Adam Grant: 10 CRAZY Stats About Why Only 2% of the People Becomes Successful!

1. 0:00 – 2:16

   Intro

   1. AGAdam Grant0:00

      (instrumental music plays) Ronaldo is an individual superstar, but the way he plays his game does not elevate the team. So what can we learn from this? First of all, Adam Grant. Business psychologist.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:10

      One of the world's most influential- Career and business thinkers. He will help you do the best work of your life and reach your professional potential.

   3. AGAdam Grant0:17

      My job is to study how to make work not suck and help you become a better version of yourself.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:23

      So, what are some of the myths and findings about unlocking our hidden potential?

   5. AGAdam Grant0:27

      These might surprise people. It turns out that perfectionism is not all it's cracked up to be. It's a risk factor for burnout. First-borns score higher on IQ tests, but later-borns tend to be more willing to take risks. We don't procrastinate for the reasons we think we do. It's not hard work that you're avoiding when you procrastinate. It is- Decades of research on brainstorming has shown that if you get a group of people together to generate ideas, if instead you let them work alone, you would have gotten more ideas and also better ideas. When people talk about imposter syndrome, that feeling is actually pretty rare. What's much more common is imposter thoughts. But there are all kinds of benefits of having those thoughts. For example, data from 50,000 people found that Chrome or Firefox users are, on average, better performers and they stick around longer than if you're using Safari or Internet Explorer.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:10

      Give me one more.

   7. AGAdam Grant1:11

      Okay. Well, this is the most vital skill to unlock the hidden potential in yourself. So what you have to do is- Before we wrap, I have a couple questions for you.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:19

      I feel- why do I feel nervous?

   9. AGAdam Grant1:20

      You should feel nervous.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:21

       Okay.

   11. AGAdam Grant1:22

       All right, first question is, what's something I can do better as a podcast guest?

   12. SBSteven Bartlett1:26

       Oh, gosh. D- Quick one. This is really, really fascinating to me. On the backend of our YouTube channel, it says that 69.9% of you that watch this channel frequently over the lifetime of this channel haven't yet hit the subscribe button. I just wanted to ask you a favor. It helps this channel so much if you choose to s- subscribe. Helps us scale the guests, helps us scale the production, and it makes the show bigger. So if I could ask you for one favor, if you've watched this show before and you've enjoyed it and you like this episode that you're currently watching, could you please hit the subscribe button? Thank you so much, and I will repay that gesture by making sure that everything we do here gets better and better and better and better. That is a promise I'm willing to make you. Do we have a deal? Adam,

2. 2:16 – 5:06

   Finding Happiness Meaning & Success

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:16

      at the very essence of your work, what is it you are trying to do, teach, or give people?

   2. AGAdam Grant2:25

      I wanna give people the most useful insights from social science to help them think more clearly and critically, and make choices that will build happiness and meaning and success.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:38

      And if you, if you think about your career over the last couple of decades, what points of inspiration have you pulled from to give you as an idea of your sort of academic and e- and experience profile that has pulled into all of this work, all of these books that sit in front of me now?

   4. AGAdam Grant2:54

      So, I'm an organizational psychologist by training. Uh, that means my job is to study how to make work not suck. (laughs)

   5. SBSteven Bartlett3:01

      (laughs)

   6. AGAdam Grant3:01

      Which sometimes is a tall order. Uh, but I'm interested in, uh, how we find meaning and motivation, how we can lead more generous and creative and curious lives.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett3:11

      We were talking earlier about the books that you've written. This particular book in front of me here, Originals, one of my team members, Grace Miller, she went around our office and gave a copy of this book to everybody, and she wrote a personalized note inside. When you use this word "originals," you yourself are an original in many respects. I, I had a, a read through your earliest years, and it was quite clear to me that you were different in several ways. Throwing that question back at you, you know, I've got this photo here actually that my team-

   8. AGAdam Grant3:42

      Uh-oh.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett3:42

      ... printed off for me.

   10. AGAdam Grant3:44

       (laughs) Yeah. Uh. I was seven years old, and I was obsessed with Nintendo. And I, I think there must've been a Saturday where (laughs) I was, uh, I must've played for seven or eight hours straight, and then I got really frustrated when I didn't beat the game. And my mom said, like, "These video games are just, like, turning my happy kid into a, a gremlin." (laughs) "And, and I'm worried that they're frying his brain." And she called the local newspaper and said, "You should do a story about how video games are hurting kids." And they said, "You're right, and we wanna profile your child." So here I am (laughs) , uh, with, uh, a lot of hair and no teeth, uh, just hooked on a video game. And, uh, you know what's funny about this is, uh, if you read the research on the effects of video games, it turns out that most of the benefits outweigh the costs. Uh, that kids who play video games even a few hours a day end up with more self-control, better working memory, uh, more grit and self-discipline, uh, because they're constantly having to face and overcome challenges and build their resilience. And, um, there are even some possible mental health benefits. So video games were not the devil, as my mom thought.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett5:05

       It's funny, 'cause

3. 5:06 – 7:36

   Redefining The Game & Changing The Rules About Success

   1. SBSteven Bartlett5:06

      when I was reading about those early years where you seemed to be quite obsessive when faced with a variety of different challenges, it did feel like you're someone that's committed their life to trying to beat the game. First, by understanding the game, and then understanding the levers you need to pull to, to beat the game. Is that, like, an accurate assessment?

   2. AGAdam Grant5:25

      That's fascinating. I never thought about it that way. I think that that's been a huge part of my motivation, but I think at some point I got dissatisfied with the idea of beating the game and I wanted to try to make the game better.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett5:37

      Interesting.

   4. AGAdam Grant5:38

      I think, maybe to take a specific example, um, I remember... So, (laughs) I, I had, I had a moment in... gosh, it was 2011. Uh, I found out I got tenure, and-

   5. SBSteven Bartlett5:52

      Yup, tenure. What does that mean?

   6. AGAdam Grant5:52

      Uh, so, you know, essentially a job for life (laughs) at, at my university. And the question is, now what? Like, you can keep just doing research and teaching classes. And a group of students sat me down and said, "You should write a book."... because, you know, you should make your knowledge accessible to people who aren't in your class. And I felt like I didn't have anything to say, and (laughs) I- I- I was passionate about teaching other people's ideas. And they said, "No, your research has influenced us, and we want you to make that more widely available." And I think at some point, it hit me that what they were asking me to do was to try to redefine the game. Um, that at the time, I think the, the lesson I was trying to teach them was, you do not have to be a selfish taker to succeed. Um, and actually, I'd, I'd done a bunch of research showing that people who are givers, who were happy to help others with no strings attached, uh, in the long run, actually outperformed expectations. And my students said to me, "Look, eh, eh, what you've taught us is, um, we don't have to, you know, kind of take a me first, uh, competitive attitude all the time, achieve a lot of success, and then start giving back. We can be sharing our knowledge. We can be making introductions, uh, to try to help people connect and expand their networks. We can be giving others feedback, um, and solving problems for them, and that can actually contribute to our success. You've got to get that message out there." And so, um, you know, making the case that it might be better to be a giver than a taker was my first attempt to, to change the, the, the way we define the game, and, and really the way we think about the rules of success. And that's kind of been my mission, uh, as an author, um, ever since, to ask, "What are we getting wrong in the way that we try to play the game, and how do we shift it?"

4. 7:36 – 10:41

   Who Are More Successful, Givers Or Keepers?

   1. AGAdam Grant7:36

   2. SBSteven Bartlett7:36

      I want to talk about that. And I, I, I'm particularly - I'm a Manchester United fan, and I was thinking, I've been debating my friends in our Manchester United chat for the last two years about Cristiano Ronaldo, and we have two contingents in the group. And this is to your point about giving and taking. We have the one contingent who think that he was tremendously beneficial to Manchester United, and really any team that he touches. And then you have me (laughs) -

   3. AGAdam Grant7:58

      (laughs)

   4. SBSteven Bartlett7:59

      ... who believes that on balance, when you look at the ma- the s- the stats, he actually has a net negative impact on the team, because he takes more than he gives.

   5. AGAdam Grant8:10

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett8:11

      And then in reading your book, you used the word Ronaldo. So I feel like this is a wonderful opportunity to ask you about that, and what your thoughts are on those kinds of sort of self, self-centered individuals in, in teams.

   7. AGAdam Grant8:23

      Yeah. It's, uh, it's such a fascinating dynamic. So I'm not a Ronaldo expert-

   8. SBSteven Bartlett8:27

      Mm-hmm.

