Speaker 1: Hello there.
Speaker 2: Today's show is a best of episode while I take
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks off, and it's my chat with
Speaker 2: Adam Grant from earlier this year. I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite episodes so far from twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one. We go to the dentist for a checkup
Speaker 2: once a year, and we have an annual performance review
Speaker 2: at work each year. But yet how often do we
Speaker 2: stop to do a life checkup? Have you ever done
Speaker 2: an audit where you consider if you're in the right
Speaker 2: role and if the organization you work for is still
Speaker 2: the right fit. Organizational psychologist, Wharton professor and best selling
Speaker 2: author Adam Grant says we should all be scheduling life checkups.
Speaker 2: He spent years hearing from his past students who graduated
Speaker 2: from business school and walked into great jobs, yet they
Speaker 2: were miserably unhappy. They'd been promoted and were making lots
Speaker 2: of money, but they hated their jobs and they felt trapped.
Speaker 2: Adam's schedules a live checkup twice a year to ask himself,
Speaker 2: have I reached a learning plateau? What do I want
Speaker 2: to research? Do I need to rethink my approach to teaching?
Speaker 2: A life checkup is just like scheduling an appointment with
Speaker 2: the doctor, even if you don't suspect anything is wrong.
Speaker 2: My name is doctor Amantha Imma. I'm an organizational psychologist
Speaker 2: and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium. And this
Speaker 2: is how I work a show about how to help
Speaker 2: you do your best work. So let's hear about how
Speaker 2: Adam first came up with the idea to do a
Speaker 2: life checkup and what his own process for doing them
Speaker 2: looks like.
Speaker 1: The genesis of it is.
Speaker 3: I kept having these students who would graduate from Wharton
Speaker 3: and then they'd contact me a couple of years later
Speaker 3: and say, you know, I really hate my investment banking job.
Speaker 3: But I've already a couple of years and I'm about
Speaker 3: to get promoted and it'll be my third promotion, and
Speaker 3: I'm making all this money, and I think I could
Speaker 3: have walked away a year or two ago, but now
Speaker 3: I can't. And then I started getting calls from students
Speaker 3: who said, actually, I'm miserable in my job and I
Speaker 3: should have walked away a couple of years ago, but
Speaker 3: I didn't, And now I feel trapped and I don't
Speaker 3: want to. I don't want to undo the few years
Speaker 3: that I've already invested, and I feel like I would
Speaker 3: have to start over. And I had enough of these
Speaker 3: conversations that finally I said, well, why don't you put
Speaker 3: a reminder on your calendar twice a year to do
Speaker 3: a checkup?
Speaker 1: And they're like, what is it? A checkup?
Speaker 3: The same way that you go to the doctor, even
Speaker 3: when it seems like nothing is wrong. Why don't you
Speaker 3: do the same thing with your career? To ask yourself,
Speaker 3: is this still the job that I want? Have I
Speaker 3: reached a learning plateau or a lifestyle plateau? Is this
Speaker 3: culture toxic? And I don't want you to do that
Speaker 3: every day because then you're just going to be stuck
Speaker 3: in analysis paralysis and you'll never give the place a chance.
Speaker 3: But if you do it a couple of times a year,
Speaker 3: and maybe it'll save you from getting trapped in a.
Speaker 1: Place that you don't want to be.
Speaker 3: And they've reported back that it's helpful, and a lot
Speaker 3: of them still do it a decade later. So the
Speaker 3: question is do I take my own advice? What do
Speaker 3: you think?
Speaker 2: I think you should take your own advice. It sounds
Speaker 2: very sensible, you think so, I think so? And you
Speaker 2: know what it reminds me of actually, before you go
Speaker 2: into how you've taken your own advice, it reminds me
Speaker 2: of what Chip and Down Heath wrote about indecisive around
Speaker 2: setting trip wires for decisions.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, it's funny that I think the tripwire
Speaker 3: principle is useful whenever I think about it as a tripway.
Speaker 1: I don't want to trip on a wire. That sounds
Speaker 1: really unpleasant.
Speaker 3: Whereas a checkup, yeah, you know what, I need to
Speaker 3: do that in order to stay healthy. So I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe it's just a question of framing or semantics, but
Speaker 3: I found the checkup idea appealing in a way that
Speaker 3: a trip writer sounded a little bit dangerous.
Speaker 1: So what did I do?
Speaker 3: I would say, you want to know about my most
Speaker 3: recent career checkup, right, I'd love to you. Okay, So
Speaker 3: I think my most recent one actually came. I'm just
Speaker 3: gonna look at my calendar here.
Speaker 2: So you're booking meetings with yourself in your calendar, so
Speaker 2: you remember for the life checkup.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a reminder in my calendar to pop
Speaker 3: up twice a year for a checkup. Cool and one
Speaker 3: is one is usually in it pops up in July
Speaker 3: to do a rethinking of my teaching approach and what
Speaker 3: content I'm going to cover that semester. And then I
Speaker 3: have another one that pops up in January, which is, Okay,
Speaker 3: what do I want to be working on in terms
Speaker 3: of research and writing and podcasting. So I don't know
Speaker 3: if there's a recent one that that's that good of
Speaker 3: a story. So can I tell you about a pivotal one?
Speaker 2: Of course?
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So I can actually give you two if you want,
Speaker 3: and you can choose. This is the checkup that led
Speaker 3: me into podcasting, and the other is the checkup that
Speaker 3: led me to write Think Again Amazing.
Speaker 2: Tell me about both.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So twenty seventeen, I published my third book, and I
Speaker 3: was doing a lot of speaking and a lot of interviews,
Speaker 3: and I felt like I'd become a human jukebox. People
Speaker 3: would they knew what songs I could play, They would
Speaker 3: tell me which one to play. I would give my performance,
Speaker 3: and I would learn nothing because I was basically covering
Speaker 3: the same material as last time, and a lot of
Speaker 3: the same questions would come up from different audiences, and
Speaker 3: I felt like I was stagnating. You know, I don't
Speaker 3: think the audience saw it because each performance felt fresh
Speaker 3: to them. But like, how many times am I going
Speaker 3: to do the same talk? And at first I said, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do the same thing on stage that
Speaker 3: I do in the classroom, which is I'm going to
Speaker 3: throw out twenty percent of the talk each time, and
Speaker 3: that way it'll stay near But it was still the
Speaker 3: same topic, and I was still stuck to the topics
Speaker 3: that the audience was asking for, which was largely typecast
Speaker 3: based on what work I'd put out there. And then
Speaker 3: I had a checkup come up. It was I think
Speaker 3: this summer of twenty seventeen, if I remember correctly, and
Speaker 3: I said, okay, I need to start learning again. How
Speaker 3: am I going to make that happen? And I had
Speaker 3: just launched into some conversations with the TED team about
Speaker 3: ways that we might be able to collaborate on something
Speaker 3: that's more dialogue than monologue, and we sort of stumbled
Speaker 3: into this idea of doing a podcast, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: this would be such a fun thing to do. I
Speaker 3: can go to the most interesting workplaces on Earth and
Speaker 3: talk to some of the most fascinating people, and my
Speaker 3: goal is to learn. And then I could share what
Speaker 3: I've learned on the back end, and that's why I
Speaker 3: host work Life, and it's probably a big part of
Speaker 3: why we're having this conversation.
Speaker 2: Now, Wow, that's so cool, and tell me about the
Speaker 2: one that led to Think Again, because I'm always so
Speaker 2: fascinated in terms of the choice for the next book,
Speaker 2: because essentially, it's like committing to at least a three
Speaker 2: year plus relationship in terms of research and writing and
Speaker 2: editing and pr and keynotes off the back of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's no checkup that can rescue from it.
