0:00

We've all heard the

0:02

well-intended advice that having

0:04

interactions in person is always

0:06

best and that being as close

0:08

to perfect as possible is

0:10

ideal. Turns out, not always. In

0:13

this episode, how adapting to

0:15

the context of tough situations

0:17

can help you show up in a

0:19

way that's helpful for the other

0:22

party and you. This is Coaching

0:24

for Leaders, episode 727.

0:26

Produced by Innovate Learning.

0:28

Maximizing human potential.

0:31

Greetings to you from

0:33

Orange County, California. This is

0:35

Coaching for Leaders, and I'm

0:37

your host, Dave Stahofiak. Leaders

0:39

aren't born. They're made. And

0:41

this weekly show helps you

0:43

discover leadership wisdom through insightful

0:46

conversations. Most of us have

0:48

the goal in almost all

0:50

of our communications, our presentations,

0:52

how we show up in

0:54

meetings. to show up in

0:56

our most authentic and likable

0:58

way. It's a challenge to

1:00

do on a regular basis.

1:02

It's especially hard when the

1:04

situations are tough, when it's a

1:06

high visibility interaction, or maybe we're

1:08

delivering some difficult news. Today, how

1:10

we can do a better job

1:12

at being able to show up

1:14

in a way. that, yes, makes

1:17

sense for us, makes sense for

1:19

the people around us, also helps

1:21

the organization to continue to move

1:23

forward. I'm so pleased to welcome

1:25

today Andrew Brodsky. He is an

1:27

award-winning professor, management consultant, and virtual

1:29

communications expert at the McComb School

1:31

of Business at the University of

1:33

Texas at Austin. He is an

1:35

expert in workplace technology, communication,

1:38

and productivity, and serves as the

1:40

CEO of Ping Group, the

1:42

secrets of successful virtual communication.

1:44

Andrew, such a pleasure to have

1:46

you on. Thanks for having me

1:48

on the show. I was really captivated

1:50

by a story you tell in the

1:52

book, and I think many people will

1:55

probably remember it from a few

1:57

years ago, a story about a

1:59

CEO. who decided to make a

2:01

layoff announcement by video on Zoom.

2:03

And I'm wondering, for those who

2:05

didn't see this, although I think as

2:07

we get in this, a bunch

2:09

of people are going to recognize the

2:12

story because a lot of us

2:14

did see it. But for those

2:16

who didn't see it, I wonder if

2:18

you could set the stage of

2:20

just this interaction, what happened and

2:22

what turned out as a result. Sure.

2:24

So this was during. 2020,

2:27

2021, right during the COVID

2:29

lockdowns. The organization was better.

2:31

So better is this organization that

2:34

does mortgages for people. And

2:36

as you can imagine, during

2:38

the COVID housing boom in

2:41

2020, they were doing spectacularly.

2:43

They even called it the year

2:45

of the home. And they hired lots

2:48

and lots of people to

2:50

handle what amounted to over

2:52

$24 billion in mortgage originations.

2:54

But Everything that goes up must

2:57

come down at some point. And in

2:59

2021, mortgages took a big slowdown. The

3:01

market was really cooling off, and

3:03

they suddenly realized that they had way

3:05

too many employees with the amount of

3:08

profit that was now coming in. So

3:10

the CEO determined that it

3:12

was necessary to conduct a layoff.

3:14

And given it was the pandemic,

3:16

they couldn't just do this in person.

3:18

Not that laying off a large number

3:21

of people in person's ever a good

3:23

idea in the first place. So what

3:25

he did is he had 900 employees

3:27

join a video call. And in that

3:29

video call, the CEO announced the

3:32

layoff. It began well where the

3:34

CEO noted, you know, ultimately, it's

3:36

my decision and I wanted you

3:38

to hear it from me. So taking

3:41

personal responsibility for

3:43

it. But then the call did

3:46

not go so well. And the

3:48

parts that went viral involved, the

3:50

CEO noting, do not want to do

3:52

this. The last time I did it I

3:54

cried. This time I hope to be

3:56

stronger. On one hand, this is great

3:58

that we've got a leader. who's willing

4:00

to be vulnerable. On the

4:02

other side here, the CEO is getting

4:04

to keep his job. And he's talking

4:07

about how said it makes him to

4:09

have to lay off 900 employees who

4:11

are listening on this call. So as

4:13

you can imagine, many employees in

4:15

the call weren't pleased. They noted

4:18

the lack of humanity, how callus

4:20

it was, and this whole situation

4:22

ended up going viral as a

4:24

result. As I read about. This situation

4:27

again in the book, I thought back to when

4:29

I first saw this video on the

4:31

internet when it went viral and I

4:33

think I had a similar reaction to

4:35

most people that are like, wow, how

4:37

could someone be so tone deaf in

4:40

their interactions and how they presented this?

