The Diary of a CEOMalcolm Gladwell: Working From Home Is Destroying Us! | E162
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,067 words- 0:00 – 1:38
Intro
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Sorry, now I'm getting emotional. Um... Malcolm Gladwell. Author of five New York Times best-selling books.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Business guru. A rockstar. Journalist.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I just want to explain things to people. It's not in your best interests to work at home. If you're just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live? We want you to have a feeling of belonging and to feel necessary. And if you're not here, it's really hard to do that. What have you reduced your life to? The language of happiness has to go alongside the, this question of what contribution you're making to the world you live in.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If you could make an amazing contribution to society, as you have, at the cost of your own happiness, would you choose that?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Oh, wow. We are social animals. Casting someone out is the great sin. It is not conflict that drives people away. It is neglect. That's when you do harm. Sorry, now I'm getting emotional. Um, it's, it's very... I don't know. I... Sorry. If we don't feel like we're part of something important, what's the point?
- SBSteven Bartlett
So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Malcolm,
- 1:38 – 10:20
Early years
- SBSteven Bartlett
um, first of all, I wanna say thank you. I feel obliged to because your books, um, Outliers, Blink, have been very formative for me as, over the last 10 years. As I was running my businesses and trying to understand certain dynamics that I didn't understand, those books seemed to arrive in my life at the right time. So it's a real honor to, to get to speak to you today.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Oh, thank you.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, l- going back then, what are the, what... You know, you've become a tremendously well-known, um, highly acclaimed writer and thinker and podcaster. But when I think back to your, your early years, say, s- bef- before 10 years old, what were the factors that you look back now in hindsight and connect and say, "Ah, that's the reason I ended up becoming the person I am today"?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Oh, wow. Y- y- you mean, y- you say before the age of 10?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, like sub 10.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, I, by, at the age of 10, I had been, I had already lived in three countries.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wow.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Jamaica... Maybe even four. Well, Jamaica, England, and Canada. And m- it's possible, a brief stint in the United States. So I was well-traveled, um, although, you know, you're dimly aware of these things at that age. Um, and I had a, uh, you know, I have an English father and an... Had an English father and a Jamaican mother. So I was conscious of myself as an outsider, a little bit, um, which I think is very useful. Um, and I was living, in that point, in kind of southwestern Ontario, the kind of, one of the sleepiest, but also most amazing places in the west. I mean, a, a place of kind of, uh, almost absurdly happy people and no crime or dysfunction and, you know, 10 churches in every village. And, uh, a kind of, w- i- e- I realize now, in retrospect, a kind of magical place to have... To g- I grew up without any kind of broader anxieties. So there was n- I was never scared of anything. There was nothing to be scared of when I was, when I was growing up, um, which I think, I realize now was probably an enormous blessing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
On that first point of realizing that you're a bit of an ou- an outsider, why do you cite that as being a, a good thing? For a lot of people, that leads to bullying and feeling, you know, feelings of sort of social inadequacy, but why do you see that as a good thing?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, I think of it as liberating. You know, uh, I'll give you a small example. When I first came to Canada, I was six years old. And in, in rural Canada, when you're six, all the boys had been playing ice hockey since they were... And skating, since they were four. So I remember very distinctly being aware of the fact that everyone played hockey and I didn't, and also being aware of the fact that, wrongly, but I felt that it was too late for me to learn. So I was permanently outside of hockey culture. I was the only boy who didn't play, which is incredibly liberating, which meant I could choose. None of them got to choose what they wanted to do, right? I did. Uh, i- you know? It... So it was like I didn't have to participate in these kind of, uh, compulsory rituals-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... of the Canadian upbringing. Um, and having choices... Being an outsider, it does allow you a kind of range of freedom that is denied people who are embedded in a culture.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what did you choose?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, eventually running. Um, but I think I chose just to... You know, the amount of time seven-year-olds spend playing hockey in Canada is enormous. I mean, it's just... (laughs) So I think I just had more time to read and kind of... (laughs) Uh, it's a full-time job for a, (laughs) for an eight-year-old or a seven-year-old. Um, you know, I just, I, I had a, quite a solitary childhood, which again, I think was a blessing. Um, you know, I think a lot of... I didn't, I didn't... I had time to kind of indulge my curiosity and read lots of books. And, um, I wasn't kind of... I see a lot of children today pushed into unwanted social interaction. And I don't understand. Why... Is it really necessary? If you're, if you're seven and you'd rather spend an evening by yourself-... isn't that fine? I think it should be fine.
- SBSteven Bartlett
One of the things that I, you know, I read about in, uh, the story of success was about the impact that parental involvement at that young age, and this is kind of maybe, maybe somewhat linked to what we're talking about, parental involvement can have on someone's outcomes. And I, my parents were, I was the youngest child of four, so my parents had resigned to the fact that they had to parent me.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I had this huge freedom and I think I always cite that as being the reason that I b- went on to become an entrepreneur because I had this huge void of independence. But, um, so I wanted to get your take on, on that, uh, 'cause I, that led me to believe that less parental involvement would lead to greater independence, which would lead to better outcomes.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. But except that, yes, I actually completely agree with you, but I wonder whether, um, you know, the kind of... So if you, you're describing a kind of benign neglect-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... which is, which y- youngest children, I'm also a youngest, often encounter, but benign neglect is not the same as a lack of parental involvement because it's, it's benign neglect. It's also, it's considered neglect. It's that your parents have simply, they haven't removed a safe structure around you, the structure remains in place. What they've removed, they've just stopped hovering over you.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
They realize it's no longer necessary or productive or they no longer have the time for it, but they, they've not abandoned you. So, you know, I think it's... You know, sometimes I think we, those of us who are youngest, um, do our parents a little bit of a disservice when we, (laughs) when we, when we describe their absence from our childhood. They're not absent. They're, um, they're just simply wiser in the way-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... (laughs) in the way that they, that they, uh, that they, they choose to parent.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, I thought my parents were absent, but you're right. We still had a, a s- the, the house was still hot. We had a roof over our head. I was still attending school.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I got expelled ultimately for like 30% attendance, but I was still kind of going.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
You know, I did the same thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, I read about that. I thought that-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. You, we were similar, but my mother was complicit in my... My mother would, was quite happy if I chose to not go.
