The surprising ingredient that makes businesses work better | Marco Alverà

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2019

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

What is it about unfairness? Whether it's not being invited to a friend's wedding or getting penalized for bad luck or an honest mistake, unfairness often makes us so upset that we can't think straight. And it's not just a personal issue -- it's also bad for business, says Marco Alverà. He explains how his company works to create a culture of fairness -- and how tapping into our innate sense of what's right and wrong makes for happier employees and better results.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks Daily.
0:05.0	This talk features businessman Marco Alvara, recorded live at TED at BCG 2017.
0:14.0	For me, it was not being invited to a friend's wedding.
0:18.0	At first, I didn't really mind.
0:21.6	I thought he was having a small reception.
0:23.6	But then I kept meeting people who were going to the same wedding
0:26.6	and they weren't as close to the groom as I was.
0:30.6	And I felt left out.
0:32.6	That really sucked.
0:33.6	It felt really unfair.
0:36.6	For my daughters, Lipsy and Greta, it was last week. They were taking turns
0:42.9	massaging their mom's back with a toy for back rubs. And then one of the girls felt the other one had a
0:48.9	longer go. That's when I walk into the room to find Greta in a rage shouting, that's not fair!
0:55.5	And Lipsy in tears, and my wife holding a stopwatch to make sure that each girl had precisely
1:01.8	one minute on the toy.
1:05.3	So if you're anything like me or my girls, the last thing that upset you probably also had to do with
1:14.6	unfairness. That's because unfairness triggers us so strongly that we can't think straight. We
1:22.3	become afraid and suspicious. Our unfairness antenna stick up. We feel pain and we walk away. Unfairness is one of the
1:33.3	defining issues of our society. It's one of the root causes of polarization and it's bad news for
1:40.2	business. At work, unfairness make people defensive and disengaged. A study shows that 70% of
1:50.2	workers in the U.S. are disengaged. And this is costing the company's $550 billion a year,
1:59.2	every year. This is like half the total spend on education in the U.S.
	...

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