Search Results

A provocative speaker, Dr. John V. Petrocelli offers practical and actionable strategies that actually enhance meeting professional and organizational goals. By emphasizing social science and the things that successful organizations do effectively, he shows organizations a clear path to accomplishing their goals. About John As an Experimental Social Psychologist Dr. John V. Petrocelli has the goal of helping organizational leaders better position themselves and their organizations to reach their fullest potential. With strategies rooted in scientific research, that’s exactly what he does, empowering organizational leaders with proven tools for improving communication, strengthening influence, and establishing a foundation of evidence-based management. A provocative and convincing speaker, Dr. Petrocelli offers practical and immediately actionable strategies that actually enhance the chances of successfully meeting professional and organizational goals. By emphasizing social science and the things that successful organizations do consistently and effectively, he shows organizations and their employees a clear path to accomplishing their goals. Dr. Petrocelli offers keynotes and seminars on a variety of leadership, communication, and evidence-based management topics that are critical to high-performance in business management, market intelligence, technology, behavioral design, finance, education, and health care. Curriculum Vitae John is represented by Macmillan Speakers Bureau . For more information, contact Scottie Bowditch: scottie.bowditch@macmillan.com Phone: 1-646-307-5567 Connect with John

Keynote Speaker As an Experimental Social Psychologist Dr. John V. Petrocelli has the goal of helping organizational leaders better position themselves and their organizations to reach their fullest potential. With strategies rooted in scientific research, that’s exactly what he does, empowering organizational leaders with proven tools for improving communication, strengthening influence, and establishing a foundation of evidence-based management. A provocative and convincing speaker, Dr. Petrocelli offers practical and immediately actionable strategies that actually enhance the chances of successfully meeting professional and organizational goals. By emphasizing social science and the things that successful organizations do consistently and effectively, he shows organizations and their employees a clear path to accomplishing their goals. Dr. Petrocelli offers keynotes and seminars on a variety of leadership, communication, and evidence-based management topics that are critical to high-performance in business management, market intelligence, technology, behavioral design, finance, education, and health care. Take a look at his keynote speaking topics below and let us kno w how John can tailor these ideas to your needs. Planning a virtual event? Click here to learn more . Featured Topics THE LIFE-CHANGING SCIENCE OF DETECTING BULLS#!T From every angle, whether it be from colleagues, meetings, or the marketplace of business ideas, business leaders constantly encounter bulls#!t that plagues their judgments, beliefs, and decisions. Short of lying, the sources of bulls#!t pay no attention to truth, evidence, or established knowledge, and use a broad array of rhetorical strategies to sound like they know what they are talking about when their obligations to provide an opinion far exceed their actual knowledge. How informed can beliefs about anything—and decisions based on those beliefs—be if they are based on bulls#!t-reasoning and communication? How can bulls#!t in the workplace be better detected and disposed? This session directly addresses commonly encountered bulls#!t in the workplace and its unwanted effects in the ways of better detection, better disposal, and better decisions. PROMOTING AN EVIDENCE-BASED CULTURE IN THE WORKPLACE What is bulls#!t and why is there so much of it? What effects does bulls#!t have on workplace communication and how can its unwanted effects be replaced by the many benefits of evidence-based communication? Apart from choosing to be smarter, there are critical benefits that, Dr. John Petrocelli suggests, our current way of thinking and communicating in the workplace often ignores. It’s time to stop the bulls#!t with better detection and better disposal of this insidious communicative substance. Based on Dr. Petrocelli’s latest TEDx Talk, Why BS is More Dangerous Than a Lie, his own empirical research, and his new book, The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit , Dr. Petrocelli presents an eye-opening, groundbreaking, and evidenced-based tour of the causes, dysfunctions, and costs of bullshit, showing how it operates in our communicative culture and how you can make significantly better decisions in the workplace. We’ve long assumed that bullshitting is a harmless social activity. Perhaps this is why it is such a common social activity. In fact, research shows there are over three dozen situations and reasons people bulls#!t in the workplace. However, social psychological research suggests we couldn’t be more wrong. Bulls#!t communications, at the expense of evidence-based communication, have devastating effects on beliefs about what is true, memory, attitudes and opinions, as well as judgment and decision making. Dr. Petrocelli explores