The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 160: Liz Wiseman - Why Lack Of Experience Is Your Advantage

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's not what you know that counts. It's how fast you can learn. Because what you know is going to be way in the rearview mirror. And I think the discipline that we need right now is this rapid cycle learning. Almost like learn it, use it, dispose of it. You know, learn. I guess how fast can we climb like halfway up a learning curve, get done what we need to and move on. Are leaders born or are they made?

Starting point is 00:00:26 Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through deterrenties. focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. What a big time featured leader tonight. It's Liz Weissman. Liz teaches leadership to executives and emerging leaders around the world. Some of her most Recent clients include Apple, Disney, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nike, and so many more. She's been listed on the Thinkers 50 ranking and named as one of the top 10 leadership thinkers

Starting point is 00:01:22 in the world. Also, a three-time bestselling author. Two of the books we discussed tonight are rookie smarts and multipliers. A couple of other topics we got into. What it means to be a multiplier versus a diminisher as a leader. Then why we shouldn't cling? to quote, best practices, then why your lack of experience is actually your advantage. And Liz's research backs this statement up. Without further ado, it's Liz Weissman. All right, Liz, thanks again for being here. It's been so cool getting to talk to you here prior to the official start of this episode. I feel like, though, it could start from when we were talking about your kids and learning about what my background is a little bit. So I appreciate you.

Starting point is 00:02:18 you asking that's different than most guests. I have a question initially. Based on your career, you've accomplished so much. You are truly somebody who looks to help other leaders. And I'm curious from your perspective, when you've studied other great people, great leaders, what are some of the common themes or characteristics they all seem to share? Oh, when you think about people who are great leaders. Well, you know, my answer to this will depend on what mood I'm in, how, how optimistic I am. Because sometimes, you know, I can make a case for the leaders that bubble up to the top of news stories and our consciousness are also often leaders who are willful and strong and opinionated and hard driving and achievement oriented and some of them absolute jerks.

Starting point is 00:03:13 Yeah. And so that's what I'm saying. Depending on the mood, you know, sometimes I can make a case for the leaders that get a lot of attention are leaders that end up being very, very strong themselves, but can really have a significant diminishing effect to others. There's a huge cost to that kind of leadership. But when you really dig in and you study not just the leader at the top of the order. organization or leaders running successful organizations and you really look at what makes for a great leader. Here's the things that I notice. I notice that they, I think first and foremost, and maybe this is really the only thing, that their orientation is outward. And I, yeah, you know,

Starting point is 00:04:04 I think if I would cut through a lot of things about great leaders, I would boil it down to the best leaders can see beyond themselves. that rather than see that their team is an extension of them, you know, their job is to come into work, have the ideas, tell people what to do, they realize that the people around them aren't the worker bees, there aren't the arms and legs to the leader, that the leader's job is to pull out greatness in people around them. And that's what I think great leaders do. They They pull out greatness in people around them, and hence their organizations can go on to do great things and perform well. But they share this common orientation. They are past themselves.

Starting point is 00:04:52 And, you know, I often talk about the difference between a genius and a genius maker. And, you know, I think it's time that we recognize that at the top of the intelligence hierarchy is not the genius that has all the answers, but it's the genius maker. And it's a leader who can show up for work and be completely comfortable in their own genius. And by that, Ryan, I mean, you know, it's like me coming into the office and going, you know what, I'm really smart. You know, I'm, and I love leaders who have fully embraced their own intelligence. Like, hey, I'm Ryan. I'm a bit of a genius. I'm kind of brilliant at this.

Starting point is 00:05:32 People tell me I'm good at this. Like, I'm really, really smart. and I'm over it, meaning I don't need to keep coming back to work day two, three, four, five to prove to everyone around me that I'm really capable and smart and that I deserve to be here. And this is why I'm the head of the organization. Its leaders are really comfortable in their own intelligence so that when they come in on day two through day end, they can focus on bringing out the intelligence of people around them. They're kind of over themselves.

Starting point is 00:06:06 if you had to name a person or two who is a leader who pulls out the greatness around them, who are the first people that come to mind? Well, you know, I have to tell you the very first person that comes to mind when you say that is Larry Ellison. And maybe because Larry Ellison, the founder and CEO of Oracle, sometimes he gets a bad rap. And a lot of people think he's sort of brash and arrogant. And, you know, having worked for him for 17 years, I'd have to say that, you know, he is brash and arrogant. You know, those things. Larry is as advertised.

Starting point is 00:06:44 I should put it that way. But, man, does this guy know how to pull out genius in people around him? You know, if Larry trusted you, there was no greater what I call a multiplier. So it's funny that he's why he was very much a multiplier to me. Why was that? I mean, did you just have an immense amount of respect? It's like it's like some people maybe view their mom or their dad and they just want so badly to be respected and to make them proud that once they feel like they've gotten some of that, they're just over the moon with excitement. Is that, is in that type of regard or is it different? You know, it's not an admiration. It's, you know, and I'll tell you this, Ryan, because I know nobody. else is going to be listening to this other than you and me, right? Just us. Just us. You know, I felt like I did great work at Oracle for people like Larry Ellison, Ray Lane, some of the other

