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Anne Morris
Hello everyone. Welcome to Fixable, a podcast from ted. I'm your host, Anne Morris. I'm a company builder and leadership coach.
Frances Fry
And I'm your co host, Frances Fry. I'm a Harvard Business School professor. And I'm Ann's wife, Frances.
Anne Morris
It's time for our favorite type of episode today, the Quick Fix. We are answering three questions from you, our beloved listeners. Today we're going to tackle how to work with a difficult colleague, choosing things to be bad at which, as we've talked about before on the show, is the counterintuitive path to excellence. And finally, how to balance empowering employees with staying involved in the issues that need your attention, which is a challenge we hear about a lot from leaders.
Frances Fry
These are three awesome questions.
Anne Morris
I know, I know. I love all of them. So let's get to work, my love.
Frances Fry
Let's go.
Anne Morris
Okay, Frances. Our first question comes from a fixer struggling with a colleague who is making collaboration difficult. Let's listen.
Caller 1
Hi Anna and Frances. I have to collaborate on a regular basis with a colleague from another department and the relationship with her is incredibly difficult. She often overrides or second guesses my team's work, even though we're the experts in our area. She tends to step in on behalf of her leader and the field leaders who I'm trying to build relationships with, which makes it really hard for me to establish the trust and credibility with them. And her communication is frequently very curt or Dismissive, and sometimes it's just plain rude. And despite my efforts to listen, to be collaborative, and even to look past her style, nothing seems to work unless we do things her way. Avoiding her isn't an option. I have to work with her and my team has to work with her. So how can I better navigate this relationship without getting constantly frustrated or letting her behavior derail my energy and my effectiveness?
Anne Morris
Here's what I know about monsters that I learned from Amanda Ripley is when we get to this point in the storytelling where the other person has become a two dimensional caricature, it probably means we are not in a productive place. What Amanda would call we're in high conflict and we're not gonna solve the problem from this place.
Frances Fry
What I might, the way I might paraphrase that is we are part of the problem.
Anne Morris
Yes. By this point, if the other person's a cartoon, then we are part of the problem. I think that's a great bumper sticker. So I, I think I, I don't mean to laugh because this is creating real friction and a lot of frustration for our callers. So I want to acknowledge that as a starting point. And the question we're asking is how, within the variables you can control, how do you find the exit from this? Here's what I'll say is the research is very clear that great teams, great collaboration, have more conflict, not less. So there is potentially something beautiful on the other side of it. But you're not going to get there without moving through this friction quite intentionally. The great Chris Argyrous has a tool called the ladder of inference, which I think would be appropriate here. And very quickly, you know, at the top of the ladder, you have this story which is, you know, good versus evil, you versus this rude caricature of a human. And it can, it's hard to solve the problem from there. So you come down the ladder to the actual facts of, of what are the, like let's pull some of the judgment statements out. What are the, you know, down to the really the raw facts of these interactions. You said what, they said what. And this, this kind of a conversation shows up in coaching all the time. One way into this mindset that I'll often offer to people is if this person were in this conversation right now, what is the story they would tell about their own behavior? How would they explain the choices they made in the situation? And my suspicion from the minimal facts we have and distilling those facts down into just very basic information without any storytelling around it. I bet this person is pretty good at their job. I bet this person is a good advocate for their team. I bet this person is getting shit done. And so there is this potential for collaboration here. And it's gonna start with a conversation around, okay, these are the ways I'm interpreting your choices and that are not working for me. And let me understand where you're coming from. Let me tell you where I'm coming from and let's find a better way together.
Frances Fry
What we're saying is until you get a three dimensional version of the other person, you are unlikely to make progress.