Speaker 3: You're stuck with it, whether you like it or not.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny. Actually, one of the reasons I
Speaker 3: was so excited about doing Work Life and I guess
Speaker 3: the podcast enterprise more generally, was I felt like, after
Speaker 3: writing I published three books in four years, I felt
Speaker 3: a little bit constrained in the sense that I felt
Speaker 3: like I could only I can only write about or
Speaker 3: speak about topics that were bookworthy, and sometimes I just
Speaker 3: wanted to explore something that was a little smaller, interesting
Speaker 3: and important, but it wasn't necessarily one big idea that
Speaker 3: deserved the whole book. And so podcasting was a great
Speaker 3: way to shake things up a little bit and say,
Speaker 3: all right, you know, I'm really curious about whether we
Speaker 3: could eliminate hierarchy and create organizations.
Speaker 1: With no bosses.
Speaker 3: And I don't have a book's worth of questions in that.
Speaker 3: I think it's a narrower topic. But I think it's
Speaker 3: really fun and cool. I'm going to do a podcast
Speaker 3: episode about it, and I did.
Speaker 1: I had a.
Speaker 3: Blast doing that for a few seasons, still having a
Speaker 3: blast doing it now. But I also started to feel
Speaker 3: an itch that I was not taking on really grand questions.
Speaker 3: That forced me to do a lot of rethinking in
Speaker 3: a big way, which is something that a book requires.
Speaker 3: And again I had a check up come up. I
Speaker 3: think it was January twenty eighteen, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 3: I've been doing a lot of learning. When am I
Speaker 3: going to do my thinking? And that led me to say, okay,
Speaker 3: I think it's time to write another book. And then
Speaker 3: I actually analyzed the patterns in the tweets that I
Speaker 3: had done that were getting the most interest, and I
Speaker 3: noticed that a lot of them were about being open
Speaker 3: minded and questioning our opinions, assumptions, and even letting go
Speaker 3: of some of our expertise and that led in to
Speaker 3: Think Again.
Speaker 2: So here we are, and on the topic of rethinking
Speaker 2: things and learning. You talk about in Think Again, setting
Speaker 2: a weekly time for rethinking and unlearning, and I'd love
Speaker 2: you to take me through an example of what you
Speaker 2: do during this time. How structured is it are? There're
Speaker 2: questions that you ask yourself, like, what would I observe
Speaker 2: if I was a fly on the wall?
Speaker 1: You'd be really bored amentthha. I doubt that.
Speaker 3: I'd just be sitting there occasionally typing things. And sometimes
Speaker 3: I'll do it on the elliptical or when I'm taking
Speaker 3: out the garbage, but most of the time it's in
Speaker 3: front of my computer. And they have a couple of
Speaker 3: different routines that I've tried.
Speaker 1: So far.
Speaker 3: This is still a pretty new practice for me. I've
Speaker 3: been doing it less than a year. So one version
Speaker 3: of it is I go through old ideas that I produced.
Speaker 3: It might be an academic paper I wrote. It could
Speaker 3: be a chapter from a book, might be a social
Speaker 3: media post, could be a podcast episode, might be a
Speaker 3: TED talk, And I ask myself, Okay, is there something
Speaker 3: here worth rethinking? And I cringe a little bit when
Speaker 3: I do that, because I think a lot of my
Speaker 3: past work is at least mildly embarrassing. I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: I guess it was the best I could have done
Speaker 3: at the time, but it was so it was so
Speaker 3: pedestrian and oversimplified, and I have a much richer view
Speaker 3: of the topic now. I'm like, Okay, I can either
Speaker 3: be embarrassed by that, or I can say maybe I've
Speaker 3: grown and that. That's one routine that I've come to appreciate,
Speaker 3: if not enjoy, just to say, all right, let me
Speaker 3: revisit my old work and see if there's something I've
Speaker 3: already rethought or something I should rethink when I look
Speaker 3: at it with the fresh eye of somebody who hasn't
Speaker 3: seen it in a while and kind.
Speaker 1: Of forgot that I produced it. So that's one.
Speaker 2: What else are you doing in that time to provoke
Speaker 2: rethinking and un learning?
Speaker 3: So another thing that I've done is I've reached out
Speaker 3: to people in my challenge network and said, Okay, this
Speaker 3: shouldn't always be an independent activity.
Speaker 1: It doesn't.
Speaker 3: We don't do all of our rethinking in a vacuum.
Speaker 3: I think we do most of it in dialogue or
Speaker 3: at least in interaction with other people. And so I've
Speaker 3: picked the people who are my most thoughtful critics, and
Speaker 3: sometimes I'll just shoot them a note and say, hey,
Speaker 3: what do you think I should rethink.
Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about your challenge network a few times,
Speaker 2: and I'd love it if you could explain how it
Speaker 2: came about, like how you set one up and the
Speaker 2: logistics of how do you utilize it and how can
Speaker 2: other people set one up?
Speaker 3: So I think of my challenge network as the It's
Speaker 3: the perfect compliment to a support network. Everybody has a
Speaker 3: support network, right, group of cheerleaders who encourage you and
Speaker 3: build you up, And I think obviously we need them,
Speaker 3: especially when we're discouraged or down. But I guess I
Speaker 3: benefited more from a challenge network those thoughtful critics who
Speaker 3: have very high expectations of me and see a lot
Speaker 3: of potential in me, but also are fearless about telling
Speaker 3: me when I've fallen short of it. And we'll highlight
Speaker 3: the gap between where I am and where I want
Speaker 3: to be. So I'll give you, I guess a taste
Speaker 3: of how I've done this. This is very how I work.
Speaker 1: We're talking about how I work.
Speaker 2: Look at that correct aligns with the name of the show,
Speaker 2: So I think that works.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry to be so literal, Amantha. But how
Speaker 3: I work my challenge network is when I was writing
Speaker 3: Think Again, I had a couple of different practices for it.
Speaker 3: So one was I have a research lab called the
Speaker 3: Impact Lab that I've been, i guess, running since two
Speaker 3: thousand and three. And I told them we were going
Speaker 3: to meet probably every other week, and i'd have a
Speaker 3: chapter draft for them to read and eviscerate, just tear
Speaker 3: it apart, tell me everything that's wrong with it, and
Speaker 3: we would meet and I would ask them, if you
Speaker 3: have comments in advance, send them so I can digest
Speaker 3: them up front. If not, just tell me what you
Speaker 3: think is wrong with each draft once we sit down.
Speaker 3: And my favorite practice with the group is to say,
Speaker 3: let's just start out. We're going to go around the
Speaker 3: room and give the draft a zero to ten rating.
Speaker 3: No one ever gives a ten, and that has two effects.
Speaker 3: Number one, it motivates them to coach me.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: They might be pretty shy about criticizing my work coming in,
Speaker 3: but when they say four and a half, like great,
Speaker 3: tell me.
Speaker 1: How it could be better.
Speaker 3: I'm aiming for a ten year And then they're not
Speaker 3: worried that they're hurting my feelings. They realize this is
Speaker 3: going to help me. And the other effect that has
Speaker 3: is it motivates me to be coachable. If you just
Speaker 3: told me, here are the three things that I thought
Speaker 3: were terrible in your draft, I'm sure, and I've done
Speaker 3: this many times, I would have some defensive impulses like, wow,
Speaker 3: I made that choice for the following reasons, and I
Speaker 3: don't think you've really thought this through when you tell
Speaker 3: me this draft is a six. All of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I don't care what I dis agree with you on.
