Teams, Culture, and Driving Systems Change with Dr. English Sall

[00:00:00] When you are thinking about how to select your team and when you're talking to various people,

[00:00:05] that's why it's so important to understand what drives people, what motivates people.

[00:00:09] I have people on my team who will say, I love being of use. I love being of service. It makes me

[00:00:18] fulfilled when I can help and enable this other person reach their goal. And then you have other

[00:00:25] people who are like, I love being kind of in the spotlight. It feeds me to lead a team or be

[00:00:32] kind of the person that people are relying on in that way. And you have to have a healthy mix of these

[00:00:38] people, right? Try putting all the superstars on one team. That doesn't work. You're going to have

[00:00:45] explosions, right? Because everybody wants the same thing. So you have to select for the makeup of a team

[00:00:51] in a way where different people get nourishment from different phases and different roles in a team.

[00:00:59] And that's really when you know that you've hit the jackpot is when you see your team

[00:01:04] working in such a really organic, wonderful way. Not everybody's fighting for the spotlight.

[00:01:11] Not everybody needs to succeed outwardly in this way. But you do see everybody sort of playing to their

[00:01:19] strengths, which is really, I think, a sign of an excellent team and one that you can see does great things.

[00:01:29] That's Dr. English Saul, industrial and organizational psychologist, researcher, founder, CEO, and self-described

[00:01:36] data enthusiast, talking about what it takes to build the kinds of teams that do great things.

[00:01:41] With Dr. Saul, we get to go deep into the weeds on what the science of IO psychology has to say

[00:01:48] about what makes great teams and organizations, and what we can learn from her research and real

[00:01:53] world experience to apply in our own lives. You're listening to the Be a Good Wheel podcast,

[00:01:58] the show where we explore what it means to be a good wheel by digging into scientific research

[00:02:03] and personal stories about human potential and performance.

[00:02:06] I'm your host, Amber Pierce.

[00:02:12] I'm pleased to welcome to the show Dr. English Saul, researcher, founder, adjunct professor of

[00:02:17] industrial and organizational psychology, and self-described data enthusiast. Saul holds a PhD

[00:02:22] in industrial organizational psychology, the scientific study of human behavior within organizations

[00:02:28] and the workplace. Pursuing the role of a next-gen philanthropist, she serves on the board of several

[00:02:33] organizations, including the Saul Family Foundation, Care USA, the END Fund, the African

[00:02:39] Philanthropy Forum, Carolina for Kibera, and Aspen Management Partnership for Health.

[00:02:44] Saul is also the co-founder of Embark, a gender justice initiative powered by CARE.

[00:02:49] Saul is also a co-founder and CEO of a company called Semantics, which specializes in discovery

[00:02:55] and insight generation with unstructured text data. Previously, she co-founded Impact Thread,

[00:03:01] which uses industrial organizational psychology to address organizational development

[00:03:05] through the lens of social good, and was co-director for Aspen Institute's Impact Careers Initiative.

[00:03:13] Saul has also worked as a data strategist fellow with Organize and as a member of the Society for

[00:03:18] Industrial and Organizational Psychologists' United Nations liaison team. She was a visiting

[00:03:23] research fellow at the Social Science Research Institute at Duke University. Throughout her career,

[00:03:29] Saul has gained diverse experience designing research projects and utilizing applied analytics in the

[00:03:34] space of humanitarian work psychology. She has a specific interest in the global health space,

[00:03:39] as she herself has suffered from cystic fibrosis since birth and received a life-saving double lung

[00:03:44] transplant at the age of 19. Saul is a recipient of the Dedication Medal from the Red Cross for

[00:03:49] dedication to providing life-saving blood services, as well as receiving several recognitions for her

[00:03:55] work with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Her research and real-world experience bring a wealth of

[00:04:00] knowledge when it comes to the theory and application of industrial organizational psychology,

[00:04:05] a field of study with great relevance to team sports and organizations, as you'll soon hear.

[00:04:10] I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Welcome to the show, English.

[00:04:15] Awesome. Thank you, Amber. I'm so happy to be here.

