71. How You Can Reverse Engineer Success (Interview with Ron Friedman)

As Ron Friedman, my guest on this week's episode, explains, we have been taught for generations that there are two ways to succeed either from talent or practice, the latter popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers.

In his new book, Decoding Greatness, Ron describes a third path. One that has quietly launched icons in a wide range of fields from artists, writers and chefs to athletes, inventors and entrepreneurs and one that would be applied widely to learning in the workplace, the path of reverse engineering. Ron is a social psychologist whose main focus is on helping people succeed faster. He is a frequent contributor to publications like Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today and Forbes. Ron’s first book, The Best Place To Work, The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace, which we also discuss in our conversation, was named a Business Book Of The Year by Inc.

In our conversation, Ron and I discuss:

  • The differences between learning through talent practice and reverse engineering
  • How to harness the power of reverse engineering and boost your career
  • Why the three key psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness are at the heart of employee engagement and performance
  • How to learn and acquire new skills
  • How to optimise for workplace relationships and work environments in a hybrid future

This episode is a must listen for anyone interested or involved in creating a culture of performance and continuous learning. So that is Business Leaders, CHROs and anyone in a people analytics, culture, learning, employee experience or HR Business Partner role.

Support for this podcast is brought to you by AG5. To learn more, visit www.ag5.com.

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