What the Return-to-Office Debate Gets Wrong

Summary

The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown & Adam Grant
Episode: "What the Return-to-Office Debate Gets Wrong"
Date: April 30, 2026
Podcast Network: Vox Media

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Episode Overview

Brené Brown and Adam Grant, leading voices in human connection and organizational psychology, use this episode to dissect the complexities, misconceptions, and deeper questions behind the ongoing "return to office" debate. Rather than offering easy answers, they use research, systems thinking, and reflective analogies to urge listeners—and leaders—to move beyond binary positions and dig into the mental models, values, and patterns underpinning workplace decisions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Framing the Debate (00:36–02:25)

• Both hosts agree: The current return-to-office (RTO) debate is stuck in the wrong frame—focused too narrowly on productivity.
• They set out to:
  • Examine research around productivity, satisfaction, and collaboration.
  • Apply a systems theory tool (the "iceberg" model) to surface underlying assumptions.
  • Answer listener questions, including on birth order and podcast editing choices.

2. What the Research Actually Shows (02:35–05:36)

• Adam Grant summarizes key findings: Hybrid work (1–2 days remote per week) maintains or boosts productivity and satisfaction without harming collaboration or relationships.
• Brené Brown references Nick Bloom’s 2024 Nature article and other studies:

  “Hybrid and fully in office showed no differences in productivity, performance review, grade, promotion, learning, or innovation. Hybrid had a higher satisfaction rate.” (Brené quoting Bloom, 04:30)

• They both emphasize that productivity metrics often miss what’s most important—job design, culture, and the specific interdependence required by different types of work.

3. Interdependence & Work Design (05:36–07:27)

• Adam explains task interdependence using sports metaphors:

  • Gymnastics: Independent work (e.g., sales teams, call centers).
  • Relay race: Moderate interdependence.
  • Basketball: High, dynamic interdependence (requires more co-location).

  "If your job is gymnastics... you hardly ever need to be co-located... But if your work is mostly playing basketball, that's when you need the most time physically together." (Adam, 05:36)

• Brené pushes back: Even in individual roles, being around others offers value (support, shared mission, processing rejection).

4. The Hidden Value of In-Person Work: Weak Ties & Culture (07:40–12:14)

• Brené champions in-person dynamics for culture, creativity, and shared mission:

  "Weak ties, connections with colleagues outside your immediate team, are the primary carriers of novel information, cross-disciplinary insight, and breakthrough ideas." (Brené, 08:03)

• Adam acknowledges weak ties are critical (citing 50 years of meta-analyses), but offers counterpoints:

  • "Creative collisions" can be engineered remotely via structured random interactions (e.g., virtual lunches).

  • Intermittent interaction (vs. constant in-person contact) can actually improve creativity (Ethan Bernstein's work).

  • Since 2010, remote scientific teams have out-innovated in-person teams due to better tech and access to global talent.

    "Why not have creative collisions with the best people in your whole field, wherever they live?" (Adam, 11:57)

5. The Humanity of Work—Balancing Data with Lived Experience (14:46–16:51)

• Brené raises a human question: Beyond data, what about our inherent need for connection?

  • Adam advocates for substantial in-person time (3–4 days/week), but dismisses 5-day, full mandates as arbitrary.

  • Both use NASA examples to illustrate how short, intense periods of in-person collaboration can build culture and team cohesion.

    "One or two days with a group getting lost in the wilderness and having to navigate our own way... so much more meaningful than if we had sat at desks next to each other for a year." (Brené, 18:32)

• Hybrid emerges as the “violent agreement” solution: meaningful physical time, but not all the time, and for clear, intentional reasons.

6. The Iceberg Model—Surfacing Mental Models (21:12–26:11)

• Brené introduces Dana Meadows’ 'iceberg' systems model for diagnosing workplace issues:

  • Leaders often tackle only “the tip” (the visible problem: RTO, hybrid, or remote), not the deeper drivers:

    • Patterns of behavior
    • Systems and structures
    • Mental models (deep values and beliefs)

    "If you have to change mindsets and mental models, you're talking about transformation because you're going to have to break very sacred things." (Brené, 23:42)

• Adam provides a case study: On challenging a CEO’s mental model that “being together = innovation”—questioning the depth and evidence behind that belief.

  “I just believe... we’re better at mentoring and innovating when we’re all in the same room together. And I just thought that was such a primitive mental model.” (Adam recalling CEO, 25:00)

• Brené relates it to parenting:

  "It's the parenting equivalent of 'because I said so'... it actually creates a lack of respect and distrust." (Brené, 25:32)

7. Complicating the Binary: Beyond “All Remote” vs. “All In” (29:42–32:29)

• Adam introduces George Kelly’s 'slot rattling' (mental model seesaw):

  • The goal should be more mental models, not just flipping old binaries.
  • The real flexibility people crave isn’t just about where they work, but when and how much.

  "The conversation should be how do we achieve organizational goals in ways that are respectful of individuals' lives…" (Adam, 31:46)

• Brené stresses the need to avoid binary bias and dig deep into organizational beliefs, designing flexible systems to match realities and values.

