A Bit of Optimism - Two Bits of Optimism with Brené Brown and Adam Grant: Part Two

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

Remember how it was an incredible idea to get Brené Brown and Adam Grant on a call, have absolutely NO plan, and hit record?Well, this is the second part of that lovely, free-flowing conversation where we talk about creativity, leadership, and if the three of us love each other.  This is… A Bit of Optimism.For more on  Brené and Adam's work, check out: https://brenebrown.com/https://adamgrant.net/ 

One of my favorite things about talking to wonderful, smart, and interesting people is the conversation that you start with is never the conversation that you end with. Well, that's definitely the case with Adam and Brene. We started talking about shitty first drafts, and, well, we continue talking about creativity, and we totally go off topic and talk about a whole bunch of other things too. I hope you enjoy part two of my conversation with Brene Brown and Adam Grant. This is a bit of optimism. One of the things I really struggle with is calibrating. Occasionally somebody will send me a first draft that's so bad that I'm like, no, you probably shouldn't have sent this yet. Yeah.

Because it looks like you didn't put any thought into it. Do you give people a template? How do you help them know where the bar is? Yeah, this is a terrible term. I don't know if it's a military term. I don't know what it is. A shitty first draft still has to be what we call completed staff work. There has to be some pride in the first effort. It needs to be spellchecked. You need to have reviewed it and you need to be excited about where it can go and clear that it's not where it's supposed to be, but it needs to be completed staff work. Otherwise it's disrespectful to the person you're sending it to and our ethos. Well, I think excitement is a great term. Like I'm really excited to share this with idea because if you phone it in, there's clearly no excitement. The other thing that I love,

and we talk about courage and pushing ideas, and I don't know if the two of you in your experience with the military, you've had this, and I love this, which is completely different to corporate America, which is if you see a presentation in corporate America, somebody puts up their idea and they go, pretty good, right? In the military, somebody will present a briefing, present an idea set. And the first thing they'll do after they're done is go, Spears? They ask for Spears to be thrown. I love that. Here's my idea. Everybody poke holes in it so that we can make it better versus everybody look at my idea. Aren't I smart? Everybody say how smart I am and versus everybody look at my idea. Aren't I smart? Everybody say

how smart I am and let's go with my idea. I wonder, I mean, it just reminds me very much. I just had the most amazing experience. I was really excited about telling you all about it. I just took every kind of non-deployed astronaut at NASA through Dare to Lead for three days. And it was- So cool. Sweet. Oh my God, it was so cool. So cool. But they're very much that way. Yeah. They were very much like, well, all right, what if we did this?

And then they would explain it and they'd say, OK, what do you think? Let's go. Let's pull it apart. Let's go. It was just a ethos one, two. Here's the idea. How do we make it better? My idea is not to be congratulated on my idea. My job is to present

something that's a starting place for something we can all make better. Exactly. The team makes it better. That a really great idea, at the end of it, it's not discernible whose idea it is because everybody's contributed to it and added to it and changed it and attached something to it, that it's now legitimately our idea. This is going full circle, which is the best ideas are trying to solve a problem that's been posed or that an opportunity or a challenge or a stress or whatever it is. And then all of the curiosity that we have for all the things in the world is going towards helping solve that problem. And for those in service, that problem is legitimately an infinite problem. Everything we're doing is trying that problem is legitimately an infinite problem.

Everything we're doing is trying to get a little closer to a solution, but that's, I think, what service means. How do we leave this organization, my friends, my family, this planet in better shape than I found it, knowing full well that there'll still be work to do when it's my time to move on, but I will die trying to leave everything a little bit better than I found it. And that's the idea of service, which is all of my work has to build towards something else. Yeah. Just to double back on something, are we more creative or less creative?

Because we've had success for our creative ideas. You know, big companies that were creative seem a lot less creative now that they're big and successful. Is success, regardless of how you want to define it for an individual or an organization, actually an inhibitor to creativity. And so are we doomed for a lack of creativity now that we're older? Or do we have to completely reinvent the machine to be creative again? Do the two of you struggle to be as creative as you were before? Well, I want to answer the question, but I can't resist.

