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Difficult Conversations Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Sep 29
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1097: Turning Conflict into Connection with Charles Duhigg

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Charles Duhigg reviews his communication techniques for finding common ground in any conflict.

You’ll Learn

  1. The three-step looping method for making others feel heard
  2. The secret principle for keeping conversations aligned
  3. How to uncover what people really want in a conversation

About Charles

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist and the author of Supercommunicators, The Power of Habit, and Smarter Faster Better. A graduate of Harvard Business School and Yale University, he is a winner of the National Academies of Sciences, National Journalism, and George Polk awards. He writes for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, and was the founding host of the Slate podcast How To! with Charles Duhigg.

Resources Mentioned

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Charles Duhigg Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Charles, welcome back!

Charles Duhigg
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk more about super communication. I think that is an important topic and, congrats, you’re now in paperback, I understand, Supercommunicators.

Charles Duhigg
Thank you. Yeah, it’s great. It’s wonderful.

Pete Mockaitis
Super. Well, tell us, since February, what sorts of things have bubbled up? Any new insights or twists or nuances or finer points of super communicating to share?

Charles Duhigg
Yeah, I think one of the things that I’ve heard from readers, in particular, and I don’t think this will come as a shock to anyone, that we are living through this time that feels very polarized, right? It feels like it’s very hard to connect with people who hold different opinions from us. It feels very hard to go online and see people saying things about our side, or other people saying things about their side, and it can feel kind of toxic.

And so, as a result, we often shy away from having hard conversations. But the thing that’s important to remember is that hard conversations, they, A, don’t have to be that hard and, B, they are the thing that make us human, right? Nobody wants to be in a fight with their neighbor, particularly over the lawn signs that you have in front of your homes. We want to get along with our neighbor. We want to be able to talk about the weather or talk about the local school or the local sports team.

Equally, if you think about those times in our nation’s history that we’re proudest of, they’re usually moments when we have disagreed with each other, but we’ve managed to disagree with each other respectfully. If you think about World War Two, people were very divided over World War Two. If you think back to the founding of the country, the Constitutional Convention, it was basically a group of people who all hated each other, getting together for months at a time to argue and fight and then write a constitution together.

The thing that makes us unique, the things that makes us American, is our ability to live with each other even when we don’t agree about everything all the time. And what I’ve heard from people is that they want to get back to that. And so that’s one of the reasons I wrote the book is to give us the tools to do so.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, I’d love to, if you could share with us a story of some folks who were able to get back to that by applying some of the perspectives from Supercommunicators.

Charles Duhigg
Yeah. So, in the book, we tell the story of this guns experiment, where there were people who were big gun advocates, they believed that the Second Amendment was the most important thing, and people who are gun right, or gun control activists, many of whom had been involved in shootings themselves or had children who had been at schools where shootings had taken place. And these were communities that knew each other, right? They yelled at each other over protest lines. They testified against each other in legislative hearings.

And so, this group decided, “Look, we want to try and bring these people together.” And the goal here is not to get them to agree with each other. The goal is for them to manage to have a conversation where both people walk away from it, saying, “I’m really glad I had that discussion.”

And what they found is that one of the keys to that was not only listening to each other, but proving that we’re listening to each other. They taught them this technique known as looping for understanding, that I think we mentioned last time. And looping for understanding has these three steps. Step one is that you ask a question.

Step two is that, when somebody has replied to that question, you tell them what you heard in your own words. And the goal here is not mimicry. The goal is to show them, to prove to them, that you’re listening to what they’re saying, you’re paying attention, and you’re thinking about it, you’re making connections.

And then step three, and this is the step I always forget, is to ask if you got it right, “Did I hear you correctly?” Because what we’re actually doing when we ask if we got it right, is we’re asking for their permission to acknowledge that we were listening. And here’s what happened in this guns conversation when they did that.

People did not convince each other that, “They were wrong and I’m right.“ People did not change each other’s minds in huge ways. But when they proved that they were listening to each other, the first thing is they actually listened more closely. If your job is that I need to repeat back to you what you’re telling me in my own words, I really have to pay attention to what you’re saying, instead of coming up with counter arguments in my head, instead of going off on tangents on what I want to say next.

But secondly, it feels really good to be listened to. In fact, it feels so good that there’s an instinct in our brain – social reciprocity – that if I believe you are listening to me, I become much more likely to listen to you in response. And so, people actually had conversations. And people who are gun rights advocates would say, “Guns are important to me because it’s how I learned to bond with my dad. We went hunting together.”

And people who were gun control activists would say things like, “You know, I totally understand that. But when I send my kids to school, I’m scared for their safety.” All of those are emotions and experiences everyone is familiar with. And understanding where the other person comes from, it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to stand up for our own point of view, it doesn’t mean that we might still disagree on what path to take forward, but it does mean we understand each other and we feel connected to each other. And that’s what matters.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. And I really did enjoy that looping piece because, you know, there’s many potential frameworks for listening, and that is among the simplest. And I think you nailed that point just right there in terms of it takes a substantial amount of mental effort to pull that off. And just knowing that you’re being put to the test, it’s like I think we just naturally want to rise to the challenge and not fail and look like we screwed up.

Charles Duhigg
Right. Yeah. I think when we set expectations for ourselves, there’s this thing known as meta communication, which tends to help conversations a lot. When I go into a conversation, I say, “Look, I wanted to talk to you because I’m hoping we can figure out where we’re going to go on vacation next year.”

I’m engaging in meta conversation. I’m telling you what I want, my intent for this conversation, my goal for this conversation. I might ask you, “Is that okay? Can we set a plan for next year? Like, what is it that you hope that we sort of accomplish here?”

When we engage in meta conversation, what we’re doing is we’re making that conversation clear. And the best communicators, super communicators, consistent super communicators, they tend to engage in meta conversation all the time. They sort of say, like, “Hey, the reason I was calling you was because…” or, “You know, you asked this question, and it made me wonder what you think about this topic. And so, I really wanted to ask you about this topic,” right?

Those kinds of meta conversations, what they do is they help us orient ourselves within the conversation. They’re what’s known as a quiet negotiation over what this conversation is going to be, how it’s going to unfold. And that tends to make those conversations much, much better.

Pete Mockaitis
And if we could have maybe a two-minute recap of, I think, one of one of your biggest most powerful ideas there was to clearly understand, “Hey, what kind of conversation are we in right now? Is it a practical one versus emotional versus social?” Can you review that bit for us in just about a minute or two?

Charles Duhigg
Yeah, absolutely. So, what neuroscientists told us is that when we’re in a discussion, we think we know what that discussion is about, “We’re talking about next year’s vacation plans.” But actually, we’re oftentimes having multiple different kinds of conversations all in one discussion. And, in general, as you noted, these conversations, they tend to fall into one of three buckets.

There’s these practical conversations where we’re making plans together or solving problems. But then there’s also emotional conversations where I tell you what I’m feeling, and I don’t want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize with me. And then there’s social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other and how we relate to society, the identities that are important to us.

And what researchers have found is that all three of these kinds of conversations, they’re all equally legitimate, right? And, in fact, in a discussion, you’ll probably have more than one kind of conversation. You might go from emotional to practical and back to emotional again, and then social. But what’s important is that if you and I aren’t having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, it’s very, very hard for us to hear each other.

Even if I can make out the words you’re using, I can’t fully absorb them. And more importantly, we will not feel connected to each other. So, this has given rise to what’s known as the matching principle, which is this principle in psychology that says successful communication requires having the same kind of conversation at the same time.

So, part of my job in a conversation is to diagnose, “What kind of conversation are you having right now?” And also, to invite you to join me and match me in the kind of conversation I want to have. When we can match each other, we become aligned, and then we can move from different conversation type to type together in a way that feels really meaningful.

Pete Mockaitis
And that metacommunication is so handy because that just makes it super easy and clear, it’s like, “Oh, okay, this is what we’re doing right now. Okay, got it.”

Charles Duhigg
Exactly. When I come home and my wife tells me about, you know, that she feels bad about something and I try to solve her problems, so she’s in an emotional mindset and I’m in a practical mindset, and she says, “Hey, I don’t need you to solve this for me. I just need you to like listen to me and help me feel better.”

She’s engaging in meta conversation. What she’s doing is she’s telling me, “Can you join me in an emotional conversation?” And then later on, we can move to a practical together, “But let’s match over this emotional conversation.” That kind of meta conversation tells us where we are. It orients us in a really helpful way.

Pete Mockaitis
Super. Well, now when you emailed me, saying, “Hey, we’re in paperback. Let’s chat again,” you brought up a specific juicy issue, which I thought would be fun to dig into, the notion of, if there’s a person who just isn’t having it with regard to collaboration. They’re kind of checked out or they’re just saying, flat out no, or they agree, but then there’s really kind of no movement on the stuff once you’re trying to get into it. Tell us, what are your pro tips in dealing with this situation?

Charles Duhigg
So, I think in a situation like that, when there’s kind of a first thing to figure out, “Does this person actually want to interact with you?” So, there are times that we walk into situations and the other person says, “You are my enemy. My goal is to thwart you,” and it’s very hard to co-opt to that person. But that’s very, very infrequent. It doesn’t happen very much.

What often happens more frequently is that we walk into a situation and we think that someone is trying to thwart us, or we think that they don’t want to communicate with us, and it’s because we haven’t figured out what’s going on inside their head yet.

So, in that situation where we walk in and we bring up an idea at a meeting, and every time we bring up an idea, Jim says, “Oh, that’s a terrible idea. Like, we can’t do that. This is all the reasons why it can’t work.” At that moment, what we should do is we should ask them a question. We should particularly ask them a deep question. And a deep question is something that asks about our values or beliefs or our experiences.

And that can sound kind of intimidating, but, in this case, it would be as simple as saying to Jim, instead of saying, “Why won’t that plan work?” saying, “Jim, I’m wondering, it seems like you can see a lot of obstacles, and I’m wondering what’s the ultimate goal for you? Like, what do you feel like we should ultimately be achieving because I want to get aligned with that.”

Okay, that’s a deep question. It’s pretty easy to ask question, but it’s a deep question because it’s asking them, “What do you want? Like, what do you value in this situation?” And if Jim says something like, “Look, I definitely want to, like, you know, I definitely want to have, like, a party for our suppliers, but I don’t want to spend too much money. And every idea you’re bringing up seems like it’s really expensive. And I don’t think there’s going to be any return on investment there.”

Now we know what Jim wants. Jim wants to do things that are economical. He doesn’t mind our goal. He doesn’t mind having a party for our suppliers, but he doesn’t want to spend a ton of money on it. Now we know how to craft. And, in fact, matching him would be perfect. You could do this looping for understanding.

You could say, “What I hear you saying is that you have nothing against us throwing this party. You just don’t want it to break the bank. Okay, so let’s talk about, like, what’s a budget for this event that would work for all of us? And how do we plan the event within that budget?”

Oftentimes, when we see someone as being obstinate, and we see them as being a naysayer or someone who just reflectively says no, or doesn’t cooperate with us, it’s because we haven’t taken the time to ask them what they want out of this conversation or this meeting or this or this project.

They’re at the meeting. They’ve made time in their schedule to come and show up. They want something, so let’s ask them what it is. And they might not even be completely aware of what they want themselves. And so, when we ask them, it helps them clarify for themselves what they object to and what they don’t.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, this example is resonating with me a lot, Charles, because, I remember, after my wife and I moved into a new home and she wanted a number of things done. And so, I got a little bit spooked when, once one thing was done, she said, “Oh, well, now that that color doesn’t match very well.” So, she also wanted to get this painted. And then, “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that,” I was like, I became very, very apprehensive because I thought, “Oh, dear, if one renovation leads to another one that was not previously planned upon, this is a road to bankruptcy.”

Charles Duhigg
Yeah. Right.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, I was having some feelings there. We had an emotional conversation at that point. And she’s like, “Well, I mean, we never really established a budget. You said just don’t spend all the money.” And so, I was like, “Well, I don’t know. I mean, I guess I was thinking, you know, every money is movable. But I mean, if we would go past, you know, X dollars, you know, we’re going to have to start, you know, making some sacrifices elsewhere that doesn’t really feel that worth it.”

And she’s like, “Oh, okay. Well, that’s actually very helpful. I can work with X dollars.” It’s like, “Oh, okay.” And then later, when she brought up a new thing in the kitchen, which was totally not on the original list, I was like, “Well, I mean, if you think we can keep it within X dollars, I mean, sure, have at it.”

Charles Duhigg
Yeah. And what I love about that example is that, oftentimes, conversations about money, we think that they’re practical conversations, but they often start as emotional conversations. They start as someone saying, “I don’t understand why you’re saying no to me because, before you told me I should spend what I need to spend, and it feels like you’re blaming me for doing what you asked me to do.”

And the other person is saying, “I don’t understand why you’re spending so much. I’m really kind of, like, panicked about how much we’re spending. Like, how are we going to afford all of this?” And it’s not until we acknowledge those emotions that we can move on to the practical conversation. And it’s not until we acknowledge, to say, “Look I’m not blaming you for this. I should have been clear previously, and I’m sorry for doing that. And let me tell you what I’m anxious about.”

And the other person is saying, “I understand completely. I misunderstood you. I see why you’re anxious. That makes a ton of sense.” Now we’ve matched on this emotional conversation and it’s off the table. And then we can move into a genuinely practical conversation, which most money conversations want to be, because, ultimately, we’re trying to figure out, “How much should we spend? Where should we spend it?’

And it sounds like you and your wife did that very elegantly, without necessarily even having to call it out. But oftentimes, when we do call it out, it helps a lot. That’s the meta conversation. When we say, “Look, I understand that we have some feelings about this. Let’s discuss our feelings. And then we can talk about a plan.” It’s, oftentimes, going to make it easier to get to that point of resolution.

Pete Mockaitis
And I like what you had to say about zeroing in on the goal and connecting that to what you said previously. Yes, just about never has anyone said to me, “My goal is to thwart you.” And if they did, I would find it refreshing, it’s like, “Oh, okay.”

Charles Duhigg
Right. “Now I know. Now I know where everyone stands.” Right.

Pete Mockaitis
“Well, it’s game on. We’re having a full-on debate. Let’s see what we can do.”

Charles Duhigg
But the truth of the matter is, if their only goal is to thwart you, then they’re probably not showing up for the meeting in the first place, right? Like, there’s no fun in just going in and kicking your coworkers around. If they’re in that meeting, it’s probably not because they hate you and they see you as their enemy. It’s probably because they have a different priority than you have, but those priorities can become aligned once you actually know what each person wants.

Pete Mockaitis
And I love that a lot because it can feel as though their goal is to thwart you because, from your perspective, that’s what you’re seeing again and again and again.

Charles Duhigg
That’s exactly right.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s like, “Okay, roadblock, roadblock, roadblock, roadblock. Oh, my gosh, this guy just has it in for me.” But, I think, for the most part, we don’t care that much about other people’s being thwarted so much as we just care about our own interests and goals and values.

Charles Duhigg
Yeah, and that’s totally natural. And, you know, there’s this thing in psychology called perspective-getting, or perspective-taking, that they say, “You know, before you have a conversation with someone, you should try and put yourself in their shoes and see the world through their eyes.” The problem with that is it turns out we’re really bad at it. Like, if you tell, you know, a soldier, “Put yourself in the shoes of the enemy,” they actually have a difficult time doing it.

So, perspective taking is, it’s really, really hard. We can’t put ourselves in the shoes of people who are really dissimilar from us. But there’s another approach, which is called perspective-getting where I just ask you, “What is your perspective?” Like, I ask you, “It seems like we disagree on this thing. Can you explain to me your perspective so that I understand it fully?” Perspective-getting is always better than perspective-taking because it’s just much more reliable.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, certainly. This brings me back to consulting days, it’s, like, “We could try to answer a question by doing all kinds of elaborate statistical modeling, or we could just ask the customer, ‘Hey, what is it that you want?’”

Charles Duhigg
That’s exactly right. And we shy away from asking the customer because we don’t want to feel like, we don’t want to admit to them that there’s things we don’t know. But actually, anyone who’s been in that situation, as the customer knows, when your supplier comes to you or your consultant comes to you, and they say, “Hey, I want to be the best supplier consultant possible. I have some questions. I don’t totally understand what you want.” We love being asked that question. It’s a sign of intelligence to ask that question, not a sign of weakness.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I want to hear, you also mentioned that there’s some surprising neuroscience behind why this stuff is difficult. Can you expand on that?

Charles Duhigg
Yeah. So, when we’re in a conversation with someone, there’s these changes that occur in our brain and body, even in this conversation. Without us realizing it, our heartrates have started to match each other. Our breath patterns have started to match each other. Even the dilation of the pupils of our eyes are becoming more and more similar. And if we could see inside our brains, what we’d see is that my thought patterns and your thought patterns are becoming more and more aligned.

Within neurosciences, this is known as neural entrainment. And it makes sense when you think about it, because if I describe, you know, an experience that made me sad, you actually experience sadness a little bit. Or, if I tell you about an idea, you experience the excitement of that idea a tiny bit. It makes sense to us that our bodies and our brains would become more aligned as we converse.

What we’ve learned, though, is that the whole point of communication is to achieve this entrainment. The reason we communicate with each other is not necessarily just to share information. And if you think about how many conversations you have where information isn’t the point, you’ll see that this is true.

The reason we converse with each other and communicate is so that we can feel connected to each other, because that pro-sociality, from an evolutionary perspective, has been enormously important and helpful in helping our species survive.

So, when we’re in a conversation with someone and we feel disconnected from them, when they bring up an idea that we disagree with and we immediately tell them why that idea is wrong, when we focus on the disconnection, it breaks up that entrainment. We’re in a much better situation if we start by saying, “Look, we disagree about who to vote for, but here’s the things that I think we have in common.”

“We both want our kids to grow up in a safe country. We both want the economy to be strong. We both want there to be safe and stable jobs. Now, tell me why you think your guy is the right choice for that. And I’ll tell you why I think my guy is the right choice. And we might not convince each other, but I just want to understand how you see the world, and I want to talk in a way that you can understand how I see the world.”

