Kurt Nelson 0:07 Hey, grooves, welcome back to behavioral grooves. I'm Kurt Nelson, and along with my co host Tim Houlihan, who is sitting here in our virtual world headquarters, yeah, I'll say hi, hi, hi, virtually. Yeah, there we go. You know, one reason that we love to do this podcast is because we love exploring the intersection of behavioral science and real world leadership. Tim Houlihan 0:31 We sure do. Kurt and today's guest brings both academic rigor and real life experience to that intersection. We're talking with Margaret Andrews, an instructor at Harvard University and author of manage yourself to lead others. It's a book that challenges a very old assumption that leadership starts with leading others. Kurt Nelson 0:50 Yeah, exactly. And now Margaret flips that idea on its head. She says leadership doesn't begin with managing others. No, it begins with managing yourself. In fact, she argues that self awareness isn't just a nice to have. They're using air quotes there. It's the foundation of effective Tim Houlihan 1:10 leadership. Yeah, and she has this great story about a class discussion that highlights this when a student suddenly recognized himself in a case study, it showed just how often we fail to see our own blind spots, you'll want to pay particular attention to the I'm Dr Ventura story. Kurt Nelson 1:28 Yeah, that was a great story, right? So Margaret reminds us that leadership is deeply contextual. The same behavior that gets you promoted in one company might get you fired in another or even within the same company for a different position, right? It's not about finding the one right way to lead. It's about finding your way to lead and finding the right company or team that aligns with who you are. Tim Houlihan 1:56 Absolutely. This is a conversation full of insights about emotional intelligence, developing other people, and why our best leadership lessons often come from our worst bosses, Kurt Nelson 2:08 yeah, or our worst co hosts, right? You learn a lot with me, right? Tim Houlihan 2:12 I don't think you've learned anything, actually, from I was Kurt Nelson 2:15 thinking you haven't learned anything. Okay, so listeners, please pour yourself a good thick cup of leadership Java and get ready to reflect on how knowing yourself is the real start to leading others. Tim Houlihan 2:30 Yeah. So with that, sit back and relax, maybe a stout pour of managing yourself and enjoy our conversation with Margaret Andrews. You Tim Houlihan 2:45 Margaret Andrews, welcome to Speaker 1 2:46 behavioral grooves. Thank you so much. It's nice to be here. It's nice to have you Tim Houlihan 2:51 here. And we're going to start with this lovely, little, short, famous speed round that we have. And first, we'd like to know would you prefer to ride a bicycle or a unicycle? Unknown Speaker 3:00 Probably a bicycle. Tim Houlihan 3:04 Okay, fair enough. Okay, practical, straightforward, Kurt Nelson 3:06 yeah, yeah, okay, get placed from A to B. It's a little easier. So I've written a tried to ride a unicycle. Doesn't work well for me. All right. Second speed, round question, Margaret, are you a coffee drinker or a tea Speaker 1 3:21 drinker? Oh, coffee, there's no contest. In fact, I should probably get an IV. It's just a caffeine delivery mechanism. Kurt Nelson 3:31 So are you a coffee connoisseur? Do you have a particular roast and a particular way of making it? Or is it any coffee anytime. Just give it Speaker 1 3:43 to me both. Actually, I appreciate a really good cup of coffee. I am a big la Colom coffee fan, but I will tell you that I will drink anything. So it's a little it's a bit of a range, Tim Houlihan 3:59 Loch loam, lo Colom, la Loch alone, yeah, yeah. Okay, this is, I think we've, you know, we had 500 episodes. We've, we've asked this question many, many times. Never has lock alone come up before. So this is something that I'm going to have Speaker 1 4:16 to research. You're going to definitely have to research it. Okay, all right, okay, third, Tim Houlihan 4:20 third speed round question Margaret, true or false? Leaders are born, not made false. Speaker 1 4:28 We all have it in us. We all have it in us. It's the situation and the preparation that come together at the right time. Tim Houlihan 4:36 Beautifully said we were we'll come back to that definitely. Kurt Nelson 4:40 All right, well, and we're going to talk a lot, I think about some of that, and I have a number of choices here that we have written for this last of our speed round questions, and I'm not sure which one to pick. Is it? Better to lead with your head or your heart? Or is it possible to really lead yourself if your calendar runs your life, or, you know, more powerful in leadership, empathy or efficiency, which? So I'll let you pick of those three. I have two more. I have two more that I could have picked from too, and I just said no, that's enough. Speaker 1 5:22 I think on probably all of those questions, I'd say yes, and or both. It's both. I think a lot of times that we think it has to be left or right or black or white or something like that, and gray is often better. Tim Houlihan 5:39 Why? Why why is gray often better? Well? Speaker 1 5:42 And then, of course, we get into the question, is it light gray, or is it dark gray? Fair enough? I think it's oftentimes a sliding scale. You know, it's always going to depend on the situation, right? And I think that that's the thing that, you know, no two situations are ever exactly the same, and therefore the answer is never going to be exactly the same. Kurt Nelson 6:04 Yeah. We like to say context matters here an awful lot. And I think what you're just talking about there is that the context kind of dictates a lot of the responses. So it is a yes, and in many of those situations, it's yes, but maybe there's a nuance to it is that, yeah, Speaker 1 6:21 yes, absolutely. And context matters. Boy, I should have copyrighted that one. You know, that one all the time too. Always does, right? People always say, Well, what should I do? And it's and I say, Well, you know, what are you trying to accomplish? What have you tried before? You know, who's involved and all of those kinds of Tim Houlihan 6:39 things, right? We are talking with Margaret about her new book, manage yourself to lead others. Or Milo, right, as you refer to very often in the book. Let's start with this really fundamental issue that seems to be we need to address here with manage yourself to lead others. What are managers getting wrong? What? What? What's the big problem here? Speaker 1 7:00 Yeah, I would say that a lot of times when we talk about leadership, it's about, I'm going to use the word controlling or harnessing, or, you know, these kinds of things. It's really, this is sort Tim Houlihan 7:10 of a Peter Drucker kind of model from the 60s. Isn't it controlling and Speaker 1 7:14 well, or just, or managing, right? I would say that really, I think that leadership, while we think it's about leading other people, it begins within. It begins within, and it's understanding ourselves, who we are, who made us what we are, what we want, all of these kinds of things. And then when we do that, we realize that we are different from lots of other people out there. And so when we understand ourselves, it helps us make sense of how we respond in different situations. And sometimes we want to respond a little differently in those situations, and that gets to managing yourself. And I think that when we understand ourselves, it helps us understand other people. That if we don't understand ourselves, it's very hard to understand other people, and if we don't understand don't understand that we are different from most other people, it means it's hard for us to understand that other people are different. And in fact, one of the things that I will say is I think perhaps the most important lesson I ever learned in leadership was having kids. And if you have kids, I think you'll