← The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
465. The Leadership Amplification Effect with Adam Galinsky
00:49:55
In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, Melina Palmer welcomes Dr. Adam Galinsky, author of the new book Inspire. Adam, a professor at Columbia Business School, shares insights from his extensive research on leadership, negotiation, and...
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- [00:00]
Melina Palmer
Welcome to episode 465 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Adam Galinsky, author of Inspire. Ready? Let's get started.
- [00:20]
You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.
- [00:36]
Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Take a moment and think about a really inspiring leader. How did they make you feel? What did they do and say that was so inspiring? Now take a moment and think about an infuriating leader, that person who absolutely.
- [00:58]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
Made your blood boil.
- [01:00]
Melina Palmer
How did they make you feel? What did they do and say that was so infuriating? Keep those things in mind as you listen to the conversation. Today, my guest, Dr. Adam Galinsky, is here to talk about his new book, the Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others. Adam has asked those same questions to thousands of people around the world and has found that what people find to be inspiring and infuriating are universal. There's nothing he's heard from the people he's asked on every continent that doesn't match what everyone else on earth is saying is either inspiring or infuriating. And even more amazing, they exist on a continuum. So the opposite essentially of an inspiring leader is an infuriating one. And you can move between both spots on that continuum at any time. What does that mean for you? Your bosses, direct reports, kids, family and the like. We will be digging into that and more on today's episode. A little bit about Adam before we jump in. He is the Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and professor of Leadership and Ethics at the Columbia Business School. He has published more than 300 scientific articles, chapters and teaching cases in the fields of management and social psychology. His research and teaching focus on leadership negotiation, diversity, decision making and ethics. He co authored the best selling book Friend and Foe, which received uniformly positive reviews from the New York Times, Financial Times and Economist. And his TED talk, How to Speak up for Yourself is one of the most popular of all time with over 7.4 million views. His research has received numerous national and international awards from the scientific community. And he's consulted with and conducted executive workshops with hundreds of clients across the globe, including Fortune 100 firms, nonprofits, and local and national governments. Really quickly, before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show, notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch with Adam and myself and more. It's all within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 465 now let's jump right in. Dr. Adam Galinsky, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.
- [03:26]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
Thank you so much for having me.
- [03:28]
I'm delighted. So excited. Feel inspired already. For everyone who doesn't yet know you, can you share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?
- [03:40]
I'm a social scientist. I teach at Columbia Business School. I've been studying and researching and teaching about leadership for over two decades. And I love doing research and I love sharing my insights with others.
- [03:55]
Awesome. And I love the way that it's come together in your new book, which we're going to be talking about today.
- [04:02]
Melina Palmer
And congrats on its release as it's.
- [04:04]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
Out in the world as of the time that this will be, you know, that we're airing the episode at least for people to hear about. Can you share a little bit about what brought the book to fruition? You know, what's it about? Why did you feel the need to write this one?
- [04:20]
Yeah, this book Inspire is really my heart and soul. It's sort of what I've been teaching and researching, like I said, for over two decades. And it's really, at some point about eight or nine years ago, I just realized that everything that I had been doing sort of was coming together into a certain framework. And as I developed that framework, I realized it would hopefully make a great book that would inspire others to be more inspiring.
- [04:49]
Yeah, definitely. I believe that it will. And I have so many notes making sure that I have them here as we go, starting at the beginning, I guess, as it's toward the front of the book here. Can you talk about the leader amplification effect?
- [05:08]
Sure. Absolutely. The leader amplification effect is a term that I coined. I first used a version of it in the New York Times in an article I wrote back in 2015. But it basically represents the fact that when we are in positions of leadership or people look up to us or we have some power of some sort, people are paying very close attention to everything that we do. We are essentially on a stage. And because we're on that stage, because people are pouring their attention onto us, everything that we do, all of our expressions, big and small, good and bad, get amplified and have a greater impact on other people. So something that might be sort of a constructive comment when we're not a leader can become humiliating criticism when it comes from the lips of a leader or someone that we look up to. But it's not all bad news, Right? So an offhand compliment can become glorious praise when it comes from someone that we're paying close attention to.
- [06:13]
Melina Palmer
Yeah.
- [06:14]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
And so you have a story in the book with Daniel Kahneman, which I know that we all can be jealous for the time that you got to spend learning from him. Can you share a little bit about the.