causes of bullshitting, how to best detect bullshit in the workplace, how to properly dispose of it, and how best to replace bullshit reasoning and communication with its antithesis—evidence-based reasoning and communication. THE ARTS AND SCIENCES OF PERSUASION AND INFLUENCE AT WORK Buy-ins on ideas and best practices do not occur on their own. Without buy-in from the team, any leader is just another tuned-out voice. That is why the single greatest ability that a leader can develop in the ways of selling a product, motivating a team, or growing a company is their ability to communicate persuasively. Dr. John Petrocelli is an experimental social psychologist and an expert on attitudes and persuasion. In this talk based on his empirical research, Dr. Petrocelli takes the audience on a journey to understanding principles of influence and the best alpha and omega strategies of social influence proven to reduce resistance and improve persuasion. In order for things to emerge as best practices within an organization you have to know the behavioral science in order to hone your messages properly and understand how these factors have the greatest impact, leading to the greatest persuasive success. Coming from someone who actually conducts empirical research on the topics of persuasion and influence, he’ll share simple strategies, based on scientific research and proven effective for how to maximize influence and inoculate the established influence from unwanted influences in the way of establishing and promoting best practices. BEST PRACTICE DECISION MAKING THROUGH EVIDENCE-BASED MANAGEMENT Dr. John Petrocelli is an experimental social psychologist and an expert in judgment and decision making and one of the world’s foremost experts on evidence-based communication. He is a firm believer in the well-established belief that better information does not always lead to better judgment and decision-making, but that better judgment and decision-making almost always requires better information. Clearly, reaching successful outcomes in organizations will require halting some common ways of making decisions that are so widely accepted and recommended that they are rarely questioned, yet deeply flawed, such as casual benchmarking other organizations, false analogies that pass for best practices, and dogmatism of deeply endorsed, but unexamined ideologies. Yet, there is good news for leaders and their organizations, because every day there are opportunities to use better information to gain advantages over their competition. Doing so simply entails using evidence-based management. The foundations of evidence-based management are the scientifically-supported assertions that recognizing much of the conventional wisdom about management is built on dangerous half-truths, using better logic, employing facts to the extent possible, facing the hard facts about what works and what doesn’t, and rejecting total nonsense that too often passes for sound advice, all empower leaders and organizations to perform better. As Dr. Petrocelli will show you, the practice of evidence-based management is neither mysterious nor extraordinarily difficult to implement. More importantly, evidence-based management produces superior results. Even better, evidence-based management can generate sustained competitive advantages because so few organizations and their leaders do it—let alone do it well—that the probability of imitation will not be high. Previous Clients Include Pohl Consulting and Training, Inc Contact To learn more about having John as a keynote speaker for your event, please complete the brief contact form below: Name Email Organization Event date How did you learn about John? Tell us more about your event: Send Thanks for submitting! Connect with John

Resources VIEW RESOURCE Organizational Bullshit Perception Scale Learn more about how much bullshit your organization may be surrounded by bullshit with the OBPS (Ferreira, Hannah, McCarthy, Pitt, & Ferguson, 2022). VIEW RESOURCE Book Discussion Guide for The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit A book discussion guide for a book now being used with high school students in AP English classes. VIEW RESOURCE Bullshit Detection Quiz Most everyone believes they have a good bullshit detector. Let's see how you fare on our test. VIEW RESOURCE Weighted-Additive Model Calculator If you have multiple decision alternatives with multiple features that vary in their importance, the W-ADD model calculator is a wonderful friend to have. VIEW RESOURCE Financial Facts Survey Most every finance expert believes they have a good finance bullshit detector. Let's see how you fare on the FBBTS (Kienzler, Västfjäll, & Tinghög, 2022) . VIEW RESOURCE Financial Meaningful Statements Survey Most every finance expert believes they have a good finance bullshit detector. Let's see how you fare on the FBSS (Kienzler, Västfjäll, & Tinghög, 2022) . Connect with John

