Hey everyone, This is Chris from Hacking Your Leadership and on today's guest interview, we're joined by Joe Davis. Joe is a managing director and senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group, where he's led teams for more than thirty years. His new book, The Generous Leader, Seven Ways to Give of yourself for Everyone's Gain, was released yesterday and is already sitting high on several bestseller lists. Welcome, Joe, say how to our audience. Hello everybody,
Thank you for having me here. Chris, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. I read somewhere that while there are you know, stories and insights from throughout your career in this book, that it was your leadership journey and experience during the COVID pandemic that was the impetus for writing it. So the first thing I want to ask you is was there a moment sometime in twenty twenty or twenty twenty one where you remember thinking or realizing that the
characteristics of successful leadership before COVID were no longer enough? You know, I'll tell you I think the moment probably well, can I use two moments? Yeah? If you asked for one. I know, I always cheat it, yeah, I've always One moment was actually I did town halls, which we all did, but they were a little different in those times, and the tools were different. We had zoom. Now it was and at the second town hall I did, I think it was a second from my daughter's
bedroom, just a fluke. I just picked her bedroom. She was growing and out in the room and had clouds and hearts all over the wall, which is one thing. And one of my oldest daughter had just returned to Germany right as you know, all the planes were shutting down and international travel
and everything, so this was quite stressful to us. Then she landed and sent us a note saying her husband back in California as COVID, and no one knew what that meant at that time, you remember, And my other daughter was a nurse at Harbor View, which I think was where the first
case was brought. I can't quite but anyway, very early case. And I remember I gave this did this town hall and told that story and choked up because here I am talking about my kids, you know, And that's just the uncertainty of everything and the outpouring of mostly by email and text of support and wow, you enabled me to let go a little bit and to think about my children, you know, and to you know cry if I felt that crying was so powerful that you know, it just signaled to me.
It depends. Maybe it's by time, the time, you know, the time and history. But there is more than just the right strategy, the right vision, the right metrics, the right this, and that there is actually people looking for you to connect with them in ways that motivatespire them. The second one is pretty telling for me, which just very powerful, which you know, this whole concept of taking the other perspectives of another or
living you know, their lived experience isn't yours. And I was talking to a person at BCG, maybe a second year consultants, and he was on his bed. I said, what do you do it on the bed? He said, well, we have a bedroom in a living room and a little kitchen at and we take off. My daughter gets my wife gets the living room one week and I get the bed. Then we switch and I get the living room, she gets the bed. And here I was, you know, I've been at PC forty years, thirty years in a house
with a lot of pat trips. I thought, wow, this my experience ain't his or his ain't mine. It was very powerful. And you know, and how leadership needs more than just the basics. Are critical. Got hit the numbers, we all know that, but if you want to inspire motivated people to help you get there, you know, things like understanding their Olympic lived experience, empathy, sharing a little bit of vulnerability as much as
you're comfortable with is so powerful. I love both those stories, ain't They're
fantastic. I think you made your career during a time when those qualities weren't ubiquitous or rewarded in a lot of circumstances when it comes to the business world, and in worst case scenario, they were they were punished, you know, like it was it was it was seen as as weakness or you know, if a person is doing this, how the heck are they going to hold somebody accountable for you know, the numbers are getting getting the scorecards right?
How well? How have you navigated that in the times when it was not considered a good thing. Yes, it's funny, Chris, because people who didn't know me said, you're just a tough guy. Numbers numbers one, so I never lost sight of we have to deliver, and we're going to deliver, and we're going to grow, We're to make the numbers.
