This Podcast Will Help You Flourish At Work

Each week, I grill thought-leaders and results-getters to discover specific, actionable insights that boost work performance.

Apr 21
0

761: How to Shape Great Work Relationships Through Honor and Ritual with Erica Keswin

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Erica Keswin reveals how you can shape your workplace to be both good for people and great for business.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The do’s and don’ts of honoring relationships 
  2. Three components of rituals that bring teams together
  3. How you can make connections, even when working remotely  

About Erica

Erica Keswin is a bestselling author, internationally sought-after speaker, and workplace strategist. She helps top businesses, organizations, and individuals improve their performance by honoring relationships in every context, always with an eye toward high-tech for human touch. She was named one of Marshall Goldsmith’s Top 100 Coaches in 2020, as well as one of Business Insider’s most innovative coaches of 2020.

Her first book, Bring Your Human to Work: 10 Sure-Fire Ways to Design a Workplace That’s Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World was published in 2018 by McGraw Hill. Her second book, Rituals Roadmap: The Human Way to Transform Everyday Routines Into Workplace Magic was published by McGraw Hill in January, 2021. Both books debuted as Wall Street Journal bestsellers. 

Resources Mentioned

Erica Keswin Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Erica, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Erica Keswin
Thanks so much. Great to see you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, you, too. Well, I’m excited to hear about Bring Your Human to Work but, first, I got to hear the story behind The Spaghetti Project. Can you tell us the tale?

Erica Keswin
I can. So, when I was doing research for Bring Your Human to Work and my second book, which is about rituals, I came across a study out of Cornell University that was done by a guy named Kevin Kniffin. And Kevin was looking at and studying team performance, what makes one team higher-performing than another. And his dad was a firefighter, and so he decided, “I’m going to study the firefighters in the firehouses.”

Long story short, what he found was that the firefighters who are the most dedicated to the ritual of the firehouse meal and sitting around the table, connecting as humans, it actually correlated with higher levels of performance, and those firefighters saved more lives. So, sort of a goosebump moment for me and my work.

To your question about The Spaghetti Project, when you think about firefighters, and I visited many firehouses and interviewed a lot of firefighters, their stereotypical go-to meal is spaghetti.

Pete Mockaitis
With meat sauce, I’m guessing.

Erica Keswin
The spaghetti meat sauce, spaghetti and plain tomato sauce. It’s just pretty much what’s easy to cook in that firehouse. So, therein came in the name The Spaghetti Project, which is a platform that shares the science and stories of connection at work.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool. And so, now I’m intrigued. The firefighters who were most dedicated to the firehouse meal had the highest performance. And, wow, performance of saving lives, that’s huge. We’re not talking about selling stuff. So, part of me wonders, so causation, correlation, that’s always tricky to disentangle. Do we think that’s because they are the ones who are more committed, in general, to like “What we’re all about in each other,” and, thusly, those who choose to have that meal make that a priority, also care more in the line of duty? Or, do you think there’s another sort of chain of connection here?

Erica Keswin
Yeah, I do. So, when people are sitting around the table and bringing their whole selves, kind of shooting the breeze, more times than not, you start connecting with people on a personal level. So, let me give an example. I interviewed a firefighter that shared that he was at one of the meals with a colleague, and the guy shared that he was actually, when he grew up, afraid of heights.

Now, you wouldn’t really think that for a firefighter, that here’s this guy, Dominick, who’s afraid of heights. So, they’re just like shooting the breeze, like two people, no judgment, having their spaghetti. And four hours later, the fire alarm goes off and they go out to fight a fire. And the person overseeing the group and figuring out who goes where, now has this information in the back of his head, thinking, “Okay, you know what? Maybe I won’t put Dominick on the highest ladder as we go to fight this fire.”

So, the more that you know about people that you’re working with, the better that you can give them a sense of empathy around what’s going on with them. Take it to a present-day example. You may be really frustrated with a colleague who’s not returning your calls or not doing the level of work you think he or she should be doing. You, then, come to find out that a parent was dying, that somebody sick, someone had COVID, and you just have a different level of understanding and a way to work with them.

And so, the idea is it’s around bringing your human to work. And that meal, and you can even think about meals in terms of the role in our culture in bringing people together.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s excellent. Thank you. And so then, we talk about bringing your human to work, can you share with us – I think we’ve already got a taste – but sort of what would you say is the core thesis statement here of the work?

Erica Keswin
So, people ask me what it means to bring their human to work, and let’s say I boil it down to one line, which is honoring relationships. How do you honor relationships with your colleagues, with your boss, with your direct reports, with your clients, your customers, and even honoring that relationship with yourself?

And the premise of the book, I’ve been in the human capital space for 25 years, and so I’m sort of used to people either saying, “Direct leads to me,” or maybe, “Behind my back,” that some of this stuff is the soft stuff. And so, I would venture to say it’s actually the hard stuff and some of the really important stuff. And so, the premise of the book is why bringing your human to work and creating a more human workplace is not only good for people but it’s great for business and really does impact the bottom line.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that seems sensible and, like, that sounds true to me in my gut, although I am a feeler, I’m a Myers-Briggs.

Erica Keswin
Yeah, me, too.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I like that kind of thing. For the skeptic, could you share some of the most hard-hitting bits of research or evidence that says, “No, no, this is for real and not just stuff that Pete and Erica like because they’re feelers”?

Erica Keswin
Yeah. Well, first, I’d send them back to think about the firefighters. You can’t get any more hard data than that, than actually saving lives. There are many studies in the book. A couple that jumps out, one that found that when you have that high level of trust with your boss, that you can be who you are at work, collaboration goes up by as much as 47%, productivity goes up by 50%. So, the numbers are real.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Boy, productivity going up 50%, again, I’m curious about the mechanisms underlying that. Part of me thinks it’s just like you’re not sort of worrying, and CYA, watching your back, like really politically massaging every sentence to make sure you’re not offending people because you just sort of have a good sort of trust and caring connection going. But what are some of the other ways that that 50% productivity bump get realized?

Erica Keswin
Right. Look, that’s a piece of it. I remember I started my career in management consulting, and those were the days, very junior, sitting in the conference room, having late-night pizza, and just really, really getting to know people to the point where you can finish their sentences, and you just work better together because you know how people work. And so, sometimes it’s as basic as that, setting the whole trust thing, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So, in terms of knowing, like, “Oh, boy, you really hate that stuff, so I’m not going to ask you to do it. I’m going to ask somebody else. And, in so doing, we’ve got more energy and strength, focus, and all that kind of goodness.” Okay. I think when it comes to dishonoring relationships, relatively few of your colleagues are sociopaths, like, in terms of wanting to, like actively wanting to harm others. I guess there’s a thumb.

But I think, at the same time, it’s quite possible that we dishonor relationships, maybe without even being aware of it, just by not having as much attention brought to it. What are some key don’ts, I guess, when it comes to honoring relationships?

Erica Keswin
Look, nine out of ten people leave their boss, not the company per se. And so, that relationship really does make a difference. It is that direct manager that’s going to impact your day-to-day, “Should I stay or should I go?” And we talk about bottom line implications, and I’ll get to the do’s and don’ts in a second, but, again, we think about the data. Turnover is expensive, and we’re sitting here doing this interview today in the midst of this Great Resignation, that if you do lose people that you don’t want to lose, it is really hard right now to replace them. So, those are some pretty strong numbers in and of itself.

In terms of do’s and don’ts, I think a lot of it, when I think of honoring relationships, it’s pretty straightforward. You don’t want to be the kind of manager where it’s, “It’s my way or the highway.” And what I tell leaders, if you’re not sure and it’s different, the behaviors that you want to see other than the ones we learned in the kindergarten kind of like the basics that we probably don’t need to go into on a podcast like this.

But in terms of specifics of what to do, I often turn to the values of a company. And I have a litmus test called the fork in the road, “Should I take a left? Should I take a right? Should I hire this person? Should I fire this person because he or she is a sociopath?” to your point. “Should I launch a new product? Should I do this deal? Should I fire this client?” I look at that through the lens of a company’s values. And, quite frankly, if the values aren’t helping to drive those decisions, either there’s way too many values, 10, 12, 14 values.

A great example of a company that had too many values, back in the day, was Uber in the beginning when Travis was the CEO. They had 14 values, and the values motivated the wrong behaviors, like crush people like bugs, that kind of thing. And so, you might have too many or they might be the wrong ones. And it’s the strategy and the mission and the vision highlight what you need to do, and the values are really the behaviors and get to the how, and aligning that gets back to this idea of what it means to honor relationships in a specific organization because it’s going to be different everywhere.

Pete Mockaitis
And can we zoom into some particular applications of this? So, in the firehouse, spaghetti meals, that’s awesome. Inside other workplaces where folks are often home before dinnertime, what are some excellent cool examples of places you’ve found where there are some great relationship-honoring and connection that’s going a long way?

Erica Keswin
So, the way that I mapped out my book about rituals, I mean, rituals are an amazing tool, amazing way to bring people together to have that connection. And some of the best examples that I’ve seen cut across all different aspects of the employee life cycle. So, there’s examples in onboarding. You only get one chance to make the first impression, so what better way to start that connection early and often than literally the first day or even when you get your offer letter.

Professional development, celebrating milestones in meetings is a great way. So, I looked at, and have examples that I’ll share with you in all of these different ways. One really fun one that I write about is from the company Allbirds, the cool felt sneaker company. And they have a ritual in their organization called 40 at 4.

And it came about very organically where there was a very early-on employee who was probably working too much at Allbirds as a startup at the time, and decided to go to the doctor and said, “You know, I’m really not feeling great from a health perspective. I’m going to set some goals for myself and do X amounts of pushups between now and the end of the year.”

He took that number and he divided it by how many days were left in the year, and he came up with the number 40. And so, he said, “All right, if I do 40 pushups a day for the rest of the year, I’ll meet my goal.” So, what does he do? He starts doing them in the office. A guy next to him joins, the woman across the hall joins. The next thing they know, everybody and their brother is either doing pushups at 4:00 o’clock, watching the pushups, talking about the pushups.

And I see it as like the healthy version of a smoke break. And even during the pandemic, I was able to reach back out with them because many people were really missing those company rituals. The way that they came together to connect with each other and honor relationships was gone, and they said, “Yeah, how do you know it’s a ritual?” Really, it’s sticky and people miss it.

And so, during the pandemic, they would rotate and somebody would volunteer to lead the pushups. Again, yes, it feels soft, it sounds soft, touchy-feely, but it’s these things that people come together and remind them, A, why they like the people they work with, B, why they do what they do every day. At least in 2022, we’re still human and not a bunch of robots running around, so these things do impact people.

Pete Mockaitis
For now, Erica.

Erica Keswin
For now. You never know, you know.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is beautiful, that ritual, and that does…as I’m thinking about to back to some of my workplaces and rituals, they just feel so good in terms of, boy, it’s almost like there’s a primal human tribe thing going on, like, “This is us and who we are and what we belong to and what we do.” And it can be doing 40 pushups at 4:00 p.m., it could be changing the lyrics to songs and singing dorky versions about your workplace at the annual meeting.

Erica Keswin
Right, it could be anything. And let me share this, so I would talk to companies about what a ritual is and the ROI of rituals, and some people still wouldn’t necessarily be able to articulate what the ritual is. So, I came up with this, I call it somewhat magic question now that every time I ask it, the person was like, “I got it. That’s my ritual.”

So, the question is, and I asked this at Chipotle, LinkedIn, Microsoft, all these different companies, and I said it to, for example, Marissa Andrada, who’s the head of HR at Chipotle, “Okay, Marissa, when do you think employees at Chipotle feel most Chipotle-ish?” Very high tech. Very high tech, right? But framing it that way, Marissa said, “I got it. Every day at Chipotle at 10:15,” by the way, I don’t know if you’re a Chipotle fan, but my kids eat it all the time, I like it, too, actually.

Pete Mockaitis
I ate it today.

Erica Keswin
Oh, there you go.

Pete Mockaitis
My napkins prove it.

Erica Keswin
Oh, my God. You’re right. You did eat it today. So, they open at…maybe you know this, I didn’t know this. Chipotle opens at 10:30 a.m. so I guess there are many people eating burritos at 10:30 in the morning.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ve done it before.

Erica Keswin
Okay. So, you’re perfect for this example. So, every day at 10:15, before those doors answer, and before Pete comes through the door, they all sit down, all the people that have been working there since 6:30 in the morning, chopping up the lettuce, making the guacamole, they all sit down and have a meal together. And that is when they feel most Chipotle-ish.

Other people said to me at the company KIND bar, Daniel Lubetzky, founder, former CEO and now executive chairman. He said people feel most KIND-ish, or KINDly, when, during their orientation, their onboarding process, every new hire, once a quarter, meets with Daniel. Even now that he’s not even with the company, he still meets with them and talks about the history of the company and the genesis and why it’s called KIND, and how his father was in the Holocaust and was saved by someone, and how that person showed kindness to his dad, that drove the mission of the company.

And so, rituals, you kind of said it yourself, it gives this feeling of this sort of primal “This is us coming together,” and that’s when you know it’s a ritual. It’s that it sticks and you don’t force people to do it. Like, it just organically happens and makes people feel part of something bigger than themselves.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s intriguing because I could see how you could try to force that and it would just be weird, like if you don’t like that.

Erica Keswin
Yeah, like if you have to force it, you need to move on. I tell people not to get their ego wrapped up in some of these rituals. Like, somebody might be listening to this and say, “Okay, we’re going to start doing pushups just like Allbirds at 4:00 o’clock,” and people might think, “Are you out of your mind?” And it might stick but rituals can come from the top-down, the bottom-up, inside-out, really from anywhere, so if something doesn’t stick, I just urge people to think about feel like changing it, get feedback, ask your team for ideas.

And, oftentimes, the rituals that are the most sticky are the ones that are connected, again, to values or even things that you’ve done before. And that’s why, many times, it’s an individual contributor, just like the example in Allbirds, that came up with the ritual to begin with.

Pete Mockaitis
When it comes to not forcing, it seems like, sometimes just the invitation will do, like, “Hey, I’m going to start doing these pushups and you’re welcome to join me if you like,” and then some will, some won’t.

I think what’s also interesting about the pushup is that it’s just a little bit, I don’t know, weird or I guess counter-cultural, or like you don’t tend to go into workplaces and see people doing pushups, like, “Whoa, what’s going on here? That’s a little different.” And in so doing, I think that might give you a little more juice.

I’m thinking about my work with HOBY, Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership, seminar for high school folks doing leadership development stuff. And so, there’s a bunch of like cheering going on, which is a little bit like camp, and so it’s not that unique because camps have been doing it forever. But, in so doing, there are the HOBY cheers, and HOBY people know the HOBY cheers, and then HOBY people can just sort of vibe in that way. And in doing them together, you really do get this crazy bond formed in like three days amongst you.

And I think that if we were doing something very ordinary, like, “Oh, we’re brushing our teeth. Okay, well, that’s what everybody does every day, generally speaking, so it doesn’t have as much oomph.” Are there some, maybe, ingredients or components or principles that make a ritual a ritual?

Erica Keswin
Yes. So, first, let me share my…and it’s interesting. I’ll talk about how brushing your teeth could be a ritual, may not be a ritual, but could be a ritual. So, a ritual has three component parts. The first is a ritual is something to which we assign a certain amount of meaning and intention, sort of number one. Number two, a ritual typically has a regular cadence. So, for example, 40 at 4, 40 pushups every day could be once a week, it could be once a month, it could be once a year.

The third part though is really interesting. A ritual is something that goes beyond its practical purpose. And so, what do I mean by that? I’m sitting here in my home office and, let’s say, the lights go out. And if I decide to light a candle so I can see what on earth I’m doing, that’s not a ritual. But if I light a candle every day, or every Friday, let’s say, at 6:00 o’clock, to signify the end of the workday and the workweek and the beginning of the weekend, I’m lighting that candle because it means something to me and there’s a regular cadence, but I’m not doing it for any real practical purpose. And so, that’s the definition.

So, when you think about having a cup of coffee in the morning, maybe your purpose is the caffeine, but it’s almost something…I also think of it as sort of back-of-brain to front-of-brain. Like, you might have a habit, you just might have a cup of coffee every day, but if you make something like that a ritual where you sit down, take a few deep breaths, connect with yourself, there’s nothing practical about it but it’s something that’s meaningful to you.

And so, in the example of the pushups, yeah, the one guy was trying to meet his goal of doing those pushups but, half the time at Allbirds, people were kind of joking around, sitting there watching, and so there wasn’t this practical purpose but it felt good and something drew them into doing it. So, that’s sort of my working definition.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, these examples are so fun, Erica. Just keep them coming. What else have we got?

Erica Keswin
Oh, my gosh. There are so many. There’s a whole book on them. Let’s see. One of my other favorite rituals in the book is a company called Udemy, the online learning company. And one of the things that I have been thinking about a lot, both from the standpoint of a manager but also as an individual contributor, that professional development, people want to learn on the job, up, down, and sideways.

And I’ve been in the human capital space for 25 years, and gone are the days of all the rungs in the ladder of used to be able to get promoted every year. Now, we need to get creative about how people grow on the job. So, actually, I just wrote an article, which I’ll send you, if you send out show notes for your podcasts. But Jeannie Weaver at AT&T has a book club, and that has become a ritual for her and her team, and also something that is easy to do when some people are in the office and some people are remote.

The company Udemy has a ritual around professional development called DEAL, drop everything and learn. So, once a month, on a Wednesday at 3:00 o’clock, everybody kind of drops what they’re doing and takes a class in something. And, again, what I love about it is it may have nothing to do with your day job. So, in that definition of no practical purpose, it’s not that I’m sitting there, “How to improve a podcast,” “How to do an Excel spreadsheet.” There are people that shared with me that in November, during the Wednesday in November, they took a class on how to make a turkey.

And what they do is the team manager will bring everybody together and they can take anything they want. The only thing you have to do is share what you learned that month. So, again, it’s another way to connect, another way to bring people together in a way that might seem touchy-feely for the Myers-Briggs feelers in the audience, however, you’re learning more about each other.

And from a leadership perspective, you have some great employee who’s on the subway and runs, meets somebody, and they’re like, “Hey, why don’t you come work at my company?” you might think twice because you actually have friends at work and people that you know at work who kind of know you and know that you know how to bake a turkey.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Yeah, that is fun in that not only are you learning but then you’re learning what other people learned, which is connecting, like, “Oh, you’re interested in cooking turkeys. Now, I know that about you.” And I guess with Udemy, it’s also a bonus in that if they’re learning the Udemy courses, then they gain some exposure to the platform and the product and may gain some insights, like, “Huh, this course isn’t that good, so maybe we need to update it,” or whatever. Okay. Cool. So, I love it. Let’s have another one.

Erica Keswin
I think there are, again, when you think about that employee life cycle, like let’s talk about meetings because a lot of meetings suck. So, you can think about rituals as a way to connect people. Now, here’s something. Beginnings and endings are what I call prime rituals real estate.

So, beginnings and ending of a meeting, the beginning and ending of a project, pretty much the beginning and ending of anything. So, Eileen Fisher, for example, the clothing company, they ring a chime before every meeting. And so, what that does is it just settles people. It gives them this feeling of, “You know what, we’re going to be at this meeting. I’m going to take everything that had been going on, all the chaos in the outside world, try to get rid of it, and come in and focus on what I need to focus on.”

During the pandemic, and even now we’re still in the pandemic, really, there is the importance of checking in, like that became a ritual. And what was interesting was, in 2020, probably for a whole year, sometimes there were meetings where 16 minutes of a 60-minute meeting were spent checking in. And then a year later, maybe 30 minutes of a 30-minute meeting. And at some point, like we needed to also do work in these meetings.

So, people will say to me, “So, what’s a way to have a ritual in a meeting that helps you connect but we can’t do this all day?” So, a couple of examples there, one CEO shared they have something, they have people say either red light, green light, yellow light, and they just kind of share how they are feeling that day. And what that does, the goal is not to solve it in that moment, but if you’re the team leader and Pete says red light, later that day, you can call him up and say, “All right, what’s going on? How can we support you as a company, as a leader?”

So, again, sometimes very little things. And one last one that I’ll share, a colleague from Microsoft has a cool ritual. She changed jobs in the pandemic and really didn’t know her team that well, so every week at her team meeting, a different person shares their origin story, which I sort of loved the way that’s phrased. You can go in any direction with that but learning somebody’s origin story, like stuff that you would never know about them, again, it kind of takes you back to where our conversation started with the firefighters and how to really get to know people in a human way.

Pete Mockaitis
And I like and I was going to ask about the remote work piece there. Any pro tips, do’s and don’ts when it comes to thinking about things remotely? I don’t know if there’s any tricks or software, tools, that you really think are nifty when it comes to some of this connection remotely?

Erica Keswin
Yeah, you’ve got to be even more intentional. It’s hard and you need to have protocols on how this should work. So, it could be something as…none of it is easy but something like, for example, every time somebody…let’s say you’re going to go around and people are going to share where they’re green, red, or yellow. One leader shared that everybody goes around and shares a one-word adjective that describes how they’re showing up that day. Rotate. “So, Pete is in the office, you go. Erica, she’s remote, let’s switch off, every person, so that we’re all engaging in the same way.”

