Episode 29

The Joy of Being Wrong - Think Again Series - Chapter 3

Published on: 27th February, 2023

Today we continue our discussion of Think Again with The Joy of Being Wrong. We talk about different scenarios we have encountered in our careers where we would have been better of admitting our mistakes and adjusting to emergent situations instead of trying to stick with our preconceived ideas.

We also talk about how Agile Development practices lend us some ideas on how organizations can more effectively navigate change.

Finally, we cover some ideas on how we can adjust our own leadership styles to incorporate acknowledging when we are wrong more quickly, how to communicate it, and how to move forward in a more leadership-forward way.

If you enjoyed this discussion of Chapter 3 of Think Again, be sure to tune in for our next episode where we'll be covering Chapter 4 and don't forget to hit the subscribe button or reach out at [email protected].

Transcript

Tiffany Lentz 0:00

Oh yeah, good, good.

I like this chapter. I'm excited about this. And had some. Yeah, we'll have to do an offline chat catch-up sometime because I had did some reflecting to on what I've learned here in the last year and a half, and how I, how productive I feel, or how am I learning. How can I be even more like adaptive or part of the culture? Because it the, there's that, that conflict of a long term culture and a holacratic culture, that sometimes clashes with quick action and getting things done. And that is part of my DNA, and just spent some time thinking about how to use it at the right times and be more adaptive whenever possible. And just because that makes me feel more energized, being like part of that, as opposed to feeling kind of at odds with it, if that makes sense.

Robert Greiner 1:01

Yeah, you and I had, we went through like a maybe a similar exercise I, there's this a podcast that I really liked for Manager Tools called the deliberate executive waypoint, which we're gonna send it to you send it to me, I don't know if we've talked about it before. But essentially, Dan, the guy who gives the podcast talks about how in his career, he's benefited from taking some time in space, like, focused time and space, like he was in finance. So he would go the day after Christmas or the day before Christmas into his, into their New York office and get like a big conference room overlooking the city and have all these post it notes. And he had a bunch of pre-discussions and his performance review and the company strategy and all that stuff and thought about his organization and those kinds of things and ultimately culminated in a lot of insights that were distilled until three, what he calls I will statements. And so I did something similar Nice. over the break, and it helps kind of focus going into the next year. Do you mind? You did something similar?

Tiffany Lentz 2:01

Yeah, I did. I it's not quite as structured as that. But I could, I could put them into I will statements pretty quickly. I think that's it's really interesting. Do you mind sharing any of yours?

Robert Greiner 2:14

Yeah, I have. So three. And the funny thing is in the past, this is probably the third time I've done it. In the past, there has always been a family work life balance one. I feel quite balanced right now, though. And so there's not and I'm wondering how the next three to six months or

Tiffany Lentz 2:30

or is that it late? Like that's interesting. If you don't have one will that is that a risk? Yeah,

Robert Greiner 2:35

I think it's a red flag. But I think these are in pursuit of not being so busy. We've been in freakout crisis mode. We've talked about this, right? Yeah. And, and so what I'm trying to do is get back to some kind of balance in my work heartbeat, or cadence, which I think helps. But yeah, what we'll see it was it was a little bit illuminating when I didn't have one. But so yeah, I will focus more time for client strategic thinking relationships and intellectual capital.

Tiffany Lentz 3:03

Hmm.

Robert Greiner 3:04

So we're on one of our largest accounts, I spend a lot of time there. But I've actually started even last year, getting stuff off my plate that's not client related, there's more than if you take all the the leadership team on the account. And all of their full time efforts, there's more stuff to do than then people in hours to do it. So focusing on that. And then second, I will more intentionally develop the leaders around me, we have a pretty good growth model at the company and at our account, but we've always been very light at the top. Especially if you look at the percentage of revenue we bring in for the firm and the percentage of the leaders in the firm we have like we we bring in more of a percentage of revenue than we have leadership headcount, if that makes sense, which, which is probably right. But I would say now we have a robust principle, like senior director type group that is looking to get to the next level. And so we can finally scale out more. And that's going to require developing those leaders and then also delegating some of the more tactical things that that I'm doing. So there's a virtuous cycle there. And then I will enable a human and growth oriented transition into our next set of contracts. So they they're like year, year at a time. So basically planning out the next year, as it relates to remote hybrid working model, good opportunities for growth, trying to get out of some work that we've maybe outgrown or our client could have done for them cheaper, and just as well so that we can focus on the things that really matter. And there's a trip so there's a few different transitions happening at once. But the main thing is growth oriented human focus, as it relates to going back to a hybrid model, because we don't want to create a multicast system, like we talked about before. If you have people coming in and being present in person a lot more than others that could lead to some bad outcome. So trying to mitigate that and, and really navigate that piece which, which I think is coming here in the next couple months.

