Speaker 1: Hi Katie, Hi Brian, Katie. Did you know that we
Speaker 1: spend a quarter of our lives at work? Although I
Speaker 1: think in your case it's probably more than that. I
Speaker 1: was going to say a quarter. How about three quarters? That? Well,
Speaker 1: you remember I told Kara swish or work is like
Speaker 1: oxygen for me. I don't want to asphyxiate you sometimes.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'd like to every now and then. Anyway,
Speaker 1: today's guest, Adam Grant, is clearly right up your alley.
Speaker 1: He's an organizational psychologist. We talked about what that means.
Speaker 1: He's a very popular, warton professor and an author, and
Speaker 1: he's one of the most productive people that you'll ever meet,
Speaker 1: so productive it's annoying at times. He was still in
Speaker 1: his twenties when he got tenure at the University of
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and by the time he was thirty five,
Speaker 1: he had written three, yes, three best selling books and
Speaker 1: he's thirty six. By the way, now, talk about making
Speaker 1: us I'll feel like terrible underachievers, right Brian. For sure? Listeners,
Speaker 1: you might also remember Adam Grant from our episode with
Speaker 1: Cheryl Sandberg, which is number twenty six. In case you
Speaker 1: want to hear it again, that's right. Adam and Cheryl
Speaker 1: co wrote the book Option B, which is about facing
Speaker 1: adversity and building resilience, and I highly recommend it for
Speaker 1: anyone who's had to deal with setbacks. And for this conversation,
Speaker 1: we chat with Adam about all kinds of things, the
Speaker 1: different work styles of employers and employees. Are you a giver,
Speaker 1: a taker or a matcher? By the way, it'll be
Speaker 1: interesting for you to look at your own style what
Speaker 1: makes a good workplace, which is the subject of his
Speaker 1: new podcast called work Life. And also we asked Adam
Speaker 1: why he got into the field of organizational psychology and
Speaker 1: what the heck does that mean anyway. Yeah, I'm still
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out. But as far as I
Speaker 1: can tell, my job is to fix other people's jobs.
Speaker 1: So I take all the cool insights that we pick
Speaker 1: up in social science about how we can, you know,
Speaker 1: improve motivation and make better decisions and fight group think,
Speaker 1: and I try to design workplaces that suck a little
Speaker 1: bit less. Well, when it comes to workplaces, at least
Speaker 1: the ones that I've experienced and certainly read about, it
Speaker 1: seems like you must be a very busy guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's really convenient that there are so many bad
Speaker 1: leaders and managers out there, because it means I have
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do. Convenient but also shocking.
Speaker 1: Why are there so few good leaders? What are we
Speaker 1: doing wrong? Well? I think the job has become less
Speaker 1: and less attractive, if you know, if you think about
Speaker 1: the public scrutiny, if you think about you know, most
Speaker 1: leaders are in a position where they might not get
Speaker 1: to stay for even a year, let alone a few years.
Speaker 1: I think we we've done a very poor job designing
Speaker 1: leadership roles where people say, look, I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: chance to to really take over and try to fix
Speaker 1: an organization for the long term, and you know, focus
Speaker 1: on vision and mission and innovation as opposed to just
Speaker 1: being accountable to a bunch of shareholders. And based on
Speaker 1: your research, what are the characteristics than make a good leader?
Speaker 1: It's easier to make a list of the characteristics of
Speaker 1: a bad leader, Isn't that part of the problem. I
Speaker 1: think we could all make this actually, but you know,
Speaker 1: I think you can flip those and say, look, you know,
Speaker 1: when I when I look at leaders, there there are
Speaker 1: three basics that I always look for. One is that
Speaker 1: you know, I would think about them as givers, not
Speaker 1: takers right there. They're here to make the group and
Speaker 1: the organization successful as opposed to enrich themselves too. They
Speaker 1: think about long term decision making as opposed to short
Speaker 1: term pressures, and the champion visions that are going to
Speaker 1: you know, serve a broader interest over decades as opposed
Speaker 1: to quarters and then three. They actually care about their
Speaker 1: people and put their people first as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: you hear a lot of well, I put my customers first.
Speaker 1: And the sad thing is that, you know, the way
Speaker 1: you treat your employees actually spills over to affect your customers.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty hard to run a customer friendly organization. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you don't care about your own employees first and foremost.
Speaker 1: Well and to that point, and your first one about
Speaker 1: givers and not takers, you know, your first book makes
Speaker 1: the case very powerfully that helping others without expecting anything
Speaker 1: in return is actually the best way to advance your career. Um,
Speaker 1: which Hugh Kumbaya adam, I mean, that really cuts against
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom that actually one of the most selfish things
Speaker 1: you can do is to is to be generous um,
Speaker 1: can you tell us a little bit about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's you know, it's not true for every person
Speaker 1: and every job, but on average, you know, when when
Speaker 1: I've studied givers versus takers, so you know, are you
Speaker 1: constantly asking what can you do for me? Or what
Speaker 1: can I do for you? The givers tend to struggle
Speaker 1: more in the short term, so they make the least
Speaker 1: productive engineers, the medical students with the lowest grades, and
Speaker 1: the sales people with the lowest revenue. And it's not
Speaker 1: hard to figure out why that would be right, because
Speaker 1: you know, if you're constantly doing other people's jobs, you
Speaker 1: run out of time and energy to get your own
Speaker 1: work done. But in the long run, as quarter turn
Speaker 1: into years, what we see is that givers build more trust,
Speaker 1: they have stronger relationships and reputations. But they also learn
Speaker 1: more because the time you spend solving other people's problems
Speaker 1: actually puts you in a better position to solve the
Speaker 1: organization's problems. It gives you extra knowledge and scale and expertise,
Speaker 1: and so you know, ultimately, the people who end up
Speaker 1: achieving the greatest success are the ones who are motivated
Speaker 1: to help other people succeed. Isn't though, aren't most people
Speaker 1: are effective leaders a combo platter, Adam, I know that
Speaker 1: you say they're givers, takers, and matchers before we get
Speaker 1: to my combo pop platter question, what is a matcher?
Speaker 1: So most people don't want to be peer givers or
Speaker 1: peer takers. They're afraid of being too selfish and too generous.
Speaker 1: So they say, all right, I'm gonna play it safe
Speaker 1: and I'll become a matcher, which is, I'll do something
Speaker 1: for you if you do something for me. It's all
Speaker 1: about fairness, quid pro quo. Is that good or bad?