4:42

And as I reflected on it more

4:44

and thought about your work, I've changed

4:47

my mind a bit on it, not in

4:49

that it didn't land well because of course

4:51

it did not, but like how it could

4:53

have been me. and so many leaders that,

4:55

like you said, this person handled it

4:57

personally, they clearly didn't take it

4:59

lightly, they got on video, it's

5:01

not like they delegated to someone

5:03

else. There's so many places that

5:05

intentions here seemed really good, and yet

5:08

it went bad really quickly, doesn't it?

5:10

Yeah, there's many organizations like Meda

5:12

and Google that have done layoffs

5:14

via emails, and those went viral

5:16

on the other extreme, just due

5:18

to lack of caring. You know,

5:20

you've been with an organization for...

5:23

10 years and all you get

5:25

is an email. That really hurts.

5:27

The reason why this video layoff,

5:29

one of the reasons why it

5:31

went so badly, is that when

5:33

we're interacting virtually and via video,

5:36

we don't have the other people

5:38

standing right in front of us.

5:40

We're just looking at the

5:43

text of an email or during

5:45

a video call, just a small

5:47

square of the other person. that

5:49

we're interacting with. So it's so

5:51

easy to become self-focused. And that's

5:53

what happened here with the CEO.

5:55

He was talking about how much

5:57

it was hurting him to do

5:59

this. he was focused on himself,

6:01

whereas if the other people were

6:03

standing right in front of him

6:05

and he was taking their perspective

6:07

more, that might have been less likely

6:10

to happen. And then of course the

6:12

other issue we have here is that with

6:14

video, it wasn't as scripted. These things

6:16

could leak through here, things his

6:18

emotions he might not have displayed

6:20

over other modes. But again... Email

6:22

doesn't seem like the ideal solution

6:24

either because you create a situation

6:27

where it just doesn't seem like

6:29

you care if you're laying off

6:31

people be email. You write in

6:33

virtual interactions what feels authentic to

6:35

you may not seem authentic to

6:38

the person you're interacting with. Make

6:40

sure to pause to consider how

6:43

your communication choices and messages will

6:45

come off to others. As thinking

6:47

about that... those two lines and you

6:49

also said a key word a moment

6:51

ago you said leak and you do

6:53

talk about emotional and

6:56

nonverbal leakage as a challenge

6:58

that faces us especially in

7:00

tougher situations. Could you tell me

7:02

a bit more about that and what

7:05

is it about leakage that's that's

7:07

so troublesome? The thing

7:09

about authenticity in organizations

7:12

is that many times

7:14

we're being inauthentic, but for

7:16

good reasons. So, for instance, a co-worker

7:18

has something really good that happened. They

7:20

just got a promotion or maybe they

7:22

just got engaged, but that morning you

7:24

had a really awful commute, so you're

7:26

in a horrible mood. You don't want

7:29

to be authentic in that situation when

7:31

the co-worker tells you and be like,

7:33

that's nice for you, but I'm annoyed

7:35

at my commute this morning. That would

7:37

be really bad. Yeah. So we do

7:39

in many workplace interactions is we engage

7:41

in something called surface acting, which is

7:43

we pretend to have a different emotion,

7:46

and often cases it's for the

7:48

benefit of the other person you're

7:50

interacting with. If you're facing a customer,

7:52

this is often called service with a

7:54

smile. But we do this in a

7:57

lot of our internal interactions because it's

7:59

not great. to go to work with

8:01

all your emotional baggage, tell everyone

8:03

you had to fight with your

8:05

spouse, that's why you're unhappy, like,

8:08

you want to leave a lot

8:10

of that at the door for

8:12

good reason. And so what ends

8:14

up happening, unfortunately, in richer modes

8:16

of communication, so that's in person

8:18

or video, oftentimes our underlying emotions

8:21

can leak through. We do something

8:23

unintentional we don't mean. Maybe we

8:25

raise an eyebrow unintentionally or maybe

8:27

we accidentally grimace. And those emotions

8:29

can show through, which creates this

8:31

kind of virtual communication paradox, where

8:34

richer modes of communication seem more

8:36

authentic, but they risk exposing nonverbal

8:38

behaviors we might not have intended

8:40

to show. One of the pieces

8:42

of advice, like so many of

8:44

us have heard, and many organizations

8:46

have instituted, especially in virtual meetings,

8:49

is beyond camera, that that's the

8:51

best way to show up. And

8:53

you write. that if your goal

8:55

is to seem present, video is

8:57

generally going to be your best

8:59

choice. But when it comes to

9:02

authenticity, your goal may be less

9:04

straightforward. In terms of managing your

9:06

expressions and potentially leaking your underlying

9:08

emotions, there's a risk to using

9:10

video. And I'm guessing that same

9:12

risk shows up in person too

9:15

with what you just described. Like

9:17

I had a difficult time this

9:19

morning, all of a sudden I'm

9:21

in a different interaction. Sometimes those

9:23

things do come out, don't they?

