"Your talk was motivating – it really inspired me to think beyond my own abilities."
-Jason Wolfe, CEO/Founder"Thoroughly enjoyed your thought-provoking presentation. The model you are advocating is simple yet powerful."
-NY Angels Member"Thank you for your contribution to making the Women in Asian Business Conference in Singapore such an outstanding success. From the very positive feedback we have received, your presentation was a highlight of the agenda for many in the audience. The participation rate at the conference exceeded our expectation with almost 750 people attending the event and over 200 organizations from across the financial services, technology, media, consumer, agribusiness, construction, and natural resources sectors were represented at the conference. The event also attracted significant coverage in the Asian and European press, as well as on all major wires services. I personally believe the conference made a valuable contribution to advancing the discussion on the need for greater gender diversity in the workplace in Asia. There was a compelling case for how increased gender diversity in Asia can only improve business."
- Deutsche Bank"Sheena Iyengar was a big hit with the audience and really capped off our day of inspiring talks! "
- St. Joseph's Health Centre Foundation"We have heard so many rave reviews about your presentation at the IAPP Global Summit that it would be fair to say that the event was a huge success in great part due to your participation. So, thank you for working with us this year. "
-International Association of Privacy Professionals"Choice, perhaps the highest good in the American socioeconomic lexicon, is a very mixed blessing, according to this fascinating study of decision making and its discontents. Psychologist Iyengar cites evidence that a paucity of choice can damage the mental and physical health of dogs, rats, and British civil servants alike. But, she contends, choice can also mislead and burden us: advertising manipulates us through the illusion of choice; a surfeit of choices can paralyze decision making; and some choices, like the decision to withdraw life support from a loved one, are so terrible that we are happier if we delegate them to others. Iyengar draws on everything from the pensees of Albert Camus to The Matrix, but her focus is on the ingenious experiments that psychologists have concocted to explore the vagaries of choice. (In her own experiment, shoppers presented with an assortment of 24 jams were 1/10th as likely to buy some than those who were shown a mere six.) Iyengar writes in a lucid, catchy style, very much in the Malcolm Gladwell vein of pop psychology-cum-social commentary, but with more rigor. The result is a delightful, astonishing take on the pitfalls of making up one's mind."
-Publisher's Weekly"Prominent social psychologist Iyengar begins her unique and invigorating study of choice by telling the story of a man who survived for 76 days stranded alone in the middle of the ocean. He chose to live, Iyengar tell us, just as she has chosen not to let her blindness keep her from conducting prodigious research and intrepid experiments. Iyengar exponentially expands our understanding of the central role choice plays in the lives of animals and humans in a rapid-fire, many-faceted, and original inquiry that is at once personable and commanding. She explains our 'biological need for choice and control,' the decision process, and the myriad influences that dictate everything from purchasing choices to career moves, voting, medical decisions, and marriage. The daughter of Sikh immigrants from India, Iyengar is particularly astute in her globally significant analysis of the striking differences between how Americans and Asians make decisions. Much of this eye-opening anatomy of choice focuses on consumerism, a lively, revealing arena, but Iyengar's high-voltage curiosity and penetrating insights are far more valuable when applied to deeper matters of existence."
-Booklist"Columbia Business School professor Sheena Iyengar has spent the past 18 years studying how we make decisions and the ways our choices affect our lives. Here she probes choices ranging from soda brands to spouses and explains often surprising research on choice. From a survey showing that arranged marriages may produce more long-term happiness than love-marriages to a study concluding that people are more likely to buy jam if they're offered fewer flavors to choose from, The Art of Choosing is filled with insights likely to leave readers more careful about the choices they make."
-Worth Magazine"While the last decade has seen an outpouring of books on choice (many of which cite Iyengar's work, including Malcolm Gladwell's Blink), few can get as close to the topic as Iyengar, whose riveting research and insight comprise her new book, The Art of Choosing."
-Body & Soul Magazine"No one asks better questions, or comes up with more intriguing answers. "
-Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers"Sheena Iyengar's work on choice and how our minds deal with it has been groundbreaking, repeatedly surprising, and enormously important. She is someone we need to listen to."
-Atul Gawande, author of Complications and Better"An intimate, beautifully written, and deeply compelling book that examines both the art and science of making wise decisions. Choosing to read it should be the easiest choice you ever make. "
-Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness"Thank you for a terrific session last week with our management team! Everyone absolutely LOVED your speech - and the workshops were a fantastic way to apply the learning to our specific brand needs. Thank you for taking the time to organize insightful questions/topics, and guide our team through a well thought out brainstorming framework."
-The North FaceThink Bigger with AI: How to Fuel Your Best Ideas
Many of us want that next great idea, but we often forget an important part: how?