   9. AGAdam Grant8:27

      ... but (laughs) the way, the way that he carries himself and the way he plays his game does not scream giver to me.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett8:34

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AGAdam Grant8:35

       Um, and I think the best evidence I've seen that speaks to this is a study of NBA basketball teams. Uh, so there are obviously some differences, uh, between basketball and football, but I think one of the commonalities is you have high interdependence, where the team really depends on every player to play a critical role. And what you see in the NBA data is that if teams have, um, more selfish takers on the team, more narcissists, uh, they actually fail to improve over the course of a season. You end up having a ball hog, uh, who doesn't elevate the team, and that's especially true if the biggest star or somebody in the core role is very self-centered. And so I think based on that evidence, there's a case to be made that Ronaldo is, is basically, you know, he's an individual superstar, but he's not making other people better. And I think the most meaningful way to succeed is to help other people succeed. I think a true leader, I think Messi is more like this, is somebody who asks, "How can I make everybody around me more effective?"

   12. SBSteven Bartlett9:34

       I'm gonna have to say I agree. And-

   13. AGAdam Grant9:36

       Do you?

   14. SBSteven Bartlett9:36

       Yeah, I do agree. And I- I spent some time looking at the numbers, and I, I credit The Athletic as well for doing a piece called The Ronaldo Effect, where they looked at every team he had joined e- since, since he was at Real Madrid. And every single team, um, according to the data, and I'm kind of paraphrasing here, I'll put a link in the description below to the article I'm referring to, had fallen in performance when he joined, post his Real Madrid days, which means he went from Juventus and all these, all these clubs, and they've all got- gotten worse. He's actually gone out now to, um, play in the Middle East, and that club was top of the league when he joined. They're now second in the league, and they, they had a six-point lead when, when he joined. So I think it, it speaks to something about this idea of giving and taking-

   15. AGAdam Grant10:17

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett10:17

       ... for, for optimal team performance. But Ronaldo, in many respects, is an original. In many respects.

   17. AGAdam Grant10:21

       Yeah, it's hard to argue with that. (laughs)

   18. SBSteven Bartlett10:22

       You know what I mean?

   19. AGAdam Grant10:23

       I mean, look, some of the things he can do, um, on, you know, on a field, uh, uh, you just wouldn't expect a human being to be able to pull it off. Uh, so there, there's definitely extraordinary skill and I think improvisational creativity there. But yeah, we can ask some questions about, is that ultimately in service of the team?

5. 10:41 – 14:37

   Taking The Initiative: Great Ideas Need Execution

   1. AGAdam Grant10:41

   2. SBSteven Bartlett10:41

      What is... When you wrote this book and called it Originals, what did you mean by an original? How do you define that?

   3. AGAdam Grant10:47

      I think about originals as people who don't just question the way we've always done it, but actually take the initiative to create a better way. Uh, so it's not just about having a new idea. It's about taking action to create change, and I think that's so important, because, uh, I think it's, it's often said that, um, that ideation without execution is just hallucination. There are so many people who dream up interesting ideas but never do anything about them. And actually, I'll, I'll give you a personal example. Uh, when I was, uh, when I was in university, I had a roommate, uh, this is, um, 2000, um, who had an idea for a, a social network. And he said, "What if, what if we could build, like, an online yearbook, where everybody had access to each other's profiles, and they could communicate, and they could plan parties?" And he stayed up all night coding it and actually building the, the basics of the platform, and then he never followed through and never did anything with it. And, you know, then, what, a few years later, Mark Zuckerberg starts Facebook in the house next door. And I could look at that and say, "My roommate was an idiot. Like, why didn't he do anything about it?" But guess what? I missed that same opportunity. Uh, in 1999, uh, I co-founded, uh, what was called, uh, the first online social network, uh, on our campus, and it was an e-group of... We had connected about an eighth of our entering, uh, college freshman class before, uh, before we got to campus, and we were all exchanging messages and connecting. And then we got to campus, and we shut it down, because we said, "We all live in the same town now.... why do we need an online community? And so I made the same mistake. I was part of a group of people that had a very original idea, and we did not execute it.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett12:30

      So the difference is execution, then?

   5. AGAdam Grant12:32

      I think it's the biggest difference.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett12:34

      And what does it take for someone to be an executioner? (laughs)

   7. AGAdam Grant12:39

      (laughs) Uh, I hope no one becomes an executioner-

   8. SBSteven Bartlett12:40

      (laughs)

   9. AGAdam Grant12:41

      ... but maybe an ex- an executor would work. Um, I think, I think the, it- it's not what I thought, I think. Um, I assumed that you had to be somebody who was always the first mover. Uh, that, you know, if, if you didn't act on the social network idea in, in those first few years, it was gonna be too late. But as, I think you, you know this already, Steven, but, uh, I was surprised to find that some of the best originals are actually procrastinators. That they don't rush in. Uh, they wait for, they wait for their best idea as opposed to just immediately implementing their first idea. And of course they're testing and iterating and experimenting along the way, um, but I, uh ... Well, let's, let's go back to my Nintendo days here. I've felt like I'm, I'm not an original thinker for a long time, and one day I had a, um, a PhD student, Jihae Shin, who came to my office and said, "You know, I actually think that procrastinating can make you more creative." And Jihae is incredibly creative, and I didn't believe her.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett13:39

       (laughs)

   11. AGAdam Grant13:39

       I was like, "No. This can't be true." And she said, "Really, I have my most creative ideas when I'm procrastinating." And I didn't believe it, because I guess I've al- I've always been (laughs) what psychologists call a precrastinator-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett13:50

       (laughs)

   13. AGAdam Grant13:50

       ... uh, which, which is somebody who the moment you have an idea, you want to immediately put it into practice. And so I, you know, I was always excited to get things done early, and I was, I was proud of being a good finisher. And Jihae said, "You know, I, I actually think that's a mistake." And I challenged her to test it. And so she went out and, and studied people in various jobs and had them actually fill out a survey on how often they procrastinate, and then their supervisors rated their creativity. And then we ran some experiments together where we tempted people to procrastinate by, um, putting different numbers of, of funny YouTube videos available while they were supposed to be doing creative tasks, and then, uh, we got their, their creativity scored by experts. And lo and behold, it turned out that people who procrastinate a little bit are more creative than people who precrastinate like me.

6. 14:37 – 21:53

   What Happens To Procrastinators?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett14:37

      What's your conclusion as to why?

   2. AGAdam Grant14:39

      Well, we, we had a few hunches at first that, that we tested. Uh, well, the first thing I wanted to know is what happened to the people who always procrastinated. And Jihae was like, "I don't know. They never filled out my survey."

   3. SBSteven Bartlett14:50

      (laughs) Yeah.

   4. AGAdam Grant14:52

      No, they-

   5. SBSteven Bartlett14:52

      Yeah.

   6. AGAdam Grant14:52

      ... they did eventually fill out the survey, and-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett14:54

      Good point.

   8. AGAdam Grant14:54

      ... they were, they were also less creative. So both extremes were bad. If you never procrastinate, if you always procrastinate, you are less creative than if you sometimes do, or if you do a little. And what we found is, uh, there are a couple of mechanisms at play. Um, one is that procrastination can lead you to incubate ideas, uh, in the back of your mind. Uh, so, uh, you have time to connect the dots, see patterns you didn't see before. Another is that you end up getting some distance from the problem, and that allows you to reframe it, uh, and look at it from a broader perspective. And so what was interesting in the data, though, was that procrastination only boosted creativity if you were intrinsically motivated by the problem. So if you were putting it off because you were bored or you didn't care, then it didn't stay active in the back of your mind. But if you were, if you were putting it off because you were stuck and you hadn't figured it out yet or you were being patient and you kinda, you wanted to have 10 or 12 more ideas before you decided which one to pursue, then you actually got a creative boost.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett15:53

      So interesting, and I really relate to it, because-

   10. AGAdam Grant15:56

       Do you?

   11. SBSteven Bartlett15:56

       Yeah, I 100% relate to it.

   12. AGAdam Grant15:57

       Are, are you a moderate procrastinator? (laughs)

   13. SBSteven Bartlett15:58

       Yes. 100%. 100%. I think this is important to say, because I think sometimes people think that ... I get a lot of messages from people saying, um, "Steve, I'm procrastinating so much. How do you not procrastinate?" And I always look at that and say, "Look, I'm not the guy to tell you how to do that, because procrastination, in my mind, is a bit of a tool." Um, as you said, there's different types of procrastination that I notice myself doing. One of them is when I get stuck on something, and I find myself picking up my phone as if I'm a man possessed. I literally ... What I'll do is I'll be in the middle of work, and then the next thing, I'm on Instagram. And I'm like, "How did that happen?"

   14. AGAdam Grant16:34

       (laughs)

   15. SBSteven Bartlett16:34

       Oh, yeah, because the part in this piece of work you got to is, um, psychologically difficult for some reason. I don't feel prepared or whatever. And then uh, the other thing I notice myself procrastinating on is just when I'm thinking through something, I'll end up just walking around the house or I'll end up cleaning, doing the dishes, or whatever, and then coming back to the piece of work later. Um, but I, I would say that I'm definitely a procrastinator.

