1 00:00:02,400 --> 00:00:06,720 Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 2 00:00:09,520 --> 00:00:13,520 Speaker 2: This is Master's in Business with Barry red Holds on 3 00:00:13,720 --> 00:00:14,680 Speaker 2: Bloomberg Radio. 4 00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:19,920 Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have another extra special guest. 5 00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:26,160 Speaker 1: Professor Michael Morris is a fascinating instructor of social psychology 6 00:00:26,320 --> 00:00:30,920 Speaker 1: and the way tribalism affects us and the way we 7 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:35,360 Speaker 1: affect tribes. His book, Tribal How the cultural instincts that 8 00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:37,839 Speaker 1: divide us can help bring Us Together is really a 9 00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:44,560 Speaker 1: fascinating discussion of various ways that tribes are not etched 10 00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:48,200 Speaker 1: in stone, they're not part of our DNA. Tribes vary 11 00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:51,760 Speaker 1: from culture to culture, from company to company, and that 12 00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:57,040 Speaker 1: using tribes can be a very effective way to turn 13 00:00:57,080 --> 00:01:02,640 Speaker 1: a company around that's struggling to change, that's facing all 14 00:01:02,680 --> 00:01:09,440 Speaker 1: sorts of challenges, and essentially to become the best organization 15 00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:13,280 Speaker 1: we can be. Full disclosure, The professor has consulted for 16 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:17,639 Speaker 1: Bloomberg LP, that's the parent company of Bloomberg Radio, where 17 00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:22,920 Speaker 1: he led classes teaching corporate culture and tribalism. I thought 18 00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:25,360 Speaker 1: the book was really interesting, and I found our conversation 19 00:01:25,480 --> 00:01:28,920 Speaker 1: to be absolutely fascinating, and I think you will also, 20 00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:34,480 Speaker 1: with no further ado, My conversation with Professor Michael Morris, author. 21 00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:37,039 Speaker 2: Of Tribal Thank you so much for having me here. 22 00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:39,880 Speaker 1: Well, thanks for coming. Let's start out with your background. 23 00:01:40,120 --> 00:01:45,360 Speaker 1: Undergraduate cognitive science and English literature at Brown and then 24 00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:49,480 Speaker 1: a PhD in psychology at the University of Michigan, Go Blue. 25 00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:51,720 Speaker 1: What was the original career plan. 26 00:01:52,080 --> 00:01:55,160 Speaker 2: Well, the original career plan was I wanted to stay 27 00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:57,560 Speaker 2: in school for a little while, right I went to 28 00:01:57,600 --> 00:02:00,400 Speaker 2: do a PhD. I had actually gone to four different 29 00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:04,480 Speaker 2: three different universities in my four years as an undergraduate, 30 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:09,840 Speaker 2: and so my feet had been moving, and I thought 31 00:02:09,880 --> 00:02:12,720 Speaker 2: I could benefit from going to graduate school, and I 32 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:15,560 Speaker 2: chose something sort of in the middle of the two 33 00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:18,560 Speaker 2: topics that I studied as an undergraduate. You know, cognitive 34 00:02:18,600 --> 00:02:22,320 Speaker 2: science is a computer science and sort of nom Chomsky 35 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:26,200 Speaker 2: style linguistics. It's sort of a more mathy, formal approach 36 00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:30,079 Speaker 2: to the mind. And then comparative literature is obviously all 37 00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:37,240 Speaker 2: about tradition and the collective, the collective representations that shape 38 00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:42,520 Speaker 2: the discourse in a community over the centuries, and so 39 00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:44,800 Speaker 2: I think it was kind of natural for me to 40 00:02:45,280 --> 00:02:50,800 Speaker 2: be interested in how the received culture shapes the thought 41 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:54,360 Speaker 2: processes that a group of people have and I had 42 00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:57,600 Speaker 2: grown up, you know, around people from different parts of 43 00:02:57,639 --> 00:03:00,040 Speaker 2: the world and didn't seem to me like every but 44 00:03:00,200 --> 00:03:03,480 Speaker 2: he thought the same way that everybody didn't seem to 45 00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:09,200 Speaker 2: have the same common sense. So I started working with 46 00:03:09,320 --> 00:03:14,200 Speaker 2: people who were rebuilding a field called cultural psychology, which 47 00:03:14,280 --> 00:03:18,800 Speaker 2: had had existed briefly in Moscow and the twenties but 48 00:03:18,840 --> 00:03:21,880 Speaker 2: then kind of got shot down by Stalin, and you know, 49 00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:27,160 Speaker 2: it resurfaced in the mid nineties as people were trying 50 00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:30,880 Speaker 2: to understand the rise of the Four Tigers in China 51 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:33,080 Speaker 2: and Japan and how was it that you could have 52 00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:37,920 Speaker 2: multiple modernities, you know, not everyone was becoming Western. And 53 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:40,280 Speaker 2: that's sort of the time and place in which my 54 00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:41,720 Speaker 2: career started. 55 00:03:42,120 --> 00:03:45,960 Speaker 1: It sounds like, based on exactly how you're describing this, 56 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:49,320 Speaker 1: it was almost inevitable that you would end up focusing 57 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:54,880 Speaker 1: on psychology, tribes and management. Tell us a little bit about, 58 00:03:55,240 --> 00:03:58,840 Speaker 1: you know, how you came to focus on this area. 59 00:03:58,920 --> 00:04:02,839 Speaker 2: I started doing work that you can think of as 60 00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:05,520 Speaker 2: sort of East West comparisons. You know, often it was 61 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:11,120 Speaker 2: comparing college students in China to college students in the US, 62 00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:15,920 Speaker 2: or bank employees in Hong Kong to bank employees in 63 00:04:15,960 --> 00:04:19,320 Speaker 2: New York. When I was doing that, it was considered 64 00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:23,239 Speaker 2: to be sort of fringe, fringe research in psychology, because 65 00:04:23,279 --> 00:04:25,719 Speaker 2: psychologists at the time liked to think of themselves as 66 00:04:26,839 --> 00:04:29,840 Speaker 2: natural scientists, you know, part of the natural sciences, and 67 00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:33,680 Speaker 2: they thought that most of the biases they observed were 68 00:04:34,320 --> 00:04:38,920 Speaker 2: you know, rooted in a brain structure in one way 69 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:42,479 Speaker 2: or another, and they were part of universal human nature. 70 00:04:42,520 --> 00:04:44,360 Speaker 2: And so what I was doing was a little bit 71 00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:50,800 Speaker 2: considered to be critical of that. But at the same time, 72 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:53,640 Speaker 2: the business schools of the world, at least the top 73 00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:57,440 Speaker 2: business schools of the world, were becoming very, very interested 74 00:04:57,880 --> 00:05:01,800 Speaker 2: in cultural differences, and in particular interested in research on 75 00:05:01,839 --> 00:05:05,560 Speaker 2: cultural differences that was somewhat objective, you know, that used 76 00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:10,120 Speaker 2: you know, precise measurements, rather than anthropological field work, which 77 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:13,760 Speaker 2: has a more subjective feeling. Although it's valuable in many 78 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:16,599 Speaker 2: ways to the to the economists, you know, running the 79 00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:20,680 Speaker 2: top business schools, it felt a little vague and impressionistic. 80 00:05:21,200 --> 00:05:26,880 Speaker 2: And so I was running experiments and precise surveys, comparing 81 00:05:27,279 --> 00:05:30,720 Speaker 2: you know, professionals and students in these different parts of 82 00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:34,840 Speaker 2: the world and observing regular differences in some of the 83 00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:38,839 Speaker 2: cognitive biases, and that led three of the top business 84 00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:41,320 Speaker 2: schools in the world to all make me job offers. 85 00:05:41,360 --> 00:05:44,280 Speaker 2: And so I had not foreseen that this research would 86 00:05:44,279 --> 00:05:47,000 Speaker 2: carry me into the world of business schools. You know, 87 00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:49,239 Speaker 2: Brown is not a place that has a business school. 88 00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:52,240 Speaker 2: You don't have much exposure to it. It seemed like 89 00:05:52,279 --> 00:05:54,359 Speaker 2: the universe was telling me that what I was doing 90 00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:57,920 Speaker 2: was of great interest to people in business schools. So 91 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:00,200 Speaker 2: my career turned a corner at that point. And then 92 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:03,640 Speaker 2: I started at Stanford Business School at age twenty six, 93 00:06:03,760 --> 00:06:06,760 Speaker 2: you know, before I had even finished my dissertation, and 94 00:06:07,279 --> 00:06:10,599 Speaker 2: it was our learning experience. You know, I wasn't the 95 00:06:10,640 --> 00:06:13,280 Speaker 2: greatest teacher in my first couple of years, but you learn, 96 00:06:13,560 --> 00:06:16,640 Speaker 2: you know, you learn from teaching. And then I did 97 00:06:16,680 --> 00:06:19,880 Speaker 2: well there and got promoted early there and then decided 98 00:06:19,880 --> 00:06:22,280 Speaker 2: to come back to New York where I grew up 99 00:06:22,279 --> 00:06:25,680 Speaker 2: in the New York area, and that brought me to Columbia. 100 00:06:25,800 --> 00:06:28,120 Speaker 2: I came back to Columbia in two thousand and one. 101 00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:32,160 Speaker 2: My first day of teaching at Columbia University was actually 102 00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:37,000 Speaker 2: nine to eleven. Oh, so that was an interesting introduction. 103 00:06:37,520 --> 00:06:41,440 Speaker 2: But you know, I've enjoyed living and working in New 104 00:06:41,520 --> 00:06:43,320 Speaker 2: York quite a lot. I never thought I would still 105 00:06:43,360 --> 00:06:45,960 Speaker 2: be living here because I had been in a pattern 106 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:50,160 Speaker 2: of moving every five years, you know, But it's an 107 00:06:50,160 --> 00:06:52,680 Speaker 2: easy solution to life. I take a lot of sabbatical 108 00:06:52,800 --> 00:06:58,080 Speaker 2: years in China, Singapore, Hong Kong, so I sustain deep 109 00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:02,200 Speaker 2: collaborations and laboratories there, as well as in some other 110 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:06,040 Speaker 2: parts of the world like India and sometimes in Europe. 111 00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:09,520 Speaker 1: So you are not the first person, both academic and 112 00:07:09,640 --> 00:07:14,920 Speaker 1: people working in finance who have said, my original research 113 00:07:15,040 --> 00:07:17,600 Speaker 1: was thought of as fringe twenty years ago and then 114 00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:22,760 Speaker 1: suddenly not fringe. So it just goes to show you 115 00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:27,320 Speaker 1: that if you're outside of the mainstream, outside of the consensus, 116 00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:31,520 Speaker 1: that's where you know, all of the undiscovered veins of 117 00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:34,520 Speaker 1: gold are. Or so it seems. You talk about the 118 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:38,760 Speaker 1: difference between how Chinese students behave versus American students, and 119 00:07:38,840 --> 00:07:41,920 Speaker 1: even when Chinese students are in the US, when they're 120 00:07:41,960 --> 00:07:45,320 Speaker 1: speaking Chinese, it's a different set of culture, a different 121 00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:49,160 Speaker 1: set of behaviors, versus when they're same group of people 122 00:07:49,200 --> 00:07:53,680 Speaker 1: speaking English. It seems like the norms change and the 123 00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:58,440 Speaker 1: various behaviors change. You've published two hundred articles on behavioral science. 124 00:07:58,760 --> 00:08:02,440 Speaker 1: Tell us what you're rea research finds about these various 125 00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:05,840 Speaker 1: behavioral I don't even want to call them texts, behavioral 126 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:11,200 Speaker 1: or just behaviors. The switches when when a cultural factor 127 00:08:11,280 --> 00:08:13,280 Speaker 1: is impacting people's thinking. 128 00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:17,360 Speaker 2: Right, Well, let me start by saying this touches on 129 00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:21,360 Speaker 2: the core theme of the book, which is that culture changes. 130 00:08:21,560 --> 00:08:26,440 Speaker 2: There's this myth out there that culture is unchanging and unchangeable, 131 00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:29,360 Speaker 2: that the cultures of the world are permanent fixtures, and 132 00:08:29,400 --> 00:08:32,800 Speaker 2: that the Americans of two centuries ago were the same 133 00:08:32,840 --> 00:08:35,480 Speaker 2: as us. And that's that's an illusion that we kind 134 00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:37,920 Speaker 2: of enjoy, but it's a it's an illusion. You know, 135 00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:40,760 Speaker 2: what the founding Fathers meant by the pursuit of happiness 136 00:08:40,800 --> 00:08:42,640 Speaker 2: is not what you and I think of as the 137 00:08:42,679 --> 00:08:47,840 Speaker 2: pursuit of happiness and what we know today in the 138 00:08:47,880 --> 00:08:51,560 Speaker 2: pop culture as code switching. It sort of came into 139 00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:55,040 Speaker 2: the popular discourse when Obama was president, and we've seen 140 00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:59,599 Speaker 2: it again this year, as Kamala Harris campaigned. Is this 141 00:08:59,760 --> 00:09:03,360 Speaker 2: notion that people who've grown up in more than one 142 00:09:03,559 --> 00:09:10,520 Speaker 2: ethnic subculture that have corresponding dialects will make switches depending 143 00:09:10,559 --> 00:09:11,720 Speaker 2: on the audience that they're in. 144 00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:17,960 Speaker 1: Front of you have a reference to Korean pilots with 145 00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:20,680 Speaker 1: South Korean pilots, where there is a history and a 146 00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:25,280 Speaker 1: culture of deference to seniority, And it reminded me, and 147 00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:28,560 Speaker 1: that leads to problems and airplane crashes, and it reminds 148 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:31,200 Speaker 1: me of I want to say it was Matthew Sayed 149 00:09:31,400 --> 00:09:35,119 Speaker 1: the book Black Box Thinking, who talked about a similar 150 00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:40,440 Speaker 1: cultural phenomena with South American pilots and it ultimately led 151 00:09:40,480 --> 00:09:46,240 Speaker 1: to them changing their ways. Pilots interact because literally planes 152 00:09:46,240 --> 00:09:49,960 Speaker 1: were flying into mountains because the copilot didn't want to 153 00:09:50,040 --> 00:09:53,360 Speaker 1: disrespect the senior pilot and say, hey, we're all about 154 00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:57,360 Speaker 1: to die. Like its amazing. Cultural norms are so strong 155 00:09:57,800 --> 00:10:01,840 Speaker 1: that rather than risk offending the popot, you lose the plane. 156 00:10:01,880 --> 00:10:07,720 Speaker 1: It seems bananas, but apparently that's how important culture is. 157 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:11,720 Speaker 2: Well. A lot of this is unconscious automatic behavior, right. 