How to build deeper, more robust relationships | Carole Robin (Stanford GSB professor, “Touchy Feely”)

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/2ff88960e5079d1d

Many people told you your class at Stanford made them feel like their entire college tuition was worth it. Even more rewarding for me are the I'm pretty sure your class just saved my marriage. I want to talk about how to give feedback well. I feel that you don't care and I feel you're being insensitive are not feelings, and that's where we make our biggest mistakes when it comes to feedback.
How do you avoid people getting defensive?
What, when, where, how. Stay away from why. I think it might be helpful to talk about this concept that you call the three realities. We don't understand that we are only privy to two out of the three. So I know what's going on for me and I know what I did. I have no idea what happened on your end. That's a really profound point that anger is a secondary emotion. Really what's going on is you're afraid or you're hurt.
What a disservice to not help people understand that anger is a distancing emotion, and there are other emotions that are connecting.

Today my guest is Carol Robin.
For over twenty years, Carol taught the legendary course at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Nicknamed Touchy Feely.
Technically called interpersonal dynamics.
Which helps people learn how to build strong relationships.
And become much more effective leaders.
She then went on to start a non profit called Leaders in Tech.
which brings these same lessons to leaders of high tech growth companies, and she also wrote an incredibly impactful book.
Called Connect.
Which distills all the key insights and lessons from her decades running this course.
I've had so many friends go through the Stanford course or the Leaders in Tech program.
And every single one of them was transformed.
in terms of how they relate to other people.
How they communicate.
And how they lead.
In my conversation with Carol, we talk about why we're often trapped in mental models that we formed when we were younger, and how they now limit us and limit our potential and our ways of seeing the world.
Why disclosing fifteen percent more than you naturally feel comfortable?
Will make you a more effective leader.
Why there are actually three realities around us at all times and how that insight changes the way you relate to people.
We also get into how to give feedback to anyone about anything.
Why vulnerability is so essential to great leadership, how to build exceptional relationships, and why they're so important.
And so much more. This is a very special and very unique episode, and I'm so excited to bring it to you.
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Carol, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me, Lindy. I'm delighted to be here.
I've heard from so many people over the years how much you and your course have impacted
their life.
both friends of mine and also people when I shared on Twitter that you were coming on the podcast, so many people
left comments just like, Oh my God, that course and Carol's changed my life in so many ways.
So I am really excited to have you here. I'm really honored to have you here.
Thank you.
I wanted to start with when we were
Preparing for this podcast. You shared
This quote with me.
I was put on this planet to help people learn that it's possible to learn how to
Building.
And develop robust, meaningful relationships.
What are
robust, meaningful relationships and why are they important to you? Why are they important to people?
I think that
Most people experience a richer, fuller, more meaningful life when they have
at least some high quality relationships.
Or maybe put the other way if you have none.
it's unlikely you're going to experience rich and full
A life.
So
I often talk about relationships exist on a continuum.
At one end of the continuum.
It's contact and no connection.
Or y we could also say dysfunction.
And by the way, contact no connection, those are thousands of Facebook friends.
That is those are not relationships and those are not friends in my
Vocabulary.
At the other end of the continuum is what
m my co author David Bradford and I came to call exceptional.
And that the exceptional relationships have a particular set of characteristics that I can get into if you want to.
But before I even do that.
We're not suggesting and I'm not suggesting
Yeah.
Everybody needs to turn every one of their relationships into something exceptional. That would be
First of all, impractical, second of all, unnecessary.
Uh
But it turns out that the skills you need to move along that continuum
Actually take you from contact and no connection and dysfunction to at least
Functional and robust.
And then once you've acquired those skills, then you can decide whether or not you want to take a few of those relationships.
A lot farther.
Take them all the way to exceptional, but at least
You've
gained what you need to know in order to get
to functional and robust. And I believe if we had a critical mass of human beings on this planet
Who had those skills?
And knew how to get to at least robust and functional?
We wouldn't just have more functional teams.
In organizations
We'd have stronger communities, but
We'd have
more functional schools.
We might, in my wildest dreams, even have a more functional government.
And so
That's
That's kinda my life's mission.
Hopefully this episode is gonna actually do exactly that.
From your mouth to God's ears.
To give people a little more motivation to
really dig in and pay deep attention to this.
What are some of the benefits you've seen from people moving further along the spectrum, building more robust relationships and more exceptional relationships?
Obviously I taught a cour a course for many many years at Stanford Business School of
And and it was the Stanford business school, by the way. It wasn't hidden away somewhere in the psychology department.
Uh
And and that's because
The premise of the course is that people do business with people.
Not ideas, not products, not machines, not
Tactics.
uh strategies, not even money. They do business with people. So you better get the people part right if you really want to succeed.
And then that
Interpersonal competence is a determinant of both
Personal and professional success.
So
To your question, I
I can't I've lost track.
Of how many
hundreds of emails and
And
calls and visits I've had from former students
Who come to tell me I I just became a CEO, I'm pretty sure I owe it all to you.
I just raised my third round.
I'm pretty sure I owe it all to you.
I just
Figure it out.
how my co founder and I are going to navigate
You know, this very difficult situation we're all we're in. Thank you for everything you've taught me.
And those are exceedingly satisfying. And I'll tell you even more, even more rewarding for me.
Are the I'm pretty sure your class just saved my merit.
I just reconciled my relationship with my brother who I hadn't talked to for two years because
He voted for X and I voted for Y.
We don't need to get into who X and Y are.
And
You know, and I
Yeah, and now I get thank you for finally writing a book because you know, my
My VP of
product didn't go to Stanford and doesn't understand what I'm talking about, so at least I bought him a book.
And you know, and now I've got more and more folks sending people to leaders in tech, which we can talk about later, which is
The progress.
nonprofit I started after I left Stanford so that more and more people can learn this.
From more than just a book.
Amazing. And I think what I love you also share this
Point that many people told you.
That that one class at Stanford Business School GSP was
Made them feel like their entire
College tuition was worth it.
From that one class which is
So surprising because it's
called touchy feely. It has nothing to do specifically with business.
Except of course it has everything to do with business.