Speaker 3: I want to know how it can make it a
Speaker 3: ten in your eyes. And so I become much more
Speaker 3: coachorable and opened a feedback after that. So I did
Speaker 3: a bunch of that with my students, which was invaluable,
Speaker 3: and just rewrote multiple chapters from scratch multiple times.
Speaker 2: I love that idea of scoring things out of ten,
Speaker 2: and I feel like it all also takes it away
Speaker 2: from it being a personal critique. It's more like, well,
Speaker 2: let's focus on the number and how we can get
Speaker 2: that closer to ten. It's interesting. So I got onto
Speaker 2: the book humor seriously from your amazing reading recommendations that
Speaker 2: you do. I think once a quarter you do them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I've started doing them quarterly.
Speaker 3: And I hope you haven't regretted reading the books that
Speaker 3: I've put on them.
Speaker 2: They're all brilliant, and I must say I loved Humor Seriously.
Speaker 2: It was one of my favorite reads over the summer
Speaker 2: down here, which I guess is your winter and.
Speaker 3: I, oh, I'm so glad have you had Jennifer and
Speaker 3: Naomi on the podcast yet.
Speaker 2: I actually an interviewed Naomi yesterday and she was amazing,
Speaker 2: and I was asking her just how does she make
Speaker 2: her writing so funny? I mean, Humor Seriously is probably
Speaker 2: the funniest business book that I've ever read. And she
Speaker 2: described what I kind of like into a human network,
Speaker 2: kind of like your challenge network. But essentially she will
Speaker 2: give the draft to a bunch of comedy writers and
Speaker 2: ask them to find and markup opportunities for humor, which
Speaker 2: I thought, that's that's so fascinating. For making your work
Speaker 2: funny out such a novel approach.
Speaker 1: I think it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 3: And when you gather a group like that for feedback,
Speaker 3: right in Hollywood, they call it notes, like I'm going
Speaker 3: to give you notes and I love how non threatening
Speaker 3: that is because there's no judgment there. These are just
Speaker 3: my notes, and they might have been margin notes. There
Speaker 3: might be little notes from me to you on what
Speaker 3: I thought you could improve or where you missed an opportunity,
Speaker 3: but they're just notes.
Speaker 1: Take them or leave them.
Speaker 3: And so my student group is one place I think
Speaker 3: that ends up being just an incredible source of new
Speaker 3: ideas and constructive criticism. The other thing that I did
Speaker 3: was I reached out to a bunch of the people
Speaker 3: who have given me the best challenging feedback over my
Speaker 3: career and I said, hey, you may not know this,
Speaker 3: but I consider you a founding member of my challenge network.
Speaker 3: And then I had to explain what a challenge network was.
Speaker 3: But I said, listen, if you ever hesitate to give
Speaker 3: me real feedback because you're afraid you're going to damage the.
Speaker 1: Relationship, don't.
Speaker 3: The only way you can damage the relationship is by
Speaker 3: not telling me the truth.
Speaker 1: And I've gotten much better feedback after that.
Speaker 3: And so I just recorded a new TED talk around
Speaker 3: Think Again, and I went back to the Challenge Network
Speaker 3: and I said, Okay, here's my draft. Tear it apart,
Speaker 3: give me the zero to ten rating, tell me what
Speaker 3: you do you would do differently, and I think the
Speaker 3: version I recorded was the thirtieth draft, after throwing three
Speaker 3: complete drafts away and starting over entirely.
Speaker 2: Wow. I actually wanted to ask you about designing keynote
Speaker 2: presentations because in Think Again, there are so many different
Speaker 2: great strategies for helping people think Again, and I was
Speaker 2: curious as to how you apply those strategies when you
Speaker 2: are constructing a keynote presentation, and particularly one that's off
Speaker 2: the back of Think Again. So can you talk about
Speaker 2: some of the strategies that you use to help Think
Speaker 2: Again with the design of a presentation?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 3: So, I don't recommend doing a typical talk like a
Speaker 3: TED talk, because the challenge of doing a TED talk
Speaker 3: is you have a constrained window of time and so
Speaker 3: you want to make every second count, and it's much
Speaker 3: shorter than a keynote you would normally give. Right, So,
Speaker 3: I guess I think about a typical keynote speech is
Speaker 3: probably in the thirty to forty five minute range.
Speaker 1: I would say, is this sweet spot at most events.
Speaker 3: And my vision for that is to start out by
Speaker 3: asking what's the core insight that I want to convey
Speaker 3: there needs to be a big idea that you take away,
Speaker 3: ideally one that intrigues you or surprises you or makes
Speaker 3: you think again. And then something that I was resistant
Speaker 3: to doing for a long time, but I'm regretting having
Speaker 3: not done it sooner now that I've finally embraced it
Speaker 3: is not just to ask what I want the audience
Speaker 3: to rethink, but also what I want them to feel.
Speaker 3: That was something I learned from my TED coaches, who said, look,
Speaker 3: I understand that you want to shift people's understanding.
Speaker 1: But people are moved through emotion.
Speaker 3: Well, long story short, I realized that's the way that
Speaker 3: I've done a lot of my rethinking is through emotion.
Speaker 3: And so I decided that I wanted to surprise people
Speaker 3: and entertain people and fascinate people, and let me think
Speaker 3: about the best ways to do that. And then once
Speaker 3: I'm clear on the big insight and the key emotions
Speaker 3: that I want to create, from there, it's just a
Speaker 3: matter of saying, Okay, what are the major studies that
Speaker 3: I want to highlight or pieces of evidence, and what
Speaker 3: are the stories that I think would best illuminate those,
Speaker 3: and now let me sequence those. So there's a nice
Speaker 3: mix of stories and studies and then some audience interaction
Speaker 3: to get people thinking and participating and not just sitting
Speaker 3: there passively listening, but actually processing the material and applying
Speaker 3: it and experiencing it. And then I basically get on
Speaker 3: stage and I have a bunch of slides that are
Speaker 3: just images, and I talk and I have my points,
Speaker 3: and I hope that the studies and stories end up
Speaker 3: about the right length of time.
Speaker 1: That's my process. What is yours?
Speaker 2: I think I start with the question, with the time
Speaker 2: that I've given, how can I be most useful to
Speaker 2: the audience, Like how can I serve them best? And
Speaker 2: then like, presumably I've got a theme that I'm working
Speaker 2: with through a particular topic, and then I think, okay,
Speaker 2: to serve them best, like what are the let's say,
Speaker 2: for a standard length keynote, what are the five best
Speaker 2: things I know about this that I think can really
Speaker 2: have a significant impact in the people's lives that I'm
Speaker 2: talking to. And then from there i'd get more into
Speaker 2: the caanics of going Okay, well, each point needs some
Speaker 2: kind of a story or some sort of interactive activity.
Speaker 2: And now, obviously for the last year I've just been
Speaker 2: doing virtual keynotes. I haven't seen a live audience since
Speaker 2: February twenty twenty, So I think that's my process and
Speaker 2: trying to go, oh, what's the best story I can
Speaker 2: tell here to really land this point and connect with
Speaker 2: people emotionally. And then the other thing I think about,
Speaker 2: and I was actually talking about this with Naomi yesterday
Speaker 2: in the interview, is that one of my really early
Speaker 2: coaches around giving presentations would always say, Okay, make it funnier,
Speaker 2: make it funnier, insert a joke here. You need more
Speaker 2: laughs here. And so I also think about laughs per minute,
Speaker 2: Like I'll go back over a presentation that I've given
Speaker 2: and I'll look at how many laughs I'm getting per minute,
Speaker 2: and where there's maybe a flat period of two minutes,
Speaker 2: I'll be like, oh, I need to inject some humor there.
Speaker 2: So I think that's my process loosely.
Speaker 3: Okay, I have a couple of questions for you on this.