8. Best Practices for Hybrid/Remote Teams (19:22–20:51, 33:03–35:33)

• Short, meaningful in-person “deep dives” > routine presence: Offsites, creative white space, and open time are more valuable than constant physical togetherness.
• Leaders must be clear on the why of their policy and ensure it’s intentional—not driven by vague fears or preference for control.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On hybrid work research:

  “Did you bring Nick Bloom's research?… Did you bring the Ggendra Nadal meta analysis from year?… I did.”
  — Adam & Brené (03:43–03:51, playful banter)

• On in-person weak ties:

  “It's less about socializing and more a creative infrastructure… when it disappears… there's less innovation… teams turn into self-referencing systems.”
  — Brené (08:54)

• On binary thinking in workplace debates:

  “Classic binary bias.”
  — Adam (33:02)

• On system-level problem solving:

  “The lower you go in the iceberg to answer the questions, the greater leverage and more lasting and meaningful the change.”
  — Brené (23:00)

• On leadership and trust:

  “If you can't be bothered by that and you're gonna rely on just because I said so, say goodbye to your top talent.”
  — Brené (26:12)

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Listener Questions Segment

1. Birth Order (36:11–41:52)

• Brené finds lived experience compelling, but not predictive; Adam cites messy research, with a few exceptions (later borns are more risk-prone, firstborns more conventionally achieving)
  • Both warn against letting emotionally resonant but shallow frameworks substitute for real understanding.

2. Podcast Editing vs. Authenticity (41:55–48:00)

• Adam favors tight edits for respect of time; Brené values authentic process even if slow or awkward.

• They consider middle ground (structural clarity, signaling, selective edits) and invite listener feedback.

  “Thank God you’re not insight machines. That’s not what we need. We don’t know how to talk to each other.” (Listener feedback cited by Brené, 47:44)

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Key Takeaways & Actionable Insights

• The RTO debate requires more than productivity metrics—leaders must probe patterns, systems, and especially unspoken beliefs.
• Hybrid models offer the best of both worlds when implemented intentionally, with a clear purpose and personalization.
• Creative and innovative work depends on leveraging weak ties—whether in person or virtually—plus providing unstructured "white space."
• Leaders must clarify their mental models and be ready to challenge them in conversation with data and humility.
• Avoid binary traps (“office vs remote”); focus on flexibility in time, purpose, and method to achieve organizational and individual flourishing.

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Segment Timestamps

• Opening Reflections: 00:36–01:32
• Episode Agenda Introduction: 01:35–02:25
• Research on Hybrid Productivity: 02:35–05:36
• Interdependence & Job Design: 05:36–07:27
• In-person Value: Culture, Weak Ties: 07:40–12:14
• Human Needs in Work: 14:46–16:51
• NASA & Event Deep Dives: 17:46–19:22
• Iceberg Model/System Theory: 21:12–26:11
• Challenging Leadership Assumptions: 26:12–29:01
• Binary Thinking & Mental Models: 29:42–35:33
• Listener Q&A - Birth Order: 36:11–41:52
• Listener Q&A - Podcast Authenticity/Editing Choices: 41:55–48:00

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This episode blends rigorous research, lived experience, and critical frameworks to invite leaders and teams toward deeper understanding, thoughtful design, and a more human future of work.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, I'm Matt Buchel, comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your fyp. And I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, Don't Swipe Away. It's called that Sounds Like a Lot. You know that feeling when you check your phone, read a few headlines, and think, that sounds like a lot. I can't do this. Well, I can, and I'm going to get into it every Friday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcast. I'm going to start by breaking down whatever insanity is happening in the world, and then I'll sit down with a comedian or actor or writer or, honestly, anyone who responds to my DMs. This is not the place to get the news, but it is a place to feel a little better about it. That sounds like a lot. Coming May 1, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

[B]

Welcome to the Curiosity Shop, a show

[A]

from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

[B]

Hi, everyone. I'm Brene Brown.

[A]

And I'm Adam Grant.

[B]

And we're having fun on the podcast.

[A]

More than I expected.

[B]

So what's been surprising to you about the pod so far?

[A]

I think what's been surprising is how often we agree.

[B]

That's interesting. I think. I think I'm surprised by how much I'm learning.

[A]

You didn't expect that coming in? Come on.

[B]

I mean, I expected to learn, but I. I can feel it shifting my thinking.

[A]

Oh, for sure.

[B]

Yeah. In uncomfortable ways.

[A]

I wake up thinking about things that we talked about several weeks ago, thinking, oh, no, I missed a chance to ask about and wait, we do this every week. We can follow up.

[B]

No, I. That's one of the biggest things for me is the. The hangover, the residual. Like, we should have said this, or I want to on this, or wait, how does that work? So I.

[A]

It's a productive hangover.

[B]

Yeah. Thank you.

[A]

Yeah. Thank you.

[B]

All right, we're going to do three things today. We're going to talk about the return to office debate.

[A]

We've been avoiding this one for a while.

[B]

I know. I actually don't know if we're in violent agreement on return to office or really deep disagreement, but maybe both. Maybe both. The second thing we're gonna do is I am going to introduce a tool from systems theory that I am obsessed with that we use all the time to look at problems. I thought we could apply it to this question about return to the office.

[A]

Oh, interesting.

[B]

Yeah. To see at what level of the issue does our cohesion fall apart?

[A]

Great.

[B]

If it does.

[A]

And Then as the third item, I pulled some listener questions for us.

[B]

Let's do it. Let's get started. Okay. You launch us off. Return to the office. Yeah. Because you're very committed.

[A]

I am committed to following the evidence which I've been doing for the last decade. And I think the evidence is very clear that if you give people one to two days a week to work from anywhere, they are at least as productive, if not more so. They're more satisfied, they're more likely to stay, and there's no cost to relationships or collaboration.

[B]

God, this is going to be really boring. I think I agree.

[A]

Really? I thought you were, I thought you were much more against that model of hybrid work.

