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My guest on Nudge today has spent decades studying leadership. He has unpicked the science behind what makes one leader better than another. His studies reveal the secrets to good leadership. Secrets like this.
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If I want to get a great deal in a negotiation and really anchor the negotiation ambitiously in my favor, the single best thing I can do is not present one offer, but two offers.
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Today on Nudge, he shares five science backed tips to become a better leader. All of that coming up now. Chances are you're listening to this ad while doing something else. Maybe a couple of other things, maybe three other things. Unfortunately, this is the bane of podcasters like me. We have to repeat points because many listeners don't pay full attention when they're listening. There's a bit of evidence that suggests people only pay attention to 70% of what you say, but that is just us podcasters. Now imagine only listening to 20%. Now that would be ridiculous. And yet most businesses do exactly this with their data. They miss 80%. The emails, the calls, the chats, all of these data points just float into the digital abyss. HubSpot, however, pulls that data together so you can actually learn from it. It helps you see the data you miss because the more you know, the more you grow. Get the full picture@HubSpot.com I'm very happy to share that today I'll be joined again on Nudge by the brilliant Adam Galinsky.
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My name is Adam Galinsky. I'm a professor at Columbia Business School, and I wrote a book called the Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others.
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The book is packed with evidence backed advice for leaders. And on today's show, we're sharing five of his best tips. To start. Adam shared that the type of contract you give your employee might change how they perform.
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There's always this tension between feeling suffocated and feeling unsupported. Right. Feeling like chaos versus feeling bound. Right. And so what's the type? Right. Type of language. And so what we did in these projects with Eileen Chao was we just asked like, you know, what's the value of a contract and the details of that contract. Right. And so, you know, one of the things that really got her interested in it was like there was a, you know, 500 page, I think, or whatever, huge number of pages of defense contract with like a caterer. And it specified the precise number of chocolate chips that had to be in every cookie. You know, just absurd. And so we actually hired real workers to do real work and we can measure precisely sort of their engagement, motivation and productivity. And we, we have three conditions. We have sort of a no contract condition. We don't really give them a lot of the contours of what we expect. We have what we might call a very specific contract which tells them, like the exact number of widgets. We expect them, you know, to, to move the amount of time. And then we have what we call sort of a contract, but it's a little bit more general. It doesn't have qu.
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So one group of workers got no contract. They were simply told their hourly pay. That's the control. A second group received a very detailed contract. It specified that they needed to work for exactly 120 minutes. And a third group got a much more general contract with similar information, but much less precision. For example, it would say you need to work for around two hours.
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Well, those are both two hours. But somehow the 120 minutes feels like a little bit more controlling, a little bit more autonomy, reducing.
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The only real difference between the two contracts was how specific they were. And yet that small change had a big effect on how people behaved. Adam writes how in his study, workers who received the general contract persisted for much longer and performed much better than other workers who received detailed contracts like the specific one or no contract at all. General contract workers spent almost twice as long working compared to those who received the very specific contract. And here's why.
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We basically want structure with autonomy, I guess is the best way of saying that, you know, and, or I think we actually call them the Goldilocks contracts, right? The synergistic benefits of helping people feel autonomous but still giving them guidance. And so I think that's, you know, a great example. We all suffer from reactance when people put too much control over us and we try to fight to get the autonomy, but at the same time, you know, we want to be able to have some control over that.
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So it's a simple piece of don't give extremely specific instructions to workers. Sherry Wu of the University of California at Los Angeles has conducted numerous field studies to back this finding up. In one of her experiments cited in Adam's book, she went into an organization and randomly assigned different work groups. One group was just the baseline group and the other was called the high involvement group. The difference between the two groups was how they ran their weekly meeting. In the baseline condition, the leaders ran their 20 minute weekly meetings just as they had done done before. That was the control. But in the high involvement condition, the supervisor was instructed to step aside and let the workers lead the discussion about goals, challenges and new ideas. It turns out that high involvement group, whether the supervisor steps aside, it led to a much better performance. Those 20 minute weekly meetings boosted productivity, increased satisfaction, and reduced quitting. It showed that leaders shouldn't micromanage, they should give employees autonomy. This is not only important for management, but according to Adam, it's important for negotiations as well.