Speaker 3: Let's start with the last point. So I have done
Speaker 3: the same thing for a long time. Yes, I've I
Speaker 3: had a target like, Okay, at least need one laugh
Speaker 3: per minute, otherwise this is not entertaining enough.
Speaker 2: I'm so reassured to know that you do this and
Speaker 2: I'm not some weirdo.
Speaker 3: Oh no, absolutely, And I've started to rethink it though,
Speaker 3: and I wonder what you think of the rethinking here.
Speaker 1: So what I realized was, I mean, part of the
Speaker 1: reason that I.
Speaker 3: Want to make the audience laugh is I just I
Speaker 3: love to be entertained. I love to laugh, and so
Speaker 3: I think we all enjoyed giving the things that we
Speaker 3: love to receive.
Speaker 1: And that's fine.
Speaker 3: But I also realized at some point that I'm drawn
Speaker 3: to laughter because as a shy introvert who used to
Speaker 3: be terrified of public speaking, I still looked at the
Speaker 3: audience for signals that they're with me, and laughter is
Speaker 3: really the only reliable cue that I'm having an impact
Speaker 3: in real time. Right, They're like, well, let's take some
Speaker 3: alternative emotions. So if you inspire people, they don't go ooh.
Speaker 2: I wish they did, though, that would be great.
Speaker 3: I mean, if there was an involuntary human response, like
Speaker 3: a vocal burst for inspiration.
Speaker 1: That would be helpful, right, Yes, definitely.
Speaker 3: I mean occasionally people will, in very rare circumstances though, applaud,
Speaker 3: but that's not a norm in most talks, and it
Speaker 3: would be.
Speaker 1: Sort of disruptive.
Speaker 3: I think if it happened regularly, I think when people
Speaker 3: have moments where they're surprised, right, they don't gasp out loud.
Speaker 3: And so I started to think that maybe I was
Speaker 3: over indexing on laughter, that I was using humor as
Speaker 3: a crutch to feel the audience's energy, as opposed to saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: there's a range of emotions that I want to cultivate here,
Speaker 3: and yes, I want to make the audience laugh as
Speaker 3: often as possible, but I don't need to do that
Speaker 3: in every minute. There are moments of gravity that should
Speaker 3: be balanced out by the levity in different parts. But
Speaker 3: can you imagine if Martin Luther King Junior got on
Speaker 3: stage for his I have a Dream speech and say
Speaker 3: I want to have I want to have at least.
Speaker 1: A laugh for a minute, A wrong term.
Speaker 3: For trying to dismantle a racist set of institutions. So
Speaker 3: I wonder what you make of all this.
Speaker 2: I love that it's almost a sense of relief. I
Speaker 2: feel to go, oh, I don't have to be so
Speaker 2: had on myself to really push for humor, because sometimes
Speaker 2: it comes naturally, but other times it's a real struggle.
Speaker 2: And it's also just let's face it, like a bit
Speaker 2: of a hassle to go, well, you know, look, I've
Speaker 2: got all the points and these are solid points, and
Speaker 2: oh god, now I have to be funny. So I
Speaker 2: like that. I feel like it takes the pressure off,
Speaker 2: but also it's going to lead to a better outcome
Speaker 2: in terms of going, Okay, what is the most I
Speaker 2: guess useful emotion for the audience to be feeling in
Speaker 2: order to really internalize the idea that I'm trying to
Speaker 2: get across to them. So I'm going to try that.
Speaker 3: I think that's a great way to capture it. And
Speaker 3: I think I guess it goes to one other thought
Speaker 3: on this before I ask my other question that you
Speaker 3: were listening for me. I think that sometimes in the
Speaker 3: best talks, the audience is so absorbed in the story
Speaker 3: that telling a joke would jolt them out of it.
Speaker 3: You're kind of ruining their flow experience. And there are
Speaker 3: times when you're telling a story that's powerful enough that
Speaker 3: they're transported into it right they're the protagonist. They're waiting
Speaker 3: for the complicating action or the resolution. And so I've
Speaker 3: sometimes found that when I'm telling, especially a personal story,
Speaker 3: I'm like Okay, I'm putting myself out here. I'm being
Speaker 3: a little vulnerable right now.
Speaker 1: Let me make a joke to lighten the mood.
Speaker 3: Like, No, I need to suspend that temptation, like, I'm
Speaker 3: not going to eliminate it all together. I am going
Speaker 3: to make fun of myself at some point because I
Speaker 3: feel like that will, especially if I'm talking about something
Speaker 3: that went well for me, That'll prevent me from coming
Speaker 3: across as arrogant and it'll be a way to project
Speaker 3: the humility that I aspire to live with. But I'm
Speaker 3: at least gonna postponeent. I'm not going to let myself
Speaker 3: go for the easy joke right away.
Speaker 2: Now, tell me your second question before I take back
Speaker 2: the host role from you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, No, I prefer to be the one asking
Speaker 1: the questions here. After all, I want to keep learning.
Speaker 3: So I think it's interesting when you talked about what
Speaker 3: your goal is and your talks, you said that I
Speaker 3: want to be useful to the audience and I want
Speaker 3: to have impact.
Speaker 1: And I wonder how.
Speaker 3: Much of that is because you do so much speaking
Speaker 3: on innovation, which is around a set of practical challenges
Speaker 3: that the audience is grappling with because I guess just
Speaker 3: give a little context for why I was wondering. I
Speaker 3: was thinking, what's the alternative to useful and impact? And
Speaker 3: I think it's novel and interesting, or at least that's
Speaker 3: one alternative. And so I wonder what's behind the desire
Speaker 3: to help as opposed to just to intrigue and spark curiosity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really interesting question. It's funny because for me,
Speaker 2: I think of novelty as that's just a hygiene factor
Speaker 2: in terms of like marketing speak, it's just a cost
Speaker 2: of entry, like you have to be novel, otherwise people
Speaker 2: can probably just find the information online somewhere and likewise
Speaker 2: being entertaining in some way. Again, it's like that's just
Speaker 2: a cost of entry to be a good speaker. And
Speaker 2: then in terms of being useful, I think it probably
Speaker 2: comes back to being quite similar to you in terms
Speaker 2: of growing up being very introverted and shy, and even
Speaker 2: just raising my hand in class to ask a question
Speaker 2: made me incredibly nervous. And I feel like if I'm useful,
Speaker 2: then that gives me permission to be there. It gives
Speaker 2: me permission to speak and for people to listen to me.
Speaker 2: So I think that's where that comes from.
Speaker 1: That resonates.
Speaker 3: It's very similar to how I've felt in a lot
Speaker 3: of situations. Because when I heard you say useful in impact,
Speaker 3: I thought, well, okay, that's language that I often use
Speaker 3: to feel like I matter, right, Like what am I
Speaker 3: doing here?
Speaker 1: Well, like I want to be helpful, okay, and I.
Speaker 3: Want to justify that my time was well spent and
Speaker 3: then it benefits other people. And then I started thinking
Speaker 3: one of my biggest frustrations as a speaker is you
Speaker 3: don't really know when you've been useful like that, getting
Speaker 3: real feedback about your long term impact is challenging. I've
Speaker 3: thought about how do you measure it? This is a
Speaker 3: hard problem, and so I think I've shifted a little
Speaker 3: bit away from that, just knowing how ambiguous it is
Speaker 3: to say, all right, if I can create a performance
Speaker 3: that people find to be a thought provoking experience, then
Speaker 3: I can know at the end that I sort of
Speaker 3: I succeeded, as opposed to wondering like was this useful?
Speaker 1: Did I have impact?
Speaker 3: And so I guess I'm giving myself a different out
Speaker 3: than the one you've chosen.