So kind of
Follow that thread. Can you just talk about
What this class is.
trying to do what the goal of this class is.
And what actually goes on in this class. And again
People call this class touchy feely. I think it's technically called interpersonal dynamics. That's correct.
Okay. That's correct.
Yeah. Um yeah. What is this class all about? Help people understand what goes on here.
Well
First of all, it's a quarter long class.
And and at the at at at a really fundamental level, we've already really talked about what goes on there, people learn how to be more interpersonally competent.
Or how to connect with pe other people.
Yeah, in more functional ways.
And what I mean by connect is
You know
Lear how I need to show up.
In order
For
You to feel to trust me.
In order for you to feel closer to me.
In order for you to
want to spend more time with me.
In a leadership by the way, this is part of the leadership curriculum I taught.
In a leadership sense.
That makes
You more likely to want to follow me.
'Cause in the end, that's the question leaders should ask themselves. Why should somebody follow me?
And you know what, you could study other leaders. Why did somebody follow Steve Jobs? Why did somebody follow
You know
Ursula, you know, at at at Xerox. Why did some people follow
Cheryl Sandberg.
Or
Why should somebody follow me? Because I'm not any of those people.
So the question I asked my students to sit in and now my leaders my leaders and tech participants to sit in is why should somebody follow you?
Mm-hmm.
Now
There are lots of reasons why
people might follow you, you've got a great vision that's very inspiring.
You have a product that they want to bring into the world.
They think they may make a lot of money if they hitch their wagon to you. Those are all good reasons.
But if you want to build a sustainable long term
Legacy.
Then
You probably want to think about
Showing up in a way that other people
Come to see you as a referent figure.
Somebody in their life that they say, you know?
When I grow up I wanna be more like that.
And that is a form of power, ref there's a lot of research that supports this, referent power.
It's it's you know, you're a referent figure.
And uh and then people
are much more likely.
Two.
Be open to your influence.
And open to uh
Working harder.
And open to doing some of the things that
You believe her.
Going to make you great.
LC
whole organization.
The class is quite unusual in that there's not just a bunch of lectures and talks, there's a lot of experiential
Uh
pieces where you have to do quite uncomfortable things.
In order to learn
how to do this. Well, is there can you share an example or two of some of the things you put people through whatever you're able to share?
Sure.
That we don't learn
To be in I don't learn how to connect with you.
By reading about it in a book.
Uh
Which by the way is why it took us four years to write our book, because at the end of every chapter
There's a here are things you can go do with what you just learned in the reading.
And
Likewise in the class.
The lectures
Are like scaffolding on which you can
Hang your experience but
Most of the learning happens in these small groups.
called T groups. The T stands for
Training not.
Therapy.
Um and
Uh sometimes they people think they sound like therapy and they sometimes even experience them as feeling a little bit like therapy, but that's not what they are.
We call them training groups and what happens in that group is that there's
twelve participants and two facilitators
And
They are, for example,
Given a task
Like I might pair two students up and say, Okay, you've got ten minutes
Allow the other person to get to know you.
And that's the only instruction I give.
Okay, so now you and I kinda look at each other and we're like
Oh, what the heck that's supposed to mean and
then you know, maybe I share something about myself.
Uh or maybe I ask you a question
Or who knows what I do with that? And then who knows what you do with it. So then after ten minutes.
Then I s then I stop them and I say okay.
So take a moment.
And recognize
That you just had a bunch of choices.
That you actually probably never even think about.
You had a choice whether you began.
But
Sharing something?
Or you waited for the other person to be.
You had a choice whether you began with a question, which was a nice safe place to be.
Or whether you began with a disclosure.
Uh
You then had an opportun you had choices with regard to how you responded to what your partner did.
And the whole course.
is about having interactions and then having
V
uh the guidance in the space and the time
And the focus
To unpack what just happened.
So now do you want to have a more conversation with this person or less?
Are you intrigued?
Or are you like can I just get paired up with somebody else?
Right?
But now we get to talk about it.
And
Then I put them into a second conversation and I say, Okay, now having learned that, that by the way, one of the ways we build
uh relationships
is through
Disclosure.
uh through allowing ourselves to become more known.
So that's a little mini lecture.
And then I say, Okay, now go back into your pair.
And see whether or not you want to make some new choices.
Mm.
And uh and then, you know
Of course, that's all, you know, I always say confidentiality is an very important aspect of all this work. So in the pair conversations
In the group conversations I call them the Vegas rule.
What happens if Vegas stays in Vegas.
And so I don't ask for any specifics, but I'll ask them for
What it was there a qualitative difference between the first and second conversation?
And they inevitably say, Oh my God, the first conversation is the conversation I have in the bar all the time.
With somebody.
And the second conversation was
A little more uncomfortable.
But I sure feel a lot more known.
And I think I know my partner a little bit more.
And now they've had a little taste.
Of what it's going to be like.
Yeah.
Amazing example.
So what I wanna do with the rest of our chat is basically go through many of the lessons and insights and lectures that you give in this course. Obviously, they're not gonna be able to practice.
the way they would practice in a class. But let before we get in there, let's actually talk about
So there's this course at Stanford.
And you also now have uh a program called Leaders in Tech.
Where people can anyone can participate. They don't have to be going to Stanford Business School.
Talk about.
What this is and how people can participate if they want to go deeper on the stuff we're gonna talk about.
So Leaders in Tech is um is a non profit
Uh that uh
m two of my co founders and I started in uh the
I guess in January of twenty eighteen.
We started it with a a program called the Fellows Program, which is a ten month program.
That starts with a four day retreat that's like Petchyphile on steroids.
'Cause Touchy Feely is a quarter long glass.
And then it continues
for uh on a monthly basis for a day or half a day a month
Um
to get the rest of the what we might call Carol Robin curriculum because I also taught a course called high performance leadership.
I also called Leech.
taught leadership coaching and mentoring. So
There were other things besides touching giving.
Then what happened was that
Uh our fellows
Went through our first couple of cohorts.
Said
Because the the fellows program is open for to
Founders
Either current or
Previous founders.
Or co founders.
Uh of a company that has not gone public.
Uh and
You know, what we're trying to do is we're try we're trying to influence the cultures of the future Facebook's and
Uh and Google's of the world, not the current ones.
And
So that that program was very you know, has a a more limited
Number people that
that can apply to it. However
One of the things that happened was we got a lot of people said, But I'm not a founder and I still want that.
And we also had
fellows who went through the program that said, What about my people? My
My chief people officer, my
V P of Engineering. So then we'd started
Just a four day version.
Uh.
Touchy feeling, which anybody could apply to.
I mean you d actually not anybody, you do have to be a manager of some kind.
And you do have to be in tech.
For now.
So that is
That's where people get the real
On the ground experience.
Um they all they all get a copy of the book.
And of course if you don't want to go through the program
Or it's not or it's not the right time.
Or you wanna start somewhere else, you could start with the book, but
If you just buy the book and you read it and you put it back in your shelf, you're not gonna learn anything. Don't waste your money.
If you're gonna buy the book, buy at least one other copy and give it to somebody with whom you actually wanna
Develop a stronger relationship and read it together.
uh and do the activities at the end of every book and then you start to get a taste of what it's like to go through the course.
So just to close the loop there, how do people learn more and apply in
Join us. W dot leadersintech.org.
Awesome.
And there's around the time this episode comes out, there's a
Deadline roughly around that time. Yes. Around the uh around when this dead when this episode comes out. So we do these four day retreats all year.
So there's not no deadline to apply for that.
But if you're interested in the
Ten month program that starts with the four day retreat.
And then has all that additional stuff.
Then the deadline
For that
Is
May one.
Actually may it might even how many days uh may be April thirty. I don't remember how many days there are in April, but
It's either the last day of April or Big One.
April thirtieth.
Yeah.
There you go. So it's probably April thirtieth.
So um
Check it out.
Uh
You you have to be nominated in order to apply.
Don't let that stop you.
If you look at it all and you decide you want to apply
Just apply and say Carol I I listened to Carol Robin on this podcast if me to apply.
Okay. Okay. Great.
Yeah. Don't waste time trying to find somebody to nominate you. How amazing. Okay.
Or you're gonna be flooded with applications. Again, from your mouth to God's ears.
Okay, so let's get into a lot of the stuff that you teach. So you mentioned progressive disclosure, so that might be a good place to start. What's the
Lesson there. What is it that people get wrong?
Why is that important?
So first of all
You know
When we disclose
We make ourselves more vulnerable.
And vulnerability and disclosure tend to be reciprocal.
If I hold my cards really close,
You're gonna hold your cards even closer.
So one of the things
To learn to do is to
And
Experiment and
What works with one person isn't gonna work without somebody else necessarily, but
'Cause every relationship is its own
Yeah.
Fabulously interesting and
Always
Unfolding.
Dynamic.
Is to experiment with allowing myself to be a little bit more known.
And then seeing
What happens and whether or not you reciprocate.
Now
A really important concept we teach that you and I've talked about before is called the fifteen percent rule.
And
What what that is, is that we all have a comfort zone. Imagine a
Uh
You know, a a circle in the middle called the comfort zone.
His picture's in the book.
And that we don't think twice about what we
Si
And then there is a
Danger zone.
which is a circle way on the outside. So these are concentric circles if you're not watching the video.
Um and that
I'd never in a million years say that.
Or tell you.
But there's this really important circle in the middle.
Which is called the learning zone.
You know, in academia they have to have fancy words for very easy concepts. So it's called the zone of proximal development. But basically it means that's where you learn.
And
You have to step outside your comfort zone.
In order to learn anything,
And especially in order
to create a deeper connection with somebody.
However
My students used to say, but Carol, the minute I step outside my comfort zone, how do I know I'm not in my danger zone?
I I hear this
L you know, learning zone, but how do I know I didn't go too far?
So we came up with
The fifteen percent.
So step a little bit outside your comfort zone.
If you step a little bit outside your comfort zone
You're very unlikely to freak yourself or the other person out.
But you'll know, you'll feel a little bit.
You'll be like
Okay, I feel just a little uncomfortable saying this, but I think I'm gonna try it.
Then depending on how you respond.
Then
You know?
We settle into a new comfort zone, a slightly larger
Circle.
Which is our comfort zone with each other.
Then we can go fifteen percent beyond that.
And that's how we
learn and grow and deepen a relationship.
The same thing, by the way, applies to feedback when we get into that later.
So we have to step outside our comfort zone in order
to deepen and strengthen relationships.
What are some examples of the
Stepping outside your comfort zone, disclosing like what is it that you find people maybe aren't disclosing enough of?
Right.
areas they should discuss is like challenges they're having in their life.
Is it well?
Of course, context matters.
Uh it depends on, you know, who
What
Who I'm talking to
With this and by the way
Disclosure when I
I I wanna underscore a concept that we also
very much teach which is appropriate disclosure.
If I'm the VP of marketing.
And I get up in front of
The troops and I say well
Third month in a row we've lost share.
And you know
I have no idea what's happening or why or what to do about it.
And you know, I don't I'm feeling pretty crappy about myself. I'm not even sure I should be your VP of marketing.
That might be vulnerable in disclosure, but it is not appropriate.
Vulnerability and that is not what we're talking.
The flip side of that
Is that I get up in front of the troops and I pretend nothing is happening.
That doesn't build my credibility either.
So
I can get up and say
Okay, probably no secret to most of you, that's the third month in a row we've lost share.
And
Man, I wish I could stand up here and tell you I know exactly what's happening and I know exactly what we should do about it.
But I don't.
And I have never needed you all more?
Now who would you rather follow?
Yeah.
So uh
You know, I think
In in business
And for a very long time
You know, leaders were socialized to first of all
Leave.
All feelings in the parking lot. I've got an anecdote I often tell about my very first job.
Which I'm happy to tell you if you want, uh
And
And
You know, that there's no place there's no place for vulnerability or
Four
Sharing
Feelings, are you kidding? Feelings in the workplace.
No.
I ask you, how do you inspire anybody with no feelings?
How do you motivate anybody with no feelings?
How do you become
seen as a real person
With no feelings.
Yeah, why should somebody
Who is a robot who's robotic?
Follow you.
And the answer to that, sometimes in the valley especially, is
'Cause they're gonna follow you for a while because you've got a really great idea and the minute they've got another choice, man, they are out of there.
And so a lot of this connects to kind of this broad
Um
piece of advice you always give people is just and focus on vulnerability.
You spent a lot of time teaching people just the power vulnerability in which is not uh intuitive.
A lot of people
Try to move away from
Showing vulnerability.
Yeah, there's this quote I saw somewhere that a willingness to be vulnerable makes you more
not less influential as a leader.
You just talk about why that is. Yeah. You asked you asked me whether or not I held any contrarian views and I said, Yeah, that's one of them.
I actually think that a leader who is willing to be appropriately vulnerable
is a stronger leader.
And
So I I'll I'll give you this this short example of what happened to me.
Because it tells you know, it kind of encompasses a lot of what we've been talking about.
So in nineteen seventy five I went to work for the largest industrial automation company in the world.
As the first woman in a non clerical
Ciao.
I was a sales engineer.
And yes, I am old.
Uh but the dinosaurs were not roaming deer.
And
The first thing I learned was
Yeah.
You know, you leave feelings in the parking lot.
Whatever you do, you never talk about your feelings or express feelings in the workplace. Unprofessional.
I was like, okay.
I got pretty good at it.
In fact I got very good at it.
Yeah, ironic, given that I eventually became known as the Queen of Petrophila at Stanford, but at the time I got very good at. I'm not a career academic.
I've had six different careers.
And
Ten years later he
I'm at an off sight.
And
I've
I've I've been promoted many times, I'm now running a fifth dollar region.
I've got
Half a dozen guys that work for me.
And yes, ladies, if you're listening, I did finally fix that, but at that point I still hadn't quite fixed it.
And we're sitting there and
I had a
An idea. It doesn't matter what it was, but I got a little excited about it. And I got crickets.
And I got a little more excited and I got crickets.
And I was like
Come on, you guys, this could be really cool. What is
Why can't you see how cool this could be?
And one of my guys leans in
Looks at me and says Carol.
Isn't it like water in the corner of your eye?
Oh my God, are you gonna cry?
And then he says
Are you human after all?
Are you human actors?
And then I burst out cry.
And I tore up our agenda and I said, You don't think I'm human? I don't think there is anything more important for us to spend our offsite talking about than that.
And we spent the next two days talking about who we were.
Why we were there?
What we wanted, what was important to us, how we could help each other.
To this day I believe that was the day I became a leader.
To this day I know for a fact any of them would follow me anywhere.
Mm-hmm.
To help people.
build this muscle and start to practice this to
Try fifteen percent disclosure.
Try to be a little more vulnerable.
examples or just kinda tidbits you can share of like here's something you should start doing.
More and more.
Let's start with
You can start admitting mistakes, especially when everybody knows you made one.
Ha
Yeah.
You actually lose a lot more credibility by
Ignoring.
And you can start
Again, fifteen percent.
Yeah, by
Experimenting with
Yeah.
Disclosing sharing
What's going on for you, particularly with regard to feelings.
A little bit more often.
And so there's a reason the course is called touchy feely, emphasis on the
feeling at the touching.
And that's because the the there's so much of our ability to develop
This competence
Comes down to
The appropriate use of feelings.
That's why a vocabulary feelings
How sad is it we had to develop a vocabulary feeling?
Because that's how hard it is for people to even access what they're feeling.
So there's a vocabulary feelings in the syllabus in the course, in the appendix of the book.
Every
Every member every person who ever goes through a leaders in tech program gets it.
And and
It starts with
Allowing yourself to be known not just in terms of
Facts and
Feelings give meaning to facts. Let me give you another example. If I tell you I went zip lining
Well that's
kinda interesting. Maybe you learn something about me. Maybe you start make you start to make up all sorts of interesting stories about me.
But if I tell you I went zip lining and I was terrified.
But I went
Because I I felt coerced by my family and I didn't want to be left alone.
Back.
And then miss out.
Well, you learned a lot more about me, didn't you?
One of my
Most satisfying moment.
At a at the very first leaders in tech retreat.
We ever did.
Was it the was it?
of a s of a former student of mine.
Who had taken Touchy Feely?
Fifteen years before.
And who said, you know, based on everything I learned fifteen years ago
From Carol.
I couldn't imagine what I would learn if I came back, so I'm back.
And
He said, But Carol or no Carol
I will not sit around.
For four days talking about how we're all crushing it.
I will leave.
I was like oh
I was so proud.
Yeah.
And
Now, you know, there are times when a leader does have to stand up and say, Yeah, we're crushing it. So I'm I'm not

