Adam Galinsky reveals the core skills anyone can master for more inspiring leadership.
You’ll Learn
- The easiest way to uplift the people around you
- The 15-minute exercise that makes you visionary
- The quick trick to feeling more confident and powerful
About Adam
Adam Galinsky is a celebrated social psychologist at Columbia Business School known for his research on leadership, decision-making, teams and ethics. His scientific research—consisting of over 1000 studies published in over 200 scientific articles—has been cited more than 64,000 times. In Galinsky’s latest book, Inspire, he weaves together his decades of research and global consulting experience to reveal the science of how to become more inspiring. His TED Talk, “How to Speak Up For Yourself,” has been viewed more than 7.5 million times and his book Friend and Foe, was an audible and eBook bestseller.
- Book: Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others
- Study: “The Vicious Cycle of Status Insecurity”
- Website: AdamGalinsky.com
Resources Mentioned
- Study: “Considerations of Some Problems of Comprehension” by John D. Bransford and Marcia K. Johnson
- Past episode: 279: How to Feel More Alive at Work with Dan Cable
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Adam Galinsky Interview Transcript
Pete Mockaitis
Adam, welcome.
Adam Galinsky
Thanks so much for having me, Pete.
Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to dig into your wisdom about your book, Inspire, to get inspired, to become more inspiring. So, no pressure, Adam, but we’re expecting lots of inspiration to be flowing from you here today.
Adam Galinsky
I hope I can deliver.
Pete Mockaitis
Me too. Well, so tell us, you study this stuff. I’d like to hear, in your own lived experience, who’s the most inspiring person you’ve encountered and what is it about them that inspired you?
Adam Galinsky
Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve been inspired by a number of people in my life. One person that inspired me really deeply is my dad and even my mom too. So, both my parents and their different ways. One of the things I talk about in the book is I really compare and contrast two types of leaders that tend to be in our orbit, the inspiring leaders, but also the infuriating leaders.
And I think one of the things, when I think about both my parents, I immediately think about their inspiring characteristics, but also their infuriating flaws that they had. And so, I think one of the things in studying this topic is, probably maybe the single biggest insight that I’ve discovered is I’ve actually answered an age-old question that’s bedeviled people for centuries, which is, “Are inspiring leaders born or are they made?”
And what I’ve discovered is, I think, pretty definitively, that inspiring leaders are truly made. And the reason why I know this is because there is, and the thing that I’ve established in my research, is that there is a universal set of characteristics that make up the inspiring person. And these characteristics exist in every single country, on every continent in the world. There’s not a single inspiring characteristic that doesn’t exist in every other country, that exists in one country. It exists in every country.
And because there is this universal set of characteristics, those can be learned, they can be practiced, they can be nurtured, and so that we can become more inspiring over time. And if we go back to thinking a little about my parents, and I said they’re inspiring and they’re infuriating, the thing that really, what my research shows, is that it’s not who we are, it’s really what we do. It’s our behavior, our current behavior, whatever we’re doing today can either inspire or infuriate.
And that means that even if we were amazing yesterday, we may be a total infuriating dad today but the good news is we could be even more inspiring tomorrow.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, it’s good news that inspirational leaders are made and not born, otherwise you’d have a pretty short book and podcast, I imagine, Adam.
Adam Galinsky
That’s right, yes. Well, it could be a whole discussion of how to select those people, right? So wouldn’t be necessarily that short, but it would be a different conversation.
Pete Mockaitis
It would be. Well, and not as much fun because, I mean, I am inspired by the notion of being inspirational, to get meta with you. And I do definitely want to dig into this set of characteristics, what are they, and how do we learn them. But first I’d like to hear, generally speaking, as you’ve dug into all this literature and done the research, any big surprising or counterintuitive discoveries that made you go, “Huh, how about that”?
Adam Galinsky
I think that one of the things I discovered over the course of doing 25 years of scientific research is the power of not just thinking about ourselves, but thinking about others. And so, one of the first things that I ended up studying in my dissertation was a notion of perspective-taking. And when we take the perspective of other people, it opens up a lot of different avenues and possibilities that we might not know were available to us.
