Ep 185. Tony Ewing: How to Not Talk about Politics at Work
“Ask people about what’s really bothering them.”
Tony Ewing
Maurice “Tony” Ewing is the CEO of Conquer Risk, a Hong Kong-based risk management and compliance consultancy, and he’s also a motivational speaker and coach. As a former senior banking executive, public company board member and Princeton-certified behavioral scientist who was a PhD student of Nobel laureates John Nash and Daniel Kahneman, Tony has a broad experience base. He’s advised over $4 billion in corporate investments and initiatives, using behavioral science methods to inform decision-making and group dynamics. He’s also an active columnist for Forbes and he serves on the Executive Education faculty of the University of Cambridge.
In this episode, Stew and Tony discuss a few of his recent Forbes pieces about how to talk about hot and potentially divisive issues like politics and race at work. Stew and Tony also talk about the added complexity of what “at work” means during the pandemic when so much of interacting with work colleagues occurs while one is sitting in one’s own home and one’s own home environment is visible to colleagues.
Here then is an invitation, a challenge, for you, once you’ve listened to the conversation. Try having a conversation with a work colleague, even if it’s on Zoom and not in person, in which you listen to understand what’s really bothering them about the world as it is. Share your ideas, and your reactions to this episode, by writing to Stew friedman@wharton.upenn.edu or via LinkedIn.
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