If we do that, the conversation is a huge success. Even if we walk away voting for different people, the conversation has been a success because the point of conversation is to connect with the other person. It is not to convince them that, “I’m right and you’re wrong,” or, “I’m smart and you’re dumb,” or, “I’m funny,” or, “You should like me.”

The whole point of a conversation is simply to connect. And when we do that, we make something magical happen.

Pete Mockaitis
And, Charles, boy, another thing I love about that is we’re connecting and we feel more connected as a result of having that conversation. And even though neither side has been won over or converted to the other, I think a beautiful transformation has occurred in that, subsequently, we will view the other side differently, more favorably, more kindly, more understandably, and less like enemy.

Charles Duhigg
Right. That’s exactly right. Or, usually, what happens is, when I ask you to explain your side, what you do is you answer in a way that’s easy for me to identify with the underlying issues right, “I want to vote for my guy for president because I think he’s going to make us safest.” I know what it’s like to crave safety. I know what it’s like to feel like we’re at risk. I know what it’s like to, and so I can say that.

I can say, like, “I totally understand. Like, I know what it’s like to worry that all your jobs are being moved overseas, and you just want someone to stand up for you. Now, here’s the reason I’m going to vote for someone different is because I think that they can do that same thing, and I think they can do it in a better way.”

But what I’m doing at that point is I’m saying, “Look, the values that you’re sharing with me, the beliefs or the experiences, they are valid. They are exceptionally valid, and I hear you saying them. That doesn’t mean that we have to agree on everything but we do agree that these are valid questions or issues. These are valid beliefs. These are valid worries and anxieties.” And simply knowing that somebody else agrees with you about an anxiety being a real anxiety, that’s meaningful.

But think of how frequently we’re in a conversation, and someone says, “Well, you know, I’m worried, if I let my kid drive to prom, I’m worried they’re going to get into an accident.” You say, “Oh, you shouldn’t worry about that. That’s totally fine. Like, most kids are really safe on the road.” Our goal, our intention was to put the other person at ease, but what we’ve done is we basically invalidated their anxiety. We’ve said, “Your anxiety is something that’s not real and shouldn’t be voiced.” That doesn’t help.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, while we’re in this example, Charles, lay it on us, what would be a superior response to that same prompt about worrying about their kid driving to prom?

Charles Duhigg
Yeah, I think the way to say it, it would be to say, “You know, I completely understand. Like, I worry about my kids driving all the time. And one of the things I’ve done is I’ve gone and I’ve looked at the statistics to see, like, to just try and help calm myself down. And, actually, when I looked at the statistics, I saw it, like, actually the rate of incidence of accidents is much lower than I thought it was going to be.”

“Like, did you know that there’s a higher likelihood that your kid will get hurt riding their bike than riding in a car? That was kind of shocking to me. So, I totally hear what you’re saying. But I guess the place where I’m coming out is that this is a risk, but it’s it seems like it’s a small risk. And I’m just wondering, knowing that, does that make you feel differently about it?”

And now I’m inviting you to either to speak your piece. I’m not telling you, “This is the right way to think, that you should you should agree with me.” What I’m saying is, “Here’s how I think about this. Like, tell me. I want to invite you to tell me what you think of that.”

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Well, Charles, I’d love to get your take, in the seven-ish months since we spoke, what’s been one of your favorite stories of seeing a transformation facilitated by super communication?

Charles Duhigg
Yeah. So, I get a lot of letters from readers, which is really, really nice. And my favorite ones have been people who talk about a family break that they’ve managed to overcome, “I haven’t talked to my brother in three years because we disagree about this thing. But I called him up and I decided, instead of telling him why I’m right and he’s wrong, all I’m going to do is ask him questions and prove to him that I’m listening.”

And they find after about 15 minutes, it’s as if the relationship has been like suddenly renewed. And, actually, their brother starts doing the same thing. Because of the social reciprocity, when somebody is really listening closely to us, we end up listening closely to them. And so, the brother starts asking questions, and the brother starts listening closely. And, suddenly, you have this positive relationship.

I think I’ve also gotten letters from people at work who say the same thing, “You know, there’s this one employee I could not stand. Like, they just drove me crazy. I didn’t like them. I didn’t like their approach to work. And then I went to work and what I did was I asked them to explain why they use this approach. Not in a judgmental way, I didn’t say, ‘Why do you do it the stupidest way possible?’”

“What I said was, ‘Hey, look, I do expenses differently than you do expenses, but, clearly, the way you do it works for you, and I think you’ve probably figured something out. Can you share with me what you figured out?’” And as soon as they share with us, as soon as we’re on the same side of the table, all of a sudden, that behavior becomes much less annoying.

When I know why you’re doing the thing that annoys me, suddenly, I’m not annoyed anymore. The same way that, like, when you’re on an airplane and someone’s making a lot of noise behind you, and you turn around and you introduce yourself and, suddenly, they’re a real person, their noise suddenly stops being noise and it starts being just background.

So, those are the letters that have touched me the most, are people who say, “Look, I’ve been able to use one of these tactics, these tools, these skills that you give us, and it’s changed my conversation.”

Pete Mockaitis
I like that particular flavor of this a lot because, even that exact script, “And obviously this is working well for you so I’d like to understand how you do that,” it feels really good because, in a way, if you have devised a methodology that works for you and you’re vibing with, it’s kind of fun to be able to share that with someone, because just about no one asks or cares.

It was like, “Let me explain how I turned Evernote into my GTD cockpit,” getting things done. It’s like, yeah, no one really cares usually, but if someone opens up the floor, the stage for that, that that’s really great, it’s like, “Hey, tell me about your reps and sets and exercise routine.” It’s like, “Oh, good. I spend a lot of time thinking about this, but I know nobody cares. And now you’re offering this up for me.” It feels quite delightful.

Charles Duhigg
Yeah, no, it does. It does. It feels like we’re really making a connection to that person, right? And it actually releases neurotransmitters that make us feel good, like dopamine and endorphins and endocannabinoids. Our brains have evolved. If you think about it, communication is our superpower. It’s the thing that sets our species apart.

And so, our brains have evolved to be really, really good at communication, to crave communication. And when we connect with someone, when we communicate with them well, even if we don’t agree with them, we feel good. And that good feeling is at the core of pro-sociality.

And pro-sociality is what’s allowed us as a species to build families and then villages and towns and cities and countries, and to work together to build aircraft carriers or video game consoles. Connecting with other people is really, really important. It is the thing that has propelled us to success.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, Charles, tell me, before we hear about some of your favorite things, any pro tips, nuances, do’s and don’ts that have materialized as you’ve seen this art be practiced more and more in the wild?

Charles Duhigg
I think there’s two things. The first is I would challenge everyone listening to ask someone a deep question today. And that question could be as simple as, “Oh, you live in the Heights. What do you like about the Heights? Like, why did you decide to move up there?”

That’s a deep question. It invites someone to tell us, tell me about who they are, about their values, about what they value in a neighborhood. So, I would challenge everyone to ask one deep question today because I think what you’ll find is it’s a lot easier than you think it is. And it’s a lot more rewarding than you anticipate.

And then the second thing is that, I think that as we’re moving through the world, we tend to shy away from conversations that we think are going to be tough. We get in the Uber and we don’t want to talk to the driver because we’re worried that they’re just going to go on and on about like some crazy thing, and so we just bury ourselves in our phone.

But what study after study finds is that, if you take a moment to talk to the Uber driver, you actually kind of enjoy the conversation. And that doesn’t mean you have to talk the entire drive. It doesn’t mean you have to have this, like, awkward long silences. You can say like, “Oh, you know, I got to check my email now.”

But just connecting with someone tends to make us feel good. And, particularly for the people who we think that we’re going to have a tough time having a conversation with, if we engage in that conversation, we tend to find it goes much, much better than we anticipated, and we feel much better afterwards. We feel more relieved. We feel happier. We feel like we’ve done something meaningful.

Pete Mockaitis
And what’s really great is that those conversations are often, in my experience, very useful for just sort of the creative ideation life.

Charles Duhigg
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s like, “Oh, I don’t normally get to have this kind of conversation with…” because, in a way, it’s kind of free, right, and it’s someone who’s completely outside your day-to-day social circle. So, as a result, you’re getting very fresh input, like, “Huh, it never occurred to me how it must really suck to have spent the money to get an Uber black, and then to not actually be able to reap the benefits of it.”

This was a recent Uber conversation I had, it’s like, “Huh, that’s a tough spot. I wonder if there are other, other opportunities that people might be seeking or wanting and they find lacking?”

Charles Duhigg
Absolutely. And it’s interesting because, sometimes, I ask Uber drivers, like, “What’s the worst part of your job?” And, inevitably, what they say is it’s not sitting all day long, it’s not, like, “I don’t know how much money I’m going to make.” What they say is, “I can spend the entire day not talking to anyone,” because that feels lonely.

And so, that doesn’t mean you have to have a 20-minute conversation, but even a three- or four-minute conversation is something that you’re improving someone else’s day. And you know what? They’re probably going to say something interesting. They’re probably improving your day. It’s a very easy thing to do and it makes a huge difference.

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

Charles Duhigg
There’s a quote from William James, where he talks about how our thoughts are like water that move across stone. And as water moves across stone, it grooves these lines. Water is insignificant compared to stone. But over time and over repetition, it grooves these lines. It manages to carve the stone.

And the habits that we have, the small daily decisions we make again and again and again, they’re like water. Like, it doesn’t matter what I have for lunch today, but what does matter is what I have for lunch every day. If I eat something unhealthy every day, then that’s going to have real serious impacts on my happiness and my health and my success.

And so, I think a lot about this metaphor that we tend to focus on the big choices that confront us, but those small daily choices, that’s like the water. We’re grooving the lines in our brain through our habits. And the more that we do that deliberately, rather than accidentally, the more successful we’re going to be.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. And can you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Charles Duhigg
Sure. I mean, one of my favorite studies comes from Granovetter. It’s about loose ties and strong ties. So, this guy, this is decades ago, he wanted to figure out like how most people found their jobs. And so, he asked them, “How did you find your job?” And what people said, is that they said, “Oh, I found it through a friend.” And that totally made sense to him.

And he figured, “Oh, your best friend, you call him up, and they’ll do you a favor and do you a solid and help you get hired in a new place.” But it turns out that’s not what happened at all. Close friends, would have known as strong ties, they don’t tend to be very helpful at helping us find a new job because we’re so tight with them that, if a job comes up, we’re already aware of it. Like, we’re reading the same magazines, we’re going to the same parties. They don’t really know anything that we don’t know.

It’s the loose ties, the friends of a friend, the friend that we haven’t talked to in three or four years, the person who is kind of at an arm’s length, they’re the ones who helped people the most find new jobs because they would say, “Oh, I’m so glad you called. I know it’s been a couple of years since we talked, but this position came up in my company the other day, and I thought you were perfect for it. It probably hasn’t come across your radar because, like, why would you know anything about my company, right?” That’s how people tend to find new jobs.

And what it reifies for me is that, all of us have people in our lives that we’re only infrequently in contact with, but that we really like. We just fall out of touch because life gets busy and hard, and it seems kind of awkward to call them after three or four years and have that conversation. Because we know, at the beginning of the conversation, we’ve forgotten their wife’s name, and we’re going to be like, “What’s your wife’s name again?”

Pete Mockaitis
“How many kids do you have?”

Charles Duhigg
Yeah, exactly, it’s going to be kind of awkward. But the thing that we found is, if you call that person up and you say, “Hey, do you have like 20 minutes to catch up?” and then you say, “I totally apologize. I’ve forgotten your wife’s name. Will you remind me what it is?” that usually takes like 30 seconds, and then the rest of the conversation is great, and everyone is so much happier afterwards that they had that conversation.

So, having these good conversations, being connected to other people, we know that it makes you healthier, right? The surgeon general said that being lonely is equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day, which is a lot of cigarettes. It makes us healthier to be connected to other people. It also makes us more successful because we tend to learn about opportunities that we wouldn’t know about, otherwise.

Pete Mockaitis
And, Charles, you are a habits guy, can you share with us a favorite habit?

Charles Duhigg
Yeah, and this is a little cliched, but the truth of the matter is, exercise is this habit that pays enormous dividends, and it doesn’t have to be a lot of exercise. Literally, if you go for a 15-minute walk every afternoon or evening, the measurable impact it has on your life is significant. And if you can get to a place where you’re building muscle or where you’re exercising a little bit more, it’s even greater.

But that habit, just committing to doing a little bit of more physical movement every single day, it can change everything.

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

Charles Duhigg
Yeah, so you can find me online at CharlesDuhigg.com, D-U-H-I-G-G. I also have a newsletter on Substack called “The Science of Better.” And you can find that by searching for “The Science of Better,” or for searching for Charles Duhigg, or just Googling “The Power of Habit” or “Supercommunicators.” All of it will come up. And I’d love to hear from people.

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

Charles Duhigg
Here’s the challenge that I would issue at your job. Sometime in the next week, ask your boss a deep question. And it feels like it’s going to be one of those things where you’re like, beforehand, you’re kind of nervous about it. But just ask them, “Hey, you know, I was just wondering. Like, why did you end up working at this company?” or, “What do you like about this job?” or, “What’s your favorite part of each week?” I promise you that they will say something that seems enlightening to you and that you will feel closer to each other afterwards.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Charles, thanks again.

Charles Duhigg
Thanks for having me.

Sep 18
0

1094: How to Make Any Team Great with Steven Gaffney

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Steven Gaffney shares actionable insights from his latest study on the behaviors, mindsets, and practices of consistently high achieving teams.

You’ll Learn

  1. The critical question that fosters accountability
  2. How to build the courage to say the unsaid
  3. The simple trick to reduce team distractions

About Steven

Steven Gaffney is CEO of the Steven Gaffney Company. He is a leading expert on creating Consistently High Achieving Teams (CHAT). With 30 years of experience working with top leaders and executive teams from Fortune 500 companies, associations, and government agencies, he is an authority on issues from team achievement and thriving cultures to leading change and daily innovation. He is the author of Unconditional Power: Thriving in Any Situation, No Matter How Frustrating, Complex, or Unpredictable.

Resources Mentioned

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Steven Gaffney Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Steven, welcome back!

Steven Gaffney
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, it’s been almost three years since we last had you on the show. Could you share with us any super fascinating learnings, discoveries you’ve made in this meantime?

Steven Gaffney
We have a new study that just came out and it provides a lot of interesting stats, and I’ll just mention one. Sixty-nine percent of people report that being in the office is more productive than remote. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t ever work remotely, but it’s really insightful that that’s what the study reveals.

We also have around distractions and all kinds of stuff, which we can delve into. And our newest thing that we’ve just come out with over this past year is we’ve taken all of our content and now it’s online and interactive through AI, and it’s really the only system out there that builds effective teams for any level out there. So, a lot of organizations are now using it, so a lot of great stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is nifty. Okay. Well, so in your study, the National Study on Consistently High-Achieving Teams, or CHAT, which is funny because the word chat feels so relaxed, and high-achieving sounds so hardcore, like the Navy SEALs.

So, tell us, so that’s an interesting stat right there, 69% of people find they’re more productive in the office, which is, well, that’s already intriguing because, I guess, 31% think just the opposite. So, if you force everyone to come to the office all the time, a good chunk of people are like, “Hey, actually, I’m doing worse here.”

Steven Gaffney
Well, it’s tricky, right? And I’m not saying again that people should not be working remotely ever or that hybrid is not effective. That’s not what I mean. But here’s what I do mean. There’s nothing ever going to take the place of being in the presence of another human being. There just isn’t, right? Do you remember with COVID, people said, “Oh, it’s going to change all kinds of behaviors”? It has changed some behaviors, but it’s like how people are social and whatnot.

And then now you see restaurants crowded, people traveling, a lot of things have obviously come back and this is not about COVID. It is about humanity and how we connect with each other. So, in business, when you’re having a critical meeting, is it worth bringing everybody together? Absolutely. Does it mean you should delay it for months to make that happen? No, I’m not saying that at all. What I am saying again, is it’s so important at times to make sure that we’re in the presence of another human being.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, while we’re there, can you share what are kind of the key factors that really make something ideal for in-person?

Steven Gaffney
Well, if you think about it, like a strategy meeting. Again, let’s take that for a moment. Could you do a strategic meeting over Zoom? Absolutely. Did we do many meetings and virtual training and still do that? Yes. But if it’s going to take, and where it’s a critical meeting, let’s say on a strategy, bring it together because here’s the reason why. When you call a break, people are going to talk to each other on the side. What are they going to do virtually? Call each other? Well, that could be the case.

But you run into people, you have outside conversations, you go to dinner, which produces another kind of social connection. There’s all kinds of benefits in bringing people together. So, again, we can go down this path, but all the work we do is around consistently high-achieving teams, it is about producing results. So, what’s going to produce the most effective results, and that’s how to make the decision.

Pete Mockaitis
Makes good sense. Now you’ve got seven key discoveries. And I know that’s a lot of key discoveries, but could you perhaps give us the one- or two-sentence version of the seven discoveries? We’ll have an overview and then we’ll dig into a few.

Steven Gaffney
So, we can go through many. But let me just give you one that’s really interesting. Thirty-nine percent of people reported that there’s little to no accountability in their teamwork. Now think about that. We all know accountability is critical, doing what you say and holding others accountable.

But if 39% of people are, essentially, saying it’s not existing in the team, that produces a great possibility to increase productivity by increasing accountability. And this is not about, you know, nagging at people. It’s about holding people accountable. In fact, let me give the listeners something really interesting to consider.

Medium-achieving teams are accountable to their boss or leaders, but great teams, consistently high-achieving teams, are accountable to each other, whether or not the boss or the leader is around. In fact, one of my clients, the whole focus is, the organization is doing pretty well, but it’s a lot leader-dependent. And so, our work came in there, and we can talk about how we did it.

But it’s, essentially, “How do you get everybody to interact so that, if the leader is on vacation or off to other meetings, the team runs as effectively as if they’re there?” I’m not saying leadership is not important. But I’m saying accountability is critically important.