Starting point is 00:07:47 leaders there. And it wasn't that it was because I had so much respect for them. It was, I think it was really the respect they had for me. And I don't mean on some character level, it's, they gave me really big responsibility. So when I joined Oracle, I was right. I was right. out of school. So I was a kid, a total kid. And I'd like to say that Oracle's violating child labor laws back then. So imagine this. I'm 24 years old. I am just out of business school. My work experience consists of like a year-long internship with IBM. And that's really, you know, other than my summer jobs, that's really the extent of my work experience. And I come on board and after, you know, a couple months, they say, hey, Liz, we need someone to teach programming to all

Starting point is 00:08:38 the new programmers that are coming into Oracle. They were hiring the top grads by the thousands. So scouring all the top technical programs, hiring all the top grads. These are all like hardcore computer scientists, E.E, you know, degrees, masters, PhDs. And they say, we need you to teach programming to them. I'm at a business school. I have no programming background, but they're like, you know what, you can do this. That was attitude. And then I'm a year out of business school now and they need someone to manage this training operation for the company. And so I get thrown into that. You know, Larry Olson wants a university for Oracle and I get tasked with doing this. And so it wasn't like I had all this respect for him as a leader or a person. It was that

Starting point is 00:09:28 he and other leaders there gave me really big and important things to do and trusted me to do them. And then didn't micromanage me. It's one of the things I love about Larry Ellison is he would give young people and talented people. He would get them these jobs to do. And somebody said, we had no business doing. And then he would step back and let them succeed or fail. So it wasn't that, oh, I admired him so much that I wanted to deliver for him. It's he trusted me and I trusted him.

Starting point is 00:10:07 And I really, I never wanted to disappoint. So it's strange that, you know, I haven't worked at Oracle for many years, but that was just actually the first name that came up. How did you earn that trust? Well, you know, I don't think you just get it. And there's a lot of leaders who aren't universally trusting. I think trust does have to be earned. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:10:31 I think I probably earned it by being just a little bit neurotic. You know, I came in as a bit of an underdog. And I actually, you know, believe that when someone's in an underdog position, it actually bodes well for them for lots of things. Why would you consider yourself coming in as an underdog? So Oracle hired, so I snuck into Oracle. Oracle had a very clear hiring strategy. They hired from, there were 17 schools.

Starting point is 00:10:59 And, you know, so these are the Ivy League schools. These are the very top public schools and the top technical. This is like Caltech, MIT, Stanford, Harvard, you know, that they're getting all these grads in. And they very clearly scoured top grads from top technical programs. And I didn't go to one of these top technical programs. And I didn't go to one of these 17 schools. And, I mean, maybe I was a top grad. but I came out of the business degree.

Starting point is 00:11:28 And so I came in really feeling pretty lucky to work there, you know, feeling like maybe I kind of, I don't know, I snuck in. You know, I pulled a fast one or something. And I just, and don't get me wrong, Ryan, it's not like I felt like a fraud or a shay. I didn't feel like I didn't deserve to be there. I just felt like, you know, it would be kind of like, a low-ranked tennis player making it into the finals of the U.S. Open.

Starting point is 00:11:59 I think I saw in the news. There was someone who was down ranked at 172 who made it to the finals this year. That's who I felt. So this obviously, I think, transitions well to rookie smarts. So can you share with me why learning? I mean, you couldn't have written a better book for this podcast, but why learning beats knowing in the new game of work. Why does it? Well, I think the nature of our work has changed. You know, and I just, I kind of throw back to when I started work, what was it, 27 years ago,

Starting point is 00:12:40 coincidentally, when I got put in charge of Oracle University, we needed a mantra for our school. And the team and I, we chose Saparius Valeri, that's Latin, for knowledge as power. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it was only, we didn't know it in Latin. We just chose knowledge as power. And then we had to go find someone who spoke Latin, you know. So they could translate. We were just trying to sound smart, really. And because everything sounds smarter in Latin, I think. Does it not? It does. Yeah. And it was this idea that to know was to have power. And this was the beginning of enterprise automation. This is sort of the teenage years for the tech. And industry and you know if you had data you had power reminds me of some bad movie from the 90s what was it called I can't remember but it was there was this line from it like that he that controls the spice controls the universe and and it was this notion like he that controls information and data really has power and it was it was this orientation that I think a lot of people had knowledge is power. And I think our world has changed radically in the last 25 years where we now have the

Starting point is 00:13:57 technology that that information and that data is available to all. And technology has allowed our business cycles to spend so fast that we rarely face the same problem twice. You know, and all this obsession, remember all those years where it was best practices. Let's scour the world and let's get our arms around best practices and adopt them and then we'll be leading edge. Well, when you don't face the same problem twice, how useful is a best practice? Like instead of clinging to best practices of yesterday, we need to be inventing new practices, you know, fit for a new way of working. And, you know, I was just doing some research.

Starting point is 00:14:48 and in the medical arena, I read this article that said that for a medical professional to stay current, he or she needs to read 17 articles a day just to maintain their professional knowledge. Wow. And then I did some more calculations that I looked at the rate at which the body of information that we're processing for our work is growing. And then also looking at the rate at which information is decaying, meaning things that were true at one point are no longer true. And you put that together, and I calculated this. I had to do this calculation three times and have my research assistant do it as well to make sure we had it right. But it came out that 15% of what we know today is likely to be relevant in five years. So that's not 50% as in half.

