The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 183: Barry Schwartz - The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

Episode Date: December 29, 2016

Episode 183: Barry Schwartz - The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less Barry Schwartz studies the link between economics and psychology, offering startling insights into modern life. Lately, working with Ken Sharpe, he's studying wisdom. In his 2004 book The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz tackles one of the great mysteries of modern life: Why is it that societies of great abundance — where individuals are offered more freedom and choice (personal, professional, material) than ever before — are now witnessing a near-epidemic of depression? Conventional wisdom tells us that greater choice is for the greater good, but Schwartz argues the opposite: He makes a compelling case that the abundance of choice in today's western world is actually making us miserable. Infinite choice is paralyzing, Schwartz argues, and exhausting to the human psyche.It leads us to set unreasonably high expectations, question our choices before we even make them and blame our failures entirely on ourselves. His relatable examples, from consumer products (jeans, TVs, salad dressings) to lifestyle choices (where to live, what job to take, who and when to marry), underscore this central point: Too much choice undermines happiness. Episode 183: Barry Schwartz - The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show "When you have infinite choice... Instead of being liberate, you get paralyzed." In This Episode, You Will Learn: Common themes to sustain excellence: People really care about what they're trying to achieve They want to change people's lives Why the leaders of organizations must give their employees opportunities to stretch, and demonstrate mastery Why Barry wore shorts during his legendary TED Talk People think the more choices we have, the better we'll be. It has limits... The consequences with ease of communication -- "People are thinking less, and talking more." Why Twitter is bad Daniel Kahneman's work -- System 1 and System 2 Why are movies on an airplane better? The proper way to set expectations The secret to happiness How to manage expectations: Make the rare not common - ie: Deliberately drink great win infrequently Why are people affiliated with organized religion happier? -- Less to do with religion and more to do with community. Most religions are full of constraints "Why We Work" -- Dan Pink's work on this is fantastic The future of work -- A world full of contractors "The secret to happiness is low expectations." -- Barry Schwartz Continue Learning: Watch Barry give a TED Talk Wearing Shorts (9m+ views): The Paradox of Choice  Follow Barry on Twitter: @barrysch  Connect with me on LinkedIn Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 You may also like these episodes: Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 071: Nate Boyer - Green Beret, Texas Football, The NFL Episode 073: Jay Bilas - World Class ESPN Basketball Broadcaster, Toughness, Fixing The NCAA Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why Did you enjoy the podcast? If you enjoyed hearing Barry Schwartz on the show, please don't hesitate to send me a note on Twitter or email me. Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell The Learning Leader Show is supported by FreshBooks: FreshBooks is offering a 30 day, unrestricted free trial to my listeners. To claim it, just go to FreshBooks.com/Learning and enter LEARNING LEADER in the "How Did You Hear About Us?" section.

Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, 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. Quick reminder, please join us to further the dialogue in our Facebook group, the Learning,

leader community. We'd love to have you. Go to learning leader.com slash group to sign up. We'll add you and you could further the dialogue, maybe argue a little bit, bring up some interesting topics that we can discuss. It's been a lot of fun over the last few months. On tonight's episode with my featured leader, Barry Schwartz, multiple time bestselling author, latest book titled Why We Work. Also, a moment for him that went viral. In 2005, Oxford, England, Barry stood up on the TED stage wearing a T-Sulling. shirt in shorts and delivered a talk titled The Paradox of Choice. Since then, nine million people have viewed it and it's changed his life. We talked about that during this conversation.

A few of the other things we got into. Why more is less? The secret to happiness. Then how his work relates to Daniel Kahneman's System 1 and System 2 thinking. If you haven't heard of that, don't worry, we'll get into it. And I think you'll find it interesting. and then why Twitter is bad, thoughtful, thought-provoking conversation. I think you'll like it with Barry Schwartz. All right, Barry Schwartz, thank you so much for being here on The Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Thanks.

Pleasure to be with you, right? Yeah, and it's always good when we have an Adam Grant connection. And also, I've had fans write in about you. I specifically think of Kyle Ruddock, he's a guy who's been a long-time listener and helped me prepare for this. So, Barry, you come highly recommend. from a number of people, so I'm excited to get this one going with you. And my question to lead us off is around sustaining excellence. And longtime listeners know this is something that I'm fascinated by.