Speaker 1: You make it sound bad, You know it's It's a
Speaker 1: great way to play it safe. The problem is, though,
Speaker 1: that you become too transactional, and when you help people
Speaker 1: it feels like you don't really care about them, You
Speaker 1: were just helping them to get something back. And then
Speaker 1: also you end up helping the wrong people, only the
Speaker 1: people who you think are strategic. But you both know
Speaker 1: better than I do. We cannot predict who's going to
Speaker 1: end up where, and so if you only help the
Speaker 1: people that you think are going to serve your own interests,
Speaker 1: you're gonna miss out on a lot of rewarding long
Speaker 1: term relationships, so a match is really to machiavellian in
Speaker 1: a way, or to calculating. I mean, I I was
Speaker 1: reading about this, and of course I've read a lot
Speaker 1: about your work in the past, Adam, because this is
Speaker 1: not our first Rodeos, as we know in terms of
Speaker 1: doing an interview together. But I was thinking that I'm
Speaker 1: a taker and it made me feel bad. What do
Speaker 1: you think I do? I actually do I do? Because
Speaker 1: I don't know. No taker ever says that. Really. Well,
Speaker 1: then maybe I'm just a highly self critical, perfectionistic weirdo,
Speaker 1: because that that could be true too. But as I
Speaker 1: read about it, I thought, I don't give enough, and
Speaker 1: I don't know. It seems to me you have to.
Speaker 1: You can't always be a giver, and there are times
Speaker 1: where you have to be a taker, right. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's I mean, I think I'm like exhibit A
Speaker 1: of how you're not a taker, by the way, because
Speaker 1: you've been extraordinarily generous to me over the course of
Speaker 1: my career in many ways, and I'm not the only one.
Speaker 1: So I think to Adam's point, if you were really
Speaker 1: a taker, you you wouldn't be self aware enough introspective
Speaker 1: enough to even raise that criticism. Do you think you're
Speaker 1: too transactional. I'm not transactional, but I do think I
Speaker 1: sometimes am demanding, and I do tend to blame other people.
Speaker 1: I tend to feel like other people's inadequacy or kind
Speaker 1: of laziness or whatever that I get mad about that.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think this is something I need
Speaker 1: to discuss. I think I don't think those things are contradictory, though,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you could be. You could set
Speaker 1: high expectations for your colleagues while at the same time
Speaker 1: being a generous boss. Totally agree, So that's hard to balance, though,
Speaker 1: I think Adam, isn't it Well, I don't know. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm not a therapist, but that ahead I'm lying down.
Speaker 1: Please continue perfect. So the first thing is everything you said, Katie,
Speaker 1: I would say, you're not a taker, You're a woman. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we we know that women tend to be
Speaker 1: much more self critical than men, and that, you know,
Speaker 1: both personally and societally, tend to be held to much
Speaker 1: higher expectations on you know, on how much giving they're
Speaker 1: supposed to do. So you know that that fits the
Speaker 1: pattern pretty clearly. But Secondly, I think what you just
Speaker 1: said is that you hold people accountable for giving, and
Speaker 1: you don't allow people to, you know, to get away
Speaker 1: with being takers. There's nothing wrong with being a giver
Speaker 1: who has very highest standards and expectations. And in fact,
Speaker 1: that's what we see differentiate successful givers from failed givers
Speaker 1: is you know, they have their own goals and they're ambitious,
Speaker 1: and they say, look, I want to help other people,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to do that at my own expense.
Speaker 1: All right, Well that'll be five dollars and the check
Speaker 1: is in the mail, Adam. So let me ask you,
Speaker 1: sort of for our listeners, for kind of how this
Speaker 1: can be applied. You give one example in your one
Speaker 1: of your books about putting two different signs up at
Speaker 1: hand washing stations in a hospital. One says hand hygiene
Speaker 1: prevents you from catching diseases. Another reads hand hygiene prevents
Speaker 1: patients from catching diseases. You measured the amount of soap
Speaker 1: used at each station, and doctors and nurses at the
Speaker 1: station where the sign referred to the patients use more
Speaker 1: soap or hand sanitizer. Are you saying that sort of
Speaker 1: altruism is motivating? Maybe so What's what's interesting about this
Speaker 1: experiment is the medical safety experts were convinced that the
Speaker 1: other sign would work. That you know, ultimately, if you
Speaker 1: want to get doctors and nurses to wash their hands,
Speaker 1: you have to remind them that it will prevent them
Speaker 1: from getting sick. And you know, you could say, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe then that didn't work, because you know,
Speaker 1: ultimately these people are really altruistic. But our data tell
Speaker 1: a slightly more complicated story, which is that nobody believes
Speaker 1: that they're going to get sick. You know, we found
Speaker 1: doctors who said things like, well, I'm a doctor, so
Speaker 1: I'm protected, Like that makes any sense. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what that means. But I think what what they
Speaker 1: were getting at was, you know, either I had a
Speaker 1: superior immune system to begin with, or I've developed one
Speaker 1: over years in a hospital and you know, I'm exposed
Speaker 1: all the time and I rarely get sick. And you know,
Speaker 1: most of us tend to be over confident about our
Speaker 1: own immunity. We don't want to believe that we're vulnerable,
Speaker 1: whereas with patients, we know they're vulnerable by definition, and
Speaker 1: we also know it's part of our job to keep
Speaker 1: them healthy, and so it was a lot easier for
Speaker 1: you know, doctors and nurses. I should say doctors, because
Speaker 1: it was mostly doctors who weren't watching enough, you know,
Speaker 1: who took that sign and said, all right, you know,
Speaker 1: this is my responsibility. Even if I don't think that
Speaker 1: I'm in need of, you know, extra hand hygiene, I
Speaker 1: really wouldn't want to know that I got a patient six,
Speaker 1: so I'll step up. You did another study that I've
Speaker 1: I've referenced many times over the last couple of days,
Speaker 1: as as I've sort of read up on you. Um
Speaker 1: in a call center where you worked, you were twenty
Speaker 1: two year old to a student, and you arranged for
Speaker 1: call center workers to meet with a scholarship student who
Speaker 1: benefited from their fundraising calls. And after meeting that student,
Speaker 1: the average call center employee raised a hundred and forty
Speaker 1: two percent more money. And so what are the conclusions
Speaker 1: that you draw from that study and the others you've done,
Speaker 1: and and how can our listeners apply them in their
Speaker 1: own lives. You know, I went in expecting to do
Speaker 1: something much more dramatic, you know, I thought, Okay, here
Speaker 1: are these callers who you know, they raise all this
Speaker 1: money and they have no idea where it goes. And
Speaker 1: so I wanted to have, you know, a bunch of
Speaker 1: different scholarship students come in and tell their stories. Have
Speaker 1: the you know, the sports teams. This is at the
Speaker 1: University of Michigan. I thought the football and basketball players
Speaker 1: could come in and you know, talk about how that
Speaker 1: revenue is so useful for uh, you know, for helping
Speaker 1: their teams succeed, and have some faculty and staff talk
Speaker 1: about salary benefits. And the manager said, I'll give you
