718: How Leaders Can Use the Algorithms for Good, with Sandra Matz
Coaching for Leaders
Dave Stachowiak
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 February 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sandra Matz is a Columbia Business School professor, computational social scientist, and pioneering expert in psychological targeting. Her research uncovers the hidden relationships between our digital lives and our psychology with the goal of helping businesses and individuals make better decisions. She is the author of Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior*.
Algorithms are becoming more influential with each passing day. That’s why leaders must understand their power and then decide how their organizations engage. In this conversation, Sandra and I discuss where psychological targeting is at, where it’s going, and the opportunity you have to make the world a bit better.
Key Points
Everyone knows everything in a small town (for better or worse). In the same way, psychological targeting can used for both evil and good.
Psychological targeting already is successful at identifying wealth, personality, income level, and sexual orientation – and keeps improving.
None of this is going away. Understanding how the game of targeting is played can help you make it work to your advantage.
Leaders and organization who use targeting responsibly can do tremendous good, including helping people save money and flag early interventions for health crises.
Be transparent with what data you’re collecting how you’re using it. Consider newer practices like federated learning that protect privacy and provide permission-based access.
Design systems and practices that anticipate the reality of future leaders with different values.
Resources Mentioned
Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior by Sandra Matz
Interview Notes
Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).
Related Episodes
Serve Others Through Marketing, with Seth Godin (episode 381)
The Way to Earn Attention, with Raja Rajamannar (episode 521)
The Reason People Make Buying Decisions, with Marcus Collins (episode 664)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Algorithms are becoming more influential with every passing day. That's why leaders must understand their power and then decide how their organizations engage. |
| 0:10.7 | In this episode, where psychological targeting is at, where it's going, and the opportunity you have to make the world a bit better. |
| 0:20.8 | This is Coaching for Leaders, Episode 718. |
| 0:25.2 | Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential. |
| 0:33.6 | Greetings to you from Orange County, California. |
| 0:36.6 | This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stahofiak. |
| 0:41.8 | Leaders aren't born. They're made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. |
| 0:50.2 | So much is changing about how we work and how we utilize technology. We've seen so much in the news |
| 0:57.8 | in recent years on how organizations are using data and targeting in order to influence behavior. |
| 1:06.1 | Today, a conversation that helps open the door for all of us to get better about what's happening |
| 1:12.1 | and more importantly, how we as leaders can do a better job at making choices in our |
| 1:17.0 | organizations that really create the world that we want. And I am so pleased to welcome |
| 1:22.3 | Sandra Mott's to the show. She is a Columbia Business School professor, computational social scientist, and pioneering expert in psychological targeting. |
| 1:31.7 | Her research uncovers the hidden relationships between our digital lives and our psychology, with the goal of helping businesses and individuals make better decisions. |
| 1:41.4 | She is the author of Mind Masters, the data-driven science of predicting and |
| 1:46.5 | changing human behavior. Sandra, what a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for having me, |
| 1:52.1 | Dave. You write in the book about your experience of growing up in a small town in Germany. And as anyone who's lived in a small town knows, |
| 2:03.8 | everyone knows your stuff, right? And there are some really great benefits that come from that. |
| 2:11.5 | And there's also some real downsides, too, aren't there? Very much so. So yeah, you're absolutely right. I grew up in this |
| 2:18.8 | tiny village, 500 people in the southwest corner of Germany, or actually as my parents keep |
| 2:24.7 | reminding me, it's grown to a thousand since I left, which I can assure you is not making |
| 2:30.1 | that much of a difference. But you're absolutely right. I think the feeling that I got growing up |
... |
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