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01 November 2021

How To Build The Career You Want - Professor Of Behavioural Science Dr Grace Lordan

5Frameworks
10Insights

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Frameworks in this episode

Productivity6 steps

Compromise-Effect Workload Ladder

Define low, medium, and high outputs so a daunting task has an achievable middle.

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Mindset6 steps

Control-Luck Decision Post-Mortem

Separate controllable inputs from luck, learn the lesson, and release the outcome.

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Productivity6 steps

Environment-to-Activity Mapping

Assign places to specific behaviours and add friction between yourself and distractions.

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Productivity6 steps

Pleasure-Purpose Time Audit

Score every activity for present pleasure and future purpose, then redesign your week.

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Strategy6 steps

Think Big, Take Small Steps

Define your future self, then compound 90 minutes of aligned action each week.

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Myth Buster· 3

Myth Buster45:33

Anticipating Failure Often Feels Worse Than Failure Itself

Anxiety about rejection, loss, or poor performance can be more painful than the event that eventually occurs. People tend to underestimate their ability to rebound, discover alternatives, and extract useful learning from negative experiences.

  • Anticipated events can create stronger anxiety than lived events.
  • People underestimate their resilience before a loss.
  • Repeated exposure to rejection can reduce its emotional power.
  • Meaningful progress normally requires tolerating some failure.
  • Unfair feedback and bad luck do not end the wider journey.

“anticipation of an event brings on anxieties, that can be worse than actually experiencing an event itself.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 45:33

“when we're anticipating failure or anticipating losses, we underestimate that resilience.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 45:33
#failure#resilience#loss aversion#anxiety
Myth Buster1:05:18

Other People Notice and Remember Your Mistakes Less Than You Think

The spotlight effect causes people to overestimate how closely others observe their failures. Most people are preoccupied with themselves and overloaded with information; those who notice a mistake are often more neutral or sympathetic than expected.

  • People overestimate how much attention others pay to them.
  • Information overload makes mistakes easy to forget.
  • Observers are often more sympathetic than anticipated.
  • Low-stakes exposure can build confidence before a wider launch.
  • Fear of judgement frequently exceeds the real social cost.

“we tend to think people are looking at us much more often than they actually are.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 1:05:18

“if you do mess up, people probably aren't watching.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 1:05:18
#spotlight effect#judgement#confidence#fear
Myth Buster1:16:25

Why “Money Doesn't Buy Happiness” Misses Two Variables

Simple income-happiness correlations can obscure how many hours someone worked to earn additional income and how money supports different phases of life. Dr Lordan argues that both labour intensity and lifetime financial needs must be considered before drawing conclusions from headline thresholds.

  • UK correlations suggest diminishing happiness gains beyond a basic income.
  • Hours worked can change the wellbeing value of extra income.
  • The interaction between hours and income is often neglected.
  • Retirement changes the relationship between income and happiness.
  • Some difficult periods may finance important later-life outcomes.

“the snazzy headlines that say money doesn't buy happiness, don't take into account hours worked.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 1:16:25

“And they don't take into account to kind of smoothing things over the life course.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 1:16:25
#money#happiness#income#working hours#retirement

Hot Take· 1

Hot Take23:23

Good Leaders Should Be Willing to Say “I Got It Wrong”

Changing direction is not necessarily weak or inconsistent. Under uncertainty, leaders will make mistakes; the important distinction is between an impulsive reversal and a deliberate update based on a review of costs, benefits, emotions, and new evidence.

  • Past commitments create sunk-cost pressure.
  • Fear, loss aversion, and embarrassment can distort a pivot.
  • Uncertainty makes occasional mistakes unavoidable.
  • A considered change of mind can demonstrate better leadership than rigid consistency.

“And I think if it's deliberate, you absolutely should change your mind.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 23:23

“their ability to stand up and say, I don't know, I got it wrong. I've changed my mind”

Dr Grace Lordan · 23:23
#leadership#uncertainty#decision-making#sunk costs

Explainer· 3

Explainer29:51

How Behavioural Science Tests Whether Advice Actually Works

Dr Lordan describes behavioural science as an interdisciplinary effort to explain behaviour and establish causal effects. Laboratory findings are tested in companies and policy settings because effects observed among students may disappear in different populations, cultures, or time horizons.

