Fascinating MBA Talk of the Week: How to spot a liar (Pamela Meyer)

The business world requires trust. So how can you tell when someone is lying to you? We seem to be an anti-lying society, but yet we are often complicit in letting lies slide. In this talk Pamela Meyer steps through the sociological underpinnings of deception and ways of identifying it.

Highlights:

• Lying is a cooperative act, often for the sake of social graces. Lying is an attempt to bridge what we wish we were, with what we are. The key is knowing "what it is you're hungry for".
• Financial deception eats up to 7% of US company revenues.
• We lie more to strangers than to coworkers, men lie 8x more about themselves than about others, extraverts lie more than introverts, women lie more to protect other people, married people lit to their spouses in 1 of 10 interactions.
• Regular people can only tell who's lying 54% of the time. Trained lie-spotters can get to 90% identification.
• Common hotspots of lying: qualifying language, overly formal responses, too much detail, distancing language
• Honest people accused of wrongdoing: will be cooperative and enthusiastic in helping you get to the truth, willing to brainstorm and name suspects, will be infuriated throughout the entire course of the interview if they are being falsely accused, and will suggest strict rather than lenient punishment for the real wrongdoers.
• Deceptive people accused of wrongdoing: will look withdrawn, include way too much irrelevant details, will tell their story in strict chronological order (but will struggle to tell the story in reverse chronological order), and will exhibit "duping delight" (i.e. smiling when they think they are getting away with the deception).

How many people apply to the HBS/HKS Joint Program?

If you majored in political science, are interested in public service, have ever interned for your congressman, or just enjoy reading FiveThirtyEight or Politico, you should consider applying to the joint degree program between Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School -- the three year program that results in both an MBA and a Masters in Public Policy or a Masters in Public Administration in International Development.

It's hard enough getting into one graduation school, let alone two programs at Harvard! Some people may be intimidated by how many people apply to the joint degree program, which routinely comes with prestigious fellowship funding from both PE Juggernaut David Rubenstein and CEO/Philanthropist Bill George.  The schools themselves are pretty tight-lipped about application numbers, but we can back into it with a little math.

If there are about 25-30 Jointees a year, and the yield for the joint program is about 80% then we have 30-38 admitted students per year. (Note: those who don't enroll in the joint degree program almost always enroll in HBS alone. Some choose GSB instead. Everyone else stays in the workforce.)

If HKS admits about half of the prospective Jointees that get into HBS, then there are about 60-75 students admitted to HBS each year expressing interest in the joint program. (Note: a lot of the MBA-minded applicants take the HKS application for granted, which they shouldn't since HKS is more selective than most elite MBA programs.)

If the admissions rate for prospective Jointees is the same as the general HBS applicant pool (11%), then the joint degree program has 545-680 applicants a year.

Podcasts to listen to as you apply to your MBA

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Build your vocabulary with Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day! Each day a Merriam-Webster editor offers insight into a fascinating new word -- explaining its meaning, current use, and little-known details about its origin. (~2 min per episode)

• Good for: studying vocabulary
• The narrator of this podcast, Peter Sokolowski, combines wordplay and interesting facts in every one of his expositions. For the vocabulary-intensive GRE, I can think of no other podcast to listen to on the go that will expose you to a greater number of obscure and arcane words that you might encounter on your test. Sometimes you'll even encounter a word or two that will perfectly explain a concept that was previously ineffable. 
• The episodes are interesting and very short, making them especially easy to binge consume when you're waiting for something -- like deboarding an airplane.

Finance Career Launch

David Mariano is a Director with Western Reserve Partners, a middle market investment bank in Cleveland, OH. David has spent most of his career working with business owners, CEOs, CFOs and Heads of Corporate Development as an advisor, part-owner and/or business leader. David has served in many other capacities, including Manager of Financial Planning & Analysis, VP of Finance, Head of Marketing and General Manager, and has made the transition from an entry-level, analytical role to one focused on leadership and business development. You and I and everyone else in the first 10-15 years of their career (and beyond, for those willing to admit it) would really like to be mentored, but mentors are impossible to find. I am frequently asked for advice about careers in finance and can do some of this in person or over the phone, but nowhere near as much as I'd like or as often as I'm asked. Finance Career Launch fills this void.