understand this that you know, when I had my first child, a son, before that, I had spent very little time around kids. I had never changed a diaper. So when you know I'm leaving the hospital with my first son, I'm thinking to myself, if they knew how little I know about what I'm about to do, there's no way they would let me leave the hospital. But clearly they didn't know, and they let me take him home. And I had to learn everything. I had to learn, you know, just about how do you feed and clothe and bathe and all of that sort of stuff. But I actually had to learn about him that he had his likes and his dislikes and his moods and, you know, sleeping patterns and all of that sort of stuff. And it was quite a learning curve for me. And then, you know, when our second son was born, I thought, Oh, awesome. I know what I'm doing. No, my second son was completely different from my first one, and so I had to learn to relate to him as the individual that he is. And then when my third came along, and my my daughter, and I thought, all right, now I got it. And of course, you know the answer to that, right? Nope, nope, nope. I had to learn that again. So that was the big epiphany for me. Was that I thought, if my own kids, my own genetic material, is not similar in how they respond to things, why would I ever expect. Write a random collection of strangers at work to be similar. And I thought, ah, that's that's the thing, Kurt Nelson 10:07 yeah, you write about that in the book, and it's really a wonderful story and kind of really insightful, when you think about this aspect of wow, these people who are closest to me, and yet they're all individuals. And yet we assume sometimes managers in particular, that I have a team and they're homogeneous, that it is that all right, I can do this one thing, and if I get this one thing right, it's going to work for everybody. But that isn't what you say in the book. I I'm kind of interested. I think maybe our listeners be interested as well, to dig into the, you know, the story of how this book came about. How did you what was the impetus for writing this book for Speaker 1 10:53 you? Yeah, well, the impetus for writing this book is my own story, right? And, and that is that many years ago, I had a job where I was doing very well in it, you know, getting promotions, etc, and then my boss left, and I had a new boss, and this new boss, and I didn't gel quite the same way in your nodding and laughing. So I'm sure this has happened to you before. Kurt Nelson 11:23 I think our listeners will probably agree with this. I mean of them where all right, growing going. Great. New boss, maybe not quite Speaker 1 11:32 so. Great. Yes, yes. And so anyway, one time when we were having a meeting, he looks at me and he says, he says, You're not self aware. And it was said in not a nice, let me help you, kind of way. It was said in a, you know, you're broken and can't be fixed kind of way. And so you can imagine how I felt about that, you know, I was actually kind of stunned and rather quiet, as he went on to tell me that, you know, I was overly ambitious and demanding, and, you know, didn't understand how I came across to others, and, you know, I felt very defensive and confused, and all kind of, you know, a real emotional cocktail and so, but it wasn't until later, when I really started thinking about it and trying to put the pieces together that I realized, you know, he's right. I think he's right because I could be demanding and hard charging and impatient and those kinds of things. And you know, there were some people on my team that I think that made them feel very anxious, maybe under appreciated, and certainly my relationship with that boss was underperforming. So when I kind of put that all together, it was really embarrassing for me, because that was not what I wanted, that was not what I thought I was doing. And so I said, but I don't want to let this stand. I want to change this. And so I started doing all kinds of research, and I looked at famous people and people that I knew, and leadership books and academic studies and history, philosophy, psychology, etc. And so that was where I kind of put it all together, and realized, you know, they're all pointing in the same direction, and that is, is that we have to understand ourselves first before we can really understand and lead other people. And so that was the basis of it. And, you know, I worked on it myself, and then I, many years later, I created a class. The class is doing well, so now it's a book. So that's the origin story. Tim Houlihan 13:40 I love that. Thank you for sharing that. And this is something that Kurt and I talk about quite a bit. Is the self awareness, the self knowledge, the like, how well do I know myself and and in your your work and in your experience, Margaret, is it leaders don't pursue more self awareness because it's hard, or is it because they don't actually know that that's what they should be doing? Speaker 1 14:09 I think all of the above. I think all of the above. I think a lot of times when things are working, you know that old saying, If it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of thing. So as long as things are working, then you keep going. But you know, I had a situation, I'll say, in a class that I also write about in the book, that really brought it home to me. And it happened as I was writing the book, and I realized, oh my gosh, that's the opening story. And it happened when I was teaching a class, and we were talking about this case, this business case, and it's about this very gifted surgeon, Dr Ron Ventura, and he's a wonderful surgeon. He's bringing in revenue and to the hospital and increasing the reputation, etc. But he is all. So a bully, and he's, you know, intimidating people in the operating theater, bullying people, you know, etc. And so we have to take the perspective of his boss, a hospital administrator. What should we do with this guy, you know, should we keep him and try to coach him, or should we cut him loose and, you know, and find somebody else, etc, and it's a really impassioned discussion about what we should do. And just as we're closing down the discussion, I notice a hand raised in the back of the room, and it's James, and he has not spoken for the entire two days. So of course, I call on him and he says, he says, I'm Dr Ventura, and just like you would see in the movies, everybody turned around at the same time, you know, and we're looking at him. And then he realized what he'd said, and he said, Oh, not the real Dr Ventura. He said, I'm I'm an engineer, not a surgeon. But he said, pretty much everything else in that case could have been written about me. He said, I'm a really good engineer, but he said I've been a terrible teammate and manager. And he said, you know, reading this case and listening to this this discussion, I'm horrified. And then he went on to say he was passed over for a promotion, and he was probably in danger of being fired, and I will tell you at the next break, he was the most popular person to talk to. And it made me realize there's a lot of people that either are Dr Ventura or are concerned that they're Dr Ventura. Kurt Nelson 16:38 It's really interesting, and that story is really well told in the book. There's also the interesting part of the case study was set up if you're Dr Ventura's boss. And there are many instances, at least in the world that I've seen in the consulting that I've done, where people are a DR Ventura's boss, and it is really hard from an organizational perspective, because they may be the top salesperson, they may be the best you know, engineer, as you were talking about in that story. And they're, they're producing, they're, they're, they're making the bottom line. They are getting that fantastic product out there that is beyond belief of everything else, but there's a cost to that. And so you know, in your book, you talk about some of that, but