You're reminding me of some research that I love. The work by David Galenson, the economist on the differences between one-hit wonders, kind of what he calls young geniuses and old masters who managed to sustain their creativity over time. And I think there's a thread in here

that connects to where we've been and maybe where we're going. So bear with me for a second. But basically, he shows that the young geniuses tend to be kind of eureka moment people. They have a big idea. When they're fresh to a domain, they're coming at it with a really different lens.

They make their contribution, and then they're done. And pretty soon they fall into a trap that psychologists would call cognitive entrenchment, where they're starting to take for granted ideas that need to be questioned, but their assumptions are so ingrained, they're like a fish that doesn't know it's in water. The old masters who end up coming up with many successful ideas and sustain their creativity for much longer, they're much more likely to tinker and experiment. And what they're doing is they're essentially reinventing themselves, like you were saying, Simon. They're wandering into a new domain, and then they're constantly learning, and that allows them to generate new possibilities. I remember when I read that work, I thought, okay, this is one of the paths out of the trap of,

like, you get typecast, you know, and pretty soon you're doing, like, start with why not? And you're writing the sequels to your own work as opposed to asking new questions. And I guess my reaction to that was to say, I will never write a sequel to my own work. Somebody else should pick up that thread. I want to start with a brand new topic. And that means I have to go through the discovery process all over again. And I'm going to be the kid, right? As opposed to the person who thinks they already know the answers. And that feels like a protective mechanism. I did tell somebody at some point that just to avoid being typecast, I really wanted to write a book called Take and Take, Why Selfish Assholes Succeed. That's so good.

The sheer joy of, I want to contradict my own work just to resist the pressure to elaborate on it and repeat what I've said. Like, no greatest hits. I'm going to disagree with the dumber version of myself that wrote the prior book. So I wondered if you, too, feel that, too. In that vein, Adam, I've always harbored a fantasy, because I write about service all the time. I've always harbored a fantasy of writing a book and the dedication is to me, without whom I could never have done this. I have really thought about a sequel to Dare to Lead, just because Dare to Lead was written before COVID. And I've learned

so much. It's so funny to think about what your sequels would be, right? But I do think that I hope my mastery is not of a specific topic, but of the process of ideation. I hope I don't spend my whole life on one topic. But what I get good at doing is trusting that when there's something that I think will make a valuable contribution that puzzles me that will make my life better that I hear on the road or working with people that even if I don't know what it is when I first hear it, that I trust the process. And I think I've got years on y'all. I think I'm very much there. I do trust the process. But I do know that burnout is the greatest threat to me, for sure. And I will say this, and it's always hard when I talk about this, because I've got a team of, you know,

I talk about this because I've got a team of 30 people, but I have not figured out how to do the maker calendar and the manager calendar well. I don't know that I'm the leader that I would like to write about because I need so much time to think. This gives me an idea. I live in a world where I see a lot of students who want to lead and they don't know how to follow. And you have a lot of people holding up signs saying, this is my cause, this is my mission, and not attracting a team behind them. And I think followership is a really important skill. And it's one of the first things you learn in the military in the work that we've all done independently. And it's one of the first things you learn in the military in the work that we've all done independently.

And I have not yet read a good articulation of how to be a great follower. There's not a book. There's not a theory. There's not a model. And then I started thinking, is this a skill that we lack? And if we had it, would it be easier to be managed as opposed to manager on those manager days? I think you're right on. And it's kind of like Susan Cain's work, which is we live in a world that sort of idolizes the extrovert and it's an extrovert's world.

And I think we live in a world that idolizes the leader. Everybody wants to be that person completely failing to recognize that no leader could ever achieve whatever they've achieved without hordes of people who supported them, believed in them, gave them a break and helped them, pushed them, challenged them. And it's the push me, pull you of a good followership that makes great things happen. I think you're right, Adam. And I think the best leaders I've ever met are also the best followers I've ever met. They're following something bigger than themselves and they do not see themselves as the final stop. They see themselves in service to a cause or the Pope is not the

highest thing. There's still something even bigger than the Pope that he's following. And great leaders see themselves as followers and also see their limitations. I know one of the things we try and do on our team is there's a corporate hierarchy for functional reasons. I mean, there are sort of big decisions have to be made for the company and sort of some people responsible for that and not. But what we like to do is say, so for example, on a creative enterprise, like let's say this podcast, I'm an employee, I'm a team member on the production of the podcast, but somebody else leads it. I am on their team. I'm given a schedule. And so we have situational leadership where I am sometimes the leader and I am sometimes the follower. And I think that goes for everyone on our team.

