Hello. I'm Rhonda Morris, vice president and Chief
human Resources officer at Chevron.
Chevron is proud to sponsor the lead from
the heart podcast.
Today, my colleague, Jose rosetta Jones,
our chief diversity and inclusion officer
will share a brief story about a leader
whose simple and kind act had a long
lasting influence on her career and how she
needs others.
Thank you, Rhonda,
This summer before my senior year in college,
I was an environmental engineer intern at a
petrochemical company when I first met Berkeley C.
Affectionately known as dock.
Doc was a former of Virginia state police
officer and Us navy veteran who served in
the Korean war,
and was now a member of the safety
team.
He had many safety related responsibilities,
including leading our safety meetings,
I noticed early on that doc was a
caring empathetic person, which were qualities that were
sometimes hard to find. And a male dominated
petrochemical plant in the nineties.
And as the summer progress, I observed that
doc did something that I remembered to this
day
He told
everyone around him that he loved them.
He told his peers. He told visitors to
the site. He told his boss. His boss's
boss, the plant manager,
everyone.
He told us that he wanted us to
be safe and that he loved us.
Doc knew that we were engaged in a
high risk business, and he wanted us to
know that we mattered to at least 1
person,
him.
Doc demonstrated
empathy long before empathy was a hot topic.
And quite frankly, people in the workplace,
especially at an industrial site, We're not openly
telling their colleagues that they loved him. But
for doc, it worked like many people after
interacting with doc, I left with a smile
and a lighter disposition.
Doc passed many years ago, but his legacy
of leadership with a heart was ahead of
its time.
His leadership lesson on showing care and empathy
at work is now so important in helping
people reach their full potential.
Thank you, Doc. You taught me well.
And now onto the show.
Hello everyone. This is Mark Crowley, and you're
listening to the lead from the hard podcast.
You ever received an email and reacted angrily
because you perceived an aggressive tone from the
center.
Have you ever assumed a friend was up.
Out with you because they didn't invite you
to an event.
Have you ever left a meeting convinced that
everyone had agreed with your proposal because they
were nodding their heads when you were speaking,
I'm hoping you said yes to some or
all of these scenarios and quickly recall how
badly your assumptions worked out.
You later discovered the person sending the email,
meant you know will will at all. The
friend didn't invite you only because they didn't
think you'd be interested.
And by not confirming that you had your
teams and bosses green light in the meeting,
you went and took an action you shouldn't
have and then had to go unwind it.
The sad truth is that we get souls
into painful predicament like this because we tend
to believe we're really good at making act
your inferences
about what other people are thinking and feeling.
But here's the truth.
Research proves our success in reading other people,
is actually no better than a coin flip.
My guest today is Jeff Wet, and he
brings an invaluable remedy.
He urges us to stop making assumptions
and ask people directly what they're thinking and
feeling.
In his new book as Tap into the
hidden wisdom of people around you for unexpected
breakthroughs and leadership in life. A book by
the way that's been highly praised by Harvard
Business school professor Amy Evans. In.
Jeff offers a rather effective approach at finding
out what other people really think.
And using his methodologies will ensure we go
on to make smarter decisions and maintain far
healthier
relationships.
You're getting hear, Jeff introduce 5 practices that
can lead you to knowing what other people
or truly thinking feeling and knowing.
And just so that you're immediately grounded in
the conversation, I thought I would just quickly
mention them here. The first 1 is choose
curiosity.
How can we increase our authentic interest in
learning from others?
Make it safe is number 2. How can
we make it comfortable easy and appealing for
others to share with us. Number 3, pose
quality questions.
How may I ask questions the best happen
to the experiences perspectives and wisdom in those
around us?
4 is listen to learn.
How can we maximize the chances that will
hear what others have to say? And finally,
is reflect in return. How do we process
at all? How do we process what we
heard in ways to create here actionable insights
and encourage ongoing learning.
So the skills and messages of ask,
I believe could not be any time layer.
It's almost as if we've all just stopped
listening 1 another and have begun making choices
and decisions, not based upon reality, but By
what we assumed to be true instead.
So as you're about to hear, asking people
to tell you what's going on with them
is much more nuanced and sophisticated in action.
But Jeff has a brilliant understanding of the
process and is here to thoughtfully explain it
to all of us,
And with that, let me welcome him to
the podcast.
Welcome Jeff Wet.
Thank you so much for having me. It's
great to be with you. Well, thank you
for coming.
Let's hit this right out of the gate
here this research that you signed in your
book that says that people consistently overestimate their
ability to make accurate inferences.
About what other people are feeling and thinking
in a given moment. And so much though
that our inferences, I love this are generally
no better than a coin flip, Most of
us probably would never believe that until they
heard it here or read in your book.
So to get us started, I have 2
questions for you. Why do we believe we're
omniscient to begin with? Where do we think
that power came from? And then tell us
why making assumptions about people's thinking and what
may be motivating their behavior is a huge
leadership miss. Yeah.
Why we think we're omniscient. I think is
a... It's probably tied back to a whole
set of
Biases that we have that you could put
under the category of over confidence biases. You
know, we see something we make meeting of
it, and we as assume that our meaning
is reality. Would forget that we're even making
assumptions or inferences in the first place. But
furthermore,
there's conventional wisdom around how to read other
people's minds, how to make inferences, things like
pay attention to their nonverbal cues or put
yourself in their shoes And this is obviously
research findings on averages and so people might
vary. But on average, neither of those strategies
actually works. In fact, tsa agents who've been
trained to read body language. Get it right
less than 1 percent of the time. Did
you say 1 percent of the time? Yes.
Isn't that crazy?
We assume that we can do things, and
then we get these extra strategies and maybe
we even get trained on it. But in
reality, we're not inside other people. And so
there's nothing that can help us to know
other than, you know, 1 single strategy that
has been shown reliably
to let us know what's going on inside
someone, of course, which is to ask them
which we'll get to but it doesn't work
on average. And to your question about what
are people missing out on why is it
such a huge miss. Basically, it's a huge
miss because so often, we don't know. They
don't tell us. Unless we ask them the
right ways. And even I think if our
intuition could say, hey, There's something off here,
there's something going on or this person's
not really kind of, you know, vi with
me or reacting.
