Tali Sharot

Part of our daily job is to affect others; we advise our clients, guide our patients, teach our children and inform our online followers. Yet, science shows we systematically fall on to suboptimal habits when trying to change others – from insisting the other is wrong to exerting control. Based on her award-winning book, The Influential Mind, internationally acclaimed behavioral neuroscientist, Tali Sharot, explains how an attempt to influence will be successful only if it is well-matched with the core elements that govern how we think and feel. Sharot explains why providing data and numbers alone can be a weak approach to influence and why emotions and narrative often have strong impact. By understanding the minds and brains of those around us, we become better at advising and communicating information.

Change, uncertainty and unrest have taken a toll on people’s well-being. Stress, depression, and anxiety are on the rise, directly impacting our physical health and productivity. What can we do at the workplace and at home to improve the mental health of our colleagues, employees, and customers? What Can we do to induce happiness? Sharot’s Intriguing answers are based on research in neuroscience, behavioral economics and psychology. Sharot emphasizes the joy of anticipation and the pain of dread, the importance of having a sense of agency for well-being, and the perils of social comparison. She explains why our mind uses a ‘grayscale’ to perceive the world and how we might turn it off to see in color again.

Even stimulating jobs, breathtaking works of art, exciting new gadgets, lose their sparkle after a while. We desensitize to what is wonderful around us. We also stop noticing what is not-so-great: cracks in a relationship, a culture of fraud that developed slowly within a company or the gradual rise of misinformation. It is not that we are lazy or stupid. Our brain evolved to respond to what is new and different, not to things that are constant or change gradually. As a result, we stop noticing what is suboptimal and fail to make changes. We also stop noticing what is good in our lives, and we don’t feel joy. But what if we could ‘dishabituate’?

A major goal of managers and companies is to induce behavioral change. We want to influence the actions of our clients, employees and colleagues in positive ways. Tali has advised some of the world largest companies, including Pepsi, Bank of America and Prudential, on how to do exactly that. In this engaging, thoughtful presentation Tali shares which factors – according to science – have the largest impact on peoples’ actions, and why. Using her own cutting-edge research she explains how we can use innate human tendencies to nudge people in the right direction, and which commonly used approaches often back-fire. The audience learn powerful practical applications for inducing change and gains a deeper understanding of human behavior.

Making good decisions is key to the success of any company and a critical skill for leaders and investors. Yet, making wise choices, whether regarding finances, business or health, are difficult. We now know that human decision-making is rife with bias; from over-confidence to irrational optimism and future discounting. The good news is that understanding where people go wrong enables us to improve the decision-making process. Sharot occupies a unique spot at the intersection of behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology. From this rare seat Sharot integrates up-to-date research in decision science and transforms this knowledge into practical insights. In this lively talk Sharot helps the audience identify systematic decision-making errors and offers creative and practical methods for corrections and improvement.