I just believed that I could never do it myself. I you know, I had some feedback once from my mentor who said, Joe, if I put you and this other person in a room, four white walls, no way to get out unless you solve the problem. Now this canna be at harsh, but he said, you would probably not solve the problem by yourself. You couldn't get out of the room. The other guy would get out of the room every time. But then I said, Okay, you have
the solution, now go do it. Get it done. In an organization, you would get it done one hundred percent of the time. He would never get it done. You know, partly because you know what you don't know. You're willing to be collaborative, you know how to inspire and motivate, you know, et cetera. I think there was enough lessons and signals in my life that just work pretty well. Although people always thought I was a numbers person until you got to know, it's kind of funny if you
didn't work with me, because I always hit the numbers. You know, maybe I'm sure I miss sometimes, but you know, yeah, I mean it's it's tough to criticize somebody for whatever whatever their style happens to be if if the numbers are there, and oftentimes the numbers will will get a leader left alone for a bit. But but if they're leading in a way that is not the right way in terms of how their people see them, it'll
be short lived. No, no, I agree. You know, someone asked me about all the tech leaders of our time, and I won't go into that, but but I did, you know, I said, well, you're missing such and Adela and and I don't well, G know such, I don't knows much personally, but you know that felt. You know, he turned around Microsoft with a vision, but then with culture, he changed the culture drastically. Let's talk to each other, let's open up,
let's admit failures, I mean, all the classic stuff. So maybe he's not like some of the Silicon Valley. Well, I call him technical genius. The genius is technically, of course, you can get a long ways, but he actually was one who you know us the heart, I guess you might say, also to motivate, inspire, and it was probably required to change that place after the Steve Balmer kind of tough guy. No I'm not saying not a comment on Steve generally, but you know that's at least
the reputation of the place at that time. The other story example you gave around, you know, seeing the employee on their bed and what they said about how them and their their wife kind of they they take turns and in
the good space for whatever the meetings were. It is interesting because I think, you know, when it comes to a lot of the challenges that leaders navigate in times of challenge and so not just you know, something like COVID, but you know, if if there's an economic downturn and jobs have to be you know, let go, or you know anything really where the tough conversations happen that that no one wants to have, but that are necessary some
times. The ability to not just seem like or or say the words that indicate you're in the same boat with this person, but actually that you are in the same boat with them, not that you're just saying it that the difference in the outcomes are just they're astronomical when it comes to how people will pull together for an organization versus how they won't just seeing how their leader acts and how their leader believes that they are all in this together or that they're
not. The lack of empathy and the flippant nature with which some of these things are done, they just don't go over well. And no matter how many times it happens. The massive transparency available online to be able to see that these things don't go over well, and yet they still seem to happen. It's at best curious to me and at worst just like baffling to me
why they continue to happen. And there are so many good examples too, so many good examples that are a lauded by the public and by social media, that you would think some of these some of these leaders would take a lesson or at least do some research before moving forward. I had the luxury of talking to Scott Kirby the Seal of United during this book, and he was telling me during COVID he said, well, I'm going to tell the people that I don't know how long this is going to be broken and how
long it's going to be help and his team. You can't show weakness. Ye're the CEO and he said he just find ently disagree we don't have the answer. We go tell him we have the answer. Then six months with I'll discover we don't. You know, we can show a little a little bit of humble this yere a little bit honesty. Now. I don't think as a leader you want to look lost scared, but there's nothing wrong with
displaying, Hey, I'm not sure where we're going. It's where it's going to all go there together, and you know, think art et cetera. I have many years in the retail space in leadership, but started out actually
in retail. And the line that is taught now to a lot of you know, basic retail associates that really wasn't taught for the longest time is this concept of you know, I don't know, but let's figure it out together, right, And so people see through an attempt to both to imply that you know something when you don't, because even if even if they don't see it the very first time, they'll see it eventually and once you've lost the
credibility. And this is whether you're talking about a sales interaction between an associate and a customer or a communication interaction between a CEO and a team of people. Once they see through that and you've lost the credibility, it's really difficult. It's not impossible to get that back. And so you know, just just saying, you know, I don't have all the answers, but we're
trying to find them. We're trying to find the answers, and we'll be transparent, you know, because the people that you're talking to they don't have the answers either. So it's not like it's not like a thinking, well, duh, I know the answer? How come they do not? Just you know, just testing they don't. They don't know either. And so if you if you don't know, the weak weakness doesn't doesn't come from not
knowing. Weakness comes from not even having a plan to try to figure out, right, you have to at least have something in place to say, these are the next steps, and we're moving forward with this thing based on the information we do have. But it may change, but you'll be the first to know if it changes, because we want to make sure that you're that you're involved in this because it affects you just as it impacts us. You know, I bet your weakness also comes a bit from pretending you always
know when you don't know, because eventually it's gonna crash. Of course, it's this goes to the whole concept of vulnerability. In one of my colleagues, I was asking this person about, you know, authenticity and vulnerability. He said, I used to be afraid to say I don't know, and so I'd be in a team room and I could tell where no one knew what was going We're lost, and they were gonna look to me pretty soon say what should we do? And I might not know, he said.
