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1:01

phone and at one level feeling that

1:03

sense of power and another level

1:05

realizing a few minutes later, what

1:07

did you just do? You're

1:09

listening to the Elevate podcast

1:12

and I'm your host Robert

1:14

Glazer. Join me as I talk

1:16

to world-class performers about how they

1:18

build their capacity and reach greater

1:20

heights in leadership, business and life

1:23

and how you can do the

1:25

same. Welcome

1:30

to the Elevate Podcast. Our quote

1:32

for today is from James Stevens.

1:34

A well-packed question carries its answers

1:36

on its back as a snail

1:39

carries its shell. My guest today

1:41

Hal Gregerson literally wrote the book

1:43

on questions. He's a senior lecturer

1:45

at MIT's Sloan School of Management,

1:47

a former executive director of the

1:49

MIT Leadership Center, and a globally

1:51

recognized thought leader on leadership and

1:53

innovation. He's the author of several

1:55

books, including Questions Are the Answer,

1:57

where he shares are the answer, where

2:00

he shared. a powerful approach to fostering

2:02

radical innovation by encouraging inquiry. He's also

2:04

a sought after speaker and a lecturer

2:06

who has spoken to audiences all over

2:09

the world. Hal, welcome to Elevate Podcast.

2:11

Bob, thank you. And I can

2:13

tell by that introductory quote that

2:15

I had no idea was coming.

2:18

You know exactly what you're going

2:20

to... talking about here, so I'm

2:22

excited for this. You know, you've

2:24

got a little bit of a

2:26

reputation. So, well, I'm always interested

2:29

to start a little bit at

2:31

the beginning. I'm curious. Tell us

2:33

a little about your childhood and

2:35

both kind of when you discovered

2:38

your passion for leadership and did

2:40

questions sort of figure into your

2:42

child, was that under compensation or

2:44

overcompensation? That's a great question. And

2:47

the answer you'll see in a

2:49

few minutes is overcompensation. So. Context

2:51

is I've lived in 47 homes,

2:53

21 cities, three countries, no five

2:55

countries, three continents, just a lot

2:58

of moves, Bob. Is this military,

3:00

military family? No, my father was

3:02

a construction worker. Okay. And he

3:04

literally built a trailer that he

3:07

pulled behind a one and a

3:09

half ton truck that went across

3:11

the United States to different job

3:13

sites, ranging from the Washington United

3:15

States to upstate New York and

3:18

everywhere in between. And so... By

3:20

the time I was five, we'd

3:22

moved I think seven times. So

3:24

that notion of dropping into a

3:27

new space and trying to figure

3:29

out what do I do here

3:31

was just part of growing up.

3:33

And the space we lived in

3:36

was really contained. It was an

3:38

eight foot by 35 foot or

3:40

so trailer. And my two siblings,

3:42

all of us had some form

3:44

of ADHD or ADD. And you

3:47

can just imagine us bouncing off

3:49

the walls of that small environments.

3:51

And my father was incredibly industrious,

3:53

super hard worker, mechanically brilliant in

3:56

terms of his ability to sort

3:58

of make sense of things. But...

4:00

The contrast was, for a variety

4:02

of reasons, that I understand better

4:04

now than I certainly did as

4:07

a kid. His was, it was

4:09

a world where the world revolved

4:11

around him, and, you know, in

4:13

today's world, it would be controlling,

4:16

probably emotionally abusive, sometimes a little

4:18

physical, but I say those things

4:20

not to put him down, but

4:22

to put it in perspective, you

4:25

know, like all of us. We're

4:27

full of... Dark and light, you

4:29

know, hidden wholeness, flaws and strengths

4:31

and all that kind of stuff.

4:33

But when you're a little kid

4:36

in that kind of environment, you're

4:38

learning really fast how to protect

4:40

yourself initially. And then, how do

4:42

I potentially protect other people? And

4:45

early on, the strategy was be

4:47

quiet. And when I learned how

4:49

to talk more and engage more,

4:51

questions were actually an overcompensating strategy

4:54

to avoid getting in trouble. So

4:56

instead of me being on the

4:58

end of questioning, it was, you

5:00

know, how can I frame, what

5:02

question could I frame in this

5:05

context to avoid the conversation getting

5:07

me into trouble? And is that

5:09

trouble with your family or trouble

5:11

in school or trouble everywhere? So

5:14

I kicked out of grade school

5:16

probably five times for mostly stupid

5:18

things, Bob, but yeah. You know,

5:20

school was not, I love to

5:22

learn that I, school is not

5:25

my containing space. And so yeah,

5:27

I mean, I was getting. For

5:29

most ADD people, it is not.

5:31

Yeah. Just got, I got into

5:34

a lot of trouble as a

5:36

kid and had friends who got

5:38

into a lot of trouble. And

5:40

so yeah, often it was trying

5:43

to avoid being in more trouble.

5:45

So the questions, was it, was

5:47

it to buy you time, was

5:49

it to put it back on

5:51

the other person? What was the

5:54

sort of go-to for the questions?

5:56

Were they intellectual curiosity or were

5:58

they just sort of socratic in

6:00

flipping and turning it around? So.

6:03

So when I was like seven

6:05

years old, my two buddies and

6:07

I, we blew up with an

6:09

M80, not knowing what an M80

6:11

really was, we blew up a

6:14

bathhouse at a swimming pool and

6:16

it burned down and we got

6:18

in trouble. And so when I

6:20

came home from that one, it

6:23

was, you know, what kind of

6:25

questions can I use here to

6:27

avoid getting in trouble? So that

6:29

was evasive sort of inquiry. Okay.

