0:14

Today. It's great to have Gary Hyle on

0:16

the podcast. Gary is an author, educator,

0:19

lawyer, consultant and coach. He's

0:21

the co founder of the Center for Innovative Leadership,

0:23

where he continues to advise leaders in a wide range

0:25

of industries and cultural issues, and he

0:27

has served on a number of public and private boards,

0:30

including Jimboree, red Envelope,

0:32

and front Rage Solutions.

0:35

He presently serves as the chairman of the Board of cell

0:37

Tech Medals. He is the co author of a

0:39

number of best selling books, including Leadership,

0:42

including Leadership and The Customer Revolution,

0:45

One Size Fits All, Maslow and

0:47

Management, The Leader's New Clothes, Revisiting

0:50

the Human Side of Enterprise, Douglas

0:52

McGregor, Douglas McGregor

0:54

revisited And This is Hard

0:57

to Get Through Douglas McGregor Revisited

0:59

and choes Love not Fear. How the best

1:01

leaders build cultures of engagement and

1:03

innovation that unleash human

1:06

potential. Gary, it is so

1:08

great having you on the Psychology Podcast. Thanks

1:11

Scott, It's an honor to be here. Can

1:14

you start off by telling me and our

1:16

audience here a little bit about yourself and your background.

1:20

Well, as you said, I was a frustrated

1:23

coach. I navigated a polar icebreaker.

1:26

You know, I was a lawyer for a while,

1:28

did some trial work, and finally came to

1:31

my senses and went into the lawyer

1:33

protection program. I'm presently

1:35

in step eight of recovery. And

1:38

about thirty five years ago, I started

1:42

working with businesses that basically

1:45

worked. I think that work didn't have to be a four letter

1:47

word, and that there was so much human

1:49

potential left on the cutting

1:52

room floor that we could do something

1:54

about it. And I've spent most of my career

1:57

working with leaders to try to understand

1:59

what's that rates great teams from the

2:01

merely good ones. I love

2:03

that well,

2:06

I wanted I want to kind of double click on your

2:08

Love book, you know, kind

2:10

of let's pivot around that for a moment when

2:12

we talk about what supreates good from great leaders.

2:16

So some people might wonder, well, what the heck does

2:18

love have to do with building great teams?

2:20

Right? Have

2:23

you asked that question before? Like? Oh, right,

2:25

really, Gary? Really? Yeah? And then

2:27

and then I read this really cool book called

2:29

Transcendence by Scott Kaffin. You

2:32

know that I wasn't as far

2:34

off in the mainstream as I thought, I

2:37

love it, So I went out actually

2:39

not looking for that. I went out and I started

2:41

interviewing, and they did almost five hundred

2:43

interviews with leaders trying to create change,

2:46

trying to figure out why

2:48

everybody talked a better game than they played.

2:51

You know, everybody's got the language, everybody's

2:53

heard the speeches, they've read the self help

2:55

books. They just weren't making many changes.

2:57

We spent about what sixteen billion dollars a year

3:00

are trying to create better leaders, and

3:02

we're not much better off than we were

3:04

two decades ago. And I wanted to know why,

3:07

And so we went and interviewing leaders trying to figure

3:09

out why. Methodology aside.

3:11

We found a couple of things we were not surprised

3:14

about. But one of the things I was really surprised

3:16

about is every time we found

3:18

a great team, a really

3:20

good team, not one that just won games

3:23

or made huge profits,

3:25

but sustained itself over generations,

3:29

we found leaders and teams

3:32

that had a fundamentally different relationship.

3:36

And I didn't really want to find that. But I'd sit

3:38

there and walk in and you could feel the energy when you walk

3:40

through the door, and you go, what is this

3:43

And Finally, this crazy football

3:46

coach in South Carolina named

3:49

Dabo Sweeney is talking

3:51

to us about love, and I think he's a little crazy.

3:54

And he's right before the National Championship.

3:56

He says, we're going to win because we love

3:58

each other. And you're like, okay,

4:01

and you start to think about it. But it reminded

4:04

me of what a guy named Jan Carlson

4:07

who was the leader managing

4:09

director of SAS, the Scandinavian

4:12

Air System airline years

4:14

ago. He said, the first choice every leader

4:16

needs to make is choose lover or choose fear. I thought

4:18

I got it thirty years ago. To get it, Dabo's

4:22

talking to me and I'm starting to get it going. Is

4:24

that what I'm seeing here is a

4:26

culture where people really care deeply

4:28

for each other more than they

4:30

do just about money. And I

4:33

mean making no mistake, Dabo cares

4:35

about winning, so did Carlson

4:38

running airline of the year. But

4:40

there's something deeper about the way people

4:42

related. And then I was walking

4:44

down and talking to you

4:47

Alan Malalley one day, who

4:49

were at Ford for a number of years and did the turnaround,

4:52

and he'd say, yep, got to love him up before

4:54

you coach him up, and I started

4:56

to hear this thing. Everybody

4:59

didn't use the word love, but

5:01

the way they cared for each other was so fundamentally

5:04

different than most of the people

5:06

I interviewed. I couldn't help but

5:09

stop and think, is that the secret sauce

5:11

that were missing? Is that what Douglas

5:14

McGregor was trying to tell us seventy

5:17

years ago when he talked about our assumptions

5:19

about people, and it certainly was

5:21

what you and I and

5:24

our at least some of our mentor

5:26

in Abe Maslow was saying along

5:28

the way, is that love

5:31

is a need to be loved and

5:34

to love. And the

5:36

people who cared deeply for each other like that,

5:38

why should we be surprised when the

5:40

teams they create in that image work

5:43

harder, play harder, play better for

5:45

each other. So I started to see

5:47

it. We didn't choose to write a book

5:49

like that because that was our

5:52

predilection from the beginning. We had

5:54

to write a book like that because the number of leaders

5:56

that we met creating great teams

5:58

and the way they treated each other. Well,

6:01

what if in order to compete

6:03

sometimes you need to not show so

6:05

much love. Well,

6:08

you know, I think we confuse the love

6:11

with this positive thing. But you know, I love

6:14

you love your kids, but you demand

6:16

more from them. You love

6:18

your friends, but you demand more from them. The

6:21

leaders I met were tough sobs.

