The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam GrantThe Highest Performance Strategy is Caring About People ft. Simon Sinek | The Curiosity Shop
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
80 min read · 16,242 words- 0:00 – 2:48
Welcome to The Curiosity Shop
- BBBrené Brown
Hi, Adam
- AGAdam Grant
Hey, Brené
- BBBrené Brown
I'm excited about this episode
- AGAdam Grant
Me too
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. I- we, we, we have our first guest for you this episode. Adam will tell you all about our, our guest and our conversation. Before we get there, I want to let you know we are coming... This is the close to season one. Um, it has been, it has been a wild ride. We're so grateful to y'all, um, for being on the ride with us. We're going to be- we're taking a hiatus for five weeks. Um, during those five weeks, we're bringing you some best-of podcasts that we think you'll really enjoy, and then we'll be back on July 30th with new episodes, including some really fun guests. Um, we're gonna try something new and interview some folks and then talk about what we're learning from our guests. So excited, but really, really want to make sure I'm clear that I'm s- we're both so grateful, um, for y'all coming to the Curiosity Shop and hanging out with us and learning with us. It's been really fun
- AGAdam Grant
It has been. And, and speaking of fun, we're very excited to bring you a special conversation that we recorded at Brilliant Minds in Stockholm. It was last week with our friend Simon Sinek. If you don't already know Simon, he's an ethnographer, TED Talker, author of books like Start With Why and The Infinite Game. He's also a podcaster and an optimist. We had a great conversation about the state of work in organizations, about how to build strong teams, how to get the most out of leaders, and we also got to do a live Q&A with leaders from around the world. Enjoy.
- BBBrené Brown
[upbeat music] Hi, everybody. We are in Stockholm and we are at the Brilliant Minds Conference, joined by none other than Simon Sinek. Welcome to the Curiosity Shop
- SSSimon Sinek
Nice to be here.
- BBBrené Brown
We're excited.
- SSSimon Sinek
Thank you. Me too.
- AGAdam Grant
You're the first guest ever.
- BBBrené Brown
Ever.
- SSSimon Sinek
I remember you told me. You said, "Would you be our first guest?" And I was very excited to say yes.
- BBBrené Brown
I have questions for all of us, and we're gonna round robin them. And so here's my thinking. The three of us have spent our careers inside organizations and working with leaders, but we do it in very different ways. So you build very deep and lasting relationships with leaders. You're with them over time. You are very relational in your work. Adam, you bring research, cutting find- new findings in. You work with leaders, you work with teams. I go into organizations to lead transformations, so I'm there usually for two to five years working specifically with the C-suite, and then I work with the level of leaders that report up to the C-suite. So we all have very different interactions but do very similar work.
- 2:48 – 6:15
Simon Sinek on the State of Work & Leadership
- BBBrené Brown
So I wanna start with this question, and we'll go first to you. State of the org globally, what- how would you describe what you're seeing today?
- SSSimon Sinek
There is... Look, the good news is, is that there is demand for our work. There shouldn't be.
- BBBrené Brown
I agree.
- SSSimon Sinek
No, no, but, but I mean it, like there shouldn't be.
- BBBrené Brown
That's true.
- SSSimon Sinek
Right? And if none of us would have careers in the '80s or '90s. There, there would be no demand for what we do in that time period.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And I, and I think that the, the, the, the... There's a sort of mass rebellion around the world against capitalism, but, but it's the, it's the form of capitalism that exists now, the sort of Milton Friedman, Jack Welch form of capitalism, of short-termism and using people to balance the books and rewarding shareholders before you take care of your employees or your, or your customers. Like, that's the form of capitalism that exists now that we all don't like and rebel against. And the good news is there's a movement afoot where either enlightened leaders or younger leaders want that more human form of capitalism back. And, um, and the problem is, is the there's still a lot of pressure for the old form. And so the, the thing that... The trend that I'm seeing right now and the q- the questions that I'm getting m- the most, I'm getting the most questions for is, is transformation, right? Like, how do we go from this to that?
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And the most common question I get is: What do you do when your boss is against all of the stuff we talk about? It's the most common question I get. Um, and so the good news is, is we're seeing the demand for change for the way we do business coming from the middle, and they wanna be change agents inside their own organizations rather than just say, "I'm out of here," and quit and go somewhere else. But transformation is, is the topic. How to do it, how to do it in a way that doesn't create excessive pushback, rebellion. How to do it in a way that is considerate, um, um, but at the same time responsible to the business model. I mean, they, they still have to keep the doors open. Um, and so yeah, that's, that's the thing. But I'm, I'm proud of the fact that w- the, the three of us are on the front lines, uh, of this movement.
- BBBrené Brown
I love that framing. And I have to say, I think work would've been bleak for us during Welchian times.
- SSSimon Sinek
It would've been nonexistent.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. I think, you know... And what, what I mean by that is during a period of time when performance and humanity were cast as mutually exclusive, I think.
- SSSimon Sinek
So true story. I did some work back in the day, long ago before this form of my career. Um, I did some work for a division of GE, GE Silicones. And I'll leave out all the long stuff, but I came in with some recommendations on how to re-understand loyalty, and it was all about humanity and rewarding people for, for actual loyalty, not just how much they spend, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the guy who ran the division, he was, he was great. Um, he said, "Simon, this is great work, and I think you, you've made some, um, excellent recommendations, and I agree with what you're suggesting, and I just want you to know that we will implement none of it." And, um, he says, " 'Cause you have to understand, if I implement your stuff, I don't get a bonus. So great work, not doing it." And that was... And they were very, they were honest and open about it.
- BBBrené Brown
They were very straightforward. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Very honest and open about it.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
But, uh, so like e- even, even if there was appreciation for the work, the incentive structure, they're just not gonna implement it.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. Charlie Munger. Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- 6:15 – 8:44
AI, Layoffs & Leadership Mistakes
- BBBrené Brown
Adam, state of the org.
- AGAdam Grant
Oh. I think there, there are two things that jump out at me. The first one is a lot of leaders pushing their employees to adopt AI, while at the same time planning to do major job cuts in the next two to five years and not telling anybody. Uh, I think that's, that's a travesty, uh, and I think it's a mistake too. I think, [laughs] I think there's no substitute for human ingenuity and human judgment. And I think a lot of these leaders, to Simon's point, are being very shortsighted in just assuming they can get rid of a bunch of people just becau- because we have LLMs now. Um, that's probably the first one. The second one I'm seeing is related to that, uh, accusations of hypocrisy constantly by... I hear it from my students, I hear it from junior people in the organizations I go and visit. They say, "We were told that we had a voice, and then we brought concerns, we brought ideas, and nobody listened or did a thing. So what was all of that lip service to inclusion? What does it mean? You obviously didn't care."
- BBBrené Brown
Thoughts?
- SSSimon Sinek
So the AI thing is funny. You got all these organizations laying off significant numbers of people claiming that AI can do the job of these people, which is a, is complete nonsense. It's because they over-hired. And if they come out to the marketplace and say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we over-hired, so now we need to correct because we've, we're carrying too much, you know, expense on the books," then their stock price would go down because they were idiots. Um, but if they say, "I'm laying off, you know, thousands of people because AI can do their jobs," which is not true, AI can't do that yet, not for that quantity of people-
- BBBrené Brown
And we have the data that support that, yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... it ju- it just can- it just can't.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, we have it.