And so, it helps us be better negotiators. It helps us be better leaders. It helps us be more inclusive, give better feedback. Like, you could do a whole list of the things that perspective-taking provides to you. But this is one example, I have a paper that’s coming out in the top psychology, social psychology journal in the world, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in January, a paper I’ve worked on for a number of years.
And the title of the paper is called “The Vicious Cycle of Status and Security.” And so, one of the mistakes that the people who are insecure about where they stand in the world make is they think they have to tout their accomplishments. They have to show what they have done. And what my research shows is that, when we’re feeling insecure, we feel reluctant to credit other people for their contributions to us, thinking it’ll undermine our own standing.
But what my research shows really definitively, even in some of the most competitive contexts, that when we are generous in spirit towards other people, when we acknowledge their contributions to our own success, we not only elevate them, but we also elevate ourselves. We actually gain in status through generosity.
And I think that’s one of the things that people might instinctively kind of think that might be true, but when they get anxious, when they get insecure, that goes out the window and we focus on the self and, “What I’ve done.” And so, I think maybe the surprising thing is just the power in, “It’s not all about you.” If you focus on others, you’re going to benefit but it’s through this sort of other route, if you will.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I absolutely buy that, and I’ve seen it on both sides of the table in terms of when I’m at my best doing those things, as well as when I see it from others, and I am wowed by, I suppose, anytime someone just is generous in terms of, I guess I think about in sales conversations in which someone says, “Hey, we’d love to take your money, but actually I don’t think we’re the best fit for you. You should go with it over in this direction instead.”
I end up liking them more and giving them more referrals. It’s like, “You got to talk to these guys. They’re so honest. They’re so great. They’ll help you out or tell you who could help you better.” And it’s a world I want to live in, you know? So, I think that’s beautiful.
Adam Galinsky
Yeah, I think that’s right.When we do something that doesn’t look like in our best interest, it seems more authentic and genuine, because “Why would they be doing it if they didn’t really believe it?” And I think that becomes really powerful for that. And it also just highlights how important our reputation is to us, like, how people think about us, how they talk about us, what they share about us.
And so, that’s another, I think, I use this phrase that I really like about, “spreading the seeds of inspiration.” And I’ll come back to this later, but I have an acronym that I use called REAP. And it’s a Hananim from the Bible and, “Reap what you sow.” But the idea is that what you put out in the world comes back to you. So, if you’re inspiring to others, they’re going to be inspiring to you. But if you’re infuriating to others, you’re going to get infuriation back. And I think that’s something so important.
One of the foundations, and we’ll talk about the characteristics, as you said, and sort of how we can utilize those characteristics, but one of the foundations is really, like, living your values, and how you can live your values. And my number one value, I have a values card that’s in my pocket with my top five values and in a hierarchy. My number one value is generosity. And it’s that idea that if we’re generous to other people, not just in substance, but even in spirit, we’re going to produce a better world, not only for others, but also for ourselves.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, let’s dig into some of these characteristics. Lay them on us.
Adam Galinsky
Sure. Well, so just to give your listeners a little background. So, what I’ve done over the last 20 years is I’ve asked people all over the world to tell me about a leader that inspired them. And I’ve asked people, “Well, what does it mean to be inspired?” And people use words like energy or warmth or light.
And the way that I describe it is a wellspring of hope and possibility. It changes you inside. It gives you this feeling. And I say to people, “What was it about that person that inspired you? I want you to tell me the exact characteristic. Be a scientist. Pinpoint what it is that really changed you inside.” And then over the course of time, I started asking another question, I said, “Okay, I want to talk about a different leader that changed you inside. But instead of creating that wellspring of hope and possibility, they created this seething cauldron of rage and resentment. And what was it about that leader that made your blood boil, that infuriated you?” And so, by collecting thousands, and probably even tens of thousands of these examples across the globe, I’ve been able to sort of analyze and study them and use sort of scientific techniques to reduce them to some core factors.
And these three universal factors, I’ll tell you sort of the first thing, my first insight is that the inspiring leader and the infuriating leader are really mirror images of each other, and they exist on this continuum, this enduring continuum that’s made up of “How are you behaving today?” And so, just as a couple quick examples, an inspiring leader is generous. We already used the word generosity, right? Infuriating leader is selfish.