6:24

They weren't really sobs,

6:26

but they were tough right. They

6:29

were like, we take no prisoners.

6:31

We are not going to lose. You

6:34

know, Mike McCloskey took a bunch of companies

6:36

public before his fortieth birthday in Silicon Valley,

6:39

and working with him, I'll tell you he cared

6:42

so deeply for the people, but you didn't

6:44

want to let him down. He set the bar

6:46

so high. Alan Malalley

6:48

sets the bar. Dabo Sweeney sets the bar

6:51

high. These guys that love

6:54

are just like you would treat your

6:56

kids like love. It's like, we're going

6:58

to set the bar up there expect you to surpass

7:01

that bar. So it doesn't mean soft,

7:03

That doesn't mean they live in la la land.

7:06

It means they care deeply, so deeply

7:09

that they think it's almost their moral responsibility

7:11

to help you reach your potential. And

7:14

you don't reach your potential by singing

7:16

Kumbaya on the beach. I mean, wasn't that. I

7:18

mean, there's no more knowledgeable guy in the world

7:21

than you about a Maslow? Wasn't Maslow frustrated

7:24

when people talk about self actualization

7:26

because he thought people thought that

7:28

self actualization was sitting on the beach contemplating

7:31

their navels, and he knew it was hard work.

7:34

He got frustrated with the students that didn't

7:37

recognize that, its heart, takes a lot of hard

7:39

work to self actualize. For

7:41

sure. Although I do enjoy singing

7:44

Kumbaya on the beach, I

7:46

must say so. I don't want to be a hypocrite.

7:48

I do enjoy that me

7:52

too. I only laugh

7:54

when I think people think they're going to grow

7:56

and change and create change

7:58

in companies run as without

8:01

some disruption. Sure, no,

8:03

absolutely, But how come despite

8:06

a fifty billion dollar a year

8:08

in investment and decades of effort, we've

8:10

made so little progress in developing

8:12

better leaders? Boy, I wish

8:14

I knew the answer to that. I

8:17

think it's a fair question. Oh it's

8:19

a great I think it is the question. And

8:21

I think that for me when

8:24

we would do these interviews, you

8:26

know, we we we would

8:28

find that the biggest impediment probably

8:31

for us, and what we found to people

8:33

making changes to become better is

8:36

the pressures that exist in the present culture,

8:38

which doesn't want them to shag, I

8:41

mean how it goes. You say, well, we would,

8:43

we would. We'd go in and we'd say, give

8:45

me two leaders, living or dead, who most influenced

8:47

your thinking? Are you most admired? Twenty

8:50

percent of their time it was their mom, their dad, or

8:52

their little league coach. Eighty

8:54

percent of the time it was somebody they'd never met,

8:57

you know, Martin Luther King, George

9:00

Washington, mother Teresa. And

9:02

you'd say, what do you think about doctor King? What

9:05

makes him so unique for you? And

9:07

they give you this list of traits that's

9:09

probably the same list of traits that everybody's

9:11

been given for two thousand years, about

9:14

being empathetic and the decisive

9:16

it all. And finally they realized

9:18

they didn't know doctor King very well. They're talking

9:21

about themselves. And so we would say,

9:23

well, if that's what the syllogism, you

9:26

think doctor King was great, you think this

9:28

is what a great leader is. Therefore, you

9:30

know, are you those things? And

9:33

they would go, oh no, And I'd say

9:35

why not, Why aren't you those things? And they would

9:37

go, well, have you met my boss? You

9:40

know? Have you met the people that work for

9:42

me. You don't understand are the

9:45

way we do things here? My personal favorite

9:47

was can you really make money doing that crap?

9:50

And you know, people

9:52

just had a thousand reasons why

9:54

the existing environment they were

9:57

in inhibited their ability to

9:59

be what they they should be. Yeah,

10:01

and so I think most

10:03

people are not surprised. I mean they talk about

10:06

inclusion and autonomous

10:08

teams, but they don't want to give up power. I mean it

10:10

just goes on and on like that. Yeah,

10:13

you're you're really calling it as it is good

10:16

for you? Well,

10:18

can we can we unpack more of some of the other

10:20

characteristics of exemplar leaders that you've

10:22

discovered, you know over your

10:25

long illustrious career. Well,

10:28

sure, sure, where would you like to

10:30

start? You know, pick just pick

10:32

one more character, you know, just pick something else.

10:34

You know, we are talking about love, But what

10:36

else do you see that that specifically

10:39

separates exemplar from good

10:41

leaders? You

10:43

know, Scotta, I think that you

10:46

have have really hit the nail on the

10:48

head in your work. I

10:50

really believe that to my very soul

10:53

as I as I page through your book Transcendence,

10:56

I think that because

10:59

everything is about whether

11:01

we call it engagement, or we call it motivation

11:03

or whatever we call it, This

11:06

willingness of people to give every bit of their discretionary

11:09

effort to reach closer to their potential.

11:12

And how do we set up the environment to do that?