then you know, from your perspective, what is the and I know what the answer is already. What is the right answer, if you have somebody like that, do you coach them? Do you get rid of them? Do you let them go and do what they want? Do you put them on a team of one and let them do whatever they need? Yeah, Speaker 1 17:51 I think this is one of the hardest things in management, because I will say, if you haven't had a Ron Ventura before, in all likelihood you will, and it will be one of the hardest things you deal with, because you are between a rock and a hard place, right? Because if you keep them, you you can see what it's doing to other people. It's, it's unraveling your culture and these kinds of things. If you let him go, you're, you might have a big revenue deficit or or whatever. So you know, in general. And one of the things about this case is that that Dr Ventura had been around for a couple of years and had never been talked to about this. And it was one of these things, as you say, that because he was doing so well, everyone thought, oh, you know, he'll, figure it out, right? He's He'll calm down, etc. No, it just got worse. And so in general, I think, you know, you always try, you always try to have that conversation and say, Hey, this part really good. This part, let's work on and to really make it in such a way that Dr Ventura understands why this is important for him to make a change. But then, you know, it's a trade off. Every decision involves trade offs, and so you in this case, one of the things that you're trading off is sort of revenue versus, you know, your culture. And lots of times people say, Well, you know, there's all this revenue, and he's increasing our reputation. But also in there, there's a potential lawsuit coming out, and if any of this is exposed, your revenue and your reputation may go down. And you know, we see this all the time in the news that you know something happens. And everybody said, Oh, this has been going on for years. And people say, Oh, we had no idea. I think yes, you did. Yeah. Kurt Nelson 19:46 Hey, grooves, we want to take a moment away from our conversation to thank you for listening to behavioral grooves. If you enjoy the conversations we're having and want to help us keep the groove going, here are a few simple ways that you can support the show. Tim Houlihan 19:59 First off, so. Subscribing to our sub stack is a great way to stay connected with us between episodes. The weekly newsletter provides you with cool insights that are beyond the episodes, and they get delivered straight to your inbox. Kurt Nelson 20:11 And if you haven't already leaving a review or a rating of the podcast on a platform like Apple or Spotify or YouTube, helps other curious minds discover us, and there's two great things about that. One, it gives us a boost. And two, it costs nothing and it only takes a second, but it makes a huge difference for us. Plus, we love hearing from you, so don't be shy. Leave us a review or give us a quick thumbs up. We're coming up on 500 episodes, and we're doing this because we love the conversations we have with our guests. Tim Houlihan 20:43 Yeah, we also want to do it because we love bringing you insightful behavior, changing content every week, and we hope that some of those insights will help you find your groove. I actually know someone who became the manager of the top salesperson with a with a large luxury retailer, and tried to, you know, was brought in to try to manage the top guy. And after, after a little more than a year, basically senior management said, This isn't working. You're gone. And so they kept the top sales guy and it fired the manager, and so interesting, yeah, that was, like, a big cultural Aha, that moment ago. Okay, this is clearly what the culture values, yes, or what senior leadership values, right, right? Speaker 1 21:34 It is. It's because your decisions reveal your values, yeah, and what you really do value, and that's why, you know, I think self understanding is a big part of this, is that understand, you know, when you make a decision, are you going? Are you? You are revealing what your values are, Tim Houlihan 21:49 yeah, and to that degree, you're, you're a big believer in emotional intelligence, right? It's a very powerful thing. But what did you think is the biggest misconception when it comes to emotional intelligence in in our world right now? Speaker 1 22:04 Yeah, I think emotional intelligence is one of those terms that everybody uses, and a lot of people don't understand, because it's used to mean so many different things. And I think one of the big common misperceptions is that it's just being nice, that, you know, oh, we'll just be nice. And there's a difference between nice and kind. Right. Nice is good etiquette, opening the door using the right fork or these kinds of things, whereas kindness is actually helping somebody. And so you can have a discussion with emotional intelligence or without it, and so it's not about being nice. Sometimes it's having a difficult discussion and telling somebody, you know you can't do that, or if you continue doing that, we're going to let you go. So I think that's the biggest misconception that I see, that people don't really understand that. I'd say a second one is that you're either born with it or you're you know you don't have and and the truth is, is that you can develop it. It's not easy. Is it takes a lot of self understanding. And also this self management is understanding. Here's how I behave in these situations, and how would I like to behave? So how do I do that differently? Kurt Nelson 23:26 Yeah, so Margaret, you talk in the book, you talk about obviously understanding yourself and managing you know ourselves, and that was kind of the foundation of this. But you also then bring in these other aspects of leading others and understanding and managing inside the organizational context, and then leading for the long term, when you move in from so after you hopefully have done a really good deep dive into yourself and become self aware enough that you understand where you are. Help us understand what how do you then take that and transfer that into leading others? And kind of is that you have a really nice graph in the book that kind of shows us as circles that kind of get bigger and bigger, or than at circles there, there what ellipses. They nest really nicely together. Speaker 1 24:22 So, yeah, yeah. So it's kind of the Russian doll, there you go. So yeah, at the center is really understanding and managing yourself. And then we get to and I change the order of the second and the third one all the time, but the second one in the book is really understanding and leading other people, developing them to be more effective. Then there's understanding the organizational context, you know what? Or because we talked about context being everything and some, in some organizations, your behavior will get you promoted. And in some organizations, that same. Behavior will get you fired. So you have to understand the context of the organization that you're working in, because some things will succeed there, and some things won't. And then lastly is kind of leading for the long term. And that's kind of, as I say, kind of going up in the end in leadership responsibility. Yeah. Kurt Nelson 25:20 Yeah. So when you're leading others, what are some of the key facets that we need to be considering as as a as a manager, who now has been self aware, but now, how do I what do I need to do? Is it goes back to your your story about your kids, and making sure that you're you're putting this into fruition. Independently, or how, what are some of the key pieces there? Speaker 1 25:46 I think the key piece is understanding that part of our job is developing other people. So, you know, a lot of times we think that it's, oh, it's, we've we've got to get everybody moving in the right direction. But it's going to different people