Speaker 1: five minutes. You can bring in one person. And I thought,
Speaker 1: there's no way five minutes, you know, could could influence
Speaker 1: anybody's motivation, But it really mattered, and after replicating it
Speaker 1: eight different times, what happens is when most people walk
Speaker 1: into a situation like fundraising, but any job, right, you
Speaker 1: don't always know who benefits from your products or services,
Speaker 1: and a huge part of what makes work meaningful. In fact,
Speaker 1: the biggest part of what makes work meaningful is knowing
Speaker 1: who benefits from your job and knowing that if your
Speaker 1: job didn't exist, other people would be worse off. And
Speaker 1: so you have a scholarship student come in and say,
Speaker 1: you know, here's how your work changed my life. I
Speaker 1: couldn't afford going to school, but because of the money
Speaker 1: you raise, I'm able to be here. That shows you
Speaker 1: that the time you spend it work really matters. That
Speaker 1: your work is valued and appreciated. And that's especially important
Speaker 1: if you work in a job where you're constantly interrupting
Speaker 1: people's dinners and harassing them for money. Right to to
Speaker 1: be able to say, look that you know that really
Speaker 1: unpleasant process serves a higher purpose. I think we all
Speaker 1: know that's motivating, but it turns out to be much
Speaker 1: more powerful than we realize. That's interesting. I think it's
Speaker 1: helpful for people to kind of really look at the
Speaker 1: over arch same reasons they do what they do. And
Speaker 1: sometimes it just means shifting your point of view about
Speaker 1: the worth of your job, right, I mean, you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to have a scholarship student come and talk
Speaker 1: to you. Sometimes it just means really thinking about why
Speaker 1: you do what you do and the potential impact it has,
Speaker 1: right Adam. You know, Katie wouldn't have believed that until
Speaker 1: we ran some follow up experiments. But we we got
Speaker 1: that exact question, which over and over again, which was
Speaker 1: you know, what what if I don't get to meet
Speaker 1: my scholarship student. You know, I don't know my clients
Speaker 1: or customers or users, or you know what if I
Speaker 1: don't have those people, right? What if I have an
Speaker 1: internal job? And what we did was we had employees
Speaker 1: keep journals just reflecting on who benefited from their jobs
Speaker 1: every day and how they made a difference that day.
Speaker 1: And we had them do it for four days, just
Speaker 1: a few minutes per day, and we found a significant
Speaker 1: increase in motivation after that. So just reflecting exactly as
Speaker 1: you've said on you know what, how does my job
Speaker 1: matter who benefits from it is enough to rejuvenate your motivation.
Speaker 1: And you're definitely praed is saying what you preach here
Speaker 1: and and this is featured in all of the articles
Speaker 1: about you. So just so our listeners get a sense,
Speaker 1: how many emails per week do you think you get
Speaker 1: from people asking for a favor? And how many of
Speaker 1: those emails do you respond to? No, Uh, I'm afraid
Speaker 1: to count. I'd have to guess in the hundreds. At least,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it's it's probably over a hundred
Speaker 1: a day, And uh, I respond to all of them
Speaker 1: except for the occasional ones that make me think that
Speaker 1: the person is is maybe not entirely mentally stable. So
Speaker 1: over a hundred requests for a favor every day and
Speaker 1: you respond to every single one, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: my job. It's I mean, it's a huge part of
Speaker 1: why I became a professor. But also I'm just one
Speaker 1: of those people who can't stand leaving an email unanswered. Right,
Speaker 1: So somebody writes back and says you're welcome, and I say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's no problem, and then I just I can't let
Speaker 1: it go. And how is that not a massive distry
Speaker 1: action and also a massive hit to your productivity? Well
Speaker 1: there are days when it is, but I feel like
Speaker 1: it's you know, a lot of the emails I get
Speaker 1: are you know, questions about like my favorite emails are
Speaker 1: have you ever seen a study on? And it makes
Speaker 1: me feel like all these hours I spend reading you know,
Speaker 1: evidence about work in psychology might actually be useful to someone. Uh,
Speaker 1: And so you know, it gives me a chance to
Speaker 1: sort of to translate a little bit of of what
Speaker 1: I'm reading into language that people might find relevant to
Speaker 1: their everyday work. And you know, it also just reminds
Speaker 1: me that the work I'm doing does have an impact
Speaker 1: on others, right, so I get to live that. That's
Speaker 1: my version of the scholarship student often outside the classroom,
Speaker 1: And I think the other thing is that, you know,
Speaker 1: in some cases it's a it's a great sort of break.
Speaker 1: When I'm working on a hard problem, or when I
Speaker 1: can't figure out sort of how to how to tell
Speaker 1: a story or analyze the data set, I go over
Speaker 1: in my email and I say, all right, if I
Speaker 1: can help a few people in the next few minutes,
Speaker 1: then maybe I'll come back with some fresh inside or
Speaker 1: at least a little bit of extra energy to, you know,
Speaker 1: to pour back into the work that I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1: Other than asking about studies, I mean, what other kinds
Speaker 1: of questions do you get? Because I know there's a
Speaker 1: constant stream of students coming in and out of your
Speaker 1: office on a regular basis, what are they asking you?
Speaker 1: Often they're looking for advice. So sometimes it's you know,
Speaker 1: how do I run this club that I'm in charge of?
Speaker 1: Or you know, how do I do a better job
Speaker 1: you know, improving my interview skills or my job application
Speaker 1: cover letters. In a lot of cases, it's career advice
Speaker 1: which I'm really reluctant to give. You know, I feel
Speaker 1: like it's it's hard to tell somebody what they should
Speaker 1: do with their life, and so often what I find
Speaker 1: myself doing is, you know, recommending a bunch of books
Speaker 1: and articles and then asking a bunch of questions that
Speaker 1: I hope will help them reflect on, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the directions they haven't considered before. You know, what
Speaker 1: is the best way to really figure it out? Because
Speaker 1: I think career planning and placement offices that many of
Speaker 1: these colleges and universities are woefully inadequate, and with all
Speaker 1: due respect to the wonderful work that's being done at
Speaker 1: universities across the country, I do feel like this is
Speaker 1: an area which has much room for improvement. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a look, it's a hard job, right As someone who
Speaker 1: gets asked for career advice a lot, it's incredibly difficult
Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, exactly where somebody should go
Speaker 1: and what steps they should take to plan their you know,
Speaker 1: their twenty or thirty or forty years ahead. But I
Speaker 1: think one of the one of the biggest mistakes that
Speaker 1: I see students make, which I think I'd love to
Speaker 1: see career officers addressed more directly. Is it is something
Speaker 1: that I raised with Cheryl Sandberg last time she was
Speaker 1: in town. Uh. She was, she was speaking to our students,
Speaker 1: and you know, I teat up a bunch of questions
Speaker 1: for her, and one of them was, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what should my five your career plan look like or
Speaker 1: ten year career plan? And she said, you should never
Speaker 1: have a career plan this five or ten years ahead.