Inspiring leader is courageous. Infuriating leader is cowardly. Inspiring leader sees the big picture. Infuriating leader is small-minded, lost in the weeds. So, one of the things we can start to see is that these are mirror images of each other. And the second thing is that continuum is made up of these three enduring factors. There’s being visionary, which is how we see the world. There is being an exemplar of desired behavior, how we are in the world. And then being a mentor, how we interact with others in the world.
And one of things that I’ve discovered is there’s a reason why these are the three universal factors. And the reason why these are the three universal factors is because they each satisfy a fundamental human need. We’re inspiring people because we’re satisfying a need. So, to be visionary satisfies a human need for meaning and understanding. We crave meaning.
To be exemplar satisfies the fundamental human need to feel protected and safe, but also to feel propelled by people’s passion and energy. And then mentor is one of the universal factors because it fulfills the fundamental human needs for a sense of belonging and inclusion on the one hand, but feeling like that you have status and are respected on the other hand.
And so, these are these three universal factors. I actually have a term that I use, a mnemonic device to help people remember it. I call it the VEM diagram of inspiring leadership. So, it’s like a Venn diagram, you have visionary, you have exemplary, you have mentor, and inspiring in the middle of those concentric circles but that really sort of captures those three elements.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, you brought the goods and some social psychology chops in action, our deep human needs. And on the mentor side, I’m thinking about, we got the belonging and the inclusion and also at the sense of learning growth mastery that occurs when we’re getting good tidbits from a mentor. Like, “Oh, wow, that’s brilliant. And now my skills have been upgraded and I feel great as a result of that as well.” So, we’re ticking all kinds of deep human boxes here.
Now, I’ll tell you, Adam, when you said that these inspiring leaders are made and not born, it feels like a tall mountain to climb to just develop these characteristics within us. If we’re not so visionary and exemplary and mentor-y, how do we get more of that goodness going for us?
Adam Galinsky
Yeah, absolutely. So, for each of these, I can go into a little bit more detail, but also say, like, “How do we get into a visionary state of mind that makes us and propels us to be more visionary? How do we get into an exemplar state of mind? How do we do those things?” And so, let me just start with, I think, visionary is such a straightforward one and really helpful. So, what does it mean to be visionary?
Well, visionary has three characteristics. It’s kind of like what we say, is one of it, how we say it and when we say it. And the what basically is big picture, optimistic vision of the future. So, there’s, we see the big picture, but we also see a positive version of what the world can look like. Now, how do we say it? Well, my research shows and other people’s research shows is you want to do two things. You want to simplify it to its essence, but you also want to visualize it, make it come to life.
So, one of the examples I love to give is, you can have the mission, “Our mission is to have satisfied customers.” That’s a good mission, right? You want to have your customers be satisfied. But now let’s just tweak it a little bit and see how it changes, “Our mission is to make our customers smile.” Now that word smile is something we can visually see.
And then we can think about, “Well, what is it that we can do to bring that smile onto our customers’ face?” And that actually simple change from satisfied customers to make our customers smile, engages people more and motivates them more. It produces better outcomes, better products, if you will.
And then the final thing is that if you want your vision to stick, you got to share it and repeat it again and again and again and again. And one of the things I think we fail a lot of times is we fail to recognize that for something to stick, we need to hear it a lot of times. I mean, here’s a good example. What does almost every song in the world have?
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, a refrain, a chorus.
Adam Galinsky
Yeah, a chorus, a refrain, right? That tells us, if almost every song in the world has the same exact feature, a repeated line, a repeated chorus, a repeated frame, that probably tells us the human mind needs some central idea to be repeated again and again. And so, that’s another thing that I find that people are really good at. So, now we can be both practical, very specific, but we can also be sort of a little bit broader. So, here’s a practical thing.
Look at how you’re communicating and ask, “Can I simplify this? Can I be more economical in my words? But can I, in doing that, also make it more visual and vivid and metaphorical and come to life?” So, that’s like a very practical thing you could do. But what I’ve also shown is “How do we get into a general visionary state of mind where we can really see the big picture?” And that is a technique that comes back to what I said earlier about values.