I would leave the room before I get the question. He said, well, that's a really, I mean, I could be productive now, he said, what Finally, one time I stayed and said, you know, I don't know either, and he says, like a breath of fresh air, with oh you don't know either, Oh none of us know, And then the juice is just started flowing because nobody was afraid of anything. Just as the biggest eye opener for him, Hey, it was easier to say
I don't know. He's although I still struggle to say I don't know sometimes. I think a lot of leaders still struggle to say that. But but there's no question that you know, psychological safety just skyrockets in any room where once the leader has shown like it has to be role modeled. Like there there is no psychological safety in a room where it isn't role modeled by whoever the leader is, you know, the if everybody thinks the leader has the
answer, then no one's trying to solve the problem. They're just trying to say what they believe the leader already thinks is the answer. They're trying to figure that out, and that's the wrong problem to solve. And if the leader doesn't have the answer to begin with, then it's an impossible problem to solve, And so there are waste time of course, of course. So
yeah, it's typically all you have. It's amazing what you can get done once everybody can kind of just look at each other and agree and say, hey, you know what, you know, nobody here knows the answer, so so let's figure this out together. Uh than uh than people just trying to you know, put forward this this appearance of of knowing. I think
it's funny when when it comes to to empathy. My uh my wife will sometimes you know, look at Instagram reels and she'll send me things and with the caption, she'll she'll type out the caption, I think this person is spying on me, meaning she'll see something from another young mother who is having trouble keeping things together, right, whether it's car pools and schedules and and
and illnesses and children and all the things that that happen. And for the for the longest time, no one saw that, and and and social media was was looked at as a negative influence because all you saw was the rose colored lens stuff. You know, when you start to look at the the the aggregate of all the stuff you're seeing, and all you're seeing is, Wow, this person got a new car, and this person went on a vacation, and this person is doing all these things. My life is terrible,
and that that brings you down. And there's this there's this kind of new wave of social media influencers that are that are gaining a following by the vulnerability by saying I don't have my stuff together and these are these are the struggles that I have. And then you get people watching this going, oh my gosh, I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one who
doesn't have my stuff together. All these other people do too. I feel seen, you know, maybe for the first time, and I'm able to put down this bag of bricks that is self judgment and believing that I don't deserve to be here, and believing that I'm in the wrong role, and that I've failed as a human being, as a parent and a whatever. It's just a really incredible how that can be a force for good as opposed to just a force for bad in the right hands. Yeah, it's so
interesting you said that, because I mean social media. There's a lot of good things, of course, the access and all kinds of stuff, but there's a lot of things that you started. But I actually even think to think about it. I mean, what were the soap operas or the advertisements that my first job was Procter and Gamble, you know, the housewife look perfect, the kids look back then were sad, and then of course all the advertisements that you can buy this car, you should look like this.
It probably was not just social media. Actually, maybe social media is going to enable us to be more vulnerable to your point, right, as a regular, regular person can show their regular life. Yeah, in your book, you use one of the things that you you talk about when it comes to what it what it means to be a generous leader, and you can you can trust you know, kind of new styles of leadership versus old styles.
And I think part of the reason that this is this was difficult for a lot of people, a lot more people, and still is difficult for some people today, is that it's hard to quantify success on an Excel spreadsheet or a scorecard somewhere. It's hard for a person to say that the leading in this way, that this is the right way to lead because it does this and this and this, this, look at the impact of the scorecard.