That doesn't tell us how... Why? How come?
What experience have they had in life? What's
going on, what of a c that we
don't see.
I know you're not in charge at the
Tsa,
but
I don't remember reading the statistic you just
gave us that 1 percent of the time
you... Tsa agents are able to read body
language. Which means they're not able to read
body language, which makes me wonder why a,
we're teaching them to read body language.
Pen b, why we're not teaching it to
be more in?
All good questions. All very good questions. So
are you gonna make a recommendation to the
Tsa that they change their behaviors or what?
Well, I might send in the book and
see what happened there. I think that's a
good idea. Think about if you're online and
you're up to no good. If you're being
asked questions, that might be more revel than,
you know, trying to observe people's behaviors. I'm
just curious if you've given any thought to
that. I mean, I think in general, that
is the thing if we can actually ask
people, and we can do it in the
right ways meaning that in ways that enable
them to feel safe enough. Actually share their
truth with us, which might be hard in
the Tsa case. We send a much greater
chance of actually learning what's going on and
where they're coming from. Alright. Well, that's where
we're gonna go. So now that we know
that making assumptions about all the people know
think and feel is fraught with downside,
tell us what proves to be the most
effective way,
of truly understanding what's going on with everyone
around us. Yeah. This is essentially the heart
of the question. I'm obsessed with and that
this book is trying to tackle. Which is
to basically say, how can we really tap
into what others around us, no think, feel
what their ideas are what their perspective is,
what their experience are, And to get it,
I brought together a set of practices
that any 1 of them can be helpful,
but when they are put together, and I
call the methodology, the ask approach. When they're
put together, they really give us the greatest
chance of understanding and tapping into that. So
would it be helpful if I just walk
through at a high level? Sure.
Okay. So it starts with curiosity.
Because if we ask people questions,
and we're not genuinely curious to know their
answers. They're gonna see through that, it's gonna
feel ina.
But on the flip side,
if we're coming from a place of truly
being interested in the other person.
Truly being wanting to connect. And by the
way, the Latin root of the word curious
is care. So this is a type of
curiosity that is not about... You know, I
wonder why trees grow the way they do
or what's the history of Russia. This is
what I call in the book connective curiosity.
It's the kind of curiosity
that connects us to other people. When we
genuinely feel that, that radiates and energy that
people can sense, and it leads other people
to actually wanna share with us as well.
And I talk about this... Kind of curiosity
as something that we can choose. It's not
just a trait that some people have or
other people don't have or it's not about
a state of mind that we're in, if
you don't feel curious you can't do it.
It's I believe it's it is something that's
available to all of us all of the
time. It's to make a decision that we're
gonna center in our minds this question.
What can I learn from this person? And
when we center enter in our minds that
question, it pushes it out all kinds of
other things Like, why are they wrong? Or
how do I get them to do what
I wanna do or Why am I here
or any on that stuff that we just
get to what can we learn from that
person. So we can talk more about curiosity?
That's the first piece of it, which is
choosing curiosity.
Now, once I'm curious to learn from you,
it doesn't really matter unless you feel safe
to share with me your truth.
Especially if it's a hard truth. And so
number 2 of the ask approach is called
Make it safe. And I know you've had
Amy edmonds on this podcast multiple times this
really draws, from some of her brilliant work
around psychological safety and it applies it at
the interpersonal level. It's really about lowering the
barriers so that it's more comfortable from more
easy, more appealing,
more safe for people to actually let us
know what's truly going on with them, especially
if it's something that might be hard for
us to hear.
That's number 2. Then comes to questions. And
so this is the heart of the ask
approach, which is what I call pose quality
questions.
And I define a quality question
very simply. As a question that promotes learning.
It's a question that allows us to be
in a conversation where we're actually,
learning with and from the other person. I
distinguish quality questions from crummy questions and we
can talk about that. But I think that
most of us have a relatively narrow
repertoire of questions that we know how to
ask. You kind of go to our standard
go to questions.
But really there is a whole range. There's
a whole taxonomy of different kinds of questions
that we can ask to really learn from
other people. So that's what pose quality questions
is. Once we ask the question, it all
comes down to how well we listen. Do
we listen for what people are really trying
to communicate to us, and even what they're
not saying, And are we listening not just
for the content of what they say, but
also for the emotion for what's coming from
the heart. And are we able to connect
with and take in information and signal at
that level as well. That's listening to learn.
And then finally, what do we do with
what we heard? How do we process it
and make meaning it? This is my favorite
of all those steps I This is called
reflect and reconnect. And this is really where
we convert
experience into insight and insight into action. And
so is how do we sift with the
go. We turn it over in a structured
way in our minds, really get the most
learning out of it, and then actually go
back to the other person and say here's
what I've learned. And thank you. Thank you
for the time, the risk that you took,
And did I learn the right things from
you, and that's the reconnect part. So those
are at a very high level. The 5
steps or the 5 practices of the ask
approach that would put together. I think really
give us the greatest chance of learning from
and with the people around us.
So 1 of the things you said about
connective curiosity is that it radiates and energy.
Yeah. And I happen to agree with you
in the sense that
when you ask people for what's going on
their minds and what they're feeling. It opens
them up know? I mean, obviously, if you've
never done this before and suddenly you're like,
what are you thinking? What are you feeling?
That's gonna feel oppressive to people and they're
gonna shut down even more. Like. But if
you have a great relationship with people, and
you're taking the time to do that.
Obviously, you're creating a feeling inside of people
that they matter to you and that you're
interested in them. And that's extremely powerful. Exactly.
So 1 question I have is, like, when
you're working with people and you're talking about
this,
what's your advice or
overcoming the...
This takes too long? I need to keep
moving. I gotta get things done. I don't
have the time to be curious
and to get you to fully
reveal what you're thinking and feeling. But I
most especially don't have time to reflect on
it, then come back to you tell I've
reflected on it. So what do you say
to that? Yeah. I have a mentor who
talks about it as the pay now or
pay later plan. You can decide which 1
you want? You but it doesn't actually take
that long to say, what might Be missing
to think that or to ask that to
the other person, but I'll tell you what
does take a long time, which is, not
catching a major flaw in your strategy that
the people around the table from you actually
new, but didn't wanna tell you because they
didn't know you cared. It takes a long
time to repair a relationship that you actually
could have not even gone off track on
if you had actually known where somebody else
was coming from or understood what impact you
were having on them. And so do you
need to do this in every interaction of
your day when you're, you know, go to
the store or this and that... That's up
to you. But when things really matter,
It's actually... I think far more efficient
to
understand the insights of the people around you
than to discover them when they're too late.