11:15

I think is the question for leaders,

11:17

But I think we answer it

11:20

poorly when we go into I

11:24

love your experience. I'll go into executive

11:26

development programs and I'd go, well,

11:28

if your main job is creating an environment where people

11:31

are excited to go

11:34

attain this purpose, and

11:36

they would go yeah, And I would go, well, what's your

11:39

theory, what's your hypothesis about

11:41

how people will choose to

11:43

give that kind of effort? And

11:46

I don't think it would be surprising to you, And I wonder

11:48

if you have a similar reaction. But for

11:50

most practicing leaders that I would meet,

11:53

Their primary theory of motivation is

11:56

some version of behavior

11:58

modification or some version of conditioning,

12:01

based on a world of compensation

12:03

consultants and the manipulation of

12:05

rewards and punishments. They wouldn't call

12:07

them that, They call them incentives, but

12:10

there's so much manipulation, and

12:12

I think that their mindset about

12:14

that that's been handed down for generations

12:17

is a real stumbling block to them becoming

12:19

the leaders they want to become. And I

12:23

just don't know how we get to the

12:25

other parts of leadership. While we still

12:27

believe that controlling people and

12:29

manipulating them to get

12:31

their best is a theory of humanity,

12:34

that it just runs

12:36

contrary I would think for the last eighty years

12:39

of research, Am I am? I off on that? Scott,

12:42

Yeah, well, you're I don't

12:45

know exactly what if we did a statistical

12:47

analysis of where all

12:49

the leaders are at, what would be the most predominant

12:52

thing today. But I certainly do see

12:54

it, you know, I certainly do see

12:56

that carrot stick mentality is

12:59

still a very prominent

13:01

theory of motivation, and

13:03

it's it's very unfortunate and

13:05

very misguided, and it makes you wonder how

13:08

so many brilliant people can can

13:11

can do so. Dare I say stupid

13:13

leadership strategies? Well,

13:16

yeah, I mean, when you're sitting with

13:18

the head of a comp committee in a public

13:20

company these days, the one thing that

13:23

marches through your office, you

13:25

know, is a non ending

13:28

litany of compensation consultants,

13:30

each telling you how to better manipulate the

13:33

senior managers in the company. And

13:35

I can still remember on one company

13:37

I was in when the compensation

13:39

was came up, if I only would bribe them slightly

13:42

differently or incentivize them slightly

13:44

differently, how much better they were doing.

13:46

And I said, well, you know they they've

13:49

raised EPs five hundred percent

13:51

of four years, they've transformed

13:53

the company any shit,

13:55

but they could be better. And so that

13:57

I remember the CEO walking by and I

14:00

called him in and I said, they think that if

14:02

I just do a little better with the compensation

14:04

system, you're you're And

14:07

he started laughing, going and said, I hope you're not paying

14:09

much for that. It's not like I'm holding back waiting

14:12

for you to bribe me with a few more shares. Right.

14:14

You know, there

14:17

is this theory, and

14:20

I don't mean all incentive compensations, because

14:22

that's certainly the research doesn't show that,

14:24

right, But I am saying, if

14:26

you do this, you will get that manipulations

14:29

of behavior have

14:31

a dark side that I don't think we

14:33

want to face many times. Yeah,

14:37

you know, something that really we

14:40

both have in common is this passion for human

14:44

the human side of

14:46

a business and well everything really

14:49

and one characteristic

14:52

that's a real human thing

14:54

is create creativity and creative expression right

14:56

and activating kind of the unique potential

14:59

of each employees. You see

15:01

so many leaders talk about creativity,

15:04

but then they punish creative expression when

15:06

they see it. So what

15:08

in the world do you do about that? But

15:12

this bias against creativity that

15:14

Jim Miller was writing about other people who have done

15:16

the studies over the last ten years is

15:19

so real. Pragmatically, I think

15:21

because I don't think we

15:23

love novel as much as we say we

15:25

do. I think we love certainty more than

15:27

we think we do. And the human condition

15:30

to like people like us and to love certainty

15:33

is hard to overcome unless we face

15:35

it. And I don't think we talk

15:37

about the need for certainty. But

15:40

you know when you see the research that you're

15:43

much more versative than I am. But when I read

15:45

the research around, okay, I

15:47

get a couple of presentations. One's beautifully

15:49

novel and one's far more button down and certain

15:52

and you say, well, I love that novel research,

15:55

which person would you hire? I take a certain

15:57

button down person, not the creative

15:59

person. And it always doesn't

16:01

work out so well for the creative

16:04

mind inside companies that are

16:06

looking to promote and If the culture

16:09

doesn't reward the novelty or

16:11

at least the expression of creatives, then

16:14

the diversity that we're hiring really doesn't

16:16

make much difference if we don't want to hear opinions

16:19

different than we do. And you know, I don't know what

16:22

you think, Scott, but I

16:25

I'm amazed by the power

16:27

of culture to homogenize

16:29

behavior. And I'm also amazed

16:31

by how few people in companies can define

16:34

the word culture or really understand

16:36

the power inherent and shared

16:38

assumptions and values. Yeah,

16:43

yeah, preach, preach, preach, It's

16:47

very true. No, I love it. Yeah,

16:51

value quality and having

16:54

pro social values is both

16:57

those things are in short supply. You

17:00

know in a lot of these companies. Well, you've

17:02

used the phrase, You've used the phrase motivational

17:06

or motivated blindness. I think

17:08

that's an interesting phrase, motivated blindness.

17:11

Why are leaders suffering from this? Well,

17:15

you know, I think the

17:17

I think it's sometimes it's been used in a

17:19

lot of different ways. The way I would use

17:21

it is that sometimes it's inconvenient

17:24

to see what's really there, especially

17:26

when it reflects on you, and I think

17:29

that we tend to confirmation

17:32

bias, call it whatever, we want to call it. I tend to

17:34

think we look for the information that confirms what

17:36

we know, and in the process

17:38

we become motivatedly

17:40

blind to that which is inconvenient

17:43

for us to know. And I think culture

17:45

does that to us. I think ed Shine's work

17:48

is right on when he says the most powerful parts

17:50

of culture are tacit non articulated,

17:53

and operate below a level of consciousness.

17:55

And so sometimes

17:58

it's motivated blindness, like we could see

18:00

it, but we don't. And sometimes I

18:02

think that the cultural pressures we feel

18:05

are unarticulated and we don't really know

18:07

they're happening to us. Oh

18:10

can you can you allaborate on that a little? Like what would

18:12

be one kind of example of that? Sure?

18:15

I think in well,

18:17

for instance, I think if we talked

18:19

about even the motivational stuff in the compensation

18:22

or they're not looking for the downsides

18:25

of incentives

18:27

and stuff. I think that there's

18:31

pressure to do more or yesterday,

18:33

what we do more tomorrow of what we did

18:36

yesterday inside every company, right, because culture

18:38

is a stabilizing mechanism, right, So

18:40

it tends to stabilize collective human

18:42

effort in ways that are predictable and

18:45

so you might

18:47

be the same person in company A, but

18:50

then then you move to company B and you

18:52

become slightly different because the culture

18:54

homogenizes you, socializes you

18:57

in some way. And I don't think

18:59

we always know it happening to us. I

19:01

think we sit there and we think we're being independent,

19:03

rational thinkers, but we start

19:05

to act like those people

19:08

around us. I mean when

19:10

I spent I went to one of those service academies

19:13

as an undergraduate, and the funniest

19:15

part of it is you sit around in

19:18

one of the academies and one of the things

19:20

cadets do all the time is they go, I'm

19:22

never going to be like that when I grow

19:24

up, right, I'm never going

19:27

to be like that when I grow up. And

19:29

next thing, you know, if you're around long enough, your

19:31

classmates all grow up and they exact

19:34

they act exactly like that, and

19:36

they don't they would disagree, they would say, no, that didn't

19:38

happen to me. But if you're standing on

19:40

the outside, you go, he's acting just

19:42

the way they did for the last thirty years,

19:45

and they don't know what's happening to them.

19:47

I think that's how culture work. Well. They need

19:49

someone like you to come in as a consultant

19:52

and let them know the

19:55

cold, hard truth of the matter.

19:57

Yeah. I think we have a

20:00

inate ability to disregard anything,

20:02

you know, confirmation bias. So that would be

20:05

pretty tough because I

20:07

think culture tends to perpetuate itself. It's

20:10

so tough to change, right, It's

20:12

a really good point. Yeah. Yeah, And it's it's

20:15

it's like water to fish. Yeah.

20:17

Sometimes our culture as we take it for

20:19

granted and like we don't realize there

20:21

could be any other different kind of environment.

20:25

Yeah. No, And you know

20:27

you kind of laugh because you're going, yeah,

20:30

and you hit the nail on the

20:32

head when you said, you know that our bias

20:34

against creative thought or creative

20:37

action. You know, you can see

20:39

how the existing culture wants to do more of what

20:41

it did yesterday, and the number

20:43

of companies that start out and say, well, let's try

20:45

that, and then the innovator's

20:47

st lemma happens, and resources get a little

20:49

tight, and the first thing we kill is the new

20:52

thing in favor of the

20:54

old thing. And big companies

20:56

don't innovate very effectively for a thousand reasons,

20:58

not the least of which is the existent culture. Right.

21:01

Yeah, Well, let's talking about

21:04

another aspect of the culture. You've

21:06

talked in your work about democratization.

21:10

I mean, I was scared to have to say that whole

21:12

word out loud. But

21:14

what is the effect of democratization

21:16

on leadership? Well,

21:19

you know, I think that this

21:21

idea of the

21:24

one trend in studying

21:27

leadership all the years that I've been looking at

21:29

it, which you can tell since

21:31

Lincoln was president to take a look at my hair, right,

21:34

stop it is there's been a shift

21:36

in power from

21:40

those that used to have all the power

21:44

to people who didn't used to have power.

21:47

Right, And that technological

21:49

shift happened in every generation.

21:52

Right. The printing press

21:55

was novel at one time and allowed people

21:57

to coalesce

21:59

around an idea that could overthrow a

22:01

government, or TV and radio

22:04

free Europe, or or the

22:06

media bringing down part of the Iron

22:09

curtain or cementing revolution.

22:11

And now you know, with Twitter

22:14

and Facebook and social media,

22:16

you see the Arab spring, and you see

22:19

presidents of universities being

22:22

fired over a weekend because

22:25

you know, one fraternity does

22:27

one thing on a bus, it goes viral

22:29

and they can bring a president of

22:31

a university or a CEO to their

22:33

knees almost overnight because

22:36

the technology allows the power

22:38

to shift to those

22:41

who never used to have power. And

22:44

you could see it in the stock market, you know,

22:46

when when a group of crowdsources

22:50

they're buying techniques and brings hedge

22:52

managers head to their knees

22:54

in terms of their short sales. I mean, we have

22:57

a thousand things and experiences

23:00

where the technology has allowed

23:02

people to come together and foment

23:05

a power shift. And

23:07

that's what I think we mean by democratization

23:09

is that it spreads out the

23:11

power. It doesn't do it in the short

23:14

term, but over some period of time, the

23:17

tenure for CEOs is reduced to like three

23:19

and a half years now the

23:21

power has the power shifted somewhat

23:25

and it's not necessarily

23:27

day to day that I'm not saying

23:30

CEOs are powerless or head coaches are

23:32

powerless, but I mean, if you look at

23:34

athletics, college athletics

23:37

coaches used to do a lot of things that they

23:40

don't get away with today very easily,

23:42

and the old

23:44

guard wouldn't survive very much today. Maybe

23:47

they survive too long. I mean, the latest research would

23:49

show it's three times more likely to be abused

23:52

in a college d

23:55

one college program than in a business But

23:58

is that right? Yeah? Yeah,

24:02

you know, Temper did this study in Ohio

24:04

State and they show that with

24:06

the goal study that the NCAAA did that

24:09

it's kind of a perfect storm. When

24:12

you have powerful coaches hold scholarships

24:14

over people's heads, and when the

24:17

student athlete has no ability to fight

24:19

back without losing their scholarship, they're

24:21

ripe for some of the incivility.

24:24

I thought when I read that research, I think it said fifty

24:26

two d one college

24:29

athletes suffer from anxiety

24:31

or depression. That's really sad. I

24:34

mean a lot of college students in general

24:36

are suffering from anxiety

24:39

and depression right now. The rates are pretty high.

24:41

Boy without especially as

24:44

they're separated sitting on zoom all

24:46

day. Right. Yeah, I'm

24:48

totally stressed out by Zoom.

24:52

I want to, you know, just talk to people

24:54

in they're

24:57

real particles, not their simulated

24:59

particles. Yeah.

25:01

I think I think we

25:04

missed a lot, don't you think? In your work? I

25:06

mean, you've done an

25:08

extraordinary amount of work on the connectedness

25:11

issue and the love issue as

25:13

it applies to our basic

25:15

needs as people. That has

25:17

to be quite interesting to you,

25:19

isn't it about this idea of how

25:22

we are, how we are

25:24

suffering from this lack

25:26

of connection and belonging, this being

25:29

so isolated. I am

25:31

very interested in that and its effect

25:33

among young people today

25:36

particularly. I mean, you have written

25:38

yourself just to turn the question back in

25:40

you second, you know, how has the

25:43

millennial generation, this millennial

25:45

generation changed the way leadership

25:47

and organizations work. Do you see

25:49

a shift there? Yeah,

25:53

you know, I think it's really a great question because

25:55

it's not simple. Right. They're

25:58

people, and so human needs is

26:00

you know, our

26:03

human needs. And you know, you and I

26:05

both would agree that Maslow never wanted to

26:07

make a hierarchy or a triangle out of human

26:09

needs. Your version, your

26:12

version of those needs is brilliant about

26:14

how to how to look at those But I

26:17

think, as you say, we're working

26:19

on growth levels and our

26:21

subsistence levels simultaneously all

26:23

the time. And I

26:26

think that because

26:29

of the absence of the

26:31

ability to

26:35

to not only connect, but to trust

26:37

that there's going to be more there that

26:40

I think millennials have a great BS detector

26:43

to realize that the here and now matters,

26:46

and they want it now, and so

26:49

they sacrifice less on the

26:51

subsistence or the deficit

26:54

level. I think then some of us might have been

26:56

hooked there and need less

26:58

they're used to be having taken care of and

27:01

they want an opportunity to learn and grow

27:03

with no bs, and

27:05

I think that's very difficult in a world

27:08

that is used to controlling people based on

27:12

techniques that are more fear based than

27:15

growth based. Well,

27:17

that was very well said. That was very well

27:19

said. You

27:21

know, we had to. It was funny in jimbree

27:24

when it was still alive, when before we

27:26

sold at the Pain Capital. I think one of

27:28

the things that Matt McCauley

27:30

was doing, which I thought was brilliant, is we had to

27:32

actually go out and we wanted

27:35

to create much more involvement

27:37

with our teams

27:42

with charities and kids

27:44

and things, a because

27:47

we were a group dedicated

27:49

to those things, but also because

27:52

our employees were challenging as they asked to do

27:54

so. The millennial group in

27:56

the Bay Area where Jimboree was headquartered,

27:58

we're having none of us ignoring

28:02

that for any length of time. The

28:04

need to be part of something bigger than themselves

28:06

was so apparent to all of us, and

28:09

for most of us that seemed like a change

28:11

from the past. Well,

28:16

you know you've made there's some interesting arguments about

28:20

about choosing love not

28:22

only over fear, but even

28:24

over competence. I mean, your

28:26

argument's really interesting. You've argued that

28:29

warmth should come before competence and

28:32

not saying choosing one or the other. That I shouldn't have framed

28:34

it that way, but just in terms of what order

28:36

do you do? You show it first?

28:39

You know, oh jeez, I would

28:42

never try to make that distinction, really,

28:44

Scott. I think the argument I would

28:46

make is that there are a

28:48

lot of really brilliant, competent

28:51

teams that fail. Yeah, yeah,

28:54

you know, I've played on

28:56

some of them. I've worked with some of them, and

28:59

there are a lot of brilliant people who

29:01

come together collectively we're one and one

29:03

equals one half and

29:07

so. And I've played on

29:09

a few teams that worked with a number of teams

29:11

where one and one equals about six, right,

29:14

And so I'm

29:17

a pragmatist. I think we need

29:19

competence. I think we need a mindset

29:21

that's about exploring the unknown

29:24

and growth. I think those things

29:26

are really important. But I also

29:28

think that we ignore

29:31

the idea that

29:34

the collective has its own identity, and

29:37

that if we have a

29:40

collective with no identity, then

29:42

we're in trouble. There's a really interesting

29:44

piece of research that was done a few years ago

29:47

which says that if we get

29:49

more and more talent but don't

29:52

have a central sense of purpose for which

29:54

we're acting, the more talent

29:56

we have, the more disruptive it can become, and

29:58

the worse our results might be. But

30:01

that doesn't mean I don't want talent. If I'm out recruiting,

30:05

give me the talent. But

30:07

I think it's both. I want

30:09

the most talented team in the universe. I want

30:11

the most diverse team on the universe. But

30:13

I think I need a collective that is more

30:16

the belief in every individual that we can

30:18

only succeed individually if the collective succeeds.

30:21

So I don't think I could put them in a hierarchy

30:25

at all. Yeah, very interesting

30:27

that you equated competence with talent,

30:30

because in my model, I differentiate them,

30:32

you know that people. Yeah, I

30:34

have this like four C model where competence

30:38

is different than capacity, you

30:40

know, or like talent, you know, how quick

30:43

you earn something. A lot of people may seem

30:45

untalented, but through

30:47

hard work and even love. Dare I say

30:51

show eventually show very

30:53

high levels of competence and

30:56

we shouldn't count them out. So anyway, that's just my

30:58

own little sort of theory. Well,

31:00

no, I think that I think that's far

31:02

more distinctive than the way I was probably

31:04

and artfully using the words in those terms,

31:07

because when you separate it that way, it makes perfect

31:09

sense. Right, I need capacity

31:11

and present capability,

31:13

right, yeah, and so and

31:16

so I think

31:18

that your way of saying it makes makes

31:21

it much more actionable actually

31:24

than the way I was saying it. What do we disagree

31:26

on? Then let's find something we disagree on? Tell

31:29

me, well, I don't know. I can't.

31:32

I have yet to find find something we

31:34

both nerd out over Douglas McGregor

31:37

and Abraham Maslow and how we want

31:39

to kind of bring their work

31:42

more to the fold. I don't know.

31:45

I think it's going to be difficult to find

31:47

something we disagree on. But can we talk about

31:49

Douglas McGregor a little bit since I just kind of mentioned

31:51

that name. Absolutely, you've

31:53

done a beautiful job resurrecting

31:56

him and end

31:58

revisiting, revisit, revisiting.

32:01

So what do you think you know he

32:04

was so frustrated about I know we're

32:06

talking beforehand, and you said that he

32:08

died frustrated that he said

32:10

that it was too complicated to change

32:13

human motivation for the hire

32:15

to strive for the higher ceilings. But

32:18

what you know, what do you what do you

32:20

make of McGregor? There, I

32:24

guess what I know of McGregor right,

32:26

because he died in sixty one or sixty two.

32:29

What I know mostly about McGregor I

32:31

learned from Warren Bennis, who worked

32:34

for Doug McGregor and Abe Maslow at

32:36

the time as a young man, and

32:39

I wrote this book with Warren,

32:41

who is a seminole person in

32:43

my thought process, because he would explain

32:45

some of those things and what

32:47

I thought was intriguing to

32:51

me about what I had learned

32:53

or you know, secondhand

32:56

give it. But about McGregor is when

32:58

he postulated theory and theory

33:00

why he believed that

33:02

the way we treated people weren't

33:05

just the tactics we believed

33:07

in, but had more to do with the way we

33:09

viewed human beings as either willing

33:12

to accept responsibility, willing

33:14

full of life and wanting to do it differently

33:17

right, or more

33:19

like machine like at rest and they needed to

33:21

be incentivized or jump started, right. And

33:26

I think McGregor, although he didn't

33:28

talk a lot about his belief in theory

33:30

why, the belief that people have

33:33

ordinary people are capable of great things,

33:35

I think that's the way his mindset went,

33:38

and what

33:40

he was frustrated by is he

33:43

was getting trying to get people to look in the mirror

33:45

at their assumptions, right.

33:48

And I think that what

33:52

people did at the time was

33:54

they saw theory X and theory why and started

33:56

to talk out about him like they were leadership

34:00

styles, like there's a theory

34:02

X leader and a theory why leader. And he's

34:04

like, no, I'm not talking about that. They're not

34:06

styles. They're just ways to test

34:08

your assumptions about people. And

34:11

he couldn't get people to think deeply about

34:13

looking in the mirror and what do you really

34:15

believe about human beings because people

34:17

wanted a simple magic pill

34:20

that they could take, adopt the style and

34:22

make their workplace is hugely

34:25

more productive. So my

34:28

understanding of it in those days was

34:30

that that he was frustrated because

34:32

he wanted people to think deeply about

34:35

the nature of human beings and

34:37

they wanted a contingency

34:40

look at leadership styles. Well,

34:45

I'm even in this generation, I'm frustrated

34:47

by that thing.

34:50

Yeah, you know, and I think I

34:53

think Maslow at the beginning was it was

34:55

really funny because as you write about

34:57

it in your book, and we both know, went

35:00

out with Andy Ka at Kpro Computers

35:02

for a summer and dictated you psycheic management.

35:05

But in You psyche and Management, there's a chapter

35:08

as it became Maslow and Management, there's

35:10

a there's a chapter that's

35:12

written about thirty four ideas that if

35:14

you want more enlightened leadership or more

35:16

enlightened management, here are thirty four ways

35:19

you got to think differently. And that was

35:21

Maslow's missile at McGregor saying,

35:24

Doug, if you really think you can be more

35:26

enlightened, you're gonna have to do these thirty four

35:28

things differently, to which

35:31

I think they were in absolutely

35:35

you know, argumentative agreement that

35:39

you know, here was the psychologist in Maslow

35:41

and the organizational theorist in

35:44

McGregor coming to the same conclusion

35:46

at the same time. Yeah, I

35:48

know they had great affection for each other. Well,

35:50

MacGregor, you know, I have a letter from

35:53

McGregor to Maslow. That was very

35:55

very kind, very kind. Yeah,

35:59

I mean, Maswell called that theory Z in

36:02

that chapter, you know, and

36:05

it is kind of like a bit of a cheeky

36:08

thing to do because of McGregor's

36:11

theory X and Y. He said, he's

36:13

not We're not complete. We need the theory. We

36:15

need to get to theory Z, which is real and enlightened

36:17

leadership and transcendent,

36:20

not just self actualizing. Yeah.

36:23

Yeah, And you know, I think that's where

36:25

the beauty of your title to your book

36:27

is so big, and you know, and reading

36:29

through yours, And I wasn't even aware until the

36:32

last year or so that you know, Maslow

36:34

had combined his efforts with Victor Franco

36:36

and others. Yeah, totally totally

36:39

focused on the idea of transcendence.

36:42

And and I knew he had

36:44

thought about theory Z and that he

36:46

thought that thinking about individuals

36:49

was was not

36:51

where he wanted to be at the end of his life, because

36:53

we do everything in groups and teams and collectives.

36:56

And he said, being part of something bigger than

36:58

yourself. But

37:01

there was a group of people

37:04

whose sole focus in life became

37:06

that. And I still I'm not sure we

37:08

still understand that. Yeah,

37:13

you know, if you see one more CEO

37:15

stand up at a conference and go, the reason we

37:17

exist is shareholder value and

37:21

everybody, everybody in the audience

37:23

is like, really, turns

37:25

me on. That's that's our

37:27

purpose? And

37:31

were we write a purpose that it sounds

37:33

like everybody else's right? I think

37:36

we still don't quite get that.

37:38

For people to find true meaning in what they're

37:41

doing, it's it's not only personal,

37:43

but it's emotionally engaging. Yeah.

37:46

No, I mean you keep coming back and

37:48

returning to the theme about human

37:51

the human side of it, and

37:53

it's, uh, why are people

37:56

need to listen to this? Well?

37:59

You know, it's very interesting, isn't

38:01

it. I mean? Power?

38:04

I mean I

38:07

think maybe if there's one thing you

38:13

guys who really do the research and it probably

38:15

agree over one hundred years, is that power

38:18

tends to corrupt study

38:20

after study, And maybe Laura Acton

38:22

was right way back then. And as

38:25

long as power corrupts and people don't share

38:27

power voluntarily, that

38:30

isn't you

38:32

know, power and control the opposite of

38:34

the autonomy based enlightenment

38:37

that you know we

38:40

all keep writing about. Yeah.

38:42

No, very well said, there's the power paradox

38:45

that doctor Keltner talks about where

38:47

the very traits that get someone the

38:50

power to begin with are the things that eventually

38:53

cause their downfall. Once they've achieved

38:56

power and then become you know, they

39:00

they completely uh it goes to their

39:02

head, you know, like you know that, you know,

39:04

they the thing that gave the power was usually was usually

39:07

love, and then when

39:09

they get the power, they forget about that,

39:11

about those traits. But anyway, a

39:17

humans, humans are missing what

39:20

is what is the quiz you Cannot Fail?

39:24

So I want to take that

39:26

one. Yeah,

39:30

So the quiz you Can't Fail was

39:34

a quiz set up

39:38

by a professor emeritus at Michigan State years

39:40

ago who had come after Joe Scandaler

39:43

And when when Doug

39:46

McGregor brought Joe Scandlon the factory

39:49

worker to m I t to be a lecturer,

39:51

right, his

39:55

proteget goes out and he starts trying to

39:57

create change in factories in the United States,

39:59

and he's or it's failing. He

40:02

starts going, I'm

40:05

trying to create change. But you know how it goes. People

40:07

say yeah, yeah, we want to change, and then two

40:09

years later they're still saying they want to change. Is

40:11

there's no change, so he got frustrated.

40:13

So the origin of the original term

40:15

quiz you can't fail is he would

40:18

go in to companies

40:20

and he would give him the quiz, and he would say,

40:23

do you know where you want to be different? Is

40:25

there a compelling reason for you to do it? Do

40:28

you think you can make it happen? And if

40:30

you did, is there nothing in it for you to want to commit?

40:33

For simple questions about and

40:35

if people answered no to any one of the four,

40:38

he would say, you're probably

40:40

a really good company and want to change, but I don't

40:42

have time in my life to work

40:44

with you to be a Scalon like company

40:47

because you're not ready. And so

40:49

he believed that readiness for change

40:52

became these questions

40:54

that if you know where you want to go that's different

40:56

from where you are, you

40:58

have a compelling reason to want to do it. You

41:01

believe it's possible that this group

41:03

can do it, and you'll be better off for having

41:05

done it. There's a fighting chance

41:07

you can create the kind of changes you want.

41:10

So the quiz you can't fail was his test,

41:12

his litmus test originally for

41:15

whether he would take him as a client. What

41:18

I found interesting was it's also a

41:20

great test for are you ready to

41:22

create change inside a company?

41:25

Sort of are you unfrozen in

41:27

a way, Because if you know where you want

41:29

to go and you're really committed and there's a compelling reason

41:31

to do it and you think you can do it, you have confidence

41:34

and you're going to be better off, you have a fighting

41:36

chance. I

41:39

like that reframing. Yeah,

41:41

and so the guy's name was Carl

41:43

Frost, right, I

41:45

want to look up that cat. Yeah,

41:48

yeah, he professor Meris.

41:50

I think he's maybe not with us at this point

41:53

at Michigan State. And he was instrumental

41:57

in spreading scandalon like idea

42:00

is throughout the manufacturing

42:02

sector of the US, you know,

42:04

fifty years ago or so. Yeah. He

42:06

passed away in two thousand and nine. Yeah,

42:10

wow, wow, Wow.

42:13

There's a book changing forever the

42:16

well. I like that, The Well Kept Secrets

42:18

of America's leading Companies.

42:21

Have you read that book? Uh?

42:23

No, I read. I read a different one than he

42:26

actually wrote earlier when

42:28

he started lamenting trying

42:30

to create change and meeting

42:33

the resistance, that

42:35

what seems inevitable. Thanks for introducing

42:38

me to him. You've introduced

42:40

me to a lot of really cool people. Since

42:42

I've well not personally

42:44

interested. You know, you've introduced me to some dead

42:46

people, but they're really cool, usually

42:49

because you know what I mean.

42:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

42:55

you know what I mean. You introduced me to them, but

42:57

not directly. I'm

43:00

being a dork, Okay. So

43:03

how much better might people perform

43:06

if leaders were to believe that ordinary

43:08

people are capable of greatness? You've writ a

43:10

little bit about this, and I just loved what

43:12

you've written about it. I

43:15

don't know how much potential we have

43:17

it is, but it is amazing

43:19

to me when I find these teams. I mean,

43:22

I found this wrestling coach in southern California,

43:25

Poway, who took over

43:27

a wrestling program thirty years ago, and

43:30

he thought he got a great job. He was going to be the head

43:32

wrestling coach. And the

43:34

only problem is he showed up for work and they

43:36

didn't have a wrestling team. And

43:38

they said, and they said, well, you

43:41

know, we don't have a wrestling team and

43:43

we don't have a history of wrestling, but you can be the wrestling

43:45

coach if you can find wrestlers. So

43:48

he asked to do freshman p and you'd go around freshman

43:50

pe and He'd pick out people and say,

43:52

hey, you want to wrestle, And

43:54

within two years he won the

43:57

two district champion in Chip's

43:59

district champion hip in San Diego. And

44:01

he's won the state championship in wrestling

44:03

a number of times, I'm not sure the exact

44:06

number. And they built a building for in

44:08

thirty years later. And what's interesting,

44:10

at the end of every year, I'm looking

44:12

in his files and he writes love letters to every

44:14

one of his wrestlers, not about wrestling,

44:17

but about how gratefully was that they would

44:19

let him coach them. But what he

44:21

took was that people who had never wrestled

44:23

before and within three years made up state champions

44:26

And you go, how could you tell? He

44:28

says, I never got the best athletes. He

44:31

says, I would go up to LA and they had these big

44:34

players and football players who would wrestle, and

44:36

I never did. He says. These people had

44:38

to work hard. But it's amazing what people can

44:40

do if they find a passion

44:43

and want to make it happen. And

44:45

you know, I'll

44:48

never forget the first day I went

44:50

to Marysville when they were building Hondas twenty

44:52

years ago in Ohio and

44:55

you watch them, and you watched them Bill Carrs, and these

44:57

were people that had never done it before, and they

44:59

were building world class cars as

45:01

well as they did in Japan. And

45:04

and and you look at the experience

45:06

that that Toyota had with Numi

45:09

in northern California when

45:11

they took over the joint venture with GM,

45:13

and the same workers who were the one

45:16

of the worst GM plants in the country became

45:18

one of the best joint

45:21

venture plants with the same employees doing it.

45:24

And you go, you need a certain

45:26

amount of talent, but

45:29

a certain amount about is

45:31

desire to get better, and willingness to take

45:33

feedback, and willingness to grow, and

45:36

willingness to be a part of a team bigger than

45:38

yourself in which you commit to it. And I

45:41

don't think teams without

45:43

talent win a lot of championships. But

45:46

I think there are a lot of good

45:50

players who can become great players

45:53

in the right environment. And I

45:56

think McGregor wrote years

45:58

ago, he wrote that the biggest way in

46:02

his world was the waste of human potentially

46:04

witnessed as he traveled from company

46:06

to company. And you

46:08

go into a company today and you say, how much more

46:10

do you think you could do if we could change the environments

46:13

and people have a zillion

46:15

things, or even we used to do an experiment

46:17

where we go in and we'd say, no more money,

46:19

no more resources, no reorganization. How many

46:22

ideas do you have could you that you could

46:24

improve once you delivered

46:26

to a customer or make the delivery

46:28

less expensive, not

46:31

changing a whole lot, not talking about total quality,

46:34

just you're in your control. And

46:36

they on average had fifteen

46:38

ideas per person in fifteen

46:40

minutes. And you say, why haven't

46:42

you done anything with these? And

46:45

you know, you know, well, it's not my job.