Speaker 1: She said, if I had had one of those and
Speaker 1: never would have ended up in tech because when I
Speaker 1: graduated from college, Mark Zuckerberg was in diapers. That's a
Speaker 1: lovely thought. It is right. It shows you how quickly
Speaker 1: the world changes. And I think that if you end
Speaker 1: up trying to chart too far ahead, then you lock
Speaker 1: yourself into, you know, a path that's either not going
Speaker 1: to exist or is going to radically change in the
Speaker 1: next few years. What I like to see students do
Speaker 1: is to say, look, my first job, my whole objective
Speaker 1: should be to maximize my own learning. So choose the
Speaker 1: job that you think is going to teach you the most,
Speaker 1: or the group of people that you can learn the
Speaker 1: most from. I think that's the best way to begin
Speaker 1: planning your career and it will open lots of ideas
Speaker 1: up about where to go next. At the same time,
Speaker 1: the wrap on millennials is that they're so parapatetic and
Speaker 1: they don't stay at one place for any length of time.
Speaker 1: They're flighty, they use t Yeah, they're entitled and and
Speaker 1: so is this just a new way of working, jumping
Speaker 1: from place to place to place that us old geezers
Speaker 1: have got to get used to. I think so. But
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I wouldn't see it as a millennial problem.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's it's actually, uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: a change societally, right as opposed of generationally, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever the statistic is that you've heard, you know often
Speaker 1: I read that people are going to have eleven or twelve,
Speaker 1: you know, different careers if you look at all the
Speaker 1: different jobs they'll take. I think that miss is the
Speaker 1: larger point, which is we see that the employment contract
Speaker 1: has changed. It used to be the case that you
Speaker 1: could sign up with the company and know that you're
Speaker 1: going to stay there with it for thirty five years
Speaker 1: and they would have your back and without will employment
Speaker 1: and you know, with with so much more mobility, but
Speaker 1: also so much more volatility. You can't trust anymore that
Speaker 1: the workplace you start your career has any shot of
Speaker 1: even being around your career, let alone we'll want to
Speaker 1: keep you around. I remember giving graduation addresses as far
Speaker 1: back as the nineties saying the era of working for
Speaker 1: one company getting a gold watch and a pension at
Speaker 1: the end of many years is gone. I think it's
Speaker 1: important to point out that companies are not loyal to
Speaker 1: employees either, so it's not as if it's just a
Speaker 1: one way street there on the disloyalty front. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think think that's so important. And you know, at some
Speaker 1: level I see that as employer driven, right, So you
Speaker 1: know that it started when when people stopped trusting that
Speaker 1: their employer would be loyal to them, and that activates
Speaker 1: a very basic matching response, right, whether you're a give
Speaker 1: her a taker and match her by default to say,
Speaker 1: all right, you know, if this company is not going
Speaker 1: to take care of me, I don't owe them the
Speaker 1: same commitment. Back, it's time to take a quick break
Speaker 1: to hear from our sponsors. Will be back with Adam
Speaker 1: Grant right after this, and now let's get on with
Speaker 1: the show. Went back to Adam Grant, Shall we Brian, Yes,
Speaker 1: we shall, Kitty. So, Adam, I want to go back
Speaker 1: and give people a sense of how you got into
Speaker 1: all of this, and also just how weird and compulsive
Speaker 1: you are. And I say, this is a weird and
Speaker 1: compulsive person myself. So you you, You're welcome. You grew
Speaker 1: up in the verbs of Detroit. The New York Times
Speaker 1: describe your childhood, and I think a very memorable way.
Speaker 1: He was an upbeat boy, though socially awkward and burdened
Speaker 1: by numerous food allergies and strong aversions two haircuts, to
Speaker 1: blue jeans, to chocolate. He felt things deeply. Those aversions
Speaker 1: were matched by equally consuming passions, which, anyway, I wish
Speaker 1: I had an aversion to chocolate. Is that? Do you
Speaker 1: think it's still a fair way to describe you? Oh?
Speaker 1: I think some of it is fair. Looks. Sue Dominous
Speaker 1: is such a gifted writer. And you know, I had
Speaker 1: an editor who said, reading about yourself is a little
Speaker 1: bit like looking in a fun house mirror. But you know,
Speaker 1: I always thought of a fun house mirror is distorting you.
Speaker 1: But when I read this, I said, all right, there.
Speaker 1: You know there's some things that I wouldn't agree with
Speaker 1: the characterization of of course, there are also some things
Speaker 1: that are way too glowing, and so you know, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't quite know where to come down on
Speaker 1: most of it. On that part, I hope I'm less
Speaker 1: socially awkward than I was then. You know, I was
Speaker 1: sort of the kid with like a curly frow and
Speaker 1: always wearing sweatpants. And you know, I remember very Napoleon Dynamite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. I was definitely more enthusiastic than Napoleon Dynamite.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think it took it took me
Speaker 1: a while to figure out that being liked it was
Speaker 1: sometimes more important than being right. And what drove you
Speaker 1: to really focus on this area of study, because clearly
Speaker 1: you're exceptional at it, Adam. I think you've been voted
Speaker 1: the best teacher at Wharton six years in a row.
Speaker 1: Your students adore you, your popular in the lecture circuit.
Speaker 1: You My sister couldn't get into your class, ad Him.
Speaker 1: I asked her about you because she got an MBA
Speaker 1: at Wharton and she said, oh, his class. And it's
Speaker 1: almost like the Yogi barrel line that nobody goes to
Speaker 1: that restaurant anymore because it's too crowded, she said, nobody
Speaker 1: goes to his lectures because they're too full. So so
Speaker 1: what was it that drew you to this, because I
Speaker 1: think that's probably illustrative of following your bliss as they say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you know. I actually I was one of
Speaker 1: those college students who had no idea what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do, and that actually was was one of my
Speaker 1: biggest frustrations growing up. Hated getting the question what do
Speaker 1: you want to be when you grow up? I really
Speaker 1: didn't know. I knew that there were lots of things
Speaker 1: that I enjoyed doing, but I couldn't think of one
Speaker 1: thing that I wanted to be. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I went through the first half of college just you know,
Speaker 1: kind of fascinated by a psychology and how there was
Speaker 1: so much knowledge collecting dust in journals that wasn't being
Speaker 1: shared with people that might actually make their lives better
Speaker 1: in some way, and so I wanted to do something
Speaker 1: with that. But it's not like there's a natural career
Speaker 1: track for that unless you want to be a therapist,
Speaker 1: which I knew I didn't. I wanted to sort of
Speaker 1: figure out how he could improve everyday choices, and um,
Speaker 1: I went and took an organizational psychology class which was
Speaker 1: offered at eight thirty am. You know, everyone would sort
Speaker 1: of walk in like zombies, and we forgot how tired
Speaker 1: we were during the class. It was this incredible professor,
Speaker 1: Richard Hackman, who also didn't know what he wanted to
Speaker 1: do with his career, so he took all the jobs
Speaker 1: that he thought were interesting. He made a career out
Speaker 1: of studying those. So, you know, first he he had
Speaker 1: thought about being a basketball player because he was tall,
Speaker 1: and he studied what made a basketball team win or lose.