You know, another really, really important thing that people don't understand is that all of this is very nuanced.
and very context dependent.
And
Most people want unanswered.
Tell me what to do when X happens.
Well
Did X happen with
This person or this person? What kind of relationship do you have with them in the first place? Are there twenty people in the room or two hundred and fifty?
Is this being recorded?
Yeah.
Who's gonna have access to it?
There's so many things that you have to consider and
And especially today it
I I mean
I
I know I'm old and this will sound predictable, but I am not a social media fan.
I think it has done more to destroy strong relationships.
Uh and and to
And to destroy
People's ability to even learn.
Or think about what it takes to have.
A great relationship.
Anyway, that's a whole we could do a whole podcast on that.
I have a you know, I have a former lead leaders and tech fellow who
Sent me this fantastic there's another great example.
Sent me a um
An email and uh I'm maybe called that I don't remember, it doesn't matter.
He said, You know, so I had
Uh I my all hands meetings are every Monday morning.
On Friday I found out we had missed a major deadline.
On a product.
Release.
And I spent the entire weekend just.
Furious pissed off.
Wanting to fire the lot of'em.
And uh and he said and then on Sunday afternoon I remembered
Part of what you taught us was that anger is
is often a secondary emotion.
And often under anger is either fear or
Or hurt.
And then I realized, Oh yeah, I'm actually feeling pretty scared here.
Nobody is as worried about this as I am.
And so
He said so on Monday morning instead of getting up.
And blasting them all as I was prepared to do.
I got up and I said, So
Okay.
I am
Deeply worried and afraid that I'm the only person here.
Cool.
is as concerned about this misdeadline as I am.
And what it's going to mean to our
Customers.
And he said, I have never had
My troops rally.