Starting point is 00:15:46 that's 15, 1-5, between 10 and 20% of what we know today, it's actually going to be relevant in five years. And, you know, of course, the kicker is we're not even sure which 15% that is. And, you know, when you look at this world, I think what it shows us is in this way of working, in this game of work, as I sometimes say, it's not what you know that counts. It's how fast you can learn. Because what you know is going to be way in the rear view mirror. And I think the discipline that we need right now is this rapid cycle learning.

Starting point is 00:16:26 Almost like learn it, use it, dispose of it. You know, learn. I guess how fast can we climb like halfway up learning curve, get done what we need to and move on? You know, do you know Sarah Blakely by chance, the founder of Spanx? I do. I don't know her personally, but I do know of her. her work, her beliefs. Yeah, she's incredible.

Starting point is 00:16:48 And had her husband, Jesse Hitzler on the show. He was a great guest. He co-founded Markey Jett and sold it to Warren Buffett. But they're also part owners of the Atlanta Hawks now. But Sarah had a great quote I just read recently. She said, don't be intimidated by what you don't know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else. You know, it's so true.

Starting point is 00:17:10 And if you look at the journey of Spain somewhere, not just how she's, started it and this sort of scrappy the way that she was trying to solve a problem. But the way that she continues to run that company, I think it exemplifies this way that we need to work. Working, you know, we use what we know to walk to the outer edge and then we do our work from there. I actually find it's how the best leaders tend to work, sort of taking a group or a whole organization to this outer edge of what they know, to the very fringe of their competency, and then rev from that point. That's where the stretch begins.

Starting point is 00:17:56 Yeah. When young professionals come to you with advice and they're saying, Liz, I'm 23. I just finished school and I want to have a career like you. I want to have an arc like yours. How can I do it? What do you tell them? Oh, I, you know, Ryan, I wish I had something great to say. I don't.

Starting point is 00:18:22 Because I don't know what to tell him because I think it's really, I think it's a dangerous to try to replicate somebody else's playbook. Because I had no plan. You know, it wasn't like I had some smart. Maybe this is the advice. I tell you my, you know, I have to give advice. It's don't try to replicate somebody else. I only go back to Larry Ellison. I don't know. I just had been thinking about Larry and what great training ground that was for me at Oracle is because of the position I held in the company looking after the people development, leadership development in the company, you know, I got to

Starting point is 00:19:02 bump up against a lot of Larry lookalikes, a lot of people who were emulating him, his way of working his way of leading. In verybly, I'd have to have a conversation with people say, you know what, Larry's great. Larry's awesome. But you know what? We only need one of him. You know what? Having two or three or hundreds of Larry wannabes, it doesn't really work. Like, Larry is who he is. And rather than try to be someone else, you know, how do you, as my kids say, like, you just do you. And, you know, I think if I did anything, throughout my career was spent a lot less time thinking about a career plan, career goals. I didn't spend really any time trying to emulate somebody else's career path or be somebody else.

Starting point is 00:19:51 I just tried to make myself useful. And, you know, like where is there a problem? You know, when I first got asked to go teach this programming, I maybe actually explained the way I got asked to do this. So I came out of a, business school. I came out of an organizational behavior mind. When I joined Oracle, it was this rapidly growing company, and I wanted more than anything, I wanted to go teach management and leadership. And I wanted to do that for Oracle because they seemed kind of needy in this category.

Starting point is 00:20:26 And I took this job, and I was working for the company. And there was some internal shifting. Our department was changing. And I was interviewing. for this job in this group that was going to start Oracle University. And I'm in this interview with my would-be vice president. So not my boss, but my boss's boss. And I'm telling him, his name is Bob Schaever, I'm telling him what I want to do for Oracle. And we can start Oracle University.

Starting point is 00:20:59 And I wanted to kind of start this management training curriculum. And I was making my case for this, you know, not forcefully, just describing what I thought was needed and where I could contribute. Like, aren't we supposed to do that in interviews? And he said to me, he goes, Liz, you know, that's great. And like, we're so glad that you're here. And, you know, we think you're terrific. But that's not the problem we have right now.

Starting point is 00:21:28 Right now we've got thousands of graduates coming in who need to understand or called technology. And we need someone to teach. them how to, you know, program with Oracle Tools. And he said, that's the problem your boss has. So what would be great is if you helped her solve that problem. Now, Ryan, I can tell you, I had no interest in teaching programming. Like zero interest in this.

Starting point is 00:21:58 But, you know, I was observant enough to understand what was important and what was needed. And what he was basically saying to me is, you know, this. Why don't, instead of, like, decoding what he was saying to me is like, instead of following what you're passionate about, why don't you just go be useful? And I could see this choice. It was very early in my career and it was probably the first real career choice I had to make because I didn't have to go do this. I could have said, well, this is really what I want to do. And they would have carved out a job for me to do it. And I would have been working on the sidelines.

