The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 342: Shane Snow - The #1 Skill Of An Effective Leader (Intellectual Humility)

Episode Date: December 9, 2019

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk #342: Shane Snow - The #1 Skill Of An Effective Leader (Intellectual Humility) Text LEARNERS to 44222 For full show notes go to www.LearningLeader.com Notes: Commonalities of leaders who sustain excellence: Pattern recognition - The ability to connect ideas and people Systems thinking - Connect dots, zoom out The ability to continue to question yourself, a hunger to improve, a "voracious learner" (Liv Boeree) Must relearn how to humble yourself The #1 skill is intellectual humility -- The ability to sit between gullibility and stubbornness Why are people so unwilling to change their mind? "So much of our ideas are attached to our identities." "You must separate your ego from intellect." What is a solution (as a leader)? If you're the one in power, invite people with a different perspective to the table. Don't invoke identity.  Just ask for perspective. Leave space to change your mind... "I could be wrong but..." Strength and flexibility should not be in conflict Ben Franklin idea: Use idea, leave space for change, set opinion, but use phrases less defensive, only change your mind based on evidence.  Say things like: "I could be wrong but..." "The research suggests..." "The evidence suggests..." Elon Musk -- His pattern to persuade people... It's purpose based leadership ("to make life multi-planetary") The strength is in his vision and his purpose.  He's seen as strong by being willing to change his mind. Compliance versus Committed = Cult vs Culture Difference between a cult and culture: Cult - Must act and think in a certain way Culture - Asked to contribute your ideas in your way Key part of leadership: "Understand what matters to your people." Intellectual humility: Respect for others' viewpoints Lack of intellectual overconfidence Separating your ego from your intellect Being open to revising your viewpoints Openness to new experiences Separate feelings/thoughts from facts Trying something new creates new opportunities Advice: Learn about intellectual humility - take Shane's assessment Frame changing your mind as a strength -- reward others for doing this Habits: Instead of saying "I feel" say "I think."  Words matter. Separate facts from stories Why joining The Learning Leader Circle is a good idea Order my book: WELCOME TO MANAGEMENT

I think a real key part of leadership is understanding, taking the time to get to know and understand what your teammates' superordinate goals are. And any of us have a list of priorities and goals in our lives. For me, you know, my family, my friends, and the causes I care about, and then work, you know, that sort of thing. Like, we all have a list of those goals, understanding what really matters to your people and making sure that what you're asking them to do to be devoted to. does not conflict with those things. That actually can help them add up to those things. After five plus years, more than 350 interviews and much more vulnerability than I'm comfortable with,

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Go to learning leader.com. Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4422 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Receive mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you the opportunity to be part of my book launch team coming soon. Text learners to 4422.

Now on a night's feature leader, it's my friend Shane Snow. Journalists have said, Shane is who you get if you combine Malcolm Gladwell with Tim Ferriss. He's an award-winning entrepreneur and journalist. You founded contently and the author of two of my favorite books, Smart Cuts and Dream Teams. A few of the topics we discussed. Understanding the power of your words as a leader. And notably the difference between saying I think versus I feel and why it's so important for you to understand and when to use each.

Then we discuss his latest research on intellectual humility and ego and how to apply the findings to make your team better. And then the difference between compliant and committed organizations and how to build commitment on your team. Ladies and gentlemen, this one's so good with Shane Snow.

All right, Shane Snow. Hey, man, it's good to have you back on The Learning Leader Show for your now third. time. Yeah, you know, we left the last episode saying let's not let so much time go by to next time. But I think it's actually, well, it's not been so long since we hung out, but it's a lot's happened. I think to both of us since last time. It has, you know, thousands of episodes now. Well, I was actually, you know, I try to be reflective and look back on some of the cool moments and that this show has created for me. And there's one specific day. And I don't remember.

exact date, and it doesn't matter for the purpose of the story. But, you know, I flew to New York City to record with someone that I really look up to, kind of a hero of mine in the artistic world, and that's Brian Koppelman, who creates the TV show Billions and made one of my favorite movies, Rounders. And so the reason why this was such a special day and moment was not only did I get to go to his office where they make the TV show or where they write the TV show billions, but then for dinner, I got to meet up with you at this nice little intimate date night French restaurant with candlelit dinner, which was, uh, it was, that was funny to get it started, but it was just an awesome experience for me, certainly, to get to hang out for a few hours

with you and go much deeper as far as getting to know each other in person, taking a step further from just the podcast, man. Well, thank you. I mean, I was honored because following up compliment, he's a, you know, writing here, of mine. So that was cool. Also, I, you just brought me back to, I ordered, I believe, pigeon. Yes, you did. For the first time. And it was like rare. And it was maybe one of the most difficult things I've ever eaten. That's seared in my memory. That was a good night. That was a good night. But I mean, so it's great to have you back. And there's so much for us to get to. But it's also one other

thing I have to remind people. So I just looked at my list of podcast guests that I want to have in my show. I started creating this list more than five years. ago before my podcast launched. There is 919 names on this list. And the person in spot number one, which is not changing. And I've told you before is Shane Snow. So smart cuts, one of your books, has had a massive impact on my life. And so I think it's a good reminder for people who, a lot of people now reach out about starting a podcast or launching anything, that I have 919 people on that list. Shane's number one. Now we're talking for the third time. But it's also a good reminder that I've recorded about 340 episodes.

So that shows you I've still been denied more than two-thirds or roughly around two-thirds of the time for people that I want to have on my show. So a two-part, Shane, thank you for being on now the third time after being a person number one on that huge list of people. Well, I take that as an enormous bit of flattery. But also, I think you're saying that I'm easy. is what you're saying. I am appreciative of you being willing to say yes.

