Ohio University Leader Lounge

Exploring Emotional Intelligence and Leadership with Dr. Janna Chimeli: Navigating Bias, Decision Making, and Growth

• The Robert D. Walter Center for Strategic Leadership

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Welcome to "The Leader Lounge," where we dive deep into the realm of emotional intelligence and impactful leadership with the accomplished Dr. Janna Chimeli. Join us as she unravels the complexities of bias, decision-making, and personal growth in the context of leadership. 

 In this engaging episode, Dr. Chimeli shares invaluable insights into recognizing and addressing biases that shape our perspectives. She emphasizes the role of emotions as tools for effective decision-making, guiding us to navigate the fine balance between data-driven strategies and embracing human sentiments. Through thought-provoking conversations, Dr. Chimeli unveils her innovative approach to fostering emotional intelligence within leadership programs, creating an open environment for discussions on emotions, biases, and growth. Tune in to "The Leader Lounge" for an enlightening exploration of harnessing emotions, making informed choices, and cultivating impactful leadership skills with Dr. Janna Chimeli's expert guidance.


For more information about the Ohio University MSM Program, click this link!

Check out the Robert D. Walter Center for Strategic Leadership program here.

OnBrand Podcast Studios produced this episode. Special thanks to Audio Engineer Alex Winnenberg, Producer Nick Winnenberg, and Marketing Specialist Cori Stokes.

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome back to another episode of the Leader Lounge. We're here at the Robert D. Walter Center for Strategic Leadership, Nick Winnenberg and myself with Dr. Janna Chamelli.

SPEAKER_03:

That was way better than what I did. How are you ladies doing today?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm doing

SPEAKER_00:

well,

SPEAKER_01:

thank you. How

SPEAKER_00:

are you?

SPEAKER_03:

It is a beautiful Friday morning in Athens, Ohio, but it's way too early. So first, thank you for agreeing to be our first guest today.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Can you run us through your experience a little bit and what got you to Ohio University?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. I was studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and I moved here because of my... husband then, so that's more of a personal story. Yeah, so my ex-husband now, husband then, got a job here, a job offer, and I was, reading about judgment and decision-making and I looked into the psychology department and I noticed that several of their faculty specialized in judgment and decision-making. So I was very excited to move here because my plan was to study judgment and decision-making. And that's where I have my PhD.

SPEAKER_03:

Nice. And when you say you originally moved here, where did you move from?

SPEAKER_01:

I was in South Nyack, New York. I'm originally from Brazil, but I was. So the first place I moved here was Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. Okay. And then I moved to South Nyack, New York, and then Athens, Ohio.

SPEAKER_03:

And have you always had an interest in decision-making? Where did that spawn from?

SPEAKER_01:

No. Actually, so I was, when I was, so I finished a master's in Latin American studies in Illinois. Then we moved to New York where my husband then did his postdoc in environmental economics. And we had a child, so I was taking care of my son. And one day he knew I was, although loving and enjoying spending time with my son, I was craving cognitive

SPEAKER_03:

stimulation. I think that happens a lot.

SPEAKER_01:

So he mentioned, hey, two psychologists won the Nobel Prize in economics. Do you want read their work?" And I said, sure. And it was Kahneman and Tversky's work on judgment bias, and I fell in love with it immediately. And I said, this is how I see the world. I see the world by thinking how do we form judgments, how we form perceptions of things and make decisions from the littlest ones to the most meaningful, So I said, this is what I want to study. I didn't know. That's not an area of psychology that I knew before. And they actually started that area in psychology. So I became very interested. And it was more like, I relate to this. And that's what I want to do.

SPEAKER_03:

And I think it's so... interesting and fun, because when I originally took the MS, you were the second course I took. So first it was Dr. B's course, and then it was your course. And seeing the different teaching styles that both of you have, it's night and day. They're both fantastic, right?

SPEAKER_00:

And I think

SPEAKER_03:

what was so interesting about your teaching style is you made me think and come to terms with my own bias. Because I remember the very first course you taught was, do you have bias? And I was like, of course not. Like, I'm 20, 23, I don't have bias. Like, bias is something they had in the 60s. But you really exposed that. Everyone has bias, right? And just that eye-opening experience of we make those judgments from our past experiences, it was eye-opening. So how have you found that fits in with the professional development, the leadership courses that you teach?