Starting point is 00:22:34 But I'm like, oh, I understand. what the barrier is to this company's growth. And why don't I go help them solve that problem? And so, I mean, I wish I could say that it was easy. It wasn't easy. I, you know, I had to learn to think like a programmer. And unfortunately, I had some great colleagues who, like Liz, we need to, we need to teach you to think like a programmer. And this is how they think and this is how they work. And I had to kind of get the headset on of a programmer and learn how to do it. And there's a few nights where I was up until five in the morning, learning, I think in this case it was like how to really do like correlated several queries and get that right and how to do this with complex data structures and

Starting point is 00:23:16 then teach it the next morning, you know, starting at nine o'clock. And there was a few times where I'm scrambling really hard. But I learned just go make yourself useful. And, you know, when it came time later to pick someone to go build this university for you. Oracle, they picked me. And I don't think it was charming good looks. You know, I mean, I think it was one that I understood the technology, you know. I think understanding the lifeblood of a company is really critical. And I think it was because I was willing to say, you know, I don't know how to do that,

Starting point is 00:23:57 but I can learn it pretty fast. And I don't know. I think it set this tone for, you know, find, make yourself useful, work on what's most important and learn really fast. So I don't know. And you wrote something interesting is eagerly seeking wisdom and guidance from product experts and senior leaders based on your lack of experience was your advantage. And I love that aspect of what you put out there in regards to rookie smarts and why

Starting point is 00:24:27 having little to no experience you should understand. And maybe people need to change their viewpoint on how that both people who are making hiring decisions and those who are going for roles that potentially they feel are too big because they lack experience. I think that's what some of your work can really help inspire and empower people to do. It certainly has for me to say there's nothing that I can't learn. I'm going to go into this with open eyes. I'm going to be a great listener. And if there's anything I'm going to do, I'm going to find the people that I can learn from. And certainly like Carol Dweck would say, don't have a fixed mindset, have a growth mindset in regards

Starting point is 00:25:13 to your career and to roles that you want to do. And so I love that aspect of viewing lack of experience, but going in with an open mind and being a good listener to your advantage. Yeah, you know, if there's two things that I would want people to take away from this research I did, and the fundamental research I did is my team and I, we studied. studied about 400 pieces of work. And it could be from start a podcast series. That might be one to debug a piece of code to give a presentation. So we looked at pieces of work and we looked at how experienced people tackle it. And then we looked at how inexperienced people tackle it. And we had, you know, the common manager between those two different professionals,

Starting point is 00:26:01 assess their performance and tell them as how we went about it. And what we learned, we learned is that so many times being new to something, being an underdog, being a newcomer, you know, being new, naive, being a rookie is actually an advantage and that we tend to do our very best thinking and our best work when we know the very least. And it's not because we bring knowledge. It's that we bring hunger and we bring humility. And when we looked at the profile of how people work when we're new to something on the outer edge of what we know. And we looked at the behaviors. It was what so many companies are trying to get their workforce to do. See, because we ask questions. We ask better questions. Our levels of listening go up. We, you know, we often think of

Starting point is 00:26:54 rookies as bumbling and kind of clueless. But actually, we found that in this rookie mode, people are really alert. Almost like, you know, if you can imagine or remember, I should say, the first time you went to a new country. Like, what were you doing when you landed? You know, like what were you paying attention to? What were you noticing? It's like all of our senses are heightened.

Starting point is 00:27:24 We're seeing more. We're hearing. We're smelling. And then we're just more alert. We ask better questions. We ask her feedback. We ask more people. We tend to bring in five times a level of expertise to bear on the problem because when we don't know things, we go and we consult with a lot of people. We ask a lot of questions and we tend to amass more expertise. We don't, not only do we receive feedback better, we ask her feedback. We're like, hey, how am I doing? How am I doing now? How am I doing? Am I doing okay? Am I on track? Like we're a manager's dream because we're these like open porous like teach me coach me direct me guide me share your expertise with me and then we're just desperate enough that we move really fast and one of the things that was shocking to me is that actually when we lack expertise we tend to deliver faster than when we have expertise. Because like we're down. It's like halftime and we're down.

Starting point is 00:28:27 We're like, hey, we got no points on the board. Yeah. So. And it's time to score. Yeah. Can you explain what the Weissman group and what you and your team does now? Yeah, we can. We can.

Starting point is 00:28:42 What we do is, I hesitate because I think I do, you know, Ryan, if it's okay, I want to go back because there's something that I want to clarify. I said that there was two things that I wanted to have come out of this research is one. Okay. for managers to understand that their rookies are really valuable. But then the second thing I really hope comes out of it. And I hope it this much that I didn't want to just let it sit there is I hope that when people are out managing their careers and seeking new jobs, that they'll take jobs that they're not qualified for. And remind themselves that who wants a job they're qualified for? Because there'd be absolutely nothing to learn that they're actually going to be at their best when,

Starting point is 00:29:25 they're not fully qualified. And to remember that when they're getting hired, they're not being hired for the know-how that they have because that'll be in the rearview mirror real soon. They're being hired for the know-how they're going to build and what they're going to learn once they're there. And I think all of that is going to keep us fresher and more innovative in the work we do. So that's my hope. So that actually lets us another thought in a question.

Starting point is 00:29:55 question. So what about the person listening who has been in the same role for six years? They know it inside and out. They could do it in their sleep. They like it. They don't dislike it. They enjoy their boss and their coworkers. But they're certainly not stretched anymore. And they're on, in a way, kind of an autopilot, which from the emails I get, I know this happens from time to time. Would you encourage that person to look for another job that some would say they're not qualified for and to actively seek out an opportunity like that, whether it's inside the company they're with or outside? Well, you know, I would encourage them to ask themselves some questions. You know, we have for years been taught that that sort of the pinnacle of success is to be an expert and to know, know what you're doing and to go into work every day feeling like you know what you're doing.