• Good for: exploring careers in finance
• Each episode gives an insight into what it is like to work in or recruit for traditional jobs in finance. Worth listening to as you do your due diligence on the future career you want to have.

HBR IdeaCast

A weekly podcast featuring the leading thinkers in business and management from Harvard Business Review. Produced by Harvard Business Review. (~15 min per episode)

• Good for: interview prep, understanding the state of business research, due diligence on Harvard Business School
• Articles from the acclaimed (and expensive) Harvard Business Review magazine come to life as the staff of the publication sit down with the authors and thought leaders behind the main articles of each issue. Topics are wide ranging, but can veer on the dry and academic side of things. These podcasts are great for finding topics to bring up in your MBA interview, especially if at HBS. You'll have a great answer if you ever get asked about the research you've done on the school.
• Great for plugging in on long commutes.

a16z Podcast

The a16z Podcast discusses tech and culture trends, news, and the future -- especially as ‘software eats the world’. It features industry experts, business leaders, and other interesting thinkers and voices from around the world. This podcast is produced by Andreessen Horowitz (aka “a16z”), a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm. Multiple episodes are released every week; visit a16z.com for more details. (~30 min per episode)

• Good for: understanding the VC, tech, and start-up industries. Specifically, what are the latest ideas, companies, and concepts circulating around Silicon Valley
• Not so much journalism as advocacy, but you're getting it from a market leader in the VC industry. At the very least, it is worth knowing what Andreessen Horowitz is thinking about, especially if your stated goal involves working in the San Francisco ecosystem.

Bigger Pockets

Imagine you are friends with hundreds of real estate investors and entrepreneurs. Now imagine you can grab a beer with each of them and casually chat about failures, successes, motivations, and lessons learned. That’s what The BiggerPockets Podcast delivers. Co-hosted by BiggerPockets’ founder & CEO Joshua Dorkin and active real estate investor Brandon Turner, this podcast provides actionable advice from investors and other real estate professionals every week. The show won’t tell you how to “get rich quick” or sell you a course, boot camp, or guru system; instead, the BiggerPockets Podcast will give you real strategies that work for real people. 

• Good for: personal finances, understanding real estate and investing.
• Solid tips and advice presented in a no-frills way. Little frills, little fluff. Mostly conversations with those who have made it in the real estate industry. Criticisms include that the hosts talk too much relative to the guests and that the level of sarcasm becomes grating.

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders

The DFJ Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar (ETL) is a weekly seminar series on entrepreneurship, co-sponsored by BASES (a student entrepreneurship group), Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and the Department of Management Science and Engineering. (~60 min per episode)

• Good for: those who live on the east coast but want to speak the language of technology, entrepreneurship, and venture capital spoken on the west coast.
• A good blend of thought leadership, high-information/low-noise conversation, and questions asked by an intelligent business school student body. Packed full of good lessons for tech entrepreneurs and inspiring anecdotes to motivate them when times get tough.

Fascinating MBA Talk of the Week: Science Of Persuasion (Dr. Robert Cialdini and Steve Martin)

How can you persuade someone to do what you want? There is perhaps no greater skill for business leaders to master. Is it something innate? Are only certain people charismatic enough to consistently get buy-in from others? In this lecture on the Science of Persuasion, Cialdini and Martin show that techniques for persuasion are actually quite logical and learnable. With only a few minor nudges based on universal human behavior, aspiring MBAs can more effectively persuade peers, clients, and superiors.

Highlights:

• The six universal shortcuts that guide decision-making: reciprocity, scarcity, authority, consistency, liking, and consensus.
• If the waiter gives a mint at the end of the meal, what is the effect on the tip amount? Does the manner in which it is given matter?
• Real estate agents increased business by 20% by having their receptionist list their credentials before putting clients through to them on the phone
• The keys to getting someone to liking you: similarity, paying them compliments, and cooperation towards mutual goals
• Those little cards in your hotel bathroom asking you to save the environment by reusing your towels result in towel result in 35% compliance with towel reuse. There is a way to use the principle of consensus to increase that rate even further. 