Everyone on our team is sometimes the leader and sometimes the follower. And we try and put people in those positions so that they will learn to be the leader and hone their leadership skills. And we slowly sort of step back and take the training wheels off and give them more and more difficult situations and give them some of the human challenges to deal with so that they become better leaders and better followers. We've all learned some of the skills we've learned because we had some great leaders and some bad leaders, but we were the followers that learned those skills. I don't even want to bring this up because this was going to be my question for when it got my turn again to host the three of us. I actually do not know that I believe in the construct of followership. I really don't.

Go on. Yeah, tell us more. How do you have a leader without followers? Yeah, no, I mean, this is someone, again, like y'all, I work with the military a lot. I work with professional sports teams. I think of team leads and team members. I do not think of followers. I think leadership is bankrupt without a team. And so I think of leaders and team members, even in the military,

people have very specific jobs. They are part of a team. They often lead in their own areas. And I personally don't want, as a leader of an organization, I personally am not interested in any followers. I'm interested in teammates who are also stepping in to lead sometimes. I'm just not sure I'm bought into the follower construct. We're in danger of just going down a semantic rabbit hole because I think it's a matter of perspective, right? And the verb does matter because when a good leader does not see themselves, quote unquote, above their team. And so a good leader would say, this is my team. I don't see themselves quote unquote above their team.

And so a good leader would say, this is my team. I don't want followers. I want a team. Those on the team, because I think having a team doesn't mean that it's a good team. And I think for somebody who self-identifies as a follower with pride, I might add, what it's saying is that person is actually belongs on the team as a really good teammate, as opposed to assigned to the team. That person actually belongs on the team as a really good teammate, as opposed to assigned to the team.

And somebody who says, I would proudly follow that person into battle is another way of saying, because I know that they've got my back. And to say, I would proudly follow is an indication of gratitude and service. And there are definitely friends that I would proudly follow into a very difficult situation because I trust the decisions and I trust their leadership and I know that they've got my back. I remember first getting on social media and having an allergic reaction to the idea of having followers. I'm like, no, I don't want people to follow me. I want people to engage and to challenge and to be curious. And I love the way you described

building a community because you can belong to a community without necessarily drinking the Kool-Aid that happens to be served by the founder of that community. I go to pains to make sure that I include myself in the advice that I give because I am trying also and I cannot stand people who have any kind of bully pulpit who say you, you, you, as if they're not included from their own advice or their own observations. And same as all of you. Like when somebody comes up to me and says- Oh, Simon, no, no, no, hold on. What?

So I have to pause on this one really quickly and say, I was talked out of that by some colleagues who found that you is more persuasive than we. They're wrong. And that when you say you, it feels like someone is talking personally to you. They've done it. There are a whole bunch of experiments on this by Ethan Cross and others. And I hated the idea. But then I said, okay, I'm trying to, you know, to be a thoughtful communicator here. I learned from evidence, even when I disagree with it, I should be willing to communicate that way. The same way I would talk to my students and say,

here's something you could try as opposed to something we could try. Hold on, hold on. You're not the student in the classroom. As the teacher giving instructions to the students, here's something you can try. But if you're talking about a human condition, like we should all try and be more vulnerable versus you should try to be more vulnerable, there's a different construct there. I think that's right.

I think though that, I mean, we had this conversation about preacher versus teacher a long time ago. And I feel like I'm always, like whenever I'm communicating, I have something to teach. I also have something to learn, but I've gotten pretty comfortable saying, like, whenever I'm communicating, I have something to teach. I also have something to learn. But I've gotten pretty comfortable saying,

like, based on this research, I think here's something you might want to consider. I also, I don't care what the research says, because... Here we go, focus! And there lies the difference between us. I only care what the research says. I don't care at all what the research says. And Brene is going to mediate. The research, as all research has to be to be good research, is relatively myopic. And so they're talking about persuasiveness, blah, blah, blah, and they've got whatever, however they're measuring it. I don't even know if I agree with the metrics, even though I don't know what they are. But I'm