Some people will say, “You know what, for all the remote people, we’re going to have one person that’s in the room be the point of contact that if there’s any issues with the technology or anything going on, that there is one person that kind of has their phone out and knows that they’re going to be contacted if there are any issues.”

And building in time for people to chit-chat a little bit over the proverbial watercooler. Having protocols around technology and really reminding people, “You know what, this meeting, we expect our cameras to be on,” which, by the way, I think that’s important but I don’t think they need to be or should be on in every meeting because Zoom fatigue is real.

And so, it’s just being as explicit as you can to manage expectations and to create an environment that’s as welcoming and as inclusive as you can.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. And I guess I’m also thinking about how not to do this because I think sometimes if folks think connection, they think, “Okay, we’ve got team building retreats, we’ve got trust falls, we’ve got ropes courses,” and I’ve had some good experiences with ropes courses myself but some people, they’re not a fan. So, how would you think about, when we say, “Okay, hey, connections are cool, rituals are cool. We want to do more of that. We’re excited”, what should we avoid doing as we’re getting some of this flowing?

Erica Keswin
So, I love that question because when I was writing the book and I asked people, “So, when do you feel most Chipotle-ish?” or fill in the blank-ish. What I was going to say next did not happen at Chipotle, for the record, but did happen in some other places. And the person I was talking to, all of a sudden, would look, get a little pale, and be like, “Ooh, God, I don’t know if I want to answer that question.” I’d say, “Why? What’s going on?” And they would say, “Well, now that you asked it that way, I feel like every time we come together and bond or do our ropes courses or whatever it is we do, we always do it over happy hour. We always do it when people are drinking, and that’s not going to work for everybody.”

And I had somebody come up to me afterwards, I had a talk one time, and said, “I just got out of rehab and this makes me feel really uncomfortable.” I had another company, when I asked them that question, “When do people feel most connected?” they realized that everything they do is either at night or maybe on a weekend when they were doing this bonding, and what about people that are taking care of elderly parents or need to pick up a kid from daycare? So, I do urge people to think about all the different ways that you connect through the lens of inclusivity.

And, again, it goes back to getting feedback from people around what’s working and not working. I am not anti-happy hour but it shouldn’t be the only way you come together.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that makes sense. And, likewise, just in terms of including folks, it could mean a number of things, like, “Hey, ropes course don’t work for this person because they have an injury of sorts or disability of sorts,” and so that won’t work, or they got the rehab with the alcohol, or just sort of the timing schedule.

Erica Keswin
Anything, yeah. Right. There’s a lot of different ways that something is not going to be inclusive. I like it when companies will also think about creating like a culture committee and get people to…LinkedIn does a great job of this. It’s a real honor and professional development opportunity to even be in the room to think about all of these different ways for people to connect and they rotate it. And so, you do, you want to get different people weighing in on these issues.

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

Erica Keswin
No, I think we got a lot of rituals in there, so it’s great.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Well, now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Erica Keswin
One of my favorite quotes is a Louis Pasteur quote, which is, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” And, for me, I don’t like to leave things for chance. I’m a planner and I feel like I just like to live that quote, that “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

Pete Mockaitis
And could you give us a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Erica Keswin
Well, since we’ve been talking about rituals for most, so I’ll share one of those. So, there was a study done, I call it the “Don’t Stop Believin’” study. Just my own name. I’ve made it up. A study out of Harvard was looking at two groups of people. They both went into a room. The first group went into the room and was told that they were going to have to sing karaoke to a bunch of strangers, and were told to go sit down and wait.

The second group was told that they were going to have to sing karaoke to a group of strangers but, while they were waiting, they were told to…they were given a piece of paper, and they were told to write down how they were feeling about what they were going to have to do. They were told to crumple up the piece of paper, sprinkle some salts on it, and throw the paper over their shoulder. And, again, the other group is just sitting in the room waiting.

And what the study looked at is both groups got up and sang their karaoke, and the study was looking at which one had higher performance, and that was measured by people being able to read the words on the screen for karaoke, number one. And, number two, when you are told, out of the blue, that you’re going to have to do something like that, sing karaoke, everybody’s heart rates spiked, went through the roof, which mine would, for sure.

But there was one group that was able to bring their heart rates down much more quickly, and that correlated with who was better to actually sing more accurately. And out of the two groups, I’ll ask you, which group do you think was able to bring their heart rate down more quickly?

Pete Mockaitis
The ones who are good at singing already?

Erica Keswin
No, the group that was given a ritual. The group that was asked not to just sit there. The group that was asked to actually write down how they were feeling, crumple up the paper, putting the salt on it, throwing the paper over their shoulder. And so, being connected, again, there’s no practical purpose for any of that, but being connected to something outside of themselves, it actually lowered their heart rates and they were able to perform better. And the reason why I call it the “Don’t Stop Believin’” study is that the song that they had to sing to the audience was the most downloaded song in iTunes history, which is “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Erica Keswin
Let’s see. Lately, I’ve been trying to read more fiction because I feel like I never had time to read fiction. I just read a great book called American Dirt, which I highly recommend.

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

Erica Keswin
Is an Oura Ring a tool where I track my sleep.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. Uh-huh.

Erica Keswin
I knew you’d be very jealous to know that I get a lot of 94s, 96s.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, there you go.

Erica Keswin
I’m like Fitbit people are very jealous.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s funny, I’m such a nut. I’ve got the Fitbit and the Oura Ring at the same time. I’m excited that the Oura Ring is going to be updating their sleep algorithm shortly to have even superior accuracy. And I will admit to refreshing their webpage more than once to see if it’s out yet. It’s not yet as of April 5th, 2022, but, anyway. And a favorite habit, something you do that helps you be more awesome at your job?

Erica Keswin
It’s my coffee ritual where I get a cup of coffee in the morning. Back in the day, I would sit there and have my coffee and do my to-do list and crank through my work, until one day, I realized that the coffee was gone and I hadn’t even tasted it, which kind of bummed me out because I’m really one-cup-a-day kind of girl, and at Starbucks it’s not cheap.

And that then went from becoming a habit to what is now my morning ritual where I sit and, instead of just working away through my morning coffee, I sit there and put the coffee and feel the heat from the mug in my hands, take a few deep breaths. Rituals are very associated with our senses. And so, that is what I do and it helps me start the day.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate; you hear folks quoting it back to you?

Erica Keswin
Yes. I would say the soft stuff is really the hard stuff and the most important stuff.

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

Erica Keswin
To my website, EricaKeswin.com. It has my books and a lot of articles I’ve written, podcasts that I’ve been on, and you could check out my Instagram which is just my name. LinkedIn is always a great spot as well.

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

Erica Keswin
I would say everything that we’ve spoken today about rituals at work ring true for rituals in your personal lives. And these days, to be awesome at your job, you also need to take care of yourself and put the proverbial oxygen mask on yourself and really focus on wellness because there’s a tremendous amount of burnout right now.

And so, I guess I would challenge you, and a great place to start is to ask yourself, “What do you do in your life that makes you feel most like you?” And that’s a great place to start to incorporate some of your own rituals into your life.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Erica, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck with your connection and rituals and fun.

Erica Keswin
Thank you so much. Great to meet you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, you, too.

Apr 18
0

760: Taking the Fear out of Feedback with Joe Hirsch

By | Podcasts | One Comment

 

 

Joe Hirsch reveals why we all struggle with feedback and shares how we can get better at giving and receiving it.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The small shift that improves our relationship with feedback
  2. Why to ditch the feedback sandwich and embrace the W.R.A.P.
  3. What to do when you’re not getting the feedback you need

About Joe

Dr. Joe Hirsch helps leaders apply behavioral science to improve the way they listen, lead and learn. He’s a TEDx and international keynote speaker and the author of The Feedback Fix, which has been praised by Fortune 500 executives, NFL coaches and educational reformers for its forward-looking view of human performance.  Joe’s work and research has been featured in Harvard Business Review,  CNBC, Forbes, Inc., The Wall Street Journal and other major outlets. He’s helped more than 10,000 people across three continents communicate with impact and hosts the popular podcast, I Wish They Knew.

Resources Mentioned

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Joe Hirsch Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Joe, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Joe Hirsch
Hey, Pete. Good to be with you.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to dig into your wisdom about feedback. But, first, I want to hear about you and pushups. What’s the story here?

Joe Hirsch
You remind me, I have to go do some. Yes, so I enjoy pushups. I’ve been doing them for like 20 years straight, never missed a day, and I have found that to be a low-impact, high-value exercise. I used to use weights and I found that the weights were cumbersome. I couldn’t travel with them, they took up space in my basement, my kids were competing with me for them, and it never seemed to work.

So, I shifted a while ago, even before like this new phase of my life, and I shifted to pushups and I never looked back. And I feel like it’s a great metaphor for feedback, in general, because the things that we do, the small steps and small shifts that we make, sustained over time, they have such a huge impact. So, all about the pushups, it’s good for you, folks. Go out there and do five while you’re listening to this podcast.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, how has it evolved in terms of where did it start and where is it now and what’s the pushup vibe, groove, goal?

Joe Hirsch
So, after about 20 years, I’m up to three pushups.

Pete Mockaitis
Progress.

Joe Hirsch
I’m getting better every day and, yeah, I think it’s a great way to challenge yourself. So, you set a goal for today, you say, “I’m going to 50 pushups today.” Maybe you can do them straight, maybe not, you break them up into short bursts but you start to realize that those small wins begin to happen and you start to incrementally build upon that progress. And I find that very rewarding.

Sometimes you finish a workout, you’re like, “Oh, what did I just do for the last 45 minutes?” or, “Man, I’m sore but I don’t feel like I did anything.” With pushups you really feel like you’re making gains and you can really track that progress. So, I like the workout.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, cool. Well, we’re going to talk about feedback and your book The Feedback Fix. I’d love it if you could just kick us off with kind of a Joe greatest hit. Is there a particularly surprising or fascinating or counterintuitive discovery you’ve made about us humans and feedback over the course of your career?

Joe Hirsch
I think that if people start to think about feedback not in terms of fear but joy, they’ll be surprised by the resonance of their message and the impact of their words. I don’t care if you’re a manager, or you’re an individual contributor, or a parent, or a teacher, or a spouse, feedback is hard and it makes the conversations high stakes, and that’s exactly when we need to be high touch.

And by shifting our message and our mindset, and in the process of looking out towards the future that people can still change, rather than looking back at a past they can’t, we can absolutely make a difference in the tone and the trajectory of these super important conversations.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. You said joy. Intriguing. I guess we’re going to go into a lot of detail about some feedback things. But any quick perspective on how do we get more joy on the receiving end of feedback? Is there a mindset that is optimal for us?

Joe Hirsch
It’s to look at feedback not so much as a gift, which you hear a lot from people and it’s not wrong. It’s not bad advice but I tend to think of it more in terms of a deposit. Because a gift, you can return. The gift doesn’t have to be something you like. It’s more about what the other person thinks you might need. But when it’s a deposit, that’s when we can start to separate that truth signal from the noise and we can start to build interests on that deposit and take it somewhere if we make the right moves and have the right mindset.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. So, it’s a deposit, sort of like, “Okay, I can do something with this. I can invest it. I can get rid of the illicit drug money component of the deposit.” Really stretching this metaphor, Joe.

Joe Hirsch
Yeah, it’s not a drug drop. It’s a deposit. And, ultimately, that’s the thing about feedback. We don’t choose the feedback we get but we absolutely choose where it goes. And I think that’s why deposits make so much sense to people because when they think about feedback as a fear-inducing experience, and I’ve literally asked this question, Pete, to thousands of people across the world, leaders at every level, across industries, “How do you feel when you get feedback?” These are the leaders, “How does it feel?”

And then I asked them a simple follow-up, “How did it feel the moment just before you got that feedback, when you knew it was coming?” And the answers are almost universally, “Well, I felt cautious. I felt uncertain. I felt uncomfortable. I felt in pain,” and that’s because, for a lot of people, we approach these conversations with a focus on deficits and not strengths, with a focus on the unchangeable past and not the unfolding future. And we, ultimately, look at feedback as a sledgehammer to hit people over the head with rather than a shoehorn to sort of open up possibilities and potential.

And when we start to make that small shift, whether that’s on the receiving end or as feedback-givers on the delivery side, that’s the moment when we can start to make a world of difference in the tone, in the trajectory, and, ultimately, in the impact.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Joe, you’re of master distinction. I love this already. A sledgehammer, no, no. A shoehorn, and the past versus the future. Like, these are the sorts of things that make people go, “Oh, okay.” Tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak. And when you add them up, it’s very actionable and doable and potent, so I dig it. So, tell us then, in your dreamworld, what’s really possible with feedback? Like, what should feedback accomplish and do for us as professionals in the world?

Joe Hirsch
So, in The Feedback Fix I explore feedback through the lens of something called feed forward, a term that was first introduced by Marshall Goldsmith. He gave it sort of common currency. It goes even further back before Marshall to some researchers back in the 1960s. But feed forward, a concept that was originally intended to help people elicit quick feedback in almost like a speed-dating format, that’s how Marshall uses it.

And I began to wonder, like, “Could this possibly have a strong research undercurrent to it? Is there something more to this than just a neat way to grab some quick insights on my current performance with total strangers?” And as I begin to unpack the research in preparation for writing The Feedback Fix, it became clear that, in fact, there was.

And when you start to peel this back a little bit, you begin to notice some trends, that when we start to make these small shifts in the way we look at ourselves as leaders and how we operate, that the moment we start to approach with more inquiry and more curiosity and act more like learn-it-alls than know-it-alls, that’s the moment when we give permission for others to do the same.

And we start to shift these dynamics from power to partnership. And, ultimately, that’s what feed forward is. It’s a strength-centered forward-looking view at who people are becoming, not just who they are. And it’s the moment when leaders start to operationalize this mindset of, “I’m going to be more of a listener and a learner, not a teller and a seller.”

That’s when they start to unlock these great insights that they don’t always have, and give permission to the person on the other side of that conversation to continue to be a partner in that process. In a perfect world, we would do a lot more listening and learning and a lot less telling and selling.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that really unlocks what we can become, and that’s beautiful. So, let’s get into it then. You say right now, in contrast, traditional feedback is, you say, broken. Could you give us the rundown on what’s not working when it comes to feedback in this day and age, 2022? I’m thinking United States-centric, although we have listeners around the world. Hello, guys and gals. What’s not working right now in professional settings feedback?

Joe Hirsch
So, you really have three problems with traditional feedback, which happens infrequently which focuses on a past that people can’t change, and, ultimately, it’s preoccupied with weaknesses rather than strengths. So, the first is bias. There’s some really interesting research out there that shows that when I give you feedback, let’s say you’re my employee, Pete, and I’m talking to you about something that just happened at work. The feedback that I give you is filtered through the important priorities and principles that I have and not focused on the things that matter to you.

So, when I give you feedback about your performance, I’m actually speaking more towards my priorities and principles. It says more about me than it does about you. It’s called the idiosyncratic rater effect. And there’s other cognitive mind traps that slip into this process, focusing on people’s past and holding them to it. Recency effect, the most recent thing that happens takes centerstage.

Or, sort of the opposite of that, spillover, where we chain people to their past performance. We don’t ever let them get out of their past mistakes or missteps. Or pillow or horns, looking at people as either all good or all bad, and filtering that way. So, you have big problems with bias, and that’s even before you get into other biases about people’s backgrounds and who they are and their life experiences they bring, and it’s a messy, messy picture.

The other problem is blindness. And, especially today, we’re talking now in March of 2022, today, work is more complex and less visible than ever before. And that’s one of the great upheavals of the pandemic is people started to leave their offices and go work from home. Work became less visible but it also became more interconnected.

And as work became harder to track, because more people, more hands touching projects, and at the same time became less visible because it’s happening away from the view of managers a lot of the time, so it’s very difficult for managers to have all the insights and all the answers that they might have once had.

It’s like if you go to your favorite pizza joint and you order a pineapple pepper pizza, don’t knock that until you take a try, by the way. It’s quite awesome. So, like, who’s responsible for that awesome pizza? Is it the chef who came up with the recipe? Is it the guy in the back cutting all the vegetables to perfection? Is it the farmer who sourced the vegetables or the pineapples? Is it the delivery man who brought it all together? So, who’s responsible for success?

And that’s the question that managers are really focusing on today, “Who’s responsible for success? I can’t see it, therefore, I can’t track it. And, as a result, I don’t know it.” So, blindness is a big problem for people. And then you have memory. Even if we had all the pieces in front of us, we can’t necessarily remember it. And memory researchers talk about this thing called the forgetting curve, and it sounds exactly as it described. There’s a sudden and steep loss of information just as soon as you begin to learn it. And researchers point that loss somewhere between 30% and 50%.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, minutes after you tell me something.

Joe Hirsch
It’s wild. It’s crazy. So, like, if you learn something on a Monday and then you try to implement it on a Tuesday, you’re already wondering, “Well, what was the password?” or, “What was the website I was supposed to go to?” or, “What was the new policy that my managers just told me about?” and we don’t remember it.

And that memory loss steadies and slows but becomes steeper over the course of a week so that by the time a week goes by, we have forgotten almost 90% of information, which is astounding. So, if you think about the fact that most companies are on a performance management cycle that is either annual, which is – oh, God – like why, or quarterly, which is still not great, the problem is one of memory.

The manager and the employee acting like forensic psychologists or archeologists trying to recreate a past that neither one can truly remember, so you’ve got bias, you’ve got blindness, you’ve got memory, and all these factors combine to produce a picture that isn’t pretty, so it’s no wonder that when you ask the question, “Can I give you some feedback?” We have a physiological response to that question. Our hands become clammy, our knees buckle, we feel like less of ourselves, and that’s why traditional feedback is failing and that’s why feed forward is succeeding.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that makes sense right then and there. Like, even before we talk about how you say it, like just the content in and of itself is going to be inaccurate and incomplete. So, it’s almost like roll the dice. It’s like, “Let’s just see what’s going to happen,” and that naturally makes us pretty uncomfortable, like a huge dose of uncertainty and it’s personal, “Joe, I’m going to tell you something about you. It’s going to have some implications about your future and your prospects. I don’t know what it is and it may or may not, but likely will not be accurate.”

Joe Hirsch
Right. And that’s why we have such an instinctual resistance to this. We look at feedback, as you said, as a judgment and it’s not just about our work, it’s about ourselves. We also don’t take it very seriously because we don’t think it’s accurate. And that’s why if managers were to approach the conversation with greater humility and greater curiosity to act, as I call them, as mirror holders instead of window gazers, as people whose job it is to simply enlarge and expand the view of another person rather than to tell and sell the other person on what they think has happened, then we’re going to have a different conversation.

So, it really starts with this mindset, as you said, even before you get to the message. The way we think about this has to really change.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, then how does one be more of a mirror holder?

Joe Hirsch
So, it does start with that shift in thinking about, “What is my role here? If the manager says my job is to solve a problem, my job is to force a change,” then you’re going to be frustrated because, as we said, you don’t have all the answers, and even the data you have may not be good. So, instead of trying to tell and sell, ask the other person for their perspective, and this is where approaching with that learn-it-all mindset, a sense of curiosity and wonder can be super helpful. So, that’s the first step is to start to approach more as a partner and less as a power broker.

Once you do that, though, the message really has to shift from, “I’m trying to fix you” to “I’m trying to frame the problem or frame the issue.” And when we start to act as framers and not fixers, that’s a resonant message for people because rather than tell them what to do, we’re trying to unlock an insight that they already have and hold. And in The Feedback Fix and the work I do with organizations, it becomes very clear that you don’t need to overhaul your whole system. With small shifts and how we shape these conversations, we can actually have a dramatic impact.

And it really starts with operating with a simple belief that, “My job is not to force a change but rather to provoke an insight, and use the person on the other side of this conversation. You have answers that I may not have. You have insights that I may not possess. And if I can do a little more to engage you as a partner, to have more of a dialogue rather than a judgment, and to focus on the things that are really important to you and the moments when you were successful and to build on that, then we can start to have a conversation which is focused more on truth, it’s focused on clear goals, we talk to people as humans, we don’t focus on them as numbers, and, ultimately, we make them feel like more of themselves and not less.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Joe, this is beautiful. I think I’ve got a nice picture for the mindset, the vibe, the feel, the attitude to how we’re kind of centered and pointing at this thing. So, now, I’m curious, in practice, let’s say I love it, I want to feed forward, what are my action steps? What do I go do?

Joe Hirsch
So, one tool that I love sharing with clients is something called a feed forward wrap.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, like a hip. Are we literally talking about rhyming lyrics?

Joe Hirsch
No, this is not Tupac. This is all different. Did I just go to Tupac? Well, I really just dated myself.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s classic.

Joe Hirsch
It’s okay. If you watched the halftime show this year, everyone kind of traveled back in time a little bit at the Super Bowl. So, this is a wrap, as in like the sandwich, or more appropriately the opposite of that praise sandwich, which, oh, God, we have given so many times and probably we’d just like to do without a little bit more.

So, the big problem with the praise sandwich is that it tends to be very meandering, it doesn’t really address the issue, it kind of dodges and disguises information, and we hope that people can kind of decipher our intentions somehow by sandwiching what we want to say in between two pieces of praise to kind of trick them and distract them from what we’re actually trying to get across.