- 10:20 – 13:04
How did you learn humility
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
- SBSteven Bartlett
Well, how did you and w- wha- why and how did you learn the value of that humility and the impact and the importance of it when you're dealing with other people?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, I think it's because you can't be a good journalist unless you have a kind of, uh, baseline respect for what others can teach you. If you're going to interview, be a good interviewer, you must enter into every interview with the expectation that you know less, that the person you're interviewing has somewhat something to tell you, right? And that's actually much more difficult than it sounds because nor- in normal conversation, we have an urge to assert ourselves and we think we have a kind of, um, intellectual advantage, informational advantage. That's why we, you watch people talk, interruptions are all about, often about the other person asserting their superiority on that point. Someone says, "Oh, it'll take me forever to get here." The other person says, "No, it won't," right? Y- you can't be a journalist if... You have to turn that off if you want to be an effective interviewer. You have to trust that this person ultimately can teach me something that I can't learn on my own, even if, in the moment, I'm not getting anywhere. You just have to quiet that voice and let them keep going and keep, you know, asking the right kind of questions. That requires a- an assertion of humility. Um, it took me years to kind of perfect that as a journalist. Um, and I would watch it, when I worked at the Washington Post, I would watch the great journalists and they all had that. They just, that ability to kind of, to, to make it plain to whoever they were talking to, "I know less than you. That's why I'm having this conv-, that's why we're having this conversation," right? It's a beaut- it's a beautiful thing when it's done right, when it's done well.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's got me reflecting on various people. One of the people that made me reflect on it, interestingly, was Joe Rogan. How he's- he's- feels like such a bridge to his audience and listeners, eh, because he does come across as being tremendously humble regardless of who he's- who he's speaking to. He always seems to understate his intelligence as well. Always calls himself a monkey.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yes. Yes. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Especially when he's... (laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
He has a kind of-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. (laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. Well, he... Yes, he will... He has this wonderful thing, um, where he can put himself... He's squarely in the position of his listeners.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Which is, uh, a really... You know, for a- for a host of- of a- of any kind of show like that is, if you can do that, you're gonna win- you're gonna win, right? He- there's- there's- he's- he's having the conversation that his listeners wish they could be having with- with the subjects in his- in his, uh-
- 13:04 – 14:29
When did you know you'd be a journalist?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
on his show.
- SBSteven Bartlett
On that point of journalism, at what point in your- your early years did you... Was there any inclination that you might become a journalist, you might go into that profession, if any?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Never in the... I mean, I had thought about w- I liked writing. I didn't imagine that it was a profession. It didn't occur to me that you could actually make a living doing it. So, I always was thinking about the things I wanted to do, and then I kind of fell into it by accident after my- after I- I graduated from, uh, university. So, I- I never really... I just- I thought it was something you did on the side, you know? I- I didn't... It seemed unimaginable that somebody would pay you to do this kind of work.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Lack of r- role models and lack of examples?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I don't know. I- I mean, I think it's a s- it's a little bit of it. If I'd grown up in, you know, New York, or Toronto, or London, I would've been much more aware of people who d- who l- who, you know, were in the creative professions. But I grew up in a town of 4,000 people. There were no one... There was no one in my town who made a living in the creative professions, right? You- you wouldn't live in a small town like that and do that. So, I didn't know... I have friends who grew up in, you know, Manhattan, and they- they knew- they knew film mi- film- filmmakers and actors and, m- you know, fiction writers in this as part of their parents' circle when they're growing up. I knew none of that.
- 14:29 – 17:33
The impact location has on your career
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
- SBSteven Bartlett
What advice would you give to- to people at around that age? Say that, you know, early 20s, just maybe just graduated, and thinking about going off into world, 'cause I hear a lot of these- these stories about certain small factors can have such a tremendous impact on your outcomes, like the city you live in. Would you encourage y- younger people to go and get into those big cities if they're- if they're trying to have careers in things like journalism, or media, or whatever, or- or business? And how much of a- how much of a swing does that have? 'Cause I always think, you know, I'm on Dragon's Den and I see these entrepreneurs coming in and pitching tech companies, and I always think, "Ah." Sometimes I think you're at, like, a- a 90% disadvantage versus just being over there on the West Coast of America-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... in San Francisco. Um, I've- I think sometimes I think it's more than a 90% disadvantage, but-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... situational and environmental factors on outcomes.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It's always been this puzzle in many countries, but particularly United States, about why do immigrants do so well? And, uh, you know, the- one of the explanations was immigrants to the United States have always been very aggressive about seeking educational opportunities, or maybe they brought with them education that... So, that was one argument for the longest time. But now we realize actually it's less that and more that they, unlike many peop- many Native Americans, are willing to move where opportunities are. So, the- the- the immigrants are mobile in a way. They don't have any roots. They don't have family that's keeping them in one place or another. They simply make a beeline for the places where they can, you know, further their own economic and personal interests the quickest and the most efficiently. Native- native people don't do that, 'cause they have too many encumbrances. And I... So, my advice to people, young people, is always, "Where do you wanna move?" It's the first question you should ask yourself. D- your- your default should be you're gonna move somewhere, right? D- don't fall in the trap of d- when you're twenty f- three of doing the comfortable thing and staying near family and friends. That's... There'll be plenty of time for that later. The only question on your mind should be, "Where should I move?" And once you decide where you move, I think a lot of other things fall into place. So, if you are someone who imagines that you would like to start a company in the tech world, and then, yeah, m- m- move to- move to Northern California, or Austin, Texas, or Tel Aviv, or whatever, you know, go where the... I think you're absolutely right, you need to go where the opportunity is. It's not gonna come to you magically. And you are at a huge disadvantage if you're not there. It's- it's- there's just no question about that. People have confused the efficiency of digital communication, the kind of, um, uh, the logistical efficiency of digital communication, with emotional efficiency and kind of psychological efficiency. It is- it is only logistically efficient. It does not resolve the que- it doesn't help someone trust you more, or take a chance on you, or get to know you and all of your complexity.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yes.