And so, one of the things that two decades of research has shown, my own research has shown this, I’ve done multiple studies, that if you get people to reflect on their values, and I call this your values hierarchy. My colleague, Paul Ingram, has done amazing research on this. So, this is what we tell people, “Think about your values, what really matters to you. Now pick four or five values and put them into a hierarchy where the top value sort of animates the rest of your values. Now that’s your value hierarchy. Now what I want you to do is I want you to think about why those values matter to you. Also, when have you demonstrated those values in your daily life?”
And here’s one study we did. One of the worst things that can happen to anyone in their life is to be unemployed, to be laid off, to be fired, to lose your job. It increases anxiety, depression, even suicide. So, we worked with a Swiss employment agency, a government employment agency, every citizen in Switzerland, if they want to get unemployment benefits, has to go into one of these agencies and register. And we did a little experiment.
Fifteen-minute intervention for half of these people. We did exactly what I just told you. Reflect on your values, why they matter, how you’ve demonstrated them. Two months later, they were twice as likely to have found a job. In fact, the effect was so strong, we stopped the experiment and gave everybody the values intervention.
And so, when we reflect on our values, it has two things that I think are incredibly important. One is it helps us see the big picture, what really matters. But two is I think it has this element of optimism. It gives us that energy to go forward. Because what do you need to do to get a job? You got to apply, you got to suffer the slings and arrows of rejections, right? And you got to keep going, right? And you got to keep applying to other jobs. And so, reflecting on our values both helps you see what really matters and gives you that optimistic positive energy to go forward.
So, we can become more visionary both with very fine-tuned practicality, “How do I simplify my messages?” or, “How do I make sure that people see the big picture?” But we can also do it more sort of organically by reflecting on our values.
Pete Mockaitis
Adam, what we love to hear so much here is a little bit of an effort produces just an extraordinary result. Like a 15-minute value intervention is phenomenal, which reminds me of a conversation we had with Dan Cable about, I think, similarly, a short, it might’ve been a one-hour intervention, in terms of introducing yourself to your colleagues about who you are at your best, reduce the attrition by over 30%.
And so, I think that is just astounding in terms of zooming in on this stuff, it’s just amazing in that our human spirit, I don’t know how to say it, Adam, but it seems like it’s so easy for us to lose sight of our values, our North Star, that which makes us come alive and be all we can be. And, apparently, we can get there with just a pretty quick refresher.
Adam Galinsky
Yeah, I think this is a great transition to the second universal factor of being exemplar, because I think Dan’s intervention is, it’s a little bit about values, but it’s also something a little bit broader. So, what does it mean to be an exemplar of desired behavior? So, what it means is being a calm and courageous protector, who’s authentically passionate, who’s super, but also human. They’re not perfect. They have their own vulnerabilities.
And so, I’ve shown in a lot of different ways why that matters. So, how do we get people into an exemplar state of mind? Well, in 2003, I introduced something, and Dan’s research kind of builds all of this, an intervention that has been used in hundreds of experiments across the world, hundreds of experiments across the world. And we basically did analysis of all those experiments and showed that it’s got deep scientific validity.
But we simply asked people to kind of do what Dan did, but we said, “Think about a time when you were powerful, in control, and your best self.” And we targeted at a more micro level. So, imagine you’re going into a negotiation, “Think about when you’re powerful and in control and your best self at the negotiating table.” Or you’re going in for an interview, “Think about when you’re powerful and in control your best self in an interview.” Or think about giving a speech in front of people, “Think about the time when you felt powerful, really in control on that stage.”
And so, what that does, the reason why that’s so powerful, that reflection, is because you’re building off your own lived experience, authentically building off your own lived experience. You’re not recalling what someone else did. You can feel yourself.
You’re like, “Yeah, I negotiated.” You might’ve negotiated one time out of ten well, but you can still recall that one time you did it well, right? And that’s a real powerful way to leverage that. And we’ve shown in our research that when you do that, people do better in interviews. We actually have the people are more likely to get a job. We’ve shown they give better speeches. Other people in Europe have used my intervention, measured people’s physiological reactivity before a very stressful event, and they were physiologically calmer after engaging in that.