And other people like you who are willing to say yes. No. So I love that we get a chance to do this man. So there's so much to get to. But I think one of the topics we're going to cover here in a second, I want to tease it now, is a phrase coined by you and some others that you worked with called intellectual humility. And an aspect of intellectual humility is the, willingness to evolve and potentially change your mind. And so I've asked you last time we spoke

the commonalities among leaders who have sustained excellence. And given that some time has passed, about a year and a half, I'm curious looking back at your career and the people that you surround yourself with, Shane, what would you say currently do you feel are the commonalities among leaders who sustain excellence over an extended period of time? Yeah, well, I guess I have a bit of an ironic answer because I think last time we talked about how I like these two-by-two charts where they're sort of unintuitive combinations. And one of them that I really like in leaders is this idea of being skeptical, not taking everything at face value, including your own opinions, and also being optimistic, believing

that things can change, believing that you can succeed. And, you know, my updated answer to that question, I think, is a little bit of an upgrade to that. and you've already alluded to it. But I've noticed in listening to your podcast that, well, you know, you talk about, I think that one of your strengths, Ryan, is pattern recognition. I think that's an extremely great strength as a leader, but that's something that you do. You've had hundreds of very smart people on your podcast, and you recognize the patterns,

and you're always in your episodes pointing out, oh, so-and-so said this, and this connects to what you said. And I think that's similar to one of what I, I would say, one of my strengths is systems thinking, which is being able to explore lots of things and zoom out to a bigger picture and connect dots between them. I think there's something similar there to pattern recognition. And what I see in a lot of my favorite episodes of your podcasts is a pattern that all connects to my new answer to your question. So, Liv Bowery, the poker player and astrophysicist, she said that having the ability to continue to question yourself is what it takes. for sustained excellence. Tim Urban, who's a good friend of mine, he said, continuing to reinvent yourself. Patrick Lincione said having a humility and a hunger to get better. Daniel Coyle,

who wrote the Culture Code, I think he said people who are over themselves make good leaders. David Epstein said, if you're a voracious learner, Jason Redmond, the Navy SEAL, said, re-learning how to humble yourself because arrogance can ruin you. Robert Green, he talked about flexibility and self-mastery. And so you can kind of see the pattern that's emerging. One of my favorites is a quote that Ryan Holiday told you. He said that Hitler talked about how he said, I recognize the correctness of my views, whereas privately Abraham Lincoln was frequently racked with self-doubt about whether he was doing the right thing. He was always questioning that. So the pattern here, you already said the word, but I think that the number one skill of

sustained leadership is intellectual humility, which can kind of be summed up by all of these things, these folks are saying this in different ways, but this is the term that psychology is now using as of the last couple of years to talk about the ability to sit between gullibility and stubbornness, to know when you should change your mind, know when you shouldn't,

having the humility to say, I need to change my mind, or I have been wrong, or I can get better in the way that I think. But I, in, you know, and just over the time of, listening to your podcast and taking notes and, you know, and then reviewing my notes, I realize that everyone else has already said my answer just in different ways.

That may be the most extensive amount of research of guest has ever done. Did you really sit down and write down and write all those notes? I was right here to say, hey, I should kind of piece this together in an article or something. You know, I mean, maybe I, maybe I will write that. I like it. Get you, get you three more readers to the show. Thank you for doing that. intellectual humility.

It's kind of funny here, Shane, I guess, right now with what's going on in the world, the divisiveness of people, I think, deciding what side they're on and then, unfortunately, some not being willing to ever even consider that they may be wrong. Like, that's a weakness. when I think about the leaders, not just in history or the famous ones, but the ones that have impacted me the most, they are the ones who are constantly searching for the better answer. And they're always, I don't mean always, and I don't like to use those definitives much, but they are always willing and actively pursuing truth, knowing that they know what they

believe right now, but they also know that that may change. And in fact, that's a massive strength. Why is this so hard for it seems a lot of people right now in today's society to realize that this is a strength? Okay. So I think the biggest reason with why this is going on in society right now with, you know, culture wars and with politics and, you know, everything that's been exacerbated by our ability to gang up in social media. I think the biggest reason why it's hard to be seen changing your mind or changing sides or whatever is because so much of our ideas are attached to our identities. And so many of the debates that we have in society right now are actually proxy wars for

defending the validity of our identity groups. And this is, you know, this is borne out by some of the research on intellectual humility, I'd love to get into it later if we have time. But one of the big components of a lack of intellectual humility is the inability to separate your ego from your intellect. And, you know, ego is defined as a lot of things, but, you know, in this kind of psychology context, ego is your sense of uniqueness and identity and kind of your place in the universe and your ability to think of yourself.

And a lot of what we talk about when we talk about ego colloquially is sort of the negative aspect of when you feel like you're losing control or you're losing your uh you know your sense of importance and you know whether in a group or just in general and what we do that's uh that's crappy when that happens you know we get angry or we steamroller or whatever we we feel ashamed or we try and hide or we lie or whatever people do when their ego is threatened and part of what what often happens when we're having a uh a debate about ideas or when we're we are in conflict with someone about ideas, is we will either deliberately or accidentally invoke identity

as part of that debate. And as soon as you do that, suddenly the debate is no longer about ideas. It's about making sure that you don't make your identity group look bad or you don't sort of threaten your own validity. And when you're acting on behalf of an entire group, then this becomes much more difficult and you have such an incentive to be stubborn,

and to stick to what you first said, otherwise you might invalidate your identity group. So example would be in kind of an innocent context, but where this happens a lot is in business. So you're sitting around a boardroom table or you're in a meeting and you're having a discussion and someone says to the one woman in the room, which is too often the case, they'll say, well, as a woman, what do you think? And this, you know, is often a kind of deliberate and well-meaning attempted inclusion. You know, she's there because you want her perspective. But by saying as a woman, what do you think?

