Friedrich August Kekule dreamed up the structure of benzene while asleep, and Otto Loewi was catching some zzzs when he concocted an experiment that won a Nobel Peace Prize in medicine.

Deirdre Barrett recently wrote in Scientific American Mind about the kind of inspiration that can strike during sleep. Check this out:

Dreams may seem bizarre or nonsensical because the chemistry of the sleeping brain affects how we perceive our own thoughts, but we nonetheless continue focusing on all the same issues that concern us while we are awake. This unusual state of consciousness is often a blessing for problem solving–it helps us find solutions outside our normal patterns of thought.

We love to sleep! And now in addition to getting needed rest, we can be productive at 3:00am.

How?

Barrett proposes that:

In a short amount of time, people can learn to focus their dreams on minor problems and often solve them [while asleep].

Moreover:

Sleeping for a while after learning something new results in much better recall than after spending the same amount of time awake.

In the fast-paced world we all promote, and with so much work we feel the need to do, sometimes sleep can seem like wasted time. Yet in addition to reminding us that we’re mammals with undeniable physiological needs, slumber has these fruitful purposes.  The task is to learn how to leverage our unconscious problem solving abilities in service of our projects.

Concretely, Barrett suggests briefly writing down a problem on a piece of paper and leaving it next to your bed.  Tell yourself you want to dream about it. Then when you awake, lie still and see if you can remember any part of your dreams. If yes, write down the details. You may find a solution right before your eyes.

So… get to work.

Meaning, go to bed!

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Evidently fantasizing about her is also popular.

Bialik’s fame makes sense; she stars in the TV show “The Big Bang Theory,” she blogs at both TODAYMoms and at Kveller.com, and she’s written a book about attachment parenting called Beyond the Sling.

Which is how the actor with a doctorate in neuroscience promotes workplace nudity, or the art and science of revealing your whole self at work. How does she do it? She wrote about the tribulations of working outside and inside the home in her first post at Kveller:

As a mom, my first focus is truly on my kids, even when I am filming or teaching.

Her priorities are obvious:  mother first, professional second. She speaks this unapologetically and publicly, so she’s clearly confident in her decision to live this way.

She continues:

The house is not as clean as it ought to be, but if it were, I wouldn’t have time to brush my teeth or prep for teaching. You get the picture: I can’t do it all; if I could I would have it all. So instead I do what I can. And I lower my expectations for what “has” to get done every day and I try to be gentle with myself.

It reads like an afternoon breeze. How do you balance work and family? You don’t. Bialik details the nature of the imbalance, and it feels reassuring that she, too, lets go of some obligations. So in accepting her limitations, she helps others do the same. The former “Blossom” star shares one more set of wise words:

Here is one thing I must remember to drop everything to do, and that is to be as perfectly imperfect as I can be.

Right. On. Ultimately she raises 3 important questions for parents with careers to consider:

1. Are you OK with prioritizing parenting work over professional work?
2. How do you feel about letting some responsibilities at home slip? Are there ways you can go easier on yourself?
3. What does “perfectly imperfect” look like for you?

OK, that was 4; nobody’s perfect. While she doesn’t go into finding ways to ease up at work, perhaps that’s something we’ll explore in a future post.

By discussing the intersection of her acting, science teaching, writing, and parenting, Bialik effectively promotes workplace nudity and herself. Quite a winning combination.

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Just as Joseph Herscher does, and yet the product of his efforts brings about serious smiles.

Herscher is a kinetic artist who creates Rube Goldberg machines, contraptions that delight viewers with their silly premises and whimsical movements.

His work was recently featured in the Daily Mail, where you can see still shots of “Page Turner,” an installation that–you guessed it–turns a newspaper page. By tapping into his sense of whimsy, he’s created a complicated machine that prompts viewers to experience wonder, joy, and exhilaration.

And he’s wildly popular. The Internet has played “Page Turner” about 5 million times and counting. Herscher has attracted significant media attention, which will likely lead to more commissioned work. To be sure, this artist’s star is rising.

What would result if you were to reveal and engage the extent of your whimsical nature in the workplace? At least, you might bring some levity to your surroundings. And levity, wonderment, joy, and exhilaration are all things that can lead to increased engagement and productivity.

What are you waiting for? You, too, can help bring whimsy back to the workplace.

Watch his very watchable work below:

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Oh, but they aren’t.

Our student days die only when we do, so you may as well come out at work as a lifelong learner.

President Obama agrees.

In a recent interview with ABC News‘s Diane Sawyer, he spoke about his experience at work:

There’re always things that you’re learning in the job. And I have no doubt that I’m a better president now than the day I took office just because you get more experience.

He came out at work as a student! We’re all learning as we go along at work–about our selves, our colleagues, our task, the world. That the highest executive in the United States’ government openly owns his learning process on the job might inspire the rest of us to do the same.

Yet we know that hurdles abound.

