to Hoque for the latest Mind Tools Expert Interview, he explained that his theories stretch back to his childhood in Bangladesh, a country where drought and flooding often threaten the lives of millions.
He grew up adapting to constant change, a skill that helped him thrive despite a series of personal setbacks in later life, and that he has successfully translated to the world of work through his writing and consultancy.
Transformation Through ExperienceTransformational leaders are driven “by empathy, inspiration and influence,” Hoque says. And in this clip from our conversation, he shows how experiential learning and transformational leadership are linked.
(There’s lots more about transformational leadership on Mind Tools, including its history, and advice on how to become a transformational leader.)
Command and Control Is DeadHoque points out that this type of leader stands in stark contrast to the “transactional” leaders more common in the past, who are “all about the bottom line” and drive “maximum return with minimal investments.”
This sounds like the owner of a business magazine I worked for in New York – a man named Arthur. He led our small team from the top down, literally! He worked in a top-floor office and never showed his face in editorial, two floors below.
Mind Tools Expert Interview host,
Rachel SalamanAlthough we only knew him from photos, we had to comply with his frequent diktats. For example, all women had to wear skirts and "feminine" shoes, and there was a minimum number of hours we had to spend at our desks, regardless of our workloads.
Unsurprisingly, morale was low and mutiny was simmering. And staff turnover was high, which added to stress levels. Whenever someone quit, other people were lumbered with their work, or were sidetracked by the search for their replacement.
If he’d noticed these negatives, Arthur would likely have doubled down on his command-and-control approach.
Empathy Plus Process WinsPeople often think leadership comes in mutually exclusive shades. You can either be firm and process-driven, or open and empathetic. Being both doesn’t seem viable.
But for Hoque, transformational leadership can work hand-in-hand with a rigorous business-centric mindset. In fact, each one enhances the other.
“If you think about transformational leadership, it’s kind of your cultural element and your guiding post to get people rallied behind you,” he says. “Then you have to give people the exact path… a combination of process, tracking and management, matrix and measurement that makes sure that things are actually getting done.”
This approach was modeled brilliantly by a radio news editor I had early in my career, a woman called Juliet. Unlike Arthur, she didn’t give a hoot what we wore, as long as it fitted our assignments for that day.
She sat in the newsroom with us, writing news items and broadcasting bulletins. Despite being busy, she always made time to answer the many questions from her keen yet inexperienced team – with proper focus and engagement.
I remember one morning, I arrived for the early shift at 5 a.m. and a huge news story had broken in our patch overnight. I was alone in the newsroom and I didn’t know what to do. So I rang Juliet at home.
Calmly, she listened to the police report I’d picked up, and then coached me toward the best way to cover the story.
Empowered by her input, I verified the facts, tracked down a witness, recorded an interview, and wrote up the story, with audio clips. It led the morning bulletins – and we were way ahead of the local competition.
Approachable Leadership TransformsLooking back, what impresses me is not just Juliet’s sound and helpful response. It’s that she was available to talk at 5 a.m. – and that I felt I could wake her up for advice.
She’d created a well-run, professional environment where people outperformed expectations, and she’d done it with empathy and understanding, so that people felt safe to ask for help.
Leaders in other industries may never be woken at dawn by a rookie colleague. But being truly available to team members during office hours could make a big difference to the success of the organization, especially now. Turbulent times call for calm, thoughtful leadership.
“It’s that conscious practice of empathy, to listen and to understand where people are coming from, and as a result, designing your work environment and your way forward,” Hoque says. “[That] becomes monumental if you want to succeed.”
Get the Full Interview – and Many More!Mind Tools Club members and Mind Tools for Business licensees can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Faisal Hoque. It comes with a complete transcript for ease of review and accessibility.
If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ audio Expert Interviews. And to find out more about Mind Tools' enterprise solutions, you can book a demo with one of our team.
Meanwhile, you can read and hear more, for free, by searching the Expert Interview blog topic and by signing up to the new Mind Tools Expert Voices podcast.
Your Opinion on Transformational LeadershipHow do you lead and manage in turbulent times? What style of leadership does your organization enable and encourage, and what's the impact? Share your experiences and tips in the Comments, below!
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"Get yourself a notebook. Every day, write down three problems that you observe. This can be the place where you drive and foment your own change."
The post "Become an Observer Every Day!" Lorraine Marchand on Innovation appeared first on Mind Tools.
"Stop thinking of all older adults as just one type of person. It's more important to think about what stage of life they're in."
The post “Don’t Call Me Senior!” Susan Wilner Golden on Age, Work and Product Design appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.
Love it or hate it, risk is unavoidable, but Rachel Salaman hears how we can harness its power responsibly and successfully
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Performance conversations are often awkward and sometimes demoralizing. Here's how you can change things for the better using the CEDAR Model
The post Talking About Performance – My Expert Interview With Anna Wildman appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.