I love that. This idea of pay now
pay later because I think we can all
relate to it. Yeah. Where we've made an
assumption about something and then we've made a
decision tied to that. And then we find
out that
well, we were wrong about the assumption, which
means we have to unravel the decision that
we made. And then there's apologies involved and
best ceilings. We've all been there. Yeah. And
lost time lost money, all kinds of consequences
that we pay when we don't actually just
get to the insight right in front of
our noses. Great. 1 of the things that
you hinted at is that
there's a lot of information that is
underneath the hood, if you will. Yeah. That
people are holding back. Their struggles or frustrations,
what they really believe about an issue. Like,
you know, you're pitching something. Hey team. Is
what we're gonna do and they'll be saying
anything, and you think everybody's on board
give us your best guidance on how we
all can workplace managers, I suppose,
can establish the trust
and to employ the psychological safety that you
referenced. So that people feel really comfortable being
completely honest. But how do you get over
that hurdle? Yeah. So I'll 0 in on
this part of the ask approach that I
called make it safe, because I think that's
really what you're what you're getting at. I
wanna know how to do it. Exactly 3
strategies for how to do that. Yep. The
first 1 is called just very simply create
connection. And this has many different aspects to
a, you know, 1 of the aspects is
you may know the expression dig your well
before your Thirsty. And so if you wanna
learn something from someone. If you're gonna wanna
ask them a question,
you've gotta have invested in that relationship well
before the time when it comes that you're
gonna actually wanna be learning from them because
that's the time when you really have the
opportunity to build trust
to see each other's humanity to really feel
connected to each other at every level. This
is way before you wanna actually do any
kind of question asking learning something is you
wanna have invested in the relationships that matter.
But also part of creating connection in the
moment
is even just the where and how the
connection takes place. And in the research for
the book, that I interviewed a number of
Ceos, and I wanted to interview Ceos
because Ceos are notorious
for not getting the truth from people. For
being insulated from the truth because people wanna
tell us ceos yields what they think they
wanna hear, what the think gonna make them
look good. And so I talked to a
number Ceos, including, you know, iconic Ceos, people
like Bill George from Med tron or Irene
read Rose fell from Kraft and a number
of others. And I sent to them, how
did you get people to tell you the
truth? How did you get them to feel
comfortable telling you? And 1 of the interesting
patterns was, they sent things like, if I
want someone to feel comfortable telling me the
truth?
I'm not gonna drag them into my office,
make them sit across the big Ceo desk
for me. And assume that they're gonna feel
comfortable to tell me the truth. No. I'm
gonna flatten the hierarchy. Mean go to them.
We're gonna go on and ride along together.
We're gonna eat in the cafeteria together. We're
going to take a walk together. And there
was no single answer as to where and
when to do it. Other than wherever it's
gonna be most comfortable for the other person.
And sometimes it takes asking them, you, where
you wanna have this conversation where when you
be comfortable having it, but they were very
att to the time and space of creating
connection. So that's all part of it. A
second part of creating this kind of psychological
safety at the interpersonal level is very simply
just opening up. Know, if we want the
other person to open up. We gotta open
up first. We gotta let them know why
are we asking the question? Because people will
especially if there's any kind of power differential
or across other lines of difference. People will
guess, will make up stories as to why
we're asking them questions. And sometimes they're kind
of suspicious, and we can overcome that by
simply saying, look, here's what I don't know.
Here's why I'm curious. Here's what I'm stuck
on. Here's what I am wrestling with myself.
And the more vulnerable we can be in
opening up about why we need them and
why we value them and what we might
be dealing with ourselves.
The safer it becomes for them to also
share with us what they're challenged by. So
dig to that just a little bit deeper
and tell me what some of the behaviors
that Yeah. That we do is leaders
that actually work against us that influence people
to withhold speaking their truth. Yeah. I mean,
well, specifically as it relates to opening up,
1 of the biggest ones is not telling
them why we're asking the questions. Or peer
as though we have it all figured out
when really we're struggling with things ourselves. As
opposed to
disclosing our dilemma and letting them know. Look
here. I... I'm actually stuck on this and
I truly know I'm missing something here and
I know I don't have all the pieces
of the information, I didn't think you see
some things I don't see it and I'd
love to understand how you look at this.
Doing more of that and less of them,
like, I've got it altogether. The other thing
that leaders do that I think absolutely
kills people's safety
is when they get defensive or punish people
for saying that truth. All it takes is
1 time that someone tries to tell you
the truth, and you fly off the handle
or you show them that you can handle
it. And not only are they not gonna
tell you the truth, They're gonna tell all
their colleagues at Fred the organization that you
can't handle the truth and then it's over.
And so I also talk about this idea
of radiating resilience.
You've gotta be letting people know that you
can handle their truth. And not just esp
that by telling them that, but by actually
demonstrating that. Sometimes that can be as simple
as saying, hey, look, if I run your
shoes, I would be probably pretty annoyed with
me right now. I'd be pretty frustrated at
this situation. If that's what you're feeling, I
would totally get would totally understand I would
love to hear more about that. Even just
something like that can make it disposable so
someone can say, yeah. What you just said
that is what I'm feeling right now. When
they say that knowing that I'm not going
to crumble. I'm not going to fly off
the handle. And if I have an emotional
reaction to what they have to say, I'm
not gonna blame them for it. So this
radiating of resilience, is another piece of what
I think goes into this creating a sense
of safety. You've really gotta become securing yourself
to be able to pull that off. Right?
