The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 409: Adam Bryant - How To Conduct A World Class Interview

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12 https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Adam Bryant interviewed more than 500 CEOs for "Corner Office," a series on leadership that he created in 2009. Adam is the author of three books based on the themes that have emerged from his interviews and consulting work. His new book is THE CEO Test: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders. Notes: Interview style - Instead of asking them about strategies and industry trends, Adam focuses on timeless questions (how they were influenced by parents, lessons from early years in their careers, what they look for when making bets on people to invest in) about the important leadership lessons that CEOs had learned… Some questions he likes to ask: How do you hire? What questions do you ask? Describe yourself in one word... Work to get around the polished façade What animal would you be and why? Tony Hsieh would ask, "On a scale of 1-10, how weird are you?" Some additional interviewing tactics: The CEO has the interviewee drive his or her car. Monitors how they react in a different vehicle, in a new city Sharing meals "Put the mosaic of what a person is like as a human being" -- not just interviewing for a job The Dinner Party game: "If you could only ask a job candidate one question, what would you ask?" Learn about failure - Id you desire humility, learn about their failures, learnings, and lessons of life Ownership - The 3 most beautiful words: "I'm on it." Every employee needs to write a playbook to how they'd do the job... They need to take ownership. If you were an animal, what would you be? Adam: "A Hawk. Hover at high altitude, when they figure out what they want, they go get it." Question: What qualities of your parents do you like the most and the least? Ask that if you really want to go deep -- This forces the candidate to get real. "We're fooling ourselves if we think we can escape our parents." Process to ask questions: Think, "I want to cut a record with you." -- Have the desire to make something new with the person. His premise at the New York Times: "What if I sat down with CEOs and never asked them about their companies?" Questions: What were you like as a kid? What were your parents like? How have your parents impacted your leadership style? What drives you? "I like to see them in the moment of learning about themselves." "Eye contact is the 5 G of communication." Two tracking - Know where to go next AND listen intently Sustaining Excellence: Feedback look must be strong - They must be open to it Recognize patterns Take action Learn new things Be self-aware Be humble Need to ask, "What does this moment need?" "What is the gooey center of that candy?" A leader needs to know that about their business. Life advice: "Play in traffic." You have to get out there and meet people and do things. Build relationships. Those help with the pivot points of your career and life. Always be prepared to learn the most important lesson of your life...

If you're a manager, the three most beautiful words in the English language are not, I love you. They're, I'm on it. And that's what you want somebody to say. I've got this. I'm going to own it. I'm going to figure it out. If I run into problems, I'm going to figure that out. And I'm only going to come to you if I really hit a wall.

And then there's some people who like that. And to me, that's like a dream quality. You know, we are in this era of there's so much disruption that every employee at some level has to write the playbook for how they do their job, not follow. the playbook. Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show presented by Rixie and Meyer. I am your host Ryan Hawk.

Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-2-2-2 in order to be part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders, were received my latest thoughts

and ideas as well as the most useful articles, books, videos to help you lead your team better. It's a carefully curated note I work hard on to send every single week. You also receive details on how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader. Text learners to 4422. Now on tonight's featured leader, it's Adam Bryant. He's written 525 columns for the New York Times titled The Corner Office where he interviews wildly effective CEOs to understand their leadership philosophies. He's also the author of a new book titled The CEO

Test, Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders. A few of the topics we discussed, Adam shares some of the most useful questions to ask when interviewing for a leader's leadership role on your team. And then a few of the leaders who stood out among the 525 he interviewed and how their pieces of advice could help you. And then how to become a better listener and why it's critical for leaders to better develop this skill. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Adam Bryant. Adam Bryant, I've been reading your work for six, seven years now. So, and I mentioned you before we started recording that I sent you a cold email six years ago that won unanswered.

And yet, here we are six years later. We're finally meeting. So it's good to have you here, man. Great to be here. Thanks for the invite. And I'm sure your email got caught in my spam filter because otherwise I would definitely respond to you. No, because I think I sent it to you before I'd even released a single episode. So it only took about 405 episodes for us to finally make it happen, which, hey, that's the way this goes, man.

You got to stay resilient. So I'm curious, Adam, you've interviewed more than 600 CEOs in your time. And people ask me this question because I've interviewed a lot of people too. And so I know it's hard, but I'm still going to ask it anyway. And that is, are there a few who really stood out? I don't know if I'd say the best of the best, but interviews that are just very memorable and people that are. And if so, could you share a few of those people and maybe why they stood out to you? Sure. It's a little bit like asking me to choose among my children, who's the favorite.