9:25

Yeah, they can come out the

9:27

same in person as well. I

9:30

conducted a number of research studies

9:32

exactly on this topic to try

9:34

and figure out what is the

9:36

best mode of communication to use.

9:38

And I conducted these studies with

9:40

negotiators, with managers, and with actually

9:43

a set of 11 international schools

9:45

in Vietnam. And that was a

9:47

particularly interesting setting because you could

9:49

imagine if you're a teacher in

9:51

one of these very expensive private

9:53

schools, the parents are kind of

9:56

customers. But on the other side

9:58

of that, you've got children in

10:00

your class and not all of

10:02

them are doing well. So as

10:04

a teacher you could think of

10:06

the experience where you need to

10:08

tell a parent that their little

10:11

angel is failing your class and

10:13

is disruptive and this is like

10:15

a really good example of you

10:17

need to be positive but maybe

10:19

you're not feeling that. And what

10:21

I found in these studies were

10:24

three effects. First, if you're being

10:26

truly authentic, then the richest mode

10:28

possible. whether that's video, whether that's

10:30

in person, is best. You want

10:32

to let your authenticity shine through.

10:34

The second finding was that when

10:37

people are engaging in this kind

10:39

of service acting, where they're faking

10:41

it for the benefit of their

10:43

job or the benefit of the

10:45

person they're interacting with, they tend

10:47

to choose less rich modes of

10:50

communication, like email or text, because

10:52

it feels safest. But that is

10:54

the wrong choice. Email, text message,

10:56

instant message, it comes off as

10:58

the least authentic because it seems

11:00

so low effort. You could imagine

11:02

if someone's congratulating you because you

11:05

had a massive accomplishment. And they

11:07

could have called you, they could

11:09

have told you in person or

11:11

during a video meeting, and instead

11:13

they send you an email. It's

11:15

just not going to hit the

11:18

same. And the third finding when

11:20

this study was, okay, so you

11:22

need to engage in the service

11:24

acting. Video doesn't work well because

11:26

your emotions can leak through. Email

11:28

doesn't work well because it's seen

11:31

a solo effort. It turns out

11:33

there's a sweet spot, which is

11:35

audio interactions, where that's telephone or

11:37

video meetings with cameras off. And

11:39

that's because it's seen as much

11:41

more effortful than email. Calling someone

11:43

or having a meeting with cameras

11:46

off, it seems like a lot

11:48

more meaningful than email, but not

11:50

that different than a video call.

11:52

But on the other side of

11:54

that, whereas in video calls, or

11:56

in-person interactions. You have to worry

11:59

about all your facial expressions, your

12:01

body language. When you're doing audio

12:03

only, that's not a concern. All

12:05

you have to worry about is

12:07

your tone of voice and the

12:09

word you're using. So there's tremendously

12:12

less leakage in audio-only interactions, but

12:14

it seems much more authentic than

12:16

text interactions. So audio can really

12:18

be that sweet spot when you're

12:20

engaging in service acting, so that

12:22

you come off as authentic. even

12:24

if you may need to be

12:27

hiding some underlying emotions in that

12:29

situation. It's such a fascinating finding

12:31

because so often we have been

12:33

told, I feel like I've heard

12:35

this for years, like the more

12:37

difficult, the more complex the situation.

12:40

the more you should go to

12:42

the richest medium possible, right? In

12:44

person, if you can. If you

12:46

can't, like, videos and okay, fall

12:48

back, but try not to, like,

12:50

intentionally go down. And yet, there

12:53

are times where, like, actually going

12:55

to a less rich medium, like,

12:57

audio only, can't really help. And

12:59

I never really thought about that

13:01

consciously, until thinking about some of

13:03

the findings you surface, that that

13:06

can be the right move in

13:08

a right move in a right

13:10

situation. So let's think about brainstorming.

13:12

Everyone loves to do brainstorming. We're

13:14

in a room together. We've got

13:16

a whiteboard. We're all jotting down

13:18

ideas. It feels really energizing. But

13:21

that's been shown not to be

13:23

the optimal approach to brainstorming. There

13:25

are multiple issues with synchronous brainstorming

13:27

meetings. First, only one person can

13:29

talk at a time. If you

13:31

have 10 people in a meeting

13:34

and you want each of them

13:36

to come up with 20 ideas.