Pete Mockaitis
That makes sense. Just so we’re super clear on what we mean by accountability, could you paint a picture for what it looks like in a team where there is little to no accountability, that 39%? So, let’s say, someone asks a colleague, “Oh, could you send me the numbers on the call center or performance last quarter?” And they say, “Sure.” And then three days later, it doesn’t happen. Like, what’s the little to no accountability view of what happens then versus the high-achieving accountability perspective?

Steven Gaffney
Well, let me just say, I wrote an article called “All-In Accountability” and they’re welcome to having that as well as the National Study. All they have to do is contact us at our website, JustBeHonest.com. But let me kind of address something that a lot of people don’t consider when we’re talking about accountability with a team – lack of honest communication.

But what I mean by honest communication is not about truth or lies, you know, people outwardly lying. The biggest problem is not what people say, it’s what they’re not saying to each other. It’s when we’ve walked in and work with a team and there’s a lot of unsaid not being said.

Like, here’s an example. Somebody’s dropping the ball, or somebody who’s only thinking about their area and not thinking about the entire team, or somebody who’s just really a jerk to deal with, difficult. Or, how about somebody who’s always complaining and never offers a solution, or somebody who’s always talking and never listens?

These are the kinds of things that we got to get the unsaid said about in a very productive way and work on resolution. That’s what I’m talking about. So, if I had to say one thing for people to focus on, it’s not what people are saying, it’s what they’re not saying to each other and the critical skillset is, “How do you get the unsaid said?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, one thing that’s left unsaid in that little scenario I put out there is like, “Hey, earlier you said that you were going to send this to me, and I don’t seem to have it.” So, it’s just the saying of it?

Steven Gaffney
Right. But here’s where it really gets interesting. When the person goes, “I’m sorry, I made a mistake. I’ll do a better job next time.” And then they keep doing the problem. So, people often will say to me, “What do I do in that situation?”

Again, you got to get the unsaid said, which is, “Hey, I want to talk to you about these missed deadlines.” “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m going to do better.” “Well, wait a minute. We’ve had that conversation before.” And then you want to say, “I’m not blaming you, but how do we work together so I can hold you accountable and you can hold me accountable?”

And here’s the critical question, “What’s going to be different as we move forward? Because I don’t want to nag you? I don’t want to pester you. How do we rely on each other and work together?” That’s the type of thing I’m talking about.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, while we’re trying to do more saying of the unsaid, are there any best or worst practices that you’d highlight?

Steven Gaffney
Sure. So, let me highlight three. First, ask the key question. Whatever the question we most want to ask and are afraid to ask, that’s really the one. Let me give you an example. I was doing a session in Philadelphia and this lady came up to me, and she said, “Look, I’m really worried about my job.” And I said, “Well, why don’t you ask your boss, your leader, the person you report to, ‘How am I doing at my job? Am I doing the job you want me to?’” And she started to get teary-eyed.

And I said, “Wait, what’s going on?” She said, “Well, I’m afraid to ask.” And I said, “Well, what’s the worst that your leader or boss could say?” And she goes, “I’m afraid he’s going to say I’m not doing a great job.” My response to her is, “When’s a good time to find that out?”

If we’re afraid that we’re not doing a great job with whoever we’re reporting to, or a customer, and even like at home, what we’re most afraid to ask is usually the question we need to ask. Because, as I often say to people, “What’s the worst-case scenario?” and then, “When would be a good time to find that out?” As soon as possible. That’s the type of thing I’m talking about.

So, asking questions would be number one. A second one is, create that emotional safety. And emotional safety is an upgrade from psychological safety. So, we hear a lot about psychological safety, but I’ve been in the workforce for over 30 years doing this type of work. And I can tell you, people can cognitively, psychologically get it’s okay to speak up, but sometimes they feel afraid.

So, we want to create that emotional safety. And one of ways to look at is people get defensive. Have you ever had somebody say to you, “Listen, you can give me any kind of feedback, please, any kind. I’m really open to it”? So, you give them constructive criticism and then they get mad. You’re like, “What’s going on here?”

And then the next time they ask you for feedback, you’re like, “I’m not going there.” So, we can actually train and condition people to lie to us by our reaction. And that happens a lot with teams. So, leaders need to, and people need to regulate when people are using an awful tone, getting defensive, because that will shut down people speaking up.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And then, I suppose, in practice, this is, indeed, emotional stuff. People feel scared. People feel defensive. How do we deal with this messy human emotion stuff, Steven?

Steven Gaffney
So, the best thing is, if we’re just talking about emotions for a moment, is to embrace the emotion you feel. Carl Jung said, “What we resist persists.” And have you ever been, like, feeling down, and somebody goes, “Well, just cheer up”? Don’t you want to just look at that person and go, “That’s groundbreaking. I never thought, ‘If I’m down, all I have to do is cheer up.’”

Or how about this when you’re stressed, and somebody goes, “Don’t get stressed.” Just look at them, and go, “That’s brilliant. All I have to do is not be stressed. If I knew it, I wouldn’t do that, right?” So, part of it is embracing the emotion and giving ourself the permission that it’s okay to feel that way. And then turn to say, “What am I going to do about it?”

So, here’s an example. Let’s say you work for somebody that’s really tough, right? They say they want open-door policy, you can say to them anything, and you give them some feedback, and they get upset. Maybe the getting the unsaid said could be, and I’ve coached people to do this, is go to the person and say, “Listen, I’m worried about sometimes talking to you because I notice I bring things up and it seems like you get upset, and I don’t want to upset you.”

“So how can I best bring up things that are not always the best things to bring up?” In other words, bad news. “What can I do? Because sometimes I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. Again, I’m not blaming you. It’s just how I feel.” And so that’s what I’m talking about. So, embrace and then figure, “Okay, what am I going to do about it?” Does that help?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Yes, indeed. And it’s interesting, you might get all kinds of responses to that. And that could be surprising from, “Oh, well, please try to do it privately,” “Please try to give me a super specific example,“ “Please try to connect that to our results or KPIs or business objectives,” or, “Hey, yeah, I’m just hot-headed. I’m going to yell sometimes, and I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean I hate you. That’s just probably going to happen. And so, my apologies but it doesn’t mean anything bad.

And you’d be like, “Oh, okay. So, you’re telling me you might yell at me, but it’s not a big deal. Not what I was expecting, but that’s more useful than not having that context.”

Steven Gaffney
Yes. So, let me talk about this for a moment. One of the big reasons why people get defensive or upset when somebody is just bringing up some negative stuff is because they don’t offer solutions. Have you ever been around somebody who is just offering constructive criticism, but they never offer solutions? So that can be wearing on other people.

So perhaps that person might say, “Well, look, the reason why is because you just dumped a complaint in the news or bad information, which, okay, but I want to hear some solutions. We’ve got to work together,” so maybe that’s it. So, I’m not saying that’s the reason, but it could be a reason, but again, it comes back to getting the unsaid said.

I’ll give you something else to consider. A lot of people are clueless about how they come across. I know that seems weird, right? And there’s all this about emotional intelligence, but I’ve worked with a lot of people and a lot of leaders who they know they’re about coming across, it could be tough with people. They don’t know how it’s landing with people.

Another thing to consider that I found really fascinating over the years is poor performers receive poor feedback. Now, I know that sounds odd, like, “Wouldn’t poor performers get a lot of feedback that they’re not doing a great job?” But I’ve worked with a lot of people who are, turns out, are not doing well and I’m hired to work with them.

And so often, people just haven’t told them. In fact, haven’t you ever heard this? Because of all your great podcasts and doing the work you’re doing, but have you ever heard of how leaders will sometimes inherit an employee that is obviously not doing the job? And you look at their performance reviews, and they’re stellar, and it’s like, “What’s going on?”

So, then you go contacting maybe other people from the company that maybe transferred this person, and you find out the problem was there, but people didn’t want to deal with it. Again, poor performers receive poor feedback. It’s always about getting good actionable feedback.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. Yeah, we had Kim Scott on the show, talking about radical candor, as well as an employment lawyer who said, “Whenever there’s a wrongful termination suit, it’s always the defense who brings up the performance reviews.”

It was like, “Well, all these reviews said they were doing great. They were meeting expectations year after year after year.” It’s like, “Oh, well, you know, they don’t.” It’s hard to say to the judge, “Well, yeah, but our performance review process is kind of bull, and we just sort of rush through the perfunctory checkboxes to get that done.”

Steven Gaffney
Well, I can also tell you something interesting, bringing up the legal aspect. A lot of leaders are worried about, “How do you give feedback so it goes well?” And often, in this day and age, where people want to litigate things and file complaints, it is challenging.

So, I’ve been brought in many situations where there might be an investigation going on. And what’s happened? Because a leader came in, wanted to change the culture, and the people that weren’t doing a great job started filing complaints. Now, sometimes they’re valid, but quite often they’re not valid. And so, again, I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t comment legal things. But what I can say is, having worked with so many people, it’s fearful to sometimes get feedback because they’re worried about the backlash.

So, we’ve developed a nine-step methodology on how to give effective feedback and have it work. If they want that, please contact us, again at our JustBeHonest.com website. They got to mention your show and we’ll send them this about how to have difficult conversations, The National Study, and there was something, oh, about “All-In Accountability.” All of that, we’ll give them. But it’s really about having really critical feedback, but a lot of times people are afraid to.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Well, so that’s accountability. Another key discovery was associated with distractions. Tell us about this.

Steven Gaffney
Yeah, it’s amazing. Another staggering statistic, 37% of people reported being distracted in their job and in meetings. And what’s interesting is how often people reported about just being out to lunch. They just don’t want to deal with the meeting, so they just disconnect. I mean, if have you ever watched a meeting, you’ll see how people disconnect. They’ll look at people, but they’re really not involved, or they’re actively not involved.

And what we also found out is 39% of companies don’t have a way to manage distractions. They don’t make it critically clear what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate. So, I’ve been brought into watch meetings and seen people texting under the table, on their laptop, and I’m not talking about taking notes. I’m talking about just distractions. And the leader doesn’t even say anything.

Like, I’ll share with you an interesting story. So, some years back, I was brought in to work with this team. And the leader of the team, who’s responsible for about a billion dollars, had the head of business development in the middle of the team meeting start texting, not one phone, but he had two phones. So, it was a huge distraction and I’m observing it.

So, afterwards I said to who ended up being my client, “Why are you allowing this?” And he said, “Well, I’m just afraid to confront him because he has so many connections with our customers. I’m just afraid to really do this, that he’s going to get upset.” Again, it’s the inability to manage distractions. It’s an easy fix. You just say to people, “Look, when we’re in the meeting, no use of texting or emailing or whatever. We’re in the meeting. We’re going to get in and out of that meeting.” So, people don’t really manage distractions really well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, there’s just the decree, “This is how we do it.” And so, any other pro tips on the distractions?

Steven Gaffney
Well, it depends on what kind of distractions are going on. So, part of it is also watching group dynamics. So, for example, let’s say somebody dominates, a good leader has got to manage that accordingly. Or, how about somebody who just keeps rambling on and on and not getting to the point?

I was working with another team that was an international team and they had one leader in particular is when it was coming to share, he was saying his point but then going on and on and on. So, I pulled him aside and said, “The longer you talk, people are losing your point.”

So, he said, “What do you think I should do?” I said, “Why don’t you just say, ‘My point is,’ or, ‘We’re rambling,’ saying, ‘My point is,’ and coming back to it.” Now some of these seem to be like such easy fixes but, quite often, they are easy fixes. Again, it’s just going back to giving that person feedback. That would be another example.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you say, to that point, they’re often easy fixes and people are, often just, have no clue how they come across, this reminds me of our conversation with Dr. Tasha Eurich about how we’re less self-aware than we think for the most part. What are your top suggestions for how we can, generally, get a clue and figure out, “Oh,” so that we burst our bubbles quicker? I guess, you say just ask. But how else do we figure out what’s the stupidly simple thing I should start doing or stop doing that will just make me way better?

Steven Gaffney
Well, besides asking, what we also need to do is rewarding feedback. And it can’t be just, “Thanks for sharing.” It has to be, “What are we going to do with that information?” Have you ever had somebody ask you for feedback, you give them feedback, but they keep repeating the same problem? And after a while, you just say, “Forget it”?

Well, how about somebody in your personal life who is just having the same problem over and over again, and they’re always asking or complaining around the situation, but they don’t do anything different? We have to reward people with feedback. And one of the ways to reward the feedback is to do something with it. So that’s one thing.

So, we’ve covered asking questions, creating that emotional safety, rewarding feedback. But I’ll give you the overall thing that we really need to consider. Are we surrounding and supporting people who are willing to speak the truth? You know, really? It’s hard to do. So, are we interviewing? Are we creating situational questions when we’re interviewing people to make sure that they’re good fit and they are going to get the unsaid said?

A good question to ask somebody when you’re interviewing them is, “Tell me a time when you disagreed with your boss and how you handled it.” And they say, “Well, you know, I just gave some feedback and I just moved forward.” That’s not really the desire.

I’ll give you one of the best responses I’ve ever had when I’ve interviewed someone on this question. She said, “Well, there was a time I disagreed with my boss, so I presented something. He disagreed. So, I went back, took that feedback. I was really passionate about that idea.”

“So, I retooled that idea in light of the feedback and then came back and re-approached my boss with the newer version of that idea, and then he went forward with it.” So, what did that tell me? It told me that, when she really believes in something, she’s going to do something, but she isn’t going to be belligerent, right? But she’s going to take in the feedback and do something, and she was a fantastic assistant. That’s what I’m talking about.

So, look at how we interview, that’s another thing, but just as a whole, how we’re surrounding ourselves by people. And then are we asking questions, creating that emotional safety and rewarding that feedback?

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now let’s hear a bit about your mindset discovery.

Steven Gaffney
The big thing around the mindset kind of goes back to this whole powerless distinction we talked about a couple years ago. So, have you ever noticed that when you’re in a good mood, you’re smarter? So, when we’re in a good mood, we’re just smarter. So, we identified three types of mood, or you could say mindset.

The first mindset is a powerless mood or mindset. That’s the feeling we sometimes feel when we’re defeated, resigned, you know, “What difference can I make? You know, there’s all these problems.” The second type of mood or mindset is conditionally powerful. And conditionally powerful means we recognize that we have power over the situation, but it’s conditional on other things.

That’s the kind of mindset where people say, “Well, you know, I can do that as long as you give me more money,” or, “As long as there’s more resources,” or, “As long as we have better talent,” or, “As long as there’s not that bureaucracy,” or, “As long as the market’s changed.” There’s always some condition. But the desirable mood or mindset of a great team, of great individuals is unconditionally powerful.

Unconditionally powerful means we recognize there are conditions, but we spend 100% of our time on what we’re going to do about it. I’ll give you an example. In 2009, I got diagnosed with cancer, and that was in the middle of also the big recession.

So, I was faced with a tremendous amount of headwind, and I thought to myself, “Okay, well, I have cancer,” that’s just the end story. This is now, I’m completely fine. I had cancer, but the key question is, “What was I going to do about it? Am I going to spend time on that I have cancer or going to spend time on how I’m going to respond and what am I going to do about it? We’re in the middle of the recession. I can’t change the recession, but I can look at how we’re operating our business.”

So, I took that as an opportunity to retool my entire business. Because, again, I can’t change the stimulus or what’s coming at me, but I can change how I respond. And from that year on, we’ve had our best years ever in business. It’s not because I’m that smart. It’s just because I recognize it’s foolish to spend energy on things we can’t control. Yet people do spend a lot of time on what they can’t control.

Watch how many people complain about whether it’s politics, markets, or whatever. That might be interesting dialogue, but what are you going to do about it? So that’s true about work, and it’s true about personal life. Being unconditionally powerful and focus 100% of our energy on what we can do about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we’re all glad that you are well and have come out successfully there. So, let’s zoom in on cancer in terms of what does the powerless mindset sound like in response versus the unconditional power? Like, what are the things one does when one discovers that there’s cancer?

Steven Gaffney
In full disclosure, my cancer was testicular cancer, which on the spectrums of cancer is very easy to take care of. I did have an operation, went through chemo, so it’s not a piece of cake, but it’s not as, like, where other cancers are really endowed or odds are way against them and type of thing. So, I want to put that in perspective.

Having said that, I can tell you, when I first got the diagnosis, I was completely down. In fact, you know, I pride myself on being very positive. I’ll never forget the doctor said, “You have a 90% chance that this is going to work.” And I remember driving home and thinking, “There’s 10% I’m going to die.” I was focused on the 10%.

And then I had to kind of wake up and deal with the situation. So, we all have those normal reactions. But then you look at who are we around, and sometimes it’s important to have a great support structure to pick you up when you’re down and whatnot. And so, eventually, where I came out with is, “Okay, what am I going to do about this?”

So how that looked is, “Okay, I have to go through the operation, got to go through chemo. That is the way it is. But what am I going to do about this?” So, I hired some people to cover some of the things that I couldn’t get done. And then I looked around, a lot of the people around me in my life, and who are really good fits and who’s not. And why I’m saying that is, you ever notice that when you’re challenged in life, you really find out who your really great friends are?

And it’s not always that obvious, because I remember, there are certain people that I thought would definitely step up and they didn’t, and then other people I never thought would step up and they did. So, everybody wants to be along for the party, but during difficult times it’s an opportunity to really recalibrate your life.

So, those are the types of things, and I’ve developed some wonderful, wonderful friendships, changed a lot of things in my life, but again, “What am I going to do about it?” So, I want to put it in perspective of the type of cancer I have. But the principle still holds true no matter what challenge we’re going through is what are we going to do about it? That’s the key question.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And can you share with us, if we’re having trouble thinking of something, because you say when you feel good, you’re smarter, when we feel bad, we’re dumber, if we’re feeling pretty bad and powerless, and we’re thinking, “What can I do about this? Hmm, well, Steven, that’s the trouble. Nothing comes to mind. I guess I’m feeling dumber.” Are there some go-to’s that we can always do?