- SSSimon Sinek
And so they can sa- but they say to the market, you know, AI, and then they look like on the, they're on the cutting edge, so their stock price goes up. But the problem is, is they are creating the narrative for AI. So now you have mass fear that AI is taking my job, which is not true. But these decisions, but more importantly, the narratives they're putting out to protect their own short-term gains, is creating a narrative that is creating the rebellion against AI. They don't realize the long-term damage they're doing for the adoption of a very important technology.
- AGAdam Grant
So what do you both make then of, I, I feel like every third post on LinkedIn says, "Your job won't be taken by AI. It'll be taken by someone using AI."
- BBBrené Brown
Somebody got a good tagline and went hard. I mean, I think-- So I'm gonna-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
I'm gonna... Someone just in marketing went hard, and it was great. It's a meme. Like-
- SSSimon Sinek
It's a good, it's a good, it's a good line
- BBBrené Brown
... it's a, it's a good line
- SSSimon Sinek
It's a good line.
- BBBrené Brown
It's a good line. As a writer, we're like-
- SSSimon Sinek
It's a good line
- BBBrené Brown
... "Well, there you, we give you an A+ on the line."
- SSSimon Sinek
It's a good line. Yeah, it's a good line. [laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Like, we give you a D- on the message, but an A+ on the line.
- 8:44 – 11:50
The Leadership Soccer Analogy
- SSSimon Sinek
It's a good line. It's a good line.
- BBBrené Brown
I think for me, [laughs] the, this, the state of the org for me can only... How many... Raise your hand if you're in this room and you've ever watched five-year-olds playing soccer or football.
- AGAdam Grant
Swarm.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. So this is the analogy that I would use to describe what I see in the C-suite right now. So when you've got-- Both of my kids played. You've got five-year-olds on the pitch. The balls are coming in really fast and really high, and they're coming in, like, at shoulder height. And so what the five-year-olds do is they lift up their little five-year-old feet and they kick the ball at shoulder height, which immediately they fall over, right? Um, and so this is kind of what to me the C-suite looks like right now, a lot of balls coming in really fast, lifting little feet, hitting them, falling over, no control. Over time, what ends up happening with a developing football player is by about 14 or 15, if they stay with the sport, they can see the high ball coming in. They anticipate the high ball. They jump. They chest the high ball. They drop the ball to the ground. They put their foot on the ball to maintain possession, 'cause that's the game. Then they look down the pitch. They find the striker. They understand where the striker is in relation to the person in the goal, and then they kick the ball down the pitch-
- AGAdam Grant
Right
- BBBrené Brown
... to not where the striker is standing, but to where the striker is going to be in a minute and a half-
- AGAdam Grant
Right
- BBBrené Brown
... or a second and a half. So that, that's, that's the evolution of on the pitch. So I think for me, if you think about what that skill is, to anticipate the high ball, chest the ball, drop it, maintain possession, look down the pitch, you're talking about a very serious cluster of skills.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- BBBrené Brown
You're talking about situational awareness, temporal awareness, anticipatory awareness, trust on team, training, and that's what we're missing for what we're facing.
- SSSimon Sinek
And leadership.
- BBBrené Brown
And what we're missing even more than the gaffer or the coach, I follow a lot of football. I'm a big Liverpool fan. Um, we can talk about that later. But what they're really missing are the player leaders.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- BBBrené Brown
In Liverpool terms, they're missing Gerard. They're missing the person who's actually on the pitch but is a player leader, um, which is a really underexplored, I think, position. So to me, for the first time in my, you know, three decades of doing this work, the biggest relief that I hear when I'm in, surrounded by the top senior leaders is when I say, "Don't worry, no one knows what the fuck is happening." That's the biggest relief I hear. People are like, "Oh, God, it's not... We, we actually don't know what's happening." Um, and so in order for that to work at that level of leadership, you have to be surrounded by people you trust and people who are very comfortable with productive challenge, people who are very comfortable saying, "I see your enthusiasm for this play. I don't think it's gonna work, and here are the data I'm using to make that assumption." You have to have a ton of trust with the team. That's not there right now for a million reasons.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm.
- BBBrené Brown
But high fastballs, little kicks, falling over.
- 11:50 – 13:25
The Hidden Leaders Inside Every Organization
- AGAdam Grant
Okay, so that makes me wonder, should we have team captains in organizations? Not formal leaders or managers, but-
- SSSimon Sinek
You, you mean the, the-
- AGAdam Grant
... somebody who's respected by their colleagues.
- SSSimon Sinek
But they're going to happen. They happen, they happen organically.
- BBBrené Brown
We have them.
- AGAdam Grant
I guess they're culture carriers, right?
- SSSimon Sinek
It happens, it happens orga- it happens organically.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
And I think the minute you label them that, they cease to lose their authority and power-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... as informal player leaders. Um, soon as you put the armband on, things change. But I think, I, I think it's for the first, that's the first thing, time in my career I've seen People willing to not even pretend they know what's... 'Cause you wake up, what's the American fever dream today? Tariffs. What is it tomorrow? Strait of Hormuz. Like, it's like people don't have... It's not even... It's too fast and too much.
- SSSimon Sinek
Well, the good leaders are saying that out loud.
- BBBrené Brown
The good leader-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... That's the difference.
- SSSimon Sinek
The g- the g- the good leaders are-
- BBBrené Brown
That's it
- SSSimon Sinek
... pretending that they got it all under control. The good leaders are being like, "Whoa, another one? I can't..." You know, like, the, I think... And, and you're saying sort of the, the high and fast coming at their head, that they're just honest about it, and I, and-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm
- SSSimon Sinek
... and they're looking to the team to help.
- BBBrené Brown
Ah, I love it. That's exactly-
- SSSimon Sinek
You know?
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
"Guys, I, I don't know. I don't know, and it's so uncertain, but I'm, I'm open to suggestions and I'm looking for help. And let's experiment, and if it doesn't work, we'll pivot." And, and, and the-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... the willingness to try and it not be the final decision. You know, I think there's this sort of weird thing that, you know, when a leader makes a decision, it has to be the right one and it has to be the final one, which of course is nonsense. Um, um, but the idea of dipping your toe in, trying things out, and seeing what works, um, the good leaders are, are, are doing that. They're open about it. They're
- 13:25 – 15:49
Playing to Win vs. Playing Not to Lose
- SSSimon Sinek
honest about it.
- BBBrené Brown
I have another metaphor that I think is really resonating right now with leaders, which is, especially companies that are, were doing well before last year, there's this, I think I, I use a lot of times the meta- We've talked about this before on the pod, the metaphor of playing to win versus playing to not lose.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- BBBrené Brown
And the difference between the behaviors-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... of playing to not lose and the, and the playing to not w-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... to playing to win. One of the things that's really interesting is unless you are scared most of the time, you are playing to not lose. And if you are playing to not lose, you are absolutely losing. Because even if you've had a string of great quarters or how- whatever your metric is, you're standing on top of a mountain protecting a flag, and the mountain is crumbling from underneath. Tariffs, geopolitical instability, market shifts, competition. You can't maintain a mountain that's crumbling. You've gotta go. And so to me, show me a leader. The first thing I look for in a leader, 'cause we say no to 70% of the transformations that people come in and ask for.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- BBBrené Brown
The first thing I look for in the top leadership is what percentage of the C-suite can manage their nervous system.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm. Mm.
- BBBrené Brown
If you can't manage your nervous system, you cannot manage strategy or people.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm. I mean, you're, you're talking about defense and offense, right?
- BBBrené Brown
I'm talking about defense and offense.
- SSSimon Sinek
Like, you, you, if you wanna, you, you, you play, you have to play defense occasionally, but you wanna play offense if you're building a business. And to your point, you know, too many people are playing defense as a means of building their businesses.