13:38

That's 200 ideas. That would take

13:40

a really, really long time to

13:42

discuss or to raise during a

13:44

meeting. But if each of those

13:47

10 people just separately jotted down

13:49

or typed up, those 20 ideas,

13:51

it could be done quickly. The

13:53

other problem is that when everyone's

13:55

staring at us in person, we

13:57

tend to be concerned they're going

13:59

to judge your ideas more negatively,

14:02

and we don't want to say

14:04

anything too divergent. But here's where

14:06

the advantages of being self-focused can

14:08

be beneficial virtually, is during brainstorming,

14:10

you don't want to be thinking

14:12

about other people, you want to

14:15

be as creative as possible. So

14:17

doing it separately and electronically can

14:19

be better there. And lastly, when

14:21

you're in a group and one

14:23

person says an idea, your brain

14:25

just attaches to that idea, which

14:28

is a problem because then every

14:30

idea you have thereafter is going

14:32

to be related or anchored to

14:34

that idea you already heard. So

14:36

in this case, brainstorming for the

14:38

early stage idea generation has been

14:40

shown to be better via electronic

14:43

text-based interactions as opposed to meetings.

14:45

Although when you're having the deciding

14:47

of which idea is best, and

14:49

that has a lot of back

14:51

and forth as a group, that's

14:53

when you want to do it

14:56

via video or in person because

14:58

you have that back and forth.

15:00

So at the end of the

15:02

day, what it comes down to

15:04

is the best mode really depends

15:06

on your goals for any given

15:09

situation and not to assume that

15:11

one is necessarily better than the

15:13

rest across the board. And one

15:15

of the big distinctions that I'm

15:17

hearing from you is that Sometimes

15:19

what feels right to us personally

15:22

just isn't necessarily the best thing

15:24

for the situation. And this, the

15:26

word authentic comes up a lot

15:28

in your work, certainly in this

15:30

part of the book too. And

15:32

I think sometimes we feel like,

15:34

okay, this feels authentic to me,

15:37

but the very thing that feels

15:39

authentic to me actually lands. really

15:41

inauthentically to someone else. So the

15:43

invitation I'm really hearing from you

15:45

is like, to the extent we

15:47

can get out of ourselves a

15:50

bit and be thinking about authenticity

15:52

from the standpoint of where it's

15:54

landing with someone else, that's really

15:56

key in this. Exactly. This is

15:58

also related to just generally transmitting

16:00

emotion in virtual communication. As an

16:03

example, if you're writing up an

16:05

email, you can hear the emotion

16:07

you're trying to relay in your

16:09

head, so it seems really clear.

16:11

But research shows is that on

16:13

the recipient end, we end up

16:15

being overconfident about our ability to

16:18

relay emotions because we don't realize

16:20

when they're reading the same message

16:22

you sent. They're not hearing the

16:24

emotions you heard when you wrote

16:26

it. They're coming from their own

16:28

set of assumptions and information. As

16:31

an example, if you're a manager

16:33

or you're dating even and someone

16:35

sent you something really long, so

16:37

a subordinate sent you a really

16:39

long report, or someone else in

16:41

a dating context sent you this

16:44

really long, nice note, and you

16:46

just respond with thanks. Thanks. That's

16:48

great. In your mind, maybe you

16:50

were in a rush and you

16:52

wanted to make sure that you

16:54

just responded quickly so that they

16:56

saw you acknowledged it as opposed

16:59

to feeling like you're ignoring the

17:01

other person and you're really excited

17:03

about it and you think that's

17:05

obvious. But you could imagine as

17:07

a subordinate who just sent a

17:09

20-page report to their manager getting

17:12

a three-word response seems potentially really,

17:14

really negative. So these situations can

17:16

create a lot of problems. And

17:18

one of the recommendations I highlight

17:20

is that it's beneficial to try

17:22

and make the implicit more explicit.