You know, I enjoyed them all and I learned something from every one of them. You know, I think one of the biggest surprises when I started a corner office back in 2009, you know, I'd say over the years, one of the biggest surprises were the answers to my simple question of how do you hire, what questions do you ask? And even, you know, 500 interviews into corner office, I was still hearing things I'd never heard before, which I think makes sense at some level, because if you're a CEO and you're interviewing people, by the time somebody gets to you, they've been coached and trained and scripted, they know all the right answers. So the CEOs had to come up with what I call bank shot questions. Like how do you get around the sort of polished facade? God to find out what people are really like in, you know, just a half hour interview. And so those are some of the biggest surprises there. You know, some of my favorite questions, like if you would describe yourself in just one word,

one word only, what would it be? If there were no animals on, no humans on the planet, only animals, what animal would you be? And why? And the why part of the question is just as important as the animal itself. And I've done that, you know, dinner parties and sessions over the years. is amazing how much you can learn about somebody just with that simple question. You know, Tony Shea, who died tragically recently from Zappos, I mean, he would ask questions like on a scale of 1 to 10, how weird are you? And he would also ask people, you know,

what's the biggest misperception that people have about you? And it turns out that's a trick question because once you answer Tony on the first part, then he looks at you just as he did with me and says, well, what's the difference between perception and misperception? because in this context, there is no such thing as misperception. You can't say, you know, a lot of people think I'm a jerk, but I'm actually a nice guy. No, if everybody thinks you're a jerk, then you're a jerk. But I also say, you know, another big surprise for me was, you know, every week I would do the interviews and publish them. And then I would get emails from readers on the Monday.

And what was so interesting to me is, you know, almost invariably I'd get an email from reader saying, you know, I've been reading the series from the start. That was the best one yet. And I was curious, like, why? And then 20 minutes later, Ryan, I'd be in the cafeteria and a colleague would come up to me and said, you know that guy yesterday? I didn't like that guy. And this would happen every single week.

And what I came to understand is that the interviews that I did were kind of like Worshack tests, like classic inkblots. And I came to realize that if I showed the same interview to 20 people, that I would get 20 different reactions. And it's interesting to sort of done. double click on that and say, well, why is that? And I think, you know, leadership, there's this kind of Venn diagram between like leadership and life, right? You know, part of leadership is like how to be a leader, but another part of leadership is, you know, how to be as kind of a person. Like there's the external game, like the playbook of leading, like how do you do the job?

And then there's the, like, how do you be as a person and how do you be as a leader? And I think those overlapping circles. And because with my interviews, I, you know, part of the what if that launched the series was, what if I sat down with CEOs and never asked them a single question about their companies? You know, that was sort of the idea because, you know, for very long time, CEOs have been interviewed kind of like football coaches, right? You know, sort of like, how are you going to win on Sunday? And why did you lose last Sunday, right? Like, you know, CEO intelligence was measured by stock price or something. And I said, what if we got away with that? away from that and just asked people questions about key leaderships they've learned over the course of their lives and how they think about teams and culture and hiring and all these kind of timeless questions.

And I think that gets into a lot more sort of personal values and who you are as a human being. And, you know, the interviews for me were kind of like, I mean, I was a manager for 14 years. There's kind of like free therapy sessions for me too. And you'd learn things. And it's also like, to me, it's like holding up a mirror to yourself. You know, another person who kind of says, this is my value system. This is how I lead and manage. And just personally, I'd be having these reactions like, yeah, I'm like that too.

Or, yeah, that's not how I approach it. And I did have this one experience. I interviewed this guy, Big Gordon, who's a venture capitalist Silicon Valley. And he was talking about how he leads. And it's just like, dude, you're my doppelganger. Like he literally articulated, you know, sort of, what I, how I roll and couldn't quite articulate as well as he did. So I think there is this kind of constant mirroring process, and I'm sure you find this with

your listeners, you know, that's part of the sort of endless fascination. There's this like, how do you lead people, but it's also about, you know, how are you as a human being? To me, I think listeners to this show have noticed over the years that the early stages of of the interviews were focused solely on leadership. And as I've grown and evolved and my interest have evolved and changed a bit, it's more about leading an excellent life. And that sounds to some people kind of woo-woo-ish. But in reality, though, I'm fascinated by how leaders, how performers, how people lead an excellent life. So we talk about personal things. We talk about being a good spouse, being a good mom or a dad and how as a leader, you don't really turn that switch on and off.

I've rarely seen an awesome dad be, or I'm sorry, an awesome leader at work be a really bad dad. Now, at times they have to manage balance and travel, and I get that part of it. But usually if they take that discipline in one area, it seems to apply in others as well. And so that's why I really resonate with your comment about leadership in life. there are so many carryovers and that Venn diagram has, I think, a huge intersection. Yeah, totally agree. And the nose, you know, there's kind of the endless dinner party game of what's the most important thing about leadership, right?