For example, at some point between leaving school and starting work, many of us shift focus from learning to performing. Why? This can be the death knell for our engagement, as well as for an organization’s excellence. Some large companies even enforce a command-and-control culture, making it nearly impossible to learn freely on the job.

Research to the rescue. Scholar David Thomas links organizational cultural dynamics with diversity, and ultimately with profits. He promotes the implementation of a “learning and effectiveness” culture, wherein employees are encouraged to learn on the job. From an interview with Kali Saposnick:

[Diversity is more than] race and gender; rather, it is the various backgrounds and experiences that create people’s identities and outlooks.

The interview goes on:

[The "learning and effectiveness" cultural paradigm] asserts that diversity is the bridge between the workplace and the marketplace. “Without the full development of all people in, or available to, our organizations, we can’t fulfill our potential in the market,” says Thomas. “Why? Because we work in dynamic environments whose constantly changing labor and customer pools require adaptation. And much of our ability to adapt lies in our ability to leverage diversity.”

Hooray for Dr. Thomas! He’s totally a contender for the Workplace Nudity Hall of Fame, well, still to be seen.

Warner Burke is another proponent of coming out at work as a student, especially if you’re in a leadership role. Recently highlighted by Jonathan Sapers in TC Today, Burke professes:

[Executives] who seem to really be the cream of the crop are those who also seem to be able to continue to learn.

The article continues:

Over the years, literature in the field increasingly confirmed that learning agility might indeed play a key role in leadership effectiveness–and in particular that one’s learning approach is important to one’s growth and development. But Burke was unhappy with the measures of learning agility he was able to unearth and so decided to develop what he is calling the Leadership Agility Scale.

In time the Leadership Agility Scale may become widely used to predict leadership effectiveness. If you come out at work as a student in the meantime, you’ll demonstrate effective leadership, and that you’re a well-rounded person.

Once again, if President Obama can do it, so can you.

Watch him share his wisdom below:

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Great stuff, right? And yet we’re totally disappointed in her.

Facebook recently filed for an initial public offering (IPO) that’s expected to raise up to $10bn this spring, and which could compensate Sandberg $1.6bn, solidifying her place among the most powerful executives in America.

Because of her newfound perch at the top, when she speaks about her professional trajectory and gender equality, it’s time she acknowledges the full range of dynamics that have helped her get there.

What dynamics?

That her Whiteness has played a role in her success.

Ay, that was hard to write. And we don’t mean to target the newest billionaire simply because she’s a woman. We’re critical of representations of White male leadership, too.

Sandberg’s story goes like this:  She was an economist at the World Bank after completing her formal education. From there she became the chief of staff for Lawrence Summers, the Treasury Secretary and her former professor and thesis adviser. Then came a prominent post at Google, which led her to Facebook in 2008. It’s clear that she follows what she advised the graduates of Barnard College last year, “Put your foot on that gas pedal and keep it there.”

We need help in talking about the sensitive issues of racial dynamics at work; we’ll gratefully consult the work of Columbia University professor Sarah Brazaitis.

In a chapter called “White Women–Protectors of the Status Quo; Positioned to Disrupt It” in the book Group Relations Reader 3: Group Dynamics, Organizational Irrationality, and Social Complexity, Brazaitis looks at how White women acquire unearned privilege and authority through their Whiteness and their relationships with White men.

We think of Sandberg as Brazaitis writes:

White women are in a position of being vulnerable to oppression based on their gender and capable of oppression based on their race.

Brazaitis goes deeper:

White women have historically focused on their gender oppression largely to the exclusion of their race privilege. The field of psychology… has ignored White women’s Whiteness and only examined the impact of race when women of color are included in a sample. Thus, the psychology of women in large part has neglected the differentiation among women and instead, has presented theories and studies that suggest there is a “universal woman.” This concept of the universal woman implies that gender is a primary experience for all women and that differences among women such as race, ethnicity, class, religion, sexual orientation, and so on are secondary to the female experience. Yet, femaleness varies across a wide variety of social identities. When White women refuse to acknowledge this variation, along with accompanying status and power differences… it is increasingly difficult for them to work authentically.

That’s a long quotation, and worth every character space. The Facebook COO is totally not alone in ignoring her race privilege and seeing all women as the race-less “universal woman” presented in psychology texts. It’s certainly challenging to be aware of how race, ethnicity, gender, religion, ability and sexual orientation can influence our professional development. If it were easy, we’d have little to write about on this blog!

And did you note the cost of turning away from discussing White privilege? It’s a big one: personal authenticity. We can’t be our authentic selves when we’re less willing to consider the impact of our gender and our race on who we are and how we work.