[B]

No, no, I, I, I think I agree with what you just said. One of the things that I, I, what I was anticipating disagreeing with you on was that the frame of Return to Office just being about productivity is not the right frame.

[A]

I think we're in agreement on that.

[B]

Okay, so I have my 24 page lit review because I really came. I mean, I came like, you want to dance? We'll dance.

[A]

Oh, I'm ready to dance. Did you bring Nick Bloom's research?

[B]

I did.

[A]

Did you bring the Ggendra Nadal meta analysis from year?

[B]

I did.

[A]

Okay, good.

[B]

But I also brought other things like mit, Sloan's Linda Grattan on kind of what productivity metrics miss. I hope y' all cough out on the camera when he went like this. Yeah, no, I got a fricking lit review here, dude. So you. Let's go. Okay, so Bloom and colleagues, this is the 2024 nature, right? Equivalent productivity, equivalent performance review scores, and equivalent promotion rates for hybrid workers compared to full time office workers.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

So quoting here from Bloom's HBR article, Hybrid and fully in office showed no differences in productivity, performance review, grade, promotion, learning, or innovation. Hybrid had a higher satisfaction rate. Okay, so I'm gonna go now to. This is MIT Sloan, Linda Grattan, London Business School. Three decades of workplace research argues that the productivity debate is largely fought with the wrong metrics.

[A]

I'm doing this.

[B]

Oh, my God, you're doing it.

[A]

I'm skeptically intrigued. How about that?

[B]

I really hope, Aaron, that you got a zoom in of this face.

[A]

All right, I want to hear it.

[B]

Most roles, strategy, coaching, creative work lack easily verifiable comparative productivity measures. She's going to argue that hybrid work is better understood as a job design option. The question isn't where do people sit, but what tasks need which environment.

[A]

Yeah, I agree with Linda. So I think the key aspect of work design is asking how interdependent are people in their jobs. So in organizational psychology there are three kinds of interdependence. They're called pooled, sequential and reciprocal. It's easier to think about them as gymnastics, a relay race and basketball. So if your job is gymnastics where everyone does their own beam, vault, floor, routine and then you just add up the individual scores, you hardly ever need to be co located because everybody can do their own thing and have their own focus time at home. But if you're running a relay race, then you need to have some time with the people that you're handing the baton to and receiving it from. And if your work is mostly playing basketball, where you're passing the ball back and forth and doing a lot of dynamic coordination, that's I think when you need the most time physically, together.

[B]

Give me an example of the gymnastics call center work.

[A]

Sales teams are almost exclusively designed this way. Everybody has their own clients, they have their own customer base, they have their own industry potentially. And the team's metrics are basically the sum of the individual metrics.

[B]

Okay, so I'm trying to think through this rationally and calmly because

[A]

I wish you the best with that.

[B]

I think. I disagree.

[A]

Good. Tell me more. And wait, I should just say the Nick Bloom data often are looking at call center jobs.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Where people are pretty independent.

[B]

Yeah, I think. Would you consider those knowledge workers?

[A]

I think of them doing service work more than knowledge work. Maybe there's a mix.

[B]

Yeah. Okay, so let's go here. So this is me making my case for in person. In person, culture, creativity and mission.

[A]

Okay, I agree right off the bat on culture and mission. Definitely not on creativity.

[B]

Okay. So the evidence for in person work I think becomes strongest around three kind of interconnected organizational dynamics that I want to get into. And I want to talk about it because I'm open to learning.

[A]

Me too.

[B]

Like a little crack in the door. Weak tie innovation networks, tacit knowledge and cultural transmission and shared mission organizational identity. Okay, so let's talk about weak tie. Weak ties is the hidden as kind of, I think the hidden engine of creativity and innovation. So weak ties, connections with colleagues outside your immediate team are the primary carriers of novel information, cross disciplinary insight and breakthrough ideas.

[A]

Robust finding.

[B]

Robust finding. So who are you? I'm yang. At all 2021.

[A]

I mean there, there are at this point there's, yeah, there's a, there's a Marcus Baer meta analysis that spans 50 years of evidence that yeah, you get more fresh Ideas from people you don't know well and don't talk to every day.

[B]

Right. So I'm thinking that being in the office is less about socializing and more of a creative infrastructure that when it disappears, I think there's two things that happen. I think there's less innovation that is the product of those weak ties. And I think teams without weak tie inner. I don't know why we call it weak tie.

[A]

Why do we call it classic Granovetter sociology.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

These kind of opposite of strong tie.

[B]

Yeah. Of strong. Yeah. Like loose relationship exposure. I don't know what's another way to say weak tie. Yeah, loose. Yeah. I think they also help prevent teams both. I think all teams have to be innovative and creative these days, but I think they reduce teams from turning into self referencing systems.