- 17:33 – 25:22
Are people that work too much happy?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I wish, yeah. It's one of the things my parents said to me at a very young age was, we lived in Devon, which is, you know Devon, right? Down in the c- corner (laughs) on the farms. Um, and they- they were very clear at a young age, they said, "You've gotta leave here. So, just- just so you're all well aware," for the four of us, "you have all got to go out of this city." So, when we were all very clear on that, and all of my friends are still there, every single one of them.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Eh, all of my best friends are still in Plymouth. They, even if they went to university in another city, they came back. Um, it's not to say that they're not happier than me, and this is maybe my next question, which is, um, 'cause I- 'cause I hear that immigrant tale all the time, that immigrants tend to have better outcomes relatively, what- whatever it might be. But my question becomes, um, are they happier? And I say this actually because of a conversation I was having last night with my friend who has built...His family have built a billion-dollar company in this country. Um, the dad was the first-generation immigrant here. The dad is just completely overwhelmed with work, like he is obsessed. To the point now the son said to me last night, "I don't actually think he could... he knows what makes him happy at all." But because he was in survival mode when he came here-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... they've put a billion dollar... it's actually, I think it was about five billion now, but is he happy? And I, I, I sometimes ponder that the first, sort of, generation immigrant is on survival mode, and second generation has the chance of being in a, maybe a thriving self-actualization situation-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... but I didn't know if you k- had any light to shed on first-generation happiness?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, I'm always d- I'm dubious of this. So, I, I... uh, all of this happiness stuff, and I say this, hmm, and I'm, I'm, I'm fully open to the possibility that I'm wrong, but, um, my understanding of happiness is the, because of the research on happiness, is that it's a fairly stable trait. In other words, there are people who are happy regardless of where they are and people who are not, or people who don't appear happy, or people for whom happiness represents itself differently. So, I would say of your friend's father, you know, maybe he is happy, he just expresses it differently. He built a massive business, he's made his family stable, he's created a secure beachhead in a whole new country, you don't think that makes him happy when he g- puts his head on the pillow at night? I think it probably does. It's just not... it d- it's not the kind of lie-on-the-beach, read-a-good-book happy, but, uh, it sounds to me like a f- pretty amazing set of accomplishments that would make him... will he die happy having done that? Yes, he will, I think. I don't know. I never met the man, but-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm. Just billionaires generally.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... I'm just, I'm wondering... what's that?
- SBSteven Bartlett
People say they've never met a happy billionaire (laughs) and it's...
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I just don't... I don't believe that. I think they derive... I think people who've, who've, um, accomplished something like that, they derive a different kind of satisfaction from it, but it doesn't... it's not a lesser kind of satisfaction. Um, you know, eh, do I work more than most people? D- if I look at the cohort of people I went to college with, university with, do I work more than most of them? Yeah, probably. Uh, do I spend less time, you know, uh, watching movies and reading books and going on holiday? Yes, absolutely. Does that mean I'm less happy? Mm, no. I feel like I'm pretty happy. You know? (laughs) I don't have a problem with... (laughs) I don't... (laughs) you know, it's like... and I, uh, I just, I... yeah. It's... I'm a little bit s- skeptical of this narrow definition of happiness.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, so I think, I think it's based on this idea that to be happy or whatever, you have to have this kind of recipe of ingredients and they have to be equally balanced, so you have to have, you know, m- strong i- interpersonal relationships or meaningful connections, you have to have s- you know, exercise, you know, these kinds of things. So, when you see an individual who's so out of balance because they s- they just work twen- you know, every waking hour of every day and they don't make time for friends, families, or walking the dog, people... and they're, uh, you know, consumed by it, people from the outside go, "Well, that's, that's not a happy person." And you would... I would think the science would support the fact that people tend to be happier when they have stronger, more meaningful relationships and they have more of... more balance in their lives-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... generally.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. No, eh, I think... so, uh, you... understand, I'm making... so let's go back to your friend's father.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
So, your friend's father is, uh, not someone about whom we can generalize.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Uh, he's clearly a, you know... he's an outlier of some sort. He's probably... he's in a... I imagine there's a whole series of traits, eh, that he's in the 99th percentile on. Probably incredibly intelligent, incredibly driven, you know, list them all. So, that kind of person is never going to have a balanced life. I mean, y- you could put him in, I d- you know, the, the, the, the cornfields of Iowa and say, "You're gonna be a... you're gonna be a farmer. That's all you can do." And he's gonna, he's gonna live his... he's gonna be someone who's, like, working, you know, 80 hours a week and... right? That's just his temperament. So, the question is... what I'm saying is, happiness for him is probably gonna look differently than happiness for lots of other people, but he's highly unusual. For the average person, yes, balance is, is appropriate, but you didn't ask me about an average person.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
You asked me about a b- somebody (laughs) who's-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... who built, built an enormous business from scratch.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, I, I worry... I think I worry sometimes, I, uh, part of the reason I think I ask the question is for myself, that I'm being dragged by my own, like, insecurities. So, I sit here with a lot of, you know, successful, maybe billionaire CEOs that have built these great companies, and you find out that the reason they built them is because their mother, um... in the case of one of my previous guests, which was on two weeks ago, he... and he said this on the podcast, he's built a billion-dollar beer company, you f- you find out it's 'cause his mother when he was a young kid basically always convinced him he was never enough. She'd come into his room, smash his toys, and say things to him to convince him that he was just never good enough.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, he's had this almost neurotic, obsessive drive to prove to the world that he is good enough, and you wonder how voluntary that, that, that, uh, drive is and what it's come at the cost of, and is he really... you know, is this individual really happy and fulfilled, or are they just being pulled by their insecurities?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. But, you know, there are... maybe another way of saying this is that, um... so to use that person as an example, so he took, uh, a, a, a kind of trauma and made something productive out of it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It... e- he had a great deal of certain personal costs, but he took something that might have defeated others and ended up contributing substantially to society. I wouldn't... he may not be happy, but I would describe his life as a triumph. Right? And the other thing I would say is that the language of happiness has to go alongside the... this question of what contribution you're making to the world you live in.... that there are many people who are not personally happy, but who make enormous contributions. And that's, that's a parallel, and in many cases, far more important, um, function, you know. Was Florence Nightingale happy? Um, probably, uh, probably not. She was, she was... (laughs) From what I can tell, from what I know about her life, she had all kinds of psychological issues or whatever. But she made an enormous contribution that continues to this day, right? She started a whole c- You know, so there are, like I said, I, I would like to have a kind of... I would like to, the, to evaluate people's lives along a whole series of dimensions and understand that not everyone can satisfy each of those dimensions in any moment.
