The Neuroleadership Institute Podcast

In organizations around the world, leaders face urgent issues: a crisis in employee engagement, the need to make workforces more diverse, and the challenge of making workplaces feel human in an era of increasing dependence on technology. At the NeuroLeadership Institute, we believe brain science can help provide solutions.


Modern working life is overrun with distractions, obligations, and burnout. Arianna Huffington, author and CEO of Thrive Global, has made it her mission to infuse more humanity into how work gets done. In this week’s episode, Arianna sits down with Dr. David Rock, NLI Co-Founder and CEO, to explore the problem of being “always on” and offer leaders strategies to make their own organizations more human.

The most dangerous sound in any organization is silence. And yet, for many of us, speaking up is one of the hardest things to do at work. In this week’s episode, Assistant Professor of Management and Diversity at the Free University of Berlin Dr. Mona Weiss discusses her research around “employee voice.” She explains why personality alone can’t explain why some people keep quiet and why others make themselves heard, and offers research-backed tips to get everyone more engaged.

No one wants to be told they need fixing, and yet this is the impression so many diversity and inclusion programs leave on employees. According to Randall Tucker, Chief Inclusion Officer at Mastercard, the smarter way to gain people’s buy-in is to frame D&I as an extension of an organization’s business goals. That way, Randall says, leaders can help people see D&I as a tool for building their skills, not correcting their flaws.

It’s among the most heart-stopping questions a person can receive at work: Can I give you some feedback? But research shows it doesn’t have to be so dread-inducing. Done right, feedback can spark transformation. On this week’s episode, Liz Friedman, Senior Director of Global Performance & Development at Microsoft, shares how America’s most valuable company is learning to make self-improvement an active effort through smarter feedback.

Lynda Gratton believes the human experience is fundamentally shifting. It’s moving away from the three-stage life of education, career, and retirement, and instead moving into what she calls a “multi-stage life,” whereby people learn, work, and relax over many decades, well into old age. On this episode, discover how Lynda sees the future playing out in discussion with NLI’s Co-Founder and CEO, Dr. David Rock.

No one likes to feel like a number. And yet, so many organizations use rigid, ratings-based approaches for tracking employees’ performance. Rob Ollander-Krane, Director of Talent Planning and Performance at Gap Inc., has for years decided to take his teams in a different direction — namely, by killing performance ratings. In this episode, discover how Rob’s bold decision has ushered in a brand-new world of work.

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