[A]

Yeah. They prevent groupthink is another way to say it. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I agree with all that and I think your instincts are right that when people are physically together in person, they're more likely to bump into their weak size. This is the whole kind of Steve Jobs designs the Pixar headquarters so that everybody has to walk by each other to get to the bathroom. I think that there are counterarguments though that don't get weighed when people say, well, we need people to come in to have these creative collisions. The first one is there's no reason why you can't structure that unstructured interaction in remote work. So there's research on pairing people up randomly for virtual lunches showing that their productivity goes way up afterward because they end up just learning from weak diesel. And you don't have to. What I mean is you don't have to randomly bump into them. Right. You could have just a hey, every week we're going to connect you with somebody that you don't know and you're going to compare notes and you're going to learn from each other and we'll create that way. I think the second thing is we don't need constant weak tie stimulus because this is Ethan Bernstein's work. Intermittent interaction is actually better for creativity than constant communication because we also need some distance from other people to not get sucked into their ways of seeing the world. And that separation then allows us to develop divergent perspectives and then come together and get a good mix of convergence and divergence. Last thing is, there's a study by science teams showing that up until around 2010, remote science teams that published breakthrough kinds of discoveries, they were less creative than teams that were co located. And around 2010 that reversed. And ever since, remote teams have massively out innovated teams that are in person. Why? We think there are two things going on here. Number one, the remote technology was just bad. Before, we didn't have good systems for sharing files, editing documents together. We didn't have good ways of communicating over distance. Now we do. Right? Secondly, and more importantly, you have access to the whole world's talent in remote teams, whereas you're stuck with the people who happen to be in your science lab if you're together. And so I'm like, yeah, you could have creative collisions with the people who happen to be in your headquarters, but why not have creative collisions with the best people in your whole field, wherever they live?

[B]

Hi everyone. Kara Swisher here. We just won the Webby Award for the best interview show in news, business and society. And I've had some great guests on my podcast on with Kara Swisher. Here are some you don't want to miss. Tristan Harris, the co founder of the center for Humane Technology. I talked to him about his biggest worry when it comes to development and deployment of AI. Hint, hint, it has something to do with the CEOs and how they stand to profit. I interviewed documentarian Louis Theroux. His latest documentary, into the Manosphere, focuses on the incredible and horrifying influence this group of individuals has, especially on young men and boys. And recently I caught up with Katie Couric, Amy LaRocca and my brother Jeff Swisher to debunk some of the fads and misinformation behind the billion dollar wellness industry. And we talked about the important medical tests that are actually worth your while. All of these conversations are available now. You can find them on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. And we've got plenty more lined up for the summer, so be sure to subscribe to on with Kara Swisher to catch them all.

[A]

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[B]

And I'm John Finer. And we're the hosts of the Long

[A]

Game, a weekly national security podcast. This week, author Dan Wong joins us to discuss America's lawyerly society, China's engineering state, and why derangement might be a prerequisite for superpower status.

[B]

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[A]

I can't step away from data.

[B]

I know, but let's just step away from it.

[A]

You're stealing my identity.

[B]

I know.

[A]

All right, let's do it.

[B]

Unwanted identity Shame, Episode six. How do you reconcile this with just who we are as human beings? Like from mirror neurons to.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, this is why I'm not saying we should work remotely all the time. This is why I want us to be co located three or four days a week. So that we can build meaningful relationships, so that we can establish culture, so that we can live experiences that become stories, so that we can connect in the mission and identify with the organization. I think all of that requires shared time in the same room, But I don't think we need to impose that five days a week. I know what you look like. We have a relationship built. We can have great conversations by text and phone and zoom and email. I think it's arbitrary to say all of the time needs to be in the same place.

[B]

No, I think I agree with that. It's so interesting to me, especially we're filming this while Artemis 2 is up and just blowing my mind. It's like, I'm such a space nerd. And I know you're a space nerd.

[A]

Patrick Lever.

[B]

Yeah. Let's go. You know, and I think I have, you know, as a Houstonian, I've got friends that work for NASA. Obviously.

[A]

Talk about remote work.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. A lot.

[A]

Flying by the dark side of the moon.

[B]

And it was interesting because we took all of the earthbound astronauts through Dare to lead. And we talked about the ability maybe to do it remotely. And it was so important for them to get them in the same room for these three or four days that we spent together. And for my friends who are engineers, when they get to something that's very difficult, even if they're on remote teams, and these are globally remote teams, they find a way to get together in the same room.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so it's like I, I mean, I think we're in violent agreement. Cause I actually am a big believer in hybrid. I'm not in a forced return to office five days a week. And I'm not at all a believer just as a human being that we never have to be together physically.

[A]

Yeah. I think we're on the same page there. And just to. I have to come back to the data now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's a ding and ma paper from 2024 looking at four years of return to office mandates showing that they fail to improve from financial performance metrics, but they reduce satisfaction and work life balance.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And then there's follow up research showing that you also struggle to attack great talent when you have a return to office mandate. So all the people who are claiming, well, but the tech leaders who are demanding everyone comes back to the office, and the finance leaders who are demanding that they were doing a whaling and culling strategy of trying to get rid of people who aren't committed without having to pay them severance. Guess what? You fail to attract great people moving forward. And also the people who are most likely to leave, it turns out, are the most talented people who have options elsewhere and they want flexibility. So it sounds like we have mostly landed on the same page about this NASA.

[B]

Yeah, love.

[A]

So we've, I think it's one of both of our favorite organizations to study. I learned so much from John Canigator, who led, you could call it almost Dare to lead Beta for NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts for years. And one of the really interesting ahas that I had when I was studying John's work and working with some of his teams was they did not care about making sure that astronaut crews were together for weeks at a time doing training. What they did was they picked short windows to do very deep dives. Yes. So they would, they would get lost in the Utah wilderness. And you know John, John was a Knowles guide and he would say, good luck, find your own way and then disappear. And they had to navigate those situations together. And what the astronauts would always come back saying is one or two days with a group getting lost in the wilderness and having to navigate Our own way. The stress we underwent together, the problem solving we did together, so much more meaningful than if we had sat at desks next to each other for a year. And so I'm curious to hear how you think about this idea of. Atlassian does this right. They've shown in their data that how often you come to the office has no bearing on how much belonging you feel. But attending a quarterly three to five day off site is very powerful for connecting you to your team and to the firm. What do you think about the idea of we do a deep dive together and then we go off and do our own focused work and then we reconvene.

