Media
The Insightful Leader Live: Why People Resist New Ideas—and How to Innovate Anyway
If you are trying to introduce change as an executive, innovator, marketer, or activist, you’re probably focusing on selling the idea itself. After all, it makes intuitive sense that if we make our idea sound sufficiently attractive, we will finally hear “yes.” But according to Kellogg professors Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal, attracting others is only half the battle. In this session, as in their forthcoming book, The Human Element: Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas, Nordgren and Schonthal team up to explain the forces that slow or even derail change. They’ll share how to identify those forces—and how to overcome them.
Where Stars Fall Short: The Positivity Problem With Online Ratings
Recent estimates suggest a full 85% of the global population has shopped online, taking advantage of an unprecedented volume of information available on products, prices, and quality. In this context, many of us “look to the stars” for guidance on product quality — the ubiquitous user ratings present on retail platforms. Should I buy this hairdryer? Go on this luxury cruise? Stream this movie?
Your Best Ideas Are Often Your Last Ideas
Research has clearly shown that people’s creativity tends to increase or stay constant over the course of an ideation session. Nevertheless, most of us consistently underestimate the value of persistence in the creative process — a fallacy the authors refer to as the “creative cliff illusion.”
What Companies Can Do to Encourage Compliance with COVID Safety Measures
A lot of effort goes into safely reopening offices, daycares, and other public spaces. Furniture has to be reorganized, ventilation reconsidered, touch-free devices installed, and signage added to reduce occupancy and encourage social distancing—among many other measures. But ultimately, the effectiveness of any measure hinges largely on people’s willingness to comply with it. In order to stay safe in public spaces during a global pandemic, individuals need to fundamentally change how they behave.
Why Warmth Is the Underappreciated Skill Leaders Need.
When it comes to success in leadership, there has never been just one playbook. Some leaders are extroverts, natural mentors, and charismatic speakers; others prefer to lead by example and take a more hands-off approach. There is, however, one simple fact that leaders ignore at their peril: those who demonstrate high levels of “interpersonal warmth” have a better chance at long-term success.
Best 40 Under 40 Professors
You could call Nordgren a man for all seasons, a cross-curricular cognoscente whose expertise spans psychology, programming, economics, leadership, biology, and the arts. His goal, ultimately, is to understand human behavior — how to influence actions and elevate performance.
Four Tips to Persuade Others Your Idea Is a Winner
Sometimes the biggest and best ideas are the toughest to sell. Human beings are hardwired to protect what is familiar, a concept psychologists often refer to as “status quo bias.”
“People just aren’t naturally oriented towards innovation or change,” says Loran Nordgren, an associate professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School. “If you were dealing with totally rational agents, you could sell your innovation on the grounds of its functionality—in other words, why it’s a good idea. But you are almost never dealing with totally rational agents.”
Thankfully, if you are convinced that a certain new product, fresh strategy, or overseas expansion is exactly what your organization needs, there are things you can do to improve your chances of persuading key decision-makers to go along with it.
Giving Up Is the Enemy of Creativity
What determines whether the ideas we generate are truly creative? Recent research of ours finds that one common factor often gets in the way: we tend to undervalue the benefits of persistence.
Wintrust Business Lunch: Chicago Inno, Loran Nordgren, Maz Jobrani, Jon Hansen, Craig “CJ” Jensen
Steve Bertrand is in to host the Wintrust Business Lunch, and he kicks things off by sitting down with Will Flanagan and Jim Dallke from Chicago Inno to talk about local technology news. Then DNA Info’s Jon Hansen is back to talk about recent openings and closings around town. Comedian Maz Jobrani talks about his Middle Eastern heritage and his refusal to play a terrorist in television and movies. Loran Nordgren talks about what it takes to hold on to millennial employees. Then the Money Guy, Craig “CJ” Jensen is back to talk about what it takes to plan your retirement.
Why your company might want to rethink the way it generates ideas
If you're still putting people together in a room to gather ideas for a brainstorm or to make big decisions, you're doing it wrong. So says Loran Nordgren, associate professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He teaches a technique called "private data collection" to first gather ideas privately, then discuss their merits as a group. To facilitate the process, he built a free app called Candor, which launched in October. Nordgren, whose areas of expertise include psychology and behavioral economics, explains the science behind better group decisions.
Study Says to Pump Up the Music at Work
If you sit at your cubicle making nary a sound, you may be doing yourself a disservice, according to a new study. The study, conducted at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, suggested that listening to certain kinds of music in the office actually makes people want to work harder and take more control.
Brainstorming Doesn’t Work; Try This Technique Instead
Ever been in a meeting where one loudmouth’s mediocre idea dominates? Then you know brainstorming needs an overhaul.
Early ideas tend to have a disproportionate influence over the rest of the conversation.
Sharing ideas in groups isn’t the problem, it’s the “out-loud” part that, ironically, leads to groupthink, instead of unique ideas. “As sexy as brainstorming is, with people popping like champagne with ideas, what actually happens is when one person is talking you’re not thinking of your own ideas,” Leigh Thompson, a management professor at the Kellogg School, told Fast Company. “Sub-consciously you’re already assimilating to my ideas.”
Waterboarding isn’t torture? Try it
Republican presidential candidates Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann said at Saturday’s foreign policy debate that they would renew the use of waterboarding, the controversial practice banned by President Barack Obama. “I don’t see it as torture. I see it as an enhanced interrogation technique,” Cain said. His comments were met with loud cheers of support from the debate audience. Bachmann, meanwhile, called the practice “very effective” and said Obama “is allowing the ACLU to run the CIA.” After the debate, Romney aides told CNN that he does not believe waterboarding is torture.