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Feb 12
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1128: How to Develop and Maximize Every Voice on Your Team with Jeremie Kubicek

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Jeremie Kubicek shares his innovative 5 Voices framework for empowering teams and maximizing potential.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why people development often fails
  2. How leaders unintentionally silence their best people
  3. Warning signs your team’s in the pit of despair

About Jeremie 

Jeremie Kubicek is a globally recognized speaker, author, and leadership expert dedicated to helping leaders multiply healthy influence and self-awareness. As the co-founder of GiANT Worldwide, he equips leaders and organizations to build cultures of trust, peace, and performance through practical systems of people development. 

Jeremie is the author of Making Your Leadership Come Alive and The Peace Index, and co-author of The 100X Leader, 5 Voices, 5 Gears, The Communication Code, and the newly released The Voice-Driven Leader: How to Hear, Value, and Maximize Every Voice on Your Team.

Resources Mentioned

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Jeremie Kubicek Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jeremie, welcome back!

Jeremie Kubicek
Pete, always good to be with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s great to have you again. I’m excited to talk about The Voice-Driven Leader and people development stuff. And I got to know right from the get go, chapter one, why people development typically fails. Lay it on us, Jeremie. Why?

Jeremie Kubicek
Because we all know, it’s boring. It doesn’t really work. It’s developed in the wrong way. But, really, the main reason is because it’s driven from one voice to everyone else. It’s not hyper-personalized. And in today’s world, like, imagine if you could actually draft books, content, training, all based on the other person, not on you, we did it. Imagine that, and that’s what we’ve done. We built The Voice-Driven Leader to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s cool. Well, so let’s expand a little bit on about why it fails. You say, and I don’t know how much that was in jest because we both love developing people.

Jeremie Kubicek
No, it’s true. I think what I’d say is this, there’s a difference between development and training. And training is what most people will think of when they think, “Oh, I’ve got to go watch a course,” “I’ve got to go sit in a training session for a day.”

But the actual process is apprenticeship. And apprenticeship is a lost art in America. It used to be a thing. In industrial revolution, “Hey, if you’re a mason, we’re going to brick a wall.” There’s still masons, and there’s still HVAC, and there’s still all these people who do trades. Trades know what apprenticeship is.

But most of us haven’t experienced it like, “Okay, Pete, you’re going to come watch me. Just watch. Now, you’re going to watch me and help me. And now you’re going to do it. I’m going to help you. And now you’re going to do it. And we’re good, right?” And that’s apprenticeship. That’s the full development.

But in the computer age, it’s not like, “Hey, Pete, watch how I do this text message. Watch me do email. Do you see how I did that?”

Pete Mockaitis
“That was great.”

Jeremie Kubicek
It’s harder to do apprenticeship in the technological world. So, development suffers because we think we’re developing people by sending them to watch courses or do trainings. But it’s not necessarily the pathway, like a journey. And that’s what we’re trying to reinforce.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I think that is well said in terms of you can learn some best practices, some how to use a piece of software, some tips and tricks, stories of experience, but there’s a giant zone of learning that is like, “No, we just got to get into it, experience some stuff, and talk about it, reflect on it, and see the nuances of the itty bitty details.”

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah, and it’s really, really like, “All right, you’re on my team.” It’s tied to, “Where are we going? Do you have role clarity? Do you know where we’re going? And do you know and understand my expectations of the job?” So expectations are a massive part of creating awesome jobs, like development of people.

You have to be developed through expectations, “Okay, Pete, this is where I want you to be. Here’s where you’re at right now. We just onboarded you. In the next month, all I want you to do is be with people, spend time,” you know what I mean? I’m laying out the expectations.

What do most people get? “Hey, man, here’s your desk. Here’s your manual. Watch a couple of these videos. See you later.” And then they get thrown in and then people start faking it, acting like they know what they’re doing. And then, all of a sudden, once they figure out that they don’t know what they’re doing, then they try to hide it, and then eventually they end up in this thing that we called in the book, we call the pit of despair.

And the pit of despair, let’s say you have thousand employees, you probably have 20 people who come and clock in in the morning, and they go, everyone goes to their workstations, they go down in the basement into the pit of despair, and they get down there, like, “Hey, man, how long you been down here? Yeah, who pushed you in? Oh, Tom? Yeah, Tom is a jerk.” And, all of sudden, everyone’s talking about Tom.

And it’s this pit where people literally, everyone’s working around these employees. But it’s what it is. It’s just unclear plan, unclear roadmap, and unclear expectations. And then the leader is not taking the time, not giving the vision, not actually doing the apprenticeship process.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. Well, then is that what you would say is the core thesis behind The Voice-Driven Leader or how would you articulate the big idea?

Jeremie Kubicek
Part of it. Okay, so here’s the big idea. If you know who you are, is number one, know who the other person is. And when I say who, we say actually by personality, using the 5 Voices. So if you know who you are, using the 5 Voices, know who they are and their voice, then know where do you want to take them, what’s the journey they’re on, and then what needs to happen to get them to the next level.

So, you have the foundation stage, which is onboarding. You have the immersion stage, which is the development in their role. And then you have the empowerment stage. Now that means, “Good job. You’re doing it. I’m helping you.” Then there’s a multiplication stage down when they get really good at their job.

So a great leader is going to know who they are, who the other person is, and where to take them. The crux of it is, because of AI, we’ve built now 5 Voices AI. So if I know that I’m a connector, let’s say I know that you’re a creative. Well, a creative is going to go through that process completely different than a connector would and completely different than a nurturer or a guardian or a pioneer.

So if I know who you are, now I can speak your language to help you really understand and become competent in your job and your work faster. And so, here’s the core crux of the book. If I speak your language to develop you more than forcing you to only speak my language, then the chances of you developing are ten to one. And that’s it. Like, when I lived in Russia, I learned Russian versus forcing them to speak English. I had a lot of influence.

[In Russian] ”You speak Russian, yes? Do you understand? A little bit?” 

Pete Mockaitis
You sound influential.

Jeremie Kubicek
So now all of a sudden, if I speak Russian to someone, and they’re Russian, they’re like, [In Russian] “Oh, mother of God, do you understand?” And now I’m connecting with them because I’ve chosen to speak their language and go toward them not forcing them just to go to me.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so we’re going to talk about these five voices. And so, Jeremie, help me out. In the universe, I mean, you’ve been around the game. You’ve been around the block. So, you got your Myers-Briggs, you got your DISC, you got your StrengthsFinder, you got your Enneagram, you got your Working Genius. So, can you help position for us, how do the 5 Voices sit in the universe of different ways we might categorize humans?

Jeremie Kubicek
So let’s go with a couple. Working Genius and StrengthsFinders are not necessarily personality. They are the strengths of a personality. So they’re not really personality assessments. Okay, so let’s separate those two out. Myers-Briggs, DISC, the Big Five, those are true more personality assessments. The problem is that they don’t scale very well.

So, you can meet with someone, and go, “Oh, yeah.” I get all excited, “You’re an ENTJ?” And then it’s like, “Well, what does that mean?” Like,  “Man, I don’t know. But it was great. Yeah, you should do it.” Or, “I’m a high D,” “High I,” or, “I’m a seven with a wing eight,” or whatever it is, it doesn’t produce.