not trying to be persuasive. And I don't want people to think my ideas are right. I'm not trying to do that. To Brene's point, I'm trying to build community. We is a word of community. And if they happen to like the ideas as well, albeit. So I don't care what the research says. My intention and my desires and my values, I will use we always because I include myself on that very bumpy, messy human journey that I'm writing about and talking about. I am on the journey with everybody. I am not at the top of the mountain saying, come up here, everybody, follow me. The view up here is amazing. I'm bumbling up the hill with everybody else. I agree with that philosophically. I don't want people to think I'm right either, but there are times when I want them to know that

they are wrong because there is really good evidence falsifying a belief that's hurting them or hurting others. We talked about this in our last conversation. How many leaders they are wrong because there is really good evidence falsifying a belief that's hurting them or hurting others, right? Like we talked about this in our last conversation. Like how many leaders do we still have to explain that respect and care does not make them soft? That showing vulnerability can be a source of strength, right? Like I don't care whether you agree with me when I say that and quote Brene's work, right? I care a lot that you abandon your incorrect theory that beating people up is going to bring the best out in them, right? My old college roommate in London, I do a perfect impression of Mike, I might add.

And this is exactly what he would say to me. He goes, there's a minor flaw with your argument. It's wrong. There's a minor flaw with your argument. It's wrong. Brené, can you reconcile these competing views for us? Put in the final word because otherwise the three of us could go on for, unfortunately, way too long. No, the final word for me is I have actually seen the data on you. And I think it's persuasive and true.

Having said that, I have built my career on we and I won't be moved from we because I write about shit that's really hard for me to do. And what I try to teach from what I've learned in the research lands about on a scale from one to 10 to three. People watching me squirm and trying to do it lands about a nine because people are like, man, she can't even get her shit together on this. I have found in the last year, especially after my social sabbatical, which was four months without social, the constant scrolling of like, I don't know, they're calling themselves thought leaders, scrolling of like, I don't know, they're calling themselves thought leaders like, you need to do this. I have found it almost predatory. And I would be ashamed to find myself in that group sometimes. So that's probably why I'm careful, really. And there really is no such thing as a follower. Thank you for joining the Optimism Podcast. My name is Brene Brown. And stay awkward, brave, and kind.

Here's what I've learned in the time we spent together. I started with the question, how do you come up with ideas? And then we started going down the rabbit hole of where do ideas come from? What I've learned is that this, this is where ideas come from. You get together with a bunch of people who see the world differently, have different worldviews, who like disagreeing with each other, who are open to being disagreed with because we're in pursuit of the idea, not of being right. And come into a forum with no ego and throw it all against the wall and see where it lands. come into a forum with no ego and throw it all against the wall and see where it lands.

And I do think it takes courage to do that because we say in a public forum, hold on, Simon, you're 100% wrong and the research shows it. And all of our inclinations, when one of us says that to each other is, go on. And we're not trying to be right. We're looking for nuance. We're looking to to be right. We're looking for nuance. We're looking to change our opinions. And I think this is where ideas come from, from these messy interactions. And I think people who like ideas like messy things. May this be a first pancake for all of us. Yeah. Can I just ask this question? Do you think one of the secret ingredients to the pancake-

Renee, you're ruining Simon's beautiful ending right now. You're going to make it messy. It was so neat. No, just kidding. Go on. No, I want to ask Adam this question because I think it's important. Do you think the pancake batter matters because we trust and respect each other. And that's why this can happen. I'm not going to be good at this with everybody. Yeah, I don't want to do this with everyone. Correct. Okay. I just want to see that. There's this thing that's hard to describe in relationships, professionally and personally, called chemistry. And chemistry is what we have. I always get a kick out of Adam. I say things like before we even start recording, I say, hey team. And Adam says, are we a team? You know?

I did say that, didn't I? You did. You did. What a jerk. And I'll say like, I'll say goodbye to Adam and be like, all right, love you. And he goes, I'm not sure I love you. You know? I like you. I like you a lot, Simon. Simon's really fun to kind of gently poke. And Adam thinks I don't know why.

Because I don't respond. He thinks I don't hear any of it. Right. But I hear all of it. You know what? I think that it's so funny. I feel like we have like a sibling relationship, the three of us. It feels like the fun fight you have with a sister or a brother.

If somebody else criticizes your work, I get upset about it. Same. I'm like, no, don't say that about it. Same. But I guess I have a question about this, which is I feel more excited to do this with, I think, a wider group of people than you two just suggested. I guess a hypothesis I'll put out on the table is, Simon, you've talked about feeling like an outsider a lot. Yeah.

