Actively Open-Minded Leaders Build Trust - Think Again Series - Chapter 1

Robert Greiner 0:00

Oh nice. Do you want to talk chapter one?

Tiffany Lentz 0:07

I'm gonna I can talk chapter one if I look at if I get to chapter one and try to jog my memory as to what was in it, it's just been, I feel very very frazzled. So we can.

Robert Greiner 0:18

Or we can push if you want.

Tiffany Lentz 0:19

Stumble through it.

Robert Greiner 0:20

Yeah, either way.

Tiffany Lentz 0:22

If we push, I mean, we both have enough knowledge. I think we'll be okay. I hate to push unless we push to a different topic.

Robert Greiner 0:28

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Starting to see how it goes.

Tiffany Lentz 0:33

Yeah, I don't want to push our podcast for sure. We've got some new people. New fans listening.

Robert Greiner 0:39

Do we?

Tiffany Lentz 0:40

Yes. Oh, Lori Dipprey has started listening.

Robert Greiner 0:43

Oh, shout out. Excellent.

Tiffany Lentz 0:44

Listens to the podcast regularly. Yeah, Carrie Beckner listens now and Lily

Robert Greiner 0:49

McClure. Cool. Chapter one a Preacher, a Prosecutor, a Politician and the Scientists Walk Into Your Mind, which I liked. It felt gimmicky. I won't lie. Like when I first read the chapter title. I don't know if I have a thing against gimmicky chapter titles, which is weird, because I would I think I would be into that. But maybe I just don't want to be. I don't want to look like a dummy if I don't get it or something. Who knows? But he connected it all. Really nice. Yeah.

Tiffany Lentz 1:16

Yeah. So this whole this first section, we're starting here with these next several chapters is all about the individual, which Yes, that's right. lowest common denominator.

Robert Greiner 1:25

And the only thing you can control? Yeah.

Tiffany Lentz 1:27

Truth, Truth.

Robert Greiner 1:29

Okay. So just to kick off, maybe jog your memory a little bit. And it's been maybe a week and a half, because I think we push one. And then we had some health issues. Some are cold. And so I think we'll ease into it. But I think what Adam is saying here is we switch back and forth between these personas, especially preacher, Prosecutor, politician, and then scientists as a side thing, which we'll get into based on the situation that we're in. So we're sort of like tri polar or quad polar, when it comes to really tightly clinging to ideas that maybe don't serve us so well. Or even if they're correct, the way we operate around them is not helpful. And you saw the quote at the beginning of the chapter, which I like, progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. George Bernard Shaw, good way to kick off the chapter or the book. Actually, it's distills the whole book, all in one quote, I think, yeah,

Tiffany Lentz 2:27

I like the idea of the use of the words, even scientists being an outlier, but the use of the the visual or the persona that that comes to mind when you think about preacher versus prosecutor, like one being needing no proof, no evidence, faith based, and the other being almost antagonistic, because it's interesting that he doesn't consider say, a preacher and a scientist being opposites. It's one that is almost monopolizing on hope, and the other that is not even monopolizing on. On fact, it's monopolizing on antagonism.

Robert Greiner 3:10

Yeah, yeah. So the point of the chapter is, when we're exposed to an idea, contrary to what we believe, we go into one of three modes, and then these three modes actually work in concert with each other for a very negative output. So just to recap, and I have it written down here. The preacher mode is when we, when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy. And so we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideals. That's what, that's what Adam Grant says, Prosecutor mode is when we recognize flaws and other people's reasoning. And we're sorry to try to craft the perfect argument to prove them wrong and win our case. And then politician mode is when we're just seeking to win over our audience to this is like, proof by hand waving that kind of thing. Campaign lobby, if you're just wearing people down, they just agree with you, because they're tired of you talking. It's that kind of thing. So we're really seeking approval there. So we're, we're promoting ideals as a preacher to keep our sacred beliefs in check. We're honing in and trying to nitpick other people's positions so that we can win as a prosecutor. And then we're trying to win approval and hearts as a politician. And again, when you're, when all three of these are sort of gelling and working against you think things can go poorly. I think you don't have to search history too far, or Wikipedia or even the news today to see how these things can really run them up.