Starting point is 00:30:57 Like, oh, let's get those days behind us where we feel like we're the beginner. And let's get to the point like where we arrive and we're that knowledgeable go-to expert. We're good at what we're due. I would ask people to think about what are the downsides of that and how long before we start to feel stale, past your cell by date. You know, what I found in this research is not only do people tend to do the best thinking, when they're new, it's actually where people find their greatest sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. We did a, it was a pretty big survey. It was a thousand people and we asked a bunch of

Starting point is 00:31:34 questions, but so to the questions we asked were how challenged are you? What's a degree of challenge or stretch in your work today? And I'd ask everyone to think about this. What would you say, let's just say on a scale of zero to five, what is your degree of challenge in your current job? One is, it's easy. I got this. I know how to do it. I can do it my sleep. Five is I'm really struggling. It's just, it's a little out of grasp. I feel like I'm quite a newcomer. And then I would ask you to think about what's, how satisfied are you right now with your work and your job? And you might rate that on a one to five. You know, one is I sort of dread going into work. And five is like, I can't wait for Monday. And when we asked those questions and then we correlated that data together, what we found was this, um, I'm a researcher, so I consider this like, it's a beautiful correlation. Is this up into the right, you know, near linear correlation, meaning as the degree of challenge in our work goes up, so does our satisfaction. Like we're, and vice versa, as the degree of challenge goes down, and this, we didn't do this correlation across a whole data set. We did it on an individual basis.

Starting point is 00:32:46 That is, the degree of challenge goes down, our job satisfaction goes down. and you know I think when we linger too long you know on on these professional plateaus yeah we're good at what we do but a little part of us starts to die inside you know and you may even take maybe you can take that a little too far and you say you know something begins to stink a little bit but when we when we work on the outer edge of what we know how to do a little bit scared and you know we feel alive and so I guess what I would do is encourage people to do is think about, you know, are you experiencing any of the signs that you might be on a plateau? Let me, let me rattle off a few that I tend to look for. So these are all indicators that you might be on a professional plateau and it might be time to take a little bit of a rookie assignment. One, things are running smoothly. Two, you've got ready answers. Like, you've got answers ready before people finish asking the question. You know, often you know you're in this space when you know how a meeting is going to end before it begins.

Starting point is 00:33:54 You're like, I've seen this movie before. It's a rerun. You know, you're getting positive feedback. You're good at what you do. And people tell you, you know, I have to admit it feels good to be good at what you do. Like, it's comfortable. Yeah, and it's a hard gig to lead, isn't it? Yeah. And boy, you can stay in that gig, particularly if you surround yourself with people who tell you you're good at what you do. And it could be pretty hard to leave that gig. Fourth indicator is that you've become the mentor. You know, it used to be that you sought out mentoring,

Starting point is 00:34:30 but now people are coming to you. And I tell you, it's a lot easier to give out advice than it is to ask for it. You know, maybe number five, you're busy. You got a lot on your plate, but you're bored. You know, it's so easy to find ourselves sort of overworked underutilized. Maybe number six,

Starting point is 00:34:51 you're starting to play it safe. There's a lot more talk of defense than offense. Maybe number seven. What do you mean by you start to play it safe? What does that mean? Well, you know, you've built a reputation. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:06 And you're like, I can't do that outlandish thing. You know, like try new ideas or bring, or you just kind of hang back? Or what do you mean? Oh, yeah, you play it safe. You know, you're not taking. bold action. Maybe you're not speaking up. You're not trying to do something. I live right here in the heart of Silicon Valley. And I tell you something I get really tired of hearing.

Starting point is 00:35:28 I get really tired of hearing companies talk about, oh, we need to fail fast. We need to fail forward. We need to like fail early, fail off. And like every, everyone's got their version of this fail fast mantra. But it, you know, when managers sort of issue this by Fiat, it doesn't actually help people fail more because you know when you're really good at what you do and you've been doing it for a long time like what's your reaction when someone says hey Brian you know what you should experiment

Starting point is 00:35:57 and fail more often I mean it feels like you're going to fall from a cliff from a pedestal even it sounds it sounds much better than the reality of it actually happening yeah I mean the stakes are so high

Starting point is 00:36:16 when you're considered an expert when you're at the time But if you're at the bottom of a learning curve and someone encourages you to fail on your way up, that learning curve, you're like, thank you because I'm going to do it anyway. So you might as well legitimize that. You know, so maybe if you're playing it safe, like how do I avoid failure? Yeah. You know, it might be, you know, maybe you become a little bit negative. Like, you know, Liz, I have to interrupt you just because I have this interesting feedback.

Starting point is 00:36:49 I got from a mentor who was one of my closest friends and I respect him just about more than anybody. And I, and this was years ago, but I went for a job that was too big for me at the time because I wanted to stretch. I wanted mainly be a part of the interview process. And the response I got back, he was kind of like the go-between that he shared with me, was that they felt I approached it with almost a naivete, meaning, you know, I was asking so many questions. and then when they would tell me the scope of the role, I would, after asking questions, I would reply and say, well, yeah, I can do that. You know, I'm going to get, yeah, I'll learn it and get it done.