And so, people then feel locked in. Like, they feel like, “Oh, so you’re just telling me who I am, right?” So the 5 Voices are like, “No, you’re all five voices, and a 13-year-old can get it.” So what we did is we took the best of Carl Jung and the best of the Big Five, and we built a system that was simpler to understand so that inside Google, for instance, we’ve worked with them for years for seven-eight years.

Inside Google, they’re like, “Oh, I’m a connector.” I don’t have to go, “I’m an ENFP. I’m a high I with a D, you know?” And so, the speed of scale and then the sustainability of the 5 Voices stays a lot longer than any of the other voice languages because it’s just simpler.

And then we added 5 Voices AI to it, and now it’s like a joke, “Oh, my gosh, we’re doing things with it that are so innovative.” And I’m biased, obviously, of being a co-creator of it with Steve Cockram, but the 5 Voices is just simpler and it stays longer.

Pete Mockaitis
When you say with AI it’s a joke, what exactly do you mean?

Jeremie Kubicek
I mean, it’s dumbfounding because now what happens, if you’ve already taken the assessment, 5 Voices AI, you’re already in my algorithm. You’re already in my AI, in my world so it already knows you.

So, if it knows that you’re a creative connector, and I go, “Hey, help me do a performance review for Pete,” it already knows and it’s going to do a different performance review for you than it would for a nurturer.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear what you’re saying. Like, in the universe of what large language models happen to be good at, reconfiguring words in different sorts of ways, when you’ve got your arms around five really distinct, different vibes with detailed explanations of what those are, you can find an extra layer of translator tool at the ready to make it super easy for you.

Jeremie Kubicek
That’s it. And, like, I got an email from someone on my team the other day, and I didn’t get it, and it said, “Remember they’re a guardian-pioneer,” and I put the email in and it dissected it as a guardian-pioneer, and it translated to go, “Here’s what it is saying to a connector.”

And I go, “Great. Write back to him in his language,” and it built an email. It wasn’t just “Create an email for me.” It was, “Create an email that’s customized.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s handy. Yes. And I guess, as you can feed that upfront context, you can give thousands of words of useful, clear context to the AI about, “What do I mean by pioneer? What do I mean by connector?”

Jeremie Kubicek
Well, it already does it. It already does it for you. You don’t have to feed it anything.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we don’t now because you’ve built it out. Yeah. Okay. Understood.

Jeremie Kubicek
So, all you have to do is take the assessment. And if you take the assessment, it’s free, 5Voices.com, you can take the assessment and you sign someone else up and they take it. But then the 5 Voices AI now becomes the piece that it’s, like, with my wife, the conversations are completely different because what I’m doing is it’s, like, honoring the other person because I’m walking a mile in their shoes.

I’m trying to understand their context versus, “Man, that guy just drives me crazy.” “Well, yeah, because he’s a guardian and you’re a connector. You’re nemesis voices.” So now it de-complexifies it. Is that a word?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Jeremie Kubicek
But it basically takes it to the point where it’s so much more palatable to know what to do.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, we’ve been throwing these words around a lot, so we’re going to have to hear, what the heck? What are they? What is a pioneer, connector, etc?

Jeremie Kubicek
Okay, so there’s five words in there. The five main categories of personality, we put them in the lower voice first. So the quietest voice is a nurturer, 43% of the population, 70% are female, so they’re going to show up in stay-at-home moms, teachers, nurses, it can be anything, okay? But that’s where they aggregate, and they’re always wanting to make sure everyone’s taken care of. So they want peace. They’re the relational oil inside organizations.

The creative is second, 9% of the population. And they are the most future-oriented, but they’re extremely quiet. They’re still introverts, but they love to add to their blueprint that’s in their brain, but they have a hard time getting it out to someone and they don’t want to throw their ideas before swine if someone doesn’t value or see it. So they’re, oftentimes, the most misunderstood because people don’t know what they just said or what they’re thinking.

Then another 30% is the guardian. The guardian are logic, black and white, A then B, then C, then D, and the 70% are male, they’re accountants, they’re soldiers, military, they’re police, firefighters. They love structure and order and grids, and it’s just that order, right?

And then the next batch is the 11%, the connectors, which are like me. They’re like bees, they pollinate, they take ideas and people, and they always have a guy, “What do you need? I got a guy.” “Oh, yeah, you need to meet so and so.” And they love to connect people to aspirations.

And then the last 7% are the pioneers, and they’re like generals, and they allocate people and resources to do big things. And so, their whole thing is, you know, “Move out of my way. I got it,” or they’re always thinking about winning and are very strategic in that regard. So, a lot of them are executives because they get hired to win. And so, oftentimes, you’ll have an immature executive do a lot of damage. And so what we do is we dissect.

We have all five of these, but there’s 16 variations of the five. So, like, you can be a pioneer-connector, a pioneer-guardian, a pioneer-creative. So, that second word kind of frames the personality, but there’s five categories that make it simple enough for everyone to understand.

Pete Mockaitis
I see. And these terms are kind of, like, is it fair to say, “How you’re wired, what you’re drawn to, what you find motivating, interesting, exciting, care to do, gets you fired up”? That’s like, “What you’re about.”

Jeremie Kubicek
That’s right. It’s your nature. But your nurture, meaning we can be all five. That’s the beauty of the 5 Voices. There’s no labeling. So it’s, like, “I’m all five of them. I can play guardian if I have to, but it is my fifth voice. It’s the one I’m consciously incompetent at. It’s the hardest one for me, but I can play it.”

And that’s the beauty of it is you can go in and out and it gives grace to people versus going, “Oh, you’re a seven. Oh, yeah, you’re a seven with a wing eight, and I’ve got you locked in.” And people don’t want to be labeled because, actually, we’re way more complex than that.

And then if I know I’m a connector and I know I’ve got a guardian that just started my team, and he’s onboarding, well, you know what his expectations of onboarding are, “I need to know exactly what to do. I need to check things off. I need to feel success along the way.”

So, that’s very, very different than if I brought a nurturer in. If I brought a nurturer in, “Tracy, welcome to the team. So excited to have you.” It’s going to be different.

And so, what happens then, why most jobs aren’t as fulfilling is then people join teams, and it’s like, “Well, Tom is not very good at onboarding. Tom doesn’t think about the other person. It’s just like, ‘My way or the highway. This is what we do. This is how it works. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else.’” And that doesn’t work in today’s world.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, understood. Well, so then once we have a little bit of a sense for, “Okay, this is where I fall and I understand where other people fall,” like what are some of the top implications? You’ve got something called the development square, for example.

Jeremie Kubicek
Yep. So you, now, have to know, “What does development look like? What do we hope this person becomes?” So you take their job description, you then add to it role clarity, “What does winning look like? What do we need to develop in you, intellectually, relationally? What specifics do you need to kill it?”

And then you’re going to apprentice. I’m going to actually have you apprentice with someone. So, it’s the idea of slowing down to speed up. Because a lot of times, a lot of leaders, a leader is two things. They have to perform while helping people perform.