[B]

It's probably the way I think about the future of medicine, which is personalization. Personalization. Personalization. I want to. My objection to return to office, not return to office. Bring him together for off sites. Not bring him together for off sites. My objection to the whole that of that discussion comes down to an overwhelming frustration that I cannot pin leaders down to a. Why that makes sense. It's not intentional. They're not examining beyond the problems they can see. They're not getting underneath to mental models. They're not getting underneath to. And so for people who. I think. I'll be honest with you, I think it would be. I would be very challenged to understand anyone that says everyone's back all the time for everything. And I'd be very challenged, even if it was call center work, to say no one ever has to do anything because I worked in a call center in Spanish. Gracias. Paraguar excellente.

[A]

But they must have la en.

[B]

Yes, Si. And so that is brutal work. The churn in that work is huge. So I come into that research with a different understanding of what that work is. And I do think it's gymnasts.

[A]

Oh, yes. And I think we're in agreement there too. My first real job was in ad sales and I needed other people around me after the 19th rejection in a row to process that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

But also after studying call centers, it is really easy to see how people are better able to focus when they don't have to be surrounded by a cacophony all the time.

[B]

Oh yeah, just. I mean, we were just like hundreds of us in like, you know, in cubes. So I think it really comes down for me to what is driving your decision? What are. You know, maybe this is a good place to introduce this. So this is a. This is a. This comes out of Dana Meadows work from. She's a systems theorist. I'll link to her book and her work, and I'll share the PDF with you that we use to teach it. So it's basically a problem solving method with systems theory where you have the iceberg, which is the problem, you see? So leaders are like, okay, here's the problem. We see. Do we let them work remotely? Do we force them back into the office? Do we do a hybrid? And they're just looking at the top of the iceberg? They're not getting under. What are the patterns of behaviors that we need to build, de, emphasize, strengthen, get rid of? Like, what are the patterns of behaviors that we need Underneath that, what are the systems and structures of support that lead to performance and impact? And then even below that, at the deepest level in this iceberg, are the mental models. So what? You know, if I ask a leader, like, if you're running a company, Flowers Inc. Let's say, or, you know, I'm looking at the wallpaper, Pink Flowers, Inc. And you're like, I'm having everyone come back to work. Why? Because I need to see them. They need to be there.

[A]

What kind of strategy is that?

[B]

What kind of strategy is that? And I want to. So tell me what your mental model is. Tell me how you're making sense of work. Well, how do I know even know if they're working? Well, you don't know if they're working if they're in the office unless you're standing over them or you don't know either way. So I don't get that. They need to have friends. Well, that's not really work does. And they could have a lot of friends. It's better for them. Have you asked them?

[A]

No.

[B]

Yeah. Right. And the thing I love about this problem solving with systems thinking iceberg is we know from the research that the lower you go in the iceberg to answer the questions, the greater leverage and more lasting and meaningful the change.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Does that make sense?

[A]

It does. It's very similar, actually, to the shine culture iceberg.

[B]

Oh, God, yes.

[A]

Which, I mean, it's almost identical. You see, the artifacts and practices that are the most visible manifestations of a culture, those ideally are created to reflect and reinforce a set of values, but the values themselves are not as transparent. And then underneath those values are these deep assumptions that are rarely even articulated and they're just taken for granted. Those are the hidden mental models, the

[B]

mental models and mental models. Man, people always say, when you go in to do work in a company, Brene, how do you know whether it's going to be Incremental change or transformative change. And I said, listen, if you have to change mindsets and mental models, you're talking about transformation because you're going to have to break very sacred things.

[A]

Yeah. So let's take a concrete example of this. Last year I was at an event where a CEO who had very publicly announced a return to office mandate was on stage. And the moderator asked for questions and I couldn't resist. I put my hand up and I summarized the evidence we've been talking about. And I asked the CEO, what do you know that organizational psychologists and economists don't? And he said, well, I just believe that we're better at mentoring and innovating when we're all in the same room together. And I just thought that was such a primitive mental model. Like, okay, yeah, but how many hours a day do we need to be in the same room together? How many days a week do we need to be in the same room together? Have you thought about different ways of solving for mentoring that deal with the fact that you are a multinational company and some of your most important roles are not physically in the same country as the people that you experienced expect to be doing the mentoring? What do you do when you work with someone whose mental models are not fleshed out? Because I just wanted to smack that down.

[B]

Yeah. I think what's really hard is in my experience, no matter who that leader is, and I could take a wild guess about who this leader is and be so right.

[A]

Yeah. You know exactly who it was.

[B]

Yeah. I think the problem is it's the parenting equivalent. And I don't like to use parenting stuff with work because it infantilizes work, but here, you know, it's the parenting.

[A]

Are you gonna say infantilizes parents?

[B]

It's the parenting equivalent of because I said so.

[A]

Yes, exactly.

[B]

And it actually creates a lack of respect and distrust. It really creates distrust when. And I think what we've seen working. Cause we were working so closely with leaders during the pandemic and right afterward as they were making these decision that if you believe it enough to mandate it, then you should have the discipline to get under the mental model and walk people through it.

[A]

Yes. And explain why.

[B]

Right. And if you can't be bothered by that and you're gonna rely on just because I said so, say goodbye to your top talent.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And not because even they have to go in because they don't wanna work for someone who's treating them infantilizing them was because I said so.

[A]

That's a great meta argument. I wonder what would have happened if I made that point.