   16. AGAdam Grant16:56

       That's so interesting, and I think ... Le- let's be clear. I'm not encouraging people to procrastinate more.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett17:02

       (laughs)

   18. AGAdam Grant17:02

       Right? That's, that's not the goal here. The goal is just to normalize procrastination and say, "It's a natural part of the creative process." Everybody does it sometimes. And even though you expect it to be counterproductive, um, in certain situations, it can actually lead you to better ideas. And I think there's a, maybe a myth worth busting here. Uh, research led by Fuchsia Serwoy has shown that, uh, we don't procrastinate for the reasons we think we do. So a lot of people think, "I'm being lazy. I'm avoiding effort. Um, what's wrong with me? Why don't I wanna work hard?" But it turns out, it's not hard work that you're avoiding when you procrastinate. It's negative emotions, unpleasant feelings. You are avoiding a set of tasks that makes you feel frustrated, confused, bored, anxious. Um, a lot of procrastination is driven by fear. "I don't know if I can do this. I'm not sure if I'm up to the challenge, and so I put it off." And I, I think one of the best ways to, to manage that is to ask, "What are the tasks that you consistently procrastinate on? What negative emotions are they stirring up? And then how do you change those?"

   19. SBSteven Bartlett18:03

       What d'you procrastinate on?

   20. AGAdam Grant18:05

       I procrastinate a lot on editing, actually, and revising. I love rough drafting. It's very, it feels very creative for me. Um, it's fun to figure out, "What does the best evidence say? How do I tell the story that brings the evidence to life?" And then the process of, you know, tinkering to get each sentence just right, it bores me, and so I put it off. And I had to figure out, "How do I make that more interesting in order to, to stop procrastinating altogether on it?"

   21. SBSteven Bartlett18:30

       And how did you do that?

   22. AGAdam Grant18:32

       Well, one of the, one of the things I did was, uh, one of my goals, uh, in, in my recent writing was to, to try to get less abstract and more concrete.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett18:40

       Mm-hmm.

   24. AGAdam Grant18:41

       And so what I started doing was I started rewriting paragraphs in the voices of my favorite fiction authors, which was such a fun experiment. So how would Stephen King write this paragraph?

   25. SBSteven Bartlett18:50

       Oh, right. (laughs) Okay.

   26. AGAdam Grant18:51

       Uh, how would Maggie Smith, uh, uh, an amazing poet, how would she write these sentences? And, um, and that, that made it a creative exercise again.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett18:59

       As I was doing my research ahead of this conversation, um, I was watching your TED Talk. And one of the things that really stood out to me in your TED Talk was when you start talking about internet browsers. (laughs)

   28. AGAdam Grant19:09

       (laughs)

   29. SBSteven Bartlett19:10

       I immediately checked which browser I was using, and I was using Google Chrome.

   30. AGAdam Grant19:13

       There you go.
7. 21:53 – 22:38

   Who Are The Originals Of Our Time?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett21:53

      when we think about originals, who are the sort of landmark originals of our time, in your mind?

   2. AGAdam Grant21:59

      Uh, what domain do we wanna talk about? Are we talking tech and business?

   3. SBSteven Bartlett22:03

      Tech and business. Let's go for that.

   4. AGAdam Grant22:04

      I mean, it's hard not to put Elon Musk on that list. Uh, you can love him or hate him. But, uh, when it comes to, you know, dreaming up the vision and also taking the initiative then to try to make us a, you know, a multi-planetary spa- species with SpaceX, uh, and build reusable rockets, which, you know, NASA had never really thought to do, you know, moving us into an all-electric car future. Um, you know, I think there are a lot of things to complain about with Elon's leadership and decision-making and the way he communicates on the platform formerly known as Twitter. (laughs) But, uh, I think he's an original. No doubt about it.

8. 22:38 – 24:04

   What Are The Characteristics Of Originals

   1. AGAdam Grant22:38

   2. SBSteven Bartlett22:38

      How does he fit your profile of an original?

   3. AGAdam Grant22:41

      I think, I think he fits first and foremost because he challenges the s- the status quo, uh, would be the beginning. And then secondly, I think he's, uh, he's relentless in trying to make his vision a reality, which is, uh, I think, (laughs) I think something that's, that's driving some of his former fans crazy right now.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett23:00

      Some people might say, "Well, he, you know, he was like a child prodigy or he was a child genius, so that's why he's so, so great." Do you agree with that statement or do you dispute it?

   5. AGAdam Grant23:08

      I, I think it's hard to say in his case. I think, you know, my, my job as a social scientist is to ask, "What does the evidence tell us about child prodigies?" And it turns out we overestimate them in a lot of cases, because, um, once you're, you know, once something comes naturally to you, you often have a hard time, um, thinking about it in original ways. So, uh, you know, you, you see kids, for example, who can play, uh, a Mozart sonata at age four, and they, they drill over and over again, and they're amazingly fast learners. And practice does make perfect, but it doesn't make new. They don't learn how to write their own original scores. They don't get experience with failure, with trial and error. And so they don't take enough risks to figure out, "How do I invent something that's never existed before?" Um, that's, you know, that's not true in every case, but it, it is empirically true that most child prodigies do not become known as adult geniuses. And I think that's in part because they don't learn to stretch their creative muscles.

9. 24:04 – 25:25

   Why Child Geniuses Won't Become Adult Geniuses

   1. AGAdam Grant24:04

   2. SBSteven Bartlett24:04

      Because they're, they're overwhelmingly talented so they don't need to put in the hard graft that others do and they don't need to fight for new information in the same way that others do?

   3. AGAdam Grant24:13

      In some cases, they get rewarded over and over again for basically just mastering the way everyone else has always done it. And so they don't, they don't learn to break free from the mold.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett24:24

      These adult geniuses then, what, what is it that they have that child prodigies don't?

   5. AGAdam Grant24:29

      Well, a lot of it is, um, is what, what I've come to think of as character skills, um, which is a set of, uh, of capabilities to put your principles into practice.So, they're often people with hidden potential. Uh, they, um, they may not be naturals at first. Uh, they could be, you know, underdogs or late bloomers or slow learners. But they are, um, obsessive about making themselves uncomfortable, saying, "If I only play to my strengths, then I'm never stretching myself and I'm not taking on enough ch- new challenges." There's a bunch of research to suggest they're like sponges. Uh, they're soaking up lots of information and then trying to filter what's helpful out, uh, in, and then kind of rule out what's harmful. And they are, um, they're what I've come to think of as imperfectionists, which is they're, um, they're, they're really careful and disciplined about saying, uh, when is it important to aim for the best and when is it okay to look for good enough?

10. 25:25 – 27:28

    Being A Perfectionist

    1. AGAdam Grant25:25

    2. SBSteven Bartlett25:25

       Perfectionism is, um, a, a topic people talk about a lot, and I think everybody... It seems to me that everybody wants to be considered a perfectionist, as if being per- a perfectionist is better. 'Cause it... What does that say about my, my values? It means that I really care about things being great. It therefore means, by way of that, that I think I'm... I produce great things. And saying you're per- a perfectionist al- is almost like saying, "I make great work."

    3. AGAdam Grant25:45

       (laughs)

    4. SBSteven Bartlett25:46

       Um, but you're saying that being there are some... There are oftentimes where it's better to be an imperfectionist.

    5. AGAdam Grant25:52

       Yeah.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett25:52

       That the judgment of knowing when something is good enough-

    7. AGAdam Grant25:55

       Yes.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett25:56

       ...passs.

    9. AGAdam Grant25:56

       Yeah. I, I think you're onto something here. So, you know, when, when, when you have to answer that annoying job interview question, "What's your greatest weakness?" It's everyone's favorite answer. "I'm too much of a perfectionist." Uh, it's like Michael Scott from The American Office. Like, "I have weaknesses as a leader. I work too hard and I care too much." And yeah, people do think that perfectionism is, you know, ultimately more of an asset than a liability, and that's why they, they try to get away with that in the weakness question. But the evidence tells a really different story. Uh, research led by Tom Curran here in the UK shows that perfectionism is not all it's cracked up to be. Uh, it's a risk factor for burnout. It also, if you look at the, the best evidence available, perfectionists do get better grades in school, but they don't actually perform any better in their jobs.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett26:44

        Why?