So, we use the Sherpa mindset, the Sherpa model, because the Sherpa on Mount Everest are the best example of leaders. They are amazing leaders. They have to climb at high altitude in dangerous positions and be healthy while helping people climb. So, if you’re listening to this and you’re a leader, give yourself one through 10, how’s your performance right now? We call it a Sherpa assessment.

Like, “I’m an eight.” “Okay, great.” “Well, how’s your leadership?” “What do you mean?” “Well, how are you leading other people while you’re performing?” And, oftentimes, this happens a lot, climbers are put in the Sherpa position, but they don’t know how to lead other climbers.

So, you’ve got an eight-two. They’re an eight in performance and a two in leadership, but we’re afraid to lose them so we put them in a management position over other people. And, all of a sudden, no one wants to work with John. John doesn’t want to lead anyone, and then give it a year and his performance is a six and his leadership is still a two. So he went from an eight-two to a six-two and everyone else wants to leave the team.

So, ultimately, we want leaders who are like a seven-eight or an eight-eight, an eight in performance, an eight in leadership all day long. Now you have proper Sherpa. And that’s, ultimately, what we’re trying to do.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, you’re speaking their language. And then what are some of the other top dos and don’ts for that developing?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yep, so we’re onboarding, we’re building an onboarding plan and we know what that plan is. Now, once we’ve done that, now we’re immersing them into their actual role and we tell them ahead of time, “We know this is where other people have failed.” So we create a role clarity so they know exactly.

And then we’re keeping them from that bottom right-hand corner of that pit of despair. And we’re being aware that they could get in the pit of despair and they oscillate over it. And we want them to get fully into the empowerment stage where they are consciously competent. They know what to do, they know how to do it, they know what success is like.

And then there’s another trap on the other side. So this one trap pit of despair is insecurity. The other trap is called the green room, and it’s oversecure, overconfident. The green room is meant for people on stage. It’s meant for people who are about to go up on stage, and they have snacks in there and it’s comfortable and it’s nice.

And employees, sometimes the boss, the leader can put an employee in the green room because they’re the teacher’s pet, like, they’re killing it, “Hey, Pete, you don’t need to read that. You don’t need to do this doc. You’re good. You’re good.” And then other people see that you’re the teacher’s pet, right?

Or the employee puts themselves in and they’re like, “Oh, I’m all that. Oh, yeah, I’m really good.” And then they don’t go to the next stage, which is multiplication. Or, the guardian-nurturers, they put themselves there because they’ve already learned something and they don’t want to learn anything new because now they’re in conscious-incompetence again.

So, ultimately, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get people like a Monopoly board all the way around, to now multiplication. And multiplication is, “Help me build this culture. Help me build this team. Or, take my job because I’m going to move up. And I’m moving up, and now, Pete, you got to do my job.” And so, now I’m transferring, intentionally transferring knowledge, wisdom, skills.

So, it’s highly, highly, now you have to know the 5 Voices but we teach it and you get in it but once you get it, it’s now like everything slows down. You ever hear that in the sports when, at the NFL level, like everything slowed down. Leadership slows down once you once you figure out The Voice-Driven Leader because now it’s like, “Oh, my goodness, I’m not manipulating people, but I am, literally, proactively speaking their language and I’m seeing them grow.” And it’s completely different than a traditional leadership.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, you’re saying it slows down in the sense that you are suddenly seeing another layer of opportunity, connections, implications.

Jeremie Kubicek
Leadership, growth, yeah, like communication is better. The relational trust goes up. Alignment, you actually can get alignment with people when you speak their language.

So I was just with one of my guys, we’ve launched a new company this week, it’s called Workplace. Just a short example of it. We built a culture ticker, just like a stock ticker, where we can take Teams or Slack, and we basically analyze all the signals that are going on, and it gives a real-time burnout score, a real-time psychological safety, a real-time culture score by the minute with no surveys. It’s called Workplace.io.

Well, in that, the CEO, his name is Bronson. Bronson is a pioneer-creative, so I know what he’s working on is launch week. I know where his brain is. I know how he’s thinking. I know how he needs data to go and process, so this week wouldn’t be, “Hey, I got an idea.” Not helpful for Bronson.

So, I sent him a simple email over the weekend for him to digest some ideas I have for some of our larger enterprise accounts. And so, then he calls me, he goes, “Hey, I need three or four more days.” “Great.” Then when he’s ready, he’ll then go, “Okay, here’s what I learned. Really helpful data. I added it with this. I think this is really helpful. That was really helpful work. Thank you.”

Well, I’m just playing a founder role like, you know, he’s running the company. But my point is, because I know who he is, I’m not disrupting him. I’m actually feeding what he needs and how he needs it because I know how he’s wired.

Now imagine doing that with your kids, your wife, and your key partners and employees. It changes the dynamics so the drama goes away, and then there’s so much more fun. It is so much more fun to work and you can be awesome at being a leader.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, could we maybe have an example of going through the foundation to immersion, to empowerment, to multiplication? I like the, “I do. You watch. I do. You help.” Sort of, can we see real time what that might look like in terms of building a person up?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. So, Robert, a CEO, Robert has a smaller team of about 20 people. He’s bringing a new person on board. He’s a pioneer-guardian, his tendency is kind of harsh and like, “Hey, read it. If you can’t get it, we’ll find someone else,” but he’s working on it. So he’s trying.

So, he now knows he has to slow down. So, his first step is he knows himself now well enough that he can blow people up. So, he then hired someone. They took the assessment at 5Voices.com, he found out he’s a creative, so he goes, “Okay, he’s a creative,” but he’s actually a creative-connector, and there’s a little more detail, but creative.

He’s like, “I don’t know how to deal with the creative. What does a creative want?” So he goes to AI, and he goes, “5 Voices AI, how do I build an onboarding plan for my new employee? He’s a creative connector.” “Well, don’t forget, you’re a pioneer-guardian. Your tendencies are going to be this. What he needs is this.” So now it laid it out for him, “Great.”

He then has his assistant, true story, so I know this is going on. He gets his assistant, his assistant takes care of all the details. Creatives want to know the, “Why are we doing this? What’s the big picture?” “Hey, this is what we need you to do. This is why we do these things.” So, she preempted a lot of that. Gets him going and then he laid out a very clear pathway.

So, he made it through the foundation stage. Now he’s into immersion, “This is what we expect your role to be. We have another person that’s just in your same role. We want him to be your mentor-buddy, to walk through so you can ask any questions along the way. We’re trying to accomplish X, Y, and Z by this point. I need a report done.” All the details, the expectations.

So, then that person became the buddy. Well, that person was a connector. The other person, connectors are really good at translating for people. So, that creative was going to the connector going, “No, no, no, that’s not what Robert means. You’re hearing it like this, but he really means this.” So it helped in that process to have that person translating.

So, all the way through, well, there was a couple of moments when this creative was getting to the pit of despair and you could sense it in, like, they were starting to pull away, they were starting to get sarcastic and snarky and using their stress behavior. It was kind of starting to come out, a little Hulk activity.