Speaker 2: Well, I like your questions to me, and it's really
Speaker 2: interesting here in your process. I know that when I
Speaker 2: do the edit for this interview, I'm I'm going to
Speaker 2: rethink again when I can, you know, really focus and
Speaker 2: have the time to consider it.
Speaker 3: Wethink again, that sounds like a sequel that I will
Speaker 3: not be rating.
Speaker 2: Definitely now. When I was preparing for this interview, I
Speaker 2: reached out to Reb, who is a collaborator of yours,
Speaker 2: Reb Rebel, and some of that introduced me to I
Speaker 2: think two and a half years ago, shortly after I
Speaker 2: first had you on the show.
Speaker 1: Was that two and a half years ago?
Speaker 2: Yeah, two and a half years ago, Yes, a long
Speaker 2: time ago. And Reb and I catch up every few months,
Speaker 2: and that's been wonderful. It's fantastic. And I said, what
Speaker 2: do you reckon? I should ask Adam about basically delegating
Speaker 2: my prep work.
Speaker 1: To rep.
Speaker 2: And he said, you should ask him about remote collaboration
Speaker 2: because pre COVID you were doing a lot of remote collaboration,
Speaker 2: and obviously now in the last twelve months, I'm imagining
Speaker 2: that you've done a hell of a lot more. And
Speaker 2: I'm wondering one or two strategies that you find really
Speaker 2: help to elevate the effectiveness and the outputs from collaborating remotely.
Speaker 3: So Burstinus is a place to start. This is research
Speaker 3: by Chris Reedal and Anito Wooley where they studied remote
Speaker 3: software teams and they found that there are two kinds
Speaker 3: of communication patterns in remote collaboration. One is high frequency
Speaker 3: relatively low intensity, like we talk every day or we
Speaker 3: have emails kind of going every hour. The other is
Speaker 3: the opposite. It's low frequency, high intensity. We don't talk
Speaker 3: for a week and then we have a two hour
Speaker 3: jam session. And they wanted to know which model is
Speaker 3: more productive and more creative. And however I present this,
Speaker 3: this is something I've been telling a lot with founders
Speaker 3: and CEOs about. Whenever I present it, they say overwhelmingly,
Speaker 3: over eighty percent of the people I've asked have said,
Speaker 3: you want high frequency, you need to stay in touch,
Speaker 3: you need to be on the same page in order
Speaker 3: to work effectively with people. And the data showed the
Speaker 3: exact opposite, that the more productive and creative remote collaborations
Speaker 3: are low frequency, high intensity. And what seems to be
Speaker 3: going on there is a couple of things. One, when
Speaker 3: people are communicating only intermittently, they actually have time to
Speaker 3: get their own individual work done and to move ideas forward.
Speaker 3: And two when they do then come together to collaborate,
Speaker 3: they're working with much better material and they're also more motivated.
Speaker 3: I thought that that meant, okay, they're going to be
Speaker 3: excited to build on each other's ideas. But the data
Speaker 3: tell a slightly different story, which is that it is
Speaker 3: energizing to know that other people are there waiting to
Speaker 3: respond to you. And the pattern of birstiness is the
Speaker 3: sense that the collaboration is literally bursting with energy and ideas.
Speaker 3: And the way you get that you don't need to
Speaker 3: be in the same physical space to get that. What helps, though,
Speaker 3: is being in the same temporal space right having your
Speaker 3: calendar synced so that there are at least some hours
Speaker 3: here and there where you're online at the same time
Speaker 3: and you can actually work together in real time. And
Speaker 3: that The part of the reason this resonated with me
Speaker 3: is it's how I've collaborated since gosh, at least fifteen
Speaker 3: years ago, when at a mentor Jane Dutton, who would
Speaker 3: work on papers with her former students. So Jane was
Speaker 3: at the University of Michigan where I was in grad school,
Speaker 3: her former students would graduate and go across the country
Speaker 3: or to another continent, and they would stay in touch
Speaker 3: or they'd have occasional phone calls and occasional emails, and
Speaker 3: then they would fly in and they would do a
Speaker 3: three day blitz where they just deep dive on a
Speaker 3: project and they sit side by side and they basically
Speaker 3: spend every working hour together, and then they go off
Speaker 3: and they don't interact that much for a month or
Speaker 3: two and you're really getting the best of both worlds
Speaker 3: in that model of independent thinking and then collaborative contribution.
Speaker 3: And so that's a model for how I structure my
Speaker 3: remote collaboration.
Speaker 2: Do we really need face to face collaboration to optimize
Speaker 2: problem solving and creative thinking? I mean, there's so many
Speaker 2: businesses here in Australia that are insisting that people go
Speaker 2: back to the office. We're not in lockdown here anymore.
Speaker 2: But do we need it? Like, is there something special
Speaker 2: that we get from face to face collaboration based on
Speaker 2: the research, that we just can't get from virtual collaboration.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's not the answer I was looking for, Adam.
Speaker 3: It's the only empirical answer I have right now. What
Speaker 3: I can tell you is this seems to be true
Speaker 3: in pairs and also in teams that trust builds faster
Speaker 3: and it also fills deeper when people are face to face.
Speaker 3: But what do we take away from that, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Does that mean we are evolutionarily wired to need to
Speaker 3: be in the same physical space as other people in
Speaker 3: order to trust them, that we need to be able
Speaker 3: to potentially touch them. Is that just how we've always
Speaker 3: done it, and so we're most comfortable trusting under those circumstances.
Speaker 3: Or is it the case that up until now, and
Speaker 3: maybe not until three years from now, the technology just
Speaker 3: hasn't been there, and so virtual has been just an
Speaker 3: awful proxy for face to face. And when we get
Speaker 3: to the point where we're kind of lifelike holograms, maybe
Speaker 3: face to face becomes irrelevant. And maybe for some people
Speaker 3: touch is important and for others it's not. I don't know,
Speaker 3: but I don't think there's anything about human psychology that
Speaker 3: leaves me convinced that we have to be physically in
Speaker 3: the same room to trust each other and collaborate effectively.
Speaker 3: I think there are aspects of being physically co located
Speaker 3: that maybe grease the wheels of trust a little bit.
Speaker 3: And make it easier. But I think that gap is
Speaker 3: going to shrink as technology gets better and also as
Speaker 3: we get more comfortable but really trusting people that we've
Speaker 3: never met face to face.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I know that Jane Dutton was one of your mentors,
Speaker 2: and she's obviously very well known for writing and researching
Speaker 2: about high quality connections. I'm curious as to how you
Speaker 2: use her work when you're collaborating with new people in
Speaker 2: terms of I guess fast tracking human connection.
Speaker 3: Well, Jane does a rapid high quality connection exercise where
Speaker 3: I've been using this in class for years, ever since
Speaker 3: she had me do it.
Speaker 1: As a student.
Speaker 3: She says, just pair up with someone that you haven't
Speaker 3: met in class yet, or if you've met everyone, like
Speaker 3: somebody you don't know well, and then you each have
Speaker 3: a minute to try to build a high quality connection
Speaker 3: with the other person, and it's stunning to see how
Speaker 3: quick it happens. People are often amaze is by their
Speaker 3: their intuitive social intelligence when it comes to finding strategies
Speaker 3: to do it, and I think the strategies that seem
Speaker 3: to work are backed up by decades of evidence in psychology.
Speaker 3: One is self disclosure, where you know where people make
Speaker 3: themselves vulnerable and what that Actually that helps the person
Speaker 3: who's sharing as much or more than the person who's listening,
Speaker 3: because when I tell you something personal about me, then
Speaker 3: I am signaling to myself, well, I must trust you otherwise,
Speaker 3: why the hell did I just tell you that?