"Leaders of good character keep their promises... and treat you as a human being and not as an object."
The post Good Character in Business: My Interview With Fred Kiel appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.
What is "psychological safety" and why is it so important in the workplace? Professor Amy Edmondson explains all in this month's Expert Interview podcast
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Cary Cooper talks to Mind Tools about how a "healthy" workplace might look a little different from the way you imagine it
The post Rethinking Health at Work: My Expert Interview With Sir Cary Cooper appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.
Rachel Salaman talks to science writer David Robson about "expectation effects," and why we may need to change our approach to happiness
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Inclusivity experts Stella M. Nkomo and Ella Bell Smith on redefining inclusivity, and why they decided to reissue their landmark book 20 years on
The post Redefining Inclusion: My Expert Interview With Ella Bell Smith and Stella M. Nkomo appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.
Bruna Martinuzzi takes us through the latest book from professor, entrepreneur and LGBT+ role model, Dorie Clark
The post Dorie Clark’s “The Long Game” – Wise Optimism From an Expert Friend appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.
"Fake it till you make it!" It's a piece of advice we hear a lot. But what if it does more harm than good? Mind Tools talks to Sabrina Horn on leaving "faking it" behind
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Do you feel guilty setting boundaries with people? Mind Tools talks to Nedra Glover Tawwab about how to successfully set boundaries
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October marks Black History Month in the U.K. To celebrate, we’re looking back at some of the most inspirational stories we’ve had the privilege to record as part of our Expert Interview series. Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones AKA “The Black Farmer” Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, self-titled “The Black Farmer,” was born in Jamaica, but he and his family moved […]
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Can you predict the future? Mind Tools talks to futurist April Rinne about dealing with change and preparing for the unexpected
The post The Future Is All in Your Mind: My Expert Interview With April Rinne appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.
Nudging people's decisions with their own instincts can be a powerful tool. But one that should be wielded carefully and ethically
The post How Instincts Rule Our Choices: My Expert Interview With Matthew Willcox appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.
“Life is hard.” Three short words that most of us can relate to, although they’re bound to have a different meaning for each of us.
For best-selling author Greg McKeown, this truism led to an essential, life-changing question: how are we making life harder than it needs to be, whether it’s a task we’re doing right now, our work lives in general, or a key relationship?
In his new book, “Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters,” McKeown offers reflections, insights and practical advice on how to lighten our loads, at a time when life feels especially heavy for many of us.
When I spoke to McKeown for our Expert Interview podcast, I asked him how effortless his own life was. Here’s what he said:
The Right Things, the Wrong Way Greg McKeown shot to fame with his 2014 best-selling book, “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less,” a forerunner and complement to his new book. “Essentialism” showed us how to sift out tasks that don’t matter – “Effortless” helps us to better approach the ones that do.
Both books offer relief from COVID-related stress.
“[The pandemic] has given people, on the positive side, an opportunity for a reset, to really think, ‘Are all those things I was doing before, that I took for granted that I have to do them, were they absolutely essential? Did they really matter?’ And in lots of instances, I find people say they weren’t [essential],” he observes.
“The other side of the pandemic is that people have often got through this experience through grinding effort, where people are teetering right on the edge of burnout or completely past it. So ‘Effortless’ is saying, maybe we are sometimes doing the right things, but we’re doing them in the wrong way. We’re doing them in a heavier, overcomplicated, overthinking way that tends towards burnout.”
Becoming Effortless McKeown’s tips range from practical time-management strategies to total mind resets. One of my favorites is to double up an unappealing task with an appealing one. Greg gives the example of returning voicemails – and even holding meetings – while sitting in his hot tub. One activity makes the other less arduous.
I don’t have a hot tub – more’s the pity – but I found other ways to benefit from this idea. For instance, I try to take at least one brisk walk each day, but I don’t always feel like it, especially in the infamous British drizzle. So I don’t let myself catch up with my regular podcasts unless I’m on the move. That puts a spring in my step.
Another useful tip is to be clear about what “done for the day” looks like. Most of us have scarily long to-do lists that fill us with dread with just a glance. McKeown suggests we take a moment to figure out which of the tasks will leave us satisfied by the end of that day and only focus on those.
For example, today I need to file this blog post and make a start on planning my next Expert Interview podcast. I have much more on my list, but I know the other tasks can wait. By focusing on just two, I’ll likely get them done, leading to a welcome sense of achievement and a worry-free evening.
Fire Your Grudges But it’s not just the items on our to-do lists that weigh us down. Any kind of preoccupation can drain our energy and make us feel miserable. Take bearing a grudge, for instance.