17:25

So for instance, you're in a

17:27

rush, which is why you're writing

17:29

only a few words, say, thanks,

17:31

I got it. I'm going to

17:33

look over this when I have

17:35

more, when I'm at home or

17:38

when I have more time, and

17:40

I'm going to send you more

17:42

detailed response then. And doing that,

17:44

we can be beneficial because we

17:46

know we're going to look at

17:48

it later, but the other person

17:50

doesn't. And we tend to forget

17:53

that the other person doesn't know

17:55

what we know, and we assume

17:57

that there was... the best of

17:59

us. But in reality, if there's

18:01

anxiety or nervousness on the other

18:03

side, they'll often make a negative

18:06

assumption instead of the positive one

18:08

we thought they would make. And

18:10

you make the invitation as well

18:12

that if you're using a less

18:14

rich medium, and that example is

18:16

a perfect one, like email, like

18:19

maybe I am responding by an

18:21

email, it's really helpful to explain

18:23

why, or maybe if you initiate

18:25

a complex situation or communication in

18:27

a different medium than you would

18:29

normally do. that you explain why,

18:31

and if you do that, the

18:34

audience tends to be a little

18:36

more forgiving of that. People make

18:38

attributions in text-based communication, and in

18:40

virtual communication general, and what this

18:42

means is that there's often not

18:44

as much information as when we're

18:47

in person. So when something happens

18:49

in text-based communication, whether it's just

18:51

you chose a mode you might

18:53

not normally choose. Or you've got

18:55

a typo. or whatever else. People

18:57

are looking for reasons. It's, oh,

19:00

the person didn't care about me,

19:02

or they're rushed, or whatever else.

19:04

And to the best you can,

19:06

you want to make sure that

19:08

they're not making random guesses here

19:10

that may not look good on

19:12

you, or may harm your relationship.

19:15

So when there's one of these

19:17

ambiguous things going on, providing that

19:19

information, can help that process to

19:21

ensure that you're both on the

19:23

same page. authenticity and I'm sure

19:25

that you people ask you about

19:28

this too Andrew that you know

19:30

so often we hear the good

19:32

advice of we really should show

19:34

up as authentic in the workplace

19:36

as leaders of course and I'm

19:38

thinking about what you said earlier

19:41

of this sort of play acting

19:43

that that sometimes like that we

19:45

all do right at times the

19:47

teachers you you cited in your

19:49

study where they show up and

19:51

may not be feeling super positive

19:54

about communicating with apparent a difficult

19:56

situation, but do you need to

19:58

do need to do a little

20:00

bit of acting in a scenario

20:02

like that. I think a lot

20:04

of times we see that we

20:06

think, well, that's not authentic. If

20:09

I'm like, if I'm showing up

20:11

consciously in a different way than

20:13

is like true to my authentic

20:15

self, that that is a bad

20:17

thing. And part of what I'm

20:19

hearing you say is thinking about

20:22

this in a little more nuanced

20:24

way is helpful. And I'm wondering

20:26

like, what do you find helpful

20:28

for people to calibrate on that.

20:30

That's a good question. It's a

20:32

little bit tricky of one. I

20:35

do think there's often been this

20:37

fad with authenticity where it's gone

20:39

a little bit overboard, overboard, where

20:41

people say, always be authentic at

20:43

work. That's a bad idea. There

20:45

was an old comedy sketch by

20:47

Dave Chappelle, keeping it real goes

20:50

wrong. And it's this idea as

20:52

all these situations about people who

20:54

always say what's on their mind.

20:56

always say what they're feeling, and

20:58

it just goes horribly. And this

21:00

thing is, it's not just for

21:03

you, it's for the other people

21:05

you're interacting with. If you're a

21:07

manager and you've got a subordinate

21:09

who's struggling, let's say it's a

21:11

situation where unfortunately you need to

21:13

fire them. But you're in a

21:16

spectacular mood because something great just

21:18

happened in your life. Maybe you

21:20

won the lottery. Maybe your partner

21:22

accepted your proposal for marriage or

21:24

whatever else. You don't want to

21:26

go to fire that employee and

21:28

say, I'm in the best mood

21:31

ever, I'm so excited, but I

21:33

do have to fire you today.

21:35

That is just a horrible thing

21:37

to do. Obviously, that's an extreme.

21:39

And there's a whole lot of

21:41

more gray area in the middle

21:44

about, okay, should I be authentic?

21:46

Or should I be putting on

21:48

the face that I need to?

21:50

my work and the other person

21:52

I'm interacting with. And what I'd

21:54

recommend is you kind of have

21:57

to think about this as a

21:59

scale. On one side is the

22:01

impact to yourself. On the other

22:03

side is the impact to the

22:05

person you're interacting with. For the

22:07

person you're interacting with, there's obviously

22:10

going to be some set of

22:12

appropriate rules in that interaction. In

22:14

most cases at work, it's being

22:16

positive. Although there are examples like

22:18

the one I just noted about

22:20

being more sympathetic and sad that

22:22

someone might be leaving for some

22:25

reason. But on your side for

22:27

what's better for you, it's going

22:29

to depend on the situation. In

22:31

some cases, being authentic is better

22:33

because it takes less energy to

22:35

have to fake it. It's exhausting

22:38

faking it, and sometimes it just

22:40

really, really can be depleting. But

22:42

on the other side of that,

22:44

you may create a whole lot

22:46

more work for yourself by being

22:48

authentic in a situation. If you

22:51

tell, as an example, with the

22:53

parents and teachers in Vietnam, if

22:55

a teacher... just directly told a

22:57

parent, your kid is horrible, they

22:59

shouldn't be in this school. You

23:01

better believe that teacher is going

23:03

to be hearing from their principal

23:06

and is going to have a

23:08

ton more work and interactions to

23:10

make up for that. So it's

23:12

really weighing the scale of, okay,

23:14

is it better for me to

23:16

be authentic in this situation or

23:19

am I going to create more

23:21

work and more trouble for myself?