- 25:22 – 39:09
If you could make an amazing contribution to society at the cost of your happiness would you?
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I, I wonder, you know, which... if you could make a huge ch- This is just a-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... rough and, and a tangent here. But if you could make an amazing, you know, contribution to society, as you have, at the cost of your own happiness, would you choose that?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Depends on what the contribution was.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The contribution you've made in your life. You've, you've helped millions and millions of people.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Oh, I see. Uh, would I have done what I did if I thought it was coming at a significant cost to my own happiness?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Uh, probably not. But then I think the world, you know... But if I was doing... If I was a, you know, a, a, a biologist who had, working on a breakthrough for some disease, i- I might, the calculation might be different. I mean, I'm not saving lives. I'm entertaining people or enlightening them. And if they didn't read me, they would be enlightened somewhere else. I'm not crucial to the functioning of society. But if I was, I might feel very differently. I think... You know, it's funny, what, the... I'm, I'm over here because I have this, um, book now in paperback, The Bomber Mafia. And it's the story of these, uh, group of men, pilots in the 1930s in America, who have a dream about a better way to fight wars, and they're all down in Alabama. And they have these ideas about how the bomber, high-altitude precision bombing can revolutionize warfare and save countless civilian lives. Their dream turns out to be, uh, they can't pull it off in the Second World War. They, they start out the war with high hopes. And by the end, many of them have had their careers destroyed because they pursued an idea which didn't work. It didn't work at the time. Now it does work. They really pioneered a kind of warfare that is, um, essential to the way we think about war today, and is, has today, you know, saves countless lives. Didn't work in their timeframe, so in a sense, they sacrificed their career and large part of their happiness for a, uh, for a future cause. They were long dead before it paid off. Am I glad they did that? Absolutely. Would they be glad if you resurrected some of these guys from the dead and you said, "Look, I know in 1936, you had a vision about how to make war better, and it was finally realized during the Kosovo campaign of the '90s, 60 years later. Are you happy you did what you did? Are you... Do you feel now that it was worth sacrificing your entire career over this lost cause? Because it turned out not to be a lost cause." And they would... I'm sure from the grave they would say, "I am so grateful that I did what I did," right? Even though one of these guys, one of the m- Uh, one of the heroes of the book is a man named Haywood Hansell. He was this brilliant, passionate, romantic figure in the Second World War who has this extraordinary ide- this set of ideas about how to revolutionize the air war in the Second World War, which he tries and fails to implement in the war against Japan. And by his, by the age of 40, he's... This is a man who devoted his life to the Air Force. He's a career... His father and grandfather, they are all, like, career military officers. He, this is his whole world. He's basically through by the, by his late 30s. He's just pushed out to pasture and spends the next 30 years of his life basically as the guy who failed in the Second World War, right? He would say it was worth it, I think, if you-
- SBSteven Bartlett
D- Do you think so?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah, I think he did. I think he would. And I'm... We should all be enormously grateful to him for making that sacrifice. Um...
- SBSteven Bartlett
I, I, I am grateful for them for making that sacrifice. But I tend to believe that people are more motivated by their own ego than they typically often allow, their own sense of, like, wanting to ach- accomplish something so they can be someone that accomplished something.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I, I tend to... I actually think this probably from doing this podcast so much, where I often get to the root cause of a successful person's achievements and find out it was just, it w- Time and time again, it was just an insecurity from their childhood. It was they had a... You know, they were bullied-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... they were beaten up.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it's this almost involuntary pursuit to prove the bully, my mum, uh, being outcasted and, and being the only Black kid in an all-white school, to, to fit in or to prove someone wrong. And it f- And then you look at it from the outside and you clap and go, "Oh, they were courageous," or, "They were brave." It's like, mm, no, they were insecure.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I, I-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
But why... But wait, why, why does it bother you that insecurity manifests itself as courage?
- SBSteven Bartlett
It absolutely doesn't. I, I did a, uh, a tour of this country where I opened the show and say, "You called me brave, I was actually just insecure." (laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So it doesn't bother me. (laughs) I just think it's reality.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then reality, we don't talk... And I think obviously in hindsight bias, we, we say, "Oh, this person was so courageous. They were so intentional." They had their... Most of the time, they were just insecure, like they didn't get Christmas presents and they were blamed.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
But that makes... I like that, though, because it, to m- To my mind, it makes courage far more accessible when we realize that courage can have many, many fathers.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I love it.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. I think it's beauti- It's a beautiful notion. And the idea that people can take...... what can be harmful, damaging, traumatic things, like I was saying before, and spin them into gold, is... This is the, this is the, mm, at the heart of what is so kind of joyful about hu- the human spirit, right? It's, it's incredible. Like...
- 39:09 – 43:48
The key to Innovation is delusion and lucky timing
- SBSteven Bartlett
then I, then you're, you're not satisfied. So he sounds like someone that was striving towards a goal, a meaningful goal, and that was challenging him. So I imagine...
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Except that, uh, lots of other people began to believe, uh, that he was wasting his time. So he has that, he has, he is surrounded by a small core of people who believe in him, and a presumably, a long-suffering wife. But, uh, the general world in which he's operating is rolling their eyes by the end.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And that's his, that's his challenge.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
That's his challenge. So I mean, that, by the way, as you know, incredibly typical of-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I mean, this, this goes into one of, uh... I'm, I'm actually obsessed with this, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to write The Bomber Mafia, because it is a perfect example of this idea that is incredibly simple, but is so often overlooked when we look at innovation. Everyone, including the innovator, radically underestimates how much time it takes to bring an idea to fruition. So the reason most innovators do what they do is not that they have a clear picture, but rather, they are, they are massively deluded about their own in- their own idea. They think it's so obvious and they should be able to pull it off in, you know, five years. If they realized it would take 30, they would never do it, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
So their, their, their success is based on the delusion. They're, by definition, delusional. Um, and every, but everyone, everyone involved always thinks that, "Just because I can describe it clearly, and I can make a case for what I'm doing, I should be able to will it into being overnight." Right? And it, I, I, there's not a single... Can you come up with a single significant innovation that took less time than the innovator imagined?