SPEAKER_01:

I think one of the most important things in leadership development is grow at the same time that you help other people grow without telling them what to do, how to grow. and what their problems are. So I come from the point of, we have this thing that we all have in common, right? We have limited information about things, and that limited information that we have about things are bias, because the only way of not having bias is to have complete information. But none of us do. Even if we could, potentially be presented with perfect information, which we are not. We don't have the cognitive capacity to absorb all the information. And also we filter information based on past experiences, perception, what we focus on, attention. things we remember, things we freely associate, and that leads to bias. So the only way, in my opinion, that we can grow is if we come to terms with that. And that's inherent of the human condition, so it's not something to be defensive. It's something to embrace and understand, because once you do, then you grow. And it's very difficult to... tell somebody that they are biased in a graceful way. So that's what I try to do. We all are, so let's all grow together and learn from each other's biases. And in that regard, I feel that artificial intelligence is a wonderful gain because we can see judgment bias and decision-making bias on a machine. and take away the intention. Because one of the problems with bias is we associate with intention. And that's so helpful because

SPEAKER_00:

we don't often learn about that in you know anywhere really but in graduate programs right we don't often learn like we're all biased and here we can look at data that's biased and kind of show us you know what is involved there so you've got kind of the cognitive psychology and judgment background then you've also got the data analytics background side and I think for our students that's so important and for ourselves but for our students who are in their first three classes, their first certificate in the management and leadership certificate, which starts the masters of science and management. It's these three courses with Dr. Chimeli's managerial decision-making course. And I can assure you that managerial decision-making other places is taught in a more sort of formulaic way, not good or bad, but just in a different way. This is really, it delves into you as an instrument, right? The person. and seeing what biases they have so that they can work better. And one thing that I think is really interesting is within Dr. Tomelli herself, we're always looking at, in leadership development, we're always looking at leaders' technical skills outpacing their personal individual leadership skills and trying to measure, you know, line those up, particularly coming out of college or out of grad school. And you're really honing in on both and are an expert in both, but really developing that personal side.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I love that you use the word instrument because think about tools, people who work with tools, actual tools. You don't start your work until you make sure all your tools are sharp and properly cleaned or ready to work. But But those are physical tools. We work with people. When we manage people or projects, when we are in a leadership position, we don't work with those physical tools. We work with humans. And we don't think that those are also tools that we have to sharpen and clean and make sure they are ready. That's true. And so that's how I see it. We need to work on these kinds of our interpersonal or within ourselves tools before we go to work.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. That's a fantastic representation. And just to go back to the difference that you see with these university versus other universities where this is taught, Again, your course was very, it was a ton of information. It was a lot of reading. It was the Hogan Assessment. It was very qualitative based. When I jumped to yours, a very first class, you were very conversational and you brought that to the forefront as I'm gonna help you build as a leader. And that was so inspirational, but at the same time, it was very conversation driven. I never once felt like I was on the spot, but you were having a very uncomfortable conversation. So how do you navigate that? Because no one's gonna be like, oh, I do have bias. Let's talk about it, right? I do have this preconceived notion from childhood?

SPEAKER_01:

So that is, the conversation is a tool. We are more likely to engage in honest and free and take away the filters that we use to protect ourselves when we are in a conversation than when we are in an interview, right? So if I create a course on, you have the readings, you have the material, you have all in the background of your brain. So now I want to engage you in a way that takes away your defenses. So that's why I engage in conversations.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's funny because you could tell the very first day and everyone's like, do we actually talk about this? Are we allowed to talk about this? But by the third week, everyone was an open book about it all. So how have you built that culture around that course? I mean, that couldn't have been easy. It

SPEAKER_01:

is not. I start, I try to do by example. Those things are hard to talk about, but they are also part of our lives, and we all think those. We all have those thoughts. And I think it's wonderful to create a safe space because it's also, in a leadership position, it should be great for you to create a space where people can come and tell you honestly even uncomfortable things that are happening in the workplace or team dynamics. So it's okay to talk about these things as long as the goal is to improve and be honest and not just judge and I'm not being very articulate here. No, you're doing great.

