Hot Takes with Amanda Schneider of ThinkLab

The workplace is changing faster than the conversations guiding it. We’re stepping up with a sharper plan for Season Seven: weekly episodes designed to spark action, challenge assumptions, and give you practical tools to build spaces and businesses that actually work.

Welcome back to Hot Takes, a new segment on The Trend Report designed to pick the brains of leaders in the contract interiors industry. Joining Sid on this episode is Amanda Schneider, ThinkLab president, TED Talk alum, and author. 

Together they’re tackling questions like “What do we sell?” What if the real value we offer isn’t a chair, a light, or a finish—but ease, certainty, and a better future at work? There’s one simple truth: in a crowded market of lookalike products, process wins. If we can lower risk, remove friction, and give clients time back, we become indispensable. 

Because we’re not simply selling products!

Amanda explains why the next big disruptions will come from process innovation—accurate orders, seamless changes, on-time installs, responsive service—more than from incremental product features. Sid adds the sales lens: tie every solution to a clear business problem like talent, focus, wellbeing, cost, and speed to occupancy. That’s how you differentiate when features blur.

Next is a question about leadership. Great leaders reduce stress and manage energy, not inboxes. We talk about empowering teams, creating safe rooms for ideas, and resisting the reflex to micromanage. 

Amanda brings a crucial shift for the AI era: asking better questions beats simply knowing more. Strong prompts multiply both human and machine intelligence, moving teams from passive to proactive.

They even decode the industry’s style signals—why designers wear black-on-black, why suits can feel dated, and how the white sneaker era reflects a deeper push toward comfort, authenticity, and human-centered work. 

Finally, they swap reading lists: moral psychology that exposes our confirmation bias and a fresh look at how AI changes customer behavior, not just our workflows. If you’re in contract interiors, workplace design, or B2B sales, you’ll come away with practical ways to communicate value, lead with clarity, and build trust through better processes.

Be sure to pre-order Amanda’s book, share this episode with a colleague who obsesses over specs, and leave a review to tell us what you believe we really sell.

In this episode: