GRANTED: Why I don’t vote and you should confess your mistakes to your coworkers

October 2016

This month, try to catch your biases red-handed and find a silver lining in recessions:

1. Cognitive Bias Cheat Sheet
It turns out that many biases can be boiled down to four categories: too much information, not enough meaning, the need to act fast, and the need to decide what to remember.

2. Why Etsy Engineers Send Company-Wide Emails Confessing Mistakes They Made
By sharing their mistakes, members of this team set the tone that it's safe to take risks and learn from failure.

3. The Surprising Link Between the Economy and Narcissism
The upside of down times: those who graduate college during recessions end up less narcissistic and more satisfied with their jobs—and these effects can persist for decades. Note to self: to curb entitlement, only hire people who finished college in 2008.

4. Arkansas School Puts Helicopter Parents on Notice
When students forget their lunches or homework, this school has forbidden parents from dropping them off. Says the principal, "We’ve been amazed that a school teaching self-reliance and personal responsibility seems like a novel idea.”

5. Companies Headed By Introverts Performed Better in a Study of Thousands of CEOs
Five years ago I led a pair of studies showing that although introverts are less likely to become leaders, they're just as likely as extraverts to be effective leaders. New evidence suggests there may even be an introverted CEO advantage. Introverts rejoice… quietly.

From My Desk:

6. Don't Like the Candidates? Vote Anyway
You know that guy who doesn’t show up at the polls? That’s me. And I have some ideas for motivating myself and about 93 million others to vote.

7. Why We Should Stop Grading Students on a Curve
It's unfair, illogical, and pits students needlessly against each other—hurting their learning and their future success. I believe the mark of education is not the knowledge we collect in our heads, but the skills we gain about how to learn. In my classroom, I shifted my grading policies to teach students that the world isn’t zero-sum and encourage them to help each other learn.

Cheers,
Adam

Odds & Ends:

Free brainstorming tool: Candor
You get more ideas and better ideas. Individuals generate ideas separately, then the group evaluates.

Upcoming Event in NYC
I’ll be speaking at the ideas42 Behavioral Summit October 13-14 along with thinkers like Angela Duckworth, Daniel Kahneman, Dan Pink, and Nate Silver.

Adam Grant, Ph.D.
Wharton professor and author of ORIGINALS and GIVE AND TAKE