You can only do that in hindsight. You can only connect the dots looking backwards and saying I did this for this amount of time and look what it did. In order to do that, you have to have the buy in or at least the leeway or the freedom from your own leaders to have that time to do that, to say this is uh, you know, trust me, you put me this role for a reason, this is the
way that I think it's successful. And then and then you're taking you're asking them to take a risk on you or a bet on you that the way you're doing it is correct. A lot of people have our time doing that because they can't quantify it. They it has to be something that is more ethereal as opposed to you know, one plus one equals two. Yeah. No, you probably saw the book the Samir Bodus, who's now CEO. I said us he he was, He said, I was a wark and
guy numbers numbers. Started at Microsoft. It was all delivered, delivered many years ago. So this wasn't satcha is delivered to me, but it was numbers, numbers, numbers. So then I changed jobs, had my first turnaround I had to do and I realized, Wow, I just can't holler at people and say that's the number. That's thing is broken. It has to change. We're not treating our customers, We're not treating each other right,
We're not being honest. He said, we weren't being honest. Were and so you know, he said, I just tried something different, honesty, and wow, we turned it around. He said. It was very
eye opening for me. But even then, whatever board that was had to give him the time, your rights, and well, I guess it worked, and I'm sure it wasn't just well, actually he would argue, of course, he still had metrics and all that, but the fact that we start to be honest with ourselves and our customers changed everything, which you know is a version of vulnerability. Yeah, no, you're right. Someone wants asked me, what are metrics you put in place for this? And it's
you know, you struggle like hell to answer that. I mean BCG's look, we have an upward feedback and it's three sixty two, so it's not but every young and it's and it's anonymous, so it can be brutal. But you you get feedback as a very senior guy every year. And if you get a lot of we call him red triangles, you're in trouble in our place. But it's not that common to have that kind of feedback. I mean, that's pretty unusual. Culture. It's cultural for sure. You
can't just start it going. It'll fill miserably. You have the culture will create the tools. The tools don't create the culture. I agree with you, and I do think things are shifting, right. I mean, social media change stuff because now it's all exposed all the time. And you know, someone asked me their day, Well, isn't it that you know the tough times? You know, a tough leader. I was thinking about that,
And of course the question is what does the word tough mean. If it means but if tough means I can make tough decisions, and I can make them fast, because you have to, right, but if also it means I can, you know, at least myself a bit to engage with my people, which you know, I know. It was Kristin Peck that
said over half the employees are millennials. And if you had the gen zers now, which are what thirteen to twenty six or something, you know, most of our employees are young people who do, at least now, indicate quite different demands. You know, they're actually asking for a more but that now maybe when they're old enough that they have three kids, two cars and
a mortgage things. You know, I always wonder about it, but I don't think so, because even thirty five year olds are expecting rightly, you're very good. So you know, you do believe that that is starting to shift, as you said, And I just I think the more people that experience, I mean, I just think of the beast of years I talked to or the first time they were vulnerable, the first time they gave up the mask of them they said, my gosh, it was so freeing.
I saved so much time. It wasn't being me. It was so hard now that leader just changed. And that's you know, one wanted person at a time. Although also you opened with you know, if you're not really treating the people right, they just leave. And it's pretty easy to leave nowadays. And the best it's very easy to leave because someone said, well, Joe, but you know it's always someone else. Yeah, but you don't you don't want the best to be rotating out of your company. You
don't want anybody. But you don't want the best to be leaving your company for the next company. Right, That's not that's not the path to success. Yeah, there there's I think there there are generational differences, but I think of you know, the one of the one of the one of the benefits of the younger generation to organizations is that they will leave if there's a
problem. I think when it comes to a lot of Gen xers and baby boomers, they are more likely than millennials and Gen Zers to stay at a job they don't like, as opposed to leaving but not do it well, like just do it enough to just get by and in a lot of in a lot of circumstances. That's worse for an organization because you're not you're not getting the canary and the coal mine of an exodus of people who are leaving. Where you can go, what's going on here? Let's react to this.
