Changing the World, One Mindset at a Time with Mary C. Murphy

0:04Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open Book, where I talk with some of the brightest minds out there about everything surrounding the written word, from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, neuroscientists, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Sorry, I can't resist. Before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already, please hit follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. We all love a review, even the bad ones. I want to hear the parts you're enjoying or how we can do better. You know, I can roll with the punches, so let me know.

0:38Anyways, let's get to it.

0:47Do we want all the Elon Musks and Einsteins of the world on our team? Your first thought is most likely yes, absolutely. But once you read Mary C. Murphy's book, you'll think differently. To make way for the growth, we actually need to cut down on the grind. But why, and more importantly, how? Let's find out.

1:16So joining us now on Open Book is Mary C. Murphy. She's an award-winning social psychologist, and she's written a truly fascinating book. It's called The Cultures of Growth, How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations. So So absolute brilliant book. Now, I'm going to give you a little bit of trivia. Okay. I share a book agent with Carol Dreck. Okay. Now, unfortunately, the only person buying my books, that would be me. But everybody buys Carol Dreck's books. Okay. And let me tell you something. And I'm not allowed to say that anymore. I think one of my, actually, I do sell books, but not as many as Carol.

1:54But this book is as good as Carol's. And - Can I quote you saying that? 100%. All right. I'd be happy to say that. because I read Carol's about 20 years ago. And one of the deans of Tufts University was one of the original endorsers of her book. And I sat on the board there for about eight years. He handed me the book, told me to read it. And I got in touch with her book agent to sell my first book, blah, blah. But there's just so many things I like about this book. And we'll talk about her and you in a second. But she obviously had a great influence on you. So what started you on to tell us the catalyst.

2:33It's in the book, but tell my viewers and listeners the catalyst to get this thing started. Yeah, I'll tell you the mindset, culture, origin story. So I'm in graduate school. It's 2005. I'm at Stanford in the PhD program, psychology. It's number one program in the country. And what's common is that students are supposed to present their research every single year to all of the faculty. And I'm in one of these seminars supporting a friend of mine, and he's presenting his work. He's been working for the last four years on this project. And all of a sudden on the right-hand side, this professor does not raise his hand, just shouts out, well, it's clear the fatal flaw is X, Y, Z.

3:07And then a professor on the left says, no, the fatal flaw is an X, Y, Z. It's A, B, C. And if he doesn't solve that, there's no point to any of these ideas. And I saw what it did to the student. I saw that all of a sudden the student lost all focus, all this problem talking, uh, uh, uh, right? He basically choked. And what was more important was that he was unwilling then to revisit the project for months because it was so painful, this interaction. And this was my first fixed glimpse into that fixed mindset culture of genius, where it's clear you either have it or you don't. This is a proving and performing context.

3:42You're only as good as your last performance. Two weeks later, I'm in a different seminar and the faculty there, equally eminent faculty, but they are now responding to these student talks from a totally different angle. Instead of who's the smartest in the room, they're still figuring out what the weaknesses are of the project, but now they're competing about who can build this up, who can actually come up with a better way to do this particular study that's going to actually transform the entire research program. And so I thought about these, what are these two environments? How are they different?

4:12And I thought they both have mindset at the core, one, this fixed mindset, you either have it or you don't kind of idea. And one about growth and development of individuals. And so I took this down the hallway. Carol Dweck had just arrived to Stanford from Columbia University, and she was brand new on the faculty to us. And I knocked on her door and I said, Carol, I know that everyone thinks of mindset as something just in their mind. What's your mindset? How does it affect you? What's my mindset? How does it affect me? Has anyone thought about this as a cultural factor, something that exists in teams, in groups, in organizations, in schools, and how does it affect people on the ground?

4:46And she looked at me. The question is, does Carol Dweck respond from her fixed or growth mindset when someone challenges a major hole in the theory? And what she said was, Mayor, no one's thought about mindset in this way, but we should do it and we should do it together. And that began, you know, a 15 year journey. Looking at how thinking about mindset just in our minds is really not enough. We have to be thinking about the mindset culture we're building around us. Do we live in a hive mind? We, in the best world, we would live in a hive mind that is focused on growth and development. Hive mind by itself is also not enough, right?

5:24You can have a hive mind that's very much group think, right? Who's the smartest in the room? We're going to follow that person and we're all going to circle around them. And we're just going to like follow that person wherever they go, even if they're going off the cliff. That's a culture of genius hive mind. You want a culture of growth hive mind where people are really, best ideas are coming from everywhere. There's structures to lift up the very best ideas that come from that hive. And then we're willing to pursue those together. Let's talk about for a second, the visual world that we live in.

5:51Yes. And our perceptions of people, you know, I don't know, I'm a nerd. People don't think I'm a nerd because I'm a Long Island Guido. The stereotype is not true, right? They wouldn't know. May not be true. You see what I'm saying? Yes, I do. No, I find I get some of these nerdy authors on with me and they're like, whoa, whoa, this guy really has read all that stuff or he's actually read my book. But do we do that to people? Absolutely. And this is where the culture of genius is particularly toxic. So let me ask you, Anthony, like if you were to Google genius and look at the Google images, who do you think you're going to see?

6:24Einstein. Einstein, number one, by far. Who else? You know, I was dying to say Anthony Scaramucci to get you a little. You know, the number one genius, the number one genius. No, I'm up there in like the dumpster fire. It's going to be Steve Jobs. It's going to be Anthony. It's going to be Elon. No, it's not going to be me. When it says White House dumpster fire, Mary, there's a picture of me. You know what I mean? White House dumpster fire. But let me tell you, let me tell you about the stereotype, your question, right? Yeah. If you go to that genius image, Google is good at telling us what our culture believes about people, those stereotypes, right?

7:00Right. And so when you get to a culture of genius, this fixed mindset culture, you either have it or you don't, you're a genius, you're a star, or you're not, those are the people that we're looking for to see if they're the geniuses, to recruit those people, to retain those people, to promote those people, to mentor those people, to sponsor them, to put all the power and resources behind them. And that leaves women, people of color, people with disabilities, people who look like you maybe in some ways, right? The Italian background, right? Like, I mean, there are some characteristics that just don't fit that class, education, gender, race background.

7:35And that's why the culture of genius leaves out so many people. And it's why it doesn't actually work in the long term. Because if you're only relying on a very small group of people with a very sort of similar background, you're not going to get the creativity and innovation that's actually going to cause success. To me, this is the brilliant insight to your book. This is where where you've uncovered something that I think as a society, you know, there's a fight, there's a billionaire fight. One of the things I've learned, you know, I turned 60 in January. And so one of the things I learned is that - You don't look 60, I have to say.

8:10Well, there's a lot of work going on here. Are you doing a lot of work over there? A lot of work, okay? I can't move my forehead, okay? I have more Botox on my forehead than the day Joan Rivers died, okay? Okay, there's no emotion coming out of me. Just know that I'm smiling right now. Right. I wouldn't be able to tell. Even though you can't tell, my face is so frozen. That's right. But no, I'm doing the work. I mean, come on, I'm vain. Here's the thing I would say that is so brilliant about what you're writing. We have a billionaire fight going on right now. And these billionaires, I deal with them all the time.

8:44Some of them are fantastic people, but they're also a little nuts. And I'm absolutely convinced that the money made them nuts because for some reason, the money breeds in some level of superiority. So I got the money. And so I must be smarter than you. You don't have the money. That's right. I'm smarter than you in every way, shape and form. So we've got Elon fighting Mark Cuban about diversity. Yeah. Right. One is saying we need more of it. The other one is saying, well, you're not putting a five foot two Asian woman as center for the Dallas Mavericks. They're both making interesting points. But Mary C.

9:16Murphy is making a very different point, isn't she? Isn't she talking about something very different than that fight? What is she trying to say in her book? Well, I'm saying that this culture of genius idea is really leaving so much talent on the table. It is leaving so many ideas, so many perspectives. And without that kind of idea that talent and ability is something we grow, develop together, Best ideas come from everywhere. There are structures to actually elevate the best ideas in the room so that we're being sure that they're heard and not just left on the table. That's how you get the most innovation, the most creativity, informed risk-taking that isn't just crazy off the cliff risk-taking without any data to support it or small experiments to see if you're even moving in the right direction.

10:03That's the culture of growth. And that's the genius of the culture of growth. The culture of genius that just has you either have it or you don't, you're a star or you're not. People are so focused on backbiting and looking around their shoulder to be sure that no one else is going to take their star status away from them. They're so focused on protecting that, they lose focus on the bigger picture, right? And that's why those cultures of genius tend to underperform over and over, whether we're talking about small Silicon Valley startups or Fortune 1 ,500 companies that are global companies. All right.

10:36So I think this is the brilliant insight. And I would like to think that this book is going to be an add on to Professor Dweck's book. And I think it's a brilliant insight about how we have to reshape and reframe the narrative. And there's more genius out there than just stereotypical genius. A lot of different and there's a lot of different forms of genius. So we have to sort of break out of that. So let's go over some of these aspects of a mindset culture that you mentioned. Let's start with innovation. Okay, the way we think can fuel or foil our innovation. So how do we have to think to fuel our innovation?

11:13Well, in order to be innovative, you have to feel safe making mistakes. And there are some really interesting studies out there that show that if you're not making mistakes 10 to 15 % of the time, you are not maximizing the potential of learning growth and development and your actual outcomes. And these are studies that were done with people, with animals, with AI algorithms, that if those AI algorithms aren't making mistakes at about 10 % of the time, they're not actually going to have the most successful outcomes in terms of their predictive ability. So too with people. And so with that innovation, what happens is that in these cultures of genius, you either have it or you don't.

11:51Any mistake that you make is seen as a sign that maybe you don't have that talent. Maybe you weren't as capable as we thought you were. You make one mistake and you're nothing, right? I want to say that these cultures of genius, they're not good for the geniuses either. They put them in a straitjacket. There is no room for learning, development, making mistakes. And if you're dethroned in the culture of genius, you're freaking nothing. It's like black and white. You either are or you aren't. And people are unwilling to make those kinds of risks and take the challenges and come up with new ideas that might not necessarily always work out.

12:26But that's where innovation comes. And so those cultures of genius hold down innovation. People are unwilling to give their best ideas, unwilling to try something new because they're so worried that if it doesn't pan out, it's going to be taken as a sign that they're not smart. They're not capable. They're not the smartest guy in the room. Well, I mean, this is, again, brilliant insights. Thank you so much for coming on. I think people also have a tendency to forget that Einstein was a bit wayward in the beginning of his life. Steve Jobs had a series of failures, which culminated with his firing from Apple Computer.

13:03Absolutely. His return to Apple. So we have a tendency to hagiographically review these people, and we miss the jagged edges of their career. We now hagiographically pretend that they moved up on a 45-degree slope up and to the right. 100%. So we have to be careful of that. You know, I got to ask you this question, because when I read the book, I was dying to ask this question. Yeah. You know, when I go to Japan, they don't like failure. They don't like loss of face. When I go to Europe, it's aristocratic. It's sclerotic because of that. And even though here in the United States, true, we get very self-conscious when we fail.

13:38And believe me, I've had my share of failures. We're more accepting of it from entrepreneurs. We're more accepting of it from Silicon Valley. Are we not? Or what am I missing? Yeah, I think that there is this idea out there, fail fast, right? And I think that in some ways that's true, but when there are bigger failures or when those failures actually come, there's a lot of conversation about what it was like for people to work in these early stage companies with Peter Thiel. right? And, you know, he was one of those who was like, fail fast, fail often, fail quick, so that we can move on and get that innovation going.