Now suddenly if she's wrong, it reflects badly maybe on women and on all the women in the business. And so even though you are hopefully including her because she probably has a unique perspective in some ways because of her identity, by saying this, you've now put her identity and her group on the line, which makes it for her a lot harder to say she's wrong or a lot harder to change her mind in front of everyone. And so in a less innocent context, you know, we're on Facebook and we're arguing about, you know, left versus right or whatever. And we start using labels, you know, the right wing or the left wing or the liberals or the conservatives or the Trump supporters or the never Trumpers. You know, and you can see this in Congress too. Once you've put yourself out there as part of one of these groups or someone has, you know, labeled you as part of one of these groups, it's very hard to be nuanced about your opinions or to change your mind or to admit that you've learned. something because then you will be called out you'll be used as a you know as kind of a sacrificial animal by either side either your own group saying how dare you break ranks and you know and add some validity to those other people or the other people will say see look at these losers you know this person sucks basically because look they they flip-flopped or they can't change their mind and so we use this as a

weapon that's the nefarious context but but that core of of the answer is that too often when we're talking about ideas, we're really actually having a war of identity and trying to preserve our sense of identity and the validity of who we are. And that distorts our thinking. What's the, I know the solution is probably complex and not simple and it could take forever. But I'm curious if there is a woman listening who has had that happen to her. And the way you explained it actually helped me from my perspective thinking, oh, that makes so much. more sense. Like I didn't even think of it that deeply of the position you're potentially putting a person in when it also made me feel a little bit of privilege, right? Because I can say stuff

and be wrong. It's no big deal. Or I can change my mind, right? Because I'm usually in the majority, and that's the way it is. And I think... Or you're the boss. Or the boss, right? And they're like, yes, sir. That's right. Yes. And I think that is helpful to build, to create perspective. So what what are some solutions or what are some ways people could, I guess, make this better at their place of work or even maybe in the social media world because a lot of people are spending time there. What are some things people could do? Yeah.

So a few things. I think if you are in a position of power, part of it is the way that you set the table. And, you know, you've alluded to this already. I believe in this is what a lot of what we talked about in our last. episode actually, you know, about cognitive diversity and about dream teams. The foundation of teams that make breakthroughs is that they think differently and they can combine those different ways of thinking. So, you know, part of it is inviting people with different perspectives to the table when you're having conversations, debates, when you're trying to come up with new ideas

or solve problems, being deliberate about who you include, I think that part is important. And then if you are in a position of power or if you're someone who has influenced or even just a participant really, but it's especially important if you're in a position of power. The way that you invite people to contribute their opinion, you know, one is just don't invoke the identity. You can say, you know, Janet, do you have a unique perspective on this? You know, what's your perspective rather than, you know, then calling out the group that she may represent? Because there may be a lot of things that you can't see that lend her to, you know, her life story will give her a different perspective on things and by not attaching it to identity, sort of starting that.

habit, I think is really good. I think also as a leader or someone with a position of influence, starting when you're expressing an opinion, you know, especially in a debate setting, leaving room for everyone to change their mind by saying, I could be wrong, but here's my hypothesis. Like there's little verbal things that you can do that make it so that it's safe for other people to be wrong or to change their mind as well. Also, I mean, I kind of said two things there, rather than saying, I think or I believe or I feel, which is I think actually usually a really bad one, because you don't, often people in business, they say, I feel that we should do X when really they think that they should do X, but feel makes it actually more attached to their, their sense of being, which is pretty bad. But instead saying my theory is, my hypothesis is that's still, you know, acting from a place of confidence, but it's also allowing a more sort of scientific, like, discussion rather than having it be a referendum on you if you say I believe or I think. Things like

that help a lot. I think if you have been called on to contribute and someone has invoked identity, you know, you now have two motivations. Your motivation is to contribute, but your motivation is also not to reflect negatively in any way on your, you know, the group that you represent. So if you're specifically called on there, I think that, you know, that's a trickier position to be put in, And I think all these things that I just said still are true, expressing things in a way that both have confidence and leave room for change, I think is important saying, well, my hypothesis is this. You could, if you're put in that position where it's like, you know, on behalf of the product team and you're all going to be fired or we're all going to look down on you, if you're wrong, what do you think? you know, you can reframe things of, you know, express your opinion, but explain where your opinion comes from the story of why I think this or why my hypothesis is, is this thing and this

data and this story rather than the sort of collective identity that I'm representing. This is where there's this instinct that people often have on both sides of this sort of equation to put down a trump card like, you know, well, I have 30 years of experience. So this is what I think. That's kind of a fallacy. It's not necessarily connected. The 30 years of experience can inform, you know, what you're doing, but it doesn't make you right. Well, anytime you also would say that, immediately it's going to kind of raise some alarm bells in most people's mind.

I think if you have to invoke that type of language, like, hey, I'm right. you're probably wrong or I'm definitely right. You're definitely wrong. You're trying to validate yourself, not your idea, right? It's really what's going on there. And I think, yeah. I need to play devil's advocate because I think that's partially for the person who's, you know, on the elliptical right now listening and they're saying, well, wait a minute,

Shane. Like I want and also kind of kind of give some perspective. Like you've led, you know, you started and led contently, which we can talk about in a second because you've had to actually put this into play from a practical sense. you're not just writing about it. You were doing it. But what about the person who's saying, Shane, I want a strong and decisive leader. I don't want someone who's going to say, I don't know.

I may be wrong here. But like, what do you think to that person who's making that comment right now? Yeah. I mean, I appreciate the comment. I think it's a very valid question. I think that they're not mutually exclusive. that strength and flexibility should not have to be in conflict. They often are.

Well, and this is where I think my second answer to your question of why this is, comes back to, I think, a sort of myth in society that we tend to lionize the stoic leader, the leader who can stand up and withstand the arrows and the bullets and never back down and never yield. And part of this is, you know, evolutionary biology tells us that we wanted leaders who could do that, right? Who could be the first in the battle, who could be brave and who could endure and take the hits. And now we tend to want sort of the intellectual version of that, the leader who knows everything so that we can follow them and be convinced that they're right.

And part of the problem is that that's a fallacy. It doesn't actually tend to lead to the best ideas winning out or the best path forward. If you're really strong and stoic, but you're going the wrong direction, that's extremely negative. So, you know, there's benefits of a stoic mindset and of stoicism and endurance and, you know, temperance is a, is a virtue for a reason, but not conflating that with inflexibility. So I, there's a couple examples from history that I think lay out how these two things can coexist as flexibility and strength. The first is, you know, Ben Franklin wrote about in his personal writings about how he used this kind of idea of leaving room for change in a way that still made him strong.