158 00:10:11,800 --> 00:10:15,960 Speaker 2: I mean, I'm I'm a copilot, socialize my whole life 159 00:10:16,040 --> 00:10:19,959 Speaker 2: to speak in a deferential way to those of senior rank, 160 00:10:20,559 --> 00:10:25,560 Speaker 2: and so I'm speaking that way. I'm not calculating that 161 00:10:25,760 --> 00:10:29,920 Speaker 2: if I spoke more assertively that might change the pilot's 162 00:10:30,679 --> 00:10:34,760 Speaker 2: comprehension of the urgency of the situation. Yeah, so I 163 00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:37,440 Speaker 2: think that a lot of accidents are caused by automatic 164 00:10:37,520 --> 00:10:42,679 Speaker 2: behavior and a lot of you know, cultural behaviors. The 165 00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:49,679 Speaker 2: situation with Korean pilots, it was something that was discovered 166 00:10:49,720 --> 00:10:53,360 Speaker 2: first by Boeing. Boeing researchers, you know, who made the 167 00:10:53,400 --> 00:10:57,720 Speaker 2: seven forty seven class jet, which requires equal collaboration among 168 00:10:57,760 --> 00:11:00,760 Speaker 2: copilots and pilots, which wasn't the case with smaller jets. 169 00:11:01,559 --> 00:11:05,600 Speaker 2: They noticed that there was enormous variants across the world's 170 00:11:05,720 --> 00:11:10,520 Speaker 2: flagship airlines in safety rates, and the countries that were 171 00:11:10,520 --> 00:11:12,240 Speaker 2: having the most problems were not the ones that you 172 00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:15,760 Speaker 2: might think they were. Taiwan and South Korea. Those were 173 00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:18,800 Speaker 2: the countries with the worst safety record. And those are 174 00:11:18,840 --> 00:11:22,800 Speaker 2: not poor countries in particular, or countries with particularly bad weather, 175 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:26,200 Speaker 2: but they are countries that are among the highest in 176 00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:30,720 Speaker 2: the world when you look at hierarchical values what researchers 177 00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:34,680 Speaker 2: called power distance, and in those societies, if someone is 178 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:38,000 Speaker 2: of senior rank, you're not supposed to equally, you're not 179 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:41,720 Speaker 2: supposed to interact with them equally. And it was sufficiently 180 00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:47,439 Speaker 2: worrying that Boeing actually considered designing a different plane wow 181 00:11:48,360 --> 00:11:51,000 Speaker 2: for those parts of the world. But then at the 182 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:55,240 Speaker 2: same time, this study of cockpit black boxes that are 183 00:11:55,240 --> 00:11:59,720 Speaker 2: recovered after accidents and have recordings of the cockpit dialogue 184 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:03,480 Speaker 2: that came out around the same time and pointed to 185 00:12:03,520 --> 00:12:06,920 Speaker 2: a very similar conclusion. And Malcolm Gladwell and his book 186 00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:10,840 Speaker 2: Outliars wrote about the confluence of these these two things, 187 00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:12,840 Speaker 2: and I think brought it to a lot of people's 188 00:12:12,880 --> 00:12:15,880 Speaker 2: attention at that time. But what I found even more 189 00:12:15,920 --> 00:12:19,440 Speaker 2: interesting than the paradox that, you know, a country like 190 00:12:19,480 --> 00:12:22,520 Speaker 2: South Korea, which is high in technology, high in wealth, etc. 191 00:12:22,880 --> 00:12:25,200 Speaker 2: Was having problems, was that they managed to get rid 192 00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:28,000 Speaker 2: of the problems. They made some very simple changes in 193 00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:31,079 Speaker 2: Korean airlines and they haven't crashed since. So they went 194 00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:34,400 Speaker 2: from the world's worst safety record to an unblemish safety record. 195 00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:37,480 Speaker 2: And the change they made was not firing a bunch 196 00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:40,400 Speaker 2: of people, was not changing all their procedures. It was 197 00:12:40,520 --> 00:12:44,000 Speaker 2: changing the official language of the country and the official 198 00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:47,880 Speaker 2: language of the cockpit from Korean to English. Now, all 199 00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:50,439 Speaker 2: pilots already spoke English because it's the language of air 200 00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:53,600 Speaker 2: traffic control around the world. But when people were speaking 201 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:59,200 Speaker 2: to the same colleagues in English, they weren't cued to 202 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:02,160 Speaker 2: be deferential because just like in Japan, where you have 203 00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:05,640 Speaker 2: to call your boss, you know, sato san or something, 204 00:13:05,720 --> 00:13:08,160 Speaker 2: you know, you have to use certain suffixes in Korea, 205 00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:12,439 Speaker 2: and there are these complex honorific declensions that you have 206 00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:16,880 Speaker 2: to use that are constant reminders of the status relative 207 00:13:16,920 --> 00:13:19,160 Speaker 2: status level, and of course in English we don't have 208 00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:23,480 Speaker 2: those things. So it's a remarkable story about the you know, 209 00:13:23,880 --> 00:13:28,360 Speaker 2: the cultural patterns are not essentialistic or inherents. You know, 210 00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:32,679 Speaker 2: sometimes if you can just change the environment slightly so 211 00:13:32,720 --> 00:13:36,319 Speaker 2: that they're not triggered, the same people are totally unencumbered 212 00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:36,720 Speaker 2: by them. 213 00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:41,240 Speaker 1: And that's fascinating that they went from the worst safety 214 00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:44,960 Speaker 1: record to one of the best simply by changing the 215 00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:47,640 Speaker 1: language in the cockpit. That's just amazing. 216 00:13:47,960 --> 00:13:52,640 Speaker 2: It is, it is striking, and it really goes against 217 00:13:52,640 --> 00:13:56,920 Speaker 2: this notion of cultures as permanent fixtures or people. You know, 218 00:13:56,960 --> 00:13:59,480 Speaker 2: there are ways of talking about culture like this is 219 00:13:59,480 --> 00:14:02,520 Speaker 2: in our cultural DNA, you know, And it's this equation 220 00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:07,240 Speaker 2: of culture with genetics in a way that I think, 221 00:14:07,559 --> 00:14:09,640 Speaker 2: you know, is a bit of a fallacy because it 222 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:12,920 Speaker 2: leads us to think of culture as a set of traits, 223 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:16,120 Speaker 2: whereas culture is a set of lenses that we look through, 224 00:14:16,120 --> 00:14:19,000 Speaker 2: but the lenses are shifting and the lenses change over time. 225 00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:22,040 Speaker 1: I want to stay with this topic because it's so fascinating. 226 00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:24,960 Speaker 1: You've been researching this area for decades. You've been at 227 00:14:24,960 --> 00:14:28,640 Speaker 1: Columbia almost twenty five years. What led you to say, Hey, 228 00:14:28,680 --> 00:14:31,560 Speaker 1: I can triangulate on all these different aspects and turned 229 00:14:31,520 --> 00:14:38,400 Speaker 1: it into a comprehensive book on humanity and tribalism? What 230 00:14:38,760 --> 00:14:40,000 Speaker 1: led you to that path? 231 00:14:40,560 --> 00:14:44,640 Speaker 2: Well? As a business school professor, I do a lot 232 00:14:44,680 --> 00:14:49,000 Speaker 2: of teaching to executives. I also do a lot of consulting. 233 00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:52,720 Speaker 2: As you mentioned, I consult to political campaigns every election season. 234 00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:56,080 Speaker 2: Doesn't always work out the way I wish, you know, 235 00:14:56,760 --> 00:14:59,680 Speaker 2: but I also consult to companies. So ten years ago 236 00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:01,600 Speaker 2: I I ran a course for a couple of years 237 00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:07,080 Speaker 2: at Bloomberg about decision making, biases, culture and leadership to 238 00:15:07,160 --> 00:15:11,440 Speaker 2: the top executives here. And through that process, I've developed 239 00:15:11,840 --> 00:15:15,880 Speaker 2: a playbook or a toolkit for thinking about how to 240 00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:19,560 Speaker 2: lead through culture, how to use what I know about 241 00:15:19,600 --> 00:15:23,800 Speaker 2: the malleability of culture and the manageability of culture, so 242 00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:26,280 Speaker 2: that as a leader you're not thinking of culture as 243 00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:28,560 Speaker 2: an obstacle to what you want to get done. But 244 00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:31,200 Speaker 2: it's a force that you can harness, that you can 245 00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:34,840 Speaker 2: dial up or dial down, and that you can mount 246 00:15:34,880 --> 00:15:38,280 Speaker 2: slow campaigns to evolve the culture in a way that 247 00:15:38,320 --> 00:15:41,880 Speaker 2: you think will support the needed strategy in the future. 248 00:15:42,440 --> 00:15:46,480 Speaker 2: So I started to write a book sharing that playbook. 249 00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:48,600 Speaker 2: But then over the course of the last five years, 250 00:15:48,600 --> 00:15:51,000 Speaker 2: and I've been writing the book for about five years, 251 00:15:51,160 --> 00:15:54,800 Speaker 2: there have been a series of conflicts in the world 252 00:15:55,040 --> 00:15:58,640 Speaker 2: that have evoked people to start using the word tribal 253 00:15:58,680 --> 00:16:01,280 Speaker 2: and tribalism much more than they ever did before. And 254 00:16:01,320 --> 00:16:04,320 Speaker 2: I'm talking about the Red Blue Rift, the you know, 255 00:16:04,360 --> 00:16:08,080 Speaker 2: the record racial protests in the streets, and the religious 256 00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:11,040 Speaker 2: strife you know, both at home and around the world, 257 00:16:11,080 --> 00:16:15,560 Speaker 2: where you start to hear this new discourse about tribalism 258 00:16:15,880 --> 00:16:20,200 Speaker 2: as a curse, you know, an evolutionary curse, that we 259 00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:25,320 Speaker 2: are somehow genetically predisposed to hate or to fear and 260 00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:29,040 Speaker 2: loathing of some other group, and that this will always 261 00:16:29,160 --> 00:16:32,360 Speaker 2: hinder us and hold us back from the nice things 262 00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:36,000 Speaker 2: that we would like to have, like international cooperation or 263 00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:45,080 Speaker 2: you know, ethnic harmony, harmony, you know, political functioning. So 264 00:16:46,040 --> 00:16:50,400 Speaker 2: I think that this way of talking about tribalism is 265 00:16:50,480 --> 00:16:53,760 Speaker 2: part right but part wrong. It is the case that 266 00:16:53,800 --> 00:16:58,280 Speaker 2: our tribal psychology plays a role in these escalating conflicts. 267 00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:03,480 Speaker 2: But where the pundits get it wrong is that we 268 00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:08,360 Speaker 2: don't have a tribal instinct to hate other groups. That 269 00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:12,960 Speaker 2: wouldn't have been a particularly adaptive instinct, right, like a 270 00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:17,200 Speaker 2: warning instinct. You know, there was an archaic human species 271 00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:20,840 Speaker 2: called Neanderthals that kind of did have that sort of 272 00:17:20,840 --> 00:17:25,919 Speaker 2: orientation towards neighboring tribes. They practiced cannibalism and warfare, and 273 00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:29,479 Speaker 2: they went extinct in part because our kind, you know, 274 00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:33,880 Speaker 2: had a different foreign policy. We made it and traded 275 00:17:33,960 --> 00:17:37,720 Speaker 2: with other groups and formed these larger networks called tribes 276 00:17:38,119 --> 00:17:40,639 Speaker 2: that proved to be a lot more adaptive, proved to 277 00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:44,360 Speaker 2: be a more winning strategy over time. So there's this 278 00:17:44,520 --> 00:17:49,720 Speaker 2: kind of fallacy that just because these conflicts involve hostility, 279 00:17:49,800 --> 00:17:55,360 Speaker 2: that somehow they start from a drive for hostility, and 280 00:17:55,440 --> 00:17:59,520 Speaker 2: that's just a false diagnosis. That doesn't it doesn't help 281 00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:02,600 Speaker 2: us under stand ways to ameliorate these conflicts. It makes 282 00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:06,000 Speaker 2: for riveting articles about how we're doomed, you know, and 283 00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:08,960 Speaker 2: the end times are here, but it doesn't make for 284 00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:13,240 Speaker 2: good policies, and so I as a secondary purpose of 285 00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:16,680 Speaker 2: the book, I've tried to argue that, hey, we really 286 00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:19,600 Speaker 2: need to if we want to talk about tribal psychology 287 00:18:19,600 --> 00:18:24,000 Speaker 2: and tribalism, let's have a science informed view of what 288 00:18:24,040 --> 00:18:28,959 Speaker 2: tribal instincts are and understand how they do figure in conflicts, 289 00:18:29,280 --> 00:18:33,520 Speaker 2: but not in a way that curses us to eternal 290 00:18:33,760 --> 00:18:38,600 Speaker 2: internestine conflict. It's it's you know, it's a manageable side 291 00:18:38,600 --> 00:18:42,800 Speaker 2: of human nature that wise leaders have always found their 292 00:18:42,840 --> 00:18:43,359 Speaker 2: way around. 293 00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:48,560 Speaker 1: The Neanderthal approach versus the Homo sapiens approach, I believe, 294 00:18:48,760 --> 00:18:51,400 Speaker 1: and correct me if I'm getting this wrong. Our DNA 295 00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:54,440 Speaker 1: is about one to two percent Neanderthal. So the idea 296 00:18:54,560 --> 00:19:00,159 Speaker 1: of trade and cooperation and mating was obviously well a 297 00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:03,800 Speaker 1: little hindsight bias, but we're the survivors, so that seems 298 00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:07,119 Speaker 1: to have been the approach that worked. But before I 299 00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:11,400 Speaker 1: read the book, I was under the assumption that humans 300 00:19:12,119 --> 00:19:15,880 Speaker 1: were very similar from culture to culture, country to country, 301 00:19:16,359 --> 00:19:22,280 Speaker 1: and that DNA was determinative. But what the book really 302 00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:25,560 Speaker 1: shows you is we really vary from region to region, 303 00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:29,400 Speaker 1: from country to country. Cultures are very different and very 304 00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:32,240 Speaker 1: malleable and they have a big impact on society. 305 00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:38,360 Speaker 2: Fair statement, fair statement. Yeah, it's a position that kind 306 00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:43,399 Speaker 2: of falls in between the traditional nature versus nurture framework 307 00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:46,320 Speaker 2: that you know, people of our age, you know got 308 00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,959 Speaker 2: in school what the new consensus is. And there's a 309 00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:53,439 Speaker 2: field of evolutionary anthropology that has had a lot of 310 00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:59,360 Speaker 2: the key insights is that human nature is nurture. That 311 00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:04,359 Speaker 2: we are the species that became wired by evolution to 312 00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:09,080 Speaker 2: internalize the patterns of communities that nurture us. And what 313 00:20:09,119 --> 00:20:12,600 Speaker 2: that means is that we can operate as a coordinated 314 00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:17,199 Speaker 2: group that functions seamlessly and that meshes together based on 315 00:20:17,359 --> 00:20:22,439 Speaker 2: cultural patterns because we all internalize them unconsciously and we 316 00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:25,480 Speaker 2: are motivated to follow them, and hence we can have 317 00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:29,520 Speaker 2: large organizations and cities and things like that that other 318 00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:32,879 Speaker 2: primates would be completely incapable of. But it's not like 319 00:20:32,960 --> 00:20:37,320 Speaker 2: we're ants or bees who are wired by their DNA 320 00:20:37,760 --> 00:20:41,439 Speaker 2: to behave socially in a particular way. If you go 321 00:20:41,520 --> 00:20:46,040 Speaker 2: around the world, ant hills are always conical and beehives 322 00:20:46,119 --> 00:20:51,520 Speaker 2: are always hexagonal because that's genetically programmed. We're not genetically 323 00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:55,320 Speaker 2: programmed to build our shelters in any particular style. But 324 00:20:55,520 --> 00:20:58,399 Speaker 2: we do learn culturally, you know, to build a yurt 325 00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:01,080 Speaker 2: if we're in Kyrgyzstan, or to build to TP if 326 00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:02,920 Speaker 2: we're planes Native American. 