“The grudges thing is a big deal,” McKeown says. “What do we hire grudges to do? We hire them, we hold onto them, we have them for a reason, and by looking at the reasons, it helps us to be able to evaluate their job performance. Are our grudges doing what we hired them to do?”
It reminds me of the time a co-worker claimed a lot of credit for a project she barely contributed to. I did most of the work, and she didn’t set the record straight. My reaction was to “hire a grudge” against her, to restore my sense of self-worth. Did it do its job? Maybe for a moment, but it quickly made me feel worse.
“Basically, all of the things we hire grudges to do, they do not perform well,” McKeown notes. “Holding onto those grudges, somehow believing that they will make us better, that they will make life easier – they won’t, they don’t. They just keep us in a state of suffering.”
Make Life Easy Instead, McKeown suggests we adopt the approach of a nimble, growing company: hire slow, fire fast. Think long and hard about hiring a grudge, and if you find yourself with one that’s weighing you down, not lightening your load, get rid of it. Fast.
“Take those resources and return them, to focus on what actually does matter and is essential in our lives,” Greg McKeown says. “Is that not truly a more effortless way of doing life?”
Listen to My Interview With Greg McKeown Discover fascinating insights from some of the world’s leading business figures with my series of Mind Tools Expert Interviews.
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Inspiration was elusive today. So I decided to use a trick that author Josh Linkner told me about. I watched a short video of an eagle soaring over mountains.
The sun was setting behind the majestic, snow-capped peaks. The eagle’s wings spread wide and strong as it rode the currents, focused, alert, and master of all it surveyed.
It took me less than a minute to feel energized and ready to write.
The Creative Type Linkner’s new book, “Big Little Breakthroughs,” is packed with research and tips like this to boost creativity. Everyone can get better at generating new ideas, Linkner believes, including those who are not “the creative type.”
“I always like to say that creativity is like your weight, not your height,” he says in our recent interview. “Try as I may, I probably won’t grow 12 inches by next week. But, on the other hand, I can change my weight based on how I behave. And your creativity is the same thing – we all can build and expand our skill set with respect to creativity.”
In this clip from our Expert Interview podcast, Linkner gives his definitions of imagination, creativity and innovation, and explains how they relate to one another.
Linkner says it doesn’t take much to make a difference. Small changes in behavior can spark creativity, which in turn can drive “micro innovations,” which ultimately lead to “over-sized results.”
And he should know. Linkner founded, led, and then sold five tech companies (for a combined value of over $200 million), and was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year twice. As a venture capitalist, he has invested in over 100 startups. Two of his three previous books made the New York Times best-seller list. And if that weren’t qualification enough, he’s delivered over 1,000 keynotes around the globe, and is a professional jazz guitarist.
In our podcast, he shares some of his personal tips.
Change the Input “If you’re focusing on things that help you become more expansive in your thinking, generally speaking, that’s a good approach,” he advises. Think of my eagle, soaring above the mountains.
He tells me about another creativity routine he practices every day, which doesn’t take long but packs a big punch.
“In software engineering, they say, ‘If you want to change the output, you have to change the input.’ So, I spend literally one minute a day just gobbling up creative inputs,” he says. “I might watch a live musician play on YouTube, I might look at a painting, I might read a poem. But essentially, I’m absorbing the creativity of others to get my juices flowing.”
Then he gives himself a mental challenge, to flex his creativity muscle.
“The challenge might be something like, if I had to take 10,000 ball bearings and market them as a new type of product, what might that be? And the goal isn’t to necessarily create [a] tangible work product. It’s more to give yourself creative practice in a low-pressure situation.”
Get Scrappy But even thinking up a challenge like that ball bearing one might be a little too – well, creative – for some of us. And what if we don’t have the time for these activities, even five minutes a day?
Just do what you can, Linkner says, adding: “We can be very scrappy in our approach to bring creativity forward.”
He advises doing “teeny-tiny acts of creativity on a daily basis,” including creatively rearranging your life to carve out thinking time from a busy schedule.
“Maybe you move the printer closer to your desk to save a few steps. Maybe you change the exact time that you leave your home to get to the office, to save time on the commute. It’s not that tough of a challenge, if you really work at it, to use creativity to save 30 minutes a week.
“If you did that, now you have this incredible gift of 30 minutes, and that becomes your creativity laboratory time to invent other ideas to drive productivity and growth.”
Everyday Creativity This isn’t about inventing “the next big thing” or an award-winning ad campaign. Creativity and innovation can improve all aspects of our lives, Linkner believes, from work and business to health, family and community. It can be an everyday experience for everyone, in any situation.