And so, the pioneer didn’t know what to do. He actually came to me. I was playing a guide Sherpa for him. We built a little game plan.

But we used the common language and we keep everything above, not below so that no one is hiding anything. So, now we’re at a process where this person made it through the pit of despair. Now he’s just in empowerment. And it’s not started yet, but we’re about to start the multiplication process, because this guy’s really, really good and really can see the future.

But it took a while for people to understand what he was trying to say. So we’ve been having to translate with the other executives and the team what he’s trying to say. But now people are seeing the gold and they’re starting to utilize him a little bit more. So, he’s not ready for multiplication yet, but he’s set squarely in the empowerment stage.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And when it comes to this pit of despair, are there any top principles that are swell for avoiding it and pulling out of it?

Jeremie Kubicek
So, when you see it, it’s basically insecurity. People are starting to work around them. It’s obvious they don’t know what they’re doing. So, you have to use shared language and you have to start with vision again.

And use the language, “Pete, it seems like you’re in the pit of despair. You may not claim that you are, but it feels that you are. So let’s go back through the basics.  Here’s the vision, long term. Here’s the short term. I need to do a better job as a leader to have more time with you, so we’re going to schedule more formal time. And then, informally, I want you to go spend time with so-and-so and so-and-so.”

And then I’m going to encourage you but I’m going to give you specific encouragement like, “I really see the work you’re doing. You’re doing great here, here, and here. Now, where do you need help for me? Where can I add value to you?” And now you make it about you, not them. And so now, all of a sudden, I’m pulling, I’m going, “So, I’m going to be here to be your Sherpa. So, what do you need?” So, that usually would work.

Now, if someone gets into the pit of despair, here’s what I would tell you, in all the years of doing this, 12 years of doing this, we can’t think of any stories, we couldn’t think of any experience where, if anyone truly is in the pit of despair, they usually don’t make it. They usually are asked to leave or they choose to leave. So that’s how dangerous the pit of despair is.

So, with the book, the whole idea is how to avoid the pit of despair at all costs. Don’t get in it. Because you’re so demeaned and your insecurity is so high and the trust level from all the other employees is so low that people tend to not make it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so maybe a better question is like, so what’s the red alert, “Warning! Warning! Approaching pit of despair,” sudden redirections necessary?

Jeremie Kubicek
Each voice has stress behaviors, so we talk openly about it and we have a whole chapter on the stress behavior. So, for each voice, a nurturer is going to start withdrawing big time, and they’re going to start clamming up and they’re going to start, “You don’t need to hear from me. No one would need to hear from me.”  A lot of insecurity.

The creative is going to start Hulking out if people don’t get it, and there’ll be these moments where they just blew up and no one understood, or got really sarcastic and snarky. The guardian is going to start interrogating people, “Well, why didn’t you tell me? I didn’t know that. I thought that…Well, when did this report come out? How did we even…?” and they start this inquisition because they’re feeling like they need to prove themselves.

The connector will start cyberwarfaring and subtly slandering the boss, not to their face, but they’ll like, “Hey, Tom, how you doing, man?” And then behind the scenes, “Tom is a jerk. God, this guy, this is the worst leader I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen anyone this…”

And then the pioneer, they’ll like bulldoze people. The pioneer are rarely in the pit of despair. But if they get in, the stress behavior is like, “Move out of the way. I got it. I got it.” And they just do it all. And they just bulldoze everybody. So, those are some examples of, you’ll know it by their stress behavior.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And you’ve got a tantalizing tidbit about how most leaders unintentionally silence their best people. How does that happen? How do we not do that?

Jeremie Kubicek
Because most leaders are so fixated on making the donuts, doing the work, the performance, on one side, that they might not be thinking like a Sherpa of getting everyone else. Their people are a nuisance, more than that’s their job to get everyone to the next level. So, they’ll then revert back to default setting is, “Do it my way or the highway. This is how I am. Why can’t you get it? Seriously, why don’t you figure this out?” Versus, taking time.

It’s like training a dog, right? Most people who have ever had a dog, it’s so hard the first three four or five months. And then if you do it well, you’re going to be so glad you did. It’s awesome in year two, three, four. But if you never took the time to train your dog, that dog is the dog from hell, and no one enjoys the dog, even people who come over, right?

So, it’s the same with employees. I’m not saying they’re dogs, but it’s simply the idea that we have to take the time to train them.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Jeremie Kubicek
No, that’s good.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, can we hear about a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah, so I am a massive Will Rogers fan. And so, it’s actually not a quote, it’s his quotes. There’s such veiled wisdom inside the humor that it’s just really fun. So I’m a major Will Rogers fan.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Jeremie Kubicek
Heroic Leadership, Chris Lowney. He’s a friend, a good guy. It’s basically how the Jesuits changed the world for 450 years, how they changed the world in Asia and around the world. It is the most fascinating, without technology. And how did they stay aligned when they were all sent out and all around? And he does a brilliant job. So, if you’re a leadership nerd, it is a brilliant job to show how values actually work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool?

Jeremie Kubicek
Favorite tool that I’m using right now, it’s my tool. It’s called “The Peace Index.” And it’s, basically, I use it almost every day, but it’s how to quantify peace and understand chaos and where you’re not at peace. And it dissects purpose, people, personal health, provision, and place. And it reveals chaos and it reveals whether you’re up or down. And it’s a fascinating process. That’s another book of mine, The Peace Index.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Jeremie Kubicek
Every afternoon, I took the Jesuit examine model with “The Peace Index” and I basically do this habit at 5:30 every day. I do, “What was I grateful for today? What was awesome about today?” I just highlight it in my brain, “Where was I not at peace today? And where was I off?” And I dissect it so that I keep really small accounts. And then, “Am I ready for tomorrow?” And that’s it. That’s all I do.

And it’s a summary at the end of the day. But what it’s done for me, over the last five, six years now, is I don’t talk to my wife about negative things anymore because they just kind of dissipate because I keep such small accounts that I’m dealing with, like, when I’m not at peace and I’m working on it every afternoon. And it doesn’t build up anymore like it used to.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Cool. And is there a key nugget you share that folks really seem to connect with and quote back to you often?

Jeremie Kubicek
One, I say is, “Call people up, not out.” And if you want to get the best out of your people, learn how to call up, not out. And it makes a big difference.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Jeremie Kubicek
JeremieKubicek.com. You might have to put that in the show notes, Pete. It’s just Jeremie with an IE. And if you want to take the 5 Voices, just go to 5Voices.com. Take the assessment, it’s free. It’s really fascinating. Obviously, you can go deeper if you want to add the 5 Voices AI. You have to pay a little bit, but I think it’s dying $10 a month, not $20, and you get AI as well. So, if you actually want a cheaper AI, do the 5 Voices AI.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jeremie, thank you.

Jeremie Kubicek
Good to be with you, Pete. You’re amazing. Thanks, man.

Apr 24
0

1052: Building Better Relationships through Radical Listening with Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener shares powerful insights on how to listen well and deepen your connections.