327 00:21:03,359 --> 00:21:07,199 Speaker 1: Huh. Really fascinating. So let's get a little basic and 328 00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:11,520 Speaker 1: delve into some fundamentals of your research. And I want 329 00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:14,480 Speaker 1: to start with what is a tribe. 330 00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:20,400 Speaker 2: From the broad evolutionary anthropology perspective, is the distinctively human 331 00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:25,120 Speaker 2: form of social organization. Our nearest neighbors chimpanzees. They can 332 00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:28,879 Speaker 2: form troops of up to about fifty sixty individuals. If 333 00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:34,199 Speaker 2: it gets any larger, it breaks apart into clashing factions 334 00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:39,720 Speaker 2: and bloodshed. We obviously can form much larger groups and 335 00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:45,639 Speaker 2: collaborate in much more sophisticated and adaptive ways. And the 336 00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:48,800 Speaker 2: way that we can do that is that we can 337 00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:54,720 Speaker 2: form groups that transcend kith and kin. We can form 338 00:21:54,800 --> 00:22:00,200 Speaker 2: groups where we are connected to total strangers who share 339 00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:04,360 Speaker 2: the same cultural heritage as us. So culture is a 340 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:09,080 Speaker 2: glue that holds together large human groups and enables us 341 00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:12,240 Speaker 2: to trust each other in a way that no other 342 00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:17,040 Speaker 2: animal can. And that was the rubicon that we crossed 343 00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:21,359 Speaker 2: as a species. That after that we left the rest 344 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:24,840 Speaker 2: of the primate pack in our dust, because once we 345 00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:30,000 Speaker 2: were forming these rich cultures that were shared by large groups, 346 00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:34,439 Speaker 2: it was like a collective brain. It was this pool 347 00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:39,760 Speaker 2: of knowledge that started accumulating across the generations and that 348 00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:45,679 Speaker 2: individuals could tap into to become more capable than the 349 00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:50,320 Speaker 2: individuals from prior generations because the cultures became richer and richer. 350 00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,360 Speaker 1: One of the things I was kind of fascinated by 351 00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:57,600 Speaker 1: in the book and you mention chimps is that if 352 00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:03,040 Speaker 1: you take a human toddler and an adult chimp and 353 00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:07,560 Speaker 1: an adult and rangutang and you use a tool or 354 00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:12,160 Speaker 1: show them a technique to get something, the five year 355 00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,280 Speaker 1: old figures it out pretty quickly can imitate it, but 356 00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:19,040 Speaker 1: the chimps and the rangutangs, you know, not so much. 357 00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:22,720 Speaker 1: Why is that so? The exposition in the book about 358 00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:26,640 Speaker 1: just being able to follow each other's gaze because our 359 00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:31,200 Speaker 1: eyes are white and our corny and irises are dark, 360 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,919 Speaker 1: which other primates don't have, tell us a little bit 361 00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:37,200 Speaker 1: about just some of these evolutionary differences. 362 00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:41,040 Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know, evolution works in funny ways. Evolution 363 00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:43,600 Speaker 2: is kind of a tinkerer. And one of the things 364 00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:47,199 Speaker 2: that evolution came up with or a mutation came up 365 00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:51,879 Speaker 2: with that then became harnessed by Our social intelligence is 366 00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:56,480 Speaker 2: the whites of our eyes. Other primates don't have white sclare, 367 00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:01,240 Speaker 2: and so they can't track each other. There's gaze as easily, 368 00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:04,080 Speaker 2: and that means they can't read each other's minds as easily. 369 00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:06,520 Speaker 2: You know, there's this old idea the eyes of the 370 00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:10,000 Speaker 2: window to the soul, and the research on this has 371 00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:14,880 Speaker 2: found a new scientific understanding of what that means, and 372 00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:19,399 Speaker 2: so our ability to mind read enables us to imitate 373 00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:24,680 Speaker 2: each other's behavior at a much richer level than other 374 00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:30,040 Speaker 2: primates can do. It's more like mimicry when one chips 375 00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,840 Speaker 2: are very inventive but not very collaborative. So if one 376 00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,560 Speaker 2: of them develops a new way to use a stick 377 00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,280 Speaker 2: to get termites, or to use a stick to get 378 00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:42,240 Speaker 2: fruit from a tree, others may see it, and they may, 379 00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,239 Speaker 2: you know, they may do something that's crudely similar to it, 380 00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:48,080 Speaker 2: but they don't catch what the method is and what 381 00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:52,960 Speaker 2: the intention is. Whereas humans, you know, if somebody invents 382 00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:58,280 Speaker 2: something new that people around them immediately can replicate it 383 00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:02,320 Speaker 2: and start doing it, and innovations spread very you know, 384 00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,040 Speaker 2: we all know about fads, right, you know, innovations spread 385 00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:09,679 Speaker 2: really rapidly. And it's funny because we we say monkey, 386 00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:12,080 Speaker 2: see monkey, do we have this notion from going to 387 00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:15,439 Speaker 2: the zoo that that that they are this they are 388 00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:20,080 Speaker 2: such copycats, such such imitative, But we are far more 389 00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:24,439 Speaker 2: imitative than they are. And there's this psychologist named Michael 390 00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,320 Speaker 2: Thomassello who's done this wonderful work because he's a he's 391 00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,600 Speaker 2: one of the world's experts at child cognition, but he's 392 00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:33,800 Speaker 2: also one of the world's experts at primate cognition, so 393 00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:37,280 Speaker 2: he can kind of do these comparative experiments between children 394 00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:41,520 Speaker 2: and and orangutans and chimpanzees. And what he's found is 395 00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:44,320 Speaker 2: that if you teach a child how to solve a 396 00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:47,359 Speaker 2: puzzle to get a treat, you know, through one method, 397 00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:49,560 Speaker 2: say pushing the yellow button and you get some M 398 00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:54,160 Speaker 2: and ms. But then you show that child four other 399 00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,400 Speaker 2: children who all work with the same puzzle and hit 400 00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,119 Speaker 2: the red button and get m and ms. Then when 401 00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:02,840 Speaker 2: you let the first child go again, they'll push the 402 00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,600 Speaker 2: red button. They'll conform to what they see the peers 403 00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:10,280 Speaker 2: are doing. When you put a chimp through that same procedure. 404 00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,640 Speaker 2: They stick to what works for them. You know, they 405 00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:15,840 Speaker 2: can see that other chimps are doing the red button. 406 00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:18,480 Speaker 2: They stick to what works for them. So we are 407 00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:23,000 Speaker 2: more imitative, We are quicker to join the consensus than 408 00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:26,840 Speaker 2: other primates, and we tend to deride that side of us. 409 00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:31,919 Speaker 2: I call it the peer instinct. It's this impulse to 410 00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:35,520 Speaker 2: mesh with what the others around us are doing, and 411 00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:37,879 Speaker 2: we tend to deride it as a herd instinct or 412 00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:42,000 Speaker 2: as conformity. And of course it does limit our independent 413 00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:46,800 Speaker 2: thinking sometimes and sometimes tragically, but we forget that that 414 00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:52,000 Speaker 2: is the cornerstone of human culture and human collaboration because 415 00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:56,240 Speaker 2: it allows us to meld minds and mesh actions. And 416 00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:58,280 Speaker 2: when we are with people who are part of the 417 00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:00,800 Speaker 2: same in group or part of the same culture, we 418 00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,520 Speaker 2: can finish each other's sentences. We can, you know, help 419 00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:07,119 Speaker 2: each other without even a request, in a way that 420 00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,040 Speaker 2: no other species can, because we're we have this just 421 00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:14,439 Speaker 2: strong impulse to mesh and almost everything important that humans 422 00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,920 Speaker 2: have accomplished, it's not the work of one lone genius. 423 00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:21,840 Speaker 2: You know. Even Newton said, you know, if I've seen 424 00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,840 Speaker 2: farther than others, it's because I stood on the shoulders 425 00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:28,159 Speaker 2: of giants, right. So it's our ability to work with 426 00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:32,040 Speaker 2: and build on the ideas of others that really responsible 427 00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,720 Speaker 2: for everything that we've accomplished. And it's this peer instinct, 428 00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:42,120 Speaker 2: this conformative instinct, this conformist instinct, that is largely responsible 429 00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:42,320 Speaker 2: for that. 430 00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 1: So I want to stay with the idea of cooperation 431 00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:49,359 Speaker 1: and collaboration and the white sclera of the eyes you 432 00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:53,000 Speaker 1: use in the book an example going back two million 433 00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:58,040 Speaker 1: years ago of Homo erectus, one of our predecessor species, 434 00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:04,760 Speaker 1: and some of the most recent fossil locations and some 435 00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:09,600 Speaker 1: of the more recent findings suggests that this was a 436 00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:16,160 Speaker 1: cooperative species far and both with hunting and cooking game 437 00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,560 Speaker 1: much earlier than we had previously believed, even though there 438 00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,840 Speaker 1: wasn't a spoken language. Tell us a little bit about 439 00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:28,800 Speaker 1: how Homo erectus was able to hunt two million years 440 00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:33,880 Speaker 1: ago cooperatively and why that was such a evolutionary advantage. 441 00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:36,440 Speaker 2: Somewhat jokingly in the book, suggests that the field of 442 00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:42,200 Speaker 2: archaeology owes a very sincere apology to Homo erectus, because 443 00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:46,400 Speaker 2: for the longest time, archaeology was pretty much the science 444 00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:50,400 Speaker 2: of stones and bones, you know, it's what has survived, 445 00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,720 Speaker 2: but it's not necessarily the only tools that these archaic 446 00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:58,160 Speaker 2: humans had. It's kind of a selective, you know, survivor bias, right, 447 00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:00,520 Speaker 2: So we tend to think of them as the stones, 448 00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:02,880 Speaker 2: but of course they had lots of wooden tools and 449 00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:05,280 Speaker 2: other tools that just aren't around for us to see. 450 00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,920 Speaker 2: But archaeologists have become much much more clever. They use 451 00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:13,400 Speaker 2: these CSI worthy techniques to learn a lot more from 452 00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:19,080 Speaker 2: you know, often microscopic traces of things of soil in 453 00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:23,720 Speaker 2: these sites that they identify as living sites. And one 454 00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:27,720 Speaker 2: thing that has become clear is that Homo erectus only 455 00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:31,080 Speaker 2: invented one tool, the hand axe, which is a sort 456 00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,560 Speaker 2: of tear drop shaped piece of flint that they use. 457 00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,120 Speaker 2: They used to chop, they used to grind, they used 458 00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,160 Speaker 2: to this, and so they were always kind of portrayed 459 00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:41,880 Speaker 2: as this single tool, simpleton, you know, that was around 460 00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,560 Speaker 2: for a million years and only invented this one tool, 461 00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:49,120 Speaker 2: portrayed as more intellectually, more ape than human. But what 462 00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:54,600 Speaker 2: has become evident from footprints that have been discovered in Kenya, 463 00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:58,720 Speaker 2: in the footprints that ossified in the mud, is that 464 00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,720 Speaker 2: groups of Erectus, you know, a million and a half 465 00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:09,240 Speaker 2: years ago, engaged in coordinated hunting of antelopes. And it's 466 00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,320 Speaker 2: long been known that there were antelope bones in erectus sites, 467 00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:15,000 Speaker 2: but it was thought that, oh, they must have been scavengers, 468 00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:19,400 Speaker 2: you know, because how could you know? Antelopes can run 469 00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:22,480 Speaker 2: fifty miles an hour? Not even usain Bolt could come 470 00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:24,680 Speaker 2: near them, So how could Homo erectus with just a 471 00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:27,760 Speaker 2: hand axe stand a chance of getting an antelope? Well, 472 00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:33,480 Speaker 2: today there are some African peoples who engage in what's 473 00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:38,120 Speaker 2: called persistence hunting, which is, say you and I are 474 00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,600 Speaker 2: hunters in a group that doesn't really have many weapons. 