And everybody can fill in that sort of blank themselves. I mean, I would put at the top of it, trust. I think it, you know, trust is one of those kind of lizard brain emotions. You just get a sense of somebody, whether they're trustworthy or not. and that really gets to the core of what you were just talking about as a human being. And I completely agree with you about how you are, you know, in one aspect of your life. I love that expression about how you do anything is how you do everything. You know, you can just watch somebody the way they like chop vegetables or drive a car and, you know,

you kind of learn a lot about them from all these little things. And usually it's pretty consistent across their life. I had a job interview earlier in my career when I was going for a big leadership job. Adam and the the two people who were interviewing me, an SVP and one of his VPs, they flew into town where I live in Dayton, Ohio here. And they said, you need to come pick us up and then take us to the restaurant. And the path made no sense because we could have, they could have met me there and all these things. And they said, and I later learned from part of the process was they wanted to see what I was like walking into the hotel room. Hey, guys, here's my car. They measured how clean my car.

was they measured how I parked my car they let me walk into the the restaurant and say we need a table for three they actually had me choose the restaurant I mean so much of it and to them all of that was it was a frame of can this guy take control the team can he own a room all of these little executive presence type qualities that they value it doesn't mean that it was the right values but that they value that they valued that I thought wow it just made me be more purposeful and intentional about basically everything because I realized that these are important to people. And I would imagine that you've probably picked up on that as well. So I'm curious when you hear that, what do you think of with all of the leaders that you've talked to? Well, you know, your story reminds me of a few

similar ones that I heard from CEOs. One guy, you know, if he has a job candidate in town, they walk out to the parking lot to go drive to lunch in his car, the CEO's car. He tosses his keys to the job candidate and says you drive like strange city new car to see how they react um another CEO will meet uh somebody for breakfast at this restaurant and he does this sort of standard thing the staff knows this where he tells the waiter to mess up the order to mess up the order right see how the person reacts you know and then you go to your day of interviews at the office and they announce when you get there it's like well the schedule has been rearranged and just to see how people react. So, you know, to me, I kind of think of them like poker tells, like it's those little things. And,

you know, so many people say you can learn a lot just by, you know, having a meal with somebody, like how they treat, you know, the servers and the people are clearing the plates and as somebody who, you know, started early in restaurants, including as a dishwasher, I totally get that. You know, with who was it? Was Abraham Lincoln says, you know, judge a man by how he treats those who serve him? And I think that's really true. Do you think, though, that's, there's some gamesmanship there that maybe people take it too far or there are some listening who say, come on, do we really have to go through this charade or the other end of it is, no, all these little things, this how you do anything is how you do everything is really important.

I think it's totally valid. I mean, it's probably dangerous to say, you know, oh, I noticed they use the wrong fork with their salad, therefore I'm not going to hire them, right? Like you don't want to focus too much on the little things, but I do think as you're trying to put together the mosaic of what somebody's like as a human being to get them out of the context of, you know, just the conference room or something. You know, I heard a story from somebody else where, you know, the candidate shows up and then they park them in a conference room and this person comes in and starts like moving chairs, like out or in or something, like doing this stuff

just to see how long it takes the person to say, can I help you? you know, and another CEO I interviewed, she will sort of crumple up a piece of paper in front of her desks and just leave it on the floor in front of her desk to see, like, does the person pick it up on the way in? You know, all these little things. So I just find it endlessly fascinating. You know, I've been playing this running dinner party game, not over dinner, but during my interviews with CEOs where it goes like this, if you could only ask a job candidate one question in the job interview and depending on their answer, decide whether to hire them or not. And again, it's totally unfair, totally unrealistic,

but I think it's a good discipline. And it's also just sort of fascinating. Like you find out, like what really matters to people. And, you know, so. Do you have an answer for that question? I just wrote that down. Is that something I'm going to ask? I'm fascinated by. I immediately start thinking of the question that I would ask, and I'm not sure yet. Do you have one that you would ask? I have to say, like, I know it feels a little bit like second bottle of wine dinner party game, but boy, that question about, you know, if there were no humans on the planet, only animals, what animal would you be and why?

Like the things that I've learned about people, and you go, yeah, that totally makes sense. And it sort of messes with their head because it's like, you know, I mean, maybe you can train for this in like business school or something. but it's one of those things that gets people off their scripts. And on a more serious note, I think this whole idea of like we all failed, right? We've all been through, you know, had those moments. And like the whole question of what would you do differently, what would you learn? What did you learn from it?

I think you learn a lot about somebody there, just, you know, how it gets a kind of humility and this whole idea of trying to get better all the time. And do you process the lessons of love? life and leadership to get better. I've heard a number of CEOs tell me they ask questions like that. And the candidate goes, you know what? I honestly can't think of a failure, you know, to which they're always, you know, it must be very tempting to say, can I talk to your spouse about this?

What if the CEO says, well, you just got your first one. See you, bud. Exactly. And this whole idea, you know, I think job candidates think the more polished I am, the more impressed they're going to be. And I think there's got to be that, look, we all make mistakes. we're all vulnerable. And this whole idea to me, you know, as a manager that we've all got our quirks, right,

the things that are really important to us and we really value in the people that work with us and for us as managers. And a big one for me is just this whole idea of like ownership. Like if I give somebody an assignment, you know, an assignment, you know, I was like to say the three, if you're a manager, the three most beautiful words in the English language are not, I love you. I'm on it. And that's what you want somebody to say, like, I've got this.