move at different speeds. Different people have different ways of approaching things, and also because we are all so different that, you know, if we are deciding how to approach a problem, all three of us are going to have different ways of thinking about it, because one of us has seen something like this before, and it worked. One of us has seen something like this before, and it was a disaster, and some of us, so we all approach it very differently. That there's that old saying of where you stand depends on where you sit, kind of thing. And I think that that comes up and how you were raised, where you were raised, what you studied, what your last job was. You know, all of these kinds of things factor into it. So it's understanding that different people do things differently, and that is perhaps helpful, as opposed to a problem Tim Houlihan 26:51 well, and I would think that this is abundantly manifest when you're in class, when you're teaching, you've taught 1000s of executives, they're highly disciplined, successful people, right? They all have probably very strong opinions about thing. How do you break through the delusions, the leadership delusions, in a way that can reach the largest group at any given time, largest number of people in each of those classes. Speaker 1 27:21 Yeah, I run an exercise that I think has been very successful in doing that, and I run it in most of the programs that I do. I ask people to think about their best boss and to get one person in mind, right. It may be your current boss, your previous boss, first boss you ever had, doesn't matter. And then I say, Okay, now take a few minutes and write down all the reasons why this person was your best boss, the big ones, the small ones, the stupid ones, whatever it is, right? You know, maybe they were the smartest person you've ever worked with. Maybe they were really great at Search Engine Optimization or engineering or whatever it is, or maybe they saw something in you. So, you know. So I give them all kinds of different things that it might be. And I give them a few minutes, and I say, you know, go for a longer list. The longer the better. So they give a couple of minutes. And then I say, Okay, now go back to that list and choose the top three. Might have been the first three. You wrote the last three. You wrote whatever it is, but choose the top three. And then I give them three post it notes, and I say, write one of those reasons on each of those three posted. And they do that, and then I say, Okay, I've run this exercise many times with 1000s of people, and they almost always fall into one of three buckets. And so I put up, you know, three boards. And the first one is IQ, right? This is the smartest person you you know, or whatever second one is, you know, they're really good at some technical or functional skills, also known as hard skills. And that third board is that what I'll call interpersonal skills, relationship skills, emotional intelligence, soft skills, go superpowers, whatever you want to call them. And so they go around the room, and they put their post its where they belong, and there's always a traffic jam at that third board, and that's when people start to recognize it. They say, Oh, gosh, I thought it was just me that that cared about these things. But it turns out, no, it's everybody in this room that does. And then I tell them, it's not just everybody in this room, it's everybody I've ever worked on with this, and several years ago, I started keeping track of, you know, what percentage of those post it notes were on different boards, and 85% of the reasons why people say that that their best boss have to do with these interpersonal skills. And it's in the it's not that intelligence and hard skills aren't important. It's, you know, I think of them as threshold skills. It's probably what got you through college. It's probably got you through your early career. But now that you're leading other people, it's these other things that are going to make the difference. Tim Houlihan 29:54 Are grad schools doing a better job of teaching these soft skills and bringing soft skills to. To the minute, to the forefront. I mean, when I was in grad school, it had nothing to do with soft skills, just zero. Grad School was about hard skills. It was about accounting and finance and and marketing and just, you know, all that blocking and tackling. Yeah, is it different Speaker 1 30:15 today? Not as much as perhaps it should be, and that I say should be, I mean, it's important to understand accounting and finance. You know, I started my career as a CPA, and I said, you know, there's lots of different ways you could get to that bottom line number, and some of them are better than others, yeah. So, you know, it is important to know that, but I think that we could do more. And I know, I know several people that have younger kids, and some of them, their kids are learning emotional intelligence. They call it social and emotional learning in school. And I just think that's the greatest investment we could give kids, is to understand their own emotions and be able to manage them, etc. So I have a lot of hope for those kids. And also, you know, they're putting them in teams, so they're learning teamwork. You know, when I was going to school, it was mostly individual type of thing. So I think that this is very helpful, but I do think we need to pay more attention to some of these interpersonal skills. Kurt Nelson 31:20 So, so how do you handle that executive who wasn't raised with any of that wasn't taught that when they went and got their MBA and are critical of it's like, No, we just need to focus in on the hard technical skills, and that's what we are going to focus in on, how do you how do you handle that critic? Speaker 1 31:43 Yeah, I would, you know, in truth, I don't think you can necessarily change somebody's mind on that. And I tend to think of that old saying of, when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and very oftentimes it's people like James, right, and he taught the whole class, that message and and I thought that I will also say it's one of the bravest things I've ever heard anyone say in a classroom. So I think that when sometimes I usually don't teach undergrads, I teach working adults, executives, etc. And the reason for that is because I do think you need a certain level of experience being around the block to really appreciate this. Because I'll say, you know, as an undergrad, when I heard these things, I, you know, I kind of thought, yeah, of course. Well, duh, right? But when you get into the working world and you realize this is so much harder than it sounds. And so I think you you kind of have to have some experience to to take it in. Kurt Nelson 32:51 I think it's interesting just what you said there, because you write that you know the the leader needs to become the leader that only that leader can become, right? So this idea that I can't be the leader that you are, Tim, can't be the leader that I am, nor what do you want to be, but you know that, but you only become the leader that that you are. And it feels to a certain degree that is a really important aspect of this, would you capture that, right? Yeah, I Speaker 1 33:23 think that's true. Because a lot of times I think that we think whoever the CEO of the moment is, right, there's always celebrity CEOs, and so everybody's got to be like that. And the truth is, no, everybody doesn't need to be like that. And in fact, I oftentimes say, Well, how many Fortune 500 CEOs Can you name? Most people stop at two. And the thing is, is that right? So there's 498 of them that you don't know, and they probably have very different leadership styles than these others. And sometimes you know, the really larger than life CEOs. I mean, it all makes for great copy, right? It makes for great stories. But does it always make for great leadership and great results juries have on that? Yeah, so, but