IDL130 Season 3: Best Team Ever with David Burkus
How can you create psychological safety within your business? Do you often take on everything yourself? Why is this one of the worst mistakes to make, and do you want to know what to do instead?
Welcome back! Today, I’m excited to be sharing this conversation with David Burkus. He is an international speaker as well as the author of this month’s book of the month in the IDL book club, Best Team Ever. David shares three topics from the book, and it’s surprising how simple these are. So I encourage you to take notes and apply his ideas!
Meet Dr. David Burkus
One of the world’s leading business thinkers, Dr. David Burkus’ forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books are helping leaders build their best team ever. He is the bestselling author of four books about business and leadership. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into dozens of languages.
Since 2017, Burkus has been ranked multiple times as one of the world’s top business thought leaders. His insights on leadership and teamwork have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, USAToday, Fast Company, the Financial Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and CBS This Morning.
A former business school professor, Burkus now works with leaders from organizations across all industries, including PepsiCo, Fidelity, Adobe, and NASA.
Visit Dr. Burkus’ website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
David’s advice to leaders - 03:00
Empathy is a hidden element of success - 08:42
The three elements in David’s book - 11:50
Where teams go wrong - 33:13
David’s advice to leaders
One of the biggest commonalities of successful businesses are how flexible, nourished, and strong the teamwork within it is. A business that has a foundation of employees that can rely on one another, work together, and problem-solve as a team is a successful one.
However, at the moment, a lot of leadership content focused on one-on-one leadership building – which is important as well – but the teamwork aspect cannot be left to the wayside.
“So much of the content that’s out there aimed at leaders is focused on the one-on-one relationship, which is fine [because] leaders need to know how to have crucial conversations and they need to know how to inspire each individual … but if you’re a leader at any level, your job is to be sort of a chief-culture-officer for your team. ”
You are the one that helps to set the norms, the habits, the behaviors, and the way that the team interacts with each other.
This doesn’t necessarily come from thinking only about one-on-one, because it comes from thinking what the good of the team is.
Empathy is a hidden element of success
“The surprise is always, “It’s not actually this, it’s this plus this other element”, and in the case of getting the team on the same page, that empathy is exactly that, that hidden element. ”
No one will believe in your business and the quality of your empathy if you say that you have empathy and trust, but you haven’t built psychological safety within your business.
That just sounds like empty promises and pushes people much further away than it does to lure them.
People can tell whether the trust, empathy, and safety in your business are real or put on, so make it count and make it real.
The three elements in David’s book
1 – The common understanding:
“The basics of teamwork … it’s [about] how well people have a shared understanding of the people on the team’s tasks, their knowledge, skills, and abilities, but also the context they’re working in, the personality differences, [and] work preferences. ”
- Clarity is needed around tasks.
- Empathy to give the best feedback.
“The difference in feedback, the difference in the conversation of those individuals, has more to do with their psychological safety and trust of that leader than it does anything else. ”
2 – Psychological safety:
- The group is safe for interpersonal risk-taking like admitting failures or suggesting ideas.
- “A climate of mutual trust and respect” respect is an important level that needs to be involved.
3 – Pro-social purpose:
- When people feel like they are making a meaningful contribution to work that benefits others.
- Point to the audience that is directly served by the work that the team is doing.
Where teams go wrong
A common place where teams can lose the plot and come apart is when individuals in the team, or the leader as well, take everything onto themselves.
The whole pyramid of effective communication, trust, safety, and respect starts to crumble because that type of hyper-individualistic behavior says to the rest of the team; “I don’t need you”, which instantly disintegrates it.
“People want to do work that matters, and to work for leaders who tell them that they matter. ”
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
BOOK | Dr. David Burkus - Best Team Ever: The Surprising Science of High-Performing Teams
BOOK | David Burkis – Under New Management: How Leading Organizations Are Upending Business as Usual
Visit Dr. Burkus’ website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Attend the next Ideas on Stage web class
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Sign up for the roundtable at: hello@theimpactdrivenleader.com
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About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast
The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.
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People want to do work that matters and to work for leaders who tell them that they matter.
David Burkus
Podcast Transcription
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:00:07) - Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. So thankful that you chose to spend a bit of your day with me today, and my guest, David Burkus. David is an international speaker author. He wrote the book that we're featuring here in the Impact Driven Leader Book Club Best Team Ever. Have it right here. So excited to speak with David about this book. David introduced himself to me after hearing my podcast with mutual friend Ryan Estes and shared his latest book, and I'm thoroughly enjoyed reading. It was amazing. It was a great read. It was a very timely read for me, and this is one thing that I've learned is no matter where you're at in life. It's been my student journey in leadership. No matter what industry I came from agriculture. Today we're talking about a lot of different industries. Maybe you're coming and listening from production to manufacturing to people to real estate to network marketing, to all the different industries out there in the world or your coach.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:01:15) - This is the thing I know is that it all centers around people. As my friend Chris Allen shares, it's always about people. Well, David shares three topics in the book and then examines them with two elements each. These are simple. They're logical. Yet it's the simple that people fail most often to execute. He shares stories in the science science behind them with examples of people that grew just like I did. And I'm encouraging you to listen in and be willing to grow and say, how can I apply that in my world and my leadership? One reminder if you're not a subscriber to the Impact Driven Leader podcast, do yourself a favor. Tap subscribe. So new episodes hit your library every Friday, and if you're watching from YouTube. Glad to see you. You will also get alerted to my daily chats if you subscribe there where I share what I'm learning a little bit about each podcast before it releases so you can be prepared for the podcast each Friday. So here we go. Let's listen to this conversation with David Burkus.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:02:33) - David, excited to be here with you. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for reaching out. You reached out. You shared your book with me. I have been enamored by it. As I mentioned to you in the open, it is an extremely timely read. Enjoyable read. Great stories. But let's kind of set that aside and let's start talking just about leadership. And I'd love for you to just kind of share, as you know, whether this book or the other five books that you've written, where does your take on leadership kind of come into as far as how you're trying to help other leaders?