Steven Gaffney
Well, first, an interesting mindset is to remember every problem creates an opportunity. Every problem creates an opportunity. I’m not saying every problem is a good thing. People say, “Oh, you know, it’s got his way of working and stuff like that.” That’s way above my pay grade. I’m very simple. There’s a problem. There’s always going to be an opportunity.

So, there was an opportunity for me to calibrate my life and whatnot. There’s always things that I think are really important to do on the mindset. I will say this, though. Overall, we need to be vulnerable in our life and ask for help. Quite often, we’re just doing it alone in life. And this is, you know, how vulnerable are we being?

So, let’s say you’re leading a team. It could be a small team, whatever. And you don’t have all the answers. Instead of, like, being down about it, maybe it’s a great opportunity to say to the team, “Look, I know we can pull through this. I just don’t have the answers. So, let’s spend some time and brainstorm all the ideas we can come up with on how we’re going to respond to this situation.” So, in other words, lean on people.

Quite often people are suffering in silence, instead of being vulnerable and asking for help. That’s one thing or another thing you can do is be vulnerable.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. What else?

Steven Gaffney
Well, I mean, as far as the cancer, just tough situations, well, there’s a lot of things that I put into the book, Unconditional Power, along that. But another really critical around is doing intentional disruption. So, we’ve all felt down. It could be on a, let’s put it on a more simpler basis. You get an email that brings you down, something’s disparaging, or you have a call that doesn’t go well.

If you wallow in it, it can often make it worse. I’m not saying not to embrace it, but if we wallow in it and just sit there. So, intentional disruption is a fantastic strategy, because you disrupt a pattern that is not working for you. So, what it might look like is you get up from your seat, you might go take a walk or go for a run or call a friend that makes you laugh.

Like, I have a good buddy of mine, his name is Reza Khederi. I can always call him, and no matter what state I’m in, he’ll make me laugh. He’ll always come up with some kind of joke or interesting insight. Like, I’ll give you an example. One time I was down, and he said, “Remember, even our worst days are somebody else’s best days ever.” Even our worst days are somebody’s best day ever.

In other words, really appreciate what you have. Now, again, it sounds obvious, but it’s really good to kind of reach out. And so, we build that friendship and then reach out, so intentional disruption. And there’s also mental intentional disruption, right? Instead of saying, “Why is this happening?” I could say, “What am I going to do about this? What’s it going to take for me to move forward?” Or, here’s a good question, “Can I live with it?”

Three great questions you can always ask yourself and ask other people that will always interrupt any negative pattern is, “What would you suggest? What would it take for you to agree? And can you live with it?” “What would you suggest?” is great, because if you’ve ever had somebody negative come at you and you just say, “Well, what would you suggest?”

Or, you propose something and it doesn’t go well, “Well, what would it take for you to agree?” Or sometimes you just got to ask somebody and say, “Okay, I get you’re upset. Is this a deal breaker or can you live with it?” So, interrupt your own pattern as well as others.

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

Steven Gaffney
Well, the thing I want to come back to is, whether they go to us or not, is to look at all the available online learning that is out there. So, whether it’s, well, there’s many, even we were talking about earlier. But we have a new system out, and if they mention your show, we’ll give them the first month for free. And what it is, is we have an online system that helps all leaders turn any team into a great team.

So, they can have a month of that for free, and its access to all our content. And what really makes it interesting is there’s an AI overlay. So, they don’t have to really study the system. All they have to do is ask the internal system, “I’m working through a difficult time and not collaborating well with another team,” or, “We’re lacking trust issues,” or, “We’re trying to achieve some extremely high goals. What do I do?”

The AI answers it. And then there’s videos that you can show with your team on how exactly to execute on that. So, we have a whole online system that is available to them and we’ll give them the first month for free, as long as they mention your show, of course.

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

Steven Gaffney
Albert Einstein, “There’s two ways to live your life. One is though nothing is a miracle. The other is though everything is. The choice is yours.” I love that quote.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Steven Gaffney
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.

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

Steven Gaffney
AI, I think, is critical, right, ChatGPT or some of the other ones that are critical. But I’ll tell you why this is so important is, and again, I know it makes mistakes and there’s a lot of things, but it really speeds up what we’re able to do.

I know that sounds obvious, but you got to embrace it and use it. And I’ll tell you how we’re hiring now is I want people to think of AI first, AI-first mentality. In other words, if you’re doing a task, could you offset, use some form of program around AI first? I want that to be the inkling first because it speeds up how we respond to our customers as well.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Steven Gaffney
Exercise, that’s critical.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that you’re really known for, people quote back to you often?

Steven Gaffney
“Getting the unsaid said.”

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

Steven Gaffney
They can go to our website, JustBeHonest.com. And again, if they mention the show, what do we say? So, I just want to make sure we get the study, right? So, I’m holding the study. They can get the “All-In Accountability,” and also how to have difficult conversations, as well as that whole month access to that whole online system that’ll help them with any teamwork.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Thanks. And do you have a final challenge for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Steven Gaffney
Appreciate. So, people are stingy with their appreciations. They just are. And part of it is obvious, “Okay, well, I’m going to appreciate my employees.” But how often do you appreciate your boss, your friends, and things like that? People are stingy. And I’ll tell you, I’ve never heard anybody leaving a job because they were appreciated too much, “Can’t stand it. Got to get out of here. Too much appreciation.”

It just doesn’t happen. So, could people do it too much? Maybe, but I just haven’t seen it. The point is, take time and appreciate the people around you.

And I don’t mean just saying thank you. Just show them something, or at least say, “Hey, look, I noticed you changed this behavior. It means a lot that you’ve changed it.” Somehow appreciate people.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Steven, thank you.

Steven Gaffney
Thank you.

Aug 04
0

1081: How to Deal with Credit Stealers at Work with Andrew Palmer

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Andrew Palmer discusses what to do when others take credit for your ideas.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why no one benefits from credit stealing—including the stealer
  2. The unintentional ways people steal credit
  3. Why crediting others makes you more credible

About Andrew

Andrew Palmer writes the Bartleby column on the workplace, and is the host of “Boss Class”, The Economist’s limited-season podcast on management. He was formerly Britain editor, executive editor, business-affairs editor, head of the data team, Americas editor, finance editor and banking correspondent, having joined The Economist as management correspondent in February 2007.

Resources Mentioned

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Andrew Palmer Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to talk about credit stealing today. But first, I want to maybe zoom out and hear, you spent years working on the business section of The Economist. Can you share any wildly fascinating and surprising discoveries you’ve made over the course of your career in that unique spot about work?

Andrew Palmer
My favorite interview ever was with Bill Gates. And I think, just as a kind of mind working at hypersonic speed and sort of processing information, coming back with coherent arguments, kind of that felt like a different level. It felt like, you know how you worry that like rich people don’t deserve it? That was a reassuring interview. Like, this person was operating at a different level.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s really fascinating. So, in your experience of speaking with many humans, is Bill Gates, you think, the smartest in one sense of the word that you’ve ever spoken to?

Andrew Palmer
Well, his range was really interesting because, obviously, he had the Microsoft bit to his career, and then the Gates Foundation, so that kind of ability to move from public policy to private sector, from computing to battling malaria, that was particularly impressive. So, yeah, I think he would jump out to me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now I’m curious, is there any actionable wisdom to be gleaned from the life and career of Bill Gates or he’s just a lucky duck with special genes and we’re all just stuck with what we got?

Andrew Palmer
There was a point where he decided to move. I think he was somewhere in, like, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, I can’t remember, initially very early on in the history of the company.

And he’s decided to move to back to Seattle, in part so that no one could kind of poach people, so that they could sort of operate in this little hermetically sealed environment. Still a big city, but there wasn’t all of that sort of rival startups around creating noise, potentially poaching his best people. And it’s a reminder of how, like, being outside of the main centers of commerce can really be a smart strategy for a startup in particular.

And we spent a bit of time, we’re doing a podcast here called Boss Class, which is about how to be a good manager. We spent a bit of time with companies that are in small towns and have really turned that to their advantage, and Gates comes to mind.

Pete Mockaitis
So let’s talk about credit stealing. You wrote a piece in The Economist, a very catchy title, “The Behavior That Annoys Colleagues More Than Any Other,” and, apparently, that’s credit stealing.

So, I was thinking that’s striking in and of itself. I mean, we might name any number of annoying behaviors from microwaving fish in the office microwave to vocal pauses, interrupting folks, but credit stealing is the tops. Can you tell us a bit about the underlying research that supports that assertion?

Andrew Palmer
Yeah, so I wouldn’t say that this was like academic quality research. This is basically a series of surveys where, in various places around the world, that question is asked of workers. Credit stealing is kind of very consistently at the top or near it.

So, I don’t know that we need to worry too much about whether it’s the single most irritating or the second or the third, but it’s right up there. It is something that irritates the hell out of people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And now, when it comes to credit stealing, can you share with us the main categories or flavors of credit stealing, because I think it’s often not super explicit? Like, you said something brilliant. I loved it and I went into someone else, and said, “I had this amazing idea. Praise me.” But that does happen too. But can you share with us kind of the main flavors or types, varieties, categories of credit stealing?

Andrew Palmer
I think, basically, they all fall into one category, Pete, which is, you know, you come up with an insight, an idea, you share it with a group, someone else then passes it off as their own. And they might do that publicly in front of you, which is particularly irritating, or they might be doing that privately, going off and saying, “Well, I’ve had this thought,” etc.

But there’s no particular sort of set of subcategories. It’s just that, like, “That was my thought, and you are the one now vocalizing it and pretending that it is yours.” That is the definition.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so tell us, when this occurs, what’s really at stake for professionals? So, we’re irritated, but is it, “Yeah, no big deal,” we brush it off and move on and it’s all good? Or is it quite epic in terms of negative consequences for those who are victims to credit stealing?

Andrew Palmer
Well, there are two ways to think about the negative consequences. So, one would be like, is it bad for the organization that you work for? So, should your managers and bosses care about this? They may be credit stealers themselves. And then the second is like, is it good for your career? So, on the organizational front, credit stealing does seem to be bad.

And there’s a particular piece of research outside of China that looked at how people, they basically asked a bunch of employees to rate their leaders in terms of, you know, “Did they pass off your ideas as your own?” or, “Were they good at giving credit?” And then they asked those leaders to rate employees in terms of their performance.

Both groups didn’t know exactly what the other was answering, so it was all done blind. It was done in the proper way, and there is absolutely a correlation there. So, people who believe that their boss is a credit stealer are regarded by their boss as working less well. So there seems to be a performance impact from cultures of credit stealing.

And then the second transmission mechanism here is the career one. It’s difficult to know. I’m not aware of really good research on this, but self-promotion is definitely a part of making your way up the ladder. It does matter that you show to the people above you that you’ve done this and you’re the person who deserves the kudos for things.

It’s not the only way to get up the ladder. And, in fact, it’s important to be seen to be giving credit, as well as claiming credit for things. So, it’s absolutely not the only strategy, but that does suggest that self- promotion matters. So, if you can get away with it, it’s good for the credit stealer, and even more galling for the person whose credit has been stolen.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so let’s get into it. So, let’s say this is happening to us in our workplaces right now, what should we do?

Andrew Palmer
One thing to do is kind of try to calm down about it, which is easier said than done, because this is something that is super ingrained in us, that it’s unfair. And plagiarism is something that you don’t notice when you’re four, but when you’re about five or six, the research suggests that you really do notice an idea being stolen and credit being unfairly claimed.

So, it’s very, very deeply ingrained in us. We are hardwired to feel like this is a bad thing. This behavior is unfair. So, it’s much easier said than done to say, “Darling, try and ignore it.” But the point of the column I wrote was to try and get you to, if not a Zen-like state, at least able to kind of reconcile yourself to some of this behavior, the less egregious sort.

So, one way to think about this is, “You hate other people stealing credit for your ideas. Are you doing it yourself?” And there is a ton of research about something called cryptomnesia, which basically is credit stealing when you’re not aware of it, involuntary claiming of credit. And the research there is all about setting things up so that people are asked to generate a ton of ideas around novel uses for a product.

Then they come back a week later, and they’re asked to recall both their own ideas and to come up with new ones, which didn’t, in any way, replicate things that had already been generated during this process. And on both scores, people do really badly. Without meaning to, they do claim some other person’s idea is their own, and they also sort of think this is an entirely new idea, even if it’s been brought up before.

So there seems to be something about the way that we operate, where you actually claim credit, you’re not aware of it, and that might help people to reconcile themselves a bit to this extremely irritating form of behavior.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I think it really can in terms of, and still, our emotional minds are not always, like you said, easier said than done, like, “Oh, well, that person might not have realized it. Okay, well, now I feel totally fine.” But in that internal dialogue, it’s nice to know this is, in fact, a common situation about the human experience, that that is something that unfolds there.

You know, I think another reason credit stealing can really be, I think, some of the most vicious is when you’re in a meeting and you say something, and then someone else says almost the same thing, like seconds later, and what you said got very little response, but what the other person said got quite a bit of response.

And again, it might be just because, “Oh, well, you know, hey, their language was more kind of clear and resonant to some people, and so it’s not necessarily meaning that.” But it really is a blow to our sense of status in terms of it’s like, “Oh, okay.” Like, it’s semi-rare in modern United States culture, as far as I’ve observed, to just get an explicit message from people around you, “We all think that person is of higher status and importance than you.”

You know, like that’s a kind of a message that is received, it’s like, “Oh, am I invisible?” And so, there’s, like, a double whammy there. Do you have any pro tips for that scenario?

Andrew Palmer
Well, I don’t think, like, raising your hand and saying, “Well, hold on, I just said that. Why aren’t you all applauding me?” I don’t think that’s a good idea ever. That does make you look a bit petty. And so, if that’s happening, that it might reflect actual status differences within the room, which is very hard to counteract.

It might just reflect the way that you are actually articulating ideas, and so there’s probably a bit of kind of self-reflection that should go on there. But it does happen. I mean, you’re absolutely right. It’s super irritating to people if it does. I think the main thing, if that happens, is absolutely not to throw your toys out of the pram in public.

So, reflect a bit on like, “Did I articulate this wrong? Should I have done a better job? Or, actually, is this because this person is the boss and everyone always sort of nods and sort of looks impressed, whatever that person says?”

Pete Mockaitis
Or, even if it’s a peer, it’s like, “Oh, the message I’m getting here is that peer is more well received, or of higher status, or viewed as superior to me based on this.” And, of course, that may be a false interpretation. It could be any number of other innocuous things, but with self-reflection, that’s interesting.

In a world where, now, so many of our meetings are recorded and/or transcribed with our little Zoom plugin assistants, which sometimes can embarrass people, so, everyone, public service announcement, be careful with those, and when they’re on and what you’re saying. But that really does make it, perhaps, all the easier to say, “Oh, hey, well, let’s reflect on exactly what I said and what they said.”

And then perhaps share that with a friend, a coach, a mentor, and dig in, “Hmm, might there be something about their presentation that was more effective and compelling than mine that I can learn from in this encounter?”

Andrew Palmer
Yeah, maybe that’s a good idea. I mean, maybe you could hope that people are poring over the AI summaries and sort of seeing this sequencing. That seems unlikely to me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, they won’t. I think that you’ll need to bring it to someone and ask them to help you out as a time together.

Andrew Palmer
I mean, I suppose, you could do kind of passive-aggressive things like, you know, as I was just saying, but it seems passive-aggressive. So, I think, probably, it’s better to just go away, either kind of try and think yourself into the like, “Was this deliberate? Was this some sort of Machiavellian thing going on? Or was it just much more innocuous?” And then try and calibrate your response, because, often, it really isn’t meant.

There’s also the way that ideas come together. The fact is that very, very few people are having eureka moments where they’re kind of like being struck by something that has never occurred to anyone in the history of humanity.

And almost everything is a kind of combinatorial process where an innovation is building on things that have gone before. So, before one gets very, very sort of self-righteous about “That was my idea,” it is worth reflecting on whether your idea is actually yours or is somehow building on the work of others. It almost certainly will be.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, isn’t that the expression, “There’s nothing new under the sun”? And we had a guest who said a few times, that creativity are feats of combination, in terms of we take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, put them together and, oh, and now it’s new.

Andrew Palmer
Yeah, I mean, very occasionally, something would be entirely novel, but almost always it’s a combination of preceding ideas or this idea of convergent innovation where you are kind of taking things that have already been developed. You put them together in new patterns, which is the same sort of process.

So, yeah, some people will sit in a darkened room and have some incredible brainwave. It’s almost certainly not going to be you. So, you will be working off the ideas of other people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, understood. So, that’s the first piece is let’s try not to be so upset about it. And then what?

Andrew Palmer
Well, I would think a little bit about, also just on the why not be upset because it does matter, is credit stealing doesn’t necessarily work. So, you might want to sort of fight fire with fire and try and steal credit yourself. That’s not a brilliant strategy. So, it does look like people have, they do better if they combine self-promotion and being generous in acknowledging the work of other people on the team.

So, this was work done by someone at Vanderbilt University, which looked at those strategies and found that both together is effective. You want to toot your own horn, but also be careful to say, “And these people did great work, too.” So that’s one thing.

And then the other thing I point you to is a very fun piece of research that came out of Wharton, which looked at, if you start bragging about something, you’re sending a kind of weird signal, which is that whatever you did, you think is really, really good, right? You are saying, like, “I am really proud of this.”

So, what they did was they set up this competition where programmers were entered into a tournament, and people who got identical high scores reacted in different ways to a bunch of observers. So, one was like, “I can’t believe how well I did. It was unbelievable. I totally smashed it.” And the other looked vaguely disappointed.

And the one who was really proud of their performance was signaling to the observers, “This is the ceiling,” they didn’t expect to do this well, and they’re probably not going to again. And then the one who was vaguely disappointed was signaling, “Okay, my ceiling is way higher, and I can do much better.”