And I'm curious from your perspective, you know, through your studies, through your work, when you look at people who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time, what are some of the common themes they all seem to possess? Well, you know, I, my experience, although I've been around, for a long time. My experience is somewhat limited since most of my life has been spent on my academics, researchers, teachers, and so on. And I would say the secret, if there is one, to sustained excellence, is that people really care about what they're trying to achieve. that is they're working on something that they think matters and that's true in the classroom

creating a new generation of thought leaders or you know business leaders or whatever kind of leaders you know changing people's lives based on what they they learn in your classroom and also doing research that will change the direction that fields go in the thing I've observed is that the kinds of benefits that come with success tend to wear out. You know, you've gotten all the promotions there are to get. You're making all the money there is to make. And then the question is what keeps you going? And the answer, in my experience, is that if you're doing it to, quote, be successful

by the standard measures, you eventually just kind of plateau. On the other hand, if you're doing it because there's a new challenge that needs to be met, a new idea that needs to be explored, a new collection of students that needs to have their eyes opened, then the challenges just keep coming. And the people I know who have been excellent throughout their careers are people who are doing their work for what you might say are the right reasons. Man, that's interesting. It makes me think of a little bit of Liz Weissman. I don't know if you know Liz. She's written a number of good books. One of them, one of them called Rookie Smarts.

And I spoke with Liz on this podcast, and she talked about when to take, when to leave a job and to take a new opportunity. And I'm paraphrasing, but she basically said, once you feel like you've, you've gotten it figured out, it's time to stretch. It's time to go. Because the people who have been able to sustain excellence over an extended period of time, they are constantly in a state of stretching themselves to learn, to grow, to improve. And sometimes, let's speak from a work perspective, if you work at a big company maybe,

you're close to having it all figured out. And that's when it's time to go. Have you noticed that with people thinking, you know, if you were to give advice to those who are in a position to where maybe it's a little bit too comfortable that it might be time to be uncomfortable? I think the answer to that is yes. But I think the more important, lesson here is not so much for people who are getting, quote, too comfortable, but rather for the people who run the organizations that these people work in. You know, you want to make sure that you have a workplace environment where people are continually given the opportunity to stretch, to do new things, to take on challenges, to, you know, demonstrate mastery. You know, and, you know, you want to, I think

you want to set an environment where that sort of thing is encouraged rather than forced on people. Because I think basically this is the kind of life that most people want to live. They don't want to just mail it in. They want to be engaged. And one way to stay engaged is if you face problems every day that are different from the problems you face yesterday. So, yeah, you know, in my own case, it's funny because when you teach in universities, settings, there's a sense in which if you want, every time you teach the course, it's a new course, even if it's got the same name, you know, you can change the syllabus, you can change the content,

you can do all kinds of things to make it different, or you can take out the folder of yellow notes and just tell the same stories year after year. But it gives you the flexibility to reinvent what it is you do on a regular basis. And in my experience, the people who remain great in the class or people who, you know, for whom each time they teach the class, it's like the first time. I like that. Barry, when somebody that doesn't know you meets you and they say, hey, Barry, what do you do?

How do you respond? Well, I say I'm a teacher and a writer. Although I've now retired from teaching just this past June. And then I immediately re-uped. I'm now going to be teaching in a new place. in a few weeks. But I think of myself that, you know, that's how I think of myself, principally a teacher.

Although, you know, I've now written several books that have attracted popular audiences as opposed to academic audiences. So, you know, people who know who've heard of me in the world at large may think of me as a writer. And so in July of 2005 in Oxford, England, you get up on a TED stage and a T-shirt and short. and give an amazing TED talk titled The Paradox of Choice. Couple things. Who chose your wardrobe and talked to me about the process for doing that?

I know it was 2005, so it was a little bit ago. Maybe Ted has grown since then, but 9 million views currently and growing every day. It's been recommended to me multiple times. I've watched it multiple times, including again this morning. Talk to me about that moment and then what happened following it. Sure. So I really need to provide some context here because back then, nobody had ever heard of Ted, including me. Yeah. You know, I was Chris Anderson asked me if I wanted to give a talk of Ted, and I said, what's Ted?