I mean, if you want the truth and
the truth hurts, Like, everything you just described,
I've been with leaders who can't do it
because
they're friend on some level. Yeah. Like, they've
already made the decision or the stakes them
look stupid or they're gonna good trouble, all
those kinds of things. Absolutely. I mean, if
you're not actually resilient, you're not gonna be
able to radiate that kind of resilience in
the first place. How do you cultivate that
if there's 1 person out there that feels
that they wobble on that mean, I think
that is work to do either with yourself
or with a coach or with a therapist
to basically say what's a stake for me
personally here right now. And why is this
getting to me? And what are the triggers
inside of me? And doing some kind of
reflection on that to say, alright. I need
to get set with myself on this so
that I can then get in book from
other people. 1 of my favorite quotes of
all time is from Ball, who says, if
you're not embarrassed about who you were yesterday.
You're not learning fast enough. And so when
I'm feeling maybe a little bit wobbly myself.
I remind myself that. And I say, you
know what They might tell me something that
shows how I screwed something up, and thank
god they told me because now I know.
No kidding. Yeah. Yeah. You wanna know. Right?
Goes back to your pay now pay later
thing. By the way, you know, there's research
that shows that
if you ask somebody for a favor and
you explain what the favor is for, In
other words, could you do this for me
because I need to do this? Yeah. People
are much more willing to do it because
they know what they're contributing to? As opposed
to, hey. Could you just do this for
me? Like,
you know, so it aligns to what you...
That's a beautiful example of opening up. It's,
like, letting them know what you need or
why you need it. Great. I love your
insight on how do they cultivate a better
sense of self security here. So bravo,
what are some of the best questions that
you've learned? That we could just steal from
you. Absolutely. That tend to elicit the most
useful insights. 1 of my favorite questions strategies
among the taxonomy I talked about in the
book is simply called request reactions. And maybe
I'll just share it by way of a
short story, which is that when I was
first taught this. I was a new manager.
This was 20 some years ago. And I
was managing someone, and I thought I was
doing a good job, but I had just
given him a bunch of direction and a
little feedback and I thought I was, you
know, sending him off to take next steps
and that we were in good place. And
I said to myself. Well, they just taught
me, I should ask for his reactions. So
before we ended, I just said, hey, what
what are your reactions to what we just
talked about what I asked you to do.
And he looked at me for a second
and he said, if I'm honest, I'm completely
demo by what you just told me. And
I thought to myself, wow. Had I not
asked that question of what are your reactions?
I never would have I've had any clue.
And he was anything other than board. And
then that led us to say, well, come.
And it turned out that we had different
information. We were making different assumptions about what
needed to happen with our client, and he
thought that what I was asking to do
made no sense. Once we were able to
open that up, we on the same page
and, he genuinely wasn't a good place. But
that question, what are your reactions? I think
is so powerful
because we can assume that if someone disagrees
with us, or if someone has a negative
reaction that they're gonna tell us. But so
often, they're not gonna tell us. Maybe because
they're not feeling safe with us, maybe because
they don't know how to express it all
kinds of different reasons. But if we say,
what are your reactions or how does that
land with you? Or how does that sit
with you? Or how does that strike you?
Or what does that make you think or
what might I be missing? Any version of
that can give us a far greater chance
of actually hearing what someone's reactions are. That's
fantastic. What else? Give me some more. I'm
like, that's really great.
So once they tell us what their reactions
are, usually what we're not getting is where
those reactions come from. And so there's another
strategy that I talk about called Dig deeper.
Which just simply to say, you know, if
they tell me, I really disagree with what
you had to say, or I think that's
not the right direction. Instead of me saying,
well, let me tell you I it is
the right direction. I need to say tell
me more about that. What are the concerns
that you're trying to solve for? What are
the interests that make you think this is
the other way or what are the reasons
that you have? And sometimes dig deeper,
is not just about the analytic reasons. And
I know you talked a lot about the
importance of the heart. Sometimes dig deeper results
about tell me a story
about something that you've seen and when this
is going wrong or what this brings up
for you? What are some of the feelings
that this is pressing on or triggering you
or whatever? How does it make you feel
any number of things. So when we dig
deeper, it's not just about digging deeper to
get to what is your information and your
data and your logic, but it also what
does this make you feel as well. So
that'll be another strategy to talk about. I'm
happy to share more too. I'm actually gonna
ask you to because you're hitting out something
that's really important.
And there was a book years ago, the
inner child of your past and people mocked
it regularly.
And yet, there was this powerful insight that...
Most of us are still
operating as our childhood selves
emotionally. Like, some experience we had early on
our life.
We re experience it, and it triggers a
feeling and we're not even aware of it.
So what you've just done is to ask
people to
why are you responding that way? What's your
reaction? But why is that your reaction? Yes
That is a really powerful
combination. So please do tell us for about
that? Yeah. And I'll just say 1 thing
that I learned throughout the whole process is
that the word why
can trigger funny reactions as the people. Sometimes,
even if we're genuinely wanna know what's underneath
that, the word why can sound like an
attack question like, yeah. Why would you think
that? No. And so, you know, depending on
the context, and the relationship in the tone.
Confrontational. It may... Yeah. It may be fine,
but it can also be confrontational on. So,
you know, can you walk me through your
process how did you get to that thinking.
What's underneath that? There's a whole different range
of different ways that we could that we
can dig deeper? That's really powerful.
So, you know, another category of questions is
and I think leaders don't use nearly enough
is simply what I call invite input, which
is to say to somebody else... Hey, look,
if you were in my shoes, how would
you be thinking about this? What's a suggestion
that you have for something that I could
be doing differently
or operating in a different way, or I'm
just stuck in this way, and here's the
dilemma that I'm facing. I think so often,
as leaders, we think we've gotta calculate our
answers to these dilemma privately.
But when we can actually lay out the
dilemma on the table, it gives people so
much more empathy for what we're up against.
And then to simply say how would you
think about this? What would you do in
my shoes? Do you any suggestions? What advice
do you have? And to me, this is
where the collective genius of a team, You
know or an organization can get unleashed
because the people around us have such incredible
ideas
their ideas are so good, they think they're
too crazy to say, or they think no
1 would listen to them. But if we
can literally say, what's your best idea for
how to do this Or 1 5 ideas
that you have. Sometimes it's just incredible how
much more
potential there is that if we have to
figure this thing out inside our own heads.