And so, one of the things that the way they like to describe it is if you want to be super, you got to be able to remember when you were super. And that’s sort of one way of being able to tap. And then you go out and act super when you can do that. And so, I think that’s one thing that’s just so powerful and so important for people is to remember that we have those experience when we did something really, really well and we can recall and really sort of build off those experiences.
Now, I hope you don’t mind, but I want to introduce another topic really quickly that I think is really important.
So, I know you have three kids, and so you’re a parent, you’re a dad, and so your kids look up to you because as that parent, it could be just because you admire someone. It could be because someone’s really important to you. And so, anytime someone gives you their attention, you, your behavior, your words, the way you stand, the way you interact are going to have a big impact on people.
And so, I’ve coined a phrase. I call it the leadership amplification effect or the leader amplification effect. And the leader amplification effect basically says that when we’re in a position of leadership or where people are looking up to us or we really matter to them, they’re paying attention to us, their eyes are on us. And one of the foundational, fundamental scientific truths that govern all of mental life is that the things that we pay attention to get amplified. Whatever stimulus we’re looking at, that stimulus will have a bigger impact on us. We’ll get intensified reactions.
And so, it’s just sort of one example would be, I still remember 30 years ago, my first doctoral seminar when I was a PhD student with a guy who’d win the Nobel Prize in Economics, and I raised my hand one day, first day of class, have 11 fellow students, I want to demonstrate that I belong, I’m at Princeton University, this Ivy League thing, but feeling a little insecure, and I think I have a really nice point to make. And I still remember what Danny did 40 years later, he crossed his arms, shook his head, scrunched up his face and said, “That’s not right at all.”
And then he smiled and he moved on and the rest of class moved on. But, like, I was frozen. I felt humiliated. It was crushing to me. And so, Danny doesn’t remember this. Like, it was nothing to him, but to me, it just felt like humiliating criticism. But, like, six weeks later, I’m walking in the hallway and Danny, without stopping, he doesn’t even stop walking, he just says over his shoulder, “Hey, Adam, I love reading your reflection papers. You’re a great writer.” And then he turned the corner but that comment, like, has nurtured me for 30 years.
And so, one of things is that when we’re in a position of leadership, the reason why our words matter so much, the way we are in the world, how we interact with others matters so much is people are paying attention to us. And some of it is because we have power and authority, but sometimes it’s just because they look up to us and they care about what we think. And our whispers are going to be shouts, our comments are going to get amplified, and the reactions we produce are going to be intensified.
And so, one of the things we have to learn as parents, but as leaders, is that nothing we say is offhand. Everything has an impact. And so, that’s one of the things we have to be aware of to be inspiring is to recognize the powerful impact that our words, behaviors, and interactions have.
Pete Mockaitis
That is huge. And I’ve heard a number of leaders say, and I’ve lived this myself that, “It’s the weirdest thing. When I became a leader, my suggestions became commands.” And so, that’s one form of the amplification, but it’s great to flag the other ways that your stuff is being amplified and the impact and consequences of that there.
Adam Galinsky
Here’s one of my favorite stories about this. Barry Salzberg became CEO of Global Deloitte, which, you know, has tens of thousands of employees. And about six months into being CEO, he noticed that there were bananas at every sort of executive meeting. And he’s like, “God, I’ve been at Deloitte for 30 years. Is it a symbol of Deloitte I didn’t know about? Or does someone really important love bananas?”
So, he asked his assistant, he said, “Hey, why do we have bananas at every meeting?” She said, “Because you love bananas.” He’s like, “Wait, what?” So, the first time he walked into a meeting where she was present, she was paying incredible close attention to everything he did because she wanted to please him.
And she noticed he picked up a banana with a little bit of enthusiasm. And so, she coded in her mind, “Barry Salzberg loves bananas. We must have bananas at every meeting.” And that’s not even a suggestion. That’s just like, he’s like, “Ooh, banana,” he just might want to have a little potassium that day but then it became a law.
And so, that’s sort of a great example of the leadership amplification effect. He didn’t even say anything to anyone. It wasn’t even a suggestion. It was just a dollop of enthusiasm.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, that is telling. Well, I’d love to get your perspective, Adam, before we hear about some of your favorite things. Given what you’ve learned about the impact of the things we do or don’t do, and then the relative prevalence of these behaviors, if you can lay on us just a couple of your top do’s and don’ts that you think can make a world of difference for us, what would they be?