- [06:30]
Sure, yeah. It was my first, first day as a PhD student. It was 1993, so remarkably over 30 years ago, I can't believe it. But it was my first class ever. There was 11 of us, so 10 other students in the Princeton psychology cohort of first year PhD students. It was the first day of class. I raised my hand. I had something I thought was insightful. I was eager to prove that I belonged. And Danny did four things that I still remember 30 years later. He crossed his arms, he shook his head, he scrunched up his face, and it's almost like he spit it out. He said, that's not right at all. And what I found most remarkable about that moment was how inconsequential that was to Danny. He kind of moved on and the rest of the class moved on, but I was just frozen in place. I was mortified. And it took me weeks and weeks before I could speak in any class, let alone Danny's class. But about six weeks into the semester, Danny was walking down the hallway and he, very casually, offhand, almost over his shoulder, said, hey, Adam, I love reading your reflection papers. You're a great writer. And then he just sort of turned the corner and this offhand compliment just filled me with such a level of joy that I literally kind of skipped and galloped down the hallway and ran to go tell someone this, this amazing news. And, you know, it's funny is Danny doesn't remember any of this, right? You know, like, you know, I, when I first wrote about it in the New York Times, and he sent me an email, he said, you know, it's only recently I discovered what a monster I am, you know, and, you know, when he started his own kind of little consulting company or business and he had real employees, they talked about how, you know, he was so extreme in his expressions, sometimes effusive in his praise, you know, but other times, you know, so condemning in his criticism that it was just having this incredible impact on people. And so that's sort of when I first sort of got an inkling of this idea that. That what we say when we are in this revered position has such a deep, deep impact.
- [08:42]
Definitely. And I think it's just key for people. I. The first time I heard someone talk about this, and one that really resonated with me, I really. So someone gave me the book Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott pretty early in my career. And I love the way that she talks about is to know. So every interaction you have is going to either leave an aftertaste and aftermath or an afterglow. And as you like, move up in an organization, you know those little facial expressions like, you just have to be more aware as you have more influence. Right. And that as people look up to you and where you were a peer or something, as you, you know, when you're the CEO or you're an influencer of some kind or thought leader, it can have so much more impact than it did. I know you. You talk in the book about someone, you know, had mentioned to you that they really missed the days before they became. I think it's the dean that they weren't able. They can't joke around anymore. Right. And you know, you have to, you know, there's points you have to pay attention to on that because whether you like it or not, the, the you have more. It's like that gravitas, but you can't. So you need to be aware on the downside of it that those. I am one of a very. I have a very expressive face as well, so I have to be thoughtful to that. But, you know, when you're excited, just, you know, sharing that joy greatly. I love. And you know, we're going later into.
- [10:22]
Melina Palmer
The book with this.
- [10:23]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
I like to jump around. But the, you know, you're talking about that praise and how it feels like if you're giving credit to people, the pie is only so big is how it feels.
- [10:37]
Melina Palmer
I'm delighted to hear that that's not the case.
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Dr. Adam Galinsky
Can you share a little bit about, you know, just like supporting others and, you know, how we can don't feel hindered by, you know, giving out compliments, essentially.
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Yeah. I mean, I think there's two things I'll say about that. The first one is that like in negotiations. I've studied negotiations also for over 30 years. You know, we talk that there's often this belief, right. That the pie is limited. People call it the fixed pie belief. And that really inhibits negotiators from evil from being able to. To make creative integrative agreements. Right. That really expand the pie and I've sort of applied that same concept to status. So I call it expanding the status pie. And a lot of people think that, like, the amount of status or respect that people can have in a group is competitive, is limited, that if I give other people credit, I'm going to give them status and lose status myself. And what I've shown with a doctoral student, Marin Hoff here at Columbia, who just yesterday found out she got a job offer from Harvard Business School, which is amazing, but we basically showed that the fixed status pie is, or we call it zero sum status thinking is wrong. And actually, when we acknowledge the contributions of others to our success, we do raise their status 100%, but we also raise our own status. And in our last study, in this amazing paper that we wrote, we really put it to the most extreme conservative test. We had two people competing as entrepreneurs in a venture capital competition. And it was a scenario that people read, but one of the competitors acknowledged the other competitor and how they had helped them. And you're like, okay, here we should definitely see that status as a fixed pie, zero sum. And it still wasn't the case. The effect, of course, was smaller when you acknowledged the contributions of your direct competitor's success, but you still were more likely to be selected as the winner than if you hadn't acknowledged the other side. And so that just shows sort of how powerful it is to acknowledge other people. Now, the second thing goes back exactly what we were just talking about with Danny Kahneman, which is not only is the pie not zero sum, but when we're a leader and we build off the idea of another person, we acknowledge something that they said that was really instrumental. We tell them what a great job they did presenting in front of a client. That positive effect is amplified and has a deeper impact. That afterglow grows, if you will. And so, you know, as leaders, we miss such profound opportunities to really enhance the lives of others when we are stingy with our compliments. Just related to that, I've done research for 20 years on the psychological effects of having versus lacking power. And one of the things that I've shown in my research is that power makes people more self focused. And two of my doctoral students went and published a paper extending this research showing that powerful people are less likely to express gratitude towards others. So now we can see this incredible enigma. A paradox, right? The powerful are less likely to express gratitude or acknowledge others, but when they do, it has such an unbelievably powerful and positive effect. And so that's just, you know, Leaving value on the table to again, use a negotiation term when we don't actively look for ways to lift and elevate others up with acknowledging. Now, I tell people, you want to be specific and you want to be honest. So you don't want to give people false praise, but you should look for the opportunity to give that specific, you know, accurate praise. And you will just, you know, grow the pie, the generosity pie.