You're thinking everybody, nobody's leaving, everybody must be happy. It's like and when I ask them, they say they're happy, and the engagement survey people say yeah, everything's good. They're not being honest, they're not working hard anymore. They've checked out. And now you have an even larger problem to solve because you have people who who you you have to convince them to
now, you know, give their all. At least if the culture is bad and people are leaving, you have the ability to do a reset almost you can figure this out and try to move through it. And so yeah, this this this idea of not sticking around if you're having a problem. It's not good for companies, but it could be worse. And that is a team of people who are sticking around and just not doing well anymore. Yeah, well, no, you're right, it's not good for companies.
But maybe I think your other point there is it is actually good because now you say, oh gosh, what's going on here and what are we going to do and what are we going to change? I was I was taken back by one of the things you said in the book. You use the term see the person, not the role when it comes to, you know, speaking to somebody. And there's been a lot of work and discussion and movement over the last three or four years in the d n I space in
organizations, and a lot of it has been reactive. A lot of it has been, you know, this idea that oh my gosh, we're gonna be held accountable if we don't. And sometimes the right thing for the wrong reason is still the right thing. You know, you hope it's the right thing for the right reason. But movement is movement. But this idea of seeing a person and not a role, it takes effort to do that.
If the person that you're seeing is not someone you can relate to, either they are in a different point of their career as you, or they are you know, you're you're in the house and they're on the bed. You know, when it comes to you know, the zoom, the company conference call. If they are a different skin color than you, Uh if they have kids and you don't, or you don't and you do and they don't. Uh, if you don't listen to the same music, if you grew
up in a completely different location or country. All these things can make the jumping off point of forming a relationship with somebody much more difficult. And human beings as as as as animals, you know, we want to uh we look for real easy things. It's like it's this like kind of quick I want to strengthen numbers. I need to look around and find people who are
like me, because that's where the strength lies. And there's so much that connects us in terms of our humanity that you can't see and and you just have to like kind of dig blow the surface. And I think the people who who do that well are the ones that have the ability to see the person and not the role. And there are so many people out there who just don't. They don't make the effort, and they surround themselves with people who are like them, and they they just don't. They just take the
kind of the easy way out. Much more difficult for leaders that I've seen, they really struggle with seeing the person and not the role. They see the role. You know, the thing I was just thinking about it is you were talking because it's a very tricky thing. I mean, I like people, I see people, but a twenty seven year old isn't going to say what's the sixty six year old? I just not go. But you know, then you have to move past Okay, I'm not going to be
that kid's friend. I mean maybe we'll have a relationship, but I'll conn be their friend. But if I see them in the work environment as the person, not the role. So what can this person bring? What are their experience that are valuable? What do they know? I don't know. Oh they know twenty seven year old? What does that tell me about that set of you know, customers of your business? And not to make yourself think you have to know the twenty seven year old in their world or their
them as your friend. At least it gives you an a way to get there because ye as I listened, I thought, wow, that's well put Now what do you do? But you just look at them as as if someone can contribute to your company. You've probably read in the story that was so stark for me. I used to do these deliberate discourse tenders they were called, which was tables of eight to ten. It was a facility of conversation about when did you discover race? It's about race, and we have
and it was hopefully a colection. You know, there might have been an LGBTQ woman, a regular old white, thirty year old male black guy. It was just a variety of people. We tried to get their variety of backgrounds. And one person looked up and he said, the black guy printed maybe five years into bc She said, Joe, you don't get it. I wake up every day and I walk out the door and I'm worried I'm
gonna get shot. And I thought, shit, but this is what you know, and the thing in most of business you need to be on most of the time, and a portion of this guy's person's brain is on how am I live today? But it was really said to me, Wow, you know, I have to really spend more time seeing this person, not not just the role. I mean, he was a very talented principle at BCG that's okay, but look what he's fighting through to make it work.
