On June 16, 2015, Margaret Heffernan’s “Why it’s time to forget the pecking order at work” became the 2,000th TED Talk. It’s a talk we need now: a sharp reflection on our lives at work. While most companies are built to reward stars, this actually creates competitiveness that undermines great ideas, says Heffernan. It’s not the teams with the highest IQs that achieve the best results — it’s the teams with the most social cohesion, where everyone contributes and feels safe to offer feedback with candor. It’s a talk that will flip your thinking on why you go to work every day.
Watch this talk. And then, if you’re curious, some other landmark TED Talks:
- The first six TED Talks were posted on June 27, 2006. They are: Al Gore’s “Averting the climate crisis,” Hans Rosling’s “The best stats you’ve ever seen,” Majora Carter’s “Greening the ghetto,” Sir Ken Robinson’s “Do schools kill creativity?,” David Pogue’s “Simplicity sells,” and Tony Robbins’ “Why we do what we do.” Watch them all queued up in order »
. - The first TED Talk to a million views: Jeff Han’s “The radical promise of the multi-touch interface,” posted on August 1, 2006. It was our 15th talk, posted almost a year before the launch of the iPhone.
. - The 20th talk posted on TED.com: Richard Baraniuk’s “The birth of the open-source learning revolution,” posted on August 21, 2006
. - The 100th talk posted on TED.com was then-Wired editor Chris Anderson’s “Technology’s long tail,” on April 26, 2007
. - The first TEDx talk posted on TED.com: Jane Poynter’s “Life in Biosphere 2,” posted on June 15, 2009
. - The first TED Talk in a language other than English: Sarah Kaminsky’s “My father the forger,” published on September 7, 2011
. - The first TED Talk to 10 million views: Sir Ken Robinson’s “Do schools kill creativity?,” which crossed the threshold at some point between 2012 and 2013. His was also the first talk to 20 million views.
. - The fastest TED Talk to storm into our most-popular list: Amy Cuddy’s “Your body language shapes who you are,” posted on October 1, 2012. It was the 1,346th talk posted on TED.com and is now the second most-watched after Robinson’s talk.