- SBSteven Bartlett
No.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It just never happens.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, for so many reasons. Yeah, I mean, legislations that were often the big one-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Oh, yeah, like there's-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that gets in the way of anything.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
There's 100 reasons why-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... everything is, takes longer.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Um, like the, the Bomber Mafia honestly believed in an idea they hatched about completely revising the way war is fought. They thought that you could fight a war entirely from the air. You would no longer need armies, tanks, navy, anything. All you would need is bombers. They thought you could fight the entire Second World War with a fleet of bombers, okay? They had this idea in 19, let's say '35. They thought they could pull it off when the war starts in 1942. They thought they could pull it off seven years later. We can't even pull it off today. We're getting close.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
But, like, it's been, they underestimated how long it would take to bring this idea to fruition by, like, basically half a century, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
That's the depth of their delusion. But everyone has this delusion. Do you know how long? My favorite example is the, the automated teller machine, the cash machine is invented, if I'm not mistaken, in the early 1970s. Now, if the guy who invented it, and there was a guy, I've forgotten his name. If we had him right here, right now-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... and we said, "When you came up with this idea in, whatever it was, 1973, how long do you think it would take to spread this idea throughout the entire world?" He would've told you, "It'll be all done by 1980." It's a no-brainer. Couldn't be easier. I'm making everyone's life easier. Banks like it, consumers like it. It's cash out of a machine. Uh, all you gotta do is punch in a code. This is the, this is not, like, com- computers or-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... I'm not changing anyone's life. Everyone wins. You know how long it actually took? It took 25 years.
- SBSteven Bartlett
To make an ATM machine?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
To make it popular. ATM machines take... They're not... So they're invented i- in the early '70s, and they're not really everywhere until the mid-'90s in the West.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
They don't... You tell me. Takes a long time. (laughs)
- 43:48 – 47:10
The importance of timing
- SBSteven Bartlett
You, you write a lot about this idea of timing. You've, you've written about it in Outliers, I believe, about the importance of timing. Now, everything you've said there makes me feel maybe a little bit scared as an, as an innovator or an entrepreneur because I might be 50 years out, and listen, I'm trying to quench these insecurities now, so I don't... I can't, I can't wait 50 years. What have you learnt about how we can, um, improve our timing or understand if our timing is good? Is that even possible? Is it possible to know if our timing is good when it comes to inventing things, creating things, launching a podcast? Are we too late? People say that to me a lot, "Is this too late to be starting a podcast?" You know?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
C- Can... Is timing something we can control or is, does it just live in hindsight?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
No. I... Well, I do think... A lot of people claim to understand timing and really what they're doing is, they're... They were just lucky and they're, after the fact, assigning themself, you know, a pat on the back for what... Um, that is not to say though that there aren't people who have a kind of, um, at least in flashes, have their finger on the pulse of some kind of marketplace.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Steve Jobs comes to mind with...
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. The thing about Steve Jobs, of course, is that he's ne-... He's not a pioneer in anything, so he's always late to... He's late to every market that he eventually wins. So his genius was an understanding that being first is massively overrated. He's 10, he's 10 years late on the smartphone. He's, you know... Every, all of the ideas that go into the first, uh, the Macintosh computer are all taken from Xerox PARC. Uh, he didn't invent any of that stuff. His... So his genius was an understanding that if you are the first person in, you're probably too early.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interesting.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
But also, and he understands as well that, um, that in that world of consumer electronics, um, you're better off being the person who tweaks the idea than the person who truly innovates. In other words, what consumers are interested in is a kind of mature experience with their electronics. The a- the average consumer doesn't wanna be the, wanna be the one who's pioneering how to work a kind of, y- you know, stage one laptop-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... or home computer. Or they don't want the... Remember the... I don't know if you remember the PalmPilot.
- SBSteven Bartlett
No.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
The PalmPilot was an early, a way too early smartphone that was big in the kinda '90s.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Right.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And it, it was for, it was used by a very small number of very technically, technologically focused people. Jobs would've looked at that and said, "You're never gonna win selling a PalmPilot." It's just not... You need to kind of tweak it two steps and make it something that an average person would wanna use. He was very commercial in the way that he, um, approached, uh, uh, uh, product inno- innovation. That was his genius. So he's, uh, he... In some sense, I think he, uh, he is exactly what you're talking about, someone who, um, who had an uncanny sense of how to bring something to a mass market.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And when the time was right to do so.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. Although he... Yes. When the, uh, when the time, and when the time was right, yeah. He, he did a very good job of never being too early.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hm.