Tiffany Lentz 5:12

Yeah. Yeah, those are good, because they're really good. Yeah, I would like to hear what happens in in three to six months. If you're feeling still feeling like, you're like your balance has become your normal. And it doesn't need a direct focus or if it if it slips a little bit, because you don't have that.

Robert Greiner 5:33

I'm curious. But you also have I have stuff on my calendar, like for picking up my son and things like that. So I don't, and I kind of have some boundaries on the start and stop times in my days. And so I think, I don't know, I feel pretty good about it. But see, I definitely dipped into the workaholic mode before. And that's not what I'm looking to do here. And I don't I don't feel a pull to lean more heavily into work. I don't feel pressured to do that, if that makes sense. I just I do feel like things are fairly balanced, like they're part of it has to do with me not driving two hours a day. Yeah. And recapturing that time. But we'll see. I don't I don't know. I'll give you an update here in a few months.

Tiffany Lentz 6:14

Yeah. Cool. That's good. That's good.

Robert Greiner 6:16

But it feels good. I mean, to your point to, which is, I wish we would have talked about this last year, I just didn't think about it. But coming into January 3, right? January 4 Today, with some clarity of vision about what you want to do. So it's so empowering. And everyone's slowly getting back up to speed. And before we know January will be over the year be almost 10% over. And and then you're just behind. Yeah, but now it's like day one, you kind of know you're ready to take action. And I think that's pretty cool.

Tiffany Lentz 6:48

Wait a second did have you and I've been doing our podcast for a year? Because I feel like you said that to me a year ago. The year is 10%. Over? Yeah, I got that for Manager Tools. And I that makes me think that we have been at this for almost a year. It's it's I think it's been almost a year okay, let me look. We may have started in February, and you might or something and you might have said it, then.

Robert Greiner 7:11

one was published on November:

Tiffany Lentz 7:20

Yeah. Wow.

Robert Greiner 7:21

Nice. Happy anniversary. Oh, although I think we were going. We were on a bit of a hiatus around November, December. Yeah. So

Tiffany Lentz 7:30

yeah. Which is okay.

Robert Greiner 7:31

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Tiffany Lentz 7:32

kwise. Structurally Great. In:

Robert Greiner 8:11

Yeah. I mean, not only I think, have we furthered our thinking in a few areas, but in getting clarity, such that it's informed our leadership style, but there's also I think, some original thought, yeah, lots of original thought buried in Yeah, what episode is this? 28?

Tiffany Lentz 8:26

Thank you. 28. Yeah. Awesome. Cool. Cool.

Robert Greiner 8:30

Well, hey, let's have a chapter.

Tiffany Lentz 8:31

Yeah,

Robert Greiner 8:32

the joy of being wrong. There was a great part. And here's where it said, the more you can laugh at yourself, the happier you tend people tend to be like, there's some data to back that up. And I was thinking, Oh, that's perfect. Yeah. To feel like I'm always making fun of myself. So

Tiffany Lentz 8:48

same, same

Robert Greiner 8:49

made me feel good. It's always nice when you when you hear something that you just kind of do by default. Yes. And someone says, oh, that's actually like a good thing that you're doing.

Tiffany Lentz 8:58

That's awesome. Yeah, I had the same thought. And I actually gave some thought to how I got there, at this point in my career. So I had a big kind of big birthday in late December. And then I always think about, well, how many years? I'm 45. So think of like, how many years have I've been consulting? How many? And how do you get to that point? How did what hat was there something that happened? Is it part of your DNA was a part of your childhood upbringing? Or what is it that led you to kind of embrace this, this the joy in being wrong or the ability to laugh at yourself the ability to kind of quickly let go of things and, and pivot and course correct and I, I'm, I like to believe I'm pretty good at it in most areas. And there are always some No, I do hold to my beliefs. Maybe I shouldn't and, and then there's always the ones you should hold to. So just do you have any any insight at all into a catalyst for yourself?