Starting point is 00:37:29 And they said, I don't think you, and the response was, I don't think you realize how hard this is. And I said, well, I don't know, maybe, but I've done, done hard things before. I'll be fine. I'll be able to do it. And I guess maybe they just didn't believe me. I did not get it.

Starting point is 00:37:44 And so, but in a way, it was almost feedback that I enjoyed getting. And I didn't want to change my approach because I, I don't know, at that point, I'm always open to, I have a, I feel like a growth mindset and willing to learn and to change and to implement and to do new things. But at that point, I felt like that was the proper approach, even if I was told it wasn't. Yeah. And, you know, I think, Ryan, what you hit on is, is not only were you playing office. there rather than defense is, you know, we tend to to take these big risks, not because we're natural risk takers when we're in these rookie roles. We're actually not. We're more cautious. We find that we only take these big risks when we don't know that they're risks.

Starting point is 00:38:32 You know, think about the places you've, think about the situations that you've put yourself in that were really kind of dangerous, that you just didn't know we're dangerous. You know, what's coming to my mind right now was the movie War Dogs. And I don't know if you saw it. I didn't see it. I saw the previews and I got the gist of it. These like two guys don't quite know what they're doing. They put themselves out in this war zone.

Starting point is 00:38:55 And this because they're like, they had no clue. They didn't know. And we find that when we're in this newcomer space, we're so willing to say yes to hard things. Yeah. Because we just don't know that they're hard. For me, I've written three books now. And they've been three solid books.

Starting point is 00:39:13 The books have done well. had had good impact and I'm now contemplating this fourth book and I think about my orientation to a book now is so different than my first one because right now I'm like oh well yeah that's a lot of work I have to think about if I'm ready to do that and if I can make that commitment and is the idea good enough is it really bookworthy you know and I start to think about all the reasons to say no whereas with my first book I'm like how hard can this be I'm learning a program you know build stuff with university. I didn't know anything. I'm like writing a book, that can't be hard. Well, you know, it turns out it was hard. But I didn't know it at the time. And there's something

Starting point is 00:39:56 beautiful about that naive, willing yes. And I don't mean saying yes to a workload that's not healthy. I don't mean like being a yes man. I just mean being willing to say yes to something that looks a little bit hard, but not too hard. Yeah. And mostly because you just don't know. And I find that that is really the space we do work. So, you know, to answer your original question, like, what about people who've been doing what they've been doing for a while and I've gotten good at it? I would ask you, do you see any of these signs of stagnation?

Starting point is 00:40:37 And if you do, it might be, it might be time to give yourself a little push out of the comfort zone. Yeah. You know, another aspect of what you've written about leadership, which obviously the focus of the show, there's so much, so much good work you've put out in the world list. So I have to commend you and acknowledge that. And I love it. But you talk about being a multiplier. And I think we all want you to find that better for us.

Starting point is 00:41:03 We all probably can think of people who were multiplies. rather than diminishes. And so I'd love for you to describe for me, for us, the disciplines that distinguish a multiplier from a diminisher. Well, it's, you know, fortunately the idea is a really, really simple one. Some people say, Liz, you know, I like your work because you just kind of name things that we all know were going on, but we just didn't have a name for it. And, you know, so what this idea is, is that.

Starting point is 00:41:37 certain leaders, there need to be smart, there need to be competent, often gets in the way of their ability to use and see the genius and people around them. And I call these leaders diminishes. And you might be thinking about who is a diminisher to you. And this is like someone who's probably surrounded by really smart people. But like you're not making progress. You know, you're holding back. You're playing it safe. That's a diminisher leader. They're leaders who tend to be the wet blanket on good ideas and innovation and energy. They're energy killers. They're like little vampires of energy.

Starting point is 00:42:17 And then the multiplier is the leader who uses his or her intelligence. And by that I mean their knowledge, their skills, their intellect, their ideas. They use their own intelligence as a platform for other people's intelligence. They become the amplifiers of the capability of people. them. People literally get smarter. First of all, people tend to work at their best around these leaders. And they claim that they get smarter and more capable around these leaders. So I encourage people to think about who is a multiplier to you. And I can share what we found in the research, but, you know, simply just reflecting on your own experience with a diminisher or a multiplier, I think you'll see it as well.

Starting point is 00:43:02 But, you know, what we find is they do a number of things alike and a couple things really, really differently. And the first is how they manage talent. The diminisher tends to, they love, they love talent. They love hiring smart people. But then people become almost like trophies or like little knickknacks and grandma's curio cabinet. You know, they're empire builders with talent versus the multiplier is a talent magnet. talent flows to these people. You know, everyone knows the leaders, everyone wants to work for, because people grow around them. They see and use people's native genius, the thing they do

Starting point is 00:43:44 easily and freely, and they put that to work. So that's one. The second is the way they create a climate, an environment or a culture, if you will, the diminisher tends to be a tyrant. and I don't really need to explain that, of course, to anyone. You know, they create stress that shuts down people's best thinking, whereas the multiplier is really a liberator. They give people space. They open it up and allow people to think. The third area is the way they set direction,

Starting point is 00:44:18 where the diminisher tends to be the know it all. You know, they set direction based on what they know what they see, which means they rarely ask people to do things that they don't know to do themselves. And then, you know, the multiplier tends to be the challenger. They, they invite people to do hard things. I love this challenger discipline because so few leaders have this. It's probably one of the biggest vulnerabilities in our collective leadership skill set is is getting comfortable inviting other people to be uncomfortable. So few leaders do this well. Some do it with all bravado. There are leaders who ask people to do really hard things.