I'm going to own it. I'm going to figure it out. If I run into problems, I'm going to figure that out. And I'm only going to come to you if I really hit a wall. And then there's some people who like that. And to me, that's like a dream quality. Then there are other people who come back to you a half hour later and say, like, you know, I've already, like, I'm not sure how I would do this.

And, you know, like, what if this happens? And it's like, I honestly don't want to hear it, you know? Because ultimately, that's, you know, we are in this era of there's so much disruption that every employee at some level has to write the playbook for how they do their job, not follow the playbook. And that mindset, to me, that gets at a lot of kind of broader, like life lessons and how you grew up and just kind of how you're wired as a human being. Because if you're not going to own stuff, then you're probably going to point fingers pretty quickly, which is not a good question. quality at all at any level. And so any question that I think gets at ownership to me is very revealing for the stuff that matters to me.

What's the most memorable answer, perhaps at a dinner party or with the CEO that you've ever heard to the, there's no humans on earth. What animal would you be and why? You know, I've learned a lot about the whole animal kingdom. like some people will talk about some exotic bird in the southwest that nests in cats. Are they ready for this question? Because like, they're not. And that's why it's, it's this weird thing where it kind of, you can't think about it. And usually people know the answer right away. Because like one of the standard answers is I'd be a duck because at top I'm all calm and cool.

But below the service that you don't see, I work like crazy. And that's kind of the standard interview answer that I've heard a lot to that question. So I would imagine you still get some of that, but that's not, that's not memorable anymore because too many people copy it and just, and just use it. I'm more other ones. Yeah. No, I've heard like a few people say rat, which kinds of, you know, you go really? And then they've got this incredibly elaborate answer about rats. And I interviewed a, I was having dinner with the dean of a business school. And he said, I'd be an aunt. And he went on this riff about ants and how they can carry 10 times their weight. You know, and all these things.

So I'm going to have to ask you, Ryan, what, what, would you be and why? Adam, you can't do this to me. Sorry. I was thinking of the ant one, before you said that because I've, I've looked at ant farms and I love to see, like, that they're very collaborative.

They seem like they can work with other people. They are so strong. And I like to think that I could, one, I mean, my background's in sports. So I'm used to working with a team. I'm used to being in leadership positions on a team. I've done that in the business world and in the working world. I'm used to having to work together with others to go achieve a common goal.

And I think ants have to do that because they need one another. And I think that's the beauty of sports in my life is, while I like to think I was a good quarterback, it doesn't matter if my linemen don't block. And it doesn't matter if my receivers don't catch the ball. So I need those guys and they need me. and I like living and working in an environment where I'm certainly going to do everything I can to hold up my end of the bargain and do my job and do my best to lift others up along the way. But I also realize and recognize that I need them. And I want to do everything I can to help them perform at maximum potential of what they're capable of.

And the best coaches in my life did that for me. And I think as a quarterback, which is what I played, that they, that the good ones are able to do that. in a way I'm cheating and talking about sports, but I think the ant one really plays well because there's so much collaboration needed in order to achieve what they need to achieve just to stay alive. Yeah, no, that's great. What about you? For me, it would be a hawk. I'm just fascinated by a hawks and, you know, when I'm driving down the road and I see one, you know, hovering at a high altitude, I almost cause accidents.

But there's something about them. They just hover at this incredibly high altitude. And then when they figure out what they want, they kind of, go after it in a pretty big way. And, you know, and so that's my answer. Somebody once asked me, well, if that's the case, why wouldn't you be an eagle? And maybe it's because I grew up in Canada. So there's humility as part of the DNA, but I don't need to, you know, I don't need to be the the eagle who tracks all the attention. What's an example of a choice you've made in your career where you've been hovering around up high? You identified something that you really wanted

and then you aggressively pursued it and got it. You know, when I first joined the New York Times as a reporter in the late 90s, you know, I started below the bottom rung as a kind of freelancer, and then I did a year-long sort of probation and became a full-fledged reporter. And, you know, reporting the business section, you cover any industry. And they said, what do you want? And I, what do you want to cover? And I said, I want to cover the airline industry.

And they said, okay, but we have somebody doing that right now. What's your second choice? And I said, there is no second choice. And it's not that I was, you know, like the kid who would watch planes in the sky and be fascinated by airplanes per se. But to me, you know, I spent a lot of my career in business journalism and I just find it's a great, you can learn a lot about people through that lens. You know, stock market goes up and down. But if you cover industries like, you know, the airline industry to me is just this grand sociology experiment, right? Like how human beings interact on the plane and how the mechanics and the flight attendants.

and the pilot tendency each other each other in their jobs. And in many ways, the airline industry is kind of like the NFL and that everybody has the same equipment, right? And so like the ones who, you know, why do some outperform others? So to me, you know, and sadly a lot of planes were crashing back then. And so there was a whole kind of aviation safety that was a universe unto itself. So that was one example. So I am going to confess to you, Ryan, that I was holding out.