SPEAKER_00:

But I think, yeah, what you're doing is you're creating that open space, and you're not pushing anybody beyond their comfort zone. They can bring what they want wherever they are, but you're creating that space for them to be open and as practicing really what it's like to be a manager, that you're going to have people with all different biases, including your own, and need to have those conversations, and you're kind of modeling how to do that.

SPEAKER_01:

I think when you're coming from an honest, positive place, even if you're talking about negative, difficult things, I think people relate. People see that you're coming from a good place. You're coming from an honest place. Yes, life is difficult sometimes. Dynamics are difficult sometimes. We do have difficult thoughts sometimes. We do have negative thoughts and challenges. not the best version of ourselves sometimes. But how can we go to the best version of ourselves if we don't realize that at times we are not? And that's okay. That's part of a growth.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. And you haven't done just this in the course. You also did some consulting work too, correct?

SPEAKER_01:

Say that again?

SPEAKER_03:

Sorry, you've done consulting work as well.

SPEAKER_01:

I've done consulting

SPEAKER_03:

work as well. So have you noticed, look again, students versus executive vice presidents? Is there an overlap there? Or to have that conversation with someone that's had 30 years professional experience, are they open to those conversations? as well?

SPEAKER_01:

They can get open to the conversation. It takes a little longer because once you get to that position, you don't open up as easily in a professional conversation. The students are more, yeah, let's talk. Let's talk

SPEAKER_03:

about it. Let's get into it, right?

SPEAKER_01:

But yes, once you engage in a conversation, if you actually are able to engage somebody in the conversation and they are enjoying the conversation, then it's easy for them to let go of their defenses and filters.

SPEAKER_03:

And one of the funny things, too, I've noticed kind of surrounding you as a professor is after people have gone through your course at LDC, at the different events, the networking event, people are way more likely to open up to you and just like walk up and start talking about random things. Have you noticed that as well? It's like that safe space follows

SPEAKER_01:

you everywhere you go. And I love that. And I love that people come and say, oh, I now noticed this. I now noticed this. I went through this situation. And I noticed on myself and on other people, and I love that that opens up recognition of those bias without the judgment, without the judgment that I'm using now, without the negative connotation of the judgment on themselves and other people.

SPEAKER_03:

100%. And the one that really was looking at heuristics was the anchoring bias.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

I catch that. everywhere now. I mean, seriously, like every advertisement I see, I'm like, it's anchoring bias, right? It's across the board. So I mean, there's practical obligations to just understanding the trickery behind it as

SPEAKER_01:

well. Yeah, so that's exactly how I see the world. That's what I mentioned in the beginning. That's all we do all the time, because all the time we have to form an impression. We have to form a judgment that goes to a decision. All those biases and mental shortcuts that we use are present all the time.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. So looking at university and the courses you're teaching now, what do you think the next steps are, building this program or building the coursework around bias and decision-making?

SPEAKER_01:

So I teach data analysis, data analytics, and I teach judgment and decision-making.

SPEAKER_03:

Which you'd think would be crazy different.

SPEAKER_01:

Anyway, go ahead. And part of the dynamic between the three of us is that Gregorio is an economist, and my area of psychology came from economics, although he teaches very differently than I do, but it's also this idea of choice, because he's gonna talk about strategy, and strategy involves a whole lot of choices and judgment formation, right? So I love that I can create... I can provide the baseline for the understanding of how these strategies come about within the person. not outside. I

SPEAKER_02:

love that.

SPEAKER_01:

But back to your question, I teach data analytics and judgment and decision making. So my goal now is to combine these two things through artificial intelligence, because now we talk about data-driven decisions. And one of the first things that I talk about in my class is, what is not data-driven decisions? Because we talk about data-driven decisions as, we have this new, obviously it's not new, because we've been talking about data for a while, but it's, oh, now we have data, so it's data-driven decision. Data is information. So when do you make decisions that are not information-based? So everything is data-driven. And because the data are in a spreadsheet, or as numbers, or analyzed by a machine, they're not any less biased than the data analysis that you do within yourself, in your own brain. And so my goal is to, data adds value. but it doesn't replace our process of forming judgments and making decisions. So one of my goals is to discuss bias in a way that it's inherent to the human condition and we should all embrace and understand and be fine with it. Another one is emotions, gut feelings. We tend to think that decisions that are based on emotions and I'm saying it wrong, not based, that include emotions and include God's feelings are not trustworthy. They are. In terms of evolution, we have those emotions and those feelings for a reason because they help us navigate the world and survive the world. So they are important. The problem is people misconstrued decisions involving emotions on decisions that are solely based on emotions. But any decision that is solely based on one thing, so if I'm going to buy a house and the only criteria I have is price, I may not get the best house for me.

