The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 363 - Curious Leader

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hi, Pete.

Pete: I was running a workshop yesterday, and I got asked a question in the Q&A portion that was one of those questions that I wanted to be like, "Can I spend twenty-four hours noodling on that before I answer it?"

Jen: "Let me get back to you."

Pete: Yeah. But I also wanted to give some sort of response, so it was a bit of a thought bubble, out loud. And I think it's worth us talking about. I feel like you'd have some interesting takes on the question. And maybe twenty-four hours later, I'll change my mind about what I said.

Jen: What was the question?

Pete: Well, the question was, "If being a curious leader and asking questions is you at your best, what about those days when you're at your worst or you're not feeling it? What is the opposite of showing up as a curious, open leader?"

Jen: This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: If you don't mind, Pete, I'm just going to take twenty-four hours. And then, we can jump back on.

Pete: Ah, very good. Very good. Everybody, the callbacks have started already. I love it. So yeah, context. I was running a session with a new group. I haven't worked with this group before. And it was the CEO, and his team, and then the next layer down, so it was like thirty senior leaders at this really cool high-profile organization in Australia. And the title of the session was the "Curious Leader Workshop". And so, aligned to their values, I was helping make the case to them that one of the most, if not the most important skills, as we've talked about three-hundred-and-something times on this podcast, of the modern leader is the ability to be curious. And what I mean by that is the ability to ask questions, and to listen, and to not make assumptions, and to try and find out how you might support your team by showing up in a curious way, whatever that means to you. Anyway, so in running a session, we're doing little pods where they're coaching each other. And everyone's like, "Oh, I get it. I get it. Like, coaching is essentially being curious. And curiosity is about asking questions. And depending on the question I ask, I get a different response. And that helps me build my own context about how I could support this person." So, it was going really well. And then, I did sort of a Q&A at the end. And such a sort of like, "Huh, I haven't thought about the opposite question," that, like I said, I wanted twenty-four hours. So the CEO said, "I love this. We're going to incorporate this. I love the idea of us all showing up a little more curiously and asking more questions. And what I know is, we're a fast-paced organization. And leadership is a contact sport. And at some point, you'll have a day where you don't feel like you're showing up as your best. What are the signs that that is happening? And what's the opposite of showing up curious and open?" And I was like, "Damn, that's a good question." And so, the first thing I...like, before I even formulated many thoughts. The first thing that came to my mind was judgmental. I feel like if I'm showing up in a judgmental state of other people or other things or the way that the culture is forming in the organization or the meeting that I just attended, I'm showing up with a lack of curiosity about what's happening. Now, the more I think about it, the more I'm like, "I don't think there's one answer to this. I think there's probably a whole bunch of flavors of what the opposite of curiosity looks like." But that was the context. That was my initial answer. And we had a bit of a conversation about it afterwards. But I wanted to bounce it off you. Maybe I could send him this episode. What do you think about the (is it the antithesis) opposite of curiosity?

Jen: My guess is that each person in that room could have answered that question for themself, but not for someone else. Like, if you ask me, "Jen, what does it look like when you're not operating at your best," I can tell you, "I am very curt. I just want to do it by myself. I don't want to wait. I'm extremely impatient. And that impatience sometimes results in me cutting people off." But I think about some of my friends and colleagues when they're not operating at their best...I can think of one friend whose go to is he kind of gets mean and snarky. And I can think of another friend who just falls silent. So, this...I mean, I guess like this is a little meta or on the nose, that when a curious leader is in a place of operating at their best, that might be a moment to ask the question, "Out of curiosity, what is it like when I'm not at my best," or to ask of the people on their team, "What should I be looking out for? What does it look like when you're having an off day?"

Pete: Yeah. Nice. I love that answer so much, yeah. For me...I hear leaders say this, and I think this probably applies to me too. The phrase that comes to mind when I'm not at my most curious is, "I'll just do it myself.

Jen: Mmm-hmm.

Pete: You know? Like, "It's easier if I...just get out of the way. Let me just fix this thing myself, or do this thing myself, or execute this thing myself." Even though if I'm a leader in a company, even though I have a team of people that that's kind of their job, it feels like I don't have time. I don't have patience. I don't have the curiosity to explore with them how they might do this and how I might help them do this, so, "I'll just do it myself." There's like a self-righteousness almost to it.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: A sort of selfishness to it, in a way.

Jen: Right.