David Burkus (00:03:06) - Yeah, I'm, you know, guess I guess would my take would be just how much rises and falls on teamwork and collaboration and what have you. And yet so much of the content that's out there aimed at leaders is kind of focused on the one on one relationship, which is fine, right? Leaders need to know how to have crucial conversations, and they need to know how to inspire each individual person and what have you.
David Burkus (00:03:30) - But like, if you're a leader at any level, your job is to be sort of chief culture officer for your team, right? So you're the one that's helping to set the habits, the norms of behaviors, the way we interact with each other, how much trust we have, etcetera. That's all your job. And that doesn't necessarily come from thinking one on one, right? That comes from thinking about what the good of the team is, including sometimes having uncomfortable conversations, like I was asked the other day, what do you do with a great performer who's not a great team player? And I literally mean, I was dumbfounded. I'm sitting there on stage and they asked me that. I'm like, well, is part of their job working on a team? Yeah. Then they're not a great performer, right? Right.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:04:11) - Think of the classic example that would and you wrote about and I can't I wish I remembered the player's name. I haven't searched it yet, but he had a player.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:04:19) - He was the best player at UCLA. But yet he benched him because the team doesn't play the best with you. And yet. Right. So many leaders are afraid to do that. And I think that is one of the issues that leads into teams struggling, because leaders are often remiss to bench the star player in position of someone who actually is a better team player, where the team performs better.
David Burkus (00:04:49) - Yeah. And some of this is the systems that that kind of reiterate it. Right. Like you usually you go to work for an organization. You get paid one salary to one individual person, okay, no problem with that. But then even our incentive compensation systems and our performance rating systems and what have you are all based on that individual. And so, so much of if you work for a large organization, how you do your feedback sessions or what have you, it has been structured and it's been structured on the individual. I lead a team of ten people, so I've got ten relationships I've got to get ready for and ten documents I have to fill out and ten conversations I have to have.
David Burkus (00:05:22) - And yet what actually matters is how well each of the one individual people relate to the other nine. That's like sort of the fundamental. And so we don't we don't do that. I mean, I way back in 2016, I had a book out called Under New Management that was all about workplace trends and what have you. And one of the things we explored in that was performance as a team. Sport, like talent, is important, but we too often draw this direct correlation between talent and performance. That's not true. Talent is like it's like gasoline, right? Gasoline is latent energy. You can leave it sitting there and nothing happens, or you can put it in an engine and then it turns into forward motion or whatever power you're looking to generate. Teams and talent are the same way, right? The talent doesn't make the team. The team makes the talent. It's the engine that unlocks that performance. And so if you're not paying attention to that, right, if you're just too busy doing all of these individual performance reviews, what have you and you're ignoring that, not only are you potentially doing the toxic thing by letting a star player still destroy your team, you're actually dis serving people who need to be more collaborative in order to have that thing unlocked.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:06:25) - So reading through your book, Best Team Ever. And one of the things that struck me and I'm going to show the seed now and then we'll come back to it later, is none of it to me. Greenwich. What we're in is revolutionary, but yet I know, and as I shared with you, leaders struggle with it. Coaches struggle with it day in, day out, in all circumstances and all teams. And to me, what's great about that? It doesn't matter if you're a wherever there are people, it all applies. And I think some leaders mistake that, oh, I work in the auto industry. I work in, you know, you know, some other furniture sales. I work in all these different it can't be the same. And as I've learned through my background, if there's people, it's all the same.
David Burkus (00:07:15) - Yeah, yeah, it's a bit like I make this joke often. I was an undergrad English major and so had to read a lot of different novelists, including Tolstoy.
David Burkus (00:07:23) - And there's this novel, Anna Karenina, and it opens with the line, all happy families are alike, and every unhappy family is unhappy in its own unique way. Teams are kind of the same thing, right? There's a lot of different reasons the team might be dysfunctional, but you look across the spectrum not only in business, but in sports. In any industry, all high performing teams are actually alike. It's every dysfunctional team that's dysfunctional in its own unique way. It's very, very similar. And, you know, I agree with you. Common, common sense in a sense, it's not really all that common practice. And so the goal this is actually a little bit different book than what I've ever written, because the goal was to bridge that gap for people. Normally I just go, here's the idea and here's the research that supports the idea and a fun case study and what have you. This one, every single chapter ends with like, here's 4 or 5 things you can do, because it's that knowing doing gap, right.
David Burkus (00:08:11) - There's three main principles in the book. Your average leader probably implements two out of the three of them already. It's going to be different, right? But two out of the three of them already, the goal is to help you not only see that third one, but then get better at practicing all three.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:08:23) - So I want to walk through that because I think it's it's powerful to walk through them. I would even go this step further because because you have three points in each of those has two. So there's six total I would say. Yeah. Ideas and.
David Burkus (00:08:36) - Actions. Yeah.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:08:37) - And I think what happens is those are the ones that get missed, you know, to me and go back and I shared this with you as we're opening up. You're from the northeast. I'm from Ohio, went to school in northeast. I struggled with being super intense and not having enough empathy. And you talk about you open the book with that, which elevates me because to me that is the great solution. And yet I find that people don't realize it's the solution because they don't know what problem empathy will solve.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:09:09) - And I think that ... you go ahead.