You asked me my favorite job interview question. And I was giving you my second and third. So I'll give you my favorite one. Okay. So again, the conceit is if you could only ask somebody one question, and depending on their answer, decide whether to hire them or not, I'm not going to ask you this question because it's a little too deep. I've asked a lot of HR people, whether this is illegal.

They say it's not. But the question is this. What qualities of your parents or whoever raised you? What qualities of your parents do you like the most and the least? You want me to answer this question? No, I said, like, I don't, look, if you want to lie down on the couch, Ryan, we can have a therapy session now. But, you know, feel free to answer, but it's one of those, to me, this is why it's my favorite job interview question, because a lot of people say, you know, they sort of do the, you know, are you more like your mother or your father, right? Like if you were raised by a mother.

And that's usually where people stop. But this requires you to take out a blank sheet of paper, four quadrants, each quality of your parent that you, the qualities that you like the most and the least. So why is that my favorite question? Because a job interview is this completely artificial environment where you're trying to find out, you know, in a half hour or an hour over a meal, what somebody is going to be like six months from now. Like after you get through the honeymoon and everybody's on their best behavior. So six months from now, you put somebody on the hot seat, that's when you find out, are going to find it what they're really like. So ultimately, job interviews are, it's a crystal ball exercise, right? Trying to get a sense of what they're like.

And I think at the end of the day, we're fooling ourselves if we think we can escape our parents. Because I think a lot of people's behavior is motivated by these are the things about my parents that I really like. And usually you do them too. But I think for all of us, there's probably a quality or two about our parents that, make us crazy. And so because of that, you do 180 degree opposite. And so again, this kind of like insight, like how are you going to behave and why? To me, that's the ultimate crystal ball question. What's your process to come up with these questions? For my job interview or for the corner office interviews. I would say there are two different things, but whether for I'm curious about both

because what I'm most curious about is how your mind works and the frameworks that go into, because I think the most interesting people in the world, the type of people that I want to hang out with, ask the best questions. And they ask even better follow-up questions because that proves that they're a good listener. So to me, I am fascinating a number of things around communication, conversations, but one of the most important parts of that is listening and asking great questions. better follow-up questions. So I'm really just trying to get to that part, Adam, is how your mind works around asking questions, having the guts to ask some questions, and then formulating questions because I want to help people that are listening to this right now be better at this

skill, not just copy your questions, which trust me, I will, and they should. But in addition to that, come up with even new ones and ones that are better fit for their job or their life or the people that they care about. So that's where I'm trying to get to here. Sure. And we could talk about interviewing for hours. And I'm sure you've got some tips you can share. But sort of my approach to interviewing starts, I'm going to use an old analogy of records. And I think some people approach interviews like they want the person they're interviewing to play a preexisting record. You know, their favorite stories tell me your favorite, you've probably told them before. And there's just this, that's how they go into the interviews.

Whereas my approach to interviews is like, I want to cut a record with you. I want you to like connect dots you haven't connected before. I want you to have thoughts you haven't thought about before. And so when I was interviewing all those CEOs over the years, I did very little research. In some ways, if they had told stories before, I didn't want to hear them because I wanted to react in the moment like I was hearing it for the first time. Because to me, that's where the magic is. It's like getting those magical connections. And with Corner Office, you know, I think I mentioned when I launched it, it was based on a simple what if.

What if I sat down with CEOs and never asked them about their companies. And almost my entire strategy was to get people off their scripts, off the kind of bullet point, you know, you know, stories that they had told before about their company. It's like, I don't want to hear that. And because I interviewed 525 CEOs and I'm continuing interviews on LinkedIn. Yeah. You know, it becomes this weekly thing of like you have this feedback loop. Like that question got a really good answer. I'll try that again. So, you know, by the end of it, it's not like I had this template of questions. It's just I had these, you know, sort of things that I would always go to. And my first questions were always like, tell me about when you were a kid, like, what were you doing outside of class? Then I would ask, tell me about your parents, you know, like, what did they do? What were they like? And then the third question was, how have you? How have you? your parents influenced your leadership style. And it's usually that third question that, you know, my questions, my interviews were like open source software, right?

Like, you know, if you read the interviews, you kind of knew what was coming. But the number of CEOs who got like visibly choked up with when I asked that question. And what I found over time is like, when I have those answers to those three questions, if I get honest answers to those three questions, I kind of get you, right? I kind of get like 85% of you. And everything that comes after that is just kind of confirming the thesis, because I'm always so curious. It's like, why are people the way they are?

And to be a CEO, you have to be so driven. You have to sacrifice so much. It's a stamina gain. You know, you've got a thousand people, you know, stuff flying at you from all angles. everybody's criticizing you. So to me, it's this, like, endless curiosity. Like, what motivates you? And, you know, you do something 500 times.