Robert Greiner 9:52

Well, I Okay, so I don't know. I do think though that was born out of this leadership transition. I know we've talked about on the podcast before where, like I'm pretty, I don't even know the word bring a lot of levity to situations like I don't tend to take stuff too seriously. I would say I have an above average sense of humor, which sounds weird to say out loud, dryly.

Tiffany Lentz:

I am funny.

Robert Greiner:

I'm funny, I promise,

Tiffany Lentz:

you actually are pretty funny.

Robert Greiner:

Thank you. And so we, it's when you're when you're part of a team and your individual contributor, when you're on a hockey team or whatever. There's a sort of gallows humor, that's acceptable. And I actually we're kind of required, right, whatever the culture is, some are maybe more vulgar than others. But there's a culture around humor among peers. And so I was I was good at much better at giving than getting, right, if that makes sense. And then, when I got some real power, though, you can't, you can't bring that same level of like funny, jovial criticism to your, your co workers, because you have role power over them, right. And then then it's viewed as an attack. And so I had to adjust pretty quickly. And the easiest target to turn the exact same level of humor on is yourself. And so that was like a shift I made out of like, the need to not make everyone hate me, and quit, right. And so I've just kind of stuck with it.

Tiffany Lentz:

That's good

Robert Greiner:

Since then. But I think over time, it's a good way to defuse situations to take responsibility. If you've really open about stuff you've messed up on and could have done better usually people give you there was actually there's a story about that in the chapter, right? There was a an astrophysicist who made some huge discovery around like a collapse star or something. And was going to present his findings like a stadium full of his peers. And right before the presentation realized that he used like a spherical, a circular orbit instead of an elliptical orbit, which is, I mean, that's going to make your math all sorts of wrong, figured it out. The planet wasn't where he thought it was. It was a non discovery. And realize is way, way, way too late to do anything about it, but got up on stage and kind of outlined what he did wrong and why and, and how this wasn't a discovery at all. And that got a standing ovation, and was probably a highlight of his career. And people said that it was the most honorable thing they'd ever seen. All Out of taking ownership for mistake. It doesn't always work that way. I mean, sometimes you just get fired, right?

Tiffany Lentz:

Yeah.

Robert Greiner:

But it's definitely helpful to remember that, you know, this this chapter, especially for people who take their ideas very seriously, but themselves not so seriously. And I think that's a healthy way to live for sure.

Tiffany Lentz:

Yeah. I appreciate that. Appreciate it. That example? For sure. Because it's a great reminder. I mean, it may not always be the highlight of your career, like you said, but it, it does tend to leave an imprint on the people around you, at least in my experience. And it certainly, it's become a bit habitual. For me, does that mean I did have some time to reflect on? How did I How did I get to that point, I'm not no one's born with like, this is crazy mental alignments and, and levels of humility. It's not certainly not that I think some of some of my approach to laughing at myself or not taking my own ideas too seriously, have even become a technique. Because in, in my career, I was blessed enough to be promoted pretty quickly, at a young age at a young age and consulting, there's always a different dynamic with the way a client perceives you. And then you already mentioned people's this kind of title hierarchy. And I found that if I was not attached to my own ideas, and I presented it as such, or left, so much openness, in any sort of discussion for people to challenge, an idea of mine, even if I had the experience to know that I was right, simply setting the stage differently, brought out more creativity and other people, or say or setting the stage and say, I'm not attached to this thing. It's just a thought, let's, let's throw it at the wall and see if it sticks or throw darts at it and see what what we can hit. I found that over time, that that opened people up. And some of those dynamics I formed in response to different cultures to because I was an American, a perceived successful American traveling to specifically Asian culture, even more specifically Indian culture and also African culture. And there's a there's a response there too, for people to be more subservient. And in order for me to be their, their manager, and at the same time I want to get all the great thoughts they had, I had to come up with something a bit more extreme as a as an approach, and it certainly served me well. But I don't know that I would have developed that had it not been for such a kind of dramatic, like a dramatic scenario in which I needed to operate.