Quite powerful, but ultimately, at least see what they can contribute in your organization, like they just have different experiences, different thinking, different back you know, different well, just different thinking, the different ways of seeing problems and if you can understand, okay, that will actually contribute sure well in an organization like like Boston Consulting Group or or any of the the organizations that
do what what BCG does? You know, the nature of that is that you you have to be able to be an effective consultant team for organizations no matter where they are, and no matter what type of clientele they have,
no matter what type of employees they have. You know, you have people to do that if you if you if all you have working on your teams are people who are just like you, then then I'm sure you'll a core customer, right But but you're there's there's definitely gonna be a ceiling that you can't go past or where you're not going to be able to be appealing to other businesses because you just don't have the ability to walk in their shoes.
You don't have the you don't have the right people in place to do it, you know. And so it's like I think I think the uh, one of the one of the things that we've learned over probably the last thirty years, but but more so in the last you know, ten or fifteen, is that you don't do diversity, equity and inclusion simply because it's the right thing to do. It's actually the smart business thing to do also, and and it's not often that you don't have to choose between the two.
Like a lot of a lot of companies, you're having to choose between what you think is the right thing to do right and the correct thing to do right. And sometimes they don't always line up or or at least they don't
fit right on top of each other. This one, it really does, and and it's a you know, the the organizations that index really well on these metrics are the ones where it's just clear they understand that they believe that it's they're not doing this in order to get points on their you know, the ESG score. You know, they're they're not doing it to to not
be you know, chastised on social media by by activist groups. They're doing it because they want to grow their business and they want to make more money, and this is the way they're doing it. You're just you know, there's study after study by the consulting firms, actually by the banks, by the hedge funds, even about the you know, oh look when half the C suite as women, the numbers are better. Right, It's just so
much data that proves this. People call out a performative ally, someone who does it because oh the metrics tell me to or oh my boss is going to look at the numbers versus and that's you can be an ally as a company too, versus you know what, I I guess it's a word company. He's an action ally who someone actually goes out of the way to help pay the opportunity for someone. So why why they were generous as opposed to
something else? What was it about that work? Because because I'll be honest, it seems it seems basic, Like it seems like a pretty basic thing. It's not a it's not a profound word, but but there's some power in that. There's some power in that. It's like it's almost like, don't don't overthink this. This is pretty this is pretty basic. These things are not they're not necessarily easy to do. But uh, but you're not
inventing fire here. You're you're you're telling somebody something that they probably should already know. So can I give you a really honest answer. Of course you're gonna say. Yes. It's very funny because Ridgely, I was working on this book with a hybrid publisher, and I had to come up with my own title, and it was different driven. It was it sound like, it's kind of like Briven Brannie Brown's title, but I had something different,
driven to care or something, so I thought. Then I switched to BK this the affiliate of Benglin Random House, and that he is on the phone with the or the video you know, zoom all time with two editors, and one guy goes, Joe, your title is terrible. It's okay. And I had been warned that editors know what they're doing, so basically take it. And he said, you got to call it the generous Leader. He just got really excited. And then the other guy starts pounding on the
computer. Oh it's not taking, it's not taken. Say yes, right now, I just met these guys. I said, well, okay, I'm there screaming out, not screaming, but come on, it's the greatest word. It's so great. And then I said, all right, then I call them the next day. I said, but wait a minute, what do people think I say, I'm the generous leader. He said, hey, you've been successful in business forty years. Get used to it. Okay, But then to your point, it's just a much more encompassing word.
