February 12, 2016

How good are you at handling a sudden change in plans? What if your success at work depended on it? At a recent Deputy Director for Management Seminar, the self-described “world’s only motivational improviser” Avish Parashar offered a few suggestions.

At the height of the Cold War more than half a century ago, LSD research failed the acid test when investigators, hoping the drug would render its takers unable to lie, found instead that users were unable to be coherent. In the intervening decades, many attempts by U.S. military and security interests to harvest discoveries in neurobiology and psychology for their own uses have fallen as flat as an unwittingly dosed soldier, staggering stoned in a meadow.

Data. It reveals health trends. It uncovers associations between risk factors and disease and helps develop interventions for preventing and treating various conditions. Our reliance on data is at the heart of research. But capturing data can be challenging.