Fix something faster.
So
Appropriate use of feelings.
Yeah.
Is is is something most people don't know how to do. They don't even know how to access the feeling.
You know, I told this particular anecdote about anger being a secondary emotion at a at a
Very big workshop.
A a number of
Months ago and
And a woman walked up to me and said, Wow.
Thank you so much.
I've never understood that
That my husband
It carries so much fear and so much hurt.
Because he only ever leads with anger.
It never even occurred to me something else might be going on.
And
Anger is a distancing emotion.
Whereas
Fuck.
Fear.
Sadness, loneliness, happiness.
Joy are all connecting emotions.
So those are kinds of things people learn when they come through our programs.
Oh man. You were blowing my mind.
Already. I uh I can see why marriages are saved by a lot of these things you teach.
That's a really profound point you're just making there, that anger
There's a secondary motion.
Really what's going on is you're afraid or you're hurt.
Is there anything more you can add there?'Cause this feels very important.
That is normally what's going on, except we've all been socialized.
Not to be vulnerable, especially in business.
And
naming any of those other things makes us feel vulnerable. So somehow being angry
Doesn't make us feel vulnerable.
That's the okay emotion as long as you
Express it in an appropriate way.
But it's a distancing emotion. What a disservice to you know

In business. What a just what a disservice to
Professional learning.
to to not help people understand that anger is
A distancing emotion and that there are other emotions that are appropriate and that are connecting.
This connects so beautifully to your first point we talked about of being vulnerable and
disclosing more and how I completely see how if you were just to share, I'm afraid.
of this how that
Brings people closer to you and
feels like they will trust you more versus
You not sharing that.
Right.
And you know, it connects to something else you and I talked about.
One of the one of the
Biggest gifts I think people get out of
Taking Techy Phili or going through the leaders in tech program.
Or even reading the book.
Is
That they learn that they hold some some mental models.
Some beliefs and assumptions.
If I do this
That will happen.
Or if I don't do this.
This will happen.
And those are beliefs and assumptions that we develop very early in our careers.
Like I did.
Whatever you do, you leave the parking the your feelings in the parking lot.
And it served me.
really well initially.
If I'd burst out crying it.
Two months into the job, I'd have never ended up running a fifty million dollar region.
Right.
And
Then
It
Started
It oversherved me and then it cost me.
'Cause I never had a reason to update it.
'Cause I never realized I was paying a cost.
For continuing to hold
That
Belief.
That drove my behaviors.
And you know, mental models then
They we develop them very early and they're they're grooved and we need new experiences.
In order to even believe that
They they're
They are maybe subject to
Testing.
You know, gee, maybe this is I mean I gotta I gotta ri I
I'm
I will forever be grateful to this fellow who said, Oh my god, are you human after
I was like
What?
Did this ever happen that I became seen as not human.
Never
Right.
So
And you know, again, we go back to some of the stuff we talked about earlier, which is that leaders
If if a leader doesn't show up,
With a willingness.
Two.
Update their mental health.
and their beliefs. They're certainly not going to inspire anybody else to do.
I'm glad you got here,'cause this is exactly where I was gonna go next is this.
mental model uh challenge we were into where we developed
these mental models early on and then they end up
Hurting us later in life.
Are there kind of common mental models people have that
Hurt them.
As they grow, or is it very
Particular and dependent on.
People's experience.
I mean there are there are some that are
Pretty tried and true. I mean the first one is
U
If I
Tell you more about me, you'll take advantage of me.
Or
If I uh am vulnerable with you or disclosing, you'll think I'm weak.
And
Inevitably somebody has had a time in their life where that has has been true.
And maybe it was true a lot.
But then they decide that's the only outcome that's ever possible.
As opposed to
Part of growing up and becoming more ch more mature is
Differentiating and
But having more
Big more.
Discretionary and
Who we open up to and how we open up to them, right? It's like not um you know
I I have a I have a colleague who often says
We have to think about these things as
Dials, not switches.
It's not an all or n I don't tell you everything or nothing.
I don't share every single feeling I've got, or none.
It's a dial.
And it you know, you move it at fifty percent rate.
s another mental model people hold and this becomes a huge learning for people who go through the through our programs.
Is
People think
If I give you feedback, it's gonna ruin the relationship.
gonna weaken the relationship.
Whoa that's a really common.
Even though everybody's always wanted I want more feedback. I wanna know how it can be better.
But everybody believes that giving feedback
Is gonna create a problem.
And that's because most people have in fact been on the receiving end of feedback poorly given.
Or they've given feedback.
in in a in a not very good way. You know, they step in piles of doo doo.
Yes.
And
It does not mean feedback.
ruins relationships. It means feedback the way you've always seen it done or done it. Ruins relationships.
Pretty important.
And then one of the things that we arm people with, I think one of the most powerful pieces of learning that people get.
is learning how to give feedback.
In a way that is
Going to build relationships.
As opposed to
And and it's gonna build a relationship.
If you s if you
see that my reason for wanting to give it to you.
Is that I'm invested in you?
And in us.
It's similarly we hold mental models about expressing what we call pinches, which are just, you know, those little things that people do.
Then we're just like, eh, I'm not gonna make a big deal out of it. I'm not gonna say it.
So
But mental model is
Yeah, it's a small thing.
The problem is
If you're if I'm doing something that's mildly irritating.
And you don't tell me.
Then what am I gonna do?
Keep doing it.
Mm-hmm. And then are you gonna get less irritated or more irritated?
More irritate more irritated. Yeah.
Now if I get less irritated or it doesn't change, then you're right. I shouldn't say anything.
But if I have
The wherewithal to notice
Uh this is why we talk about two antenna, which I'll come back to, to notice that I'm getting more and more activated, more and more irritated.
Then it
really important for me to say something.
And by the way, address it while it's still small.
And then it won't get big.
That's why we call it
You know, talk about a pinch.
before it becomes a crunch, then it becomes a much
Bigger deal.
But most of the time we say ah it's not worth it. So I always tell
Students.
Okay, substitute
The pronoun.
Substitute the word it.
For I
You
We
I'm not worth it.
You're not worth it.
We're not worth it.
And then ask yourself again whether it's worth
Raising.
Mm-hmm.
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I wanna talk about how to give feedback well, but
I think it might be helpful to talk about this.
concept that you call the three realities and the net.
'Cause I think that sets up a lot of this. Yeah, and in fact it is it is fundamental to giving feedback.
Awesome. So they're very related. You were right, right. You were
Right on. Okay.
And you know what?
Let me just take a moment and tal I mentioned the t the two antenna.
And and this is in the book, but you know, we're all equipped with two antenna. One
is tracking what's going on from me, my internal antenna.
The other one is kinda trying to pick up signals on what might be going on for you.
And
First of all, recognizing those two antenna exist. Second of all, learning how to hone our ability to pick up subtler and subtler signals
Make us more interpersonally competent.
So why also why I'm a big believer in meditation and awareness.
So
Anyway.
If you if we now
Fast forward to your question about
how to give feedback well
Which
has to do with understanding the three realities. It starts with
In any exchange between two people.
There are
Three reality.
There is
My intent.
How I see the world
My background, my history.
There is what I do.
Or say or don't do.
Verbal or nonverbal. So my reality is reality number one. My behavior, verbal or nonverbal, is reality number two.
And
Whatever happens on your end.
Is reality number three.
The impact of what I've said or done.
You know, how you see things.
You know, your background. So there's these three distinct realities.
And the trouble we get into when we don't recognize that
Those three realities exist.
Is
We don't understand that we are only privy to two out of the three.
So I know what's going on for me.
And I know what I did.
I have no idea.
What happened on your end?
You know what I did.
And
What how it impacted you?
So two the your two
Are the only one we share is the one
In the middle, in common, the behaviors.
Right.
Now we draw a metaphorical net.
between reality number one and reality number two.
To help people
Understand.
And and and
Anybody who's ever taken touchy feely.
In no matter which context.
Knows