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And I think one area where this really, I think has been executed in a way that is really self beneficial is in negotiations. So one of the projects that I worked on and one of my favorite projects I worked on for a long time, we wanted to get it exactly right. This project, dozens of studies we did over the years, basically showed that if I want to get a great deal in a negotiation and really anchor the negotiation ambitiously in my favor, the single best thing I can do is not present one offer, but two offers to someone. And the simplest version I like to use is just, you know, a car salesperson. A car salesperson. I can sell you this car at $26,000 with a 5 year warranty or $25,000 and a 3 year warranty.
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So participants are offered a car at 26k with a 5 year warranty or a car at 25k with a 3 year warranty. Adam says this type of offer is easy to do in a negotiation. The person offering isn't losing anything by offering this choice.
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And we call these multiple equivalent simultaneous offers. So there's more than one offer, they're delivered simultaneously, but the key feature is they're equal to me. Like I don't care which one you take. Because what I've signaled there is each year Warranty is worth $500 for me.
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And yet Galansky and his research partner Leonard Deli, found that simply offering a choice dramatically changed the negotiation.
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And what was shown, I mean, repeatedly. I don't think we've ever had a study that didn't work using this manipulation that the person who makes those offers gets a better outcome. And what's really cool about this is two features of it which I think are really important. First is it's more beneficial the more ambitious you try to be. So we actually manipulated. So this is, you know, good offer for me or it's a great offer for me. And the benefit of making the two offers is higher when it's a great offer for me. The second thing that we've shown in our research is that it's not true in every case, but I'd say about 80% of the cases is when I give you two offers, you, you don't do any Worse, I do better. But you don't do worse.
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In his book, Adam writes how multiple equivalent simultaneous offers make the counterpart more motivated to reach an agreement. It increases the probability that one of the offers will meet the counterpart's needs and it increases the value of the negotiation for the seller. Or to put it a bit more simply, giving two offers will help the car salesman sell the car for more than if they gave them no choice at all.
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And the reason why it works is because, and this is where we really wanted to document what is the precise psychological process that people are going through when they get it. People think, not that I care about you, but they think, I want to reach an agreement today. I sincerely want to reach an agreement. There's a, there's an idea that, there's a sincerity to it. It's not that they love me, you know, it's like, I get that you're trying to get a deal, but, but you're here to make a deal, right? You're here, you sincerely want to make sure that a deal gets done. And so that means that you're going to have to, you know, accommodate me a little bit. And happens is, and this is, I think that the kicker is people you walk out of, I've given you the two offers, you walk out of the negotiation more satisfied. And satisfaction, this is one of the most, I think, underappreciated elements of a negotiation is how satisfied you walk out of that negotiation determines so much. Are you going to implement the deal? Are you going to negotiate with me in the future? Are you going to give me a good deal in the future? All of these things matter. And so this is such an easy, easy, easy example.
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Offering a choice in a negotiation will get you a better deal. Adam's run studies to prove this, but he reckons most parents know this intuitively.
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My niece Fiona would never get dressed and she would just bicker and fight with her. But she was 4 years old at the time. And finally I was talking about the study and my sister in law used that idea from my negotiation study with her daughter and said, instead of saying I want you to get dressed, she'd say, okay, this shirt or this shirt? And the daughter said, okay, I want that shirt. Okay, this pant or this pant. Okay, I'll take that pant. And now it was like she was giving her choices at each step of the process, you know, and that really helped a lot.
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Giving people autonomy is a major part of leadership. And this doesn't just dictate the offers you give in negotiations or the contracts you write. It can also inspire how you speak to your staff. In fact, Adam says managers shouldn't give orders without input. Instead, managers should ask their staff for advice.
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First thing is that there's something very powerful about asking for someone advice is because when you go to ask someone for advice, you're basically signaling two things simultaneously. You're signaling, I respect you, that your opinion matters to me. And it also shows that I'm humble and I'm open to feedback. So when a leader asks a subordinate for advice, it's. It's like giving Popeye spinach, right? It's making people be filled with a sense I can. I can do anything.