23:23

And on the other side is,

23:25

will I benefit the other person

23:27

by being authentic myself and showing

23:29

them who I am? or by

23:32

doing what I need to in

23:34

this situation to make them feel

23:36

good. It's so helpful to think

23:38

about it that way. And I

23:40

think oftentimes we were so, especially

23:42

in these tough situations, as much

23:44

as we think about being a

23:47

servant leader and showing up in

23:49

the right way, it's so easy

23:51

for our own emotions to crowd

23:53

it out, either positive or negative,

23:55

depending on the situation. And just

23:57

like the nudge to be thinking,

24:00

all right, how is this likely

24:02

to land? with someone else and

24:04

where might the leakage happen right

24:06

like you meant earlier okay if

24:08

this is a situation where I'm

24:10

not really I don't really want

24:13

to show up in the most

24:15

authentic way I might think about

24:17

that because I don't want to

24:19

I don't want to unintentionally signal

24:21

something I don't really intend to

24:23

signal in this situation and this

24:26

leads me to one other thing

24:28

you mentioned in the book is

24:30

you highlight blunders and obviously there's

24:32

a lot of situations where we

24:34

don't want to make it to

24:36

happen in some of these interactions

24:38

but there's places that Blunders can

24:41

actually be helpful in interactions too.

24:43

Could you share a bit about

24:45

that? This gets to the benefits

24:47

of authenticity. At the end of

24:49

the day, the reason why emotional

24:51

leakage is problematic is it makes

24:54

other people feel like you're lying.

24:56

Even if the reason you are

24:58

engaging in this kind of service

25:00

acting or faking it is to

25:02

benefit the other person, it can

25:04

end up worse if they realize

25:07

that you're faking it. Which is

25:09

the problem. in those situations. So

25:11

things that show that you are

25:13

being authentic, that you aren't overscripted,

25:15

that you are human, can be

25:17

beneficial. An example of this is

25:19

a classic research study on something

25:22

called the Pratfall effect. In this

25:24

research study, they had participants listen

25:26

to a quiz show. In this

25:28

quiz show, one participant got a

25:30

bunch of questions wrong, but got

25:32

some right. And that person was

25:35

rated as very likable, but not

25:37

necessarily highly competent because they did

25:39

get a number of questions wrong.

25:41

Then there was another participant who

25:43

got every single question right. And

25:45

that participant was rated as very

25:48

competent, but not very likable. And

25:50

you could think about it this

25:52

way. Think back to middle school

25:54

or high school, and was there

25:56

that one kid who just raised

25:58

their hand for... every single question

26:00

and they were like a know

26:03

at all and like they were

26:05

really smart but kind of everyone

26:07

heated them. And the issue with

26:09

this is that there's often this

26:11

tradeoff between competence and warmth in

26:13

that people who are too perfect

26:16

or who are too competent end

26:18

up it just feels unrelatable. You

26:20

just can't relate to that person.

26:22

But this research study had a

26:24

third condition. In the third condition

26:26

they had someone get every single

26:29

question right. But in that condition

26:31

participants heard that a crash and

26:33

then spilled coffee on themselves And

26:35

in this third condition the person

26:37

who got everything right but spilled

26:39

coffee on themselves They were they

26:42

were rated just as competent as

26:44

the person who got every question

26:46

right without spilling coffee, but they

26:48

were much more likable The reason

26:50

being is that making a mistake

26:52

Makes you feel more human makes

26:54

you feel more likable and the

26:57

takeaway here is that Pratt falls

26:59

or mistakes that are not in

27:01

your domain of competence. So in

27:03

this case, filling coffee on yourself

27:05

during a quiz show can make

27:07

you seem more human as opposed

27:10

to an unapproachable person. Fascinating. And

27:12

I think the message here isn't

27:14

necessarily for us all to bring

27:16

in a cup of coffee to

27:18

our interactions at the stage and

27:20

falling over us, right? But that

27:23

there's a larger message here of

27:25

like... How would you like practically

27:27

bring this in? And when you

27:29

think about knowing this like, hey,

27:31

on one hand, I want to

27:33

show up competently, obviously, in the

27:35

things that are my area of

27:38

expertise, the subject of the meeting,

27:40

the interaction with the customer, whatever

27:42

it is that day, and at

27:44

the same time, show my humanity.

