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Simon Sinek - Why the Best Companies are Built Around Optimism - Descriptive Transcript
- So welcome, everyone.
Hello.
It's my pleasure
to invite you here all today,
and thank you for joining us.
My name is M'Lissa Brennan
and I work in the
Institutional Advancement
and alumni relations office
at Brandeis University.
And we're very excited
to have with us today
our guest speaker,
Simon Sinek, class of 95.
The title of the talk
is Why the Best Companies Are Built
Around Optimism.
And I don't know about you,
but I feel the world
can always use more
optimism and more optimists.
I'd like to let you know
that today's webinar is sponsored
by the Brandeis International
Business School,
Hyatt Career Center,
and the Brandeis Alumni Association.
And before we begin,
I am delighted
to introduce Philippe Wells,
who is a professor
of the Practice of Entrepreneurial Finance
at the Brandeis
International Business School,
and he is the Director
of the Asper Center
for Global Entrepreneurship at Brandeis.
Professor Wells teaches courses
in entrepreneurship, private equity,
and introduction to business.
And I would also note
that he is a seasoned entrepreneur
in the health and wellness industry.
With that said,
I'm going to turn it over to Professor Wells.
Thank you.
- Great.
Thank you so much, M'Lissa.
So, as M'Lissa said,
we're very fortunate today
to have Simon Sinek join us.
Simon's one of the most
highly viewed Ted Talk speakers,
as well as the author
of multiple bestselling books including,
"Start With Why,"
"The Infinite Game,"
and "Leaders Eat Last."
He received a BA
in Cultural Anthropology from Brandeis
and went on to study law
before he left law school
to go into advertising.
Simon's fascinated by the
people in organizations
that make the greatest and
longest lasting impact.
Over the years,
he's discovered some remarkable patterns
about how they act,
think, and communicate,
and also the environments
in which people operate
at their natural best.
Simon shares inspiration on a daily basis
through his best selling books,
as well as his podcast,
"A Bit Of Optimism."
In addition,
Simon's the Founder of
The Optimism Company,
a leadership learning
and development company,
and he publishes other inspiring
thinkers and doers
through his partnership
with Penguin Random House
called Optimism Press.
So with that,
Simon, I'd love to get started.
- Good to see you.
- Good to see you.
Yes.
Well, I'll just jump right
into the questions
and I do actually want
to encourage the room.
We went over this with Simon
just before we got on the call,
and Simon very much does,
he's here to answer your questions.
He's not here to summarize
and talk about all his books.
He's here to share his insights
and who he is,
and how he thinks.
So whenever you have questions,
just feel free to add them
to the queue.
So with that,
Simon, the class here
that's sort of at the core
of our talk
and our imitation today
for this talk,
is actually an entrepreneurship class.
And our tool for
analyzing entrepreneurship
is something called
the lean start-up framework.
It deals with things
like minimal viable products,
hypothesis testing, and so on.
Now the question that occurred to me
as I was thinking about this talk
and having you here,
is what would be the outline
or the parameters
behind The Optimistic startup?
- That's a great question.
(Simon coughs)
So first of all,
let's define a few terms.
I think there's a big difference
between being an entrepreneur
and being a small business owner.
Small business owners
own small businesses,
but entrepreneurs are problem solvers.
And you find entrepreneurs in government,
you find entrepreneurs
in large corporations.
They're not simply people
who start businesses.
Richard Branson's an entrepreneur,
but he doesn't own a
small business anymore.
And so I think we have to remember
that an entrepreneur is a problem solver
and they don't go around
solving random problems.
That's weird.
The best entrepreneurs
usually have some sort
of vision of the world
that does not yet exist.
In other words,
they're idealists in some way,
shape or form.
And in their early years
when they're young,
it's probably some gut feeling.
And later on,
hopefully, they can articulate
what that vision is in terms
that can inspire more people around them.
And the ones that achieve scale
definitely are capable of doing that.
And so when I think about
the optimistic leader,
I mean, number one,
they have to have vision.
And vision is not like
to build the best, most reliable,
highest quality product.
That's not vision.
Vision is, I imagine a world in which.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had vision.
They imagined a world
in which an individual
could compete against a corporation.
There was fundamentally sort of like,
revolutionary spirit
and the personal computer
was the mechanism
by which they used to do that.
If the company was founded 30 years later,
it would be a tech company,
not a hardware company.
It's just nature of the times
it was founded
and the tools that were available.
My own vision.
I imagine a world
in which the vast
majority of people wake up
every single morning inspired,
feel safe wherever they are,
and end the day fulfilled
by the work that they do.
Entrepreneurship comes
in looking for the path
that helps me move closer
towards that vision.
So for me,
an optimistic entrepreneur
is someone with vision
and looking for the best tools
to advance that vision.
- Great.
Sounds good.
So the next question
I wanted to get into is,
you have this famous talk
about the workplace and millennials.
And I know you get asked as well
about Gen Z in the workplace.
Well, we have a lot
of Gen Zers on this call.
And actually, what I wanted to ask you is,
how they should think about
preparing for the workplace?
So this is a class,
we're preparing them
to think about entrepreneurship
and how to go out and innovate.
How should they prepare more broadly
for the workplace,
given what you've set out
as sort of some of the
defining characteristics
of the workplace today?
- So there was a great disservice
that was done to capitalism
over the course
of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
And that disservice was perpetuated
by leaders like Jack Welch.
And basically, what they did
is they made business in America
more about value to a shareholder,
an external constituent
over a customer or an employee.
And remember,
good old fashioned Adam Smith capitalism,
the kind of capitalism
that made America great,
the kind of capitalism
that Thomas Jefferson studied,
Thomas Jefferson owned all the volumes
of wealth of nations.
That form of capitalism
believed in competition
as a means of producing
a higher quality product.
We now live in a world
where that's not really true.
That when a company, for example,
announces mass layoffs
to meet some arbitrary
financial projection,
we see a stock price go up.
This is a big problem.
And many of the inherent deals
that were made
between a company and its employer,
a company and the customer used to be,
that we will work tirelessly
in our competitive spirit
to make a better product from you.
And we will lurk tirelessly
to look after our people,
so that our people give back
years of loyalty.