So, that’s a sort of code, I think, in the context of credit stealing that, like, someone who’s really saying, like, “And that was my idea,” that’s fine if it’s a brilliant idea. If it’s a pretty kind of blah one, that’s not necessarily good too. So, again, it’s like a little coping strategy.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now you’re bringing me back to one of my favorite scenes ever from the TV series, “Parks and Recreation,” when Ron Swanson crafts a wedding ring out of a sconce on the wall, and he says, “It’s very simple.” And he describes, “I simply removed the sconce. I melted down the metal. I formed it into a ring. I polished and sanded, and I replaced the situation, blah, blah, blah. People who buy things are suckers.”

And what I love about that is, I think, there’s so many levels of wisdom actually in this silly little scene, is that it becomes abundantly clear that what is an impressive feat of craftsmanship and ingenuity to most of us is totally no big deal to this guy. Thusly, Ron Swanson must be a super amazing craftsman. And I think that’s really a great reminder in terms of if you are…now, there’s so many implications to that.

I guess, in some ways, we want to be ourselves and be enthusiastic and share our joy when something really is special. But I guess we also need to watch ourselves, like, “Okay, you’re sending that message that if you think what you did is amazing, and that suggests that it’s near the limit of your capabilities, and folks pick up on that, so you might want to consider sharing that joy in more select circles.”

Andrew Palmer
Completely right. And so, if you’re going to toot your own horn, do so in a way that suggests you haven’t maxed out, or only do so when you’ve come up with an idea or have achieved something, which is genuinely good. Otherwise, there’s something subliminal there which is potentially not such a great signal.

Pete Mockaitis
What’s intriguing, though, is I think if we’re tooting the horn of a team, it’s like, “I’m so proud of my team. They worked so hard to do this,” I suppose that probably still applies, in terms of it’s like, “Okay, your team had to work hard to accomplish this because none of us are that impressed. Maybe your team is not that good.” I suppose that sequence still works, yet it doesn’t feel as risky. That seems like a safer move.

Andrew Palmer
Yeah, I think there is probably a danger in overpraising, generally, right? I mean, you’re sort of normalizing mediocre performance at some point. So just being intentional about when you’re going to praise someone or compliment your team is worthwhile. But at least, there isn’t the added filter of, like, “Is this person taking credit for bad ideas?” which is like doubly bad.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, within this realm of research, do you have any favorite words, phrases, scripts, tips, do’s, don’ts that you personally follow within this vein?

Andrew Palmer
If not tackling this kind of at the time in the room is good advice, then there’s a point where you would want to bring it up directly with the person who’s taking credit. So don’t do it in public.

But if it really feels like someone is just routinely ripping off your ideas, then you start to get into the kind of fairly standard playbook about having difficult conversations, bringing stuff up quickly. So, privately, but quickly after an incident of credit stealing. And then if that doesn’t work, and it really feels like a pattern of behavior, then you’re probably going above someone’s head and talking to your boss or their boss if need be.

So, I think sort of calmness at first, reflect on what’s gone on, “Is it a pattern of behavior?” And if it really is and it feels egregious, then you have to start to act.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious then, what if we are the ones who have cryptomnesia, we are inadvertently doing this credit stealing to other people, what do we do then?

Andrew Palmer
Well, I suppose that’s just the natural kind of process of feedback, right? It’s the Kim Scott playbook where, if you want to give feedback to other people, you have to ask for feedback yourself. And if you’ve got those mechanisms running within an organization and they’re reasonably healthy, then there should be an opportunity for people to tell you if you’re taking credit for things.

But the other way to do this is not just to wait until an incident occurs and then you have a conversation. It’s to try and avoid this happening in the first place. Clearly, this is a behavior that is common and it irritates people. So, what do you do to head it off at the pass? And that might be things like having very settled recognition norms.

So, whatever the work is, understanding upfront and being clear how you’re going to credit that work. So, on a project team, these are all the people who are involved. They are going to be named in the slides or the meetings when it comes time, and these are their roles. So, you can, I think, be clear upfront how you’re going to apportion credit.

And you can sort of immediately diffuse that worry amongst team members if they think that this is some sort of behavior that’s common. So that’s an obvious, I think, way to handle it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, to that theme of  looking at ourselves in the mirror and being open to that feedback, I’m now thinking that we might be giving ourselves too much credit in terms of we think someone stole our idea, but, I suppose, I don’t know the name, I don’t recall the name of this cognitive bias, but we often tend to think that our own contributions or efforts are instrumental or special, when sometimes they’re not. So, do you have any wisdom for folks who might be patting themselves too much on the back prematurely?

Andrew Palmer
Well, if they’re suffering from a cognitive bias, they’re not going to be aware of it, so that is problematic. I mean, again, I think, probably, if you can define roles upfront, which forces people to acknowledge, like, “Okay, we are all working together on this thing, and we have some kind of role clarity, which defines what we’re each bringing. We all have a contribution to make,” that is helpful. And doing that upfront is particularly helpful.

Putting it on all the documentation might seem so stupid, but it’s actually a way of immediately signaling to the world and the people on the team that we’re all in this together in some way. So, I think good team presentations will always have a kind of, like, it’s the thing you flick through, but it’s important, the kind of first or second slide, which is like members of the team, and it just signals outside and inside that you’re taking this seriously.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, it’s a simple practice and it feels good. And there it is, wherever that PowerPoint deck might land, you know, forwarded across continents and across years, there those names are, right on it. So why not? That’s just good practice.

Andrew Palmer
Yeah, I mean, no one pays any attention to PowerPoint slides, of course, so that’s the slight weakness in the advice, but at least you’re thinking about it. You’re probably reassuring within the team that that’s not going to be a problem they have to deal with. That sort of just takes the temperature down a bit.

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

Andrew Palmer
I guess, to the extent you can being really clear about not taking credit for things yourself, so we’ve talked about cryptomnesia, some of this you’re not aware of. But once you know that this really bugs the hell out of people and you hear the words coming out of your mouth, like, “My idea was,” that ought to be some kind of, like, trigger to reflect, “Well, was it really, really my idea?” So, just again, the sort of reflectivity.

And, yeah, I suppose the other thing is, given that this problem exists, that recognition doesn’t necessarily come your way, how do you kind of manage your career in an effective way? So, the obvious example here is for academics. And it’s the difference between male and female academics getting tenure.

And if male academics co-author or solo-author papers, it doesn’t matter for their chances of getting tenure. But if female academics co-author, it does hurt their chances of getting tenure because there is bias in the people assigning that position, which tends to assume that their contribution to a project is less important than the male. So that is a real problem.

And the only way you can do that, beyond changing societal biases, which is a tough ask, is to be quite thoughtful about, “Do you want to co-author? If you do co-author, how are you going to handle this upfront with your colleagues? Is there a way of being the corresponding author for recognition to be doled out even more explicitly?”

So, I suppose there are certain situations, particularly if you’re kind of at important points in your career where you want to think about, like, “Is there a way for recognition to be unfairly apportioned. And can I head that off at the pass?”

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

Andrew Palmer
This is a quote that Reid Hoffman gave me that he got from his professor at Stanford. And it is a definition of management, which is “Management is about poetry and prose.” And the reason I like that is that is a very, very succinct way of summing up what you have to do if you’re to be a good boss.

So, the poetry element of this is motivating people, inspiring them, making them feel like there’s a shared mission. And the prose bit of it is the kind of structure and process and the sort of velocity of one-to-one meetings, the kind of quite practical administrative stuff that actually makes things work on time.

So, some people are good at one, some are good at the other, but actually it’s the bringing of the two together that really matters within organizations.

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

Andrew Palmer
I mean, there’s one that just comes to mind recently because I’ve just read about it. So, the limits on free speech in the US. There’s this canonical example which is you shouldn’t shout fire in a crowded theater. That is where free speech ends.

So, someone did a paper which came out very recently, which modeled crowd behavior if someone shouted fire in a crowded theater, and found that actually you can kind of get out generally pretty safely. So even that may not be a very good example of restricting free speech.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Andrew Palmer
Middlemarch.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Andrew Palmer
Okay, so this is this thing that I’m really, really at sold on right now to restrict myself to one sweet thing a day. I swear by it. At least I do for the next month.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect or resonate with folks, or is there an Andrew Palmer sound bite that you’re known for?

Andrew Palmer
I don’t think I’m known for it, but the thing that comes across from almost all of the interviews that I do and the writing I do on this topic within the organization is that there is no substitute for being explicit about things.

So, whatever it is, it might be the mission of the company, the values, the culture holds dear, it might be the way that you choose to work, it might be the purpose of a meeting. But, like, saying it out loud, writing it down, goes a long way.

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

Andrew Palmer
You should subscribe to The Economist. So, you just search for The Economist, that’s where my work is. And you can also look for Boss Class on any streaming platform.

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

Andrew Palmer
Reflect on what it is that you are good at and bad at, and reflect on how you work. And if you can document that, you’re probably halfway to solving those problems.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Andrew, thank you.

Andrew Palmer
Thanks, Pete.

Jul 28
0

1079: The Brain Science Behind Successful Change with Dr. Britt Andreatta

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Dr. Britt Andreatta explains the neuroscience behind why we resist change and what all levels of the organization can do to handle it better.

You’ll Learn

  1. How and why our brains resist change
  2. How to actually get people on board with change
  3. How leaders unknowingly alienate people with change

About Britt

Dr. Britt Andreatta is an internationally recognized thought leader who uses her background in leadership, neuroscience, psychology, and education to create science-based solutions for today’s workplace challenges. Britt is the CEO of Brain Aware Training and former CLO for Lynda.com (now LinkedIn Learning). She has over 10 million views worldwide of her online courses and is the author of several best-selling books on the brain science of success including Wired to Grow, Wired to Resist, Wired to Connect, and Wired to Become. She recently won the 2024 Thought Leader of the Year by the Association for Talent Development. She is frequently named a “Top 10 Influencer” and regularly consults with organizations on leadership development and learning strategy.

Resources Mentioned

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Britt Andreatta Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Britt, welcome!

Britt Andreatta
Thanks, Pete. It’s great to be back and have a chance to connect with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes, it’s good to be chatting. It’s been 500+ episodes, so it’s about time, I’d say.

Britt Andreatta
Yes, you’d been busy. I love all the stuff you’re doing. You seem to talk to everyone.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Yeah, well, it’s funny, our LinkedIn has so much overlap with folks.

Britt Andreatta
I know.

Pete Mockaitis
And you’re up to stuff, too. So, you’ve got a second edition of Wired to Resist that is fresh, and we talked about your other books but didn’t go into much detail about Wired to Resist in our previous conversation, so it seems like now is the time. So, can you tell us, what’s this one all about?

Britt Andreatta
Yeah, so Wired to Resist, the first edition is all about change and the brain science of change, and why humans are kind of biologically wired to resist it. But in this new edition, I’ve just updated a lot of the data, I’ve added a lot of new content. Change has really accelerated in the last five years since I wrote the first edition. And so, we know that people are experiencing change fatigue more than they ever have, and that’s driving burnout.

We know that technology is just flooding pretty much every part of our lives with massive upheaval. And, of course, you know, the world changes and the environment creates pressure. So, I really wanted to update it so that it was relevant for what we’re all kind of navigating on a daily basis these days.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so change, it’s a juicy topic. Can you tell us, in your work and research here, what’s among the most surprising and fascinating discoveries you’ve made about us humans and brains and change?

Britt Andreatta
Yeah, so the research has shown that when we go through change, there’s kind of four key brain structures that can get activated. So, one is the amygdala, and we tend to respond to change as potential danger until we get more information. So, our body always is a survival mechanism, and it’s going to assume the worst unless it gets more information.

So, the amygdala can get kicked off. That can be made worse depending on how transparent the leaders are and if they leave room for the brain to fill in a story. Because when we fill in a story, we always fill in layoffs and, “Losing my job and it’s going to be awful.” So, the amygdala is one.

The basal ganglia is the second one that has to do with habits. And when we do a behavior over and over again, our basal ganglia, turns it into kind of a low-energy package where we can run that behavior without thinking about it.

An example most people might know is driving a car. You know, the first time you learned to drive a car, you had to think about it a lot and concentrate on the act of driving. But after you do it a few times, the basal ganglia is what turns it into something that you can do without thinking about the act of it anymore.

And this relates to change because most change is asking people to develop new habits of some kind, new ways of speaking or behaving, and that’s going to be awkward and uncomfortable at first until we get enough repetitions, magic number is around 40 to 50, for the basal ganglia to turn it into something that we don’t have to think about.

But even more important, change is often asking people to leave a habit that they already know, that’s well-grooved with hundreds, if not thousands of repetitions. And so, the reason why so many change initiatives fail is because people don’t actually make the shift in their behavior that has to go along with what that change is asking of them. They stay stuck in the old habits. So that’s important to pay attention to.

The third brain structure is the entorhinal cortex, and this is the part of the brain that acts as your GPS system, how you get home every day without having to plug it into a map. Your brain has built a map. And what we know is that if we do a change that requires people’s physical space, where they work, this part of the brain has to build new maps. It can and it will, but it requires some extra cognitive energy.

It also maps social space. So, the entorhinal cortex also is how we kind of pay attention to who has power, who we have affinity with. So, if you ever re-org a team or merge two departments together, you’re messing with people’s maps, mental, physical, and social maps. So, again, our brain is built to do this, but it can then contribute to the exhaustion or change fatigue that people feel.

And then the one that really blew my mind, Pete, and I kind of am always excited to share this because I was like, “No way.” We have a part of our brain, it’s called the habenula, whose job it is to prevent us from failing in the future. So, how it works is it uses chemical guardrails. And the example I usually give people is think back to our hunter-gatherer days. If I walked down a path and found food or water, my brain would reward me with serotonin and dopamine.

And if I went down another path and I didn’t find anything, the habenula would activate. And when it’s active, it cuts off, it restricts your serotonin and dopamine, meaning I don’t get the feel-good chemicals. And when I come to that fork in the road the next day, I just psychologically feel like I want to go down the first path.

What’s amazing is it can be so powerful as to suppress your motor neurons, meaning it’s hard to walk down the wrong path. So, what does that have to do with change? Well, change always has failure in it. Very rarely does change unfold on time, on budget, the way it’s supposed to. And so, leaders are accidentally coding change as failure, which is increasing people’s resistance to the next change that’s announced.

So, once we kind of understand these four brain structures, it really gives managers and leaders some real clear actions that helps them both design and announce change and support change in ways that are going to then increase adaptability and resilience of their people.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s so much fascinating stuff. Thank you. So, this habenula, it’s designed to keep us from failing again, and it can sort of shut us down with less serotonin, less dopamine, and less sort of motor neuron stuff. So, then our motivation, and maybe our even ability to walk to a spot is hampered.

And I guess that’s intriguing because I think about a young Pete Mockaitis versus a current Pete Mockaitis, and I guess I had my share of disappointments, failures, rejections, traumas, bummers. And it’s interesting how I really do find, I don’t want to be a pessimistic negative Nellie, but I really am like a different person, especially entrepreneurially as opposed to opportunities.

Like, I used to think, “Oh, that’s so awesome. It’s totally going to work.” It’s like, “Well, I’ve seen enough things not work to think, ‘Hmm, it probably won’t work. Am I still interested, eyes wide open, knowing it’s more likely not to work than work?’” And so, it kind of takes a pretty huge upside. Like, “Well, it might not work, but if it does, it’ll be so huge. Yes, it’s still worth it.”

So, I’ve become, I guess, a shrewd, discerning, grumpier evaluator of opportunities of all sorts, not even business-y things, but just like a social opportunity, it’s like, “Ah, it’s probably going to be hot and crowded and loud and, aargh.” And so, I’m not just a grump. I’ve just learned some things.

Britt Andreatta
Yes. So, let me distinguish two things. One is there is such a thing as wisdom, right? Like, as we live life, our experience shapes our opinions and our beliefs, and we’re like, “Huh, you know, this hasn’t worked out the last three times. Maybe I should stop and pause and consider this.” Right? So, as we get on in life experience in years, I think there’s some natural wisdom that can sometimes also creep over into cynicism or skepticism.

But the other thing that’s in play, and I wrote a different book on this, Wired to Become, which is also about kind of our sense of finding purpose and meaningful work. During the pandemic, we all not only went into change fatigue, but we went well beyond that into diagnosable burnout. And the workforce, the global workforce is still showing really high numbers of burnout, even today.

And why I mentioned this is that burnout makes us, it kind of seeps joy away. So, things that used to make you excited, don’t make you excited anymore. It can make you apathetic and much more cautious and want to stay kind of home and in your safe space. So, then my challenge to you would be, “Are you being cautious about change? Or are you also experiencing some of the effects of burnout that many of us have not yet fully recovered from?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I love your pro tips here. If we find ourselves in the category of an overactive habenula, what is to be done?

Britt Andreatta
Yeah. So, from a leader perspective, let me first talk about change. The advice I give is that when we realize that, “Oh, this habenula is going to be paying attention to failure,” it really changes how we talk about change with our teams.

So, before I give this training, a lot of ways leaders approach it is if the change initiative is over budget or behind schedule, they come into the staff meeting and are like, “Oh, my gosh, you guys, we’re over budget. We’re behind schedule. What are we going to do?” And the habenula just hears failure, failure, failure.

Where, if instead that manager came into the meeting and said, “All right, you guys, high fives all around. Since our last meeting, you’ve done A, B and C,” and we acknowledge effort and progress. Now the brain gets the reward for having participated, leaned into change, done the things they were supposed to do. And then you can follow it up with, “But we’re over schedule and behind budget. What are we going to do about it?”

And so, we tend to kind of just focus on the negative and we’re accidentally making people more change-resistant by not first acknowledging effort and progress. You really want to do that, particularly around change, and then you can focus on “What do we need to fix?” So, in the work setting, I would suggest that.

In terms of burnout, really, the only recovery from burnout is two things: rest, making sure you’re getting enough rest; and playing more, because we’re like every other species. Species don’t play unless they feel safe. And we lost access to all of our forms of play for a good three years there. And many of us have not gotten back in the habit of going back and playing.