You’ll Learn

  1. The hidden barriers to listening
  2. Why we should interrupt more
  3. The secret to handling disagreements better

About Robert

Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener is a researcher, author, and consultant with 75 peer-reviewed academic articles and has over 27,000 citations. His previous books include The Upside of Your Dark Side (New York Times Bestseller, 2014), and the 2007 PROSE Award winner, Happiness. He has presented keynotes to Lululemon, Deloitte, Humana, AARP, The World Bank, and others. In 2024, Thinkers50 named Robert one of the “50 Most Influential Executive Coaches in the World.” He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he enjoys drawing and rock climbing.

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Robert, welcome.

Robert Biswas-Diener
Thank you, Pete, so much for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to hear about your wisdom. And you’ve got the coolest nickname ever, one I think I would like for myself. You’re known as the Indiana Jones of positive psychology. So, I’m imagining rolling boulders, whips, all kinds of adventures. Tell me, what’s the source of this nickname? And can you give us an amazing adventure and discovery to back it up?

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. Like all nicknames, I did not give it to myself. That is important for everyone.

Pete Mockaitis
“They call me T-Bone.”

Robert Biswas-Diener
Everyone should know that right up front. One of my colleagues said this about me because, unlike other psychologists, I wasn’t just running studies in the laboratory with college students. I was going out in the field, and pretty far field. I was studying happiness, among other things, with the Amish, for example, with Maasai tribal people. I stayed in the very Northern tip of Greenland where I was working with Inuit hunters. So, I spent several years, almost five years sort of traveling the world and studying happiness.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. All right. Thank you. So, we’re talking about your book, Radical Listening, and I’d love to get to kick us off with an inspiring story of someone who upgraded their listening game and saw phenomenal results coming from that.

Robert Biswas-Diener
Yeah, absolutely. There is a woman I interviewed, in fact, for this book, she’s a very senior leader, works in an international organization. In fact, they own a bunch of subsidiaries, which means their footprint is across industry, across linguistic groups, across cultures, across national boundaries.

And she always thought of herself as a fantastic listener, but then she realized, “I really can’t even understand the language of some of these people. I don’t understand the cultural fabric or context of many of the people I’m trying to listen to. And perhaps most importantly, my role suggests that I’m not even interested in what they’re interested in.”

So, she’s thinking big strategic ideas, and they’re often looking at just sort of day-to-day operations. And she realized that she kind of just fundamentally can’t understand them, that her role is an obstacle to listening. And one of the things she did was recruited listening ambassadors to listen on her behalf and become sort of like Rosetta Stones or translators of the line worker up to the senior leadership.

And so, the thing I think is so remarkable about that is not just that she recruited these ambassadors, which is kind of a cool idea, but that she recognized the limits in her own listening and moved to correct it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, there’s a fun thought, a listening ambassador, and, in some ways, it feels a lot more wholesome and upright than, I guess, the non-consensual listening ambassadors called a spy. It’s like, “Spy on people and gather the information,” as opposed to a listening ambassador is like, “Oh, we all know what’s going on here. And I feel appreciated because you have made an investment to have someone gather my perspective when it may be difficult because of a language barrier or geographic barrier or something to see what’s going on.”

So, that’s a fun idea in and of itself in its specificity, but also, in terms of a general concept of, “Let’s take listening seriously. Let’s invest in it. Let’s build some infrastructure and acknowledge how valuable this is and get after it.”

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. Let me just say that I’m very tickled that you used spy as an example. My co-author and I on Radical Listening used loads of examples of professional listeners, psychotherapists, managers, all sorts of people who listen for a living. And we did not include espionage as an industry among it, but only through oversight. As soon as you said it, I wish that we would have included that in the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, maybe the sequel, we’ll see. But I’m sure you’ve got boatloads of insights for us and we want to dig into it. Tell us, is there a key message or big idea that you capture in your book, Radical Listening, that folks who want to be awesome at their jobs should know?

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. It is time for listening to have a refresh. Let’s start there. All of us grew up with or have been trained in so-called active listening. And active listening is a good start, you know, make eye contact, summarize what the person says, check for clarification, “Am I reading you right?” It really emphasizes comprehension and it positions listening as if it’s just about understanding.

And what we do to extend that is suggest that there are many intentions for listening, that you might listen in order to entertain a group, you might listen to just appreciate someone, you might listen to influence, you might listen to learn something, you might listen to argue or rebut. And whatever your intention is, that’s going to direct your attention. And it’s a very, very efficient form of listening. So, a courtroom litigator, for example, is not listening to validate opposing counsel. They don’t care how…

Pete Mockaitis
“It must be really hard for you, plaintiff. It must be really difficult.”

Robert Biswas-Diener
That’s exactly right. Just like, “Ah, I can really see that this must be difficult,” or, “Wow, even trying this case must be such a burden. I’m sure you had to stay up late,” all those types of things. That’s out the window. And you don’t even have to worry about what’s the emotional state of the opposition. Instead, you’re just focused on the things that are goal-oriented for you. So, weak evidence, spurious arguments, logical fallacies, inconsistencies, and that’s what you’re listening for.

And it turns out that whatever your intention, if you want to listen to validate someone, you are going to listen for their emotions. If you want to listen to learn, you’re going to listen, pay attention to key words, to connections between what they’re saying and your own web of knowledge. So, just the idea that there are multiple intentions, you should know your intention, and your intention guides your attention.

Pete Mockaitis
And, Robert, is it fair to say that our limited human brain capacity can’t have it all, we can’t get all the logic and all the learning and all the education and all the emotion at once?

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. I’m glad that you’re bringing that up because I do think it’s a common belief, and I certainly have held this belief in the past, that, “Oh, I’m a great listener, and I can just sort of sponge all of it up. I’m getting everything. I’m getting the motive behind what you’re saying. I’m noticing what you’re not saying. I’m noticing your tone of voice. I’m noticing everything.” And it’s just not the way that attention works. So, being a bit more judicious with this limited resource can be, I think, very productive.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s lay out the flavors of intention, just make sure we have the full menu documented here.

Robert Biswas-Diener
So, broadly speaking, you might think of there are sort of three umbrellas that we could put these intentions under. One is sort of pro-social motives for listening, so, “I’m listening to appreciate you. I’m listening to connect with you. I’m listening to partner with you to solve a problem.” Those would be three pro-social motives.

Three anti-social motives, “I’m listening to find fault. I’m listening to undermine you.” Those are kind of related. And, thirdly, “I’m listening to defend myself against you.” And then we also have three, kind of, we call them self-focused, although I’m not sure, to be honest, that’s the best way to look at it. But these are just three things that sort of help me. And that is, “I’m just listening to learn something new. I’m listening for comprehension,” that’s sort of the classic act of listening. And those are kind of the two big motives that are helpful to me as the listener.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a distinction between listening to learn something new and listening for comprehension?

Robert Biswas-Diener
So, listening for comprehension is, “Do I understand what I’m hearing?” Learning is, “Now that I understand it, can I integrate it? Can I find use for it? Can I synthesize it with my own existing body of knowledge and skill in usable ways?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so then I suppose the implication of this is to thoughtfully choose your intention upfront in advance of the conversation, as opposed to just showing up in whatever brain state you happen to be wearing at the moment.