Speaker 1: And then he'd wanted wanted to be in music. He
Speaker 1: thought about maybe kind of symphony work, so he went
Speaker 1: and studied orchestra effectiveness. He thought about being a pilot,
Speaker 1: so he studied airline cockpit crews. And I saw that
Speaker 1: and thought, what a cool way to live vicariously through
Speaker 1: all these interesting jobs and try to figure out how
Speaker 1: to make work better in the process. And I was hooked.
Speaker 1: Aren't those high class problems? I was thinking about that?
Speaker 1: You know, so many people can't afford to to explore
Speaker 1: these different areas and really figure out their place in
Speaker 1: the world. What would you say? To students who or
Speaker 1: people in general who don't have that luxury, Well, I
Speaker 1: don't think the problems are high class, right, So maybe
Speaker 1: the problem of not knowing what you wanted doh is
Speaker 1: and feeling like you have. So that's a high class solution.
Speaker 1: Should say, yes, yeah, I think that's right. What you know,
Speaker 1: what I would say to two people in any position
Speaker 1: is that you know, so often we end up in
Speaker 1: a job where the job description wasn't written for us.
Speaker 1: It was written for you know, somebody else who had
Speaker 1: the job before us, or it was written for you know,
Speaker 1: some generic idea of here's you know, here's what we
Speaker 1: think a person is motivated by, and here's what we
Speaker 1: think are you know, our people's strengths will be. Uh,
Speaker 1: you should do that because this is what we need
Speaker 1: you to do. And when you study how people do
Speaker 1: their jobs, very few people actually accept their job descriptions
Speaker 1: exactly as they were written. They tinker with them. They
Speaker 1: become sort of like many architects of their own jobs.
Speaker 1: When we study this, have colleagues who call it job crafting.
Speaker 1: It's the idea that you can redesign your own work
Speaker 1: role to bring in some of your interests and your
Speaker 1: values and your skills that might be unused, And a
Speaker 1: lot of people miss out on that opportunity because they
Speaker 1: just take their job description as a given. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think the first piece of advice would be to say,
Speaker 1: take a step back and figure out what are the
Speaker 1: strengths you have, what are the skills you want to master,
Speaker 1: what are the passions you have that you don't get
Speaker 1: to bring to work every day, and try to figure
Speaker 1: out how those could be relevant to your team's mission
Speaker 1: or your organization's goals, and then have a conversation with
Speaker 1: your boss about whether there's a way to use their
Speaker 1: skills or develop them. I was thinking a little bit
Speaker 1: about your hundred emails plus a day that you answer, Um,
Speaker 1: how many hours a day do you work to get
Speaker 1: all the stuff done that you do? Well, it's different.
Speaker 1: It's different now that that my wife and I have kids.
Speaker 1: I think before that I probably averaged fifteen hour work
Speaker 1: days for quite a few years. Now, I basically tried
Speaker 1: to do all my work when our kids are at
Speaker 1: school or asleep. So if you do the math, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I probably work uh seventy hour week roughly now,
Speaker 1: and and doesn't that lifestyle sort of cut against the
Speaker 1: kind of Ariana Huffington's self care ethos that's so in
Speaker 1: vogue now about digital detoxing and taking lots of time
Speaker 1: off and getting eight hours of sleep every night, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not so I've I've had I've had some fun
Speaker 1: debase with Ariana about this, and I think the data support,
Speaker 1: at least for for people like me, the way that
Speaker 1: I've I've chosen to live my life, which is I
Speaker 1: have a colleague, Nancy Rothbard, who studied workaholics, and she
Speaker 1: found that there are two kinds of workaholics. Uh. They're
Speaker 1: they're basically stressed out workaholics, where they're constantly feeling you know,
Speaker 1: these looming deadlines hanging over them and they feel obligated
Speaker 1: to work and it's bad for them, you know, both
Speaker 1: their physical health and their mental health. But there's another
Speaker 1: group of people that are called engaged workaholics, who are
Speaker 1: just intrinsically motivated by their work. They might see it
Speaker 1: as a calling, uh, they might feel like it's deeply meaningful.
Speaker 1: They might just really really enjoy it. And I'm one
Speaker 1: of those people. And if you look at the data,
Speaker 1: working more doesn't make them less healthy. It actually seems
Speaker 1: to contribute to their health, or a minimum, it doesn't
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't cost them anything. Sound familiar. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm a cross between the stressed out, looming
Speaker 1: deadline crazy be scared to sit back and not you know,
Speaker 1: be Idle, and somebody who's highly engaged in her work.
Speaker 1: I wonder if part of that is is just a
Speaker 1: function of being in the news and journalism world, that
Speaker 1: it's hard to be a purely engaged workaholic because so
Speaker 1: much of your job is dictated by by external forces. Possibly,
Speaker 1: possibly we need to spend some more time together at
Speaker 1: Obviously I have a lot of problems, But I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you about another book you wrote called Originals.
Speaker 1: You talk about nonconformists and what are the lessons we
Speaker 1: can learn from them? Yeah, so, you know, I I've
Speaker 1: not I've not admitted this publicly very often, but I was.
Speaker 1: I was actually digging a while back into the founding
Speaker 1: of Harvard's first online social network, which, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: everyone feels like they know the story of but there's
Speaker 1: a backstory that most people don't know, which is this
Speaker 1: is almost two decades ago. Now there was a small
Speaker 1: group of college seniors who got into Harvard, and a
Speaker 1: couple of them were were worried that they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: any friends if they went, and so they started searching.