About John Social Psychologist Dr. John V. Petrocelli has the goal of helping organizational leaders better position themselves and their organizations to reach their fullest potential. With strategies rooted in scientific research, that’s exactly what he does, empowering organizational leaders with proven tools for improving communication, strengthening influence, and establishing a foundation of evidence-based management. A provocative and convincing speaker, Dr. Petrocelli offers practical and immediately actionable strategies that actually enhance the chances of successfully meeting professional and organizational goals. By emphasizing social science and the things that successful organizations do consistently and effectively, he shows organizations and their employees a clear path to accomplishing their goals. Dr. Petrocelli offers keynotes and seminars on a variety of leadership, communication, and evidence-based management topics that are critical to high-performance in business management, market intelligence, technology, behavioral design, finance, education, and health care. John V. Petrocelli is represented by Les Tuerk of BrightSight Speakers , 609-924-3060 or les@brightsightgroup.com [see Dr. Petrocelli’s Speaker page at BrightSight Speakers ]. Be first in line for new content and actionable ideas by joining John’s popular email newsletter. Each week, he shares educational (and entertaining) videos, articles, and podcasts that will help you and your team to use better information to make better decisions. Over 40,000 leaders just like you have subscribed. Enter your email now and join us. Enter Your Best Email below Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Connect with John

Teaching PSY 260 Social Psychology PSY 311 Research Methods in Psychology I PSY 355 Research in Social Psychology PSY 374 Research in Judgment and Decision Making PSY 392 Contemporary Issues in Psychology - Mental Simulation PSY 392 Contemporary Issues in Psychology - Implicit Social Cog PSY 392 Contemporary Issues in Psychology - Misinformation, BSing, and Calling BS PSY 752 Seminar in Social Psychology Connect with John

Authenticity in Leadership THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2023 | COMMEN T So many of the gurus of the leadership development advice industry preach about authenticity. Authentic leaders do this, authentic leaders do that… Some have positioned authenticity as the “gold standard of leadership”. But, what might the readily available evidence concerning authenticity and its link to effective leadership lead us to believe? Authenticity is often valued and considered an important characteristic of effective leadership. Yet, authenticity may not always be the most important or sufficient on its own. There are several reasons for this perspective: Contextual Variability: What is considered authentic can vary depending on the cultural, organizational, or situational context. Authenticity in one context may not translate well to another. Great leaders often need to adapt to different situations and environments, which may require them to behave differently to meet the needs and expectations of those they are leading. Balancing Authenticity and Adaptability: Effective leaders must strike a balance between being authentic and adapting to the needs of their team or organization. While being true to oneself is important, rigidly adhering to one’s authentic self can be detrimental if it hinders the leader’s ability to connect with and motivate others. Ethical Considerations: Authenticity is not a blanket justification for any behavior or action. Some leaders might claim authenticity to justify harmful or unethical behavior. Great leadership includes a strong ethical foundation that goes beyond simply being true to oneself. Communication and Influence: Effective leadership often requires the ability to communicate, influence, and inspire others. This may involve framing messages and actions in ways that resonate with the audience. Authenticity alone may not be sufficient for effective communication and influence, as it doesn’t guarantee that the message will be well-received or understood. Developing Leadership Skills: Leadership skills can be learned and developed over time. Leaders may need to acquire new skills and behaviors that are not necessarily part of their authentic selves. This process of growth and development can be crucial for success as a leader. Team and Organizational Goals: Leaders must prioritize the goals and needs of their team or organization. Sometimes, this might require them to set aside their personal preferences and act in a way that is in the best interest of the collective. Authenticity alone might not always align with these broader goals. Emotional Intelligence: Emotional intelligence, which involves recognizing and understanding the emotions of oneself and others, is a critical component of effective leadership. Great leaders use their emotional intelligence to navigate interpersonal relationships, make sound decisions, and motivate their teams. While authenticity is important, emotional intelligence goes beyond mere authenticity to encompass empathy, self-awareness, and effective interpersonal skills—and helps to avoid breaking the no asshole rules of finer leadership. In conclusion, it is quite clear from the available empirical evidence on authenticity as a characteristic of effective leaders that authenticity is a valuable quality in leadership, but it must be considered in conjunction with other leadership traits and skills. Effective leadership often requires a blend of authenticity, adaptability, ethical behavior, strong communication skills, and a focus on organizational goals. The importance of each of these characteristics may vary depending on the specific