I think, yeah, we can learn from other people. We can learn from our best bosses. We can also learn from our worst bosses. You know that I never, never want to be like that. So, you know, you take your lessons where you find them. Tim Houlihan 34:29 Well, speaking of lessons, what lessons would you have? What would be a couple of golden nuggets to share with someone who's just becoming a manager for the first time, they're just getting into that like, what? What What would you want to make sure that they're keeping in mind as they're doing that? Speaker 1 34:44 Oh, I guess I'd say a couple things. One is, is that try to remember that you judge yourself by your intentions, and other people will judge you by your behaviors. So if you feel misunderstood. It's probably because there's, there's misalignment in those two and ask me how I know, right? Tim Houlihan 35:08 How do you know Margaret? Speaker 1 35:11 But it is, it is when you think about it, right? You know your best boss probably had good intentions. Your worst boss may have had really good intentions, but we remember them by their behaviors, and we judge them by those so that is probably the big one, I would say. But the second one is, give yourself some grace that you know we when you are learning a new skill or behavior, you get better slowly and then quickly, and then you level off. And in that very beginning phase, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. You're gonna embarrass yourself, but it is part of the learning process. You know, we didn't all learn how to walk. We didn't just, you know, get up and walk one day. We took a lot of spills before we figured it out. Kurt Nelson 35:53 One of the pieces in the book Margaret that I found fascinating, you talk about creating a team charter. Can you talk about what a team charter is and why that can be helpful for for a leadership and particularly when they're working in a team? Speaker 1 36:11 Yeah, yeah. So the team charter is basically a document that the team creates about, how are we going to work together, what's in, what's out. Can we swear? Can we not swear? You know, what do we mean by get back to me as soon as possible. What does that mean? You know, to one person, it means within 20 seconds, and the other person, it means in two days. And so it's being explicit about things that we are usually implicit about. So and a lot of times, you know, I have people say, Oh, we're all adults. We know what it means. And it's like, oh, we're all adults, but we don't know what it means because we were raised differently. We have been in different types of organizations. So a team charter just says, you know, how are we going to communicate? Are there certain channels? Are there certain things that are allowed and not allowed? I one time worked with somebody, and we had a rule that in email there was only fact, and if there was any emotion, it had to go through what was then voicemail, right? Because we said, because you, you can get in a lot of trouble with emotion in email. And so I remember one day I opened my email and there was an all caps email from him, and it said, listen to your voicemail. Very emotional voicemail there, but I understood what he was saying, right? And it actually worked out really well. And I thought that was the beauty of us saying this, because had had he sent that through email, it would have caused a lot of confusion, and maybe, you know, different types of emotions, but my favorite so and the other thing I want to say about team charters is that it's up to the team. So if you don't like one of them, you know, get rid of it. That's fine. It's your document. No one's saying that you can't. And, you know, the classic one there is people say, oh, you know, we won't swear in meetings. And of course, you know, the next meeting, somebody drops an F bomb. And what's really interesting is to see what happens next. Do people kind of look around at each other and like, you know, did you hear that? Are you going to say something? Or does somebody say something and say, Hey, thought we weren't going to do that. Then the team can talk about it and say, Should we keep this? Should we get rid of it? And that's fine. But I think my favorite one I've ever seen on a team charter was that it was a rule that said, If anyone comes to the meeting unprepared, we will cancel the meeting on the spot. And I asked the person who shared it with me. I said, Did you ever use that one? Wow, that sounds really draconian. He said, Oh, we only had to use it once. Oh, yeah, it was in the early stages of the team's life. And he said they had this idea that everybody would do the pre reading ahead of time and they come and discuss it. It was very clear that one person hadn't read it, so they up and canceled it, and he said that person was really embarrassed and everybody else was mad. And he said they didn't have to do it Kurt Nelson 39:06 again. Yeah. What I love about that is it is the team deciding what goes in, what goes out. It is the social norm, kind of codifying some of those social norms and making sure that they're explicit, as you said, that they are not misunderstood that get back to me as soon as possible, doesn't it doesn't mean 20 seconds, and it doesn't mean two days. It means we we have an, you know, expectation that it is going to be within X number of hours, however, that would be given whatever the context is. And it's that social norm that you are, then policing is the wrong word, but it is your self policing to a degree, as you just talked about, all right? The team said we need to be prepared for these meetings. We're not, we're going to cancel this, and then it doesn't happen again. I love that. Speaker 1 39:56 Yeah, I always think of it as like upholding standards, right? There you go. Kurt Nelson 40:00 Much better words than police. Yes, there you Tim Houlihan 40:02 go, same idea, but yes, you know Margaret on behavioral grooves, we talk a lot. We talk to a lot of leaders about helping them find their groove, and because we think that a groove is a really good thing to be in if you're whatever kind of work you're doing, whatever your life is like, what advice would you give to people to help them find their groove? Leaders, specifically, excuse me, yeah, Speaker 1 40:27 I would say, you know, do some introspection. You know, think about those, the big questions of, you know, what excites you and what doesn't excite you, you know, all of those kinds of things. So lots and lots of different questions. I'm big on questions and answering questions, and sometimes the just the way the question is phrased, elicits a slightly different answer, which can be very enlightening for people. And can Tim Houlihan 40:51 you give an example of that? Yeah, does something come to mind? Probably. Speaker 1 40:58 Is it coming to mind right this second? No, of course. But just, you know, if you think about what excites you or what makes you feel creative, or what you know, what's your favorite part of the day, or right, these are all slightly different ways of getting at the same type of thing, so just different ways of looking at it. And the other is, is to come back to those questions later, because you know your first it's a first pass. Is a first pass, sometimes the second pass or the third pass, you see something just a little different. I'm curious, though, if you both have questions that you think are really helpful for yourself or others, Tim Houlihan 41:36 oh, when it comes to introspection, yeah, when it comes to actually trying to understand who I am. I have to check in kind of on a regular basis, because the one thing that I know about myself is that as the context changes around me, I need to keep checking in and going, is this working, or what about this is working? And what about this isn't working? That's that's kind of my aha Kurt, do you probably have much wiser approach to that? I Kurt Nelson 42:05 don't know