Since I've known you. And because you come at the world of ideas from the outside, I think you've had to defend your work a lot more vigorously than some people do. And Brene... Because I have no research to back it up. Because I have no research to back it up. field. And I come from a world where I don't think I've had to defend my existence as an organizational psychologist nearly as much as the two of you have. And I wonder if that's just made it like this kind of experience is like, oh, yeah, like, of course, people are going to accept and respect what I do, as opposed to like, nah, I don't really want to get into this with people who won't. Is there anything to that hypothesis or no? I don't feel like I've had to defend myself or my ideas. Okay, so I'm wrong. So I challenged the premise. I think what ends up happening is the three of us have different styles

for advancing ideas. And the people who really connect with our work probably have similar styles to us. So those who want all the academic rigor that you bring, Adam, that we've talked about, this makes me super insecure, they're going to like your work more than mine. People who approach the world a little more like me are going to like my work a little more.

And Brene is likewise. I just think it's personality and style. I don't think it's anything more sophisticated than that, to be honest. I've never had to defend my work because I don't care if people don't like it, then that's okay. I remember in the early days when I was first on the stage, when I was talking about Start With Why, there was no book, there was no TED Talk, there was no nothing. And I remember I was talking

to this big conference and the first question asked, I remember the guy raised his hand and he said, have you ever run a multi-billion dollar corporation? And I said, no. And he said, have you ever run a multi-million dollar corporation? And I said, no. He says, I think you're naive. I think you're inexperienced. And I don't think your ideas will ever work in the real world.

And I said, so don't do it. Okay, next question. I'm not here to convince anybody of anything. All I offer is a perspective and a point of view. That's it. I don't claim to be right. And I don't claim to know the answer. I just claim to be sharing the stuff that I'm seeing

as I'm trudging up the mountain with everybody else. That's all. And sometimes, just sometimes, because those ideas have helped me in my life, I've realized they've helped my friends. And if it can help my friends, it can probably help some more people as well. So I feel like I have a responsibility to share them if I can. So I've never felt like I had to defend my ideas. Rene?

You know, it's tricky when you're a woman talking about vulnerability, going into special forces or going into a Fortune 50 company. But it takes four minutes when I say, how many of you are parents and how many of you stand over your kids with your eyes closed, thinking about something horrific happening to them? And everybody burst into tears. And I said, okay, that's vulnerability. That makes you normal. And they're like, okay, we got you. Wow. It's not you defending your work. That's helping people relate to you. Yeah. It's just storytelling. Yeah. I don't think I've ever had to defend it. I think I've had to start where people are. I love that.

Okay, Simon, does it bother you when I ask, are we a team? It doesn't bother me. It makes me smile. I think sometimes I say these things instinctively because that's how I sort of approach things. For this 90 minutes, yeah, we have been a team. And this is my team for the next 90 minutes. So yeah, I do think when I say, hey, team, I do. It's the three of us. But I think sometimes I say things just to noodle you because I kind of help myself. I guarantee you for sure, I'm the older sister.

And I could smack both of y'all upside the head, no problem could I snap, just kind of bop both of you right upside the head. I think we need it sometimes. But it is funny because when you make a comment like that, I totally lost sight of this because we started talking about something else. But when you said, hey, team, are we a team? Like, well, yeah, we have a common goal in this conversation

and we're completely interdependent to achieve that goal. Technically, we are a team. Why did that never occur to me? What does that mean for how we conduct this conversation? Just stop for a second. This is the most valuable 90 minutes I've ever spent with the two of you, where Adam went from the beginning saying, we're not a team, to ending saying, we are a team. My work here is done. Damn it. And you said you weren't trying to persuade and you did it anyway. It only took me 90 minutes, but my work here is done. I'm part of the team. I'm just not a follower. Signing off.

Bye, guys. I love you, Adam. I don't love you back, but I like you a lot. And this was really fun and I learned a ton. I'm telling mom on both of you. Goodbye. Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Brene. I really appreciate your time as always. I'm sure I'll talk to you soon, but have a fantastic, fantastic holiday and rest of the year. Y'all too. Yes, sir. You too. Y'all too.

Yes, sir. You too. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsynic.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself.

Take care of each other.