Anne Morris
And the technology to get that dimensionality is called a conversation. So you have a lot of control over setting up that conversation. You know, where are you going to have it? What are you going to say? What is the invitation for the other person to come in? What is the problem you're going to solve together? Can you name the potential? You know, like one plus one here could be a number bigger than two. Those are variables you can control, is the offering you make to this other person. The thing I love about Ardurist's research is what falls out of it is this idea of discussing the undiscussable. It's this incredibly powerful explanatory variable in excellent teams, fantastic collaboration, incredible performance of human beings coming together. All of these units have figured out how to discuss the undiscussable. But what he says next is what really is mind blowing, which is that they weren't even that good at it. They were just willing to have these conversations. And so the exit door for this challenge, from my perspective, it is showing up with curiosity, leaving judgment at the door with curiosity, and being willing to have a conversation with this other person about what you're experiencing and working with her. And so that's the opportunity here. The final thing I will say on this is because in my capacity as a coach, I have a variance of these conversations. You are an excellent company here. First of all, all of us are flying up and down the ladder of inference all day. But I'll just give you, I'll give you one example from a CEO I was coaching who called me the other day with 100% conviction that there was someone on his team of direct reports that was leading a coup against him as the leader of the organization. So he was way at the top of this long. Like he had had a tough interaction with her in a meeting and flew all the way up to the top. And he knew he was at the top of the ladder and he knew the story was absurd and he knew he should take no action right from the top of the ladder to interrupt the coup. But he, but it didn't mean that he did not believe it 100% when he was up there at the top of the ladder. And so all the work was getting him to come down. Like, okay, let's. What happened? If she were in the room, how would she explain it? And then what I love working about CEOs is these are high agency humans. And so he put the phone down and he walked in their office and he said, I just had this crazy experience where I decided that you were, you were like leading a coup against me. So can we just like go over what happened in that room? And we're now like a month out and their relationship, because of that moment, he was vulnerable. He was like, I know this is crazy, but this is what my mind did. And it led to a really important conversation about she was frustrated because all this stuff was getting piled on her plate and this was her way of pushing back and co creating a better outcome for herself. And now they could talk about it directly.
Frances Fry
What is exciting to me about this is that when I see only this side of the communication, I'm like, wow, the relationship must not be performing well and it's about to perform so much better. And I would say that if this person working alone just came down the ladder of inference, she could make the relationship twice as productive as it is right now without even involving the other person. And I think she could make it 10 times more productive if she also involves the other person.
Anne Morris
No, I mean, I'm still thinking about our conversation with Dr. Guralnik from last season. That's where it came from about the power of one person taking responsibility for the health of a relationship. And oh, by the way, if it's like a boss direct report, it's the direct report whose job it is. Always care more. It's super provocative, but you can imagine, I mean it sounds like these are peers or collaborators, but still you taking responsibility for getting to a better place for the two, for both of you, you can make tremendous progress even if that other person isn't meeting you halfway. So go get them. That's our advice. Get in there and have that tough conversation.
Frances Fry
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Anne Morris
All right, one of my favorite things is when our listeners listen to an episode and then send us follow up questions. So this is what our next fixer did. Let's listen. I just finished your podcast why you should get good at being bad. I love the idea, but I'm struggling to see how to apply this concept in a school system. How do you decide what to be bad at when so much of what we do is required by the law and those requirements are often not valued or desired by our actual customers? Okay, so just a note. Because we believe in authenticity and Transparency. We received this originally as an email, but it's more fun for all of us if someone reads it. So that was a professional reenactment done by voice specialists to bring some of the tension to life here. Frances, you kick us off here.
Frances Fry
I love this.
Anne Morris
Yeah, so you've talked about this on the show. The importance of being willing to be bad at something on the path to greatness. What happens if you got all these rules you have to work with?
Frances Fry
So this is probably the most common question I get after talking about in order to be great, you have to be bad. The most common follow up is how do you decide what to be bad at? And so let me begin by saying you don't. You decide what to be great at and then you reverse engineer what to be bad at. If you started with what to be bad at, you can't reverse engineer what that then means you get to be great at. So one be super clear about we're optimized to do this in the MacBook Air. We're optimized to be best in class at weight. Reverse engineer. What does that mean? I have to give up in order to be great at that I have to give up physical features in order to be best in class at weight. So that's the first thing on how do I decide what to be bad at now? And she has a two part question in the single question. That's the first thing. The second thing implicit in here is, okay, what do we have to be good enough at to be in the consideration set? And usually there are hygiene factors.