[00:04:17] I'm so tickled to get to talk to you about all of this. So, a lot of our listeners may not be familiar

[00:04:23] with this field of study, so I'd like to just jump in and talk about specifically what is industrial

[00:04:29] organizational psychology. A really long name, that's for sure. We had to shorten it in my

[00:04:38] grad program to IO psychology because no one, you know, sitting there, it took half our presentation

[00:04:43] just to say what we were. No, but it really is at its core, you know, the science of work

[00:04:51] and understanding how people relate to work relating to kind of the broader ecosystem around us. I

[00:04:59] studied economics and statistics and psychology in my undergrad and somehow stumbled into interning in

[00:05:08] a lab called IOTech 4D, and it was centered on humanitarian work psychology. And I've always just had a

[00:05:15] passion for basically just like global health and global development and impact careers and how we

[00:05:23] can merge this idea of impact into our day-to-day work life. And so, that lab was just sort of like

[00:05:31] tailor-made for what I wanted to study and didn't even know what IO psychology was until I entered into

[00:05:38] that lab. But I got really lucky in that it was sort of this beautiful combination of economics and

[00:05:44] psychology and statistics all rolled into one. So, that's...

[00:05:47] Yeah. I love it. So, there's a lot to unpack there. First question is, what makes the psychology of

[00:05:55] work different from maybe other fields of psychology? I'm curious about that.

[00:05:59] Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know if I would go into pinpointing necessarily major differences

[00:06:05] because I think it's really fundamental that there is a basic understanding of psychology

[00:06:09] in the way that we all know it when you're thinking about IO psychology. But really, it's about

[00:06:16] taking that understanding of psychology and then relating it to entities, institutions, teams,

[00:06:23] leadership, systems. And so, instead of sort of just looking at the individual,

[00:06:28] we're taking that idea and understanding of how individual psychology works, and then we're relating

[00:06:34] at to a larger ecosystem and thinking about how do we use that information about the understanding

[00:06:40] of the individual to better develop and create systems of work and systems of industry. I think

[00:06:46] a lot of people, you know, it's kind of a realization moment when we talk about how much of our daily life

[00:06:53] is actually spent in work and working. And either in our jobs or in our careers, it's a huge part of the

[00:06:59] human identity and the human experience. And so, how might we sort of take this understanding of

[00:07:04] people and how our brains work and how our personality is and start to apply that to the workplace?

[00:07:11] Yeah, that makes sense. So, I really love this because, and obviously, we're a podcast,

[00:07:16] we focus a lot on sport and athletics. And most of the folks listening are folks who also have jobs.

[00:07:22] So, they also are going to relate to this through the workplace component.

[00:07:25] But what I love about this is how analogous it is to what happens in sport. So, obviously, we can look

[00:07:32] at professional athletes and say, okay, sport is their workplace. And we can look at it in terms

[00:07:36] of that ecosystem. But even for people who are maybe not a professional athlete, there are a lot of

[00:07:41] people who work in sports organizations, whether it's a federation or organizing a club, maybe even

[00:07:47] just being a member of a club. I want to tie in so many things here. There's just like so many layers

[00:07:51] to unpack. So, looking at sport as an analogy for the workplace and how these systems interact,

[00:07:57] I think is super interesting. And one of the things that you talked about in a previous interview

[00:08:02] that I saw was specifically looking at IO psychology in informal economies. So, not necessarily like a

[00:08:10] corporate nine to five structure, but organizations that maybe have a looser understanding or a less

[00:08:16] formal structure. And I'm curious about that. What are some of the differences there? Or like,

[00:08:20] why that distinction? Because I think that applies to the sport and athletics world.

[00:08:25] Yeah. No, it's a great question. So, if we were to unpack kind of the two,

[00:08:30] just taking a step back real quick, because there's these two major words in front of the

[00:08:35] word psychology, industrial and organizational. And a lot of people you might hear refer to the

[00:08:41] industrial part as more of like kind of the hardness part of the processes and really probably was born out

[00:08:48] of, you know, the industrial revolution type era. And so, how do you make a widget better, right? How

[00:08:54] do you get people to work harder, faster, stronger? And then there's the organizational part. And that

[00:08:58] really is what some people might qualify as like the softer side, right? Which is the goal orientation or

[00:09:04] the mission alignment piece. So, the internal kind of motivation as to why we do what we do and how do

[00:09:11] we understand that and measure that in people, these squishy things. And so, when you're talking about

[00:09:15] informal economies, you know, a lot of, and I, you know, I'm going to have to double check on this

[00:09:21] name. So, I might have to say this again, but I believe it was Michael Frise, who started, really

[00:09:26] started talking about this work in informal economies and really around kind of, in some

[00:09:31] respects, entrepreneurship. So, he did a lot of studies in the global south, right? Sort of the

[00:09:37] Latin America, Africa setting around work, but in a place where you're really building something from

[00:09:45] who has, is selling goods, right? Kind of in a cart type scenario or an informal economy, meaning

[00:09:52] there's not a lot of systems or processes in place for kind of the formalized structure of work.