6:32

So later on life I ran

6:34

across Parker Palmer's work. And he

6:36

basically frames teaching, and I, and

6:38

he would say leading, is creating

6:40

a space where obedience to truth

6:43

is practiced by a community of

6:45

people. And my operating definition of

6:47

that is how do I create

6:49

a space where inquiry, you know,

6:52

inquiry leads to inside, and inside

6:54

leads to positive impact. But having

6:56

said that, our home is not

6:58

that kind of a truth-seeking place

7:01

in conversation. So it was mostly

7:03

there's a lot of danger zones

7:05

there, and so you just questions

7:07

weren't used in that way So

7:09

how did you where did you

7:12

end up going to school or

7:14

study or when you kind of

7:16

got into a regular rhythm? What

7:18

did you focus on? You know

7:21

I've been thinking about that the

7:23

element of that conversation in preparing

7:25

for this discussion and I had

7:27

the luxury in retrospect of a

7:29

series of adults in my life

7:32

who played a deeply inquisitive and

7:34

caring role. And so it was,

7:36

you know, I've got a little,

7:38

I've got a cap over there,

7:41

my Little League baseball cap. I

7:43

was, I was not that great

7:45

of a baseball player, but my

7:47

coach, Jared Sove, was exceptional at

7:50

helping me become better at it

7:52

and at being confident in navigating

7:54

the world when, you know, I've

7:56

been broken down a lot. And

7:58

then... In high school, his father

8:01

Bonsof was the mayor of our

8:03

city and I had the chance

8:05

to be elected mayor. for the

8:07

day out of our high school

8:10

and instead of just taking it

8:12

on as a 24-hour okay we're

8:14

doing this for fun kind of

8:16

thing I was very interested in

8:18

politics I think part of that

8:21

was growing up in a politicized

8:23

family so like you know how

8:25

are these power dynamics playing out

8:27

and and so Vaughn after that

8:30

day of being mayor for a

8:32

day he took me under his

8:34

wing and took me to council

8:36

of government meetings and different things

8:39

and And I got very involved

8:41

with politics early on. And I

8:43

was very intrigued by how do

8:45

people influence other people to do

8:47

things, to do good things in

8:50

the world. It's a relevant question

8:52

today. Oh, absolutely. And so I

8:54

actually did two internships with two

8:56

different United States senators during college.

8:59

And at the end of the

9:01

second internship, because I had admissions,

9:03

you know, I'd actually written down

9:05

a little note somewhere in a

9:08

file here, like I'm going to

9:10

be a senator someday of the

9:12

United States, and so these people

9:14

had emboldened me to have confidence

9:16

in creating that kind of impact

9:19

in the future, but having worked

9:21

a couple of times in the

9:23

Senate, I'll never forget one day

9:25

making a phone call as an

9:28

intern. to the chief legal counsel

9:30

of a very large quasi-governmental organization

9:32

that we were investigating. And I

9:34

remember making some statements that in

9:36

retrospect were intended to intimidate about

9:39

what we could potentially do to

9:41

them and hanging up the phone

9:43

and at one level feeling that

9:45

sense of power and another level

9:48

realizing a few minutes later, what

9:50

did you just do? And it's

9:52

that classic, you know, power corrupts

9:54

and absolute power. Absolutely. It was

9:57

that realization that this is a

9:59

place that I'm not sure I'm

10:01

capable of handling. If I'm doing

10:03

that as an intern, I'm not

10:05

sure. I'm not confident. my ability

10:08

to avoid the really insidious nature

10:10

of Washington, D.C. in that belt

10:12

and beltway. Power. Yeah. Yeah, and

10:14

power. Yeah. Yeah. So what was

10:17

the road that got you from

10:19

there to running the MIT Leadership

10:21

Center? Because it doesn't sound like

10:23

a straight line. No, it's not.

10:25

And it's related. It's related to

10:28

one of my biggest failures early

10:30

on life, where I was a

10:32

wedding and portrait photographer. in the

10:34

midst of all this. So I

10:37

was doing everything I said at

10:39

the same time I was running

10:41

my business as a wedding portrait

10:43

photographer to pay me away through

10:46

college and early 20s I took

10:48

the wedding pictures of my best

10:50

friend with a borrowed medium format

10:52

camera and three days later when

10:54

I picked up the 120 photos

10:57

from that wedding I realized I

10:59

had asked the wrong question which

11:01

was is the dark slide between

11:03

the lens and the film taken

11:06

out of the camera? And if

11:08

you don't pull that dark slide

11:10

out, you do not expose your

11:12

film and you have no pictures.

11:15

And I had in the midst

11:17

of all this failed to ask

11:19

that question and I had to

11:21

dial on my rotary dial black

11:23

phone my friend and say, you

11:26

know, you don't have any photos

11:28

of your wedding. I did not

11:30

know how to handle that kind

11:32

of failure, Bob. And so when

11:35

I talk about it even to

11:37

this day, I still feel emotional

11:39

angst about that moment about that

11:41

moment. You look emotional, yeah. Yeah,

11:43

yeah. And so I ended up

11:46

over the course of the next

11:48

four to five years, a few

11:50

years, walking away from photography. But

11:52

in the moment that happened, simultaneously,

11:55

the last semester of my undergraduate

11:57

degree, I am in a class

11:59

in a leadership class with Joe

12:01

Bentley. And Joe was like fascinating.

12:04

He was smart, inquisitive, curious, trying

12:06

to figure out complex issues. wicked

12:08

problems and inviting us to students

12:10

to do the same. And that's

12:12

the moment where it's like all

12:15

of this energy, all of this

12:17

seeing, all of this learning, all

12:19

of this curiosity about the world.

12:21

It's like, I love this topic

12:24

of what he's talking about. And

12:26

that was the transition point. And

12:28

then boom, off to master's degree,

12:30

boom, you know, get my PhD.

12:32

And then it's like, study with.

12:35

really great colleagues over the last

12:37

30 years, the best leaders in

12:39

the world, trying to go global,

12:41

trying to innovate, trying to lead

12:44

transformation, now trying to lead digitalization,

12:46

and it's that kind of constant

12:48

nonstop work that dropped me into

12:50

the leadership center at MIT. I

12:53

mean, the leadership center at MIT,

12:55

and this is an exposure to

12:57

some of the... most incredible leaders,

12:59

you know, in the world and

13:01

thinking around leadership across multiple disciplines.

13:04

Like, what are some of the

13:06

cliff notes of what are the

13:08

most common things that you have

13:10

seen with really effective leadership and

13:13

ineffective leadership? And are they consistent

13:15

across all the different spectrums? Well,

13:17

it's fascinating is I had spent

13:19

15 years with Clay Christensen and

13:22

Jeff Dyer studying innovative leaders. So

13:24

we had literally interviewed people like

13:26

Jeff Basos and Elon Musk and

13:28

amazing people in terms of innovation.

13:30

And when I landed at MIT,

13:33

I'm like, this place feels like

13:35

these innovative companies. First of all,

13:37

it feels like the dynamics of

13:39

inside of one of those innovative

13:42

companies. And then the second part

13:44

was, the people who are getting

13:46

graduated out of here as alumni,

13:48

they act like these people I've

13:50

been studying. And so we literally.

13:53

Deborah and Kona and I decided

13:55

to do a research study around

13:57

what does it mean to be

13:59

a leader coming out of MIT?

14:02

And first of all, they don't

14:04

like the word leader. Yeah, the

14:06

leaders don't like the word leader.

14:08

MIT doesn't like the word leader.