You start seeing the patterns. And, you know, there's kind of different buckets that would emerge. Like, there was just a lot of people who faced tremendous amount of adversity when they were younger. And, you know, and so you ask people, like, what drives you? to do these 24-7 jobs. And I think part of it is, you know, I had this experience, Ryan, like two interviews

back-to-back. These guys told me the exact same story. They said, you know, I was growing up, comfortable middle-class family. My father died of a heart attack when I was nine years old, no life insurance. My mother didn't work. And, you know, so suddenly everybody had to scramble to put food on the table. And the amazing thing is, like, both of them said the exact same thing in subsequent interviews. They said, I never wanted to put my family in that position again,

my own family in that position. And so, like, that's what motivates people. You know, other people that kind of hit the parent lottery. Like, it's this yin and yang of the entrepreneur father, the, you know, psychotherapist, mother, so they get the emotional intelligence and also the comfort with risk taking or the engineer and the artist. And, you know, it didn't always fall along kind of predictable gender lines,

but that was like another bucket. And there's this other bucket of people who just, you can tell that their skin is just, just exist to contain the volcanic energy they have naturally. You know, and business becomes just this kind of vehicle of expression for that. So anyways, I don't know if I feel like I've gone off tangent a bit for your question, but that's a little bit of like how I approach the interviews. But, you know, again, like I'm always looking for that kind of authentic moment.

To me, the favorite interviews are where you can literally see them in the moment go, oh, that's why I do that because it's like, oh, yeah, when I was a kid, yeah, my family was doing that. It's like, that's why I run meetings that way. And, you know, and then there's some like super, sorry, prominent CEOs who, when you're interviewing them, they're, you know, you can tell they've told the story from chapter seven in their third book 50 times. When you're, when you're conducting them, are you always in the room with them? Do you do some email, do some Zoom? How do you do them? You know, when I was doing these sort of pre-pandemic, I was always doing them in person.

I tried doing a couple over the phone early on, but I think, yeah, no, I really think I would say that, like, eye contact is the 5G of communication. And I think people can, you know, just by looking in your eyes, kind of make, you know, conscious or subconscious decisions about whether they trust you as an interviewer. And look, I did a lot of investigative journalism when I was, you know, a reporter. But the way I approach interviews, there's no gotcha here, right? I'm just trying to have a good conversation. And I have no agenda other than that. And I think a big part of listening too is, and again, it comes up in sort of, you know, through your eyes and also your body language.

But, you know, I think a big part of being good listeners is like no judgments. Like I'm not the kind of person who judges other people. Like we've all got our stuff, right? And, you know, I did a lot of dirty jobs when I was a young, younger. So if somebody says to me, like, you know, I was an alcoholic or whatever earlier, like, look, we've all, everybody's got their stuff. And I think that's an important part of listening to and just being completely present. I mean, I don't meditate, but I have to say that when I'm doing my interviews, it's as close as I get to that because, you know, I had some experiences

where, you know, I had a pretty busy day job in addition to doing these interviews and I do them during my lunch hour or whatever. And I could tell, like, if I was thinking about the meeting I'd just come from or a meeting I had to go to in the afternoon, and I was distracted, like, it was very subtle, but I kind of realized in the moment, it's like, that just, it was a butterfly effect. Like, that just changed the interview because I'm not being present. So to me, those are a big part of the art of listening and interviewing. And the final thing that I'll say is, like, I'm always too tracking in my brain when I'm interviewing

people, which is I know where I'm going to go next. So that's one track, but the other track is I'm listening super intensely into what they're saying because that's where the next question is. And it might be like the last two words of their answer and say, God, that's an interesting phrase. You've used that a couple of times. Can you unpack that for me? And that's where the magic is. And then you just keep going on like the why and what did you learn from? And did that surprise you? So I'm always after the, you know, the sort of underlying stuff. So that's my approach. Because I think to be interesting, you have to be interested, meaning you have to care about

other people and genuinely care and ask questions. You've interviewed a lot of people. Have you built some lasting, genuine relationships with these people after the fact? Yeah, very much. I mean, I figured. Yeah, some lifelong friends. You would go to their kids' weddings and we go fishing together. and it's been great.

I mean, I'm an introvert, Ryan, so it doesn't, you know, this kind of stuff doesn't come naturally to me. But, you know, if I'm in a position where roles are clear and I can ask questions and sort of build an authentic relationship that way, because I do think, you know, if you're a CEO, literally every conversation you're having with somebody, they have an agenda of some kind, an agenda or a judgment of you because you're a CEO. And I think with my interview, sort of usually like five, 10, 15 minutes into the interview, the dime drops for them and they figure out,

Adam doesn't want anything for me other than to have a good conversation. And, you know, there's no, I'm not selling them anything. I literally just want to hear their best stories and insights and lessons and tips and tools and takeaways. And I think that's kind of a rare moment for them because when I first sit down with them, and what's so interesting, and you might find this too, you know, with CEOs are used to being in control and so I would meet them in person, they'd sit down. Usually their body language, you know, their arms were folded across their chest and kind of looking at me stone faced, trying to figure me out and sort of, again, five, 10, 15 minutes, it's like, oh, he just wants to have a good conversation.