leadership situation and the needs of the team or organization being led. Still, many would concur that authenticity holds significant value. We often prefer to associate with, or be led by, individuals who are genuine rather than those who feign their true selves. Embracing behaviors that resonate with truth, transparency, and a genuine connection to one’s core identity is crucial and constitutes an admirable trait in leadership. Nevertheless, there’s a caveat to this authenticity principle: when your true self exhibits negative qualities, being unfiltered can lead to issues. In practice, we’ve noticed that some executives have used the pursuit of authenticity as a justification for undesirable conduct. It’s vital to recognize that authenticity encompasses not only the positive aspects, such as your values, aspirations, and cherished qualities. For many, their unfiltered selves can also manifest unpleasant traits. When your authenticity manifests as excessive criticism, poor communication, coarseness, judgmental attitudes, or inflexibility, you might be displaying your most genuine self, but you’re not necessarily displaying your best self . Often, these most authentic aspects of a leader require the most management. When urging executives to become their best selves, we often encounter resistance. People resist changing behaviors that feel most natural, even when everyone agrees that change would be beneficial. For instance, we had a recent client, a national magazine head, who insisted on using her preferred process, which felt most natural to her, to produce each issue. When asked to consider changing her process to make life easier for the team, she responded with, “This is just how I work.” She was being authentic, staying true to herself, but this authenticity was obstructing her team from reaching a happier and more productive state. Her excuse, “this is just how I work,” can be conveniently justified by the recent emphasis on authenticity, cautioning leaders not to pretend to be someone they’re not. However, hiding behind the authenticity excuse serves as a convenient way to evade the truth about our true selves, our actual behaviors, and their reasons. Instead, consider following these steps: 1. Gain insight into how others perceive you. Ask a trusted colleague what challenges they encounter when working with you. Listen without offering explanations or justifications, and write down their feedback in their own words. 2. Reflect on the feedback. In private, respond in writing to your colleague’s criticisms. Consider your thoughts and justifications for your actions. List them all, using your crankiest, most defiant, yet authentic voice. Read it aloud to acknowledge that this voice is a part of you. 3. Seek an alternative approach. The next time you feel compelled to engage in the behavior that makes you challenging, determine a different course of action. 4. Make amends. Reconnect with the colleague and apologize for your challenging behavior. Commit to a plan to rectify the situation. If you repeat the same behavior, despite your intentions, plan how you will address the consequences. 5. Impose consequences. Pledge to face consequences for misbehavior. If you engage in the problematic behavior again, what will it cost you? Perhaps you’ll offer coffee or lunch to the affected individual, or compose an apology poem. The consequence should be constructive but carry a personal cost. While your authentic self should serve as the foundation of your leadership style, it’s prudent to examine your true self critically before presenting and defending everything that comes naturally. Admiring leaders like Jack Welch (CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001, and author of Winning) is one thing, but don’t delude yourself into believing that unleashing your authentic self entirely is the key to effective leadership. Watch Leave a reply/comment: Name Email (will not be published) Website Subject Your message Send Thanks for submitting! Connect with John

Connect with John

The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit reveals the critical thinking habits you can develop to recognize and combat pervasive false information and delusional thinking that has become a common feature of everyday life. Finalist for the Audie Award for Humor . Order From: What Others Are Saying Connect with John

Bulls#!t Studies Lab PSYCHOLOGY EXPERIMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ~ SONA RESEARCH ASSISTANT SCHEDULE CITI TRAINING BULLS#!T STUDIES LAB - Greene Hall 122 The BULLS#!T STUDIES LAB in Attitudes, Social Cognition and Bulls#!tting is in the Department of Psychology at Wake Forest University and is directed by Dr. John V. Petrocelli. Our research focuses on factors associated with how people process and interpret social information, as well as how people are influenced by information in their social environment. We explore these general interests in a number of contexts including persuasion, judgment and decision-making. RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS How to get involved in research as a student: Students can get involved in many aspects of my research including running experiments, coding and entering data, collaborating on research designs, and helping to formalize presentations and publications. Although some students volunteer, it