if it's wiser. It probably is much worse. In fact, I think there's a lot of different things. I think there's a lot of questions that people ask. And I know for myself, one of the things actually, from actually doing some of these episodes with with a lot of really great, bright people is, you know, I was very focused in on, like, big picture achievements and various different pieces and going that, and when, you know, when I get that, that's going to be that pinnacle, and that's what I'm striving for, and I'll have happiness then, and what I've realized, and from multitudes of this, and Just, you know, again, introspection. It's it, no, it's the small wins. It's the little things that come in every day. And so it's always, like, making sure that I can appreciate those moments. And Tim and I laugh about this, but it's, it's all right, this is a fantastic breakfast. It's eggs and like, just be in that moment, and don't just try to woof those down, because I got to get to the next thing, but take the time and constantly, you know, asking myself, am I, am I rushing through life, or am I savoring those moments that at the end of the day I'm going to look back on, and I'm going to remember those if I savor them, as opposed to just rushing through. And that is always a it's a challenge, and it keeps, you know, I get to keep coming back to that. That's one of many different questions. And I love this idea of asking questions, because the the introspection part, I think, is hard for people. I don't think we do it. Most of us don't do it easily, and so it is work, and we need to come back to it. As Tim said, context changes. Does that? Am I changing with the context? Or is this or I'm holding fast, or do I need to change my context because of, you know, it's going against who I am in various different pieces and so lots to lots to take from that. So, yeah, Speaker 1 43:58 absolutely. And I think reflection is really important too. And a lot of times I ask people, you know, who's afraid that somebody would find this and read it? And, you know, of course, a lot of people, hands come up, and I tell them, you know, that's what paper shredders are for. Just write it, get it out. You know, understand what it is, then just take it through the shredder. Tim Houlihan 44:19 Margaret, we're curious about if you were on a desert island and you had, let's say an extended period of time, let's say a year, and on that desert island, everything's taken care of, and you have a listening device, you can listen to music, but that listening device only holds two musical artists. Which two would you put on that listening device? You Kurt Nelson 44:44 get their entire catalog everything done, you know? Speaker 1 44:48 So that is so hard. How about two playlists? Tim Houlihan 44:55 No, I think you're cheating, but I'm, you know, I think we you. We've talked in advance about how Spotify has no idea who you are. Speaker 1 45:06 Every year I'm an explorer because they're like, Yeah, you're all over the place. But Tim Houlihan 45:10 okay, Kurt, can we allow two playlists? Well, let's hear what the playlists are. Kurt Nelson 45:18 All right, if it's 80s, if it's 80s music, maybe we'll let it go. There you go. That'd be good for me. There no Speaker 1 45:26 So, okay, so I would say I have two that I would probably say one is called, I call it break time. And the reason is, is that's the music that I use in classes during the breaks to kind of keep the energy up and things like that. So it is a mixture of everything. You know, I have Nina Simone, and I have, you know, the stones, and I have Latin music, and I have Israeli drums, and, you know, all kinds of things that are there. It's very eclectic. Tim Houlihan 45:54 And are all over the place. I am all over the Speaker 1 45:57 place, yes. And then the other one is what I just call mellow mood, and it's also somewhat eclectic, but it is more, I don't want to say downbeat. I have one for that too. It's called bittersweet, but, and I like that one too, right? So it kind of gets a mood, I would say, because, you know, I I have a soundtrack of my life, but I've had a long life so far, so it's a very crowded playlist, right for the for the soundtrack. But, yeah, I love, I love that question, and I have to tell you, I just recently went to go see Rod Stewart on his farewell tour, who was always a big part of the soundtrack of my life. And I used to live in LA and you know, we would go to concerts all the time. And I must have seen him five or six times, and he was still the same rod as before. His voice was amazing. And you know, I went with one of my sons, and he asked me, Why do you like, you know, going to see him in concert so much? And I said, because, I said, he is having so much fun out there, and he you can tell, and he wants you to have fun, and you do, and it is kind of a little bit of a love fest. And so after the concert was over, my son said, I see what you mean. I see what you mean, right? Yeah, I think Tim Houlihan 47:17 that's fantastic. I've seen some recent videos of Rod Stewart, where there is this childish playfulness about him that is just infectious. It is. It brings us to the stage as well. Speaker 1 47:30 Yeah, he does. And the word I want to use it, and I heard an interview with him not all that long ago, but he just feels grateful that he can do what he loves and and he he's having, he's just having a great time, he's having a great time. And of course, you know, there's that saying that, you know, if, if the bride has fun, everybody has fun. And I think if the performer is having fun, everybody else is going to have fun too. I Kurt Nelson 47:51 love that. I agree with that. So much. Margaret, I am a little bit interested though you've named off a few of your playlist titles. Do you have other really good titles for your playlist, bittersweet? Or do you name them to evoke break Tim Houlihan 48:11 time? That's good name. Yeah, Speaker 1 48:14 so I will tell you that bittersweet used to be called melancholy mood, and I thought that sounds pretty downbeat, but they're all songs that evoke emotion. And there are times when you want that, right? You want to feel those emotions, and that helps you. As for me anyway, get them out. Get them to surface. I don't know I have other ones. I have my I used to call it in the kitchen, but it's really a disco playlist. It's Tim Houlihan 48:44 light. I'm not quite seeing the disco and in the kitchen. Kurt Nelson 48:49 Is that you don't get that. Oh, no, perfect. It's a perfect combination playlist, Speaker 1 49:00 yes, yeah. So I don't know, I just all kinds of stuff. Kurt Nelson 49:07 I find it interesting that, again, I think people do do playlists, oftentimes around moods and kind of evoking some emotional response there. And the names that people pick, I think are really interesting, so fascinating. Tim Houlihan 49:24 Margaret Andrews, thank you so much for being a guest on behavior grooves today. Speaker 1 49:27 Thank you. It's been a pleasure. I really enjoyed the conversation. Kurt Nelson 49:38 Welcome to our grooving session, where Tim and I share ideas on what we learned from our discussion with Margaret, have a free flowing conversation and groove on whatever else comes into our self aware, no, let me go back. Are not self aware brains Tim Houlihan 49:56 because that's the that's our more constant state of being is not so. Self aware Kurt Nelson 50:00 well. And as you even saw on that, I was like, not self aware of what I was going to do there. So I, you know, we know you're right, though we are not very good at being self aware. It's one of the things we've talked about on the show multiple Tim Houlihan 50:16 times. And I think that this is, this is the story, like the DR Ventura, you know, story is the is the the capstone of that conversation, and it's the fundamental attribution bias. Oh, yeah, yeah, you know, to some degree, right? Kurt Nelson 50:31 It's the you judge