Tiffany Lentz 4:35

Yeah. So how, what did you take away from those three, those three personas in the way that the way that an individual uses them for convincing for kind of the platform they stand on when as compared to when one needs to be open minded?

Robert Greiner 4:56

Yeah, good question. So I think first off the Again, if we're agreeing that these three modes are, are unhelpful, or they rear their heads in unhelpful, inopportune times to our detriment, I tend to go into politician mode more often than not, that's sort of my default mode. And so I think that that's something that's helpful to know about myself. It didn't really take me too long to figure that out, either. When I, when it's broken down into these three areas, I was thinking, oh, yeah, politician mode. I've been guilty about three more often than I'd like to admit, but politician is the the main one I'd have to watch out for. It's my probably my jumping off point, if that makes sense.

Tiffany Lentz 5:35

Yeah. Mine is preacher. Okay. It's a there's lots and lots of overlap with politician. But I think my jumping off point is, it's it's convincing. It's, there's a, there isn't there's some hand waving and some storytelling and but it is very much about convincing someone of your of your side more from the, like the heart, or can't you see? Yeah, can you see the harm being done by not agreeing with me? Oh, yeah. Of approach.

Robert Greiner 6:09

It's almost a like a morality to it. Whereas a morality is more superficial. Politicians are a little more superficial? Not? I mean, not, we're not saying it's any. All of these are equally bad. But I can see that.

Tiffany Lentz 6:22

Yeah. So the moral high ground, the artificial delusional

Robert Greiner 6:28

Oh, that's deep.

Tiffany Lentz 6:29

Moral high ground, I think is something I noticed about without having any of these words, it is actually something I noticed about myself, when I was becoming a younger leader. I mean, we're going back 10/15 years ago, realizing that even on Myers Briggs, I was indexing as a J. I don't index as a J anymore, oddly enough, and people say those usually don't change mine actually did. But they often only change with like major life events which happen which did happen to me. But yeah, this is a almost creating a better than sort of moral high ground probably had something to do with my little bit off the rails religious upbringing, but I still think I bring some of that to the table of the this, the method of convincing.

Robert Greiner 7:18

Yeah, and I think like everything, there's nuance here that the chapter gets into a little bit. But again, we're not talking about advocating going in and challenging all of your most core held beliefs. And we're not going in saying these modes aren't helpful in certain situations. It's when you favor the feeling of being right or actually being right, and you're using it to cling on to something that's not helpful. And then you've got engaged the scientist first, maybe, which we'll get into in a second. The politician mode is I think it's funny, um, I'd like to say that my default there is really stems from my eternal optimism. But that's probably just me being optimistic. Who knows. But there's huge risk here is huge risk, I think this is a good, strong start to the book, he came out swinging because like, we're too busy preaching, that we're right, prosecuting others who we think are wrong, and fighting for support, that we don't bother to rethink our own views, too busy, engaging in those activities. And a lot of that time should be, or all of that time almost right, should be spent. Just almost validating, confirming those kinds of things, which I think leads us to the scientist.

Tiffany Lentz 8:32

When he talks about being actively open minded, which I think is a really important expression, we tell ourselves and others to constantly be open minded, but, we don't include the word actively, which is an important one, because it implies this constant vigilance and intentionality. And this, need to know that and then what what your triggers are likely to be that would push you into politician or preacher or a prosecutor versus being actively open minded. I liked that.

Robert Greiner 9:05

Yeah. And the thing is, if you are a scientist or you are very analytical, and that the idea of you know, we're talking preacher, Prosecutor, politician, we haven't really talked scientists yet. But I think you can intuit what that means. I think there's some some people that would resonate with, especially where like, high detail orientation would resonate with the scientist. And I think that's a bit of a trap. Because all humans are preachers, prosecutors, politicians in our nature in our core, when we're, it's almost like the fight or flight. Right, this is, these are the behaviors that we engage in. The scientist requires energy. It's like you're stretching a rubber band, it's always going to want to go back to its original shape, engaging in the scientists mode, which is constantly aware of the limits of our understanding, doubting what you know, curious about what you don't know, updating your views based on data, of being there. very intentional about the hard work of rethinking that takes energy no matter who you are and what your profession is and what it what you would like it to be. And so I think, maybe don't trap yourself into thinking that you're a scientist by default, because that's probably not the case. It's probably just like a hidden prosecutor mode, if that makes sense.

