How This Podcast Could Fail

21:23Brené Brown:Okay. If the decision you're making right now or the project you're launching is just an unmitigated disaster, what are the most likely causes? And so then you have to start looking in places you haven't looked before. It takes you out of tunnel vision. It gives you better peripheral vision. I think that's the first thing. And then the second thing is it's a conversation where you're supposed to talk about the risks. Yeah, the invitation. Exactly. And the way you said risk assessment, I never crystallized it, but that's exactly what you're doing. You're inviting people to say, here's what I'm concerned about.

21:55Here are some issues that we haven't talked about that really could be a problem. I gotta tell you that my favorite thing

22:03Brené Brown:about being in the room with teams I'm working with when they run a premortem is the quiet, more introverted, usually highly analytic people who are often told that they are constantly raining on people's parades around enthusiasm and group projects will be the first to raise their hand and say, I think we'll be examining the assumptions around these data. Yes. And I see also people who tend to be more defensive pessimists than strategic optimists who have learned to self-censor because they're dragging people around with their worrying. All of a sudden, they have a voice. Same for people who tend to be highly disagreeable, who sort of have been taught to sand down that edge, can say, oh, well, this is a point where people are actually willing to hear my critique because we can still do something about it.

23:01Brené Brown:The thing – go ahead. No, go ahead. Okay. Just before we dive into the specifics, I never thought about this before, but this has so many applications outside the workplace. I think that when friends become roommates for the first time, they should do a premortem. I think that marriages, the premortem conversation, that's more important than the prenup conversation. It is 100%. How could this relationship go wrong? I think when you have a child, I think it would have been so valuable for Allison and I to sit down and say, if we were to mess up parenting, what are the biggest mistakes we think we might make and how do we avoid this?

23:42Brené Brown:It's interesting because Steve and I have had – we didn't call them premortems. But when I was pregnant with Ellen, our oldest, we basically spent – I can remember – it was so powerful. I can remember where I was sitting and what I was wearing when we basically went through what now I know is a premortem. Wow. Yeah, because I was about – it was a wild day actually. I was probably eight or nine months pregnant. I was very pregnant. And he asked me a question on a walk about – I was so scared because I was in my PhD program. And when I told the then head of the doctoral program that I was pregnant, his response was, we thought you were going to be someone.

24:32Yeah.

24:32Brené Brown:Yeah. And so it got very tricky because I got really smart assy and very much like, hey, it's a baby, not a lobotomy. And I was very defensive, obviously. As you should have been. That's such an inappropriate comment to me. Yeah. As if you can't have a career and a child. Yeah, although the research at the time, which he pointed out, was like parenthood and getting married were really good for male untenured professors and very bad for female untenured professors. So that was true. Everybody needed a wife. And so I was really scared and defensive. And what ended up happening was I got hyperemesis.

25:15Brené Brown:So I got that thing where my progesterone levels were very high. And so I threw up every day. I had to take a leave of absence from the PhD program. And it was interesting because it was a female tenured professor who said, you have sat in my class and thrown up in the trash can for the last time. She said, I've had several miscarriages that I attribute specifically to the stress of academia. We will be here when you are better. And I was sick for the first trimester and then I came back. But it was just layers of stuff. But that prompted this hard conversation where Steve said, what do you want from your career?

25:52Brené Brown:And that's when I said I want to start a global conversation about shame and vulnerability. So that was 27 years ago. And then he said, who do you think we want to be? And where do you think – who do we not want to be as parents? Because we had no models of what marriage looked like. Like there were great things our parents did and a lot of things we wanted to do differently because we just have more information. So we had a long conversation and wrote it down actually. Like where we would look back and think this is not what we want to do or who we want to be. Wow. Yeah. So we actually – You did the premortem.

26:28Brené Brown:We kind of did the premortem. Yeah. It was – because we said things that we heard growing up that we don't ever want to say because I said, so this is my house. Yeah. You know, we wanted to say yes every time we could. You know, just things that we were trying to – and the biggest thing that Steve said in that moment, who's a pediatrician, said there was a difference between trauma and adversity. We had a lot of trauma growing up, both of us. We didn't want that for our kids, but we didn't want to overcorrect and protect them from adversity. Can you just flesh out what the difference is and how you've done that?