Speaker 1: What am I thinking?
Speaker 3: This is a dangerous decision here, I should probably rethink it.
Speaker 3: So that happens a lot. There's a lot of people
Speaker 3: searching for uncommon commonalities, you know, things they share that
Speaker 3: are rare, and people bond in those ways. I think though,
Speaker 3: for me, the key ingredient there is that the exercise
Speaker 3: is set up so that you just erase uncertainty that
Speaker 3: the other person wants to connect and knowing that I'm
Speaker 3: going to talk to you for a minute and we
Speaker 3: share a goal of having a high quality interaction, it
Speaker 3: dramatically lowers anxiety. And it also it leads people to
Speaker 3: do Oh, I guess the goatmans would call them like
Speaker 3: their bids, right. I make an offer, a gesture to say, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm seeking your friendship or your trust, and I know
Speaker 3: you're going to reciprocate, and you're eager to do that,
Speaker 3: and then it kind of spirals from there. It's like
Speaker 3: when the beginning of a first date goes really well
Speaker 3: and you stop questioning whether the other person likes you.
Speaker 3: So I guess this is all to say. I've tried
Speaker 3: to think about these principles in some of my new
Speaker 3: virtual collaborations to like, I've just tried to put it
Speaker 3: out there, like, Hey, we're going to be working together.
Speaker 3: It's important to me that we trust each other. And
Speaker 3: so I'm going to tell you something that I don't
Speaker 3: normally share. And then I'll try to come up with
Speaker 3: something that I normally would hesitate to share, but I
Speaker 3: think is something that if I am going to trust someone,
Speaker 3: they ought to know about me. So like I'll maybe
Speaker 3: start with a simple one, like.
Speaker 1: I am chronically late. I apologize events for it.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get better at it, but not always
Speaker 3: making progress. And then I might go into something a
Speaker 3: little bit more personal, depending on what topic comes up,
Speaker 3: and say, I've written this whole book about rethinking, and
Speaker 3: I've noticed there are certain situations where I get really
Speaker 3: stubborn and strong willed to the point that I worry
Speaker 3: I'm closed minded, and I'm trying to get better at
Speaker 3: flexing in those situations. And delegating, and I hope you
Speaker 3: can help me do that.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you ask someone that is often late
Speaker 2: because you get into flow and you don't want to
Speaker 2: break it, and I experience that. But what I do
Speaker 2: is I set the stopwatch on my Apple Watch so
Speaker 2: I don't lose track of time. And I'm a really
Speaker 2: punctual person. I'm often early. But I want to know,
Speaker 2: do you recommend that I be more selfish with my
Speaker 2: time and not do this and be late to things
Speaker 2: like you are.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I would wish my faults on anyone,
Speaker 3: but I do think there's a method to the madness here.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I want to lose track of time.
Speaker 3: If I'm in flow and I was late to something
Speaker 3: and it wasn't an emergency and I can make up
Speaker 3: for it, it's totally worth it to me. And I
Speaker 3: guess I don't see it as being selfish, because I'm
Speaker 3: usually working on something that's gonna reach somebody else or
Speaker 3: that's gonna help someone else, and so I guess I
Speaker 3: see it not as selfishness, but more as refusing to
Speaker 3: be a slave to the social construction of clock time,
Speaker 3: and you know, not privileging the person that I thought
Speaker 3: was gonna get my time at this one point over
Speaker 3: the other people who are priorities for me too.
Speaker 1: So I don't know.
Speaker 3: I reject the premise. I don't think it's selfishness, particularly
Speaker 3: if other people know that sometimes you're running late. And
Speaker 3: I'll tell you I I meant that I'm thrilled when
Speaker 3: people are late, like great, i have more time to work,
Speaker 3: thank you, a minimum, I can catch up on some
Speaker 3: emails or write a little post that I'm delinquent in doing.
Speaker 3: And so I've just never understood why people reify this fiction.
Speaker 1: Of a cluck into something much bigger than it is.
Speaker 2: That's great, I'm going to see if I can reframe
Speaker 2: my thinking. I know that I'm going to struggle with it,
Speaker 2: but it maybe does require a rethink.
Speaker 1: I think. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think this is probably something that different
Speaker 3: people have different preferences on.
Speaker 1: But I am surprised.
Speaker 3: I remember when I wrote I must have tweeted about
Speaker 3: how being late is not necessarily disrespecting the person who's
Speaker 3: waiting for you. Sometimes it's respecting that person who's sitting
Speaker 3: in front of you.
Speaker 1: And I was surprised. At how many people responded.
Speaker 3: With some version of moral outrage, like being late is
Speaker 3: not a violation of an ethical principle. It's just you
Speaker 3: taking time more seriously than I do. I take my
Speaker 3: commitments to people and projects seriously, not to a clerk
Speaker 3: or a calendar.
Speaker 2: Such a good way of looking at it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 3: It makes some people frustrated, but I'm like, Okay, if
Speaker 3: it really frustrates you, you should not schedule appointments with
Speaker 3: me and you will be happy.
Speaker 2: Hey. There, it's nearly time for a little ad break.
Speaker 2: But can I ask a favor of you? If you're
Speaker 2: enjoying how I work, I would be so grateful if
Speaker 2: you could hit pause on this episode and pop into
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this from and
Speaker 2: leave a review. You can do this through scrolling down
Speaker 2: to the bottom of the show notes and clicking on
Speaker 2: the stars, or running a comet. Aside from the warm,
Speaker 2: fuzzy feelings, this will give both you and me. It
Speaker 2: helps other people find out about how I work. So
Speaker 2: thank you in advance. Okay, Adam Grant will be back
Speaker 2: after this short break and we're gonna be chatting about
Speaker 2: how being a magician, which Adam is has influenced his
Speaker 2: work in psychology. Now, something I imagine, in terms of
Speaker 2: sharing things about you that a lot of listeners probably
Speaker 2: wouldn't know is that you're a magician. And I think
Speaker 2: that's so cool.
Speaker 1: The nerdiest thing in my life. For sure, you think
Speaker 1: it's cool.
Speaker 2: Got a lot it totally Like my idea of a
Speaker 2: great night out is going to the Magic Castle in
Speaker 2: La Amazing. So I want to know how does magic
Speaker 2: influence the work that you do as an organizational psychologist.
Speaker 3: The biggest thing that magic did for me was it
Speaker 3: taught me to appreciate the element of surprise. When I
Speaker 3: was performing as a magician regularly, that I could do
Speaker 3: the same trick like, let's say, I'm going to have
Speaker 3: you pick a card. So one of my favorite tricks
Speaker 3: that I learned early on was I have the.
Speaker 1: Audience pick a card.
Speaker 3: I actually I put the cards on the table and
Speaker 3: I say, look, I don't want to influence your choice.
Speaker 3: You choose your own card, and I have you pick
Speaker 3: and I'm halfway across the room. I'm turning around so
Speaker 3: that i can't see anything. I'm staring into the wall.
Speaker 3: And you look at your card. You then shuffle it
Speaker 3: back into the deck. And when I first started performing,
Speaker 3: I would just grab the deck and I would find
Speaker 3: your card, and you were like, oh cool. And then
Speaker 3: I thought, okay, I'm going to add a little flourish
Speaker 3: to it. And I learned to throw the cards up
Speaker 3: and then as all the cards are falling from the
Speaker 3: sky or the ceiling, to catch one card and then
Speaker 3: I turn it around.
Speaker 1: And it's your card.