And now guy, I also got shot, Oh you mean pay more money? No I didn't. You know, you have to make sure that's not what I meant. But once you get that, I actually mean all the words you and I've talked about seeing the person empathy, showing some vulnerability. I mean, really, what it is is giving of yourself without plan for gain, so that others can grow and develop and thrive. And of course when you do that, you benefit. If everybody's thriving, you're going
to win two. You know, it actually might even be easier because everybody else is doing so well around you. So I actually the honest truth is they came up with it, but it's very powerful word. And that's actually part of the goal is to get people to stop. And that's the who goal. Maybe change your leadership a little bit. You see something like that, you say, what's that all you just your pause for a second,
what's that all about? I think the thing that that I would like to know about it is what's the difference between so that you know, you in the there you know seven seven kind of bullet points here, you know, you have generous communication, generous listening, you know, generous inclusion. What's what's the difference between good, effective communication and generous communication? Right? Like there's it implies that there's a that the communication can be good and effective,
but not rise to the level of of generous. Right it implies that that generous listening, that that listening can be good and it can be effective, but not rise to the level of generous. What what is that extra you know, sprinkling of in you know, the meme of the guy with the sprinkling of salt on the meat. What what is that that brings it to that level? It's really that it's about them, not you, and about them first. So a generous listener, what do you know that I don't
know that might help me out? What is your experience that you've had? You know, why are you saying what you're saying as opposed to let me tell you what you need to know to go do your job? You know? Or you know the communicator Joaquin Duato change J told a great story where he said, you know, when I give a speech, I wanted to
connect with people. And what I do is I'll practice with I'll get a group of less tenured employees, which is everybody you know but for him, and I'll practice my talk and then I'll ask them, what did they hear? And then I'll change, you know, and they heard I said they or I said water and they heard waterfall, And I'll use their words because that's actually going to resonate with them. I'm connecting with them, not connecting with what and it allows them then to you know, hear the message and
grow and thrive, et cetera. But I think the big difference between when you say you jump to the generous it's that your motivation is to inspire and motivate others to be as good as they can be, and you're not for your direct gain and or you know you're really you're you're trying to learn from them more than tell them. I think about in places where where feedback is
effective as part of the culture of an organization. You know, I've always believed you have to you have to earn the right to give somebody feedback. And it has nothing to do with your title. It has to do with your relationship with them, and there there are two There are two types of people in my life. There are people who I've earned the right to get feedback to and people who have not earned the right to get feedback to.
There are people in my life that, like my my brother is one of my closest friends, and if I did something that required feedback, the first words out of his mouth would have been something lines of what the hell are you thinking? Right, like things you wouldn't say to somebody you worked with, of course, But but it's because of the relationship and the history. It means that I don't interpret him saying that to me as that he is
believes he's above me, or that he's trying to chastise me. It comes from a place of wanting me to get better or be a better person, and it's he has earned the right to say, what the hell are you doing. It's very rare that you could get to that level with a coworker unless you've worked with them for many, many, many many years. But
you still have to earn the right to give that feedback. And the places where I see feedback fail just fall on its face are when people are giving feedback because what they're trying to solve is their own problem, right, So it's like, you know, I want to give you this feedback because what you're doing is making my life more difficult, you know. And they don't say it that way. They don't say it that way. They try to put it in the words that make it seem like it would be better for
their career and their job if they did it this way instead. But what they're really saying, and the person can read between the lines very easily, is you're making my life more difficult, and I'm trying to make that not happen. And feedback delivered from that place has already failed before you finish the sentence. And feedback delivered from a place where it says where it's clear that whether or not this person does or does not change has no impact on me
whatsoever. But I can tell that it will serve them well in their own career if they do things in a different way. If a person understands that, that's really powerful feedback, and all that takes then is for the person to get out of their own out of their own way and not have the ego to to dismiss it. But It starts with that are you are you? Are you thinking about the other person in what it is you're doing,
or are you thinking about yourself? You know. The other word I use, but it's a tricky word, is you know you and you're just what you just said, you have to care. I mean, your brother cares about you, and you know now you got to earn the right to you get. But if you don't care, it's a little hard to do a lot of these things. You know, I don't quite not now, but you can get to different ways of carrying. I mean, you made a point about they thrive, but I actually believe when they thrive, you as
a leader thrive. That just is a fact. You know you're going to do better, and if you take no credit for it, oh guess what, you're even going to do better. I believe that. So if there is a little bit of a self serve, if you need the self serving nature to get yourself to move, oh well, if everyone around me is knocking out of the park, I'll get some credit for it. You know.