Robert Greiner:

And the cool part about this, or at least I guess, the most encouraging part of this chapter, which could be viewed as a little bit dark, right? Like, we have all these sort of desirability biases, and we get very attached to ideas that not because they're true, but because they're interesting, which is not not a good thing, not a recipe for success. And then there's the stories around the, the Professional Forecasters and the ones that sort of forecast things for, like forecasting games, and some sounds pretty cool, actually. And they studied the best forecasters for predicting the future. And most, the average number of times like an issue is rethought through as to by people who do this competitively. And the very best ones are like four or five, which doesn't seem like a lot, at least it's not hundreds. But I mean, the, there's a lot of human friction there to rethink something once I mean, people have died over, not willing to rethink an idea once, let alone four or five times, but it does make it maybe a little bit more achievable. And then I loved the reframing of, I want to be the best at forecasting more than I want to be right about something I prefer. Or like, what is the sort of mental trick you can play on yourself to, to cause you to want to dig in and, and rethink things. And so I thought that was, was kind of some nice silver lining to this pretty damaging, like a dangerous human condition that we all share.

Tiffany Lentz:

Yeah.

I really liked that example, as well. It was very, very challenging to me, too. As a somewhat competitive person. I think I'm situationally competitive. And you've you've stated on other podcasts that you're very competitive, to do competitive, I think that is a that's a really great mind trick to find the other thing that you can compete in or reframe success, essentially, for yourself, even if it's just between you and you or, or you and say the team that you're supporting, as a manager as a leader, how, how do you reframe your own success through the lens of their success, such that you such that you're you're willing to, to challenge yourself rethink yourself in include different kinds of contributions? We, I think we have an advantage in being part of mainstream agile development is or scrum techniques. And 15-20 years ago, before that was mainstream, it was a whole different ballgame of challenging a norm. Re estimating was not acceptable, like,

Robert Greiner:

seen as failure.

Tiffany Lentz:

Right.

Robert Greiner:

Yeah, that's a great point

Tiffany Lentz:

absolutely. So I think agile being mainstream has allowed us to Yeah, we don't get too excited yet, because I have bad news. Agile has created a vocabulary and a structure where both in the macro and micro, it is not just acceptable to to re forecast, but it is expected. And we've talked about this dichotomy before. And there are no there's no, no clear answer here. But I'll just bring it up. Again, I think the the flip side that is not yet solved, is as humans and as leaders are, by and large, our lack of willingness to embrace complexity in our thinking. And complexity doesn't have to always have a resolution, it just has a way forward. One would need to convey something that a complicated scenario would have a resolution a complex one does not. So it's there's a there's a way there's a way forward that just requires this constant course correcting with complex thinking. It requires re forecasting, rethinking, reassessing. But what it doesn't give you is the definitive outcome. And we're like COVID, is yet a perfect example of that, how we continue to we as humans continue to look for the outcome, the solution, the resolution, when will things be resolved to XYZ definition? And the most complex thinkers are comfortable saying, we simply don't know. And we're going to do the best we can. And that's and then we will continue to reflect in a corporate environment. That's hard. It's very hard. That's not how the stock market works. So it's not how corporations work. And I this, this continues to puzzled me. So I'll just lay that out there for you.

Robert Greiner:

I'm just processing

Tiffany Lentz:

Yeah, yeah,

Robert Greiner:

yeah. And, and so you get this build up like the these like attachment issues that the chapter talks about which is like too closely relating your past and your present and then separating your opinions from your identity. And so there's this sort of, I think, to your point, these attachment, unhealthy attachments to ideas played out at scale in an organization. So you have some of those things create ripple effects, dangerous ripple effects, which are larger and wider because you have people pushing in the same direction. And then you have tension and conflict, or maybe there shouldn't be because of the sort of over attachment to these to these ideas.

Tiffany Lentz:

Well, I think corporate structures in general are not designed for flexible thinking and re forecasting. And I mean, at the highest level. So while the good news is, with with an agile with Agile thinking, ones say, say an entire IT departments work is structured such that it continually re forecasts so that it gives an gives accurate estimations even at the at the program levels, so that communication to clients is more accurate. So that projection of costs is more accurate. Okay, great. But if we took that up to the board level, what sort of tolerance does a board have for continual re forecasting, continual rethinking? Not the, I mean, my experience is not much, not much. Anything that is outside of a calendar boundary of sorts, twice a year, once a year? Doesn't? That's there's not a lot of tolerance for it. It's seen as being irresponsible, or inept, at worse. When I think if we took this concept and challenged the corporate America structure and said, it's great that you hold to a standard, and people meet, maybe even meet what they estimate. But is accuracy of forecast a good business outcome? Is it a good? Is it a good environmental outcome? Is it a good human outcome? versus saying, well, we could break all of our norms? And we could, we could change our highest level processes of defining success? But how would that work? And what would be the ripple effects in our inside our firm? And how would we then explain that to all the external parties were responsible to

Robert Greiner:

that's interesting, too, accuracy of forecast it like the more accurate your forecasts are? Maybe the maybe that's a red flag?