27:46

How do you invite people to

27:48

think about doing that both and

27:51

of like, it not being staged,

27:53

but showing up in a really

27:55

genuine way? Oftentimes one of the

27:57

biggest problems leaders can have is

27:59

that they feel this need to

28:01

put on this perfect front. perfect

28:04

posture, that they look, they never

28:06

make mistakes. And that can be

28:08

a mistake because then their people

28:10

work for them, don't feel like

28:12

they can really connect with their

28:14

leader, that they can really open

28:16

up to their leader, that they

28:19

can express when they've made errors

28:21

to their leader. But rather than

28:23

just telling the people who work

28:25

for you, oh yeah, I messed

28:27

up the other project last week,

28:29

it's bad for our team. Instead,

28:32

you kind of let some of

28:34

your life show through. Maybe you

28:36

mention, I accidentally took my child's

28:38

Pokemon lunchbox today, or you can

28:40

mention something humorous or a little

28:42

clumsy that might have happened the

28:45

past weekend, use a little bit

28:47

of humor with it. And by

28:49

showing that you are not this

28:51

infallible being, it can make people

28:53

feel like they can trust you

28:55

more, that they connect with you

28:58

more, that you're more relatable. while

29:00

still not losing that degree of

29:02

competence that you have by being

29:04

good at your actual job. Boy,

29:06

the distinction I'm here in there

29:08

is the tendency, I mean, I

29:10

think you just so nailed it,

29:13

tendency, especially in leadership role, a

29:15

visible role, to like downplay anything

29:17

that people might see as a

29:19

mistake, and the invitation I'm hearing

29:21

is like, on the things that

29:23

aren't central to the core competency

29:26

of your work, resist the temptation

29:28

to... cover those things up and

29:30

maybe even you like offer those

29:32

in the context not making stuff

29:34

up of course but just offering

29:36

something that is that shows your

29:39

fallibility your humanity that you might

29:41

otherwise not necessarily discuss that just

29:43

helps bring out some more of

29:45

that humanist and again to really

29:47

connect ideally in an authentic way.

29:49

Exactly and if you think about

29:51

political candidates generally Often the person

29:54

who's perfectly scripted and feels like

29:56

they hit everything exactly right doesn't

29:58

end up. but relating to the

30:00

general population. It's oftentimes a person

30:02

who feels like, oh yeah, I

30:04

think I know someone like that,

30:07

or you see someone their actual

30:09

humanity show through, even if it's

30:11

not this perfect picture, that ends

30:13

up making those candidates feel relatable,

30:15

and it's the same thing true

30:17

with the executives and companies as

30:20

well. You've been in the midst

30:22

of this work and research for

30:24

many years. You've obviously put the

30:26

whole book together, built an organization

30:28

around this. As you've brought this

30:30

book into the world, Andrew, and

30:32

been into the research and also

30:35

now talking with people about this

30:37

so much, I'm curious. What if

30:39

anything have you changed your mind

30:41

on is related to how to

30:43

choose the mode of communication in

30:45

some cases. Because I'm a scientist

30:48

or researcher who's always studying what's

30:50

best and when and how do

30:52

we leverage it, it's often easy

30:54

to forget that sometimes in certain

30:56

situations or maybe better way to

30:58

do things than the best way.

31:01

And one of the recommendations that

31:03

came out from this is instead

31:05

of just in any given situation,

31:07

assuming what a mode is best.

31:09

So in this situation, video is

31:11

best in this situation, email is

31:14

best. Consider asking the other person

31:16

what they like. I would say

31:18

99 out of 100 invites I

31:20

get to meetings. No one asked

31:22

me what I want to do.

31:24

I get a video link or

31:26

I get a phone number to

31:29

call or they just decide to

31:31

have the conversation over email even

31:33

though I have my own preferences.

31:35

And this can be quite meaningful

31:37

for many people. For instance, people

31:39

who have difficulty hearing. They may

31:42

prefer video meetings so that they

31:44

can read lips. People on the

31:46

autism spectrum in some cases may

31:48

prefer video off because it's lower

31:50

stimulation and they don't have to

31:52

worry as much about nonverbal behavior.

31:55

But even beyond people with disabilities,

31:57

maybe someone had their kid is

31:59

home sick from daycare and running

32:01

a muck in the background so

32:03

they don't want their video on.

32:05

And even beyond people who have

32:07

actual reasons for this, we all

32:10

have our preferences. Some of us

32:12

really like seeing another person. Some

32:14

of us hate being on camera.