And, look, I have no problem with praise. The issue is the sandwich. Research shows that when you sandwich feedback like this, it ends up going nowhere because people can’t follow your message. They tend to think of the person giving it to them as less reliable or trustworthy because we begin to wonder, like, “Well, if there’s an issue, just tell me, man. What’s going on?” And, ultimately, we don’t know where to go with that feedback.

So, the wrap, as in, “Let’s go get a fajita wrap,” yeah. Anyone hungry? Actually, this reminds me, I need to go eat something. So, when we think about feedback wraps, we’re talking to people more candidly, more caringly, and more collaboratively. And wrap stands for what and where, reason, affect, and prompt. What and where, reason, affect, and prompt.

And when you start to break feedback down this way, then you start to give people more clarity and control over the process, you engage them more collaboratively, you yield higher levels of commitment, and, ultimately, you get impact because you’ve got clarity. So, it’s a super effective tool that anyone can do and it helps you shift the dynamics from the past to the future, and from power to partnership.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s very clever, moving away from the sandwich and toward a wrap. It might be a lower carb as well.

Joe Hirsch
Lower carb and high protein. Yeah, definitely.

Pete Mockaitis
So, could you give us some examples walking us through the what and where, the reason, the affect, and the prompt?

Joe Hirsch
Yeah. So, let’s say I have a tendency to talk over people in meetings and you, as my manager, Pete, have noticed this and you got to bring it to my attention right away because other people on the team, they’re commenting on you offline, and they’re saying, “Joe won’t shut up. I mean, literally, in every meeting, the guy is cutting me off and can’t get my ideas out there.”

So, you pull me aside, and you say, “Joe, could we talk? I want to talk to you about something that happened in the meeting yesterday. A couple people felt like you had cut in when they were sharing their idea for how to engage this client.” So, that’s the what and the where. Now, why is that important? Because if you just say to me, “Joe, can I give you some feedback?” in this vague amorphous way, then my mind starts racing and bracing.

And when you look at brain scans of people who are asked that question, “Can I give you some feedback?” It’s amazing what the brain shows. There’s a spike in cortisol, the stress-inducing hormone, that literally depletes us. We become less creative. We experience a reduction in our executive functioning. We feel like less of ourselves. So, that’s why feedback feels so crappy because we are operating in a suboptimal way.

And so, by giving it a destination, a zip code, I suppose, of what’s happening and where it’s happening, you don’t eliminate the fear factor but you mitigate the fear factor. And so now, I know, “Okay, you want to talk about the meeting. It was yesterday. Here’s what happened and it’s not about my numbers. It’s not about my breath. It’s not about the shirt that I’m wearing. And it’s not about my lack of Zoom etiquette. You just want to talk about something that happened in the meeting yesterday when I cut in. Great.”

You then say, “Okay. Joe, look, the reason I want to tell you about this is because Paige and Sam, they felt really bad when you kind of cut in. And I know that something that you would never intentionally try to do, and I know how important our team dynamics are. You’ve been there a while, you’ve obviously demonstrated commitment to our goals and our values as a company, and I just wanted to bring this to your attention because it hurt them.”

And so, there’s two reasons, Pete, why we want to give the reason. Even if we’re talking to adults who are fully formed and we assume are aware of everything. The first is that people aren’t as aware as we think they are. There’s some great research out there on self-awareness that 90% of us have only 10% self-awareness, which is an astounding gap in perception and reality, and that’s why we have to tell people about this because they might not even be aware of how they’re showing up in the moment.

The other reason you want to give the reason is because of our innate need for certainty. So, I was on a plane recently going to a client event. We’re back on planes now, post-COVID, that’s kind of cool, but everyone was still a little bit anxious. And so, we got on the plane and we did the pre-flight stuff and everyone’s buckled up ready to go, and then nothing.

Like, we were just on the tarmac. We weren’t moving and people were getting fidgety and nervous and they started to look at their watches, and they’re like, “What’s happening?” and there’s no announcement, and everyone was beginning to worry, “What’s happening? What’s going on?” until the pilot finally got on and said, “So, we’re actually just, you know, we experienced a small mechanical issue. One of the members of the crew are coming to check it out. It’s a small warning signal that went on. We’re just looking into that before we take off.”

And so, now I’m thinking, “Oh, a warning signal, a warning light. Great. That’s why we’re here. It’s not because there’s bad weather forecasted, or not because a member of the crew got sick, or someone’s experiencing a medical emergency. It’s just a warning light.” And then you’re like, “Oh, a warning light. Well, maybe that’s a bad thing, but at least I know. At least I know what it is.” And so, certainty and self-awareness, we got to give the reason.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and I guess it’s sort of like in that situation, your fears about what could be were brought into a narrow scope in terms of, “The reason I share this, Joe, is because this is one of many signs that I need to fire you.” So, it’s just like, “Oh, okay.” It helps contextualize in terms of, “The reason I share this is because you care about our team and our values and people are feeling good and having a good vibe, and I want to help you accomplish that,” as opposed to, “And the reason I’m sharing this is because, as you know, layoffs are coming and this quadruples the odds that you’re going to be out of here.”

Joe Hirsch
I might not add that part but I love everything you said at first.

Pete Mockaitis
I guess what I’m saying is some people freak out, I think, because we talked about certainty and how spooky it is because it can be anything, “Can I give you some feedback?” It can be anything from “You’re fired” to “You’re the new CEO.” And so, when you give that reason, it situates us quite nicely in terms of, “Okay, this is really what’s at stake here.” It might be big, it might be small but at least I know.

Joe Hirsch
And I care enough about you to tell you what that is and I want you to understand where I’m coming from and I want to make my intentions clear. So, that’s good to start but a lot of feedback operates with those two assumptions in mind. Let’s give a location and let’s talk about the context. Where feed forward really starts to show its magic with this wrap approach is in the final two stages – the affect and the prompt.

So, here’s a universal human truth. People can argue with what we say but they’re less likely to challenge how we feel. And so, when I shift the dynamic of the conversation from blame to emotion, or from judgment to description, that is the moment when you feel a little less assaulted by my feedback.

And so, if I were to say, “Look, the reason why I want to have this conversation with you and the reason why it’s important is because I felt badly for Paige and Sam who, in that moment, kind of just…they looked a little defeated and a little frustrated because when you cut in like that, Joe, it was really hard for them to retrack and recoup, and they had a hard time resuming where they were. So, I felt bad in that moment because that’s where they kind of lost their train of thought and the meeting kind of took a dip.”

Now, that’s a different statement than, “You’re rude. You’re a jerk. And you’re insensitive to the needs and feelings of your colleagues.” So, by moving this away from judgment, you-statements, “You didn’t do this,” or, “You did this and you really shouldn’t have,” we move it into I-statements, “I felt bad. I noticed this and I felt bad for these people who were affected by this.” And, again, here’s where we’re really moving it out of the high-stakes context and we’re shifting ground to a place where people can approach more humanly, and they can say, “Oh, I wasn’t even necessarily aware of that. I’m really sorry. Like, that wasn’t my intention.”

And then, finally, you get to the prompt. After all this has happened, you’ve talked about what’s happening, where it’s happening, the reason, the affect and the impact that was brought about, the emotional toll, here’s where feed forward is so powerful, Pete, because this is where we operationalize that mirror-holding that we talked about before, that listening and learning, and we give the control of the conversation to the other person, and we say, “Okay. So, what are your thoughts on where we go from here? What do you think? What do you think we should do?”

And it’s in that moment when people feel like they have the agency and the opportunity to be a partner, that’s when they’re going to do one of two things. They’re either going to say, “I don’t know. I don’t know what you want me to do. I don’t know.” And that’s okay. Some people will say that, and that’s when you can say, “All right. Well, I want you to think about it. I realize right now, it’s maybe a lot, you’re processing, you’re taking it in. Let’s pick this up in a day, or in a few hours, or whatever your cadence is for this.”

But still with the assumption that, “I want to hear from you. I want to know what your thoughts are.” Or, the more likely scenario that I’ve observed and I’ve workshopped this in real time with teams, and I’ve seen this almost all the time, people will have an answer at the ready because we are closest to the problem which means we’re also closest to the solution. And that’s when we can come up with an idea.

And, by the way, the ideas that others will come up with are very close to, if not the same, as the ones we would’ve proposed ourselves, except now they belong to the person who suggested them, which means they own them, which means they’re going to act on them, which means they’re going to feel a greater sense of responsibility towards them. So, we’ve built commitment where there could’ve been concern. We’ve created partnership where there once was power. We’ve created agency where there might’ve just been accountability. And we’ve shifted the whole dynamic from “I know better than you” to “You can do better for yourself. Let me just try to help you.”

Pete Mockaitis
Ooh, that’s some good powerful stuff. And so, I’m curious, with the prompt, you said, “What are your thoughts on where we should go from here?” Is the idea that the prompt should nudge in a future-oriented direction as opposed to, “So, what do you think?” or, “Do you think I’m full of malarkey?” Is it that the prompt is a prompt that is forward-pointing, future-pointing?

Joe Hirsch
I think it’s both. You’re making a great point. It’s very nuanced. When you ask that question, you’re really asking for two things, “Do you accept my premise?” and “Do you have ideas?” So, one really neat thing that has happened a lot is when managers ask this question, a lot of times they’ll skip step one, which is, “Does the person accept my premise?” Usually, the person will because it’s presented in a way that is non-judgmental and very descriptive and it’s focused.

But sometimes people do get stuck on that first point, they’re like, “Well, actually, I want to just push back a little on what you just said.” Or, worse, they get their hands crossed, the ears turn red, and the smokes starts to come out of the ears, and they’re like, “Hell, no, I don’t agree with what you just said,” but that’s useful data because, now, you know that there’s something else going on here. It’s not just, “Joe is talking over other people in the meeting,” there’s a fundamental problem that lies beneath the surface that you’ve now uncovered because you’ve given me the opportunity to weigh in.

So, that’s good data, but, yes, it is about looking towards a future action that, ultimately, that person can control and one that they’re going to set on their own terms and timetable, again, with some nudging from you. It doesn’t mean that you, as a manager, now abandon your responsibilities to help move this person or this project forward.

A lot of managers will ask me, “This is nice but aren’t you actually like taking away my power? Aren’t you actually making me weaker?” And I say, “No. No, no, no. If you do this right, you become more powerful because, ultimately, you’re activating the real job of management, of leadership, and that’s to empower other people.” We have the power, as leaders, every day to empower others to find and to feel their best selves.

And when we start to do that, Pete, with these small shifts and how we shape the conversation, how we allow it to be received more impactfully, we’re increasing our power because we’re sharing it. And that’s the fundamental assumption here that we become more powerful and more impactful, we have more influence as managers when we help others become better practitioners, better contributors, better members of our organization, and that’s the real secret. By giving that control to others, it’s not what we give up. It’s what we give that really matters.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m thinking here, when it comes to the prompt, and they might say, “Oh, I think that’s ridiculous,” and then, you do, you learn some things, you’re like, “Well, Paige has been running her mouth about this ridiculous idea that derails us every meeting and it’s wasting our time,” blah, blah, blah. Okay. Well, now, you’re right. You’ve learned something that, “I didn’t know you felt that way about Paige.”

Well, then there’s something to respond to, it’s like, “Hey, you know what, and now that you mentioned it, Paige really does do that all the time.” It’s like maybe there’s another conversation that needs to be had, or it can be like, “Whoa, this person is so kind of, I don’t know, self-absorbed or focused on the wrong stuff to really…this how this person sees the world. Wow, we’re going to have to do some more work to,” I guess I don’t want to fix people, right? We talked about that earlier. But we have to do some more work to get an understanding of where we need to move forward optimally here given that’s where they’re coming from.

Joe Hirsch
And, really, the job of leaders is to unlock those insights for people. And feed forward is one tool in a leader’s toolkit that allows him or her to set those conditions for positive and lasting change. And one of the things that’s been gratifying to see is that this works regardless of one’s experience levels as a leader, background or training. It works in every industry, and I’ve spoken to, I think, just about every single one, that people can do this with just a few tweaks in how they approach these conversations.

It’s not an overhaul of the system. It’s about making small incrementally positive changes in the way we look at people and performance so that we’re, ultimately, doing the real work of leading others, and that’s to lead them closer to who they actually are and can still become.

Pete Mockaitis
And I suppose we can do this wrap thing not just when we’re “correcting” something but also when we notice something that was awesome, it’s like, “Hey, I noticed in this document, in the questions you prepared for Joe, my Joe interview, that it was very thorough in terms of sub-bullets there, and I bring this up because I love it so much I want to see that every time if possible because it’s filled me with delight knowing that I am not going to look like a fool in having this conversation. I was very well prepared.”

“And so, I’m just curious, what did you think about? Did you do anything different when you were preparing this? Or, is there any way we might be able to go forward so this happens every time?” In all that, we’re saying, “I like the thing you did. Let’s have more of that.” And you could use the same wrap format just fine.

Joe Hirsch
A hundred percent. In fact, there’s a variation of that that I’ve helped leaders use in these formal conversations they’re having around existing cadence of performance management on a quarterly or annual basis. And one of the things that they’ll do is they’ll open the conversation by saying, “Tell me about a time when you felt like you were just at your best, whether it’s over the last quarter or the last project, or even the last year, and you start with strengths.”

And, again, that’s what feed forward is about. It’s about activating people’s best selves, not dwelling on their worst selves, and people will say, “Well, actually, my numbers were great but you know what really was wonderful for me the last quarter? I felt like, as we shifted to a work-from-home environment, I was able to really be connected in a different and more substantial way to my colleagues. It was weird. We weren’t together but I felt more connected to them. I guess we just felt like we were in each other’s lives. And that sense of being right up close and personal to people just made me feel more close to them, and that was a big high for me over the last three months.”

Now, that’s not something you might have expected to hear as the leader but now it’s intel that you have. So, you start with that strength and say, “Oh, wow, I didn’t realize that was so amazing for you. Like, what did you learn in that process?” You start to uncover the conditions or the factors that played a role in that. And as people start to lay the groundwork and talk about that trek towards the summit of their success, that’s the moment when it becomes clear to you but also to them who and what made this possible.

And that activates a sense of collective success, which researchers have shown is a much more powerful driver of scalable success than simply just focusing on individual achievement. So, that when I realize that I did something well or I achieved something great, and it’s with the support of Paige over there, and Sam over there, or Pete over here, and you as my leader, that’s the moment I become encouraged, empowered, and excited about doing this again because I’ve got the support of others, and that’s what leads to the scalable success.

I’ve done it before, I have people by my side who are ready to help me do it again, and now you’ve prompted me by talking about those conditions and then talking about the coordinates of where I can go from here, and you’ve said, “All right, where do you go from this? This is amazing. This is awesome. How can we build upon that? And tell me what your ideas for continuing this and scaling that.” And, again, you’re leaving it with me. You’re leaving the conversation with me for me to suggest the next move.

And rather than just dump and run, I sit and I strategize with you. We talk about it. It’s a dialogue. We’re having a person-to-person conversation. Feed forward is now a more human enterprise and it allows everyone to feel like they’re actually able to be actively involved in their own story of success. And that agency is what makes people feel so empowered, so committed, and so excited to make these positive changes.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s beautiful. Well, tell us then, if we’re not the manager but the individual contributor, or even if you are leading people but you want your boss to share some of this good stuff that you’re not getting, how do you recommend we encourage and ask for useful feedback or feed forward so we continue learning, growing, and becoming all we could be?

Joe Hirsch
I think it starts with becoming a feedback magnet, making sure that you are asking for feedback, but more importantly…

Pete Mockaitis
And just like asking feedback, is there some magical way to do that or words or…?

Joe Hirsch
Yeah, I definitely think it starts with knowing what kind of feedback. So, it’s not just, “Can I have feedback?” but knowing the type of feedback that you want. Is it corrective? Do I need guidance from you on how to fix something? Am I doing this right? Is it coaching or developmental in its nature? “I’m having a problem with Paige. Can you give me some advice on how I can navigate that relationship?” Or, sometimes you’re just looking for an atta-boy, like, “Hey, look what I did and I want some praise. And even it is a sandwich, I don’t care.”

So, knowing what kind of feedback you’re after will help the person who’s giving you the feedback know what kind of feedback you want. So, be clear on your expectations and they’ll be clear on what they give you.

I think the other thing is to really be careful about separating the signal from the noise. So, you asked for feedback, and maybe you get the feedback you weren’t expecting. Maybe it’s a little more negative or corrective in nature, and you’re like, “Ooh, that’s a downer. I was coming to Pete for praise and, instead, I got a lecture.” So, what do you do then?

So, that’s the point where you want to put aside the emotion. It’s hard. So, if it can’t happen in the moment, you maybe schedule another time to talk it out, but you say, “Look, I’d like to learn more about this.” Start to ask what I call lightbulb questions, things that give you more insight into what the person was telling you or meaning to tell you when they said it.

So, a good example of a lightbulb question would be like, “How often are you seeing that?” “Have you noticed this before?” “Am I doing this a lot?” Just gather information about that so that the lightbulb starts to go off for you so that you know what’s going on. But then you want to funnel a little bit with these funnel questions. And I love funnel questions because it allows the person who’s giving you the feedback to be more specific about it.

The problem with traditional feedback, we talked about a bunch of issues, but a big issue for a lot of managers is that they either feel it’s an all-or-nothing proposition, “I either have to throw everything at you at once and unleash a torrent of feedback and information or I’m going to be very selective and even a little bit stingy with the feedback that I give you. I don’t want to give too much because I’m worried about rocking the boat or saying something that’s going to upset you.”

So, we have to try to help them size and shape the feedback just right, and that’s where the funnel questions come in. Asking, and this is my favorite one, “Okay, so you’ve kind of told me what’s going on. What’s one thing that I can do to change the situation or to improve, or to get better at this?” Now, by asking that question, “What’s the one thing…?” you’ve made it easier for them to tell you what to do. That takes the chances of them of dumping and running and really reduces that by a major order of magnitude. But, more importantly, it’s given you now just one thing to do.

And we can do one thing. We can act on one suggestion. We can make one shift in how we interact with our colleagues or how we think about our work. And so, asking that funnel question is critical because it allows us to become more aware of what’s happening and what to do with it next. And then, finally, widening that feedback loop, because even when we have clarity, it can still cause a lot of pain. We know what has to be done but we’re still nagged by the problem of, “I don’t like the person who gave me the feedback or trust that person,” and so immediately I’m discounting what that person said.

So, going outside that conversation to a trusted friend, a colleague, a spouse, your mom, whoever it is, is going to help you process this information with more objectivity and less emotion. That’s going to help you separate facts from feelings, tone from truth, and baggage from opportunities, and that’s really where we want to go with that. So, become a feedback magnet and do those things, and it will become a little bit easier to get the feedback you need at a time when you need it.

Pete Mockaitis
And I like some of the wordings you’ve provided. I suppose what I think what I often wanted to know in terms of feedback, but I didn’t quite know how to say it without sounding off. I wanted to know, basically, what do I need to do differently to blow your mind and think I am an exceptionally awesome employee who absolutely deserves to be promoted soon? That’s what I wanted to know. But I didn’t know if I could ask it like that.

Okay, Joe, feedback master, how would you recommend I ask a question like that? Basically, I want to know, hey, this show is called How to be Awesome at Your Job. I want to know, from the manager’s perspective and for progression and promotion, how do I become more awesome?

Joe Hirsch
So, the first thing to do is to bring some good data with you to that conversation and to help your manager see from an objective point of view why you feel this conversation should happen in the first place. So, I’m a big fan of collecting small wins, and it’s not an act of self-congratulation. It’s an act of self-preservation. It’s what we need to do to continue to grow and evolve in our work.

So, keep a little list of wins, maybe some email folder, maybe it’s an app you use, but just track your wins whether that’s a work win, or whether that’s relationship win, something you’ve done to contribute to the values of the organization. Keep those because you’ll want to bring that data.

And you’ll say to your manager, “Look, I’m proud of what I’ve done. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have been able to work in this organization with the support of wonderful people who’ve allowed me to be successful but I’m really hungry to grow. I have goals for myself and I want to find ways that I can deepen my connections, and increase my contributions, and build on my competencies. And how can I do that? What are your ideas for me?”

And your manager will be like, “Wow. First of all, I agree with you, those are great wins,” because you’ve now reminded your manager about those things that he or she may have forgotten. Remember, forgetting curves, so it’s good to bring that back to the surface. So, now that you’ve kind of sort of warmed the conversation with that data, that’s when I think you’ll impress your manager by saying, “Look, I’m all about…I’m all in on the contribution. I’m all in on the development. I want more than anything for you to help me reach that next level of success so I can continue to feel like I’m deepening my contributions to our organization and to our team. So, what are your ideas for that?”

Again, you prompt. Don’t tell your manager, “I want a 5% raise.” Now that may be what you want but don’t tell that to your manager because, you want to know something crazy? What if you just bring this out into the open, leave it with your manager, and your manager is like, “You know, Joe actually did a great job this last quarter. Three other people of our team have recently left. I don’t want to lose him. I’m going to offer him 10%.” Why would you already limit yourself by telling your manager what you want when your manager may come back with an offer that exceeds your expectations?