The saying stay on your side of the net.
Meaning
Stick with the two realities you know.
'Cause we get in trouble.
The minute we start thinking we know the other person's reality.
Right.
So
I I I've told this anecdote.
m many times. It might even be in the book, but uh
I come home.
I'm not sorry, my husband comes home
After a very long day in the valley,
He was an executive. I've got two little kids.
Infant and a two year old.
I've been waiting for him to come home. I come running
Into the front room.
in those days, by the way, he you know, we still had newspapers, he's reading the newspaper.
And I say, Oh my God, oh my God, you're home. I can't wait wait till I tell you what happened. I can't believe what happened. Why are we living in Palo Alto? Jesus Christ, I don't want to I don't wanna raise kids at Palo Alto. It's a terrible down.
I went to that new nursery school. It's it hasn't even opened, it's already closed. Oh my God.
And you know.
He says.
Right.
So then
I say
You're not listening.
And by the way, uh people have been taught eye messages. I feel that you're not listening is exactly the same thing, it doesn't have a single feeling word in it.
I don't know whether he was listening or not.
I'm over the net.
I'm in his court.
Unless I'm in his head. I don't know whether he was listening or not.
But then he says, Yeah, I was listening, you're all woke up'cause you went to new nursery school. Actually, it's more like this.
Yeah, you're all worked up and you went to nursery school having open, you're all worked up.
Now I get.
A little bit more.
Activated.

And I say
How can you not care?
First of all, he didn't say I don't care, did he?
I don't know whether he cares or not.
And by the way
And and
You know
How can you be so insensitive? And I feel that you don't care and I feel you're being insensitive are not feelings.
Their attributions and imputed motives.
And that's where we make our biggest mistakes when it comes to feedback.
And
What that does is it makes the other person defensive.
So
Calling my husband insensitive is the most insensitive thing in the world because he's one of the most sensitive people on the planet.
So
It wasn't until I learned to stay on my side of the net that
And say
So when I
Speaker.
And I'm all worked up about something.
And
The only

or an affectless repetition of what I just said.
That's reality number two. Anybody watching the video would say that's what happened.
I don't feel heard.
He can't say yeah you do.
And when I don't feel hurt, I feel hurt and I feel distanced.
And the reason I'm telling you that
Is because I can't be here for three.
For you in the way I want to be.
When I feel that.
So the formula is when you do insert behavior.
I feel
Pull out the vocabulary of feelings.
And I'm telling you this because or I'm hoping the outcome of you knowing this is.
And so then what happened is he said
Well, if you want my undivided attention, then you've got to give me some time to unwind when I get home.
What a reasonable request.
I said, Well how much time do you need? He said, I don't know, half an hour is like half an hour.
I've been counting the minutes. How about five minutes?
We settled on fifteen.
But and by the way, that is the purpose.
Uh feedback.
When it's constructive feedback.
Move into a problem solving conversation.
Don't change the other person.
Move into
behaviors that will work better.
For both of you.
Mm-hmm.
Amazing. And this sort of structure, so the structure you just shared, and this is similar to
Nonviolent communication structure. Okay, cool. It is.
So there's books people can read on this sort of thing.
Ours came before, but that's okay. Oh wow, okay.
Mm.
I will say anything that anything that spreads
the word and anything that helps people learn
um how to how to how to engage with each other in ways that build relationship
I'm I'm off.
I love that attitude.
Okay, so the structure again is just when you do some behavior, I feel
And emotion.
And by the way, there's this
Is there like a flyer or
Hand out. I think the book has these of just like emotions. Okay, cool. Feelings. Okay, great. As is the formula.
Oh amazing. Okay, great.
So buy the book if you want to get really good at this stuff. Um
Is there anything online we can point people to or we got a picture of the
I'll send you a couple of slides.
Perfect. And then you can just say the here are the slides. Amazing. So link to that in the show notes.
And I could like as m as you talk through all of these
Lessons and pieces of advice.
It makes so much sense why this is
Something you need to do hands on because
I imagine what's happening in the class here is you do this with someone and then
You hear the reality and it often surprises you, right? Exactly.
Because often we say it takes two to know one.
Mm.
I don't know.
What impact I'm having on you until you tell me.
And I have to be willing to be a little vulnerable to ask.
Mm.
And if we go back to that first activity that you asked me to describe way at the beginning.
Then we put them back in pairs and we say, Okay
No.
Now that you've learned a little bit about feedback.
Tell your partner what they did that made it easier for you to disclose more.
Uh, and be more willing to be more vulnerable. And or what they did that made it a little harder.
And that right there in the moment you learn something about yourself that you might never have known.
Somebody says, You know, you looked away as I was talking, you might not have even known you did that.
You looked at your watch.
And I you know
One of I I I I love this. One of my greatest moments when I was teaching was that I t I asked a question. I was teaching at a
In a big lecture hall.
at the law school and
They didn't they didn't have any
Clock some.
And I asked a question and a student began answering it and I just glanced at my watch.
Just'cause you know, I was trying to figure out where I was
Yeah, in in time in terms of one
I had to wrap up.
And he walked up to me after class and he said, You know, professor
I felt disrespected when you looked at your watch while I was answering.
I hugged him.