And what’s dangerous about burnout is, because it makes you so apathetic, you’ll be like, “Oh, yeah, I could go to that dinner out with friends and a movie. Eh, I don’t think I will.” Like the apathy keeps you from going, but, really, it’s playing and getting the reward of the fun with your friends and stuff that can pull you out of burnout.

So, rest and play are things that we all should dial up more in our lives. And then play gives you all kinds of other benefits. People who play frequently are much more innovative and creative. They’re generally happier. Play unlocks all kinds of good things about our sense of self.

Pete Mockaitis
Now you said we lost our access to play, and I guess I’m thinking there’s a universe of online entertainment, screen-related fun to be had from YouTube to TikTok, to video games and more, whatever your personal online entertainment poison of choice may be. When you say play does it exclude these? Or, is there optimal forms of play?

Britt Andreatta
No, it’s a great question. And my husband’s an avid gamer, so I appreciate gaming and online entertainment as definitely a legitimate form of play. However, during the pandemic, we were living in a heightened state of survival, right? We have a lot of amnesia about this, but we literally lived through a significant global trauma.

And we were so busy just trying to get through it. Many people overworked. They lost access to their normal ways of play. We couldn’t go on vacation. We couldn’t go to a water park. You couldn’t go to a movie theater. You didn’t go out to dinner with friends. And so, we all kind of pulled back and recreated lives that worked during that time. But for many folks, they haven’t re-fluffed back out to some of those activities.

So, that’s what I mean by play. Like, even though things are open now, there’s still a lot of people that don’t go do those things because they’ve just kind of gotten out of the habit of it or they’re biologically haven’t realized that they need to attend to the fact that this apathy is impacting them. But absolutely, online sources of entertainment can be great as long as you’re not doom-scrolling too much.

And if you’re using it to numb out feelings or avoid social connections, then maybe it’s not so healthy. But I think all of us kind of know when we’re using it to avoid life, versus we’re using it for enjoyment and entertainment. So, it’s something to pay attention to.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s handy. Thank you. And so, onto change, you mentioned that when we have an ambiguous story, “It’s danger. It’s like guilty until proven innocent.” And so, I guess I just want to cover that in terms of change, like people say, “Oh, people don’t like change. Change is uncomfortable. Change is hard.” And I think there are there are times when, and maybe they’re rare, relatively speaking, but I want to get your hot take on when there’s a change that just feels clearly wonderful.

For example, someone says, “Hey, Britt, you know what, we realized there’s a couple key strategic roles where we are underpaying relative to the marketplace, you and others in similar roles are going to be receiving a 20% raise effective next pay period and ongoing.”

That just sounds clear and wonderful. Are our brains cool with that or do we still have a problem with that too?

Britt Andreatta
That’s a great question. I mean, that particular example is, really, you’re not changing my title, you’re not changing my job, you’re not changing who I’m reporting to, you’re just changing the amount of money that goes in my bank account at the end of the day for the work that I’ve done. So, I think most people would respond to that type of change with happiness.

We can really think about people’s motivation for change on kind of two axes. One is “Did we want the change? Yes, or no?” and “Did we choose the change? Yes, or no?” So, getting a raise without having to do more work, that’s a yes and yes. I will be running toward that and feeling good about it.

But if you also said to me, “Hey, Britt, we’ve identified that you’ve got some amazing talent. We’re going to give you a 20% raise, but you need to relocate to a different city or a different country and you got to take on 50% more work,” “Oh, I didn’t choose that. I’m not sure even I want that.” And, of course, then if it’s stuff, a no and a no, I’m going to resist and dig my heels in. So, we really have to look at people’s motivation for change.

There is some change that people love and run toward. And we also have to remember the more you move up in an organization, the more leaders tend to be entrepreneurial and tend to be more change-comfortable because they’re deciding and driving the change. But when you’re on the receiving end of change and you don’t have a lot of agency in that, that’s where you’re going to see more of the resistance.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s good and clear. All right. Well, so then let’s run through it. If we want to have a change happen successfully, what are our top dos and don’ts?

Britt Andreatta
Okay. When we’re on the receiving end of change, there’s a few things that we can do that’s really about empowering ourselves. In an ideal world, the people above us would be designing great change and leading us with support and being transparent, but sometimes that’s not the case. So, part of it is like really just owning your own experience and asking questions.

We are more motivated for change if we can find a, “What’s in it for me? How can I make this valuable for me? How can I turn this into an opportunity to learn or grow or gain a new skill or work with a person that I like?” So, finding a sense of purpose in it.

If we can partner up with people that we like or care about and turn it into a team experience, so we’re not doing it alone, that can be helpful. Gamifying it, and this is why so many apps are valuable. I’m actually about to travel to Europe, so I hopped on Duolingo and I’m getting my little owl points every day as I complete my language lessons.

Pete Mockaitis
“You have to keep the streak or we will stop you, ceaselessly.”

Britt Andreatta
Right, I’m on my streak. But some of these things help us. Our brain loves a reward, but it almost doesn’t care what the reward is. So, that little “b-bing” that I hear when I complete some lessons and the little badge that I get, my brain is kind of happy with that. So, we can find ways to gamify stuff. And we can also lean into self-care.

Change is stressful, and so it’s important, when you’re going through a lot of change, to pay attention to, “Am I getting good quality sleep? Am I eating better? Am I, maybe, playing more to counterbalance the stress?” And then mindfulness, it turns out the brain is uniquely built for a mindfulness practice. It really just does amazing things. It can physically shrink the amygdala and make it less reactive in as little as a few weeks of five minutes a day. I mean, the studies on mindfulness are mind-blowing.

So, these are all the ways people who are on the receiving end of change can have agency, including saying, “No, I don’t want to go on this change. This is not something I want to be part of,” and acknowledging that you want to maybe find a different role or a different organization or whatever. So, those are kind of my hot tips for any of us who are on the receiving end of change.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s good. Thank you. And let’s talk about mindfulness. I tell you what, I have gone back and forth with mindfulness in terms of I’ll read a journal article about, oh, people used Headspace for 10 weeks or 10 days, I think, it was, and they saw an increase in their heart rate variability. It’s like, “Oh, I can measure my heart rate variability. I can get Headspace. Game on. Let’s do it.”

And so, then I do it and I don’t think, I’m not sure if I am getting the results or benefits or not, and then I’m not sure if something is wrong with me, or if I didn’t do it right, or what’s the deal. So, do you have any pro tips for folks who think, “You know, I’ve tried this mindfulness stuff, Britt, and I don’t know if it’s for me”?

Britt Andreatta
Yeah, absolutely. So, let’s define mindfulness. Mindfulness is any practice that allows you to stay present in the moment and not go in the past and worry about what happened yesterday, or what Bob said, or what Marie is doing, and keeps you from going into the future and worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow, and what Bob might say, and what Maria might do, right? So, mindfulness is really the act of being present in the now.

And mindfulness can be meditation, but it can also be doing the dishes. It can be an adult coloring book. It can be fly fishing. It can be gardening. It’s something that kind of puts you in that relaxed state, that flow state, where you’re not really worried about time. and you’re just really present.

However, when most of us try mindfulness, we are, like, sitting down and we’re using an app or we’re listening to a guided meditation. And what’s going to happen is I start and I concentrate on my breathing, and then, “Oh, my gosh, I got to hit the grocery store, and I got to pick up that thing, and I’ve got to remember to call my dad.”

All mindfulness is, is going, “Oh, wait, I’m supposed to be present right now.” And then going back to focus on my breathing. And that might last 10 seconds before I go, “But I really need to call my dad and I got to get to the grocery store. Oh, wait, I’m supposed to be meditating.” So, really, mindfulness is knowing that your brain is going to spin off, and noticing that it has and bringing it back.

And the more you practice that, two magical things happen. One is the periods of being able to stay present get longer. But the most important part is you start to just observe yourself, “Oh, wait, I’ve started having thoughts again.”

And that ability to kind of take a third-person perspective becomes the magic sauce that allows, and this is why people who are long-time practitioners of mindfulness, they have just a calmer state, and when something comes and disrupts them, their reaction is lower than non-meditators or non-mindfulness people, and then they come back to stasis pretty fast.

And it’s because you can go, “Oh, instead of I’m freaking out right now,” you kind of watch yourself freaking out. So, it allows you to distance yourself from your emotional reactions to the world and that is truly the secret sauce of mindfulness.

However, you could meditate 10 minutes a day, and if the rest of the day you are doom-scrolling and putting your amygdala into high-alert mode, you’re not going to see as many benefits as someone who maybe isn’t doing that to themselves. So, it’s all in context. And I would say if you’re not seeing the benefits, play with different forms.

Some people love doing yoga. Some people love doing some kind of hands-on crafting. Some people love doing something really physical. Find your jam.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, that’s handy I guess it’s just not as, if we think of mindfulness as a practice, an exercise that strengthens a capability, it’s just a little fuzzier as compared to, say, strength training in the gym, in which I say, “Ah, I was unable to lift this 205-pound weight four times last time, but this time I did it six times. Incontrovertible evidence, strength has increased. Rejoice. Celebrate. It feels good.”

As opposed to, with the mindfulness stuff, it’s like, “I guess I’m kind of noticing me doing my thing more often, and that’s kind of handy. So, I guess it worked?” Question mark.

Britt Andreatta
Yeah, you know, it is a little more amorphous, particularly if you’re not measuring it in some kind of tangible way.

Pete Mockaitis
Ooh, can I measure it in a tangible way?

Britt Andreatta
Yes, you can measure it.

Pete Mockaitis
Tell me.

Britt Andreatta
Well, I mean, just kind of like you would pay attention to your weights and your reps, you could pay attention to how long you’re staying in that totally present zone. How many seconds was that? And how many times did you come back to it? Like, if you decided to note it down, you could pay attention to it and then measure your progress.

But oftentimes, with mindfulness, we don’t really track it. So, then the other way is to kind of take a little bit of a temperature of yourself, and then four weeks from now after you’ve significantly worked on this practice, see how you feel four weeks. But the day to day, it’s not going to always be noticeable, right? So, I do think it can be a little amorphous.

The other thing I think there’s been a disservice to is how we portray mindfulness and meditation in the media. I think a lot of people feel like, “Oh, I’ve got to sit cross-legged and burn some incense. And if I do this thing, I’m going to have some kind of spiritual awakening that will be mind-blowing.” That’s not what it looks like.

It’s just about, “Oh, I noticed that I’m having thoughts again. Come back to the moment. I noticed I’m having thoughts again. Come back to the moment.” And that’s all it is. And so, that really demystified it for me and made it feel a lot more accessible. And then I wasn’t holding myself to some standard, like, “Wow, nothing spiritual happened to me. I guess I failed,” right?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Good. Thank you. All right. So, that’s at the individual contributor, perhaps, level. Let’s hear about it at the management and executive levels.

Britt Andreatta
Yeah, let me start with executives. Executives are always living in the future, right? Their job is to look down the road five, 10 years and think about what we need to do to keep this organization thriving and surviving into the future. And so, they spend time looking at the data and they work hard on coming up with decisions.

And I think one of the things that’s hard about being an executive is once you announce change, you kind of expect everyone to stand up and cheer, but that’s not what happens. Humans first go into this very grumbly state where we first worry about all the things that could go wrong and what we might not like. And there’s all these predictable kinds of grumbly emotions that happen. And many executives are really surprised by that.

And so, one of the things when I’m working with an executive team is I remind them that, “Hey, even if you’re a perfect change leader, the best you can do is kind of shorten the duration of the grumbly period and maybe lessen the amount of drama, but it’s never going to be zero because humans are going through a biological process. They’re not being difficult. They’re being human. And this is how humans deal with change.”

We first worry, assume the worst, kind of freak out. And then we work our way through those emotions. And then we can start to kind of come over this tipping point where we can look to the future, maybe what could be good about it, what I might gain from it. And so, part of being a good leader is planning for that.

And I think a lot of executives make the mistake of really focusing on the change, “It’s structural, it’s factual. We got a plan. We’re going to execute it.” But the people have to go through the change. And so, you’ve got to plan for this emotional upheaval, the amount of time it takes to form new habits, how you articulate this message. There are things you can do to make it easier, but on some level, you just have to go through this period of transition.

And I have found, when organizations spend more time focusing on the people side of it, “How are we going to get people through? How are we going to support them? Let’s be ready for the grumbling. How are we going to handle that?” then change goes much better.

The second thing that I talk to executives about is that, as an organization grows, it’s going to start to have more functions and heads of those functions, so facilities is doing its thing to maximize the business, and marketing is doing its thing, and HR is doing its thing, and IT. And pretty soon, all these really great changes are getting launched, but nobody is playing air traffic controller.

And so, there needs to be a position where someone’s looking at, “Okay, all of these are great, but what’s launching when?” Because oftentimes, change fails because a team just got inundated by six fantastic changes all in the same month, and they couldn’t participate. They couldn’t get on board with all of them.

And then they do the handoff to the managers. So, let’s talk about the managers. They’re responsible for taking their direct reports through change, but they very rarely get to decide the change or design the change, and so they’re kind of handed something and told, “Make it work.” And they may not have that skillset.

So, part of it is train your managers. Leading change is a skill. It can be learned and improved like any other skill. But also, you want to arm them with what they need to be successful. They need to know the why. They need to know what the milestones are. They need to know what to do if it goes off the rails. So, you need to make sure your managers are armed with the actual tools they need to make this change happen.

And, oftentimes, managers, they don’t know the why. They don’t know what is going to happen. And so, when they get questions from their employees, they don’t have the answers. They can’t participate in supporting the employees moving through the change. But that’s easily fixed.

So, with some good information and tools, the whole ecosystem is now working together. And, boy, it sure makes a difference in terms of changes going successfully, but also the workforce getting much more comfortable and capable and resilient with change.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, I like that. Thank you. Well, now I’m thinking about, I remember something that just really annoyed me, so maybe you could, geez, this was 20-ish years ago. But an organization I volunteered with, it was near and dear to my heart, we conducted youth leadership seminars for folks who were high school sophomores. And it was a lot of fun and kind of where I kind of grew up in the people development-y world, which has shaped much of my career sense.

And then there was a change, and it was a change that was more economically driven. They were short on their dough, and their fundraising wasn’t going as well. And so, they shifted the experience. Whereas, before it was free for the individual attendees in their schools. Then it shifted into a fee-for-service model, and basically everyone had to then pay.

Usually, the schools paid, or if you’re volunteer team on the ground, they had like dozens of affiliates. It was really sharp. They could get that fundraise to offset stuff. So, it was a big change and it really affected, really, the kind of core vibe of the organization, and large swaths of volunteers who’d poured their heart and soul into things for many years just quit, including some folks that I really admired.

And so, I was kind of torn. I didn’t like it, but I still thought, “Well, you know, it’s still, even at this fee, I think the school should pony it up because they’ll be enriched from their leader returning. And they might not see it that way, and it might change the composition, and it’s not as good. I don’t like it as much, but I’ll stick with it.” And so, I did.

But what really got me angry was, like, the leadership, whenever we raised these concerns and they were, like, the pitchforks were out with the volunteers saying, “Ah, this is terrible. This is not the spirit of this thing, dah, dah, dah.” I felt, I don’t know if the words gaslighting or patronizing, but I felt like the message for the executive was, “Hey, well, you know, we all know that change can be difficult.”

And I was like, “We’re not saying we’re annoyed that you’re changing the software program and we have to relearn a new thing with its quirks after years of knowing the old software program. We’re saying that, fundamentally, the heart of the thing is now different in a way that’s objectively worse.” So, that response, I found disgusting. I hate to be so judgmental. But I did. That’s how I felt at the time.

Britt Andreatta
But you’ve been thinking about this for 20 years, Pete. I can tell, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
And it just seemed like, I don’t know what the optimal response is from the leadership of this volunteer organization, but it’s not that, “Hey, change is hard.” So, help us out, change expert. What should they have done?

Britt Andreatta
Right. Well, so first of all, what I’m hearing in this story is that they, and who knows, we weren’t in those rooms, right? It may have been that this organization would have had to shut their doors unless they went to this pay-to-play model, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Quite possible.

Britt Andreatta
But so, what I’m hearing is that they had a problem and they solved it kind of in closed doors. They didn’t involve some of the stakeholders and say, “Hey, what do you like most about this place? What should become the sacred piece that we don’t touch? What do you not care about?” They would have gotten better data if they had done that.

It sounds like they didn’t message this really well. So, they didn’t really take you guys through the why of it. And my guess is you would have felt differently if they had said, “Hey, we care about the spirit of this place, too. And this is the only option to even keep this spirit alive. Otherwise, we’re going to have to close the doors. Like, that’s where we’re at.”

So, there’s transparency and how you message things. But sometimes leaders do make those hard choices and they don’t really care if you get on board or not, take it or leave it, be on board or not. I think sometimes leaders, though, make a mistake and they don’t realize how bad that’s going to be. I think we’re kind of watching that with Southwest right now. The CEO made a big change in one of their core values, and the whole reasons why people chose that airline.

Pete Mockaitis
Is it the refunds or bags fly free?

Britt Andreatta
Bags fly free. Yeah, it was like a big thing that a lot of people were like, “Hey, this is the only reason I fly Southwest is because of these financial benefits,” right? And not only that, the policy was announced, none of the staff were giving any messaging. So, now they’re dealing with angry customers upset and they don’t have any messaging around it.

And then it went viral, so then the president, or the CEO made a video, but in his video, he only talked about the financial gains for the company and the shareholders. He didn’t talk about the travel experience. He didn’t talk about the values, the “What’s in it for me?” for the staff, for the travelers. And it was a real missed opportunity, but essentially the company violated a core value that was part of its value proposition. And they’ve lost lots of customers.

Target has done the same thing around the DEI initiatives, that by choosing to shutter that, there’s been several month-long boycotts of Target right now, and they’re just losing money, hand over fist, where Costco leaned into their DEI and they’ve gained a lot of those Target customers. So, part of it is, when you’re making change, you have to be savvy to the fact, “Is this change related to a core tenet of our identity or what people believe in about us?” Because if you’re bringing change there, you better tread very thoughtfully and very carefully.