And he did it because he knew that his ego was pretty big. And he knew that he was usually smarter than whoever he was dealing with. And so what he would do is when he knew that he was having a discussion and what he was an opinion, even though it was a very well-informed, very strong opinion, opinion, he would tend to use little phrases to make people less defensive, but to also make it clear that he thought that changing his mind could be a strength. However, he was only going to do so based on evidence and logic, not based on, you know, whoever was loudest or cared most or whatever it was. And so he, you know, some of his verbal tricks were starting out by saying, I could be

wrong, but then being very strong in his argument. But sometimes he would just say things, in a way that left the door open. So instead of saying always or certainly or absolutely and making people get defensive, he would just leave those adjectives out. He'd say that, you know, the research says this or this, you know, anecdote that I learned says this or I had this happen to me and this is what happened without saying, and that's always true. And there's a little bit of the kind of the improv comedy advice of yes and in there.

when someone would say, well, what about this? He would then try to incorporate that new information into his argument. And if it didn't work, it didn't work. That's part of it. But one of my favorite stories about this is more recent history. Elon Musk is, you know, widely regarded as one of the great business thinkers and leaders of our time, right? A hundred years from now, if someone's going to be remembered from our time, it might just be Elon Musk. And I have a friend who worked for him who saw this.

pattern over and over again of Elon Musk's ability as a leader to persuade people to walk on nails and walk across hot coals and put in a hundred hour weeks and then about face when he learned that they needed to do something else. And the story, roughly, I'll get some of the details wrong, but the story roughly is that my friend knew a guy who was working on essentially some sort of motor component of a satellite that they were going to use at SpaceX. And he's working on it for the better part of a year. You know, and he'd been persuaded that this was super important. You know, he probably left a good job at NASA, and he's working on this thing.

And my friend said that he watched Elon Musk walk up to this guy one day and say, hey, look, I realized that we shouldn't be doing this anymore. This is, you know, we're calling this particular satellite project off, and I need you to work on this other thing that's crucial to the mission. And then he walked away, and, you know, and I don't know exactly what the day is. delivery it was like, but my friend said that he saw this guy kind of like his shoulders slump and his face kind of fall for a minute as he realized that what he'd been working on for nine or ten months for a hundred hour weeks, now is just going in the garbage. But then he said

that he watched this guy rather than quit his job and say, F, this guy, actually go along with the next project. And he chalked that up to Elon Musk's incredible purpose-based leadership. And I think a lot has been written and said about this, but when you're working for SpaceX, your mission is to make human life multi-planetary. To make it so that humans survive if, God forbid, something happens on this planet. You know, they're trying to colonize Mars. And that purpose is so much more important than one satellite motor or than one rocket or whatever else. And that's why they've been able to go through so many setbacks and continue to have supporters and investors and brilliant people working for them. But that's also part of how Elon Musk gets people to change because the strength is in his vision and in his purpose and his ability to articulate that.

So the way that you, the path that you meander on to get to there is less important. And he's not seen as a weak leader for changing his mind. He's seen as strong, actually, for being willing to do the hard thing of saying we got to cut our losses on this front so we can still get to where we're going. I think that is the crux of the equation that maps these two things. that's worried about wanting to be strong, it's focusing on that purpose and being strong and stubborn in where you're trying to go, but being flexible and how you get there. I feel like you're describing committed organizations. And one of the sayings have been ruminating on and writing about, and it will show up in my book coming out, is that compliance

can be commanded, but commitment cannot. And what I mean by that is, You can be forced to comply by a boss because you have a job and you work for them. And you want to continue having that job for the time being because for whatever reason, maybe you just need the money to pay for your expenses. But nobody can force you to commit to something. Commitment is earned by excellent leadership. Commitment is earned by people who are constantly working on building their skills and earning that respect the right way.

And so if you had to think about all of the research you've been doing and the work that you're putting out now that we're going to start getting into now, and the fact that there are compliant organizations and compliant teams, right? You stick around just until you find something better because you will comply for whatever reasons, usually monetarily. You'll comply, but you're never really committed versus those organizations and teams and leaders that we commit to. because we're in. We buy in like the guy building for SpaceX, right? He's committed. And that's how he's able to come back.

And Elon has built that with that team. What are your thoughts on the difference between compliant and committed organizations and how we can strive to use some of what you've learned recently to build that type of organization? Well, I really like that dichotomy. What comes to mind is I have a little chart that I've drawn. it's a Venn diagram that explains the difference between a cult and a culture. And if you think about a strong culture and a cult, they both have something in common that makes both groups extremely unified. And they both have some things not in common.

So the center of the Venn diagram between cult and culture is a strong devotion to a shared something. And that something can be a person, a cult of personality. it can be a cause or a purpose. It could be anything, really, as long as it's strong enough that people are devoted to that thing. Often it really is a person. I'm reading a book right now about Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world,

and it's fascinating how many things he was able to upend in the world and in society because he got people to be so devoted to him, like whatever he wanted them to do, they would do. But you can think of, you know, say, great religions throughout history or great, you know, businesses that have been around for a long time that stand for something and the people are devoted to that thing that it stands for.

The difference between a cult and a culture, I think, is in a cult, you are required to act and think a certain way in order to belong, whereas in a culture, you are asked to contribute in order to belong. And either way, you're contributing towards that purpose, but in a culture, I think it's more liberating, and I think there's more innovation potential because you have different people contributing different things and they're not being asked to or forced to

to fit a certain way of thinking or acting as long as they care about the shared devotion. So what I think, how this maps to your question, I think a lot of times in business, we've heard that cult-like cultures are very unified and people that kind of act and think the same and fit

will be more unified and easier to manage. And in that, we lose some innovation potential because if people are being asked to think and act a certain way, they won't contribute in the way that you need in order to make breakthroughs. But what I think often happens is we have the cult without the devotion. And in some case, we have the culture without the devotion. I'd say that's a little more rare. But if people really aren't dedicated to some higher thing, either to the boss that they, you know,

they'll follow through those hot coals for. or to the mission and the purpose, but then they're also being asked to dress a certain way, act a certain way, speak a certain way, think a certain way. That's awful. That's a recipe for cutting corners. So I think about that as the primary sort of format from which to view this kind of situation.

