Welcome to episode #1015 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a moment when scarcity shapes everything from opportunity to attention, understanding who gets what (and why) has become one of the most consequential questions in modern life. Judd Kessler is the inaugural Howard Marks Endowed Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an award-winning economist, and one of the leading thinkers in market design, public policy and behavioral economics. His research examines how rules, incentives, and institutional structures shape outcomes in environments where price alone cannot (or should not) decide allocation, from organ donation systems to education, labor markets, and beyond. Recognized early for his impact, Judd was named one of Forbes' "30 Under 30" in Law and Policy for his work on organ allocation and received the Vernon L. Smith Ascending Scholar Prize in 2021. His first (and new) book, Lucky by Design - The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want, distills years of research into how "hidden markets" - those governed by rules rather than prices - quietly determine access to jobs, schools, tickets, healthcare, and even relationships. Judd explores the mechanics of scarcity, the strategic role of lotteries, waiting lists, and signaling, and how individuals unknowingly participate in market design every day. He also examines how AI is beginning to reshape allocation systems, why visible markets increasingly contain hidden layers, and how better design can improve both efficiency and equity. Grounded in rigorous scholarship yet deeply practical, Judd's work reframes luck not as randomness, but as something shaped by systems we can understand and sometimes redesign. Enjoy the conversation…

• Running time: 57:59.
• Hello from beautiful Montreal.
• Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.
• Listen and subscribe over at Spotify.
• Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Thinking With Mitch Joel.
• Feel free to connect to me directly on LinkedIn.
• Check out ThinkersOne.
• Here is my conversation with Judd Kessler.
• Lucky by Design - The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want.
• Follow Judd on LinkedIn.

Chapters:

(00:00) - Navigating Economic Sentiments.
(03:03) - Understanding Hidden Markets.
(06:11) - The Dynamics of Scarcity and Value.
(08:53) - The Role of Consultants in Hidden Markets.
(11:48) - Market Design and Equity.
(14:57) - Strategies for Market Participation.
(18:11) - The Impact of Social Proof on Demand.
(20:54) - Reimagining Market Structures.
(31:57) - Creating Scarcity and Demand.
(34:28) - Market Design and Allocation Strategies.
(36:39) - The Impact of Replicas and Knockoffs.
(46:44) - Hidden Markets: Positive or Negative?
(49:47) - AI in Market Design.
(59:01) - Becoming a Market Designer.

Welcome to episode #1013 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).

At a time when organizations are wrestling with fractured cultures, hybrid work, and teams struggling to stay connected, it helps to learn from someone who has spent three decades proving that collaboration is not a personality trait but a designed environment, which is why this episode turns to the work of Vanessa Druskat, an award-winning researcher, educator at the University of New Hampshire, and one of the world's leading experts on team emotional intelligence. Vanessa has devoted her career to understanding how teams actually function in the real world, conducting years of field research inside global companies, university systems, and high-pressure environments to uncover the norms, habits, and emotional cues that separate high-performing groups from those that merely coexist. She is a pioneer of the Team Emotional Intelligence (Team EI) model, a framework now used by leaders around the world to build team cultures rooted in shared understanding, psychological safety, and constructive emotional expression. Her latest book, The Emotionally Intelligent Team - Building Collaborative Groups That Outperform The Rest, anchors this conversation and brings together decades of research showing that great teams are not the inevitable result of great individuals but the product of intentional cultures that enable people to listen, challenge, support, and adapt together. In our discussion, Vanessa explores the evolution of emotional intelligence in the workplace, the persistent resistance to emotional concepts in both academia and business, and the growing gap between individual achievement systems and the collective realities of modern work. She explains why leaders must think more like coaches, why norms matter more than personalities, how remote work demands more deliberate emotional connection, and why teams must continually review and recalibrate their dynamics to sustain high performance. Drawing on insights from social neuroscience, organizational psychology, and global fieldwork, she shows how belonging, shared understanding, and a sense of influence are not "soft skills" but hard prerequisites for collaboration in an increasingly polarized and distracted world. Enjoy the conversation…

• Running time: 55:07.
• Hello from beautiful Montreal.
• Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.
• Listen and subscribe over at Spotify.
• Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Thinking With Mitch Joel.
• Feel free to connect to me directly on LinkedIn.
• Check out ThinkersOne.
• Here is my conversation with Vanessa Druskat.
• The Emotionally Intelligent Team - Building Collaborative Groups That Outperform The Rest.
• Team Emotional Intelligence (Team EI) model.
• Follow Vanessa on LinkedIn.

Chapters:

(00:00) - Introduction to Emotional Intelligence in Teams.
(04:14) - The Evolution of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace.
(09:45) - Resistance to Emotional Intelligence in Academia and Business.
(14:30) - The Importance of Team Dynamics.
(19:30) - The Role of Leaders as Coaches.
(26:07) - Building a Culture of Collaboration.
(31:40) - Navigating Remote Work Challenges.
(39:03) - The Power of Eye Contact and Connection.
(42:15) - Understanding Team Members for Better Collaboration.
(47:27) - Monitoring Team Health and Dynamics.
(51:10) - The Impact of Culture on Team Performance.