- [14:47]
Definitely. I. I love all of that. And I, you know, reciprocity, generosity. I think this, you know, central point throughout as we look at this continuum. So we've got, you know, of course, we're inspirational on one side, we're something.
- [15:06]
Melina Palmer
Else on the other.
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Dr. Adam Galinsky
I will let you. I won't give that away. And I love where you talked about the, you know, the discovery of these questions that you ask different. So however you choose to tell that story, I think that whole discovery of this continuum and the points on it, I would love if you can share a little bit about that.
- [15:26]
Sure, yeah. You know, the story begins a little bit with the death of my father. So my father passed away suddenly. He was hit by a car and killed walking to a basketball game at University of North Carolina. And I had just landed in Los Angeles, going to a social psych conference out there. And, you know, I was devastated. And, you know, I got this, heard this at midnight. And the one saving grace was my. My aunt lived. My dad's only sibling lived in Los Angeles. And, you know, I went to her house at like one in the morning, and, you know, we embraced in sorrow and comfort. And I still remember, I plaintively said to her, I can't believe I've lost my dad. And she said, who have all lost a dad? I was his big sister, but he was my dad. And that phrase just stuck with me in the days that followed. And given the suddenness of my dad's passing and given he was also a professor at the university, we were going to have a memorial service for him about six weeks later, sort of after he passed away. But in the interim, I was teaching for the FBI through a program at Northwestern. I would teach about two or three times a year, a group of 60 FBI agents, a new group every time. And we had hundreds of FBI agents go through this program. And during that period in between my dad's passing, in the memorial service, one of the FBI agents just started talking about a leader that inspired them and really about their decision making. And the class was on how to be an effective decision maker. And it was just so I could see it like, kind of the opposite of Danny Kahneman before. I talked about the transformation and his face scrunching up and crossing his arms. Like, this guy. His eyes lit up like, he just had this expression of awe on his face. He was, like, leaning towards me. His body was expanding, and it was just so remarkable. And so I actually ended up turning to the rest of the FBI agents and I just said, hey, do. Do any of you have someone that inspired you? And everyone started talking about a leader that inspired them. And so that was, you know, back in 2006. And from that moment on, I literally changed the way I did all of my teaching. I started every class by asking people to tell me about a leader that inspired them. And then the next time I taught the FBI, someone was basically recalcitrant, resistant to talking about leader that inspired them and sort of suggested that they had only had leaders that really enraged them, or what I might call infuriated them, like creating this seething cauldron of rage and resentment. And then it turned up. Everyone, all the FBI agents could, you know, recall someone that infuriated them. And I think what's really. So I've asked thousands of people across the globe, on every continent, tell me about a leader that inspired you. Tell me about a leader that infuriated you. And I've developed an understanding and a model about what it means to be inspiring and what it means to be infuriating. But, you know, given that, you know, this is the brainy business podcast and about social science, I think one of the reasons why that comparison of being inspiring, of having inspiring leader, and thinking about inferior leader is so powerful, is it goes back to all this research on. On analogical reasoning. And there's all this, you know, data out there that when we make comparative analysis, we learn principles much more deeply than we do single analysis. Some of the famous work that was done, you give people sort of a creative problem, they solve it, or you give them a second creative problem, they solve it. Or instead of giving them separately, give them together and say, can you come up with, like, a principle that applies to both of them? And people show that, then two weeks later, they're much more able to apply that principle effectively when they came in the comparative analysis. So for me, what really struck me very, very quickly, I mean, it was within, you know, a couple times doing this, that every single characteristic that someone mentioned as inspiring, the opposite of that, was mentioned by someone as infuriating, right? So someone, you know, inspiring leader empowered me. They trusted me. You know, the inferiority leader micromanaged me, right? Going back to credit, right? You know, the inspiring leader, you know, acknowledged my efforts and shared credit with me. You know, the inferiority leader stole credit and put all the blame and responsibility on me. You know, inspiring leader, you know, saw the big picture and was able to communicate it. You know, the inferiority leader, you know, never communicated at all or, you know, was lost in the weeds, you know, and so you could start to see all of these different features coming up. What I discovered over time was three, I think, really critical insights about human nature and about leadership more broadly. The first is that the inspiring and infuriating leaders basically exist on