14:11

The students, the people, we don't

14:13

like the word leaders. Don't call

14:15

me a leader. You know, leaders

14:17

are people who like position and

14:19

process and stability and power and

14:22

control and that's not me. And

14:24

they all, we call the anti-leader

14:26

leadership. And so what these folks

14:28

love is like, give me a

14:31

wicked, difficult, huge problem to take

14:33

on. Right. And then, you know,

14:35

if you're the quote unquote leader

14:37

Bob, it's the problem I'm following,

14:39

it's not you. Because the problem

14:42

itself, the challenge is bigger than

14:44

either of us. It's like we

14:46

need a lot of people with

14:48

different depths of expertise, but a

14:51

capability to cross those boundaries and

14:53

talk about the challenge we care

14:55

about. And it's all that stuff

14:57

that I'd studied in these innovative

15:00

companies. Rame and reframe status quo

15:02

challenging questions. Get out there and

15:04

experiment and rapidly prototype and rapidly

15:06

prototype. Where's the data? Both direct

15:08

observational as well as other kinds

15:11

of data. You know, how do

15:13

we analyze that and make sense

15:15

of it? And I just realize

15:17

that's what these MIT leaders do.

15:20

And so now I've been at

15:22

MIT almost 10 years. I've realized

15:24

that especially through the pandemic, especially

15:26

in the times we're living in

15:29

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15:31

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15:42

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they don't want to be call

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leaders, but do you think that

17:58

someone who's not innovative at all

18:00

can be a leader, like if

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it's just totally stagnant? It feels

18:04

like the definition of leader would

18:07

be that you are also leading

18:09

people to something, right? If you're

18:11

just overseeing what they're doing every

18:13

day, that feels more like managing,

18:16

right? No, absolutely. And this is

18:18

where, it's just like two different

18:20

domains. You kind of know, you

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know, there's this notion of, honestly,

18:25

somewhere between 65 to 80% of

18:27

senior leaders around the world fit

18:29

the following category, which is. They're

18:31

generally in their 50s and 60s

18:33

generationally. They're close to retiring or

18:36

getting close to retiring. They have

18:38

relatively limited 10 years of three

18:40

to four years in those roles

18:42

as senior leaders, maybe six years

18:45

up, you know, up around. And

18:47

to a large degree, they are

18:49

really comfortable mending and tending to

18:51

the status quo. Right. There's not

18:53

an incentive to rock the boat.

18:56

There's not an incentive to rock

18:58

the boat. And you know, you

19:00

jump, jump over the wall to

19:02

the other set of leaders who,

19:05

you know, they can't not show

19:07

up trying to figure out how

19:09

could this place be better? How

19:11

could we do what we're doing

19:14

better? How could we do it

19:16

differently? And that to some degrees

19:18

sound short term now here and

19:20

now focused, which it is, but...

19:22

in this work that I've been

19:25

doing the last couple of years

19:27

with Ed Capital, the best of

19:29

these best not only make an

19:31

innovative impact in the present, in

19:34

a very positive way, but it's

19:36

an incremental compounding growth logic towards

19:38

something much bigger five, ten years

19:40

down the road. Yeah. They have

19:43

a deep commitment to something bigger

19:45

than themselves. The founder of ways

19:47

has a t-shirt he wears. I

19:49

don't know if have you studied

19:51

him. It says fall in love

19:54

with a problem. You know, that

19:56

was his story was he just

19:58

hated inefficiency. He hated waiting in

20:00

line. He hated getting places. And

20:03

ways was born out of him

20:05

fascinated with that problem. Exactly. And

20:07

that's Dr. Lisa Sue, who got

20:09

all her degrees at MIT and

20:11

then went on to become the

20:14

CEO of AMD, the chip making

20:16

company. Yeah. In 2013, when AMD

20:18

was at its lowest point possible

20:20

in terms of performance, they were

20:23

ready to shut. Sort of where

20:25

Intel is now. Yeah. And so

20:27

it was, and she learned early

20:29

on. from a colleague run towards

20:32

problems Lisa. Now Pat Gelsinger did

20:34

the same thing at Intel when

20:36

he came back a few years

20:38

ago. You know, they had a

20:40

decade of, I would argue, leaders

20:43

who were not creating the future.

20:45

Yeah, they're right. They missed mobile

20:47

completely. They missed multiple opportunities and

20:49

paths come back with, I think,

20:52

a viable bona fide. future that

20:54

they could operate towards, but it's

20:56

going to take time. And it's

20:58

just, yeah, you're right, super hard.

21:00

Yeah, things move so quickly these

21:03

days that if you are playing

21:05

from a deficit, you don't have

21:07

a lot of time to get

21:09

it right. But let's talk about

21:12

your most recent book. Questions are

21:14

the answer. I find it really

21:16

interesting how you connect the kind

21:18

of power inquiry to innovation at

21:21

its core. What led you to

21:23

focus on questions for that book?

21:25

Did you just, you realize Socrates

21:27

was right? Number one, that questioning

21:29

element of Socrates, yes, he was

21:32

right, Bob, you're right on that.

21:34

But what I realized, you know,

21:36

what led that book was not

21:38

just innovation, it was in the

21:41

90s when companies were going global,

21:43

I interviewed AG Lafley before he

21:45

became the CEO of Procter and

21:47

Gamble. He asked me, Bob, more

21:50

questions than I asked him. Yeah.

21:52

He was deeply inquisitive before he

21:54

ever became the CEO of Procter

21:56

and Gamble. Then, you know, I

21:58

fast forward. to transformation and change

22:01

and then to innovation. And the

22:03

common theme in these outcomes that

22:05

leaders cared about was, one of

22:07

the skill sets was they were

22:10

super good at framing a question

22:12

someone else didn't frame. Because they

22:14

didn't have the answer or they

22:16

wanted to know other people's perspectives?

22:18

Because number one, all of them,

22:21

now in retrospect, because I didn't

22:23

have this language before coming to

22:25

MIT. All of them in retrospect

22:27

were challenge-driven leaders. And so by

22:30

definition, if I'm tackling a challenge

22:32

that I do not have the

22:34

answer to, I have to be

22:36

asking questions of myself and other

22:39

people in order to extract new

22:41

data that could create a solution

22:43

that could move this thing forward.

22:45

Well, that's an interesting connection. Do

22:47

people that ask a lot of

22:50

external questions generally tend to question

22:52

themselves more? The best of the

22:54

best, absolutely. The best of the

22:56

best. So, you know, let me

22:59

hossipi who, you know, a deep

23:01

mind, he calls some of the

23:03

best people, a deep mind, glue

23:05

people. They are deeply entrenched in

23:07

at least two disciplines or ways

23:10

of seeing the world. And that

23:12

enables them to collide these galaxies.