Pete: But I love that, of like, it is personal. It is individual, depending on how you do show up when you're not at your best. I also just love this as a question, beyond thinking about the Curious Leader Workshop that I was running. A lot of the work I do is trying to help leaders be better leaders, be more effective leaders. And what that often requires is some sort of behavioral change, some sort of new habit, some sort of tweak to how they're thinking about conversations, or leading, or whatever. And it's really easy for us to sit in a workshop and think, "Yeah, I could be more curious when I'm at my best," or, "Yeah, I feel like that framework could help me navigate a difficult conversation. I got this." But the reality is we're not sitting in a perfectly formed setting, i.e. a workshop setting, with our notepad and no meetings, listening and exploring these topics every day. What we're usually doing is, in the context of an organization, bouncing between meetings, getting pinged left, right, and center on email and Slack. And your anxiety is probably rising. You've got a kid drop-off that you need to do. I mean, I'm literally thirty-five minutes late to our recording because I had to drop off Ollie at daycare. There's so much that can impact how we show up as leaders and humans. And so, it might be easier for me to catch myself being judgmental, than it is for me to go, "I need to be curious now."

Jen: Right. And I think of curiosity as a value, and something that we're trying to put into behavior. And one of the things I know that has been really helpful for me in assessing and implementing my own values is to take actions I associate with those values into different hypothetical contexts, and see like, "How can I actually be performing at my best in different contexts?" Because like, to your point, in this particular context, this was everyone agreeing that we're working on this today in a workshop, like, "You're allowed to put your work aside for these couple hours and engage with this." Then, the question is, "How do you implement curiosity when you only have five minutes before your next person is breathing down your neck or knocking on the door," or, "How do you implement curiosity when your three-year-old starts screaming and crying," or two-year-old, in your case?

Pete: That feels too true, yeah.

Jen: Right? So, these things do sort of shape-shift.

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: And this is me like full crunchy noodle right now, like this is not a fully-formed thought. But like, maybe part of why we revert to some of these opposite behaviors is because we understand how to behave in that context in that way. But we haven't like fully tried on the desired behavior for size.

Pete: Hmm. It reminds me of the...I mean, this has been attributed to many people. I could think of at least three: James Clear, Tim Ferriss, I think maybe Brené Brown. Like, the line of, "We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training."

Jen: Right.

Pete: And it's like, right, if you have trained for years and years to show up reactively, to show up in a way that is a little more self-guided, self-righteous, whatever the word is, and you haven't necessarily honed the curious skill set as much (not to say you've never been curious), then what you'll find is you don't rise to this level of, "Oh, I had that workshop. And I know and I recognize the value, that my best thinking is when I'm at my most curious." You don't just rise to that level when you get punched in the face metaphorically by some work meeting, or whatever it is. You fall to the level of your training. And if you've been training the reactive mode more than the curious mode, you kind of just default to that.

Jen: Right.

Pete: So this is about, how do you catch yourself in that, to help you get back to your best thinking?

Jen: And then, when you catch yourself, what do you do? I know for me, I'm laughing because I could literally see...I'm watching the scene right now, with my daughter, that she goes, "Mom, you need to go to bed." And I'm like, "Oh, I do?" And then, I go to bed. Usually, when I am in that opposite place, it's because I'm tired.

Pete: Or hungry? I feel like for me, it's when I'm hungry. Tracey will say, "Are you hungry," or she'll just put a snack in front of me without me sort of asking. And then, I'll be like, "Huh, okay. Message received."

Jen: Right.

Pete: "Message received."

Jen: But if I was at work, I wouldn't be able to just be like, "Hey guys, I'm going to go to bed now." And I'm not a napper. So, it wouldn't be a power nap. It would be like, "See you in eight hours."

Pete: It's a, "I'll see you tomorrow." She's not a napper. So, that's a great point. I feel like part of the opportunity then (you know, I'm thinking about this particular group of leaders as an example, but I think this applies more broadly) is if you've decided as a team to incorporate or work on or focus on a skill, like, "We're going to be more curious and ask each other more questions." And like you said, that differs depending on the context of the day. It could be that you sit down with someone and have a thirty minute coaching conversation. Cool. It could also be that you just ask two extra questions than you would have otherwise, next time you're in a meeting. You know? Or it could be that...my favorite incorporation of curiosity is when someone comes to you and says, "How do I do this thing, leader? How do I do this thing, boss?" And you say, "Oh, I've got some ideas. But first, I'd love to know what you think." That's it. That's a curious response. See what the other person thinks before you share your own opinion.

Jen: Right.