- BBBrené Brown
And because they're afraid.
- SSSimon Sinek
And they're afraid.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. The minute you, even if you have possession of the ball, the minute you're afraid, you're on defense with possession of a ball, which makes you useless.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. When I, when I hear playing to lose, I think about the psychology of threat rigidity-
- BBBrené Brown
Okay
- AGAdam Grant
... and how-
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, love this
- AGAdam Grant
... I mean, the, the tunnel vision, the narrowing of I'm just gonna do the thing that I'm already good at.
- BBBrené Brown
That's it.
- AGAdam Grant
I'm not gonna take any risks. I'm not gonna experiment. Simon, to your point, I'm not gonna innovate at all. And I think those leaders end up doing a ton of micromanaging because they focus on the little things they can control, not realizing, like in this sea of uncertainty, their job is actually to be macro managers, not micro managers. To help people make sense of the change that's happening, or at least be honest about-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm
- AGAdam Grant
... [laughs] you know, the, the fact that they don't, they don't have the answers yet. Um, and I think most leaders have not been trained in how to do that. Brené, I love your point about regulating a nervous system as a core leadership capability.
- 15:49 – 19:47
The Leadership Skill Most People Ignore
- AGAdam Grant
Can you, can you talk to us about how leaders can learn to do that? 'Cause I see at least six dysregulated people in this room right now. No.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs] I would be one-
- AGAdam Grant
Right
- BBBrené Brown
... so it'd just be five of y'all. Um, it's, it's a skill set. I mean, it, it's, when I was doing the research for Strong Ground, I really wanted to come up with a cluster of skills that were w- how do we future ready people? And I was really hoping it would be a great number, like 8 or 10, um, and it ended up being 38. Um, and I divide-
- SSSimon Sinek
Nice, nice round number
- BBBrené Brown
... A nice round number. And you know, as a writer, that shit sucks.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- BBBrené Brown
Like, you're like, welcome to the impossible cluster of future ready leadership. Um, the good thing is I use a lot of gym metaphors, like strength training metaphors, and I said, "You know, this is 38, but we have five or six kettle bells that'll hit 15 of them at one time," so we got it. But what I was surprised that emerged at the top, which I call the core, um, was five that I, again, did not want to be true because they're the ones that we would've never been working in the '80s.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- BBBrené Brown
The first one's self-awareness. The second, metacognition. Do you understand how you learn-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm
- BBBrené Brown
... and how you think? Three, emotional regulation and emotional awareness. Four, mindfulness, which, don't you hate saying it, though?
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
Do you hate saying it?
- SSSimon Sinek
I don't use it.
- BBBrené Brown
I don't use it either.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
'Cause-
- AGAdam Grant
But you just did.
- BBBrené Brown
I know, but like, what, what am I supposed to do? Like, lie? Um, it's the data. So I was gonna call it paying attention 'cause that's what the term I use.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
But mind- It's so funny because how many of you in here would love to have a lecture from someone come into your organization about mindfulness? Nobody. Like, if I walked in and I saw that, like, up on a deck, I'd be like, "Dude, I got shit to do."
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
I can't, like, "There's a butterfly and the grass is green."
- SSSimon Sinek
But, but this-
- BBBrené Brown
Fuck
- SSSimon Sinek
... th- this is a failure, this is a failure of that market, right? Because, um, like, when, when I started my work, um, I couldn't term, I couldn't talk about purpose at work. That was hippy-dippy stuff. When-
- BBBrené Brown
Purpose?
- SSSimon Sinek
No. No. When I started, if you, if you used the term purpose at work, literally I got, I either, there's a small percentage who were already converted, but if you wanna, if I wanted to move the needle, literally that's like, like you said, "I wanna come up and talk about purpose at your office," they'd be like, "Thanks, hippie. No." You know? Um-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- 19:47 – 23:48
What Elite Tennis Players Teach About Success
- BBBrené Brown
I mean, how many of you follow sports, any sport? How many of you watch the French Open? You don't think those folks have very serious mindfulness trainers?
- SSSimon Sinek
Oh, I saw a thing about tennis. I can't remember the exact numbers, um, but something like of the 100 top players, it's always the top 15 or 20. They're always the top 15 or 20. It's not like other sports where it, like, bounces around a lot. It's always the-
- BBBrené Brown
It's hard. It's narrow
- SSSimon Sinek
... it's, it's a-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... very narrow band of always the top. And so the question was asked, how is it the narrow band is always the narrow band when all the players have access to the same training, nutrition, coaches? It's an equal game for all of them. What is it about these top few? And I can't remember who did the research. I'm on brand.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
Um, uh, I can't remember who did the research, but, but what he found was that the, these, these top few, all of them, had a different mindset than everybody else, and the mindset was absolute love and joy of the game. So if they won a point, they would say, "Oh, I love this game." And if they lost a point, they'd be like, "Lost this time, but wait for the next one." And what ended up happening by the end of the game after five sets, their stress levels were lower, so they had more energy. And so they, they, they just played better at the end of the game than the other players. But it was this, it's all mindset and absolute joy versus the frustration and the anger, which then sucks the energy out of you, which I found so interesting.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay, but you're such a good storyteller, so you're so on brand. This is so important because having worked with athletes, and probably some of the ones you're talking about in the band, that is not inherent. That's what-
- AGAdam Grant
Did they, did they learn it?
- BBBrené Brown
That's what CEOs need to understand. That, that... They don't naturally-
- SSSimon Sinek
They weren't born, they weren't born with it
- BBBrené Brown
They did not self-select-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... into a top band of mindful, positive people. That is P equals P minus I. That is a book that I, I've read every year for 40 years I read this book, and now I teach it all the time to leaders, which is The Inner Game of Tennis. Performance equals potential minus interference. So, so what ends up happening when you're working with high-level athletes is performance equals potential. So we push and push and push and drill the shit out of, out of potential. You know, where are your volleys, where are your baseline hits? Let's work on their serve. Let's work on your return. What about your ball toss? And at some point, you're not moving the needle there.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
Then so you have to go back to it. So performance equals potential, we've drilled that to death, minus interference. What is your interference? And so what you're talking about is trained, and you can track any of the top 20 tennis players in the world, and if you track them for, from the juniors, you will see the 12 to 18 months where they learn that.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
You will see the difference. If you watch film, you will see the difference in their game.
- AGAdam Grant
This, this reminds me, we were with Novak Djokovic last year, and I, I think-
- BBBrené Brown
Great example
- AGAdam Grant
... I, I think he's an amazing example of this, but his, his emotional arc is different. Um, he, he, he explained that he felt like when he entered tennis, the niche of the fan favorite was already filled. Federer and Nadal were kind of... They'd covered it, right? Uh, they had all the love, and he needed to do something to activate his energy. And so he decided he was gonna make himself the bad guy and get the crowd to hate him, and the booing was gonna fire him up around the energy to prove them wrong and say, "Okay, you all think I can't do this. I'm gonna show you." And he said it actually took the pressure off because he felt like, "Nobody, nobody expects anything of me anyway. Nobody believes I can do it, so I have nothing to lose, and now I can play to win." And I think that can be just as powerful as I love the game.
- BBBrené Brown
I think it can too, but if you, if you hear Djokovic talk about the mindfulness training he's done and his ability to... I mean, even I think all of us do special force. We've all worked pretty closely with Special Forces military. Um, the whole thing that when there's a mistake, it's... One of the most common ones I hear from them is, "Data received."
