Richard Saul Wurman created the TED conference in 1984 as a onetime event. (As you may already know, TED refers to Technology, Education, and Design.) It became a four-day conference six years later. Chris Anderson purchased TED in 2001. Until 2005, it remained a once-a-year conference: four days of programs, 50 speakers, 18-minute presentations. Anderson added TEDGlobal to reach an international audience. TED.com was launched in 2006. Thus far, the website has attracted more than one billion views, averaging about two million a day. The video programs have been translated into more than 100 languages.

According to Anderson, “With TED, the end of the talk should not be the end of the idea, but just the beginning.” TED showcases speakers who are knowledgeable, of course, but also “human, relatable, and often emotional, so what they share lights people up.”

There are no charges for access any of the TED programs. After attending the 2006 conference, documentary filmmaker Daphne Zuniga described it as “Cirque Du Soleil for the mind.” Oprah Winfrey later observed, “TED is where brilliant people go to hear other brilliant people.”

I will continue to recommend those whose TED programs are among the most highly-rated. For example, Yves Morieux. Why do people feel so miserable and disengaged at work? Because today’s businesses are increasingly and dizzyingly complex — and traditional pillars of management are obsolete, says Yves Morieux. So, he says, it falls to individual employees to navigate the rabbit’s warren of interdependencies. In this energetic talk, Morieux offers six rules for “smart simplicity.” (Rule One: Understand what your colleagues actually do.)

Yves Morieux thinks deeply about what makes organizations work effectively. A senior partner in BCG’s Washington D.C. office and director of the BCG Institute for Organization, Morieux considers how overarching changes in structure can improve motivation for all who work there. His calls his approach “Smart Simplicity.” Using six key rules, it encourages employees to cooperate in order to solve long-term problems. It isn’t just about reducing costs and increasing profit — it’s about maximizing engagement through all levels of a company. Morieux has been featured in articles on organizational evolution in Harvard Business Review, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Le Monde.

Here is a direct link to that TED presentation. I envy anyone who has not as yet seen it.

Be sure to check out, Six Simple Rules: How to Manage Complexity without Getting Complicated, co-authored with Peter Tollman and published by Harvard Business Review Press (2014).