    11. AGAdam Grant26:45

        I think the jury's still out. But my hunch, based on the, the evidence that's been gathered so far, is that perfectionists, uh, are good at school because they know exactly what's gonna be on the test. And so they can cram and memorize until they, they're prepared to ace the material. The real world is much more ambiguous. Uh, you don't know exactly what's gonna show up in your performance review. Uh, it's not entirely clear what work is gonna be valued. And perfectionists are terrified of failure. Uh, they don't want any flaws. They don't want any defects. They want to avoid every mistake. And so they don't take enough risks. They focus very narrowly on the things they know they can excel at, and they don't end up growing and evolving and improving enough.

11. 27:28 – 33:27

    The Importance Of Urgency

    1. AGAdam Grant27:28

    2. SBSteven Bartlett27:28

       I wondered if urgency has a relationship with this as well, because in order to be successful in the real world, you have to be somewhat urgent, which means sometimes you have to say, "That's good enough. Let's go. Let's move, let's move." And I, I guess a perfectionist would, if left to their own devices, would try and slow time down so that they could focus more on this, this thing right now. They'd probably never ship that social network. They'd probably still be in their bedroom in, in America somewhere working on it. Whereas Zuckerberg made a thing that was good enough and shipped it, then learnt from that. And the iterative process of making something better is probably more conducive with success than just... You know, The Lean Startup talks about this a lot.

    3. AGAdam Grant28:07

       Yes.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett28:07

       Like, get, get it out there and learn from it versus just incubating it forever.

    5. AGAdam Grant28:10

       Yeah, this is... This is a, I think, a key Eric Ries point, and it's been backed up by a bunch of, ironically, experiments showing that founders who experiment more end up being more successful, uh, because they're able to pivot faster when something doesn't work, and they, they get lots of, of market feedback, um, and signals on what's gonna be successful and what isn't. And you've... I know you've... you've lived that. (laughs)

    6. SBSteven Bartlett28:29

       Yeah.

    7. AGAdam Grant28:29

       But, you know, it's... It's interesting that you point this out 'cause this... This is a lesson I learned firsthand, um, during my days as a- an attempted athlete. So, after being too short for basketball and too slow for, for football, uh, I stumbled onto springboard diving. And I, I... By the way, I sh- I had no business being a springboard diver. I was afraid of heights, uh, and also my teammates nicknamed me Frankenstein because I was so stiff. But I really loved it, and I wanted to get better at it. And I was a perfectionist, and I thought that was gonna help me because, in diving, you're supposed to get perfect 10s. Well, guess what? Uh, I have my most basic dive, a front dive pike. You just jump up, touch your toes, go in headfirst. I wanted to work on perfecting that all practice, and I was working on these tiny little adjustments that would take me from a six and a half to a seven, and not ever learning harder dives and failing to raise my degree of difficulty. And that really stunted my growth as a diver. Until one day my coach, Eric Best, uh, pulled me aside and he said, "You know, Adam, there's no such thing as a perfect 10." And I was like, "Wait, wait. Have the an- Olympic announcers been lying to me?" (laughs) When they say a dive was done for perfect 10s, what, what, what's going on here? And he said, "If you look at the rule book, a 10 is for excellence. There's no such thing as a perfect dive." And that really shifted my perspective. And what we did then was we said, "Look, I'm never gonna get a 10 on any dive. What we have to do is to calibrate what's a realistic goal for each dive." So for, you know, front dive, we started aiming for 7s. And I would wanna do 30 of them in practice, and when I did my third one, and Eric said that was a 7, it's time to move on. When I was learning a much more complicated, uh, front two and a half with a full twist, you do two flips, a 360 turn, and then a dive. Uh, the first goal was we wanna do this for 2s. (laughs) We do... We, we just wanna make it. And then I got a little better at it, and we started aiming for 4s and 5s on it. And, Steve, I have to tell you, this has been one of the most useful lessons I've learned in my career, is when I start a project, uh, whether it's a book or, you know, a podcast season or I'm writing an op-ed, uh, the first thing I do is I ask, "What... What is my target score here?" And for a book, it's a nine because I'm gonna pour two years of my work life into this, and, you know, I hope a lot of people will read it and it's gonna be useful to them. So, it really matters to do it about as well as I can. When I'm writing a, a post for Instagram.... I'm pretty content with a six and a half.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett30:59

       Mm-hmm.

    9. AGAdam Grant30:59

       Just above getting canceled is, is my target there.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett31:02

        (laughs)

    11. AGAdam Grant31:03

        But that, that calibration is helpful, because I could spend all day crafting that Instagram post, and then I'll never get anything done.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett31:10

        Do you... When you're thinking about what's good enough through that framework, is part of the equation the return on time spent? Because I'm thinking about the Instagram quote. Like, if you have a 10 out of 10 Instagram quote, what's the return on that, versus a 10 out of 10 book, which can completely ch- as we've seen, change someone's entire life? Like, a 10 out of 10 TED Talk, you have a phenomenal TED Talk, I think it's got tens of millions of views, and that can change your entire life in a way that an, any Instagram quote... Now, I've had some banging Instagram quotes. I've got, I've had a couple of viral ones.

    13. AGAdam Grant31:42

        Yeah.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett31:42

        And what ends up happening is everyone just copies what you said and just posts it, and you never re- it never really does anything for you. But a 10 out of 10 TED Talk, like you've got, or a 10 out of 10 books, like, you know, exceptional books can change your whole life. So maybe part of the equation is to think about the potential reward from the investment.

    15. AGAdam Grant31:58

        I, I think that's such a powerful way to frame it. Well, let me, let me react to a couple of things. First of all, I don't take 10s, uh, so you're, you're being overly generous here.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett32:05

        (laughs)

    17. AGAdam Grant32:05

        Uh, and I always wanna know, what can I do to get a little bit closer to 10? But I think, uh, I think the, thinking about the return on effort is really valuable. And I think about that less in terms of, like, what's the immediate reward for me, and more in terms of, how can I have the greatest impact for the investment of, of my time? And I think you're right. Um, you know, (laughs) like, Instagram is a, it's a quick hit of dopamine, and it feels really great when you get a lot of likes and, you know, enthusiastic comments on a post. And then, it fades really fast. And, (laughs) like, I, I don't know. I mean, people... When I first became an author, people said, you know, "Well, the pen is mightier than the, the sword." And, you know, of course, ideas, like, you have to be in that world. I don't know if the pen is actually mightier than, than the sword. I do know that the ink lasts, and that, you know, people ask questions about a book that I wrote a decade ago. Nobody asks me about my social media posts from several years ago.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett32:58

        (laughs)

    19. AGAdam Grant32:58

        And, um, I think podcasting actually lives somewhere in between.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett33:01

        Mm-hmm.

    21. AGAdam Grant33:01

        Right? We, like, when, when we talk, um, sometimes ideas stick. Actually, there's some evidence that audio is, is more memorable, um, and more intimate, uh, than what you pick up on the page. Uh, but I think it's a little more fleeting. Like, I, I don't, I don't remember a conversation I listened to from a few years ago the same way I remember a book that changed my worldview. And so I, I put a little bit more into writing than I do into talking.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett33:25

        So interesting.

12. 33:27 – 38:37

    The Importance Of Leaning Into Difficulty

    1. SBSteven Bartlett33:27

       I wanted to talk to you as well about something you, you mentioned earlier, which was this idea of doing difficult things. You mentioned it in passing. And it... The question that was stored in my brain is, what is it that makes a c- certain type of person choose and lean into difficulty, and a, and a certain type of person lean out of it? Because that appears to be one of the key sort of correlating factors with success in life, your ability to l- choose discomfort.