And he explained it to me. And it was held in England. It was, as you say, it was July. It was unbearably hot, uncharacteristically hot for England. The theater, you know, which must have been like a million years old, had no air conditioning. Everybody was just sweating like pigs. So everyone was dressed the way I was dressed. It's true that not everyone was giving a talk. But they were all dressed, you know, as coolly and comfortably. I love it, man.

I just thought you just said, you know what? I own this place. I'm showing up in T-shirts. I know, I know. I know. It's a totally informal atmosphere. Exactly. And in addition, I thought I was talking to the people in the room.

and it was a, you know, there were a lot of people, 500 people or something like that. Yeah. But then it would be over. And then a few months later, I got this release to sign, you know, giving them permission to put it up online. And I laughed because I said, well, I don't care if they put it up online. It's like who on earth would watch these things. Yeah. YouTube didn't exist yet.

I mean, your listeners need to understand how different the world was. Yeah. So I signed the release. thinking, well, sure, it'll be somewhere out there in the ether, and maybe I'll show them to my grandchildren someday, but no one will watch it. And then, you know, as they say, the rest is history. The internet exploded, YouTube exploded, TED exploded, and as you said, there are nine million people who watched it. So I chose my wardrobe. My wife was completely mortified. My grandchildren, who have seen it, and my children, completely mortified. They're sorry that they have the same last

name as I do. They're so embarrassed by what I look like. So I went when I was invited back several years later to give another talk, they all laid down the law, but I had to look like a grownup. So I, you know, I was dressed nicely in slacks and the jacket and all that stuff. I gave a talk. And people came up to me afterwards and said, I was so disappointed you weren't wearing shorts and a t-shirt. So you can't win. So that's how that happened. It was not a display of, you know, iconoclasm, indifference, independence. It was simply a desperate response to unbearable discomfort, heat and discomfort. I gotcha.

So let's talk about the content of the talk, the paradox of choice. You know, why more is less? Can you, you know, without obviously redoing the talk right now, but to distill down some of the key points of what you mean by the paradox of choice. Absolutely. It's easy to say in a few sentences. most Western societies have operated with the assumption that the more choice people have, the better off they are.

They're more likely to get what they want. They have more freedom, more autonomy, more control over their lives. We should take every opportunity to enhance choice. And that's true, but it's not without limit. So, you know, when you go from having no choice to some choice, your life is better. But when you go from having some choice to essentially infinite choice, weird things start to happen. And that was completely neglected by economists, by psychologists, by everybody, by people in business. Instead of being liberated by all this choice, you get paralyzed.

So you can't pull the trigger and you choose nothing. You make bad worse decisions. And even when you make good decisions, you're less satisfied. And so my book, The Paradox of Choice, laid out this evidence that, yes, choice, is a good thing, but there can be too much of a good thing, and here's why. And, you know, it really struck a nerve. The book struck a nerve, the TED Talk struck a nerve. And I think the reason it did is that everybody is experiencing this, either in every aspect of their lives or in some aspects of their lives, and they think there's something wrong with them, or they can't put their finger

on the problem on why they're so indecisive. And so my book comes out. and they go, oh my God, that's what's been driving me crazy. And of course, since the book came out, things have only gotten worse. You know, thanks to social media and things like Tinder, it's not just about choosing cereal and toothpaste. It's now about choosing romantic partners where we're faced. Young people are faced with what seemed to be an unlimited set of options. And I think it's actually creating enormous difficulties for people as they try to develop

of serious romantic relationships. How do you think the combination of the ease of use with specifically a phone, you know, you can, you just mentioned Tinder and, you know, obviously the use of texting type apps, the fact that we all look at our phones a lot, when it comes to, to those people who develop those habits and then they're thrust into a one-on-one or a group conversation, with other people, and maybe they've grown up not having to actually speak, but they've grown up typing a message into their phone. What are your thoughts on the development of people in general? Because I don't know if that's not probably going backwards. Like we're only going to

get more and more with technology grows, more ease of communication amongst people through apps and certain whatever systems are invented moving forward. What are your thoughts on that overall? Well, I think that's a hard one to, it's a hard, it's a hard question to answer, partly because people change. So I think at the moment, there's a lot of, there are a lot of bad consequences associated with this ease of communication, as you put it, because one of the things that's happening is that what, quote, communication means has changed. It's become more superficial. People are thinking less and talking more. they're unbelievably distracted. And so the result is that you can talk to a lot of people about very trivial things, but it's harder, not easier to talk to a few people about things that require real thought, real intimacy, and real extended conversation. That's the way things are now.