How do you square
when you're getting all kinds of ideas, And
at some point, you're gonna have to make
a decision, and you're gonna have to choose
it something that somebody was really passionate about.
And other people's ideas don't get chosen.
Yeah. And so I was like, well, he
asked us for it, and then he didn't
do anything with it. So, you know, forget
that guy. I'm not gonna give him my
feedback time. My county you avert that. Yeah.
So 2 things. 1 is, sometimes when someone
gives an idea, the idea itself may not
be the best idea. Next But the thing
that that idea is trying to solve for
is really important. And so sometimes when listening
to the idea is the follow question with,
you, the dig deeper question there is, tell
me what that idea is try to sell
for? Tell me what that idea why you
think that idea has so much potential? Or
what are some of the interests that idea
is trying to provide? Sometimes if you don't
take someone's idea, but if you can then
understand where that idea is coming from, that
means give rise to other ideas. That can
speak to that. And so it's not enough
just to say, give me the headline of
your idea. Let's take deeper to understand that.
And oftentimes the direction that you take
can connect to their underlying reasons and interests
and concerns behind their ideas. But then the
other thing is decisions do have to get
made, and we could probably have a whole
conversation about different decision making structures and who
gets to make the decision and how different
people weigh in and all that kind of
stuff. But at the end of the day
if you're a leader and you're going with
some ideas, and you're not going with other
ideas. The most important thing is to close
that loop. Is to say, I got all
this input. I thought it through. It was
valuable. Let me tell you here the ideas
that we're going with, and here's why. Here's
are some of the ideas that I actually
think we should be thinking about for the
future. Here's why I don't think we can
do them right now. And here's some of
the ideas that I didn't choose. And let
me tell you the rationale before I didn't
choose us. And I'm open to more dialogue
over time if, you know, if that rationale
does turn out to be right, But know
this is the call Making right now. And
just that closing of the loop, I think
goes 80 percent of the distance to people
thinking
Alright. They listen to me. They thought through
what I had to say they took my
seriously. I don't think people necessarily are judging
a leader based on does that lead do
everything that they said. As much as does
that leader take the idea seriously. Does that
leader show value by closing the loop? So
that be the second suggestion I would make.
It's very insightful.
Years ago, probably, I'm thinking now close to
a decade ago. I went and spent the
day in Les bucks.
Talent management team. U. And
Karen May, she's not there any longer, but
when she was there she said 1 of
the most important things that we do here
is give people voice. And it was the
first time that I'd had heard that language,
and I just absolutely loved it.
Largely because
I done it in my entire career and
saw the response that people had. It's everything
that you're just describing.
But the insight that I got from her
that I hadn't had
was that they tell people.
Your voice is so important. Your opinion is
so important. That we're are gonna be surveying.
We're going to be doing, you know, little
groups of of discussions
we're ad hoc conversations and important our expectation
of you as a member of our company
and as a member of our team is
that you're gonna participate in a number of
them. You can participate in every 1 of
them, that we asked you for
but you're gonna have to participate in a
certain number of them. Like, we're not going
to exclude you.
And what I got from that was that
by doing that and just repeating, giving everybody
an opportunity that they feel like they're integral,
and they're to your point a second ago,
Like, most people are reasonable. And they're like,
well Gave them 5 ideas and you didn't
use all 5, so, you know, forget it.
They know that it's being integrated into the
conversation with everyone else and that everyone else
is being tapped into.
And inevitably,
it's the ideas that somebody gonna have are
gonna be implemented, and that's the validation. Would
you agree with that? Yeah. A hundred percent.
I love that example. And I think what?
That also illustrates to me is that when
we ask people for information,
this is not just at a 1 way
extract process. This is not just about saying,
like, let me just get the best ideas.
Out of them and then, you know, forget
them. This is a mutual process, and this
is a process that I think creates a
positive feeling in the other person or the
other team members as well that we care
about them, and we value them. And that
changes everything about our dynamic and our relationship
too.
So you just made another really important point,
which is underscores the whole theme of this
podcast is that feelings and emotions drive behavior.
Yes. And so how people are feeling is
if you're giving them opportunities to help you
as the manager and to guide you and
to say, hey, I'm faced with the dilemma
my here, and I'm trying to make the
best decision. What would you do
you're creating a really remarkably powerful feeling inside
of people that can ultimately translate into
don't wanna use this word anymore because I'm
turning away from it, but engagement and, Yeah.
And commitment and so forth. I'm feeling that
I'm... I matter. Then we matter. Yeah. And
we underestimate sometimes how important that is the
people. Right? I mean, just the sense that
I matter to you as the manager and
I matter to the people around me.
That we're finding that those 2 things are
perhaps the most important thing of driving somebody's
well being, which then translates into their loyalty
and their commitment and they're doing optimal work.
Exactly. So you're nailing it.
Something that we were talking about before we
got on, I really wanna make sure we
have time to talk about.
So let me set this up and say
that at the beginning of your book, you
make it really clear that we're not very
effective at reading people. And don't I say
reading people. But you know, sort of omniscient
looking into people's minds and hearts and saying,
I know what they're thinking. I know what
they're gonna do next. Like, you make it
clear that we're pretty bad at that.
Nevertheless,
you also indicate that
in this
emphasis on listening to people, more specifically,
understanding that when people speak, they're expressing, not
just their words, but their emotions.
I love that. So
let's discuss how managers can cultivate that ability
here what's not being verbally said, but is
nevertheless less being spoken in their behavior. Yeah.
So this part of the listening to learn
practice really draws from a mentor of my
named, David Kent.
Who was 1 of the pioneers or the
family systems therapy, kind of movement. You know,
he would spend hundreds if not thousands of
hours with families watching them fight. And 1
of the things that he noticed that is
that where they missed each other is that
1 person was trying to communicate content or
information. He called it meaning, while somebody else
was listening through emotions or conveying emotions or
vice versa first and someone else is operating
in what he called power, which is really
about the domain of action.
And so when it comes to listening and
learning from other people, we've gotta be able
to listen through these 3 channels. And I've
translated his academic language into simply content emotion
and action.
Anytime we're sitting down with someone, Those 3
things are going on. Just the same way,
anytime we're listening to a piece of music,
there's is usually per happening and vocals happening
and harmony happening.