David Burkus (00:09:13) - Well, I was just going to say you picked up on something that not a lot of people who've read the book so far picked up on. Right? So the subtitle is The Surprising Science of High Performing Teams. The surprise is that each of those two are paired, right? So, you know, pretty much every leader knows you need to have good clarity, role clarity, execution, what have you. But it's packed with empathy, which is what you're getting at. Same thing in the second one. And we can talk about it when it comes to that. And same thing in the third one. The surprise is always it's not actually this, it's this plus this other element. And yeah, in the case of getting the team on the same page, that empathy piece is exactly that, that hidden element.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:09:46) - Well, and I think, you know, as you start and it's kind of you could almost do a pyramid esque go back to wooden, you know, his, you know, pyramid of success.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:09:54) - It's a pyramid of common understanding. I'm going to go through it for you here, common understanding to psychological safety. And then it's ending it. And, you know, the end part of it. When you get to the pro-social purpose, which I got to have you define a little bit clearer is the top of the pyramid. And it's like when you work that way, you can actually get to that point of impact. It's to me as a leader, being impact driven leaders, the title of this, that's what I aim for because it's not about me going searching for me first. It's realizing if I do all the things to build, you know, clarity and empathy and trust and I build that upon each other, the impact will come. But you can't flip the the pyramid over. It'll just crush you.
David Burkus (00:10:40) - Yeah, well, no one will believe you right when you start talking purpose. But you haven't built psychological safety, or nobody knows what they're supposed to be working on. But you talk about the impact you're going to make.
David Burkus (00:10:49) - It all kind of falls apart, right? So then that's a good I mean, I drew the triangle differently, but pyramids a good way to think about it.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:10:55) - Like yeah I mean like how you drive I mean, again, I'm aligned with that. I think it's perfect. But yet the idea so often leaders like, okay, here's what our goal is. It's like no one cares about where you're going to go until they know you care about them and whatever that journey means. I was sharing with you why this is so timely, as I'm involved in a youth sports team and I see it going all wrong, and I believe I'm more sensitive to it because one, the work that I do spending doing this, reading this book, having this conversation, but having gone through it myself, being that leader that was oblivious to others, where if I read through my 360 review of five and six years ago and it was like, it's all about him, and I'm like, oh no, no, no, no, that's not in my heart.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:11:47) - But yet that's how I showed up to people.
David Burkus (00:11:52) - Yeah.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:11:53) - So let's walk through the three elements the common understanding, psychological safety and pro-social purpose. Let's break that apart and and kind of chew on it a bit. Yeah. Yeah.
David Burkus (00:12:03) - So so common understanding first kind of element. Let's like you I like this this metaphor, the foundation of the pyramid. Right. I usually sometimes call it blocking and tackling like the basics of teamwork. Right. And it's, it's how well people have a shared understanding of the people on the teams tasks, their knowledge, skills and abilities, but also the the context they're working in, their personality differences, their work preferences. And actually, you could argue differences in preference matter more than differences in personality. But we could go on a whole tangent there and here where the surprises. A lot of people think this is just about clarity. How well do I go over goals and break down our large thing into milestone goals? How well do we run our weekly check in meetings and what have you? And that's important.
David Burkus (00:12:45) - You can't ignore that. The difference is that clarity is needed not only around task, but also clarity of person. That's really what separates the difference between decently performing teams and high performing ones. High performing. If you want to get nerdy about the research literature on this, it's actually not called empathy. It's called collective intelligence. And the trigger for collective intelligence is social sensitivity. I just empathy seem to be a more clear word. So I went for it. Right. How? Well, and it's not empathy in the sense of like, I feel your pain, but it's how well do I understand where you're coming from? How well do I understand your past experiences, your perspectives, how? Well, you know, for a lot of us that are in our normal work life, although teams come from all spheres of our life, but in a normal work life, so many of us are working in different contexts. Right now. We've got some people that are pushing to go back to the office.
David Burkus (00:13:34) - Some people want to be hybrid, some people are trying to stay remote forever, but each environment is different and you expect different things from different people when they're in that environment. So how well do we understand kind of all of that now as a leader, this is huge, not only because you want your team to have that sense of empathy with each other. So they better understand each other, but you need it. You know, the example that you were sharing with me, if you don't have that empathy side, clarity, if you're coaching or something like that in a sports team is about giving people feedback on their performance, you did this, but I need you to do this when you when you're shooting for this, I need that. Like you need to give very clear feedback, but you have to have empathy for the person in order to understand how to give them that feedback. You know, I really get frustrated when people share these trite things like the compliment sandwich, right? Like, oh, this is the perfect way to give feedback to everybody, compliment them, and then put your criticism in and then another.
David Burkus (00:14:28) - And by the way, that way, that's the only sandwich in human history that's ever been named by the bread on the outside compliment sandwich. It's not a compliment, Sam. It's a crap sandwich. That's what's in the middle of it. Right? But some people, some people are fine taking that constructive criticism. And you need to know who it is, who you can just be blunt with and give that immediate feedback to who you need to. I don't know, let's say soften the blow with and who actually doesn't need your criticism at all, but needs more of like an appreciative inquiry approach where you're just complimenting their way into seeing the proper way to behave. That only comes from that understanding piece. That's not clarity of roles, that's clarity of person. And so you need it as a leader to make an impact. But then your team needs it with each other so they can collaborate better as well.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:15:06) - I think that is the case in point, and I would even say that the different the difference in feedback, the difference in conversation of those individuals has more to do with their psychological safety and trust of that leader than it does anything else.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:15:23) - I can be direct with someone that knows exactly what their role is. They understand their value to the team. You can be more direct there because they're not sitting there saying, am I of any value here? You tear me apart. You tell me that I did something wrong. I might as well just be off the team, because that might be easier for you, because the person that you are direct with that knows that they are solid. They are a valuable piece. They see it in all ways. They're not sitting there saying, do I even have a reason to be here?