The reality is, though, is I think a lot of times we belong to groups or teams where the shared purpose or whatever is not our highest priority. in our lives. And that's when I think things get tricky. And because of that, right, if you're making widgets on an assembly line, you don't care about the widgets and you don't care about whatever purpose they're being used for and you're being asked to conform and meet compliant, you're going to be less happy. You're going to be less productive. You're going to be more likely to turn over,

to leave, to go somewhere else. And yet, that compliance is kind of the only thing that the bosses have to keep you there during your job. I think a really, real key part of leadership is understanding, taking the time to get to know and understand what your teammates' superordinate goals are. And any of us have a list of priorities and goals in our lives. For me, you know, my family, my friends, and the causes I care about, and then work, you know, that sort of thing. Like, we all have a list of those goals, understanding what really matters to your people and making sure that what you're asking them to do to be devoted to does not conflict with those things

that actually can help them add up to those things. And a lot of research on company cultures, high performance cultures, talks about how if someone can tie the work they're doing to a higher purpose, whether it's for the company or whether it's for themselves, their family,

like I'm making these widgets on the assembly line because it's helping me put my kids through school because that's my top priority. If your boss understands that and frames what they want you to do, in that context and not in kind of a threatening way, but in a caring way, that goes a long way. But I do think part of this committed versus compliant question does boil down to, are you asking them to be compliant on the level of behaviors and thinking?

Are you allowing them to have some freedom to think the way that they want to propose new ideas, to work the way that you want so long as you are more compliant or rather committed to the bigger picture. Since Dream Teams has come out, Shane, you have done an immense amount of research, including a 40,000 person research study, which I believe is the largest in the world on this subject, which is about intellectual humility and ego. And part of that is an assessment, which I have taken. I do want to get to it.

But at first, I'd like you, if possible, to share in the year plus since Dream Teams has come out why this doing this research was important to you and some of the initial key learnings before I share some of the results of my assessment. Yeah. So thank you. So the two biggest questions I get from readers of dream teams or when I go speak at corporate events, two biggest questions are one, how do I develop intellectual humility and myself or others? The last two chapters of the book deal with intellectual humility. And so people, you know, they want to know, how can I get better at this? And the second question is, what if I'm not in a position of power? So I, you know, I'd like to make my team better. I'd like to do better with cognitive diversity

and, you know, and debate and intellectual humility, but I have no power. So those have been the two questions I've been focusing on in my research over the last year and a half since the book came out. And in a way, they kind of actually boil down to the same thing. You know, if the person in a position of power is not willing to hear out new ideas or willing to change the way that they do things, it's a function of a lack of intellectual humility. So the big thing, though, is it's really only been about two and a half years since psychologists have been able to reliably measure intellectual humility. So that test that you took is the standard test used, that was developed by some professors at Pepperdine University standard test for self-assessing your intellectual humility. And then I added some other

questions to that because I'm conducting my own studies looking for correlations and and some kinds of interventions that we can do. But originally I ran a small study using this test. And now, as you mentioned, I've run a much bigger one. And what I've found is that there's one area that most people have a problem with. And we've already talked about it. It's the ego area. But just for a little bit of context, intellectual humility breaks down in this test into four things that kind of add up to each other. The first is respect for other viewpoints, which I kind of like to define as being willing to be curious, listen to, and explore other viewpoints before casting a judgment. It doesn't mean having to agree with every viewpoint, but it's actually hearing

people out. And this is where a lot of, you know, what we're talking about with society really breaks down is people won't even listen to you if you're on the other side. Or you said something that they don't like or you made a mistake at one point so you can never speak again. That is, you know, just stops intellectual humility in its tracks. You can always learn something from someone, even if you don't agree with them, you can learn from their perspective. So that first thing is respect. The second is letting go of your overconfidence.

This one's really hard. This is the second biggest problem that people tend to have, according to this big study. Most people have a little bit of an overconfidence problem, and it's correlated. with how smart you are, and also with how successful you are. So if you're a really smart person, if you've been successful, you've solved problems, you've climbed the ladder, you are more likely to be overconfident in your own intelligence than someone who is not so successful. And part of this is just human nature with patterns.

And it's something called cognitive entrenchment, which is the trap that we get into. If you solve a problem, you make a breakthrough, you come up with a great idea, the more it's reinforced that that was great, and the more it works for you, the more likely it is that you won't be able to see another way of solving that problem. So real quick, on my test, I'll give some of the answers now. That lack of intellectual overconfidence, I scored 0.7, which was my lowest score. What does that mean about me? You're a little below average, is what it means.

I'm a low average in relation to like, I'll share that there's scores to all the other ones as well. But given that, it's funny, like, whenever you send an email out, you, or do anything, you look at like who unsubscribe or you look at like the worst part of it instead of focusing on the best part. You know, and I'll tell you the best part too. But for now, this one is my lowest score. So what does that, what does that mean? I mean, it means that you're probably smart. It means that you probably feel pretty confident in your success and that you are very well read and well learned. So you are going to your default mode, I mean, 0.7 is not terrible, but I think the average is 0.75, something like that.

Yeah. Maybe it's 0.8. I forget which one it is on that one. Oh, well, it says on average each one is 0.75. Okay. Yeah. So it means that it's not like you would never. change your mind because obviously you dedicate yourself to learning but you know most people are surprised on on some of these uh these factors that they're like well i know that humility is important

and i i learn a lot and i am you know i try to have a growth mindset and yet basically how it manifests is in some areas where you don't know everything right like your non areas of expertise you who as a lifelong learner are going to be more likely to not be confident in your knowledge and you're going to be more likely to want to learn. But in areas where you think that you have things down, it's going to be a little more painful to admit that you are not an expert or that the world changes and there's an update to our knowledge. You know, the Earth no longer revolves around the sun, you know, something else, whatever it is. Like it's really hard for, you know, the astronomers to grok that versus regular people from whom that was never an area of expertise.