And if we train ourselves to listen to
all 3 of those things, Per locals, Harmony,
we have a much richer understanding of that
piece of music,
Similarly, if we can train ourselves to listen
for content,
emotion and actions going on, we will have
a much richer, more complex understanding of what
someone's actually
communicating to us. And if we 0 in
on the emotion piece just for a second
because I think that's where we started. Sometimes
people are literally just expressing the emotion when
they're say, I'm really frustrated that you didn't
do this this and this this, and, you
know, we can either listen for that with
they're expressing there or we can focus back
on the facts of the matter or whatever.
And so part of listening for emotion is
just literally queuing ourselves in to say, wait
a minute. They just name it emotion that
they're having. They just express something that they're
feeling. Let's focus on on that because sometimes
that's the most important thing. But sometimes people
are displaying emotion as well. Maybe they're frown.
Maybe they've got their arms across Maybe their
is fur owned. Maybe they're crying. Who knows
what it might be. And that's a place
where we can see what they're displaying. I
think this is the place where it can
be sometimes easy for us to say, oh,
they're frown. That must mean they're angry at
me, and that inference may or may not
be right. As opposed to saying, oh, they're
frown. Something's going on. Let me take note
of that. And maybe even let me ask
them say, hey, I'm noticing a.
That's the whole point. What what's going on
of them. And you and I talked about
how you and other people's startups can actually
sense things off of people. And I think
that's incredible. And if you're not sure of
what you're sensing off of people, you can
say, hey look I just noticed your energy
change. And, you know, did it. And if
so what's behind that what's going on for
you. And so there are ways that we
can be listening by observing what is being
displayed. But then not just calculated privately in
our heads, but actually ask questions to check
it on the other person too. That's great.
Our world right now is so polarized
at least in America.
And particularly now that we're in this election
year. Yep. You, it's Team a or Team
b, and, you know, we're not talking to
Team b and 4 on Teammate and so
forth. Yeah. You made this point in the
book that people tend to like people like
themselves and therefore weeks surround ourselves when people
like ourselves,
and
people who think like we do. And just
like when I was reading, and I'm thinking
how corrupt is that. Or, like, you've gotta
get to a point where you're understanding what
other people are thinking and be able to
be tolerant of it. So tell us why
our curiosity should extend it to people who
have different beliefs and perspectives
and cultures. And from your point of view,
what's the value in that? I think there's
a few things. I mean, I think 1
is life is a lot more interesting that
way. If we just surround ourselves with people
who are gonna tell us to believe the
same things that we believe, whether that's all
around politics or
religion or
supreme court issues or whatever it may be,
You know, maybe we'll feel good about ourselves,
but that's not actually that interesting. To me,
it's much more interesting to say, wow, there's
that a whole range of different ways to
look at what's going on here, you know,
how fascinating. That's part of it. I think
the second reason is
that usually we get to a better answer.
If we actually surround ourselves with a diverse
set of ideas, backgrounds perspectives interests because there's,
everybody's got a piece of the puzzle in
some way. And if we only just surround
ourselves with our 1 piece of the puzzle,
we're not gonna see the whole. We're not
gonna get the best answer. As well. But
I also think that if we care about
the future of our society, and we want
our society not to fracture, but to actually
be strong and to be a true community,
then we've gotta be part of the solution,
and that means not just keeping ourselves in
our bubble, but actually doing the scary work
of Richie across and say, hey, Let's have
a meal together. Hey. I'd love to pick
your brand. I'd love to hear how you
think about this kind of thing. So I
think for all of those reasons, there's a
real benefit to extend our curiosity to people
who are, quote different from us in some
way. Not to put you on the spot,
but have you done that recently? Click, can
you give us an example of where you've
stuck your neck out did that intentionally? Yeah.
I mean, I... So I was taking a,
you know, rides share for about a 45
minute ride. And when the car pulled up,
the driver had a bumper sticker
and a hat that had a symbol on
it that I vehemently
disagreed with. Or at least I thought I
did. And it made me feel totally unsafe,
even being in that person's car given my
own background on my own identity. And I
spent the first
few minutes in the car, just looking down,
doing my email, doing the thing that would
be super safe to do. And then I
realized so myself. You know what? Let me
just try to practice what I appreciate. And
just sent to the person hey, well, you
know, tell me what's the story behind that
you know the hat that you have there.
What's, you know, what what is that about?
And Lo and be behold hope for the
next 45 minutes. He shared with me his
life story, which, you know, started back to
his own childhood and personal sacrifices that he
had made and his cousins had made. Some
things that I was incredibly sympathetic to once
he shared with me. To the point that
literally, it didn't make me wanna go waive
that flag. But it got me pretty close
to saying, wow, I really appreciate where this
person is coming from and it certainly led
me to say, I don't not know anything
about. Really what's going on when someone has
that flag in their yard or on their
car or that kind of thing, And, you
know, it was very humbling. But I also
felt much closer to somebody that I would
have almost d tested beforehand. That's, I'm so
glad I asked you the question because it's
a brilliant
illustration.
And it applies to leadership too. Right? We
work with people and people that we don't
have a lot of interaction with, for example,
you know, people are in different departments or
different areas, but they're impacting us, and we
make assumptions about who they are and how
they carry themselves that influence us in a,
like, really meaningful way. Everything your book is
about, who and sometimes you can't ask those
people, but when you have an opportunity to
say, hey, you know, tell me how you...
How do these ideas form you,
doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to wear
the hat, if you will. Yeah. Great. But
it does mean that you're gonna have greater
appreciation for how they got there. Yeah. You
still might not agree. But at least you
understand, like, you understand that wow, there's a
process, and it's not just a knee jerk
thing. Like, like, people are vested in this
for a reasonable hundred percent degree. And sometimes
that's, like, you know, I can do better
to educate people so that they have an
understanding of you know, of a different perspective.
Very well said. He'll be you're the 1
who's saying everything's so articulate. But good good
as a good sympathy expenses and I also
think that you
almost inevitably you're gonna find some kind of
common ground. You're gonna find something in their
humanity that you can connect to in your
own humanity, and that distance just gets closed
a little bit.