“You don’t have to be a good painter or musician or dancer to be creative. You can be creative in your own craft or profession,” Linkner asserts. “It’s about, how do we use this resource that all of us have but we don’t all use regularly, to unlock and achieve the outcomes that we care about the most?”
Listen to My Interview With Josh Linkner Discover fascinating insights from some of the world’s leading business figures with my series of Mind Tools Expert Interviews.
Mind Tools Club Members and Corporate Licensees can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Josh Linkner, behind the paywall.
Listen to the Full Expert Interview
If you’re not a Mind Tools member, you can join the Mind Tools Club and gain access to our 2,400+ resources, including 200+ Expert Interviews. For corporate licensing, ask for a demo with one of our team.
The post Baby Steps to Innovation: My Expert Interview With Josh Linkner appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.
When Kristen Cox was at college she was losing her sight. The professionals trying to help her focused on how she could make the most of her remaining vision. Their solution to her problem, as they understood it, involved her hauling a cart around campus, piled high with large-print books.
That approach didn’t work.
“It would take me an hour just to read one page in a book with a magnifying glass, with eye fatigue,” she recalls, in my Expert Interview podcast. “Actually, at one point, I started thinking I was stupid, like, ‘What’s wrong with me? I can’t keep up in class’.”
Then Cox had a revelation – she could get the information she wanted in other ways. She didn’t have to see it… she could feel it or hear it instead. The problem wasn’t her lack of vision. It was people’s attitude toward it. Mindset made all the difference.
“When that changed for me, it really opened up my life,” she says.
Are You “Decorating the Fish” Instead of Fixing the Problem? This insight has impacted her distinguished career as a top public official, and it’s one of the many useful lessons in her book, “Stop Decorating The Fish: Which Solutions to Ignore and Which Problems Really Matter,” co-written with the entrepreneur and economist, Yishai Ashlag.
In this clip from our Expert Interview podcast, Kristen Cox explains what “Decorating the Fish” really means.
What Are the Seductive Seven Solutions? Like the townsfolk in the book, and Cox’s helpers in college, many of us assume our problems are caused by a lack of something.
We might think we need more technology, for example, more data, a new strategy, or more training and communication. Perhaps a reorganization would do the trick, or do we just need to blame someone for the problem? Or maybe we should throw more money at it, to make it go away.
Cox calls these perceived solutions the “Seductive Seven,” because they can be dangerously distracting.
Haunted by Phantom Problems It reminds me of a job I had at a start-up, years ago. The company failed after a few years, but not before ripping through many of the Seductive Seven.
The company produced multimedia cross-cultural training tools, designed for people living and working abroad. When the initial venture capital ran out, it needed to generate revenue, but no one was buying the product.
The owners upgraded the computers and software, to streamline and accelerate workflow. That didn’t boost sales. So they developed a new strategy, which involved switching the focus from corporate clients to consumers. That didn’t work either.
Then came the inevitable “blame game.” If a product isn’t selling, it must be the marketing team’s fault. A couple of people were fired and replaced. Again, nothing changed.
The final push was a new influx of capital from a trusting investor, which carried the company through to its collapse a few months later.
All that remedial action made the owners feel like they were tackling the problem. The truth is they weren’t even addressing it, because they hadn’t figured out what it really was.
Finding the Real Problem: The Customer’s Always Right! “So many of the Seductive Seven are great for management. We can feel successful launching a new initiative or a new strategic plan,” Cox observes. “The hardest thing to get in leadership or management, or even in our own lives, is clarity. What is the problem we’re trying to solve?”
To identify this in any given situation, we need to adopt the end user’s perspective.
“It sounds so simple, but know your goal for your customer… and this is true in product design, it’s true for R&D, it’s true for value,” Cox says.
“You see some of the biggest companies over time losing profit share [because] they started focusing on what they’re going to get, not what they’re going to give. And I think that’s where we can all lose our way.”
More Isn’t Always Better If my former employers had focused on the customer experience, the company might still be around today. The product was of high quality and looked great, but the delivery method was awkward. This made it hard for people to access the content. That’s why the product didn’t sell.
Sometimes, one of the Seductive Seven may indeed be part of the solution. Technology might have helped my former company create a better user interface, for example. But often, we don’t lack anything. We just need to take a fresh look at what we already have.
Listen to My Interview With Kristen Cox Discover fascinating insights from some of the world’s leading business figures with my series of Mind Tools Expert Interviews.
Mind Tools Club Members and Corporate Licensees can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Kristen Cox, behind the paywall.
Listen to the Full Interview
If you’re not a Mind Tools member, you can join the Mind Tools Club and gain access to our 2,400+ resources, including 200+ Expert Interviews. For corporate licensing, ask for a demo with one of our team.
The post When You Can’t See the Real Problem: My Expert Interview With Kristen Cox appeared first on Mind Tools Blog.