And unfortunately,
this young generation
has grown up in a world
where mass layoffs are so normalized
where they've watched their parents
or their friends' parents be laid off
through no fault of their own.
It was not a meritocracy.
Just because the company missed,
like I said, an arbitrary projection.
It's profitable,
just not as profitable as we expected.
So you get to lose your job
as a result.
So I can go back
and prove to somebody
that I balance the books
even though I'm doing long-term damage
to the culture of the company.
And that deal was broken,
that I'm gonna take care of you
and you're gonna take care of me.
And so it's very funny to me
that companies lament
that this young generation
seems to offer
no loyalty to the company
when they have offered none for decades.
And in the process of business
becoming much more short-term,
much more transactional,
and the human element
falling to the wayside,
we've also seen a decline
in a very, very, very specific skillset
called human skills, right.
I hate the term, soft skills.
Hard skills and soft skills.
Hard and soft are opposite.
That means they work in opposition
to each other, right.
Hard skills,
the skills you need
to do your job,
And human skills,
the skills you need
to be a better human being.
And both of those are important
to be a great entrepreneur
and a great business person.
And though we teach hard skills
and we teach
how to read a balance sheet
and what a P and L is,
and we teach all of
these wonderful things,
unfortunately, we started to treat people
like something on a P and L.
And what we have to do better
is teaching human skills.
Human skills include things
like listening, like empathy,
like how to give and receive feedback,
like how to have a difficult conversation.
These are vital skills in a modern day
that we don't teach,
which means our business leaders
do not have those skills.
And if you wanna build culture,
if you want to build trust,
you need these skills.
If you want to manage difficult times,
you need to have these skills.
Take for example what happened
after the murder of George Floyd.
And I saw this pervasive.
The number of leaders
after the murder of George Floyd
do nothing.
Not because they're bad people,
it's because they were too afraid
to have a conversation
about race with their team,
fearing that they would
say the wrong thing
and accidentally inflame a situation
or trigger somebody.
So they chose nothing.
And I don't fault them for it.
What they're missing is
a necessary skillset,
how to have a difficult conversation.
Hey, team,
we need to have a difficult conversation.
I'm afraid to have this conversation.
I fear, I'm gonna say the wrong thing,
or accidentally trigger somebody.
And I need your help,
'cause I'm gonna fumble this,
but it's more important
that we have this conversation
than not simply
because I'm afraid.
That's how you start a
difficult conversation.
That is a teachable, learnable,
practicable skillset.
So one thing
that I would like to see more of,
in our university system
to prepare young people
as they enter the workforce,
where they choose
an entrepreneurial path or not,
is to be better equipped with these skills
because their companies,
as of now,
are doing a poor job
of equipping them.
And if they're gonna
be the future leaders,
I want them to bring
these skills to business,
to repair the capitalism
and repair the damage done
by folks like Jack Welch.
- Yep, thank you.
So we're starting
to get a bunch of questions here
in the Q and A.
Thank you, audience,
for putting the questions in,
encourage you to put in more.
So this is kind of,
I think you've already gotten to this.
I mean, the question basically is,
how would you recommend
we begin teaching these soft skills?
So-
- Human skills.
- Exactly.
Two points.
One, they're not soft skills.
- Not soft at all.
- The second point is,
you said they're teachable.
Maybe just talk a little bit more
about what that would entail.
- So they are not soft.
There is nothing soft
about having a very
uncomfortable conversation
with somebody.
So the question is,
where do you start teaching?
Well, there's plenty of
curriculum available,
but it's usually in different departments.
Go to the social work department.
Go look at parenting education.
There's tons of curriculum available,
but we don't put it
in the business school.
And we need to.
A course on active listening, for example.
We are terrible listeners.
We're good at screaming and yelling,
and we're terrible at listening.
The mere fact
that it's even a thing,
it's even a meme
about how to get through Thanksgiving,
because of your uncle
who has opposite political views at you.
And the best advice we get is,
don't bring up politics
at the Thanksgiving table.
That's nonsense.
How about learn to have
an uncomfortable conversation
and learn to listen,
and understand someone's point of view
when you vehemently disagree with them.
And sitting down
trying to convince them
is not listening.
Trying to understand
and have empathy,
is listening.
And when two people
with opposing points of view
can find common ground,
that's where growth happens.
And I'll give you a real life example
in my life.
I have a friend.
She is from rural Tennessee,
and we discovered
over the course of our friendship,
just how divergent our political views
and views on how the world works are,
to the some of-
She buys into some conspiracy theories.
And she and I went for a walk once
and we were talking about something.
And I definitely thought,
and I may have even said,
how can you be so stupid?
And she stopped in her tracks and said,
you just called your friend stupid.
And I realized,
what have I done?
I'm literally closing off any opportunity
for constructive conversation here,
because I judged and accused.
Even if I think,
whatever theory she's buying into,
is not grounded in fact,
I attacked her.
And so I had to learn
to take a step back
and embrace empathy.
And instead of trying to convince her
that she was wrong
or point out the facts,
that dispute her beliefs,
I instead went on a journey of learning
to listen and understand
how she came to believe
in the things she believes.
And during COVID,
we had many conversations
that were diametrically opposed.
And instead of attacking each other
or trying to convince each other,
we got really good at saying,
tell me more about that.
Where does that come from?
And almost always,
I could find a fact
or I could find a detail that says,
you're absolutely right there.
That is absolutely true.
And the minute we could
find common ground,
all of a sudden
we could build up from there.
And she became much more open
to some of the points
of view I had,
as soon as I could affirm
some element in what she had
or find something I agreed with.
And that skill of active listening
is incredibly difficult,
but immensely valuable
in finding coming ground,
especially with people
with different political points of view.
But the point is,
is you're gonna have
disagreements with people
about what decision to
make for the company.
You're gonna have decisions
about what to do
with an underperforming employee.
You know, what do we do?
Somebody who's resistant to coaching.
How do we react?
Like difficulty is the nature of the game.
There's nothing smooth about business.
It is an incredibly
complicated game that is,
it's a game of people, right.
It's all people.
Customers are people,
investors are people,
employees are people.
Like everybody's people.
And people are messy.
And they're filled with ego,
and insecurity, and ambition, and fear,
and all the rest of it.
Congratulations, there's your company.