Pete: And so, what I was thinking is it could be useful, rather than, "I can take an eight-hour nap," to have this sort of shared understanding as a team, and hopefully enough trust and respect for one another, where you could almost say to your colleague...not that you would say it as honestly and directly as your daughter would to you, but like what's the phrase you would say to your colleague? Is it, "I wonder if we would add some curiosity to this?" Or, "It feels like you, I don't know, are not adopting a curious mindset." Like, there's a way to say it that's hopefully not going to escalate the situation. But if it's a shared language or a shared experience or a shared goal that we have, how do we call people in and call people out for not being in alignment with that? And then, bring them back into alignment with that?

Jen: Well, a friend of mine, years ago, gave me this tip. And I implement it all the time, Pete. And I find it so, so, so helpful. You essentially say what you're seeing, followed by, "Are you okay?"

Pete: Oh, nice.

Jen: So like, I'm having this reactive moment with my daughter, and what she could say to me is, "Mom, that was really curt. Are you okay?" And what I love about it is, it's curious.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: First of all, it's curious. And it allows for empathy. Which I think, in your frameworks, is one of the other key ingredients of leadership.

Pete: Right. And I don't think you can have empathy without curiosity. What I like about what you just said is, it's also like non-judgmental. I could go, "Mom, you're being curt. And now, I'm going to make a bunch of judgments and assumptions about what that means about you as a person."

Jen: Right.

Pete: Or I could go, "Is everything okay," or, "Tell me what's going on."

Jen: Yep.

Pete: I could get curious about it. So one of the frameworks that I shared with the leaders yesterday, and I share it a lot with leaders when giving feedback, is called OC. And it stands for observation and curiosity. What you just articulated is a version of that, "Here is what I notice. And here is what I'm curious about." So that might sound like, "Hey, Pete, I noticed that you were late to our meeting by thirty-five minutes. And I'm wondering if everything's okay? I'm wondering if you need to reschedule? I'm wondering what's going on." So, I observe an indisputable thing. And then, instead of making a bunch of stories up about it or assumptions about it, I try and understand it. I get curious about it. So, I love that you sort of did a version of that, or Cate did a version of that.

Jen: Well, I made up that Cate version, but I was just using a previous example from this show. But I had an experience, soon after that friend had taught me this language. I was in line at a bank. And the teller was just being so rude to everyone in line. And when I got up to the front, I said, "That was really rude. Are you okay?" And she burst into tears.

Pete: Oh my gosh.

Jen: And we had a whole conversation about some people from corporate had come in that day, and they were hovering over her and micro-managing her, and she was just feeling so small and feeling like her job was being threatened. And like, we ended that conversation kind of bonded.

Pete: Oh my god, that's wild.

Jen: That was the first time I had ever used that language. And I was like, "Damn, that worked."

Pete: Right. That's wild. Because part of me thinks, "Huh, 'Are you okay,' maybe we need a more open-ended question. Because I could say 'yes' or 'no'." But the fact that you even showed the care and empathy to ask the question in the first place, I think outweighs the fact that it's a yes or no question.

Jen: Yeah. It's very powerful. Very, very powerful. And most of the time, the reason someone's behaving a certain way is because something is not okay.

Pete: A hundred percent. I mean, this popped up in our workshop, the Seth Godin-ism of it all, which was, "When in doubt, look for the fear." If I'm trying to understand why someone's behaving the way they're behaving, can I look for the fear? Can I look for the thing they're struggling with, stuck on, nervous about, afraid of? That might not be obvious to you, like the bank teller example. (Such a great example.) Maybe I'm fearful of what this person from head office is doing, watching me over my shoulder while I'm trying to do my job, and I'm just worried about what that is going to do to the prospects of my career, or whatever it is. There's this fear narrative, which maybe we're not even conscious of, that drives certain behavior or drives certain non-behavior. We don't do things because of fear.

Jen: Well, what I'm sort of hearing underneath this whole conversation is, when a leader who has made a commitment to being a curious leader reneges on that commitment, even if it's only momentarily, one of the things we can do in response is get curious, as opposed to jumping to assumptions. Instead of fighting fire with fire, fight fire with curiosity.

Pete: Fight fire with curiosity. And the final thing I think I would say with that brilliant summary that you made is, yeah, there will be times where you don't show up as the curious leader that you want to be. And it's like baked into the experience of being a leader, is there will be days. Not if, maybe hypothetically there's an opportunity or a day where I'm not. It's like, oh no, that will happen. That will happen. So how could you surround yourself with people who are willing to be curious, to help you get out of that and come back to your best, most curious self?

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.