Anne Morris
What's the reference? What's the reference for hygiene factor?
Frances Fry
So I always think about this as there is a hypodermic needle and in order for you to stamp the word hypodermic on top of it, it has to be 99% sterile. It's not exactly right, but round numbers. If you are 98.5% sterile, you are not in the consideration set. So there are things that you have to be good enough. So my math brain calls it a constrained optimization, which is what are the constraints that we have to be good enough at? And then do all of the great and bad on top of it. And regulations are a very common constraint. And I think hygiene factors, the original metaphor might have come from, I'm only going to go into a restaurant that has a clean enough bathroom. I'm not going to differentiate on the cleanliness of the bathroom, but if the bathroom is dirty, I'm not going to the restaurant. So the cleanliness of the bathroom Is a hygiene factor in for restaurants.
Anne Morris
Got it. So I'm thinking about this challenge in the context of education. The requirements to comply with state and federal law here, that's just in this bucket you're calling hygiene factor. You can't dare to be bad at these things, nor can your competitors.
Frances Fry
Anyone else.
Anne Morris
So the attributes you're playing with are everything else. Yes. And then the other element I would say is we've worked with teams on this is the kind of prerequisite for getting in this very cool sandbox is also to deeply understand the preferences of your stakeholders and the order in which they care about them, because that's what allows you to start playing with. Okay, so what is driving where if your stakeholder is the faculty or the students or parents, whatever segment you're working with, what do they really care most about? And then how does that connect to things you might have to give up in order to get there? Yeah.
Frances Fry
And what I love about this is that you're doing all of that great work on top of the what we call hygiene factors or the good enough factors. Now let me go and understand the needs of all of our constituents and let's try in general, be great at things that are higher up on the order of priorities and if you can, worst at things that are lower down on the order of priorities.
Anne Morris
And so let me ask a variant of this question that we get sometimes, which is we'll talk about this idea and for a lot of people, it's quite liberating. You know, it's a way out of this perfectionism burden, which is, you know, it's impossible to be great at everything and we name it and then give you this release valve that is around excellence, which is counterintuitive, but we will hear a lot. Oh, I'm, you know, we do. We work a lot in healthcare. I'm X organization. It's immoral for me to be bad at anything. And that will. Sometimes we will start the conversation by simply saying, okay, how's that working out for you? And then that will be the way in to, oh, it's not like it's not sustainable. It's not possible. You know, it's physically impossible for us to be great at every single thing we're doing. And then, okay, then now we're off and running because now we. Now that's the jumping off place for like, okay, well, within, to your point, within the constraints that we have, which is, you know, the number of hours we're going to work this week, the amount of capital we have. Where are we going to place our bets in terms of time, energy, resources? It's. How do we think about those resources more strategically than just trying to do everything all at once, all the time at a level of excellence that we're never gonna reach.
Frances Fry
And what I really love about that is that when you say, how's that working out for you? I watch the faces go. Because they're like, super. You know, what about, no, we can't not. How's that working out for you? And they're like, oh, it's a disaster. Yeah. And then we often say, our phrase is that it reliably leads to exhausted mediocrity. Does that explain where you are? And they're like, yes, we are exhausted, and no, we're not achieving excellence. And we're like, it's. You're not a hard day's work away from excellence. You actually will never get there on this path. And so that's where it's. When you get to. That you're like, oh, this method won't work. Let me try a different method. And what I love is that when you have ruthless prioritization, you get to jump from the nobility of effort. Because some people think if I just try hard, at least I can tell people I tried hard. Not realizing you're making it worse. You jump from the nobility of effort to the nobility of excellence. And that's what ruthless prioritization allows you to do.