475 00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,720 Speaker 2: So we watch an antelope herd and then we see 476 00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:49,400 Speaker 2: maybe one antelope on the margin of the herd, and 477 00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,480 Speaker 2: then you go chase it and you kind of separate 478 00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:54,480 Speaker 2: it from the herd, and you're tired and it's tired. 479 00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,080 Speaker 2: But then I start chasing it, coordinating with you on 480 00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:00,360 Speaker 2: the same antelope. It does no good to chase different 481 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,920 Speaker 2: antelopes around all afternoon, but if we can chase the 482 00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:07,120 Speaker 2: same antelope, you know, evolution designed antelopes to be sprinters, 483 00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:11,960 Speaker 2: not marathoners. Right, allions only charge once and so if 484 00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:15,760 Speaker 2: you and I and someone else can take turns chasing 485 00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:19,000 Speaker 2: this antelope in a coordinated way and keeping it separated 486 00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,600 Speaker 2: from the herd, eventually it just keels over from exhaustion 487 00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:27,800 Speaker 2: and dehydration, and we have an antelope. And so it's 488 00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:33,040 Speaker 2: become evident from fossilized footprints that even a million and 489 00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,600 Speaker 2: a half years ago, Homo erectus was capable of that 490 00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:39,480 Speaker 2: sort of thing. And it's also become evident from other 491 00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:46,560 Speaker 2: kinds of microscopic particles of burnt stone that they were cooking. 492 00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,800 Speaker 2: And so they were coordinating both with regard to hunting 493 00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:55,200 Speaker 2: and with regard to gathering, and that suggests that they 494 00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:59,320 Speaker 2: were sophisticated with regard to social intelligence in ways that 495 00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:04,440 Speaker 2: goes way beyond the picture of them that archaeology presented, 496 00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:08,840 Speaker 2: you know, in prior generations. The first evidence for stone 497 00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:13,480 Speaker 2: tipped spears is about half a million years ago, I think, 498 00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,800 Speaker 2: because the technology for building spears is that you have 499 00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,560 Speaker 2: to first straighten if it's a throne spear, you have 500 00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,160 Speaker 2: to straighten the shaft of it, and then you have 501 00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:27,360 Speaker 2: to sharpen the point of it into a needle sharp point, 502 00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:30,840 Speaker 2: and then you have to somehow halft the spear tip 503 00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:34,000 Speaker 2: onto the thing. So there's a pretty elaborate process of 504 00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:37,240 Speaker 2: making a spear. But that is one of the hallmark 505 00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:42,640 Speaker 2: innovations of the next big wave of human social evolution, 506 00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,040 Speaker 2: which happened about a half a million years ago, and 507 00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:50,160 Speaker 2: that involves what I call the hero instinct, which is, 508 00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:53,880 Speaker 2: if the peer instinct was an instinct to be normal, 509 00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:56,960 Speaker 2: to do what most people are doing, the hero instinct 510 00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:01,160 Speaker 2: was this new impulse to be normative, to to be exemplary, 511 00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:03,440 Speaker 2: to go beyond what other people are doing, to be 512 00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:07,960 Speaker 2: a key contributor and gain the status and the tribute 513 00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:12,960 Speaker 2: that the community accords to those who are the key contributors. 514 00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:17,120 Speaker 2: And it was an interesting thing to evolve because it 515 00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:20,880 Speaker 2: was rewarding for the individuals who had the ambition to 516 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,360 Speaker 2: be a contributor. They got socially rewarded, but it also 517 00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:29,320 Speaker 2: was very adaptive for the group because it incentivized individuals 518 00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:34,320 Speaker 2: to build tools that required toiling alone for a long 519 00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:39,320 Speaker 2: period of time. It's also around the time when archaeologists 520 00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:47,400 Speaker 2: start to see the skeletons of people with congenital deformities 521 00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:51,120 Speaker 2: that survived to the age of adulthood, and that suggests 522 00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:53,840 Speaker 2: that someone was taking care of a person in their 523 00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:59,000 Speaker 2: group who probably couldn't reciprocate. And so you know, I'm 524 00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,000 Speaker 2: doing something pro I'm not going to get paid back 525 00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,280 Speaker 2: by the person that I'm helping, but I'm going to 526 00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:07,080 Speaker 2: get paid back by the group because I'm doing something 527 00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,839 Speaker 2: noble or is it something good or something exemplary. I'm 528 00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:11,200 Speaker 2: a hero. 529 00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,520 Speaker 1: So let's put this into historical context. Peer instinct, hero 530 00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:19,480 Speaker 1: instinct and ancestor instinct peer instinct. Two million years ago, 531 00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:24,960 Speaker 1: that begins to develop, and it is useful because conformity 532 00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:30,359 Speaker 1: and coordination allows smooth social interaction and collaboration, and that 533 00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:32,720 Speaker 1: leads to a more successful group. 534 00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:36,399 Speaker 2: Yeah, as a working as a united front. And there's 535 00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,799 Speaker 2: all these economic analyzes of foraging, you know, both by 536 00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:46,040 Speaker 2: biologists and by and foraging collectively is more efficient and 537 00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:52,120 Speaker 2: risk reducing than each individual for themselves. Right, if we're 538 00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:55,239 Speaker 2: working as a group, there's less likelihood of any of 539 00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:55,880 Speaker 2: us starving. 540 00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:58,480 Speaker 1: And you mentioned the hero instinct, and that was about 541 00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:02,440 Speaker 1: half a million years ago. Tell us about the ancestor instinct. 542 00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,319 Speaker 2: Well, the ancestor instinct to a lot of people, when 543 00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:07,880 Speaker 2: I describe it, it sounds like the most primitive of 544 00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:11,440 Speaker 2: all of these instincts, but it's actually the crowning touch 545 00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:16,480 Speaker 2: that enabled us to live in tribes and accrue all 546 00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:20,520 Speaker 2: the advantages of it, and the ancestor instinct, just like 547 00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:23,960 Speaker 2: the other two, we can still recognize it in ourselves today. 548 00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:28,520 Speaker 2: The peer instinct corresponds to the sideways glances at our 549 00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,239 Speaker 2: neighbors and our coworkers, and the impulse to do what 550 00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:36,359 Speaker 2: they're doing. The hero instinct corresponds to our upward curiosity 551 00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:42,240 Speaker 2: about MVPs and CEOs and celebrities, and the weird impulse 552 00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:46,040 Speaker 2: we have to emulate their quirks, you know, to kind 553 00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:48,920 Speaker 2: of eat what Lebron James eats for breakfast, or to 554 00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:53,440 Speaker 2: you know, use the same hand gestures that Barack Obama uses. 555 00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:59,200 Speaker 2: The ancestor instinct corresponds to the curiosity that we feel 556 00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:03,280 Speaker 2: about out past generations. You know, when we hear about 557 00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:06,120 Speaker 2: the founder. You know, when I used to teach at Bloomberg, 558 00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:09,640 Speaker 2: I would tell them, you know, when Mike Bloomberg started 559 00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,640 Speaker 2: a company on the first terminal day least, he put 560 00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:14,359 Speaker 2: it in the trunk of his car and he drove 561 00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,520 Speaker 2: down a wall street and people just hang on every 562 00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:20,480 Speaker 2: word when you're talking about those formative legends, you know, 563 00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:22,799 Speaker 2: what the founder did at the beginning of the organization. 564 00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,719 Speaker 2: People are very curious to hear about prior generations of 565 00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:30,520 Speaker 2: their family. They're curious about the original family recipe, and 566 00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,960 Speaker 2: they take a deep satisfaction and following those recipes on 567 00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,040 Speaker 2: a holiday. We fetishize antiques, you know, these artifacts from 568 00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,640 Speaker 2: the past. And so all of this is the psychology 569 00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,680 Speaker 2: of nostalgia for the past or sentimentality for the past, 570 00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:48,920 Speaker 2: and it comes with it a capacity for rote learning. 571 00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:53,359 Speaker 2: You know. So when we're learning religious things from our grandparents, 572 00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,440 Speaker 2: we're not supposed to ask questions, you know, we're supposed 573 00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:00,520 Speaker 2: to repeat the sator dinner exactly the way this dinner 574 00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:04,680 Speaker 2: was done, you know, by prior generations. And that is 575 00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:08,120 Speaker 2: what I call the ancestor instinct, is this impulse to 576 00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:12,399 Speaker 2: learn by wrote about things that the past generations did 577 00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:17,759 Speaker 2: and then replicate almost compulsively those things in exactly the 578 00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:21,840 Speaker 2: way that we've learned them. And it can lead to 579 00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:25,160 Speaker 2: superstitious learning and hanging on to ways of the past 580 00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:29,279 Speaker 2: that are no longer adaptive. But it was very adaptive 581 00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:35,880 Speaker 2: for our evolutionary forebears because it contributed to memory both 582 00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:39,480 Speaker 2: as an individual, I could I could learn some technique, 583 00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:43,759 Speaker 2: like a spearmaking technique that might go beyond my understanding. 584 00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,640 Speaker 2: You know, I don't understand why this way of straightening 585 00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:50,960 Speaker 2: would by soaking it and water works, but it works. 586 00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:54,400 Speaker 2: So if I if I just trust and you know, 587 00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:58,160 Speaker 2: take it on faith and learn learn by rote, then 588 00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,520 Speaker 2: I can continue that expertise and pass it on to 589 00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:04,880 Speaker 2: the next generations. And for the group it created a 590 00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:09,000 Speaker 2: kind of tribal memory. Before that, in the archaeological record, 591 00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,760 Speaker 2: what you'd see is that a group in a particular 592 00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:16,640 Speaker 2: area would develop the throwing sphere and have it for 593 00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:20,560 Speaker 2: ten generations and then lose it for thirty generations, and 594 00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:23,480 Speaker 2: then someone would invent it again, so they were reinventing 595 00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,840 Speaker 2: the wheel a lot. And after the ancestor instinct was 596 00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,759 Speaker 2: also in place. Then you had these three instincts. You 597 00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:32,400 Speaker 2: had the ancestor instinct, which allowed you to hang on 598 00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,240 Speaker 2: to the lessons of the past. You had the hero instinct, 599 00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:38,760 Speaker 2: which made people want to go beyond what's already in place, 600 00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:42,160 Speaker 2: so it turned into building on the expertise of the past. 601 00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:46,080 Speaker 2: And then the peer instinct was this mechanism, this engine 602 00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:49,000 Speaker 2: for kind of spreading and distributing the knowledge we want 603 00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:51,040 Speaker 2: to conform to what the others around us are doing. 604 00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:55,800 Speaker 2: And the end result of this was cumulative cultural evolution, 605 00:38:56,080 --> 00:39:01,000 Speaker 2: that the shared knowledge and a group became richer and 606 00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:05,400 Speaker 2: more tuned to what works in the environment with each generation, 607 00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:10,239 Speaker 2: and that collective level learning, more than anything about our 608 00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,919 Speaker 2: brains as individuals, is what enabled our species to become 609 00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:18,960 Speaker 2: the dominant species of the planet. And it's still a 610 00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,600 Speaker 2: very powerful resource for us today. 