23:14

And in the collision, you get

23:16

these questions that you otherwise wouldn't

23:19

ask. And so that's where, you

23:21

know, absolutely, if I get out

23:23

of my routine, out of my

23:25

geographic localized office space, if I

23:28

get out of our organizational boundaries,

23:30

if I start crossing into domains

23:32

where there's a super high probability,

23:34

I'm going to be provoked. Yeah,

23:36

I think that's an interesting, very

23:39

interesting environment. matters too, right? Getting

23:41

out of your box, seeing things

23:43

different ways. I remember spending two

23:45

to three weeks of my family

23:48

in Australia and... a few years

23:50

ago, and it's just seeing how

23:52

the tipping was just so different,

23:54

and how you paid for food

23:57

was different, and when I came

23:59

back, it was like, huh, that

24:01

was just more comfortable and different,

24:03

and I remember writing an article

24:05

in the US, and I remember

24:08

writing an article about a Friday,

24:10

four, people in the US have

24:12

this as something, like, they just

24:14

cannot possibly see that tipping could

24:17

not be as it is here,

24:19

and it's not that way in

24:21

the rest of the world, and

24:23

the rest of the world works,

24:25

works, and actually you're going crazy.

24:28

Am I tipping in this business

24:30

because they have a new POS

24:32

and I'm not tipping in this

24:34

other business that does the same

24:37

thing? Like it doesn't, it doesn't

24:39

make any sense. Well, and that

24:41

kind of, I don't know, have

24:43

you had the chance to live

24:46

in more than one country? I

24:48

haven't lived, I've spent a lot

24:50

of time traveling and every time

24:52

I travel, I have different ideas,

24:54

different thought processes, or long enough

24:57

to get deeply sort of admired

24:59

and meshed in it, or having

25:01

a bicultural family, where you have

25:03

parents in two different cultures, doubles

25:06

the probability that we will ask

25:08

that novel unique question that will

25:10

lead to something valuable. Yeah, I

25:12

mean, when you described it before,

25:14

when I think about the Medici

25:17

effect, right, but the Renaissance, like

25:19

all of these things have all

25:21

been multidisciplinary people coming together with

25:23

new perspectives. you know, David Epstein's

25:26

book range. I think there's a

25:28

lot of focus on specialization these

25:30

days rather than things that seem

25:32

irrelevant but bring interesting perspective, you

25:35

know, to, I don't know if

25:37

David Smith, we had him on

25:39

the podcast if you know him,

25:41

but this company Kodapaxy, which has

25:43

been an incredible growth story, like

25:46

a lot of the colors and

25:48

the things that they do and

25:50

stuff came from him living in

25:52

South America for a lot of

25:55

his life. How does our frame

25:57

of questioning change when we tend

25:59

to... exit the environment that we

26:01

are in the most? I mean, you're

26:03

very aware of this, that transition

26:06

zones are the ripest opportunity to

26:08

see things we've never seen before.

26:10

And that's what we're talking about

26:12

here. So it could be that I'm

26:14

traveling to a different country, transition

26:16

zone. It could be that I'm

26:18

living in a different country, transition

26:20

zone. It could be that I'm

26:23

living in a different country, transition

26:25

zone. Could be that I've just

26:27

taken a new job, transition zone.

26:29

Every one of those transition

26:31

zones provides the richest

26:34

chance to uncover what

26:36

we don't know, we don't know.

26:38

And that's where questions

26:41

come in. It's like, are

26:43

we putting ourselves into

26:45

transition zones where we're

26:48

getting assaulted is the wrong

26:50

word, but confronted, barrage with

26:52

data that's signaling our map

26:54

to the world or wrong?

26:56

So someone like Jeff Wilkie,

26:58

who, you know, he was

27:00

the most recently the CEO

27:02

of Consumer Worldwide at Amazon,

27:05

and then he made a

27:07

conscious choice to leave and

27:09

found an organization called Rebuild

27:11

Manufacturing to try to rebuild

27:13

the manufacturing base in the US,

27:15

it felt was dead. But Jeff

27:17

made a conscious choice when he

27:19

graduated from college to not go

27:21

to the strategy group at headquarters

27:24

at the company that was hiring

27:26

him. That's where they wanted him.

27:28

And Jeff was like, no, I need

27:30

to learn how to operate in

27:32

a manufacturing environment, in a plant,

27:34

in a unionized plant, where there's

27:36

a lot of conflict. Please, I'll

27:38

join you. I love your company,

27:40

but you've got to put me

27:43

there, not in the strategy group.

27:45

How many MBAs would do that? Not

27:47

very many. Yeah, but that's what we're

27:49

talking about. Except all the great companies

27:51

I know, their onboarding programs look like

27:53

that. They look like getting on the

27:55

line and talking. This is one of

27:58

the things where I think COVID. was

28:00

sort of one of these things where

28:02

the water goes out and you see

28:04

he's not wearing their bathing suit or

28:06

the tie goes out, where a lot

28:08

of companies had pretty horrible on-boarding programs.

28:10

But the fact that they were in

28:12

person, they got away with it. So

28:14

Jamie comes in and Jamie, go follow

28:17

howl around, just see what howl does,

28:19

right? But all the companies I knew,

28:21

they were world class. You never hit

28:23

your desk until the third week of

28:25

the job. You came in and you

28:27

went in the call center. You went

28:29

in the call center, you went in

28:31

the call center, you went in the

28:33

call center, you went in the call

28:35

center, you went in the call center,

28:38

you, you, you, you, you, you, you,

28:40

you, you, you, you, you, you, you,

28:42

you, you, you, you, you, you, you,

28:44

you, you, you, you, you, you, you,

28:46

you, you, you, you, you, you, you,

28:48

you, you, you of the business and

28:50

it was always planned out so you

28:52

could kind of understand these different perspectives

28:54

and I just saw that the CEO

28:57

of Uber for the first time I

28:59

drove an Uber for two weeks and

29:01

had all kinds of insights about you

29:03

know what probably the assumptions that the

29:05

executive team had was fundamentally different. I

29:07

would assume though that you know, a

29:09

lot of questioning, one of the two

29:11

points, because I think that there are

29:13

some natural impediments today, both in an

29:16

organization and in higher education, and you

29:18

want to answer both of those. So

29:20

in the organization, obviously psychological safety is

29:22

important, you know, to have in questioning,

29:24

but what can a leader do to

29:26

create the environment where it's not, I

29:28

think first people have to feel comfortable

29:30

asking questions, and then and then that

29:32

has to become part of the culture

29:34

in a different way, but I, I'm

29:37

sure in a lot of places a

29:39

question is a question that is truth

29:41

to power you know is not is

29:43

not the way to get promoted. Now

29:45

you're right and it's just straightforward Bob

29:47

I think is if I were to

29:49

ask you Bob Blazer what's your biggest

29:51

challenge right now? Now you could choose

29:53

to answer yeah and and if you

29:56

do you know tell me quickly what's

29:58

your biggest challenge? Too many priorities. Okay.

