Why Adults Become Sixth Graders with Linda Gidlund
Put a group of successful, educated adults into a training room and something strange can happen: They start behaving like sixth graders. Educator and facilitator Linda Gidlund began noticing this pattern while working with adult learners. Then she noticed something similar happening much closer to home. What is it about certain environments that can bring […]
What Mick Jagger Taught Me About Experience
I was listening to David Marchese interview Mick Jagger for The New York Times Interview when one word stopped me: Inhabit. Marchese didn’t ask whether Jagger could still perform songs he’d written fifty years ago; he asked whether he could still inhabit them. That caught my attention because it felt like an unusual but very […]
Why His Professor Told Him to Skip Class with Michael Henderson
Michael Henderson’s anthropology professor gave his students some unusual advice: “If you find an interesting cultural experience, go and do that… and don’t come to my lectures.” Michael took him seriously. Unable to understand reggae music, he forced himself to keep listening. What happened next changed the way he thought about learning, culture and experience […]
Why Information Doesn’t Change People with Dr Patterson Stark
Why is it that we often know exactly what to do… but still don’t do it? Dr Patterson Stark spent years believing that if his patients simply had enough information, they’d make better decisions. Experience taught him otherwise. In this short conversation, he reflects on the shift that changed not only the way he practises medicine, […]
What an Assassin taught me about Experience
In The Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne has no idea who he is. He has amnesia, which means he doesn’t remember his past and can’t figure out why someone wants to kill him. Yet, when he sits down in a roadside cafe he casually says: “I can tell you the license plate numbers of all three cars […]
Why Good People Misunderstand Each Other with Taruni Falconer
When I sat down to speak with intercultural communication expert Taruni Falconer, I expected to learn about culture. Instead, I found myself rethinking communication itself. Why I invited Taruni Falconer When I created On Experience, the first person I wanted to invite was Taruni. She exudes the three qualities I want in my guests: she […]
What a Doctor taught me about Experience
Most people think experience gives us answers, but what happens when our experience fails to answer our questions? When it makes it impossible to continue believing what we know. That’s what happened to Dr Patterson Stark. Patterson was a successful physician in La Jolla, California. He had a waiting list, money in the bank and […]
The Surprising Reason an Anthropologist Excels at AI
Michael Henderson describes himself as atrocious with technology. So why has an anthropologist become surprisingly good at using AI? Michael traces the answer back to something his anthropology professor noticed about him decades ago. He was struggling in many of his university subjects, but consistently getting top marks in anthropology. The difference wasn’t how much he […]
What My Parents taught me about Experience
During the last few years of Dad’s dementia, when Mum and I would visit him in the Aged Care centre, there was a consistent pattern to the conversations we had. Dad would tell a story and Mum would say, ‘Don’t be silly’. At first, I assumed that Mum was simply correcting him. She knew the […]
Why Experts Notice Things You Don’t with Michael Henderson
Most people think experience is about knowing more. But what if its greatest gift is something else entirely? In this excerpt from On Experience, corporate anthropologist Michael Henderson explains why experts don’t necessarily see more than everyone else. If you’ve ever wondered why experienced people seem to spot opportunities, problems or patterns before everyone else, this […]