Tiffany Lentz:

I, I think in I'm comparing experience with technology, of the accuracy of the forecast, especially when there's constantly forecasting to being a very good thing with the accuracy of a forecast, sometimes at the operational level, perhaps the forecast shouldn't have been accurate, there should have been a change in spending increase or decrease because it was the right thing to do for any number of other reasons.

Robert Greiner:

So maybe it was to safe or it took too long to come up with or you're not stretching enough? Or there's lots of reasons why. Maybe you're playing it safe across larger time spins versus accurate, because it's like you're driving a car down the road, you're, you're never actually going straight, right? You're making all these sort of constant micro adjustments. Yeah,

Tiffany Lentz:

I think this mindset is a really important one. I can't say that this is the most important chapter in the book. But there is something here that is, it's so goes against the grain of who of what makes us comfortable as humans. And we already know, that's who we take to work. Just like our same characteristics are how we lead. And there is something around constantly challenging our own norms, not being emotionally attached, not being willing to redefine our success criteria, I'm going to be a much more accurate forecaster than I am going to be attached to this belief system. Obviously, these things these statements I'm making, I don't think are absolutes, but I I feel like there has there there needs to be more room for that in the future of corporate America.

Robert Greiner:

Yeah. And there's like a decision journaling doesn't call it that specifically, kind of thread here where, when big forecasts are made big predictions, big bets, big decisions, whatever the things that have some meat behind them. There's usually like these super forecasters would go in and kind of enumerate what they, what they might have wrong, what they don't know, or what kinds of things would cause them to rethink the whole situation if certain conditions happened or if they learned new information. It even says research suggests that identity identifying even a single reason why we might be wrong can be enough to curb overconfidence. Yeah. And so there's almost all this like, meta information that needs to go along with larger decisions that sort of outline a little more objectively, here's what we don't know, here's what we do know, here's where we might be wrong, here's where we're probably wrong, but those kinds of things and I think that'll add some robustness and also detach. Well, I love that word that we use here is like detaching from ideas and, and things like that.

Tiffany Lentz:

Yep. I, I appreciated too the story of the the election forecaster a French name, I can't remember John Paul, I can't read the last surname. At the moment where he the way he he claims he became so accurate was to go out and and find proof points to prove other election forecasters wrong. It and so it didn't matter to him what he believed in his quest to be a better forecaster, he did the opposite. He did research for the opposite for the opposing side.

Robert Greiner:

Yeah. And they talk about that too, like steel Manning arguments, when when there's like a big debate each, they, sometimes the one, oh, my gosh, that name totally escaped me, the moderator, well have each contestant each participant introduced the other and then summarize the other person's argument. And so that's kind of a way to prove that you've, you've thought it through and you, you could take the other. The other opinion, there's a quote in here that's being wrong, actually, is the only way to, to, without a shadow of a doubt, without a shadow of a doubt, know that you've learned something that you moved forward, right? Is you only know that by being wrong? Yeah, by learning that you were wrong. And so those things are all, I think, tied up in the practice of that these groups of forecasters do or and that's equally as applicable to executive life, individual contributors, parenting friendship, like any, any any area of life. This is this is directly applicable to,

Tiffany Lentz:

you probably have I certainly have spoken to people, personally and professionally and in my past, who really struggle with admitting wrong for any I mean, on any topic, it's a really boring conversation very quickly. I not only lose respect for people like that, regardless of who they are. But I find that I like to have my thinking, challenged, even just for the sake of interesting conversation. I like to hear other people's perspectives, and it does impact me It impacts my personal growth, which then bleeds into the kind of partner I am and the kind of leader I am.

Robert Greiner:

Yeah, yeah, most definitely.

Tiffany Lentz:

This was a good chapter.

Robert Greiner:

Like he says, Your standard defense when you're wrong, is I'm entitled to my opinion. And, yeah, you're entitled to hold opinions inside your head, you choose to express them out loud, it's your responsibility to ground them in logic and facts, and share your reasoning with others.