30:00

So if we take that as the

30:02

challenge, Bob, it's like in a work

30:04

setting, revealing our biggest challenges can be

30:06

dangerous in some teams and organizations. Because

30:08

it's seen as a weakness. It's seen

30:10

as a weakness and that kind of

30:12

a thing and so if that's your

30:15

biggest Yeah, vulnerable. The fact that you

30:17

or I cannot share our biggest challenges

30:19

is one of the biggest signals as

30:21

to whether or not we're psychologically safe

30:23

or not And as a leader, it's

30:25

a signal to me that I'm gonna

30:27

have to pay whatever price it's going

30:29

to take For you if you're working

30:31

with me Bob to honestly tell me

30:33

what your biggest challenges and until we

30:36

can do that we will be stuck

30:38

in the status quo. It's just reading

30:40

a book or someone's book or something

30:42

about a leader who would call up

30:44

every store every day and ask them

30:46

what their biggest problem was. That was

30:48

his like number one thing and then

30:50

he would brainstorm. brainstorm. We call up

30:52

the manager just randomly. I can't remember

30:55

what business it was, but it sounds

30:57

like that would fall. Yeah, it was

30:59

a successful one. Put it that way.

31:01

That's the spirit of it. And that's

31:03

where, you know, Clayton Christensen had this

31:05

beautiful phrase because he worked with me

31:07

early on on the work for the

31:09

book for questions of the answer. And

31:11

then he just got sick and had

31:14

other things to take care of. But

31:16

Clay said, the best leaders actively seek

31:18

passive data. It's not the data that

31:20

they're getting actively through the system, but

31:22

it's the passive stuff that you have

31:24

to work for. And that's what the

31:26

CEO of Uber was doing, and that's

31:28

what this other person you're just talking

31:30

about was doing, was just actively going

31:32

out of their way to get disconfirming

31:35

data to what they believe. Right. Not

31:37

the data they're being presented, either. Exactly.

31:39

Yeah. Disconfirming data. That's so interesting. Because

31:41

I think everyone today. It just tries

31:43

to, it's all confirmation about what other

31:45

data could I get to prove that

31:47

my hypothesis is correct, not incorrect, right?

31:49

Versus hostile Plattner told me a few

31:51

years ago who found an SAP is

31:54

like every day I wake up wondering

31:56

what am I dead wrong about? About

31:58

0.1% of people would say that or

32:00

think that. That's it is true, but

32:02

you know, those are the ones. frankly,

32:04

that changed the world. Right. Derek Sivers,

32:06

who he had on the podcast, who's

32:08

one of the most brilliant thinkers I've

32:10

ever spoken with, said, my favorite thing

32:13

in the world is to change my

32:15

mind or have my mind changed. And

32:17

I was thinking, no one says that.

32:19

But he's, you know, that has a

32:21

lot to do with why he's really

32:23

smart about a lot of things. No,

32:25

I read the other one, the Walter,

32:27

yeah, Isaac one. So it just barely

32:29

came out through the Jobs Foundation and

32:31

it's available free to anybody. You can

32:34

give it online. But especially after Jobs

32:36

got fired from Apple and then came

32:38

back, he was a different leader and

32:40

most narratives of him do not portray

32:42

that. But he really went out of

32:44

his way to hire people who challenged

32:46

him. Yeah, because they focus on the

32:48

early, a lot of them focus on

32:50

the early. They focused on the early,

32:53

and it makes a lot better copy

32:55

that the only thing Steve Jobs can

32:57

be is a jerk, you know, but

32:59

that's just not the reality for the

33:01

latter part of his life and work.

33:03

And for the most part, and but

33:05

what I'm trying to say here is

33:07

he was just like the lady you

33:09

were talking about. It's like, I want

33:12

people around me who will push me

33:14

to the point that I will change

33:16

my mind. Otherwise, otherwise, we're stuck here.

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details on qualifying items. Do

40:58

you have good answers to those

41:00

same questions for the people you

41:02

work with and care about? What's

41:04

their journey? What was their question

41:07

journey up until this point? Because

41:09

even if we find a good

41:11

challenge, and I've got three people

41:13

who have literally had questions crushed

41:15

throughout their life, ones that could

41:17

move things forward, even if we

41:19

find a good challenge, they're going

41:21

to be hesitant to say much.

41:23

So that leads me into my

41:25

next question. And I know you

41:27

work in a specific kind of

41:30

area of higher education, but you

41:32

know, we have the Cornell kind

41:34

of decision on the staff on

41:36

the on the trigger warning request

41:38

a few weeks ago. My oldest

41:40

is in school. I've been reading

41:42

a lot about this, you know,

41:44

read Jonathan Heights book, Connolly American

41:46

Mine. There's a real problem in

41:48

that in higher education that is

41:50

not safe to ask questions. What

41:53

should be a. There's a preferred

41:55

narrative in a lot of discussions

41:57

and it just seems antithetical to

41:59

what our education system is supposed

42:01

to do and I know a

42:03

lot of people have general and

42:05

intellectual curiosity around. something are probably

42:07

scared to ask a question because

42:09

they don't want to be called

42:11

out. I know that's a loaded

42:13

thing but every your perspective on

42:15

it would be very interesting to

42:18

me. I had a conversation with

42:20

Clay Christians about Christensen about this

42:22

before he passed away and we

42:24

talked about Harvard Business School and

42:26

I think it's the same in

42:28

other other major business schools around

42:30

the world which is the most

42:32

innovative students at the best schools

42:34

learn really fast in school. to

42:36

not challenge the professor. Even in

42:38

a case study environment? Even in

42:41

a case, they learn that the

42:43

professor wants us to challenge, but

42:45

not challenge their fundamental framework or

42:47

belief around how we maneuver through

42:49

this case study. And so literally,

42:51

80, 90% of these really cutting

42:53

edge innovative students learn really fast.

42:55

I'm a lot better off hiding

42:57

my best questions for after I

42:59

get out of school. Which is

43:01

tragic. But how are you going

43:04

to hide him for after you

43:06

get out of school? And I

43:08

think this starts before business school.

43:10

But how are you going to

43:12

hide him if you learn if

43:14

you learn how to practice something

43:16

you get good at it? So

43:18

I don't know where where then

43:20

are you going to feel safe

43:22

asking those questions and when you

43:24

can be fired? You can't be

43:26

fired that maybe get to be.

43:29

Well, and that's where you know,

43:31

if you were in Clay Christensen

43:33

class, he would say at the

43:35

beginning. I want you to challenge

43:37

these frameworks, not just the ones

43:39

I'm telling you, mine, and if

43:41

you do a great job during

43:43

this semester with me, we will

43:45

see my frameworks differently. Students are

43:47

initially hesitant around that, but they

43:49

believe it because he actually invites

43:52

it over and over. And so

43:54

in this world of division and

43:56

divisiveness and politicized this way or

43:58

that way kind of world line,

44:00

I love Elie Viesel's quote, which

44:02

is, to divide us questions unite

44:04

us. And the notion is, how

44:06

can we open up like clay

44:08

did that sort of space? Well,

44:10

first you have to be willing

44:12

to show up and sit with

44:14

someone you don't agree with. That's

44:17

phase one. And then phase two

44:19

is to ask a question that

44:21

you're genuinely curious about. the answer

44:23

to, and you might actually be

44:25

surprised where that person's opinion came

44:27

from or how it was formed

44:29

or otherwise, but it seems like,

44:31

A, you got to be in

44:33

the same room, and then B,

44:35

you got to be actually intellectually

44:37

curious enough to be willing to

44:40

ask a question and listen to

44:42

the answer rather than already ready

44:44

to go on your diatribe. Yeah,

44:46

yeah, no, totally. And I don't

44:48

want this to feel like I'm

44:50

bumping into that question birth space,

44:52

but there's an example that I

44:54

think exemplifies exemplifies this really well.