is possible to earn credit for this work by registering for PSY 280 Directed Study. Undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in collaborating with me on research should contact me early in their academic careers so that they can gain experience over more than one semester. The first semester as a research assistant usually involves helping to run an ongoing experiment. However, as the semester progresses, and in subsequent semesters, students may have the opportunity to develop their own ideas and/or collaborate with me on the design of new studies. COMPLETE AN APPLICATION – Download and e-mail to petrocjv@wfu.edu Frequently asked questions: What is Social Cognition? Often regarded as an approach to studying the social world rather than a domain or content area, social cognition is the study of the processes that operate when people encode, store, and retrieve information about the social world. Researchers in social cognition study the procedures, strategies, and problems that people exhibit when they perceive and judge themselves and others. A main theme of social cognition is the biases that may color people’s perceptions and judgments of others. Social cognition is also concerned with the mental shortcuts (or heuristics) that people use to conserve cognitive resources, form judgments, and make decisions. Thus, behavior is often explained by how we use information, what events we pay attention to, how we interpret information, and how we store information in memory. Automatic and controlled processing is also of interest to social cognition. This distinction helps explain the flexibility of the social thinker. The effects of motivation and cognitive load figure prominently on one’s ability to be an accurate social perceiver. How many students work in the lab? Typically, 1-2 graduate students and 3-6 undergraduates work as directed study students or as volunteers. What basic tasks are involved? Lab tasks include formalizing Institutional Review Board (IRB) applications for new studies, development of experimental protocols and stimuli (using in MediaLab, Inquisit, or HTML), data collection with participation pool students, operating SONA (e.g., assigning credit to participation pool students), data entry (a rare task), and writing up the Methods section of a research report. What are the basic time requirements for lab assistants? Lab assistants typically work in the lab about 5 hours each week (see the current lab assistant schedule below). Additional time is often spent outside of the lab in individual meetings to discuss the progress of a project or to conduct library work. What type of experimental software would I learn? We typically use MediaLab, but wealso use Inquisit for studies that require reaction time measures. Would I be involved in any ongoing projects or new studies? In any one semester, we usually have about 3-6 research projects being conducted; all typically at different stages. All students working in the lab are assigned to work on a project that we both agree is suitable given student interests and lab needs. Individual projects will enable the lab to be productive even when data are not being collected. It is hoped that our work together results in publishable contribution (but this is never a guarantee). What specific types of projects are going on in the lab currently? Currently, graduate students and lab assistants are conducting studies on various topics, which include: counterfactual thinking and mental simulation, attitude change and resistance to persuasion, attitudinal ambivalence, forced agreement scaling, and the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. Connect with John

Research As an experimental social psychologist, my research involves experimental social cognition and judgment and decision making. My specific research interests include bullshitting behavior, bullshit detection and disposal, attitude strength and persuasion, counterfactual thinking and metacognition. Bullshitting Behavior and Bullshit Detection/Disposal. Bullshitting is a pervasive social behavior involving intentionally or unintentionally communicating with little to no regard or concern for truth, genuine evidence, and/or established semantic, logical, systemic, or empirical knowledge. Bullshitting is often characterized by, but not limited to, using rhetorical strategies designed to disregard truth, evidence and/or established knowledge, such as exaggerating or embellishing one’s knowledge, competence, or skills in a particular area or talking about things of which one knows nothing about in order to impress, fit in with, influence, or persuade others. Bullshitting is different from lying in that the liar is actually concerned with the truth – the liar tries to divert us from the truth. The bullshitter doesn’t really care what the truth is, he/she isn’t even trying – the bullshitter may be correct in his/her claim but wouldn’t know it. What are the antecedents, consequences, and utilities of this seemingly pervasive and inevitable behavior? Under what social conditions and/or mental states is bullshitting attenuated or augmented? Under what conditions are people receptive and/or sensitive to bullshit? How can people better detect and dispose of bullshit? Attitude Strength and Persuasion. How do various components of attitude strength (e.g., attitude