a continuum that's made up of three universal factors. The second big insight is those three universal factors are universal because each of them satisfy a fundamental, driving human need that we all have. So the three factors, one is visionary, how we see the world. And that is really satisfies the human need for meaning and understanding. There is being an exemplar desired behavior, how we are in the world. And that one really satisfies the human need for, like, protection and energy and passion. And then the third one is being a mentor, and that's how we interact in the world. And that really satisfies the fundamental human need for a sense of belonging and status. And then the third and final insight, which I think is maybe the most important insight of all, is that because there is a universal set of characteristics, the same ones exist in every single country in the world. There's not a single characteristic that's mentioned in one country, that's not mentioned in every country, because there is that systematic, scientifically established set of characteristics. It means that leaders aren't born, that leaders are made, that we can learn to be inspiring. We can identify those characteristics and we can study them, we can practice them, we can develop them, we can nurture them. And we become, by committing to those, become more inspiring tomorrow than we were today.
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Thank you for sharing all of that. And it's such a. It's amazing how you've been able to dedicate the time to boil it down to, like you said, finding the continuum, having those, you know, thousands of conversations with so many people and being able to see. I can only imagine what it's like as you start realizing it's like people keep saying the same thing, and it. It's fitting, you know, as it's working together, you know, that these, you know, these go together and they. They fall into these really great categories, which is super cool, would be, you know, interesting to like look back, you know, not like fly on the wall. I can see the like time lapse video of you going through the, over the years of figuring that out. I think it's be really cool to see for someone who's listening now.
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Melina Palmer
Right.
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Dr. Adam Galinsky
So the point being like you as a leader are not set in one spot or the other. So one, if you are, maybe you've been infuriating to some people sometimes like you're not stuck, right. You have an option to move forward. And also if you, just because you've been a good inspiring leader doesn't mean that you will always be that way. And so there, you know, it's a continual practice, right.
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Melina Palmer
As you, as you move forward, do.
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Dr. Adam Galinsky
You have advice for people to self diagnose where, where they are and how often we should be reevaluating our.
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Yeah, it's a great question. I mean I think that, you know, one of the things that I've, I sort of developed since I wrote the book and in talking to people is really sort of thinking about what's the best way to move forward, right in this thing. And I come up with an acronym that I call it Reap what you sow. And reap what you sow, you might know is from the Bible, from the King James Version. And it kind of has two separate meanings that I think are equally important. The first is sort of like what we do today has consequences for tomorrow. But the second one I think is equally important is those consequences come back to you. Right. And so you used the word reciprocity before or you know, reciprocal. And so like if we act inspiring towards others, we're going to receive more inspiring behavior back to us. But when we infuriate others, we're going to be, we're going to reap what we sow and we're going to get conflict and discord and resentment in place. Now reap. The original word is re A P. But my acronym is reip and it starts with reflection. And so kind of getting back to your question, I tell people once a month, reflect on times when you were inspiring and maybe when you were infuriating and think about like what were the contexts when those occurred. So that can help you sort of develop better context and better habits. The second thing I say is once a month really think about the people in your own life that have inspired you and think about what was it about their behavior that inspired you and can you emulate that? And then I say take those reflections and those emulations and turn them into a Definable intention, a kind of a small commitment. Like for example, to be more visionary, I am going to simplify my messages. Right. To be a better exemplar. I'm going to, when things are uncomfortable, I'm going to courageously be there, you know, to be a better mentor. I'm going to look for those times to share credit with others. Right. And then if you can take those reflections and emulations and turn them into intentions and then just think about how you might develop them as what you might call a daily practice. So P is really practice. So it's reflect, emulate, intend and practice. And if we do that, I think we will reap what we sow. We will sow the seeds of inspiration so that other people will have better lives and the people around them have better lives. But we're going to also receive back ourselves and we're going to have better lives even beyond our own behavior.