- 23:48 – 28:25
Why Great Teams Outperform Great Individuals
- SSSimon Sinek
Well, I think, and I think you're touching upon the big mistake that happens in business, uh, consistently, which is we often talk about team performance, and people will interpret our work about high-performing teams and apply it to individuals. And-
- BBBrené Brown
Okay, you, uh... Wait, I want you to slow down and say that again, 'cause it is like the number one infuriating-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... hard thing to get your head around.
- SSSimon Sinek
So what makes high-performing organizations is high-performing teams, and you, all three of us talk about what makes high-performing teams, and then people take our work, and they try to apply it to individuals.
- BBBrené Brown
That's exactly right.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And, and that's not how it works. And even these analogies that we're using, we're using them to our detriment, which is we're talking about an individual sp- an individual teams, an individual player sport. Um, and that's not what business is. Now, the analogy is that- Hey, CEO, you're looking at this high-performing athlete, they learned this, you can learn it, too. That's sort of where the metaphor ends. I look at, like, um, for example, I look at, uh, Mercedes, uh, F1, Grand Prix. The way that Toto Wolff runs that organization is, um, um-- First of all, it's a no-blame organization, right, which I find fascinating, which is mistakes get made, and a kid on the, you know, changing a tire could lose the whole race, right? Because of- of... So- so they recognize that no matter how good the driver, no matter how good the car, it's the team that wins. And so when things go wrong, nobody will say, "You lost the race." They'll say, "Something went wrong. How do we fix it?" It's a no-blame organization, and he cares more about consistency rather than best performance.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
So when the pit crew, they're not trying to go fastest, fastest, fastest. Get it faster. He wants consistently two point two seconds. Doesn't need it to be quicker, doesn't want it slower. It's the consistency because that makes predictability, and they train for consistency. But again, it's all about-
- BBBrené Brown
The unit, the team
- SSSimon Sinek
... team.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
It's all about the unity of the team.
- AGAdam Grant
Uh, Hal Levitt wrote a classic article half a century ago. It's, it was called Suppose We Took S- Groups Seriously. And his thesis was, if we really believed that excellence depended on having a great team, we would hire teams, intact teams that had already gotten to know each other and proven their ability to work together. We would promote successful teams. We would fire failed teams as opposed to placing all the responsibility on the individual. I don't know that I'm willing to go that far. I would be really interested in a model of what if we hired pairs? What if we promoted pairs? If we could find dyadic relationships where- where people were more than the sum of their parts, that feels like a unit that's actually manageable.
- SSSimon Sinek
I mean, also the incentive structures. Most of the incentive structures in organizations are individual performance. Hit your numbers, you get the bonus, irrespective of how everybody else does. Um, we changed it in our organization where the, the bonus structure is based on the company.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And if the company hits its numbers, everybody gets a bonus, and if the company misses its numbers, nobody gets the bonus.
- BBBrené Brown
That's how we do it, too.
- SSSimon Sinek
And so, and if, and if one group is struggling, like when we look, you know, we sort of review, we, we don't, we don't hold... So same thing, which is it's not like, "Oof, sucks to be them," you know? It's not like one of those. We'll turn to everybody else who's doing well and being like, "What are you doing to help them?" Like, if they're, if they're struggling, that means you aren't helping them. That means we're not helping them. Um, and it's, and I have to say, I mean, we hold ourselves to higher standards because, you know, we out, we're out there preaching it, and we have to be able to do it ourselves, and we know too many people who don't practice what they preach. But I think one of the things I respect about you guys is that we all work very, very hard to practice what we preach. And so it's been a, it's been an education for me also to learn what team performance looks like and how you create team performance 'cause individual performance is just much easier.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
It's easier to incentivize, it's easier to manage, it's easier to hire, it's easier to fire.
- AGAdam Grant
Easier to measure, too.
- SSSimon Sinek
It's easier to measure. Team stuff is actually really difficult, which is one of the reasons we love the special operators is because... And, and I, I mean, you guys already know this. So getting to spend time with, um, Seal Team Six, and we talk about their courage and their amazingness and all of this, and their team ethic and their team ethos is so intense that, um, it's not that they have raw courage and that, that, that they have no fear of dying. That's not what it is.
- BBBrené Brown
No.
- SSSimon Sinek
It's that they fear letting down their team-
- BBBrené Brown
For sure
- SSSimon Sinek
... more than they fear dying. Think about that for a second. They fear letting down their team more than they fear dying. Now translate into, that into business, you know? We don't fear letting down our team, you know? We-- Can you imagine fearing letting down your team more than getting your bonus? You know, that, that, that ethos. And that's, and by the way, these are the highest performing teams in the world. And this is what I don't understand, which is we're here. We, we have this amazing access to look at these organizations and say, "Hey, general world, like, look at what they're doing. You can do this, too," and
- 28:25 – 36:40
Leadership, Care & Human Connection
- SSSimon Sinek
they don't.
- BBBrené Brown
I had a really weird experience maybe five or six years ago when... No, no, it was longer than that. It's been a decade now. Um, some new data had emerged from our research on courageous leadership, which was... And this is, this will be interesting, and it's somewhat controversial, I think, um, but it was very clear in the data, that care for and connection with the people you lead is a non-negotiable prerequisite for leadership. If you do not care for, genuinely care for, and genuinely find yourself able to connect with the people you lead, you can't lead them well. And that's hard 'cause I, I, I've led some people that I didn't feel connected to them at all. Um, and I, I actually from, because of the research and trying to practice what we-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... teach, I did end up moving their reporting lines, which is hard when you're the founder because it just feels like... But I'm like, "We only have two options here." Yeah. "And this move is gonna be a better option for you."
- SSSimon Sinek
Can I, can I share something that-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... that helped me soul for that?
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Which was its narrative, right? So when you're having a meeting with a bunch of whoever's in the meeting, let's say the, the, the senior leaders in the meeting, and somebody's name comes up in the company, and somebody will go, "Ugh, such an idiot," right? And, like, it happens. Like, the lazy one, the underperformer.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
You know, the, the, the, the Debbie Da- Death of a party, you know, like, whoever it is, Debbie Downer. Like, what happens-
- AGAdam Grant
Donald Downer.
- SSSimon Sinek
Donald Downer is, like-
- BBBrené Brown
I'm, I'm training Adam on the use of women's names in terrible things. Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Fair point.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Um, uh, uh, so but we do. We, we create narratives. And what happens is even people who don't work with them, that's the narrative they have of that person now. So when they do interact with them-
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, for sure
- SSSimon Sinek
... they're gonna start treating them based on the narrative.
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, for sure.
- SSSimon Sinek
And by the way, it happens everywhere. Like, it, it happens when people are talking about their leaders. They're like, "Oh, you know, they're clueless, they're stupid, they don't get us," right? Whatever it is. And so I realized that we were doing it, right? And so new rule. I said, "You know, we're human. We vent. It's fine. But if you're in a meeting where somebody is creating a narrative about somebody else, it is the responsibility of everybody else in the meeting to interrupt that narrative and simply say, 'Hey.'" They may be lazy. They may also be stressed. They may also have stuff going on at home that we don't know about. We may have put them in the wrong job. They may be under- under-trained. They may be overworked, um, or they may be lazy. It could be one of those things. And just by giving grace and allowing for more things to be on the list-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... we, we change the narratives. And once we started doing it as a, as a senior team, because I... It was became sort of a new rule, then I went to the whole organization and said, "Now, this is a rule for the whole organization. If anybody creates a narrative about anybody else, it's the responsibility of everybody else in that meeting to interrupt the narrative." And it helped tremendously because it, what it allowed for was when you have that tension with somebody and you just, sometimes you just have personality clash-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... personality clashes even with people in your own team, it allows you instead of to form narrative about them, to offer grace and be like, "You know what? We just don't get along. It's, it's probably me. Uh, but why don't, I'm gonna let you manage this issue with them because I'm-
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm
- SSSimon Sinek
... I'm gonna get it wrong just for personality reason." And it just offers this magical grace, and it's so easy to implement. And it has such, such disproportionate positive impact on the performance of the team.
