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The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam GrantThe Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant

How This Podcast Could Fail

Brené and Adam have a bracingly honest conversation about what could go wrong in their collaboration, and how to set new teams, partnerships, and friendships up for success. They discuss the science of avoiding failure and building alignment, and practical strategies for navigating differences—including their own clashing instincts around minimalism vs. maximalism and sarcasm vs. trashtalk. The episode closes with what each of them is listening to, watching, and reading right now.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ 0:00 - How Brené Inadvertently Launched Adam into Podcasting 2:57 - Interpreting Sarcasm 16:08 - How to Prevent Failure 28:57 - How Could This Partnership Could Go Wrong 38:42 - Learning From Differences 52:05 - How to Align Teams 1:02: - Closing Questions Show Notes Brené and Adam on What They Will Never Agree - Brené Brown and Adam Grant 2026 The Curiosity Shop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlUWQbVds0Q&t=1100s Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice - Adam Grant 2016 NYT Op-Ed https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/05/opinion/sunday/unless-youre-oprah-be-yourself-is-terrible-advice.html#:~:text=But%20for%20most%20people%2C%20%E2%80%9Cbe,that%20are%20better%20left%20unspoken. My response to Adam Grant’s New York Times Op/ED: Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice - Brené Brown 2016 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-response-adam-grants-new-york-times-oped-unless-youre-bren%C3%A9-brown/ How to Love Criticism - Adam Grant 2018 WorkLife with Adam Grant https://youtu.be/Wh1zhRck-Wg?si=vOmdxqBEW8uJiuMr Adam Grant on The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know - Brené Brown and Adam Grant 2021 Dare To Lead Podcast https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-adam-grant-on-the-power-of-knowing-what-you-dont-know/ Brené Brown on What Vulnerability Isn’t - Adam Grant and Brené Brown 2023 Re: Thinking Ted Audio Collective https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXVhDSBiZCI Hypervigilance in Mary Poppins (1964) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysH9kE4t44c The art and science of trash talk with Rafi Kohan - Adam Grant 2024 Work Life With Adam Grant https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-and-science-of-trash-talk-with-rafi-kohan/id1346314086?i=1000663694095 Performing a Project Premortem - Gary Klein 2007 HBR https://hbr.org/2007/09/performing-a-project-premortem Evaluating the Effectiveness of the PreMortem Technique on Plan Confidence - Veinot, Klein, & Wiggins 2010 ISCRAM Conference researchgate.net/profile/Gary-Klein-3/publication/266485127_Evaluating_the_Effectiveness_of_the_PreMortem_Technique_on_Plan_Confidence/links/565512f708ae1ef929770299/Evaluating-the-Effectiveness-of-the-PreMortem-Technique-on-Plan-Confidence.pdf The Economics of Gender Differences in Employment Outcomes in Academia - Donna Ginther 2006 National Library of Medicine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK23781/ Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System - Donnella Meadows 1999 The Donella Meadows Project Academy for Systems Change https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/ Narcissists: Are We Surrounded? On Science Vs: - Wendy Zukerman 2024 Science VS Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/narcissists-are-we-surrounded/id1051557000?i=1000680950451 Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity, & Lifelong Learning in the Age - Dana Suskind, MD 2026 Book https://www.amazon.com/Human-Raised-Nurturing-Connection-Curiosity/dp/B0GFZTD3N9 The Killing Stones A Detective Jimmy Perez Novel - Ann Cleeves 2025 Book https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-killing-stones-a-detective-jimmy-perez-novel-ann-cleeves/cd200d2a924b63e8?ean=9781250357281&next=t

Brené BrownhostAdam Granthost
Mar 26, 20261h 10mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Brené Brown and Adam Grant premortem their new podcast partnership risks

  1. Grant reveals their 2016 public disagreement helped spark his entry into podcasting, reframing conflict as an origin story rather than a liability.
  2. They unpack how personality and communication differences—especially around sarcasm, directness, and interpretation—can trigger defensive spirals unless handled with care.
  3. The central tool is Gary Klein’s premortem: imagining a future failure to identify risks, broaden perspective, and legitimize voicing concerns before it’s too late.
  4. They apply systems thinking to show how surface-level disputes (e.g., logo design) often reflect deeper mental models, expectations, and mismatched definitions of “done.”
  5. They argue success depends on alignment, explicit expectations, shared processes, and consistent feedback/repair—because they are building a business together, not merely recording episodes.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Use a premortem to make risks discussable before they become crises.

By imagining the project has already failed and asking “why,” teams widen peripheral vision and grant permission for quieter skeptics, pessimists, or critics to speak up productively.

Treat sarcasm and teasing as high-variance signals that require shared interpretation.

Brown experiences sarcasm as potentially sharp/unsafe due to family dynamics, while Grant uses it for levity; labeling it (“Are you shit-talking me?”) and clarifying intent can prevent misreads.

Most conflicts are iceberg problems—fix the mental model, not just the moment.

The logo dispute wasn’t really about icons; it exposed different assumptions about iteration, stakeholder involvement, minimalism vs maximalism, and what a brand must communicate emotionally vs semantically.

Define “what done looks like” before work begins.

Borrowing from Agile/Scrum, they note frustration came from unclear expectations about how polished a draft would be and when critique would enter; explicit checkpoints prevent wasted effort and hurt feelings.

Alignment fails without systems, even when intentions are good.

They echo (and debate) the idea that goals don’t save you when communication processes are missing; shared rhythms, handoffs, and decision rules matter more as the team grows beyond the hosts.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Do you know I started podcasting because of that fight?

— Adam Grant

It’s a great process, but it is the dumbest time to do it. Why would you wait till you’ve already failed?

— Adam Grant

Six months from now… it’s gone to shit. This project has absolutely failed. What will we be talking about… that we should be addressing now?

— Brené Brown

I think what will kill us both, and kill the business, is stealth expectations.

— Brené Brown

In any complex system there are multiple paths to the same end.

— Adam Grant

Origin story: 2016 public debate and reconciliationSarcasm, teasing, and interpretation mismatchesPremortem method (Gary Klein) and “prospective hindsight”Psychological safety to voice risks and dissentSystems thinking, mental models, and equifinalityCo-founder alignment: goals, process, and communication systemsFeedback, apology, and repair as operating muscles

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