David Burkus (00:15:54) - Yeah, yeah. No, I totally agree with you. So so textbook definition of psych safety is this idea that the group is safe for interpersonal risk taking, which is really about admitting failures, suggesting ideas that might seem a little crazy or what have you. But there's a there's a sub element to it. Amy Edmondson, the brilliant researcher who kind of uses this phrase for teams. She calls it a climate of mutual trust and respect.
David Burkus (00:16:20) - Right. And I think the thing this is the hidden secret or the surprising science of this element is people think it's just trust, but in reality it's trust plus respect. When you're giving that person that feedback, do they still feel respected as a person? If they do, they grow in their trust for you, right? When they're being vulnerable and coming to you with a problem, right? Are you listening to that and are you respecting them still as a valuable person who has a contribution to make that that is just facing that sort of setback? Right. So all of that has to do with that sense of it's not that we never tell anyone like negative feedback. It's not that safe spaces or whatever you would call it, you're not going to hear. It's not like you're never going to hear things you disagree with. You're going to hear things you disagree with. But when you do, you're respected. And you listen to as a person, right? I from a leadership perspective, I see this and we talked about it in the coaching and giving feedback example.
David Burkus (00:17:13) - But the worst one I see is when people, especially new leaders, get it in their head that they were promoted because they had all the answers. And so now they have all the answers. And so when people come to them, right, it's their job to just pass back that advice immediately. No, it's your job to listen, and it's your job to guide people to a realization that's probably already inside of them and all along the way, make them feel kind of respected. The other thing you might do is go the opposite way and get so focused on not just giving everyone the answers that you say stuff like, don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions. Yeah, you mean you've heard that?
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:17:48) - I heard that, yes.
David Burkus (00:17:49) - Hate that phrase. I hate it, right?
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:17:51) - Because, well, you don't want you're having that conversation. Hey, here's the problem. Great. Let's go through let's solutions. Or is that really the problem where it's a listening and it's a conversation and it's not pointing fingers, but I can come to you and say, David, okay, this is the problem I'm having.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:18:08) - I'm not getting it. I don't.
David Burkus (00:18:10) - Just.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:18:11) - Let's walk through this together. And that that takes me back to a previous term, empathy. And what I find is I believe empathy is one of the two most mystified or misunderstood words in this sphere. To me, it empathy. People are just like, what is it? Is it being soft? Is it being sympathetic? As you talk about in the book, my definition of empathy, and I want to see how you react to this, is putting your arm around someone and walking with them.
David Burkus (00:18:43) - Yeah, yeah, I don't disagree with that. I mean, I tend to think the goal is, is to be able to see things from their perspective, to understand them so well that when they come to you with a problem, you can kind of put on glasses that, you know, I put on Tyler's glasses and I see this problem from Tyler's perspective and I understand it right now. You can't do that if you're not walking alongside them.
David Burkus (00:19:05) - Yeah, right. If I'm facing you, I can't do it. If I want to have your perspective. It's kind of like if you've ever tried to, like, we were stargazing. We were. We were out in the desert like, a month ago and trying to look at certain stars. And if you ever tried to do that with someone else, what do you have to do? You point up to it, but then they have to get their face like right next to yours in order to see things from your perspective. So so I think our kind of definitions merge really nicely there. I'm not going to be able to see things from your perspective if you're not walking alongside of me, and vice versa.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:19:31) - Here's the other layer there that you just pointed out. When you do that, there's a tremendous amount of vulnerability. You know, if I raise my hands in the air, I'm vulnerable. And as I've learned from people in Special forces, when they succeed as a team is when they raise their arms and link it together.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:19:49) - There's a vulnerability there, as you talked about putting your face side by side as a leader. I may not see it, but I'm going to put my face beside yours in letting you guide me, see what you see, and then I can say, oh, I see it differently. Let me describe it, or vice versa. Back forth and then we can proceed forward, which that lends to the trust and the respect. Because if your ability to practice empathy, well then in order to enhance that there has to be trust and respect and it has to develop that psychological safety. And again, that's where in my mind I see it as a pyramid. It's kind of like if you have that understanding, then you go to the next level of that trust in that respect. And then finally we get to the third piece.
David Burkus (00:20:36) - Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So trust and respect is a cycle, right? Someone steps out in vulnerability and trust the group or trust you as a leader. And when you respond with respect, when you respond with empathy, they feel like their trust was worth it.
David Burkus (00:20:50) - So now they trust you more. If you're working with a team, by the way, and that cycle is not happening because nobody trusts each other, guess what? You go first, right? You be vulnerable first. And I'm not talking about like deal breaking levels of vulnerability. You don't have to tell your whole team. I feel like my parents never loved me or I never had a date for the junior prom. But saying, I don't know, like you said, throwing your hands up in the air, just being like, I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, right. Or oh, man, I'm really stumped on this, right? Or even just little micro vulnerabilities like, hey, the reason I always want to talk things out in person is I have terrible grammar, right? Or what? Little moments like that when you admit them, when you're vulnerable people, immediately you could see this, by the way, like neurochemicals in the brain. Paul, Zach's brilliant researchers have done a ton on this.
David Burkus (00:21:33) - I feel like every researcher I've cited on this show so far, I preface with brilliant. They're all suppose if they weren't brilliant, I wouldn't be talking. Probably not. Right. But you can see it when someone trusts you can see a spike in oxytocin in their bloodstream.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:21:47) - I love that piece that.
David Burkus (00:21:49) - You an octopus? It's a love molecule.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:21:51) - Yeah, yeah. And it almost is a leader if you cycle, if you think about how do I how do I most quickly develop trust with other people, find ways to enhance oxytocin. To me that's a no brainer. That's going to bridge that gap. And it's going to take down that barrier of protectionism, say, oh, okay, how do I get there? And again, understanding the biology of why oxytocin does what it does makes total sense. And it comes back to this is like oh it's not that hard. Comes back to it earlier when it's like all of this to me is is common sense granted work in this, but it's not that hard.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:22:29) - And I think about what is the barrier from people willing being willing to do that. And you mentioned that earlier in that junior leader, that new leader that's thinking I need to know all the answers. And so their insecurity to me is the barrier from them doing what we've talked about so far.