- BBBrené Brown
I like it because when you adopt a courageous system, as opposed to asking some individuals to do that, you normalize it so the person that gets interrupted with it doesn't feel targeted. Like, they're like, "Oh, shit, this, this is what we do. We just stop each other. This is a, this is-"
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
It just becomes, it just becomes acculturated, yeah.
- 36:40 – 43:03
Do You Love Winning or Fear Losing?
- SSSimon Sinek
Um, do you Want to win or do you fear losing? Like, is, do you wa- do you like to win or do you fear losing? Just as a-
- BBBrené Brown
In what domain?
- SSSimon Sinek
Just as a motivator, as a, as a personality. Like-
- AGAdam Grant
Yes
- SSSimon Sinek
... like, n- but-
- AGAdam Grant
Both
- SSSimon Sinek
... it's, I think it's, I think it's different. Some people, like, hate losing, and some people love winning. Do you know which one you are?
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, you know what? I am driven almost solely by mastery on the court. Like, and so for me, I'd rather, I'd rather-
- SSSimon Sinek
L-
- BBBrené Brown
... lose a game where I learned than win an game that was easy.
- SSSimon Sinek
S- s- s- that, different conversation. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Maybe I, maybe it's so foreign to me-
- SSSimon Sinek
No, that's-
- BBBrené Brown
... this idea that you're-
- SSSimon Sinek
No, but like, when, like, do you get more excited by the win and you're like, "Okay, well, I lost," or do you, like, hate losing, but when you win, you're like, "Ah, I won."
- AGAdam Grant
A different-
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, no. I, I, I, I like to win.
- AGAdam Grant
So you love the win.
- BBBrené Brown
I love the win.
- AGAdam Grant
Okay.
- BBBrené Brown
I mean, I'm gonna tell you this. I was playing pickleball just a couple months ago, and it was open play, so you just stack your paddles and you go on with a random doubles partner. And I'm playing, and we're down, like, 6-0, and this kid is, like, 30. And I look at him. I'm like, "Son, you need to lock in."
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
And he was like, "I'm sorry?" I said, "I need you to lock in."
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
"Focus." And he said, "Ma'am, it's a game. It's fun." And I was like, "No, winning is fun."
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
And he's like, "Okay." And I said, "Another thing, if you're gonna come across and get my ball, that's great. I love that move. Make sure you make it. Otherwise, I got the ball on this side."
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
And he was like, "Got it. Lock in. Stay on my side unless I can make it." And he's like, "Okay." So they never scored again, and we ended up winning 11-6. And then we went back, and I was like, "Let's stack our paddles together." And he's like, "I don't think so."
- 43:03 – 49:46
Organizational Uniqueness Bias
- AGAdam Grant
Simon, you were, you were saying we, we study these elite organizations that, um, that teach us how to do things like care and build connection, and how critical that is to performance. Why don't other organizations listen? And this is, this has been a frustration for me for two decades. My, my current hypothesis, and I would love to hear your reactions and, and yours, is a lot of them are falling victim to organizational uniqueness bias. They hear Navy SEALs, or they hear Pixar, or they hear pick your favorite, you know-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... extreme case, and they think, "Well, we're not like them. Like, we can't do that. They have a special culture. They hire special people. Um, that doesn't apply to us," not realizing it's kind of like saying, "Well, I can't learn anything from an Olympic athlete about how to improve my workout." Like, that is the person you want to learn f- from, and then you have to tailor it to you. Um, I wonder is... H- how does, how does that track with what you see? What are, what are the barriers? How do you overcome that bias?
- SSSimon Sinek
I think it's simpler. I just think it's, uh, misaligned incentives. I think it goes back to the, you know, Charlie Munger, you know, "Show me how someone's paid, and I'll show you how they behave." You know, I, I think incentive structures are so screwed up. Good intentions, bad intentions, y- you know, biases. I don't think any of it matters.
- AGAdam Grant
Hmm.
- SSSimon Sinek
Um, they'll do, they'll do what they're incentivized to do.
- BBBrené Brown
I think it's a greedy quarter issue.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
I think it's, I, I, think it's, um... It's interesting because what we do specifically is we don't do adaptive change or incremental change. If I'm going into an organization, there's some... We've assessed them for a long time, and th- they're ready for transformation, and they want transformation.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
What people don't understand about transformation is you will break some shit if you're trans- That is the definition of transformation. You are going to assess existing systems and break the ones that do not serve and desperately protect the ones that serve. And no one, even in your immediate team at the C-suite level, will agree what systems need to be broken and which ones you need to keep. And then you're going to go through a very rigorous three-year... A, a, the poet David Whyte has this great definition of, and I might get it wrong, but it's the great definition of transformation, to hit the wall at full velocity and watch things fall apart. That's how he defines transformation, and that's what happens in organizations. There's not-- It's not unusual in a transformation for there to be a 30 to 60% churn of leaders that report up to the C-suite. Like, because what's happening, I think, and this goes to your question, it's systems theory, which was the fifth of the core, the top, when we were talking about the five top leadership skills. If you, if you are not engaged deeply in systems thinking right now, I don't think you can play to win. And if you were a systems thinker and you got away from it, you need to revisit the scholarship on systems thinking. But one of the biggest things I think that helps with systems thinking is this iceberg model of problem identification, that above the water we see a problem, and this is where, as leaders, we attack. We attack what we see. But underneath the iceberg are several other layers. One is behavior. The next one is, mm, structures and systems. The deeper you go for change, the more leverage and lasting and meaningful the change. The bottom layer is mental models. What is the mental model from which people work? And a mental model, when I go in and I'm talking to a CEO about a potential transformation, and we go through this assessment, and the second I hear that a mental model has to change in a collecti- in a group of people, I'm like, "This is going to take three years. It's going to be very difficult transformation." Because a mental model is the way we make sense of the world, and it's how we assess our value in a corporation or in, in an org- any organization. To change mental models is absolutely... To, uh, to excavate them to begin with is hard, but then to change them is very hard.
- SSSimon Sinek
Y- you're touching upon something that I think is also essential because you're talking about three year, uh, as the, as the timeframe, whether th- you know, which is ish, right?
- BBBrené Brown
Ish, yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
It sh- it should, it should happen within three years.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
But I, I think the f- the insight there for me is the letting go of, "I can't predict when." And I think the, um, that, that's... I mean, the, the... Most, most companies don't implement my work, and the reason is, is because I can't tell you when it's going to work. I know 100% it works. Like if I know that if you work out every single day for 20 minutes, 100% of people will get into shape. Can't tell you when, and neither can any doctor. And you just have to sort of, you have the discipline, and you stick to it, and you can have good days and bad days and can take days off, but it will work. And so when we go through these, these transformations that we're able to sort of guide people through or guide organizations through, the big challenge they have is they want or need it to work by the end of the calendar year or the end of the fiscal year.
- BBBrené Brown
Or not.