So that's kind of how that one works. And it, like I said, is very situationally dependent. Some areas of your life, you'll have a harder time with that than others. The cool news is even just taking this test and seeing that number will instantly help you boost that. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to derail you, but I'll share the top one too. And I think it's because we're just getting personally. I'm certainly willing to share exactly kind of my scores.

and maybe you can talk about yours and not only what our scores, but like what that means. And I'm going to encourage everyone to take this test so you can learn about yourself. But I believe the next one is separating your ego from your intellect. Yeah, this is one that everyone does bad on, or not everyone, but like the average for this one is way worse than I expected. And this is the area where I have the hardest time. I think that I have a fair amount of shame when I'm proven wrong about something or when I realize that I've been talking about something in the wrong way, and that shame is my ego's kind of way of trying to stop me from changing my mind.

It's like that's the monster that's trying to, I don't know, protect me, but instead it's eating me. But the separation of ego from intellect, it's this too tight of a connection between what we think and who we are. and if you feel more threatened at that visceral level when you are and when you encounter information that contradicts your point of view, you will have a harder time changing your mind about things. You'll have a harder time doing those. All these things are connected, right? Like you'll have a harder time listening to a point of view that threatens your identity or threatens your sense of stability.

and some people, you know, wise people that are, again, lifelong learners, but I think of, you know, my grandfather before he passed away, one of the most wise people I know. And I think probably a lot of that is a function of age. He's been through a lot of things. He's seen so many perspectives. He's been wrong so many times that it's not so personal when he has to change his mind. And, you know, that I do think comes with age and time and experience and practice. But yeah, this Separation of ego from intellect is the biggest one that the majority of people have a problem with. I'm guessing that you scored a little bit better on that. 0.76, like average.

Yeah. Yeah. So that email, I'm going to have to look at it again. Now that you're saying that the average for all of them is 0.75, that's probably the benchmark from the original smaller study. I know that in my 40,000 person one, it's way less than that. Gotcha.

Well, I think it just says this is the average person scores around 0.75 on each. of the factors. Don't worry if you scored lower than this. I scored, meaning you, I scored extremely low on the ego factor myself. Yeah. Okay. And then so the next one is being open to revising your viewpoints, which I scored the highest on this for me. Point nine two. So what that means, and this one's an interesting one because it's in the test, it kind of talks in a little bit of generics, right? If someone, if you're convinced, if you're shown new information, that means you need to change your mind, will you? That sort of thing.

I forget the exact questions. In certain contexts, that question is much harder, just like the overconfidence thing. However, being able to say that you have a willingness to change your mind is really important because some people actually have a much harder time being willing to say that. But I would say that is a reflection of your personal mission of being, you know, of sustainable leadership and being a lifelong learner. that you see changing your mind not as a weakness, but actually as a strength, revising your viewpoint when you should.

So the thing is, though, if you, the overconfidence thing, if that is a little lower, that will actually get in the way of you changing your mind. You just won't know it if it happens to be an area where you feel very confident because you have learned a lot. You probably have an easier time changing your mind than most people on things that are outside of your wheelhouse where most people generally have a little bit of a hard time changing their minds on things, even if they're not experts. So that's the way that that would kind of break down. I think, you know, I was happy with this score, particularly because this is the type

of leader I strive to be. And it's a type of leader that I want to be around, the one that has enough confidence and security in oneself to change their mind when better. evidence arises and with sound reasoning behind it. I just, I just think this is a, a skill that I really admire in people that I've been lucky to have mentor me or that I've spent time around where they can carefully kind of take in the information, synthesize it, and then realize that perhaps they were wrong.

And not, not in a malicious way, they were wrong just because that was, that's what they believed, because they felt like they'd done all the work. And then they found evidence. I use the word evidence. I think that's a proxy.

It could be for other words you use, but evidence to just to tell them why they're, they were wrong and now there's a, there's a better way. And I think, and I forget, I think a number of people have said this online, but we're all trying to be just less wrong. And I think that's a good kind of way to operate is like I, I kind of am always under the assumption that I'm wrong. I'm just trying to be less, more less wrong every day. As weird as that sounds.

I think you get what I'm saying. I do. Having this kind of assumption about everything is that I can be decisive. I can tell you what I think, but I also have a caveat that I may change my mind. In fact, there's a good chance I will because I'm going to continue having these curiosity conversations with really smart people like Shane Snow. And if he provides me with more sound reason and evidence, then I will evolve. And I think that's a healthy thing in a person.

I think that's, yeah, that's awesome. I, you know, when you talk about mentors who have exhibited that, you know, one of the behaviors of someone who has a lot of that, of intellectual humility in general, but specifically that component is they're able to separate opinions and logic and separate feelings and thoughts. How many times have you had, you know, a discussion with someone, I feel like this has happened so many times at work where you're like, okay, we did the test. This is the result. And the person is like, yeah, well, I still feel like this way is right. right right yeah it's like if like getting out of that trap right and i think some of the people who i think are the smartest who i respect the most are the ones who they are basing they they can recognize it's not like they're emotionally dead they're actually very emotionally intelligent they can recognize how they feel and when that is in conflict with what evidence shows and they can act accordingly rather than letting how they feel drive how they

justify what they think. And I mean, that, I think, is a lifelong pursuit. Yeah. Okay, so the last one's openness to new experiences. I scored 0.8, by the way. Yeah, so that one is, it's actually from the Big Five personality test. So that's a, it's not part of the intellectual humility thing, but I see it as a very related skill or personality trait.

So openness to new experiences is basically, will you try the pickle flavored ice cream or will you go travel to the, you know, the place you've never been to? What is your openness to explore? And this is a little different than intellectual humility, but I like it as a fifth factor because you could be totally willing to change your mind. But if you never try something new, if you never hear something new, then you won't have the opportunity to change your mind. So the more adventurous you are intellectually, you know, the more opportunities you have

to exercise intellectual humility and therefore to learn, some people have no intellectual humility, they will never change their mind. You can probably, anyone listening to this probably knows people in their lives. I'm thinking of one person in particular that I deal with a lot right now who will never change their mind. They will always find some weird twisted evidence to support their view that isn't really evidence, but also was willing to engage. You know, a lot of, I watch CNN sometimes when I'm traveling, I don't have cable, but, you know,

when I'm in a hotel, I'll flip on CNN. Sometimes these panels, they'll have on the person who, clearly has a very different viewpoint. It's like, what are they doing on CNN? Why are they engaging in this debate? And yet they're having the debate, and they will never change their mind. You know, that's a lot of openness to experience, but a very, you know, a lack of intellectual humility.