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. And where you see this go wrong, imagine a team meeting, for example, where you’ve got a pretty funny person on the team and they just keep cracking jokes. And it’s nice when it works because it cuts through tension, it lightens the mood, but maybe they default to it too often. And it’s because that’s just sort of a default listening mode for them, like, “I’m just listening to entertain people.”

So, those kinds of people listen for pauses because pauses are where you insert jokes. They’re listening for themes because themes are what you’re going to riff on. But it might not be helpful because that might not be what is needed. So, you also need some alignment with sort of what is contextually or situationally appropriate.

If someone wants feedback on a presentation, you should be directing your attention towards that, “I want to listen with a critical ear and see what works, what doesn’t. What do I know about you in terms of your ability to take feedback? How much do I need to sugarcoat it?” those types of things. So, a little bit of matching your listening intention with what’s being asked for.

Pete Mockaitis
And I think it’s interesting how we may very well have that default mode. You mentioned entertainment, which I guess wasn’t on the menu. So, I guess there’s many flavors beyond the eight you’ve suggested is my takeaway there, is that we may very well have a default state all the time in terms of– I remember I had a sweet friend and mentor, Marilyn, and she just knew this guy who was a billionaire, and she just thought that was cool.

And she was working with some students and she just thought, “Hey, these students have an entrepreneurial interest. They might just have fun, you know, dinner with this guy. I know him, I know the students, let’s just do this.” And so, she’s talking to with the person, and he just says immediately, “Okay, so what do you want?” because that’s what he’s accustomed to. It’s like, “People tap on me to make requests of my resources.”

And she said, “Well, I’m sorry that this is just how life goes for you. We just think it’d be fun to hang out and get to know you and learn a little bit about your world.” And he’s like, “Oh, well, that sounds really nice. Let’s set it up.”

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. And one of the things I like about that story is that what they’re trying to do in a very explicit way is just make sure that they’re aligned, “What is it you’re asking for? What is it I want?” We all know times that someone sort of complains to you and really all they want is a bit of validation.

They just want you to say, “I get it. You’re a victim. You’ve been done wrong here. I’m so sorry. You’ve put on a brave face. You’re doing great.” And instead, what we give them is a bunch of advice and try and solve their problem. And when that misalignment happens, it actually is a bit destructive to the relationship. It feels off and disconnecting.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so that sounds like a key benefit just right there. It’s like when you’re matching the intention appropriately, relationships are enriched because this folk, is like, “Oh, this is beautiful. This person is giving me just what I need in this moment, and it just feels good. And I like them more and I am less annoyed and frustrated with them.”

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. And, look, I want to be cautious and honest. I’m not one of these people that writes a book, like, “Oh, I wrote a book on listening. And guess what? I happen to think that listening is the thing that’s going to cure the world and all the problems.” I don’t think that. I think listening is sort of like opening the door, but then you still have to walk through it and do some exploration. I think listening is a good start.

I think listening, in the way that you just mentioned, where you kind of listen with positive intent, you have respect, you both feel aligned, that’s a great place then to build a relationship, then to cooperate, then to engage in teamwork or change or whatever it is you’re going to do. So, I think it starts with listening, but I don’t think listening by itself is the whole picture.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And let’s say we’re all in, Robert. That sounds great. I would like to do that and I would like to do that well and I could see the benefits. And yet, you also highlight a few internal barriers to listening. Can you lay these out for us?

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. In all honesty, this is one of my favorite parts of everything my co-author and I have put down on the page. Some of the barriers, everyone’s going to already have an intuition about, “Oh, let me guess, distraction, technology, your phone.” Sure. All of those are barriers. But the ones that I think are really kind of almost the insidious ones are the ones that you may be less aware of.

So, for example, feeling that you’re right about something is a barrier to learn, “I mean, why listen, because I already know? I already have made up my mind and foreclosed on my own rightness about this.” Politeness can be a barrier to listening. Like, instead of really paying attention to you, I’ve just sort of dismissed in my mind what you’re saying and I’m just nodding along and saying, “Yes, yes, yes,” even though I don’t mean it, and I’ve just checked out, but politeness is sort of this cloth that I’m swaddled in that protects me from real listening.

One that I find really interesting, I call it walk with me. In the book, we call it time urgency. And it’s this idea that you go to someone and you’re like, “Hey, I’ve got something I need to speak with you about,” and they say something along the lines of, “Walk with me. I’ve got a meeting here, it’s going to start in eight minutes, but come with me, walk with me.”

And it’s so well-intentioned. To the listener, the person saying “Walk with me,” it’s this idea that, “Oh, look at me, how gracious I am. I’m making time for you.” But it can really feel awful to the person who has this urgent request. They’re sort of saying, “There’s something very important.”

And you’re saying, “My mind is already to the next thing. At best, I’m wedging you in. I am already a bit distracted. I’m giving you a limited amount of time and we’re catering to my needs rather than your needs. In fact, you’re going somewhere you hadn’t even intended to go.”
And so, although it’s well-intentioned, I think it runs the risk. And there’s a whole bunch of these that are well-intentioned, but run the risk of just standing in the way of great listening.

Pete Mockaitis
More of those, please. Lay them on us.

Robert Biswas-Diener
These are cousins, conceptually speaking. One is comparing. And we’ve all done this. Comparing is when someone mentions an experience and then you’re like, “Hey, I’ve also had that experience.” And so, you share that with them. They say, “Oh, yeah, I went to Hong Kong last summer.” You’re like, “Oh, wow, you know what? I went to Hong Kong last summer, too.”

And again, it’s well intentioned because what you’re trying to communicate is, “Look, we have this common ground. We have a shared experience. Like, we’re cut from the same cloth.” And yet, what it does is it sort of shifts the spotlight away from them. It often does work, which is why we do it. But when it doesn’t work, it’s sort of like saying, “Enough about you and your Hong Kong stories. Let’s talk about me and my Hong Kong stories.”

And the cousin to it is competing. And this happens when, often in a complaint scenario, when someone will say something like, “I was up till 2:00 working on that report last night. I only got six hours of sleep, so I’m a little tired today.” And as a rejoinder, you say, “Six hours of sleep? I only got three hours of sleep.”

Again, it’s well-intentioned. You’re not trying to put them down or invalidate them. You’re trying to say, “We’re cut from the same cloth. We’re both people who are sleep-deprived,” but it comes across, oftentimes, as being dismissive.

So, there’s many of these things that are intuitively appealing to us as conversationalists that I think serve as these kinds of murky barriers that we might not even be aware of that, that often sort of burst the bubble of connection.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, what seems the underlying theme of all of these is, “To what extent are we allowing our conversational counterpart, our interlocutor…” I’m thinking Plato, “…to take center stage?” versus, “Does it need to be about me?”