27:09Brené Brown:I think trauma sets us back and adversity makes us stronger. And so I think they were about real assessments of, is this uncomfortable or is this actually unsafe? Is this something where you can learn and feel protected or is this something where you will feel unsafe? And I think trauma is about unsafety. Yeah, that's a really helpful distinction. Yeah. I go back to Shelly Urim from Harvard. I saw her, one of those things where, you know, you go to a hotel lobby and someone gives a presentation all day, like a seminar. And she did this thing about what is trauma and what isn't that we use to inform our parenting a lot.

27:54Brené Brown:She had someone sit on a chair and she popped a balloon in front of them and they didn't like it very much. But then she said, I'm going to tie your hands and legs to this chair and do the same thing. And that person said, absolutely, I can't do that. And she said, that's the difference. Control. I don't have any control over my own well-being. And so I thought, I don't know if that's official. Just for all the therapists out there and all the trauma experts, I am not one. Me neither. We are not, you know, social worker psychologists went to the research side, not the clinical side. But I thought the loss of control and safety were interesting.

28:28Brené Brown:So we did pre-mortem. That's very powerful. Yeah, we did pre-mortem. One of the things I've also done, which I'll be interested in your take on this, I do them with my class. So if this class ends up in your mind being a failure when it's over, even though we only have 15 weeks together a semester, what will we be saying from your perspective and mine? What do your students say most often on that? The learning that comes out of a qualitative analysis of what mine are and theirs are is if they don't take equal responsibility for their learning. That they are passive in – that my job is to teach.

29:04Brené Brown:Their job isn't to learn. It will also be a failure if my job is to come in from a consumer perspective to make them happy and not challenge them into discomfort. That's so interesting. So we do a premortem even when we teach. I didn't realize I've been doing the results of it. Without having the premortem conversation, I take the postmortem from the mid-course and end-of-semester evaluations that I get every year. And then I open the next year's class by saying – one of the common ones is there are always complaints that we don't have enough debate in class because people are afraid of challenging me.

29:41Right. And they're also afraid of damaging their relationships with their new classmates, especially with MBA students.

29:46Brené Brown:Oh, yeah. Undergrads worry about it too. And so I say, look, I don't think we have enough debate in the classroom. And then I give them a mechanism, which is they can hold up a pen if they disagree. And that way I will jump the line and call on the people with the pen up so that they get to bring in some of that productive dissent. But that's premortem informed pedagogy, right? It is. Teaching, yeah. I never thought to do the actual premortem. I like anything that's a parallel process, you know, that we're doing it, but we're also kind of learning it. Okay, so let's do it. Let's get you in. So if this fails, we'll take – I mean because unfortunately the time for these failing is pretty quick.

30:26Brené Brown:So let's say it's a year from now, 12 months from now, and this has not worked out. What are – look, we were like – We should brainwrite this before we discuss it. You want to brainwrite? One of the most likely causes. Yeah, yeah. Y 'all can watch us. So we already covered the kind of the sarcasm attack spiral. What's the broader category for that? I think the broader category is, I mean, from my perspective, tell me if this is right, is the disagreement doesn't come from a place of care. Yes. And respect. So we will fail if disagreement doesn't come from care. Yes. Can I add one? Yeah, please.

31:08Okay. Wait, wait. I want a little more time to capture other ways we can fail.

31:11Brené Brown:Do, do, do. I've got three more. While we're writing this down, I want to say one of the reasons why it's important for us to do this is because when you start a podcast, we're building a business that is a podcast. We're not just talent that's been hired to do something. We're building actually the business of the podcast together. So all of a sudden, we have found ourselves being co-founders. So we're navigating the founder hard bullshit and a co-founder thing. So that's why this matters. It's not like we can be – it's not like we can show up and anchor the news and be like, and today, and then thank you, and then like walk out of there and be like, I hate you.

31:53Brené Brown:And then we just come back the next day. We're behind the scenes building a sustainable business. Which we didn't agree on when we started. No. And there might still be a little bit of tension around that. There's been hard because I've been like, we need to invest more time in this. And he's like, maybe. I'm like, dang it. Um, that's, that's on my list. No surprise. Yeah. Okay. Hold on. I got one more that I think I want to capture here, which is okay. Okay. I've got four. I've got also four. Okay. Go ahead. Uh, do you want to just compare lists and not explain yet? No. What do you want to do?

32:29What do you want to do? You just wanted to say no, no, no, no.

