Emotional Intelligence
Resilience training: Why mental toughness at work matters
Resilience training isn't just for soldiers. It can be instrumental in helping employees recover from difficulties and embrace change in the workplace.
Navigating the fifth trimester: Why working parents need better support
A textbook pregnancy consists of three trimesters. The baby develops at a relatively predictable rate during this time, from pomegranate seed to avocado to watermelon. And mom’s body adapts accordingly […]
Generate brilliant ideas by relaxing your cognitive filters
Your brain is bursting with ideas, and most of them are … weird. You only have to recall the wonderfully bonkers notions of your childhood. Like the time you wanted […]
What skills will set you apart in the age of automation?
Automation technologies manufacture goods or provide labor with minimal human intervention. They can trace their origins as far back as the 16th century—and arguably further—but didn’t take off until the […]
The 2,500-year-old secret to successful leadership
Among history’s many thought leaders, Plato may sport the most impressive resume of the bunch. The Athenian philosopher founded the Academy. His Dialogues are required reading at every institution of […]
5 laws for leaders who want to build trust
Trust can be a fragile thing. Like decorative china or a ship in a bottle, it breaks if handled clumsily. But unlike those, you can’t set trust in your curio […]
Make a little time for yourself (in a 24/7 world)
We all know that work-life balance can be difficult, but do we make it harder on ourselves by how we choose to conceptualize the idea? More specifically, is the concept […]
Why every leader should teach soft skills
Sometimes the value of soft skills feels almost secretive—like some scrap of knowledge handed down through an ancient society of corporate recruiters. Of course, that’s not the case or that’s […]
Shipwrecked: Leadership lessons from history’s famous castaways
It’s the early 20th century, and you are the captain of a ship. A barquentine specifically—three masts and a coal-burning steam engine in her belly. She’s a sturdy and capable […]
5 important lessons from women business leaders
In recent years, women have made incredible strides in the business world. Forty-one women currently lead Fortune 500 companies. While that remains an unacceptably low percentage (8 percent) overall, it […]
Douglass Rushkoff: How to stop othering the other
Did you know that American politics has become polarized? Shocking news, we know, but in case your news feed wasn’t evidence enough, Pew Research Center has been tracking the phenomenon […]
Steven Pinker: The case for letting go of identity politics
Identity politics has become a highly contentious element within modern political discourse. Those who support this approach believe it bolsters the presence and power of those who would otherwise be […]
Want to be a better ally? Help your colleagues overcome subtle prejudice.
Malignant discrimination remains a problem in society, but it’s one we’ve improved upon compared to its historic highs—or, rather, lows. Interracial marriage, to pick one example of progress, used to […]
The Best of the Best: Big Think+ in 2020
For many, 2020 will not be remembered as a “best of” much. We don’t need to repeat the reasons here; it’s sufficient to point out that a 100-year pandemic was […]
How to survive your terrible coworkers
We’ve all had days where the drive home has us fuming over some belittling comment a coworker made, gossip they’ve spread about you, or a meeting where they’ve taken credit […]
Steven Pinker: Negotiate using hotheadedness, a dark from of emotional intelligence
We negotiate throughout our lives in a lot more ways than we realize. Learning how to reach an agreement is a valuable skill to have, and one great way to […]
Are you the one? How to flex your value and beat out the competition
Why should customers buy from you instead of your competitors? That’s the question at the heart of making a sale in a competitive market, says Matt Dixon, Global Head of […]
John Paul DeJoria: How to get your foot in the door and nail the sale
By the time John Paul DeJoria founded John Paul Mitchell Systems, he’d already sold encyclopedias on commission door-to-door, and he understood the importance of persistence in the face of rejection. […]
Simon Sinek: What should your company culture be? Start with verbs.
Culture of a company is like the character of an individual,” says Simon Sinek in his Big Think+ video, “Starting with Why: Build a Culture by Design.” We know that […]
This 3-step method will help you hire—and retain—millennial talent
If a new hire is expected to put in 40 hours, 50 hours, or even more at their job, their new position will be their life for as long as […]
Lisa Lampanelli: Read the room like a comedian to improve audience engagement
Connecting with an audience, as any comic knows, means reading that audience. It’s energetic improv in real time—you need to notice who’s engaged, what’s engaging them, and build on that. […]
3 ways to build team trust and achieve the next big thing
“Trust is so important to how we scale an idea. Without that trust, we don’t take risks. And without risk we don’t build that next big thing,” says Nilofer Merchant, […]
Do you work in a high-trust or low-trust organization?
Chairman of JetBlue Joel Peterson considers trust, “smart” trust, a key element in a successful organization. Where there’s trust, a company is free to become a whole greater than the […]
Stanley Tucci: A director’s guide to project management
Stanley Tucci has played a lot of different roles on movie sets, both in front of and behind the camera. As a director, though, Tucci stands in the center of […]
Your Gen Z colleagues really are different. Learn to understand them.
It’s probably always been the case that each generation’s creations and preoccupations shape the next generation in unexpected ways, producing young adults who seem nearly incomprehensible to their elders, especially […]
Creative collaboration: How to get your team to bring their A-game
“Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.” In her Big Think+ video, “Empower Your People — Conversational Moves for Engaging Your Team in Creative […]
3 public speaking tips guaranteed to lift your game
Should you find yourself speaking to a group of people and not connecting, you’re stuck in a situation that seemingly benefits no one. For some people it seems to come […]
Use humor to enchant your audience, with John Cleese
You can practically see them slipping away. Yes, they’re still in the conversation with you, at least physically, but you know: The other person has disengaged. Who knows where their […]
From rut stories to river stories: Take these steps to change your internal dialogue
Angie McArthur, CEO of Professional Thinking Partners and the co-author of Collaborative Intelligence, talks about keeping a relationship “clean.” She’s talking about dealing with misunderstandings before they have a chance […]
Chris Voss: Close deals like an FBI negotiator
Negotiating is often a white-knuckle affair, but the stakes are rarely higher than when the FBI is trying to come to terms with a kidnapper. Chris Voss, now CEO of […]