But people adapt. So it's entirely possible that people who grew up with all of this will find a way. way to make this ease of communication into something that actually fosters real communication instead of the superficiality we have now. You know, you take Twitter. I think the idea that you can say anything important that 140 characters is preposterous, but it establishes a standard for what counts as a communication that people adhere. to. So they say really simple, oversimplified things to one another. You get this escalation

of unreasonableness as a result. And this becomes people's model for what, quote, communication is. And it's a terrible model. If you can only say simple things, then you start thinking that the world is a simple place. The world is not a simple place. some would say though the constraint the 140 character constraint as I'll have a couple comments off this one it's the it's one of the primary reasons for Twitter success and two it forces people to be concise do you disagree with that well it obviously forces people to be concise right but not every thing you want to say can be said in 140 characters so if that's your limit then you end up saying superficial things or incomprehensible things. You know, some things just require long form, some ideas. Take time and space to develop so that people understand them. You know, I teach a course that goes for 15 weeks, so three hours a week or whatever it is.

I can't do that in 140 characters. And if somebody forced me to, or if I thought my students' attention, Spans were so limited that they wouldn't stay with any discussion that took more than 10 minutes to go from start to finish. It would change what I taught. And all kinds of complexity would no longer be part of our interaction because the mode of communication that we were engaged in precluded it. And I think you see this. I think more and more teachers instead of assigning students challenging things to read, show them TED talks.

Now, I've benefited enormously from Ted's existence, but I don't think an 18-minute TED talk is a substitute for reading the book. But if that's what students get, they never sort of learn how to sustain their attention and plunge into material where the answers are not immediately obvious. The points are not immediately obvious. So, but again, let me emphasize. I think people are adaptable, and the way things are now is by no means necessarily the way things will continue to be as these forms of communication proliferate more and more. Are you familiar with Daniel Kahneman's work on System 1 versus System 2?

Oh, very much. Okay. I'm teaching it for 25 years. Okay, so System 1 for the people who don't know. And everyone should read the book, Conman's book, Thinking Fast and Slow. But System 1 is like the brain's fast, automatic, intuitive approach. System 2 is the mind's slower and analytical mode where reason dominates.

And I'm curious from your perspective, the potential relationship with the paradox of choice and some of his work, does having an overwhelming number of choices cause our minds to potentially shift from one to two and maybe is responsible for paralysis by analysis? Well, you're saying two different things. It is certainly responsible for paralysis by analysis. Okay. But what I don't know is whether the fact that there are a lot of options actually shifts people from the intuitive mode to the more analytic mode.

It might. But sometimes what happens when you go to the grocery. store and you see 100 different kinds of cereal is you just buy the same thing you bought last week. So you you rely entirely on habit. You don't think at all. And I think that may be what gets us through our shopping trips. If we didn't do that, spend our whole lives at the grocery. So that suggests actually that at some point, the domain, the decision domain, is so become so overwhelming.

that you just shut down all your analytical tools. So I don't know. It's an interesting question. I don't know that anyone has studied whether giving people lots of options in and of itself makes them more analytically inclined. I'm thinking about now leaders of somewhat big organizations. And oftentimes, you know, a couple times a year, depending on the success or the failure of that year, the leader will say, hey, we need to bring together some of our, our

brightest minds within this company. And we need to come up with a great new idea or great new ideas, right? Like brainstorming type sessions. I've talked to others about this a little bit. And I'm curious about how we can potentially improve and screen, improve maybe like our filters for this, because some of the items will be truly valuable and relevant and some will not. So how do we, you know, go from that mode of idea, creation. or formation with a group of people and improve upon that. And then, you know, also minimize the thought of second guessing if we decide not to use someone's idea. Well, I think second guessing in a context like this is a good thing.