32:33Brené Brown:I like the reaction. No, No, I don't want to do that. What do you want to do? Because I don't want to – I'm going to add why I said no to my goddamn list. Please do. I just want to hear everything on yours and then have the full picture of which ones should we spend more and less time on. No, and I don't want to leave what you write open to my interpretation. So I want you to go through them, and I want to be clear with the playback. Can we do it succinctly though, before we dive into it? Yes, go, go. Okay. All right. So the first one is if we're not aligned on what our team is trying to accomplish.

33:10Brené Brown:I have something similar. Go ahead. Okay. That needs no explanation, right? Yeah, no. Okay. Second one is if we end up nerding out and getting too wonky and we lose all the non-economics. Okay. True. I don't have it, but it's true. A third is if we end up being either too timely or too timeless. Agree. Look, no explanation needed. No. And let me just explain what that means because this is like a little bit inside baseball. We've had a conversation where we want to be with y 'all in a way where what we say is timely and feels relevant for your lives but also isn't like, do-do-do-do-do, breaking news.

33:51Brené Brown:What are you thinking about the news yesterday? We want it to be timeless and we want it to be relevant and meaning the moment at the same time. So that's what that meant, right? Well articulated, yes. And then the last one is just not coming up with, I think this is the most minor of the four, but not coming up with a communication process that keeps us aligned. Okay. That's very true. I'm firing off quick emails and you have spent five days writing the perfect text. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So that's actually already happened in case you want to know. All right. So I love the disagree from not a place of care.

34:31Brené Brown:That's true. We have not built systems that support the organizational goals. That's a broader version of my last point. Yes. I like yours better. But we just don't build the system. So I'm thinking of James Clear's. We do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. So this is also – yeah, we'll just do that. Okay. I disagree with James on that, by the way. I think we do both. Interestingly, I agree wholeheartedly. And I've got a three by three sign in our office in Houston that is like spotlighted with plants around it just to drive home the point. We don't agree on how businesses should be run.

35:13Brené Brown:I don't know what this says. We didn't give – oh, easy. Oh, I think because of the – I think because of the season we are in our lives and especially me, I've got a time on you age-wise. Because of the busyness of both of our lives and the season of my life that I'm particularly in right now, if this is not energy giving, if this is just becomes energy taking, I don't – I think we will call it quits. It will not fail but we'll say it's failed. I think that's right. I have maybe one more to add, which is I think if we don't get good at, if we don't continue to practice the feedback and repair regularly.

35:58Absolutely. Because I have built in the past year that we've been talking about doing this, I have built so much confidence that we can disagree about anything and work it out because we're both committed to fixing whatever mistakes we make. And I think that to me is sort of vital to whatever might go wrong in the other categories. Okay.

36:19Brené Brown:I'm having a meta moment. So I will say that I am shocked that when there's a conflict between us, and there have been several, even if I'm frustrated, which I can get frustrated. I think I typed you the word frustrated one time. Yes. Frustrated. Which I failed to anticipate. via email. You did? I did. I have a very much faster confidence in our ability to become stronger because of our disagreements and our rumbles than what would be predictable in two people coming together to build a business. Like, it's unusual. But I'm going to tell you that I think we have complementary skills here. I think you are much better at apology and repair than I am, and I think I'm pretty good at hard conversations.

37:13Yeah, and both of those things need to coexist. They both have to happen. Yeah.

37:17Brené Brown:I mean, if you are really good at difficult rumbles and difficult conversations, but you withhold repair or you don't know how to do it or apology, it doesn't work. And if you're really skilled at apology and repair, but can't stay in the messiness of a hard conversation. It never, it gets fully resolved. It doesn't get resolved. You learn nothing from the conflict that's going to get repeated. So I think, I think we're good. I think we're really good at those things. So I think I liked the fact that you said, if we continue to do them, I am, is there one thing that we've talked about that you're the most worried about?

37:53Yeah, I think, well, I think it's, i think it's the the combined category of you know what it looks like to be a successful team together slash you know co-found something together i don't even like calling it a business i don't i don't want to build businesses like i think of myself as an intellectual entrepreneur i want to build ideas and share them right

38:18Brené Brown:and i can't respond to that or just sit there shit works dude i'm like um okay

38:29Brené Brown:sorry oh an intellectual entrepreneur okay now okay so this also reflects how we intervene with the companies we work in it does and you have more impact because you are willing to roll your sleeves up more than I do. I don't know about impact. I mean, I don't. Okay. Well, I, I am deeply embedded and I'm like brought into conversations and sit in strategy meetings where I'm not only observing the behavior of the leaders, but I'm weighing in hot on how they're thinking about relocating supply chain. And I, I, you can not give me a parachute faster to get out of those conversations. I only want to be in that deep if I'm running an experiment or doing a longitudinal survey, and then we're going to publish research out of it.

