10 TED Talks To Help You Work Smarter, Healthier and Happier
There are thousands of TED talks, including some talks that can help you with real estate, but here are the talks that can make you healthier, more efficient and just plain better at your job.
Angela left a management consulting job for a teaching position, but soon found that her students' IQ was not always the best determinant of success. After a research trip around the country—from West Point to National Spelling Bees to the world's top corporations—Angela and her team found that the true determinant of success was "grit," the "passion and perseverance for very long-term goals." Angela talks about what determines grit and how to develop a "growth mindet" in kids (or your employees/co-workers).
Time: 6 minutes
While most of us would agree that the best job is one where we believe we are doing something engaging and meaningful, Barry notes that there are millions of people who do work from check to check. That's because outdated and inaccurate "idea technology" (humans are lazy and need incentive to do things) still lingers on from centuries past and is not as easily tossed away as a Betamax player or a Zune. (We know your Zune is great—we like ours, too.)
Time: 8 minutes
Tech columnist David Pogue's seminar is not as heady and abstract as others on this list, but still is super helpful. From skipping past voicemail menus to navigating web pages to even making a more effective presentation, David's seminar gives you the tips you should have known years ago.
Time: 6 minutes
Despite all of the advances in office space, people are choosing to work from home, in coffee shops and pretty much anywhere but the office. Jason Fried says this is because of constant and consistent distractions at the office, but not Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In fact, it's managers who constantly check in and meetings that take up time. Jason teaches how to be a good manager and improve communication and efficiency.
Time: 15 minutes
Despite what Ayn Rand may have thought, putting the world's smartest and best people in a room is not the key to success. In fact, as Margaret Heffernan points out, it may be the quickest route to "aggression, dysfunction and waste." After surveying various teams and testing their ability to work together, Margaret found groups with the highest social capital, trust and empathy amongst each other—NOT the ones with the greatest skills or aptitude—will produce better results. If you're thinking about forming your next team or task group, give Heffernan's video a look to see what skills and traits you should be considering.
Time: 16 minutes
Humans have struggled for centuries to balance work and personal life, and after a year of spending time with his family and friends, Nigel Marsh has come up with four observations that should improve your work-life balance. Whether it's having an open and honest debate or figuring out a proper timeframe for finding balance, Nigel will help you broach the daunting idea of finding time for yourself (the fact that's daunting is a bit concerning) and become a more balanced person.
Time: 10 minutes
Are you sitting right now as you read this? According to Nilofer Merchant, sitting might be killing you. In fact, humans are now sitting more than we're sleeping, and this increasingly sedentary lifestyle is responsible for everything from breast cancer to colon cancer to Type 2 diabetes. By doing something as simple as asking people to walk with you as you discuss a deal, you'll feel better, think smarter and have better conversations.
Time: 3.5 minutes
As the head of a company that has "thousands of employees, hundreds of millions of dollars of business that makes rocket fuel propellent systems, runs 4,000 ATMs in Brazil [and] does income tax preparation for dozens of thousands," Ricardo Semler took a step back and determined just how much freedom he should give his employees. The answer: a lot. Rethinking everything from business meetings to reporting vacation days, Semler worked to reward workers' wisdom and promote a greater work-life balance. He even questions how we can bring this increased corporate democracy to schools.
Time: 22 minutes
Plenty of us have had jobs that we absolutely despised. But how do we (or did we) find the jobs we love? Live Your Legend founder Scott Dinsmore talks about how he found his life's work, how to determine your passions and make your dream job a reality. With his help, you can learn how to change your thinking in order to find your dream job, or rediscover what made you love your job in the first place.
Time: 18 minutes
Yves Morieux states that the traits of success for many teams are clarity, accountability and measurement (the ability to measure and efficiently use energy). But the modern work environment—with increasing restrictions, demands and complexity—is making the three traits harder to achieve. For example, we create reports and metrics to measure accountability and clarity, but waste countless energy and human intelligence doing so. What can you do to improve coordination and get to more effective accounting?
Time: 16 minutes