Speaker 3: Ah, And there's a little more suspense built. But that
Speaker 3: version of the trick was nowhere near as satisfying in
Speaker 3: the reveal as when I went an extra step and
Speaker 3: that this is a trick I do every year in
Speaker 3: class with my undergrads. Thanks to a student innovation, all
Speaker 3: my students get a chance to do a one minute
Speaker 3: passion talk about something they love or something that matters
Speaker 3: deeply to them to introduce themselves to their classmates. And
Speaker 3: we do six each class, so that by the end
Speaker 3: of the semester everyone is given one. And throughout the
Speaker 3: semester they asked me, when are you giving your passion talk,
Speaker 3: and I say, I'm going to do it on the
Speaker 3: last day, and the last day my passion talk is
Speaker 3: about learning to do magic and how it helped me
Speaker 3: come out of my shell. And then I do a
Speaker 3: trick or two, and so I do this same trick,
Speaker 3: except now the way I do it is I've had
Speaker 3: your shuffle your card back into the deck. Then I
Speaker 3: take the deck and I say, okay, Amantha. You may
Speaker 3: not know this, but when you were holding your card
Speaker 3: for a second, you actually transferred some body heat into
Speaker 3: it and you warmed it up. So I'm just going
Speaker 3: to flip through eyes closed, I'm going to find the
Speaker 3: hottest card in the deck. Boom, is that yours? And
Speaker 3: I deliberately show you the wrong card?
Speaker 1: Ah, And you're like no.
Speaker 3: And I think my acting is not always up to par,
Speaker 3: but every once in a while I get it right.
Speaker 3: And I look kind of like shocked and then forlorn,
Speaker 3: and and I might I might curse, and then and
Speaker 3: then I just I throw the cards up as if
Speaker 3: I'm giving up, and then I catch your card and
Speaker 3: now right now you're Wow, You're You're much more excited
Speaker 3: and surprised. And what that taught me this is a
Speaker 3: very long story, but what it taught me was that
Speaker 3: we can do the same thing with ideas we can
Speaker 3: do the same thing with knowledge, and as an organizational psychologist,
Speaker 3: that meant that when I had a data point that
Speaker 3: I thought was interesting, I needed to work really hard
Speaker 3: to not only tell the audience what was surprising about it,
Speaker 3: but set them up to feel surprised. I don't I'm
Speaker 3: like in magic, I don't want to trick them. What
Speaker 3: I want to do is figure out what expectation they hold,
Speaker 3: what assumption they cling to that the evidence I'm going
Speaker 3: to share might question, And then I want to tell
Speaker 3: the story or reveal the results to the experiment in
Speaker 3: such a way that they feel the same surprise that
Speaker 3: they should, and that I don't think I would have
Speaker 3: appreciated that if I hadn't done magic.
Speaker 2: From a purely selfish point of view, I'm on an
Speaker 2: eight week mission where I'm trying to learn a magic
Speaker 2: trick a week and really, I mean yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 2: I mean wait why, Because someone asked me a few
Speaker 2: weeks ago, what's something that you've always wanted to learn
Speaker 2: but haven't And I'm like, I can't think of anything.
Speaker 2: I just like, I just do it if I want
Speaker 2: to learn it. But I'm like, no, magic, Like every
Speaker 2: time I visit the Magic Castle. I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 2: want to learn something and I want to become a member,
Speaker 2: and I get really excited and I do nothing. And
Speaker 2: so I learned a trick last week and it didn't
Speaker 2: fool many people, but it filled a couple and that
Speaker 2: was okay. And then I learned another trick, but it
Speaker 2: involved a rubber band, and I can't find the right
Speaker 2: rubber band to do the trick with. So tell me
Speaker 2: what is the trick that I can learn that requires
Speaker 2: little skill but it's going to have a really big impact.
Speaker 3: So one trick that I think is low effort high
Speaker 3: impact is one where I guess to wait till COVID
Speaker 3: is over.
Speaker 1: But you're in Australia, you're.
Speaker 3: Going to be in a restaurant much sooner than I am.
Speaker 3: So next time you go to a restaurant, what you're
Speaker 3: going to do is you're gonna cover a salt shaker
Speaker 3: with a napkin or like a tablecloth, and you're going
Speaker 3: to tell your friends at dinner that you're going to
Speaker 3: make a coin disappear that you're going to put under
Speaker 3: the salt shaker and the napkin, and then you put
Speaker 3: the coin down, you cover it you say, okay, let
Speaker 3: me just make sure the coin is here. You hold
Speaker 3: up the salt shaker and the napkin, then you put
Speaker 3: it back down. You cover the coin, and then you
Speaker 3: say okay. On the counter of three, one, two, three,
Speaker 3: the coin will disappear. Then you slam the table, you
Speaker 3: smash the salt shaker. Only the salt shaker is gone
Speaker 3: and the coin.
Speaker 1: Is still there.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: And then if you want, you could have the salt
Speaker 3: shaker appear under the table, or it could.
Speaker 1: Just be gone.
Speaker 2: What how do I do this?
Speaker 3: After we stop recording, I'll tell you how to do it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm I sing it.
Speaker 3: And meth that I wanted to ask you. I wanted
Speaker 3: to rethink your question a little bit. M what if
Speaker 3: instead of learning a trick a week, you decided to
Speaker 3: learn a skill a week, a magic skill that a
Speaker 3: magician would use.
Speaker 2: Oh I like that, And I never would have thought
Speaker 2: of that because I don't know enough about magic to go. Ah,
Speaker 2: that's another way to categorize learning. So what would be say,
Speaker 2: two or three skills that if I were to reframe
Speaker 2: the challenge that I should learn.
Speaker 3: Well, let's just say a word about why I think
Speaker 3: that might be part of what I heard you saying
Speaker 3: was I love being in the audience for magic, and
Speaker 3: I would like to be able to create it. Yes,
Speaker 3: And I think the if you just do a trick
Speaker 3: a week, at some point you're going to give up
Speaker 3: on that goal and that's going to be the sum
Speaker 3: total of your abilities. So you'll be able to do
Speaker 3: six tricks, right or eight tricks, and you won't really
Speaker 3: feel like you know how to do magic. It's like
Speaker 3: you're in the movie The Matrix and you've downloaded six
Speaker 3: programs and you can play those programs. Whereas if you
Speaker 3: learn six skills, you could potentially, over time, without having
Speaker 3: to ever learn a new skill, create one hundred or
Speaker 3: two hundred different tricks. And also then there's a learning
Speaker 3: curve where one skill could lead to another, as opposed
Speaker 3: to I'm just going to learn a bunch of discrete
Speaker 3: performances and they're all stand alone. So I guess it
Speaker 3: depends on your medium. What kinds of tricks do you
Speaker 3: love to watch the most? Are you a stage illusioned person?
Speaker 3: Are you close up coins or cards?
Speaker 2: Close up cards, I would say would be my favorite
Speaker 2: genre mine too.
Speaker 3: I'm better at cards than everything else combined, which is
Speaker 3: not a brag about my card skills.
Speaker 1: It's a I am in every other domain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in cards, I would say, get a card
Speaker 3: magic book.
Speaker 1: I would say the classic is Dive Vernon.
Speaker 3: There are lots of more recent ones, though, and you
Speaker 3: could say, Okay, one week, I'm going to learn a
Speaker 3: particular shuffle that gives me control over certain cards. The
Speaker 3: next week, I'm going to learn a cut, the next week,
Speaker 3: I'm going to learn a left. And you know, each
Speaker 3: of these techniques then can be used in all these
Speaker 3: different card tricks, and sometimes, like my favorite card tricks,
Speaker 3: I use eight or nine different skills and it creates
Speaker 3: a much more exciting revelation at the end. So I
Speaker 3: think you could create just a whole I guess it's
Speaker 3: a different way of saying it is.