Anne Morris
Beautiful. And the last point I'll make on this is that when we look at organizations that have really built competitive advantage on the top of this idea, many of them are in very regulated industries. So I'm thinking of Southwest. Lives are on the line in every single flight. And when this company came on the scene and for a while was the only really profitable airline in the history.
Frances Fry
Of the industry for decades, it was.
Anne Morris
They were daring to be bad, you know, at these things. Like where the airport where they were asking people to drive further away. They were asking you to give up the comfort of having a seat. They were asking you to give up in flight services.
Frances Fry
Oh, a seat is suit. Anyway, you could still sit.
Anne Morris
Yes, important clarification. You did get to sit down. They would, but they were throwing peanuts at you. Meanwhile, all these other caravans, carriers were trying to give you the full course meal. So they were asking you to give up these things that you valued less in order to get the thing that you valued more, which was the convenience of multiple flights and on time arrival. On time arrival. And cheaper fares. And it was this very beautiful system. It all was within these incredible constraints around what you had to do to get that asset of the plane into the air.
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Anne Morris
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Can I make my site firmer?
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Anne Morris
You ready for the next one?
Frances Fry
Let's go.
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I try very hard to empower my team to make decisions and take ownership of their work, something I truly believe in. At the same time, I've noticed some important issues or decisions not being surfaced when they should be. I want to strike the right balance between empowering people to lead their work while ensuring that critical concerns or decisions are escalated to the appropriate level. I'd be so grateful for your perspective or any principles or models you might suggest on how to balance these.
Anne Morris
Oh man, this is. We could talk for a whole hour on this one. This is a question that comes up all of the time from leaders. How do we balance this commitment to empowerment? I know empowered teams are better teams, they go faster, they accomplish more, and yet I still need to know what the fuck's going on and I still need to hold people accountable. So in order to do my job. So how do I achieve both of these objectives at the same time? Okay, so here's a couple things I will say. First of all, empowerment is an active, full contact, hands on sport. So I think there is this myth that's out there that you can kind of passively like give people decision rights. They'll run with them, do excellent work and report back on their own time. I think there's a myth on both sides of that transaction that that is what empowerment should feel like. In fact, when we see organizations and leaders who do this really well, it's, we'll just use the word delegation, which is not a sexy word, but it's a very important mechanism here. Let's just use that as a, as an example. Bezos at Amazon is probably the most famous one of thinking about decisions and tasks in different categories and he uses Type 1 and Type 2 decision making. Type 1 is a one way door, right. It's irreversible, it's high impact. Of course the senior leadership is going to be very involved in those distinct from type 2 decisions which are reversible. You can learn things, you can fix them pretty easily. Yeah, give that shit away.
Frances Fry
Right.
Anne Morris
Let people run with it. And so then it becomes like when you use some kind of rubric like this, it's less about the kind of instincts, personalities, style of the leader and it's more about what you're trying to accomplish. So that's the first layer that I would suggest adding to this. We love any excuse to bring up Claire Hughes Johnson. She also built on this and, and has her own impact and reversibility rubric in her terrific book Scaling People. If you want to go like, learn from a hardcore operator who's really wrestled with this, that would be the resources we would recommend. And she brings even more nuance to this. But Claire's point is just be very explicit about what the agreement is. You know, you're going to make this decision and inform me, you are going to bring me in if this happens. You're going to bring me a recommendation and then I'm going to make a decision or we're going to decide together. And it's very granular, right? It is it like we are constantly making the call on what delegation looks like.
Frances Fry
What strikes me about this is that one size fits all is not the case in empowerment or what you're calling delegation. And I frame it as developmental delegation, which is the extra layer I would put on there is who are you delegating to? Is it someone who can do it with excellence? Is it someone you're trying to develop and it's a stretch assignment for them? You're going to have a different level of Oversight, Depending on which of those it is. You want to be really clear about the environment, type of decision, type of task, type of person, and then do all of these things. But tell us up front, what are the rules of engagement? When you say words like critical work or critical concerns, I think those are good flags, but I worry that it wasn't discussed ahead of time, the rules of engagement. And you can just so just have an agreement up front on how we're going to do it. And if this isn't working, both of us can check back in with each other. The form of this that I see most often is I give you something to do, you go off and do it. And if I ask, I'm annoying. If I ask about it, I'm annoying.