611 00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:24,880 Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about some of the 612 00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:30,239 Speaker 1: examples you use of corporate America adapting some of the 613 00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:34,480 Speaker 1: strategies and full disclosure you consult for a lot of 614 00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:40,000 Speaker 1: these companies. You've consulted for Bloomberg and other entities. So 615 00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:44,840 Speaker 1: there's all sorts of fascinating examples of how companies either 616 00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:49,200 Speaker 1: use or don't use the lessons of tribalism. But I 617 00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:53,160 Speaker 1: have to start again in South Korea talking about their 618 00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,600 Speaker 1: terrible soccer team. Tell us a little bit about the 619 00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:02,200 Speaker 1: hitting syndrome. Who was coach hit Ink and why did 620 00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:06,319 Speaker 1: the South Koreans bring him to fix their soccer team. 621 00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,120 Speaker 2: Well, South Korea as a country that had a very 622 00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:16,520 Speaker 2: difficult twentieth century, you know, of civil war and colonization 623 00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:23,200 Speaker 2: and political turmoil, and then everything was finally coming together 624 00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:26,880 Speaker 2: in the nineties when they reached the elite tier of 625 00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,439 Speaker 2: nations and they successfully bid on hosting the World Cup 626 00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:34,040 Speaker 2: with their our tribal Japan, and it really looked like 627 00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:38,279 Speaker 2: they were ascendant. And then the Asia Crisis in I 628 00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:43,279 Speaker 2: think ninety eight, you know, brought down their politicians, brought 629 00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:48,920 Speaker 2: down some of their banks, brought embarrassing bailouts from the West, 630 00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:54,240 Speaker 2: and accusations of crony capitalism. And at the same time, 631 00:40:54,560 --> 00:41:00,000 Speaker 2: their national soccer team, the Reds, was starting to flound. 632 00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:02,960 Speaker 2: They are usually a regional power, but in the two 633 00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:07,400 Speaker 2: thousand Asia Cup they couldn't even beat Kuwait, which is 634 00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:11,400 Speaker 2: a fairly small country not known for its soccer prowess. 635 00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,040 Speaker 2: And so this was a moment of panic for the 636 00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:19,640 Speaker 2: soccer overlords of South Korea because they were about to 637 00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:25,040 Speaker 2: co host the World Cup and the soccer oddsmakers were 638 00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:28,399 Speaker 2: betting that they would be the first ever host nation 639 00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:34,600 Speaker 2: to not advance from group play to tournament rounds, not 640 00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:39,040 Speaker 2: a distinction that they were hoping would be associated with 641 00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:43,200 Speaker 2: their a country being the first host not to advance. 642 00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:46,960 Speaker 2: So they made a gamble, which is that they called 643 00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:50,960 Speaker 2: made a long distance call to the Netherlands and called 644 00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:56,719 Speaker 2: a fellow named Who's Hiddink who was a football or 645 00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:01,359 Speaker 2: soccer coach in the Netherlands had found a lot of 646 00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:07,560 Speaker 2: success turning teams around and doing so despite what might 647 00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:11,320 Speaker 2: be considered an obstacle, which is cultural differences. 648 00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:13,600 Speaker 1: So he and let me jump in right here, because 649 00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:17,799 Speaker 1: in the book you describe a very similar set of 650 00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:22,359 Speaker 1: deferral like co pilot's a pilot, where you would have 651 00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:26,440 Speaker 1: rookies or young teammates who would have open shots and 652 00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:31,799 Speaker 1: defer to the more senior experienced players and pass on 653 00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:35,600 Speaker 1: taking the good shot instead forward the ball to the 654 00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:39,719 Speaker 1: senior player. How did hitting resolve this? How did he 655 00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:40,160 Speaker 1: deal with this? 656 00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:45,520 Speaker 2: Well, he was a very down to earth, egalitarian Dutchman 657 00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:50,640 Speaker 2: and also not terribly knowledgeable about the legends of South 658 00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:53,759 Speaker 2: Korean soccer. He didn't know who There Beckham and who 659 00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:58,280 Speaker 2: there Messi were, and he had watched the game tapes 660 00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,720 Speaker 2: and noticed that their style of play was a little 661 00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:05,520 Speaker 2: bit slower and more predictable than what was needed to 662 00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,719 Speaker 2: play with the world's best at this time. And so 663 00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:13,120 Speaker 2: he thought, okay, I'm gonna have to just change the 664 00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:16,440 Speaker 2: way things are done there. So he held open tryouts, 665 00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:21,160 Speaker 2: which was a first way of ruffling feathers, because you know, 666 00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:26,960 Speaker 2: the custom there had been that the legends of Korean 667 00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:30,880 Speaker 2: soccer would automatically be given their standard positions on the team. 668 00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:37,160 Speaker 2: And he then started noticing that when they would scrimmage 669 00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:44,560 Speaker 2: that the players were not taking every shot or passing 670 00:43:44,600 --> 00:43:47,880 Speaker 2: as fluidly as he would like, and so he announced 671 00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:52,279 Speaker 2: a set of a set of changed policies that were 672 00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:56,040 Speaker 2: a bit mysterious to the players. He said, Okay, the 673 00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,920 Speaker 2: next phase of our training camp is not going to 674 00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,279 Speaker 2: be here in South Korea. It's going to be in 675 00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:05,520 Speaker 2: the United Arab Emirates at an international soccer facility. And 676 00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:12,920 Speaker 2: the honorific declensions of Korean which he had heard from 677 00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:16,080 Speaker 2: his assistant coaches were being used on the field, are 678 00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,920 Speaker 2: henceforth banned. He justified it as the need for speed, 679 00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:22,919 Speaker 2: but it was obvious that some of these things were 680 00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:28,680 Speaker 2: also changing the cultural cues around the players. He also 681 00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:32,239 Speaker 2: didn't allow the South Korean sports press to follow them 682 00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:36,680 Speaker 2: to the Emirates so that players wouldn't be interviewed by 683 00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:41,880 Speaker 2: their compatriots after every scrimmage about what they did wrong 684 00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:44,360 Speaker 2: and what they did right. And what he was trying 685 00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:48,520 Speaker 2: to do was sort of remove the daily reminders of 686 00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:53,920 Speaker 2: these Korean cultural habits that he suspected we're getting in 687 00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:57,760 Speaker 2: the way of learning what he was trying to teach, 688 00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:04,560 Speaker 2: which was this Dutch style of football where players swap 689 00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:08,600 Speaker 2: positions on the field to throw off defenders. But it 690 00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:13,720 Speaker 2: means that a twenty year old rookie who is playing 691 00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:18,520 Speaker 2: next to the legendary midfielder would take that person's position 692 00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:21,440 Speaker 2: and that person takes the winger position or whatever the 693 00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:26,719 Speaker 2: other position is, And that just felt wrong to players 694 00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,280 Speaker 2: when they were thinking through the lens of their Korean 695 00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:34,680 Speaker 2: social habits. But when they were in the Emirates surrounded 696 00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:39,560 Speaker 2: by professional football players from various countries, their identity as 697 00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:43,640 Speaker 2: professional football players came to the fore of their minds 698 00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:48,920 Speaker 2: rather than their identity as Koreans, and they became more open, 699 00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:53,120 Speaker 2: both the rookies and the veterans to learning this new 700 00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:59,040 Speaker 2: tactical system, which was necessary to raise their game to 701 00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:00,680 Speaker 2: the level where they could compete against it. 702 00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:04,359 Speaker 1: And spoiler alert, how did the South Koreans do as 703 00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,600 Speaker 1: the host country in the World Cup. 704 00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:11,160 Speaker 2: Well, amazingly they made it out of the group rounds 705 00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:15,080 Speaker 2: to tournament play, and then in tournament play they were 706 00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:20,000 Speaker 2: paired with the teams like Italy and Spain who were 707 00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,680 Speaker 2: you know, sort of defending chapions, and they made it 708 00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,359 Speaker 2: all the way to the semifinals. And it was one 709 00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,319 Speaker 2: of the few times that a team that was not 710 00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:32,279 Speaker 2: either from South America or Europe made it to the semifinals. 711 00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:33,880 Speaker 2: It was the first Asian team to ever make it 712 00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:39,160 Speaker 2: to the semifinals, and it was not just an unlikely 713 00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:43,040 Speaker 2: run for a soccer team, but it it set off 714 00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:50,640 Speaker 2: a jubilation that was nationwide, a celebration of what South 715 00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:54,680 Speaker 2: Korea was capable of if they opened themselves up to, 716 00:46:55,320 --> 00:47:00,920 Speaker 2: you know, to outside influences and outside ideas. And I 717 00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:03,799 Speaker 2: think it's partly responsible for the South Korea that we 718 00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:07,359 Speaker 2: know today, which is a you know, cultural exporter and 719 00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:10,560 Speaker 2: a much more open society than what was the case. 720 00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:15,359 Speaker 2: Then they even changed their citizenship law so that they 721 00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:19,160 Speaker 2: could make who's hitting an honorary citizen. It was and 722 00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:23,880 Speaker 2: had been for time immemorial, a blood standard of citizenship 723 00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:25,480 Speaker 2: where you had to prove that you were Korean to 724 00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:27,920 Speaker 2: be a citizen, and instead they changed it to one 725 00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:30,359 Speaker 2: where if you had lived there and done work there, 726 00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:35,080 Speaker 2: you could become Korean citizens. So literally and figuratively they 727 00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:38,480 Speaker 2: opened themselves up to the world. And the South Korea 728 00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:41,560 Speaker 2: we know today with K pop bands topping the charts 729 00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:45,799 Speaker 2: and you know movies that are winning Oscars, and you 730 00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:48,520 Speaker 2: know soap operas that are played all around the world. 731 00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:52,959 Speaker 2: That's the South Korea that has come from the openness 732 00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:55,360 Speaker 2: that this event helped to create. 733 00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:58,239 Speaker 1: So I want to temporarily leave Asia and talk a 734 00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:03,120 Speaker 1: little bit about Microsoft and a little bit about Bank America. 735 00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:08,359 Speaker 1: Merrill Lynch. Let's start with Sadi and Nadella and Microsoft, 736 00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:12,200 Speaker 1: so long thought of as a monopoly for good reason. 737 00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:16,280 Speaker 1: They come out of a decade where their stock went nowhere. 738 00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:19,400 Speaker 1: When all of their peers, Apple, Amazon go down a 739 00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:24,040 Speaker 1: listen video all did really well. Microsoft kind of wandered 740 00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:26,960 Speaker 1: in the desert for a decade under their prior CEO. 741 00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,239 Speaker 1: Nadella comes in, does a listening tour you describe in 742 00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:36,680 Speaker 1: the book and essentially completely changes the culture of Microsoft 743 00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:40,880 Speaker 1: from a taker to leave it ideology. Tomorrow we're listening 744 00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:44,640 Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what made Nadella special 745 00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:47,560 Speaker 1: and what changes did he effect Well, the. 746 00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:52,200 Speaker 2: First two CEOs, Bill Gates and Steve Bomer were strong 747 00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:56,600 Speaker 2: personalities and you know, sort of intellectually dominant sort of 748 00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:59,959 Speaker 2: figures and sort of the smartest guy in the room 749 00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:04,600 Speaker 2: type of people and led that way. And then that 750 00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:08,600 Speaker 2: worked really well when you know, Microsoft had a virtual 751 00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:12,800 Speaker 2: monopoly and could just load more and more technical features 752 00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,799 Speaker 2: on each generation of its software and people didn't really 753 00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:18,680 Speaker 2: have a choice because the switching costs were high. But 754 00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:22,600 Speaker 2: then we enter the cloud computing era, where switching costs 755 00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:25,560 Speaker 2: are much lower, and there's this new norm of just 756 00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:29,560 Speaker 2: paying for the features that you use, and that created 757 00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:34,520 Speaker 2: a premium on knowing your customer, knowing what your customer needed, 758 00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:39,200 Speaker 2: which was not you know, Microsoft wasn't an extroverted organization. 