So what didn’t Sheryl Sandberg say at Davos? Catch this:

“I have White privilege. By linking with the authority of powerful White men, I’ve had access to roles in prestigious institutions and I’ve excelled. Yet this privilege costs me too. It stifles my creativity and complexity and confines me to narrow, rigid, unauthentic and unearned definitions of myself and my roles. The authority I have is not wholly based on who I am, but rather on the pink undertone of my skin, my fine hair, narrow nose and thin lips. It’s grossly unfair, and irrational. I no longer want to benefit from these things that I can’t change. By opening up to you about these dynamics, I hope you’ll continue talking about and working across the differences you see with others. In the end, only by working across our differences will we find a level working field and collaborate to solve some of the greatest problems facing us.”

Imagine it! Adapted from Brazaitis’s chapter, this is the type of language Sandberg could use to talk broadly, deeply–and authentically–about her professional development, and open the eyes of so many.  Brazaitis counts many more benefits of coming forth with the above self-analysis:

White women who acknowledge their femaleness and their Whiteness potentially bring more authenticity and passion to their work, love, and lives in general. Hence, they are harder for others to categorize, understand, and sometimes, appreciate… Yet they may be more sure of their own authentic competence and true value irrespective of skin color, and hence, more resistant to others’ assaults.

Perhaps ironically, Sheryl Sandberg was the first inductee into the Workplace Nudity Hall of Fame. We still stand by her award, because she’s been earnest in encouraging us to bring our full selves to work.  We can tolerate our ambivalence, so we also remain firm in our criticism of what she’s been leaving out of her speeches. We feel a little bad, since we’re not the only ones to give Facebook’s COO grief.

If Sandberg wants to profoundly help women, she should heed her own words, bring her full self to her speeches, and talk about her gender, Whiteness, and White privilege relative to her career path.

Watch Sheryl Sandberg speak at the World Economic Forum, starting at about 24:20:

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In the Voice interview, English-born and transgender Hegarty reflects on the world he inhabits, and touches us at our core. In one moment — among many — of poignance, he relates his experience as a transgender person with the ecological devastation he sees:

“I see them as parallel issues, as a tiny reflection of a greater problem,” he notes. “Even as a transgender person, I’m excruciatingly aware of my privilege as a white male, and the subjugation of women is critical to understanding the subjugation and destruction of the ecology.”

Brilliance! See him working the dual oppressor and oppressed within him?  He continues:

“America is less willing to consider a gay or transgender having a platform outside of gender identity,” he says. “But we are barely acknowledging that the weather is changing, either.”

Say it, Antony. Americans’ purported less-willingness to see the world broadly can lead to pigeonholing one another, and to misperceiving the continuing transformation of Earth’s geography. He’s grounded in his emotions when he says, “We need to start grieving, at the very least.”

And then he drops a profound mind-bender:

“People can more easily imagine the collapse of the world than they can imagine stepping away from capitalism or patriarchy.”

We’ve been thinking about this idea ever since we first read it. Do you think it’s true, that capitalism and preserving the world can’t coexist? While it pains our brain to ponder, it’s certainly worthwhile to consider.

Still, he seems hopeful when he thinks about his ethnicity and place in the world. “I am as American as it gets,” he shares.

And we remain hopeful, too. Not only about our ability to solve some of these worldly problems, but hopeful that revealing our whole selves at work, as Antony does, will help lead us there.

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1. He’s finding it increasingly hard to keep order in the classroom.
2. Too many students have been prescribed psychotropic medication to manage behavioral issues.
3. He’s devastated that his grandmother is seriously ill, and he’s trying to “be professional” and “hold it together” when he’s with his students.

If we were bold enough to approach him, we would have said this:

In light of your despair regarding your grandmother’s condition, why must you “hold it together” in class? Why not share your pain with your students? By revealing your current emotional experience, you accomplish so much:

• You humanize your authority, which can help your students better relate to you. Being able to relate to you correlates with empathizing more with you, and your feelings. And nurturing your students’ ability to empathize may be the most important gift you give them, ever.
• You unburden yourself from the unproductive work of ”holding it together.” When you can share of your self without fear, you’re more relaxed. When you’re relaxed, you have more energy to listen actively to your students, who hunger for your focused attention.
• The more nurturing you are with your students, and the more you listen to them, the closer you may feel as a class. From here, the difficulties of “keeping order in the classroom” may very well dissolve into memory.

If at this point he hasn’t scowled at us for butting in, we’d ask him where he learned that teachers are more professional when they hide who they are.

Get this: we know a school which is incorporating into the junior high school curriculum one teacher’s plan to donate part of his liver to his father. At this same school, another teacher shares with each new class his story of being adopted, so students can understand the complexities of different family structures over a lifespan.

Pretty revolutionary, yes? To publicize these seemingly private aspects of our lives in service of educating today’s youth is a radical–and totally effective–way to teach.

It may be challenging to implement at first, yet teachers who strive to share some intimate details of their lives–a.k.a. engage in “workplace nudity”–will reap tangible benefits.

You follow, oh student teacher in the graduate school library?

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