Well first I asked him if it was okay. Is it okay if I hug you? And then I hugged him.
Ha ha
Yeah, and I love how so much of this is like we never get this feedback in real life. We know no one ever tells us.
This thing you did is
Distracting them, annoying them.
Making them feel like they're not being heard. And so
And then guess what? Then he leaves and then somebody says, How was that? And he says, Ah, you know, she's really disrespectful.
Then
Right. And then pretty soon nobody nobody's ever even been there, but my reputation is that I don't respect students. That's how stuff gets out of control.
Yeah.
And like you wish people would tell you, right? Like
Everybody w wants this, but it's so hard and uncomfortable.
To tell anyone.
Negative.
Feedback.
Which by the way, I never use the word negative.
Oh okay. Okay. Okay.
So feedback is either
Constructive?
or complimentary.
Constructive feedback is
There's something you're doing.
That is
Problematic.
And the purpose of it is let's move to a problem solving conversation, like with Andy and me.
The purpose of cons of complimentary feedback is
Wow, that's the
Third time you've handed in that report early?
And completely and you even went above and beyond and did this and this.
I can't tell you how much of I appreciate that.
How lucky I feel that you work for me?
And if I'm telling you this because if there's ever something that you want that we're not giving you
Let's talk I wanna make sure you know that I wanna talk about it.
By the way, same formula.
Now compare that to nice job.
Thanks.
Right.
All feedback.
is data.
So all feedback is positive.
Data more data is always better than less data.
I agree. That's a that's a great lesson there.
To maybe make this even more practical for listeners that are maybe working on a product and say they have to give feedback.
of a product design or to a colleague who
Did something wrong.
There's an example that you could share of just like here's like in the workplace.
I'm glad you asked that because
First of all, we're not talking about performance feedback.
And we're not necessarily talking about feedback on a task.
What we're talking about is interpersonal feedback.
And the reason it's so important is that if you don't take care of that
then that other kind of feedback
Becomes
Unresolved.
When you leave the interpersonal stuff unresolved, then the other feedback
Doesn't go well because the real problem.
Is that
You know.
Um
Still
pissed off that you never answered my phone call.
So now I'm gonna make it all about how, you know.
This feature really is never gonna work.
Here's an example.
Somebody walks into there uh uh
A manager or a team leader or whatever walks into a room
Meeting.
Start the meeting by saying so
I want to make sure we hear from everybody.
I wanna make sure that we've you know, we have a very full conversation. I wanna talk about X.
And now let's say that
I start to say something.
And
Before I have finished
His
He says
Yeah, you know, and the other thing we should talk about is blah blah.
And then
A little later.
A similar thing happens. I start to suggest that there's another way to look at this and
He turns back to somebody else and what somebody else had said and never never
Says anything in response.
to what I've just said.
And
And I'm being very specific here.
Very behaviorally specific.
And then
After a while, the
What happens to me is I feel less and less inclined to offer up.

Now
Maybe he doesn't care.
But if he cares because he started by saying he wanted to hear from everybody.
Then
I'm not being very caring if I don't tell him.
What the impact was of his behavior.
So I don't call him out in the middle of the meeting'cause I don't want to embarrass him, but I might go to his office later and say, So, you know, John
Yeah.
Yeah, do you have a few minutes?
I have an observation. I've got something that I experienced that that you might want to know.
Sure, Carol.
So
You know, when I started to say X, you did Y. When I started to say Z, you did it.
I said, and when that you started the meeting by saying you want to hear from everybody.
When that happened, I felt less and less.
I felt kinda shut down.
And I felt less and less inclined to offer up my opinion.
So
And maybe that maybe that's okay.
But I wondered whether you knew that that was the impact.
And that's and I'm telling you because
As far as I am concerned.
In that meeting you did not accomplish your stated.
Desire.
Your desired outcome was to hear from everybody and after a while I I just gave up.
Try it.
Give you mine.
Like it's kind of you need to
solve these pinches as you described early, because
Like all this comes back to these are relationships. They matter because that's the way we get everything done.
And if you just ignore these things, your relationships gonna be hurt. You're not gonna be able to accomplish the things you want to accomplish.
It's almost like something you need to do.
Even though it feels hard.
Absolutely. And that's why I say that
Feedback builds relationships.
Because by the way
If I'm doing something that I'm kinda that kinda wish I had done.
It's not that I'm gonna be like, Oh yay, I'm so glad I did that.
But
If I recognize that
It was it would have been easier for you not to say anything'cause it would have been more comfortable.
But because you cared about me?
You actually said something to me?
Mm-hmm.
That talk about something that builds relationships.
Yeah.
Coming back to the
Antenna, as you described.
One of the most important skills you teach people is to build this
antenna, both of yourself, which is you could think is easier, but maybe often not.
But also understanding how the other person feels.
And you have this kind of concept of the art of inquiry.
And how powerful that is. Can you just talk about what that is? Oh yeah, I'm I'm glad you brought that up because um
Inquiry is a fundamental
component.
Uh
strong interpersonal.
relationship.
For a couple of reasons. First and first of all, let's stop and
And
And note.
Inquiry in
Comes
The the root of the word inquiry is quest.
Quest means
To be in search of and not knowing what you're gonna find.
Not the way most people think about questions and inquiry.
Most of the time people ask a question to confirm a hypothesis.
Don't you think you're just trying to discredit John by doing that?
That's not inquiry.
Don't you think you'd just be better off letting that go? That's not important.
And by the way, another
Uh
Another thing to note
in in artful inquiry.
It's first of all you have to suspend judgment.
You cannot
Be curious.
If you've already decided you know what's going on for someone.
You can always go back to being judgmental.