Speaker 1: At the time, it was America Online. They searched all
Speaker 1: profiles to see if they could find, you know, future
Speaker 1: members of their class and get to know them so
Speaker 1: that they would arrive at college with some friends. And
Speaker 1: they found a few people, and they started a little
Speaker 1: email list, and every week they'd find a few more
Speaker 1: people and expand the list. By April, they had over
Speaker 1: a hundred entering freshmen on the list, and when they
Speaker 1: arrived at school in September, they had connected more than
Speaker 1: an eighth of the freshman class online. And then those
Speaker 1: those freshmen shut down their online social network because they said,
Speaker 1: we already know each other face to face, like why
Speaker 1: do we need an online connection? And they've lived with
Speaker 1: deep regret ever since, because Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook five
Speaker 1: years later in a dorm right down the street. And um,
Speaker 1: I guess I know something about that regret, because I
Speaker 1: was one of the co founders of that first online
Speaker 1: social network. Wow, done, gun Dune, Think what you'd be
Speaker 1: doing today? Adam. It was. It was. It was a
Speaker 1: terrible decision. But the funny thing is never occurred to
Speaker 1: any of us, you know that anyone would get any
Speaker 1: use out of it. You know, once once you were
Speaker 1: all on campus together. You know, I, look, I'm not
Speaker 1: a I'm not a computer scientist. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to code. I never would have had Mark's vision for
Speaker 1: Facebook or you know, Cheryl's business acumen and leadership skills.
Speaker 1: But I did walk away from that experience thinking that
Speaker 1: so many of us are in positions where we have ideas,
Speaker 1: you know, for things that could make the world around
Speaker 1: us a little bit better. You know, anytime you get frustrated,
Speaker 1: you know, in your job, or whether you know you're
Speaker 1: volunteering in any part of your life, and say, you
Speaker 1: know that that doesn't make sense or I wish this
Speaker 1: was different, that's a moment to do something original. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times we just don't bother because either
Speaker 1: we're afraid or we just think it's futile and we
Speaker 1: don't see the potential in our ideas that we should.
Speaker 1: So that, to me was the reason why we all
Speaker 1: need to pursue our ideas with a little bit more
Speaker 1: enthusiasm than we do, but do not conformist rule the day.
Speaker 1: Basically is that the thesis of your book Originals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, I I kind of looked up to
Speaker 1: the people who I thought of as the nonconformists, you know,
Speaker 1: the original thinkers who were willing to to go against
Speaker 1: the grain and challenge the status quo and you know,
Speaker 1: take big risks, and they are the people who drive
Speaker 1: a lot of the creativity and change in the world.
Speaker 1: You know, if if you think about whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: tech entrepreneurs, you know a lot of people will say
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or you know, I
Speaker 1: think social change too. If you think about Gandhi or
Speaker 1: Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr. Or Abraham Lincoln. Right,
Speaker 1: these were all people who are willing to stand up
Speaker 1: for their ideas against a majority that that didn't really
Speaker 1: see it. And I think that you know, they do
Speaker 1: sort of run the world. But a lot of people
Speaker 1: who operate this way get shot down because they don't
Speaker 1: know how to champion their ideas effectively. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess I wrote Originals to say, look, we all
Speaker 1: have creative ideas, creativity is not the problem for most
Speaker 1: of us. Where we've struggle is what we do after
Speaker 1: we have an idea. How do we know if it's
Speaker 1: any good? How do we speak up so that other
Speaker 1: people really hear us and take a seriously exactly exactly, So,
Speaker 1: I really wanted to write the sequel to creativity. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a relatively new parent, and I know you have
Speaker 1: three congratulations thanks, no doubt you're parenting at him in
Speaker 1: a totally evidence based, you know, data driven, brilliant way.
Speaker 1: But hold on a second. I do not want to
Speaker 1: be one of those psychologists who screws up at kids.
Speaker 1: I know a few of them actually, But anyway, what
Speaker 1: what are some things I can do because obviously I'm
Speaker 1: already screwing up my kid it's seventeen months old. To
Speaker 1: encourage her to, you know, not just achieve great things,
Speaker 1: but also to be a good and happy person. Well,
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to building resilience and kids,
Speaker 1: the first thing I would say is that I think
Speaker 1: of of everything that that I've learned and that that
Speaker 1: we read about and studied, the thing that kids often
Speaker 1: need most is to feel that they matter and mattering.
Speaker 1: Is this this idea that so bologists study, which says,
Speaker 1: you know, you feel that you matter when you know
Speaker 1: that other people notice you, care about you, and rely
Speaker 1: on you. And I think most parents are pretty good
Speaker 1: at the first two right, paying attention to our kids
Speaker 1: as long as we're not distracted by digital devices, check
Speaker 1: you know, caring about our kids. We we go out
Speaker 1: of our way to show our kids that we love
Speaker 1: them and tell them regularly. Good on that front too.
Speaker 1: But then to know that you matter, you also have
Speaker 1: to feel that other people rely on you. And this
Speaker 1: is where I think we screw up. We don't count
Speaker 1: on our kids enough, and we put them in a
Speaker 1: position where we solve problems for them, especially for helicopter parents.
Speaker 1: And so you know, one of the ways that you
Speaker 1: can show your kids that they matter and and help
Speaker 1: to build their resilience is to ask them for advice.
Speaker 1: I've actually found myself doing this with that with our
Speaker 1: with our daughters. When I was preparing for a speech
Speaker 1: two years ago, I was I was asked to give
Speaker 1: a TED talk, and I was terrified. I had gotten
Speaker 1: more and more comfortable doing public speaking, but this is
Speaker 1: a whole different kind of stage, and I thought, this
Speaker 1: is a This is a per fick moment to you know,
Speaker 1: to show our kids that they matter. And so I
Speaker 1: went to our oldest daughter and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm nervous about this speech. What advice would you give me?
Speaker 1: And she gave me a few tips. She said, you
Speaker 1: know you should you should practice it a bunch of times,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, maybe you should. Also, you know,
Speaker 1: you should think happy thoughts right before you give your talk.
Speaker 1: So long story short, you know, a couple of weeks later,
Speaker 1: she was in a school play and she was nervous,
Speaker 1: and instead of telling her what to do, I got
Speaker 1: to repeat her own advice back to her and say,
Speaker 1: you know what, what advice did you give me? And
Speaker 1: then she was able to tackle the problem on her own.
Speaker 1: So that advice giving you know, sort of experience for her.
Speaker 1: It's signaled to her a few things. One, I trust
Speaker 1: her to handle her her own problems. Two, she has,
Speaker 1: you know, some of her own ideas instead of relying
Speaker 1: on mine, and that's a source of strength. And three
Speaker 1: I also get to hear her suggestions and maybe edit
Speaker 1: them a little bit so that I can teach her
Speaker 1: some good strategies. That's really good advice. I've read so
Speaker 1: much parents advice and in my day, and I've never
Speaker 1: read that or heard anybody talk about helping kids understand
Speaker 1: that they matter. I've certainly read so many books and
Speaker 1: articles about overparenting and helicopter parenting and raising sort of
Speaker 1: these not only entitled Everybody Wins a Trophy Kids. But
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about your podcast called work Life.