And then by the end of the interview, like their arms are flapping and they're telling stories and you almost need like a, you know, a cool down time. So. Okay. I need to shift gears for a second. I meant to do this about 40 minutes ago, but you're, I love talking about communication and conversations. So when you see this, just for audio listeners, I'm holding up a copy of Adam's new book called The CEO Test. When you see this, how do you feel?

It feels great. I mean, it's the third book I've written, and there's nothing harder than writing a book. And I've, you know, I like you, I mean, not as well as you, but I played a lot of sports when I was younger. I've always been interested in leadership. And I would always watch the, if I was watching football on TV, I'd watch the different coaching styles. And I was so intrigued by them.

But I've been in the kind of leadership space, if you will, for about 10 years now. And I feel good about the book because I feel like I finally got my arms fully around, you know, how to lead effectively. And sort of some frameworks that help think about it because it's such an interesting and infinitely complex space. And I'm sure that's what intrigues you about it. And so, you know, this book that I wrote with Kevin Scher, we really created this framework of just this, simple question, well, what are the things that make or break all leaders? Like, why do people succeed or fail in these roles? And then if you can narrow that list, and then add the playbook of, well, how do you do this well? You know, that's at least trying to advance the

conversation. And with Kevin and I, we tried to create the metaphorical tea with the breadth of my 600 plus interviews and the depth of his incredible experience as a CEO, 12 years leading Amgen, board director, teaching leadership at Harvard. business school. And a lot of his lessons and sometimes painful lessons are in the book as anecdotes, but all of that is sort of buttressed with examples from my 600 interviews. Adam, when you think about all of your interviews, some of the insight that Kevin brought as you guys came together to write this book, what would you say are the common behaviors of leaders who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time?

I think leaders are in this unique position where they have this incredible feedback loop that most people don't. Because just by the vantage point of your position as a CEO, you can see why people succeed and some, why do some people succeed and some people don't? Why do some teams succeed and some people don't? Why do some like strategy decks work and some people don't? And the difference is whether you take all that feedback and then like, a wet towel, you kind of ring it for every drop of insight. You know, they're just in this incredible position. And if you're sort of open, you can almost mentor yourself if you're just really observant

and say, boy, that worked. And like, what are the patterns here? Because you get that, again, this sort of fire hose of life experience as a CEO that nobody else does. And then the question is just what do you do with that? And to me, that's what separates people. And it sort of gets to the name of your podcast, right? Like, they're a learning leader. It's all about are you, you know, that is the ultimate skill.

Like, can you not only learn new things, but learn about yourself because self-awareness is so key? And it's just this sense of like, yeah, this works. This doesn't work. And, you know, ultimately, if you talk to enough leaders and in so many words say, like, what's your approach to leadership? You will often hear like, these are the three things that matter the most to me. And you will often hear different answers to that. But what's so fascinating is those three things kind of feel like an organic whole, right? And it makes sense for them as a person, but they've just, it's just been this process of like,

this is really hard because I think when you first start managing leading people, it's a little bit like, you know, learning how to ride a unicycle in front of an audience. Like it's pretty, it can be messy and ugly, right? And it's really hard. So to just sort of power through that and then be, incredibly humble. Because I do think it's an important question, Ryan, like, why are there so many bad bosses in the world?

And I'm sorry, there are. You know, I always say if you gave me an, you know, infinitely powerful magic one, you could do three things. I would say get rid of inequality, racism, and bad bosses. Because I think bad bosses, you know, they're really bad for human beings, right? It's a lot of toxic stress. They destroy organizations. And so then I think it's a fair question.

like, why are there so many bad bosses? And I think because it's so hard, because it's so challenging, people default to this kind of like, well, this is my approach. And it's too rigid. And then when the world doesn't kind of bend to them, they just kind of double down and dig in and say, well, you know, you need to accommodate my leadership style. This is who I am, as opposed to saying, like, what does this moment need? What does this person need in this moment? And it could be something different 20 minutes from now from the same person. And so having that kind of like, you know, being grounded, being secure, being humble,

being self-wear, all those things. That's where it gets into the like, that Venn diagram of life and leadership. What's one of the best qualities about Kevin? I'm going to ask him the same about you, by the way. You know, in like, it sort of gets back to like old car manuals. like I'm 58, so I'm going to use older analogies.

But if you've seen those kind of exploding diagrams of like you take a machine and you sort of break it apart, you know, at different levels, that is Kevin's brain. He can take, you can ask him literally anything and he's got that map in his head. You can ask about any topic and he will say, these are the three things you need to know. And when you, when you do sort of conceptual whiteboarding sessions with him, I really came to appreciate that this is how his brain works. Like he can take things, he can put things together, take it apart, and in a almost like hologram, like walk around it

and see how the different parts come together. You know, it's got this fascinating. When he was in his 20s, he was the chief engineer of a nuclear attack submarine. So he had to be able to, like, in his brain, understand how a nuclear sub works. And he can't explain to you in two minutes how a nuclear sub works. But also know, like, these are the million things that could go wrong. and these are the ways to fix them. So to me, like that insight about his brain,

it's like that is how we approach his life because he can get to the essence of something faster than anybody I've met. You know, when I was an editor at the New York Times and I was having conversations with my reporters and we're brainstorming a story, like I would often ask him, like, what is the gooey center of that candy?