Adam Galinsky
I’ll go through a few do’s. So, the first one is always think about the big picture. Like, what is really going on here? Like, try to put things into context to understand people’s behaviors. I’ll just give two examples that relate to being a parent because I think they’re really, really powerful. I had two kids, very close in age, just like you. And so, I had a kindergartener and a first grader. And the kindergartner’s classroom was on the second floor and the first grader’s class was on the third floor, and I take them to school every day.
So, naturally, I dropped the kindergartner first because he’s, as we walk up the stairs, my first grader is very type A, very impatient, “I want to get to school.” My kindergartner, like most second borns, likes to relax a little bit, take his time, likes to a big ritual with me saying goodbye, and Asher would be like, “Hurry up, Aidan. Hurry up Aidan,” and I would get very frustrated at Asher. I’d be like, “Just be patient. Why can’t you be patient?” And then Asher would march upstairs and run in the classroom without saying goodbye to me.
And about a month into this, we were walking with Aidan, I had an epiphany. And I was like, “What if I drop Asher off first?” So, I said to my kids, I said, “Hey, why don’t we all walk up to the third floor and drop Asher off first, then walk down to the second floor?” And it was transformational. So, Asher got to go at the time he wanted to, he’d give me a hug, I’d get to go downstairs, Aidan could take his time, no one was rushing him.
And by day three of this, his teacher, I never even talked about this with his teacher, Aidan’s teacher, the kindergartner’s teacher said, “Wow, dropping Asher off first has been a big success.” Like, she noticed, she could see Asher getting frustrated and angry. And, like, I could yell at Asher, I could tell him to be patient, I could try to give him some type of gummy to make him calmer, but he was saying, “I need to get the class on time.”
And so, then if we start thinking, “How can I allow Asher to meet his needs, but also have Aidan meet his needs?” We just reversed the drop-off order. And so, when I talk about seeing the big picture, it’s like really sort of understanding all the people that are in sort of an orbit and how they interact. And so, I think these are very, very, powerful things. What is it that people need? I mentioned these fundamental human needs. What does this person need right now?
I’ll give you just one other quick example, it’s very top of mind. My mother-in-law has lived with us for eight years and my older son is very attached to her and she’s moving now to Las Vegas. And about, she’s moving literally next week, and about two weeks ago, my son started being just really salty towards his mom, my wife, just being really rude to her and angry at her. And she was getting a little, like, upset by this, and it’s hard not to take it personally.
But the big picture is he’s mad that his grandmother is leaving, and he’s furious, but he can’t express it to her. In fact, they’ve actually never had a fight. Like, he’s her safe person. And so, he’s taking out on the person that’s closest, the mom. And so, once you see the big picture, you can start to recognize what’s going on. But then we can be visionary. We can start to help him have context for his feelings, “Hey, Asher, I know you’re really, you know, it’s probably, it’s really hard with Lola leaving.”
And the other day he whispered to me, he didn’t want his brother to hear this, he said, “I’m really sad that Lola is leaving.” And so, that’s what I mean by sort of being visionary. How do we see the big picture and really recognize what really, really needs to happen? Seeing the big picture allows people to handle the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Like, think about people going into war, soldiers potentially giving up their life, but for a bigger idea. So, the first do is be the big picture.
The second do is to remember that when we are in these positions of leadership, our emotions are infectious. And so, when we’re calm, we calm other people down. But if we’re anxious, we’re going to make other people even more anxious. So, we really have a duty and a responsibility to regulate our own emotions in those experiences, even as parents to not get angry.
My old dean, he would have these faculty meetings where people were speaking viciously to him, and he was always so calm. And I was just so amazed that he could just handle that. Like, he never reacted, he never blew off the handle. Apparently, he did so sometimes in private, but like never in public when it really mattered. And so, I think that’s the other do.