- [26:32]
I love that and I really like, like you're saying, tends to be. When we hear that reap what you sow, it feels very ominous. Is sort of, I think the way that it gets presented these days at least. But knowing, you know, in the same, you know, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. And the next best time is right now, sort of. Right. Yeah. So go. You know, you can't get the fruits of anything if you're not planting and taking care of those seeds either.
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Melina Palmer
Right.
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Dr. Adam Galinsky
And I think there's vicious cycles and there's virtuous cycles. And I think sometimes I've been an expert witness in more than a dozen trials around defamation and damage to reputation. And there's a negativity bias in the world. That's why defamation is so damaging, is we pay so much attention to negative comments and it makes sense because we're trying to protect ourselves from downside risk. Right. Like as they say, getting eaten by a lion is, you know, you don't come back from that. Right. You know, and so, and so. But I think that we have to also resist that tendency to focus on the negative and find ways. And that is why I think being visionary, one of the central foundational elements is really this idea of optimism. Like how do you develop an optimistic view of the future?
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Oh, definitely. I talk about the, you know, vicious virtuous cycles all the time too. So we, we already bonded over, you know, before we were recording kindred spirits and all. Kind of like minded on so many things. So always delightful to see those little things popping up again and again. One of the things I really enjoyed that you talk about in the book that again, ties back to something that I talk about a lot is this need, you know, the problem that you're seeing or is, you know, the sort of like a symptom of what we have. There's usually something like further back that might be a really simple change that can be made that can really just alter everything. And I think the example that you give about the drop off with your kids is, is so key here in showing when we focus too much on the symptom, the solutions we may be putting forward are just not hitting it right. But when you take that time to look at it from a different perspective, it can change everything. Can you share about that example?
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Sure, yeah. You know, my boys in preschool were in a Montessori school. So they're in the same classroom. And then one of them is eventually starting first grade, the other's kindergarten at the school. And we. One of them's on the third floor and one of them's on the second floor. So the older kid is on the third floor, the younger kids on second floor. So naturally it would make sense to drop the younger kid off first. But as you can imagine, the younger kid also wants to have more contact with their parents and wants to, you know, doesn't want me to leave the classroom right away. And they both start class school at the same time. And so my older kid would get so frustrated, he would just be like, daddy, come on. Or Aiden, hurry up. And you could. And of course I would get frustrated. I'd be like, asher, be patient, you know. And then this was, you know, going on for about two weeks. And then at some point, we were walking to school one day and I had this sudden insight and I said to both of them, I said, hey, I have an idea. Why don't we all walk up to the third floor, drop Asher off first, and then we'll walk down and drop Aiden off. And they're like, okay. And so we did that. And so Asher got to. He's type A, you know, wants to be on time. He had to school on time, Would give me a big hug rather than storming off into the classroom, and then we'd go down. And then Aidan had as much time as he wanted with me. He could like, troll around and give me hugs and show me things and without anyone sort of saying, hurry up. And it was so powerful because my younger son, Aiden, his teacher, noticed it. Like literally after day three, she's like, wow, I really noticed the success of your New drop off schedule, like, because she could hear Asher really complaining. And I think it's such a powerful example of how a lot of times we focus on the person as a problem. Asher has a problem, he's impatient, he's got to learn patience. But he's also saying it's really important for me to be on time, dad, you know, and, you know, and I don't know, we could have gone weeks of, you know, months, you know, of doing this. And I just want to give just two other really quick examples of this because I think it's so powerful. One was I had a former PhD student who would, you know, I sat in the professor chair, he sat in the student chair and you know, would have our meetings and he'd just could not articulate himself. But I knew he was really smart. And one day I had an idea. I said, let's switch seats. Like, I just felt he was feeling intimidated being in this like, seat which is a little bit lower, you know, less nice, you know. So we switched seats. And I always, I joke, he, he became Muhammad Ali of, you know, research ideas. You know, just started becoming so much more eloquent in his speech simply by just being in a, in a different chair. And I have, I know a family whose kid was, you know, said, oh, he's got behavioral problems, he's got add, you should medicate him. And they switched him to new school and he became a model student. The question what changed? He went from being like, this kid needs to be drugged to this kid needs to be held up and elevated as, you know, a model student. And the primary difference, and this wasn't why they switched the schools, it was incidental, was the time of recess. So recess in the old school was like right before lunchtime. And so he was restless in the classroom and he just had so much pent up energy. And then in the new school, recess was like at 9 in the morning. So pretty quickly after school started, so he got all of his energy out. And you know, there's a lot of data that like little boys, you know, little kids in general, little boys especially have a lot of energy that they need to get out of their system. And if you don't give them those outlets, we can start judging them, we can start blaming them, we can say, you know, they're a problematic child. But we can also redesign and sometimes so simply, when does recess go? When does someone get dropped off? Where does someone sit? Like, these are very subtle changes that speak to the very heart of behavioral economics. Right? I call Them channels, you know, I know some people call them nudges, but it's like, how do we open up the right channel for whatever direction we want people to go in?