David Burkus (00:22:50) - Yeah, yeah. Because you were promoted for having all the answers. Right. So admitting you don't is like threatening the reason you were promoted. But but like two things, right. Number one, as soon as you've been in the role for a while, the world is changing so fast. And technical expertise struggles to keep up that if you've been a leader for longer than a year, you actually don't have all the answers. Your team probably knows the subject more because you've been focused on the management aspect of it. But number two, they already know you don't have all the answers, like it's impossible for you to have all of the answers. And they already know that. So pretending to have all the answers, that doesn't serve anyone.
David Burkus (00:23:22) - Yeah, well.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:23:23) - What it does is it creates people reliant on you for every answer. And that's not going to be that's not going to lead to a team maximizing performance because they can't be in every situation with the leader robotically dictating everything they do. That's not efficient. You know, you talk about it. I've read about it in other ways. Like, hey, the best way to get out of that is if you're a leader and you think it's all on me, then put it all on you and you're going to quickly find out I can't do it all. So then rely on your team because they're there to help you.
David Burkus (00:23:54) - Yeah, yeah. You know, the the irony here is this is what also leads to sort of the number one cause of burnout in leaders too. Right. And it's it's kind of funny because it's sort of, you know, you're doing it to yourself. You trained people to come to you with all the answers. And now why do you feel like you're constantly fighting fires? Because you told your team you're a firefighter, right? Instead of, I will get you the resources you need to implement the solution you've come up with, right? Or I'll help you think through the solutions.
David Burkus (00:24:19) - But ultimately, right, this, this decision or this action rests on you instead of me doing it for you. Yeah, yeah.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:24:28) - All right. In the middle of this conversation, I just want to take a moment to invite you. If you're not a subscriber to the Impact Driven Leader newsletter, to go to the impact Driven leader backslash free course, you're going to get the four days to Maximum Impact video series as well. Submit you into my email smear where you can learn more about the impact Driven leader community. So now back to the rest of the episode. So let's talk about pro-social purpose. Let's talk about meaning and impact. Impact gets me excited, obviously, the the title of this show, but I want to hear from you again.
David Burkus (00:25:09) - Sort of the reason I reached out. It's good. It's perfect.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:25:11) - It's perfect. I mean, it makes sense to define pro-social purpose because I think it's worth asking for a quality definition.
David Burkus (00:25:23) - Yeah. So pro-social purpose is felt when people feel like they're making a meaningful contribution toward work that benefits others, right? So if you think about memory, everything is sort of twos meaningful contribution and work that benefits others.
David Burkus (00:25:37) - That first one I call meeting, if you want to get nerdy, that's called task significance and organizational psych. And the stuff I had to do my doctorate in right. People want to know that the work they're being asked to do contributes to the larger work the organization is doing. That's how they judge whether or not it's sort of meaningful. Right. And that's different than what we might personally use inaccurately as meaning. Well, a lot of times what we use when we think meaning is actually impact. In other words, who is impacted by the work that we do? I'm a big fan of giving teams a reason for why we do what we do, but most teams, that reason that's going to be most motivating is actually not answering why it's answering who, as in who is served by the work that we do. So there's two things we got to do as a leader here. Number one, we have to show them that the work that they're doing makes a contribution, that they're making a meaningful contribution in order to up that meaning.
David Burkus (00:26:25) - And then the second thing we need to do is we need to point to who is served by the work that we do. And this one's actually a little tricky, because not every team can point to the customer or the stakeholder or whomever. There's a lot of teams, especially if you're in a large organization there who is actually someone else in the organization. We exist to empower this team, and then this team does that, and it's kind of a chain. And so you're who may not be I mean yet you could you could run a thought experiment and always end at the customer eventually. But that's not everyone. Some people's customer is internal, some person who is internal. And then once we know who that is, we really need to work to tell those stories of impact, not just that end user impact.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:27:04) - Well, I think what even happens in, say, it's a small organization, a small team, the impact can be within the team to other members of the team, to other team members.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:27:14) - If I do what only I can do, and that allows you to accomplish more than you could. It's where I got excited reading about culture and you talked about culture in the sense that when they studied and looked at it, culture trumped talent. Because when the culture allowed for everyone to work together, it exceeded the individual level of talent. And to me, that is really what is impactful. I mean, that's why I do what I do is to help others accomplish more than they thought they could. And it is that in and of itself.
David Burkus (00:27:48) - Yeah. In that, in that it in itself can be a powerful individual motivator. Right. And so this term pro-social purpose originated from a stream of research from Adam Grant and a few others on what they call prosocial motivation. When you show people how their work is helping someone else, whether that was it was one experiment that's really, really cool and well designed was around call center workers at a donation call center, like calling for donations and seeing who received scholarships from that, and that had them work harder and work smarter.
David Burkus (00:28:18) - Another was around this one actually freaked me out was around doctors and nurses hand-washing like they're more likely to actually wash their hands. But between procedures, if there are signs in the the restrooms and handwashing stations that talk about patient safety than they are their own individual safety. Now, first of all, this freaks me out because I just assume doctors are washing their hands after every single one. But you can't run a task on this unless. She really does. And we have. So there's me. She's because her and me. And then we have two boys. So trust me. Like we get told to wash our hands all the time, right? Right. But I just assumed everybody was doing that. But it turns out that pointing to who is who was served by doing that action increases motivation to do that action on an individual level. Then they went a step further, and it turns out that those reminders of who served and this pro-social motivation, actually, I'm getting really nerdy here. I apologize.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:29:10) - You're good. I mean, I'm okay actually.
