Five minutes with the faculty: Dan Cable

What question has been obsessing you lately – the one you can’t quite let go of?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how most humans don’t like uncertainty, but do seem to like novelty. The two concepts seem so intertwined, but seem to lead to repulsion versus attraction.

Explain your work as if you’re talking to an intelligent 12-year-old.

I’m trying to find ways that leaders can set up work so that it doesn’t suck. When leaders get it right, both organisations and the employee thrive, meaning that the organisation is doing a better job in society and employees feel like their work is meaningful.

What do people consistently misunderstand about your field?

Lots of people still think that money and paychecks are the main motivator of employee behaviour, when in fact the real variance is that behaviour happens even when the pay is equal. If you pay fairly and then get the issue of pay off the table, you can start to help employees be motivated by the work itself and the impact of their work when they do it well versus poorly. 

What’s a small decision you make every day that has an outsized impact on your work or life?

I do 30-45 minutes exercising and stretching after. It sends the dominos falling in the right direction for the rest of the day.

What’s the most interesting failure you’ve had – and what did it unlock?

When I first arrived at LBS, I was given the Sloan core Organisational Behaviour class to teach. At that time, I had only taught in the US across my career. I had been rated as a good teacher, so I defaulted to teaching the American-style material that I knew, full of US company examples. 

But I could tell pretty quickly that it was not going well with the Sloans. After about an hour, they “stood me down” and said what I was teaching was not useful to them. I was taken aback. It took me a while to realise I was unconsciously being arrogant, thinking that the methods used by US organisations could be exported to very different cultures. 

This, in the end, unlocked a real curiosity in me about what we know about humans – regardless of national culture – and how we could use that knowledge to help employees and organisations thrive.

Which book, idea, or piece of art has quietly shaped how you see the world?

Being You, by Anil Seth. What we perceive as the world is our brain’s best guess of what “out there” might have caused the ambiguous signals that arrive from our senses. As Seth put it, the only thing a brain can do in its circumstance is create a “controlled hallucination” for us. 

What’s the most counterintuitive thing you’ve learned through your research?

I’ve learned that it’s possible for leaders (and psychology professors!) to perform “wise interventions” – when you do something new and small that has disproportionately large effects because it fixes something that’s making people feel emotionally vulnerable. 

For example, how new employees are treated by leaders on their first day, even their first hour, can have a disproportionately large effect on new hires, because they are anxious about performing, meeting new people, and fitting in. In such situations, we tend to highlight the parts of ourselves that conform to the group, which can be both exhausting and stressful. 

We learned that by giving newcomers space to share their personal stories about their strengths at the very start of their relationship, new hires can express themselves more fully by showing their colleagues their most valued behaviors and traits. As a consequence, they were viewed by their coworkers in the way they wanted to be seen, which reduced quitting and improved performance over the long term.

What do you do when you feel stuck intellectually?

I try to read broadly, including lots of fiction, and see what ideas naturally come to me. I also try to “think like a graduate student” when I am reading new published articles, to see what I might disagree with if I didn’t know so much about the field already (i.e. to have a “beginner's brain”)… although I am finding this to be harder and harder as I get older.

What’s an idea you’ve encountered recently that made you think: “I wish I’d thought of that”?

The idea that it takes a lot of courage and confidence to be a humble leader. This insight runs counter to the belief that humility signals weakness, particularly during uncertain times. 

The research shows that humble leaders’ curiosity and openness result in them demonstrating a willingness to listen to employees. In this way, humble leadership shows up through a genuine appreciation of other’s strengths and contributions, and an openness to learning, which helps organisations innovate, adapt, and thrive.

What’s the most useless thing you know a lot about?

House music.