Tiffany Lentz: 10:19

I remember there being a great story in here, about the Blackberry. I just can't remember the details of it. Yeah,

Robert Greiner: 10:27

I think it was about the keyboard. Like the what was his name? Mike Lazar. Lazaridis was the CEO. And super brilliant, which Lazaritous? Yeah. And the funny thing is, the smarter you are the harder it is to be good at this, which is, which is not fun. But yeah, super smart. And he just couldn't get past the sort of keyboard on this, like physical tactile keyboard. The whole company was no BlackBerry was like the an homage to the, the way the keys looked on the physical device, right? Like, I think one of the investors early on said, Oh, this looks like a Blackberry. And so that was so core, to the identity of the product that couldn't help but fight against the single pane of glass that we all use today.

Tiffany Lentz: 11:12

And reading that, from this perspective, I remember that thinking about that story thinking, Oh, my gosh, you totally missed the boat, like how could you be that close minded? How could you be that married to your own idea that you couldn't possibly think? And then just cringing throughout that example? And then but yet I do the same thing all the time. That's hindsight. I hate to think how many things I am not being open minded enough about or actively open minded and just potentially missing out on.

Robert Greiner: 11:46

Yeah. And that's there's a line overconfidence as your enemy. I can see that in this story. There was the other thread around people making poor investment decisions, I tend to have a little bit more of empathy is the right word for that group. But this the BlackBerry example with with Mike, this is an area that he was a deep expert in and created this really innovative product, and had this meteoric rise. And so I would say that was like his whole world, right? People that get swindled by unscrupulous investment advisors are, I mean, they're expecting someone else to run that. For them. It's all very trust based. And so that one didn't quite resonate with me as much, except to say, maybe buyer beware, on that one. Maybe it's more of a cautionary tale than the specific example. That happened with Blackberry.

Tiffany Lentz: 12:39

It's interesting that he's description of scientist is not is also not the same as what we consistently think of. Because there can be a downside to not to not to having to have proof for everything. But in in this context, his he does hold the scientist persona, at a very, very high level, like thinking about this really kind of referring to the scientists as having the most cognitive flexibility. Where it's a little bit of a blanket statement. I mean, to say that the other personas don't suppose I understand where he's coming from I But I have to, I have to digest it a little bit like, scientists are also not there. To me they also don't have as much flexibility in thinking is they need to.

Trained by the tools that we have. Right? Yeah.

And also by observability, as an example. Yeah,

The limits of technology. Yes, time, sometimes you just can't get to the bottom of the thing you need to get to the bottom of also, one thing that's interesting, too, is even if the scientific community, like as a profession is completely unbiased, they have they have tools and processes to eliminate as much as possible, where they're appointed, what gets funded. The P the humans behind that can also lead to a little bit of trickiness. And so yeah, I think there's, there's still like a caution in that persona as well.

I think that's a that's just generally a big takeaway of any particular passion or bent, shouldn't prevent us from wearing a different hat. And forcing ourselves to see something differently, shouldn't prevent us from considering facts or seeing things outside of facts like sustaining disbelief for a moment. I guess the whole goal, even outside of these personas is just flexibility. Just like be willing to think outside of what you understand

Robert Greiner: 14:47

And rethink. Yeah, it does say when we question the judgment of experts when we seek out like a second opinion on a medical diagnosis, and so when you think of that, scientists frame of mind it's almost a frame of mind more than an is a tangible thing, searching for the truth running experiments, testing assumptions, discovering knowledge, those kinds of things, I think are it's really the essence of what he's talking about instead of an actual persona.

Tiffany Lentz: 15:13

Yeah. There is a diagram in the book that I that I remember liking quite a lot, the way he compares the cycles, the Rethinking cycle and the overconfidence cycle. And while I were being very vulnerable today, I don't like to think of myself as someone who is overconfident. I like to think of myself as someone who is just experienced. So feel free to laugh at that. The words that he uses with the the cycle of overconfidence are true, and they're hard to read. So I'll just just for the sake of the audience, the diagram looks like a clock. And at noon, three, six, and nine has four different words. So pride is at noon, at three is conviction at six is confirmation and desirability biases. And then finally at nine is validation. So pride, conviction, confirmation and desirability biases and validation in an overconfidence cycle. And, gosh, I can see myself falling into that trap. It's a spiral. I mean, yeah, goodness, yeah. It's not a circle. It's a spiral.