Interesting MBA Talk of the Week: Intangible Value (Rory Sutherland)

This has to be the greatest introduction to an MBA marketing class that I've ever seen. At a TED conference geared at environmental sustainability, Rory Sutherland presents an intensely funny talk that goes example by example of how companies create "intangible value" through creative marketing. His thesis is that we can all become wealthier either by accumulating more gold, or by valuing more what we already own.

Highlights:

• How Frederick the Great used creative advertising to get the Germans to eat the potato and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk got his citizens to stop wearing the veil.
• How a frowny face can make your car slow down more than a speed camera and why when Italians get speeding tickets, they lose points on their license.
• Why placebos are great.

What Military Vets bring to the MBA classroom

The former Director of Admissions at Harvard Business School Dee Leopold would famously tell interviewees that admitting a class of MBA students is similar to building a salad. Each student is meant to add a certain flavor to the overall mix. For investment bankers, it is economic intuition and modeling skills for the finance classes. For consultants, it is the marketing and strategy frameworks for those classes. But what is the flavor that we military veterans are meant to add?

As military veterans seek to achieve the benefits of an elite business school – higher paying jobs, vibrant personal networks, a world-class education – this is an important question to ask. Schools like Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth, and Wharton, look for students who will bring voice to certain perspectives in the classroom. When you write your essay, it is important to convey a narrative that gives the admissions committee confidence in your ability to play the role that they have envisioned for you. So what do they look for in vets?

Leadership Experience

Unlike your peers, who at most have indirectly supervised a couple other consultants on a client site, military veterans have an incredible wealth of leadership experiences. Veterans lead many times more people, in diverse organizations, in some of the highest-stress environments in the world. As you write your application, your resume should shout your leadership experience from the rooftops.

Socio-Economic Diversity

Many students at elite schools like Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Chicago Booth, and Wharton come from elite private universities and have generally spent their entire working careers working with those who have done the same. Very few will interact at length with anyone who has not gone to college. In contrast, the military is an incredible melting pot of class. Officers from Dartmouth, UVA, and Notre Dame work side by side with those who dream of completing a degree online from Central Texas University, University of Phoenix, or University of Maryland University College. This experience often gives Veterans higher Emotional Quotients and the “common touch” needed to interact with people who are very different from themselves. That’s a valuable part of diversity that would likely be nowhere else in evidence at prestigious MBA campuses.

Large-Organization Outlook

 Start-ups are “in”, but the fact of the matter is that it is always easier to go from a big company to a smaller one. Ex-military service members excel at big companies like Exxon, General Electric, and Eli Lilly, because they how to navigate large organizations. After all, with 3.1 million service members, there is no bigger American employer than the US Military. The ability to navigate complex power dynamics, advance causes through bureaucracies, and motivate subordinates are all topics that will be central to your MBA leadership classes, giving Vets a lot to contribute in them. 

International Exposure

One of the key issues students grapple with in business school is how to lead global teams that cross different time zones, work styles, functions, and cultures. While pretty much everyone in business school has traveled to other countries, few have substantial work experience in more than one country. Here again, military members often have an advantage, and can speak to the practical complexities that come with such work.

Geopolitical Perspective

When it comes to classes that involve government or foreign policy, often the rest of the class will instinctively turn to hear the perspectives of its Veterans. In addition to having the credibility that comes from wearing the uniform of your country, military leaders are trained early to have a global perspective – to look for geopolitical crises may arise and train to meet those challenges. Many other classmates on the other hand have spent little time thinking about issues outside their teams, firms, or industries.

Interesting Talk of the Week: Finite and Infinite Games of Leadership (Simon Sinek)

In this talk at Google Headquarters, Simon Sinek discusses his latest research into game theory and the relevancy of finite games (games with set participants, rules, and objectives) and infinite games (games lacking such clarity) on building sustaining businesses and company ethics. His speech lasts the first 20 minutes, and the balance is taken up with Q&A from Google employees.