    2. AGAdam Grant33:52

       Yeah. Yeah, I, I think this is, this is such a vital skill, and I wanna, I wanna be really clear to say it's a skill, right? It's not just a personality trait. Uh, yeah, you know, some people are born with a little extra, maybe you could say re- reserve of willpower, or they have the discipline, or, or the grit, or the resilience. Um, and it comes naturally to them. But this is very much a learned skill, and I think the, the, the clearest demonstration of this for me is in the, the marshmallow test, which has been wildly misunderstood in the last few years. So, you're, you're familiar probably with the classic demonstration that Walter Mischel did, uh, with his colleagues, where you take, um, you take four-year-olds. Uh, you put a marshmallow in front of them, and you say, "You can have one now, but if you're willing to wait until I come back, then you can have two." And then the original finding is that if, uh... The longer you can delay gratification, if a kid can wait 10 or 15 minutes for the extra marshmallow, uh, the better they score on a standardized test like the SAT, uh, a decade later, the better grades they get in school. Uh, there, there are all kinds of benefits of, of this delayed gratification skill. Well, in psychology recently, there's been a, a controversy about whether it replicates. And, uh, some of the replications, um, have shown that, uh, if you have a lower socioeconomic status, you struggle with the marshmallow test. It's really disappointing, but it's not at all surprising. And in fact, that was, um, that was part of the original research is, if you grew up in a world of scarcity, um, and I know you can relate to this from, from your own lived experience, um, you could not afford to wait for the second marshmallow. It might never come. You didn't know if you could trust the research team to come and, and bring you one. And so you didn't have the chance to practice that skill and learn the habit. But what's really interesting is, if you watch kids who, who crush the marshmallow test, it's more skill power than willpower. What they have are simple strategies that actually make the temptation less tempting. So, you see one kid will actually, um, sit on... Uh, he sits on his hands, so that he, he's... It's a little slower for him to reach out to the marshmallow. Um, another covers her eyes, so she doesn't have to look at it. And then, uh, there's one kid who actually smooshes it into a ball and starts bouncing it, so, like, you don't wanna eat that anymore. And this is, this is why I say it's a set of skills, um, not just a matter of will, because if you have techniques for making discomfort less uncomfortable, and you know how to get... I guess, I guess if you know how to get comfortable being uncomfortable, uh, then you are willing to, to go into many situations where you're a little bit outta your depth and say, "Yeah, this might be awkward. This might be embarrassing, but I'm gonna learn something." And I guess, you know, for me, that was, that was public speaking. Like, we were... You, you touched on giving TED Talks earlier. I would have never dreamed of, of standing in a red circle. I had no business whatsoever giving a TED Talk. Um, I'm an introvert. I'm extremely shy. I was terrified of public speaking. And in one of my first lectures, a student wrote in feedback afterward that I was so nervous I was causing them to physically shake in their seats. And the only way for me to get over that was to put myself continually in that situation, uh, and get used to the discomfort.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett37:02

       Is that really the key here? 'Cause I- I- I'm just thinking as you're speaking about the people who I look up to, like even like a David Goggins, who just seem to be able to hold themselves into- in discomfort more than anybody else. I mean, a friend of mine called Russ is running the entire length of Africa at the moment, um-

    4. AGAdam Grant37:19

       Jesus.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett37:19

       ... from the bottom to the top of Africa. He's running it. He's doing like two marathons a day, you know, most days. And I'm thinking, "Are these people just like superhumans that were born with this switch in their brain that I have to- I can only turn on if I have some kind of traumatic incident?" Or is it- is- does the evidence support the fact that this is a learnt skill?

    6. AGAdam Grant37:37

       I think everything that matters in life is always a complex interaction of nature and nurture. But I think we underestimate the power of nurture in these situations. So Goggins is a great example. I mean, he's- he's a machine. Uh, was he always that way? No. (laughs) His whole story is about, uh, you know, feeling like he was- he was vulnerable and wanting to become somebody where no one could hurt him, right? And I think when psychologists study that, uh, my favorite theory is probably called, uh, the theory of learned industriousness, which is a mouthful. (laughs) Uh, but what- what it- what it's about is the idea that if you reward effort, if you reward hard work, if you reward seeking out discomfort, then over time, being in uncomfortable situations starts to take on secondary reward properties. In other words, you get a little bit of Pavlovian conditioning, where when you've pushed yourself a little bit past where you're comfortable, that feels good, and you're used to that leading to- to something positive. Uh, and that can become sort of a self-reinforcing

13. 38:37 – 41:12

    What Role Trauma Plays In Becoming Successful?

    1. AGAdam Grant38:37

       cycle.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett38:38

       I was thinking as you were saying that about the role trauma plays in people becoming successful. And if we- if we take on this idea that those that push themselves forward and then get rewarded for it are more likely to repeat that behavior, the question should probably become, who are the people that got the greatest reward from pushing themselves out of their zone of comfort? In my mind, for you to want to push yourself out of a situation, the situation's probably not great. And I was thinking about Goggins there, what h- what he had to do. And many people that I saw on this podcast and speak to, it appears to be the case a lot of the t- a lot of time that there was something traumatic or difficult going on in their home life with their parents maybe that forced them or pushed them to pursue something out of their zone of comfort. It actually often f- pushes them off the- the road, um, most frequently traveled, and they become like a- an original because they went through the shrubs and the prickly bushes.

    3. AGAdam Grant39:36

       Yeah.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett39:37

       Is there evidence to support that it is h- helpful in becoming an original?

    5. AGAdam Grant39:41

       So (sighs) it's complicated because I think in a lot of the examples we look at, there's a survi- a survivorship bias. We see the people who manage to overcome adversity.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett39:49

       Mm-hmm.

    7. AGAdam Grant39:50

       We don't see all the people who are broken by it.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett39:52

       Mm-hmm.

    9. AGAdam Grant39:52

       And so we always have to pause and ask, uh, is this- is this causal, or is it just revealing that certain people who happen to face adversity, uh, and were able to take something out of that, you know, were- were growing from that? I do think what- what we know is that resilience is underestimated, uh, as a general rule. Uh, so, uh, if you look at, for example, um, rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, they are lower when people go through trauma than people's reports of post-traumatic growth, saying, "Look, I- I wouldn't wish this on myself or anyone else. It was a terrible experience, but I had to grow from it, and it made me better or stronger in some way." Uh, that's more common, uh, than being, you know, completely paralyzed, um, or shattered by traumatic experiences. I think the other thing we know is that, um, resilience is not an- an- an individual skill. Um, it's not a muscle you work on just by yourself. It requires a- a support system, which I think of as scaffolding, um, a temporary structure that helps you scale a height you couldn't reach on your own. And I think a lot of what that looks like is having a parent, a mentor, a coach who believes in your potential, um, and not only, you know, helps you find the motivation, but then gives you the tools, uh, to- to bounce forward from the- the hardship you face.

14. 41:12 – 48:41

    What Determines What Sibling Will Be More Successful?

    1. AGAdam Grant41:12

    2. SBSteven Bartlett41:12

       When we're talking about this point of nurture, is I am the youngest of four kids. And in your work, you discuss how that can be consequential in my relationship with risk and, um, convention and all of those things. What does the data say about siblings and their- and how the order in which they're born can determine their character skills?

    3. AGAdam Grant41:37

       Okay, we need a giant disclaimer on this.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett41:38

       (laughs)

    5. AGAdam Grant41:39

       The science of birth order is a mess. Uh, it's full of conflicting findings. Uh, a lot of the world's leading experts don't agree on the patterns. And what I'm gonna tell you is, I think there are two patterns that have f- very consistent evidence across large samples and rigorous studies, but they are tiny effects, tiny. So they don't say anything about you (laughs) and your future po- possibilities. Um, there are patterns across very, very big samples. So let me- let me start with the bad news for you, Steve, which is-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett42:08

       Oh, God.

    7. AGAdam Grant42:09

       ... uh, on average, firstborns score slightly higher on IQ tests than their younger siblings.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett42:16

       Agree to disagree. (laughs)

    9. AGAdam Grant42:17

       (laughs) I'm joking. You're- you're welcome to disagree to that.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett42:19

        No, no, I'm joking, I'm joking. That- that does, uh, that does make sense.

    11. AGAdam Grant42:21

        The major mechanism that seems to explain it is what's called the tutor effect, which is if you're the firstborn and you have younger siblings, you end up teaching them a lot.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett42:29

        Ah.

    13. AGAdam Grant42:30

        And when you explain things, you remember them better and you understand them better. The best way to learn something is to teach it. Uh, and s- the last-born doesn't have a younger sibling to teach, and so sometimes they just miss out on that opportunity. Tiny, tiny difference on average. You will find many brilliant later-borns, uh, many average intelligence firstborns, so don't- don't take anything from that.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett42:50

        Mm-hmm.

    15. AGAdam Grant42:50

        But it- it's an interesting finding. To the point that you raised, the other- the other finding is that, uh, later-borns tend to be more willing to take risks and become originals.Uh, and my, my, actually my favorite example of this comes from, uh, research Frank Sulloway did on sports. So this is a study of every, um, pair of brothers who ever played Major League Baseball. So you've got two siblings, same family, same parents, same upbringing, uh, they all, they both make it to the pros. And actually, uh, sometimes there's even a trio. Uh, and the question is, which brother takes more risks when it comes to stealing a base? Uh, which, you know, in, in American baseball is, is one of the riskiest things you can do because it's very easy to, to get, to get out. Uh, 'cause you have to basically outrun a ball that's flying in the air. Uh, and you have to outsmart, uh, a pitcher and, uh, a (laughs) guy who's ready to catch the ball. And it turns out that the later borns are much more likely to take those risks. They're more likely to try to steal a base, and they are also more likely to, um, to succeed in stealing a base. So you're a last born. Why? Like, where does this penchant for risk-taking come from? What's, what's your hunch about the mechanisms?

    16. SBSteven Bartlett43:58

        Oh, gosh.

    17. AGAdam Grant43:59

        (laughs) .