David Burkus (00:29:12) - Leads to an increase in what we call organizational citizenship behaviors or psychologists, by the way, we ruin common sense things because we come up with three word definitions, because you could call organizational citizenship behavior teamwork. It's literally how often and what behaviors do I do that put we over me. That's what organizational citizenship behavior is. And when people have that sense of pro-social motivation, they're more likely to do those things. So not only are you motivating people individually, you're also motivating them to put their own interests aside in the service of that who that's impact, right? And that's the reason we use that term for that kind of phenomenon.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:29:48) - One piece that I think really enters in here is celebrating the small wins, because in so many teams and organizations, we can't see it. There was a line that I completely forget from the book, but I'm so glad you included in your book. It was from Adam Grant's work where they said at the call center, doing a good job here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:30:11) - You get a warm feeling, but no one else notices. And having worked in an industry that was like that, I relate to that so much. And yet when when you're looking at what is a win today, maybe it's not closing a sale. Maybe it's not saving a life, maybe it's not whatever. It's just doing your job. The best you could is the win that it takes. Other people recognizing like, man, thank you for doing that because that allowed me to actually do what I can do. Well, it's having that that community of understanding the meaning, which goes all the way back to clarity and the empathy and the trust and the respect to finally come about it and say, hey, you know what I couldn't do what only I can do if you didn't do what only you could do. And that's what allowed it actually to happen.
David Burkus (00:31:01) - Yeah, yeah. So you're hitting on two things here that I think are really cool and want to explore. Right. So the first thing is that sense of interdependence I couldn't do what I do without you.
David Burkus (00:31:10) - Right. That's what I love about regular kind of celebrations of wins. And you could do this any way you want. There's a variety of different ways to do it. Some teams will try and have one person share a win by the end of the day. Every day. Others will have everyone on the team share one out. One team I worked with, we made it a competition. Like how fast can we rack up three wins today and like, hey, it's 1030 and we hit it. Let's try and do it by 1028. Next you're like, you could do it in a variety of different ways. What matters is not only are people getting applause and getting kudos for for those small wins, when you as a leader are facilitating this, you're pointing out that that win Tyler couldn't do that win if it weren't for so and so. So you're reinforcing that sense of interdependence, right. So that's thing one. The second is the sense of gratitude that comes from that. You know you mentioned that.
David Burkus (00:31:57) - Thank you. And I think this is big because this is where you know, we talk about common sense but not common practice. Right. Lots of leaders know. Yeah I need to express gratitude. And so they just say, hey Tyler thanks. Thanks so much for that. That works. But that doesn't spread prosocial motivation. A great thank you from a leader or from a teammate to another one has two parts. Thank you so much for doing this because it allowed me to do that right. Thank you so much for getting that data to me in timely fashion faster than you said you were going to, because it allowed me to prep the slide deck for the client and crush the presentation. Right. So the first part is thank you, is that expression of gratitude. But the second is how you helped me. So it's a reminder that your work helps me. In other words, it's a pro-social motivation reminder a pro-social purpose reminder in every single sense of gratitude. And by the way, that's not only if you're a leader, that's not only your team teaching your team to do that, do that to the other leaders in the organization so that they have a thank you to take back to their team as well.
David Burkus (00:32:55) - That helps their team get a sense of how interdependent the different teams in the organization are to. Yeah.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:33:00) - The we can't we're a social being, right? Every one of us has a social enterprise. We can't absolutely, totally separate by ourselves and survive. And yet now to come back and hopefully harvest that seed so often where I think teams go wrong is when either individual performers, team members or leaders feel like it's either all on me or I don't need the rest of the team, you know, I am so good I can do it alone. And yet that isn't the reality, but yet not going through the clarity and the empathy and the trust and the respect and the meaning and the purpose. Not hitting all of those starts to identify people. You don't need me. Because I think in summary of this, if you're hitting all six, then you're expressing to people how much you value them, how much you respect them, and how much how needed they are. And if you don't hit on those, then the the whole pyramid starts to crumble because you're saying, in essence, I don't need you.
David Burkus (00:34:07) - Yeah, yeah. Towards the end of the book and in speeches I give, I often summarize the entire thing. Write the three part model that boils down into two. So the totals for six, right. How about how about two sentences. People want to do work that matters and work for leaders who tell them they matter. Right. And so fundamentally, those are the two biggest pieces of your job, right? Show people how the work that we're doing matters makes an impact, but also let people know that you matter and that I'm here to support you and what have you. And if you could do those two things and hopefully we give you there's like 30 something different activities you can do in the book to do that. But that's like the goal, right? And when I think of impact driven leader, that's the same thing I think about how well are they showing. Here's the impact that we're making. But also I care about making an impact in your life because you matter to. Yeah.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:34:50) - So why do so many leaders get it wrong? Why do so many leaders. It's giving you a job as giving me a job. It's giving anyone that's willing to care about this an opportunity. In our world today, more people are looking for our guidance metric wise, I. And that's not about me. That's just about what we see in the world. Why?
David Burkus (00:35:15) - Yeah, well, so we already hit on the technical problem, right? This idea that you were promoted into leadership because of you were a great individual contributor. And so you just think you need to keep being an expert, etcetera. But, you know, I also think and I'm not although if you if you're listening to this and you want to make this a political statement, you can make a political statement. But I also think we've got really bad role models right now. Right? I mean, we've got we've got corporate leaders. Feels like they're constantly being indicted. We got presidents that whoever it is on either side, the other half of the country hates.