certainty, attitudinal ambivalence, and attitude accessibility) affect attitude change and resistance to persuasive attempts? How do sub-components of such attitude attributes influence the attitude-behavior link, attitude stability, persistence, and resistance to persuasive attempts? Counterfactual Thinking. Counterfactual thinking involves mentally simulating alternatives to reality and playing out the consequences of those alternatives (i.e., “could have,” “would have,” “should have,” or “if only” thinking). What role does counterfactual thinking play in reactions to general and specific cases? How does it affect memory for previous events? What role does it play in learning and performance on tasks? How does counterfactual thinking affect a physician’s diagnostic and treatment selection decisions? Metacognition. Metacognition involves thinking about one’s thoughts and thought processes. How do metacognitive components of attitude strength affect attitude change? How does a metacognitive aspect of counterfactual thinking (i.e., counterfactual potency) influence affect, judgments of social targets, and decisions? Connect with John

Virtual Keynote Speaker Today, work includes working from anywhere. Hence, events and training involve conducting them from anywhere. Dr. John V. Petrocelli and his team can help bring an entertaining and enlightening experience to your virtual meeting, and one that prepares everyone to promote an evidence-based culture from anywhere. Change how your organization approaches decision-making with better information, innovation, collaboration, and productivity. As a skilled researcher who actually conducts research on the topics he discusses and an inspiring communicator, John is one of the foremost minds shaping the future of work behavior. Provocative and persuasive, John shares captivating stories and practical takeaways that give audiences compelling insights into how organizations and individuals can do their best work. Take a look at his virtual keynote speaking topics below and let us know how John can tailor these ideas to your needs. The Michael Shermer Show segment Center for Inquiry segment Coaching WBECS segment Executive Forum segment Featured Topics THE LIFE-CHANGING SCIENCE OF DETECTING BULLS#!T From every angle, whether it be from colleagues, meetings, or the marketplace of business ideas, business leaders constantly encounter bulls#!t that plagues their judgments, beliefs, and decisions. Short of lying, the sources of bulls#!t pay no attention to truth, evidence, or established knowledge, and use a broad array of rhetorical strategies to sound like they know what they are talking about when their obligations to provide an opinion far exceed their actual knowledge. How informed can beliefs about anything—and decisions based on those beliefs—be if they are based on bulls#!t-reasoning and communication? How can bulls#!t in the workplace be better detected and disposed? This session directly addresses commonly encountered bulls#!t in the workplace and its unwanted effects in the ways of better detection, better disposal, and better decisions. PROMOTING AN EVIDENCE-BASED CULTURE IN THE WORKPLACE What is bulls#!t and why is there so much of it? What effects does bulls#!t have on workplace communication and how can its unwanted effects be replaced by the many benefits of evidence-based communication? Apart from choosing to be smarter, there are critical benefits that, Dr. John Petrocelli suggests, our current way of thinking and communicating in the workplace often ignores. It’s time to stop the bulls#!t with better detection and better disposal of this insidious communicative substance. Based on Dr. Petrocelli’s latest TEDx Talk, Why BS is More Dangerous Than a Lie, his own empirical research, and his new book, The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit , Dr. Petrocelli presents an eye-opening, groundbreaking, and evidenced-based tour of the causes, dysfunctions, and costs of bullshit, showing how it operates in our communicative culture and how you can make significantly better decisions in the workplace. We’ve long assumed that bullshitting is a harmless social activity. Perhaps this is why it is such a common social activity. In fact, research shows there are over three dozen situations and reasons people bulls#!t in the workplace. However, social psychological research suggests we couldn’t be more wrong. Bulls#!t communications, at the expense of evidence-based communication, have devastating effects on beliefs about what is true, memory, attitudes and opinions, as well as judgment and decision making. Dr. Petrocelli explores causes of bullshitting, how to best detect bullshit in the workplace, how to properly dispose of it, and how best to replace bullshit reasoning and communication with its antithesis—evidence-based reasoning and communication. THE ARTS AND SCIENCES OF PERSUASION AND INFLUENCE AT WORK Buy-ins on ideas and best practices do not occur on their own. Without buy-in from the team, any leader is just another tuned-out voice. That is why the single greatest ability that a leader can develop in the ways of selling a product, motivating a team, or growing a company is their ability to communicate persuasively. Dr. John Petrocelli is an experimental social psychologist and an expert on attitudes and persuasion. In this talk