So having both those things, I think, is like the ultimate. And it sort of leads up to, so that's why I included it in my kind of mega study, but at least up to something cool that, you know, in the last year, I discovered a cool of connection. And again, another kind of systems thinking way of looking at it. I read this big old book about virtues and character strengths and kind of like what philosophers and positive psychologists all agree are universally good things. And, you know, so it's like kindness is agreed pretty much in every culture as a good thing.

Sometimes kindness has a moral dilemma with justice or, you know, something else, but kindness is always good. So I was reading this absurd manual. on these moral virtues, and the way that it turns out philosophers and positive psychologists define wisdom actually is kind of a combination of all these things and made me really happy. So basically, they say that someone who has a lot of wisdom is someone who can look at things from different points of view. They have perspective, and this is where often it is like that wise grandma on the rocking chair. She, like, sits and thinks about the different points of view before she responds.

Someone who loves learning, someone who is creative, in that they like to think about things in new ways and someone who is able to judge things in light of new information and change their mind. And I think that's kind of like intellectual humility and openness to experience rolled in one. So I like that as a, you know, as a definition of wisdom really being not just willingness to revise your viewpoint, but also willingness to explore. How do we make this practical, Shane? So I like to from time to time point this. directly towards the person who is working at a big company in a mid-level management role. So anywhere from frontline manager to SVP of product or sales or marketing.

And so they're grinding it out day after day, leading a team. They got really aggressive goals thrust upon them from the people above them. And they're trying to exceed those goals. And this person in this management role is hiring and firing and trying to build a great culture. and wants to have intellectual humility to be part of it. And let's say that person and you are sitting down in a coffee shop and they're ashamed, man, I'm really struggling. I'm having turnover issues. And I don't feel like the culture is where I had thought it would be based upon all of the learning that I have done.

And what are some general pieces? Because, I mean, you've, like I said, you've run, you started contently. You've ran that business as its leader. And since exited and are doing other things now. But what are some pieces of advice you would give directly to that person that could be applicable immediately? Yeah, so a few things. One is research studies show that just learning about intellectual humility helps you to have more of it generally. And so I think that either the leader is sitting down with the employee or the employee themselves, if you're listening to this, take the intellectual humility test, get your report.

Even if you disagree with the results, doing that will help you. you to start to think of intellectual humility as a strength. And then I think starting to, in your daily interactions, frame changing your mind or being willing to change your mind as a strength. And especially if you're in a position of power, start to reward people based on their contribution and based on their willingness to do this rather than just on based on being right. If you have the power to give someone a promotion and you're always promoting whoever comes up with the right answer and never promoting whoever is helping push the ball forward or whoever changes their mind, that's not going to reinforce it. But it also doesn't have to be even promotion.

It can be in praising, you know, those micro opportunities you can take to thank someone or to praise someone for having the courage to have intellectual humility. That's one. And it's sort of like a general thing. A few others that I would say. So I've just launched a, a online training program called Snow Academy, that the very first course is about teamwork and intellectual humility is one of the modules. So in that, I've created a bunch of exercises for practicing certain habits. And a couple of them are for free on my website, and some of them you have to take the course for. But there's certain habits you can practice for recognizing, for example, thinking versus feeling. And you can take that exercise, but the general gist of it is practice,

instead of saying, I feel, say I think. Only say I feel when you're actually expressing a feeling. So separating that in just your language. And now we colloquially, it's okay to say, I feel like the traffic light is going to change soon. You don't feel that. You think that. If you just say, I think rather than I feel and you make that a habit, that goes a long way because for you, framing things in terms of I feel can start to get your ego involved. It's a psychological priming thing. But it's also, it's kind of like a crappy move to put on people when you're having a debate to start talking about how you feel because you can't argue with how someone feels. If you're like, I feel sad, you can't argue with that. But if you say, I feel like my plan is right, it's also harder to argue with that because now we're no longer dealing with logic. Now your intellectual humility is starting to go out the window because it's a referendum on you and whether your feelings are valid.

So practicing that as a habit, for example. Another one that I really like, that's one of these exercises. is separating facts from your stories about facts and actually using that specific phrasing when you speak. So what I mean by that is there's a difference between a cold, hard fact that could be measured by a computer or camera or whatever it is and your interpretation of that fact. So I could say fact, Ryan has a deeper voice than me. My story about that fact is that Ryan is taking human growth hormone and used to have

squeaky voice. That might not be true. I could be right about that, but I could be wrong. That is not true. Okay. But we do this all the time where we'll say, Joe is mad. The fact is Joe is frowning. My story is Joe is mad. So maybe rather than jumping to the conclusion that your story is right, maybe ask Joe, you could even say, hey, Joe, I notice you're frowning. Are you mad? Or, you know, I I think in a lot of, like I'm trying to think of an example off the top of my head that might work in a debate. You know, the fact is that when this kind of tax goes up, this kind of investment goes down. My story is the reason for that is whatever, but I can't jump to the conclusion that this

is bad or this is good or whatever. Man, that's not a great example off the top of my head. But even just saying that, my story is this, so that it leaves people. with the impression that you're expressing an opinion and an interpretation, not a fact when it's not a fact. So those kinds of exercises like the ones that I have, those kinds of habits can really help. But my favorite, I think, for developing more intellectual humility. It was a little more fun than that. The smaller study I did started to get at this conclusion, but the big study I did really show the effect is very big,

that people who spend a lot of time among cultures that are not their own tend to develop more respect for other viewpoints. And people that learn a second language tend to develop more of a lack of intellectual overconfidence. People that live or travel to a lot of places, live in a lot of places or travel to a lot of places will tend to have more of a willingness to change their minds about things. And the virtual version of this is true, too. Not just traveling, not just spending time in other cultures, but actually reading, reading fiction and reading nonfiction, too. It turns out not reading news. Turns out the reading news is not correlated at all with changing your mind, but reading books, reading fiction helps us to put ourselves in the shoes of people who are not