- [33:07]
Absolutely. And I love all those stories, and thank you for sharing them. I think, you know, as far as. For somebody that's listening right now, and they're, I'm guessing, inspired by what you were able to accomplish in those, you.
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Melina Palmer
Know, the two scenarios, and then to.
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Dr. Adam Galinsky
Be able to observe the difference with.
- [33:23]
Melina Palmer
The recess and whatnot for the.
- [33:25]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
For the other child, you know, what advice do you have if you look back to yourself? I guess, if you think about, you know, is it that you spend a lot of time just even, like, reflecting on what might be going on to, like, how do you. How do you get to the root and decide, you know, let's try dropping, you know, this kid off first, or let's switch the seats around. Like, how do you think about those things? And did you try anything else first? Like, have you tried anything that didn't work? And then you kind of just sort of like, keep.
- [34:01]
Melina Palmer
Keep going?
- [34:01]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
Yeah, I mean, something. I can't think of anything right now. Something that didn't work. But. But I think part of it is just, you know, always, you know, observing and really sort of, you know, I think of. Of that one thing. You know, there's. I. I don't talk about this in book, but one of my, you know, favorite old studies, there's a couple different studies done in the 70s. One was done by a guy named John Barge, but they basically showed that when you randomly assign people to be a teacher and a student, and then you give them the same 20 minutes to learn the material, the person randomly assigned to be the teacher learns the material better. Because we're in this active mode of how am I going to communicate to someone else? And I think that when we think of ourselves as a leader, we become more observant of the world around us and not only how our behavior affects others, but how, like, different contexts and situations and systems are affecting them. And I'll give you sort of one example of this, of thinking about the leader amplification effect and changing the way that I did something is I. One of my core values is the Japanese word kaizen. My. My wife lived in Japan for a couple of years, and it means continued improvement. And so I'm always thinking of how I can do things better after every podcast and think, okay, how could I have told that story better? I always want to get better. And so, like, I'd have PhD students who'd give their first research talk ever. And in my mind, I'm just thinking, how can I make this better? Right? And so I would go up to them and say, oh, that was great. You know, here's three things you could do differently and you could just see. It was as if I literally had put a pin in their balloon and just burst their bubbles. This was an incredible accomplishment. Their first research talk in front of an audience, very stressful for them. And I was basically ruining the moment for them with my kaizen mentality. And it took me like 15 years to figure this out, by the way. So it wasn't like. But eventually I realized I never give any criticism the day of a talk. Like, I'm just like, that was great. I loved how you did X, Y and Z. And then the next day I'll say, oh, hey, I've been thinking about, here's three things you could do better the next time. And, like, let them celebrate the accomplishment in that moment. And there'll be a time later on where we can actually sit down and digest the talk and make it better. And that's just like, one example of, like, recognizing the impact I have and how with just this very small change, the timing of my constructive comments can make a big difference.
- [36:29]
One of the things, I'm so glad you brought that up. And I thought about this in going through the book and I'm glad you brought it up now. So I didn't forget to mention it. But what I think is so key about that adjustment as well. So one, we're not like popping the balloon at the first point, but I think also the pause and to say, you know, I've been thinking about you and right. Like that what that says about you and how you value them and how important you think. And even that moment where you say with, you know, Danny Kahneman and saying, hey, Adam, I love your papers, that you. You're a really great writer.
- [37:08]
Melina Palmer
Right?