But you gotta suspend it long enough to see if there's something for you to learn.
And then the way you ask the question matters.
Questions that that can be answered with yes or no are typically limiting questions and aren't going to be very productive.
Questions that start with why?
Why did you do that?
Are gonna make me defensive.
Or
Worse, why are you crying?
Well
If you really is is that gonna make me want to tell you more about why I'm upset or why are you upset?
I'm gonna right away I'm gonna go into Oh no I'm not upset, it's not a big deal or
I'm gonna go it to a place that's not necessarily very productive because this reminds me of how my mother always, you know, scolded
Neither neither one is going to be very productive.
So questions that start with what?
What's this about?
What's going on?
Where is this manifesting? When did you see this happen last?
How might we go about
Unpacking what's going on.
Uh where is this
Happen most.
What, when, where, how? Stay away from why.
And it's a whole art.
Something else you teach people and you you're big on is that people can actually change
themselves. I think a lot of people might feel like
I'm just not good at this. I'm not good at
giving feedback. I'm not good at maybe asking questions. I'm just like, I don't know.
Talk about
what you found about the change people see and why it's actually
Possible and how.
Well, for starters, uh I
D to uh to any of your listeners
M one of my very favorite
uh authors and uh is Carol Dweck who wrote a book called Mindset.
And
You know
You put a word yet at the end of any of those.
I don't know how yet.
I'm not like that yet.
Um
Changes the meaning of the whole thing.
And by the way, talk about updating a mental model.
Instant.
Update of a mental mob.
The other thing that that that I'll say is
We are all capable of changing our behavior.
We cannot change our personality.
We are born wired with personalities.
I am very outgoing and extroverted as might come as a shock to all of you.
And
You know what? When I overdo it, I suck all the oxygen out of the room.
And one of the behaviors I had to learn.
And it takes discipline.
To engage in was, the
Zip in it.
A little more so that others could speak up more.
And
My incentive was that I actually really
Wanted.
To learn.
more about what was going on for them and I wasn't gonna learn anything unless I shut up long enough for them to tell me.
So behavior
Is something we all have control of.
No.
When I give somebody feedback and they tell me, Well, I I can't do that.
If I've asked them to change a behavior, then I'll say
I I I'm sorry, I don't think
I don't think I I can accept I can't.
I will accept that
I
Don't want to.
Or
Uh I don't have it uh you know.
But but I don't have to accept I can't.
So I'd just like you to own the fact that it's a choice that you're making.
Kind of along those lines, something I don't know if that's from your book, but I saw somewhere you said that it's
Possible to say almost anything to almost anyone if you have the necessary skills.
How do people build these skills? And we know we talked about a lot of this, there's the structure.
Focusing on your side of the net.
But just how do you avoid people getting defensive?
First of all, let's let's let's
make sure that we point out that what we're doing here is we're shifting probabilities of success. We're not guaranteeing anything.
And let's say that you that you do your best and you stay on your side of the net and
And you give somebody feedback and they go
You know, bonkers and
You know, they call you all kinds of names and they write, you know
No.
Wait.
That's
Now there's an opportunity to learn something else that everybody learns in these programs.
Which is called repair.
How do you repair when something goes wrong?
Sideways.
Because no matter how good you are
No matter how skilled you get.
No matter how what your intent was
Sometimes it won't work.
And then you've got to know how to repair.
And and that's why remember I told you that our facilitators have a unique set of skills.
And that's because they have to allow
Messes to happen.
Otherwise.
Nobody's gonna learn how to repair.
And repair often goes back to
Some of what we've already talked about.
Let's start with
I come in the kitchen.
My husband's struggling.
I say to him, Can I help you with that?
He says, Don't tell me what to do.
I'm sure none of your none of your listeners can relate to this story.
And I say, instead of I wasn't trying to tell you what to do, I was just trying to be helpful. What kind of a way to respond to my offering help is that?
I say
What did you hear me say?
One of the most powerful things you can do when somebody responds in a way that
Feels.
Very unexpected,
And out of
out of
Whack with what you just said.
Is go back to what did you hear me say?
Because nine times out of ten
What they heard is not what you said.
He said
I heard you say I didn't know what I was doing.
Now, by the way, it didn't matter that that's not what I said.
And I didn't say that's not what I said.
I said wow, really glad I asked.
'Cause now that you've
Now that I understand that that's what you heard.
I understand.
why you reacted the way you did.
Then I said, Let me try it again.
You know, one of the ways that I show somebody that I love them is I offer to help.
And what would you like to meet me to do if
in a situation like this when I see you struggling.
He says.
Wait for me to ask.
And that was
twenty five years ago, and that has served us very well'cause we've been married thirty seven years.
Thirty nine years.
And if we go back to feedback, you give somebody feedback, they get super like uh defensive and
You know
The
By the way, net jumping invites net jumping, so they're likely to net jump too.
And by the way, the minute you label you label somebody, or you know
You're over the net.
In fact, you sent me something that was really interesting that I wanted to find here because
You said
Nobody is born with genes for being rude or self involved.
Well guess what? Rude and self involved are labels.
Yeah.
That is not behaviorally specific.
So
Calling somebody rude.
Or self involved.
is just going to make them defensive.
Yeah.
But saying
You know
You know, three you I was interrupted three times.
And you know
I'm telling you this because you said you wanted to hear
W m my opinion
Uh and I just thought you should know that, you know
I was put off by being interrupted.
Much less likely to incite
Defensiveness.
Absolutely.
Just hearing what actually happened.
Staying on your side of the net.
Exactly.
So again, this always comes back to like I could see this being so effective doing it this in a class versus just like listening to us and like, okay, I'm gonna start staying in my side and then I'm gonna
Yeah.
Are there any other examples of exercises you do in the class that might be helpful?
to people to just to hear.
How you learn some of these things. Every chapter in the book has a section at the end called Deepen Your Learning.
And those deep in your learning sections, every single one of them has a suggested activity.
Something you can go do.
And some of those come from some of the things we do in the classroom.
So uh
So that's one place to start in terms of trying to find, you know
Very
tactical and
practical ways of applying.
Some of this.
The other thing that
We often do it at
And
I often do
in leaders in tech. I used to do this
Less it
Uh at Stanford because
They did a lot of this in their tea groups.
And they were they were actually in real time with each other.
Putting everything they were learning to use.
But sometimes with my execs in leaders in tech, I I will, for example, put them in a trio.
And I will
And I will say to you, So Lenny
I want you to think of somebody
Who you would like to give feedback to?
And I want you to tell me
What is it what is what's the behavior they're engaging in?
How does it make you feel?
Why w what would be behind you wanting to tell them?
What would be your desired outcome to the conversation?
Then I
Become you.
You become your difficult person'cause you know them and I don't.
And we role play.
Because you've not told me
You know, what you need, what you want?
What's going on for you?
And then
You have to play your difficult person.
As
As as as well as you can.
The third person's usually the observer who pinch hits and says Carol, I think that was over the net. Uh Carol, I don't think that was a behavior. Uh Carol
And by the way.
We say
I feel insert feeling.
Nine times out of ten people say I feel that.
Or I feel like
I feel that you don't care is not a feeling. I feel like it doesn't matter is not a feeling.
I feel that you're not committed is not a feeling.
In fact, they're all over the net. You're almost guaranteed to be over the net when you start I feel and put in like
Or that.
Guaranteed.
Very easy.
I feel pull up vocabulary feeling.
You can't say grammatically.
Correctly. I feel
That
sad, or I feel that angry, or I feel that irritated.
Or I feel like disappointed.
It doesn't work.
Mm.
Amazing marriage advice. I'm gonna
You need to remember these things.


Yeah.
Yeah. Many many married couples have
Got bought the book together.
And read it together, actually, which is kinda cool.
There's a few other things I want to touch on that I love.
One is a tip that you share. Uh you call it advice hinders relationships.
Oh that I'm really glad you asked me about that because
Two things a couple of things. First of all.
Leaders often
believe
This is another mental model that they have to have all the answers.
And that is actually
An a a pretty um
It's not a very productive mental model.
or belief. Because first of all
puts a huge amount of pressure on the leader.
Now suddenly
I I always have to know.
And what happens when I don't know?
Second of all.
I believe a leader's
Job.
Is to ensure
The best answer is
is found.
It doesn't matter whether it comes from me.
or anywhere else in the organization.
It also allows for the possibility that somebody else may have a better answer than me.
And many a really, really good solution has been.
Squelched?
And never surfaced because people are afraid.
to say, Well I I see it a little differently. What if we did it this?
Okay.
We had a challenge or disaster.
Uh as a result of that.
The other the other thing about advice is that
It
creates even bigger power differentials between people.
So if you're the leader or you're in the higher power position to start with.
Then
Giving me advice is only gonna make me feel
Even lower power.
As opposed to
Well
Let's think about this together. Let's be thought partners.
Often when we give advice
It's a good thing to stop yourself and ask yourself.

Who am I doing this for? Am I doing this for me so that I can puff myself up?
With everything I know.
Or am I doing it for you because this is really gonna help you and make you better?
Nine times out of ten?
Being a thought partner as you explore
the various options and coming to your own solution.
is both going to help you develop more.
And
Then you're not gonna have to come ask me again.
It's the only time you ever
Learn.
Is when you come ask me
And you don't go through any of the work of figuring out how I got to that answer.
Well then
You know, you're just
I just made more work for myself.
There's this great Harvard Business Review.
Post I just read about monkeys on your back.
Have you heard of this?
Yes. Yeah, we're basically as a manager, people are always trying to put monkeys on your back to have you solve their problem and your job as a manager is to keep the monkeys

On their own backs and help them. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought that up because people then have become so used to the quick shortcut is you'll just give me the answer.
First of all.
You have
You have
Enabled powerlessness.
You certainly haven't helped them learn and grow.
If you think you're if you at all think your job as a manager is to at least sometimes do that.
And sometimes people will say, Can't you just give me the answer?
And then you know, I always just say I could.
And here's how I don't here's why I'm not going to'cause I don't think that'll serve you.
Because that's not my job.
My job isn't just to give you the answers.
My job is to turn you into somebody who eventually will just
Know what the right answer is.
But just give me the answer.

