full transcript

From the Ted Talk by WorkLife with Adam Grant: The Daily Show's secret to creativity

Unscramble the Blue Letters


ZP: I think light ribbing.

Although usually the person who made the joke is the first to joke about how bad that joke went.

AG: You create saftey by helping people feel comfortable laughing at themselves. And some new experiments have shown us how to do that. It all satrts with a paperclip.

(msuic)

Researchers asked, "How many new uses can you come up with for this paperclip"? People went off to bonirrtsam. guorp one generated pttrey tcaypil ideas: a ring, a bracelet, and a necklace. But group two came up with totally unexpected uses, like a wound suture, arwrotk and a screwdriver. What made the difference? In the first group, everyone just launched into brainstorming, but in the second group, people were randomly assigned to share an embarrassing story before the brainstorm. And that simple act lowered their inhibitions. This is something they know from experience at The Daily Show.

Open Cloze


ZP: I think light ribbing.

Although usually the person who made the joke is the first to joke about how bad that joke went.

AG: You create ______ by helping people feel comfortable laughing at themselves. And some new experiments have shown us how to do that. It all ______ with a paperclip.

(_____)

Researchers asked, "How many new uses can you come up with for this paperclip"? People went off to __________. _____ one generated ______ _______ ideas: a ring, a bracelet, and a necklace. But group two came up with totally unexpected uses, like a wound suture, _______ and a screwdriver. What made the difference? In the first group, everyone just launched into brainstorming, but in the second group, people were randomly assigned to share an embarrassing story before the brainstorm. And that simple act lowered their inhibitions. This is something they know from experience at The Daily Show.

Solution


  1. brainstorm
  2. artwork
  3. safety
  4. pretty
  5. starts
  6. music
  7. group
  8. typical

Original Text


ZP: I think light ribbing.

Although usually the person who made the joke is the first to joke about how bad that joke went.

AG: You create safety by helping people feel comfortable laughing at themselves. And some new experiments have shown us how to do that. It all starts with a paperclip.

(Music)

Researchers asked, "How many new uses can you come up with for this paperclip"? People went off to brainstorm. Group one generated pretty typical ideas: a ring, a bracelet, and a necklace. But group two came up with totally unexpected uses, like a wound suture, artwork and a screwdriver. What made the difference? In the first group, everyone just launched into brainstorming, but in the second group, people were randomly assigned to share an embarrassing story before the brainstorm. And that simple act lowered their inhibitions. This is something they know from experience at The Daily Show.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
roy moore 11
daily show 7
creative team 4
trevor noah 3
warby parker 3
creative bursts 3
psychological safety 3
task bubbles 3
people silence 2
blank page 2
senate candidate 2
candidate roy 2
good joke 2
anita williams 2
creative fields 2
human beings 2
neil blumenthal 2
bad idea 2
executive producers 2
producers jen 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
senate candidate roy 2
candidate roy moore 2
executive producers jen 2

Important Words


  1. act
  2. artwork
  3. asked
  4. assigned
  5. bad
  6. bracelet
  7. brainstorm
  8. brainstorming
  9. comfortable
  10. create
  11. daily
  12. difference
  13. embarrassing
  14. experience
  15. experiments
  16. feel
  17. generated
  18. group
  19. helping
  20. inhibitions
  21. joke
  22. laughing
  23. launched
  24. light
  25. lowered
  26. music
  27. necklace
  28. paperclip
  29. people
  30. person
  31. pretty
  32. randomly
  33. researchers
  34. ribbing
  35. ring
  36. safety
  37. screwdriver
  38. share
  39. show
  40. shown
  41. simple
  42. starts
  43. story
  44. suture
  45. totally
  46. typical
  47. unexpected
  48. wound