Speaker 1: First of all, are you enjoying it at him? Oh?
Speaker 1: I'm having a blessed thank you for asking this? Is
Speaker 1: this is so much easier than writing well. It's also
Speaker 1: it's also fun just to talk to interesting people. I'm assuming,
Speaker 1: and I know you're focusing on businesses that are highly
Speaker 1: functional but often unconventional. So I'm curious. Can you give
Speaker 1: us a few examples of the businesses that you've explored
Speaker 1: on your podcast. Yeah. So the idea for for work
Speaker 1: Life was I would pick organizations that go to the
Speaker 1: extreme on something that I wish everyone got a chance
Speaker 1: to experience. So I wanted to do an episode on creativity,
Speaker 1: and I got to go into the Daily Show writer's
Speaker 1: room and figure out how they they go from basically
Speaker 1: a blank slate at nine am to you know, hilarious
Speaker 1: show by Evening, which was just one of the coolest
Speaker 1: experiences I've ever had. I that I'm jealous me too.
Speaker 1: Actually I was half tempted to quit my job and
Speaker 1: try to get one there, but they were not hiring
Speaker 1: so and I don't think they would take me anyway.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Dorothy, White Jewish guys are not who they
Speaker 1: hire ever, So probably I was gonna ask you was
Speaker 1: it very male dominated? Because I think comedy is sort
Speaker 1: of one of those fields where women do not get
Speaker 1: their just do in my personal opinion, what was it like?
Speaker 1: There's what I expected, And they have done a phenomenal
Speaker 1: job on diversity, so they have a really strong male
Speaker 1: female balance. They also have many many racial minority groups covered,
Speaker 1: as well as people from outside the US working as
Speaker 1: writers and producers and on air talent. It's the most
Speaker 1: diverse writer's room I've ever seen, which is a huge
Speaker 1: priority for the show. It started in the John Stewart days.
Speaker 1: Trevor Noah has has continued it and expanded it and
Speaker 1: you know, dating back to that two has an eight,
Speaker 1: two hausand nine uh. They introduced a blind review system,
Speaker 1: kind of like the blind auditions that orchestras did, where
Speaker 1: they had, you know, people play from behind a curtain
Speaker 1: so you couldn't see if it was a manner of women.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, people realize, whoa women are
Speaker 1: really good? We've been overlooking them right, and orc that
Speaker 1: the We actually went to the Boston Symphony and recorded
Speaker 1: a blind audition and it changed the It changed the
Speaker 1: complement of male female orchestra members dramatically. I think they're
Speaker 1: now of national symphonies or women. And I always said, well,
Speaker 1: you have to wear sneakers because no one can hear
Speaker 1: your high heels when you're walking across the stage, or
Speaker 1: you have to put a carpet on there. But um,
Speaker 1: you know that's what I'm talking about when it comes
Speaker 1: to real policies that remove these biases. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I think that's so critical, and you know they're they're
Speaker 1: often wrinkles in doing that. So you know, you think, okay,
Speaker 1: we we do the blind submission, that's going to fix
Speaker 1: late night right rooms. But you you actually watched in
Speaker 1: the past few years a bunch of other writer's rooms
Speaker 1: follow the daily shows the lead they had blind submissions
Speaker 1: and they still ended up with mostly white men. Because
Speaker 1: you know that the people in the room were a
Speaker 1: bunch of white men and that was their taste. And
Speaker 1: so you know that you need to make sure that
Speaker 1: your evaluators are as diverse as your applicants interest, which
Speaker 1: I think is often a missing part of the process.
Speaker 1: And that's I think part of where The Daily Show
Speaker 1: has nailed it. That's so interesting. I love that before
Speaker 1: we go there's some unconventional adam grant advice. So we're
Speaker 1: going to do a quick lightning round and you could
Speaker 1: explain what the heck you mean by some of these things,
Speaker 1: because they're very counterintuitive, as they say. So one, don't
Speaker 1: be your authentic self, huh in one sentence or less.
Speaker 1: I think that too many people use authenticity as an
Speaker 1: excuse for saying things that are hurtful or inappropriate. And
Speaker 1: instead of asking what's inside and how do I bring
Speaker 1: that to the outside world, we should go outside in
Speaker 1: and be sincere and say who's the person I claim
Speaker 1: to be? And then how do I make sure I
Speaker 1: follow up and actually live that. By the way, the
Speaker 1: most overused word in the English language right now, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, is authentic. But you're saying that that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a positive thing. Yeah, I think you know when
Speaker 1: when you look at the if you look at authenticity
Speaker 1: at work, the studies show that the more you value authenticity,
Speaker 1: the lower your performance evaluations and the lower your likelihood
Speaker 1: of getting promoted because you you end up sort of
Speaker 1: not concerned enough about what other people think. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying anyone should be inauthentic. What I am saying
Speaker 1: is you need to find a balance between what's authentic
Speaker 1: and what's effective. Okay, another piece of adom grant advice.
Speaker 1: It's okay for kids to fight, by what you mean, argue,
Speaker 1: not like beat each other up. Oh, I was so
Speaker 1: fascinated by the data on this. If you study highly
Speaker 1: creative adults, it turns out that they tend to be
Speaker 1: raised in families growing up where there were more arguments,
Speaker 1: you know, not fist fights, but real heated debates. And
Speaker 1: I think a reason for that is that it teaches
Speaker 1: kids not to just listen to whatever one adult or
Speaker 1: two adults says. Right If if as if his parents
Speaker 1: you always present a united front, then kids just learn
Speaker 1: to follow authority figures, whereas if you watch your parents argue,
Speaker 1: you have to think for yourself. Now, a lot of
Speaker 1: parents are afraid of arguing in front of their kids.
Speaker 1: You don't want to, you know, terrify them that you're
Speaker 1: you're going to get divorced or anything. But what you
Speaker 1: want to do is you want to model a healthy
Speaker 1: disagreement because that teaches them how to do that themselves.
Speaker 1: And the data show that if you look at how
Speaker 1: well adjusted kids are, it has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: how often their parents argue. It's about how respectfully their
Speaker 1: parents arguing. And it's really also debate right to have
Speaker 1: a difference of opinion I s spet. I think that's
Speaker 1: especially relevant in this day and age where people are
Speaker 1: getting information that affirms their point of view rather than
Speaker 1: learning how to be critical thinkers and express how they
Speaker 1: feel in conflict with a with an opposing point of view.
Speaker 1: It's a huge corporate culture is more important to your
Speaker 1: happiness than salary, title or position. I would agree with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: above obviously, you you need enough of a salary to
Speaker 1: to make ends meet, and you know, to to be
Speaker 1: able to support your family or your lifestyle outside work.