- SSSimon Sinek
And so it might, but I can't promise that it will. And because I can't promise that it will, then they want a model that, that will at least appear that the change has been made on their timeframe. And that's like saying... It's like going on a first date and saying, "On this date on the calendar, you and I will be in love." It's like, it may happen that way, but I can't predict that it will. All of the things that you and, uh, the, the, the three of us talk about, we talk about process and discipline and sticking to it. A, good days and bad days are allowed. Like, you can have chocolate cake even when you're on a diet, just don't do it every day. And the minute you can let go of when it has to happen, um, and just stick to the process, invariably, it almost always happens.
- BBBrené Brown
And I'll tell you that, I mean, this is... You, you cannot predict it, and this is, but this is the good-
- SSSimon Sinek
But most people can't let go of that.
- BBBrené Brown
They can't let go of that.
- AGAdam Grant
That's a failed mental model.
- BBBrené Brown
It's a failed mental model.
- AGAdam Grant
Right? That I need to know-
- SSSimon Sinek
I need to know what day
- AGAdam Grant
... within 90 days or six months that this is gonna work.
- SSSimon Sinek
This, this has to work in 12 months, otherwise I've wasted my money. It was like, well, it might, but I ca- I don't know.
- BBBrené Brown
Here's what's shocking to us. When we do a dare to lead transformation, we only measure for 18 months on performance metrics, no cultural metrics.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
Where everything from organic growth, stock price, um, and we start to see them within six to nine months on those metrics. Cultural metrics are like the falling in love.
- 49:46 – 57:16
Audience Q&A: Teaching Kids About Shame
- BBBrené Brown
Yes.
- SPSpeaker
I have a question. Um, regarding shame and talking about it, getting people to think about it, stuff which I find very, very helpful when it comes to leading organizations. My question is, how do I talk about it with kids?
- AGAdam Grant
Okay.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay. So-
- AGAdam Grant
Brené, how do we talk about shame with kids?
- BBBrené Brown
So the question is, "I find the work interesting about shame and how it applies to leadership and talking about, talking about it in organizations. Um, how do we talk about it with kids?" Did I play that back correctly?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay. So one of the things that's really important just right now, I will say, about shame in organizations, you have to remember... I, I don't have to do anything, but I would suggest it's really important to hold in mind right now that the number one shame trigger professionally for us is the fear of irrelevance. So imagine the levels of shame in organizations right now, and it's not just about AI. It is about everything that's happening at one time and people not understanding. I will tell you this, this is... One of the questions I had was, "What are you seeing for the first time that you've never seen before?" And my answer is, for the first time in over 25 years of doing this work, I am seeing the C-suite more frustrated with the level, the leaders that report directly to them than any other level of leaders in the organization. Not the frozen middle, not the folks that report up to the senior leaders underneath, but those senior leaders, and why? Because they are really, the mental model of the senior leadership right now-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm
- BBBrené Brown
... is the most painful to excavate because they put their value on being knowers, not on being learners.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- BBBrené Brown
And their learning agility is lower right now than any other level in an organization.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm. That's good.
- BBBrené Brown
100%, and so it's a really scary time for very senior people. With kids, I think the most important thing is to not mystify it. Just to say, "I was at a conference and I talked to this woman who studies shame, and this is what I'm learning. I think it's interesting." Shame is... I think the easiest way to talk to kids is the basics. It's the same way I talk to adults, really. Uh, shame is I am bad. Guilt is I did something bad. Shame is a focus on ourselves. Guilt is a focus on behavior. So if you get a bad grade, you get a paper back and you look at it and you got a, a D, and you say, "God, I'm so stupid," that's shame. If you get the paper back and you get a D and you're like, "Wow, going out last night and not studying for this test was really stupid," that's a focus on behavior, and that's guilt. Why is it important in parenting? Because in the first longitudinal nested cohort studies of kids, we see that shame brown, shame-bound kids are more likely to have significant struggles with alcohol, drugs, uh, sexual irresponsibility, aggression, depression, suicidal attempts, I mean, across the board. Guilt-prone kids, this is, this is what the crazy part of the study is, even less likely to engage in those behaviors than the general population. So the way we measure shame and guilt is by self-talk. When something goes wrong, how do I talk to myself? We believe that the number one variable that presented, but that, that predicted self-talk was parenting style. So your kid does something and you say, "God, you're so stupid," versus, "Riding your bike up that ramp with your friends was a really stupid thing to do." Very big difference. Today, I think we're beginning to question whether the parenting style is the o- is the big, is the big predictor or the only one because we can have siblings within one family that are wired different for it.
- SSSimon Sinek
There, there's a great leadership lesson here as well. Uh, it's a mil-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... it's a military story. Um, there was, um, uh, uh, on base a bunch of young officers who were in an elite school, um, went out partying and they took a, a junior enlisted with them and, um, they came back on base and one of the young officers was driving the car and was afraid of getting stopped by the cops on base for drunk driving, so they told the junior enlisted, "You drive." And so she took the wheel. Um-
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, God
- SSSimon Sinek
... they got pulled over by the cops. She got breathalyzed. She'd, was over the limit. She got arrested. And it turned out also later on that the officer, one of the officers and the, uh, enlisted were dating, which is forbidden military conduct.
- BBBrené Brown
This just keeps getting worse.
- SSSimon Sinek
Right. So as a result of all of this happening, these young officers were ejected from this elite program, um, and their senior officer had to sit down with them and- You know, they g- they got, they got in trouble. And, um, and you think about sort of how people get in trouble from their parents or people get in trouble from their, their, their bosses at work. We say things like, "How can you be so stupid? L- you have destroyed your career. What were you thinking?" Right? We say things like that.
- BBBrené Brown
We do.
- SSSimon Sinek
And what I found was so amazing in-
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
... uh, when I heard this story was, was, um, these, these wonderful human beings are driven by service, giving of themselves to others, and the pride of sacrifice for others, and that same mentality works the other way. And the way they got in trouble, the, the senior officers sat, sat down with them and said, "Do you have any idea how many people you've let down? You've let down your parents for believing in you, you've let down your team members for believing in you, you've let down me. Like, do you realize how many people you've let down b- because of your actions?" And this idea of, like, you, you, you, you, you take risks to, to support the team, but you, you manage your behavior because you'll let down the team, as opposed to, "How can you be so stupid?" And the idea of connecting it to the greater good I thought was way more powerful, so intense to hear that. And to your point, which is the idea of guilt, is more likely to regulate the behavior-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-hmm
- SSSimon Sinek
... um, rather than calling you stupid or calling you this or calling you that. I found it so fascinating.
- BBBrené Brown
So what's interesting there is how that message hits. So if that message hits, I've engaged in a series of behaviors that let down people that are important to me, that's probably an indicator of behavior change.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- 57:16 – 1:01:12
The Sociology Study on Moral Courage
- AGAdam Grant
D- do you know the, the study by the sociologist Oliner and Oliner on, um, Holocaust rescuers?
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-mm.
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, I love this study. So this, um, husband and wife sociology team, they look at hundreds of, um, of non-Jews who rescued Jews, sticking their, their own necks out and putting their lives on the line during the Holocaust, and compared them with bystanders who were in the same towns and did nothing. And the question was what, what differentiated the people who were willing to engage in these potentially self-sacrificing heroic acts from their peers? And th- many, many hypotheses not supported. Um, the, the, basically the adults were similar in m- many more ways than they were different. One of the differences was when you looked at the parenting that they had been exposed to as kids, the rescuers, uh, were punished at lower rates for misbehavior than the bystanders. Um, but the parents didn't do nothing. When the rescuers did something disappointing, the parents highlighted the consequences of the behavior for others.
- SSSimon Sinek
Oh.