759 00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:41,960 Speaker 2: It was it was introverted. It was it was a 760 00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:46,920 Speaker 2: cult of technical expertise and such a Nadella had been 761 00:49:47,239 --> 00:49:51,600 Speaker 2: succeeding in the cloud division, but that was a relatively 762 00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:55,600 Speaker 2: small division within Microsoft, and he was tapped to be CEO, 763 00:49:56,280 --> 00:50:00,839 Speaker 2: and he realized that what he had to do was 764 00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:06,360 Speaker 2: to use the hero instinct, the tendency to follow role models, 765 00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:11,160 Speaker 2: as a way of reshaping the culture. But it was 766 00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:15,400 Speaker 2: tricky because he couldn't use his bully pulpit as CEO 767 00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:20,239 Speaker 2: to you know, shout at people to become better listeners. 768 00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:23,040 Speaker 2: You know, that would be an oxymoron, right. He had 769 00:50:23,080 --> 00:50:28,799 Speaker 2: to instead lead by example and show people what were 770 00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:33,080 Speaker 2: the set of behaviors that the organization needed and that 771 00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:37,040 Speaker 2: would carry prestige in the new era. And so he 772 00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,719 Speaker 2: embarked on a listening tour, you know, words that had 773 00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:44,399 Speaker 2: never been uttered by the prior CEOs, and went all 774 00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:48,800 Speaker 2: through the Microsoft ecosystem, you know, to their to their developers, 775 00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:55,000 Speaker 2: to their salespeople, to their customers, and you know, listened, 776 00:50:55,600 --> 00:50:58,000 Speaker 2: listened and made a few changes based on what they said. 777 00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:00,759 Speaker 2: So one of the things that Microsoft was famous for 778 00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:05,759 Speaker 2: was a stack rank performance evaluation system where everybody, you know, 779 00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:09,040 Speaker 2: you have a fixed curve and the lower ten or 780 00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:12,520 Speaker 2: twenty percent are are fired each year. And that was 781 00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:18,200 Speaker 2: considered to be something that was inhibiting the collaboration that 782 00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:21,520 Speaker 2: was needed in the new era, and the employees were 783 00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:25,080 Speaker 2: quite vocal about that, and he made that change. So 784 00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:30,120 Speaker 2: listening works better if you're also taking some actions that 785 00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:32,759 Speaker 2: shows that you've heard what was said. And then one 786 00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:36,200 Speaker 2: particular event I think very notable. He went to a 787 00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:41,920 Speaker 2: conference on women in technology. I think it's called the 788 00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:44,920 Speaker 2: Grace Hopper conference, you know, after one of the founders 789 00:51:44,920 --> 00:51:48,359 Speaker 2: of Computer Scientists, who was a woman who was under recognized, 790 00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:53,520 Speaker 2: you know, until recently. And in it, he was asked 791 00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:58,239 Speaker 2: during a Q and A about gender differences in tech salaries, 792 00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:01,279 Speaker 2: you know, and we know that these gender differences are 793 00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:05,280 Speaker 2: in part caused by the fact that companies don't regard 794 00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:09,040 Speaker 2: it as a credible threat when women get an outside offer, 795 00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:12,319 Speaker 2: because they don't think the woman's husband and family will move, 796 00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:15,080 Speaker 2: you know, to another city in the way that they 797 00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:19,320 Speaker 2: do when a man gets an outside So women don't 798 00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:21,640 Speaker 2: get the same raises, you know, when you have a 799 00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:25,560 Speaker 2: star system. It happens in academia, it happens in tech companies. 800 00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:30,440 Speaker 2: And but Nadella, you know, was tired, and he had 801 00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:33,400 Speaker 2: answered a lot of questions, and he got the question 802 00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:36,520 Speaker 2: and he said, well, he said, a lot of these 803 00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:40,959 Speaker 2: inequalities they even out over time, and so maybe it's 804 00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:43,560 Speaker 2: just a good idea to let the trust the process 805 00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:47,480 Speaker 2: and let the process make its corrections, which you know, 806 00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:50,640 Speaker 2: might be the right answer. If a junior employee is 807 00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:54,120 Speaker 2: asking whether he should negotiate hard or you know, but 808 00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:58,120 Speaker 2: it wasn't considered to be the best answer about this issue, 809 00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:01,240 Speaker 2: you know, sort of a structural issue related to gender, 810 00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:05,400 Speaker 2: and so there was some chatter in the blog of 811 00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:08,360 Speaker 2: sphere about this, and instead of ignoring it, which he 812 00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:14,160 Speaker 2: could have easily done, he actively publicized the fact that 813 00:53:14,239 --> 00:53:18,640 Speaker 2: he made this error and then actively went to meet 814 00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:22,279 Speaker 2: with women in technology groups and labor economists and people 815 00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:25,600 Speaker 2: who are experts on this issue and actively showed that 816 00:53:25,719 --> 00:53:30,919 Speaker 2: he was taking steps to avoid this structural problem at Microsoft. 817 00:53:31,520 --> 00:53:36,680 Speaker 2: And by sort of enthusiastically owning his mistake and apologizing 818 00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:41,359 Speaker 2: for it, he was role modeling this set of behaviors, 819 00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:45,279 Speaker 2: which is, you know, Okay, you're a customer and Microsoft 820 00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:48,640 Speaker 2: hasn't been listening to you very well and is trying 821 00:53:48,640 --> 00:53:50,759 Speaker 2: to sell you software with a lot of features that 822 00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:56,320 Speaker 2: you don't need. So let's instead apologize for not knowing better, 823 00:53:56,400 --> 00:53:59,960 Speaker 2: and let's take corrective steps of let's send a sale 824 00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:03,680 Speaker 2: person to you know, shadow your people, you know for 825 00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:05,839 Speaker 2: a few weeks and really get to know the day 826 00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:08,839 Speaker 2: to day at your company, and then we'll come up with, 827 00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:12,440 Speaker 2: you know, a cloud product that really dovetails with your 828 00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:14,440 Speaker 2: needs instead of, you know, the way that we've been 829 00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:18,200 Speaker 2: doing it, and it's considered to be you know, the 830 00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:22,719 Speaker 2: the uh, the instrumental you know, the critical behaviors that 831 00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:27,319 Speaker 2: change Microsoft culture from a know it all culture to 832 00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:30,680 Speaker 2: a learn it all culture. You know. Such an Adela 833 00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:33,879 Speaker 2: is also very taken by the research in psychology by 834 00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:39,360 Speaker 2: Carol Dweck and others about learning orientations and growth orientations 835 00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:43,480 Speaker 2: as well. You know, there are some orientations of you know, thinking, uh, 836 00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:47,600 Speaker 2: I'm smart, you know, and I have high intelligence as 837 00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:51,200 Speaker 2: a fixed entity, and then other people have this mindset 838 00:54:51,280 --> 00:54:55,799 Speaker 2: that I have the ability to get smarter and such. 839 00:54:55,840 --> 00:54:59,600 Speaker 2: An Adella is a big advocate of trying to create 840 00:54:59,680 --> 00:55:05,719 Speaker 2: this growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset about ability. 841 00:55:06,320 --> 00:55:12,680 Speaker 2: And Microsoft has really resumed its position on the top 842 00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:19,200 Speaker 2: of the technology hierarchy. It's made really adaptive moves in 843 00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:22,560 Speaker 2: the AI space, and it's it's become a very happening 844 00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:25,480 Speaker 2: place in quantum computing as well. So it's it's not 845 00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:29,960 Speaker 2: just in the cloud computing area. You know, the organization 846 00:55:30,200 --> 00:55:32,480 Speaker 2: got its mojo back, and I think it got its 847 00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:37,280 Speaker 2: mojo back by leaving behind an organizational culture that worked 848 00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:39,959 Speaker 2: in the early era of the industry, but didn't work 849 00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:44,600 Speaker 2: once you're competing with lots of very adaptive organizations and 850 00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:46,400 Speaker 2: you need to partner better and you need to know 851 00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:47,319 Speaker 2: your customers better. 852 00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:51,200 Speaker 1: Really interesting, So Nadella is able to change the culture 853 00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:56,760 Speaker 1: of a single organization, how difficult is it to merge 854 00:55:56,800 --> 00:56:00,880 Speaker 1: the culture of two different organizations. And I'm thinking about 855 00:56:01,360 --> 00:56:06,359 Speaker 1: the financial crisis shotgun wedding of Bank of America and 856 00:56:06,400 --> 00:56:09,239 Speaker 1: Merrill Lynch tell us a little bit about how that 857 00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:10,319 Speaker 1: merger worked out. 858 00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:13,799 Speaker 2: Well, that's a fascinating case. It's a case that we 859 00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:17,160 Speaker 2: you know, we teach at Columbia to our students in 860 00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:21,760 Speaker 2: their very first weeks. You have as a background Peter Lewis, 861 00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,600 Speaker 2: you know, who had built Bank of America, starting from 862 00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:28,279 Speaker 2: a very small regional North Carolina bank and swallowing up 863 00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:32,920 Speaker 2: banks even larger than itself to become this bank that 864 00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:35,480 Speaker 2: had one in five Americans as a customer. It was, 865 00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:40,040 Speaker 2: you know, the largest consumer bank. But he wanted one 866 00:56:40,080 --> 00:56:42,960 Speaker 2: more victory at the end of his career, which was, 867 00:56:43,080 --> 00:56:47,600 Speaker 2: you know, to acquire a Wall Street bank, an investment 868 00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:51,839 Speaker 2: bank and move into the fast lane of finance. And 869 00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:57,760 Speaker 2: the financial crisis presented an opportunity because these investment banks 870 00:56:57,960 --> 00:57:02,680 Speaker 2: had really troubled balance sheets, and a consumer bank was 871 00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:05,120 Speaker 2: considered to be something that could balance that. 872 00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:10,160 Speaker 1: FDIC regulated plenty of reserve capital and not in the 873 00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:12,960 Speaker 1: same risk category that old the Wall Street. 874 00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:16,240 Speaker 2: Banks were during the financial crisis, and he actually came 875 00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:19,520 Speaker 2: up to New York and started talking to other banks, 876 00:57:19,600 --> 00:57:23,520 Speaker 2: I think maybe banks that were too far gone, and 877 00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:30,480 Speaker 2: partially through government intervention, he became, you know in conversation 878 00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:33,920 Speaker 2: with Merrill Lynch, and Merrill Lynch was this century old, 879 00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:40,920 Speaker 2: you know, esteemed brand. It was in the in the 880 00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:44,600 Speaker 2: collective imaginations, synonymous with Wall Street. It had the most 881 00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:50,200 Speaker 2: famous logo in banking, you know, the charging bull and 882 00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:54,480 Speaker 2: slogans like, you know, Merrill Lynch is Bullish on America. 883 00:57:54,600 --> 00:57:59,440 Speaker 2: So very strong culture, very strong brand, and it needed 884 00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:03,640 Speaker 2: a rescue. So it looked like a masterstroke of strategy 885 00:58:03,720 --> 00:58:08,880 Speaker 2: where Merrill was saving itself and Bank of America had 886 00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:13,560 Speaker 2: gotten a prize at discount. But then the full depth 887 00:58:13,720 --> 00:58:17,960 Speaker 2: of the troubles related to the financial crisis became apparent, 888 00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:21,600 Speaker 2: you know, with each quarter where there were lots of 889 00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:28,080 Speaker 2: bad loans on the books at Merrill, and then Bank 890 00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:33,480 Speaker 2: of America's acquisition of Countrywide in La brought it into 891 00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:40,920 Speaker 2: the problematic mortgage crisis, and as a result, there were 892 00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:43,000 Speaker 2: a lot there was a lot of strain. There was 893 00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:46,480 Speaker 2: there was some resentment of the Bank of America, you know, 894 00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:50,200 Speaker 2: the more plebeian consumer bankers who weren't getting a bonus 895 00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:55,120 Speaker 2: because of the expensive investment bank that had been purchased. 896 00:58:56,680 --> 00:59:00,320 Speaker 2: And what Lewis and others at Bank of America tried 897 00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:04,680 Speaker 2: to do was to assimilate Merrill into its Bank of 898 00:59:04,720 --> 00:59:09,560 Speaker 2: America culture. They regarded some of the Meral culture as 899 00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:14,520 Speaker 2: the problem that created the crisis, this excessive risk taking, 900 00:59:14,680 --> 00:59:20,360 Speaker 2: and so they would hold workshops to try to Bank 901 00:59:20,360 --> 00:59:26,840 Speaker 2: of americanize the mayoral bankers. But you probably know a 902 00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:30,280 Speaker 2: lot of former Meryl bankers as I do. They were 903 00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:33,760 Speaker 2: people who didn't think they had that much in common 904 00:59:33,880 --> 00:59:36,920 Speaker 2: with the person at the bank branch on the corner. 