[00:09:58] And I think it's an interesting note to kind of relate it to sports and to teams because I do think

[00:10:06] that there's an informalness about how we define those roles and how we define those jobs and careers

[00:10:13] and what really are, you know, a lot of it is creating your own structure or your own systems

[00:10:19] in how performance looks, what success looks like, how teams are made, right? Like, what does that look

[00:10:28] like? And I think that I love, you know, I personally love studying sports through the lens of IO psychology

[00:10:33] because everything that I have learned and understood is so, you know, sports are just so team-based.

[00:10:40] Even if you're a solo athlete, you have an entire ecosystem and team around you that is critical

[00:10:46] in how you succeed. And so I think there's so much we can learn from just sports and sports teams in

[00:10:53] general about how people want to work with each other and how teams really can lead to a whole

[00:11:01] different echelon of success than I think even just kind of a solo work practice might.

[00:11:07] A hundred percent. Yeah. And this gets to a really great question. So speaking of entrepreneurship,

[00:11:12] you have co-founded at least two companies, Impact Thread and Semantics. So I'm curious,

[00:11:18] like IO psychology can inform sport and vice versa. So I want to talk about your experience in

[00:11:23] entrepreneurship here. Can you tell us a little bit more about the companies and what inspired them?

[00:11:27] Oh, sure. So yeah, you know, Impact Thread came about my, my co-founder of that is my,

[00:11:34] one of my dearest friends, Ann Marie Johnson. And we started that company really when we were in grad

[00:11:39] school and it was kind of formed around a consulting company, mostly because we both felt so aligned

[00:11:45] that we really wanted to be involved in mission oriented companies, how they communicate their

[00:11:52] competitive advantage in the space of also like developing metrics, right? What do metrics of

[00:11:57] impact look like for these sort of mission aligned, mission driven companies?

[00:12:01] And so that's where that was born. And so much of that was us just trying to find our footing as

[00:12:07] IO psychologists as well, and sort of think, where do we really want to focus and how do we want to

[00:12:13] study and how do we take these lessons learned in the academic setting and really apply them to the

[00:12:19] real world? And I think, you know, we learned so much doing that and being consultants in that space,

[00:12:25] especially about how entities work, you know, how do companies work? And how do you take something

[00:12:31] that is really sort of form formalized around certain processes? And how do you start to sort of

[00:12:38] internally move things or, or internally get people aligned on a mission set, a value set, and then

[00:12:45] communicating that externally? So that was, that was really that kind of experience. And then, gosh,

[00:12:52] I guess now almost four years ago is when I started semantics. And I know time just is a construct in

[00:13:01] my life. No, that came out a little bit of a different kind of setting where I was doing my postdoc at

[00:13:11] the time I had finished my PhD and kind of moved into the space of really wanting to learn more about the

[00:13:18] world of sort of digital transformation and still kind of thinking about how that works in informal

[00:13:23] settings and informal economies and how does technology work and get implemented, especially

[00:13:28] in the world of healthcare. And so it took a little bit of a left turn and doing my postdoc and getting

[00:13:34] my second master's in biomedical and health informatics. And through there was part of a lab

[00:13:40] and kind of came across a project that my then co-founder was working on around search and

[00:13:48] information retrieval. And so how do we sort of move away from kind of this linear idea of page search

[00:13:56] that I think we're all so familiar with? Yeah. Because we found that there was a lot of information

[00:14:01] getting missed, right? A lot of people when they're searching on Google or PubMed or sort of that list,

[00:14:07] list type search, don't really get past the first page. And they most often don't get past result

[00:14:13] number four. Wow. And so we kind of started thinking, especially this is kind of at the height of the

[00:14:18] pandemic, there's probably a lot of information out there. And this was this hypothesis was validated

[00:14:24] when we started asking doctors and nurses to kind of go through their Google search and stop going

[00:14:30] through the pages when they stopped seeing relevant information. And they were still going, you know,

[00:14:35] in these studies and pages, you know, 40, 50. Wow. And so we were like, well, there's so much

[00:14:41] relevant information that's getting missed because of how we have habitualized the way we search.