Speaker 1: But once once you clear that bar I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people underestimate how much culture matters. If you
Speaker 1: look at the evidence on this one thing, you can
Speaker 1: do is you can say, look, you're trying to diagnose
Speaker 1: the culture of an organization, and the easiest question to
Speaker 1: ask people is not what's your culture like or what
Speaker 1: are your values, because you get a bunch of platitudes. Instead,
Speaker 1: what you want to do is you want to ask
Speaker 1: a passover question, which is, can you tell me the
Speaker 1: story of something that happened in your organization that would
Speaker 1: not happen elsewhere? And then you ask a bunch of
Speaker 1: people that question and you start to hear the really
Speaker 1: core values of the culture come out in the stories.
Speaker 1: Brainstorming meetings are a waste of time, always not always
Speaker 1: been on an average, if you're going to bring eight
Speaker 1: people together in a room to rainstorm together, you would
Speaker 1: get more ideas and better ideas if you put them
Speaker 1: in separate rooms to brainstorm alone, interesting and just to
Speaker 1: write down their ideas then get together and compare notes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because when when you let people think independently, you get
Speaker 1: less group think. You don't have people censoring themselves, you
Speaker 1: know who are afraid of looking stupid, and you don't
Speaker 1: have people talking over each other, so you get more
Speaker 1: ideas and people are more likely to share their boldest
Speaker 1: ideas And finally one that really made me happy. Procrastination
Speaker 1: can be good because I am a master procrastinator. Oh well,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll tell you about that one later. I've
Speaker 1: been I've been waiting for an opportunity. No, I you know,
Speaker 1: I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that, you know,
Speaker 1: procrastinations a spectrum. There are people who do it chronically,
Speaker 1: but they're also people like me who are procrastinators where
Speaker 1: you know, I'm constantly finishing things early. And there's a
Speaker 1: sweet spot where people who procrastinate sometimes seem to be
Speaker 1: more creative because they incubate more and they don't run
Speaker 1: ahead with their their first idea. They actually have time
Speaker 1: to develop their best idea. Excellent. Well, that was a
Speaker 1: great lightning round. And for our final question, Brian Goldsmith, Well,
Speaker 1: I couldn't do a podcast and not talk about Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: So before we wrap, what have you learned about the organizational,
Speaker 1: psychology and culture of the Trump White House? Oh? Wow? Well, look,
Speaker 1: to me, the single biggest problem in in the White
Speaker 1: House right now. Uh, you know, and I think there's
Speaker 1: no shortage of officies that are getting lots of attention,
Speaker 1: but I think the single biggest problem is that the
Speaker 1: Trump administration is repeating the mistakes in many past presents,
Speaker 1: which is if you look at the one of the
Speaker 1: big differences between presidents who made decisions that are regarded
Speaker 1: by historians and political scientists is great versus those who
Speaker 1: had more stumbles. One of the biggest factors that distinguishes
Speaker 1: them is having an honest broker, someone in the White
Speaker 1: House who sits above all the heads of the different
Speaker 1: agencies and gives, you know, really candid feedback to the president,
Speaker 1: and the president listens to that. You know, that doesn't
Speaker 1: That's not the only structure, of course, but I think
Speaker 1: it illustrates that, you know, we we have a pretty
Speaker 1: clear situation of of yes men, where we have you know,
Speaker 1: we have a president who, like many powerful people, is
Speaker 1: listening to the people who agree with him and dismissing
Speaker 1: his critics. Uh. And we know that's that's horrendous for
Speaker 1: decision processes. And so I would love to say that,
Speaker 1: you know, if I could do one thing differently in
Speaker 1: the White House is that currently runs. I would say
Speaker 1: that we're going to find a bunch of people who
Speaker 1: genuinely hold different opinions, and we're gonna We're gonna listen
Speaker 1: to their challenges as opposed to dismissing them, shutting them down,
Speaker 1: or firing them. Excellent. Al right, well that's good advice.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it won will not be heated. But it's
Speaker 1: interesting to hear your perspective, Adam Grant, Adam so great
Speaker 1: to talk do you. We want to mention again your
Speaker 1: new podcast is called work Life. Everyone should give it
Speaker 1: a listen because Adam at thirty six is wise beyond
Speaker 1: his years. Annoyingly so, I must say it's certain points,
Speaker 1: but um, love talking to you, Adam. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much that no, no, no, I'm teasing. This is a
Speaker 1: treat as always. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Well that's the end of our show, Brian. I always
Speaker 1: feels so much smarter and calmer after talking to Adam Grant,
Speaker 1: even though he makes me feel like I just do
Speaker 1: nothing every day. Yeah, it's a great combination of feeling
Speaker 1: like a terrible person but also like maybe my life's
Speaker 1: gonna go a little better thanks to our pot squad
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. That's our producer Gianna Palmer, our audio
Speaker 1: engineer Jared O'Connell, and our assistant producer Nora Richie. Also
Speaker 1: a big thank you to my assistant Beth Demas for
Speaker 1: keeping my life in order. Poor Beth, thank you, And
Speaker 1: of course thanks to Emily Bean at Katie Kirk Media
Speaker 1: Alison Bresnik, who does such a great job on our
Speaker 1: social media front. Mark Phillips wrote our theme music. You
Speaker 1: can find Katie all over the social media's under actual
Speaker 1: media is the plural right, yes, under Katie Kirk. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I send a lot of stuff out into the void
Speaker 1: on Twitter, which my mother reads at. I read it
Speaker 1: to Brian and I are the show's executive producers. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to leave us a message with your thoughts and
Speaker 1: feedback on the podcast. Honestly, we we can take constructive
Speaker 1: criticism as long as it's constructive people, that's right. I'm
Speaker 1: standing by seven at two to four four six three seven.
Speaker 1: You can also email us at comments at currect podcast
Speaker 1: dot com, or leave the show or view on Apple podcasts.
Speaker 1: We love hearing from you, and the Apple stuff, by
Speaker 1: the way, is how more people hear about the show,
Speaker 1: so that's really important and we would appreciate it. Lately
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been telling me that they
Speaker 1: fall asleep listening to my podcast. I don't know whether
Speaker 1: to be flattered or insulted, but they said my voice
Speaker 1: is soothing, so it makes me think I should maybe
Speaker 1: release an album of lullabies I don't know, or poetry.
Speaker 1: And we know how much you love to sing, and actually,
Speaker 1: can you give us a few notes? I didn't sing
Speaker 1: anything in this episode. Twinkle twinkle maybe no, No, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of embarrassed Pharma's anxiety right now, Brian has to
Speaker 1: be kind of more spontaneous. Whatever, whatever floats your boat.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll do a private record session or later.
Speaker 1: How about nine bottles of beer on the wall, that
Speaker 1: perfect one perfect anyway, As always, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening, and we'll talk to you soon