yourself by your intentions, and you judge other people by their behavior, right? Yeah, yeah. And or other people judge you by your behavior, or vice versa, however you want Tim Houlihan 50:45 to exactly work, right? So, yeah, yeah, same, same deal and that, and that gets in our way that, you know, when I, you know, I, how many times have I used the driving example? But when that, when that dude cuts me off to, you know, I'm in the right lane and I'm just going along, and then this dude buzzes in front of me to get off into the exit lane. It's like, What an ass, you know, what a complete dip and and yet, when I, when I do that, I'm, I'm like, Well, I'm rationalizing it, because I had to do that, you know, I mean, I these circum I have to get to this appointment. I need to get where I'm going, and they wouldn't let me in. So I Kurt Nelson 51:26 had let me in. So I had to cut him. Who's the asshole? Assholes Tim Houlihan 51:30 that guy? It's not me. And, and when I think about that, I just go, oh, man, I got to be more self aware and, and, of course, give people more slack as well. Kurt Nelson 51:41 There's an aspect of this that we always think that we're the good guys. Tim Houlihan 51:47 Oh, shoots, he scores. We always Kurt Nelson 51:51 think that we're the good guys, right? I mean, that's a right? It's a human it's part of who we are as human nature. And Simon Sinek did a really nice job of kind of explaining this. He was talking about the movie Inglorious Basterds, and an interview he'd saw with the the actor who played the German colonel, or I forget what rank he was, and the SS, really evil, mean guy, right? And Tim Houlihan 52:14 that guy Superman. And the Kurt Nelson 52:18 interviewer asked the actor, like, where did you grab from the depths? What? Where were you able to pull that evil out of yourself? And the actor is like, I don't understand what you're saying. And the interviewer is going, weird, you played such an evil character. How did you pull that evil out and display that for acting? And the actor said he wasn't evil. He didn't believe that he was evil. That's the that's the hook. And I think Simon said it really great. He said, You know, we, none of us, believe that we're evil. It doesn't matter. You know, the German Colonel that was SS and killing Jews thought he was in the right thought he was doing the good thing, yeah, and we all think that we're the ones doing the good thing. Tim Houlihan 53:05 Yeah, we, I guess in some ways, how can we, how can we go through life not believing that, right? I mean, how can we get up every morning and go, Man, I'm doing a job that's killing people. You know, like, my day job is to go and wipe out human beings like that. We're just not going to be able to function if that is especially if we really believe that those human beings are precious, you know, people Kurt Nelson 53:40 well and again. This goes back to the fundamental attribution error. It goes back to what actor, observer bias. You know that that piece where people explain their own actions based on the situations that, just like you talked about in the in the driving thing, I was under pressure, you guys wouldn't let me in. There were all of these contextual components, but we always explain others, people, action based on character, who they are, their personality, this is who they are as an individual, and that is dangerous, particularly as a leader, right? Tim Houlihan 54:16 Yeah, yeah. Richard Nisbet, you know, encountered this in the early 70s. I think some of the pioneering work on this, this actor, observer bias, you know, and, and it's it really gets in our way when we when we're so comfortable with saying, well, the the reasons for my behavior were situational, but the reasons for your your actions, that was character, or that was, that was because you were careless, or you just weren't thinking about it. You weren't motivated, you know, you didn't come in first because you just weren't motivated. You know, I came in first because I was motivated. You obviously weren't motivated enough to win, you know, Kurt Nelson 54:52 well, and I think that, and again, that goes and tie that in with the fundamental attribution error, where, even when people were. Were found to know that there were situational pressures. Lee Ross did this, this work, I think, where he said, Look, these other people behaved, and here were the situations that they were in. People still attributed that behavior to personality traits or to being careless or other things, as opposed to the context and the situation that they were in when, if the reverse happened, and we were in that it was all about, right? Tim Houlihan 55:32 Amy Edmondson, you know, who is the so famous for her work on psychological safety and the and then working with Google on Project Aristotle, right? I mean, we all genuflect when we hear Amy evanson's name because of that work. But one of the interesting findings that she made was that when people are when the leader is trying to say, Well, I just want to be thinking. I just want to be efficient. So stop talking. You know, I got to stop this person rambling in the meeting, just because, like, just stop, and we got to get back focused on. So in other words, Tim, what you're saying exactly to get Kurt Nelson 56:08 to the point, because you're just rambling on right now. Yeah, Tim Houlihan 56:12 yeah. And that ends up eroding psychological safety. So when we, when we do that, you know what, we start to to use Zach mercurios word language, when we start to treat people as if they don't matter, or what they think doesn't matter, then we really get ourselves into into trouble. Well, Kurt Nelson 56:34 and the piece there, I think, that is most important, is we may not be thinking that we're not treating them like they don't matter. Yeah, because we're focused in on our intent, we're focused in on what we're trying to do, and all they're seeing is the behavior. It's not that I you don't matter. I'm just trying to be efficient here, and therefore you should be appreciative of that, because I'm being efficient with all of our time, and that means that you matter when, in fact, that doesn't parlay itself into what the other person feels or sees. And there you get into the issue. Tim Houlihan 57:15 This also kind of connects to the idea of the leader thinking, well, they'll, they'll know what I mean, right? I mean, how often have we seen that Kurt Nelson 57:27 just between us? You should, you know? I mean, come on, behavioral grooves. We've talked about, like, the different things that we why we have, uh, aligned around behavioral grooves. You thought it meant one thing, I thought it meant another and Tim Houlihan 57:39 and then we just kept going down that path, yes, for a Kurt Nelson 57:43 long time. You think it's about music. What are you talking about? It's about the grooves in your brain, the habits and routines that you form. And of course, it's about both it is and but I think the the important piece here is that leaders, we you know, what is this? The Curse of Knowledge, right? This idea of, if you have a lot of information, you it's hard to put ourselves back into the the perspective of being a novice, so it's really difficult to do that. I see this all the time in some of the work we do around incentives, you know, where the incentive team has been working on these incentive plans for months, months and months, and they've gone through the five different iterations, and they know why we chose this one over this one, and put all these components in, and have worked through how all they work. And then they just want to present it out with a simple like, here's a 10 page or 20 page, you know, PowerPoint document, and expect everybody to understand it to the level that they do. Yeah, and it's just silly because they don't have that knowledge the months of looking at this, exploring it, understanding why X was chosen instead of y and and