So, start with the data, frame it in the context of collective success, let the manager know that you’re aligned, you’re all in, you’re committed, you want to grow. This is music to every manager’s ears. Like, what does a manager not want to do? Put out fires, worry about retaining high-performing employees, dealing with office drama. And here’s a person who has demonstrated a record of success, is all about the team, has demonstrated some very clear and measurable indicators of his value. So, now, what can we do as an organization?

Maybe it’s offering Joe opportunities for continuous education. Maybe it’s new project assignments. Maybe it’s leading up another project that we’re going to do soon. And, again, that may not be your 5% but over the long term, that could have a return of 20%, 30%, open up opportunities that advance things you wouldn’t even have foreseen.

So, if you’re the employee, don’t limit yourself with your first thought. Have that in the back of your mind and you can always come back to that as a point of negotiation. But as an anchoring principle, don’t limit your potential or your profitability by telling the manager what you want. Let the manager tell you what he or she is ready to give.

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

Joe Hirsch
I think that every leader listening to this, or every employee, or every parent, every teacher, should realize that they have the power to empower other people. And feedback doesn’t have to be a cause for fear. It really can be a cause for joy when we change the mindset, when we shift the message, when we stop looking back on a past that people can’t change and out towards a future they can.

We deliver the promise of feedback which is to help people become the best versions of themselves, the people they could always become but maybe aren’t yet at. And with the small changes, we give them more power, more possibility, more potential. And we shouldn’t play small with people’s potential.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Now, Joe, could you give us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Joe Hirsch
So, I should probably have this tattooed somewhere on my body. I quote it all the time. C.S. Lewis said, and it captures everything we talked about today, “You can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And could you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Joe Hirsch
So, there’s a management professor at the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern by the name of Loran Nordgren, who did some great work on what he calls the Perspective Gap. And what he uncovered with his colleagues is that we tend to underestimate the effect of something on others when we are not going through it ourselves.

So, he brought a bunch of people into a room and have them stick their arms in warm water, and said, “Imagine what it would be like to be in a freezing cold room for five hours. How would it feel?” And they would describe what they thought that intensity of pain might be like, and it was rather low. He brought another group of people in, this time arms soaking in cold water, and said, “What do you think it would be like to be in a freezing cold room?” as they soaked their arms in cold water, and the intensity was greater as you might expect.

But here is what was the surprising part. He then, third group, brought them into the room, had them soak their arms in warm water, take it out, and then describe what it was like. And the intensity of that pain was less than what it was before even for the cold group. Because once we experience something, and then we forget about what that experience is like, we then underestimate the impact of that experience on other people.

And that’s why, when I asked the question, “What’s it like to get feedback?” and they come back with words like caution and anxiety and worry and pain, I then say to them, “Okay. So, how do you think it feels to the other person who’s getting your feedback? Do you think they’re experiencing some of that?” And this Perspective Gap plays an important role in the conversation as we shift our mindset around feedback because it’s not just about approaching with inquiry and humility. It’s also about exercising greater empathy.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Joe Hirsch
I love Team Genius by two authors, Rich Karlgaard and Michael Malone. And the book is great because it talks about the power of teams, and how we can’t really do as much on our own as we can with the support of other people. And I love the message they bring.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Joe Hirsch
Yeah, so this actually, somebody tweeted this out the other day, and they attended a talk that I gave. And I never quite know what’s going to land with people so I love Twitter for this. You can see what really resonates. And they said, and I guess I had said this, it makes sense, I say it a lot, “We can’t choose the feedback we get but we always get to choose where it goes.”

And it’s so true. When we give people the opportunity to become agents of change, when we give them the possibility and the power to shape that future that’s still unfolding rather than locking them to a past that they can’t change, that’s the moment when people feel energized, activated, and empowered by our feedback, and it’s more likely it’ll go somewhere, and, ultimately, lead to positive and lasting change.

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

Joe Hirsch
So, I would love to connect with folks on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, that’s kind of like where I live online. You can read more about my work and research at JoeHirsch.me. I’d love to catch you as part of our growing international audience of listeners on I Wish They Knew, Big Ideas, Small Conversations. Get that wherever your podcasts are played. And I look forward to helping you find a little more joy in your feedback because we can.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Joe, this has been a treat. I wish you all the joy in your feedback and elsewhere.

Joe Hirsch
Thanks, Pete. It’s been real.

Apr 14
0

759: How to Make the Most of LinkedIn and Get Hired with Jeremy Schifeling

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Jeremy Schifeling walks you through the ins and outs of LinkedIn and how you can make it work for you and your career.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The top thing on your profile that you need to focus on
  2. How to get a ton of LinkedIn connections fast
  3. The simple thing that boosts your odds of getting hired by 10x 

About Jeremy

Jeremy Schifeling has devoted his career to helping students succeed in theirs. From recruiting top students at Teach For America to leading student marketing for LinkedIn, he’s touched the lives of millions of people just starting their journeys. Along the way, he’s published a top-selling book on job applications, served as the University of Michigan’s tech career coach, and produced the most-viewed video in LinkedIn’s history. He currently leads teacher outreach efforts at Khan Academy and shares his thoughts on Break into Tech, a site for anyone who wants to launch a tech career. 

Resources Mentioned

Jeremy Schifeling Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jeremy, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Jeremy Schifeling
Oh, thanks for having me, Pete. So glad to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk LinkedIn with you, and you have a pretty special achievement when it comes to LinkedIn. Tell us, what’s the story here?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yes, so I actually used to work there. I was lucky enough to go to work for the company right after they IPO’ed about a decade ago. I got to lead education marketing there, so helping students and recent grads make the most of the site. And, actually, ever since I’ve left LinkedIn, I’ve still been on that same mission to unlock the potential of the site for thousands and thousands of professionals around the world, including lots of top universities as well, because I think there’s so much power there but it’s buried deep beneath the surface that someone has got to excavate it.

Pete Mockaitis
And so then, you, in fact, created the most watched video on LinkedIn. What’s the story? What’s the video? How many views? What are we talking here?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, it’s a funny story because, basically, this was still in the wild west days of YouTube marketing and things like that, but we were trying to bring LinkedIn from the C-suite to college campuses. And students back in the day were like, “Wait a second. Isn’t LinkedIn like Facebook for old people before Facebook became Facebook for old people?” and they were kind of suspicious of why they would want another social network in their lives.

And so, we had to convince them, “Hey, it is relevant whether you want to find your tenth job or your first job, LinkedIn is there for you.” And so, we made this kind of irreverent video talking about how LinkedIn is not just for old guys with heavy briefcases, and it actually got us in trouble with our CEO because he was like, “Those old guys with heavy briefcases, they pay your salary.”

But we won out in the end because the video did get about five million views and was well liked by our audience and helped to get over that suspicious hump that was in our way. So, definitely still up on YouTube. People should check it out. It’s called Your Career Starts Here.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s cool. Well, congrats. And it’s so funny, like everyone wants to go viral, and I don’t know if anyone is really…isn’t there like a legendary business school contest for like, “Hey, make a viral video.” And it’s sort of like, “It’s out of your hands. It’s just some things kind of take off.” And so, do you know what made this such a hit or is it just another one of those mysteries of the viral video?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, definitely a big joke in the marketing circles. Like, you’ll see these memes where it says, the boss comes into the marketer’s office, and says, “Hey, make me one of those viral videos, will you?” And I wish we had the ability to snap our fingers and make it happen. I do think, in our case, we’ve sort of hit on that surprised theme of, “Wait a second. LinkedIn is actually funny? LinkedIn is actually poking fun at itself and at corporate America?” And so, I think, at least for the time, it kind of spoke to that zeitgeist.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. All right.

Pete Mockaitis
We’re talking about your work Linked: Conquer LinkedIn. Get Your Dream Job. Own Your Future. Good stuff. I know there’s a whole lot to discuss, but could you name us one particularly surprising, mind-blowing LinkedIn feature or trick you share that’s like, underappreciated but so powerful?

Jeremy Schifeling
Oh, absolutely. I apologize in advance if I geek out about this stuff. I know I love LinkedIn more than the average person. But I think that LinkedIn is not just useful for finding jobs. It’s really useful for getting jobs. And one perfect example of that is just in the last year or so, LinkedIn has rolled out a new video interview tool.

So, you know we’re all interviewing on Zoom for the first time these days, there’s the Great Resignation going on with people quitting jobs and trying to find new ones, and if you suffer from Zoom stage fright, where you’ve got there on the camera and a little light on your webcam goes off and you freeze up, LinkedIn can help you prepare ahead of time by recording yourself giving answers, getting feedback from people in your network, and it’s all for free.

And so, for your listeners out there, if you just head over to LinkedIn, head into the video interview tool, you can get ready for primetime without paying a cent.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Okay. Cool. Well, there’s one great feature right there. And so, tell us, your book Linked what’s sort of the main idea, the big thesis here?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, I think the number one thing is that even though LinkedIn can often seem like yet another boring social network in this constellation of too many social networks, it’s actually much more of a tool for savvy job seekers, people who want to sort of upgrade their careers. If you’ve got a hunger to get to wherever you want to be going, LinkedIn is the tool to get you there.

You can’t waste time the way you might waste time on other social networks just posting random stuff, consuming content. Instead, you’ve got to use it like a heat-seeking missile where you’re really focused on what’s most important to you in achieving your own goals. That’s what we talk about in the book, how to get exactly where you want to go.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so tell us then, when it comes to the goals, what would you say would be sort of like the main segmentation of goals people have when they go on LinkedIn? So, they’re not there for the cat videos, they’re not there for the sassy little dance video tidbits. What are sort of the top goals that people go to LinkedIn for?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s definitely a couple of things. So, obviously, job seekers whether, again, you’re looking for an entry-level job, a career change, LinkedIn has all the companies, all the recruiters, all the opportunities. But if you’re looking to maybe power up your career in a couple different ways as an entrepreneur, well, guess what, all your clients are all on LinkedIn.

If you’re looking to grow within your organization, all of your fellow colleagues and the people who are higher up than you are on there to network with. And so, whether you want to get a completely new job or just upgrade the one that you have today, LinkedIn is really powerful for all those use cases.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s talk about those who are doing some job seeking. Do you have sort of like a step-by-step in terms of, “Okay, looking for a new opportunity, LinkedIn is apparently awesome says Jeremy”? What would be sort of like the step-by-step to making it work for you?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, and I think there are really three steps to focus on. The first one, this is so important, even though a lot of job seekers skip over it, is you’ve got to know where you belong. LinkedIn, like anything out there in the internet, is driven by algorithms and keywords. And so, if you just say, “Hey, I want a new job. I’m looking for a job,” that’s not good enough because, on LinkedIn, the recruiters who are looking for you need to know whether you match their job descriptions.

So, you’ve got to have focus to the point where you’re like, “I’m a project manager, a product manager, a producer. Here’s what I can do for you.” And if you don’t know where you belong yet, no worries, you can actually go on LinkedIn, look up your school on the site, and, basically, find tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of alumni who have majored in the same thing you did, and are now doing all sorts of fascinating work, from government work, to nonprofits, to tech, to finance, everything in between.

And you can reach out and learn about their experiences to find the right path for you. So, that’s step one.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. You know, that’s really cool. I hadn’t thought about that from a sort of like of like a first-job kind of perspective in terms of it’s like, “Ah, I’ll do anything. I don’t know. I studied this because I liked this but what do people from high school who studied finance or whatever end up doing?” You can sort of go that way.

I think what I’ve also found really fun is if I’ve met someone who’s doing a cool thing, I can look up that individual person, and then it says, “Oh, people have also looked for this,” or they can see where they worked, and then I see the other folks, other organizations in the industry, so I know it’s not addictive in the same way that maybe Facebook or Instagram can be for folks but, at times, for me, it has been, in terms of, “Oh, wow, that’s fascinating and that’s really cool, too, and that’s really cool too,” in terms of discovering sort of new people and organizations, and as it suggests another and another and another. So, again, start by your school and field of study if you’re in the earlier years of your career or discover all kinds of new stuff if you’re in the mid-game there.

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, I love that idea, Pete, because I do think that so often, job seekers have the scarcity mentality, “Oh, there are only so many jobs out there and so competitive to work at the top places. I’m never going to find the perfect opportunity.” But if you take that sort of surplus or bounty perspective that you talked about, kind of like a kid in a candy shop, what you’re going to discover is there are so many cool people doing so much cool stuff out there.

And if you just expose yourself to it, all of a sudden, you’re going to start to see, “Hey, I could be doing that, or that, or that.” And the question is sort of editing it down to find that north star that you can really hone in on.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, we first, step one, know where you belong, and in so doing, or in doing so, we’re going to check out a bunch of related people and organizations that come from our field of study or something else that we already know that we’re interested in. Okay, so what’s the next step?

Jeremy Schifeling
Okay. And so then, once you know where you belong, you’ve got to get it out of your mind and into the digital ether, into the LinkedIn platform. And the reason for that is within this massive sea chain in the last two decades where recruiters who were once placing classified ads or going on Monster.com, now just say, “Hey, I don’t want to waste any time with that. I’m going to go right to LinkedIn and search for the top talent there,” because LinkedIn has 700 million plus profiles so there’s no reason to go anywhere else.

And that means you’ve got to signal to those recruiters, “Hey, I’m in the game. I’m interested.” And so, that starts with your headline. So, I know it may seem a little weird because it’s not necessarily an equivalent on a resume, but that little piece of text right beneath your name, so right where it says Pete, you need to put in, “I’m a project manager,” or an accountant, or a digital strategist, or whatever you’re focused on because that single piece of text is limited to just 160 characters, fewer even than a tweet.

And, therefore, it has been given the most weight in LinkedIn’s algorithm because it’s the least gameable. LinkedIn knows that people can stuff all sorts of keywords all over their profile except for the headline. That’s the truest, most authentic signal of who you are and what you can do, and that’s why you’ve got to start there by signaling your focus.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And can you give us some examples of great headlines? You mentioned accountant, project manager. Is that it? Just accountant, project manager, or would you expand upon that, and how so?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, I do think this is where it goes back to that homework piece we’re just talking, of really doing your due diligence, understanding the career path. If you don’t want to be just an accountant, but you want to be an accountant focused on sustainability or cryptocurrency or whatever, then, absolutely, include that as well because, again, always put yourself in the recruiter’s shoes.

If you are looking for an accountant at Coinbase, say, and you want to hire someone with a passion for the space, yeah, you could hire a regular old accountant who knows nothing about it, or you could hire someone who really gets it and is already an insider. And so, you really want to signal, “Here’s my functional interests, and also here’s the industry, here’s the kind of company I want to work for.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Perfect. Okay, so step one, know where you belong. Step two, show that you’re in the game and we start with your headline. Any other key things you want to fill out?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah. So, again, if you imagine yourself as a recruiter, recruiters actually have the access to this behind-the-scenes called LinkedIn Recruiter. I know, not a very exciting name, but it’s actually the most powerful screen that controls careers around the globe that no one even knows exists except for the recruiters.

And, basically, the reason it’s so powerful is it allows any recruiter who has this license, and it’s about $10,000 per year per seat, so not cheap, but it allows them to go in and search through all those profiles and find the best talent right away. And so, one thing they’re going to search for beyond just, “Hey, I need an accountant,” is, “I need an accountant with specific skills, maybe with expertise in this technology or that platform.”

And so, it’s really critical that you figure out what those keywords are and get those into your profile. So, for example, if A/B testing were an important thing for your career path and you’ve noticed that in all of these job listings that you’re going after, you would want to have it in your About section, you’d want to have it in your skill section, your experience section, so that way LinkedIn Recruiter sees that skillset that you have and gives you as a recommended match to the recruiter.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, even if you haven’t done A/B testing, you can just mention that you’re interested in A/B testing? We talked about gaming, I don’t know. So, I think, well, one, step one, or maybe step 2B maybe in our numbering here is we’ll just have a good sense for what are the opportunities that you want, what are those postings sound like, what are the words that show up again and again. So, it’s just like, “Okay, this is what you’re into, I’m going to see how I can incorporate them.”

But I’m curious, if you haven’t done A/B testing, but you want to show up for A/B testing, do you just mention, “Hey, I’m interested in A/B testing,” or, “I’ve learned several tools and I want to learn more, like A/B testing”?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, I’m glad you brought that question. So, first of all, a little bonus hack for your listeners. If you want to quickly figure out what these most important keywords are, obviously, you can look manually one job description at a time, or you could go to a tool like Jobscan.co, which is also free for a limited number of uses, and basically say, “Hey, show me all the most important keywords for all my favorite job descriptions,” and it’ll immediately pull out, “These are the most critical keywords, and here’s the ones you’re missing.”

Now, for your ethical question. If you do not have that skill, should you list it? Probably not, and here’s why. Because even if a recruiter chooses you on LinkedIn, and says, “Hey, Pete looks awesome. Let me bring him in for an interview,” if they test you on that A/B testing skill on the interview…

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Oh, you saw I’ve done that, Jeremy.

Jeremy Schifeling
…that could ultimately be an unsatisfactory experience for both sides.

Pete Mockaitis
Indeed, that’s true. And, at the same time though, I don’t know why I’m so fixated on this poor person who has not yet done A/B testing. I think at the same time though, you could pick up some skills without necessarily having done it on the job in terms of you could take a LinkedIn Learning. This is a huge LinkedIn commercial, apparently.

Jeremy Schifeling
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
A LinkedIn Learning course about the matter, which actually does show up on your profile as having taken, you can get those badges, certifications, completions using LinkedIn Learning, or just really dork out. Back in the day, I think they might have taken down this website, it’s called WhichTestOne.com. You just look at all these A/B tests and sort of sharpen your skills and read about the comments. Anyway, this is not about A/B testing. This is about using…

Jeremy Schifeling
Well, let me just point out one thing there, Pete, because this is important, especially for career changers out there. So often there’s that Catch-22 where you say, “Hey, in order to get the new job, I have to have experience with it, but in order to get experience, I have to get the job, so how do I break through?”

Well, I want to be really clear, you don’t have to have formal big company experience doing something to list on your profile. If you’ve done A/B testing for your own pet project, for your volunteer work, even extracurricular as a student, all that counts because you can still talk about it in the context of an interview. So, absolutely, get credit for what you’ve done no matter the context.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Okay. Well, so then anything else you want to talk about in step two, showing them that you’re in the game with regard to your headlines and your keywords? Anything else?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, I think those are the most important ones. I think the next step, and this is really critical, is you got to get the recruiter to pick you because, so far, we’ve been talking mostly about the algorithm, “How does this algorithm that powers LinkedIn find you based on your headline, find you based on your keywords?”

But then imagine I’m that recruiter, and I’ve put in all my parameters and I still have 50,000 candidates. Well, one of the tricky things is that LinkedIn limits recruiters to a certain number of InMails a month, messages to new candidates.

Pete Mockaitis
Even with 10,000 bucks a year, heh?

Jeremy Schifeling
That’s right. It’s a pretty good time to be LinkedIn, right? Pretty good business.

Pete Mockaitis
So, we have…there’s a cap, which makes sense because that’s better for everybody. We don’t want to be spammed hundreds of times over. By having some forced scarcity, we have some control there. Okay. So, fair point. You’re showing up in the keywords and the searches, but so are thousands of others. So, now what?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yes. So, now how do you make yourself InMail worthy? In other words, if I’ve got 30 InMails or three InMails left for the rest of the month, how do I decide if you’re worth it, Pete? And so, obviously, it’s about having all the stuff we’ve talked about, the keywords, and the nice photo, and stuff like that, but LinkedIn also has extra bonus filters built into this Recruiter platform that allows recruiters to figure out, “Hey, are you a serious candidate? Are you worth my time and my energy?”

And so, those are things like you may have noticed on the profile, there’s now this thing called Open to Work. And, basically, what that is is a bat signal to recruiters, saying, “Hey, don’t waste that last InMail of the month on someone who’s not even going to respond to you because they’re so content on their current job. Instead, know that I’m in the game and specifically looking for roles at companies like yours.” And, by the way, I know you’re going to ask, you’re going to say, “Jeremy, that sounds great. What if my current boss finds out?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yup.

Jeremy Schifeling
That’s a problem, right? Well, the nice thing is that LinkedIn allows you to basically go into stealth mode with that where you can share your signal with only recruiters who are paying all this money for this product, and specifically only recruiters who don’t work in your current company so you don’t have to worry about the HR department gnarking you out to your boss.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. And so, you would have to have almost like a very motivated HR department to have a buddy working elsewhere, taking a look and then sharing. And I would hope they’ve got maybe better things to do with their time and life, than say, “Who’s thinking about leaving?” Maybe just make a more engaging, rewarding work environment. That’s my own editorial icing on the matter. Okay, cool. So, that’s nifty.

Okay. So then other than the Open to Work piece, what else can we do to stand out amongst the thousands?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, great question. So, the next filter that’s available on LinkedIn Recruiter is called, “Do you have a company connection?” In other words, “Is there someone on the inside that you know that plugs you into the company?” And the reason that’s there is that LinkedIn’s own research has shown that recruiters are much more likely to select you as a candidate if you happen to know someone on the inside already.

If you’re thinking, like, “Hey, why does that matter at all?” But the reality is it’s for the recruiter, that human connection, that sort of connective tissue between you and the organization makes a huge difference. They’re able to reach out to get an introduction, they’re able to reach out and do a background check on you later in the process, and so you’re just a more desirable candidate, an easier candidate to manage, and that makes them more likely to use their InMails on you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, then I suppose the implication then is have a bigger network so it’s more likely that you’re there.