14:18But if you read people who've worked with him, they say, you know, you fail and you were out of there, right? There was not a lot of tolerance for it. And so there can be something that we say, and there's what we do. The impression nature of the failure. Yeah, no, of course. That's right. I mean, I get it. And trust me, it happens everywhere. Talk about creativity. We have to set time aside to be creative? Yes, absolutely. Especially when we take off the pressure of ourselves that we have to actually produce something that's going to be creative. Letting ourselves take some time without that pressure to prove and perform helps us actually make new connections that is the essence of creativity.

14:56And you can only do that when you're surrounding yourself with this idea, this culture of growth idea that I'm about developing, I'm about learning, I'm about trying new things, right? I'm not just going to put myself in the box. I either am a math person or I'm not. I'm a creative person or I'm not, right? Everyone is a creative person if given a little time and space and actually finding the thing that really sparks their passion and joy. But you have to take some time to be able to reflect on that and to allow it to breathe and grow a little bit. That's the culture of growth. What makes us insecure?

15:27I think that fundamentally what makes us insecure is the idea that other people are going to think that we're not capable, that we're not good people on the inside, right? What makes us care about what other people think? Well, I think we're fundamentally social creatures, right? There's a whole lot of psychology studies that have shown that belonging and the way that we appear to others is fundamental to how we think about ourselves. And if we are left alone for too long, completely isolated, we start to lose our mind in some ways, right? We start to lose our sense of self, actually. You can't be a self by yourself.

16:07And so, you know, that's why we care about what other people think. And we really want people to think of us as good, as moral, as capable people, no matter who we are. You know, there was a great book about 10 or 12 years ago called On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. Do you remember the book? Yes, I do. And also he was the inventor of the Palm Pilot. it. But he said one of our problems is that the brain evolutionarily developed. And so the neocortex where we get our consciousness is up here in the front, but it's only the size of a deck of cards. It's only six cards sitting on top. And that's where we get all of our awareness.

16:43All this other stuff got us out of the cave. And maybe we threw some spears at woolly mammoths, but it also brings in all of our atavistic tendencies, which include our jealousies, our envies, our self-consciousness, because remember, you had to be accepted to survive 50 ,000 years ago. So you better have liked me and wanted me to stay in your hunting tribe. Otherwise, me and my family weren't going to make it. Yeah, that's right. You're going to be left alone. You're not missing anything. And I didn't realize you were such a neuroscientist, by the way. You know, see that? Look, nerdy You're a talent from Long Island.

17:19Neuroscience is my hobby. It should be the t-shirt you're wearing. You realize I had some of those books right in my back pocket. I could just throw out into the podcast. See that? Anthony, I would never stereotype you. I would never. No, it's okay. I've been stereotyping. One of the fun things about going into politics is they characterize you. They try to turn you into a caricature and they two-dimensionalize you. So it's fun if you can take it. But why can some people take it and other people can't take it? You know, my grandmother once said to me, what other people think of you is none of your business.

17:51I actually believed her. OK, I'm not saying that what other people say doesn't bother me from time to time because I'm a human being. But how do we steal ourselves? Because we're in the age of social media. Our children are looking at filtered lives of their friends. But they themselves, they know they're living an unfiltered life. And I think these comparative processing, this comparative analysis is creating some toxicity. How do we help ourselves? It's 100 % creating toxicity. And that's where this culture of growth idea can really be effective. In our closest relationships, in our families, around the dinner table, how do we actually show that we don't have to be perfect, that we don't have to never make mistakes?