And then the final do that I’ll give is elevate others. When you see someone do something good, let them know. And when they did something that really helped you, express gratitude. And I’ll tell you a story about that. Every time I teach, I give people the leader amplification effect call to action. And I say, “I want you to pick three people that are less powerful than you, and I want you to send them some message that says, ‘Hey, you really knocked that presentation out of the park,’ or, ‘Thank you so much for helping me on that report. I couldn’t have done it without you.’ And I want you to be specific.”
Because if you come across as inauthentic, that’s infuriating, right? And so, this was 10:15, I was in front of a group of 50 CEOs and presidents. And at 10:29, one of them raised his hand and said, “I already sent my three emails, already got three responses, and they were gushing with excitement. One of them said, ‘I’m finally going to take my spouse to that new restaurant they always wanted to go to.’”
And I really liked this example because, first of all, it proved something I found in my research, which is people in powerful roles are very impulsive. This guy couldn’t even wait to 10:30 in the break. He had to like send it off right away. But it also shows it didn’t take him any time at all to do it. Like, it cost him a couple of minutes and it transformed people’s lives.
Pete Mockaitis
And what’s the content of the email? You just say, hey, what you think is great about them or…?
Adam Galinsky
Yeah, or just anyone, just think about three people who, in your orbit, who have less power than you, that deserve some expression of gratitude or praise and be specific about what they did. So, it could be anything, you know. And I was telling this story, and a president of a bank, 1,400 employees that are under his charge. He said, actually, “Actually, I do that every day.” And I said, “Do what?” He said, “I actually send out an email to every single employee on their birthday.”
And he showed me an example. He said, “Here’s the one I sent this morning. It said like, ‘Hey, Trisha, I hope you have a great birthday. How was bowling and track this weekend?’” That’s all he wrote. And then he showed me her response. It was like a novel, like described everything about bowling and track. He’s like, “You know, I actually never even read her email because it’s so long.” But like she was so excited to get this.
And one of the things that this president said, which really struck me, is he said, “I know my message puts a skip in their step but it actually puts a skip in my step. Like, I get their message back and I feel so good.”
And so, one of the things that I’ve come to the conclusion of, here’s a do and a don’t. Now we always say, “Do something in person, communicate with someone in person, face-to-face is better.” But if I were to praise you, Pete, and say, “Oh, my God, you are the best podcaster I ever saw.”
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, shucks Adam. Thank you.
Adam Galinsky
Yeah, it makes you a little bit uncomfortable, right, because, like, “How do I respond to that?” It feels good. But now imagine I wrote that to you later and you can read it, you can reread it.
Pete Mockaitis
Save it and read it when I need to read it months later.
Adam Galinsky
You can save it. You can savor it. You can send it to your spouse. You can show it to your eight-year-old, and say, “Look what this person said about me.” So, actually, by writing it, and then it’s much easier for people. Like, if I say to you, you’re like, you did that, you did, you’re kind of like a little bit embarrassed, a little bit, “Oh, thanks,” you’re trying to push it away.
But if I were to send them by email, you’d be like, “Oh, thanks so much. This is what I work towards,” you’d be more expressive over writing. And when I praised my dean yesterday, I mentioned I praised my dean, there was a long awkward silence. He didn’t really know how to deal with it. And then he sort of commented about how much he’d learned from the management division and stuff like that.
So, here’s an example where putting something in writing is better than saying it in person because you let them savor it, you let them share it, and you let them respond in a gushing way that lets them express their appreciation but puts a skip in your step.
Pete Mockaitis
Beautifully said. Thank you. Now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?
Adam Galinsky
One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Confucius, and it says, “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may understand. But only when you involve me will I truly remember.”
Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?
Adam Galinsky
Here’s a study that I love more than any other study, and I’ve been using it in my teaching for 25 years. It’s one of my dissertation advisers, Marcia Johnson. She did this in 1973 or ’74, and it’s such a simple study but it’s so profound. She just basically gave people a description of something.
It goes something like this, it says like, “First you take the things and separate them into different piles. Then you have to decide if you have to go somewhere else. If you have to go somewhere else, then you do that. But you also don’t want to do too much at the same time. And after you’re done, then you put things back into their appropriate places.”