- [37:09]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
That, like, I was so inspired by this thing that I continue to think about it and I care about you as a person. And so I wanted to share this. That like, moment of thoughtfulness and the gift that's in that I think has such a. A value add as well to where they then think, like, whoa, I need to step up because this person really cares and they see something in me. I think there's so much value in just that little delay, even if it wasn't a balloon popping moment. So even if you don't have something negative to say, I think there's value in, you know, I continue to think about this. You really inspired me, and I wanted to tell you something later on that, but. And that's some of that gratitude you talk about in book two.
- [37:50]
Well, it's also. I mean, this is why I love having conversations, because I've never framed it that way. And now, you know, I. I've always framed it as waiting a day prevents me from popping the balloon. But now you're reframing, saying waiting a day, and coming back to it also is sending a second signal, which is, you're important enough that I've thought about you in the last 24 hours. And that's also, like, it sends a different signal about it. And so I think that how we. Those little subtle things, right? You know, the makeup, the overall tapestry, and they really. They surprisingly make a difference, you know. And, you know, I. I talk in the book a little bit. I call it the parent amplification effect. Right. And, you know, so as parents, we also have the same effect on our kids. And. But I think one of the themes is both as a parent, as a leader, is that we actually don't know what behavior is going to have a positive impact on people and what behavior is going to have a negative impact on people. And so there could be an offhand comment we make that we never thought about, but 30 years later, it's still affecting someone. But there's also the chance that the positive effect could also have that. And so part of it is, like, you want to have a high portfolio, right. Of more positive behaviors than negative behaviors, because that just increases the probability that whatever impact you have is going to be positive.
- [39:18]
Oh, yeah, for sure. And, yeah, I think, yeah, parent amplification is real as well as we look at those points. And I love, you know, examples of those pieces you talk about. There's definitely more of everything in the book which people know, and it's very much worth picking up your copy of Inspire and reading all the things and taking it all in. So this, I think, is an opportunity of kind of this choose your own adventure moment. So I have a potential question, and if you have something else that you say, man, I wish I could talk about this. You can do that instead. And that's all.
- [39:54]
Melina Palmer
All good.
- [39:55]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
It's your show. You get to do what you want at this point. Right. So the question I would have is if people are looking at their kind of continuum, and if we're saying, hey, I'm not doing. I'm not sure where to start. I. I would like to work on any of these points. Maybe I want to be more visionary. I want to look at the mentoring piece if I was going to pick one, if I think I could do better in any of them. Is there a place that you think is best to start or. Not necessarily. And if you want to talk about something else, you can do that, too.
- [40:27]
I think it's a great question. I think that, you know, here's the thing is, is what we do also changes all the time. And what matters changes all the time. So, for example, one of the things that I've found in talking to leaders and what I mean by that is like CEOs, president, presidents of companies, is they really, really love the chapter on how to be more visionary, you know, and for them, that's what they. That's, you know, they're not interacting with the average, you know, employee on a daily basis, but their vision and their messaging is, is. Is what's really having an impact on people. You know, other times, you know, when you think about what it means to be a great mentor, like, you need to think about where you are, you know, in your world. And I guess the best way to think about it is what do people need from you? Remember, the inspiring infuriating continuum is this universal continuum is driven by the fact that leaders either satisfy or really undermine basic fundamental human needs. And so I guess one of the things that I would say is, you know, what do you need to be more of? Is asking the question, what do other people need me to be more of? Do they need my vision today? Do they need my courage? They need my passion? Do they need me to support them, trust them, challenge them, even, you know, and so part of it, again, is, you know, a core theme at the center of inspire is something I started studying in 1995. It was my dissertation. The title of my dissertation was Perspective Debiasing Social Thought. And really what sits at the heart of everything of this book is this idea of looking at the world from other people's perspectives, other people's vantage points. And there's a phrase that I use in the book that I really love. It's a phrase that I've used for a long time. Different people have different needs at different times. And so part of it is like, just because someone needed X yesterday doesn't mean they're going to need it today. And people grow and evolve and change, and what they need tomorrow is going to be different from what they needed yesterday. And so once we recognize that, we can calibrate ourselves more effectively and sometimes people need more of us and as they need less of us and really trying to, you know, figure that out. Let's, you know, I'm a father of a 7 year old and 8 year old boys and I'm, you know, constantly asking myself like, do they need more of me or less of me in this moment? Like what's going to help them grow and develop and be a thriving independent child?