44:56

where I was doing a workshop

44:58

at MIT for the administrative assistants

45:00

who were helping the faculty do

45:03

their work. And there was an

45:05

extra spot in a trio of

45:07

people that were sharing their challenges

45:09

and spending three or four minutes

45:11

generating questions about each challenge in

45:13

order to move things forward. I

45:15

joined a group of three administrative

45:17

assistants. This is out of my

45:19

normal conversation space. They shared their

45:21

two challenges. We generated questions. Then

45:23

it was mine and mine was

45:25

the following. I honestly don't know

45:28

and it's been really difficult over

45:30

time to figure out what things

45:32

to give the assistant to do.

45:34

It's just tough for me to

45:36

figure that out and I explained

45:38

a little more. Then we got

45:40

to that moment of, okay, asked

45:42

nothing but questions. This courageous stranger

45:44

administrative assistant looked me in the

45:46

eye bob and she said, how

45:48

do you have control issues? And

45:52

it was like really uncomfortable because

45:54

I could feel the error going

45:56

right through my heart. He nailed

45:58

it. And then I just had

46:00

to be quiet, mostly listen to

46:02

15 or 20 other questions being

46:04

generated, but she had the first

46:07

one right off the bat. And

46:09

that's where I think what we're

46:11

talking about here, Bob, whether it's

46:13

a question-based process or just a

46:15

normal way of engaging with people.

46:17

If we're not regularly getting those

46:19

arrow shots to the heart, we

46:22

are living in a... deeply limited

46:24

world and we're probably limiting the

46:26

world to the people of who

46:28

are right around us. Yeah, I

46:30

mean, the simplest thing sometimes, I

46:32

think in a works, even in

46:34

a workspace, and we really pushed

46:37

this with our team during clients,

46:39

particularly in COVID, what is, how

46:41

are you? Like, how's it going?

46:43

So, you know, the answers sometimes

46:45

are really, like, really bad. Like,

46:47

my husband, you know, I'm going

46:50

through divorce, dumped him with the

46:52

kids on the week. So now

46:54

I actually understand why this person.

46:56

frustrated, short-tempered, has nothing to do

46:58

with the work that's going on

47:00

or otherwise, but just that open-ended

47:02

question to know what's going on

47:05

with our life. Totally. And this

47:07

is where there's another thing that

47:09

I would suggest to other leaders

47:11

or people, anybody, related to what

47:13

we were talking about right now,

47:15

which is audit the questions that

47:17

you're asking and being asked for

47:20

24 hours, literally. Write down all

47:22

the questions that come out of

47:24

your mouth. Right down the questions

47:26

you never ask, but they're in

47:28

your head. Right down questions you

47:30

get asked. As appropriate, you know,

47:32

you're not going to try to

47:35

offend people in doing that, but

47:37

as much of you possibly can

47:39

capture all of those questions. And

47:41

then step back and look at

47:43

patterns. Are they transactional versus relational

47:45

energy giving, energy taking? One of

47:47

the dimensions I suggest looking at

47:50

is related to what you were

47:52

just describing. It's... What is my

47:54

starting point of inquiry? Is it

47:56

who what when how where how

47:58

is it what if how my?

48:00

Right, that kind of things. Nikki

48:03

Sparshot became the CEO of Unilever

48:05

Australia two weeks before COVID lockdown.

48:07

Didn't know anybody. Right. Through Zoom

48:09

like you and me, she had

48:11

to engage with her people. Her

48:13

two go-to questions pre-coVID were, what

48:15

are we talking about today and

48:18

how do we solve it? I

48:20

love that. I was actually thinking

48:22

as you said that, I could

48:24

see if you went to your

48:26

list and they were all... questions

48:28

about why aren't we doing this

48:30

right versus how could we that's

48:33

a totally different mindset right why

48:35

aren't we why aren't we why

48:37

aren't we right and and she

48:39

had not done this audit but

48:41

she was smart enough and self-aware

48:43

enough to realize that her typical

48:45

starting point with her questions it's

48:48

totally inappropriate for that early cold

48:50

days and so she switched it

48:52

to first how are you today

48:54

what you just asked Then it

48:56

was some version of why are

48:58

you even here? You know, what's

49:00

your purpose? What's driving you? She

49:03

was doing everything she could to

49:05

get out and she might, I

49:07

know that background isn't actually true,

49:09

but she might be looking at

49:11

those, she might be looking at

49:13

those water skis over there and

49:16

say, Bob, you know, tell me

49:18

about the water skis. What's the

49:20

story there? When she got through

49:22

two or three years of COVID,

49:24

she said, I felt more intimacy

49:26

with my people over Zoom than

49:28

I ever did before COVID in

49:31

face-to-face interactions. So say that, what

49:33

was her name again? Nikki Sparshot,

49:35

SBA, S-H-O-T-T, and the two questions

49:37

were, the first, her free COVID

49:39

questions were, what's the challenge? What's

49:41

the issue? What are we trying

49:43

to solve for here? And then

49:46

it was, how do we do

49:48

it? But it was all work

49:50

focused. It was like, I'm busy,

49:52

I've got a lot to do,

49:54

let's get at it. But then

49:56

it's like, no. How are you

49:58

doing? Really? And the second question

50:01

really was, who are you? Why

50:03

are you here? And then once

50:05

we sort of understand that, oh,

50:07

what are we trying to solve

50:09

for, how are we going to

50:11

go do that? Yeah. So same

50:14

questions, but just started with a

50:16

more opener. Yeah, this was. during

50:18

COVID we would say to our

50:20

team, you have no idea what's

50:22

going on with people. So by

50:24

saying to them, how's it going?

50:26

And they say, it's going terrible.

50:29

I got home school going over

50:31

here, my mother's in the hospital,

50:33

I'm really worried about her. Like,

50:35

it really helps to know that

50:37

person's mindset before launching it. Well,

50:39

let me tell you about our

50:41

marketing results this month, which is

50:44

the last thing they're interested in

50:46

talking about and talking about. If

50:48

you objectively asked them how our

50:50

clients were doing or thought of

50:52

what we were doing, they would

50:54

say, like, they seem unhappy, they

50:56

seem frustrated, they seem whatever, we

50:59

got the highest net promoter score

51:01

we had ever had kind of

51:03

right in the middle of that.

