This morning I listened to a few interesting podcasts from Freakonomics.
The one on whaling interested me because of my Sea Shanties background.
The Bad Bosses episode amazed me because it asserted that there was no evidence for anything we teach in leadership programs (but what are the researchers researching?) partly because many of them are based on surveys, not on actual behaviour, and becuase of course it’s hard to measure a team’s productivity and is productivity what you want to measure anyway? it touches on the Peter Principle, looks at some research on how bosses can affect morale in the team and a few other things. worth a listen.
On a weird and wonderful note, the episode on roundabouts and traffic lights had some interesting stats on acceptance of change (short summary: traffic lights impede traffic and cost a lot. Roundabouts are cheaper, have very low maintenance costs and keep traffic flowing better. Also a lower accident/mortality rate at intersections. But Americans hate the idea (too european?). But 6 weeks after install they like them better and within 1 year they are totally fine with roundabouts. The data on how well accepted they are at one point will be useful to me someday).