And the reason is that we're going to be wrong most of the time when we're trying to push in a new direction or imagine what the future, what the future. demands of us. I think evolution provides a good analogy. You know, evolutionary change is largely driven by mutation, genetic mutation, and evolutionary biologists talk about the products of genetic mutation as, quote, hopeful monsters. And what they mean is that these mutations produce monstrosities compared to the normal organism, and most of the time, most of the time, the overwhelming majority of the time, these monstrosities are not an adaptive improvement.

They're a failure. So most genetic mutations lead to death. So the mantra in Silicon Valley supposedly is fail fast. So they don't mind if people, fail, they just don't want to invest a huge amount of time and resources in innovations that end up, you know, being useless or pointless or what have you. I don't know whether they actually honor this. But I think you just have to, if you're trying to see into the future, you just have to expect that most of the time what you see won't actually appear. Most of the time you're going to get it wrong and tolerate that.

and even encourage it. And it's not just true in business. I think in the academic world, in the research world, people have grown increasingly risk-averse, increasingly conservative in the kinds of things they study, largely because they need to be publishing so that they can get grants and they need to get grants so that they can be successful.

You can't publish failures. You don't get grants with great ideas that didn't work. And so it makes you much more conservative in the problems you tackle. And it makes your students even more conservative than you are because they'll never get a job unless they've got an impressive resume. And that's really unfortunate. So I think it's not a waste to brainstorm and come up with ideas that don't work. I think often or that you end up rejecting and not even pursuing, the things you reject influence. the direction that you take with the things that you accept.

And that's okay. I also think that it's a bad idea in general to sit down with your people and say, okay, now we have to come up with something new. I think, you know, sort of that's the Apple. Apple's obviously been very successful. But this model that jobs had that we're going to, you know, basically creating demand, people don't know they need this, but as soon as we come up with it, people will suddenly realize, how could I have lived my life without it? I myself would much rather have organizations asking what the world actually needs and then figuring out how to provide it.

And so in my view, and this may be a minority view, you know, what makes what may Google such an extraordinary achievement is that they diagnosed a really, real problem, and then they solved it. And they solved it in a way that was far better than anyone could ever have dream possible. They were not asking, you know, what thing can we create that people are going to feel like they have to have? They saw a real need, and they met the need. And I think if you sit down with your organization and say, ask yourself, what does the world need and half the week provided, even the failures are worth pursuing. Okay, I want to bounce around a little bit if you're cool with that, Barry. Does that sound okay?

Yep. I had a talk with Adnan Verk, great ESPN sportscaster who loves movies. One of the thing that we came up with was, for some reason, and my dad has talked to me about this, when we're on airplanes and we're watching whatever movie that they're showing, if you're still right an airline where they show a movie, for some reason, it's more enjoyable on a plane than if you're just at home and you have many choices. And I'm wondering why is a movie better when you watch it on a plane? The quote that I got from my dad is, oh, yeah, it's a good airplane movie.

And Adden and I talked about this, but maybe it's not as good when you're off. I don't know. And so I'm curious, does this have something to do with the paradox of choice? Well, it may. one thing that occurs to me that might partly be responsible is that there's much less to distract you on an airplane. And the result is that you give the movie more of a chance. And sometimes movies that you're really immersed, movies that seem not very engaging and not very good, once you really immerse yourself in them, you see things that you would.

otherwise not see, which also probably means that when you see them in a movie theater, they're much better than when you see them in your living room. True. You're kind of stuck there in the movie theater, so you really pay attention. In the living room, you get up to get a snack, you go to the bathroom, you notice that texts are coming in in your phone, and it's sort of, you know, make my day in the next 15 seconds, or I'm going to be thinking about something else. that's one possibility

another possibility which is less I suppose less positive is that our expectations are so low when it comes to being entertained in an airplane that almost anything

is going to be a blessed surprise I think that's it you know could be and you've stated the secret to happiness is low expectations

can you expand on that well yeah that's a it's a little bit of an overstatement But that is what I said. I think one of the things it does us in is that we have extremely high expectations and having lots of options only raises the expectations. Because, you know, if genes come in 300 styles, then one of them ought to be perfect.