And if you’re just going to push it through anyway, then expect to lose a lot of people. And only your analyses can let you know if you can survive that or not, right, and get to the other side of it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, actually, you’re highlighting something for me in terms of, like, my complicated feelings about the private equity industry as a whole. Because, theoretically, you know, I’m a finance major. I worked at Bain & Company, not Bain Capital, but I’m into efficiencies.

And, theoretically, I think it makes sense. Oh, yeah, someone buys a company and they’ve got some great ideas and networks, economies of scale, smart ideas, winning systems and approaches, “And away we go. Make it better, better, better.”

And yet other times, it’s like there’s nothing innovative at all happening here. It’s just like, “I found a clever, legal, financial way to shift money from you to me, and I’m going to do that. And, oh, oopsie. Oh, you’re bankrupt now? Well, that’s too bad. I’ve already exited. So, on to the next.”

And so, I think that’s, and, hey, every firm is different. Every human is different. But I think that, if you’re hyper-focused on a narrow goal of, “Let’s get a huge financial return within a few years from the acquisition of this organization,” then the deck is a little stacked against you in terms of your probability of having a misstep and overlooking an important dimension of the heart, soul, vibe, values of what makes a place special, you might overlook that. You’re at high risk of doing so.

Britt Andreatta
Yeah, and I actually dedicate an entire chapter to one of the four drivers of change is human consciousness. And what I think some people are missing, but there’s massive evidence around us, is that human consciousness has been continuing to increase. We used to be very feudal and tribal and fighting against each other. And then we went to really strict hierarchies and stuff.

But where we are in this kind of evolution of human consciousness is really understanding the interconnectedness of everything, that you have to treat your employees well. You have to treat the planet well. That there’s a commitment to not just making money for money’s sake, but doing so in a way that keeps everyone whole.

And what’s really interesting is the younger generations are very committed to this. Millennials, Gen Z, Gen X, to some extent, even the youngest littles these days are really committed to people and planet. And they vote with their dollars, they vote with their voices, they are not willing to kind of listen to corporate BS.

So, there really is a call to action that leaders, particularly executives, need to find a way to build purpose-driven workplaces, that just focusing on profit for profit’s sake is not going to land well anymore. You won’t be able to attract and retain those employees. You won’t be able to attract and retain those customers.

So, there’s a shift happening and it got accelerated by the pandemic. People were already starting to think this way, but when we’re faced with our mortality and we lose people, it really clarifies your values, which is why we saw so many people change careers and really think about where they wanted to be.

So, I think we’re in a very messy state of human evolution right now, but I think it’s a really awesome one because we’re being called to develop practices and ways of doing things that are much more aligned with being connected, taking care of everyone.

That’s not to say you can’t make a pretty penny in there somewhere, but when you are sacrificing people’s wellbeing for the pretty penny without thinking about it, that way of leadership is not going to last long anymore.

And we’re seeing the last kind of breaths of that gasp around the world, but nothing goes off into the sweet good night without a little bit of a tussle. So, we’re seeing some tussling happening.

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

Britt Andreatta
The one thing I would say is change fatigue is real and to be mindful of how you’re feeling at, you know, if you feel overwhelmed with change, like it’s something to pay attention to. One study by Gartner found that, today, the average employee is experiencing 13 or more enterprise-wide changes per year compared to two in 2016.

Like, that’s how much it’s gone up is that, is that because every part of the business is driving change and now because of new technologies like AI, all of them are having to keep up with that. We literally just have change launching around us all the time.

And so, if you’re feeling like, “Oh, my God, it’s just so much change,” you’re normal. It is an appropriate perception that you’re having. There is a lot more change than there used to be. And if you have not yet recovered from the intensity of the pandemic and really kind of healed your burnout, you’re going to have less capacity.

And this is, honestly, the number one thing I’m working with executives right now. They’re trying to drive big change in their organizations and employees are just responding very slowly or with a lot of resistance, as are their customers. And so, this mismatch is causing a lot of difficulty in workplaces right now, but we will get to the other side of it. We just have to pay attention to it.

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

Britt Andreatta
You know, I always love that Margaret Mead quote that I’m going to butcher it a little bit, but it basically says, “Never underestimate the power of a few people to make change. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

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

Britt Andreatta
You know, I talked about the habenula, that one blew my mind. The other one that really blew my mind, and I talk about this in my book on teams, Wired to Connect, is that the human brain experiences exclusion, is the same as physical pain. That excluding someone is registered in the body the same as hitting someone.

And to the point where the researchers were kind of blown away, so they did a whole bunch of other studies, like, “What happens if you are excluded by people you don’t like?” It didn’t matter. “What if we pay you to be excluded?” It didn’t matter. It just kept activating the pain centers. And so, then they thought, “Huh, I wonder if pain pills will make a difference?” And it did.

Taking a pain pill makes the feeling of exclusion go away, just like it makes the feeling of pain go away. And I think this is what’s contributed to the opioid epidemic is that people will go on pain pills for legitimate injuries, and they are getting a break from their social pain, but we’re not talking about it. So, when it’s time to come off that medicine, folks are now faced with a whole lot of feelings coming up and they’re not necessarily supported in that transition.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool?

Britt Andreatta
You know, I am a PowerPoint junkie, and I use PowerPoint for everything. I use PowerPoint to mood-board when I’m decorating a room. I use PowerPoint to, literally, that’s how I write a book is I PowerPoint it first, and then I write the chapters from the PowerPoint. It just gives me these tiles that I can move around and duplicate and organize in different ways. So, it’s my favorite way to organize my thinking and it has become, all of my books started as PowerPoints.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Britt Andreatta
This came from some research, too, around kind of the neuroscience of insight and innovation. And it really comes from the synapses of the brain being able to connect in unexpected ways. And we cannot do that when we’re focused and thinking about something. It happens when we take the break. So, I have now learned that when I feel like, “Ugh, I can’t make progress anymore,” I used to feel bad taking a break, like, “Oh, I’m stepping away. I need to keep working at this.”

But now I know that break equals breakthrough. And so, when I step away from it, I fully enjoy the break and I know my brain is still working on it in the background. And now I’ve had enough experiences of that happening that I’m really confident that I can step away from something and it’ll have the breakthrough it’s supposed to have at some point.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, they quote it back to you often?

Britt Andreatta
We are wired for three things. We’re first wired to survive. So, big parts of our biology are dedicated to helping us live another day. And that’s food, water, shelter, the thing we think of.

But when things are fine, it really shows up in the workplace because it’s our paycheck that allows us to buy food, water, shelter. So, we can accidentally really activate survival stuff for people in the workplace if we’re not mindful.

Second thing is we’re wired to belong. Big parts of our biology are dedicated to helping us cooperate and read emotions in other people and be connected to folks and feel authentic.  And then perhaps our deepest hunger or need is we’re wired to become our best selves. We really hunger to live up to our potential. And that should change. As you achieve your potential for where you are now, then there’s a new potential for you to reach for.

But we really do want to learn and grow and become better. And so, if you remember nothing else about humans – survive, belong, become.

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

Britt Andreatta
Fantastic. You know, I’m on LinkedIn. So, it’s my name, Britt Andreatta. That’s also my website, BrittAndreatta.com. I have a podcast out now called The Brain Aware Podcast. My company is Brain Aware Training, and it also has its own website. So, any of those ways are good places for people to find me and see what I’m up to. And, yeah, I love connecting with people, so please reach out.

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

Britt Andreatta
You know, as we talk about change, treat change like a skill. It’s a skill like anything else. Like using software, like time management, you can become really great at change. And I think it’s a skill that we all need to have because, as much as humans are resistant to change, change is the constant that we have to navigate over and over again. So, by becoming better at it, you’ll make your life so much easier for the rest of your life in all kinds of settings.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Britt, thank you.

Britt Andreatta
Thank you.

Jun 23
0

1069: Eight Steps for Excellent Listening with Emily Kasriel

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Emily Kasriel reveals how to build powerful connections with anyone through her eight-step listening process.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why every professional needs to master listening
  2. A demo of the listening approach
  3. How one question leads to deeper conversations

About Emily

Emily Kasriel has had a distinguished career at the BBC for over two decades including roles as an award-winning journalist, editor and media executive. She developed the Deep Listening approach as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College Policy Institute in London, drawing on her experience as an accredited executive coach and workplace mediator.  Previously, she’s been a Visiting Fellow at Said Business School at Oxford University, and a Senior Advisor to the Skoll Foundation. An MA graduate of the University of Oxford and Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (as a Rotary International Fellow), she lives in London. An academic paper demonstrating the impact of Kasriel’s Deep Listening approach has just been published (Feb 2025) by the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

Resources Mentioned

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Emily Kasriel Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Emily, welcome!

Emily Kasriel
Thank you so much. Delighted to be here, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about your book, Deep Listening, and the transformative power of listening. And I think we should kick it off with you telling us your Nelson Mandela story.

Emily Kasriel
Okay. So, this happened just after I started my work as the BBC Africa reporter in Johannesburg. And we were told that a story was unfolding in Pretoria. So, we got into the van and arrived in Pretoria, and there were hundreds of former uMkhonto weSizwe soldiers. These were members of the ANC’s Armed Wing before the new South Africa. They had been integrated into the South African Defense Force, but they were not happy. They demanded to see their leader.

So, they waited, and we all waited and we looked up in the skies to see if the new leader of South Africa would arrive. And, eventually, we had the swirl of the helicopter wings above us. And so, we went to look at the newly erected podium to see what the leader, Nelson Mandela, would have to say, but he wasn’t there.

So, instead, I found him walking amongst the crowds, walking amongst the soldiers, and asking them, “So, tell me, what’s your name? And where do you live? Oh, yes, I know that road. Alexandria Township. Is that right?” “Yes. And the corner of which street? Ah, I know. And tell me why are you here?” And the soldiers told tales of their bad food, of the fact they’d been downgraded their rank in the new South African Defense Force. And at their humiliation of having to serve these white officers who only, months before, had been their former enemy. And Mandela listened.

And only after he spent a whole hour walking along the throng, amongst the throng of these soldiers, did he get back on that podium and talk to them. And he said, “I have heard you. I’ve understood your grievances,” and he outlined them. And then he said, “And now is the time for discipline. You need to go back to your barracks because we need to build the new South Africa.” And the soldiers, quietly and peacefully, walked back to their barracks.

And it was such a profound moment because it subverted the sort of whole power hierarchy of who should talk and who should listen first. And that very respectful, deep listening that Mandela exhibited with his soldiers, with his comrades, really impacted on them because they had felt heard. They had felt truly listened to.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it is so powerful. And what’s getting me here is he did not grant their requests, make their wishes come true. They were good and rankled up when he arrived. And so, the listening alone and acknowledging that they had been heard was sufficient for them to persist in some unpleasant conditions.

Emily Kasriel
Yeah, no, absolutely right. And the research really backs that out because we’re all so longing to be heard, and we’re heard so rarely in life. And when there is anybody who hears us, particularly if they are in a position of power, or we care about what they think and say, this really affirms our own dignity. It makes us feel respected and, therefore, we’re going to be in a far better place to listen to them.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Okay. Well, tell us a little bit about this research about the rarity of being listened to and the impact of when we do receive that.

Emily Kasriel
So, in 2022, we conducted an experiment because, for the BBC’s 100th birthday and with the British Council, we recruited a thousand people in hundred countries in order for me to train them virtually over three weeks in deep listening. And this was a really diverse group of people. The countries most represented were Malaysia, UK, New Zealand, and Iran. Very diverse group of people, but all speaking English.

And so, I thought, “I’m not doing something that scale without seeing if it actually worked.” So, I reached out to some academics and we established a control group who had a very difficult conversation about a matter they disagreed with, with no training, and we compared their experience with the group who had been practicing deep listening and then had a similar difficult conversation. And the results have just been published in the Bedtime Reading, not Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

And it evidenced that, when people practice deep listening, they felt safer to express themselves and genuinely understood. And they felt a greater connection with their conversation partners, even though they came from such different countries. And this bit, the third bit is the most critical, they became more open to re-examine their own attitudes, which really is a bolster to what happened with Mandela.

Because once the soldiers felt heard, they then were able to see that bigger picture. They were able to understand that more than one perspective may be possible, and that is so exciting. Because I think one of the reasons that we really fear listening is that we think, if we listen, we’re going to have to do what people want and, therefore, we close them down. We fear that if we listen, we’ll be contaminated by ideas that we might find abhorrent. And so, we shut our ears and we close people down.

And once people realize that real listening doesn’t mean agreeing, doesn’t mean obeying, doesn’t mean that we get contaminated by ideas, somebody said to me in one of the trainings, they said, “You’ve given permission for me to listen to difficult ideas.” And I thought that was so interesting, like, “Who was I to give permission? Anybody can take that permission for themselves.” And it is so exciting once we realize this. It’s freedom.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, all that sounds really excellent. So, why don’t we all do it all the time?

Emily Kasriel
Well, there’s many traps that get us caught in deep listening, “I don’t have the time.” So, when I’m working with a business people, that’s the number one trap because we’re waging a campaign for completion. We don’t have time to hear all the details. That is the most cited obstacle. But cutting people off before they really have time to explore ideas, stops people from sharing critical information, stops them feeling heard, stops us understanding them.

So, let me give you a work example. Let’s say if your boss says to you, “Is it okay if you take on a piece of work?” And you say, “Sure, yeah.” And your mouth is smiling, but not your eyes. And you go, “Great. Fantastic. Two weeks, that will be fantastic.” How do you feel? Whereas, in fact, you could actually try and listen to what they’re really saying, and say, perhaps, “Ah, you’ve said yes, but, at the same time, I’m getting a sense that perhaps there’s too much on your plate and you already feel overloaded, and maybe you don’t feel comfortable saying no.”

Suddenly, you can have a real conversation, which enables you to either do the work or take off another task or, you know, it’s a genuine conversation. You’re going off script. So even though people say they don’t have the time, not having the time prevents people from expressing worries, prevents people from having real meaningful relationships.

And then there’s another thing that stops us from listening, because a lot of us feel a pressure, “I want to win. I need to win. I need to prove that I’m right.” We look out for any chink in our opponent’s armor, anything that can be exploited. And there’s another thing that a lot of us feel, which is that, “I am in charge.” We might see our role as the leader who instructs, who explains, who adds value, who provides a solution.

So often when we listen, and actually this is more men than women, we think that our role is to provide a solution so we cut people off and tell them how to sort their problem out, whether it’s our partner or our colleague. And, in fact, we’re depriving them of agency and stopping them coming up with their own solution, which they’re far more likely to implement.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Well, so, can you lay it out for us, how do we do this? You’ve got an eight-step approach. What are the steps?

Emily Kasriel
So, the first step is about creating a space. So, this is both a kind of metaphorical space, a space where you feel centered. I just took a little sip of tea there to center myself, but it’s also a space where the speaker feels a sense of psychological safety. So, if you’re in an open-plan office and you want to find out about why your team worker hasn’t completed their part of the task, not so good in the open-plan office, even if there’s a glass screen.

It also is about lighting. Harsh overhead blue white light, not so good, makes us feel stressed. Far better are side lights, especially with a longer spectrum, a sort of yellowy warm light makes us feel more relaxed.

And a bit of wood or a bit of material can absorb some of the sound waves so there’s less echoes so people can hear more clearly. Particularly important if one of the people who is speaking or listening is older or has a hearing impediment.

So, step two is about listening to yourself first, because you can’t really be open to listen to someone else until you’ve done some listening to yourself. Perhaps the person you’re speaking to, you’re not actually listening to them as an adult. Instead, you might feel five, age five, because they’re reminding you of a bullying older brother that you’ve had.

And so, until we do take that step, and figuring out our own skin in the game, what’s our real agenda, we can’t really be in a place to truly open ourselves up to the other person. And I would say that this isn’t for every conversation. I mean, if I were to ask you, if you wanted a cup of tea and you were to say to me, “Hmm,” and really listen, that would be totally weird, yeah? We’re talking about deep listening for the conversations that really matter.

So, step three is about being present, about taking the time, and it might be only one breath in and one breath out to center yourself. Because if you can be centered, the person speaking will feel far more open to be relaxed themselves and to be able to talk more authentically about what’s really going on for them.

And that’s why being centered, it’s so important to deal with the worst external distractions, our phone. Not just no notifications, not just with a black screen, even out of sight, because there’s research that evidences that even the sight of that screen will distract us because we feel pulled, the gravitational pull, all those brilliant, well-paid minds who learn to allure us away.

And then there’s internal distractions, like, “I really want to listen to you, but I’ve got to go home in time to pick the kids up,” or watch the game, or whatever. So, being aware when those distractions come up and becoming present, again, can be really effective. And then step four is curiosity. Be curious because so often, when we listen, we assume we already know what the person is going to say.

So, what we’re doing is preloading our verbal gun with ammunition, ready to fire about with our next question or our next comment, or we just go through the motions and listening is performative, “Yeah, yeah, I get you. Yeah, yeah, I understand.” And the person knows it.

And, instead, if we can assume that we don’t already know what they’re going to say, if we can be truly curious, that allows the speaker to share something, which makes us more curious and then even empathetic, like understand a bit more what it’s like to be them. And from there can grow respect. And what’s important is respect for the person, for the humanity of the person, not for what they’ve just shared and whether or not you agree with them.

And step five is the gaze. Now it’s quite hard on a Zoom call or a Riverside podcast chat like we’re having. So, I’m trying to look you in the eye at the camera, and I can’t quite see your body language. It’s difficult, although I have shrunk your image and put you directly under the camera to make it a little easier. But so much easier in person, if we can really maintain our gaze on the speaker.

And this gaze is not like a Foucault gaze, you know, Michel Foucault, the French philosopher who talked about prison wardens making prisoners feel perpetually enslaved because of a really horrific glare. This is a much warmer empathetic gaze, which the speaker will often go silent and look elsewhere. But the fact that you’re holding them, you’re looking at them as they continue the journey means they’ll have far, far richer thoughts.