    18. SBSteven Bartlett43:59

        Um, ooh, I know what it is. I know what it is 'cause I saw it in your writing, and I was like, "That's it." It's my parents gave me way more freedom. When I was 10 years old, and I s- I say this a lot, but when I was 10 years old, if I left the house and I didn't come home for two days, there was no consequences. Whereas I watched my sister try that when she was that same age, and it was, it was like, we would call the police.

    19. AGAdam Grant44:18

        (laughs) .

    20. SBSteven Bartlett44:19

        If she wasn't, if she wasn't-

    21. AGAdam Grant44:19

        Yes.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett44:19

        ... home before, like, 10:00, we'd call the police. And as they went through the cycle of having kids and they got to the fourth one, it was almost like, I say this all the ti- It was like they assumed I was the age of the others, and they assumed that their job of parenting had been done. And I, that's what I attribute it to.

    23. AGAdam Grant44:33

        Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett44:33

        'Cause in that independence, in that void, you can start to experiment. And you can start to learn and take risks, and then you get the feedback from those experiments, which for me was starting businesses at 12, 13, 14. First kid in our family to not go to university.

    25. AGAdam Grant44:47

        Wow.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett44:47

        Um, so it, it, yeah, it made a lot of sense when I read about it. And I also do believe that my s- all my siblings have an, a higher IQ than me.

    27. AGAdam Grant44:54

        (laughs) .

    28. SBSteven Bartlett44:54

        I think if we did an IQ test, I think every one of my siblings would beat me on it. And I think they would all agree. My brothers, my brothers are geniuses compared to me. Jason works, Jason, my, my, the sibling that's a year older than me, um, went to two of the best universities, et cetera. He's a genius. He's much smarter than I am. But he will even say that he, what he learned from me was risk. He says this.

    29. AGAdam Grant45:13

        Oh.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett45:13

        He said it this Christmas. He was like, "When you came to my house at," um, when I was 18, and I slept on his sofa. Um, he goes... He was in a university. He was off to get, you know, really, really great job as, like, an actuary. He had gone to the London School of Economics to study that. And I was h- this dropout sleeping on his sofa 'cause I'd stopped by London. And he said to me at Christmas, he was like, "The fact that you weren't concerned about your future-"
15. 48:41 – 53:34

    What Makes A Risk Taker?

    1. AGAdam Grant48:41

       It seems so unlikely." And he said, "Well, when I, you know, when I first started, I knew it was extremely low probability. And so that wasn't the original mission for SpaceX. The mission was, 'I wanna build a reusable rocket.' And that's much more realistic. And I can get people on board with that. And I can get a government contract to do that." And I said, "Okay, quantify this for me. Like, what are the odds that, that you're gonna make it to Mars in your lifetime?"And he said, "Well, you know, a couple years ago, uh, I would've said, I don't know, 7, 8%." I'm like, "And, and you're doing this despite that?" And he said, "Well, no, no, the probability's gone way up since then." I'm like, "Okay, tell me more." And he said, "I'd probably say 11% chance now." "This is firing you up?" He's like, "Come on, that's double digits."

    2. SBSteven Bartlett49:29

       (laughs)

    3. AGAdam Grant49:29

       "Like, we're, we're close to reality." But I think that calculus of saying, "I've gotta know that this is unrealistic, and I've gotta have a side bet, which is something that can build me a viable company." Um, and, you know, reusable rockets are what did it. Um, that's what made SpaceX work, is not the mission, the moon shot or actually it's a Mars shot. (laughs)

    4. SBSteven Bartlett49:50

       (laughs)

    5. AGAdam Grant49:50

       Uh, that, that's not what, what ultimately allowed them to do what they do now.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett49:55

       Is that important o- on his behalf a bit of a framing thing to, um, as you said, get people on board? Because I think about Neuralink in the same way. When, when he first started talking about Neuralink, it was all about interfacing with AI, and our need ... The AI's coming and we need a way to be able to interface with it, because it's gonna be so much smarter than us that we basically need to become these cyborgs. And in more recent times, he's focused on the ability to give, um, people who have lost access to their limbs, the use of their limbs back.

    7. AGAdam Grant50:23

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett50:23

       And I was thinking about the transition there he's done in messaging. The latter, this idea of helping people who are disabled regain their ability, seems to be an idea that people will get on board with-

    9. AGAdam Grant50:33

       Yes.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett50:33

        ... and will fund. The other idea of interfacing with AI and us becoming cyborgs doesn't appear to me like something people would get behind and fund.

    11. AGAdam Grant50:41

        No, they either don't get it or they don't want it. (laughs)

    12. SBSteven Bartlett50:43

        Yeah. Yeah, exactly. (laughs)

    13. AGAdam Grant50:44

        (laughs) Like-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett50:44

        Yeah.

    15. AGAdam Grant50:44

        ... not for me.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett50:46

        Yeah.

    17. AGAdam Grant50:46

        Uh, yeah, this is, this is a common challenge for, for original thinkers is sometimes their bold visions are just not palatable to other people. Uh, and there's a term that I love that, uh, Debra Meyerson and Maureen Scully coined. They talk about being a tempered radical-

    18. SBSteven Bartlett51:01

        Ah.

    19. AGAdam Grant51:01

        ... which I think is a great phrase to say take your, your big extreme idea, and try to moderate it to make it a little bit more familiar and a little bit closer to what other people think is plausible and desirable. And then if you do that successfully, uh, you can smuggle your vision inside a Trojan horse.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett51:20

        And that's all about bringing them with you.

    21. AGAdam Grant51:22

        Mm-hmm.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett51:23

        Interesting. Let's talk about people then.

    23. AGAdam Grant51:25

        (sniffs)

    24. SBSteven Bartlett51:25

        People in teams. Um, so one of my real obsessions is, is the topic of team culture, and it's something that you write about, um, in part two of your book. Team culture. What are we, what are we generally missing about what it takes to be and to build a great team? What are the, what are some of the sort of first myths that come to mind about the greatest teams that you, your work has debunked?

    25. AGAdam Grant51:50

        Well, I, this is, this is one of the big topics in, in my world of organizational psychology, and there are, I think, a bunch of findings that, that might surprise people. The, (laughs) the first one is that, uh, we elevate the wrong people to leadership roles consistently. Uh, there's research on what's called the Babel effect, which is the idea that the more you talk in a meeting, the more likely you are to get selected as the leader of a team. So, we reward people who dominate the conversation, even though they are not actually better at leadership. And often they're worse, because they fail to include and learn from the voices around them in the room. They're so obsessed with being the smartest person in the room, that they fail to make the room smarter. And I think what happens there is that we're consistently mistaking their confidence for competence. So, we need to change that. The people I wanna elevate into leadership roles, uh, are, are basically people who bring generosity and humility to the table. Uh, generosity is about saying, "I'm gonna put my mission above my ego, and I'm gonna try to, to make everybody in the room better." And I guess it's a form of ser- servant leadership. And humility is about saying, "It's my job to know what I don't know, and try to learn from every single person I work with." And th- I think the idea of being a lifelong learner is, is something we throw around a lot, but we don't take seriously. I think part of being a lifelong learner is recognizing that every person you meet is a potential teacher. Every single collaborator of yours has lived experiences you, you haven't, has expertise that you don't. And if you fail to realize that, you are stunting your own progress. So, I think we've gotta get humble givers

16. 53:34 – 57:54

    What Takes To Build A Great Team

    1. AGAdam Grant53:34

       into leadership roles, because they're there to make the team successful.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett53:38

       I've always had a suspicion that based on the size of the company and where it is in its lifecycle, that a slightly different culture is required. And, and in, in your work, you talk about these commitment cultures. Now, a commitment culture. Is that a cult?

    3. AGAdam Grant53:54

       I hope not. (laughs) The good ones aren't.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett53:56

       Okay.

    5. AGAdam Grant53:57

       So you're, you're anticipating the Baron and Hannon research on, uh, hundreds of, of startups for 15 years. And they compare cultural blueprints where some founders say, "I'm gonna build a star culture. I wanna hire the biggest geniuses and the best talent, uh, and that's, that's what's gonna make us great." And other founders say, "No, I wanna be about commitment. I'm gonna focus first and foremost about do you fit the culture? Do you live our mission and breathe our values?" And then you run the horse race and ask which of ... which approach is more successful from a culture perspective. And lo and behold, the commitment cultures win. They are dramatically less likely to fail, significantly more likely to go public. And you think, "We're good. Like, we've, we've hired people who are all in on our company. They made us a wildly successful startup." And then guess what? After these companies go public, they grow at slower rates.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett54:55

       Why?

    7. AGAdam Grant54:57

       There's a, a major risk that if you are hiring on culture fit, you are then saying, "I'm only gonna bring in people who are similar to each other."... and you end up weeding out diversity of thought and background and promoting group think.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett55:11

       Interesting. So, okay, you're all a little bit too close to the s- the same painting.