51:05

So they were just generally, I

51:07

think, stressed and worried and a

51:09

bunch of things, but appreciative that

51:11

people were, you know, talking to

51:14

them from a human standpoint and

51:16

generally. kind of less transactional but

51:18

it's interesting because I think people

51:20

would have thought it was the

51:22

opposite but the data came in

51:24

showing it was it was not

51:27

the case. That is so cool

51:29

I mean I applaud you you

51:31

know for taking that kind of

51:33

approach as a team yeah. All

51:35

right well last year I want

51:37

to talk about that'll be I

51:39

think changed the future of questions

51:42

and answers and I know you

51:44

spent some time in this is

51:46

is generative AI right you got

51:48

a lot of people asking questions.

51:50

Maybe they feel more comfortable. Here's

51:52

the irony. I think maybe some

51:54

people feel more comfortable asking questions

51:57

to a robot without the judgment

51:59

or feedback and getting that data

52:01

back. And that could be a

52:03

really bad self-fulfilling prophecy in terms

52:05

of less human connection and feedback

52:07

and otherwise. So what are you

52:09

seeing of this technology that's seemingly

52:12

gonna impact all aspects of our

52:14

lives? So I've been collecting data

52:16

on this for the last 12

52:18

months, and here's what I've learned

52:20

from the data, Bob, is that

52:22

if I choose to engage with

52:24

something like ChatGPT. At number

52:27

one, the engagement with that kind

52:29

of technology, it causes me to

52:31

be more wrong, more uncomfortable, and

52:33

more reflectively quiet than I normally

52:35

am. Why is it causing to

52:37

be more wrong? Because the data

52:40

in the back is not necessarily

52:42

correct? Sometimes it's because the data

52:44

isn't correct, but I often use

52:46

it to generate questions, not answers.

52:48

Got it. Yeah. So I mean,

52:50

you're going to hear my click

52:52

of the clock here, but I'm

52:54

going to type in real quick,

52:57

which is my challenge is having

52:59

too many priorities. What questions should

53:01

I be asking myself to make

53:03

progress on this challenge? Give me

53:05

20 questions. And so it starts

53:07

pumping them out. And, you know,

53:09

my experience with doing it using

53:11

it that way, for example, is

53:14

that 80 to 90% of the

53:16

questions are ones. Yeah, I kind

53:18

of know about those. But there's

53:20

often one or two that are

53:22

like, whoa, that's helpful. I hadn't

53:24

thought of it that way. So

53:26

it's that kind of literal that

53:28

I'm talking about that that kind

53:30

of engagement can cause that sort

53:33

of surprise. So, but why has

53:35

it caused them to be wrong?

53:37

It's intellectually wrong to me means

53:39

that there's some part of my

53:41

mental map of the way the

53:43

rule operates that is off. It's

53:45

just not accurate. And the emotional

53:47

surprise is often discomfort or uncomfortable.

53:50

And then the behavioral reflective quiet

53:52

is I can sit with that.

53:54

I can live in this negative

53:56

capability moment of just sitting with

53:58

the uncertainty and what does all

54:00

this mean for me? But the

54:02

use of it, I mean, if

54:04

I think of, that's a specific

54:07

application, you know, there's some interesting

54:09

questions here, but the point is,

54:11

if I think of my role

54:13

as a professor of work, just

54:15

as an example, my... Current engagement

54:17

with these technologies is causing me

54:19

to rethink. How do I approach

54:21

teaching? How do I approach research?

54:24

Who am I? As a teacher,

54:26

as a researcher? I use Dolly

54:28

too because I'm also a professional

54:30

photographer at one level and it's

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55:00

Right. Denial is the schools are

55:02

educated. We don't pretend this thing

55:04

didn't exist and put it back

55:06

in the box. Does not seem

55:08

to be a winning. strategy. That's

55:10

like putting the internet back in

55:12

the box. It's like putting the

55:15

steam engine back in the box.

55:17

Like it's just not not a

55:19

winning strategy, right? So last night

55:21

at dinner, I was talking, one

55:23

of our granddaughters is in middle

55:25

school and I asked her, what's

55:27

the approach there? And they're like,

55:29

they completely illegal, don't touch this

55:32

stuff related to school. Yeah. And

55:34

I'm like, wow. Because guess what?

55:36

Granddaughter. If you were in my

55:38

colleagues class that you see Santa

55:40

Barbara, you see Santa Barbara. He

55:42

used to be with me here

55:44

at MIT, Matt Bean. Matt Bean

55:46

would be requiring you to use

55:49

ChatGBT on... every assignment to figure

55:51

out how might you use it

55:53

to become better at what you

55:55

do? Perfect example and I've been

55:57

really working with my kids on

55:59

like how can they use it

56:01

in a smart way so my

56:03

son had a he was actually

56:06

preparing for a test and used

56:08

it to like what are the

56:10

questions I'm likely to be asked

56:12

on this it turned into like

56:14

a live study guide like what

56:16

questions am I likely to be

56:18

asked based on this topic on

56:20

a AP history test? Right, so

56:23

it's questions about questions, which is,

56:25

exactly, right, which is training. And

56:27

another time we put one of

56:29

his papers in, daughter asked me

56:31

to edit a paper of hers

56:33

and I added it, but then

56:35

I put it in and I

56:37

said, give me constructive feedback on

56:39

this from like you were an

56:42

X professor and how could it

56:44

improve on what grade would you

56:46

give it? And so it gave

56:48

a whole bunch of things around.

56:50

It was almost like getting a

56:52

free read from a TA, right,

56:54

on your paper. It wasn't saying

56:56

write it for me, but what

56:59

would the feedback you give? And

57:01

that's really interesting. I said, this

57:03

is the most fascinating thing. If

57:05

this was the most fascinating thing.

57:07

If I made those things, it

57:09

said, A minus. I was like,

57:11

so what would it take to

57:13

make it an A? And it

57:16

gave a whole other list of

57:18

suggestions? That's a super powerful, if

57:20

you actually want to get better

57:22

and you just don't want the

57:24

answer. And again, I think for

57:26

some people, it's going to be

57:28

easier to take criticism from a,

57:30

maybe a machine than a human.