905 00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:38,560 Speaker 2: You know. They thought they were in a very different 906 00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:42,400 Speaker 2: industry and that the Bank of America culture had very 907 00:59:42,440 --> 00:59:46,840 Speaker 2: few lessons relevant to them. Even the so called thundering 908 00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:50,840 Speaker 2: herd of Meral investment advisors you know at offices around 909 00:59:50,880 --> 00:59:55,880 Speaker 2: the country and abroad, didn't think that it served their 910 00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:58,880 Speaker 2: business to suddenly have a sign in front saying Bank 911 00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:02,280 Speaker 2: of America that looked the same as as the standard 912 01:00:02,320 --> 01:00:06,240 Speaker 2: bank branch or to call themselves Bank of America. You 913 01:00:06,240 --> 01:00:09,960 Speaker 2: can imagine a career merrill person in Paris or Tokyo 914 01:00:10,360 --> 01:00:13,760 Speaker 2: suddenly having to, you know, call themselves Bank of America. 915 01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:16,880 Speaker 2: It's not the brand that worked, you know, particularly well 916 01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:21,920 Speaker 2: in those environments. And so it was failing, and you 917 01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:25,120 Speaker 2: had a hemorrhaging of talent where you know, brokers can 918 01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:28,960 Speaker 2: often take their whole portfolio of clients and go across 919 01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:32,960 Speaker 2: the street to another to the competition and so. 920 01:00:34,080 --> 01:00:36,200 Speaker 1: And just to put a little flesh on on how 921 01:00:36,320 --> 01:00:40,120 Speaker 1: bad this merger was, one banking analyst called it the 922 01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:44,680 Speaker 1: merger from hell. So were they able to realign the 923 01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:46,360 Speaker 1: cultures in any positive way? 924 01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:52,040 Speaker 2: Well, what Lewis did that was a saving a saving 925 01:00:52,080 --> 01:00:55,800 Speaker 2: grace was that he hired a person named Sally Cratchek, 926 01:00:56,280 --> 01:00:59,840 Speaker 2: who was already a sort of legend on Wall Street 927 01:00:59,720 --> 01:01:03,240 Speaker 2: at a young age because she called out some conflicts 928 01:01:03,240 --> 01:01:06,880 Speaker 2: of interests at Bernstein when she was freshly out of 929 01:01:06,920 --> 01:01:11,800 Speaker 2: her Columbia NBA and got fired in the process, but 930 01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:14,160 Speaker 2: became a bit of a hero. The journal called her 931 01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:17,840 Speaker 2: the last honest analyst on Wall Street. And then she 932 01:01:18,440 --> 01:01:22,680 Speaker 2: was hired at City Bank when they had some problems 933 01:01:22,680 --> 01:01:25,720 Speaker 2: in their private wealth division, and she stood up for 934 01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:29,000 Speaker 2: the rights of investors who had been sold certain products 935 01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:33,280 Speaker 2: that she thought, you know, had some hidden problems and 936 01:01:33,680 --> 01:01:37,360 Speaker 2: got fired again, but was lauded once again as being 937 01:01:37,400 --> 01:01:40,520 Speaker 2: a person with integrity, and so she was brought in 938 01:01:40,600 --> 01:01:44,160 Speaker 2: to restore trust as somebody that you know, had Wall 939 01:01:44,160 --> 01:01:47,320 Speaker 2: Street credentials. It didn't seem like she was just this 940 01:01:47,480 --> 01:01:51,840 Speaker 2: consumer bank person who didn't get what a Meryl broker 941 01:01:51,960 --> 01:01:56,680 Speaker 2: or a Meryl investment banker needed. And fortunately she was 942 01:01:56,720 --> 01:02:00,600 Speaker 2: also from North Carolina, so she could be a translator, 943 01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:03,680 Speaker 2: a natural bicultural person who could go down to Charlotte 944 01:02:03,920 --> 01:02:07,920 Speaker 2: and talk to the Bank of America executives and explained 945 01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:11,520 Speaker 2: to them what the Wall Street people did, and they, ultimately, 946 01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:14,440 Speaker 2: after a lot of negotiation, allowed her to do the 947 01:02:14,520 --> 01:02:18,520 Speaker 2: largest ever rebranding, which was called the Bull is Back, 948 01:02:18,720 --> 01:02:21,520 Speaker 2: and they brought back the Merrill Lynch name, and they 949 01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:24,960 Speaker 2: brought back the Bull logo for the private wealth division 950 01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:28,360 Speaker 2: so that it was once again Merrill Lynch, and almost 951 01:02:28,360 --> 01:02:37,200 Speaker 2: immediately it restored confidence and it restored collaboration and citizenship 952 01:02:37,480 --> 01:02:40,400 Speaker 2: within an organization that had always been you know, it 953 01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:42,800 Speaker 2: was called Mother Merrill. It had always been a very 954 01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:47,640 Speaker 2: communitarian organization. But when its name was taken away and 955 01:02:47,680 --> 01:02:50,160 Speaker 2: people were told, you're just a Bank of America employee 956 01:02:50,240 --> 01:02:53,360 Speaker 2: and nobody identified with Bank of America, it all just 957 01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:55,919 Speaker 2: kind of fell apart. And then you see the most 958 01:02:55,920 --> 01:03:00,360 Speaker 2: successful people leaving for the competition. It was very demoralized, saying, 959 01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:03,240 Speaker 2: but when she gave them their group boundary back, and 960 01:03:03,280 --> 01:03:06,880 Speaker 2: she gave them their symbol, the bull back, and she 961 01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:09,959 Speaker 2: gave them their name and their tradition, Merrill Lynch back. 962 01:03:10,440 --> 01:03:14,320 Speaker 2: Suddenly you had this just renaissance of collaboration and people 963 01:03:14,640 --> 01:03:18,720 Speaker 2: working over time to help each other succeed and to 964 01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:22,800 Speaker 2: convince investors that, uh, you know, the post crash era 965 01:03:22,960 --> 01:03:26,760 Speaker 2: was a buying opportunity. And and and suddenly, uh Merrill 966 01:03:26,840 --> 01:03:29,800 Speaker 2: Lynch was the bright spot on Bank of America's books. 967 01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:33,040 Speaker 2: And that that went on for a few years. Now. 968 01:03:33,120 --> 01:03:38,160 Speaker 2: Ultimately Sally got removed in a political shift. I think 969 01:03:38,240 --> 01:03:42,480 Speaker 2: that she is widely regarded as having saved the private 970 01:03:42,520 --> 01:03:47,400 Speaker 2: wealth division through cultural leadership, through understanding how important this 971 01:03:47,520 --> 01:03:51,200 Speaker 2: sense of group identity, and you know, these logos and 972 01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:56,160 Speaker 2: these slogans, these are these are very important UH conduits 973 01:03:56,160 --> 01:03:59,560 Speaker 2: for collaboration, and when you take them away, people are 974 01:03:59,600 --> 01:04:03,280 Speaker 2: alien and anomic and they don't know how to collaborate. 975 01:04:03,520 --> 01:04:08,840 Speaker 1: We're about to head into Thanksgiving. What should family members 976 01:04:09,360 --> 01:04:13,840 Speaker 1: keep in mind about their tribe and tribalism in order 977 01:04:13,880 --> 01:04:17,040 Speaker 1: to have a peaceful Thanksgiving dinner. 978 01:04:18,080 --> 01:04:22,880 Speaker 2: Well, there's an economist at UCLA named Keith Chen who 979 01:04:22,960 --> 01:04:26,800 Speaker 2: works with cell phone location data. So he has these 980 01:04:26,800 --> 01:04:29,360 Speaker 2: massive data sets that's basically just tracking the location of 981 01:04:29,400 --> 01:04:31,880 Speaker 2: everyone's cell phone. And what he has been able to 982 01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:36,480 Speaker 2: discover through very complex statistics is that in the last 983 01:04:36,640 --> 01:04:43,960 Speaker 2: election season, you know, twenty twenty, twenty sixteen, families that 984 01:04:44,120 --> 01:04:49,440 Speaker 2: are politically divided have cut short their Thanksgiving dinners during 985 01:04:49,480 --> 01:04:53,960 Speaker 2: these election years because of the conversations that start to happen, 986 01:04:54,120 --> 01:04:57,040 Speaker 2: you know, after the second glass of wine. So I 987 01:04:57,120 --> 01:05:02,920 Speaker 2: wish Americans not just a peaceful, but lengthy Thanksgiving celebrations. 988 01:05:03,480 --> 01:05:07,880 Speaker 2: And one of the things I would suggest is to 989 01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:12,760 Speaker 2: not believe the hype that Americans are more divided now 990 01:05:12,800 --> 01:05:17,400 Speaker 2: than they ever have been. In eighteen sixty, Abraham Lincoln 991 01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:22,040 Speaker 2: became president with less than forty percent of the popular vote. 992 01:05:22,480 --> 01:05:27,120 Speaker 2: Seven states seceded from the Union before his inauguration. The 993 01:05:27,160 --> 01:05:31,760 Speaker 2: Civil War broke out a week or so afterwards. That's 994 01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:34,000 Speaker 2: what I would call a real rift. That's what I 995 01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:38,880 Speaker 2: would call a challenge, a legitimacy challenge, right. And so 996 01:05:39,480 --> 01:05:43,360 Speaker 2: what's interesting is what did Lincoln think was the solution 997 01:05:43,480 --> 01:05:49,120 Speaker 2: to that. In his first inaugural he said, the mystic 998 01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:54,440 Speaker 2: chords of memory will yet swell the chorus of the Union. 999 01:05:54,680 --> 01:05:57,120 Speaker 2: Now that's a bit poetic and cryptic, but what he 1000 01:05:57,240 --> 01:06:01,320 Speaker 2: was suggesting is that collective memory, you know, thinking of 1001 01:06:01,360 --> 01:06:05,440 Speaker 2: our common ancestors, and the gratitude and the obligation that 1002 01:06:05,640 --> 01:06:08,360 Speaker 2: we that we feel and the reverence that we feel 1003 01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:12,040 Speaker 2: when we think of ancestors can get us beyond our 1004 01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:16,000 Speaker 2: current differences. Our current differences seem large, but when we 1005 01:06:16,080 --> 01:06:19,000 Speaker 2: think in terms of the hundreds of years of the 1006 01:06:19,040 --> 01:06:23,040 Speaker 2: American experiment, since the first settlers, you know, on these shores, 1007 01:06:23,560 --> 01:06:27,120 Speaker 2: we can think of this disagreement between the North and 1008 01:06:27,120 --> 01:06:30,400 Speaker 2: the South as one that we can possibly get beyond. 1009 01:06:30,760 --> 01:06:34,760 Speaker 2: And right around the same time as his more famous 1010 01:06:34,800 --> 01:06:38,200 Speaker 2: Gettysburg address when he talked about our fathers came to 1011 01:06:38,240 --> 01:06:40,920 Speaker 2: this land. You know, he made reference to ancestors. He 1012 01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:43,360 Speaker 2: did something that he's not often given credit for, which 1013 01:06:43,440 --> 01:06:48,960 Speaker 2: was the proclamation of the Thanksgiving holiday. I learned in 1014 01:06:49,000 --> 01:06:53,360 Speaker 2: school that Americans have celebrated Thanksgiving holidays since sixteen twenty 1015 01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:56,760 Speaker 2: one in an unbroken tradition. That's not true, but a 1016 01:06:56,800 --> 01:07:01,040 Speaker 2: lot of the national folklore of every country is fake lore. 1017 01:07:01,200 --> 01:07:06,120 Speaker 2: It's created retrospectively and projected onto the past. So the 1018 01:07:06,160 --> 01:07:09,040 Speaker 2: Pilgrims did not have a Thanksgiving in sixteen twenty one. 1019 01:07:09,040 --> 01:07:11,960 Speaker 2: They had a feast that they called a rejoicing, where 1020 01:07:11,960 --> 01:07:14,320 Speaker 2: they shot guns in the air and drank whiskey. And 1021 01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:17,440 Speaker 2: Thanksgiving for them was a religious ceremony, so it was 1022 01:07:17,600 --> 01:07:22,240 Speaker 2: something very different. But there was a concept of Thanksgiving 1023 01:07:22,280 --> 01:07:25,960 Speaker 2: among the Puritans, this kind of religious ceremony, and George 1024 01:07:26,040 --> 01:07:29,520 Speaker 2: Washington held one of those religious ceremonies after the Revolutionary War, 1025 01:07:30,080 --> 01:07:33,520 Speaker 2: and Lincoln was influenced by some of the thought leaders 1026 01:07:33,560 --> 01:07:36,600 Speaker 2: of the era who thought a national holiday, a sort 1027 01:07:36,640 --> 01:07:40,200 Speaker 2: of autumn harvest feast that we all do at the 1028 01:07:40,240 --> 01:07:43,320 Speaker 2: same time, would be a unifying thing at a time 1029 01:07:43,360 --> 01:07:46,440 Speaker 2: when the country is sort of divided. And Lincoln thought, oh, 1030 01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:49,360 Speaker 2: that makes sense. But how can I get people to 1031 01:07:49,400 --> 01:07:52,560 Speaker 2: accept a new holiday. Well, I can portray it as 1032 01:07:52,600 --> 01:07:56,280 Speaker 2: something that's already a time honored American tradition. So he 1033 01:07:56,400 --> 01:08:01,160 Speaker 2: described it with reference to the Puritan themes and customs, 1034 01:08:01,200 --> 01:08:05,680 Speaker 2: and he made reference to George Washington's Thanksgiving, a one 1035 01:08:05,760 --> 01:08:09,120 Speaker 2: off event that wasn't meant to be a holiday, and 1036 01:08:09,360 --> 01:08:12,640 Speaker 2: within a few years Americans had embraced it as a 1037 01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:18,920 Speaker 2: sacred national tradition. So Thanksgiving itself is an example of 1038 01:08:18,960 --> 01:08:22,880 Speaker 2: how culture is mutable. It's not. You know, the differences 1039 01:08:22,880 --> 01:08:25,519 Speaker 2: that we have now are not set in stone. They're 1040 01:08:25,520 --> 01:08:29,320 Speaker 2: not necessarily going to last forever. And we can use 1041 01:08:29,800 --> 01:08:35,080 Speaker 2: our cultural capacities for ritual to move beyond differences. And 1042 01:08:35,160 --> 01:08:38,880 Speaker 2: so by celebrating Thanksgiving, we should remember that we can 1043 01:08:38,920 --> 01:08:41,479 Speaker 2: get beyond much worse political crises than the one we 1044 01:08:41,520 --> 01:08:41,960 Speaker 2: have today. 1045 01:08:42,320 --> 01:08:45,240 Speaker 1: Really fascinating, all right, So let's go back to Asia. 1046 01:08:45,800 --> 01:08:52,000 Speaker 1: You describe Singapore at one point in time as a poor, backwards, 1047 01:08:52,400 --> 01:08:57,360 Speaker 1: very corrupt, impoverished islands. How did they manage to turn 1048 01:08:57,400 --> 01:08:59,680 Speaker 1: that around? Singapore is now thought of as one of 1049 01:08:59,680 --> 01:09:01,360 Speaker 1: the most successful countries in the world. 1050 01:09:01,800 --> 01:09:06,439 Speaker 2: Yeah, Singapore is healthier, wealthier, and less corrupt than the 1051 01:09:06,520 --> 01:09:10,000 Speaker 2: United States by a substantial margin. That's not to say 1052 01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:12,360 Speaker 2: everything about it is great. I lived there a couple 1053 01:09:12,439 --> 01:09:16,840 Speaker 2: of years ago for a year, and it's got many virtues, 1054 01:09:16,880 --> 01:09:19,120 Speaker 2: but you know, very strict right in New York has 1055 01:09:19,120 --> 01:09:20,479 Speaker 2: its virtues as well, right. 1056 01:09:20,560 --> 01:09:25,040 Speaker 1: No, No, the famously spinning gum on caning and that 1057 01:09:25,080 --> 01:09:28,760 Speaker 1: sort of stuff, but by and large a very successful society. 1058 01:09:29,080 --> 01:09:34,679 Speaker 2: Yeah. And it was a British colony and then during 1059 01:09:34,720 --> 01:09:39,040 Speaker 2: World War Two the Japanese occupied it and shut down 1060 01:09:39,120 --> 01:09:42,800 Speaker 2: the port, which the British had a tradition there of 1061 01:09:42,840 --> 01:09:47,080 Speaker 2: a free port, so it was a free port for 1062 01:09:47,200 --> 01:09:51,240 Speaker 2: a trading open trading zone, and the Japanese kind of 1063 01:09:51,280 --> 01:09:54,479 Speaker 2: shut that down, and that led to a sort of 1064 01:09:55,040 --> 01:10:00,720 Speaker 2: darker period in Singapore where you had black markets and 1065 01:10:00,760 --> 01:10:04,639 Speaker 2: you had a lot of corruption instead of an open 1066 01:10:04,720 --> 01:10:07,320 Speaker 2: port that was you know, treating everyone the same and 1067 01:10:08,160 --> 01:10:13,200 Speaker 2: prospering due to the high traffic of business Singapore. After 1068 01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:17,400 Speaker 2: getting after getting free of the Japanese, it joined the 1069 01:10:17,400 --> 01:10:23,280 Speaker 2: Federation of Malaysia with its northern neighbors. It continued to 1070 01:10:23,640 --> 01:10:26,400 Speaker 2: be less of a free port than it had been 1071 01:10:27,720 --> 01:10:33,000 Speaker 2: under British rule, and some of the local traditions of 1072 01:10:33,040 --> 01:10:36,640 Speaker 2: sort of relationship based business, where you do business with 1073 01:10:36,680 --> 01:10:40,280 Speaker 2: my family, so I give you preferential access to somebody else. 1074 01:10:40,320 --> 01:10:43,479 Speaker 2: That's kind of how business works in that area. There 1075 01:10:43,479 --> 01:10:45,559 Speaker 2: are lots of words for it, goan chi, you know, 1076 01:10:45,600 --> 01:10:49,520 Speaker 2: sort of network based business, and that was the dominant 1077 01:10:49,920 --> 01:10:55,320 Speaker 2: mode of how the port operated. But then a leader 1078 01:10:56,000 --> 01:11:01,400 Speaker 2: named Li Kwan Yu, who was Singaporean but who studied 1079 01:11:01,520 --> 01:11:07,160 Speaker 2: law in the UK, returned to Singapore to kind of 1080 01:11:07,320 --> 01:11:12,320 Speaker 2: try to help its government during the Malaysian period. But 1081 01:11:12,400 --> 01:11:18,320 Speaker 2: then in the mid sixties, Singapore gained its independence by 1082 01:11:18,400 --> 01:11:23,519 Speaker 2: being ejected from the Malaysian Federation, in part because of 1083 01:11:23,560 --> 01:11:31,160 Speaker 2: the ethnic strife between the primarily Chinese Singaporeans and the Malaysians. 