What’s one of meeting planners’ biggest fears? A frowning audience – or worse. They need speakers who energize their audience.
They love speakers who motivate attendees to practice what they learn and eagerly share their successes with each other all year long – and at the next conference.
In this wobbly economy any organization needs their people [...]

Last year VW launched “The Fun Theory” contest for best ideas to evoke better behavior in us. My favorite experiment, with more than a million views,  is “Piano Stairs.”
Does turning a set of subway stairs into a real-life piano encourage people to use them? Yes, 66% more.
My second favorite :  Does making a trash can sound [...]

When things go wrong, we tend to blind ourselves to other’s feelings. We are more likely to fall into a destructive behavioral trap. Sadly, when we do, we cannot be empathic. We weaken that human bond that’s vital to re-grouping and resilience. These blinding mindsets make us feel dumb, powerless … and alone. (Of course [...]

Recently two friends broke trust with me. One offered to do something that was vital to me, didn’t and didn’t tell me. Another shared private information about me with a stranger who then told several people who work with me.
I don’t know which betrayal felt worse. I do know they can be seen as an [...]

“Life is the sum of all your choices,” wrote Albert Camus. Unfortunately, just as we misjudge how happy we will be in the future, we misjudge how our fear of immediate loss hampers our future options. In this game recognize how that happens and make smarter choices:
Participants get $20 to place $1 bets on 20 tosses of [...]

If you’re not feeling happy then this post can help. Did you know that more Americans are happier now than before our economy went bad? Now how does that make you feel? Stay with me though for the revelation that can lift your spirits.
Everyone who claims to be happy may have some reason for finding an upside to [...]

In a world that increasingly favors thinkers (vs. laborers) huge changes are happening, including these four, observes Arnold King:
1.  The nature of marriage has changed: “Men & women look for complementarity in consumption rather than in production.”
2.  “Achievement-oriented men looking for interesting mates rather than for good maids.”
3.  There’s “greater inequality across households” - [...]

Unconditional love is a swell idea yet admit it.  Aren’t there times you’d like to change other’s behavior? Get them to act right, like you.  Or perhaps you’d like to drop a bad habit.  Then learn how to “nudge.”

That’s a situational prompt that sways people to change.
For example, the traditional approach to getting drivers to [...]

Steve Jobs sparked hot debate about the rich “getting to jump to the head of the line” when he revealed that he was able to get a liver transplant in a remarkably short time. 5,771 Americans are waiting for a liver. Last year, 1,481 Americans died waiting.
People’s lives could be saved simply by changing the law to an opt-out option when [...]

When we belong to a group we gradually take stands on the extreme edge of that group’s opinions, counter-intuitively to fit in.  In so doing that group becomes more extreme in its views over time. That, in a nutshell is what Cass Sunstein describes in Going to Extremes. This behavior affects diverse groups’ choices including in churches, juries, elections [...]