18:34One of the most effective ways to inoculate kids and adolescents from this idea of being so fragile and so brittle that any kind of thing that someone's going to say to you about you or to you is going to break you, right, is actually building up some of that resilience in your closest contacts. What your grandmother did for you is creating a culture of growth around you that makes you resilient. So how can we do this around the dinner table? One of the favorite things that seems to work is this idea called the favorite mistakes. What's your favorite mistake today? What was your favorite mistake today, right?

19:05Maybe it's that I wore a white shirt and then I spilled coffee all over it. And that was my favorite mistake because it showed me again, I need to be careful. And maybe when I have an interview, I won't be wearing a white shirt, right? That's something I learned today. How about you? I do the rose and thorn thing with my kids, you know, what was your rose and thorn? But I'm going to add that one. What was your mistake? Because you got to get comfortable making mistakes. That's right. That's right. It's the only way to learn and grow. If you're not making mistakes, you are not pushing yourself farther enough.

19:33right? You're just playing it safe. You're being risk averse. And we know that that is not going to lead to any kind of learning or growth or development. Tell us about the brain on criticism. Well, it really depends on if criticism is your fixed or growth mindset trigger. So this is a way we really get outside of the head and into these situations. So I get a piece of feedback, let's say from my boss, and the feedback is not good, right? If this is my fixed mindset trigger, my literal vision and my hearing get so narrowly tuned that I cannot process what this person is saying to me. I don't have memory for it.

20:14And on the other side, right, my boss who's giving me this feedback, they get frustrated because I don't seem to have learned anything from it. But that's because I was so in my fixed mindset and so tuned to the threat of it that it's a pronouncement on the badness of me rather than on the feedback that they're giving me about what I did or what I said or how I could improve, I literally don't hear or remember it. I think it's true for a lot of people. It's not just you, Mary. It's a lot of people that feel that way. Yeah. And there's a way, you know, we're not stuck in the fixed mindset response to critical feedback.

20:46This is something that we can turn into a growth mindset trigger where, and especially if a boss knows that this is my fixed mindset trigger, I'm immediately going to go into that like prove and perform, like, you know, narrow tunneled kind of vision moment when you're giving me feedback, I can give you feedback differently if I'm the boss, if I know that that's your likely, your fixed mindset trigger. And so I can create this culture of growth around you. I can say, listen, I believe in your abilities and your skills to do this. I have high standards. You didn't meet them this time. Let me help you figure out the better way to do it next time.

21:16It's reassuring rather than threatening. And that's how you move people to their growth mindset. Okay. So I got my muscles. I need mental muscles. So give me some techniques. What do I got to do to get myself in that growth mindset? I got to take some time to myself to be creative. That's right. How do I get myself to become more resilient? That's right. And you don't need to do it. You don't need to do it together. You mean the fitness plan? What's the mental fitness plan? If you can find another person or two to kind of create a growth mindset pod for yourself, then each time that you find yourself moving to your fixed mindset, oh, I just got this like really shitty feedback.

21:53Or I noticed that when this other person won this big award that I thought I was going to be eligible for this year, I was overlooked. That moved me right into my fixed mindset, right? How do I actually find inspiration in the success of others that I can figure out what strategies they used, how I might be able to apply that in my own life instead of feeling so threatened and into my fixed mindset? Oh, she's so good at that. Maybe I never will have a chance, right? Being able to talk this through with other people, being able to notice your fixed and growth mindset triggers. There's a quiz on my website that helps you identify your own triggers.

22:27And then just having that awareness, oh shit, I'm being triggered towards my, I don't know if I can curse, sorry. You know, oh, you know, like I'm moving towards my fixed mindset in this situation. Just knowing that and knowing then how to move yourself towards growth, being able to think about it in a different way, giving yourself some space for that, giving yourself some space to make some mistakes, some safe mistakes, right? Looking at the data, being able to identify whether you're moving in the right direction for growth. These are all things we can be doing. Okay. So getting to the point in this podcast where I come up with my producer, Holly, we come up with five words and we ask our authors to react to them.