Jeremy Schifeling
Absolutely, yeah. You nailed it, Pete, because, really, mathematically, if you think about the way that networks are, like if you just have a larger more diverse network, you’re more likely to know someone on the inside at more companies around the globe. So, building a large network on LinkedIn isn’t just a vanity project to say, “Hey, I’m 500 plus.” It actually matters to your chances of success.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. Certainly. And any pro tips on how we can grow that number quickly?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah. Oh, this is an important one. So, the number one mistake that I see people making with LinkedIn networks is they go onto LinkedIn and they try to basically reinvent the wheel, go out there and build new connections one by one, and that’s great. It’s great to meet new people. But they haven’t gone and credited yet for all the people they already know in the real world. So, let me ask you this question, Pete. How many people would you say that you’ve met or corresponded with over the course of your entire lifetime?

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, I don’t know precisely but it is more than 3,000.

Jeremy Schifeling
Okay. I have research that suggests you’re absolutely right, that the average person knows about 5,000 people over the course of a lifetime. So, you’re somewhere on that journey.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty.

Jeremy Schifeling
And so, what that means is when you see people on LinkedIn who have 10 connections or 20 connections, they are literally missing out on thousands of actual connections they’ve built out there in the real world. And because LinkedIn doesn’t know about them, they can’t give you credit for it at the algorithmic level, at the recruiter level. You’re not being plugged into all those opportunities that you deserve.

So, to catch up as quickly as possible, what I want all of your listeners to do is to go to the My Network tab at the top of the screen, and instead of just connecting with people one at a time, scroll down to the lower left hand side, and actually import your address books. I know what you’re thinking, you’re like, “Whoa, this is going against every social media training I’ve ever gotten. I’ve got keep that stuff locked down.” But the reality is that your address book, like your Gmail address book, is a digital archive of everyone you’ve corresponded with, all those relationships you’ve built.

And so, when LinkedIn matches those with the email addresses and the profiles, they can instantly give you credit for all the people you already know because, unlike a Facebook, unlike the TikTok or an Instagram, there’s not much of a dark side on LinkedIn because the nice thing about LinkedIn being the boring social network that we talked about is that you don’t have all this crazy stuff happening on there. It’s more about opportunity and accessing it.

Pete Mockaitis
And then nothing nefarious is happening in terms of people being hit with like marketing messages, like, “Hey, you joined LinkedIn,” because, one, they’re probably on LinkedIn, and then, two, that’s just not what happens when you’re adding contacts, right?

Jeremy Schifeling
That’s right. It’s basically saying, “Hey, you already know Pete. Why don’t you actually acknowledge that connection on LinkedIn?” And then it works out well for both of you for the reasons we talked about.

Pete Mockaitis
And you can choose them individually. And what I found is really fun is once you do that, and let’s say you get a couple hundred going through there in a jiffy, is that now LinkedIn’s algorithms have a lot more to work with. So, then you can just request to connect a whole bunch of people. And then, a week later, many of them have already said yes, and your network is much larger. And now, the recommended connections make a lot more of them are new and relevant, like, “Oh, yeah, that person, too. And, yeah, that person, too. And that person, too.”

And so then, there’s sort of a nice little virtuous cycle in terms of, “Add a bunch of connections. Come back a week. Better recommendations. Add a bunch of those connections. Come back a week. More good recommendations,” and then you just keep sort of scaling really quick in terms of, like, “Okay, I guess now I’ve got everybody I know connected on LinkedIn. Cool.”

Jeremy Schifeling
That’s absolutely right. And I think that one of the things your listeners will find if they embraced some of these strategies is that we often have been taught, “Oh, my goodness, I don’t want these algorithms processing me and my behavior.” But, again, the upside here is so massive. We’re getting exposed to companies you didn’t know about, jobs you didn’t know about, recruiters you didn’t know about who all are seeking your talent, and that’s all for the good.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Those are so great. Well, tell me, Jeremy, what are some other must-dos and must-don’ts associated with LinkedIn? Is that it? that’s the three steps? Is there more?

Jeremy Schifeling
I will mention one more thing, if you wouldn’t mind.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, then we’ll say, okay, so we got three steps. And what else?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah. And so, the last piece, and this really goes to that networking and relationship-building piece we just talked about, is if you do nothing else on LinkedIn, if you skipped the profile, you skipped all the career exploration, and if you invest in only a single step, it’s got to be reaching out and getting a referral for the jobs you want because, on this point, the data is so clear, which is that job seekers who are referred to jobs, so basically someone inside the company is saying, “Hey, I know Pete. He’s awesome. He should have a job here,” gives you a 10X advantage over candidates who only apply online.

Think about that. We spend probably more time working than we do with our families, for better or worse, and if we’re going to have so much time and so much of our personal meaning invested in work, shouldn’t it be the work that we love doing, with colleagues we like working with? So, give yourself the best shot at that, find someone on the inside who can go to bat for you to give you that referral, and use that to get the best chance of doing work you love.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And when we’re asking for that referral, any pro tips in terms of best/worst practices, like, “Hey, man, I want to work here. Make it happen”? What shall I say? What shall I not say?

Jeremy Schifeling
Definitely starts with finding the right people, this kind of this Venn diagram overlap that you’re looking for where it’s someone who wants to help you and someone who can help you. So, for example, if you searched for a company at LinkedIn, say, Google, for instance. And then you click on the Google company page, and you say, “Hey, there are 200,000 employees at Google, those are 200,000 potential referrers.” And if you click on that number, you’ll see all those people listed on LinkedIn as well as their backgrounds, where they went to school, etc.

So, you can take that list and you can filter it for “People I already know. People who are friends of friends. People who went to the same school.” And now they’ve got some incentive to want to help you. You can also search by title, to say, “Show me people on the product management team or on the marketing team,” and now you’re finding people who can help you because they’re plugged into the team you want to work for. And so, if you can find that perfect overlap, that person is going to be really well-placed to help you out.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, we find the right person. And then any do’s and don’ts with regard to what we say to that person?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, and I think it all comes down to what’s the relationship so far. If it’s someone who’s been your best friend for 20 years, ask for the referral right away because, honestly, it’s a win-win. Sure, you’re going to get a great opportunity, but in exchange, Google is going to pay them a $1,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 in referral bonus once you’re hired. So, never doubt the power of the referral to help you as well as your friend.

But if you don’t know them that well already, no worries, you can always reach out and say, “Hey, I just want to pick your brain about this opportunity in this organization.” You can get their story, hear their journey, and then, after you’ve built a bit of a rapport with that person, then you could start to pivot, and say, “Hey, I would love nothing less but to follow in your footsteps and get to sort of go on this journey that you’ve gone on. I understand from this amazing podcast I was listening to that Google really values referrals. Any chance you’d be willing to put one in for me?” And now that you’ve broken the ice, you’ve established the rapport, it’s much more natural to make that ask than right off the top of the bat.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, certainly. And so, when you say referrals, this can happen…this is not a particular LinkedIn thing so much as just sort of humans doing humans have always done with regard to recommending in people.

Jeremy Schifeling
That’s right. But think about this, referrals have always happened but always through the old boys’ network, right, “Oh, ho, ho, ho, you went to Harvard Business School, I went to Harvard Business School, let’s help each other out.” But what if you didn’t go to Harvard Business School? What if you didn’t go to business school or even college?

Well, LinkedIn now enables you to find people who are at all these organizations who might have other things in common with you, and you could go on there and say, “Show me all the Google employees who volunteered for Habitat for Humanity because that’s my particular passion.” You could connect on that basis. And so, ultimately, this is democratizing access to referrals, not just the old boys’ network.

I want to hear, when it comes to getting endorsements, that seems like a good thing that would work for us. What’s your take there?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, so let’s come back to the source of truth here. Ultimately, everything boils down to that LinkedIn Recruiter screen we were talking about where the recruiters around the world are finding top talent. And, ultimately, what you’ll see if you look at that, and you can look at screenshots online, is that LinkedIn, even almost 10 years after endorsements have launched, has never built that as a filter into LinkedIn Recruiter.

Pete Mockaitis
No kidding.

Jeremy Schifeling
And the reason for that is sort of simple data science, which is if you recall the heyday of LinkedIn endorsements, when they first launched, there was all this virality. People were going around endorsing each other for everything. My own mom endorsed me for astronomy and geology and all the stuff I knew nothing about.

And that, ultimately, watered down the signal and created all this noise so much so that just because I had 99 plus endorsements for something didn’t actually make me an expert at it, wouldn’t stand up in the interview room. And because it wasn’t a strong enough signal that they could actually hang their hat on, they’ve never baked it into their flagship product. LinkedIn Recruiter is what makes LinkedIn its most money. If you look at their last 10K and then, ultimately, if it’s not going to be successful for recruiters and effective for that key audience, they’re not going to put it into their flagship.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that’s not a filter that appears in that piece of software that recruiters are using. I guess you may argue, it may or may not be interesting or compelling when you look at something. Well, I guess there’s…I got to go in my LinkedIn. So, there’s endorsements and then recommendations, there’s one where it’s, “Hey, Pete is good at leadership,” so there’s that. And then there’s also a kind of like a letter of endorsement, like, “I worked with Jeremy, and I thought he was super brilliant.” So, am I using my words correctly, which is which?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, absolutely. And so, this is a really important distinction, and I’m glad you brought it up. So, endorsements are kind of like the fast food of social proof.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, okay, endorsements.

Jeremy Schifeling
It’s like, “Yeah, Pete is great,” I click the button. No big deal. And, obviously, that’s watered down for all the reasons we’ve talked about. Recommendations, however, are like digital gold because, think about your typical resume. Your resume is, “All Pete is saying that Pete is awesome, and Pete might be a little bit biased on that topic,” versus this is a rare chance for a recruiter to get some third-party validation that you are who you claim to be.

And so, what you’ll see in the recruiter product is that, very quickly, upon choosing a profile, the recruiter will be shown those recommendations as a way of confirming that, “Hey, this actually is a rockstar candidate.” So, those definitely do matter much more than endorsements.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Endorsements, 99 people saying I’m great at leadership development doesn’t so much matter. Recommendations, human beings saying, “Whoa, worked with this guy, and they were so great,” matter a lot.

Jeremy Schifeling
Absolutely. And don’t stress out about it. You don’t need to have 99 of those but one or two well-placed ones from people who are either a client or a boss and can objectively speak to your skillset, that definitely matters.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very cool. Well, so then, tell me, anything else we need to know to do or not do with our LinkedIn?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah. Honestly, those are the big ones. We can talk all day about other bells and whistles and new features and stuff like that, but I think if people are going to say, “Hey, I only have 10 minutes realistically to spend on my job search this week or think about career exploration,” that’s where I’d spend my time. That’s where you’re going to get the biggest Pareto principle kind of bang for your buck by focusing on, “Hey, what do I want to do? How do I signal that to the world? And how do I get recruiters to pick me?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, absolutely. So, one of my favorite quotes of all time has to be from Yogi Bear, of course, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” And the reason I love that one so much is that I think it kind of speaks to where we are right now in our world of career discovery, which is so often we get this message as kids that we have to choose a path, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” when, in fact, we discovered during this Great Resignation that you can be lots of different things.

You can run your own business. You can work for someone else’s business. You can try different career paths. And I hope that Yogi is in there, gives people the sense that many possibilities are available to them, especially at this moment.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And could you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah. So, this is one that actually goes beyond LinkedIn but is still in the world of job searching. So, a company called ResumeGo, basically, tested one of the key axioms of the entire job seeker’s handbook, which is, “You’ve got to have a one-page resume.” And we’ve all heard that ever since we applied for our first jobs.

Well, it turned out, when ResumeGo actually tested this out in the real world, and showed two different versions of resumes to actual recruiters, a one-page version and a two-page version, the actual real-world recruiters were 2.3 times more likely to choose the two-page version over the one-page version. So, as a job seeker, we always have to be questioning dogma, “Is this actually the way the world works or just the conventional wisdom?” because if it’s not working for us, we got to skip it.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, that is fascinating and I have told many people to have a one-page resume myself. And so, well, yeah, I want to dig into that study in terms of…and so, they didn’t know it’s the same person or there’s sort of they had a pile?

Jeremy Schifeling
Exactly, that’s right. So, all randomized. And I think what they actually hypothesized in terms of why that was happening, what was driving this phenomenon, was that, yeah, recruiters actually say the same thing, “Oh, I’ve got too many resumes. Keep it short.” But when actually given more information, and probably a little more white spaces as well, the recruiter was like, “Ah, I can actually look at this person, get a sense of what they really can do,” versus eight-point font with everything crammed in, trying to make it work in this 8.5×11 space.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that does make sense in terms of we say that’s what we want because it’s like, “No, too much work. Too many pages. Keep it down,” and yet when you really sit down, it’s like, “Oh, well, this is lovely to look at with my eyes. Hmm, I enjoy having multiple segments that make a lot of sense as opposed to things shoved in all the more.”

Jeremy Schifeling
That’s right. So, we talked about A/B testing before, and here it comes again. It matters.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yes, so my favorite book, and, again, specifically in the job-searching space, has to be from my own personal job search guru, Steve Dalton. Have you actually interviewed Steve?

Pete Mockaitis
Twice. He’s so good.

Jeremy Schifeling
Oh, yeah. So, Steve, for those who don’t know already, has written a book called The 2-Hour Job Search. And the reason I love it, as an introvert myself, is I often thought of networking and LinkedIn as only a space for extroverts, super type A MBAs. When, in fact, as you’ve probably gotten a sense from our conversation so far, even if you’re super introverted and maybe networking doesn’t come naturally to you at all, you absolutely have access to this incredible opportunity to find the right people, build the right relationships, get access to the best opportunities. And Steve really breaks down how to do that in his book The 2-Hour Job Search.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Jeremy Schifeling
Favorite tool, I would say, is actually something that I use quite a bit when I do my own job searches, which is a site called FollowUpThen.com. Have you heard of it?

Pete Mockaitis
I think so. Keep talking.

Jeremy Schifeling
Okay. So, basically, what FollowUpThen is a second brain. So, one thing that I’ve learned that humans are not good at all about is remembering to stay engaged with people. We’ve talked a lot about networking, reaching out. Well, the reality is that when you’re building relationships with a new person, most likely it’s going to take multiple conversations or multiple correspondences over time before you really win them over to your side.

The problem is there are so many wannabe networkers dropped the ball because they have a great first contact and then never bothered to follow up. Whereas, if I send a message to you, Pete, thanking you for our first conversation, and then I BCC every one month at FollowUpThen.com it will bounce it back to my inbox on a monthly basis. So, even though my brain has been distracted by boba tea and the things I see on my window and everything else happening on my screen, FollowUpThen.com forgets nothing and always reminds me to keep that relationship healthy and alive and helps it build towards success. And, by the way, it’s actually all free at FollowUpThen.com.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. And then I imagine, it bounces it to your email such that I can just push reply to…

Jeremy Schifeling
That’s right, exactly. It keeps the thread intact, so you can say, “Hey, Pete, remember that great advice you gave me last month? I actually acted upon it. Here’s what I learned. Any chance I could get an introduction to this person who might be able to unlock the next opportunity?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so cool. As opposed to, I mean, I love me some OmniFocus Task Management Software, but this is just easier in terms of, “Hey, we’re talking about an email, it’s going to come back as an email. When that email comes back, I just have to push R, reply, and then, bam, away we go.” Cool.

Jeremy Schifeling
That’s right. Not to geek out too much but it’s all in your workflow and that’s where it stays.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, you know, this is an interesting one because I was just talking about this with some colleagues who were geeking out with me about the best way to learn. And one of the things that I’ve done way too much over the pandemic, and I hate to say this thing on a podcast, is I’ve indulged in podcasts during almost every waking hour, during my walks, during my almost practically before I go to bed.

And what I’ve realized is I’ve kind of crowded out all the silence, all the white noise in my life with actual noise, with actual content. And when I think that the human brain was designed to do originally, if you think about evolution and how we’ve come about as a species, is we had all this free time, all the space to think about things. And that’s why our brain is so good at being creative in a shower or while we’re sleeping. That insolvable challenge that is daunting us today gets solved while we’re asleep.

And so, I think carving out more space to have that time to process and to think, even if it’s subconscious, has actually been really powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate and gets retweeted a lot?

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, I think I’ll come back to that piece about referrals. I think we’ve shared a lot about process today in terms of, “Hey, here are the steps that a recruiter goes through. Here are all the tools that they use.” But, at the end of the day, results matter, getting that ROI. And so, if people want to focus on, “Hey, how do I actually cut to the chase and get that dream job, that 10X advantage that referrals provide?” That’s gold.

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

Jeremy Schifeling
Yes, so we actually built a website sort of a companion to the book called LinkedInGuys.com. And it basically is an insider’s guide to LinkedIn from LinkedIn insiders, conveniently enough. So, if people want to learn all these tips and tricks, they’re all for free at LinkedInGuys.com.

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

Jeremy Schifeling
Yeah, absolutely. I think this one is especially topical given where we are in our society, in our economy.

Okay. So, the thing that I think is really incumbent upon job seekers today is to embrace this unique moment in our economy. With this Great Resignation going on all around us, it can often seem like things are chaotic, things are a little bit crazy, but think about what the Great Resignation really represents.

Every single time someone walks off the job, walks out that door, that door is opening up for you, in turn. So, if you’ve ever wanted to change careers, or find a new path, or do that thing that you really love to do but thought it was closed off to you, now is the time, now is your moment. And I hope folks embrace that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jeremy, this has been a treat. I wish you much conquering and fun on LinkedIn and elsewhere.

Jeremy Schifeling
Thank you so much, Pete, and good luck to all your listeners out there.

Apr 11
0

758: How to Thrive and Succeed Through Authentic Grit with Caroline Miller

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Caroline Miller talks about why gritty people achieve more success–and how you can be one too.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why grit is essential to success 
  2. How humility cultivates grit
  3. Why everyone needs a mastermind group 

About Caroline

For three decades, Caroline has been a pioneer with her groundbreaking work in the areas of goal setting, grit, happiness and success. She is recognized as one of the world’s leading positive psychology experts on this research and how it can be applied to one’s life for maximum transformation, flourishing and growth. 

Caroline helps people identify, come up with a plan for, and persist in pursuing their toughest goals — leading to their success, happiness and flourishing, while inspiring those around them. Achieving hard, meaningful goals is one of the most rewarding things we can do in both our personal and professional lives. 

A Harvard graduate with a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, she has authored seven books including Creating Your Best Life and Getting Grit. 

Resources Mentioned

Caroline Miller Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Caroline, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Caroline Miller
Thanks for having me. I’m so excited.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m excited, too. I want to hear all about your wisdom when it comes to grit. And, first, I want to hear about how you apply it in your own world. You are an expert in goal accomplishment, a top-rank master swimmer, have a blackbelt in Hapkido. It seems like you’re walking your talk. Is there a key insight or learning that has been super transformational and useful for you across these different domains?

Caroline Miller
Well, the one you didn’t mention is the one that actually taught me grit, and that was I overcame bulimia at a time when it was thought to be impossible and we were considered unhelp-ables and it was a death sentence. And I learned how to overcome bulimia one day at a time and I wrote the first book by anybody who overcame bulimia and lived to tell the story. That book, My Name is Caroline, is still in print, but, really, that’s what taught me grit, and it also taught me that joy comes from helping other people to have grit. So, that’s the most important thing I learned from getting better and staying better, actually, all these years.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you said that joy comes from grit and teaching others to have grit.

Caroline Miller
Yeah, I was told something very important early in my recovery, which was you can’t keep what you don’t give away, “It’s great, Caroline, that you’re getting better, it’s great that you’re overcoming this eating disorder, and you found time and you’ve got joy and you’ve got your life back, and you’re not lying and stealing and whatever, but who are you helping?”

And I really do believe grit is only useful when it’s actually uplifting other people as well, when they witness acts of grit that they ask themselves, “What if I live like that? What if I took those kinds of risks? What if I left it all on the floor?” So, I think grit is only good when it’s not just a self-focused behavior, when the behavior itself actually makes other people want to be better as well. And I think that was the most important thing I learned ever in life, and it guides everything I do.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, that’s awesome for the other people and it’s also awesome for you. Can you share, is it just because of the purpose and the joy and the motivation that that unleashes? Or is it because of sort of an accountability effect, like, “Oh, Caroline is the role model. I don’t want to slip up”? Or, how does that work internally?

Caroline Miller
Well, so this is where my fifth book, Creating Your Best Life, comes in. So, I went back to UPenn and got a master’s degree in Positive Psychology in 2005, just really lucky. One of the first 32 people in the world to get it. It was there that I discovered that happiness precedes all success, and that all goal-setting has to be preceded by emotional flourishing. And that’s where I learned that real joy came from helping other people to accomplish their goals as well.

And so, what’s important to me is that when I am gritty, when I am pursuing really hard goals, it really helps that other people know about my goals, the right people, and that it gives me a sense of pride and fulfillment that is just not available when all you focus on is yourself, “And what am I doing? And where am I going? And what school am I in? What job do I have? What do I make?”