Robert Greiner: 16:19

Yeah, pride leads to conviction. Conviction leads to confirmation, desirability bias, which are the two I don't even know if we call them frameworks, but we do try to call those out. Confirmation bias being seeing what we only expect to see, or only seeing what we expect to see, I guess a better way to say that, and then desirability bias, seeing what we want to see. And those are hardwired into our DNA as humans. I mean, we there's no immunity from that. The best we can hope for, I think, is to be aware of it and to short circuit when we're in that mode. Yep.

Tiffany Lentz: 16:49

And then of course, validation. Yeah. Which oddly doesn't ever does. I mean, I can't say never the rarely leads us out so out of that cycle, or aspire to a point of reality or open mindedness. That's where the that's where the rethinking comes in. Because it just that validation with all that false information just makes us more prideful. I mean, yeah, we've got anything and everything going on in the in the news these days to prove that point out. But the thinking cycle, sorry, go ahead.

Robert Greiner: 17:21

Oh, I was gonna put my tinfoil hat on for a minute and maybe making a statement.

Tiffany Lentz: 17:25

Please.

Robert Greiner: 17:25

Again, I'll say it like I'm right. But I'm happy to be wrong here. I wish I I wish this was wrong. You could take if you take the overconfidence cycle or spiral. And the idea around confirmation and desirability bias leading to validation, which increases pride and conviction, you could take almost any position. And there is someone on the planet Earth paying a social media company, some level of dollars to put something in front of you, that confirms your existing position. factual or in factual. And so I think this is really scary because we're, there's such a high fidelity very what's, what's the word, like, enticing set of content out there that lures you into this overconfidence spiral. And it's happening to you. We used to just worry about commercials, right? But now, there are people that you don't know, what their opinions are, what they want paying money to get you to see things. And so I think you're, and if this is baked into us, as humans, we are definitely more susceptible to the overconfidence spiral today than I think any generation in history.

Tiffany Lentz: 18:38

Yeah. Yeah. I was. I was talking to someone, not a joke. So So confirmation bias. You're gonna love this example, I was talking to someone who was a little older than I am. So she's in her 50s. And she was talking about her hurt. So this lady is in her is pushing her 80s If not in her 80s. And the woman claimed that the reason that she didn't vote for Trump during the election was because of all the memes that she saw. And she actually thought that memes were truth. Like 100% believed this 80 year old lady that memes were truth. Those memes are terrible, and convincing her that memes are not truth was just impossible. Absolutely impossible. For her niece and family to do. Just there you go. Yeah, thanks for sharing your tinfoil hat.

Robert Greiner: 19:37

And that's true. I mean, we could when you said that in my head. I mean, this is this is probably not great. This is definitely not great. There was a level of judgment going on my head about this person and then you have to take a step back and realize that this is a transformational new technology that this person spent decades for or five decades of their life without, and then it pops in and you just can't understand what's going on. So I bet that it's probably more common than we'd like to think.

Tiffany Lentz: 20:10

Yeah, and I don't shame you at all for that, because I want to do the same thing I want to judge you say like, no, seriously, how can you not know that? That's not real. But how? How would they?

Robert Greiner: 20:23

Yeah, how? Why would you know it's real? Yeah.

Tiffany Lentz: 20:24

Being being introduced to so many drinking from a firehose doesn't even begin to cover it. The experience of what so many generations are experiencing with the shifts they're seeing in technology, accessibility of information, the way they used to experience news as only being on NBC, ABC, or CBS, and it was Walter Cronkite was the source of truth. And He only spoke from like, five to seven, Monday through Friday, and then on 60 minutes, I mean, I'm extrapolating, like way back into, but it's not that long ago that that's how people consumed information. So where are we any better? Like, which persona are we if we judge them.

Robert Greiner: 21:08

And maybe it's not unreasonable to think someone still thinks the world works that way? Yeah. And you've seen this before you go to another country. And there's just you engage in a behavior and people look at you like, what are you doing? What's going on here? And you don't know. And then the idea. And again, what the book is saying is when you learn that what you were doing was wrong, and that there's when you're over there, you do this thing, then you just adapt and move on with your life. And we do that 1000s And millions of times without even thinking about it. Every now and then if something sticks, though, like this, that becomes a serious issue. It's a an inevitable conclusion of not rethinking?

Tiffany Lentz: 21:46

Yeah, I like the Rethinking cycle as a at least in theory as a replacement for the overconfidence cycle. So 12, three, six, and nine again, so humility, moving to doubt, moving to curiosity, moving to discovery, the fact that discovery would lead one back to even more humility is a very interesting spiral.

Robert Greiner: 22:08

Yeah. And I guess, because you're confronted with what you don't know, like the chapter talks about sort of understanding to know what you don't know. And I think when you start to really be exposed to topics that have such depth to them that you never realized it before. That is a humbling experience.

Tiffany Lentz: 22:26

Yep. It's it. I like that he starts that entire cycle with humility, because it's just not. It's it can't be overstated how difficult that is for people, for anyone who is intelligent, a thought leader, just good at something good at what they do, educated, it is really hard to set things aside and say, I'm just gonna take a stance of I probably don't know, I'm here to learn. That's a big first step.

Robert Greiner: 22:57

Can you enter the circle, especially the Rethinking cycle at any phase? So is it good enough? If you're not humble at all? And you don't know like and saying, Go exercise? Humility is like a hard thing for us to recommend like, I don't know how you do that. You I guess you could be engaged in behaviors that other people will look at and say that exposes humility. But isn't that doubt curiosity discovery, like if you could, if you're naturally curious, or if you again, if you resonate with the prosecutor may be prosecuting your own ideas, right? Or steel manning another argument that's, that's in opposition to you as a form of doubt, or to go explore the topic more if you're intellectual, and you like to learn new things and explore new areas, maybe discovery works out for you or a curiosity for asking questions. So maybe you can enter the rethinking cycle at any area, and then it just builds a nice reinforcing loop.

Tiffany Lentz: 23:57

I think that's a great perspective. There's nothing in the chapter there's nothing to even the specifics of the diagram that say that you couldn't. It's more about what that what that next step leads you to like, what next step do you take? Do you move from doubt, to conviction and confirmation bias? Or do you move from doubt to curiosity?

Robert Greiner: 24:22

Oh, yeah, they're laid on top and you can you can pop up and down. Yeah, right. So

Tiffany Lentz: 24:26

I guess the it requires mental discipline through every interaction, no matter where you jump in. Curiosity, very valid, curiosity could lead you to more discovery or it could lead you to a path of validation and confirmation bias, and so on and so forth. Versus curiosity, leading you to discovery and then realizing that more that you don't know leading you to more humility and more searching,

Robert Greiner: 24:54

And there's yeah, so maybe if you're, if you think of it as a spiral up is the direction you want to be heading? The overconfidence spirals you downwards. And when you engage in the behaviors of the rethinking cycle, you move upwards. And like with the person that thinks that memes are real, there's quite a bit of rethinking cycle that needs to happen. You can't just loop through once and get there. It's an ongoing thing. You're sort of fighting entropy at that point. So in the same way, like your house gets cluttered, and you're constantly picking things up, you're sort of constantly need to be rethinking a bunch of little things to move in the right direction. I don't know if that makes sense. But I just I don't think one cycle is enough.

Tiffany Lentz: 25:40

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a really good thought, both one cycle and the fact that you could, that you could or should be able to enter from anywhere. I like that a lot. Rethinking, the rethinking cycle

Robert Greiner: 25:52

Because he does say our biases distort our knowledge, understanding intelligence, so it's kind of thing. So if you think of like a piece of metal that's all bent or something it takes a lot of movement to get it back to where it should have been. It's not just one. One thing. And I guess, in fact, the world just doesn't work that way. There's when stuff is misaligned. It's always a bunch of little tweaks to get it back into alignment, not just one swift movement. Yep.

Tiffany Lentz: 26:19

I like that. So several, a couple good takeaways there, then the that rethinking the rethinking, cycle? And which persona do we tend to approach our ideas from? Versus being open minded?