[00:14:46] Yeah. And so at that time, you know, he had developed a kind of visual search mechanism that

[00:14:53] got rid of this idea of pages and really kind of brought to life a more visual way of interacting

[00:14:58] with this squishy information. And so from there, we sort of formed a company around that,

[00:15:03] you know, where we sit today is we have kind of a suite of tools that really does, you know,

[00:15:08] taking kind of my psychology background and kind of bringing in more user experience type

[00:15:14] research that really does sort of attempt to reframe and rethink about how we search and

[00:15:20] retrieve information.

[00:15:21] This is so interesting to me. So I spent some time in the tech world, especially looking at

[00:15:26] product. And this was a really big part of what we did in software was looking at incentive

[00:15:31] structures and human behavior, how people are interacting with each element of the software

[00:15:37] interface. And this is this is just wildly interesting to me for so many reasons. But before I go too

[00:15:44] far down that rabbit hole, I'm really curious to know, as you were building the companies themselves,

[00:15:50] you know, and it sounds like each company sort of relates to a different period of time in your own

[00:15:55] evolution as a researcher and psychologist. How much were you borrowing from IO psychology in

[00:16:01] building the companies themselves or building the teams themselves?

[00:16:05] Yeah, I mean, I would say I'm borrowing from IO psychology all the time. And one of the really

[00:16:12] cool things, in my opinion, about IO psychology is that it is an ever evolving field. We talk a lot

[00:16:19] about open systems versus closed systems in IO. And the difference between the two is that a closed

[00:16:25] system is just sort of a, you know, kind of a constant, maybe loop, right? There's not a lot of

[00:16:30] openness to outside elements that then ensure that the system evolves. And you need to close systems for

[00:16:38] a lot of things. A lot of mechanical things operate kind of in a closed system. Yeah, but IO psychology

[00:16:44] as a practice is really an open system, meaning that it feeds off of the research feeds off of practice and

[00:16:52] practice feeds off of research. And it has to, right? It has to have that openness in order for it to move to,

[00:17:01] you know, a different evolved state. And I think that the cool thing about IO psychology and also just the time

[00:17:07] that we're in, I mean, the pandemic moved a massive paradigm shift, I think, in the world of work, right?

[00:17:13] We now look at, yeah. And it just is, you know, even today, still, most people are not going back to a,

[00:17:22] like, nine to five in the office. And that almost happened overnight in 2020. And so when I started my

[00:17:29] company in, you know, 2021, we started virtually because we didn't really have a choice. And we've

[00:17:36] remained completely virtual. We have a, you know, we have a HQ in North Carolina, but it really,

[00:17:43] from the beginning, we had to think differently about how to build culture, about how to relate

[00:17:50] to one another, about how to have processes and meetings that did not revolve around a brick and

[00:17:55] mortar space. Yeah. And we learned so much around, you know, what does that mean for the camaraderie?

[00:18:04] What does that mean for team building? And so I think that, yes, to answer your question,

[00:18:10] I borrow from IO psychology all the time. But I also feel like it's such a relevant field and space,

[00:18:18] even more so right now, because it is evolving. Yeah.

[00:18:22] Because it has to, it has to keep up with where we are in the world of work. And so I think it's,

[00:18:27] it's a really, it's just a great time to be sort of going back and forth between kind of what's

[00:18:32] happening in the field of IO and then what's happening in the real world and companies and

[00:18:35] organizations. What's really worked for you in terms of building a team culture in a remote first

[00:18:41] environment? You know, I think I've learned so much and I think it's a few things. One is

[00:18:46] recruitment and selection based on the type of environment that you have as a company is,

[00:18:53] is really crucial. I think that I've learned that not everyone thrives in an in-person setting

[00:19:00] and not everyone thrives in a virtual setting. So true. And I think that it's one of those things

[00:19:06] where like you, you actually do have to recruit for that. You actually have to select for that.

[00:19:11] Because I think that historically we have sort of thought, well, this is the norm. So people are,

[00:19:17] are going to fit into this, you know, in a lot of ways that it has been done in the past. It's just

[00:19:22] sort of like, well, this is how it is. And people are going to have to adapt. Right.

