Daydream Believer: Erik Dane

“Intuition is not something magical. It's pattern matching. The more advanced somebody is in their field of study, the more likely the patterns they match will be sophisticated.”

Summary

We're talking about how difficult and how important it is to keep your mind focused on the here and now. We're talking about why letting your mind wander at work might not be such a bad idea. And we're talking about how some of these softer skills apply in the bang-bang business world that's so often obsessed with hard data.

Episode Notes

During On Principle’s regular season, we tell the stories of business leaders navigating tough calls and pivotal moments. Between seasons, we share bonus episodes that delve deeper into earlier interviews, elaborating on research, scholarship and experience about values-based, data-driven decision-making.

Our first season three bonus episode looks back at my conversation with Erik Dane, an associate professor of organizational behavior at WashU Olin Business School. We originally spoke for our episode called “Warrior Heart, No Stigma" featuring Gen. Mike Minihan. Today, we're revisiting Erik's comments about how mindfulness and its perceived opposite, mind-wandering, are valuable tools in the workplace by driving efficiency, creativity and well-being.

Credits

This podcast is a production of Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School. Contributors include:

Katie Wools, Cathy Myrick, Lesley Liesman and Judy Milanovits, creative assistance
Jill Young Miller, fact checking and creative assistance
Hayden Molinarolo, original music and sound design
Mike Martin Media, editing
Sophia Passantino, social media
Lexie O'Brien and Erik Buschardt, website support
Mark P. Taylor, strategic support
Paula Crews, creative vision and strategic support

Special thanks to Ray Irving and his team at WashU Olin’s Center for Digital Education, including our audio engineer, Austin Alred.

Additional information

Please subscribe on your favorite podcasting app to be notified when each new episode of On Principle is available.

Download the podcast transcript PDF