like us, which trains our brains slowly to see the way that other people think as potentially valid. So my advice would be take some time to go on vacation and don't just go see the pyramids in a tour group in a giant bus Get an apartment in a regular neighborhood in Cairo and live there for three weeks That will do wonders for your ability to start to develop intellectual humility The other thing that's cool is this ties into the neuroscience of learning as well If you want to practice something including say things that help you with intellectual humility practicing learning something in different contexts helps you learn faster and helps the information stick more. So if you're sitting in school all day and you're learning math, you're going to learn

at a certain pace. But if you learn that math at school and then you go learn that math at your grandma's house or you go learn that math in Egypt, it will stick more in your brain. So learning is accelerated when we rehearse and practice and exercise in different locations and context. So give yourself permission to take a little vacation and then take the intellectual ability test or maybe then go over this stuff, then read some things that you want to explore and maybe change your mind about. It's no coincidence that a lot of the great stories of leaders in history who have had big epiphanies happened when they were traveling, when they were on the mountain or when they went to, you know, in Dream Teams, I talk about Malcolm X changing his mind when he went to Mecca.

That is the biggest and most fun way for us. to develop this. A few things I took from that. So one, travel. There's an importance of it. I remember at dinner, that was a big part of our conversation was you sharing these incredible destinations that I would have never thought to travel to like Columbia and other places that you've spent a great deal of time.

So travel to. And I think this one's really important for leaders especially. Words matter. Think about what you. you're saying and what you're writing in that next email, your words have a lot of weight. Be thoughtful and intentional about what you're saying and what you're writing to your team. They have an impact. So when you're when you're when you're speaking, know the difference between I feel and I think.

Words matter. And third, and I like to ask you Shane, have you and I again, don't like to speak in absolutes, but have you ever met a person who reads a lot that isn't really interesting? Ever? No. I cannot think of one. No. I've met.

I, if I, if when I learn that they've, they read a lot, whether it's fiction or nonfiction or science, it doesn't matter. If when I've never met a person who reads a lot that isn't extraordinarily interesting and someone that I want to continually speak with and learn from and talk to again. and have lunch with a second time or dinner again if they're well read. It's just because you know the next time you're going to talk to them, they're going to be smarter. They're going to be more interesting. And I think so that's another really, it's there for all of us to do.

It's so easy, especially us privileged ones here in the United States, to get books and read them, whether you go to the library for free or you buy them to support the authors, it just read books. Yeah, you know, I have a hypothesis I'm working on based on this research. So I was surprised that there's such a clear indicator that reading books is good for intellectual humility. For reading news makes no difference. And my theory is that it's because it's easier for you to publicly change your mind if you said you read it in a book than if you said you read it in an article online, that books have an amount of authority, I think, culturally, that a lot of other media does not. and it's also kind of proof that you've made an investment into learning that that's different and more powerful than, you know, just skimming the internet. So I think there's, that's my theory.

It, you know, it might not be the reason why there's a correlation there. Maybe there's something else. But I think that for me, as someone who loves reading and loves books, it gives me yet another excuse to bring a book on vacation with me, to have a book by my night stand. And you're totally right. I used to go to a lot of marketing, conferences when I was running contently. And I remember, you know, they're fine. Some are better than others. But I remember going with one of my VPs to a like publisher and author conference.

And both of us saying, wow, this is so much more fascinating of a cocktail crowd because everyone here has these amazing stories. And then, you know, just, you know, pitching their thing or talking about marketing. And some of that's a function of what the, you know, the theme was. But I think you're right that it's hard. to find someone who reads a lot, who doesn't have something really cool to teach you. Exactly. Shane, you know, I could talk to you forever.

I love this, man. Where would you send – so one, I want to send them to the assessment, but there may be other parts too. But where would you send my listeners to dig in more online? Well, if you want to do the practice stuff, snow. com is my website for that course. And then if you want to take the test directly, it's Shane Snow.com. slash IH, IH for intellectual humility. And then if you just back up to shanstone.com, you can get kind of anything that I've ever

written or talked about. It's all there. I'll link to it in the show notes at learning leader.com, but I remember when your article on intellectual humility came out. It's a big one, but I love the thoughtful long-form pieces, just like I love long-form conversation. And I put it in my Mindful Monday email. And I remember I think you replied to that one, which was cool, that I, that I

think this is it's very useful so i will link to that which then also shows you how to take the assessment but uh Shane as always man love our chats i want to continue having them i know we will uh i certainly am appreciative of uh your friendship and uh you sharing the knowledge as always man well thank you likewise i i love talking about this stuff and um i guess on theme with what you do i love learning i love learning from the other guests too so thank you for letting me be a part of it awesome All right, man. Thanks. Shane is definitely one of those guys I could talk with for hours.

He always brings something new to the table. I've been fortunate to have a number of phone conversations with him in addition to the dinner we had in New York City. I find him to be full of wisdom and always willing to share. A few of the topics that we covered that I'm thinking about. First, take the intellectual humility assessment that Shane has created. I think you'll find it illuminating for yourself. and encourage others in your network to take it as well.

And then building a committed versus a compliant organization, understanding the difference between those two and how you can build a more committed team. And then simply read books. Shane mentioned it and we brought it up towards the end, but think about people in your life who read a lot of books. Without fail, they're some of the most interesting people in your sphere of influence. and those are the types we want to be around. So those are the types that we should want to be.

Read books. Once again, thank you so much for continuing to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. I would love it if you would continue to spread the word. Tell a friend, word of mouth marketing is as good as it gets when it comes to podcast. It's an honest review of saying, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leaders Show with Shane Snow. I think it will help you. Thank you so much. Once again, I will talk with you next week.

Can't wait. After five plus years, more than 350 interviews and much more vulnerability than I'm comfortable with, my book, Welcome to Management, is now available for pre-order. The foreword was written by legendary four-star general Stanley McChrystal. I am on an extremely ambitious mission to rid the world of bad, bosses and your support by buying my book helps make that a reality. We've put together a number of pre-order bonuses for you to take advantage of. Go to learningleader.com, opt in and pre-order my book, Welcome to Management, how to go from top performer to excellent leader. Go to

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