Tiffany Lentz:

Yeah.

Robert Greiner:

And change your mind when better evidence emerges. I mean, that's, if you could change one thing about the world and you change that one thing, I think that would have a pretty huge effect.

Tiffany Lentz:

I also had highlighted that one, because it felt to me like it was me pressing on my keyboard, it felt to me, it was it was a brilliant statement of this freedom, to have opinions and also the the freedom to be responsible. We I don't think we would have an issue with fake news. If we, if there was an ability to hold people accountable to the things that come out of their mouths, or come through their their keyboards typed into comments online. Yeah, well,

Robert Greiner:

I mean, you take on, implicitly, I guess, maybe responsibility when you get behind the wheel of your car. Yeah. But at least that's kind of subconsciously or intentionally understood at times. But expressing your opinions out loud, comes with a tremendous responsibility. That I don't think is now that talk about detachment like that the responsibility of advocating for and explaining your opinion, is not ever coupled with expressing that opinion.

Tiffany Lentz:

Yep. And I think when when, I mean, you have young children, when we're kids, it seems at least when I was a kid, it manifested itself more as be kind Think before you speak. Just basic Golden Rule type things and I'm sure that's what it sounds like in your house to just the way for what I know of you and Diana, but i don't i How do we lose that as adults? How do we lose the those basic responsibilities because it is a responsibility. If I have to open my mouth if I opened my mouth and my responsibility is to be kind to be considerate, whatever. Then when I drop that into a corporate setting, all of a sudden I'm not responsible for that anymore. I'm Not,

Robert Greiner:

and you get irate when politicians or social media companies or people on social media or bots or malicious actors or other humans, not you do that to you. You feel a level of, of anger that's hard to replicate any other way. yet. We don't really think I never think about that. And so it was kind of eye opening to me hidden at the end of the chapter there.

Tiffany Lentz:

Yeah, yeah, it was good. Because sometimes, I guess it doesn't matter how we get there and our ability to embrace being wrong. Sometimes I think, for me, it was also like imposter syndrome, I'm stepping into a very different kind of career than I thought I would be in. So I will have to embrace this because it's, it's reality. But it doesn't really matter how you get there as long as you're willing to constantly be on guard for.

Robert Greiner:

So let me run this by you because I don't, I just popped into my head, I don't even know if it's gonna make sense. You and I in our position, it's, it's, we have the luxury of being able to be wrong, more, it's it seems counterintuitive, because we may be making a financial decision that can impact 100 people, right, so that the stakes are higher. But I remember, I mean, growing up as a software developer, being an individual contributor, that your whole, like, performance review was centered around you being correct, accurate, right. But it's one thing to not be able to tell the future and plan perfectly. Okay, fine. And agile tries to mitigate that, like we talked about, but to create software with defects where you, you should know better, like professionals, if you're in the NFL, you don't run your route, right, or you're a chef, you don't wash your hands, or you're an opera singer and your voice is all crackly because you ate too much salsa the day before. Like, these things like shouldn't happen, right? And so there's a level of accuracy or precision, that I think the more junior you are, the more important that is not not being wrong about. But but maybe that's just more like on the analytical side. If your writing software like it may be it works or it doesn't, as far as it may not do the right things, but at least it does it correctly. Like it doesn't crash on you or something I don't know, because I'm kind of at the point where I'm rambling now. But I think the more senior you get, the more lenient there is for being wrong and adjusting and adapting. And if you take that mentality that you had as an individual contributors and account and making sure that both sides of the calculation balance is not what you should be bringing to the complex world of leadership of trying to predict the future of where's this product or organization going. It's almost a different mentality, but we treat them as if they're the same.

Tiffany Lentz:

That makes sense to me. I can't, I can't quite put my finger on all the nuance, just and I'm also still processing. But what you're saying makes a lot of sense. And no, I mean, at our company, I think we are rare, in that even as a junior individual contributor, there's a piece of your success measures that are very tangible and analytical and literal. And then there's a piece that are very subjective and about developing you as a higher level thinker developing as a human

Robert Greiner:

identifying issues and risks is one. Yeah, like even at the most college higher, newest level, there's still expectations around something's not right here. Like you, I should escalate this in the right way, that kind of thing.