Robert Biswas-Diener
One hundred percent. And I think that is the core of Radical Listening is the idea that, “When I interact with you, I want you to feel like you do have a spotlight on you, that I do have genuine concern for what you’re talking about, that you do have the space to articulate your thoughts, agenda, ideas, opinions, whatever it is that you want to share.” And whenever we sort of grab the podium away, that’s where things get problematic.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I’m reminded of, I had just a fun conversation with a midwife who said that she used to work in hospice, and she was amazed when the family arrived in the final days before someone was about to pass away. And she said, “I was astounded at everyone’s ability to make the dying person about them. It’s like, ‘You know, I just got the call. I had to change my flight.” Like all these things, like, as the hustle and bustle, as they get into the hospital room, like in the final days, because they’re like, “Hey, you better get here because they don’t have much time left.”

And she said, “I was amazed at how this happened again and again and again.” And I think it’s really telling because it’s an extreme situation and it highlights that, for many of us, I mean, it sounds bad, but I guess it’s maybe accurate language. We have such a self-centered preoccupation running in our brains, we don’t even realize how off-putting it can be. And that happens maybe, I don’t know, for some of us all the time and for some of us, you know, occasionally. But it’s sort of spooky how common this blind spot is.

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. And it’s all of us. It’s me. It’s probably you to some extent. We are the protagonists in the plays of our own lives, right? And if someone said, “Oh, by the way, do you know you’re actually just a supporting character?” That’s kind of an unsettling way of thinking. One of the things I noticed about you, Pete, I mean, as a professional listener, right, you’re listening to guests all the time, but you’re sort of doing this balance of it’s not only about the guest.

I mean, if you were just silent and then the guest spoke the entire time, that wouldn’t be very gratifying either. So, there is this sort of dance between you inserting key moments, but giving sort of the lion’s share to the guests. And, in general, I think that’s kind of how conversations go, that if you listen with respect, you really make the person feel valued in what they’re saying, then it will come back around to you and you will get to be the main character for a time. But then you also have to be ready to relinquish that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, Robert, it’s an interesting situation here because, I mean you no disrespect, but the most important stakeholder in this conversation isn’t here and it’s the listener and it’s all in service of them. And so, it just happens to work out nicely that we’re both fascinated by this topic that we’re in, because I get tons of pitches and we reject the vast majority of them.

So, the fact that we’re here means I’m into it, you’re into it, and that’s just good, and that’s good content for a listener. But, yeah, it’s interesting because that’s the game, is if you have the coolest story, but it’s not in service of the listener, I’m going to try to move us on and then the audio editors will remove it later. And that’s kind of the game we’re playing right now.

Robert Biswas-Diener
It’s so interesting. I never, in a million years, would admit to what I’m about to admit to.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m into it.

Robert Biswas-Diener
Yeah, but I’m going to because of the direction that this conversation just took. During this conversation that we have been having, in my mind, because I’m also monitoring what I’m saying, a thought popped into my head and it was, “Be careful not to give away all the content of the book, Robert, right, because you want the listeners out there to be hungry for more and to go buy the book.”

And as soon as I had that thought, I thought of that as a disservice to the listener. And I thought, “Really, this is in the service of the listener. What we want is to give them as much usable content, as many fresh ideas as possible. And whether they buy the book, don’t buy the book, should not be my primary concern because that is that egotistical bias. But instead, I really should be doing this in service of them. Can I just tell you as much information as possible and you, the listener, can decide what’s useful for you?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, while we’re riffing on these things, that reminds me of, I’ve been reflecting lately. I think it was by this book by Marcus, somebody, called They Ask, You Answer, and it’s about content marketing. And so, he says, “Consumers find it very frustrating,” and I agree. If I’m on a website and I want to know, say, “Hey, what’s this thing costs?” and they will not give me a price, or even like a guideline of what the price might be, it’s frustrating.

Because, as consumer, it’s like, “You know the price or the price range, and I know that you know it, and you know that I know that you know it, but you’re choosing not to give it to me,” especially on a frequently asked questions, an FAQ, “Really the price is not one of the frequently asked questions? That seems like among the most frequently of asked questions.”

And so, likewise, there are some YouTube channels or podcasts, and I won’t, you know, poo-poo them by name, but it sits a little bit wrong with me when I know. I’m all about building curiosity and teasing and being intriguing. But if they say, you know, for example, if we were to tease this interview and we started with you with a clip saying, “And the number one most transformational key to listening is…” and it like bleeps it out and it like blurs it.

It’s like I, as a listener, a consumer, I find that troubling because like, “You know it, I know it, you’re deliberately withholding it from me. And I don’t like that. And in order to get me to listen, to watch more, to view the ads, or whatever. And I think it’s counterproductive. Because if you give me something mind-blowing, I’m like, ‘Whoa, Robert, this guy has got insights. I better listen to more of him.’” So that’s just my take on that practice.

Robert Biswas-Diener
Well, I absolutely love your take. And I love the direction that this conversation has taken because it’s like a real moment of authenticity in, otherwise, what could feel scripted. You ask me some questions about the book. I’ve been on lots of podcasts. I give you lots of answers that I’m pretty practiced at. But here, suddenly, we’re getting into, I think, a very real example of listening and all the foibles around listening, which is sometimes I have my own agenda and it interferes with another agenda. Sometimes I’m not sure what to do. Sometimes I don’t have a clear intention.

And all of this is happening within us while we’re trying to be good listeners. And that just feels very realistic to me. So, I’m not a person that’s like, “Oh, go buy the book, learn these five steps, and I promise you, you’re going to be a transformed, perfect listener.” You won’t. I mean, I think that you’ll learn more about listening. You might appreciate listening more. You might experiment with some things. People might notice that you’re listening a bit better. And I think there is some mileage to be had in that kind of realism.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I understand that you cannot give us the magical spells, the super five things that will cure all listening foibles but, nonetheless, I do want some of your actionable tips. Do we have some big dos and don’ts that just make a tremendous difference in your listening and all the relationship goodness that unfolds with great listening?

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. So, we present six skills and, again, let’s be honest, there could be eight skills, there could be five skills. We chose six. Three of them we think of are internal. They’re things that would be invisible to your interlocutor. They’re just happening within you mentally. And three of them are behavioral, things that your conversational partner would notice.

So, I’ll just give you one that’s a little counterintuitive about what you would notice, one of the behavioral ones. We say that interjecting, or if you prefer, interrupting, is a highly engaged form of listening. And for most people that’s pretty counterintuitive. Most people have learned that politeness equals turn-based conversation, you speak, I speak, you speak, I speak, back and forth. And yet there are excellent reasons to interrupt.

So, I’ll just start by saying that if interruption is just overlapping speech, if that just means two people are speaking simultaneously, we’re all doing it all the time. So, if I say, “Mm-hmm,” while you’re talking, that’s a short interruption. If I say, “Oh, wow,” while you’re talking, that’s a bigger interruption. If I say, “What? Wait, I can’t believe it. No way,“ while you’re talking, that’s an even bigger interruption.

If I jump in and say, “Wait a minute. Say that again. What?” those are all forms of interruptions, and those are excellent because they show the person, “I care about what’s happening. I’m right here with you.” And the alternative is letting the person prattle on for 10 minutes. And then in return, you say, “There’s something you said 10 minutes ago that I’d like to go back to.” And that can feel really kind of dismissive to the person because they’re like, “Why did you just let me talk for 10 minutes if the thing that was interesting to you happened 10 minutes ago?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a really strong perspective. But, again, following that principle of your conversation partner is taking center stage, the interruptions are in service of them and your understanding, like, “Wait a minute. He said what? But didn’t he just say the opposite?” Or we could go, “Yes, he did. And that’s why this is a big deal.”