- 47:10 – 54:03
The power of writing
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's a weird concept of being too early, but, uh, not one that people are that familiar with. Between the ages of, um, 24 and 34, you spent 10 years working at the Hou- the Washington Post?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What was... What did you... You know, that was your 10,000 hours per se. What did-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that give you that, in hindsight, you realize has been so sort of foundational and, and important and significant to what you went on to do those, those, uh, 10 years?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, it taught me... When I was talking earlier about that thing about reporting requiring a kind of fundamental humility. It... That was, uh, was hammered home in those years. Um, I also learned to write without anxiety. So you can't be a newspaper re- reporter if you have any neuroses whatsoever about the act of writing. You just have to... You know, you have a limited amount of time. The discipline of being forced to write something every day in a limited amount of time for 10 years, um, cured me of writer's block, writing anxiety. You know, and you just... i-... you can't be that way, you know? Right? It's just like, it's like a, it's like a boot camp for writers. It just is... It, um... That was enormously, um, useful in, um, in kind of freeing me up to spend my mental energies on other parts of the writing process, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about writing generally and the value that and role that writing has played on your self-awareness, your personal development? Because, you know, we're living in a generation, I think, where writing is becoming less popular and maybe even less necessary.Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. Um, but I, because I do this podcast, because I have other obligations to write, because I have a Instagram following of millions of people that expect me to write things every day, I started having to write, like it was a discipline. Uh, I had to do it at 7:00 PM I had to post something. And i- only in hindsight, I've, I've reflected on how much that changed my life. It helped me understand the world I was living in because every day, I have to say something that's true.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And in hindsight, I go, "Fuck, I w- I wish someone had told me how, how much I think I could advance my wisdom, understand myself just by having, having some kind of commitment to publish-"
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
"... every day." More from, like, a personal perspective, you know? I'm wondering if that's, uh, if it's, uh, if you've found a similar thing. I f- I tend to think writers, people that have a, something making them write every day and publish are infinitely just so much more wise and incredibly more self-aware. Similar thing with podcasters, to be fair.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
So, I think of curiosity as a habit, not a trait. Um, and I think that too often, we think of it as a trait, not a habit. By that distinction, I mean it's not, people are not naturally curious or not nat- naturally curious. They, there are people who have cultivated the habit of curiosity and those who have let it lie fl- lie fallow. What you're describing is an institutionalized, a way of institutionalizing the habit of curiosity. If you are required to write something every day, then you are, you've put yourself in a position where you're forced to think about and look for things to write about every day. That's institutionalizing the habit of curiosity, right? I think all successfully curious people do that in one form or another, put themselves in situations where they have to come up with some new idea or have t- are forced to look for interesting new things, or, you know, why, you know, um, anyone who has ambition does this for many people. The idea, you know, ambition is very often rooted in a sense of dissatisfaction with your current state of knowledge, um, or practice. What does, what does dissatisfaction do? It is another institutionalization of the habit of curiosity. It force, your, your, your unhappiness and dissatisfaction with what you know forces you to go out and look for a solution to that feeling, right? Find things that, to keep going and, you know, instead of stopping, get up and look again. And so these are all versions of the same, um, of the same thing. So I th- I sort of agree with you, that there's writers who have obligations, writing obligations, do, it's a tremendous advantage in terms of, of, um, of, uh, pushing th- pushing them to kind of think freely about things.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The Tipping Point, in, you wrote that book in 2000?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Did that change your life?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, it, uh, it was, it, it allowed me to think you could make a living writing books. And it validated my feeling that the way in which I wanted to write books had an audience. So I was, I don't, I didn't know, I had a particular way that I wanted to write books, but I didn't know whether anyone else liked it, shared my approach. So that book made me think, "Oh, okay. There's a, there's a universe of people out there who, um, who are into this kind of thing." And that was, that was, again, freeing, you know? At each stage of my career, I've been lucky enough to go through experiences that allow me to shed various anxieties. The Washington Post sheds anxiety about writing. Tipping Point sheds anxiety about whether the kind of writing I want to do has an audience. Those are two enormously freeing things.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What was the way that you wanted to write that you were unsure if the public would receive well?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I wanted to jump around and go on lots of digressions.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I wanted to use, uh, I wanted to make ideas as, make adventure stories around ideas, not about necessarily around people or narratives. I wanted to kind of ransack the academic world for really interesting insights and apply them to kind of everyday stories. But I wanted to kind of, like, it's that idea of, like, um, uh, making a book that is a, a jumble of different genres, right? So in the course of reading a chapter, you should entertain a new idea, meet an interesting person, be s- have something that you believe challenged. It should be fine to have all those components in one chapter of a book. And the next chapter, it should be fine to move on to something completely different. That was what I wanted to do. I wanted to jump around.
- 54:03 – 1:01:49
Public speaking tactics
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
- SBSteven Bartlett
All the success you've had as a writer has resulted in you now being, doing a lot of public speaking. One of the things when I was reading about your, your sort of philosophy towards public speaking that surprised me was that, um, you say you don't try and start a public talk with a wow, with a, with a wow moment. I think the quote was that, "never starts his talks with a wow moment or anything to hook them in, but instead just tries to draw them in slowly." And this surprised me 'cause I, I've always thought that the opposite pro- approach was better (laughs) . As in, like, when you walk on stage, people are typically on their phones or whatever and you don't have their attention, so trying to get them to pay attention within the first 10 seconds by saying something that is somewhat, I don't know, provocative was a better approach. So I was con- keen to hear why you take that stance.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
The question is, what do you want your audience... And in this sense, it's no different from writing. What is the experience you want your audience to-... go through. You have them for whatever, 45 minutes, an hour. And I want them to feel that they have progressed. I don't necessarily want them to agree with everything I said, or think I'm wonderful. That's not important. I want them to be in a different place than they were at the beginning, so to have thought about something that they hadn't thought about, to have moved their position on something a little bit, to be emotionally in a different place. So if they started out one way, I want them to be something somewhere else. If they started out distracted, I'd love them to end up being focused. I just want movement, right? So my worry is, when you start with a bang, is you compromise the movement. So if, for example, I'm, I want them to be amused, their journey to be a journey towards amusement, if the first thing I do is tell them an incredibly funny joke, the journey's over.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Right? The, it get, it's about time. So the, the central problem of these speeches is that they've committed, like I say, 45 minutes to an hour. That's a long time, and everything has to be about that. You have to think about that timeframe. You're telling a story within a 60-minute window, right? And they're gonna judge you by how they feel in the 60th minute, not how they feel in the, in minute one.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Um, movies, you know, the movie that fails, you sit in a two-hour movie, and you're enthralled for the first 90 minutes and then it falls apart in the end. You leave unhappy. You have never, I, I, you have never given a movie recommendation where you said the following. "You should totally go and see that movie. The first hour's amazing. Now, I will warn you, the second hour's terrible."