And then step six is holding the silence. And when I train people in deep listening, silence is something that they, without exception, tell me how uncomfortable it is when they get to practice deep listening, because I invite them to use, you know, five, 10 seconds, even more of silence after the speaker has finished speaking.

And yet when I catch up with them later, a month or two down the line, they tell me this is the element of deep listening which has made the most difference to their lives because in silence, it allows so much to happen, not only for the blood pressure and the heart rate of both you and your speaker to kind of calm down, but also for your speaker to think new thoughts.

If you think of a companionable silence where you don’t have to fill in all the gaps, and I know this is can be hard. But it takes a little bit of practice. And to encourage you, there was a paper that came out in 2021 called “Silence is golden.” And it did experiments with two sides of a negotiation.

And it found that, when both parties were instructed to use 20 seconds of silence, number one, they never got to 20 seconds. They rarely got above 17 and a half seconds. We always overestimate silence, particularly the listener. But more significantly, they came out with many more win-win situations when both parties benefited rather than zero sum, “If I win, you lose.”

And then this also leads us, because silence has another factor, which is that it allows you, the listener, to make sense, not only with your mind, but with your heart of what you’ve just heard. Because step seven is reflecting back. And you may have been on active listening courses where you say, “Yeah, yeah,” you reflect back, you paraphrase, you go through the motions. It’s performative.

Deep listening reflection is much more authentic and it’s about using the whole of you to figure out the real meaning of what the whole of your speaker has shared. And so, you say, “Hmm, I think what you said…” and you must include not just the words, but the notes between the words and their emotions, whether or not they’ve expressed them in words.

The research shows that if I don’t include what you are feeling about what you’ve shared, you won’t feel heard. And it’s then the speaker’s opportunity to say, “Yeah, you know, you haven’t quite got it.” So, one question you can ask is, “Tell me more,” or they’ll say, “Yes, and…” and they’ll go deeper.

And this brings us to the final step of deep listening, the deeper narrative, step eight. Because this is really about the values and the motivations of your speaker. And, in my book, Deep Listening, I go through all sorts of clues you can use to really unpack what’s going on for your speaker.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, thank you. There’s so much I’d like to follow up on here. So, let’s just see, a couple of finer points. So, create space, listen to yourself, be present, be curious, hold the gaze, hold the silence, reflect back, go deeper. Now when it comes to listen to yourself, if you say, “Hey, this person is reminding me of a bully,” right? So, you’ve figured that out, which is great. You’ve identified a dynamic that’s present.

Well, then what? What do we do once we notice something within ourselves that we say, “Ah, this is probably not ideal to be in the mix for great listening”?

Emily Kasriel
That’s such a great question, Pete, because the very first step is noticing, because when we don’t notice, so we don’t think that we’re listening to our bullying older brother, we think we’re listening to that individual and he is evil.

And it’s when we don’t acknowledge them that they’re at their fiercest. I would say that if you’ve experienced trauma, starting to do this shadow work without support is perhaps not the best idea because it is difficult. It’s a life work of a lifetime for all of us to understand ourselves more clearly.

But, first of all, even identifying that that person reminds us, and it is possible to acknowledge that and then put it aside and recognize that the person opposite speaking is not our elder brother, can itself be very, very freeing. And it might be that we need to think of ways if, for example, during that conversation with that individual, we feel ourselves getting defensive and stressed out, then we can choose an anchor before we start the conversation. Something that makes us feel safe inside.

It might be the idea of a beautiful place in nature or somebody who really loves us or stroking a favorite pet. Having these little anchors to help ground us can be really important.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s great. Thank you. And so, when we hold the gaze, we do so in a way that’s friendly and not like a prison guard. Good to know. I mean, how long is too long?

Emily Kasriel
I think that, as long as it’s not rigid and like, you know, as long as it’s warm and you’re listening, and it does mean you can turn aside if you’ve got a crook in your neck, it’s all about being authentic. I think that the intention and authenticity is the most important thing, because what’s behind your work as a deep listener is what your speaker will sense.

So, rather than feeling you’re performing anything for any amount of time, it’s about being curious and empathetic and wanting to know more. And the gaze is important, but what’s more important about is what’s behind that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then with the silence, you did mention that folks were challenged to do 20 seconds of silence. Is that optimal in some sense?

Emily Kasriel
I think 20 seconds is an awful long time. If you were actually to time it, I think most people would find, and as I mentioned in that experiment, which they did with many, many people, almost no one held the full 20 seconds of silence because we always overestimate. You’ve got to figure out what works for you, and it does depend on your culture, on your relationship, on the other person.

And I do think, though, that you can get better at silence. So, at the beginning, I would just try three seconds, four seconds, and see how that feels. And you may choose to share with your speaker that you’re practicing a bit of silence or not. It’s all about being real and in the moment and being open in your heart.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And I suppose, if you’re going with a longer silence, you probably want to give them that kind of a signal in terms of, “Hmm, I’m thinking about what you’ve said there.”

Emily Kasriel
Yeah. You could well do that, yeah, you might do that. But often, what’s interesting, is when I train people, it’s often the listener who worries more about the silence than the speaker.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I hear you. Okay. And then with reflecting, we’re reflecting both the words and the emotions. So, even if they didn’t say the emotions, you’re suggesting a best practice is to go ahead and venture out to infer what we think they were.

So, as I am reflecting the words and then also venturing to infer the emotions there, is it better to do this even if occasionally we get it wrong, and say, “No, no, I wouldn’t say I was frustrated so much as disappointed”? Like, if they give you that correction, are we still, I guess, net positive having ventured and gotten it wrong than to not have ventured at all?

Emily Kasriel
I’m so pleased that you asked that question because it’s really, really important. Of course, we can never really know about what’s going on in another person, particularly about, for example, an emotion that they haven’t expressed in words. And so, whenever we are offering something back in that case, we are venturing because it’s not just the emotions. It’s also about what’s really at the core of what they’ve said.

And it’s absolutely fine to get it wrong, as long as you realize that you’re reflecting back with humility. It’s like you’re borrowing some beautiful finery that’s not yours. You’re trying it on for the first time, and so you’re saying, “Well, I think that you said this and I’d sensed that you feel this,” because it’s through their correction that they can understand themselves better and also then share that with you.

It’s that process of getting to the deeper core of what they really mean. And they often do it through you getting it wrong as much as you getting it right. Because the whole idea is it’s in service of the other person, understanding and expressing themselves more clearly.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And I’m imagining, as we’re getting our first practice reps in of venturing to identify the emotion, it’s probably safer to go with not the most intense emotions, “So, it sounds as though you were enraged or flabbergasted or desolate.” Like, if they are enraged, you’ll know it.

Emily Kasriel
Well, I think what’s most important is that it doesn’t come with judgment. So, if you were to say to them, “Huh, it sounds like that you were pretty desperate,” they’ll feel that you’re making a judgment about them. I think what’s more important is to deliver these thoughts about what you think they’re feeling with humility and without judgment so that they don’t feel judged.

Because we know as soon as we feel judged, our defenses go up and we stop sharing openly and authentically, and stop being able to think new thoughts. And that’s one of the things that’s so exciting about deep listening. And I know that from my own work as an executive coach, that when you really listen to somebody else, they’re able to have thoughts that they didn’t ever imagine before. And I think that’s one of your ambitions as a deep listener, not just to provide a space for them to recite old ideas, but to create new ones.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, that non-judgmental piece, I think, plays through everything. And now I’m just thinking about our own tone of voice within which we say all things can suggest judgment in terms of, it’s like, so if I said, “So you were confused by the website,” which means, like, even that tone, that’s not too intense of a tone there, but it suggests judgment in terms of, like, “What kind of an idiot are you if you found this website confusing?” even though the tone can be subtle. Do you have any pro tips on that?

Emily Kasriel
Yeah, I think it’s such a good point. And tone of voice, actually, when you’re trying to understand more about what the speaker is saying, tone of voice is far more reliable than gestures or facial expressions, the research evidences. So, tone of voice is a very powerful way that we communicate. I think about, again, when we’re thinking about our tone of voice, it’s wise to think about our intentions. Are we feeling judgmental about the other person?

Because, actually, often, we get most irritated with people who remind us, in some way, of our own weakness. And once we can acknowledge that perhaps we feel embarrassed that we are confused about websites, that’s why we’re being so judgmental about the other person, we can let that go and then be able to say to them, “So I sense that you felt a little confused using this website. Is that right?”

And it’s the same words, but you aren’t judging them because you understand that their life experience is different to yours. And, therefore, you don’t really have a right to judge them on some level.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Well, yes, let’s do a demonstration now.

Emily Kasriel
Okay. So, Pete, let me ask you, what food reminds you of home?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, what first comes to mind is a whole meal in terms of I’m thinking about childhood dinner at the round table. And we would have this plate, which had a big heart on it. It said something like, “Today is your special day,” which would be given to whoever’s special day it was, like, if it was a birthday or graduation or some sort of achievement or something. For one reason or another, it was your special day.

And then, you know, my sweet mother would ask what I would want to eat on this special day. And for a good while, I had a meal, which was fried chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and cheese sauce. So, that meal in its entirety was, it’s my special day meal. That’s what I wanted, and it was perfection. And I was a pretty skinny kid. I wasn’t a big eater except when it was my special day and it was my meal, and I just went to town.

Emily Kasriel
So, I’m hearing you say, Pete, that that round table and that special round dish, your special day was that sense that your mother was creating this whole meal. It wasn’t individual. The whole point was that it was everything together that made you feel nurtured and loved and celebrated and able to just really tuck in, even though that’s not something you would normally do, because it was everything coming together.

You spoke about the wholeness of it and feeling whole, and that even now you were really there, I sensed, when you were talking about it. And it just gave you a really great grounding to feel in that space of love and safety. Is that right?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah.

Emily Kasriel
And tell me more.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s dead on, yeah.

Emily Kasriel
And so, I sense it’s a kind of longingness and yet also a joy when you’re able to go back there in your mind as a kid again.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, it is, it is nice. And it just makes me think about how I should probably be more proactive in asking my own children now about what would make their meal or day special because that was such a lovely time and experience and memory in my own childhood. And I don’t think that I’ve been very intentional in trying to provide that for my kids. And why the heck not? You know, we got to eat something. Let’s make it special.

Emily Kasriel
And so, it’s a realization now as an adult of that love and sense of recognition that your mother gave you of making that whole fried chicken, mash, broccoli, you know, everything and cheese sauce that you loved, and the sense that perhaps there’s a gap between you not quite fulfilling that, but still have the potential to give that to your children today.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Yeah, I think sometimes we’ve gotten into a little bit of a grazing groove in terms of whenever they’re hungry, they eat whatever’s there, as opposed to really stopping, pausing, and being deliberate about creating an experience.

Emily Kasriel
And so, this conversation, perhaps, is providing you with an opportunity to do more of that for your own children, something precious that you can gift them as a gift, the same way your mom gave you. I had a sense that it sort of nurtured you and given you a confidence, that feeling that you were special and unique.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it totally did.

Emily Kasriel
So, roughly, how many questions did I ask you there?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I wasn’t counting. Maybe five-ish.

Emily Kasriel
Yeah. Actually, I just asked you one question, “What food reminds you of home?” Now, as a journalist, I had loads of questions. I wanted to know where you grew up, where your parents came from, what state, or do you have siblings? I could have asked you a billion questions, and had I done that, I would have gone down my avenue where I was interested.

And, although, I sensed you were a bit reluctant to tell me too much, there was a sort of privacy, a kind of, “I’m going this far and no further,” I did get a sense and I feel I know you more and I feel more connected to you because of what you did share on your own terms of where you wanted to go. What do you think, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, think that’s a fabulous illustration there in terms of “How many questions did I ask you?” I said five, you said one. And so, because, exactly the path of the follow-up questions is going deeper, yeah, I guess that’s the main insight for me is that you could very much have gone in any number of directions. And I think that’s often what we do. It’s like we are interested in what we’re interested in.

So, Emily, if you had a woodworking hobby, you’d be like, “Oh, round table, huh? Was that like an oak or a walnut or…?” Right? And so, it’s laughable because, like, “The point wasn’t the table.  That’s not what we are getting at.” And yet, I think we do that all the time in terms of, “Oh, your mom, huh? Okay, so was she a full-time homemaker? Did she work as well?” Because maybe that’s what you’re into is careers or women and empowerment and having it all.

Or, maybe you’re into cuisine, like, “Okay, so what kind of cheese sauce we’re going with? Is that more of a cheddar or a Velveeta?” And so, I think people do that all the time. But in contrast to what you’ve done in this context as we’re chatting, it feels like, obviously, night and day, the wrong way to talk to people so that they feel heard and connected with is the, “Huh, let me dig into the piece of what you said that I find most interesting,” as opposed to, “Let me dig into the piece of it that seemed most meaningful to you, speaker, as one who has said it.”

Emily Kasriel
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And your illustrations are really fun of where we could have gone down. And especially as journalists, we love to think of ourselves as coming up with these great questions. Even as coaches, when I was delivering this training to a bunch of executive coaches, they said, “It’s so much of a relief because I feel like I’m not listening because I’m trying to come up with this brilliant killer question,” which will help the coach client unpack what they really mean. So, you’re absolutely right.

But I wouldn’t be too judgmental. I mean, it’s not that you can never ask interesting questions where you’re curious, because I think deep listening is something that you can sprinkle in conversations. You can try as you learn more about the steps to use more of them, but it’s not all or nothing. And the one question I did ask, actually, I did ask two questions, was, “Tell me more.”

Because I sensed you were being a little bit closed, you kind of didn’t want to go further. And what’s good about the “Tell me more” question is that the speaker can define what more is rather than you, the listener saying, “Tell me more about the wooden quality of the table,” or whatever.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. Thank you. Well, Emily, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about your favorite things?

Emily Kasriel
I think that there’s so much loneliness in our society. So many people are not being heard. And if we can deeply listen to them, we can do something to make a dent in loneliness and also in polarization, which we know is tearing America apart because we can listen to people who think differently to us at work or at home.

And let me tell you a little quick story about loneliness, I think, really, which was a little while ago, I was visiting the pharmacy to collect drugs for my daughter. And there was a lady sitting on a plastic chair waiting for her own drugs. And the pharmacist asked me, what was the birth date of my daughter. So, I said, “Third of July 21.” And she looked at me, “Are you sure?” And then I thought for a moment, I said, “No, no, third of July, 2001.” And the lady on the chair started laughing at me.

And she said, “Wait a minute. How can you not know the birth date of your own daughter? What’s going on there?” And I said, “You know, you’re quite right. That’s pretty silly of me.” So, we started to have a chat, and she told me, we’re talking about birth dates, about her grandmother who’d recently, in her nineties, reached a milestone birthday and how proud she was. And she said, “Yeah, I’m really proud.” And I said to her, “I sense that you’re proud, but there’s also something else going on.”

And she said, “Yes, I think I’m going to die before my grandmother.” And then we talked more, and she shared about her condition and she started crying, and then she apologized for crying. And then we had a laugh and then I walked away. And I had a sense that she needed to be heard.

And it was only because I was mindful in that moment, which I’m certainly not always am, to be able to pick up on the sort of nuance in the word proud, and also maybe that I’d made myself a bit vulnerable by making that silly mistake about my daughter’s birthday and not being defensive and having a laugh about it, but she felt safe to be vulnerable too.

And if more of us can practice deep listening to those around us, to our kids, to our family, to our colleagues, and even to strangers, what a difference we can make to the world. And for me, that’s really inspiring. And I really hope that people feel inspired to practice and would love to know about their adventures in the wild.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, now could you share a favorite study, or experiment, or bit of research?

Emily Kasriel
So there was one experiment which was measuring people’s attitude extremity, how fiercely they felt. And it came out that, when people felt truly heard, they dialed down their attitude extremity, where the people were talking about organ donation or Palestinian Israeli prisoners or really controversial topics.

And to me, that is so important in that way in terms of combating polarization, that when people feel heard, they’ll be more likely to be able to listen to other perspectives.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Emily Kasriel
I think this book, Carl Rogers, I’ve been so influenced by this psychologist, On Becoming A Person. But I also really enjoyed Stephen Grosz, who’s a psychoanalyst, The Examined Life, about listening in that way.

And then Daniel Kahneman, who I knew and very sad to have lost him, Thinking Fast and Slow.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool?

Emily Kasriel
I find the Waking Up app really great because I think to be able to practice mindfulness, not when you’re in the middle of a difficult conversation, but other moments, allows you to be more present in the moments when you are having a difficult conversation and when you really need to listen. And what’s so great about Waking Up is that there are so many different, brilliant thinkers on that app.

So, I’ve learned about so many people. So, for example, Loch Kelly, who I interviewed in my book, who’s a fantastic meditation teacher and psychotherapist. I learned about just from listening to him on the Waking Up app.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Emily Kasriel
I like cold water swimming in Hampstead Ponds even when it’s cold. So, I do it throughout winter, which is kind of crazy. But for me, being able to get in the cold, even when it feels like crazy and frightening, kind of means that I can do anything for the rest of the day.

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

Emily Kasriel
So, you can go to my website, which is EmilyKasriel.com – Kilo, Alpha, Sierra, Romeo, Italy, Echo, Lima – EmilyKasriel.com. You can follow me on LinkedIn, or you can buy the book where I’ve given an awful lot of myself in it. And I hope that you will enjoy it because it’s got some lovely stories and illustrations and a lot of ideas of how to practice deep listening.

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

Emily Kasriel
So, number one challenge is to find somebody you feel really relaxed with, you’ve got a great relationship with, and just try and practice some of these eight steps. And then, when you get a bit more confident, then choose somebody who you don’t agree with, then have a deep listening practice with them.

And I should say that when you reflect on these practices, even if you weren’t able to deeply listen, the very intention is a fantastic first step. So, don’t be too judgmental on yourself. Just ask yourself, “What have I learned for next time?” And you might even want to ask the speaker for feedback what did it feel like to be listened to by you?

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Emily, this is beautiful. Thank you.

Emily Kasriel
Thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure to talk to you, Pete. Thank you.