Anne Morris
Yeah. I think that's the experience a lot of people are having.
Frances Fry
Yeah. And I. But it's my responsibility to know what's going on and to be helpful. And if you are a black box, it's difficult for me to do my job. I either have to be not good at my job or annoying. We're trying to liberate from that binary.
Anne Morris
Here's the only exception to all of these rules. The only organization that we have studied that is truly a high empowerment organization, where people reliably just run with things and report back. Way down the pike is Netflix. And Netflix was. Is able to achieve this culture of, I would say, almost radical empowerment because they are very intentional about all of the other design choices that they are making. So they're wildly intentional about who they hire. They're wildly intentional, almost ruthless about accountability. They're wildly intentional about how much context they give people. So lots of why, lots of what? Very little how. So the entire system. System is designed around solving for empowerment and the types of humans who really thrive, which is not all of us. I would say it's a small subset of us who really thrive in that kind of environment. It requires very deep intention. If you want to know more about this, there's this famous Netflix culture deck that you can find where they talk about how they have achieved this. If you are not doing that, you're.
Frances Fry
Gonna have to use your words a lot more.
Anne Morris
Then you're gonna have to do all this other stuff. You're gonna have to use your words. You're gonna have to adapt to the different people and the. And that's where most of us are. That's where most organizations are today. All right, Frances, we're going to leave it there. Three short questions, three long answers. Just what the people want.
Frances Fry
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Your participation helps us make great episodes like this one, so please keep reaching out directly. If you want to figure out any questions about your workplace problem together, send us a message, email, call or text us@fixableed.com or 234- Fixable. That's 234-349-2253.
Anne Morris
Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris and me, Frances Frey. This episode was produced by Rahima Nassa from Pushkin Industries. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Bamban Chang, Daniela Baloraiso and Roxanne Hylash and our.
Frances Fry
Show was mixed by Louis at Storyyard.
Anne Morris
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Hosts: Anne Morriss (CEO & bestselling author), Frances Frei (Harvard Business Professor)
Date: February 2, 2026
In this Quick Fix episode, leadership coaches (and married couple) Anne Morriss and Frances Frei tackle three workplace dilemmas submitted by listeners:
Their approach: fast, candid, research-backed, and flavored with both warmth and straight talk.
[02:10 – 10:44]
Caller 1 is frustrated by a colleague who routinely overrides decisions, communicates curtly, and undermines her credibility with field leaders. She can’t avoid this person professionally and seeks advice on how to move forward without burning out.
The “Monster” Effect & High Conflict
When someone becomes a “two-dimensional caricature,” you're stuck in high conflict, which can paralyze progress.
"When the other person has become a two-dimensional caricature, it probably means we are not in a productive place."
—Anne Morriss [03:16]
We Are Part of the Problem
Recognizing your own role is a necessary first step.
"We are part of the problem."
—Frances Frei [03:37]
Use the Ladder of Inference (Chris Argyris)
Instead of reacting to the full-blown story in your head, come down to the bare facts: what was actually said and done. Try to see the other person's perspective.
"If this person were in this conversation right now, what is the story they would tell about their own behavior?"
—Anne Morriss [04:22]
The Technology is Conversation
Productive conflict and collaboration start with willingness to talk about the undiscussable, even if it gets messy.
"The technology to get that dimensionality is called a conversation."
—Anne Morriss [06:09]
"They weren't even that good at [discussing the undiscussable]. They were just willing to have these conversations."
—Anne Morriss [06:49]
Practical Example
Anne shares a story of a CEO convinced a direct report was leading a “coup.” By discussing it openly, they discovered mutual misunderstandings and dramatically improved their working relationship.