39:20Brené Brown:Got it. And I'm doing that too. I'm doing that. I'm doing that different. I do that. We do dare to lead interventions. So dare to lead is the work, and we go in and work with companies. And sometimes these interventions will include 30 ,000 people. And I'll be working at the kind of the C-suite level and the direct reports of the C-suite. But they are very tactical, very messy, and very detailed. Like, I'm in the detail. I'm in the weeds. I'm embedded. Yeah. I mean, I think I would fall asleep in the first minute. Okay. Yeah. I mean, so. Is that the one you were most concerned about? For sure.

39:52Yeah. Okay. Maybe we should talk a little bit about the logo design as a microcosm of this. Or maybe we shouldn't. No, I'm thinking, yes, I think we can because we learn so much.

40:07Brené Brown:I learned so much from you. I want to – there are parts of the way you move through the world with the same organizations. We work with a lot of the same organizations, which is weird, that I really admire and am moving toward. And so I've learned a lot from you. I mean I've really learned a lot from you. I think the logo design is an interesting – yeah, it's interesting. What would you say about it? I'm nervous. I'm anxious about the conversation a little bit, but let's go. I don't know if it's helpful or not. I'm sure it will be. I was thinking about a concrete example. I think – so you volunteered to have your team take the lead on designing the logo.

40:52And I thought, okay, we work really differently. You have an in-tech team that you collaborate with on almost everything, right? Yeah. I'm much more autonomous and I have kind of project-specific teams that do certain things. But they're not with me all the time. I just have a book team and I have a podcast team and they're all kind of separate, right? And so the fact that you have this in tech team, I thought, wow, it's really generous of you to volunteer to do this. And also you have much more aesthetic sensibility and care about design details. And I don't know the first thing about any of it.

41:21So it makes sense on all levels. And then you sent me a draft, which I superimposed my mental model of how design works, which is most of my design is book covers. and we just come up with 20 or 30 ideas. And it's very little thought initially put in because we want to look at a whole bunch of ideas and then align on which directions we like before we do any refining or improving. And so I thought that's what I was getting. And I was hypercritical, I think. And that was not what I got, right?

41:58Brené Brown:No, you got the best iteration of probably 50 hours of work. And I felt so terrible, so terrible because I thought it was maybe an hour or two of work that had gone into it. But let's get underneath what was really happening there because this is where shit goes bad in real life, in our partnerships with our kids and on our teams. What was really going on there is I do have an intact team, but I have a very new team, some new people. I mean, I've been the CEO of a company for a long time.

42:37Brené Brown:I knew how you felt about business building. So I tried to protect you from it, which is my therapy and business coaching work for freaking decades by just giving you something final and then being – and what you sent to me was not shareable with a creative team that had been working hours and hours for that. No, not even close. Yeah, because like if you lead a creative team, you're – it's just different. And so I think what came out of that was me saying to you, you said something like, how are you in an email or what are you feeling? Yeah, and I tried to guess a few of your emotions and missed the mark.

43:30Brené Brown:And I just said, I'm really frustrated. And then we had a conversation, which was, I am trying to find more space and time and flow and freedom in my life. I am like I've won the parenting lottery that I have adult kids who want to hang out with me and Steve I am going to play pickleball tennis whatever six days a week not tennis I'm playing pickleball six days a week I'm going to have a different life right now I want to write and do deep thinking and I said I don't want to lead this business by myself and I don't want to protect you from the sausage making because if we're going to be in this together but I teed up an idea to you which was, why don't we not build a business and let's just be like the talent and let somebody else own the podcast and own the business.

44:17And neither of us wanted to do that.

44:18Brené Brown:And you were like, I don't want that. Then I said, well, then we're signing up to build a business and how are we going to do that? And then you said, I'm going to take equal responsibility for the sausage making. And that was one of the best things that's ever happened for me. I mean, I'm committed. And I've, you know, you talked about, well, one of the things I've learned from you is you not only have really great collaborative relationships, there's a lot of joy in those relationships. And I think your life is more full because you work with people that you really like and care about. And I do that, but I do it in pieces.