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And Adam ran a study in 2007 with Katie Liljenquist to prove just this. They found that asking for advice made those who were asked more loyal supporters. It's not the only study on advice, too.
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And so I've been studying this for a few years. But a former postdoc from Columbia who got her PhD at Harvard, Ariella Crystal, she's done a brilliant study that just came out in management science this year. I just love it so much. They did these huge studies with, like, companies where people either ask for feedback or they ask for advice. And they got much better feedback when they asked for advice.
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Across two studies, the researchers asked 806 people for either advice or feedback. When they asked for advice, they got more concrete and actionable development inputs, which was rated by an independent group of jurors as better quality than the suggestions made by those who had asked for feedback. Here's why.
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When you ask for feedback, people are only looking at your past behavior. But when you're asking for advice, they're looking to the future. So they're giving you much more, kind of less condemning statements on the one hand, but also more actionable statements on the other.
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Asking for advice really does seem to be one of those small tactics that can make for a better leader.
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I was with a group recently, and I mentioned this thing, and the guy's like, someone raised their hand and said, 26 years ago, a CEO asked me for advice. And I still remember that moment when he asked me for advice. There's no one else in the room. So it wasn't like I was getting status from other people. It was just that the CEO cared about my opinion at that moment in time. And I don't think I'd ever felt so empowered or competent in that moment.
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And here's another tip for leaders. When you make an offer to someone, don't call it an offer, call it a request.
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There's a huge difference. And this gets back to again, the Eileen Chow study and this idea of control. But if I say I want your earphones for my trinket, it's very different. Say, hey, I'd like to give you my trinket for your earphones. And so one case I'm telling you what I'm going to take from you, right? And that puts us in this sort of loss aversion frame versus I'm going to give you something. And it changes the very nature of it. And so we showed in a huge number of studies that again, just that simple change of your X for my Y is worse than I'm going to give you my Y for your x.
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In this 2020 study, Adam and his research partner Johann Meyer recruited participants to take part in a negotiation relating to the sale of stocks. Half were in the request condition. They were asked to say I am requesting X amount of dollars for X amount of stocks. So $10 for 10 stocks, whatever it might have been. In the other condition, the negotiators were put in an offer condition. They were asked to say I'm offering 10 stocks for $10 or X amount of stocks for X amount of dollars. The researchers didn't ask the participants to make any other changes. They just negotiated as normal. They just changed whether they said offer or request. So does this tiny change alter the outcomes? Well, yes it does. In the experiment, sellers who presented an offer earned 100% more than the sellers presenting a request.
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And we show that it made people more open, their counteroffers were less aggressive and the person gets a better outcome.
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We've had four tips from Adam so far. Number one, don't micromanage, keep 20 minute meetings open and don't be too specific in your contracts. Number two, give multiple options in a negotiation. Number three, ask for advice. And number four, make a request, not an offer. However, Adam had one final bit of advice and it's from one of his favorite papers and you can hear about that after the break. The podcast My First Million is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals, and it's the podcast I'd recommend today. My First Million explains how successful entrepreneurs made their first million and how you can apply their learnings to capitalize on today's business trends and opportunities. There are many fantastic episodes, but the one I really enjoyed was with the Will Ghidara Gidarra's book is one of my favourite books. It explains how Will applied behavioral science to create a three star Michelin restaurant. It's a fantastic book and it really made for a fantastic episode. So if you want something to listen to after this, go and listen to my first million wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back to Nudge with me, Phil Agnew. We've just heard Adam's four top leadership tips. Here's his final one and it's from one of his favourite papers.