Highlights:

• Why those playing infinite games will outlast those playing finite games (the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War, Apple vs Microsoft).
• How infinite game players think about competition as a game to be the best version of themselves, versus a finite game player who thinks about how to beat the competition.
• The absurdity of the "beating the competition" mindset.
• How the game informs values. E.g. why does the US Military heal the opponents they shoot in combat?

Top Podcasts for MBAs

How I Built This 

How I Built This is a podcast about innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. Each episode is a narrative journey marked by triumphs, failures, serendipity and insight — told by the founders of some of the world's best known companies and brands. If you've ever built something from nothing, something you really care about — or even just dream about it. (45 min per episode)

• Good for: Entrepreneurs, Tech, VCs, General Managers
• Interesting interviews with CEOs and Founders that help you "see sooner, faster" when reacting to challenges that any entrepreneur will encounter. Episodes are pretty inspiring. If you're an entrepreneurial person with a good idea but who has also been procrastinating, this will light a fire under your butt.
• Very conversational and easy to listen to. Guy Raz is a great interviewer and the subjects are pretty compelling.

NPR News Now

NPR News Now is the latest news in five minutes. Updated hourly. (5 min per episode)

• Good for: everyone. 
• The fastest way to keep up to date on your way to and from class. New episodes are updated hourly (indexed on Washington DC time) and seldom repeat segments wholesale, so it is worth listening to whenever there is an update. Episodes are short so they won't burn your cell phone's data plan.
• An excellent balance of US and world news with a consistently professional narration and neutral tone of voice. Much less prone to hysterics and hyperbole than CNN or Fox.

Revisionist History

Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell's journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every episode re-examines something from the past—an event, a person, an idea, even a song—and asks whether we got it right the first time. From Panoply Media. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance. (~35 min per episode)

• Good for: consultants, social enterprise, public sector
• Basically, every episode of this podcast is a case study in how to get a good grade in a case-based classroom. You may not always agree with Gladwell's points, but they are always incredibly interesting, consequential, well-researched, and surprising. Gladwell points out how complicated systems such as government work and where they have broken down in surprising ways in the past. This is a great source of inspiration if you are interested in improving the world but are unsure which issues are most pressing.
• If you've read any of his books (or better yet, listened to any of his audiobook readings) you know Gladwell is a master story teller and narrator. These are the kinds of podcasts you enjoy alone, like a rich dessert. 

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio is an award-winning weekly podcast with 8 million downloads per month. It can also be heard on public radio stations across the country, on SiriusXM, on several major airlines, and elsewhere. Host Stephen J. Dubner has surprising conversations that explore the riddles of everyday life and the weird wrinkles of human nature — from cheating and crime to parenting and sports. Dubner talks with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, social scientists and entrepreneurs — and his Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt. Freakonomics Radio is produced by Dubner Productions and WNYC Studios. (~40 min per episode)

• Good for: Investors, Bankers, Consultants.
• Conversational show that presents contrarian views meant to change your mind. Definitely has a libertarian anti-government lean and has been criticized for letting ideology get in the way or research.
• Generally interesting ideas to bat around with friends. Might even lead to some interesting investing decisions. 

Planet Money

The economy, explained, with stories and surprises. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, "Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy." Now imagine that's actually a fun evening. That's what we're going for at Planet Money.

• Good for: Investors, Entrepreneurs, VCs
• Each episode examines a person or dissects a big idea that had had a profound and previously hidden impact on the economy. Great at helping build an intuition for the cause and effect of business decisions and policy on the overall landscape of the economy.
• Great presenters with a lot of enthusiasm for their ideas. Perfect balance of conversational and informative.

Recode Decode

One of tech's most prominent journalists, Kara Swisher is known for her insightful reporting and straight-shooting style. Listen in as she hosts hard-hitting interviews about the week in tech with influential business leaders and outspoken personalities from media, politics and more.

• Good for: VCs, Tech,
• Kara Swisher interviews the heros of VC, tech and other fields. It's as close as you would otherwise get to a lot of them. However, Swisher is no "gotcha journalist" and often the episodes turn into puff pieces for their subjects. Regardless, it is a front row seat into the mindset of Silicon Valley and the first edition of what leaders there are talking about. 
• An easy podcast to come and go with. Good for listening to when you are doing something else.