    9. AGAdam Grant55:16

       You're, you're replicating what's already working for you and becoming more and more homogeneous. And this is not to say that culture fit is inherently bad. Um, you do want people aligned on your three to five core values, and that's important. The mistake we make is when we look at fit, we think about, "Well, I want a bunch of people with the same personality traits, and I want a bunch of people who, you know, who went to the same college, uh, or, you know, studied the same subject," and then you end up with a really narrow band of expertise, and that leads you to stagnate.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett55:43

        How important do you think the culture you're in is on your own chance of success and performance? I often think this, I think we've, we've been lucky, even as a podcast team, to be in w- a great culture. And I play out the scenario, if you took one of our team members and maybe moved them to another culture, how much would that impact that team member's personal performance and chance of success?

    11. AGAdam Grant56:08

        Oh, th- th- actually, there's a... Boris Groysberg studies this. Uh, he studies what happens when you're a star in one culture, and then you move to a new organization. Uh, so he studied this with, uh, with, uh, Wall Street security analysts, uh, so finance, finance professionals. Turns out, if you're a star performer at your current firm and you leave for a new firm, it takes you on average five years to recover your star performance, unless you take your team with you, and then you maintain your star status from day one. What Boris argues is that we underestimate the importance of the people we rely on, um, to, to do our best work. And this is not unique at all to Wall Street. You can see it in research on, um, on cardiac surgeons, where, um, you know how, um, it's, it's pretty common for surgeons to operate at multiple hospitals.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett56:57

        Mm-hmm.

    13. AGAdam Grant56:58

        Uh, well, it turns out that the more practice you have at hospital A, the lower your patient mortality rate is at hospital A. But then when you go over to hospital B later that week, it's as if, as if you haven't practiced at all because you're with a different team. Uh, they don't know your strengths and weaknesses. You haven't built effective routines together. Um, you are much more interdependent than you realize, even if you think you're an individual expert. Uh, you can see it in sports too. Uh, it takes, uh, pro basketball teams, uh, three to four years on average, uh, even if you've recruited a, a really talented team, to maximize their, their odds of winning a championship, because they just haven't figured out how to be effective together. There's even, um... There was a NASA simulation years ago, where, uh, you had to do a... You had to go through a flight simulator. And, uh, some crews were, uh, were exhausted. They'd just come off of a, you know, a multi-leg, multi-day, um, sleep-deprived journey and others were, were well-rested. And it turned out that the, um,

17. 57:54 – 1:01:49

    What Happens To People When You Take Them Out Of Their Team Culture

    1. AGAdam Grant57:54

       the well-rested crews, who were strangers, actually made more potentially catastrophic errors than exhausted crews that had just flown together. And having a little bit of shared experience was enough to, to compensate for the lack of sleep. Now, I'm not suggesting that we should have pilots fly together and only sleep for, you know, two hours a night. But the idea that, that your history together was even more important than how alert you were is something that I think we ought to take really seriously.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett58:21

       Gosh, it's like a double-edged sw- sword though, because, uh, uh, so your history together matters, so you wanna be, you wanna be with a familiar group of people. However, if you're too familiar with them, you're, you're not gonna come up with original ideas and be as creative and in- and innovative as possible. So there's a balancing act between familiarity and novelty in the... By way of introducing new members to the group that have new ideas as it relates to business.

    3. AGAdam Grant58:47

       That's exactly right.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett58:48

       Okay.

    5. AGAdam Grant58:48

       And you, you actually see this in the sports data. Um, after that, you know, three or four years of experience together, uh, the benefits of shared experience start to level off, and maybe the players get old- (laughs)

    6. SBSteven Bartlett58:58

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    7. AGAdam Grant58:58

       ... as part of it, but their routines also become really predictable. Uh-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett59:01

       Predictable to the opposition as well-

    9. AGAdam Grant59:03

       Yes.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett59:03

        ... in the context of sports. Co- co- other coaches can go, "They always do this. They always do it like this. This is how we'll defend against it."

    11. AGAdam Grant59:09

        Same thing is true in business. It's... I think it's one of the reasons why so much innovation and disruption comes from the outside, because inside an organization, people get so attached to the way we've always done it. Uh, they fall victim to what's called cognitive entrenchment where they start to take for granted assumptions that need to be questioned. Um, and you need to bring in outside talent, fresh perspectives, or rotate yourself. Um, shift your, your country, shift your role, um, shift the, the group of people you're working with. Go learn a new skill set (laughs) in order to, to get out of that entrenchment.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett59:38

        When you think about and when you study companies and people that innovate, um, let's just focus specifically, say, on th- the idea of teams that innovate. Let's just, I mean, bring it right back to the context of even, you know, this podcast. This podcast team is actually about 30, 32, 33 people now across the whole sort of business of the Diary of a CEO. Um, it's going well. You know, we, we, we do well.

    13. AGAdam Grant1:00:04

        I'd say better than well. (laughs)

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:05

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughs) It's going well. It's like, you know, we've done a good job. I think that's, that's, that's fair to say. But there's a risk with that, which is when you've been right several times, you can start to get a little bit creatively complacent. And also, I saw, I think it was Morgan Housel's book, Same As Ever, some research that shows when you are succeeding, when you're, like, number one at the thing you do, teams kind of switch off creatively, and they s- they go into a defense mode-

    15. AGAdam Grant1:00:34

        Mm.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:34

        ... which is, "Okay, this is how we've always done it, and it got us to here, so let's just keep doing it that way." But to self-disrupt almost doesn't make sense, you know? And so I'm, I'm... My, my question to you is, from what you understand, what is the best way to keep a team like ours continually striving for the next thing, even when the outside world thinks you do a lot of things right?

    17. AGAdam Grant1:00:56

        Best example I've ever seen was, uh, in a podcast episode I did at Pixar a few years ago. So let's go back to 2000. Pixar is at the top of its game. They've completely reinvented the way that animated movies are made. We, we used to think you had to draw them. Now they do them by computer. Um, Toy Story is a huge hit. Uh, they've got monsters. They've got talking bugs. And, uh, you know, they're riding as high as you can in the entertainment industry. And what most companies would do in that situation is they would rest on their laurels and keep making films the way they've done them, because like you said, like, "We, we should double down on our success. We know our core competencies. We're getting a ton of rewards for it."Well, Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull, uh, who, you know, were, were running the show, were not content to rest on their laurels. And they knew that when you're succeeding, you actually have the most slack capacity to disrupt yourself, uh, which is,

18. 1:01:49 – 1:07:17

    How To Not Get Complacent If You're Successful

    1. AGAdam Grant1:01:49

       of course, when most leaders are least likely to do it, because they don't think they need to. And they said, "We've got to, we've got to shake things up." So they went and hired an unproven director, uh, named Brad Bird. He was coming off a commercial flop. Uh, it, uh, his previous film had, had been just this huge disappointment, uh, in terms of box office returns. And Brad came into Pixar, and his charge was to change the way that they made animated films.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:16

       Why?

    3. AGAdam Grant1:02:17

       Uh, because they wanted to keep getting better and they wanted to keep innovating.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:21

       Mm-hmm.

    5. AGAdam Grant1:02:22

       And Brad came in with a vision that he was told was crazy for a new animated film. He was told it was gonna cost half a billion US dollars and take 10 years to make, which is just a nonstarter if you're a film studio. And Brad got frustrated and he said, "All right, you know what? Give me..." He said, "I want the pirates, I want the black sheep, I want people who are dissatisfied, disagreeable, and disgruntled. And I'm gonna build a, a band of misfits to try to prove that this movie can be made." And that group ends up finishing in a three-year period, uh, so they shaved a year, uh, at least off the original expected time. Uh, they end up coming in under budget, uh, it becomes Pixar's most successful film ever. Uh, wins, uh, wins them some major awards. Uh, you might have seen it, it's called The Incredibles. And what I think is incredible... (laughs)

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:15

       (laughs)

    7. AGAdam Grant1:03:16

       ... no pun intended about that story, is a couple things. One, you know, just the, the will to, to break something that's not broken deliberately. I think that's huge. Number two, uh, what Brad does is he discovers that there's a particular kind of disagreeableness that's really valuable. It's not just being cranky and ornery for the sake of it, it's not being a cl- a complainer. Brad says, "I want people who are like racing cars stuck in a garage. Like, they're, they're just being stifled and, you know, shot down, and I'm gonna open the garage and let 'em go." Um, so in my giver-taker framework, I would call those people disagreeable givers. Uh, they're gruff and tough on the surface, uh, but they're doing it because they wanna help and they have ideas to make things better, and they're, they're not content to just stick with the status quo. And there, there's a bunch of research to suggest that people who are highly disagreeable, um, if they're doing... if, if they're challenging people because they care, uh, they, they actually end up driving more innovation. And so I've, I've actually started advising leaders that most of us know the value of a support network and surrounding ourselves with mentors and colleagues who, who have our back. But what you actually need to get better is a challenge network. Uh, a group of thoughtful critics who you trust to hold up a mirror s- so you can see your own blind spots more clearly.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:30

       Mm-hmm.