1084 01:11:31,320 --> 01:11:34,639 Speaker 2: At the time, it had no source of drinking water, 1085 01:11:35,080 --> 01:11:38,360 Speaker 2: it had a very high unemployment rate, it had a 1086 01:11:38,600 --> 01:11:44,640 Speaker 2: huge malaria problem, and its port had been completely dysfunctional 1087 01:11:44,680 --> 01:11:48,400 Speaker 2: for decades since the Japanese occupation. During World War Two, 1088 01:11:49,520 --> 01:11:53,719 Speaker 2: a young leader named Li Kwan Yu, who had grown 1089 01:11:53,800 --> 01:11:57,880 Speaker 2: up in Singapore but then studied law and practiced law 1090 01:11:57,960 --> 01:12:02,160 Speaker 2: in the UK for a while before returning, became elected 1091 01:12:02,200 --> 01:12:06,000 Speaker 2: as the first Prime Minister and knew that he needed 1092 01:12:06,040 --> 01:12:11,599 Speaker 2: to do something special in order to help Singapore survive 1093 01:12:11,760 --> 01:12:16,559 Speaker 2: as an independent country. And what he did was largely 1094 01:12:16,720 --> 01:12:22,320 Speaker 2: opposite to what most independence leaders do. Independence leaders tend 1095 01:12:22,600 --> 01:12:28,559 Speaker 2: to eliminate any trace of the prior colonial influence. They 1096 01:12:29,160 --> 01:12:33,280 Speaker 2: pulled down statues, and they changed the names of things 1097 01:12:33,400 --> 01:12:38,280 Speaker 2: back to the local language, and they eliminate western dress 1098 01:12:38,320 --> 01:12:43,360 Speaker 2: and put on the ethnic garb le Kwan Yu did 1099 01:12:43,600 --> 01:12:50,280 Speaker 2: largely the opposite of that. His political party adopted white 1100 01:12:50,400 --> 01:12:55,639 Speaker 2: uniforms reminiscent of the British navy that had ensured the 1101 01:12:55,680 --> 01:12:59,000 Speaker 2: operation of the port for many decades in Singapore. He 1102 01:12:59,080 --> 01:13:03,720 Speaker 2: made English the official language rather than Melee or Chinese 1103 01:13:03,840 --> 01:13:06,080 Speaker 2: or many of the other dialects spoken in the area. 1104 01:13:06,479 --> 01:13:10,320 Speaker 2: He thought a lingua franca that was not connected to 1105 01:13:10,360 --> 01:13:15,120 Speaker 2: any of the local ethnicities and that was associated with 1106 01:13:15,240 --> 01:13:19,120 Speaker 2: this prior period in history when the port was functioning 1107 01:13:20,479 --> 01:13:24,400 Speaker 2: in an adaptive way, would be the right kind of 1108 01:13:24,520 --> 01:13:29,760 Speaker 2: cultural cue. He even put up a statue of Sir Raffles, 1109 01:13:30,640 --> 01:13:35,960 Speaker 2: who was the British founder of the Singaporean colony, Sir 1110 01:13:36,000 --> 01:13:39,600 Speaker 2: Thomas Raffles, in case somebody didn't get the point. So 1111 01:13:40,080 --> 01:13:44,320 Speaker 2: he didn't try to eliminate all of the traces of 1112 01:13:44,400 --> 01:13:49,400 Speaker 2: the sort of British paradigms from running the port. He 1113 01:13:49,520 --> 01:13:55,120 Speaker 2: tried to restore that by creating an environment that reminded 1114 01:13:55,200 --> 01:13:58,960 Speaker 2: people of that time and brought those habits to the surface. 1115 01:13:59,520 --> 01:14:04,080 Speaker 2: And it was in combination with a few other procedures 1116 01:14:04,160 --> 01:14:10,360 Speaker 2: like very strong anti graft laws and sort of role 1117 01:14:10,439 --> 01:14:18,639 Speaker 2: modeling the austerity and the uncorruptibility that he wanted. Through 1118 01:14:18,720 --> 01:14:23,519 Speaker 2: role modeling and through these legal changes and through this 1119 01:14:23,760 --> 01:14:29,040 Speaker 2: cultural queueing, he set in motion a new culture of 1120 01:14:29,360 --> 01:14:33,519 Speaker 2: Singapore that proved to be very successful in attracting trade 1121 01:14:33,520 --> 01:14:37,760 Speaker 2: to Singapore rather than to other local ports, and snowballed 1122 01:14:38,160 --> 01:14:41,920 Speaker 2: to become the culture not just of the port in Singapore, 1123 01:14:42,000 --> 01:14:46,920 Speaker 2: but of all of its industries and created the Singapore 1124 01:14:46,960 --> 01:14:47,799 Speaker 2: that we know today. 1125 01:14:48,160 --> 01:14:57,400 Speaker 1: So using cultural cues and the right approach to tribal norms, 1126 01:14:57,520 --> 01:15:02,400 Speaker 1: you can affect change in countries, in companies, in sports teams. 1127 01:15:02,760 --> 01:15:05,320 Speaker 1: Am I missing anything there? Because the book really covers 1128 01:15:05,760 --> 01:15:11,680 Speaker 1: a wide range of ways that tribalism influences organizations. 1129 01:15:13,040 --> 01:15:16,000 Speaker 2: Yes, all of those are tribes in the sense that 1130 01:15:16,040 --> 01:15:20,880 Speaker 2: they are communities with an enduring identity across generations. What 1131 01:15:21,160 --> 01:15:24,200 Speaker 2: a generation means is different in a sports team than 1132 01:15:24,280 --> 01:15:28,960 Speaker 2: in a society. But there's transmission of culture across generations, 1133 01:15:29,000 --> 01:15:32,080 Speaker 2: and the culture is a kind of glue that enables 1134 01:15:32,120 --> 01:15:36,800 Speaker 2: people to coordinate, cooperate and have a sense of continuity. 1135 01:15:37,240 --> 01:15:43,439 Speaker 2: But we also have levers for activating cultures, and we 1136 01:15:43,520 --> 01:15:49,599 Speaker 2: have levers for altering cultures, and leaders like Li Kwan 1137 01:15:49,680 --> 01:15:53,519 Speaker 2: yu are adept at this. He didn't regard culture as sacred. 1138 01:15:53,600 --> 01:15:56,320 Speaker 2: He was a bit of a cultural engineer at a 1139 01:15:56,400 --> 01:16:01,640 Speaker 2: time when that was regarded as, you know, an impossible 1140 01:16:01,640 --> 01:16:04,600 Speaker 2: thing to do. That. You can't change the culture of 1141 01:16:04,600 --> 01:16:07,719 Speaker 2: a nation. You can't create a new culture. You can't 1142 01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:12,320 Speaker 2: ask a newly liberated people to appropriate aspects of the 1143 01:16:12,360 --> 01:16:17,400 Speaker 2: culture from the former colonial era. But he is somebody 1144 01:16:17,479 --> 01:16:20,120 Speaker 2: who felt like people are a little bit more flexible 1145 01:16:20,200 --> 01:16:23,040 Speaker 2: than they've been given credit for. And he knew that 1146 01:16:23,120 --> 01:16:27,799 Speaker 2: he himself personally was bicultural. He was very much Chinese 1147 01:16:27,800 --> 01:16:30,400 Speaker 2: but also very much English, and he thought that a 1148 01:16:30,400 --> 01:16:34,000 Speaker 2: lot of the Singaporeans of his generation were also bicultural, 1149 01:16:34,040 --> 01:16:37,000 Speaker 2: and that was a resource that he could draw upon 1150 01:16:37,479 --> 01:16:42,200 Speaker 2: to shape the new culture of independent Singapore. 1151 01:16:42,320 --> 01:16:48,720 Speaker 1: Hu so fascinatingly, the former president of Singapore was had 1152 01:16:48,760 --> 01:16:55,160 Speaker 1: both a Chinese and an English. Identally, how do babies 1153 01:16:55,240 --> 01:16:59,759 Speaker 1: cognitively develop unidentality? What is their focus? Do they see 1154 01:17:00,360 --> 01:17:05,680 Speaker 1: family members, do they see race? What affects babies cultural identities? 1155 01:17:06,439 --> 01:17:09,880 Speaker 2: Well, race is very salient in this country because race 1156 01:17:10,000 --> 01:17:15,799 Speaker 2: happens to map on to cultural communities that are different 1157 01:17:15,800 --> 01:17:19,599 Speaker 2: from each other. But that's not the case in most 1158 01:17:19,640 --> 01:17:22,960 Speaker 2: of the world. You know, in Russia and the Ukraine, 1159 01:17:23,000 --> 01:17:25,320 Speaker 2: you can't tell from somebody's face which side they're on. 1160 01:17:25,479 --> 01:17:30,240 Speaker 2: In Gaza, you can't tell who's Israeli and who's Palestinian 1161 01:17:30,320 --> 01:17:37,040 Speaker 2: based on faces necessarily, and our evolutionary ancestors rarely encountered 1162 01:17:37,080 --> 01:17:41,720 Speaker 2: anybody who was physiognomically different from themselves, So we're not 1163 01:17:42,080 --> 01:17:46,880 Speaker 2: wired to use race as the basis of categorization. It's 1164 01:17:46,920 --> 01:17:51,240 Speaker 2: something that even in this culture, children only learn later, 1165 01:17:51,439 --> 01:17:54,519 Speaker 2: at like age six, to pay attention to race. But 1166 01:17:54,600 --> 01:17:58,640 Speaker 2: there are certain cues that we seem to be wired 1167 01:17:59,120 --> 01:18:02,800 Speaker 2: to pay attention to in order to recognize who's in 1168 01:18:02,840 --> 01:18:06,160 Speaker 2: what group, and in order to recognize when we're around 1169 01:18:06,200 --> 01:18:11,120 Speaker 2: tribe mates and thus should engage in our tribal norms 1170 01:18:11,200 --> 01:18:14,679 Speaker 2: as a way of coordinating with them. And the number 1171 01:18:14,680 --> 01:18:20,720 Speaker 2: one thing is language. Babies learn not only their mother's language, 1172 01:18:20,880 --> 01:18:24,839 Speaker 2: but even their mother's dialect when they're in the womb, 1173 01:18:25,760 --> 01:18:30,920 Speaker 2: So when they're born, they will already If you play 1174 01:18:30,960 --> 01:18:37,480 Speaker 2: tape recordings to newborns of their mother's language or another language, 1175 01:18:37,560 --> 01:18:40,840 Speaker 2: they will turn to look at their mother's language. They 1176 01:18:40,840 --> 01:18:44,200 Speaker 2: don't speak yet, they can't understand anything, but they know 1177 01:18:44,320 --> 01:18:48,360 Speaker 2: the patterns of the language. Even dialect is that way, 1178 01:18:48,200 --> 01:18:52,160 Speaker 2: they will turn to a dialect. And the same kinds 1179 01:18:52,160 --> 01:18:56,880 Speaker 2: of experiments are done where you have two adult strangers 1180 01:18:56,960 --> 01:18:59,840 Speaker 2: in front of a baby and both of them are 1181 01:19:00,080 --> 01:19:02,960 Speaker 2: offering a toy to the baby. Which toy does the 1182 01:19:02,960 --> 01:19:09,280 Speaker 2: baby take? Well, they will preferentially interact and take a 1183 01:19:09,320 --> 01:19:14,479 Speaker 2: toy from a stranger who speaks with their mother's language 1184 01:19:14,600 --> 01:19:18,200 Speaker 2: or even their mother's dialect, as opposed to a stranger 1185 01:19:18,520 --> 01:19:21,440 Speaker 2: who speaks with a different language or a different dialect. 1186 01:19:21,479 --> 01:19:25,799 Speaker 2: So their brains have recognized languages and dialects as markers 1187 01:19:25,840 --> 01:19:29,800 Speaker 2: of in group, and they preferentially interact with those people 1188 01:19:29,880 --> 01:19:35,120 Speaker 2: and learn from those people. What's fascinating is that babies 1189 01:19:35,160 --> 01:19:40,280 Speaker 2: also seem to be wired to expect that food choices 1190 01:19:40,360 --> 01:19:46,360 Speaker 2: or cuisines will also be aligned with languages. So if 1191 01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:49,960 Speaker 2: you put babies in an experiment where there is one 1192 01:19:50,000 --> 01:19:54,240 Speaker 2: adult stranger who is speaking one language, say English, and 1193 01:19:54,280 --> 01:19:58,439 Speaker 2: another one who is speaking another language, let's say Hindi, 1194 01:19:59,000 --> 01:20:03,240 Speaker 2: and then they they see the person who's speaking English 1195 01:20:03,280 --> 01:20:06,360 Speaker 2: eating one kind of food, and they see the person 1196 01:20:06,400 --> 01:20:09,479 Speaker 2: who's speaking Hindi eating a different kind of food. And 1197 01:20:09,520 --> 01:20:14,400 Speaker 2: then a third person comes in, say, speaking English, and 1198 01:20:14,760 --> 01:20:19,400 Speaker 2: it starts eating the food that the Hindi speaking person 1199 01:20:19,439 --> 01:20:22,360 Speaker 2: has been eating. The baby will be startled and look like, 1200 01:20:22,400 --> 01:20:24,479 Speaker 2: oh my god, what's going on here? You're eating the 1201 01:20:24,520 --> 01:20:26,960 Speaker 2: wrong food, you know. So what this tells us is 1202 01:20:27,000 --> 01:20:30,360 Speaker 2: that babies are not wired to be racist, but they 1203 01:20:30,400 --> 01:20:34,320 Speaker 2: are already judging us based on how we speak and 1204 01:20:34,360 --> 01:20:35,000 Speaker 2: what we eat. 1205 01:20:35,760 --> 01:20:38,280 Speaker 1: Who knew babies were foodies? I would never have guessed that. 1206 01:20:38,280 --> 01:20:41,439 Speaker 1: That's fascinating, all right, So our speed round. Tell us 1207 01:20:41,479 --> 01:20:44,280 Speaker 1: what you're keeping you entertained? What are you either listening 1208 01:20:44,800 --> 01:20:45,400 Speaker 1: or watching? 1209 01:20:45,960 --> 01:20:50,479 Speaker 2: Well, ironically enough, what I'm watching is ken Burn's Civil 1210 01:20:50,560 --> 01:20:54,080 Speaker 2: War series, which I never saw the first time, and. 1211 01:20:55,400 --> 01:20:55,639 Speaker 1: Great. 1212 01:20:55,840 --> 01:20:57,519 Speaker 2: I'd written about the Civil War in the book and 1213 01:20:57,560 --> 01:20:58,680 Speaker 2: then I wanted to watch it. 1214 01:20:59,479 --> 01:21:02,240 Speaker 1: Let's talk about mentors who helped shape your career. 1215 01:21:02,400 --> 01:21:05,679 Speaker 2: Yeah, as an undergraduate, I had a mentor named Michael Harper, 1216 01:21:05,800 --> 01:21:08,760 Speaker 2: who was an African American poet at Brown, and he 1217 01:21:09,240 --> 01:21:12,840 Speaker 2: sort of I wasn't African American obviously, but I liked 1218 01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:16,040 Speaker 2: poetry and kind of came from a background similar to 1219 01:21:16,080 --> 01:21:18,639 Speaker 2: his and unlike most of the people at Brown, And 1220 01:21:20,040 --> 01:21:23,559 Speaker 2: you know, he was a great mentor warm figure and 1221 01:21:23,600 --> 01:21:25,720 Speaker 2: someone who you know, paid attention to me when I 1222 01:21:25,760 --> 01:21:29,280 Speaker 2: needed it. And then when I went to graduate school, 1223 01:21:29,320 --> 01:21:32,320 Speaker 2: a guy named Richard Nisbitt who's a leading social psychologist. 1224 01:21:32,840 --> 01:21:35,360 Speaker 2: And then when I started at Stanford, I had a 1225 01:21:35,360 --> 01:21:39,280 Speaker 2: colleague named Hazel Marcus, who was a wonderful guide to 1226 01:21:40,000 --> 01:21:42,479 Speaker 2: you know, understanding a profession that I had not much 1227 01:21:42,520 --> 01:21:47,000 Speaker 2: introduction to and helped me, you know, avoid making lots 1228 01:21:47,040 --> 01:21:47,599 Speaker 2: of mistakes. 1229 01:21:47,960 --> 01:21:50,040 Speaker 1: Let's talk about books. What are some of your favorites? 1230 01:21:50,040 --> 01:21:51,320 Speaker 1: What are you reading right now? 1231 01:21:51,720 --> 01:21:55,200 Speaker 2: I just got yesterday a book called co Intelligence by 1232 01:21:55,360 --> 01:21:59,160 Speaker 2: Ethan Mollick. It's a book about AI, but not not 1233 01:21:59,280 --> 01:22:02,719 Speaker 2: a dystopian book about AI taking over, but it's about 1234 01:22:02,760 --> 01:22:05,439 Speaker 2: how to use AI as your copilot, how to recognize 1235 01:22:05,439 --> 01:22:07,439 Speaker 2: what AI is good at and what you're good at, 1236 01:22:07,479 --> 01:22:09,439 Speaker 2: and how to use it, which I think I need 1237 01:22:09,479 --> 01:22:11,519 Speaker 2: to start teaching my students because I think it's the 1238 01:22:11,560 --> 01:22:12,200 Speaker 2: new reality. 1239 01:22:12,760 --> 01:22:15,479 Speaker 1: And our final question, what sort of advice would you 1240 01:22:15,560 --> 01:22:18,960 Speaker 1: give to a college grad interest in a career in 1241 01:22:19,120 --> 01:22:23,639 Speaker 1: either academia, social psychology, or anything related. 1242 01:22:24,520 --> 01:22:26,600 Speaker 2: Well, I say this to my nephews who are at 1243 01:22:26,640 --> 01:22:31,920 Speaker 2: that age. Learn what AI is good at and also 1244 01:22:32,120 --> 01:22:37,200 Speaker 2: learn AI's limitations, because I think that the facility in 1245 01:22:37,360 --> 01:22:40,639 Speaker 2: using AI well and not using it poorly is really 1246 01:22:40,640 --> 01:22:43,600 Speaker 2: going to be a distinguishing factor in the knowledge economy 1247 01:22:43,640 --> 01:22:44,799 Speaker 2: career is going forward. 1248 01:22:45,160 --> 01:22:47,799 Speaker 1: Thank you, professor for being so generous with your time. 1249 01:22:48,080 --> 01:22:52,320 Speaker 1: This has really been absolutely intriguing. We have been speaking 1250 01:22:52,640 --> 01:22:56,719 Speaker 1: with Professor Michael Marris of Columbia Graduate School of Business 1251 01:22:57,080 --> 01:22:59,920 Speaker 1: and author of the book Tribal How the cultural instinct 1252 01:23:00,120 --> 01:23:03,920 Speaker 1: that divide us can help bring us together. If you 1253 01:23:04,160 --> 01:23:07,040 Speaker 1: enjoy this conversation, well check out any of the previous 1254 01:23:07,439 --> 01:23:10,880 Speaker 1: five hundred and fifty we've done over the past ten 1255 01:23:10,960 --> 01:23:15,120 Speaker 1: plus years. You can find those at iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, 1256 01:23:15,240 --> 01:23:18,960 Speaker 1: wherever you find your favorite podcast, and check out my 1257 01:23:19,040 --> 01:23:22,880 Speaker 1: new podcast at the Money, short ten minute conversations with 1258 01:23:23,000 --> 01:23:27,080 Speaker 1: experts about issues that affect your money earning it, spending it, 1259 01:23:27,120 --> 01:23:31,000 Speaker 1: and most importantly investing it at the Money wherever you 1260 01:23:31,080 --> 01:23:34,839 Speaker 1: find your favorite podcasts and in the Masters in Business 1261 01:23:34,880 --> 01:23:37,479 Speaker 1: feed I would be remiss if I did not thank 1262 01:23:37,520 --> 01:23:41,000 Speaker 1: the crack team that helps put these conversations together each week. 1263 01:23:41,200 --> 01:23:45,120 Speaker 1: My audio engineer is Steve Gonzalez. My producer is Anna Luke. 1264 01:23:45,760 --> 01:23:49,120 Speaker 1: Sage Bauman is the head of Podcasts at Bloomberg. Sean 1265 01:23:49,200 --> 01:23:54,080 Speaker 1: Russo is my researcher. I'm Barry Ritoltz. You've been listening 1266 01:23:54,120 --> 01:23:57,080 Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. 1267 01:24:01,120 --> 01:24:03,479 Speaker 2: Conta