[B]

Say that again. What do you mean?

[A]

Just, just to even say back to the CEO, that sounds a lot like when a parent says, because I said so. Can you walk me through what is your evidence and what is your, like, what's, what's your proof that this is so important?

[B]

So, so here's where I think I would differ in the way that I would challenge someone like that. I don't think I'd ask for evidence. No one's going to be able to out evidence you.

[A]

I know.

[B]

That's why I'm going to go. I know.

[A]

But also that's the highest quality information available. Right.

[B]

But I think I've never had experience using that to get to someone's mental model because they, they immediately get defensive.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So I think what I would say is what are your core beliefs about what happens when people are at home? And what are your core beliefs about what happens when people are at work?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Or what are you, what keeps you up at night when people are working from home?

[A]

Oh, that's so helpful. Okay. And then, you know, one of the core beliefs is I, you know, I think this is obviously easy to debunk, but yeah, there's still a, you know, well, people are, you know, they're, they're slacking off at home. And once somebody says that to me, I can say, you know, that that's interesting because what Nick Bloom has shown in his experiments is that when people are given a chance to work from anywhere, a day or two a week, they save about an hour on average of commuting time. And guess how much of that time they spend working. More than half of it.

[B]

Yeah, I've read that.

[A]

So you just got an extra half hour of work plus out of your employee, and guess what? The other, you know, 24 or so minutes they get to use on family time, health, hobbies, friends. That's a win, win.

[B]

Deliberate recovery.

[A]

Yeah. Which I'm like, wow, you have literally found a way to do something that biologists and physicists told me was impossible. You created more hours in the day. And I can't have that conversation without them being defensive until they've told me, here's what my belief is.

[B]

Yes. So I think the way that you get to that is the question about what's on your heart and mind. What are you afraid of? What do you make up is happening? I think if you can get on the table the fears, the mental model, the how people make sense of the world, how people think People contribute value, and you can say to them, that makes sense. Are you open to challenging it with what we know to be true from research?

[A]

Yes. Or complicating it even?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think if you miss the step of. I've never successfully had anyone, including myself, like, we just did this with our company. We got into some mental models, and what of them was super painful? It took us like three hours. We had to stop, people had to walk out. People went, like, under the line, had to get back up. But one of the mental models that we uncovered was that we make excuses for our behavior during unique situations. And when we gave three examples of unique situations, there was nothing unique about that.

[A]

Right. There's a pattern.

[B]

There's a pattern.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We had handled things exactly like that in different contexts for 10 years.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But we used uniqueness as smokescreen, a smoke screen to come out of our integrity and what we know is best in terms of leading sometimes.

[A]

Yeah, no, that's really helpful. And it makes me think about what this also unlocks is a chance to then even redirect the conversation away from what might be a bit of a red herring. So I'm thinking about George Kelly's classic work on slot rattling. Are you familiar with this? No.

[B]

I don't know. It's.

[A]

So George Kelly studied the mental models. He thought of them as goggles that you wear to make sense of the world. I always remember this case that he wrote about of. There was a guy who got discharged from the military and his life fell apart. And Kelly was analyzing why. And it turned out he had spent his whole career in the military analyzing things through that lens. His mental model was military good, non military bad. And so once he was even honorably discharged, he had been. He had put himself in the bad category. So what most people do when one of their constructs is violated, when one of their mental models is challenged, is Kelly described it as slot rattling, where he's like, oh, okay, well, now I have to convince myself that non military is good and maybe military is good.

[B]

Demonize the military, right? Yeah.

[A]

And you just kind of end up playing this. You're on a seesaw. And what Kelly said is, no, you need more mental models. You need more lenses. You need other ways to see the world beyond military, non military, in order to complicate your worldview.

[B]

Wait, wait, I gotta stop you there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is so interesting. So the mental model made something good and something bad. The answer is to not just switch them.

[A]

Yes, exactly.

[B]

But to get on, Get a whole New pair of goggles.

[A]

Exactly. You need more mental models. And I'm thinking about this in the context of the hybrid work debate because we're doing this slot rattling right now. It's often a tug of war between leaders saying, I want you in all the time and I'm going to force it. And employees saying, no, you can't and I don't want to work here if you do that. And then, well, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to measure. But can you really measure? And are you really going to fire me if you value me? And it's a wrong conversation. The conversation should be how do we achieve organizational goals in ways that are respectful of individuals lives if we have that conversation? And one thing that jumps out in the data very clearly is the flexibility people want most is not where they work, it's when and how much.

[B]

Yeah, that's it.

[A]

They want to control their time, not their place. And so if a leader were to realize that, it would be very easy to say to somebody, hey, are you telling me that if I let you leave the office at 3 o' clock so you can be home with your kids, carpool?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You will come to the office every day? Maybe that works. That requires another mental model.

[B]

I mean, this is so interesting because it's getting caught in the binary even if you switch sides.

[A]

Classic binary bias.

[B]

Binary bias, yeah. So this is why I love this tool because this is how I spend so much of my time that I get asked to come in and see a problem and my work is really so, you know, I have to get on my scuba gear and do this deep dive to be like, you know, are we, can we go below the patterns of behavior, below the systems and structures to figure out how do you make sense of the world? How do you think people contribute value? And if you think they contribute value by. With mentoring, coaching, feedback, there are many ways to build that into remote work.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And you know, what's the old joke about consultants that. Do you know this one?

[B]

No, I don't know.