why you're going into these components versus these components. And so it's a whole aspect of making sure that people understand where the the background on things or the knowledge that you have, and it's really hard to be able to do that when you have that knowledge. Tim Houlihan 59:22 I think you said that really well, Kurt, it's sort of akin to this is, it reminds me of the some of the work that George Lowenstein did in trying to discover these hot and cold state empathy gaps, right? That when we're in a hot state, we're much more connected, you know, and and more likely to just feel like this is a really important thing, is most important thing, and versus when we're in the cold state and it's like, yeah, it's just not that big a deal, because I'm not there, you know, I'm just not worried about it. And, and the leader, in part, if they have worked through just like the people working on the. On the incentive plans, have spent a lot of time thinking about this, and they've kind of worked themselves over the hot state and into a cold state of I know what's going on, I know how to deal with this, and so everybody should just follow me on this. And they're being very rational and very systematic, and they're lacking the idea that when it hits those people who they're they're leading, those people might automatically jump into a hot state like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, what? What's, what's, what's happening here? Kurt Nelson 1:00:29 Well, and partly because oftentimes those implications impact that person, right? So in the incentive, those incentives impact how I get paid. That's an emotional response, yeah, if I'm a leader and I'm making a change in how we work, or, you know, who gets assigned what, there's a change there. And there's implications of that that impact my day to day work, my potential, you know, promotion, how much, maybe it's even pay or various other pieces of this. So that emotional component, that hot state, is often forgotten about, right? Yeah, I think there's also, was it Gilovich who talks about the illusion of transparency, where I'm going to overestimate how well others perceive our thoughts and emotions? They know I didn't mean anything by that eye roll. I am just having fun. That's Tim Houlihan 1:01:27 that's the classic you. You knew that I didn't really mean that, didn't you? Yeah, no, actually, I didn't know that. Because when you sat there with your arms crossed and you rolled your eyes, I actually thought that you were disengaged. Kurt Nelson 1:01:41 Yes, yes, Tim Houlihan 1:01:44 yeah, okay. Kurt Nelson 1:01:46 And again, this is that self aware part, right? Is we're we're not self aware enough to understand, yeah, that I might even I don't even realize that my arms are crossed. I don't realize that I'm rolling my eyes. I don't realize that my tone is in such a manner, because we don't have that self awareness. Tim Houlihan 1:02:05 Yeah, well said, Is there, is there anything else that you want to cover? Kurt Nelson 1:02:09 I thought you wanted to go into something about music, Tim Houlihan 1:02:14 you know, I do sometimes think about how music, there's a lot of intention when it comes to music, right? That we're we get into a session, and we've got a bunch of musicians in the room, and there's the intention to stay on the beat, right, to find that groove. But it doesn't always work right, right? Because it depends on on what everybody's doing. It depends on what the collective is happening. If we actually find that groove, it's not just one guy going, Well, I'm on the beat. Kurt Nelson 1:02:47 Why isn't everybody else? Well, isn't that the drummer? Shouldn't the drummer always be on the beat, right? Well, then you just follow the drummer. It's more Tim Houlihan 1:02:54 complex than that. It really is exactly, yeah, and in a really wonderful way. And I think leaders could could benefit from thinking about, if they've got a team of people that they're working with, it's more than just, I set the, you know, I set that that, you know, that tone to hit, you know, at 64 beats a minute, and everybody should just follow that. Well, it might be more nuanced than that to get everybody harmonized and really working together. It might take 66 beats a minute or 62 Kurt Nelson 1:03:27 so are you? Are you saying that leadership, or being in the groove in leadership is about synchronizing your internal rhythm, your intentions and the group's external rhythm or the perceived behaviors that they have alignment. Tim Houlihan 1:03:45 It's alignment, baby. Okay, thank you. Anything else for you? Kurt Nelson 1:03:54 I just want to remind people that Tim and I do provide consulting services to companies to bring these insights into your organization that we can help you with internal synchronization of your team, of your leadership capabilities, right? We've garnered insights from 500 different episodes and talking with over 370 some people, I think we figured it out, brilliant people who are doing that. And we we mirror that. We marry that together with our own experience of 20 plus years, each of us almost 30 years, each of us working in business and bringing that insight from behavioral science into your workplace in a way that resonates and actually makes a difference, Tim Houlihan 1:04:51 right? So, so let's say somebody's listening and they're going, okay, that could be interesting. My my organization could benefit from talking to. Kurt or Tim? Probably Tim, but maybe Kurt, but Kurt Nelson 1:05:03 it probably is Tim. Tim Houlihan 1:05:08 What do they do? What? What should their next step be? Kurt? Kurt Nelson 1:05:11 Well, they so again. Think about it. We can come in and work with doing some consulting services, bringing in insights in incentives and motivation and different pieces, leadership components. So we can do that consulting and do a deep behavioral analysis of the issues, or a program or something along that line, right? So in that case, you know, reach out to one of us, and we can talk through and it's not saying that we have to do something. Might just be a conversation where we say, Here, think about this in different pieces. Or it could be that you might want to bring us in for a workshop or a presentation, a keynote we can do, you know, a 60 minute keynote. We've done multitudes of those, either in person or virtually. We do three, four hour workshops, hands on seminars where we can focus in on building emotional resilience. We've had conversations about that with people on here, and we can bring that insight in leadership acumen, some of the stuff that we just talked about with Margaret here, we can take that along with the other insights that we've gained from other episodes, and bring that to you. We can talk about living through uncertainty, or, you know, this idea of striving for significance, any number of behavioral science topics. So you just have to reach out. Send us an email, text us, reach out on LinkedIn, leave a note on the behavioral grooves website. We'll get to you. Tim Houlihan 1:06:39 I'll say this though data actually supports the idea that if you want to have lunch with one of us or dinner, it should be Kurt, because, because Kurt wins the bowl on having dinner, Kurt Nelson 1:06:51 that was some really good insight from our 500 celebration where we asked that question, and Tim Houlihan 1:06:59 real data, I won. Okay, okay, well, thanks to Margaret actually, for a great discussion. Man. I just really, really thoroughly enjoyed it, and I love how she just kind of dives into this, how to help people finding their groove at work. I think that's and trying to reduce the grind through ways to reduce the grind. I think that's great. So it's all good stuff, all right. So we hope that you're able listeners to put some of these great ideas to work for you, and they help you this week, go out and find your groove. You you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai