Sheena Iyengar

Think Bigger

When you have a complex problem that needs solving, you need innovation, a solution that is both novel and useful. The Think Bigger Innovation Method utilizes decision-making theory, cognitive science, and industry practice to facilitate creativity and innovation. All innovation – in entrepreneurship, corporations, any field or discipline, even our personal lives – begins with a creative spark. Many of us want that next great idea, but we often forget an important part: how? Where do our best ideas come from? Think Bigger applies cognitive science to this question and provides a six-step method for innovation that is unlike any other. A core element of the method – and of the human condition – is that successful innovation, regardless of vocation or profession, depends on an innovator’s desire. Solving a problem that people are passionate about is a way to bring new meaning to your life and to improve your company, organization, or community.

Audience takeaways:

• Learn to identify, analyze, and solve important problems of your choosing, such as social discourse, pandemic response, or supply chain logistics.
• This format fosters both interdisciplinary teamwork and constructive interactions that draw on every individual’s experience and expertise.
• The method focuses on defining and refining a problem while learning to deconstruct and verbalize that problem to surface and reduce bias.
• At its heart, Think Bigger relies on structured persistence, multi-domain research, and combinatory experimentation.

How to Dream

Have you ever been told to grow up, get your head on straight, and stop dreaming? Have you been advised to give up what you want for what is good and right? If so, you’ve been misled. Dreaming is not the province of only the young, the romantic, and the privileged. Dreaming is not a luxury or frivolity; it is a necessity.

We need to dream, individually and collectively, to conceptualize and create better selves in better worlds. The problem is not that we dream but how we dream. When we become too attached to a particular dream, we allow it to limit our imagination and our possibilities. When we dream without defining and analyzing our desires, goals, and obstacles, we undermine our ability to act.

Audience takeaway:

• Drawing on her extensive research on choice and her unique experience, Sheena Iyengar will guide you through an iterative process that will enable you to dream with greater hope, courage, and purpose.

Too Much Choice

Conventional wisdom would have us believe that that the more choice, the better—that the human ability to manage, and the human desire for, the choice is unlimited.  Findings from a number of experimental and naturalistic studies challenge this assumption and demonstrate that decision-makers are less likely to make a choice when choosing from an extensive array of options.

Audience takeaways:

• When decision-makers do choose in the presence of a greater number of options, they’re likely to choose in a manner at odds with their future financial well-being.
•  Theoretical and practical implications for future research and policy are discussed.

Lead by Choice

You want to make good choices for yourself, your family, your organization. You want to be a kind of superhero when you choose, leaping over or smashing through the wall of options to get to the best one. You want to be so skilled at the art of choosing that people gather in crowds to hear about your exploits in the vast universe—and parallel universes—of choice. Sheena Iyengar can’t grant you special powers, but she can help you understand the inner workings of choice so that you can develop those powers on your own.

Audience takeaways:

• Help you Lead by Choice as she reveals what effective leaders need to know about choice and shows you how to choose your way to success.
• Develop and benefit from leadership skills, no matter what title or position we hold, but in order to do that, we have to learn to choose with wisdom, compassion, and humility.