[A]

A consultant is somebody who borrows your watch, tells you the time and then charges you for the privilege. I think that gets something really fundamentally wrong, which is when I'm not good at consulting. But as an advisor or a researcher, when I come into an organization, I am holding up a mirror and helping them see their mental models. And once I've done that, they are much better equipped to solve their problems than I am.

[B]

Yes. And that's why someone asked me the day they're like, when did you become an expert on manufacturing and supply chain? And I'm like, that's the problem. You see that underneath it is mental models and there's a finite group of those that we have to challenge and then we use data. But getting underneath there, even challenging my own mental models is really hard. So this is interesting. So violent agreement.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, a ton of it.

[B]

Have your. Why understand the middle models from which you work? Challenge your middle models with evidence and data.

[A]

And I think that lands us at. We want people to be together a reasonable amount of time and not all

[B]

the time for the right reasons. And when you ask the Atlassian thing, I do think the one thing I would say about companies that. And this is not a endorsement or criticism of how Atlassian does it, because I am not familiar with it, but what I would say is for purely remote organizations that rely on all hands, the one thing I would say that I see consistently being helpful is scheduling in more white space and more open time and not scheduled planned time for people who don't always get to get together.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, they need time to actually incubate ideas.

[B]

It's not programmed.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah, I agree.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, good.

[B]

Go to questions.

[A]

Yeah, let's go to questions. So there were two that I thought were really interesting. One has. I thought it had nothing to do with our conversation from the first part of the episode, but it does relate to mental models because I think a lot of our mental models are wrong on this. The question this comes from, Bri, was can the two of you talk about birth order? So where do you want to start on that one?

[B]

I just feel like there are some things where you and I are not going to see eye to eye, which is birth order enneagram. We'll probably see the same on horoscopes, but astrology, because I'm not for that unless it's a good one for the day. But I think birth order can be very significant and very helpful. I don't think it's predictive, but I think it can be a data point.

[A]

How did you know I was going to land in a different place than that?

[B]

Because the research is so not compelling.

[A]

Yeah, it's a mess.

[B]

Yeah. But the lived experience is super compelling.

[A]

I think it's hard to study. I think.

[B]

I think it's hard to study and

[A]

I think there's so many complex variables that interact with birth order. But. Well, let's put something on the table then. I think there are a lot of theories that people hold about birth order. That just do not stand up to evidence. But there are a couple that are supported in some very careful, large scale studies. One is that there is convincing evidence that later borns are more likely to take risks than firstborns. What do you think of that one?

[B]

I think that's true. And I think. I mean, what would you say about the studies that show disproportionate number of firstborns in certain roles, in certain leadership

[A]

roles, for example, high achievement? I mean, I think it's the converse of that, right? And the standard explanation of that is as a firstborn, you are drawn toward conventional ways of pleasing your elders and, you know, kind of being the model oldest sibling. And so you get good grades and you run for student government. And that niche is not available anymore to laterborns. And so they need to find a different way to stand out. And they often do that by rebelling, by differentiating, taking risks, trying things that are not proven. And then also, I think there might be a parenting component of this too, which is, oh, yeah, parents are much more controlling with their first child than they are with their fourth.

[B]

I mean, my younger sisters were juggling knives at five. Like, and I, you know, and I'm the oldest, but I will say that I don't know, I get. This is where I. This is where I get really frustrated because there's such. You can say something that's very emotionally resonant. For example, I came across a meme on Instagram that said, were you really a pleasure to have in class, or were you just the firstborn daughter with an undiagnosed anxiety disorder? Yeah. And I was like, here. But then I think what ends up happening is I think this is fun. This is true. You know, firstborn daughters, I could read a room before I could read a book. You know, like, you know, just there were things that are both resonating, helpful and painful about some of that. And then all of a sudden, the grifters get ahold of it. And now there's a trauma protocol based on, you know, this. And then now there's a, you know, and now if you take this supplement, so it's like, then you're like, this is why we can't have nice things. This is why we can only have research people.

[A]

Bastardized studies.

[B]

Yeah, and studies. And they turn it into, like, if you sleep this way, this is your diagnosis. You're like, dude, fuck off. You don't have any idea what you're talking about. What is your background? So then you just go to this world That I don't live in as a deep person of faith that if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. Like now, I believe if you can accurately measure it. Is it really that important?

[A]

That's a great question. Okay, so let's go back then to the birth order finding on kind of conventional achievement versus risk taking. I think part of what's interesting about that is it's a really small effect in most studies. It doesn't show up in all studies, and it depends on how many siblings you have and also on age spacing. So one I think common way of trying to make sense of this is, well, if laterborns are separated by five or more years from their older sibling, they kind of get a fresh start in terms of they don't have to compete with that older sibling. And so they can go more in the conventional achievement route if they're only a year or two apart. It's anybody's guess how that might play out. And then you look at this, but you're lumping all later borns together. What about being the last born versus the middle child? Middle child never gets covered in these studies.

[B]

He's the peacekeeper on Instagram. That would be the Peacekeeper.

[A]

It would be. And there's possible truth to that, but families are so complicated. Why do you want to reduce everything to the order in which you arrived?

[B]

I don't know. Because we're desperate to make meaning.

[A]

We are.

[B]

We're desperate to make meaning and to make things makes sense. And, you know, it's like. And then when we see something that deeply resonates, it gives us a sense of belonging and place. And like, you know, I'll see all the Gen X.

[A]

Shut up.

[B]

We drank out of a water hose, we left on our bikes at 6am and came back at 10pm well, that's actually true. We did.

[A]

I got Dysentery playing Oregon Trail yeah, so it's like.