And so, you could see how the conversational vibe goes into a very connected place with that interruption as opposed to waiting, and just makes sure you clarify. It’s like, “Wait, Robert? Oh, no, that Robert. Oh, okay, now I’m tracking with you. I’m on the same page.”

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. And that clarification, that’s a perfect example, and we do these all the time. Another type is called an alert. So, let’s say you and I are both talking about that Robert, and here comes Robert, but you can’t see him because your back is to him. And I might say, “Pete, shut up. Here he comes.” That’s an alert and that’s an interruption, but you never think that’s rude because you think it’s in the service of you. So, anytime that I’m essentially jumping in, but then returning the turn to speak to you, people just don’t even clock it as rude at all.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, interruptions can be helpful. What else you got?

Robert Biswas-Diener
Absolutely. Let’s do one on the other side of the fence. One of the internal skills. Let’s start with just, I think, a tough one, and that’s acceptance. This is probably the toughest skill we have, and I just say it like, “Oh, just accept the other person and what they’re saying.” But anyone who’s been alive for five minutes knows that that’s really, really a hard pill to swallow.

So, what we mean when we say acceptance is not that you are agreeing with the point of view. You’re welcome to present counter evidence, alternatives but, at some point, you have to sort of understand that the person you’re speaking with has a right to a point of view. And to do this, it requires some personal intellectual humility. And intellectual humility is like a cousin to actual humility.

Humility is thinking that you have no more fundamental worth than another person. But intellectual humility is a recognition that you are limited, that you haven’t figured it all out, that you do have some natural biases, that you do have a skewed vision, that your personal experience colors your vision of life. And it’s fine for you to come up with moral reasoning or professional expertise, but it’s equally fine for another person. And you can’t just assume, you’re wiser, you’re smarter, and you happen to have landed on the truth, lucky you.

You should think, “You know what, that person may have different values, they’ve had different experiences, they have a different professional role, and so they’re going to arrive at slightly different conclusions. I don’t ever have to agree with them, but I always have to respect their right to have them.” And that takes some work, but when you engage in that, you have more types of conversations and you open a door to conversations that you might otherwise avoid that can ultimately be productive conversations.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you give us an example?

Robert Biswas-Diener
I think, day to day, this happens at work all the time. And it’s just, you know, one person wants to greenlight a project and the other person says, “No, I don’t think we have capacity for it right now,” or, “I don’t think it’s fleshed out well enough,” or, “I don’t think the strategy is in place for it.”

And you have two totally opposing views. And often what happens is the two parties are embattled and they simply aren’t listening. It becomes this sort of feat of who can bully the other into getting their way, “If only I can lob so much evidence at you, so much passion at you, I’ll convince you that my chosen direction is the right direction.”

But it gets back to the kind of that seven habits idea, you know, first seek to understand and then be understood. Kind of like, “Look, I already know what I think, but I am curious what you think. What is it you’re looking at? What is it you’re seeing that I’m not seeing?” And when you do that, every once in a while, you’re surprised. It helps you retain a more positive view of the person you’re talking about.

They’re not just some, you know, bumbling dolt that that happen to arrive at something, that they actually are pretty thoughtful and pretty intentional in their approach. And you may or may not get what you want out of that, but it is going to lead to a better team dynamic in that.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, Robert, tell me anything else you want to make sure to put out there before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Robert Biswas-Diener
I’ll just mention that this applies, to some degree, across cultures, but culture is kind of interesting. We learn cultural scripts for interacting with one another. I’ve recently been traveling with someone. I’m American, and the person I was traveling with was not American. And I just realized that they didn’t have a script for some basic conversations.

Like, “How does this coffee shop banter work? The person asked me how I was, not just what I wanted to order. And I don’t know the level of depth I should be answering that question in, how much honesty I should be giving them.” Things that we would just take for granted because we have a good intuitive sense for those kinds of answers.

I was in the elevator with him and I was speaking to strangers on the elevator, and he’s like, “How did you know you could do that? What were you taking into account that made it okay for you to speak with strangers?” And I just started realizing, “Wow, this is really, really different across cultures.” And some of the things that listening does across cultures is, for example, the role of silence.

People interpret silence differently across cultures. So, for example, in Japan, just to use one instance, silence is often considered respectful. It is a sign of thoughtfulness and it’s usually perceived as something, not the absence of something, and you are kind of paying attention to silences. So, like, if people aren’t talking, maybe it means they don’t agree, but they don’t want to say it. And so, you are kind of trying to read the silence a bit.

Whereas, you imagine in the United States, silence is often felt as awkward and we rush to fill it in. So, some of these kind of communication exchanges, some of the communication technology is going to shift a little bit based on people’s cultural script.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, thank you. Well, now can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Robert Biswas-Diener
It comes from George Bernard Shaw’s play, “Julius Caesar,” and it is, “Forgive him, Theodotus, for he is a barbarian, and thinks the ways of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.” And I just love the idea of kind of intellectual humility built into that.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Robert Biswas-Diener
One of my colleagues, Shige Oishi, had people shoot basketballs or shoot darts, and he saw how well they did at each. And he invited them back the next week and said, “Take your choice. Do you want to do baskets or darts?” And the Americans who did well at one wanted to stay with it and keep doing the one because they wanted, wanted to stay with the thing that they felt good about.

And the Asians and Asian Americans in his study, if they did well on one, they wanted to shift and do the opposite one because they were more inclined to want to master something new. And I’ve always just felt like that was a very clever methodology and a very interesting cultural study.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Robert Biswas-Diener
This is a recency effect, but I just finished Dracula and I loved it.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Robert Biswas-Diener
A pen.

Pete Mockaitis
Any particular brand or type or features?

Robert Biswas-Diener
Well, I do a lot of drawing also, so I like anything that doesn’t smear, but I just use a lot of Bic roller balls.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Robert Biswas-Diener
Oh, my favorite habit is to wake up extraordinarily early and draw for one hour before I start the day. I always prioritize my wellbeing so that I feel strong and centered before embarking on everything else I’m going to do.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, you hear them put it back to you often?

Robert Biswas-Diener
Yeah, a recent one, and I stole this actually from my co-author, but just the idea that you should remember that everyone is in the middle of something. And if you just approach everyone all the time with, “You know what, they’re in the middle of something. I’m in the middle of something. They’re in the middle of something,” it can make you a little bit more forgiving and a little bit more patient.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Robert Biswas-Diener
I would point them to my website, IntentionalHappiness.com. And I’d love to hear from people.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Robert Biswas-Diener
Yeah, absolutely. And let’s keep it thematically aligned with listening. I would pay attention to times that you, this coming week, feel really listened to, and note what the other person is doing. What’s happening that makes you feel so heard, so validated? And see then if that’s what you can do to pay it forward.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Robert, thank you.

Robert Biswas-Diener
Oh, thanks so much. This was super fun.