    9. AGAdam Grant1:04:30

       And Steve, this is not the norm when I work with leaders and founders. Um, I, I, I think it's pretty common actually, um, I... (laughs) I, I don't wanna name a specific example here, but I- I have interacted with a fair number of, of entrepreneurs and CEOs who I have this vision of them coming into the office one morning and saying, "Good morning," and a bunch of people go, "Great point."

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:52

        (laughs)

    11. AGAdam Grant1:04:55

        It's a scary way to live. But you know this, as you gain status and power, it's harder to get people to tell you the truth, and that's why those disagreeable givers who are willing to challenge you are so valuable.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:07

        How, how do you, um, cultivate that? What can you do to cultivate a circle of disa- disagreeable givers, or just people that are gonna t- tell you the truth?

    13. AGAdam Grant1:05:17

        Well, the first thing you do is you pay attention to, to who has actually been willing to push you.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:22

        Mm-hmm.

    15. AGAdam Grant1:05:22

        Uh, and you let them know that they play that role in your life. So I, I've actually done this in the past couple years. Um, I've had people who, you know, tore apart book drafts for me, people who, you know, told me I needed to go back to the drawing board on a, an early version of a TED Talk. And I've gone to them and I've said, "Hey, you may not know this, but I actually consider you a founding member of my challenge network." First response, "What the hell is a challenge network?" (laughs)

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:45

        (laughs)

    17. AGAdam Grant1:05:45

        'Cause disagreeable people always talk like that.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:48

        Yeah.

    19. AGAdam Grant1:05:48

        No, they don't. But, uh, I had to explain it, and I said, "I know I haven't always taken your, you know, your challenges well. Sometimes I've been defensive. Other times I've just been dismissive 'cause I'm on a path, and what you brought was diverting. And I regret that, because I know I need you. You have to push me to think again and question the way I do things. So if I ever... you know, if you ever hesitate because you're afraid of hurting my feelings or damaging our relationship, don't. The only way you can hurt me is by not telling me the truth." And the particular conversation I found really powerful there is to let people know that they often feel a, a tension between honesty and loyalty. I don't, I don't see a trade-off there. For me, honesty is the highest expression of loyalty. The more candid and direct you are with me, the more I will value your input. And sometimes that's enough. In other cases, I have to go a step further, which is something that, that I, I explored in some research. Turns out that sometimes asking people for input, uh, doesn't get them over the hurdle. Uh, they're still afraid or they think it's just an exercise in futility. So what you have to do is criticize yourself out loud and say, "Here are the things I think I'm bad at. Here are the current shortcomings I see in my work." And what you're doing then is you're not just claiming you're open to feedback, you are proving you can take it.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:04

        So in, in that instance where you critis- criticize yourself out loud and you say, "God, I'm so bad at this or that," is in part why you're doing that to make it a safe space for them to then

19. 1:07:17 – 1:11:25

    Disagreeing With Your Boss

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:17

       d- build on what you've just said?

    2. AGAdam Grant1:07:19

       Yeah. You're trying to create psychological safety-

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:21

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AGAdam Grant1:07:21

       ... as Amy Edmondson describes it. And in some research that I did with Constantinos Coutiforis, uh, we found that when leaders sat down and, you know, didn't just say, "I wanna know what I can do better at," but...... said, "Here are the things that I think I need to work on," a year later when they were randomly assigned to do that, their teams actually, uh, were, were more willing to speak up and, and challenge them and, and give them constructive criticism. And I think part of what happens when you do that... And I, I actually do this in my own classroom. Um, I, uh, I, I read students some of the toughest feedback I've gotten in my career. One said that I reminded, uh, I reminded them of a Muppet. Never told me which Muppet.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:58

       (laughs)

    6. AGAdam Grant1:07:58

       Thanks for that. Uh, there was another where, um, a military leader had written, "I gained nothing from this session, but I trust the instructor got useful insight."

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:08

       (laughs) Sucks.

    8. AGAdam Grant1:08:10

       Not fun at the time. But what I find is when I read those comments out loud afterward, I hear much more honest input from my students. They tell me things that they think are not going well in my class. They give me new ideas for improvement. And I think what I've done there is I've, I'm showing that I take my work really seriously. I don't take myself that seriously. And, you know, I'm sort of unoffendable is the goal. And, um, sometimes they build. Like, they'll, you know, they'll, they'll say, "Yeah, like, we see that weakness and you still need to work on it." And other times they say, "Well, maybe you have a blind spot. You didn't tell us about this area where you're struggling, but we see this here." Steve, I, I have to say a lot of people get the concept but are afraid to do it, because they don't want to admit what they're bad at to the people who, who work with them. Well, guess what? The people you work with every day, they already know what you're bad at.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:06

       (laughs)

    10. AGAdam Grant1:09:06

        You can't hide it from them, right? So you might as well get credit for having the self-awareness to see it and the humility and integrity to admit it out loud.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:14

        On this point of teams as well, um, and groups of people, the other thing that was quite challenging that I, that I loved that you discuss is this idea that brainstorming doesn't really work well, and to maximize collective intelligence, we get more and better ideas when we work alone. And again, it kind of... There's a through line here with what we said at the start about procrastination and the use of boredom. One thing that's really helped me recently that I wanted to share and see if there's any resonance with you is when I have ideas, usually when I'm alone, to be fair, um, or when I'm reading or when I'm thinking or writing about something, I then write them out into memos now, which is just, like, a couple of pages for me to understand them, and then I share them with people. Before, I didn't do that. Before, I was a bit more of a pepperer, i.e. I'd take something I was thinking about and just pepper it into, like, a group chat. Whereas now having time and space to write about it seems to be helping me to refine the ideas better, but just helps me to come up with better ideas. My question here is about how groups of people form their best ideas and what you would suggest based on the research.

    12. AGAdam Grant1:10:13

        Well, you're, you're living the evidence, so-

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:16

        Yeah.

    14. AGAdam Grant1:10:16

        ... let's, uh, yeah, let's, uh, let's unpack this a little bit. I think decades of research on brainstorming have shown that if you get a group of people together to generate ideas, if instead you would put them in separate rooms and let them work alone, you would have gotten more ideas and also better ideas. A lot of people are surprised by this, and there are a few reasons behind it that, that have good support. One is called production blocking. We can't all talk at once. Some ideas get lost. Two is ego threat. "I don't want to look like an idiot, so I bite my tongue on my most unconventional ideas." And then three is conformity pressure, which is sometimes called the hippo effect. Um, my favorite acronym, hippo stands for the highest paid person's opinion.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:58

        Interesting.

    16. AGAdam Grant1:10:59

        As soon as that's known, people jump on the bandwagon, uh, and you get too much convergent thinking, not enough divergent thinking.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:08

        How do we get past that in, in organizations? What, uh, is this... Is it about anonymity with ideas?

    18. AGAdam Grant1:11:13

        It can be. If you're in a low psychological safety environment where people are worried about their reputations, then yes, anonymous ideas help. But I wanna get to a point where people are willing to put their names on their ideas. So I wanna go in the direction that,

20. 1:11:25 – 1:17:07

    What Science Says About Group Vs Individual Thinking

    1. AGAdam Grant1:11:25

       that you've gone personally, which is, uh, psychologists recommend brainwriting as an alternative to brainstorming. What you do is you recognize that writing is not just a tool for communicating, it's a tool for thinking. When you write out your thoughts, you can't get away with, uh, a half-baked idea that kind of is sold by your charisma. You actually get tested on your logic. And what you do is recognize that individuals are more creative than groups. They have more brilliant ideas. They have more variety than groups do. But they also have more terrible ideas (laughs) than groups. And so we need a process to, to generate variety and then filter toward quality. And what brainwriting does is you have everybody write down their own separate ideas, then you collect them and you have everyone do independent ratings. So you get their, their judgment preserved before they're biased by what their peers think. Then once you have all the ratings, uh, you take the most promising ideas and you begin developing and refining those. And what you're trying to do then is to take the wisdom of crowds to, to make the, the ideas with high potential succeed. And I think for me, brainwriting is one of the best ways to unlock the hidden potential in the group, because it is not the loudest talker, it's not the most enthusiastic speaker who necessarily has the most compelling ideas.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:43

       I th- I was thinking as you were talking about how I might implement that into some of my teams, and I was thinking about, so how would you create anonymity of the, uh, the submission of the idea without people having some idea based on the way the person's writing who it is?

Episode duration: 1:46:55