Robert Greiner: 26:37

Yeah. And then we can practice these things. I think work is the is the place to practice here. Personal life, you have core relationships, there's a lot more human element to it, things are a little less black and white. If you practice this at work, you can take issues that are inconsequential, they're not meaningless, it's not unimportant. But the impact, they're inconsequential, you can practice there. So that when you are exposed to something that threatens some of the more core beliefs you have, you're in a position to you've built some muscle memory to address it.

Tiffany Lentz: 27:10

Yeah, that's good. That's good. There's also ways that you can measure things differently set up different kinds of metrics or outcomes at work that don't make sense in your personal life.

Robert Greiner: 27:23

That's right. I think work is a place of practices.

Tiffany Lentz: 27:26

I like it. It's a great insight.

Robert Greiner: 27:27

So there's a quote, maybe we can close on it. Was there anything else you wanted to cover?

Tiffany Lentz: 27:32

No chapter? No

Robert Greiner: 27:33

I think we I think we did a justice.

Tiffany Lentz: 27:35

I think we did. Pretty good.

Robert Greiner: 27:37

Adam, if you're listening, you can, you can let us know if we got it. Okay, so most of us take pride in our knowledge and expertise. And in staying true to our beliefs and opinions. That makes sense in a stable world where we get rewarded for having conviction in our ideas. The problem is that we live in a rapidly changing world where we need to spend as much time rethinking as we do think that's pretty crazy to me, because I don't spend hardly any time are you thinking I don't feel like.

Tiffany Lentz: 28:04

That is profound. That's a very good quote. I think I spend some time rethinking, perhaps, because of the space that I'm in, and even the job I'm doing right now. So building something that is socially impactful, and creating many measurements around it and having to think about complexity. But the thing I often let get in my way is is busyness. Rethinking takes work, and time, and some space.

Robert Greiner: 28:04

Yeah, it's hard.

Tiffany Lentz: 28:35

And the more the more constrained, I get, the less I rethink I just go with what I have, or what I know, from a past experience. So there is something they're missing around, how to balance, constant change in complexity, and rethinking. And keep that moving. Keep that keep that forward momentum. I don't know the answer. But yeah, I'll just another awareness from for me personally of busyness and mental space lacking or fatigue, mental fatigue, doesn't just doesn't give me the space for rethinking.

Robert Greiner: 29:17

Yeah, I'm actually going to take a note here because I do think busyness and hurry are like, rob you of joy in life. And I think we're all too busy. We're all too much in a hurry. And there's so much value especially now we're going back to personal life in the in the dull moments, you start adding those up and they can compound to so maybe we should talk about that more later because I think there is value in that, that margin and reducing busyness and hurry. So which coming back to our episode would offer more time to think and rethink, maybe towards the end too. There's probably a practice in here. If you're into mind mapping, if you If you're into whiteboarding, like how whatever medium you think in if you just open up notepad or, or whatever, scratch paper napkins, everybody kind of sticky notes. Yeah, we all have our way of thinking there's probably going into that virtuous cycle. What was it called the rethinking loop, the rethinking cycle, what can you do in that medium to retest an idea? And if you insert it into your your preferred way of thinking that might be a good way to get started.

Tiffany Lentz: 30:33

Yeah, that's good.

Robert Greiner: 30:35

Cool.

Tiffany Lentz: 30:36

Thank you.

Robert Greiner: 30:37

All right.

Almost. Yeah. Cool. Chapter one books. Love it. 12 more to go. Yeah. 11 more to go.

Tiffany Lentz: 30:45

I don't know.

Robert Greiner: 30:46

I'm looking forward to it.

Tiffany Lentz: 30:47

A lot.

Robert Greiner: 30:48

Yeah. On these I read the chapter right before, so I have no clue what the next chapter is about. Which is, which is pretty exciting. But I like it. This is a good book. So far. It's worth the price of admission, just based on what we've read and talked about.

Tiffany Lentz: 31:00

I think so.

Robert Greiner: 31:02

Yeah. All right. Thanks. Talk to you next week.

Tiffany Lentz: 31:05

Thank you very much. Yes. Bye. Bye