If they only come in two styles, then only an idiot expects perfection. So when we evaluate things, characteristically, what we ask is, is this as good as I expected it to be. And if you have high expectations, the answer is almost always going to be no, if you have very high expectations. So if you have lower expectations, then often the answer to the question is as good as I expected it to be will be yes. And the result is that you'll be much more satisfied. So I think the world of unlimited choice has just generated ridiculously, unrealistically high expectations, and the result is that we're almost always disappointed. How have you, since you study this and you know that, and I, you know, I found that people

laughed during the TED talk when you said it, but how, how have you, since learning this through your research, have you implemented that into your life to be more happy? I know that's kind of a, I don't know if it's a broad or a weird question, but I mean, everybody wants to be more happy. And so what are some specific tactical ways that you have implemented that very simplistic brief but true statement into your daily life to make you happier? Well, you know, so one thing, I've done a few things. And I discussed them briefly in the book. One is I try to manage expectations. When I encounter something really extraordinary, I deliberately make that kind of experience rare, not common, so that I will continue to appreciate it.

You know, I often have a glass of wine at dinner, and I get great pleasure out of a good glass of, you know, $15 a bottle of wine. If I started routinely drinking $30 bottle of wine, initially I'd get even more pleasure out of it, but then it would just become the wine I drink. And now I'd need $50 a bottle of wine. So I deliberately drink, quote, good wine infrequently and in that way continue to appreciate how good it is. The other thing I try to do is choose things that I think will be good enough and not worry about whether they're the best. And I make a big deal of this in the book.

You don't need, I mean, you don't even know what the best is in most categories, but you sure as hell don't need to find it. When you read consumer reports, they're basically telling you there are 200 washing machines and all the three of them are fine. So why do you need to pick the best of the 197 remaining fine washing machines? Just pick one. You know, whichever one is closest to your elbow, which is whatever one is the first one you see when you go to. to the store, whichever one is on sale. It doesn't matter. And I think that an environment of unlimited choice encourages us to find the best. If the world is giving us all these options, surely we should pick the best one. And I think this is also an enemy of satisfaction.

And you don't need the best in the world we live in with so many good alternatives. Just pick one and then stop thinking about the ones you left behind. Now, I say this, it's easy to say it's a little harder to put into practice if that's not your style. Yeah. But I think it's worth learning how to be satisfied with good enough. And that doesn't mean that you have no standards. It doesn't even mean you have low standards. What it means is that you are not insisting that only the best will do.

How does it relate to relationships? Well, I think it does, although it's, I mean, to say that. People looking for life partners should just choose one who's good enough. It's like it goes against the religion of modern society. Yeah. But I have a feeling that a lot of perfectly good relationships don't get developed because both parties, or at least one party, is continually looking over the other person's shoulder in case somebody better might be coming by. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think it does apply to relationships. Yep. Do you, and maybe the research backs this up, I thought I read an AMA on Reddit about this with you, but do you think people who are part of organized religions are more happy than people who are not? Well, the data say they are. Okay. But what we don't know is why. My own suspicion is that it has less to do with any of the religious doctrine than it does with.

being part of a community. And it's increasingly difficult to find community as more and more people flock to cities. You know, here you are surrounded by millions of people, but mostly you're kind of alone. Religious institutions give you a built-in community that you can basically sign up with. In addition, often, most religions are full of constraints on how you should behave. And in a world of very limited options, those constraints might be intolerable, but in a world of unlimited options, like the one we live in, these constraints may actually enable you to get through the day. So, you know, I think the evidence is pretty clear that religious people are happier than non-religious people. the mechanisms are not clear, but it doesn't surprise me.

One of the other topics I wanted to touch on before we took off, Barry, was your book titled Why We Work. Not when I did. Yeah, yeah, I know. And it really answers the question of what motivates us to work. What was the thesis behind why you wrote that book and called Why We Work? So the main thesis is that there's an ideology in American society, in most industrial societies, that the answer to the question why we work is we work for pay. And as long as people are paid adequately, what you have them do doesn't matter.

And if people aren't paid adequately, what you have them do doesn't matter. And so don't worry about what you're asking people to do. Just make sure you compensate them. And then you can just organize work in the most efficient way possible. Now, this has been sort of governing the development of industrial production for 250 years. And I think it's false. And so I wrote the book to try to indicate that I thought, while, you know, people wouldn't work if they weren't getting paid, that's just one small part of why people work. They want to be engaged.