- [43:15]
Oh, absolutely. I love that and I'm so glad you talked about that perspective piece. We don't have time to talk about it and it's so important as we look the examples in the book for, you know, the way that we just think about ourselves first and if we can do a little bit less of that and look to others, I think.
- [43:36]
Melina Palmer
That'S a really great place to start. So thank you for that advice for everyone.
- [43:41]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
So as everyone is now rushing out to get their copies of Inspire and are inspired to learn more from you and to follow or connect, you know, what's, what's their best path to do?
- [43:53]
So go to AdamGlinsky.com that's a great way to connect with me. LinkedIn. But yeah, I'm always, you know, love hearing stories, love hearing questions, love hearing ideas. I like I'm in the, I'm in the business of brainy business, I guess. Right.
- [44:13]
Love it. Well, we'll of course have links for the book and your website and your LinkedIn in the show notes for everyone. And, and just thank you again so much for joining me for the conversation and for your amazing work.
- [44:24]
Melina Palmer
It's been delightful to chat with you today.
- [44:26]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
Oh, thank you so much. This was amazing. I loved it.
- [44:29]
Melina Palmer
Thank you again to Dr. Adam Galinsky for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I think the top piece that has really struck with me is the leadership amplification effect. One of the most amazing things about this is, is when reading the book, Adam gives an example with a grad student that is eerily similar to an example I share in my book, what your employees need and can't tell you about an email I got from my boss. This experience is what inspired my burnt popcorn idea for communication and this message not wanting to come off as burnt popcorn because it can really linger. And in my example, I got an email from my boss at 10am on a Thursday that says we need to talk. Be in my office at 2. And then I get there and she wanted to let me know that I was going to be the name on her out of office responder because she was going to be out the next day. And so that's the example here. And I talk about reframing that burnt popcorn. And so I want to read this little excerpt from the book to show how similar it is. So he says, one morning the elevators opened at 9am and I saw a doctoral student, Gail, and said, gail, I need to talk to you. Come by my office at 3pm later that afternoon, I was surprised when Gail walked into my office in a fearful crouch. I was particularly perplexed because I just wanted to go over Gail's research materials with her. And I was extremely befuddled by what Gail did next. She slammed her fist on the table and shouted, never do that to me again. Never do what? I stammered, never ask to meet with me without telling me why. Do you know how much work I got done in the last six hours? Zero. All I could think of is, is Adam mad at me? Is someone else mad at me? Am I going to lose an important resource? At first I thought that Gail was just being neurotic. But the very next day I got an email from the most powerful person in my department saying she needed to talk with me. And I entered her office in the same fearful crouch as Gail. I emailed now this is back to.
- [46:29]
Dr. Adam Galinsky
So that's the part from the story of the book.
- [46:31]
Melina Palmer
So I Molina emailed Adam the excerpt from my book immediately after reading this because it was so similar. And I love the research he's done on the leadership amplification effect and how it applies to every bit of communication and helps support and give great study language to my burnt popcorn principle. One of the really interesting things is I actually had a generally very good relationship with that boss from my burnt popcorn story. Most of the time she was inspiring, but as you know, there were moments that were infuriating or terrifying. And that's why Adam's work is so important. And his discovery that inspiring and infuriating leaders exist on an enduring continuum that's made up of these three universal factors is so important. It teaches us that everyone has the potential to be inspiring. And of course, that we all have the potential to be infuriating as well. So you have to be putting in continual effort to stay on the right side of the continuum. The problem has always been that it felt like a bit of an enigma. What inspires one person might be infuriating to someone else or just blase. But knowing that the three dimensions of inspiring leaders are universal because each one fulfills a set of fundamental human needs is so useful, you now have a place to start to elevate yourself and others and look for opportunities to improve. As a reminder, those three universal factors are Visionary, which fulfills the human need for meaning and purpose Exemplar, which fulfills the human need for protection and passion, and Mentor, which fulfills the human need for support and status. Now where do you rank? What will you focus your attention on? First, to be a more inspiring leader and if you have someone in your life who you have found to be inspiring, come share it with me on LinkedIn. And of course tag them so they can know how much they have helped you. Remember freely giving out gratitude and sharing credit help you to be seen as a more inspiring leader as well. So wins all around. I can't wait to hear about all these next inspiring people and celebrate them with you. You'll find me as the Brainy Biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. As we close out the show, remember that those show notes include links to my top related past episodes and books, including Inspire, ways to get in touch with Adam and myself, and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 465 and thank you again to Dr. Adam Galinsky for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.
- [49:38]
Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.