46:47

I'm total once you know there's a thousand excuses

46:51

why they don't do it. But when

46:53

you talk to people and sit down for fifteen

46:55

minutes, and I don't know how to quantify

46:57

this exactly, Scott, but when

46:59

you talk to them for fifteen minutes over

47:02

a couple of year period in different companies,

47:04

and everybody's got a number of

47:06

ideas. Let's even say that eighty

47:09

percent of them are dumb ideas. If

47:11

we just took the twenty percent of them, how

47:14

much better would they be? And if they felt like they

47:17

accomplished something, how much more would they be willing

47:19

to do tomorrow. I don't

47:22

think we're using half of

47:24

the human potential in most teams. Maybe

47:28

that's the wrong number. I have no way of quantifying

47:30

it, but you must see

47:32

it in your work around that if

47:34

people were in the right environment, is

47:36

a lot right. So can you go like

47:39

can you bypass the good route? Can you go from

47:41

like bad to great? I

47:44

don't think so. You know, it's funny,

47:47

you know, to talk

47:49

to Jim about that when he wrote from good to great,

47:52

But it's we should do that. But it's

47:55

hard to

47:57

take, you know, somebody who

48:00

who's totally turned off and make them turned

48:02

on in the same situation because there's a reason why

48:04

they're turned off. But

48:06

before I would say you can't, I

48:08

mean, I think I've had a number of experiences

48:11

in companies where people

48:13

who are turned off and

48:16

part of that seventeen percent who come to work

48:18

every day undermining the company, and

48:21

you give them a new job with real responsibility,

48:23

and they become all stars. Really, I

48:27

think all of us have seen that because they're

48:29

really like they feel a great greatest sense of identity

48:31

and motivation and purpose.

48:35

Yeah, and I don't think there are unmotivated

48:37

people. There's a lot of unmotivated workers. But

48:39

at five o'clock when they leave work, they become

48:41

the head of the cup Scouts or the

48:43

Little League team. And some of them do extraordinary

48:46

things if there was

48:48

some opportunity worth challenging their effort.

48:50

In their mind, they have extraordinary

48:53

capabilities. But

48:55

potentially a

48:58

lot of jobs aslo

49:00

saying, you know, any job not worth doing

49:02

is certainly not worth doing well. What's

49:05

not worth doing is not worth doing well? Yeah?

49:07

Yeah, And so how

49:10

many jobs have we organized in ways that

49:12

we wouldn't want the job for a human being because

49:15

the training costs would be lower, or you

49:18

know, I still I remember

49:20

walking into a retail out of years ago when it

49:22

came hit me in the face. I walked in and

49:25

I was returning two pair of shoes

49:27

for my son at the time, and

49:29

I wanted to get a pair of the right

49:31

size, and I have to wait

49:33

twenty minutes for a twenty dollars return

49:36

till a supervisor comes and signs the

49:38

slip and gets them to approval to do the exchange

49:41

for twenty dollars. She

49:44

comes, she signs that she's the supervisor's

49:46

walking away and I yell at her, I'm going,

49:48

hey, ma'am, would you come say hi? I waited twenty

49:51

minutes for the experience, you

49:53

know, I was a little frustrated, and I look

49:55

at this probably nineteen year old kid

49:57

serving man. I said, whatever

50:00

he said that pisses me off, you

50:02

know, and he yelled at me, Scott.

50:04

He flat out yelled at me. This nineteen year old

50:06

looks at me and he goes, pisses

50:08

you off? How many times a day

50:11

do you have to do it? I'm the one that ought

50:13

to be pissed, not you. And he was so

50:15

right. I was laughing to him. You know, he's

50:17

right. God, he's so right that

50:20

how would you like to have a job which

50:22

forces you to get

50:25

a signature that they don't even look at when

50:27

they sign for a twenty dollars return.

50:29

I'd almost feel as bad as going to one

50:31

of those customer service seminars

50:34

where they tell you how to greet people when

50:36

you say hello, say it this way. And

50:39

I'm just thinking the people in that class are going

50:42

they don't think I'm even capable of saying hello,

50:46

right, I mean, when we're so controlling as

50:48

we tell people how to say hi, Yes,

50:51

and then we say, why aren't they turned on? Because

50:55

you just know that guy for the shoes some

50:57

supervisors away at a two day training program.

51:00

I am trying to figure out how to motivate it.

51:03

It's a little is that a little too cynical?

51:06

No, no, it's not not cynical enough.

51:08

It's not cynical enough. I

51:10

think you're you're you're spot on. Gary.

51:13

I just I want to thank you so much for being on my podcast

51:15

today and and I'm so glad that we

51:17

could finally I could have a chance to showcase

51:20

some of your really timely and important

51:22

ideas about transforming

51:24

the workplace and UH and reconceptualizing

51:27

leadership. So thank you Gary, well

51:30

Scott, thank you Ed. I

51:33

need to thank you. I think

51:35

that the work that you're doing with

51:38

Transcendence and the new center that

51:40

you're creating, and all the things that you're doing

51:43

to help move all of

51:45

us to think in a more disciplined

51:47

manner about creating

51:50

transcendence is going to

51:52

add to the body of work

51:54

for for a long time to come. So I

51:57

I thank you Ed. You know I

51:59

have appreciate all that you do means

52:01

a lot to me. Thanks Gary, Thank

52:04

care Scott, thanks for having me you too, That was

52:06

that was splendid. I can't wait to talk

52:08

to you on your podcast soon

52:11

as well. That'll be a hot hell.

52:14

I can't wait. Yeah, and I get

52:16

to ask I bet, I get to reflect the questions back

52:18

and find out what I really should have said. Nah,

52:22

this is really great, really great interview.

52:25

Have a great day, Gary, Thanks

52:27

Scott, see you so. Thanks

52:30

for listening to this episode of The Psychology

52:32

Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way

52:34

to something you heard, I encourage you to join

52:36

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52:39

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52:41

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52:45

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