I had an interesting lesson. I went to the West Coast at BCG and had nice success, Leftscoes kind of stuck at one hundred million for I don't know, like three or four years before, but I got there. We were two fifty when I left, and and it kept going year after and after year. And I remember the executive, the team that reviews your person next each year, they looked and they said, oh, actually, all the people on the West Coast are performing better. It's not just like
Joe's yelling at them to be better. They're actually performing. And they said, oh, so there's something going on here that's real, as opposed to somehow he's just selling everything himself or you know, kicking people hard. It was it, you know, And now BCG's pretty good place. But you know, we recognize immediately, Oh, if you make everyone else around you better, the whole thing rises. Well, it goes. It goes back to this, this this idea of you know, working on behalf of others
without without expectation of something in return. And you know, it's the it's it works when it comes to effort and work and feedback and power. That the most powerful people I know, in terms of the actual influence they wield, are the ones who not just don't ever care about gaining power, but
at every turn they actively try to push away the power. It's incredible how much power people will give you once they realize you don't want it, and and and how much power people want to take away from you the moment they get the realization that that's what you wanted to begin with, was the power,
and and it's it's this this kind of disarming of the relationship. People start to trust you with having the influence or the power over something some aspect of their life if they know that you're not going to do wrong with it. And and the best way to know you're not gonna do wrong with it is if you if you are reluctantly taking it to begin with, right, if you're doing it not because you want it, but because you want to see them succeed well. Put well, but I don't have anything down in
that sense. So if a person is reading your book right now, what are you hoping that they get out of it? What are you hoping their takeaway is they put the book down and they want to do different in their own organization as leaders? What do you hope they take away from it to be able to put into practice on their own teams? Yeah, So I hope that someone recognizes when you help others thrive and grow and develop. Actually everybody wins, for sure, they win, and that feels very good.
You win because you're actually helping somebody grow. That's personally very good, and the organization gets to a different place. So actually that's the first because I just you know, it's not about you, it's about everybody. It's about them. And then I do I think the next like the most someone asked me one of the most important things I do think there's kind of two, you know. One is this whole idea of listen to learn and what do
they know that I don't? And really because that's when you get huge unlocks. If you think you know it all, you're stuck. And that then means figure out your ways to be you know, authentic and vulnerable. That's a different line for everybody because the minute you're a little vulnerable that even myths, Oh I don't know what I don't know? What do you know, Chris that I can learn from. That's a vulnerability too, which a lot
of people don't have. So that's that's what I hope is they understand if you actually your spending just like you said, the leaders that are giving the free intern development opportunities, training trainings, that person's growing that later will benefit somewhere. That's what I hope people take away. I hope so too. It almost rises to the level of everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten. You know, we complicate things as adults, and we sometimes lose
some of these things. I think we all start out having them, and they get they get unfortunately coached out of us along the way. But if we can kind of tap into them again, I think it can make for a real difference. And and and as more more people do it, you get a cultural shift, not just in an organization, but in a workforce. Right you in a workforce where people start to realize what's possible. Once you realize what's possible, you're more likely to hold your own leadership accountable to
delivering that because you understand that. You know, how how come these people over here at this organization have they they have the right to this type of leadership. And I don't know, you're you're gonna you're gonna change or I'm gonna go uh and and I think that's where you that's say you get cultural shifts. It's fantastic well, yeah, if we really just think about our country today, if everyone stopped for a little bit and said, why do
they think that way versus I think this way? You don't have to agree, but at least understand why they think it. It's easier to not it's easier to to to think that they're that right. They are the opponent as opposed to thinking, hey, we're on the same team. The opponent is this problem that we're trying to solve. And you and I have different ways of naturally our natural ways or inclinations of how to solve this problem are different,
vastly different. But the opponent is the problem. The opponent is not you, and it's not me. You know, we're we're in this together and we have we you know, it's uh that has taken a back seat over the last you know, maybe decade, and we we I really hope it comes back, because we can solve incredible problems if we start looking at our at each other as as teammates as opposed to opponents. Joe, I want to thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. I
think our listeners will get a lot out of this. We'll put a link to the book in the podcast description, I hope it continues to be successful and that and that people learn some of the things that I've learned from It's a great book. All right, thank you very much. You have a wonderful day today, Joe, you too. Take care.