And the best leaders are the ones
who aren't necessarily the best
at reading the P and L.
The best leaders are the ones
who learn and commit themselves
to learning all the skills necessary
to navigate those complications.
And in so doing,
building trust from their team,
that gives them permission
to even make mistakes.
- Yeah, great.
I mean, I think,
so my next question feeds
right into what you were talking about.
The question from Rowe is,
how can you remain optimistic
as a leader on a team
when others are not bought
into the team's end goal?
And I think,
we kind of set that question up,
but is there anything else to add?
Sort of like,
how does the leader remain optimistic?
It's complicated.
It's messy as you were saying.
- Okay.
So there's a few answers there.
If you're the person
doing the hiring,
then you have a responsibility
to put out what your vision is.
And if you're just hiring a skillset
and you're ignoring
whether that potential,
that future employee, that candidate,
even believes in what you believe,
then if you hired somebody
who shouldn't be on the team,
then you bear some responsibility.
You can't just scream
and yell at them,
and call them underperforming,
and let them go.
You bear some responsibility, right.
You made a mistake in hiring them.
So that's part.
If you're not the person
responsible for hiring,
but you're stuck with someone,
you're working with someone
who doesn't buy into the team goal.
That shouldn't impact
your optimism, right.
It'll cause frustration.
But let's be crystal clear
what optimism is.
Optimism is not blind,
nor is it naive.
It is not the same as blind
or toxic positivity.
Everything's fine,
everything's good,
everything's fine.
And a lot of leaders make that mistake,
which is in difficult times,
they falsely believe
they have to be positive
and put on a brave face every day
to inspire the team.
But it does the opposite
because when we're in the mud together
and you are blindly positive,
I know we're in the mud,
so I just don't believe you.
And so, it actually makes things worse.
Or I look at you go,
oh my God,
how can you be positive
in this difficult time?
There must be something wrong with me.
So it backfires in a major way, right.
Optimism is not the same.
Optimism is the undying belief
that the future is bright.
And you can stand in darkness
and you can wade through
difficulty in mud,
and you can be honest about it.
We are going through an
incredibly difficult time.
It is filled with uncertainty
and I am uncertain as well.
But there's one thing
I know for sure.
If we work together
through these difficult times,
100% guaranteed,
we will get through this
and we will come out of this
stronger than we went in.
Even if I don't know
how long we're gonna be in the darkness.
That's optimism.
And no matter who's on the team,
who may or may not
buy into the goal,
the goal is not to obsess
about the one or two people
who aren't bought in.
The goal is to obsess
about the cause, the vision,
to rally the people who do believe.
And hopefully,
that that person who doesn't buy in
will either join
or extract themselves.
I'm very public about people
who don't buy into things.
I say, listen,
I don't mind that you
don't believe in this.
It actually doesn't bother me, right.
Come to work, do your job,
do sort of the minimum that we need.
Punch your clock,
get your paycheck, go home.
I'm totally fine with that.
Just don't get in the way
or sabotage what we are doing.
There's no cause for that.
There's no reason for that, right.
Just do your thing
and we'll leave you alone,
but you cannot sabotage.
And I think that's totally okay to say.
I've definitely said it,
not necessarily at somebody.
I've said it in an audience,
to a team.
Like if you don't believe in it,
I'm cool with it.
Just collect your paycheck
and just leave the rest of us alone.
There's no reason
you need to sabotage.
- Nice.
This question from Varoon,
who I know has been working
on a startup
and has pivoted a couple of times,
so I think it might be coming
from that perspective.
His question is,
how do you balance
vision for the future
and also be able to take decisions
in the short-term?
- So they're not mutually exclusive.
(Simon coughs)
Of course,
you have to make short-term decisions,
like of course.
But making sure you maintain vision
for the future
includes things like integrity.
It includes things
like adherence to values, right.
So you can make short-term decisions,
but they have to be consistent
with your values.
They have to be consistent
with a high ethical standard.
Of course,
when you're trying to be healthy,
you can eat chocolate cake.
Just don't eat too much of it.
Like if you need a short-term sugar rush,
if you need a short-term
infusion of something,
you're gonna do business
with a client
who know is a bad fit.
But you need the cash?
Fine, do it.
But don't do it
under any illusions
that this is the future
and everything's gonna be hunky dory
or that that relationship's
gonna be enjoyable.
(Simon chuckles)
The mistake is when we
keep making those decisions
for the short-term,
then ultimately,
what will break the organization.
The mistake we make
is you keep eating the chocolate cake
when you're trying to be healthy.
And eventually,
the exercise just isn't
having the same impact
as it used to.
So, short-term decisions are fine,
but do them with eyes wide open
and don't kid yourself
or rationalize things away.
I think one of the biggest mistake
young entrepreneurs make,
is when they start to seek investment.
And they take investment
from either the name brand investor
or they take investment
from the person
who offers them the most money.
Remember, most investors
are not looking
to make a long-term bet.
Few are, but not enough.
They're looking for
relatively short-term bets.
And no matter what they say
at the beginning,
wait a few years
and you'll start to feel the pressure
for where those returns are
and the pressure to put lipstick on a pig
start to increase.
And so the number of times
they hear from young entrepreneurs,
one of the biggest struggles they have
is actually the pressure
from their investors.
And I always shrug my shoulders and say,
you took the money.
And so, do your homework.
Go talk to some of their other companies
that they've invested in,
for example.
Find out what it's like to work with them.
Find out if there's pressure.
Find out how they treat you
when things go wrong.
Find out what happens
when you wanna make
an ethically correct decision,
but it might be financially,
it might create a short-term liability.
Do they support you
or do they hammer you
to make the financially
expedient decision?
Go do your homework.
And then have the guts
to turn that investor down
to go with another investor
who may offer you less money.
Your partners are the most
important thing you've got,
especially in early stage.
And so, long-term vision means
staying true to my values,
staying true to the direction I'm going,
open-minded to how I get there,
open-minded to changing the product,
but remaining true to the cause
I'm trying to advance.
That's how you make short-term decisions.
If you close off your mind
to what the future looks like
and to your values,
your things aren't gonna go well
or you will be very uncomfortable
as you go down that path.
- Yep.
Well, speaking of path,
we've got a question here from Sam
which digs a little bit
into your past here.
Well, training in cultural anthropology,
was there one individual story
or journey that really resonated with you?
And how did their story impact
to your thoughts and ideas?
- What was that,
when training in cultural anthropology?
Is that what it was?
- Yeah.
Well, she said ethnography,
but I think it was cultural anthropology.
So-
- Yeah.
So, I was a cultural anthrop major.
That's true.
And I did study ethnography.
There's no one story
that really contributed,
but where a lot of my colleagues
were interested
in sort of some Amazonian tribe
with 15 members left.
You know, those kinds of cultures.
I was always interested
in western urban culture.
I was interested in the culture
in which I live.
And I did an independent study
where I was in student government,
I was the chairman of
the allocations board
back in the day.
And so, I don't even know
if this is public.
Whoops.
But I basically did
an independent study simultaneously
being involved in student government
where I was actually writing papers
about all the leadership styles
of the other people I worked with
in student government.
They don't know that.
And I was learning about how insecurity,
because I knew
some of these people
were my friends, right.
How insecurity impacts leadership style.
Sometimes insecurity makes us
quiet and demure,
and obsequious.
And sometimes, it makes us
bombastic and overcompensate.
And I was fascinated by that.
That it didn't come out
in one flavor.
So that was pretty impactful to be honest,
where I started
at a very young age in college
to recognize that
how hard it is
to tell someone's motivation
based on their leadership style.
And it really made me
fascinated and curious
with how organizations work
when they work.
- Well, it's all public now.
(Philippe chuckles)
To great benefit
of our audience today.
All right.
Well, here's a question from Anwar.
How would you say
we reconcile the humanity of employees
and of consumers
in the age big data,
when essentially,
everything is being
reduced and understood,
there's a data point.
- So you have to put a human face back
on those data points, right.
There's something called ethical fading,
which is insidious.
And ethical fading
is when people make unethical decisions,
believing they are still
within their own ethical framework.
In other words,
they don't think
they've done anything wrong, right.
And we see this,
extreme examples are when
a pharmaceutical company
will raise the price of an essential drug
for which they have the patent
500%, 800%,
a thousand percent, 1500%,
to meet some financial objective,
which is not illegal,
but wholly unethical.
And we always drag them
in front of Congress and say,
why did you do it?
And they all say the same thing,
we didn't do anything illegal.
No.
But my goodness,
that was unethical, right.
What happened at Wells Fargo?
Same thing.
People started opening fake bank accounts
to help them meet
their short-term financial objectives.
In some cases illegal,
but in many cases, wholly unethical.
And one of the things
that happens in ethical fading,
one of the criteria
that allows ethical fading to happen
is the overuse of euphemisms
where we use language
to distance ourselves
from the impact of our decisions, right.
So for example,
you ask most CEOs,
would you ever spy
on your customers?
Of course, we would never spy
on our customers.
That's insane.
Data mining.
We love data mining.
Right now, just call it
what it is.
It's spying on your customers, right.
And you'll find
that if you actually call things
for what they are,
your ability to navigate
those ethical pitfalls
actually becomes a lot easier.
When we use euphemisms
to distance or disconnect ourselves
or to create
this sort of cozy view of things
like externalities.
We're managing externalities.
You mean you're managing
the damage you're doing
to the environment
and the societies
in which you have your factories, right.
Just call it what it is.
And then you'll find
managing externalities,
the percentages that you found acceptable
are no longer acceptable.
My friend, Bob Chapman,
who runs a company called Barry-Wehmiller,
doesn't even refer to headcount.
We have to reduce our headcount.
He refers to heart count.
It's very difficult
to reduce a heart count, right.
And so language really matters
when you're navigating these things.
And if you call things for what they are,
you'll find your ability
to make better decisions go up.
And so, in the case
that you talk about tech,
you have to put a human face
back on numbers.
And there's been studies done on this.
There's a group of social scientists
who did a wonderful experiment
where they took a bunch of volunteers
at a university
who were dialing for dollars
for a scholarship, right.
During these hard times
we're looking for you to donate
to whatever scholarship.
And the numbers were kind of flat to down.
And so they hired a consultant
to rewrite the script
that had a small,
but not very significant impact.
And these social scientists
brought in a recipient
of the scholarship
to talk to the volunteers.
Are you ready for this?
For five minutes.
And talk about the impact
the scholarship had on their lives.
All of a sudden,
they didn't have to obey a script
and they weren't doing it
for some ethereal,
mystical student scholarship.
They were doing it
for Stacey over there.
I'm doing this,
I'm calling you
because I'm damn well gonna get more money
for people like Stacey.
And it became deeply personal.
A division of of Wells Fargo in St. Louis,
not the bad Wells Fargo,
just a little bank.
Same thing.
Their small business loan department.
There's just dealing with
numbers and creating,
everything was a spreadsheet.
And what they did was,
is they brought in a recipient
of the small business loan
to talk about the impact
that loan had on their life
and performance skyrocketed,
'cause they're now doing it
for a person.
So if you find
that you have dehumanized
the people you're supposed to be serving,
bring in somebody who has benefited
from your product or your service
to talk to your employees
and put a human face back on it.
Letters work as well,
not as effective the data shows
as a human being,
but it still has a positive impact.
So you have to,
as a leader,
put human faces, not generic,
real people back to those numbers,
rehumanize them.
- Yeah.
- It also may help you maintain
a higher levels of ethics as well.
That's one of the reasons
I think we have
a lot of unethical behavior in companies,
is because they're looking at spreadsheets
and thinking that those are customers.
- Yeah.
So this is another question here
about sort of people
and teams from Ico.
You mentioned the
importance of building trust
within organizations and relationships.
For college students
who are often in short-term groups
like a course project,
what are some practical steps
that we could take
to foster trust and collaboration
among those types of teams,
and in parentheses,
I just put together some teams
that in this class will start
to work on a project.
So it's very timely.
- Yeah.
So remember those human skills
we talked about?
Listening, giving, and receiving feedback.
These are the opportunities
for those skills to operate.
Doesn't matter if this team
is a short-term team or a long-term team,
it doesn't matter, right.
A team is not a group of people
who work together.
A team is a group of people
who trust each other.
And just because you are assigned
to work with somebody,
doesn't mean you're a team yet.
You have to do the hard work
of building a team
and creating teaming.
And whether a leader is assigned
or whether a leader emerges.
And it doesn't matter the rank,
a leader recognizes
that they have a responsibility
to see those around them rise.
It's not about them and their glory.
It's not about
I did all the work, you know.
And what's fascinating is,
a team of average performers,
is outperform a team
of high performers every day
for all of the reasons
we're talking about.
Which is,
are you in service to your team
or are you in service
to yourself?
When I used to teach way back
when I did team projects
and the university advised me,
'cause I made the teams,
I didn't let them choose.
I would put my top performers
on one team,
I'd put my bottom performers
on another team
and then I'd spread out the average.
Because my original instinct
was to take my top performers
and put one of them
on each team, right.
And the university said,
don't do that.
And so I followed the
university's guidance
and I put all my top performers
on one team.
And literally,
as I announced the teams
in the class,
the rest of the class were like,
come on.
Like I'd stacked the deck.
My top performers never ever,
ever got the best grade
for their group projects.
Never.
My top performers spent more time
in my office going,
but I'm doing all the work
and that person's not doing the work.
And is it gonna affect my grade?
And what happens about my grade, my grade,
me, me, me, me, me.
The average performers,
because they knew
that they were middle of the pack,
they worked together
a hell of a lot better.
And they always,
every year outperform the top team
every single year.
'Cause they were devoted to their team
rather than themselves.
They're more concerned
about each other's grades
in the group grade
rather than my grade.
And so that's part of teaming,
it's showing up
for the team and service team,
not worrying about the disparities
of who's doing more or less work.
It doesn't matter, right.
If somebody's doing less work,
then brush 'em aside.
And like, so what?
And they're gonna get your grade
that mean, welcome to life.
Yeah.
It's unfair.
Yeah, yeah.
Congratulations.
Yes, it's unfair.
You did all the work
and they got a good grade.
What do you care about them?
Worry about yourself, right.
And so, this is what teaming is.
The hard work of teaming
is actually the hard work of learning
to build deep, meaningful relationships.
And I guarantee you,
if you can learn the skills
to be a better listener,
a better team player
in your group project,
you will find weird things happening
in your friendships
and your relationship
with your parents and your siblings,
and your girlfriends,
and your boyfriends which is,
you'll notice that those relationships
are getting better too,
'cause the skills are human skills
and they're transferrable
professionally or personally.
- Yeah.
So, the next question,
again, overlap here.
It's anonymous question.
How can you teach others
to tell apart projection
from objective reality on a team?
And then I think
this is a separate question.
Is emotional intelligence teachable?
And so, now,
yeah.
Just how can you teach others
to tell apart projection
and objective reality?
'Cause I think,
some of what you're saying
was related to that.
And then this other point,
is emotional intelligence teachable?
(Simon chuckles)
- The first question's a complicated one.
Because define reality?
Right.
Belief is a powerful thing.
And we are emotional animals.
We are not rational animals.
We do not make decisions rationally.
We are deeply driven
by fear and ambition,
and ego, and insecurity
that make our decisions for us
often,
even people who think
that they're rational
aren't rational.
And so when you talk about
convincing people to tell the difference,
no, it's misunderstanding
how this stuff works.
Your job isn't to convince
anybody of anything.
Your job is to understand
where they're coming from.
Your job is to understand their worldview.
Your job is to make them feel seen
and heard, and understood.
Your job is to have empathy,
not convince.
Inspire, invite.
Those are words of leadership.
And sometimes, if somebody,
you have to allow people
to go on their own journey.
And if you have a
different view of the world
that you think is a good way
for the world to be,
then learn to invite people
rather than exclude people.
Learn to listen to people.
It's one of the biggest coups
of my own work.
Now I wasn't the first person
to talk about purpose at work, right.
But when I started talking about it,
all those years ago,
talking about purpose at work
sounded like some hippie-dippy crap.
And I didn't use those words.
And I refused to use the words
vision or mission,
because there's no standardized definition
of what vision or mission are.
And everybody had different definitions
of what they are
and which one comes first,
and which one is subordinate.
And so, yeah,
you end up
just having semantic debates,
which is pointless.
And so, the coup was that
I changed the language.
I called it the why, right.
Because I talked to people
who believe vision came first.
And I said,
well, what's vision?
They said, well,
it's why we get out of bed every day.
And I talked to people
who believed mission comes first.
I said, well, what's mission?
They said, well,
what's why we do what we do.
And I talked to people
who believed brand came first
or purpose came first
or whatever language for the same thing.
And they all had the same definition.
I said, great,
we'll call it the why,
now we can all agree.
And the coup was I found language
that invited people,
rather than me standing
trying to convince people.
And so, I think that's a huge part of it,
which is, if you're setting out
to convince anybody of anything,
if they have a strongly held belief,
you've lost.
You've lost before you've started.
It's like convince somebody
who believes in God
that God doesn't exist.
Good luck with that, right.
Why not try and understand
where their faith comes from
and how it drives them,
and what value it has
in their lives,
and the importance.
And you don't have to agree with them,
but you can understand them,
and you can learn to speak to them
in their terms.
And you can learn
to find common ground
that though you may not believe
the same thing as them.
You also have belief in faith,
in certain things.
And you'll find that you actually
have more in common
than you don't.
That's called an invitation.
But convincing?
Do you wanna be convinced?
Do you want someone to convince you
that you're wrong
with your deep held beliefs?
No.
You're gonna get pretty defensive.
So it's the same
when we do it
the other way around.
- Great.
So the second question
on that question,
actually, I'm gonna add another question
to the second question which is,
is emotional intelligence teachable?
And there's another question here,
I like,
so I struggle
with uncomfortable conversations.
Do you have any book recommendation
for having uncomfortable conversations?
So I feel,
part of this is a question about learning.
Like you've been talking
about these things,
teachable skills.
Well, we're in school,
we have books.
- Yeah.
- Which books should we go to?
Or-
- Yeah.
So the first question
about emotional intelligence,
is it teachable?
Of course, it's teachable.
Can someone learn to be a parent?
Of course, right.
When you're single,
I mean, you only care about yourself.
And when you're a young couple,
you only care about us.
And then you have a new life
in the world
and you have to learn
to put your own interests aside
for the interest
of another human being.
You have to learn empathy,
you have to learn listening.
You have to learn
to affirm feelings.
That's all emotional intelligence.
And you learned it,
because you're trying
not to screw this kid up, right.
And so, yes,
of course, it's learnable
if you wanna learn it.
It's not necessarily easy
and it takes a lot of practice
like in any skill.
You can't just like read a book
and then ride a bicycle.
It's like you're gonna
have to practice this stuff
in real life.
And same goes with the books which is,
I have a couple of books
that I think are great go-to books
for learning communication.
One of them is,
"How To Talk So Kids Will Listen
And Listen So Kids Will Talk."
Yes, it's a parenting book.
And I think,
it's one of the best books
on how to talk
and how to have these conversations,
and how to understand emotions.
And it covers all these subjects.
And I think you should read it
for business,
'cause it's great.
Because it's all transferrable skills.
It's people talking to people.
And turns out we're just like little kids.
But the real heavy
lifting is not the reading
and passing a test.
The real heavy lifting is doing it.
And if I can just take a little aside
and go on a little rant
on a little soapbox.
You know, what it means to listen.
Like how do you know
you're a good listener?
Like how do you know
when you're practicing listening
and all of these emotional intelligence
that you're supposedly learning.
How do you know it's working?
And the example I'll give,
is the concept of meditation.
If anyone has ever meditated,
the problem with what
we've done in the West,
is we've made meditation
a selfish pursuit, right.
I need to be more grounded.
I need to be more present.
I need to focus the day.
So I've got my meditation practice for me.
Get out of my mat.
You're sitting on my meditation mat.
I'm like,
I think you're missing the point.
But the value of meditation,
though there is huge value to the self.
Absolutely.
The true value of meditation is that,
it's a service given to others.
It's a practice, right.
So think about it.
If you've ever meditated,
one of the things you do
when you meditate,
is you learn to focus on one thing.
You can't clear your mind.
That's nonsense.
When they say clear your mind
that doesn't exist.
But you do learn
to focus on one thing,
whether it's your mantra or a sound
or a dot on the wall
or your breath.
It doesn't matter.
You're focusing on one thing.
And when you get distracted,
you learn to bring yourself back
to that one thing.
And when you have a thought,
you learn to label it a thought,
put out of your mind and say,
I'll deal with that later.
And you go back to focusing on one thing.
And the amazing thing is,
is you feel really present and grounded
at the end of it.
But that skill that you're learning
is for the benefit of others.
You are not present
until someone else says you are.
So when you're having a
conversation with a friend
who's telling you
about their good day
or their bad day,
their relationship struggles
or their troubles with their roommate,
whatever it is.
Because you've been practicing meditation,
you've learned to focus on one thing
and one thing only,
what they're telling you.
And when you hear a noise on the side,
you ignore it.
You've learned to put that aside.
And when you have a thought,
you don't feel compelled to say it
or wait for your turn to speak.
You learn to put that thought
out of your mind and say,
I'll get to it later.
Right now, I'm focused on one thing
and one thing only.
At the end of that conversation,
your friend will say to you,
thank you for listening.
I feel so heard.
Thank you for being present.
Congratulations.
All that work that you did
with your meditation practice
is now bearing fruit
for this one day
that you made someone else
feel seen and heard,
and understood.
And that is really the goal
of all of this stuff
that we're talking about.
Whether it's empathy
or emotional intelligence,
the benefit is always for others.
That's what it is.
And so, yes,
you learn them,
but you have to practice them.
And you don't know that it's working
until somebody else has told you,
this is working.
- Great way to think about meditation.
Okay.
Well, as expected,
there's a number of
Brandeis questions in here.
So I'm just gonna bring it down to two.
First Brandeis question is,
did your time at Brandeis
help you learn
to have these conversations?
And the second one is,
what were some clarifying moments
during your Brandeis days as a student
that have helped to shape your career
and, or personal aspirations
and accomplishments?
- So remember,
I went to Brandeis at a time
where the Internet was just starting.
So we didn't have social media
and we didn't have cell phones.
So slightly different context as well
about how the value of
emotional intelligence,
how it works, right.
Because I think
it's more complicated now for sure.
And I think that the youth of today
have more disadvantages.
Like when you're feeling
a little bit lonely,
you can retreat to social media,
and you can avoid
having to have difficult conversations.
You can turn on your TikTok
and cry to your cell phone
in your room by yourself,
and you can get lots of likes
and external affirmation,
but that's not vulnerability.
Go have that exact same conversation
and cry to the friend that hurt you.
That's way more difficult.
And I think we avoid those conversations
because it's just easier.
And I think unbalance, not exclusively,
but unbalanced,
we see a younger generation
that's very afraid of being uncomfortable.
They like to avoid discomfort unbalance.
And so one of the things
that I learned at Brandeis
was being uncomfortable.
I've got a roommate for the first time.
I had a roommate
who I signed up to live with a non-smoker.
Okay.
My roommate signed up
to be with a non-smoker.
Turns out my roommate was a smoker
who didn't wanna live with a smoker.
You're an asshole, right.
So now I gotta live with a smoker, right.
I had to learn to live with that.
I had to learn to live with a roommate
that used to screw with my stuff
because he thought it was cool
with his friends.
And so like,
he'd like just screw with my stuff.
And so I learned
to not believe in revenge, right.
I learned not to believe in revenge.
And the reason is simple,
is because when we did have a fight.
I could say,
you did this, and this,
and this, and this,
and he couldn't say anything.
'Cause I don't believe in revenge.
I didn't do anything back, right.
I learned that skill
because of my useless roommate,
my freshman year at Brandeis.
I had to learn it.
It was a survival mechanism.
Otherwise, I'm gonna be screaming,
yelling all the time, right.
And I'm gonna two rights,
don't make a wrong.
I had to learn that too, right.
But one of the best lessons
I learned at Brandeis,
and one of the great things about Brandeis
as a relatively small school,
you have relatively small class sizes.
And more importantly,
you have a very, very small
student to teacher ratios.
Our classes are taught by professors.
You go to Harvard,
they're gonna be taught by TAs,
because all of the good professors
go work with the graduate students, right.
So you get access to brilliant,
brilliant people in small class sizes.
This is amazing.
This is a gift.
And one of the things that I learned
was that I am allowed
to disagree with someone
who has more degrees and more letters
at the end of their name
than I do.
As long as I can make a constructive
and respectful argument,
screaming and yelling
is not the way I disagree.
Telling somebody that they're wrong
is not the way I disagree.
But mounting an argument
in a respectful way
is something I learned at Brandeis.
So I would have the emotion to disagree,
but I had to learn
how to disagree in a constructive way.
Very grateful to Brandeis
for giving me that.
And that I could do it
in these small class sizes
where I could talk directly
to the authority.
So super grateful
for a lot of the human skills
that I learned at Brandeis.
And I think one of the great things
that we learn in college,
whether there's a lot of debate
whether college is useless or not
in this modern day and age.
And yes,
I mean, the studying part
may or may not be useful,
but it's a halfway
house to the real world.
And I think that you're learning
to transition to adulthood.
You're learning to
transition to independence.
And most importantly,
you learn to think critically.
Where college is very
different than high school.
And the way professors talk to you
and the way you can
talk to your professors,
is very different than high school.
And critical thinking is the thing
you need to do.
And you're talking to professors
who don't necessarily
know the answers themselves.
In high school,
they know all the answers, right.
And so, it's about problem solving.
And that's really hard
when sometimes there is no right answer.
That's even harder.
You're doing work in your category
or sometimes there actually is no answer.
And so what you're teaching is,
how to think,
not what the answer is.
And that skill,
how to think
rather than know the answer for the test,
is more valuable in my life
than pretty much anything
I've ever learned.
- Yeah.
Thank you.
All right.
This could be a tricky question.
So this is from Izzy.
You've been on many podcasts
and have had many thought
leaders on your podcast.
Who's been your favorite
speaker to talk to
or someone who has totally changed
your mind about something?
- I mean,
I don't think there's a favorite.
I don't think that's-
There are some that stand out
that they've challenged a point of view
that I have
or have given me a new way
to think about something.
I talked to-
This is the problem,
I forgot all the names.
I mean,
I talked to women recently,
I forgot her name.
This is terrible,
how embarrassing.
She's only on my podcast.
I'm looking at my notes,
'cause I have written-
Here we go.
Was it?
No, that's not it.
Anyway, the point is that,
the person I talked to recently was about
turning anxiety
into something positive, right.
That anxiety is not
necessarily a bad thing.
And we had a whole
conversation about that.
And the thing
that I took away from that,
that I absolutely love
is that we talk about
mental health all the time.
And the problem with
the term mental health
is we treat it
like it's the goal.
That if you're anything
other than perfect,
there's something wrong with you, right.
Which of course is nonsense, right.
That if you're anything
other than happy all the time,
then you're struggling
with your mental health.
We know when we do physical fitness,
sometimes your muscles hurt,
sometimes you have a good workout,
sometimes you have a bad workout,
sometimes you're strong,
sometimes you're weak.
Sometimes you got a ton of sleep
and you can't workout.
Sometimes you got no sleep
and you're like on fire.
You have the best run of your life.
There's no goal.
It's fitness.
Like it's something
you're constantly working.
And I think,
I've stopped calling it mental health
and I've started calling
it mental fitness.
And so having emotions,
having a down day, being depressed,
be feeling lonely.
Like all of these things are fine
and they're totally healthy.
If you get stuck
in any one of them,
that's a problem.
But by the way,
if you get stuck in happiness,
that's a problem too.
And so I think,
we have to work
on our mental fitness,
which is learning how to have feelings,
learning how to just be in our feelings.
Because I think we've set up
an unrealistic expectation for ourselves
that if you have a negative feeling,
there's something wrong with you.
And if you have a negative feeling,
turns out you're human.
And I think the biggest
skill that's lacking
in all of that,
is learning how to ask for help.
That when we do have negative feelings,
where the first thing
we should be doing
is reaching out to a friend.
We don't.
And I have a rule with my friends
and all my friends know this,
which is no crying alone.
And I've had some people
who are well-known entrepreneurs
who many of your class will know.
And we've had experiences
where the phone rings
and they say,
can I talk to you and go,
of course, what's going on?
And they start crying.
Because that's the rule,
no crying alone.
And we lean on each
other very, very heavily.
Because none of us
is stupid enough to believe
we can do this thing called life
or entrepreneurship
or career by ourselves.
Just not that good,
not that strong.
And so, talking about anxiety,
that that episode really helped frame
some of the stuff
that I work through.
- Yeah.
Thank you.
So here's a question about
tying some of these things
in very much to what's going on
in society at large.
So question is,
when starting The Curve,
how did you persuade
the police and sheriffs
to share their opinions and cooperate
to improve the policing culture?
And statistically, in your opinion,
how has The Curve changed the profession
of policing in America?
- So thanks for bringing that up.
So The Curve is a charity
that I founded
that is devoted
to modernizing policing today
and evolving their cultures
from the inside out.
There's a lot of pressure on the outside
to change policing,
but there needs to be more pressure,
there needs to be more work
from changing policing,
from the inside of the organizations.
So, going back to all the conversation
we've already had,
I didn't convince anybody of anything.
I talked about what I believed.
I talked about what I stood for.
And chiefs and sheriffs
came to me and said,
hey, we've been using "Leaders Eat Last"
to help completely change
our policing organization
based on your work.
Thank you.
And I said,
I'd like to learn more.
And so, my work served as an invitation.
My work served as a lighthouse.
My public words
and how I believe
organizations should operate
attracted the right kinds
of police, chiefs, and sheriffs.
And so, all of the founding
members of The Curve
are chiefs and sheriffs
from across the country,
Republicans and Democrats
from across the whole country
who we share a common value set.
Even though we may see
the world differently.
And we all are devoted
to teaching the skills
of leadership inside policing,
which are desperately,
desperately lacking.
Leadership inside the policing profession
is about 20 years behind.
That's how bad it is.
And so that's where we're starting,
we're starting with some of the basics,
like what is a leader and promoting people
because they're good leaders,
not because they passed a test.
The more I've learned about it,
it is an unbelievably complicated problem.