44:58And I thought, oh, it would actually be fun to have a team that's more complete and be part of that team. And I need to learn how to do more of that because my mantra for a long time has been, I want to try to have maximum impact with minimum interdependence. I want to be as autonomous and free as possible. And that doesn't work when you're trying to build something collaborative that really makes a difference. So I think I'm on board for that. I think we still have different ideas about how a team can work most effectively and efficiently together. And that's what we're going to have to work through.

45:28Brené Brown:And we're doing it later today. And so I think

45:36Brené Brown:I have a lot to learn from you and I want to do that. I think as long as we are honest about – I think what will kill us both and kill the business is stealth expectations. Yes. That's a great phrase, stealth expectations. Yeah. I write about that in Dare to Lead. Yes. Stealth expectations. We put things on the table. We talk about the why behind them. I invest a lot of time up front with teams or try to or believe I do, and I'm not very good at it because I actually want to be an intellectual entrepreneur. And that's why when we got to the point where I thought you were locked into that and not being a co-business owner, this shit's not going to work because I'm moving out of that into the intellectual entrepreneur part.

46:30Brené Brown:And so I can't take that on. Well, so I think one of the lessons from that was I need to bring people to the table to our team. So it's not just me as an appendage on your team, right? Right. And I can't be translating things from critical, autonomous, intellectual to how teams can hear things. No. And I think that was one of the mistakes that I made, which I knew I was making in the moment, and I still chose to make it. And I'm not proud of that. So you sent this design, which was beautiful. And I failed to say that, right? I had a question about whether it represented what our show was going to be.

47:08And I gathered some feedback and other people had the same reaction independently. And so I thought, okay, I need to get that efficiently to you. And Allison happened to be looking over my shoulder when I was writing the email. And she said, you can't say that to Brene. You can't. And I said, why not? And she said, you need to really spell out that you appreciate the quality of the work and you just have these questions. And I said, I can't have a real both partnership and friendship where I can't be honest. And I have to walk on eggshells and couch things and pull punches. And I found it really efficient in my collaborations to just be direct and ask other people to be direct too.

47:50And she said, you're going to regret this. And she was right. Because I could have been – I was trying to be clear, but I didn't do it in a kind way.

47:58Brené Brown:So I think what's interesting here is I don't – I would – so if I were watching this happen with a team that I was working with, what I would say is you were not – you missed an essential part of Scrum or Agile process, which is what does done look like. Yes. And so if I would have said, okay, my team's happy to handle, how involved in iteration do you want to be? I should – yeah, if we had that conversation, I would have said bring me in early so that you don't end up going – spinning in an unproductive direction collectively. Right. And also I'm probably less likely to reject it because I feel some ownership over it.

48:42Brené Brown:And you are a minimalist. Big time. I'm a maximalist. Like there's that great meme on Instagram like, I hate minimalism. What is minimalism? Maximalism. Like I want my house to look like a Texas brothel. Like I have 7 ,000 products – I mean not products, fabrics and textures. I have like a lion couch. Less is more. I'm looking for elegant simplicity. Yeah, and I'm looking for who lives here and I bet they chain smoke. That's what I'm looking for when people walk in my house. Like that's what I'm looking for. You and my grandma would have gotten along so well. I wish she was here so I could have a cigarette with her and just talk about – I mean you would be like this.

49:23Brené Brown:I love that. So I think what happens – so I will see a conflict break out like this on a team and I will go way back into the process, which I would have said if you're co-building a business, you're not communicating enough. You're not saying – That's right. Let me bring into – and I'm going to give you an example of what happened for those of you all listening. I thought like when I think of curiosity shop, I think of Eel, I think of Dickens. I think of a curious, you know, you were very clear about no taxidermy, but I really think about a, which, you know, I grew up in a deer blind basically.

50:00Brené Brown:So it's not, you know, I think about like weird shit everywhere, shelves full of interesting things. Your agent Richard wrote about it beautifully when we were conceptualizing the name, like this place where you get lost in the weirdness and the awe and the wonder of a million things. So we sent you a graphic that had, well, that robot to represent AI. We had a viewfinder, an old 1970s viewfinder if you're a kid and grew up with one of those. It had all these things on it. And you're like, and what's all – basically, what's all the pawn store bullshit on here? Looks like a show about antiques.