Speaker 1: It's an investment in.
Speaker 3: Being able to keep producing dividends on the time you
Speaker 3: spent learning.
Speaker 2: Yes, gosh, I feel like this has just re energized
Speaker 2: me towards this magic goal that I have. I'm totally
Speaker 2: going to adopt that. That's awesome. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Try it at your own risk now, I know.
Speaker 2: I've only got a few minutes left with you I
Speaker 2: did want to ask you a question about parenting because
Speaker 2: I know you you do quite a bit of writing
Speaker 2: in this area, and you've written two children's books with
Speaker 2: your wife, Alison, which myself and my seven year old daughter.
Speaker 1: Have loved, and oh, thank you.
Speaker 2: That's so good. And I want to know what I
Speaker 2: like two or three questions that you think are really
Speaker 2: good questions to ask our children every day?
Speaker 1: What are you trying to teach them?
Speaker 2: I guess what I was thinking about is I read
Speaker 2: that article. I want to say it was in The
Speaker 2: Atlantic where you talked about the importance of raising people
Speaker 2: that are kind. And this is something that I think
Speaker 2: a lot about with my daughter Frankie, and so, for example,
Speaker 2: every day, and I think it was inspired by that
Speaker 2: article that you wrote. I asked her what's something kind
Speaker 2: that you did? And sometimes she'll say I don't know,
Speaker 2: And other times I'll go, well, what's something kind that
Speaker 2: someone did for you? And how did that make you feel?
Speaker 2: And that's literally a daily conversation that we have. So
Speaker 2: that's what made me want to ask the question, because
Speaker 2: I was curious, what are some other things that you're
Speaker 2: doing with your kids to raise them to be really good?
Speaker 2: Decent kind human beings.
Speaker 3: Well, one that I actually learned from our ten year
Speaker 3: old daughter, Elena is she taught our seven year old
Speaker 3: son Henry to every night ask us a question.
Speaker 1: And vice versa.
Speaker 3: So we read a bad time story and then when
Speaker 3: it's time to turn the lights out, we each ask,
Speaker 3: what's your question? I think it's a beautiful way to
Speaker 3: encourage curiosity. But also teaching kids to ask questions is
Speaker 3: one of the most basic building blocks of nurturing kindness
Speaker 3: and a sincere interest in others. And so I think
Speaker 3: asking your kids, what questions do you have? Or what
Speaker 3: question do you have today? What do you wonder about?
Speaker 3: What puzzled you, what intrigues you, what do you not understand?
Speaker 1: What do you not know?
Speaker 3: A great way to get them to take an interest
Speaker 3: in others and also an interest in learning.
Speaker 2: That is so cool. I'm picking my daughter up from
Speaker 2: school in three hours, and I'm so going to be
Speaker 2: asking her.
Speaker 1: That it's fun.
Speaker 3: She might say nothing, and then you can ask her
Speaker 3: a question and model the behavior, and it becomes fun
Speaker 3: to say, Okay, who can think of a question we've
Speaker 3: never asked before, So it's almost it's become like a
Speaker 3: nightly challenge to say, all right, we've gone through you
Speaker 3: know who's your favorite superhero and you know why.
Speaker 1: Is Pluto no longer a planet. Let's come up with
Speaker 1: something really novel.
Speaker 2: Now, I've got three final questions for you, and let's
Speaker 2: treat them as rapid fire questions. So first, I want
Speaker 2: to know what, like the last time I had you
Speaker 2: on the show. I remember I asked for it was
Speaker 2: your favorite research study that you've read recently, and you
Speaker 2: gave me a great one around how meetings and not
Speaker 2: batching meetings wastes a great deal of time. And I
Speaker 2: want to know what's your favorite research from say, the
Speaker 2: last year, that's made you rethink something.
Speaker 1: For a long time.
Speaker 3: I believe that the reason we get so many narcissists
Speaker 3: and leadership positions is organizations are designed to reward people
Speaker 3: who kiss up and kick down and who who project
Speaker 3: confidence as a false signal of confidence.
Speaker 1: And I've had to.
Speaker 3: Rethink that because there was a fascinating Dutch study that
Speaker 3: came out this year showing that narcissistic leaders are even
Speaker 3: popular in elementary school classrooms ages seven to fourteen that
Speaker 3: I think the original the data were hundreds of kids
Speaker 3: in twenty three different classrooms, and in twenty two of
Speaker 3: those classrooms than most, narcissistic kids were more likely to
Speaker 3: be nominated as leaders, and they also rated themselves as
Speaker 3: better leaders, even though they weren't any better at leadership.
Speaker 3: And I guess what I've rethought there is I thought
Speaker 3: that this was a problem with our workplaces, and now
Speaker 3: I think it's a much more fundamental problem with the
Speaker 3: way that we teach, the way that we organize both
Speaker 3: kids and adults into hierarchies, the way that we put
Speaker 3: a premium on confidence instead of humility. And so I
Speaker 3: think that we need to counter the preference for narcissistic
Speaker 3: leaders much earlier than I thought before.
Speaker 2: That is fascinating. Tell me you read so many books.
Speaker 2: What is a book that you've read in the last
Speaker 2: year that made you rethink something and that you'd recommend
Speaker 2: that other people read as well?
Speaker 3: Oh, there are a lot of those. I think Untamed
Speaker 3: by Glennon Doyle is an easy one, though. Glennon is
Speaker 3: I think one of the most gifted writers on earth.
Speaker 3: And I shouldn't even say gifted because that suggests that
Speaker 3: it just came to her naturally, when I know she's
Speaker 3: worked extraordinarily hard to have such a brilliant and poignant voice.
Speaker 3: And one thing that I rethought based on reading her
Speaker 3: book is my view of happiness.
Speaker 1: There's a line that stopped me in my tracks.
Speaker 3: I think the exact quote is being human is not
Speaker 3: about feeling happy, It's about feeling everything.
Speaker 2: What a great quote.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the book is full of observations like that,
Speaker 3: and it really made me pause to say, well, what
Speaker 3: am I doing here? Am I limiting my range of
Speaker 3: experience by pursuing happiness? And am I encouraging other people
Speaker 3: to make the same mistake.
Speaker 2: My final question for you, Adam, is a very easy
Speaker 2: one for people that want to consume more of what
Speaker 2: you are doing and also get their hands on a
Speaker 2: copy of Think Again. How should people do that?
Speaker 3: It's extremely kind of you to ask, I would say
Speaker 3: the easy way is to go to Adam Grant dot net.
Speaker 3: There's a free quiz you can take to figure out
Speaker 3: your style of rethinking, and a discussion guide for the book,
Speaker 3: and a bunch of other information that may or may
Speaker 3: not be of interest.
Speaker 2: Amazing, and people can subscribe to your newsletter there as well,
Speaker 2: which is one of the newsletters that I get that
Speaker 2: I actually look forward to receiving. It's always just awesome.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, pleasure.
Speaker 2: Adam, thank you so much for coming on the show again.
Speaker 2: It's just such a highlight and privileged.
Speaker 1: To chat to you, so thank you so much, my pleasure.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed my chat with Adam. And if
Speaker 2: you know someone else that might enjoy it, why not
Speaker 2: share this episode with them. And if you're enjoying the
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Speaker 2: range from interesting research finding streeter gadgets that I'm loving.
Speaker 2: You can sign up for that at Howiwork dot com
Speaker 2: That's how I Work dot co. How I Work is
Speaker 2: produced by Inventium with production support from dead Set Studios.
Speaker 2: The producer for this episode was Jenna Coder, and thank
Speaker 2: you to Martin Nimba, who does the audio mix for
Speaker 2: every episode and makes everything sound awesome. See you next time.