57:33

Like there's some really powerful ways

57:35

of learning there. I love those

57:37

examples. And what you're doing is

57:39

you're exploring it in a terrain

57:41

that you really care about. the

57:43

challenge that your kid cared about

57:45

and you care about, you're exploring

57:47

it that way and you're using

57:50

it smartly. You know, it's a

57:52

combination of what questions should I

57:54

be asking or how might I

57:56

revise what I've already done as

57:58

opposed to giving it full responsibility

58:00

for my expertise and capability. That's

58:02

stupid. The line I hear people

58:04

say is you're not going to

58:07

lose your job to AI, you're

58:09

going to lose your job to

58:11

someone who knows how to use

58:13

AI, right? And I think that's

58:15

a, look, I'm working on my

58:17

next book. The hardest part you've

58:19

done this is research, right? It's

58:21

exhausting. I need a study that

58:24

looks like this or is about

58:26

this topic. I mean, it can

58:28

save you 99% on finding relevant

58:30

research. Now you have to validate

58:32

that research, you have to validate

58:34

that research, you have to check

58:36

that it. pride in the grind

58:38

of searching through card catalogs or

58:41

internet or whatever to find what

58:43

you're looking for. But if you

58:45

get 30 things, then you can

58:47

go say, oh, wow, this one's

58:49

really relevant. Oh, I mean, who

58:51

wouldn't want? How could you ignore

58:53

that as a tool to improve

58:55

whatever you're doing? It's like a

58:58

free research assistant. No, totally, totally.

59:00

I totally agree with you. And

59:02

this is where I said to

59:04

our granddaughter last night. I'm like,

59:06

I see why you're. while your

59:08

teachers and administrators at your school

59:10

are not letting you use this,

59:12

you know, but if you take

59:15

a hiatus of three, five years

59:17

while you're in school and don't

59:19

do what you just described, Bob,

59:21

with your family, you're going to

59:23

be behind. And that's just not

59:25

a wise thing. I'm totally with

59:27

you on that. Yeah, it's never

59:29

good to try to freeze the

59:31

current. Actually, I give a ton

59:34

of credit. When it first came

59:36

out and all the schools were

59:38

freaking out and all the had

59:40

GPT write the letter to experience

59:42

explaining what chat GPT was. And

59:44

that was the entire thing that

59:46

he sent to parents just so

59:48

they could understand the power of

59:51

it. And I was like, that's

59:53

really good. That's funny. That has

59:55

some like humility to it. Like,

59:57

that's good. That's really cool. And

59:59

so when we engage with it

1:00:01

the way you're describing. What the

1:00:03

data I've been collecting, the signaling

1:00:05

is it causes us to be

1:00:08

more wrong, uncomfortable, reflective, quiet. It

1:00:10

also increases the velocity or the

1:00:12

number of questions we're asking, the

1:00:14

variety. and the deep level of

1:00:16

novelty. And so when we take

1:00:18

advantage of that technology smartly, it

1:00:20

can actually enable us to ask

1:00:22

the better question to open up

1:00:25

these completely new avenues. We could

1:00:27

talk about this all day, but

1:00:29

normally my last question is normally

1:00:31

about a professional or personal mistake

1:00:33

you learn the most from, but

1:00:35

you kind of answered that really

1:00:37

deeply for us early on. So

1:00:39

I'm gonna. I'm going to let

1:00:42

you end with a question. What's

1:00:44

the question that you want everyone

1:00:46

to contemplate who's listening to this

1:00:48

episode? What is the longest time

1:00:50

horizon? How many years out is

1:00:52

the most important project you're working

1:00:54

on right now? How far out

1:00:56

is that project? How far out

1:00:59

is that project? How many years

1:01:01

out is it going to take

1:01:03

to achieve that project? Now that

1:01:05

may sound like that's a stupid

1:01:07

question, Hal. But the problems we're

1:01:09

facing today, generative AI and interaction

1:01:11

with the world, deep divisiveness, climate

1:01:13

change and challenges, the list goes

1:01:16

on and on. These are problems

1:01:18

that are not going to be

1:01:20

solved overnight. Their challenges are going

1:01:22

to take five to 10 or

1:01:24

15 years to solve, and some

1:01:26

of them will never be solved.

1:01:28

We'll simply make progress on them.

1:01:30

But if the only challenges we're

1:01:33

tackling in our day-to-day work have

1:01:35

short-term horizons, one year, two year,

1:01:37

three years, we are not only

1:01:39

short-changing ourselves, we're short-changing our collective

1:01:41

future, I honestly believe that Bob.

1:01:43

The challenges are so big that

1:01:45

we have to learn at a

1:01:47

step... out of that short-term mentality

1:01:50

and to what's something bigger than

1:01:52

me big enough and worthy of

1:01:54

my effort that other people would

1:01:56

want to get involved with that

1:01:58

we could we could nudge and

1:02:00

move something forward here. Sounds like

1:02:02

a bunch of good business ideas

1:02:04

might come out answering that question.

1:02:07

Yeah, and you know, Vivian Meng

1:02:09

is a theoretical neuroscientist. Theoretical neurophysicist,

1:02:11

she's got a really complex name

1:02:13

of what she does, but she

1:02:15

does really cool stuff. They now

1:02:17

have neural implants that can cause

1:02:19

me to be 10% better at

1:02:21

asking questions. And so this stuff

1:02:23

we're doing at ChatGPT is we're

1:02:26

wondering into a very, very different

1:02:28

kind of future world. But the

1:02:30

cool thing about Vivian is, she

1:02:32

said, you know, purpose that really

1:02:34

matters for us as individual human

1:02:36

beings has to transcend our lifetime.

1:02:38

Yeah. If I can show up

1:02:40

and solve this, it's not a

1:02:43

purpose. It's just a big challenge.

1:02:45

Well, that it's like, what am

1:02:47

I committed to that's much bigger

1:02:49

than me? that will outlast my

1:02:51

life even. And if I think

1:02:53

of the work you're doing and

1:02:55

the work that I'm trying to

1:02:57

do with colleagues, I think what

1:03:00

we're trying to do is give

1:03:02

them a few more tools to

1:03:04

discover that kind of reason for

1:03:06

being and being more capable of

1:03:08

getting at it and moving it

1:03:10

forward. 100%. All right. Thank you

1:03:12

for joining us today. Thank you.

1:03:14

Your work on leadership and innovation

1:03:17

in questioning, I think, has had

1:03:19

a profound impact on a lot

1:03:21

of business leaders and I hope

1:03:23

a lot of listeners to the

1:03:25

Elevate podcast as well. Thank you,

1:03:27

Bob. For all, not only the

1:03:29

questions, the conversation, but your commitment

1:03:31

to making a really big impact,

1:03:34

a good positive impact. Thank you.

1:03:36

All right, to our listeners, thank

1:03:38

you for tuning into the Elevate

1:03:40

podcast today. We'll include links to

1:03:42

How's Work, and Questions are the

1:03:44

Answer, which you can buy wherever

1:03:46

books are sold, on the detailed

1:03:48

episode page at Robert glazer.com. As

1:03:51

always, if you enjoyed today's episode,

1:03:53

I'd really appreciate if you could

1:03:55

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1:03:57

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1:03:59

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1:04:01

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1:04:03

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1:04:07

again for your support, and next time,

1:04:09

keep time, keep elevating.