  • Behavioural science draws from economics, psychology, and anthropology.
  • Researchers distinguish causal effects from correlations.
  • Lab findings do not always replicate inside organisations.
  • Durability should be checked immediately and over longer periods.
  • Data-science skills are valuable in the field.

“behavioural science isn't a discipline.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 29:51

“a lot of times it doesn't, I will be very honest with you.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 29:51
#behavioural science#causality#research#experiments
Explainer47:16

How Rejection and Backlash May Shape Who Takes Risks

Dr Lordan discusses average differences in risk aversion across gender and ethnicity, while stressing that the mechanisms are complicated. Early opportunities to experience rejection may build resilience, but repeated discrimination and social backlash can rationally discourage people from asking again.

  • Average group differences do not describe every individual.
  • Early rejection may build tolerance for later risks.
  • Repeated biased rejection can create a discouraging feedback loop.
  • Women may face backlash for behaviour rewarded in men.
  • Simply telling disadvantaged groups to ask more ignores institutional barriers.

“women do tend to be more risk averse as compared to men.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 47:16

“simply asking for more, doesn't necessarily mean that you'll actually get more.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 49:34
#risk aversion#gender#race#rejection#backlash
Explainer53:59

When Procrastination Helps Creativity—and When It Becomes Avoidance

Some apparent procrastination gives unconscious thought time to work on a difficult problem, especially during walks or showers. It becomes harmful when repeated avoidance leaves deadlines looming and no output produced.

  • Fast and slow thinking can both contribute to problem-solving.
  • Stepping away can allow unconscious processing.
  • A walk may be useful if the challenge remains mentally active.
  • Procrastination turns harmful when avoidance repeatedly replaces output.
  • The distinction depends on whether delay helps solve the task.

“I think there's evidence that procrastination is good, up to a certain point.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 53:59

“But at the extreme, it starts to get negative when you're putting off tasks, and the deadlines are looming”

Dr Grace Lordan · 53:59
#procrastination#creativity#thinking#avoidance

Tool· 1

Tool1:02:23

Do Not Make Important Decisions in a Hot Emotional State

The affect heuristic describes how anger, sadness, excitement, and even hunger push people toward rules of thumb and bias. Unless immediate action is genuinely necessary, a short pause can improve judgement; when others judge you, their emotional state also affects your odds.

  • Hot emotional states increase reliance on shortcuts.
  • Hunger can influence judges and evaluators.
  • A useful pause may last a minute, an hour, or longer.
  • Emergency professions are an exception when delay is dangerous.
  • Narrative and humour can shape an evaluator's emotional state.

“you should never make a decision when you're getting emotional.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 1:02:23

“there is always time for you to take a break.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 1:02:23
#affect heuristic#emotions#bias#decisions

Takeaway· 2

Takeaway32:46

Why Evidence-Based Advice Can Fail in Your Context

The same intervention produced a strong effect in one Canary Wharf company and no effect in another. Dr Lordan argues that people, managers, and governments should treat advice as a hypothesis, test it locally, and discard it when it does not work.

  • Populations and organisational subcultures change outcomes.
  • Evidence from one setting is not automatically universal.
  • Individuals should experiment rather than follow advice blindly.
  • A failed experiment can reveal useful information about personal context.

“And that's because context matters.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 32:46

“I'm going to experiment with her idea. And if it doesn't work, I'm going to throw it out.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 32:46
#context#experimentation#evidence#self-knowledge
Takeaway49:34

Transparent Pay Helps People Challenge Hidden Inequities

Salary transparency gives underpaid employees concrete evidence rather than forcing them to negotiate from uncertainty. In a small team, Dr Lordan recommends reviewing comparable colleagues whenever one person's raise is approved and proactively adjusting people who did not ask.

  • Pay data lets employees compare performance with compensation.
  • Transparency can expose inequities hidden by stereotypes.
  • Not everyone feels equally safe asking for a raise.
  • Managers should review comparable employees after approving one raise.
  • A regular review window can increase trust.

“when we have transparency, a lot of the problems go away.”

Dr Grace Lordan · 49:34

“if somebody asks for a raise, and they're successful, I think about who are the people who are very like them in the group who…”

Dr Grace Lordan · 52:35
#pay transparency#management#equity#compensation