David Burkus (00:35:47) - Right. And they feel like they're. So we don't we don't have those kind of bridge builders. You know, I talk about in the book, Alan Mulally, who was the CEO that turned around Ford Motor Company from 2000, in my opinion, like, we need to tell stories like his more often or I love I love John Wooden. But my favorite UCLA coach is actually Valerie Kondos field, which I.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:36:07) - Learned about her. I want to talk to her. She sounds amazing.
David Burkus (00:36:11) - Amazing, right? Right. Um, I feel like we just need those stories more, because whether you like. Yeah, you can look at an example of insert your, your narcissistic startup, billion dollar unicorn company person here. Right. And you can look at them and say, yeah, they're examples of what not to do.
David Burkus (00:36:28) - But we do kind of mimic what we see more and more often. And so I think we and this is part of the reason I still keep all of those case studies in the book, is we need to be telling the stories and helping people pick the role models that are like that, right? Instead of these other ones that draw all the attention, get all the clicks and and what have you, those kind of humble leaders, you know.
David Burkus (00:36:53) - Allen Allen's a great I was with him this weekend actually. We were at the same conference. And so we were hanging out for a little bit. And he's somebody that like, you know, the dude's not exactly tech savvy. He doesn't care what his Instagram is. He's not on Twitter. He's not paying attention to any of that. He's this soft spoken kind of Kansas farm boy with a brilliant mind in a sense, for empathy that knows how his impact is. And he's kind of fine with that. Yeah. And I think those are the stories we need to hear more often so that people emulate them. Yes. You know, I think that's probably in addition to the problem of technical expertise. I think that's the other thing. We just have terrible role models. Christine Porat, we talk about her in the respect chapter, world's most respected researcher on respect and civility in the workplace. And the number one thing that she sees as a reason for incivility in the workplace is a lack of positive role models at the top.
David Burkus (00:37:37) - And that's not to say they're not there. They just don't get all the attention in the media spotlight. And so we need to make a deliberate effort to spotlight them more.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:37:45) - I think that is a a very astute and I think we see that in workplaces. But where I also am recognizing it, and my wife and I had this discussion this morning is as parents, and I know you have a couple boys and probably many, many people listening. Are we willing to really stop and think about the people who are modeling our children in their sports and their activities and saying, hmm, as we go through this and as we and I share with you where I'm at, and that's what I'm wrestling with right now, and that's part of it and is like, you know, what is this doing? Is this an example of what not to be, or is this an example of what to expect in a team and how teams work? And I think that is sometimes it's by pure ignorance that we don't know ourselves what a good team looks like until we're on one and we're like, wow, that was amazing.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:38:41) - How does that happen? And part of I think the whether the genius, whether the the simplicity of it is it's not this amazing, you know, art that just happens to be you. You mentioned different research articles in here. It's when you actually care about people that all the great performance occurs. And it's to me, it's that simple. And so it's what's that barrier to me it's insecurity. It was my intensity. It was those things that we've discussed continually be the barrier where leaders struggle.
David Burkus (00:39:21) - Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. We could do. We could do a whole other 60 minutes on the problems of youth sports, teaching, leadership and teamwork right now. Right. But in this, in this hyper competitive world where everyone's trying to qualify for the next level of competitive team and what have you, it's a very individualistic mindset. It's not it's not just, yeah, there's a problem with parents screaming at umpires and all that sort of stuff, but it's not just them. There's a whole system that prizes that individual over team over that team commitment, etcetera.
David Burkus (00:39:48) - And it's no surprise that you carry that with you when you get into those leadership roles. Right? Is that lack of modeling kind of happens. And so yeah, that's that's where we learned, you know, my kind of goal at the three or the sixth. Yeah. Yeah. And you it's funny I remember you remember Randy Pausch the famous Last Lecture in the book and what have you. He is this great line in there about like short course on leadership. Write down a list of everything that bad bosses did that drove you nuts. Don't do them right. That second part is the hardest because when you get stressed, what do you do? You mimic who you witnessed in those similar situations, and it takes a lot of deliberate effort to train yourself to respond better.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:40:27) - Well, and it takes a lot of humility in those instances to say, oh, I did this wrong. And that vulnerability coming back to the empathy that I described actually does more, in my opinion and my experience to build trust than thinking I'm going to get it right every time.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:40:43) - The fact that you know it. No, I screwed that up. I shouldn't have done that as a parent. I have to do that daily. And yet what I find is my my kids, my children are more accepting of that and they're more willing to roll with it rather than these barriers that start to come between us. And what I realize is they are people and individuals that I lead and I work with are people too, and there's not a difference.
David Burkus (00:41:12) - It's weird. It's it's a difficult. I have to have it all the time as a parent and sometimes as a leader to. It's difficult to have that conversation where you responded wrong in a situation. And then. But they're still in the wrong. And to go to them and go, I'm sorry I behaved poorly here when this happened. That doesn't absolve you, right? I'm thinking mostly about kids here. Like that doesn't mean what you did isn't wrong. But my response to that was also wrong. And here's what we're both going to do, right? That's a hard conversation to have.
David Burkus (00:41:40) - It's even harder conversation to have when it's not like your child, when it's an employee of yours or what have you, that like I said, this and that was wrong. That was the wrong behavior. And here's what I'm going to move forward on. It's a difficult thing to say. And that's why it's not common practice. But the amount of like you said, it's that cycle, the amount of trust that gets built when you're willing to say that. Right. And then the next step, which is and can you help keep me accountable to behaving that way in the future? The trust and respect that you gain from that is massive. It's uncomfortable, I get it. But there's a lot more comfort when you start winning because you built that level of safety on your team. Yeah.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:42:16) - Well, and I think and through experience and just feeling myself is when you're safe to have those conversations, that's when your performance is going to show it meaning. If you're willing to have that conversation with that superior, that coworker, that employee, and it's like, hey, we let's have this conversation.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:42:36) - I handled it wrong, but this is what we're going to collectively do for it. And that actually gets done. Yeah, trust me, goes through the roof. It's where they say that, you know, most organizations, you don't know how good their customer service is until something goes wrong. And that's when customer service actually has shown, oh, that was amazing. And companies build allegiance. Customers build allegiance through those experiences.