- AGAdam Grant
It's exactly the point-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah. Oh
- AGAdam Grant
... you're making. They said, "Hey, like, when you, when you stayed out late-
- SSSimon Sinek
These, these, these are the ripples
- AGAdam Grant
... I was really worried, and I didn't know where you were, and I didn't know if you were safe, and I didn't know if I could reach you." And they taught the kids to reflect on the impact of the behavior on, of their behavior on others, and realize, "Wow, every action I take has consequences for other people." And you fast-forward the clock 20, 30 years and you see someone who's being persecuted, and that message sticks.
- BBBrené Brown
There's gotta be some kinda confounding variable of empathy in there too, 'cause I mean, one of the things we teach kids around your, what you do has, can affect other people. Like, that's, that's a really big part of how we teach empathy, which by the way, is the antidote to shame. So if you put empathy in a Petri dish, I mean, if you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially: judgment, secrecy, and silence. But if you put shame in a Petri dish and you douse it with empathy, you've created a hostile environment for shame. Shame cannot survive empathy. So that-
- SSSimon Sinek
Love
- BBBrené Brown
... that kind of connection and disappointment-
- SSSimon Sinek
It teaches, it teaches everything we're talking about in this entire podcast, which is we're talking about service, we're talking about that your actions have repercussions for others-
- BBBrené Brown
And connection
- SSSimon Sinek
... you know, good and bad. We're talking about connection. We're talking about that this is a team sport, you know, business is a team sport, life is a team sport, you know? Um, it's, it's, it's, it's a beautiful, it sort of ties a nice little bow on it.
- AGAdam Grant
We should take some more-
- BBBrené Brown
For sure. Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... audience questions-
- BBBrené Brown
Thank you
- AGAdam Grant
... and also give shorter answers.
- BBBrené Brown
Here, and then here.
- AGAdam Grant
Really quick.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
You talked about empathy as the antithesis to shame. What about a human that has deep, deep empathy, but the self-talk is always shame-oriented? So in the same body you have deep empathy, a deep feeler, but also someone who's very, very self-critical.
- BBBrené Brown
So let me play back the question to make sure, um, that I've got it right. You are asking what about someone who has a deep capacity for empathy, but also has kind of internal shaming messaging?
- AGAdam Grant
Empathy almost to a fault. Like, yes.
- BBBrené Brown
So empathy to a fault often stops being empathy. So empathy to a fault almost becomes enmeshment and taking care of others, and that's really quickly a very short walk to shame. Does that make sense? So I'm no longer... Simon calls me and, and so this is really, this is one of the things we talk, Adam and I talk about a lot, because there's a big attack on empathy right now, especially in the US. Which would make perfect sense politically. I mean, it'd be easier to get away with the bullshit if no one cared for anybody else, so I understand the attack on empathy, personally, not speaking for my co-hosts. But empathy, cogn... There's two types of empathy, and when you hear people attacking empathy, they use a type of empathy that is actually fairly
- 1:01:12 – 1:08:22
Cognitive vs. Affective Empathy
- BBBrené Brown
detrimental, and they're, the types of empathy are cognitive empathy and affective empathy. So cognitive empathy is you call me and you say, "Shit, do you have a minute?" I'm like, "Yeah, what's going on?" And you tell me something really hard, and I'm like, "Oh, God. What a shit show. I'm so sorry that happened." I'm unloading the dishwasher when you call. I am not feeling what you're saying. Affective empathy is taking on the feelings of another person. I'm not, like, if you're, if you are calling me with a sense of despair, I am not all of a sudden in my kitchen unloading the dishwasher putting myself awash in despair so I can connect with you. I am cognitively connecting to my understanding of what despair is, and I'm going to be there with you and for you, but I'm not taking on your emotion. So that is cognitive empathy. What it, what leads to burnout and compassion fatigue is affective empathy. I'm going to feel what everyone's feeling. So when you say really s- you know. So it's affective empathy. Then what happens is you call me, you're in despair. I'm labeling that as an emotion 'cause it's a hard one. I take on your despair, and now I'm filling myself with shame self-talk, 'cause I can't fix you.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- BBBrené Brown
You called me from a dark, deep hole.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- BBBrené Brown
My job is not to jump in it with you. My job is to, is to say, "I see you. Let me really see you." I take a ladder out of my backpack. I put it in the hole. I go down. I see you. I say, "I care about you." I say, "You're not alone." And then I get back on my ladder and I go. Otherwise, we just have two suckers in a dark hole. So that's how shame is related to over, to enmeshment, or what I would say is taking on the emotions of other people.
- SSSimon Sinek
The, the, li- little red flag here.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
I've seen this in businesses and companies where, um, w- we, we, we had somebody, uh, quit, and one of our, one of our great... Like, we loved her, we... Like she amazing, amazing, amazing human being, and she quit, and we're like, "What, what's the reason you're quitting?" She says, "I'm burnt out." And we're like, "We know your workload. Like, what?" You know, like, "Well, how's burnout?" And what we discovered wh- when we sort of like went and sort of investigated is she's an empath, and when other members of the team discovered she was an empath, they all went to her with their problems.
- BBBrené Brown
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
And, and so she was taking on everybody's problems, and everybody loved to go and dump their personal problems, the, "I've had a fight with my parents, I'm having a fight with my, my spouse," whatever it was, and they, she took on everybody to the point where she couldn't hack it anymore and she left. And I, I've talked about it publicly, and people have come up to me and said, "Oh, my God. I go to somebody."
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
"I take advantage of them. I'm dumping all my problems on them," and it's creating burnout in companies even though it has nothing to do with their workload.
- BBBrené Brown
Yes.
- AGAdam Grant
Peter... Oh, sorry.
- BBBrené Brown
Go ahead, no.
- AGAdam Grant
Peter Frost studied this. Uh, he called, he called it being a toxin handler and found that that role is critical for an organization, but if it gets located in one person-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... that person is going to burn out.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
It reminds me, what, what was the, what was the series that it's y'all might, I might be aging myself here for sure. I'm aging my... The, what was the, the we-
- SSSimon Sinek
Bonanza?
- BBBrené Brown
No. But no, of that genre. You're right.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Hey, I love Bonanza.
- SSSimon Sinek
I love Bonanza too.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay. Watch it. Um-
- SSSimon Sinek
I can hum the theme.
- BBBrené Brown
I can hum the theme too. Um, I love Bonanza. No, but it's of that black and white television-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... kinda weird and freaky things would happen.
- 1:08:22 – 1:12:13
How AI Will Affect Jobs
- AGAdam Grant
Okay, so the question is, how is AI going to affect our jobs? I, I, I think that Jensen is onto something. We, we were with him not too long ago, and I think, I think... Look, I've been studying job design for 25 years. Most leaders define a job as a collection of tasks, and that's only half of the puzzle. Jobs are also collections of relationships. And so when we map what somebody's supposed to do at work, we have to think about what is each project and assignment that needs, needs to get done, but also, what is all the communication and coordination that needs to happen? I think the radiologist, uh, excuse me, the radiologist job is such an interesting example of this-
- BBBrené Brown
I agree
- AGAdam Grant
... because what, uh, I think even three years ago, as soon as, as generative AI ca- burst onto the scene, people said, "Radiologists are going to cease to exist." And it is true, right, that, that a large language model can substitute for some of the tasks that a radiologist does, but there are other tasks that still require human judgment. I know I would not go to an AI radiologist solely, right? I want a human to look over it, just like I want a human in the cockpit, even though autopilot is doing most of the work on a plane. But also, there's a whole collection of relationships that really matter there. Um, there's the radiologist seeking a second opinion from another radiologist. There's the coordination with a whole team of experts. There's the interaction with the patient. I don't think we're ready to outsource that, and so I think that's an evolution of a job to maybe subtract a task or two and add a task or two, and maybe increase the interaction complexity as part of it, and I think that's probably where jobs are going, but I don't have a crystal ball, and anyone who says they do is lying to you or themself.