SPEAKER_03:

You probably

SPEAKER_01:

won't. If the only criteria I have is the size of a kitchen, I'll probably struggle with other things. You're getting closer in

SPEAKER_03:

my perspective,

SPEAKER_01:

but you know, it's fine. You prioritize. Kitchen is very important, because most things happening in the kitchen, it's important, but you don't forget about the other attributes that should be part of your decision process. Emotion is the same thing. Emotions are included. They are important, but your effort is, I'm not gonna make a decision based on that alone, although I'm not going to neglect that or ignore that. even because if you think that you will, you still won't. We are human animals, but not human animals. We are emotional beings. We will have emotions regardless, so we can pretend that they are not there, or we can embrace them and understand them better so that they go align with our goal.

SPEAKER_03:

And you think that by using AI, we can expose that on the statistical level?

SPEAKER_01:

We can, because at least as of right now, AI does not have a gut feeling. So we have this, yes, all the data is presenting this, but I still... I still feel like there's something here that I'm not quite understanding. So you bring additional information to the decision-making process that makes you reflect in a different way. And AI is using emotions to predict choice. So AI is using the size of your pupil to understand when you react emotionally to something to predict your choice behavior. So if AI is using it to manipulate your choice, why wouldn't you do that to yourself to understand your choice? It's good

SPEAKER_03:

point. That's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

So one of my goals is to provide a space for people to reflect on emotions as an important tool. in decision-making, especially because what we think is a negative part of emotion is the behavior that follows the emotion. Sure. Emotion, we will have as part of the human condition, but how I react to those emotions is what we call somebody emotional. It's not, we don't see the emotion, but we see the behavior. Sure. And if we think that that behavior is inadequate, then we say, oh, this person is emotional.

SPEAKER_03:

It plays a bad thing. But really it's just the response that you see.

SPEAKER_01:

And

SPEAKER_03:

that would be an amazing mic drop moment. You could end the episode right there. But I do want to ask you one follow up question too. I think you're spearheading a Brazilian executive program as well. Can

SPEAKER_01:

you tell me a little bit about that? Yes. So I'm the academic director of some of our executive programs, programs associated with Brazil and some other areas in Latin America. It is wonderful. We bring Brazilians here and we have an amazing group of faculty, and we have four tracks, finance, management, project management, and marketing. And they love the experience, the professional exchange, the personal exchange. They develop So it's people who comes from all over Brazil. So they don't know each other either. And they create a great dynamic among themselves and with the faculty. And it's wonderful. I feel like I'm giving back to my country. Although some of them live abroad, but that's how I feel.

SPEAKER_03:

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm sharpening their tools. I'm helping them sharpening their tools in Brazil.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that. Is there anything else you want

SPEAKER_00:

to talk about? Just across from teaching the undergraduate to the Masters of Science and Management where we're so lucky to have you and the executive programs where really Ashley Metcalf and all of the folks in there are so lucky to have you. I've seen you. Anything that Dr. Tomelli does is well received and she creates this sort of following. You know, when you see people come up with a question, it doesn't matter what program it's in. We love our program, but let me tell you, I love that. I love the executive programs with just seeing the way people just look to you and really want you to understand their problem and help them out. Thank you for being such an incredible educator.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. I feel very, very fortunate. I also have such great examples. You, Amy, and Ashley, you are wonderful leaders because they are that kind of leader that they grow and they allow, they give you space to grow. They give you honest and direct feedback when you need but you know it comes from a good place and it's just amazing to see you and Ashley and I feel so fortunate to have both of you as example and Mary Tucker as well who is also part of the Masters of Science in Management program and it's just wonderful to see leadership we have also wonderful men as well as leaders but it is fantastic as a female to have that kind of representation and example.

SPEAKER_00:

Lucky to have you.

SPEAKER_03:

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to the Leadership Lounge, where we were lucky to feature Dr. Tramelli with the Ohio University MSM program and the Robert D. Walter Center for Strategic Leadership. Join us next time, and that's it for now.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.