The Science of Productivity
Unleash Innovation with Audacious Ambition
Innovation thrives on audacious ambition rather than incremental steps; in his video lesson, Charles Duhigg emphasizes that starting with "stretch goals" can inspire revolutionary change by encouraging a fresh perspective on challenges.
Pair Your Ambition with a Structured Plan
Charles Duhigg suggests improving productivity by prioritizing a "stretch goal" at the top of your To-Do list, followed by "SMART goals" that break down your big ambition into manageable tasks, avoiding the pitfalls of mood-repairing trivial tasks.
Manage Your Mind for Better Focus
In a world filled with distractions, Charles Duhigg's video lesson emphasizes the importance of mental modeling to enhance focus and prioritize what truly matters, helping you defend your attention and prepare for daily challenges.
Develop Self-Motivation in Your Direct Reports
Marines exemplify that self-starters, driven by an internal locus of control, can be cultivated through opportunities for decision-making, as anyone can learn self-motivation and accountability, enhancing team effectiveness.
Empower the Front Lines (How Toyota’s “Lean Management” Philosophy Transformed Business)
Hierarchies, while efficient for large-scale decisions, often fail to motivate employees, prompting Toyota in the 1980s to adopt a "lean" management philosophy that empowers workers to solve problems, leading to greater efficiency and innovation.
Help Your Team Come Together with Psychological Safety
Google's research revealed that team success relies not on member qualities but on psychological safety, characterized by equality in conversational turn-taking and social sensitivity, which can be fostered by leaders through inclusive practices and attentiveness to team dynamics.
Stoke Your Team’s Creativity with The Disney Method (How the Movie “Frozen” was Saved)
In this video lesson, Charles Duhigg explores how Disney's "Frozen" overcame developmental challenges using the "Disney Method," emphasizing that creativity stems from a process of combining existing knowledge and experiences to innovate effectively.
Learn, Remember, and Apply New Information
In a video lesson, Charles Duhigg discusses how to effectively manage overwhelming information through intentional disfluency—interacting with data rather than passively consuming it—and conscious scaffolding, which involves structuring new information around existing knowledge for better retention and application.
Make Better Informed Choices
To make better decisions, embrace probabilistic thinking by evaluating multiple future possibilities and outcomes, balancing your focus on both successes and failures to develop a more accurate understanding of potential results.
Humans aren’t robots — we can’t churn out identical products consistently at the desired rate until we require repair. But Pulitzer Prize-winning author Charles Duhigg says we can harness our messy capacities for curiosity and invention and direct them toward goals we set and feel passionate about.
Learning Objectives
- Set innovation-spurring stretch goals and break them into manageable SMART goals.
- Develop a bias toward action and implement a lean management philosophy where appropriate.
- Establish norms that encourage collaboration and leverage your team’s experience.
- Process and scaffold new information.
- Practice probabilistic thinking and mental modeling.