And so, I think the biggest shift in the 20th century, kind of the law of attraction approach to goal-setting, and grit, etc., has been to the 21st century of it’s not about self-help. It’s about helping other people as well. And so, I think that it wasn’t possible for me to keep any of these things until I turned and gave them away to other people.

And so, that’s really what I’ve learned in life, but also, through the research, I learned at UPenn and afterwards.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Cool. Well, that’s a powerful lesson right there. And let’s hear, how would you articulate sort of the key thesis in your book Getting Grit: The Evidence-Based Approach to Cultivating Passion, Perseverance, and Purpose? What’s kind of the big idea here?

Caroline Miller
The big idea is that you can cultivate grit, and everyone should cultivate grit. I think this is a quality that is not a nice-to-have. It’s a need-to-have. And as a mother, I have served my three children, growing up in the DC area, having all competition stripped out of their lives. It was, “Everybody has won and everyone must have prizes.” They got rid of valedictorians, they got rid of fun runs, but I just couldn’t get over the trophies my children accumulated by the age of 17, that when we threw them out, no one even noticed.

And so, what I think is most important is that you need to cultivate grit because every night, we scan our days for what we did that day that was hard, and we do it without even knowing we’re doing it because those are the things that give us pride. Those are the things that give us a sense of self-accomplishment, self-efficacy, and in order to do hard things, you have to cultivate grit because the hardest goals and the most satisfying goals are outside of your comfort zone. And we have an entire generation that grew up having those lessons forcibly taken out of their schools, their activities, and elsewhere.

And so, the thesis is grit really matters, but you can learn how to have it. It’s not something that’s specially born to Olympians. It’s out there for the taking but you have to cultivate the qualities that build it.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. So, that’s an interesting notion that you say, before we go to bed, our brains scan through the day and think about, “What hard thing did we do?” and then we feel pride associated with it. I think that’s interesting in that, as I think about my own days, I really do want to have some victories. And it’s interesting in my own brain, like, what counts in terms of a win or doing a hard thing. Like, Caroline, I just love chatting with you and guests, and learning stuff, like it’s almost too easy in that it doesn’t require much, I don’t know, hustle, kind of sacrifice, “Oh, let’s get through this.” It’s like, “No, this is going to be a blast.”

So, in a way, this is, I hope, a very meaningful contribution to tens of thousands of listeners, who think, “Oh, this is really useful insights. Thanks, Caroline and Pete. This will give my life a little upgrade.” That’s kind of what we’re going for. So, in a way, that certainly “counts” as an achievement but it doesn’t feel like it counts, to me, as a hard thing that I did. It’s sort of like, “I just did that thing I love doing.” So, what do you think about this?

Caroline Miller
Okay. So, there’s something called goal-setting theory, it’s Locke and Latham, and so that was kind of stuck in academia till they brought it out and put it in Creating Your Best Life. And that ends up being the first evidence-based goal-setting book, which is still amazing to me. But what’s really important is that goals, or learning goals, and performance goals, and you have to know the difference and you have to pursue your goals in different ways, depending on whether you’re doing it for the first time and learning how to do it, or it’s something you’ve done before.

And this is something you’ve obviously done before over and over and over again. You are in the midst of executing a performance goal. It’s a checklist approach, like a pilot taking off in a plane. This is not hard for you anymore is my guess, so I’m not going to think that, at the end of the day, you’ve scanned your day, and said, “What did I do today that was really hard outside of my comfort zone?” I think this is a huge contribution. It’s an intrinsic goal, obviously, but is it outside your comfort zone? Only you know that, but my guess would be no.

Pete Mockaitis
No, I mean, Caroline, you might pull some tricks that make me a little uncomfortable. We’ll see where this goes. But, generally, no. It’s sort of like, “Hey, we’re going to have a fun conversation, learn some stuff, and this is what I like doing, and done it 700 times so it’s all good.”

Caroline Miller
What is the hardest thing that you did yesterday?

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s see. In the gym, I did some things that were a little bit harder and different than what I’m accustomed to in terms of going longer, so that was something. My toddlers made a big old mess across the whole house.

Caroline Miller
Parenting is hard.

Pete Mockaitis
It took me a while…my wife and I, a good while to reset that back to proper when I was tired and just sort of wanted to go to bed. So, it’s funny, those things come to mind. Whereas, work wasn’t too tricky. I was at the bank for a while, chatting with bank people. They’re very friendly.

Caroline Miller
Work is pleasure, right? When you find the thing you’re passionate about, you can be in flow, and it’s not as much of a challenge as maybe it was in the beginning when you’re learning what kind of microphone to get, how do you prepare your guests for an interview, how do you make sure it goes smoothly, etc.

But the two things you just mentioned, parenting and parenting well, and being in the gym, going out of your comfort zone, using the quality of self-regulation or willpower, that is really an important ingredient in cultivating what I call authentic grit. You have to have the ability to delay gratification so, at the end of the day, when we’ve often delayed gratification, had the humility to be learners, not the arrogance that we know it all. And we’ve gone out and maybe used a trainer. That takes a certain amount of humility.

Those are the things that, at the end of the day, they build emotional muscle but they also build physical muscle, and those are some of the most important ingredients of really good grit. And humility was my big surprise. There’s so much research on humility but I don’t think most people understand that humility is a quality that you see in the kind of grit that makes people push through all kinds of discomfort, all kinds of people questioning their goal, making fun of them, many dark nights of the soul.

People don’t always understand, grit is not resilience. Resilience is short-term discomfort, getting through something. Grit, the idea of grit is it’s baked into it, that this is a long-term goal. This is something you’re going to have a lot of setbacks, a lot of challenges, a lot of the dark nights of the soul. And the humility of just one day at a time, learning from others, learning from failure, having patience and persistence and purposes, “This is my goal. This isn’t my mother’s goal. This isn’t my husband’s goal, my parents’ goal, my teachers’ goal. None of that. This is my goal.”

And that purpose, that intrinsic purpose is what allows people to continue to cultivate grit. When I overcame my eating disorder, it was really one of the first things I had ever taken on as a huge goal where there’s a good chance I was going to fail. I tried to get better but I wasn’t ever able to get better nor did I know anyone else who had either. So, for me, that was the hardest, biggest goal but I did it because I wanted to live and I didn’t want to die.

I was a newlywed who had hit her last bottom at the age of 22, a Harvard graduate whose biggest secret was my bulimia. It had killed my swimming career. It took so much from my life. But because it was my goal, I was able to cultivate grit by just, one day at a time, doing what I had to do to delay gratification, surround myself with good people, the right people, and just move patiently to the finish line, which I did.

Pete Mockaitis
And can you expand upon how humility is helpful in grit and goal achievement?

Caroline Miller
So, there are two kinds of humility. There is social humility, the ability to step back in a conversation or any kind of environment, and let somebody else get all the air time, be the star. You don’t have to be the star of every conversation or every setting, so there is social humility, and it’s called one of the most important lubricants of being in a relationship.

And then there’s intellectual humility. You know that you don’t know everything. You’re very comfortable being surrounded by people who can teach you things. And so, that kind of humility is what gives people access to learning from really good people, from knowing that you can build bridges and not have to be the hog all the time and other people can shine. They want to be part of your team when you’re going for something hard because they know that you’ll be there for them as well.

What’s very interesting, also, and this is something I’ve been focused on the last couple of years, is humility cuts in different ways for men and women. Women who exhibit humility in the workplace often get run over by colleagues. And I’ve coached a number of CEOs, who are women, who have humility in their top five. I talk about the VIA Character Strength test. That’s my go-to test. It’s free. I love it. It’s just fabulous.

But when you have humility somewhere in your top five, it doesn’t always work well for women, but it is a great quality for grit. In the workplace, you can be seen as a pushover, but in terms of your own personal goals, humility is a really good rocket fuel for being able to stay the course with your own important goals.

Pete Mockaitis
And is that sort of because it’s like, “Hmm, all right, it looks like I need some help here,” or, “Hmm, looks like I need to change my approach. Like, what I’ve been doing hasn’t worked,” as opposed to, “No, I conquer all and I shall defeat this, too”?

Caroline Miller
Yeah. And so, when you interview great athletes, my great uncles were Olympic gold, silver, and bronze medalists, and this was true of them as it is true of all kinds of athletes that we all know or have seen on television or read about. They don’t want to win against bad players, bad teams. They want to win against the best. They want to know that when they went out and they conquered the world or set a world record or did the best they could, that it was not against people who were weaker than them, not as effective as them; it was the best.

And so, that is one of the signs of truly elite athletes is they have the humility to know that they want to play against the better people because they’ll learn if they lose, but they also know if they won, they truly won in the best possible way in the best possible arena that tested them.

Pete Mockaitis
As opposed to, “Oh, what’s most important is the win itself.” I think there are some who just like the winning more than the learning, and so it’s like if they can have easier…I’ve talked to some gamers. I don’t know, this is a weird example. But this always surprised me from video gamers. They’re like, “Oh, I hate this new skill-based matching where they put me with other good people,” or, “I want to beat all the Christmas noobs who get the game on Christmas for the first time.”

And I found that surprising, like, “Don’t you want to play other people who are excellent, who challenge you to do your very best?” And they’re like, “No, I take delight in just slaughtering the less skilled and experienced.” And I find that kind of curious.

Caroline Miller
Well, so that’s what Carol Dweck at Stanford calls a “fixed mindset.” And, unfortunately, that has become such a defining criteria for the generation that grew up where we were all told to make our kids happy, “Just tell them they’re great. Give them what they want. Make them happy. And if they’re happy, they’re going to have confidence and high self-esteem.”

And the truth of the matter is, and the results are in on this movement where everyone got trophies, and everyone was told they were the next Picasso, is that we created more narcissists and sociopaths than we did people who had confidence who would go out with a work ethic and they were willing to start at the bottom.

This is where you are afraid to burst your bubble of believing that you are all that, so you stay inside this little fixed arena, and you only do things where you know you can’t lose, you can’t be shown up, you can’t be seen as stupid. A growth mindset is everything is something you can learn from, “I will grow my intelligence. I will grow my skills.” And that kind of mindset is the kind of mindset that leads to a flourishing life.

So, you don’t want to play small, but that’s one of the things that we’ve seen coming out of the self-esteem parenting movement, and that’s really the millennials, not all millennials, but, generally, psychologists and sociologists found that this is a generation that didn’t really climb trees, they didn’t break their legs, they didn’t go and start businesses. Entrepreneurship went down 9% in this phase. Traveling with comfort animals, pigs, turkeys. The things that I chronicled in Getting Grit were hysterical.

I was interviewing flight attendants who told me about all these comfort animals that would show up in the plane, and they knew. They knew from looking at the person who brought the animal on, they knew if it was a real support animal or not by how they made contact with the pet. But we became a generation that, basically, said you can never ever feel uncomfortable. Trigger warnings everywhere. It really went too far. As a result, we paid the price.

The average male marathoner got slower by 42 minutes because there was no real metric by which to measure yourself if everyone got a trophy. It’s fascinating.

Pete Mockaitis
I guess I was hoping that maybe more newbie runners picked up the sport. And call me a growth mindset practitioner.

Caroline Miller
That did happen.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s like, “Maybe we just had more newbs who were getting started, and we can celebrate that,” or maybe, I don’t know where I got that thought. I don’t know.

Caroline Miller
But that was celebrated. Both happened. It’s not either/or, it’s both and. So, the color runs did bring more people in where there were no times. You just had paint thrown at you. That was fun. It did make a lot of people more fun. However, there was a cost at the other end, which was without any real celebrating of elite athletes. I mean, remember I had said this a little earlier, but it still surprises me.

A lot of schools, including my kids’ high school, got rid of valedictorians and any kind of class rankings because it made people feel bad. So, I think that there was a cost on either end. And I’ll say there’s a bad kind of grit that takes shortcuts to get all the glory, that people with really true grit earn because they do the hard work, they slogged through difficulties. I call it faux grit, people who take shortcuts or who lie about their achievements so that they will get other people to admire them.

The most egregious thing I found in my chapter that I wrote about faux grit is the opening to that chapter. And I write about there’s this committee in the US government that exists only to find people who pretend they’re medal of honor winners, only to pretend they’re medal of honor winners. Now this is the highest award given out in the US military, and you only get it for extraordinary valor. It’s so rare. But people buy it on eBay, they buy it at flea markets, and they just want people to think they’re all that, that they have grit.

If you take a shortcut, if you have a fixed mindset, but you want people to think you’re really made of tough stuff, go out of your comfort zone and prove it. You’ll feel better at the end of the day and you’ll have something to build upon that will take you to even better places after that.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, I’m all hung up on this medal of honor story. So, there is a governmental committee who, like, hunts down the fakers. And what do they do? Do they prosecute them? What goes down?

Caroline Miller
I don’t think they prosecute them but they strip it off their resumes.

Pete Mockaitis
They just say, “Cut it out, buddy.”

Caroline Miller
I think they fine them. I think you get a stiff fine. And so, I live in Washington, DC, just outside Washington, DC, and there was just a Flight of Valor that came to Washington this week, and it was four medal of honor winners. And, yeah, they were met at the airport with a parade. And when they were on the plane, there was a water cannon salute. This is how people feel about people who throw their bodies on grenades and IEDs.

There was this one helicopter pilot who was honored. In Vietnam, he rescued 73 fellow soldiers under fire. That’s a medal of honor performance. So, I am deeply offended, and I didn’t serve in the military but I am deeply offended that people would try to proclaim that is something they had earned but this is, again, something we’d seen as a result of this, “All have won and all must have prizes.” We’re seeing people faking their PhD research. We’re seeing companies like Enron, for God’s sake.

When people came to look at Enron, and see “Is this a company I want to invest in?” They had an entire floor at Enron devoted to fake phones, fake traders all just on the phone pretending to take orders. It was all fake. Wherever you see that kind of made-up environment, you see what I call faux grit.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so we’ve got a nice litany of stuff that’s not working so well when it comes to developing grit. And when it comes to the best practices that do develop grit, we talked about doing the hard thing daily. And I don’t know if you have any particulars or suggestions or prescriptions or protocol there. But, yeah, maybe more about that or some additional things that make a boatload of difference in terms of us developing grit.

Caroline Miller
Well, there was an exercise that came about during the Oprah years, three blessings, three things I’m grateful for. I did a twist on that and I created a worksheet just called three hard things. I think we all need to train ourselves to do hard things. So, I just think everybody, at the end of every day, should say, “What did I do today that was hard?” I think that’s very important to build that muscle.

The second is to take a look at the relationships, the people around you, because grit is contagious. And we know this because Angela Duckworth has studied the cadets at West Point, and they found that grit became the determining factor of whether or not someone dropped out of Beast Barracks, that first summer where the cadets are just pushed past all their physical and emotional limits. It wasn’t about their GPA or anything else. It was grit that ended up being that determinant.

And she studied the cadets, and she found that if you had a low-grit score, they would room you with a higher-grit score cadet. Why? Because when we’re around people who have the right kind of grit, they awe and inspire us. So, take a look at the people around you. What are they pursuing? What is their metric for success?

Nicholas Christakis’ research on social contagion also found that quitting smoking is contagious as is gaining weight. Behaviors become contagious. If you want to accomplish something difficult, you really need to take a look at who are the people around you who help you to catch and perform the behaviors that either have patience, humility, do hard things, have a certain amount of passion for something, not just a bunch of interests that are all over the place. So, that’s another thing.

And I also think people should get used to just finishing things. If you start a recipe, follow all the directions. If you’re on the treadmill and you put in 45 minutes, don’t get off at 40. Start to build the expectation that you are a finisher. And there is a word in Chinese chi ku, I’m sure I’m pronouncing it incorrectly, but chi ku, basically, means eating bitter.

And so, in China, the expectation by the parents is “We presume our children are strong,” and they’re so perplexed that, in the United States, we presume children are fragile, that we must protect them from things they don’t want to hear, things they don’t want to do. It’s really interesting and I think we have to presume strength in ourselves and the people who depend upon us to be their role model, their parents, and we really have gotten away from that.

But the flourishing life is not the easy life. It’s the life where you go out and you do hard things for the right reasons. And in the process, awe and inspire other people to ask themselves, “Well, what if I live like that, too? What if I took those kinds of risks? What if I had that kind of dignity and self-respect that made other people want to be like me?”

There’s a story I had in Getting Grit that I love to tell, and that is of an Iraq war veteran, Kevin Downs, who came back from the Iraq war, basically, almost a paraplegic. He was in a Humvee that ran over an IED, and the other five people in the Humvee died, and he lived, but he lived with a lot of mangled limbs. And he went back home to Harpeth, Tennessee where he was a three-sport athlete in high school, and he didn’t know what he was waking up for anymore. His purpose had been duty to our country. He felt committed to the military and he felt like he was doing something good.

He got discharged and he’s back in bed, disabled, and he gets the idea “I know what I can wake up for. I will offer to cut the grass at the high school because I was a football player, and this is the time of year when they need the grass cut.” He called the high school, he said, “Do you mind if I come cut the grass? I just want to feel useful again.”

And here’s the important point of the story. This disabled veteran, without giving a speech, without getting a trophy, I don’t even think he got paid, riding a lawnmower, impacted all of the youth who watched him. And so, I saw the football coach from that high school interviewed on ESPN, and he made this observation, “Every single teenage boy on my football team who had been whining about two-a-days, about heat, about bugs, about not wanting to be there, about how hard it was, stopped whining in the presence of this veteran cutting the grass.”

And I really sat back when I heard that story, and I thought, “This really does show that the right kind of good grit is contagious and it makes other people want to be better.” That’s the point of grit, to make other people want to be better as well. It’s not enough for us to do hard things, our own intrinsic goals. What about you can’t keep what you don’t give away? Role model the behavior that will make the next generation and the people around you better as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Ooh, that is meta. It’s inspiring about inspiration. And it really is interesting how you think about…I’m trying to think about how to integrate that into my own goals, like, in such a way that they can be inspiring for others but also not, like, you’re tooting your own horn, like, “Isn’t this awesome, the thing that I did?” I don’t know if we’re at the gym, it’s like, “Behold my perfected body.” That’s not probably ideal for a tone or inspiration.

Caroline Miller
That’s selfie-grit.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, totally.

Caroline Miller
That’s when you are telling everybody about how tough you are. If you don’t mind me just saying, I think the longevity of your show and the excellence that was asked of me, sending me a free microphone so that your show would be as excellent as possible, the reminders I got told me that you have a standard of excellence for your show and your guests that I don’t think I’ve ever had in many, many, many years of lots and lots of interviews.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, shucks.

Caroline Miller
I think, without you actually saying that, you are demonstrating grit. This is what an excellent show with high standards can accomplish. We can impact a lot of people and give them the tools to have a better, more awesome life. So, I think you are demonstrating grit. It’s just that people take for granted when they do it because, quite often, they don’t realize that what they’re doing in their own humble way is having an impact.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, I think that’s a beautiful point right there, and I guess there have been studies associated with the more that we can connect with the beneficiaries of the work we do, the more that connects us to purpose and energy and stuff. And sometimes I do trout out favorite bits of feedback from listeners. One of my favorites was, “I wake up early so I can listen to it twice.” One of my favorites. Thank you, Ashley.

Caroline Miller
No, I think you probably do more than you think you do. But I think everybody should ask themselves, “Am I doing something hard and doing it in a way that would make other people want to be better as well?” When I’d looked at history, I found, at every turning point in history, there was one figure who stood apart, who caused history to take a left turn, and those were people who had, what I call, this authentic grit.

And it was because of how they did these hard things, the Martin Luther Kings, the Greta Thunbergs, the Malala Yousafzai, it’s how they did them with dignity, with self-respect, with passion, it made them have followers. And that’s where history changed. Good grit changes the world. Bad grit repels people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, we talked about doing the hard things, we’ve talked about finding the inspiration, how that impacts other people. Any other top do’s and don’ts when it comes to getting gritty?

Caroline Miller
Well, I do think it’s important to really take a very hard look at the people around you. And I just got a special callout to the women because there’s research by Shelly Gable at the University of California Santa Barbara that’s probably my most referred to research. It’s where you see the shade snap in people’s eyes and the lights go on, and they realize that they’ve been tolerating disrespect possibly, which is keeping them from being gritty or accomplishing their goals.

Her research says this, “There is only one right way to respond to another person’s goals or dreams or saying that they’ve succeeded at something, and that is with curiosity and enthusiasm.” And that is a Rorschach test for whether or not a person who’s around you should remain in your life, in close contact with you. And women admit to being surrounded, 84% of women say they’re surrounded by frenemies, friends who are enemies.

And why do women do this? Why do women have passive-aggressive or passive-destructive comments and behavior? Because they think if they actually clear the space for themselves, they’ll be seen as not nice. And even worst than that, one of the only changes that hasn’t taken place in the workplace for women is how we perceive women who are goal-directed and agentic.

So, boys grow up hearing stories of being agentic. They see football teams, baseball teams, they see men pursuing goals. We don’t really see that as much for girls. And so, what we know is that women are told stories of a sisterhood and best friend and helping others, and so women really need to take a look at when you share that good news with your friend, your sister, your mother, your cousin, your co-worker, and you are proud of it, was their curiosity and enthusiasm, did they hit like on LinkedIn? Or, did they just go quiet?