- BBBrené Brown
Mm.
- SSSimon Sinek
Or they have a vested interest.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. I mean, you're, you, you are in the mothership. Um, I agree 100% with, with everything you said. I think that I, I'm a, I'm a tech optimist and an early AI, AI user. Um, so I interact with AI... I mean, I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is I get a four-page brief from an agent that knows me better than I know myself sometimes. It's weird that I get a four-page brief from an AI every morning that gives me the geopolitical impact on all the organizations I'm working with, any news that I need to understand, stock, uh, analysis of investor calls, things that I need to know for my job. Um, and so, and I've used it for a while. I also have an agent, like a personal agent, that will, I'll say, "Is it true, I saw on Instagram, that I can stop using retinol if I eat more carrots?"
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
And then it'll come back and say, "Sometimes it's hard for me to believe you're a social scientist. You are the biggest sucker."
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
"Stay off social media and keep using the stack we put together a year ago." Like, that's what it'll say to me. Um, or I'll say, "There's a new paddle out. I need to buy it." And it'll say, "You need to work on your game. You don't like drilling." Like, this is m- So I, I'm, I'm a fan, and I use it for things. What it will never replace, at least not, I don't think, I don't think it'll ever replace this, is discernment, is deep discernment. And so the radiologist is really interesting because let's say you have a film that is alarming, and it can give you percentages and predictions about that film, but what I need is that radiologist talking to my primary care doctor, who's also talking to my cardiologist, who's also talking to this person in a consult about the real, not just statistics of what we can do and what different protocol outcomes are, but here's what's important to Brené. She talks in he- terms of health span more than lifespan. She, you know, she's on a court six days a week. This is what, you know, this is what makes sense for her. That, I don't think we'll ever be able to replace.
- 1:12:13 – 1:16:13
Brené Biggest Concern About AI and Humanity
- BBBrené Brown
The thing that I think is most alarming to me is that people say, and this goes back to our very beginning, people say over and over, "We don't need to worry because what will save us from AI taking over our world and our, our jobs is what makes us human." But we are shit at what makes us human.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- BBBrené Brown
The Welchian era brought in a deep-seated belief, you and I have talked about this before, that actually what makes us human is a detriment to performance.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- BBBrené Brown
And that has, that has turned out to be wholly false across all of the research studies.
- AGAdam Grant
Which is why there are more radiologists today [laughs] than there were pre-AI.
- BBBrené Brown
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
Tech- technologists, um, God bless them, always leave the people out. Um, you know- Re- ma- when the rise of internet, and, um, we're all old enough to remember this, you know, they were saying, "It's the death of bricks and mortar." But they forgot that human beings like to hunt and gather, and we like to go shopping, you know? And so the business model of, of bricks and mortar is different. That's a, that's a numbers game. But we like to go shopping. And you saw these stores that Amazon put up that are now going away 'cause there's no people in them. And, like, we would rather go to a supermarket and ask the kid who's stocking the shelves like, "Hey, where's the mustard?" than we would just, like, pull out our phone and look up mustard. Um, uh, we want that human interaction. You know, Whole Foods had a thing where you could do a palm reader. You'd, like, at the-
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... at the checkout. Um, and all you do is do your palm, it connects to your Amazon account, gives you your discounts that you're supposed to get, connects with your credit card, and you just pay, and it's great and wonderful, and they got rid of all of them because of low adoption. And people still stand in line for a human being checkout when we could all c- just go to the auto checkout, but we don't. We don't. We like human interaction. And going back to the radiologist, medicine is not just about data. Medicine is human. That's my life you're talking about. And we always complain about the doctor that has a terrible bedside manner. Well, imagine having a doctor with no bedside manner, right? Where here's the data, here's the prescription, go. Y- you know, the, you want the, you want the compassion. You want the doctor that cares. You know, you want the customer service agent that cares. You want to feel that somebody cares about you, a human being cares about me. I feel seen and heard. And that is irreplaceable by technology. So technology living aside, living alongside the human being, we all love that. But these grand prediction of replacement, none of us want that. That leads... I- if you want any prediction, I'll make one prediction about the adoption of AI. If, if, if it goes according to what the technologists and the AI s- uh, zealots say, you, my prediction is you will see massive increases over the course of the next 10 years of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Massive rates of suicide, um, going up. Why? 'Cause you took the people away from social animals. And we're completely forgetting that it's not making our lives easy. What it's doing is making us more productive, which means there's gonna be greater demands on our time. So I have a friend who's a photographer, so when she takes a, she does a photo shoot, then she does retouching for the client. She's using AI. Photoshop has amazing AI tools. She can do massive amounts more much quicker, much better, much m- uh, much easier. I said, "Do you have more time? Isn't it better? Don't you love AI?" She said, "Absolutely not. Now my clients want their deadlines shorter and they want more work, and now there's just an expectation. Instead of doing, you know, 10 photographs in a week, I have to do 100 photographs in a week." So all it does is change the bar of expectation, but her workload, she's working exactly the same amount. She's just producing more. So I think, I think the, the, the one thing I would just be cautious of is, like, human beings want human beings in our, in our lives, and it's totally fine to have technology help us, but it's not gonna replace us. We will rebel against it. Or watch that suicide number go up.
- BBBrené Brown
And, and we're rebelling now. Look at the commencement addresses in the United States.
- SSSimon Sinek
Oh, yeah, yeah. Boo-ing.
- BBBrené Brown
Where technologists took the stage and got booed by students who... We did, we d- our last podcast on it, like, why? I mean, we've been college professors. I've, I'm going on year 30. Like, what people want is moral imagination.
- 1:16:13 – 1:17:40
Final Thoughts
- SSSimon Sinek
They want connection and belonging.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. And love.
- SSSimon Sinek
And people want to feel seen and understood and-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... everything we're talking about. You know, it's so funny when you're talking about it in a business context, people are like, "That's mushy. That's not productive." But when you, as soon as you take it out of a business context, everyone's like, "That's what I want," you know?
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs] It's like-
- BBBrené Brown
This is a good place to end. Thank y'all for coming, and Simon, thanks for joining-
- SSSimon Sinek
Thanks for having me. It was lovely
- BBBrené Brown
... the Curiosity Shop.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yep.
- BBBrené Brown
Thank y'all.
- SSSimon Sinek
Good seeing you.
- BBBrené Brown
I loved our conversation. It was, it was fun. Um, and I loved the conversation from the folks in the room. What do you think, Adam?
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah, I'm still thinking about a few of the questions. We might have to do a follow-up.
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, we should. That would be, that would be great. Um, just a reminder to y'all that we're going on hiatus, but stay on because we're gonna give you five of our best kind of, um, Adam and I together, another one with me, Adam, and Simon. Um, so stay on the feed. We'll be back July 30th. And if you want more information about Simon, including where you can find him, where you can follow him, where you can learn more, go to thecuriosityshop.com, our podcast website. And we will see you. Have a wonderful five-week summer, and we'll be back.
- AGAdam Grant
Can't wait. [bell dings] [upbeat music]
- BBBrené Brown
The Curiosity Shop is produced by Brené Brown Education and Research Group and Grant Ed Productions. You can subscribe to The Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app.
- AGAdam Grant
We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.
Episode duration: 1:17:41
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Transcript of episode HuEUg8AW_5k