Tiffany Lentz:

And even even if you're wrong, if you identified the way you thought to identify something, and you identified it in the right way. I think that's encouraged. But but but our culture is rare. So taking it outside of our our development process, our effectiveness framework, more standard job experiences. You are right, in that we look for people, we look for accuracy at certain levels, but there's also accuracy at greater levels. I think it's just for different things. Like, I mean, a brain surgeon has to be equally accurate, even if they're just starting out as a surgeon, or if they've been a surgeon for 20 years. But they might have to be more accurate at training others or accurate at policy, perhaps in a hospital or recommendations to medical boards, versus having a scalpel, or robotics at this point, I guess. But the the accuracy I guess it's maybe the accuracy, and maybe it's more about the impact versus the might the minutiae of the accuracy that is that needs to be present for junior for people who are more junior in their career. Just thinking out Yeah,

Robert Greiner:

yeah, there is a impact or like, what, what kind of like, what kind of space are you in? Like, I think Neil deGrasse, Tyson had a good quote where he said, let's say I don't care if people think the earth is flat, I just You can go off and think that cool, I just don't want you creating policy, thinking that Earth is flat. So I think there's some benign core, if I call it a core belief, but points of view. But then you enter this zone of impact, where I think things need to be a little bit more careful. It'd be exhausting to do for 100% of the things you think and feel that that this book recommends. I don't think it's it's certainly not saying that. But chapter one, I think was, was talking about not doing that. But there are moments in time where the stakes are higher, where more people are impacted. Those types of things where that's when it makes sense to have some practice around. Rethinking, documenting what could go wrong, what would make what why you could be wrong, thinking that through those kinds of things. I think that's where the real benefit is. And then I guess one identifying when you're when you're in that situation,

Tiffany Lentz:

yeah. Yeah. That's a great thought, though. Thank you for pressing that out loud.

Robert Greiner:

While I'm not sure how helpful it was, but we'll see. Cool. Anything else in this chapter?

Tiffany Lentz:

Don't think so? Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Cool.

Robert Greiner:

I'm gonna read the last paragraph if that's okay. With

Tiffany Lentz:

Yeah, go for it.

Robert Greiner:

Okay. Every time we encounter new information, we have a choice. We can attach our opinions to our identities and stand our ground in the stubbornness of preaching and prosecuting. Or we can operate more like scientists defining ourselves as people committed to the pursuit of truth, even if it means proving our own views wrong. And the main thing I think I want to take away from there is reframing what being right looks like they did talk about scientists care about being right, in the final analysis, right? Not, not in the next day or week or month, but in the long term. And I like thinking through, I do want to maybe spend some time on what do I want to be measured as right where maybe I want the people that work under my care to have had the best team experience they've ever had in their careers, when they join my team. And that that's a whole different that has nothing to do with accuracy, precision being right. None of that. And so, if I find myself getting impatient, that's when I would get the I don't know if the book is going to cover this in the future. But when I get kind of hung on ideas, it's because of impatience. Usually for me. I just want to get going. And I don't like I've already we've already talked about this. We've already I don't want to go back. Because I don't like rewatching movies. I don't like rereading books. I don't like redoing homework. And once it's done, I want to check it off and move on. And that's not that's definitely borne out of competitiveness, right. And so that kind of hurry, though, is not is not helpful. So maybe reframing in those moments would be helpful. But anyway, maybe we can. Maybe we'll get to that later in the book.

Tiffany Lentz:

Yes, that'll be interesting. Cool. This is good.

Robert Greiner:

It's good seeing you. Happy new year!

Tiffany Lentz:

Thank you. Thank you.

Robert Greiner:

This will probably come out sometime in February. So it will sound weird. If you've made it this far. Thank you.

Tiffany Lentz:

Okay, so our forecast was a little off. Sorry. It was a joy Anyway,

Robert Greiner:

that's all right. All right. Well, have a good week. I'll talk to you soon.

Tiffany Lentz:

Thanks, you too. Bye.

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About the Podcast

The Industry of Trust
Leadership stories focused on maximizing human-centric organizational potential
Have you ever found yourself on a losing team? In our experience, teams that fail at achieving their objective rarely lack the expertise or drive to win. Rather, they are dysfunctional and can't operate effectively together. In The Industry of Trust Podcast, Tiffany and Robert explore leading through a foundation of trust as a method to build exceptional teams that change the world.