Starting point is 00:45:02 They pass out outrageous sales quotas and big be hags full of bravado. But they haven't created an environment of safety where people can really offer their best thinking. People are too scared to take on the big challenge. And then there's lots of, you know, the corporate world is full of lots of loving managers, like all cupcakes and kisses and big hugs, where they've created this really wonderful warm environment. You can tell I was raised at Oracle is they create this warm environment where people feel valued. But they then don't go the second step and ask them to do anything hard. Like in my mind, the only reason why you would want to create a great place to work is to then go ask people to do great work.

Starting point is 00:45:57 And too many leaders just ask for great work without building that environment or they build the environment and then they pass out tasks and they delegate goals instead of saying, okay, now I'm going to ask you to do something hard and uncomfortable, like something that we've never done before. But they've built this foundation of trust. there's two more of these disciplines. We probably don't have time for it, but I'd boil it down. It's not that I don't care about them, but I think it's more important to boil it down to what I think these multiplier leaders do fundamentally is they create a dual condition and they create

Starting point is 00:46:39 safety, intellectual, emotional safety, mental safety, like where people really feel safe to think, to bring their whole self to work, to bring their whole brain. to a conversation, and then they create stretch. Okay, now what are we going to do with it? Let's go point that against our biggest challenge that we have. Safety and stretch. That's probably what I'd boil it down to. Thank you so much for sharing, Liz.

Starting point is 00:47:12 I had mentioned to you earlier about your company because you speak highly. And we spoke a lot about Oracle, where you worked for 17. years, but you decided to leave and start your own business. And I'd love to learn briefly what the Wiseman group does. Well, I'll tell you that. I first I want to tell you why I left Oracle. I like to say that I left Oracle because they took the Diet Coke's out of the refrigerator. And they just swapped it with another brand.

Starting point is 00:47:46 But that's not really the reason. The reason is I left Oracle, not because I didn't love a place, I left it because I finally got good at what I was doing. And it was kind of this sick feeling of like, man, I know how to do my job. And so when I left to start the Wiseman group, I left really in search of something I didn't know how to do. And so part of what we're about is taking on work that we don't fully know how to do. So it's staying really kind of uncomfortable.

Starting point is 00:48:16 And, you know, what we're about is trying to develop leaders who can take on. some of the world's toughest challenges and whatever are the tougher challenges in your world, whether it's the corporate space or out in the government or in our communities. And we're trying to help build leaders who know how to use all of the talent inside of their organizations, who know how to use experience talent, how to use rookie talent, and how to lead in a way that builds a great place to work and where people do great, great work. And that's what we're about. We're a leadership research and development firm,

Starting point is 00:48:58 meaning we kind of go on a cycle of research, write, teach, repeat. Research, right, teach, repeat. And you were listed on the Thinkers 50 ranking as one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world. and the recipient, I saw this recipient of the 2016 ADT Champion of Talent Award amongst many other awards. What an incredible career you've built for yourself, Liz. Oh, you know, well, thank you. Someone said it was after, this is going to make me sound so selfish and maybe ignoble, but, you know, it was after writing multipliers and the idea was starting to really have impact inside of organizations.

Starting point is 00:49:45 somebody said to me, they said, wow, it must feel really good to have made such an impact in your profession and to give in your profession, which is, you know, the development of talent and sort of the talent development field, to have made this contribution to your profession. And I was really startled by what they said because I'm like, wow, that sounds so noble, but that's not what I was trying to do. I wish that was what I was trying to do, but I just had a burning question and I was going to, I'm a bit of a dog on a bone. And I just wanted to find out why it was that some leaders seemed to spark ideas and energy and life into an organization while other leaders who are really, really capable, kind of suck life and drain intelligence out of group. And I just locked on to that and stayed at it until I felt like we had good answers and until I felt like I could communicate. communicated. I'm like, I was just trying to answer a question and solve a problem, not make a contribution. I was just kind of trying to be useful and get this thing done. And I think that's probably because how I tend to do things. Like I just lock on to something. But after that person

Starting point is 00:50:59 said it, it helped shift my orientation of, you know what, it is, it does feel good to have made an impact and to help create organizations where people feel really able to contribute and be their whole selves at it. So we love our work. I love my work. Thank you. Really appreciate you being here, Liz. I'm so thankful, too, of David Berkus.

Starting point is 00:51:26 I become a good friend of mine who connected us. So I wanted publicly thank Dave. But when Dave did send the intro email and said, I want you to. to talk to this guy named Ryan who has a podcast called The Learning Leader Show. And you saw the phrase learning leader. What was the first thought that came to mind? Oh, my first thought was jealousy because I'm like, I love that idea of the learning leader. But my second thought, it was wow, a kindred spirit.