There's 18,000 police
forces in the United States,
of which the vast majority
are fewer than 75 cops.
So most of them are pretty small agencies.
And there's no national police chief,
there's no like one person to be like,
we're gonna change policing like this.
It doesn't exist.
There's no national standards,
there's no national
standards for training.
I mean, it's a mad house.
And so, the reason we're called The Curve,
is because we're leveraging
the law of diffusion.
We're looking for all those early adopter
chiefs and sheriffs
to create a critical mass
(Simon snaps)
that we can change the whole profession.
And so when the question ask,
is what impact have we made?
The cool thing is we're
regaining momentum.
And more and more chiefs and sheriffs
are reaching out to us saying,
I want to do something different.
This isn't working.
I don't know where to start.
Can you help?
And the fact, that they're open-minded
to something different and new
is hugely inspiring.
But the challenge is astronomical
in its scope.
- Yeah.
- And complexity.
- So I think,
this is our final question.
So the previous question,
- And if somebody wants to learn more
about The Curve,
check out thecurve.org,
thecurve.org.
And you can read about
my philosophies on policing
and what needs to be done.
And any support you want to give,
you on a volunteer and help out,
I'll take it.
- Awesome.
So this question I feel, flips it.
No, takes it out of policing,
but flips it.
The Curve,
the sheriffs, the leaders, the chiefs,
is what you just talked about.
The question here is,
as a young person in the working world,
I'm frustrated
by how often the ego of leaders
gets in the way of positive change
within organizations.
How can employees influence leaders
who may not see the issues
with their decisions,
but are also not open to feedback?
- Okay.
You're not gonna like my answer.
And you'll notice a consistency
in all of my answers.
You cannot change their
point of view, right.
No number of anonymously sent books
will change their mind, right.
Though, I encourage you to keep trying.
No angry conversations
or meetings will change.
It's just not gonna happen.
All right.
And so, you're barking
up the wrong tree, right.
It's not about how do I change my leader,
it's how do I be the leader
I wish I had.
Leadership has nothing to do with rank.
Rank affords you authority.
That's it.
But it doesn't make you a leader, right.
Leadership is the awesome responsibility
to see those around us rise.
And if you have rank,
if you have authority,
you can just lead at scale.
And so what you want to do,
is be the leader
you wish you had.
And you are not gonna change somebody,
two, three, four levels up
who disagrees and doesn't.
Who ignores all of the stuff
that I'm talking about, right.
Like, we've lost them, right.
Or they'll have their come to Jesus moon
in a different way, right,
which sometimes happens.
But if you are the leader
you wish you had,
and this is why
I wanna see young people,
if they go through discomfort
or they have a leader who's,
they don't buy into.
Please don't quit, right.
Please stay there
and practice the difficult,
magical, wonderful,
honorable skill of leadership
with your team.
Even if you're the most junior person,
you have somebody to the left of you
and you have somebody to the right of you.
And you can commit to seeing
that they feel seen,
heard, and understood.
You can commit to helping them
achieve their goals.
You can commit to making them feel
like someone has their back
in difficult times.
You can commit to helping them.
And you can commit in helping ensure
that when they go home
at the end of the day,
that they feel fulfilled
and they had a good day at work.
That's called leadership.
And when you start to find,
is if you can do that,
if you can develop that skillset
that these little teams
start to be higher performing,
they start to get along better.
The teaming starts to happen really well.
And leadership will either ignore you,
'cause you're doing fine
or they may surprise you
and be like,
what are they doing down there?
I'm really curious.
And they may actually
come and learn from you.
And eventually,
one of you is gonna get promoted
out of that group
and go to another team.
And they're gonna take all the skills
they learn from you
and they're gonna bring them
to their new team.
And now you're gonna
have two high performing,
wonderful teams
that are highly trusting and magical.
And then three,
and then five, and then 10.
And before you know it,
the tail wags the dog.
And this is the one of the hardest things
I think young people struggle with,
which is we're talking
about a long-term mindset.
We're talking about an
infinite mindset here,
which is the speed at which it takes
for the tail to wag the dog
is unpredictable.
The reason a lot of businesses ignore
all of my work is not,
'cause it's wrong or they disagree,
it's because they want it to work
on the day
they want it to work.
Which is the exact same thing
as saying to me,
Simon, I'm exercising
and I need to be healthy
on this exact day,
on this exact time.
I'm like, I mean,
maybe, it'll work out that way.
It's like every doctor will tell you
if you work out 20 minutes a day
for the rest of your life,
you're gonna be super healthy, right.
But on what day you're healthy?
On what day your blood
pressure gets better?
Nobody knows.
Sometimes quick, sometimes slow,
I don't know.
But you have to commit to the process.
And a hundred percent of the time
the process works.
I just don't know when.
And leadership is the same,
a hundred percent it works.
I just don't know when.
And people come quickly
and people come slowly.
So you may convert
on an entire organization in a year
or you may just simply build the momentum
that it'll continue without you,
but you won't get to see it change.
That's possible too.
But the most important thing
is to commit to the regime,
like brushing your teeth.
Brushing your teeth every day,
brushing your teeth does nothing
unless you do it all the time, every day.
Can I take a night off?
Yes, you can.
It won't do any damage.
How many nights can I take off?
I don't know and neither does any dentist.
Just not too many, right.
Same thing.
Commit to the regime,
be the leader you wish you had.
Don't worry about convincing other people.
- Perfect.
Thank you so much.
I did also just wanna mention,
I think I should have said this
at the outset,
but I did also wanna thank
the International Business School,
Hyatt Career Center,
and Brandeis Alumni Association
for bringing us all together today
to share this experience
and opportunity to listen
to Simon Sinek.
Simon, thank you so much.
It's been great.
Really appreciate your perspective
on all these questions.
And yeah,
I don't know
if the students can say thank you.
I think actually as participants,
we can't hear them.
We can't listen.
But I know that everyone thanks you, so.
- Well, some of them anyway.
(Philippe chuckles)
- Exactly.
- You're very welcome.
Thanks for having me.
It's nice to be back at Brandeis,
hopefully soon in person.
And until then,
take care of yourself
and take care of each other.
Thanks very much for having me.
- Great, thank you so much.
Bye, everyone.