based on his empirical research, Dr. Petrocelli takes the audience on a journey to understanding principles of influence and the best alpha and omega strategies of social influence proven to reduce resistance and improve persuasion. In order for things to emerge as best practices within an organization you have to know the behavioral science in order to hone your messages properly and understand how these factors have the greatest impact, leading to the greatest persuasive success. Coming from someone who actually conducts empirical research on the topics of persuasion and influence, he’ll share simple strategies, based on scientific research and proven effective for how to maximize influence and inoculate the established influence from unwanted influences in the way of establishing and promoting best practices. BEST PRACTICE DECISION MAKING THROUGH EVIDENCE-BASED MANAGEMENT Dr. John Petrocelli is an experimental social psychologist and an expert in judgment and decision making and one of the world’s foremost experts on evidence-based communication. He is a firm believer in the well-established belief that better information does not always lead to better judgment and decision-making, but that better judgment and decision-making almost always requires better information. Clearly, reaching successful outcomes in organizations will require halting some common ways of making decisions that are so widely accepted and recommended that they are rarely questioned, yet deeply flawed, such as casual benchmarking other organizations, false analogies that pass for best practices, and dogmatism of deeply endorsed, but unexamined ideologies. Yet, there is good news for leaders and their organizations, because every day there are opportunities to use better information to gain advantages over their competition. Doing so simply entails using evidence-based management. The foundations of evidence-based management are the scientifically-supported assertions that recognizing much of the conventional wisdom about management is built on dangerous half-truths, using better logic, employing facts to the extent possible, facing the hard facts about what works and what doesn’t, and rejecting total nonsense that too often passes for sound advice, all empower leaders and organizations to perform better. As Dr. Petrocelli will show you, the practice of evidence-based management is neither mysterious nor extraordinarily difficult to implement. More importantly, evidence-based management produces superior results. Even better, evidence-based management can generate sustained competitive advantages because so few organizations and their leaders do it—let alone do it well—that the probability of imitation will not be high. Previous Clients Include Pohl Consulting and Training, Inc Contact To learn more about having John as a keynote speaker for your event, please complete the brief contact form below: Name Email Organization Event date How did you learn about John? Tell us more about your event: Send Thanks for submitting! Connect with John

Artificial Intelligence THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2023 | COMMENT Many of us will soon find ourselves embracing generative artificial intelligence (AI) in our daily lives. Those who resist will be akin to those who clung to those outdated library card catalogs. Prominent examples of this technology include ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, Anthropic’s Claude, and Inflection’s Pi. Productivity-enhancing AI tends to boost our output, altering how we work without necessarily reducing our overall work hours. Recently, major U.S. tech companies have revealed their intentions to deeply integrate generative AI into the everyday tools we rely on, making avoidance nearly impossible. In the past two weeks alone, Microsoft announced the comprehensive integration of generative AI tools into Windows 11, Google updated its Bard AI to draw from all your documents, emails, and calendar data, Amazon showcased enhanced generative AI capabilities for its Alexa smart assistant, and Meta introduced chat-based assistants and celebrity-driven chatbots across Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. Even Apple, in the process of developing its own text-based generative AI, introduced a new accessibility feature for iPhones using a different form of generative AI to replicate a user’s voice. While the accessibility and prevalence of generative AI tools do not guarantee their widespread use, early adopters are already benefiting from their utility, suggesting broader adoption on the horizon. However, one potential challenge with using AI in this manner is its proclivity to generate incorrect information (i.e., BS), an inherent aspect of its functioning that may be difficult to eliminate. This limitation somewhat reduces its value, requiring human oversight for all AI-generated work. Nevertheless, AI excels at handling routine tasks, such as generating standard code or text, transforming its users into editors rather than content creators. AI has become an essential tool, and not embracing it means missing out on its potential benefits. Ultimately, AI is all about trying to achieve better results with less effort. Watch Leave a reply/comment: Name Email (will not be published) Website Subject Your message Send Thanks for submitting! Connect with John