[00:19:27] But I think what we're seeing more and more is now that there's kind of more options for how to work.

[00:19:33] There's, you know, completely virtual and completely in the office and everything in between.

[00:19:38] We have the ability to really select for and create job descriptions and create roles that fit that

[00:19:46] continuum. And people are moving into which ones work best for them. So for me, as a mother,

[00:19:53] as somebody who has many kind of identities and roles, the flexibility of schedule, the ability for

[00:20:01] me to be home when my kids get home, the ability for me also in starting a company to take a call at

[00:20:07] 9pm and have flexible hours and ebb and flow with the ebbs and flows of my company, that really lends

[00:20:16] to a virtual setting. And I know that I thrive in a virtual setting. Now I've hired people that

[00:20:22] wanted to thrive in a virtual setting and then soon realized that they actually really enjoyed the

[00:20:28] in-person. They really enjoyed the camaraderie. And that's totally fine. Yeah.

[00:20:33] So I think that's number one is just really trying to lean on, you know, sort of selection and

[00:20:39] recruitment and understanding of what it is people want and how flexible and adaptable as a company you

[00:20:45] can be to that. Right. And being transparent about that conversation. Right. And then I think the

[00:20:51] other thing that we've really learned is you have to, in a lot of ways, like you're kind of missing

[00:20:58] those water cooler moments when you have a completely virtual setting, right? The big time,

[00:21:03] you know, someone they're passing each other in the hallway and they're talking about their families and

[00:21:08] maybe, you know, you, you know, everybody just went to see Deadpool this weekend or whatever,

[00:21:12] you know what I mean? You're, you, you don't have those moments because every interaction

[00:21:16] is more intentional. Every interaction is a planned meeting or there's no by chance kind of moments in

[00:21:23] virtual. And so how do you create those or how do you create at least bonding in a way that kind of

[00:21:30] makes up for those moments? And for me, you have to take advantage of the moments that you are

[00:21:35] in a virtual setting. And so I always, you know, try to start off our meetings with some type of

[00:21:41] non-work conversation or, you know, we, we have a culture chat, you know, in our Google chat where

[00:21:48] people put recipes or they put, you know, photos of their family who just went trick-or-treating. And

[00:21:54] you really have to be intentional about creating spaces that are non-work to allow for that bonding.

[00:22:00] And that it's taken us a little while, but I do think that we've hit a good flow in being able to

[00:22:05] do that. But as a leader, you do have to be really intentional. Yeah.

[00:22:09] About making that time and that space.

[00:22:12] That makes so much sense. That really, really resonates. And one thing I've seen a lot,

[00:22:19] especially since the pandemic and this move more towards virtual is like this ruthless focus on

[00:22:25] efficiency, right? So we are going to have an agenda. We are going to, you know, and believe me,

[00:22:30] I am the first to raise my hand in support of starting meetings on time and ending them on time.

[00:22:35] Like, I really appreciate the punctuality. On the other hand, when you focus so much on efficiency,

[00:22:41] you start to squeeze out all of the breathing room that you're describing where you have this

[00:22:48] built-in buffer to a meeting where, you know, not every single second has to be focused on

[00:22:53] something task oriented. And I really like what you're saying too, about acknowledging the differences

[00:23:00] in how people thrive. Cause that was also something that I observed, even just in terms of this meeting

[00:23:06] efficiency thing is not everybody can process that information in the meeting fast enough to be able to

[00:23:15] form a coherent ideas and then articulate them in the moment. Like some people need more time to

[00:23:20] process. Some people have more introverted or extroverted preferences, and that can affect

[00:23:24] how they interact in the meeting. And like you said, when you're

[00:23:27] kind of forcing people to adapt to the same model, you know, some people are just going to thrive because

[00:23:34] they happen to thrive in that model. And other people are going to really come up against a lot

[00:23:37] of friction and a lot of challenge that isn't really necessary. I'm really curious, how do you kind

[00:23:42] of work toward, I mean, the selection I understand and building in the breathing room, when you're looking

[00:23:49] at people's different working styles, even within the remote first, is there something that you do to

[00:23:53] sort of help people meet them where they are and meet them kind of where they need to thrive?

