In this episode, we are joined by Angela Duckworth, who is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, which proposes the concept of ‘grit’ as using passion and personal conscientiousness to achieve long-term goals. Angela has also been a winner of the MacArthur Genius Fellowship.

What Was Covered

• How passion and perseverance is at the heart of grit and its contribution to high performance
• The naturalness bias and our preference towards those we perceive as naturally talented compared to those who strive to achieve success
• The mundanity of excellence and how champions learn to love the discipline of working on their craft
• How successful people use hopeful mindset to solve challenges, setbacks, and failures.

Key Takeaways and Learnings

• Focus: why the most successful gritty high performers spend up to 70% of their time developing their passion alone.
• Assets of passion: the four developmental stages we experience in realising our passions in life.
• Top level goals: how to set your most important priorities aside from lesser interests as a path to achieving your top-level goal.

Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Get in touch with Angela Duckworth via Twitter or Facebook 
• Angela's websites: https://angeladuckworth.com/ and https://www.characterlab.org/
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, a book by Angela Duckworth
• Angela's TED talk
• University of Pennsylvania, website
• McKinsey, website
• The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers Daniel F. Chambliss

Safi Bahcall is a second-generation physicist and entrepreneur, whose first book, Loonshots, has been described as a cross between Freakonomics and the da Vinci Code. At the heart of the book is a philosophy which is foundational for everything we do at OutsideLens: that you can learn a great deal by applying the tools and techniques from one world, in this case the world of physics and to a lesser extent psychology, to the world of innovation in business. 

Read the full article here: https://outsidelens.com/loonshots-innovation-through-the-lens-of-a-psysicist/ 

What Was Covered:  

• How the structure of a company, rather than its culture, enables or disables innovation 
• The two basic phases in any organisation – who are “artists” and “soldiers” and how to achieve an equilibrium between them  
• The three key elements to build a sustainable innovation system – the metaphor of the ice cube, the garden hoe and the heart 
  

Key Takeaways and Learnings:  

• Using the lens of phase transitions to understand and benefit from structural forces which operate in any organization    
• Why leaders need to keep their artists and soldiers separate when they want to engage in innovation  
• Persistence as the main factor of innovation and how “the rule of three deaths” applies to science and business breakthroughs  

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries, a book by Safi Bahcall
• Safi Bahcall’s website
• Connect with Safi on LinkedIn and Twitter
• McKinsey & Company – Global Management Consulting
• The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology – PCAST
• Science the Endless Frontier – A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush
• Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, a book by Richard Thaler
• Thinking, Fast and Slow, a book by Daniel Kahneman

Vas Narasimhan is not your typical CEO, having started his career in public health, where he became passionate about how to impact health on a large scale. Now, many years later and in the role of CEO at Novartis, his passion remains undiminished. The impact the company is having on patients is remarkable, be it with “miraculous” treatments that cure children of deadly diseases with one pill, or with the Novartis Access program.  

In the first half of my interview with Vas, we discuss what Reimagining Medicine means in an R&D based company that is deeply committed to innovation; addressing the needs of the 2 billion people with no access to health care; and the potential for, and challenges of, radically improving patient outcomes with advanced therapies. 

Read the full article on OutsideLens Blog: https://outsidelens.com/reimagine-medicine-vas-narasimhan/ 

Links And Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

• Novartis
• Novartis Access
• Follow Vas Narasimhan on LinkedIn and Twitter
• Unboss by Jacob Bøtter and Lars Kolind
• The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty by Clayton Christensen, Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon

I am an anthropologist-turned-executive, who has spent my career as a perpetual outsider. I have helped growing businesses in companies like BP, HayGroup, Syngenta and Terramera using the incredible power of diverse perspectives. Both my academic training and decades in the corporate world taught me the same lesson time and time again: examining your world through the eyes of someone from a different background lets you discover new ways forward. 

Several years ago I left the corporate world to live the second half of my life on my own terms. I had a strong desire to give something back. So with business partners I launched a podcast called the Innovation Ecosystem and over the next 3 years I was fortunate to interview almost 100 people, all leaders in their own fields, about innovation, leadership and change.

While these podcasts helped leaders see the world with fresh eyes, they were all still rooted in the language and perspective of business.  

Feedback from listeners and business partners convinced me that this it was time to explore new areas, to go beyond the foothills and to venture into more challenging and exciting terrain.  

As a result I recently created a new business called Outside Lens. The business will help you to escape from the hamster wheel of conference rooms, PowerPoint presentations, and airport lounges. That’s the “Outside” part of the name OutsideLens. And the “Lens” part? As I said, I am an anthropologist by training, and having achieved some moderate success by applying different lenses to business, I understand that fresh ways of looking leads to fresh solutions. Exploring issues through multiple lenses unlocks unimagined possibilities.  

So I founded OutsideLens to leverage this insight, to help leaders navigate the choppy waters of today’s volatile business environment. From the podcasts and my work with organisations and individuals, our goal is always the same: to bring you fresh and diverse perspectives that help you navigate the world we live in.  

With this in mind, what can you expect from me and this podcast going forward?

Well I have a fascinating line up of guests. Given my background, as well as having leaders from the worlds of business, sports, the arts and academia, I am also bringing perspectives from the outside, from the worlds of exploration, photography, anthropology, ethnography.

If you would like to know about us, what else we are doing, or to subscribe to the podcast, explore www.outsidelens.com for more information. I hope you enjoy the upcoming season, and let me know what you think, either on LinkedIn or email me via website.