David Burkus (00:43:02) - So yeah. Yeah, it was the same thing with team culture, right? You don't really know what a team culture is until they either a face, a setback or a failure and failures are inevitable by the way. Yeah. Or B have to deal with the problem of a low performer. Right. Because and tolerating them and showing such empathy that you never addressed the problem, by the way, is not the answer, but neither is kicking them out right away either. Right. So those are the two. Like those are the customer service moments, if you will.
David Burkus (00:43:28) - Those are the crucial moments that I watch on teams. How do you handle this? Like my my number one question. This is sort of related to it. My number one question for leaders around psychological safety and also around team culture when I'm trying to kind of diagnose the situation, is, when was the last time someone on your team disagreed with you publicly? How'd it go? Right. If it was six months ago, we have a problem right there. But if it was last week or a month ago or what have you. Okay, cool. How did it go? Tell me about how that because those are those trial moments where you really get a sense of the culture of that leader's building.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:44:00) - Yeah. Well, goes case in point to, as you mentioned, Alan Mulally, and that's what he did at Ford, and he embraced it. And it was a great example for all of us to look to is like, hey, if you disagree with me, awesome. Because that means you see something I don't see.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:44:17) - And collectively we can get better when we share those notes.
David Burkus (00:44:22) - Yeah. And that's and by the way, that's not to say he never had to deal with problems of underperformers, etcetera. We were we were talking about this this weekend when he came in, he was meeting with Bill Ford, great grandson of Henry Ford. And one of the conversations they had was, okay, who on the on the leadership team do we need to fire when you come in to make room for your people? He said you don't need to fire any of them. And they were like, what? He goes, yeah, but I'm going to make them commit to a standard and to a set of norms and behaviors. One of them, my favorite one, was never a joke at someone else's expense because it's not actually funny and you're degrading that person's psychological safety. If I'm going to ask you to share the problems that are going on in your department, and you think you're going to get made fun of, I'm not going to be able to hear the real problems.
David Burkus (00:45:05) - So never a joke at someone else's expense. And one of the things he told the board and he told Bill Ford was, not everybody on the team is going to be okay with how we're going to run, and they'll self-select out. I don't need to fire them ahead of time, and we don't need to guess who they're going to be. They will self-select out and there really were situations. One was with one of the chief financial officer of the company that was kind of derogatory, always sort of cracking jokes at people expense. And he tried and he tried and he tried to get that person to commit to it. And finally he said, you know, I want you to know, I understand where you're coming from, and it's okay. And see if I was like, it's okay. You mean it's okay that act like this? No, no, no, no, I want you to decide tonight whether or not you want to make the change or whether or not you want to go somewhere else.
David Burkus (00:45:44) - But I want you to know, whichever decision you make, it's okay. I still love you. I still support you. I can't let you act this way in front of the team. But whatever you decide, it's okay.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:45:53) - Yeah, yeah. Which is a powerful extension. Invisible display of trust, empathy, clarity, respect, meaning and purpose. All of them.
David Burkus (00:46:05) - By the way, there's a tangent on that. The reason we were talking about it this weekend is that CFO came back to him a couple of months ago and said, you know, you remember that conversation. I really wish I would have taken you up on the offer to make a change. The rest of my career would have gone really, really well as well.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:46:18) - And that's that. To me, as a leader, those are the kind of impacts to have, because if you burn that bridge, you'll never have that. I, I, the people that have done that to me, you know, the person I am today is because of those experiences in looking back and the ones that were gracious enough to say, I still love and care about you are the ones that have changed my life and the ones that you know were quick to dismiss or they'll never change or whatever else.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:46:49) - Those are the ones that they didn't make the impact they could have. And that's plain and simple. Yeah, yeah. David, thank you so much.
David Burkus (00:46:59) - Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:47:11) - One of the great facets that I learned through this simple framework that David put together is it's foundational. You've heard me share that that I, I look at this triangle, but built by layers of foundational layers. I believe that so often we skip past the foundation. And in this my understanding it's common understanding is through roll clarity. It's between clarity between the leader and everyone else. Say, hey, this is what I see. And you, this is how I know the team can benefit from you. This is how I'm going to utilize your skill set. Let's be on the same page. That clarity and empathy between each other and understanding really defines to me where a team can go. And then it's with psychological safety. I believe it's so prominent in our world today. People are yearning for safety.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:48:01) - We have generations that are looking for safety in a tumultuous world, and so they want relationships that give them safety, because quite often our side of our work relationships, maybe it's not real safe. Maybe it's scary. We see that all over. And so with trust of each other in respect, we add that second layer of psychological safety and then third, pro-social purpose. Why are we doing what we're doing? What meaning and impact does it have? You know, I believe we yearn for that more and more and more as we go through life, because we realize that some of the tangible assets, they're either hard to come by or they really don't give you that feeling that fulfillment and service do. What meaning does what your team is doing have? What impact do you have? I believe those are the fastest we all yearn for in life. Thanks for listening today. And another reminder if you're not a subscriber, you can also subscribe to the Impact Driven Leader newsletter. Visit the Impact Driven leader.com backslash free course.
Tyler Dickerhoof (00:49:13) - You can sign up to get my free video series, but as well get my newsletter. Each week puts a nice little bow, a good summarization of the week and prepares you for this podcast each Friday morning. I'd love for you to join in my community and learn more about the things I have to offer and share, but also get connected with other people of the community. Thanks for being here and until next time, have a good one!