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
You'd never do that, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
You would actually, but you would say, "Oh, you should totally see it. It'll be, it'll start a little slow, and you'll wonder why you're there, but wow, the last hour."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
That, you would say. I've described to you this, you know, from a, a logical perspective, the same experience, 50% good, 50% bad. But all I've done is if by s- by putting the bad first and the good second, I've made it something you recommend. And by reversing it, I've made it something that you would never tell a friend to do, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I actually talk, talk a lot about to my team about how, um, people remember the s- the peak and the end of an experience in all the, like, psychology tests-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... they do. And big tech companies use this as a way to, um, create a more memorable recollection of any of their sort of customer experiences. And also, of the studies they've done on whether, if someone misses a f- the flight at the start of their ho- um, their holiday, versus if they miss it at the end of their holiday, their recollection of the holiday is drastically different.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Exactly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
They miss it at the end, it's like an awful holiday. (laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So that makes sense. But my, I think my thing is I won't even have their attention at the peak of the experience or the story if I haven't held them at the start with some kind of promise. And we actually see this with, like, m- MrBeast, who's the biggest YouTuber in the world. Much of the reason he says he's successful, and now 100 million subscribers, fastest-growing YouTuber over the last five years, is because he will, at the start of the video, and this is m- a little bit to do with algorithms, he will tell you the promise he's making you that you're gonna get at the end.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Uh-huh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So he'll do something in the end, like, uh, he'll, he'll basically create the plot, uh, in the first 10 seconds and go, "In this video, I buy a million iPhones, and then I text them all at the same time." And you're now waiting till the end-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to see the plot realized, I guess.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, he's, he's promising to tell you a story.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Right? So with most stories, if you go and see a, um, if you read, if you pick up a mystery book, mystery story, um, it's the same thing. It, by virtue of being described as a mystery, it's making a promise. The promise is, "I'm going to, you know, create some, I'm gonna lead you to a dark place where you don't know where the solution is, and then I'm gonna give you the solution." So like, that, yeah, he's, he's ... When you, when you, when you make the contract with your audience, and the contract says, "I'm telling you a story," you can hold them without, you don't have to w- you're not wowing them. But you are, you are binding them to you-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... if you can, if you're promising a story and then you deliver on that. Now, he's probably promised successfully come through so many times now-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- 1:01:49 – 1:12:22
Are you an emotional person?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are you, um, are you an emotional person? Do you consider yourself to be an emotional person?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Does that, does that impact your, your writing and your storytelling and your, your, um, authorship? If that's even a word.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
In my podcast very much so. Less so in my books, um, because audio's so much more emotional. Um, so a lot of my religious history episodes, um, many of them are quite emotional. Um, and, uh, they're the ones that I value the most. The ones, particularly the ones that kind of, um... This, in this season, for example, there's two episodes which one will almost certainly make the majority of those who listen cry. Um, and that's something you can do in audio and that I think is a great accomplishment. Real tears, not kind of, um, uh, not, you know, there are some people who kind of cheat their way to tears, manipulate their way, the audience, but well-earned tears. Um, and that, I love that kind of storytelling where you can move someone so deeply that they will respond emotionally to what you're saying.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I saw a quote actually from you that said, um, "I cry, but I don't get mad." Or, "I cry, but I don't get angry," that was it.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah, I don't really get angry much. I'm not a, um, I don't come from, my, I don't come from a family that does anger. I don't sort of see the point. It never gets you what you want. Doesn't make sense rationally. It feels terrible emotionally. It just makes everything, everyone is worse off and unhappier after the angry episode than before. So it's like, wh- could you remind me why this is some... I mean, I, if I have, I try to kind of squelch it whenever I have an impulse to do, and then I just find it goes away, the impulse.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When was the last time you cried?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Oh, I don't know, two days ago.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. I tend to cry most often when I'm by myself and I think about something that causes me to get emotional.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is it typically in your writing or is it, is it, you think more
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
No, I'll be walking down the street and I would-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Uh, I will th- I will be pursuing a line of thought that will bring tears to my eyes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is that what happened two days ago?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Uh-huh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You were walking down the street and-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Uh-huh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are you able to share what that line of thought was?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I was thinking about my father.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Right.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Uh, I was with my daughter, taking her, she's 10 months, she was in the little baby carrier. And I, uh, uh, we, my father never met, you know, he died before she was born. And, uh, I would dearly have loved for him to meet her. And they have a lot in common, I think, although it's hard to tell at 10 months. But, um, it seems to my mind they have a lot in common. And I was just reflecting on how lovely it would've been for them to meet.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You're a person of faith, right?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So you believe, are you, you Christian, Christianity or?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah, that's-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... the tradition I grew up in, yeah.
- 1:12:22 – 1:17:38
Why some relationships last and other don’t
- SBSteven Bartlett
on the topic of relationships, one of the things that I, um... I- in your book Blink, in the, in the first chapter, you talk about John... Did you say John Gottman?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Oh, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I read about John Gottman completely separately.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I read about his... When I was trying to read about relationships and what ruins relationships, I read about this idea of contempt, um, ru-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
As being the... Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. And I actually, when I talked about my show that went up and down this country, in the show I talk about Professor John Gottman, I talk about contempt and how that's this insidious little m- hard to see force in relationships, but you actually got to meet him. What did that teach you about relationships and, um, and the ones that are gonna last and those that are gonna-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... probably fail?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, he, you know, it's, it's this, it's a kind of obvious but crucially important point which is a reminder of how we're social animals and casting someone out is the great, um, is the great sin, the great injury. Not being angry with someone or, or... Anger is the wrong word, but-It, it, Guttman is clear that anger is not a predictor of ... The expression of anger is not a predictor of the failure of a relationship. The expression of contempt is. Um, and he makes that crucial distinction that if I confront you over something that I'm unhappy about, I am... The implicit understanding is, I'm doing this because your, our relationship is of such importance to me, that an injury needs to be addressed, right? Contempt is where you have given up on the relationship. Like, "Ah, what's the point?" Right? "Uh, it doesn't matter." And that idea that it doesn't matter, whatever, blah, blah, blah, is worse than, "I can't believe you did that!" That's super interesting, and it made, made me kind of think a lot about, um, what it, you know, if you're thinking about building organization structures, relationships, family, anything that's, uh, that is, keeps people engaged and happy over the long term. Understanding that distinction is crucial. It is not conflict that drives people away. Um, it is neglect. Right? And not every encounter has to be positive to be useful. And, uh, you know, when I, when I'm thinking about the team I work with on my podcast, Revisionist History, for example, you know, many of them are much younger than me, and, uh, there are things I can teach them, and I have a choice. Do I bring this up? "Look, guys, we screwed up on this. This isn't good. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Or do I let it slide? My personality is such that I often would let things slide. Otherwise, no, no, no. That's wrong, and that's, I am, I am impairing our relationship by letting ... I think I'm, in the moment, helping things just by letting my irritation not get the better of me. No, I'm impairing the relationship. When I say to them, "This isn't good work, and here's how it can be better," I am affirming to them that they are part of my team. And when I just shrug and say, "Oh, whatever," then they become superfluous. Right? I have truly injured them in that moment. This idea that that's a lot of what effective management is, is, um, is imp- implicitly ensuring subordinates that they belong, that you're, they're part of the team, even if that's manifested as, in, in terms of approbation or conflict or what have you. Um, uh, and that neglect is the, is that neglect is the enemy. And this is true in families as well, right? Neglect is the enemy. The thing that you can't ... We were talking earlier about, about benign neglect. Benign's the key word, right? Considered neglect is fine, but when you turn your back on a child, that's when, that's when you do harm. Um, and, you know, none of us were talking about our parents turning their backs on us.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
They were watching from afar and not doing anything. Totally different. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. (laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Totally different. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. It's actually completely changed my perspective on my own childhood, because you're right. I always thought of them like, it being a form of, like, bad parenting. But it, but in fact, I, they loved me very much and they were th- at a house and I was safe.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Safe. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I had a st- I had a s- I had a foundation to, to flourish in.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Without that, if I, I wasn't out on the street, you know, p- try to feed myself.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Foraging for yourself.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, foraging. (laughs) Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
With lovelessly ... Which I actually think would've been even worse than being hungry, just being loveless.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Uh, completely loveless.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Uh, and love, again, even in my child, we, we weren't maybe an affectionate family. I still don't call my parents by mom and dad. I still call them by their first names.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Oh, really?