And Shelly Gable found that the most common thing women do is they go quiet, which is actually the cruelest thing that you can do to another woman’s success. Why? Because, sure, men do it, but it doesn’t impact men the way it impacts women because we’re wired for the tend-and-befriend response. Oxytocin is released when women are connected and they do good things for each other.

And so, what happens when women go silent, which is where the whole mean girl thing, mean moms comes from, is women feel like they’re in existential hell. It’s almost as if they’ve died. And I’m on a mission now to make sure that women get into mastermind groups. If you want to do hard things, build a mastermind group with people who are active-constructive responders and share your hardest goals in the company of those people where they won’t interrupt you, they won’t mansplain you, they’ll let you be an expert, and they’ll cheer you on.

And the research shows that when you’re in a group like that, you take more risks. But so many women play small because they don’t know who has their back. In fact, Madeleine Albright just died as we’re doing this interview. I grew up seeing Madeleine Albright. She was a mother I was in close proximity to. And I’ll never forget how mean the other mothers were to her. She has given interviews most of her life about the mothers I grew up with. I know who she’s talking about. She said they were horrible. They were cruel. They would ask her about her fruitcake recipe and not about the doctorate she had just received.

And so, I think we have to be really, really thoughtful about, “Are we truly, truly supporting women as they succeed and as they pursue hard goals?” So, when you said, “Is there something else?” Yes, look at the quality of the people around you. Are they active-constructive responders when you share your good news? And for women, it’s even more important because the research shows that most women do surround themselves with frenemies, and the first response you get when you share a piece of good news, the first person you share it with, his or her response may cause you to give up that goal in the next week.

Imagine. Imagine that. The impact other people have on us. And so, anyway, that’s another point that I really just wanted to drive home when you asked.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, no, that is powerful. And now that you’ve got my antenna up, curiosity and enthusiasm, and “Am I seeing that?” Boy, huge things are coming to mind here. Well, one, accountability groups have been huge for me in terms of just general life goals, like folks help support each other as I’ve done that in different roommates or men’s group settings.

And then, specifically in podcasting, I’ve got a mastermind group. Every one of them have been a guest on the show, and vice versa. And it’s been exactly what you say with regard to taking those risks because we’re like we feel it’s like, “Is this priced too high? I don’t know if I could ask for that much.” “Like, yes, you absolutely can.” It’s like, “Ooh, should I follow up again on this opportunity? I don’t want to be a pest?” It’s like, “Yes, you absolutely…”

Like, a lot of the conversations are associated with, “Ooh, I feel kind of uncomfortable and nervous about this thing,” and they’re like, “Yup, that’s normal, and that’s what needs to happen and you can do it. Go for it. You’re overthinking this, you’re, whatever.” And so, that’s just been huge and I’m a big advocate for mastermind groups.

Caroline Miller
And most women are not in one, and they don’t know how to form one. And that’s why Kristin Neff’s research on self-compassion is so interesting because she just had that book come out in the last year, radical self-compassion for women. And she said that being in a group like this, doing anything for yourself is considered a radical act of self-compassion because women, again, are cultured to take care of other people not themselves.

And I think this is where some of these passive-aggressive, passive-destructive behavior comes from. That’s why I wrote a short e-book, it’s available for purchase and download on my website. I think it’s the most important thing I may have ever written. It’s only 43 pages but I laid out the case for why every woman needs to be in a very strategically formed mastermind group. But, also, why do we do this to each other? We do do it to each other.

I’m not letting men off the hook for centuries and lots of really misbehavior, but we’re shooting at each other inside the tent. And, to me, that is partly why women have not made the strides we thought we would’ve made by now, and we haven’t. When Adam Grant sent me that research, showing that in companies, some of the mentoring that some of the women say they’re doing could not be matched with who are the mentees, I came up with a word that I thought would take care of this mentorship sponsorship dilemma that isn’t really producing the results we’re looking for in great numbers – and that is ampliship.

And that’s something Madeleine Albright was great at. Amplify the good news, the goals, and the success of other women with witnesses, because if it didn’t have a witness, it didn’t happen. That’s what I think, and that’s why some of this research was stopped in these companies because they couldn’t find the mentees.

So, anyway, women need to be in mastermind groups, but not any old mastermind groups, but a very carefully formed mastermind group with certain guidelines. So, that’s my clarion call. All women, please, value yourself and your goals highly enough to get the support from other women who have your back, you know who they are, giving you the guideline, active-constructive responding, learn about goal-setting theory, which is so important.

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

Caroline Miller
I want to thank you for this opportunity to share this because, as you can tell, I’m very passionate about it and you don’t reach out and ask anybody. I appreciate the fact that you thought I did good enough work to ask me, so thank you very much. My work speaks for itself. And I can be found on my website.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. All right. Well, now let’s hear about a favorite quote, something you find inspiring.

Caroline Miller
My favorite quote is “Ignorance shouts. Wisdom whispers.” I think that says a lot.

Pete Mockaitis
And maybe you’ve already mentioned it, but a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Caroline Miller
I think Shelly Gable’s work on active-constructive responding, and the name of her research is “What happens between friends when things go right?” Talk about a great topic, right?

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Caroline Miller
I think my favorite book right now is the George Washington biography by Ron Chernow. What an extraordinary leader. I kept hearing people talking about it, I thought, “I’m going to go read that.” I’m just aghast at what an extraordinary human being this man was. We’re so lucky.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I remember listening to 1776, and I was like, “Whoa! That dude, there is some grit, there is some self-sacrifice.” Some impressive components.

Caroline Miller
He was amazing. I had no idea. Wonderful biography.

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

Caroline Miller
I find that Evernote, Web Clipper in Evernote is the thing I cannot live without. I can’t write a book without it. I will be a subscriber of Evernote for the rest of my life.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit, something you do that helps you be awesome at your job?

Caroline Miller
I get up early and I make a pot of coffee, and I drink it all. And then I go get in the swimming pool. I’m in the swimming pool in my log after that.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that seems to connect and resonate; folks quote it back to you often?

Caroline Miller
“You can’t keep what you don’t give away.”

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

Caroline Miller
To my website, CarolineMiller.com. And, as you know, people often think it’s Caroline. It’s Caroline. Just think Princess Caroline, L-I-N-E. Put CarolineMiller.com.

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

Caroline Miller
I really do believe that a rising tide lifts all boats. Instead of thinking about “How can I succeed?” ask somebody else what their dream is, and then when they accomplish something, make sure you share it with witnesses. I think we need to get away from “How much can we accomplish?” and begin to think of it as kind of a group event because that’s what we’ve gotten away from and we have to get back to that. So, help other people. It will come back and bless you in many other ways.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Caroline, this has been a treat. I wish you much luck and success with your mastermind groups and research and all your adventures.

Caroline Miller
Thank you so much. Again, I appreciate the audience.

Apr 07
0

757: How to Find the Career You Truly Love with Marcus Buckingham

By | Podcasts | No Comments

 

 

Marcus Buckingham reveals strategies for identifying the work that fills you up.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The secret to finding your “love” at work
  2. How you can be “irreplicable” at work
  3. Why you should see your job as a scavenger hunt, instead of a ladder 

About Marcus

Marcus Buckingham is a global researcher and New York Times bestselling author focused on unlocking strengths, increasing performance, and pioneering the future of how people work. He is the author of two of the bestselling business books of all time, has two of Harvard Business Review’s most circulated, industry-changing cover articles, and his strengths assessments have been taken by over 10 million people worldwide. He currently runs all ADP Research Institute’s studies on People and Performance. 

Resources Mentioned

Marcus Buckingham Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Marcus, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Marcus Buckingham
Thank you for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to get into your wisdom and talk about your book Love + Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life. But, first, could we hear what do you love most at work?

Marcus Buckingham
Actually, it’s love and work. I just put a plus in there because I thought it looked cool but I like love and work, I like war and peace, so I like the juxtaposition of those kinds of things. Look, I’m a psychometrician by training, which means I love trying to figure out ways to measure things about humans that you can’t count but that they’re really important anyway.

So, things like talent, strengths, engagement, resilience, that’s what I love to do is get to the heart of some of these really important psychological constructs and figure out, in a world where there’s so much opinion and so many, I think that, can we find a way, nonetheless, to cut through that, and say, “What do we know for sure about people’s strengths, or about engagement, or resilience?” That’s kind of what…it sounds a bit geeky but that’s what I love.

Pete Mockaitis
No, no, it’s beautiful and I understand and it’s exciting. And I’d love to hear, is there a particularly exciting, fascinating discovery that you’ve made recently when doing some of the research and pulled things together for the book Love + Work?

Marcus Buckingham
Well, what’s always fascinated me, when you look at the world through the lens of people who love it, if you look at the world of work through the lens of people who love it, you discover there’s way more variation than you would ever think. So, you look at some jobs and you think to yourself, “Well, those jobs, no one must want those jobs.” We would be able to do them for a short period of time and we want to get out of them as quickly as we could.

Take a role like hotel housekeeping. We kind of think, “Well, that’s not a good job,” and we, therefore, have to put rules and regulations in place to get people to do the job properly, and then we wonder why people find no love in the job. But I had a chance to interview the eight best housekeepers at Walt Disney World, and they didn’t know each other, but they’re all amazing housekeepers.

And you look at their job through their eyes, and the sheer amounts of variety and creativity and innovation that goes into their job from their perspective. One of them lies on the bed and turns on the ceiling fan, that’s the last thing she does before she leaves the room because that’s the first thing a guest does after a long day out at the theme park, and she just loves seeing…She’ll sit in the tub and sit on the toilet because that’s the way the guest would see the room.

Another one loves the fact that she can make a show for the kids. And so, every time they come back in, she’ll have arranged the fluffy toys in a little scene and Minnie’s arm on a remote control, Mickey’s arm on an empty French-fries container, and the kids can sit all day long, Mickey and Minnie just hang out in bed snacking and watching TV. And you suddenly see this world open up because you’re looking at a particular job in this case through the lens of people who love it, and it’s like, “Oh.”

Now, yeah, there are rules and regulations that say, “Don’t touch any more of the guests’ possessions than you need to, to clean the room and don’t lie on the bed.” So, weirdly, we’ve created rules that almost make it harder for the people who love their job, to love their job. But that’s one of the biggest takeaways from all the research that went into Love + Work is you look at the world of work through those people who love what they do and the detail that you get isn’t anything like you would expect.

Pete Mockaitis
Boy, that’s really inspiring. And I remember when I was really loving work, and I was doing strategy consulting, and I was super excited, like that was sort of the dream I had from all through college, and I was, like, I got into Bain and I was so thrilled and pumped. And then somewhere, we were having a conversation with my fellow first years, and the conversation came up to whether or not we did good, like we contributed to good.

And so, for me, I thought that the answer was obvious, I was like, “But of course we do good otherwise we wouldn’t be here. And if you just think about it, we get an insane amount of responsibility for a 22-year-old, we’re working on projects that the clients pay half a million, a million dollars a month for a small team for. It’s expected that we’re going to generate a return on that that’s like 10X of what they invest in us. Their share prices are going to go up which will impact those who are saving for their college, for retirement, for nonprofits, for philanthropic grant-making foundations, that the wealth we’re creating is hugely leveraged at this point in time.”

And so, they were sort of like dumbfounded, like, “Huh? We just thought it’d be a good pathway to get to business school and you have cool careers.” But you’re right, people can have vastly different perspectives of their jobs, and that, in turn, fuels their emotions, engagement, motivation, and…well, I’m sure you know a whole lot more about what that fuels than I.

Marcus Buckingham
Yeah, sure. Biology loves variation and by the time we get to be 19 years old, we have a hundred trillion synaptic connections in our brain, and no one has the particular network or pattern that you do, or that I do, and the people that we grew up next to, our brother, our sister, people in the same house, same socio-economic upbringing, same race maybe, same gender maybe, we’re totally different from them in terms of what we love, and what we get a kick out of, and what we pay attention, and what we ignore, and what frustrates us.

We have more synaptic connections in our brain than there are stars in 5,000 Milky Ways. And from that uniqueness comes really differently specific things that we love and that we loathe, and that we lean into and that bore us. And, seemingly, nobody really…you get 10 years of geometry but you don’t get 10 years on trying to figure out how to demystify that beautifully unique massive filigreed network of loves and loathes in your brain. No one really helps us with that.

In fact, you could say school and work actually deliberately try to alienate you from yourself. You’re not really told how to figure out what that unique network is and turn it into work, and turn it into contribution, is how I define work. It’s not just your job; it’s any work where you add value to somebody else. But, yeah, you’ve got so much uniqueness, and your challenge in life, really, isn’t that you don’t have enough time. It’s that you don’t draw enough energy or nourishment from your life.

And so, part of the reason why I wrote the book is to go, “Wait a minute, the reason we’ve got so many kids on Adderall and so much Xanax prescribed to tone down the Adderall and so many frustrated and anxious and burnt-out workers is because we haven’t really understood, “How do you help people move through their life and draw nourishment and strength and love from what they’re doing?” We haven’t had anyone do that.

We’ve just created standardized tests at school, or list of competencies at work, and then 360 surveys to measure you on the competencies, and kind of successes based on how closely you match the model. It’s not related to how intelligently you’ve cultivated and expressed what you love. No one helps you with that. And so, really, the point of the book was to go, “Come on, we are all incredibly varied, and we need to own that variance, understand it, and then contribute it.”

Pete Mockaitis
What you said that really struck me is we draw nourishment. And what else? What else from work? That’s a heck of a sentence.

Marcus Buckingham
Well, we draw nourishment, we draw energy, we draw love, we draw joy from work. We can. The metaphor is you’re supposed to have work-life balance but then if you think about it, that’s a really bizarre aspiration to lay on anyone not just because if you ever managed to find that moment of balance for your life and your work and your family and your finances and your grandma and whatever we’re balanced. But if ever did manage to find that place, Pete, you’d want to say to everyone around you, “Don’t move. Nobody moves.”

Pete Mockaitis
“It’s perfect right now.”

Marcus Buckingham
“I’ve got it.” But you look out at nature, nothing healthy in nature is balanced. And let’s just say that really clearly – nothing healthy in nature is balanced. Everything healthy in nature is moving. And you have to move through the environment that you’re in and draw enough nourishment from it to keep moving. Well, that’s a good metaphor for our lives.

We are moving through our time and our jobs, our time and the other domains of our life, and our challenge, really, is “How do you move through your job, your family life, your community, maybe your political activism, your faith, whatever, your hobbies? How do you move through life and draw enough joy and nourishment and love from that movement in order to keep growing, keep contributing?”

That’s not easy. No one said that it was easy but no one tells us about any of that at all. And that’s a crying shame for many of us.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Marcus, lay it out for us, what are the key principles that we need to follow in order to be drawing nourishment, energy, joy, and love from our work and other things that we engage in?

Marcus Buckingham
Well, the first thing is to realize that you have a wyrd inside you. That’s the very first thing. Not that you are weird, but that you have a wyrd, which is a noun. W-Y-R-D. It’s actually a Norse idea that you’ve got inside you at birth, independent of what happened to you as you grow up, or independent of your parents, or whatever, you’ve got this unique diamond, this unique spirit, and for them it was they called it your wyrd, and you have to get in touch with your wyrd if you’re going to live a productive and happy life.

Today, we don’t need the spirituality necessarily, we just know from the clash of the chromosomes that you do have, from the get-go, an incredibly filigreed network of synaptic connections. We know that. So, the first thing for all of us to understand is the most important aspects of you, what you lean into, what repels you, what uplifts you, what drains you, and the specifics of that, the fact that you are drawn to, I don’t know, reading the back of a milk carton, or somebody else is drawn to make little dolls out of corn husks, and somebody else is drawn to make shapes under a kitchen table with tire. We’re all drawn to really different things.

Those things are really unique to you and super important to understand. So, first of all, everyone should know they’re not a blank slate, they weren’t created by how they grew up or by the traumas that they experienced. Those things might occlude you, occlude you from seeing you, but you have within you this biology, we can see it, an incredibly powerful combination of networks and synapses that lead you in certain directions and away from others. That’s the first thing.

The second thing, of course, is the world is telling you about it all the time. Rather than looking at the world as the enemies, something to withstand, if everybody could just wake up and look at the world as though it was trying to put on a show for you, as though every day it was trying to show you thousands of different situations and moments and contexts and people and activities, it’s trying to show you a lot of different things, and your response is to go, “Which of these are things that I love?” almost like your world is a fabric of many different threads.

Some lift you up a little, some down, they’re black, they’re white, they’re gray, they’re yellow, but some of them are red threads, and they’re threads that lift you up, that energize you, that you find love within. And the first way to spot these red threads, and we are all a genius when it comes to spotting our red threads, the first thing is “What do you find yourself, instinctively, paying attention to?” Your patterns of attention, what do you find that you instinctively are drawn to? You attend to what you value and we tend to think that everyone just pays attention to the same stuff that we do, but they don’t.

So, right from an early age, going back to thinking about “What did you find yourself paying attention to? Maybe, what did you find yourself paying attention to, that others missed and the detail of that?” Normally, as you know, Pete, when you think about patterns, we’re told the verb that goes with patterns is break. You’re supposed to break your patterns as though your patterns are pathological, they’re bad, they’re the source of your trauma or your pain.

Actually, your patterns of attention are the source of all contribution and meaning and joy for you. So, that’s the very…there are other signs which we can get into, if you want, but that’s the very first thing to start with. Your patterns of attention are utterly unique to you and they are totally worth paying attention to.

Pete Mockaitis
So, when we do that paying attention, I guess in some ways, I’d love it, Marcus, if we could get really practical, tactical here because I’m thinking I could sort of psychoanalyze for quite a while, like, “Why did I click this headline but none of the other headlines?” And so, I imagine there are some value into some self-reflection. But how do we do that prudently so that it’s not kind of just blindly unaware, just like sauntering through life and not cluing into the patterns, and not like sort of overkill navel-gazing?

Marcus Buckingham
So, it’s Love + Work. The point of love is, like any energy source, it’s got to flow. Love actually turns into a super caustic abrasive force that will destroy you if you don’t let it out. Love needs and demands expression. So, the reason we stop paying attention to what you’re paying attention to is because you need to express it and turn it into a contribution. That’s what work is in the Love + Work. It’s like an infinite loop where the detail of what you love leads to you making it something of value out of it.

That’s what contribution is, something of value to someone else. It could be learning, it could be a product that you make, it could be a poem that you write, but it’s something of value that you’re creating. So, your attention leads to love, and then it leads to work, and then the detail of what you made informs what you love, which then informs what you make, which then informs what you love. If you look at the most successful people, they’ve got this beautiful infinite loop where love is for work, and work is for love, and love is for work, and work is for love.

And so, if it’s just about navel-gazing, if it’s just about self-involvement or narcissism, then you stop the flow. The point of paying attention to what you pay attention to is so that you can then turn it into contribution. For me, very early on, I found myself paying attention to why. When we’re watching people do the high jump, when I was at school, I was nine or ten, you start watching people watch others do the high jump, and you find that the moment somebody tries to jump over the bar, everyone watching sticks their leg out, and then they deny that they’re doing it. They raise high on their tippy toes and they deny that they’re doing it.

And I was fascinated by the fact that all these people, because then you turn around, you’re, “Why did you do that when he jumped over the bar?” And the person goes, “I didn’t do that.” So, it’s like, instinctively but unknowingly, everyone is kind of weirdly willing the other person over the bar. And for me, I went around, no one else in my school seemed to pay attention to that, no one was even interested in that, and I didn’t know it would lead into a career as a researcher. I didn’t know that at nine, that’s for certain.

But I was so aware of being aware of something other people weren’t that I even remembered it 50 years on, you’re like, “Ooh.” And yet, 20 years later, some Italian scientist discovers the existence of mirror neurons, which is where we try to mimic the experiences and the emotions of others, which is why we do the leg kicking. I didn’t know any of that. But you’re starting off by going, “Is the stuff that you’re paying attention to useful in any way?”

And, for me, weirdly, it led me to learn differently. I didn’t like fiction. I liked nonfiction, particularly nonfiction about why the world works the way it does, why is white light made up of all the other colors, why can you sink a ship and when can you do that, why does every society ritualize death. Have you ever studied a ritual? Why? Like, I’m that guy.

And so, from a very early age, I was lucky enough that I paid attention to some stuff and then noticed that I was the only one paying attention to that stuff. And then it became a channel to which I could learn, and then through which I could contribute. All of us can do that. All of that that I just described for me could sound super boring to you but, for me, that’s a real experience.

So, for any one of us in our work right now, you start off by paying attention to what you’re paying attention to, and you know that no one else is, and that’s the place where you begin to start carving your job to fit yourself, which is what the most successful people do.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, when we pay attention to what we’re paying attention to, are there any key practices, or questions, or reflections that help surface some of these patterns all the more clearly to us consciously?

Marcus Buckingham
Yeah, there are three clues you can watch out for. Actually, before that, just FYI. The most successful people don’t do what they love. I run a research institute. We have no data at all that the most successful people do what they love, that they do all that they love. In fact, the data show, instead, that the most successful people find love in what they do. And the threshold seems to be 20%. Like, 20% red threads.