50:40Brené Brown:Right. And maybe we should have this or that. And so for me, I was like, whoa, we pick those things very specifically. The robot represents AI. The viewfinder perspective taking. And so we had really thought about them. So where we were off and where I think we're in danger is – and I'm going to introduce a new concept. One of the hardest things about Strong Ground when I was writing it was this idea of how do we future-ready leaders? and what is the collection of mindsets and skill sets that we need to be ready. And one of the things that I've seen up close and personal with everybody in senior leader, I mean, every single senior leader with the exception of engineers, is a real lack of systems thinking.

51:31Yep.

51:32Brené Brown:Right? A real lack of systems thinking. And so one of the things that systems theory has taught me the most, and it's a very integral part, weirdly, of social work, social workers, especially MSWs, masters in social, get there and they're like, okay, how do I help people? How do I community organize or become a clinician or whatever they're going to do on the big scale of what is social work? And their first class is like systems theory. And they're like, what the hell? Because we think of communities as systems. We think of families as systems. In systems theory, there's this, especially Dana Meadows' work, and I'm a huge fan of her systems work.

52:07Brené Brown:There's a big triangle and at the top is like the iceberg that you see. Underneath the iceberg is a bunch of stuff. If you see a problem and you intervene at the problem, the iceberg level, there's no leverage. You're going to fix a problem. You're going to see it again in two weeks maybe. As you go down under the water, you go through what are the systems that are not working? What are the behaviors that are not working? At the bottom, you have mental models. You and I work off different mental models. Very different mental models. Right. So that graphic design was an iceberg issue. But underneath it were mental models.

52:53Stealth expectations.

52:54Brené Brown:Stealth expectations. What's your mental model about what a graphic should do? Yes. That's going to be our logo. It's ultimately going to be like this with our pictures in it. you taught me about you look at things like is it going to explain to what people or is it immediately the meaning yeah for me with like the shop and all that stuff i was trying to create a place of warmth and belonging and comfort where people could come in from the outside and be like so much vitriol so much bullshit this is a place where we can talk and disagree And this is why we complement each other well, because we want both meaning and feeling.

53:38Brené Brown:But would you agree that mental model discussions are rare? Rare and vital. Because, you know, I actually, a light bulb just went off as you were talking about system theory on mental models specifically, which is, I think, part of the reason that I have this knee-jerk reaction when we start talking about collaboration processes and getting on the same page. I actually have this when we talk about return to office and remote work too, which we should definitely get to in a future podcast, is my favorite concept from systems theory is the idea of equifinality, which is a mouthful, but you know it.

54:13Brené Brown:Yeah, go. Yeah. It's the basic idea that in any complex system, there are multiple paths to the same end. Yes. And what I often hear from you is some version of, well, in order to build a successful business, you have to. And I just reject the premise of any sentence that starts that way. Like, no, there are many ways to build a successful business. You've got one that works for you. There may be others you haven't tested. I want to A, B, C, D, E test those. I've got a few that have worked for me that I want to have you try out, right? And I think it's actually not the process. It's me overreacting to what feels like excessive certainty or narrowness around this is the way.

54:54Brené Brown:Which is actually a threat to successful systems. And I don't think you mean it that way. No, but I do. I think you're trying to share your experience. I do mean it that way. Oh, you do? I do mean it that way. I mean it that way. Okay, message received and rejected. Yeah, yeah, no. I actually think I mean it that way. That's so interesting. And I think it's something I need to change. But again, it's deeply personal, which is if I'm not doing it the way that's a lot of caregiving and time for me, I'm not being the leader that I want to be. And I guess the question I would ask on that is, is this about being the leader you want to be or is it about being the leader that the show and the team need?

55:42Brené Brown:Two different questions and I need to learn more. Same. For sure. Same. For sure. But I think the equifinality, I mean, I think that is a big part of functioning systems. And so what we need to then – I actually think naming that expectation. right i'm i'm always going to assume i will always assume that things are equifinal and so if you're attached to a process i'm going to find it more persuasive if you explain to me here's what else i tried and did it work or here's you know here's the logic i i have a really hard time accepting uh it's a it's the parenting point you made earlier it almost feels like because i said so that's so interesting and you know where i default to that we're gonna wrap up in a couple of minutes but i will just this is this is a new thing we should write down as another podcast episode idea i thought i got a lot of mentoring from bob eiger's work on straddling the line between being thoughtful and decisive and i've always gotten a lot of praise from being very decisive right my coach recently told me in the last couple months that she – it was that can I invite you to think about – fuck is my response to the invitations to think about.