[00:23:58] Yeah. I mean, I think that some, even just really tactical changes that we've made,

[00:24:04] you know, we're, we're all virtual, but like for our leadership team, we meet in person once a quarter

[00:24:09] for, you know, basically two days to just really get into it and brainstorm. And we aim, this is more

[00:24:16] of a new thing, but we aim to have whole company off sites one to two times a year. So there is that

[00:24:22] in person, there's a, is a handful of people, especially in my company that need almost like

[00:24:27] that catalytic moment of like, okay, we're in person, let's, you know, and it jumpstarts and

[00:24:32] that helps with motivation for the other times in the year when you can't get that in person.

[00:24:36] Yeah.

[00:24:37] So I think that that's a lesson learned, but I also think it's about the culture creation.

[00:24:42] And I think it's about really trying to, I think sometimes when you are working virtual,

[00:24:47] the distance between the different roles in the company or even like leadership and kind of the

[00:24:54] rest of the roles, it feels wider. It feels like a wider distance. And so I try to make myself as

[00:25:01] accessible to everyone in the company as possible. And the same with other members of my leadership

[00:25:06] team, where it's just like, if you have an issue, if you want to talk about anything, it like whatever

[00:25:11] it is, like we have an all hands company meeting once a month. And the other thing that we put into

[00:25:16] place is just more space for people to be together. So it lowers the barriers for asking those

[00:25:23] questions. So with our all hands meeting, we also do monthly lunch and learns where we bring in a

[00:25:30] speaker and it's usually not work related at all. It's usually like someone who's talking about

[00:25:35] leadership development, somebody who is talking about maybe like a different technology that they're

[00:25:40] working on. So I think just creating moments and spaces for people to be together that are low

[00:25:46] pressure and that are just really kind of helping with solidifying a foundation of we're here, we're

[00:25:55] all part of this company, we have these things that connect us that are outside of our jobs, and

[00:26:00] really just trying to make the company itself a safe space for communication.

[00:26:05] There's two things that are coming up in my mind as we're talking about this. One is power

[00:26:09] dynamics and how creating those opportunities for face to face connection, when it's not necessarily

[00:26:16] like leadership team is running the meeting. And then there's like this really clear emphasized

[00:26:21] power dynamic, whereas at a lunch and learn, anybody who's showing up, you're kind of all on the same

[00:26:26] level in the playing field, because the power dynamic does make it harder to communicate,

[00:26:32] right? Like it's definitely intimidating as the individual contributor or the manager

[00:26:38] to pipe up to somebody in the C-suite, especially if it's, you know, you're offering a contrary opinion.

[00:26:45] That sounds like a really, really cool way of doing that. The second thing that I'm thinking about with

[00:26:50] that is also tying back to these water cooler moments and building in that breathing room, because

[00:26:54] I think a benefit of focusing on that ruthless efficiency and keeping everything really focused and

[00:27:00] dialed is you're focused on the work. And the idea behind it is a good intent, right? Is to make the

[00:27:06] most of people's time. Like you're at work, we should be working. We don't want to waste your time,

[00:27:11] which I understand. But when you're describing these moments, you know, even talking about Deadpool or

[00:27:17] having a lunch and learn on something that's not work related, when we're learning something in a

[00:27:24] different way, or we're using our brains in a different way, that's when we make these really

[00:27:28] innovative connections. And I think those are the moments that can really spark exciting new ideas.

[00:27:34] And if we're so focused on work and workflows and efficiency, we don't give our brains the

[00:27:40] breathing room to entertain new ways of thinking or connecting dots that maybe haven't been connected

[00:27:46] yet.

[00:27:47] Absolutely. And that's something too, for me, that I feel like I've taken and learned from

[00:27:51] my study of IO psychology is that yes, efficiency is important. I don't want people to come to a meeting

[00:27:57] and we all just sort of goof off and it's a waste of people's time, right? Like that doesn't help

[00:28:03] anybody. But I think that one of the things that I've seen is that if everyone is so focused on

[00:28:10] efficiency all the time, there's kind of these competitive narratives that can also be formed

[00:28:16] in a company of, you know, it's, we're so task oriented that number one, it sends the message that I

[00:28:24] don't have time or the company doesn't have time for you as a whole person to show up.

[00:28:31] And I think that there's other pieces of that where if we're so task oriented and individual

[00:28:37] focused of getting things done, then the narrative of like, okay, well, we're all a group of people

[00:28:43] working together for aligned goals gets lost.