I have... And I don't know where this
came from, you know, what motivated this, but
I have wherever I go. If I'm in
an uber, I'm having a conversation with the
driver. Yep. And generally, I don't have any
interest in their political views. I have interest
in where they're from and what's their journey.
Mh. And some of the stories people tell
are just so inspiring. And you you realize
like,
if they'd had, you know, 1 advantage, they
wouldn't be driving an Uber. You know, they're
super smart, super caring, super kind,
you know, super talented,
and
I learned from them, And so, like, and
find... Sometimes it's like, there's common denominators where,
you know, realize that they know somebody that
you know or... Have had experience that you've
had. It's an enriching experience. So, like, I
might spend 5 minutes just looking at my
emails but I generally will just tell the
guy, hey, you know, it's got a conversation
here, and they're always grateful for it too
because most... People don't do that. They come
in and they just wanna do their work
and stay quiet and, you know, do whatever
it is that they they think is gonna
make them efficient. But I've always felt that
people that was 1 of the coolest things
that I could do is to learn something
about people on people's cultures, people's views. Do
you do that beyond what you just described?
I... Any any chance out yet, I do
it And and I think people as you
said, are... Usually appreciate being asked, they're happy
to share. And
There's something fascinating. There's always something fascinating to
learn from every single person. And so it's
it is an honor to be able to
do that.
Speaking of that, you know, some managers will
think, I'm changing gears slightly
that when you go up to the an
employee and say, you know, I really need
your help on a problem I'm solving.
That that implies leadership weakness. Like, you know,
like you can't figure it out yourself or
That I should be making these decisions I'm
the boss, kind of a thing. What would
you say to offset that kind of thinking.
I think that that is a an understandable
but outdated archetype of what it means to
be a leader. If your archetype is that
the leader has to be the 1 that
has all the answers. And it solves all
the problems for your team, you're missing out
on the collective genius. That's all around you
in your organization. And so I I would
encourage you to flip it and say the
role of the leader is to create the
conditions where that genius can emerge. And so
if you're saying to someone else, what are
your ideas, that's part of, I think the
highest form of leadership. All said
I hope you don't mind, but you... Somewhere
in your book, I realized like you've got
Altered Ego or at least a site job,
that's really impressive to me. And so, like,
outside of writing your book, a big portion
of your life is dedicated to reinventing how
we educate children and elementary schools.
And I just thought I can't let that
go without asking you, is there something in
what you've word in education that may be
agreed value to our leadership focused audience? Like,
is there a crossover?
Absolutely. I appreciate you mentioning that. So in
my day job I c Ceo of an
organization called Transcend.
That and we are a non profit organization
that works with k 12 schools across the
country who wanna reimagine what's possible in education.
There's so many parallels. And for me, the
common thread is just is the learning that
we can do in all kinds of situations.
And 1 of the things I'll say is
that the true experts at questioning and curiosity
our kids. If you've ever been with a
3 year old, and you try to try
to walk down the street with a 3
year old, They're curious about everything from the
leaf that they see to the worm that's
crawling by, you know, to the crack of
the sidewalk. By the time kids are 4.
They're asking something like 400 questions a day.
And then we send them to schools, and
those schools basically say to them It's not
about questions is about compliance. It's about follow
our directions and give us the right answers.
And so in many ways, a lot of
what we're talking about here,
I think is undoing some of the things
that most schools
unintentionally do that suppress curiosity.
But I think the good news is that
we all have that reservoir on us. We
all ask least started off really curious and
we could tap back into that as well.
How are you doing that in schools or
how you encouraging teachers to be more receptive.
Julie Yeah. We use a process that's called
a community based design process. And so we
actually bring teachers together
with students
with parents. With administrators with employers with other
community members. And we actually start by saying,
let's listen to the young people. Let's listen
to them talk to us about what their
experience is like in school. Just the same
way that you might ask that of your
Uber driver or somebody else and when kids
tell us what lights them up, but also
what is completely boring or alien or hurtful
to them or whatever, we have shirts say
to us.
I cannot hear that. And by the way,
I've been you for 20 years. I've never
sat down for 45 minutes and just listen
to a student tell me about their experience
in school.
And so to me, the kids have the
answers. They know they know what they want.
They know what they need their experts and
their experiences.
And when we start in that place. There's
not a lot of other change management that's
needed People listen to that. And then when
we layer on, okay. Here's how the world
is changing. Here's how jobs are changing. We
don't actually need to be producing people. Who
are just answer givers or who we can
just follow directions. In fact, if we... If
those are the graduates that we produce, we're
not serving them because they're not gonna have
jobs anymore, we ask they need people who
are creative and collaborative and who are leaders.
And then we... Well we say well, alright.
If that's what we wanna produce, how we're
gonna get them to practice that, Do every
day of their schooling in k 12. All
of a sudden becomes very obvious. We gotta
do things differently.
Is part of that having the kids, the
children, and the students
sharing their own stories. A hundred percent. Yeah.
Not only sharing their own stories, We often
have people follow students around for a day
and say, let's just spend a day in
their shoes. And really experience with the experience
and nothing will change people's minds faster than
that. So I remember when I was a
kid, this story, I've never shared before, but
my mom died when I was 9. Mh.
And
before she passed away, She was very sick,
and it was the arrow where it was
cancer and it was really kind of un.
And so it was an extended
decline. And in that process,
I was shuttle from home to home no
was there to take care of me, it
was a real mess.
And
after my mom passed, away, my sister came
into my room 1 day, and she gave
me something that my teacher had given my
mom.
She goes, would you like this? And I
said
what is it? And so I went to
a Catholic school. It was a religious statue,
and and I said, well where did you
get that? And she said, well, your teacher.
Came to see mom and gave it to
her.
And, you know, at 9 years old, all
I could think of was you knew about
my mom
being sick and didn't
demonstrate that to me and I'll never forget.
Like, had you known
It would have been more important for you
of cared about what I was experiencing and
getting on different buses every day and never
knowing which homes you were gonna go to
is really a painful experience. And I just...
To this day, I'm thinking the teacher just
missed the whole boat
by not knowing what my experience was because
you meet me there,
I'm gonna work without taking care of that
basic need. I'm not gonna be able to
really do very well. And so I'd I
love if you just describe that. Thank you
for sharing that story by the way. That's
very moving. And
there's so much... I think that teachers could
learn.