Like, what is the most interesting essence of the idea you're talking about? And Kevin can get to the gooey center of the candy faster than anybody I've ever met. Love it. One more question, Adam. I would imagine, given what you do, that people are coming to you a lot with questions. And let's roll play and say I just graduated from college degree in business, pretty broad. Not sure what I want to do yet, but I would like to one day raise a family and leave my mark.

make an impact, help others, right, do right, by the world, make the most of what I've been given. What are some general pieces of life advice you would give to that person? You know, I heard this great expression from one of the CEOs I interviewed, which is play in traffic. And what that is about is just like you have to get out there and meet people and do things. And when I give talks to college students, you know, I will often say to them, when you get to my age, you know, you sort of look back and your career and the path of your career is going to be guided more by who you know and who you worked with because that's going to create the pivot points. And I find a lot of people when they're starting out say like, here's my 10 year plan. And by this age, I'm going to have this title.

I'm going to be making this much money and I'm going to be a senior specialist strategist, communicate. It's like that's not how life works. And that's why I just think like this idea of play in traffic, like get out there, do things. You're going to meet people. So that's one of my favorite piece of advice. The other one I heard from Ruth Simmons, who's now the president of Prairie View, A&M University. And what she tells students is always be prepared at any moment in your life to learn the most important lesson of your life. And to me, it's hard to beat that as kind of a guiding principle of life, because if you have that philosophy, you know, whether you're talking to people or just living your own life to have your eyes open,

and kind of your heart open to, wow, like, this is an incredible moment. And, you know, I suddenly understand either myself or life or just something, and to have that openness as opposed to have the blinders on. And to me, it kind of gets back to where we were talking about before. Like, that's the key to being a good interviewer and just you can learn from everybody, right? I mean, if you sort of approach life as an endless podcast, what have you learned? and what can you share? And because, you know, I do find it, you know, so many conversations are serial monologues, right, Ryan?

Like people are just, they're not, it's not an actual conversation. People are just waiting for the other person to stop talking so that they can say what they want to say. And so just having real conversations and real listening, I just think there's so much magic there. Adam, a friend of mine named Larry Seiler told me this story about the fact that he learned early in his life a lesson was to treat everyone as a mentor, regardless of their job or what they look like or what they do. And that mentality keeps an open mind and a learning mentality. And he, he passes along to his kids, wrote a great article on LinkedIn that I encourage him to publish, which he did. And it's, it's really good. It makes me think a lot of every single person from the

one that, that cleans up the trash to the person who runs the company and everyone in between. if you have a mindset of treating them all as your mentor, you'd be surprised about the things you could learn from a wide variety of people because we all are a sum of our experiences. And I can learn a lot from the different experiences of other people if my mind's open to it. I think those are great pieces of advice, especially from Ruth.

I love that one and wrote it down. Adam, thank you so much, man. The book is titled The CEO Test, Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders. He wrote it with his buddy Kevin, who I'm also going to talk to here soon. man i really treasured this conversation and um selfishly i know i have so much to learn when it comes to the craft of what we're doing right now i would love to continue our dialogue as we both

progress man because i'd love to learn more from you anytime anytime happy to share what i learned and you can teach me a few things too i'm sure thank you man i really appreciate it man talk soon all right thanks right all right adam is one of those people that i would be more than willing to sit with for hours to sit and listen to all of the questions he has to ask of others. In order to be interesting, you have to be interested in others. And I think Adam is a prime example of a person who is interested to learn more about people. And I love spending time around those types of people. And so when I look at my notes, a few of the items that pop, all of the questions he likes to ask.

including what animal would you be and why and initially I thought I don't know about that one but then as we got into it there's a lot of learning that can happen from asking that question and certainly a number of follow-up questions that could be part of it and then the art of getting to know someone taking it a step further than the standard surface level questions we're not talking about small talk we're talking about going deep quickly including asking about someone's parents and perhaps what they like most and least about them. In fact, I went home after recording this one with Adam and had this conversation at dinner with our children and it was fascinating to learn what they've picked up from us from the

example that we said. Now, we tried to focus more on the positive with our younger children, but I still urge you to do this. I think it's something that would be worth your time. And then his life advice, play in traffic, at least metaphorically, go out and meet people, do interesting things. That's how you build an interesting life. And even if you're naturally introverted, the world revolves around relationships. And so work to build relationships with fascinating people, have great conversations, and you may be surprised to see what happens.

Once again, I want to say thank you to you, the loyal listener of the Learning Leader Show, for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. You should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Adam Bryant, it could help you become a more effective leader. And because you do that, and because you write reviews on Apple podcast and rate the show, hopefully five stars, you continue to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to this soon. Can't wait.