[B]

So it's also a way for us to meaningfully connect with humanity and each other and tribal in a way. And so I have this, like, really unspoken connection to other firstborn daughters. And, you know, so I think it's. There's something very human about it. It's just that anything that emotionally resonates and gives us something is very vulnerable to being misused.

[A]

Yeah. And exploited.

[B]

And exploited.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, let's go to the other question. I thought this was an interesting meta question that actually a bunch of different people have submitted the basic question as I tried to synthesize across them was how do you think about the trade off between authenticity and just releasing a podcast as you run it and editing to deliver your best material. And I don't know that we have fully figured out how we're going to do that moving forward. Right.

[B]

I'm a no edit person, and I

[A]

am a not editing disrespects the listener's time person. Let's cut out the fat, which might be a third of the episode.

[B]

And I'm more of a. I'm more of a believer that we're trying to challenge each other in caring, respectful ways. We're trying to think of new ideas, we're trying to challenge ourselves. And I want a podcast that reflects the fact that that's not a fast moving process, that there are empty spaces that people are uncomfortable with, and the rush to fill them is one of the greatest barriers to deep thought, deep thinking, deep conversation, and meaningful. So I don't want to edit something. It would be like, you know, asking someone to take my wrinkles out. Like, you know, it's like, this is. This is it. You know, I've earned the. I've earned all of these. The smiles, the cry, you know, and so for me, I don't think of it as being disrespectful to the listener. I think about it as being honest.

[A]

I love that framing of it. How do you think about, then, the dilemma of. I've gotten messages over the years from people saying, yours is the only podcast I listen to because every minute is well used, and I feel like I can fit it into my day. I don't want to lose those people. No, the biggest fans, the people who read all of our stuff are probably going to listen regardless.

[B]

I don't know. I mean, I guess finding a happy medium. I think one of the things that we're doing is we're trying new structures. So we're doing like 30 minutes of this, and we're giving people the playbook at the top. I'd be open to listener feedback. I would have a very hard time. And I know this is like, this is my number one enneagram, which I believe in, that I make everything a moral issue.

[A]

As a number one, you're a huge moralizer. It's true.

[B]

What the. Oh, frick. Jesus.

[A]

It's one of your best and also most challenging qualities.

[B]

Okay, whatever. For fuck's sake, y'. All. But I would almost feel unethical to take a conversation where there were pauses and it was hard and we were trying to figure it out. And we were looking like we're struggling to be respectful and make it sound like do do, do do do, do, do do. Because that's not the way the world works. And everyone's need to do do do is dangerous. And so I guess where it comes in for me is maybe the. I've been thinking about this. Maybe it's more structure, letting listeners know what's going to happen, being explicit why we leave some pauses in and finding a happy medium. Like one thing that is like one thing that's for sure. I hope that people don't confuse organic conversation with a lack of preparedness. Because I'm always prepared. You're always prepared. No, we don't prepare together on purpose at all.

[A]

This is much more interesting than I am.

[B]

It is more interesting.

[A]

The only thing we've done so far is just align on the topic.

[B]

That's it. And so I think that's important. Cause I think that's how conversation is real. Yeah, Like I don't, I don't say, hey, Steve, babe, at six o', clock, I want to have a conversation about these things. Let's prep it together. I'm going to say this. And actually I don't always need Steve for my conversations. I just have them with him and then I let him know whether he's in the shithouse or not. But. But yeah, I think we're just trying to get it right.

[A]

I think there's value in maybe a distinction that just became clear to me, which is there are conversations where the process is important to show and there are conversations where we're trying to share useful content. And I think the former requires more let the episode run and the latter, if we went down a 17 minute rabbit hole, maybe people only need to hear 10 minutes of that.

[B]

I think it's a huge watch out

[A]

for us big time.

[B]

Yeah. Because I could go down a 70 minute.

[A]

I mean, I was, I wanted to look at which studies you pulled. I know, yeah. Wait, wait, wait. But let's talk about that one more.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I know. We'll just keep practicing and we. I love the feedback. I get a lot of good feedback, constructive and positive on LinkedIn, which is where my comments are open. And I like to get in there and, and respond to people. So yeah, I'm open to it. But I do think it's meaningful to show that if you're actually actively. And I have to do this with leaders a lot. When we teach active listening, the hardest thing that we have to break is you preparing your response while someone else is talking. I don't want to miss anything you're saying when you say it. Therefore, if I'm going to respond in a meaningfully respectful way, I need a minute to think about what I'm going to say back.

[A]

So I brought my notebook.

[B]

That's why I bought. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, like, I need to capture that so it's not taking up space in my brain so that I can listen to you.

[B]

Yeah. And maybe there is something about edits to make it easier for a listener. I'm not convinced that people. In fact, I've seen a lot of feedback for both of us that people. One person used this term exactly. Thank God you're not insight machines. That's not what we need. We don't know how to talk to each other.

[A]

I thought that was a compliment. I want to be an insight machine.

[B]

Yeah. I do not. I want to be like a. Huh. But happy medium.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

We'll try and we'll experiment and correct based on data.

[A]

Of course. And if you're pulling from LinkedIn, I'm going to draw from Spotify and Instagram.

[B]

Oh, perfect.

[A]

And that way we'll have a range.

[B]

Yeah. And we'll use the one I like best.

[A]

The one we like best.

[B]

See you next week.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

The Curiosity Shop is produced by Brene Brown Education and Research Group and granted productions. You can subscribe to the Curiosity shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app.

[A]

We're part of the Vox Media Podcast network. Discover more award winning [e-mail].