About their students lives and experiences and backgrounds
just by asking those kinds of questions. 1
thing that some teachers do is they do
home visits, and they always talk about how
powerful those home visits are. Both in terms
of what they learned, but also how much
they demonstrate that caring to the family too.
That's fantastic. I don't know teachers are still
doing that, so that's great. 1 final question
on this John Hates
recommendation that takes cell phones out of school.
What do you what do you think? I'm
conflicted on it because cell phones have... So
many damaging effects on kids, especially social media.
I'm very cautious about it with my own
kids. At the same time, so phones are
a tool for learning as well. And so
I'm not in the camp of just ban
at all. I'm more in the camp of
there's times for it, and there's times not
for it. And went during the times for
it, Let's actually teach kids how to use
it as a tool, how to use it
responsibly, but that can be able to excel
into learning. Great.
Hey, Jeff. It's time for us to play
the heartbeat round where I'll ask you a
dozen or so personal questions that we hope
you'll answer quickly and instinctively.
Since you've listened to a few of our
podcast episodes. I think you're already familiar with
this, but are you willing to play yourself?
I'm am excited to play. Alright. There we
go. 1 piece of wisdom ronaldo you explicitly
gained while writing your book. Just how prevalent
it is that people withhold things from each
other. I'll just give you 1 small snippet
on this. I came across 1 study that
said between 60 and 80 percent of people
withhold important information from their own doctors. Just
imagine that if people are withholding things from
their own doctors that could benefit their own
health, life or death, what else are they
withholding? Your favorite question.
Why? The best teacher you had growing up
and why? Mister Ronald Perkins was my chemistry
teacher in tenth and eleventh grade in high
school. And he just ignited in me love,
not just of learning, but of teaching. He
used to take us out as high school
students to the local elementary schools, and we
would do hands on science, and I just
saw how the kids faces lit up when
they got to really just experience what learning
can be in science could be in such
a hands on the way. Great. Cultural value,
every
organization should have.
So in my organization transcend, which I mentioned,
we have 2 core values that I just
love out of our 6.
1 is called perpetual beta, and that is
basically a value that says every 1 of
us is a work in progress. We're constantly
in beta mode, which means when we make
a mistake or we learn something,
actually living into our core value. And this
second 1 is just love. Putting people at
the center.
Great.
We're If you could teach every workplace leader
in the world, just 1 thing what would
it be? How to ask good questions.
Prediction about the future, your you're pretty certain
is gonna come true. This rate of change
is only going to increase. World's greatest is
problem needing fixing.
The divisions that we have in our lack
of ability to understand each other. Quality you
consider most essential to your success.
Curiosity.
I wish I had the plum bill right.
You're best sending him for the word heart.
Humanity.
A lesson you wish you'd learn much earlier
in life.
I don't know
my impact on other people, and it can
be profound positively or negatively, but I just
don't know enough about it. Sides love, what
does the world need more of? I'm gonna
say again, curiosity.
Greatest piece of advice you've ever received.
Do what you love?
Until you stopped loving it, then do the
next thing that you love until you stop
loving it and keep going and pretty soon
you look back on your life and you
will have loved your life. Oh, brilliant.
1 thing people be surprised to learn about
you.
I am an avid horseback rider. I love
riding horses. I try to get on a
horse. Anytime I can, and it's just something
that very few people. When I tell that
to people they'd say, I never would have
expected that. I wouldn't have expected that either,
but that's your colorado upbringing I take it.
That's exactly it. And your favorite hero of
Fiction. So I I love reading novels that
my daughter reads for school and we get
to talk about them. And I just finished
1 that she was reading this year called
all of my rage by Sa Ta.
And there is a girl in that novel
who is, essentially the protagonist or the hero
named Nora, and she's just incredibly inspiring and
the book is just unbelievable. That's fantastic. All
of these. These are really great. This was
fun. So thank you. And you did the
rather concise, So thank you. Good. Hey. I
love these questions. Alright. Before you go, we've
covered a whole lot of ground including
recreating
education here. So is there something in your
book that we didn't discuss? You did a
great job at the beginning and sort of
outlining your your 5 steps, But is there
something specific that we didn't cover or that
you wanna emphasize that that our audience can
be n over once our conversation is over.
Just say 1 thing. And I think you've
done a great job. I love your question.
So I feel like we've covered most of
it. But the thing I would just emphasize
or underscore is that this ability to learn
from other people.
Itself is a skill that's learn. This is
not something that some people are just good
at and other people are bad at. It's
a set of practices
that just like any other skill.
Individuals can get good at it. Teams can
get good at, and organizations can get good
at it. And I think the rewards of
that are evident, but I wanna encourage people
to say this is a learn thing. Great.
You're an especially thoughtful person, Jeff, and I
just wanna call that out. I think my
audience has already picked up on that. But
It comes out loud and clear, and I
I really appreciate that. I admire that. And
so thank you. I means a lot. I
really appreciate that. And I sincerely appreciate you
joining me. This was even better than I
imagined it would be, and I'm always happy
when that happened. So thank you for doing
that. I'm really enjoy the conversation. Thank you
for the chance to be with you. Take
care. You too. Bye bye. Bye.
Before I take it by, I'd like to
make a heartfelt
request that you please introduce our podcast to
just 1 friend or colleague this week. Word
mount referrals as I've said before are so
incredibly powerful and the growth of our audience
is the single greatest metric that we used
to validate our impact, and we're sincerely trying
to change the world. At least how people
are managed and lead in our workplaces that
and we really need your support and helping
to broaden and deepen our reach.
Our brilliant theme music is the jazz classic
take He train written over 80 years ago
by Billy Strat horn. Our version is performed
by the Db Big band Orchestra.
Wanna thank my exceptional team, mister Ken Boy,
Carrie Finn Brandy Y anna Boy, and my
sound engineer producer, Erica oz.
And I also wanna thank all the employees
and managers at Chevron for supporting our work.
And finally, I leave you with my 2
consistent reminders. I wanna When you leave from
the heart, your people will follow and love
your people.
This is Mark Crowley thanking you for listening
and I'm signing off for now.