Acknowledge your own role, seek curiosity over judgment, and have open conversations—even (especially) about the tough stuff.
[13:03 – 21:10]
Listener asks: In a heavily regulated environment (like a school), how can you decide what to be “bad” at in order to be great at something else, especially when so many tasks are required by law but not valued by users?
Reverse Engineer From Excellence, Not Mediocrity
Don’t start by deciding what to be bad at. Start by deciding what to be great at; then, figure out what you must be “good enough” at (your “hygiene factors”) to stay in the game.
"You decide what to be great at and then you reverse engineer what to be bad at."
—Frances Frei [14:09]
"In order for you to stamp the word hypodermic [on a needle], it has to be 99% sterile ... So there are things that you have to be good enough [at]."
—Frances Frei [15:20]
Hygiene Factors
These are the regulatory, legal, or basic standards you cannot fall below—just enough to be considered, not to differentiate.
"You can't dare to be bad at these things, nor can your competitors."
—Anne Morriss [16:37]
Prioritize Stakeholder Preferences
Deeply understand what your stakeholders care about most. Try to be great at what matters most to them, and worst at what matters least (within constraints).
"Be great at things that are higher up on the order of priorities and ... worst at things that are lower down."
—Frances Frei [17:18]
The Futility of Mandatory Perfectionism
Trying to be great at everything leads to "exhausted mediocrity."
"It reliably leads to exhausted mediocrity. Does that explain where you are? ... You are not a hard day’s work away from excellence. You actually will never get there on this path."
—Frances Frei [19:13]
Cases in Point
Even in regulated industries (e.g., Southwest Airlines), competitive advantage comes from consciously daring to be “bad” at certain things to free up resources for differentiation.
"They were asking you to give up these things that you valued less in order to get the thing that you valued more."
—Anne Morriss [21:10]
Understand the non-negotiables, then prioritize ruthlessly and be strategically “bad” at less essential things to free up energy and stand out.
[23:41 – 29:54]
A manager wants to empower their team but finds important issues aren’t being surfaced at the right time. How do you empower and keep critical concerns from slipping through the cracks?
Empowerment Requires Active Engagement
It is not a “set and forget” process. Effective delegation is “full-contact, hands-on.”
"Empowerment is an active, full contact, hands on sport. ... I think there is this myth that's out there that you can kind of passively like give people decision rights."
—Anne Morriss [24:08]
Leverage Rubrics for Decision-Making
Use frameworks (e.g., Jeff Bezos' Type 1/Type 2 decisions, Claire Hughes Johnson's impact/reversibility rubric) to clarify which decisions require input and which can be delegated.
"Type 1 is a one way door... Of course, the senior leadership is going to be very involved in those, distinct from Type 2 decisions which are reversible ... yeah, give that shit away."
—Anne Morriss [25:57]
"Claire's point is just be very explicit about what the agreement is."
—Anne Morriss [26:22]
Customize Your Approach—Developmental Delegation
Adjust oversight based on the task, environment, and the individual’s experience. Be crystal clear on expectations in advance.
"One size fits all is not the case in empowerment or what you're calling delegation. I frame it as developmental delegation."
—Frances Frei [27:01]
"If you are a black box, it's difficult for me to do my job. I either have to be not good at my job or annoying. We're trying to liberate from that binary."
—Frances Frei [28:20]
Netflix Exception
Radically empowered cultures (like Netflix) succeed only because every other system and expectation is designed explicitly for it—most organizations are not there yet.
"The only organization ... that is truly a high empowerment organization ... is Netflix ... They're wildly intentional about all of the other design choices that they are making."
—Anne Morriss [28:37]
"If you are not doing that, you're gonna have to use your words a lot more."
—Frances Frei [29:54]
Empowerment and delegation work best with clear frameworks, intentional design, and explicit agreements—true “hands-off” only works if the whole organization is built for that.
Engaging, honest, and actionable, this episode is a mini-masterclass in grown-up leadership—served up at Fixable speed and with trademark candor.