A researcher and product builder dedicated to improving organizational outcomes. His work began during his time at MIT, where his research in people analytics revealed insights about how to improve employee wellbeing, happiness, and performance.
research-drop
Tappers expected half their listeners to name the song. Three in 120 did. Once you know the answer, you cannot hear your own message the way someone without it hears it, and that includes your team's top priority.
think-piece
Across 607 results, feedback helped performance on average and still made it worse more than a third of the time. Whether the feedback was positive or negative did not decide which. Where it sent the person's attention did.
behavior-hack
An unfinished task keeps tugging at your attention until you finish it. Or until you write down exactly how, when and where you will. The second one turned out to work just as well.
research-drop
Coffee buyers sped up with every stamp on a loyalty card, then slowed right back down once they started a fresh one. Effort follows distance to the finish line.
think-piece
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Wells Fargo showed how far that goes. The fix is to watch the signals nobody can push on directly.
behavior-hack
People tend to like you more after doing you a favor, not less. One detail matters: the effect showed up only when the person was asked directly.
research-drop
Groups usually dampen individual effort. Under one specific condition they raise it, and the person who gains the most is the one least able on the task.
think-piece
Time off reliably lifts wellbeing, and the lift is largely gone two to three weeks after returning. That says less about vacation than about what companies stack on top of it.
behavior-hack
Callers who spent five minutes with one scholarship student were raising 171 percent more money a month later. The group who only read his letter didn't move at all.
research-drop
Unannounced thank-you cards raised output on a data-entry shift. Most of the gain came from the people who didn't receive one.
think-piece
Handed $20 million and a failing project, the people who made the original call put $13 million behind it. Everyone else put in $9 million. The person best placed to see a failure is the one who can least afford to name it.
behavior-hack
One sentence attached to critical feedback lifted revision rates from 17 to 71 percent among the students who trusted the institution least. It runs 19 words.