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This study is one of my favorite papers ever worked on. It's got so many amazing studies in it, but it's really two parts. The first part of the paper is we manipulate what we call status insecurity. So do we make people feel secure in their standing, the world or insecure? Right. So you could imagine like a consulting associate who's, you know, feeling insecure about whether they're going to get partner. Right? A professor, you know, worried about whether they're going to get tenure or going to get a job. And so the question is, when we get to a moment where let's say we give a presentation, we do a great job, do we highlight our own efforts or do we acknowledge the contributions of others? And what we found in this research and just study after study is we showed that people are more likely to just talk about themselves when they're feeling insecure. And I think what's going on in their minds is they're thinking, oh my God, like status is zero sum. I need to highlight my own contributions. People are going to give me the status that I want. And like, you know, as just one know little study that we did is we asked people think about time at work where they felt insecure in their status or secure in their status. And then we said, imagine you get a promotion at work, just write your LinkedIn post, you know, your tweet, whatever it is. And we coded for did they say I did it, I've worked so hard for the last five years and I finally got this promotion. Or did they say, you know, I'm so, you know, happy I got this promotion, you know, I feel so grateful, you know, to my team that really supported me along, you know, are they acknowledging other people? And we showed that simply having them think about a time when they were insecure at work made them more self focused, made them less likely to acknowledge other people.
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In this 2025 paper, Marinhoff and Adam shared how when people recall a time where they felt insecure, only 39% of them acknowledged others in this social media post. In contrast, when they were randomly assigned to recall a time when they felt secure at work. The majority, so 53%, shared credit. By acknowledging the contributions of others, it seems that insecurity turned people into credit hoarders. Sharing credit seems to be linked with.
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Status, because what we show in our later studies is that when people acknowledge the contributions of others, they're actually more likely to not only give that person status, but they actually gain status themselves. We like people that acknowledge the contributions of others. Like, we respect that. Maybe it's signaling a level of security. Like, people know maybe intuitively that there's this relationship between insecurity and selfishness, and they're basically acknowledging that. And so I think there's something incredibly powerful that when you just take a second to acknowledge others, you're not hurting your own status, you're expanding it. And our last study in the paper, we had two people making a final entrepreneurial pitch before, let's say, an investing committee. And. And we manipulated whether one of the competitors acknowledged how the other competitor helped them. And the effect was much, much smaller, but it was still significant. The person who said, you know, I want to thank Phil for, you know, everything that you know, Phil really helped me think about my idea. The person was more likely to be chosen to be funded than. Than if they didn't acknowledge their competitor.
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Sharing credit doesn't divide status, it multiplies it. Acknowledging others makes you look more competent, likable, and powerful. The best leaders do this time and time again. They take time to acknowledge others. It's a simple bit of advice that can make you a better leader. Share credit. Make a request, not an offer. Ask for advice. Give more than one option in a negotiation, and give staff autonomy. But Adam and I didn't stop there. We went on to chat about Adam's most cited paper, the difference between power and status. How recalling moments of power can help us prepare for a big meeting and much, much more. It's really interesting, and it is all in our bonus episode. So if you've enjoyed today's show and you want more from me and Adam, all you have to do is go and download the bonus episode. To do that, just click the link in the show notes, enter your email address, and you'll be taken straight to the bonus episode. You have to find that link in the show notes, though, so go and look for that. If you're already a nudge newsletter subscriber, then you don't have to do any of that because you already have the link to the bonus episod. Just click the link in the PS of today's announcement email, and you'll find it there. So for the bonus episode, go to the Show Notes, click the link, enter your email, and you'll be taken straight to the episode. I've loved recording with Adam. He's a genius. His book is fantastic. And if you want to learn a little bit more about the book, here's Adam sharing what it's all about.
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It basically covers, you know, my 30 years of research, looking at or what are the essential features of being a person that inspires others. And I think one of the things that is really central to the book is really not just understanding who the inspiring leader is, but also its contrast, the infuriating leader. And through that sort of comparative process, what it means to infuriate others versus inspire others. We got to understand some universal principles that anyone could use.
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I've left a link to pick up the book in the show notes, so head there to check it out. That is all for me, folks. I've been your host, Phil Agnew, and I'll be back next Monday for another episode of Nudge. And I do hope some of you go and listen to that bonus episode because it's a good one. All right, cheers. See you next Monday.