Starting point is 00:51:57 And I think that's why I had some of those questions for you earlier in our conversation before we started to record. is just I'm thrilled to see someone like you out having these conversations because as leaders, you know, we think of all these skills that we're supposed to have as leaders. And really, I think the fundamental skill that leaders need right now is they need this ability to be learners or self, but to create that environment on their team, to be able to lead their team out into unknown spaces and say, come with you. me. We're going to figure this out. We're going to find our way and it's going to be tons of fun. So I love it. I love talking to a kindred spirit.

Starting point is 00:52:43 Well, me too, Liz. And thank you so much for your kind words. It means a lot to me, especially coming from you. Where would you send my audience to learn more about you online? Oh, you know, let's see. There is the wiseman group.com, which is our company's website. I was just told that some of our videos there are blurry and terrible. So there's that. And there's also the multipliersbooks.com or rookie smarts.com. You can go learn about any of the books there. And you see on Twitter, I'm at Liz Wiseman.

Starting point is 00:53:18 Very boring. They're all very boring. It's okay. Well, the stuff that there isn't so boring. The stuff that there is incredible. And I seriously urge everyone to, your work has had a big impact on my life and obviously many others. So thank you again, Liz, for all that you do. And as I mentioned to you before, I absolutely want to continue this dialogue as we both progressed and

Starting point is 00:53:40 really appreciate you being here. Yeah, well, we're both working at the same, trying to solve the same problems. So thank you. Of course. Absolutely. Thanks, Liz. Okay, bye. This episode of the Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learningleadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show. One of the things I love about football is, you know, seeing kids of very diverse backgrounds

Starting point is 00:54:26 working together and the brotherhood of it doesn't matter what color your skin is. And, you know, on our team, it's Polynesian, Hispanic, white, you know, we've kind of got a little bit Asian. We've got our tallest player is an Asian kid and at like 6-5 or 6-6 or something. And it's just a really beautiful experience. But anyway, I'm glad to hear that your athletic to business to thought leadership background has served you well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, good for you.

Starting point is 00:54:58 Thank you. No, this has been great talking. I'm excited to. Oh, I'm sorry. I got us off on a tangent. No, no, it's cool. You probably need to record the podcast. It's all good.

Starting point is 00:55:07 It's all good. It's all good. The whole call is recorded. We just, and we'll get it going when we need to. But once everything's going, we don't really edit much, if anything.

Starting point is 00:55:17 I can already tell, by the way, that you speak, we're probably not going to have to do that unless for some reason you're adamant that you don't want something in there, which typically does not happen. This is not a gotcha type of a show. It's just like two people getting together,

Starting point is 00:55:31 having lunch, getting to know each other, hopefully developing a friendship. And that's my goal. through the course of this conversation. I don't, I don't want this to be the last time that we talk. I hope that we continue the dialogue. My goal throughout this is just to put together an episode that my listeners can can learn from somebody as talented, as accomplished as you, and that you'll be an incredible addition to it. So feel free to call me, Ryan. I'll call you Liz,

Starting point is 00:56:03 if you're good with that, and we'll have a good, healthy back and forth. I'm good. I'm super game. I'm a game for anything. Good. Yeah, no, I don't think I've ever asked for anything to be edited. I just don't ever listen to anything afterwards because it makes me, I do better to just move forward. You should. I want to challenge you to listen to it. You should.

Starting point is 00:56:23 I don't know. I don't know. A recent guest, just listened to one with his whole family and his kids were making fun of them. But they actually kind of bonded over it. He liked it. His name Greg Woodstock, great guy, CEO of a nice company, in Chicago. But it was funny to hear him say.

Starting point is 00:56:39 He's like, we actually did it twice because it was, they were laughing at me. But I think they, he's like, I think secretly they kind of respected me. And I said, cool, that's good. I'm glad I can do that. That sounds right up the alley of like the diet advice of like you should eat dinner naked in front of a mirror. Yeah, like, I'm going to do that. I've never heard of that one.

Starting point is 00:56:56 You've never heard of that one? No. Oh, yeah. It's like in the old kind of life tales of dieting. I don't know that anyone's ever done it. I don't know. But you always hear people talk about it. I guess it would maybe make me think about what I was eating.

Starting point is 00:57:09 I don't know. I don't know. No, I'm excited. There's so much here. How much time do you have? I don't think I have anything scheduled until I need to leave for the airport. And let me just double check that because I'm known to play calendar roulette. Yeah, I think I'm clear.

Starting point is 00:57:29 I'm just pulling my calendar up. I'm double checking. I'd shut everything down so as to not be distracted. Yep, I'm fine. Okay. Cool. All right. Every time you need.

Starting point is 00:57:37 If you're ready to go, I'm ready to go. I mean, it's not going to be much different from what we've been doing since what we've been talking for eight minutes or so. So we'll just get it going. Okay. Yeah. And you're finished is about 60 minutes. Is that?

Starting point is 00:57:49 That's the longest. Typically it'll probably be shorter than that. Okay. That's typically like the anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. Yeah. Okay. 30 to 60. Okay.

Starting point is 00:57:59 But I don't need to worry about thinking in sound bites because you're an anti-soundbite guy. I saw that on you. Yeah. Just say exactly like we would if we would. We were having lunch. That's conversational, fun. You know, stop me, ask me any questions at any time if you, if you'd like. Okay.

Starting point is 00:58:14 Okay. All right. Here we go. Here we go.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 160: Liz Wiseman - Why Lack Of Experience Is Your Advantage

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