Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel

For a lot of people, work feels especially chaotic right now.. Projects start and don't finish. Layoffs happen, then reorgs, then new strategies, and through all of it, managers are expected to have the answers. Caroline Webb spent 25 years coaching leaders through exactly this kind of turbulence. She's a behavioral scientist, a former economist and the author of the new book Leadership Intelligence: Science-Backed Strategies for Mastering 21 Everyday Management Challenges. This week she joins Jessi to talk about what the science of the human brain tells us about leading through uncertainty. In this episode, Jessi and Caroline discuss: Why the current moment hits a stress trifecta — demanding, uncontrollable and unpleasant — and what that does to your team's brains The "know-be-do" framework: how to lead people through uncertainty when facts are in short supply Why naming how you feel is one of the most powerful things a leader can do and what affect labeling actually does in the brain What "measured authenticity" means, and why "terrified" is not a word you want your manager to use How to be honest with your team when you know more than you can say Why letting projects die quietly is one of the most demoralizing things a manager can do, and what to do instead What Astro (Google X's moonshot factory) does when it kills a project, and why it works The "when-then" method for taking the sting out of worst-case scenarios before they happen "Compassionate clarity": what it means in practice when layoff season arrives Why walking people out of the building immediately is almost never necessary and what a seasoned CHRO said about it Follow Caroline Webb and Jessi Hempel on LinkedIn Join us for Hello Monday Office Hours, Wednesday at 3pm EST Listen to Caroline’s previous Hello Monday episode on how to have a good day at a bad job

Being busy and being productive are not the same thing. Cal Newport, computer science professor at Georgetown and author of Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, has spent years making that case. This is the second of three episodes from the archive that we're revisiting this month on the subject of time. In it, Cal joins Jessi to zoom out and ask: what does it really mean to get meaningful work done over the course of our weeks, our months, and even our years? In this episode, Jessi and Cal discuss: Why "pseudo-productivity" — using visible activity as a proxy for real work — was always a bad idea, and why mobile computing made it unsustainable How the pandemic pushed knowledge work past a breaking point The administrative overhead trap: why agreeing to too many things at once is slowing you down How to say no to new work without actually saying no, and why transparency is the key Why boredom is essential What your phone has to do with short-circuiting the most human productivity tool we have Cal's rule for his kids on smartphones and social media, and the age he thinks unrestricted internet access becomes safe Why doing fewer things at once will get you to the finish line faster What AI tools like ChatGPT are actually good for, and what Cal is waiting for them to do instead The difference between technology that helps you do things faster and technology that takes things off your plate entirely Follow Jessi Hempel on LinkedIn.

Baratunde Thurston fired ChatGPT. And ChatGPT helped him do it. This week, the Emmy-nominated storyteller, writer and host of Life with Machines joins Jessi in the studio to talk about what it actually means to have agency in a moment when we’re still figuring out the rules and norms of AI.  In this episode, Jessi and Baratunde discuss: Why Baratunde fired ChatGPT and what the chat bot taught him on his way out What he means when he says we're not using a tool, we're entering a relationship The "direction, not perfection" principle for navigating an imperfect landscape of AI companies and choices Why switching platforms is itself a practice of agency, and proof that you can leave What AI tools reveal about you that you didn't know you were sharing The two people living inside every employee at an AI all-hands: the one on-program, and the one who's scared and skeptical What the kids opting out of AI are trying to tell us What the internet could look like if we treated it as a public utility instead of a commercial space Why token-maxing is a "flagrant foul" in an era of climate change What executives get wrong when rolling out AI, and the questions they should be asking their teams instead Follow Baratunde Thurston and Jessi Hempel on LinkedIn.