And I’ve given this to thousands of people across the globe when I’m presenting and I ask people, “Does anyone know what’s going on in this scenario?” And, like, less than five people present and can solve it. So that’s one of her conditions. Here’s her other condition. She gave them a title and then she read the description to them.
And the title in this case was, drum roll, “Doing the laundry.” And then you realize, “Ah, doing the laundry, separating things, whites and darks. Okay, do you have a washing machine here or do you have to go somewhere else? Oh, yeah, you don’t want to overstuff that because you might break the machine or ruin things. And then you put them back in their places.”
Now, the reason why this experiment is so powerful is because it’s not just that it was easier to read when you got the title, it’s what happened later. When she asked people to recall what they read, the people who got the title couldn’t remember it word for word, but they remember the gist. And the people who didn’t get the title, some of them couldn’t even remember reading anything, it was like they couldn’t even process it.
And so, this is really about being visionary. Being visionary, giving people a vision gives them that title. If you have the title, every word makes sense. Every sentence connects with the other sentences. Other people reading it are, you’re synchronizing with them. And so, to me, it’s like such a small, profound study that really captures that.
I’ll just mention one other study also from the 1970s. But they took two people, let’s say you and I, and we say, “Hey, Pete, you’re going to teach Adam about Indonesia. So, we’re going to give you some material, you’re going to spend 25 minutes learning about this information so that you can teach Adam about it.” And then you’re going to, they give me the same information and say, “Hey, Pete’s going to teach you about Indonesia, but I want you to read this material and study it so you’re prepared.” So, it’s like, just randomly assigned you to be the teacher and me to be the student.
And then later, they give us a test, before we interact, a test on Indonesia, and we had the same amount of time, we had the same material, you would learn it better than I did. And so, just being in that teaching mode makes you process information differently. I think part of it again is being visionary. You’re thinking about the big picture. You’re thinking about how things connect to other. You’re thinking how you’re going to communicate it.
And because you’re doing all of those things, you’re processing, you’re making connections, processing information deeper and really understanding not just the individual facts, but also how they come together. And so, that’s really another story about empowerment that we just talked about, is that like putting people into that teacher frame of mind is more powerful than a student frame of mind.
Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?
Adam Galinsky
I mean, I do think my favorite tool is what thing that I kind of came up with in 2003, which is like using our own lived experience to reflect on them at the right moment in time so that we can be whatever we need to be in that moment.
Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?
Adam Galinsky
I think the favorite habit that I would say is trying to do that leader amplification effect, that gesture of generosity, ideally. That would be my favorite habit. I haven’t instituted it yet. But I think, “How can we build in habits of generosity?” I think is probably the most important thing. It’s my number one value and I think it really is the key to spreading the seeds of inspiration.
Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?
Adam Galinsky
I think one thing that people really find powerful is that leader amplification effect, recognizing that “What I do and the way that I am in the world is really impacting people,” and it’s very eye-opening for people. I’ll tell you one funny story which I really love is I’ve been doing the laundry study for two decades now. And about 10 years ago a woman told me that she wrote, “Do the laundry,” and she put it on her, like, a Post-it next to her screen. And it was on there for like two or three weeks.
And, finally, one of her subordinates walked by and was like, “Are you ever going to do your laundry?” And she’s like, “Oh, it’s actually, it’s like to remind me to always remember, like, the vision and remember the big picture.” And then they started using that as a catchphrase when they felt like they weren’t seeing the big picture. They’re like, say, “Do the laundry,” and then that would get them. So, that’s like an example of a nugget that someone took from one of my lectures and really then implemented it and utilized it and hopefully made their organization better.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?
Adam Galinsky
AdamGalinsky.com, and the book is Inspire.
Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?
Adam Galinsky
Once a month, ask yourself these two questions, “When was I inspiring in the last month and when was I infuriating?” So, that’s sort of one set of reflections and sort of think about what it was.
But also think about “Who was inspiring in your orbit in the last month? What was it about they did that changed you inside? And how could you emulate that behavior?” And so, I want you to take those, your own personal reflections, those emulations, and then I would just want you to form a single intention about one thing that you’re going to do differently in the next month.
Pete Mockaitis
All right. Adam, thank you. This is fantastic, inspiring. I wish you much inspiration.
Adam Galinsky
Thank you so much.
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