32:16

And when you ask the other

32:18

person, how do you want to

32:20

do this? Do you want to

32:23

do phone? Video. Not only can

32:25

you include more people? But I

32:27

found out that people are going

32:29

to want to interact with you

32:31

a lot more because you're communicating

32:33

on the way they want. So

32:36

that makes them more menable to

32:38

actually interact with you going forward.

32:40

Andrew Broadsky is the author of

32:42

Peng, The Secrets of Successful Virtual

32:44

Communication. Andrew, thank you for sharing

32:46

your work with us. Thanks for

32:48

having me on. If

32:55

this conversation with Andrew was helpful to

32:57

you three related episodes, I'd recommend. One

32:59

of them is episode 590. How to

33:01

genuinely show up for others. Marshall Goldsmith

33:03

was my guest on that episode. We

33:05

talked about his concept of singular empathy,

33:08

of the importance, especially for leaders, of

33:10

being able to sit down with another

33:12

person either in person or virtually as

33:14

we talked about today. to be entirely

33:16

present with them. It's a challenging thing

33:18

to do, especially with so many of

33:21

the roles we have of being pulled

33:23

in different directions every day, but it's

33:25

an essential skill for leaders. Marshall Talks

33:27

in episode 590 of exactly how to

33:29

do that, how to enter into that

33:31

space of singular empathy. Also recommended episode

33:33

643, how to make a better impression

33:36

on camera. Mark Bowden was my guest

33:38

on that episode, body language expert. We

33:40

talked about how when you're showing up

33:42

on camera. How are you going to

33:44

do that well? And as we talked

33:46

about this conversation, different choices of when

33:49

you might use camera and audio and

33:51

in person. But often we are showing

33:53

up on camera these days. Mark walks

33:55

us through some of the key principles

33:57

for doing that well. Yes, both the

33:59

technology a bit, but more importantly, the

34:02

practice, the mindset. and being able to

34:04

do that effectively so that we do

34:06

show up in the way that we

34:08

want to. And then finally I'd recommend

34:10

episode 713, how to grow from feedback.

34:12

Jennifer Garvey Berger was my guest on

34:15

that episode and we talked about feedback

34:17

as a two-way street. Oftentimes when we

34:19

think about feedback, it is one way.

34:21

It is a manager giving feedback to

34:23

an employee or direct report. We don't

34:25

often think about the two-way nature of

34:28

it. And in tough situations, oftentimes, there

34:30

is a give and take in feedback.

34:32

There should be. There needs to be

34:34

a dialogue for that. Episode 713, exploring

34:36

that a bit more. All of those

34:38

episodes, of course you can find on

34:40

the coaching for leaders.com website. And I'm

34:43

inviting you to today to set up

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your free membership at coaching for leaders.

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If you do, you're going to get

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We've taken the next step with the

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set up that free membership yet, go

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over to coaching for leaders.com right on

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the main page there, you will see

35:41

a way to do that. And one

35:43

of the other things that I am

35:45

doing every single week is I am

35:47

writing. I love journaling out, some of

35:50

the things that come up in conversations

35:52

with our academy members and conversations with

35:54

the experts here on the show. And

35:56

each week I zero in on one

35:58

principle, one thing that comes up and

36:00

journal about it in a way that

36:03

I hope. will be helpful to you.

36:05

This past week I looked at the

36:07

concept of getting concise. We had a

36:09

conversation in one of our academy sessions

36:11

recently on this and the dichotomy between

36:13

being concise but also being really detailed

36:16

and it came up in that conversation

36:18

that those two things are opposites at

36:20

least how many people think of them

36:22

and I suggested they are an opposite

36:24

at all. In fact you can be

36:26

both very concise and detailed when you

36:29

need to be and that's especially important

36:31

in talking to executive leaders and stakeholders

36:33

who oftentimes are looking for a very

36:35

concise message but also need the details

36:37

so they can make fast decisions. I

36:39

talked about that in a recent journal

36:41

entry. How you actually approach that, especially

36:44

in written communication when talking to stakeholders,

36:46

being concise, but at the same time

36:48

providing the detail that they need. That's

36:50

part of Coaching for Leaders Plus. If

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37:07

details are there. Coaching for leaders is

37:10

edited by Andrew Kroger. Production support is

37:12

provided by Sierra Priest. Next week I'm

37:14

glad to welcome Kasim E. Jaws to

37:16

the show. He is an expert in

37:18

cybersecurity. We are going to be looking

37:20

at some of the principles that will

37:23

keep you and your team and your

37:25

organization. Please make it make it less

37:27

likely that you'll be hacked. Join me

37:29

for that conversation with Kasim. It's an

37:31

important one. and I'll see you back

37:33

next Monday.