- SBSteven Bartlett
But I knew ... Yeah, it's weird. It's very strange. It just, I think it started as a joke, my mom saying she felt old if we called her Mom, a- and she wanted us to be our friends, and it was just a joke that-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- 1:17:38 – 1:26:50
Feedback & meaningful work
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's really interesting though, that idea. And it kind of does ... It's a bit of a narrative violation that by giving feedback and by being honest and constructive in your feedback, you're actually showing people that you, and even in a professional sense, that you, that you care and that you are together on this.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. You're ne- you're, yeah, that they are necessary to the process. Right? It's that feeling of n- of, of, of, that they've n- if they feel they aren't necessary, then you have... You know, we've noticed this. I've started this little company, um, this audio company, with my friend Jacob Weisberg called Pushkin. He produces all of our podcasts and others. Um, and, you know, we've noticed that the people, like every small company, we have people who come and go. And the people who go are the ones who, this is an obvious observation but it's an interesting one, the people who have tended to leave are the ones who are the most socially disconnected from the organization. So who came into the office the least or who were not, were based in another city and we hired them largely to do remote work or they have, they don't feel... It's very hard to feel necessary when you're physically disconnected. And, um, you know, as, as we face the battle that all organizations are facing now in getting people back into the office, that this, people... It's really hard to explain this core psychological truth which is, we want you to have a feeling of belonging and to feel necessary. We w- and we want to, you to join our team. And if you're not here, it's really hard to do that. It's not in your best interest to work at home. I know it's a hassle-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... to come to the office. But like, you know, if you work, if you're just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you wanna live? Right? Don't you wanna feel part of something?I mean, it- it just- I- I- it's- I- I'm really getting f- very frustrated with the inability of people in positions of leadership to explain this effectively to their employees. That, um, if we don't feel like we're part of something important, what's the point? It's not... You're not just doing this to get a pay. If it's just a paycheck, then g- e- it's like then you, w- what have you reduced your life to, right? It has to be... I don't know. I got... Uh, this is really is getting me kind of-
- SBSteven Bartlett
You-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I was in, I was in Los Angeles a few weeks ago and, um, I was pitching some idea to a studio. Went to two studios. I won't name them. Both have these beautiful, gorgeous, fancy offices of the sort you only see in LA, right? Fantastic, you know, sun is shining. You go into the parking lot and there are no cars there. And you go into these places where they normally would have 500 people and there are four. Now, they say it's because of COVID. It's not COVID. It's just they- they just- the- everyone's just decided they wanna work at home. Like, this is a business. It is in... They are in the business of forging an emotional connection through storytelling to an audience, and they cannot even form an, an emotional connection to their own employees! Right? What is going on here?! This is nuts! (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
You're totally preaching to the choir, by the way. (laughs) Because I've had this, I've had this conversation with, with all of my companies and all of my teams, and even the people in this room now know I've spoken to them about it. I wrote a letter and I said, "Listen. We believe in, um, inter-person, you know, connection, the value of it." This is why we've never done this podcast on Zoom, even in the pandemic.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because I... 'Cause part of the reason I do it is because of this.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm not d- it... I'm not doing it to publish an episode. I'm doing it because I like to meet someone and connect with them. If you take that away from it, I don't wanna do the podcast. And it's the same with my work. Like, we ran a company who was... That w- when we had 700 employees, we were notorious for company culture, for having this... where the office was like a community center, you know? Everything happened there. And our employee base, again, as the BBC wrote, w- were on average about 21, 22 years old. The minute the pandemic comes around, for the first time ever, we see people quitting en masse.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because suddenly, it's them doing a to-do list in their boxer shorts-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... at home. And the only upside we're bringing them in their li- uh, the only sort of remuneration we're giving them, other than, you know, the work is interesting, whatever, is pay. It literally then becomes the pay we're giving versus the company down the road that are paying you to sit in your boxer shorts and do your to-do list. So, it became pay versus pay.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And, to be honest, there were other people that were willing to pay more. So, we, we saw tons of people leave, and I realized that central to the value that we bring to these people's lives is community and togetherness and connecti- So, I fully, fully believe in it. And I also think that, and this is a controversial thing to say, people don't typically know what's right for them. And, uh, and, uh, I'm not saying this just in the context of work. I'm saying, like, look at other areas of our life where we've sacrificed community for productivity or efficiency, where maybe we now sit at home and tap a glass screen to get our food and then swipe on a glass screen to get a date and then s- click, double-tap, uh, photos. Like, that's probably what you would have chosen f- through convenience.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But then the cost on happiness, which you don't get to see when you make that transaction. So, I li- I think I said to all my companies and even some of my foreign companies, like, "The most important thing for me is to give you clarity on who we are. Then you can decide where you work."
Episode duration: 1:40:02
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