The Mayo Clinic research on doctors and nurses who don’t struggle with burnout shows that they don’t do 60%, 70% red threads. You stay above 20% and 40 looks like 20, 60 looks like 20. Above 20% red threads is like that’s a really interesting psychological threshold. You go below that, 19, 18, 17, 16, and there’s almost a perfect linear one percentage point increase in burnout risk. It’s like below 20% and you start to get psychologically damaged.

So, what we’re all striving for is not a red quilt at work. We don’t need a red quilt. We need 20% red threads every day. Two most powerful questions to predict performance and engagement at work are, “Was I excited to work every day last week? Did I ever challenge my strengths every day in the work last week?” So, there’s something about the frequency of it, the everydayness of it that’s super important.

And the three best clues to spot these red threads would be, first, “What do you instinctively volunteer for? What do you instinctively find your psychological or physical hand going up for even when other people around you are like, ‘You suck at that.’?” If your hand just keeps going up, that’s nontrivial. That’s interesting. Positive anticipation.

Second is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the positive psychologist, called flow. So, when time seems to speed up when you’re doing something, when you vanish inside of it and you’re not doing the task but you are the task, the steps fall away and you just…almost you’re doing it unconsciously. So, that moment when you look up, you think it’s been five minutes, but you look up, it’s been an hour – that.

The third clue is when you’re doing something and when you’re done with it, you’re not drained. It’s like it conveys mastery, and that feeling of mastery when you’re done with it, you feel uplifted, you feel authentic, you feel as though something about the thing you just did was, not to be too spiritual, but of your essence, and you fill up. You don’t feel drained. You fill up. It’s not like, “Thank goodness that’s over,” which many of us feel about many things.

It’s more like, “What I was just doing was a manifestation of me.” So, there’s other clues, but three really obvious clues to what these red threads are for you. And, of course, within the book, we’ve got a whole red thread questionnaire which dives into the detail of that because God lies in the detail in terms of you. A red thread isn’t like, “I like helping people.” No, it’s, “Which people? What are you doing with the people? Why are you helping them? When are you helping them? How are you…?”

Let’s get to detail for you because love is super detailed. You start figuring out what those red threads are for you, it’s then the most beautiful raw material to start thinking about “How do you weave your job to fit your loves better?” And there’s all sorts of things you can start doing in order to make that happen.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, that’s perfect. Let’s go there right next in terms of, okay, so we’ve identified some red threads. These are things that I love, that I naturally pay attention to, I’m uplifted by, I enter flow, I instinctively volunteer for it, and I think, “Okay, that’s cool. But, uh-oh, Marcus, I’m not getting 20% of that in my job. It’s more like 5%.” What do we do?

Marcus Buckingham
Yeah. Well, first of all, when you ask people that question, and you say, “Do you have the freedom to modify your job to fit yourself better?” Seventy-three percent of people in the US agree or strongly agree that they do.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool.

Marcus Buckingham
That suggests that there’s 73% of us that aren’t utterly in the wrong neighborhood. Seventy-three percent of us at least think, anyway, that we’ve got room to maneuver. Now, that doesn’t mean that 27% of us are in the wrong spot, but 73% of us feel like we’ve got that room to maneuver.

So, the first thing is the data, we know that 73% of people agree or strongly agree that they have the freedom to modify their job to fit themselves better. So, that suggests there’s an awful lot of us have or think that we have that chance. Interestingly, only 18% of us say that we have a chance to play to our strengths every day, so there’s a big attitude behavior consistency problem, as we call it in social psychology, but there’s an awful lot of us have that freedom.

Twenty-seven percent of us are probably thinking, “I’m utterly in the wrong job,” but 73% think we have the chance to maneuver. So, the first thing that one should do is be intentional. When you wake up in the morning, what red threads are you going to weave today? Where will you find them? There are some clues to spot but where will you find them? Approach every day with intentionality about where you will find those red threads for you, first.

Second, Once you know what those red threads are, any way that you can cultivate those red threads with any particular competency or skill or expertise? You might have had a red thread around communicating with people, and then you had to figure out how to make a podcast, and then you had to figure out some technical expertise to turn this thing that probably began as a yearning or an appetite or something and actually turn it into performance, turn it into a contribution. So, is there any way that you can take that red thread and combine it with some sort of competency that enables you to turn it into contribution?

Third, is there any way, one day next week, all red threads, one day, just one day, where there’s a day that you pick where you’re like, “You know what, I’m going to load up on this day. Can I find a way to do that that ensures that there’s some particular day here where I’m just it is really a love-filled day for me?” Can you then figure out a way for your team to name it? Can you keep volunteering, whatever that is, so that your team starts going, “You know what, Pete is the guy who…” because these days, obviously, anyone’s headcount is replaceable. Anyone is replaceable. But, of course, you want to be…and no one is replicable.

You want to be, if there’s a word, irreplicable, where your love is so defined, what people turn to you for is so defined that they go, “I can’t really imagine this company without that person. I can’t imagine a world without that person. I can’t really imagine a team without that person.” So, can you name what it is you’re bringing to that team? If the team itself had a voice, what would it call you? If the team itself had a voice, how would it name what you do?

I, in the end, ask people to do two things. Just take a blank pad around with you, draw a line the middle of it, put “Loved it” at the top of one column, “Loathed it” at the top of the other. Take it around with you for a week, try to spot those three signs of love. Any time you find yourself doing any part of any those, scribble it down in the “Loved it” column. The inverse, you procrastinate, time slows down, blah, blah, blah, put it in the “Loathed it” column.

You’ll end that week with a really vivid sense from your own actual work of where the love comes from. So, start off with that if you can. And then for you, the challenge on the team will be to ensure that you can find the language to say to your team, “Turn to me for this. I love it when people rely on me for this. I love it when this…” not the braggadocio, “I’m the best at…” but, “I’m at my best when…”

This is, for me, one of those things I think, Pete, where we’re teaming, the verb teaming is one of those skills that we all have to cultivate in this new hybrid model of the way that we work. And part of teaming is being able to share, articulately, vividly, with detail what people can rely on you for, where you’re at your best, what you love the most because people can’t read your mind.

So, the more vivid you can be about that, the more likely it is that the team will start coalescing around the particular value that you bring. Until such point has happened with you, where somebody begins to define the entire role, maybe it’s not 100% red threads but those red threads become foundation for the very thing that people will want to pay you to do.

That whole journey I’ve just described, you don’t need anyone else for it. All you need to do is use the raw material of your regular week of your own life to be able to figure out how you scavenge your job into that which you love. And that’s eminently doable. For 73% of us, anyway, it’s eminently doable.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Marcus, I’d love it if you could share with us a couple stories of folks who did just that. They were paying attention to what they’re paying attention to, they identified some red threads, combined it with the competence and contribution, communicated that with their teams, and said, “Hey, I’m at my best when I do this. I really love it when you ask me to do that,” so we could see how it all comes together for folks.

Marcus Buckingham
Well, here’s three, and they’re different roles. One person who comes to mind is a person who was in HR. Her first 10 years of career were in HR, and would go to conference with the company that she was with, and would see how the company’s branding was falling down, wasn’t clear enough, wasn’t coherent enough, and kept writing emails, not critical emails but emails that called attention to the branding of the company, and all these darn conferences simply wasn’t vivid enough, wasn’t clear enough.

Customers didn’t really know what that company stood for. Kept writing them. Kept drawing people’s attention to it to the point it was annoying. But that’s a red thread, she couldn’t stop paying attention to it. Couldn’t shut it off. And so, in the end, they had a marketing turn to this person, and said, “Well, what would you do with it if we ran with it? What would you do differently? Let’s turn that into a PowerPoint presentation and come present to me what you would do differently because I can’t shut you up.”

To cut a long story short, that presentation goes really well, that person turns 15-20% of HR into branding at conferences, learns all about how that actually gets executed and activated, signage, logos, colors, brand palettes, etc. So, now, as a head of marketing for a very large human capital management company, head of marketing. Didn’t start off that way. Started off in HR. But because of whatever reason, couldn’t shut off the brand cacophony at these conferences, turns into a very, very different job.

A totally different example, a different end of the spectrum, those housekeepers I was telling you about, well, one of them, her loves were busy, busy, busy check-in, check-out days when the cart has to be…this is more detailed that you might want, but the cart has to be perfect. Everything about the cart that moves up and down those different floors has to work absolutely perfectly because everybody is getting in and out of those rooms with such a volume of people checking in and volume of people checking out. Everything has got to work unbelievably perfectly.

And for whatever reason, her geekiness, what she geeked out on was the precision and the authenticity of the materials on the cart, making the whole darn thing work so perfectly, initially, just for her floor. And the manager sort of figured out that she was getting, particularly, on busy days, she was getting it done with super quality whereas everyone else was struggling. They were behind, they couldn’t find the stuff that they needed for the rooms.

Anyway, she just kept showing what that red thread was for her, and then volunteered to help others when she was finished, get their carts sorted. And in the end, the manager went, “You know what, we can have you clean a few rooms, but what we really need you to do is you’re the person that’s responsible for the accuracy and the efficiency and the smooth-running of everybody’s cart.” And that might not sound engaging for many people. For that particular person, it was like, “That’s exactly what I want to be paid to do.”

Again, she’s not doing 100% of red threads but just kept sort of unconsciously paying attention to some particular aspect of her job, kept volunteering it, not asking to be praised for it necessarily, just kept volunteering it. And, lo and behold, the job came to be morphed so that it actually was a manifestation of her loves. A million of other examples if you look around, but those are two that come to mind.

Pete Mockaitis
Boy, I love it, and I do, I want to hear one more if I can from your millions.

Marcus Buckingham
Well, the other one that I was just talking about the other day, my publisher is HBR, Harvard Business Review, and we put together like a leader series with them where they said, “We want to have learning around the everything in the book because there’s really no curriculum around how do you find out what you love and figure out a way to turn it into a contribution. There’s no language, there’s no ritual, there’s no discipline around that, certainly in the world of work.” So, they put together a whole kind of ongoing learning series.

The person that’s leading it is a person who initially came up through publishing. She’s a book publisher, and yet couldn’t help herself. As the world of publishing changed, and bookstores vanished, and everything became “How do you nurture a community, and, author after author after author, struggled with creating a community?” and publishers struggled to build relationships with readers because the intermediaries used to be the bookstores but now the bookstores are gone. So, more and more publishers and authors kept turning to each other going, “How the heck do we build community?”

Well, this person just kept finding herself going, “I love doing web series. I will host any web series…” This is what she’s saying to the authors, “I’ll host any web series you want, any content you want. I’ll be the face of the publisher. I’ll keep doing that for you.” Now, it wasn’t in her job title, it wasn’t anything to do with her job description actually, but she kept doing it, authors loved it because she’s now building through the author and through the publisher a relationship with a growing cadre of readers so much so that every book that she did it for was massively more successful than the others that didn’t have it.

So, of course, the editor-in-chief turns to her more and more and goes, “Could you do this one? Could you do this one? Could you do this one? Could you do this one?” At some point, she goes, “I would love to but, unfortunately, I’ve still got these other responsibilities hanging up over here. If you can get someone to help me with these, then I can continue to do this stuff that elevates our authors and builds community.”

Well, now, lo and behold, that’s her entire job because that’s so valuable. It happens to fit perfectly with the whole dynamics of the publishing business right now. If it hadn’t been fit perfectly, would it have worked out exactly the same way? I don’t know. Bottom line is she found some red thread, pulled and sort of saw where it led, and turned it into an entirely different job than the one that she had even three years ago.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good. Well, Marcus, let’s say that listeners are fired up, like, “Yes, I want to identify these red threads. I want to do more of these red threads. I want to communicate and find the contribution therein,” do you have any sort of top do’s and don’ts for folks who are embarking on this path?

Marcus Buckingham
Well, in terms of career, yeah, first of all, the best place to start is where you’re at right now. You didn’t start wrong. You didn’t start right. For you, Pete, like joining Bain, was that good or bad? Who knows? For me, I left university and went to Lincoln, Nebraska. Why? I don’t really know. There was a sign of a red thread there somewhere. I’d done an internship with Gallup and I kind of liked one bit of it, and I was like, “Why not?” Goodness knows why you did what you did.

But for anyone who’s listening, you’ve got so much ahead of you. Start by thinking of your career as a scavenger hunt for love. It’s not a ladder. It’s not a lattice. You’re not climbing anywhere. You’re just scavenging. You’re looking for red threads right now where you are. First of all, do that. Second, don’t put too much of your faith in the why or the who. Put most of your faith in the what.

Normally, we think of a career as like finding your calling, which really means finding your purpose. But the two least engaged, least resilient professions, of all that we studied, are healthcare providers, so doctors and nurses, and teachers, people who educate in schools, in case you didn’t know what a teacher was. But they couldn’t be two professions where the purpose of their work was more vivid and more honorable, helping the sick and helping the youth, and yet they’re the most disengaged.

What that tells us clearly is that although you may believe in lots of different whys and purposes in your career, in the end, what nourishes you, what doesn’t, doesn’t happen at the 30,000-foot level. It happens at the two-foot level, the three-foot level. What activities are you filling your week with? What activities are you doing today at 9:00 o’clock or at 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon? What are you actually doing? Because in the end, that what you’re actually doing, the specifics of these red threads trump your purpose.

If you believe in your purpose, and for whatever reason, the day-to-day reality of what you’re doing is loveless, then you will be psychologically damaged as damaged as nurses and doctors are today independent of the pandemic. So, watch out that you don’t try to use the who to compensate for you being in the wrong job, or the why rather. If you believe in the why but you’re in the wrong role on the team, it doesn’t matter how much you believe in the why, or like the people you work with. In the end, it’s the activities themselves that will nourish you or not.

I guess I’ll just give one more. As I mentioned, the idea that what’s really valuable in work right now is specificity. So, one of the things to think about is think about your career as an hourglass where it’s wide at the bottom. You’re scavenging, you’re seeing what all of those different threads are out there and you’re pulling on these different threads and seeing where they lead, and you’re honoring where your loves are and you’re taking them seriously.

But the middle of the hourglass is, at some point, you need mastery. Today, we seem to value follower fame or dilettantism, anyone is an expert today. But, actually, deep down, we do know, as Hippocrates said, “Life is short. The art is long,” or the craft is long, so at some point, you’re going to want to take those red threads of yours and honor them with your undivided attention.

And as an Erikson professor, and as Erickson said ten years, Malcolm Gladwell popularized that as 10,000 hours, but the takeaway from that isn’t that you invest 10,000 hours, you can be great at anything. That was a misunderstanding of the research and the data. All the data really shows is if you’ve got a love, if you’ve got a couple of red threads, at some point in your career, you’re going to want to give at least 10,000 hours to the mastery of that.

And out of that, the top part of the hourglass is out of that comes leadership. We follow people who turn our anxiety into confidence. That’s the job of a leader. And the best way to turn anxiety into confidence is to have deep mastery in something that we can all see and is important to us. Get deep into something. It doesn’t become narrowing. You don’t get narrowed. Your depth becomes the integrating point for your learning but it also becomes your justification for being able to lead others.

They now know who you are. They know that you’ve asked 17 questions, opened 17 more doors, can see around the corner more vividly. Your depth, that middle of the hourglass where you get narrow and focused becomes the authority that you need to lead others. So, those would be some of my do’s and don’ts.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Marcus Buckingham
A favorite quote of mine or a favorite quote of somebody else’s?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I was going to ask for a favorite quote that you’ve coined later, but I’ll take them both, right back-to-back if you’ve got them handy.

Marcus Buckingham
Mine that I hope people leave with is the power of human nature is that each human nature is unique. That’s its power. That’s not a bug to be fixed. That’s not a problem. Human uniqueness is the source of its power. Most forces of nature, their power comes from their uniformity – electricity, water, wind. The power of human nature is not that. The power of human nature is its uniqueness. And we need to build schools and teams and workplaces where we maximize that power. So, that’s a big one for me.

I think the quote that I always have in my head as I wander around, actually comes from Peter Drucker, and he was the eminent management theorist of the last century. But his quote was, “The best companies get their strengths together and make their weaknesses irrelevant.” A lot of my work has simply taken that on and applied it to the level of the individual. That’s what I learned from my mentor at Gallup, Don Clifton. But it began, really, with Peter Drucker going, “Everything is about differentiation – intelligent intentional differentiation.”

He looked at it at the level of the company, “Don’t try to be all things to all people no one believes in.” And, of course, what I’ve done is taken it through Don Clifton and all my strengths work there, and now here with what I’m doing at the ADP Research Institute, try to take it to the level of the individual and then back on up into the institutions, like school, college, work.

Pete Mockaitis
And this one will be hard for you, but could you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Marcus Buckingham
Oh, gosh. Well, actually, it’s one that we’re just doing right now. My co-head at the research institute is an economist called Nela Richardson. She’s a black woman of a certain age, and she came to me the other day, and said, “Are we doing any better at D, E & I?” diversity, equity, and inclusion, “Are we doing better?”

And I said to her, “Well, we can tell you about the D and the E. I can tell you about diversity. We could actually count that. We can just count representation. I can tell you about the E. I can count equitable pay or promotion.” But I said, “I actually can’t tell you about the I. From the 1960 forward, you can write, like today, I actually can’t tell you if more people feel more included.” This was about a year and a half ago.

And shame on me, shame on us, that we’ve got no thermometer for measuring, reliably measuring people’s feeling of inclusion. Nothing. And so, for the last year and a half, we’ve been in the field trying to build a reliable thermometer to measure inclusiveness. And we’ve just come out of the field, it’s about 27,000 people, a thousand people in each country, stratified random sample of the workers in each country, trying to get at what is the right way, the most reliable way to measure inclusiveness so that we can see whether or not anything that we’re doing – programs, training, education – is it actually making people’s lives any better, at least according to them.

So, I’m not going to bore you with diving into exactly what we’re finding and where we’re finding it, but that research right now feels to me incredibly necessary because, let’s face it, what gets measured gets managed. If you can’t measure the I, you might move the D and the E, but if people aren’t feeling better about it, what a miss that is.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And a favorite book?

Marcus Buckingham
I think my favorite book is The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin, which I got when I was 16. It’s about 700 pages long, and it’s just a book about men and women as discoverers, people who ask why, and why this and why that. And it confirmed for me, because I was reading Lord of the Rings, I was trying to read Lord of the Rings at the same time, and I was bored to tears, I was bored of the rings. But I couldn’t care about Gollum, I couldn’t care about Frodo, I just couldn’t get excited about it.

But why does Marie Curie ask the questions that she does in her laboratory? Why does Isaac Newton put a thin shard of glass in the window of his Cambridge students digs, and then see a rainbow of light on the wall? That’s what that book was all about. And I loved it, and I read it like it was like Lord of the Rings. But it wasn’t Lord of the Rings, it was a book about people asking why.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Marcus Buckingham
I love walking really fast. I live in a place with lots of hills, and I love that pounding-heart energy. I don’t really like working out inside. I’m lucky enough to live in the country so I’ve got hills all over the place and trees everywhere, and pounding up a hill and down a hill, and stepping over rocks. And I saw a bobcat the other day. Like a bobcat. I’m British. There are no bobcats in Britain, and I saw a bobcat. Sorry to be so excited about bobcats, but that was amazing. So, I love pounding up hills and down dales and doing that every day, getting my heart racing.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Marcus, I was doing the math when you talked about nine years old and 50, I’m like you’re a very handsome youthful-looking man.

Marcus Buckingham
Well, I appreciate that.

Pete Mockaitis
What is the secret? Is it the exercise? Is there a moisturizer I need to start using? How do you do it?

Marcus Buckingham
Well, I’m 57, I’m not 59 but it’s genes, man. My dad’s dead but my mom is 83 and looks like she’s 70. I don’t know what it is. She’s got youthful genes, and somehow, she passed something onto me where I don’t really have a regimen, a health regimen other than walking a lot, which, as I said, I love. But other than that, I think I got it, like most things, you get it from your mom.

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

Marcus Buckingham
I think two places. One is on the social media front, Instagram is my favorite for whatever reason, so Instagram. And then, together with Harvard, we built this learning series. So, if you want to see the learning around the book, for anything we talked about today, is really something you want to dive deeper into, go to LoveAndWork.org and you’ll see there’s like six hours of content all around the ideas and the practices of some of which we touched on in the podcast and then a whole lot more.

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

Marcus Buckingham
Take your love seriously because if you don’t, no one else will, and that’s the place to begin. The more filigreed and detailed and vivid you can be and understanding that which you love, the more likely you are to respect and be curious about loves of others. If you don’t start with yourself and really dive deep into the detail of you love it, when, what. Write three love notes. That’s what I would do. Write three love notes, which is simply a sentence that begins, “I love it when…” and then finish the darn sentence.

And you’ve got to have a verb in it, not, “I love it when people praise me.” No, “I love it when I do…” what, when, how, to who. Love lives in detail and most of us have forgotten the detail of that which we love, which is why the most common answer to the question, “What are your strengths?” in a job interview is, “I love working with people.” And it’s like, “Come on. What are you doing with the people? Which people?”

So, that’s the challenge I would give everyone of us. Can you honor yourself by describing vividly just three red threads? Write three love notes. Because if you don’t take yourself seriously in that way, don’t expect anyone else to. They can’t read your mind and they certainly can’t read your heart.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Marcus, this has been a treat. I wish you much love and great work in your years to come.

Marcus Buckingham
Thank you, sir. Appreciate you having me.