57:03Can I invite you to think about how your decisiveness may be over decisiveness to deal

57:15Brené Brown:with anxiety? Oh. So I think when I am in the yes chef mode, which I know is not good leadership, unless you're in a kitchen, which I've worked in for a long time waiting tables. But like – There's a time and a place for it. There's a time and a place for it, right? I think I can get overly decisive. Yes. And when I am anxious or in time scarcity. And I think we built this. We scrambled. We scrambled. and got scrappy. And I was anxious because I'm also, I got a lot of stuff going on my life and my oldest is getting married, which is so exciting. And so I think I get overly decisive. So that's a strength overused for you or misused.

58:03It's a strength overused. And I didn't see the anxiety part of it, but it makes so much sense. And my mistake was failing to recognize what was causing it and instead just pushing back on the decisiveness.

58:16Brené Brown:I don't know that that's your responsibility to understand it because I actually – I'm trying to figure out how that would play out for the folks listening in a team. I think I really want to put out an idea that for our next podcast, we talk about the idea of above and under the line. I think we should. I think that's really helpful. And I think – ooh. Tell me. Well, I'm just, I think, okay, so in a team, ideally, what I would advise someone else to do, and here we're drinking our own champagne, but it feels more like eating our own dog food. Yeah. This is way easier to teach than it is to do.

58:55Brené Brown:Oh, my God. Yes. Yes. So what I would advise somebody to do in this situation is what I should have done is I should have gone to you and said, hey, Brene, like, I know you to be extremely thoughtful and nuanced and complex in the way that you think things through. And here you seem like really kind of locked into one direction. Help me understand what's behind that. The lead in got me worried because I was like, but here you're being a complete asshole. So the lead in got me worried. Okay. So let me try it again. Let me take two. Take two. Okay. Hey, I'm really surprised to see you locked into one direction.

59:32That's not how you normally operate.

59:33Brené Brown:Not working. Nope. I think all you would have had to say is if I would have said, what happened on the text? was, yes, we need to invest a bunch of time up front with our teams. And you said, maybe the research is, okay, so if we want to get into it. So I said, I think we need to spend some time up front and really get aligned with our teams. You said, maybe the research is torn on this, maybe a new podcast episode, question mark. And I think what would have probably been helpful for me is I have a different experience. Are you open to trying what different, like curiosity? yes ironically yes that would have been helpful yeah curiosity about um i have a different experience yes but uh would you be open to exploring with me yeah i can do that that's a that's a much better way to frame it yeah maybe that for me it's an invitation it's an invitation yeah um and it brings a little bit of playfulness too because you love learning i do it's a feeling to another one of your strengths i do love learning and um Um, where I get, can get defensive with you sometimes is because I am so embedded on teams and do this work when your response is, I'm not sure the data don't say that.

1:00:47Brené Brown:I'm like, fuck you, dude. Like, that's exactly, that's like, that's us replaying our 2016 debate. You're like, here's what I have seen and lived. I'm like, here's the meta analysis and here's the randomized controlled experiments. And the, the, the, most of the interesting learning happens in the tension between those two things. Now, I think the other thing that I was really struck by here, which we can work through as a specific example of this, is I think one of the things I learned from you is you said, I need to spend more time with my teams so that they feel valued and don't feel dismissed.

1:01:18I looked at that and I thought, oh, that's one way to do that. But one of the ways I make people feel valued is I respect their time and I don't waste it by dragging them into meetings. And I will instead bend over backward to sing their praises and make it really clear to people why I'm excited to be working with them and the unique value they're bringing to the table. Like, oh, we're actually – there's a common value here.

1:01:41Brené Brown:There's a common value. And so we just have really different approaches to that and we need to figure out which ones are relevant when. Yeah, and I think I was really locked into this is new. We have six or seven people on it. We don't have any systemic communication tool in place. And we do not have alignment across six or seven people about what impact, how we're defining done, how we're defining excellent, what impact is. And we have no shared goals. So you're in threat rigidity mode. Oh, Jesus Christ. I don't know whether – it sounds like shit, but I don't know what it means. There's a classic Barry Stahl et al.

