Jon Iwata is the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM. As a member of the communications team for over 25 years, Iwata has taken an active interest in watching the workforce change. Every year he meets with IBM’s summer interns for an informal focus group on the state of emerging talent. In this lesson from Big Think+, Iwata explores key millennial values and what every company can do to embrace them.

Over a 22-year career at Goldman Sachs, Robert S. Kaplan had the opportunity to run various businesses and to work with or coach numerous business leaders. He says that successful leadership is less often about having all the answers—and more often about asking the right questions. In Part 1 of The Leadership Challenge, Kaplan explores three strategic key questions that leaders need to ask themselves.

Business performance is increasingly dependent on a firm’s ability to manage and mitigate risk. In this lesson from Big Think+, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner teaches the fundamentals of risk management, based on lessons learned during the 2008 Financial Crisis. By the end of it, you’ll have a three-part framework for developing your organization’s risk management strategy.

As Malcolm Gladwell – author of numerous New York Times bestselling books – points out, mastery and popularity are sometimes linked, but often they are not. If your goal is to become masterful at what you do, the formula is really quite simple: stay focused and do your time. This is the theory behind the 10,000 Hours Rule that Gladwell made famous. Worrying about whether you’re being recognized for your efforts, i.e. popularity, is a product of the ego, not to mention a distraction. . . . So get over yourself and get to work! In this lesson, Gladwell teaches you how.

You may not be aware of it, but certain judgment calls by you or your managers may be holding some of your best people back. In this lesson, management expert Jennifer Brown, a diversity training consultant who works with leading companies, explains the pitfalls and strategies for dealing with unconscious bias.

Edward Norton is an Oscar-nominated actor, director, screenwriter and founder of the non-profit crowdsourcing venture Crowdrise. Experience has taught him that self-confidence is not the key to success. On the contrary, every bold new venture naturally summons up the feeling that “You’re a fraud. This is not going to work." By the end of this lesson from Big Think+, you’ll have a sense of the negative self-talk that might be holding you back and a mental strategy for pushing past your anxieties and fears.

Why are video gamers so obsessed? Because playing gives people a sense of purpose, and winning them makes them feel heroic. "There’s this kind of transfer of our confidence, of our creativity, of our ambition" from game-playing "to our real lives" says game designer Jane McGonigal. And there are organizational benefits as well: studies have shown that we’re more likely to cooperate with someone in our real lives after we’ve played a social game with them that involves a cooperative mission. In this lesson from Big Think+, McGonigal walks you through the ways in which gaming can lead to positive outcomes in the workplace. By the end of it, you may just want to integrate gaming into your break space design or your next corporate retreat!

Ever since he came out to the public in February 2007, former NBA player John Amaechi says he has been "that big gay guy." But there is much more to the 6'10" former center than that. He is one of the very few NBA players with a Ph.D.—after eight years in the big leagues, he returned to academics to pursue a degree in psychology. In this lesson from Big Think+, he shares with you the plan he created as a child to help him accomplish his dreams. The most important step, he says, is knowing yourself and getting clear about your end goal.

Artificial sweeteners make it more difficult for your gut bacteria to digest sugars, increasing the chances of contracting type II diabetes. 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is giving away free bitcoin as a way to encourage wider use of the software-based currency. 

From 1950 to 1980, corporate profits accounted for six percent of nation's gross domestic product. Since 1980, that amount has doubled to twelve percent.

If you grew up in the 80s/90s, relive the joy of the seasonal promise of a great new video game! “Devote yourself, but do not lose who you are!” –Marvel […]

When it comes to making financial gain, people would sooner inflict a moderate amount of pain on themselves than on others.

People who can identify moments of emotional expression in others tend to earn a higher salary, according to a new study conducted by the Department of Psychology at the University of Bonn.

The fortunes used for philanthropic purposes by American billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett will run dry just decades after their patrons pass away.

To be a more virtuous person, surround yourself with emblems of higher moral standards.

When we measure ourselves against someone in close geographical proximity, and if there is a history of close competition, we create a rivalry.

Journalist Eric Schlosser, an executive producer on the film Food Chains, discusses the exploitation of poor workers in the American food system.

Small businesses that use status updates to advertise their products on Facebook will be less visible once new advertising rules take effect in January.

If we ate fewer calories we would reduce harmful farming and industrial practices, and begin treating animals more ethically.