Columbia Business School's DR. SHEENA IYENGAR has developed the Think Bigger framework, a six-step method for innovation that helps answer this question. Iyengar's work with AI, particularly through her "Choice Mapper" tool, demonstrates how AI can enhance our ability to innovate and make better choices. This talk explores the intersection of AI and human creativity, showing how technology can be leveraged to unlock our full potential.
Thinking Bigger: Inspiring Innovation
Where do our best ideas come from?
In her course and book Think Bigger, DR. SHEENA IYENGAR presents a six-step method that draws on insights from neurological and cognitive science to unlock creative potential. This talk explores how anyone can generate innovative ideas by putting their mind to work effectively.
How To Dream: Unlock Greater Creative Potential
Have you ever been told to grow up, get your head on straight, and stop dreaming? Luckily, we can learn to dream in a way that is not only intentional and adaptive but also inventive.
Drawing on her extensive research on choice and her unique experience, DR. SHEENA IYENGAR guides audiences through an iterative process to enable dreaming with greater hope, courage, and purpose.
For Leadership: The Art of Choosing
In The Art of Choosing, Columbia Business School professor DR. SHEENA IYENGAR draws from her award-winning, discipline-spanning research to explore the "3 Cs" of choosing: Choice Overload, Culture, and Creativity. Iyengar delves into the intricacies of how we make choices and how those choices shape our lives. This talk covers a range of decisions, from the trivial to the profound, offering surprising insights into our decision-making processes and how we can improve them.
Key Takeaways from Dr. Iyengar’s speech:
Making Meaningful Choices to Spark Innovation
DR. SHEENA IYENGAR can’t grant you special powers, but she can help you understand the inner workings of choice. In particular, she can help you lead by choice, revealing what effective leaders need to know about choice and how to choose your way to success. Sheena believes that all of us can develop and benefit from leadership skills, no matter what title or position we hold, by learning to choose wisdom, compassion, and humility.
Columbia Business School’s Dr. Sheena Iyengar shares the impact of her findings of her book, ‘Think Bigger'
In a groundbreaking new Columbia Business School course called "Think Bigger," DR. SHEENA IYENGAR created a six-step method for teaching people how to take advantage of lessons learned from neurological and cognitive science to put our minds to work when generating our best ideas. The complementary book, Think Bigger, was a Gold Medal Winner of the 2024 Axiom Business Book Award. In live engagements, Dr. Iyengar offers an innovative evidence-backed method for generating big ideas, leading a workshop to prove anybody can produce revolutionary ideas.
Watch Dr. Sheena Iyengar speak at the University of Hawai'i >>
Sheena S. Iyengar is the S.T. Lee Professor of Business and the Academic Director of the Innovation Hub at the Columbia Business School. She is one of the world’s experts on choice and innovation.
Iyengar is the recipient of the Thinkers50 2023 Innovation Award and the author of two award-winning books, The Art of Choosing (2010 Financial Times Business Book of the Year and #3 Bestselling Business Book on Amazon) and Think Bigger: How to Innovate (2023 Gold Medal recipient for the Axiom Business Book Awards and Thinkers50 Top 10 Management Book of the Year). Her recorded TED Talks have received a collective 7 million views and she regularly appears in top tier media such as The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The New Yorker, The Economist, Bloomberg Businessweek, CNBC, CNN, The BBC, and NPR.
Iyengar is famously recognized for her “Jam Study,” which transformed the way we think about products offered in the marketplace and how we curate them for customers. Her “Jam Study” found that too many choices reduces customer purchasing and corporate growth. Since the Jam Study, there have been 1,000+ studies on the phenomena of choice overload which led to the pervasive 80/20 rule, observing that 80% of a company’s outcomes (outputs and revenue) come from 20% of causes (inputs and choices). She has applied her expertise in choice to advise hundreds of companies spanning business, technology, consumer retail, media, consulting, investing, and STEM to transform their decision-making criteria and elevate the stakeholder experience.
Iyengar created the Think Bigger method for innovative thinking and problem-solving based on recent advances in neuro- and cognitive sciences. Where prevailing methods for innovation, such as Design Thinking, teaches methods of customer research and feedback, Think Bigger concentrates on how creative ideas form in your mind and teaches a six-step method for innovation.
She was ranked by the Thinkers50 as a Top 10 Management Thinker in 2023. In 2022, Iyengar was ranked by the Asian American Business Development Center as one of the 50 Outstanding Asian Americans in Business. She received the Outstanding Faculty Award from the CBS Executive MBA Class of 2021. In 2012, Iyengar was recognized by Poets and Quants as one of the Best Business School Professors for her work merging academia with practice. In 2002, she was the only social scientist to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the Office of the President.
Iyengar holds a dual degree from the University of Pennsylvania, with a BS in Economics from the Wharton School and a BA in psychology from the College of Arts and Sciences. She received her PhD from Stanford University.
In her personal life, as a blind woman, Iyengar intuitively used Think Bigger to find her calling and strives to inspire others to do the same.