1:02:19paper on threat rigidity, which is under threat, people tend to do the opposite of what a premortem does and lock into the familiar and kind of proven way.

1:02:29Brené Brown:Absolutely, I was not there. Oh. No, I was there. I strike that from the record, Your Honor. Yes, that's good. Struck but not forgotten. No. I was not in threat rigidity mode. I was in – we have on my side four people excited running in four different directions. We have really big missed balls that were upsetting to you and upsetting to me that really almost jacked with our schedules to the point where this was not going to be happening. And we need to sit down and invest time up front to getting aligned and putting communication systems. So I was not in threat rigidity. I was in – Can I call it cattle herding mode?

1:03:14Brené Brown:No. No. It's much more based in, I think, solid leadership principles that we were in the beginning of forming a new team and building alignment and clarity of mission and purpose. That's what I would say I was in. That makes sense. And that that's going to require a time commitment. Yes. We need to do that. Yeah. That's what I think I was in. We're about to do that. We're leaving this podcast and going into that first meeting. Before we wrap, you have some closing questions? Oh, yeah. I thought it would be fun if we did this because I'm curious about you, actually. So what are you listening to right now?

1:03:55Brené Brown:I just want to know these basic questions. What are you listening to right now? Yeah. I listened to a Science Versus episode on narcissism where they got somebody who was diagnosed with the clinical narcissistic personality disorder to talk about his experience of discovering that and then trying to overcome it. It was riveting. Okay. We'll put in the show notes because I want to listen. What are you watching? Anything you've binged lately or watched? Family Tradition, Survivor, currently season 50. rooting for, oh, how do I do this without spoilers? Oh, you shouldn't. At the beginning of the season, I can say this.

1:04:33I started out with high hopes for Camilla and for Genevieve and for Christian. What do you like about Survivor? Survivor is, I mean, it's a giant psychology experiment in trust and collaboration and deception and rivalry and competition. and it's just watching people build relationships while also trying to strategize. It's a microcosm of what we do every day.

1:05:01Brené Brown:Okay, I just can't. I can't do Survivor, but my kids are obsessed. What are you reading? I just finished reading Dana Susskind's book, Human Raised. And? About how to prepare kids and also protect them in the age of AI. Phenomenal. Really? Worth reading. Highly recommend. Tell me a takeaway. I think it comes out in July, so I probably need her permission to do that. Yeah, got it. Okay. Okay. Okay. What about you? Let me go backward. What are you reading right now? I am reading a new book in the Shetland series. What's that? I read a lot of British mysteries, folks. You get ready. I mean, this is like the Shetland Islands.

1:05:47Brené Brown:Yeah. So I'm reading a Shetland book right now. It's probably one of my favorite uh tv series on television i think you have to watch it on like acorn or brit box or something one of the british import television i watch a lot of british television um i'm was i'm watching oh my god i watched heated rivalry just finished it for the third time oh wow you're all in yeah i'm all in um i haven't seen it oh god i love it so much sounds like it's made for bridgerton fans No, I was just going to say I finished Bridgerton and I finished Heated Rivalry, so my life is open now for watching. Both were great, season four, and then Heated Rivalry was good.

1:06:28Brené Brown:I was talking to Esther Perel last night about her commentary on why the obsession with Heated Rivalry. and I think not only is it a beautiful love story, but she said every stressful conflict point in that show was met with very beautiful reparative and corrective behavior. There you go. So like something hard would happen, like you have this feeling of like foreboding, like, oh shit, this is not going to go. And then the person shows up and is so wonderful. And it was just, I don't know, it was healing in some way to me. So I love it. And then what was the last one? listening what are you listening to um i have been you're gonna say rory aren't you oh i i definitely listen to a a shit ton of uh the rest is politics uk version with rory and alistair um i have so many bones we should maybe do like a foursome and just like fight it out like some kind of maybe doubles tennis um take it out on the court um i've been listening to a lot of that.

1:07:31Brené Brown:I think it's really helpful to have a non-U.S. political opinion that's more centered on the world. So I think that's interesting. And then Rosalia, just what a woman. And then also listening to a lot of Tom's Van Zandt, which I always go back to. We have so little overlap. We have very little. It's almost like we're different people. Yeah, but I'm curious about you. Same. Okay. See you next time. Looking forward to it. The Curiosity Shop is produced by Brene Brown Education and Research Group and Granted Productions. You can subscribe to The Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app.

1:08:12We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.

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