They want to be challenged. They want autonomy. They want to be able to make their own decisions about how to spend their time. They want to be engaged with other people. And they want to be doing something that they think makes a difference. And all these things matter. But if you create a workplace where none of these things is available, then indeed you will be creating people who just work for pay. So that's why I wrote the book.

Yeah. There's a lot of evidence out there that when you have. quote, enlightened workplaces, people do better work. Nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of people around the world are either unengaged or actively disengaged from the work that they do. So we're having a big negative impact on the quality of people's lives and we're also leaving money on the table because we're not getting the most engaged and productive work we could. Yeah. Reminds me some of Daniel Pink's work when you talk about autonomy and mastery. Have you and Dan talked about that? Yep, yep.

It's an old idea in psychology. Yeah. And the, you know, the focus mostly in psychology, because this is what psychology does, is on what you as an individual can do to give yourself more autonomy. And what I'm trying to do is suggest that there really are structural obstacles in the nature of the way the workplace is organized. And instead of putting the burden on individuals, we should be putting the burden on the people who create the environments within which individuals earn their livelihoods. What do you think real briefly? The future of work, I know I see Chapter 5, there are a number of people, whether it's Kevin Kelly or other futurists that I've spoken with have stated that the world will be full of contractors, meaning like individuals will work for six different companies at the exact same time.

What are your thoughts on that? Well, who knows? That seems to me possible. And the question is, is this good or bad? And I think the answer is yes. What's good about it is that people really get to pick and choose what kind of work they do and who they do it for. And what's bad, I think, is that it creates people as isolated islands. There is no community.

that they're a part of. We get a lot of our community connection from the people we work with. And if you're a contractor, you know, people you work with today and the people you work with tomorrow are going to be different people. So that you're going to have to find other places in the social world to connect to. That's not to say people can't do it. And there will be some people who regard this as liberating, as fabulous. You know, they want their amateur painters.

and they want their community to be a community of artists, even though they know they won't make a living as painters. They don't care about having a community at the workplace. Work is just a way to pay the rent and put food on the table and liberate them to do the things they really care about. So for them, you know, this may be a blessing. But I think for a lot of people, it's going to take a major adjustment. There are a lot of people at this transitional moment

who, you know, increasingly are able to work from home. And they think that's fantastic because they save the commute. They can work in their pajamas. I mean, there are lots of things about it that are fantastic. But what happens after a while is they discover that they feel isolated. They miss the social contact. Now, as I said before in connection with the modern media, people adapt. And I am hardly going to suggest that I know what,

the, you know, sort of contingent work is going to look like and feel like to people who have adapted to it. All I'm saying is that it poses problems for people who grew up with different expectations than that. The young generation may solve all those problems. Yeah, yeah. Well, Barry, I certainly want to thank you for being here. Was there anything that you wanted to say or you wanted me to ask so you could respond to that I didn't get to that you want to share right now? No, yes, wonderful questions. This was a great conversation.

Good, good. One more. When you first saw that the host of a show called The Learning Leader Show reached out to you to do this podcast, what was your thoughts on the phrase, specifically learning leader? I'm curious. Huh. More, more puzzlement than anything else. Really? Why?

Well, I mean, I didn't think. I don't think of myself as a leader, first of all. I'm just basically putting one foot in front of the other. I like the idea of making the thoughts of people who are thoughtful on these topics available to a wider audience, which is what I assumed you were trying to do. But I just never thought of myself in that way. You've impacted so many people, millions upon millions around the world. Don't you define that as leading?

Yeah, but you know, I know that a lot of people have seen my talks. I don't know what my impact. I don't know how you measure impact. Yeah, and I'm not sure there is a specific way, but I think, I mean, I would assume you get feedback from people who have seen, who have either read your work or seen you speak, and they have probably told you the impact you've had on their lives. They have, and it's extremely gratifying. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I've been lucky enough that the only people who write to me are the ones who feel good about what they've read. God knows how many people think, oh, man, that's so obvious or that's wrong or that's ridiculous.

You know, they just probably shut it down and they don't bother. Well, yeah. And so my point in saying that is that I believe there's an immense amount of leadership done in many different ways by the work that you've put out. So thank you for doing that. I want to acknowledge that. And thanks for being here on the show, man. I had a lot of fun. It was great to have you.

Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Barry. 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 Learning Leadershow.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.