Does this apply to friendships also? Like you know often people come
So you're you as a friend. I need some advice on this.
Does this apply as well often tried?
Try not to give advice, or is it a different dynamic there?
It it it's some of the same power di power differential can happen.
The the
The I think chapter th
Four in the book is about two guys who are good friends and one of them is always trying to give advice to the other one.
Um
First of all, it can be annoying if you didn't ask for it.
So I certainly wouldn't give advice if
Uh
Unless somebody asked for it.
And
I I might not immediately jump to
I might
uh to the advice. I might want to explore
You know, what have you already thought about?
How have you already approached it? Where are you stuck? I might ask more questions.
Before I immediately go into advice.
Because by the way
Nine times out of ten.
You end up
Giving advice on something that's not really what the person was
Worried or wondering about.
So uh
Yeah.
First go to inquiry.
You know, you can always come back to advice.
Yeah. I find that
Every time I try to resist or I I make myself resist.
giving advice and instead ask more questions every single time.
I realized okay, I had no idea what they were actually looking for.
What was going on?
Yeah.
But he's hard to do. I'm just like here, I just want to tell you here's the thing. Totally, because you know what? It's another mental model. I serve you best by just
Giving you advice when you ask for it.
Mm.
That's the k loving, caring thing to do. Well, it's a mental model.
Try testing it, seeing whether or not it really turns out to still be
Valid.
And so the
the like the maybe the more correct mental m mental model is
Wh how would you describe it? That it's often better to help the person
figure it out or is it that uh you just often don't actually understand what's going on.
The best thing to do.
First go to inquiry.
Because by the way, I I not you know, I also as you might imagine, I tend to err very much on the side of transparency and so I'll say, you know
Man.
I got all kinds of
things going on in my head about what I think
we would be great for you to do. And I'm gonna resist
Yeah.
Because
I
First of all, may or may not hit the mark.
So I need I'd really like to understand more. And second of all
You know, I
I wonder if it
in the end be even more
fruitful if we explore different things together.
Okay, just a few more questions.
One is so we have this segment on the podcast that I call Failure Corner, where people
share a failure in their career and what they learn from it.
And you have a really
constructive way of thinking about
Failure with this great acronym.
Can you talk about that?
The acronym is
A F O G another
Effing.
I don't know your audience well enough. Don't want to offend anybody. If you feel like it's a fucking opportunity for growth.
Yep.
Uh
Every student who ever took a class from me.
Every
client who I have ever coached.
Every participant who's ever gone through leaders in tech.
Knows that acronym.
Because my question when something has gone
Wrong.
Or
You know.
A person has experienced a failure. My first question.
Is always so what did you learn?
'Cause there's always a lesson.
And uh and then and then usually what follows is yeah, you just had it you just had an A fog.
And you know, as a person who's had a lot of apogs throughout my life
It it puts it in perspective.
I like the perspective that it offers.
So it's not the end of the world.
Uh sometimes some some A fogs are more painful than others.
Some A fogs take longer to recover from than others.
Nah, most of the time.
You know, they're recoverable.
Particularly if I've invested the
Energy and really unpacking.
What there was for me to be.
For me to learn.
Yeah. So the advice here is when something goes wrong, when you fail.
Think of it as a another fucking opportunity to uh for growth. A fossil. Exactly.
Okay. That's exactly right.
To kinda go full circle to where we started building exceptional relationships, building robust relationships. In the book you have this checklist of just
How to build
an exceptional relationship. I know you don't have all this in your head.
Whatever Actually I probably do. You probably do. What's on this list of just like things you can do to build
Exceptional relationships.
Well, it go back to the fact that there are six characteristics.
of of exceptional relationships or and actually those are the characteristics that are present as a relationship.
Is
moving down this continuum.
that we've talked about.
And the the more each of these exists, the more the farther down the continuum you are.
So the first one is
You know
I'm better known by you.
And of course there's skills involved and how do I allow myself to be known. The second one is
I know you better.
And there's skills involved in getting to know you better. We've talked about many of them.
The third one is we trust that our disclosures won't be used against us.
The fourth one is we can be honest with each other.
That's where all the feedback comes in.
The fifth one is we know how to resolve conflict productively.
And the sixth one is
We are committed to each other's learning and growth.
Yeah.
And when all six of those are present.
To varying degrees you've moved farther down the continuum.
You wrote somewhere that you know your relationship has become exceptional when you and the other person don't have to hide important parts of yourself.
Yeah.
And can deal with major issues even if it feels scary.
Yep.
That

I did write that somewhere in
I I stand by that.
If you kinda zoom out.
From all of your work and teachings. Are there any overarching
Themes.
That
continue to come up that you think are important for people to take away from this conversation.
Well, for starters we're all works in progress.
Which means every relationship in your life is a work in progress.
'Cause if I'm a work in progress and you're a work in progress
Then by default, so is our relationship.
And so remembering that
What work?
With you
Two years ago may or may not work.
For you now.
'Cause we're different people.
So I think that's that's a biggie.
I think
Uh stopping and
And
Becoming aware of what are the mental models that are driving these choices that I'm making?
Like
Every behavior has its
In front of it.
A choice.
If we stop long enough.
to become aware of.
And in front of every choice
There's some belief in
So
I try to march myself back from the
Result.

to the
Choice.
to the
Mental model that drove it.
Or the skill or lack of skill.
Something that we didn't talk about at the beginning of this because it might distract people.
But
You've been dealing with long COVID for almost two years.
At this point.
Where are you at with it?
How are things going? And is there
Anything you've learned from this
unexpected part of your life.
It's given me an opportunity to live a lot of what I teach.
So
Alright.
Always taught
in my leadership classes that the worst thing a leader can do is make an organization too dependent on them.
If
You care about building a sustainable long term
Organization.
And and a legacy.
Then
uh it behooves
you not to make the organization
Very dependent on it.
So over the last twenty months I have
Slow and surely
given more and more of my responsibilities to
More and more members of the team.
To the point where hot off the press
I'm about to become only an advisor.
And step out of
Um
really all of my operational duties.
uh probably by the end of this year.
Now
I've you know, there was a point at which I was like and and oh my god, what happens if I get better suddenly, right?'Cause people do get better.
And
But you know.
One of my very wise children said, You know, Mom, I'm pretty sure that if you suddenly get a lot better they'll
They'll be happy to give you lots of stuff to do. So

So anyway, um
So that's
That's one of
Probably
The biggest uh lessons
And and and and also it goes with

A lesson around acceptance.
And
You know, accept I wrote a LinkedIn uh
I think uh a LinkedIn
Not a blog, uh
Paper. Link one of those LinkedIn things. If you go to my website you can
look at things up written. I think it was called
Uh
long Covid and acceptance or something like that.
Um but it's about
How acceptance is not resignation.
And it's it's
It's about an
having an opportunity to
rethink a lot of things and reframe
Beliefs.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and I and I I think th the the last thing I'll say about it is that
It has made me a much more empathetic person.
And uh
I
I think one of the really imp interesting and important things to learn when
And I a and have
always continue to learn in doing the interpersonal dynamics work we do is
You never know what's going on for someone else.
And
And one of the worst things we can do is assume we know what's going on for someone else.
And
It's really easy to get really in yeah, we you know, I think we I said this before we even got online.
Which is in the absence of data.
People make shit up.
So if you don't want people to make shit up about you
You're better off disclosing more.
Yeah.
Because then you'll have more control over your self definition, not less.
C
People like to make sense of things. They will connect dots however way they want to.
Unless you help them connect them the way you want them to.
Another case for self disclosure.
Mm.
Well, Carol, I'm incredibly thankful that you made
Time for this. I know it's not the easiest thing to do these things.
Thank you.
To remind people where to find
Leaders in tech and how to apply
Tell them the website and who it's for specifically, so the right sort of people go there.
And then finally, just how can listeners be useful to you as a final question?
I'm on LinkedIn.
You won't be able to just connect with me, you know, I've got one of those things where you can't just connect. You need my my email address.
So my some you can put my email address in the notes.
Uh there anybody's more than welcome. But but if you connect with me, please don't try to sell me anything.
The the only reason it's set up that way is that too many people were trying to sell me too many things and I got exasperated. That's the only reason they wanted to connect.
So
Uh, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna trust that, you know, you'll reach out to me'cause you wanna connect with me'cause you're interested in my work.
And that you'll also know and be sensitive to the fact that I have long covet, so my capacity to respond to messages and uh emails is definitely
impacted. I used to be one of those
You could.
Count on me to always respond.
By the way, another learning, you know, turns out everybody didn't write me off just because I couldn't respond to them right away.
That is a really great learning.
Okay, and then the website for people that may want to apply and the applications are still open basically by the time this
It's leaders in tech dot org.
Right.
Amazing.
Carol, you are wonderful. Thank you so much for making time for this. Thank you for being here.
Thank you.
Bye, everyone.
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