[00:28:47] Yeah.

[00:28:48] And I found that, you know, quite honestly, in my company, like when there is not a false sense

[00:28:54] of competition, when, when everyone is really trying to work together and there's a reliance,

[00:29:00] right? Like I can do my job, but I know that we're only going to accomplish this overarching goal.

[00:29:06] If, if I do my job and you do your job and you do your job, and if you are having an issue with doing

[00:29:13] your job, then how can I help you? Right. Right. Like there's a, there's a reliance there that I

[00:29:18] think is really important. And we really have to kind of work on a culture of, in IO psychology,

[00:29:24] we call these organizational citizenship behaviors where it's maybe not part of the job description,

[00:29:31] right? Maybe my job is to oversee strategy is to, you know, put together PowerPoint presentations

[00:29:38] for clients. Like maybe that's my, my role as it is stated in my sort of contract, but then there's

[00:29:45] these other things that go unseen that are so important to the foundation of the culture.

[00:29:50] And maybe that's taking out the trash in the office. Maybe that's helping someone install a

[00:29:56] software on their computer that they're having a hard time doing. Maybe that's giving someone feedback

[00:30:00] on their presentation to help them make it better. Right. Like there's these things that are unwritten

[00:30:05] that are like the wet in water of how collaboration really works. And I find that if there's a culture

[00:30:12] set that is so focused on efficiency, those organizational citizenship behaviors often go

[00:30:19] unnoticed. Yes. And it can lead to burnout from individual people who feel like they're constantly

[00:30:24] giving and the ways in which they're giving are not recognized. And so I do think that you have to

[00:30:30] strike a balance between efficiency and just sort of, you know, organizational camaraderie.

[00:30:35] But we found at least within semantics that being able to emphasize that we're all in this together

[00:30:41] and our organization really is one that consists of a group of people working in alignment towards

[00:30:48] goals that we all agree on. Those organizational citizenship behaviors are often more important

[00:30:53] even than the tasks that are outlined in your role. I can't agree with that more. That resonates for so

[00:31:00] many reasons. I have a few thoughts, but I just really want to emphasize the point that you made with

[00:31:05] when we have a ruthless focus on efficiency, we don't make room for seeing our employees and colleagues as

[00:31:13] whole human beings. Like that just, man, that really hits. And that's something I've experienced in

[00:31:19] both good ways and bad ways in sport and in the workplace. And when you do see the whole person,

[00:31:25] man, you create this opportunity for chemistry on the team that is just magical. And I mean,

[00:31:33] it feels like you can just do anything. It's so awesome. And then, like you said, when you don't see

[00:31:39] the whole person, that competitive, you call it false competition. I'm really curious to hear more about

[00:31:45] what's your take on the false competition part of it. Yeah. I mean, I think that it's one of those

[00:31:50] things that a lot of it, I think, has to do with metrics and how you reward behaviors, right? And the

[00:31:56] incentives you put in place. So for example, let's say that you have a fundraising team and a nonprofit.

[00:32:03] And when someone on that team, maybe you have kind of like each person on the team is in charge of a

[00:32:11] client, right? And it's kind of a one-to-one relationship. And when you are looking at metrics,

[00:32:17] all you're looking at is that end state where this person was able to leverage this many dollars from

[00:32:23] this entity or this person. That's one moment in time. What you're missing is all of the moments and

[00:32:32] steps before that that maybe went from this fundraising person to this fundraising person to

[00:32:38] then they were able to close that deal. But what about everybody else, right? Just because they

[00:32:43] weren't responsible for that moment. You think of it like you're watching basketball, right? If LeBron

[00:32:50] makes the shot, great. But what about all the assists that got him there, right? And you even hear

[00:32:57] like the people on the, they're like, oh, so-and-so with the assists, you know? And it's like,

[00:33:01] if we don't reward the assists, then that is creating false competition. Because the whole goal is to work

[00:33:08] together. It shouldn't be about how many deals I land in that moment. It should be about how much

[00:33:14] money the fundraising team is able to bring in together. And if I'm competing against my

[00:33:20] counterpart, if we're competing and we're out there and we're working for the same company or the same

[00:33:26] organization, and I'm trying to get this person to close the deal with me and they're trying to get

[00:33:31] this person to close the deal with them, how does that help anybody, right? Like, shouldn't we be

[00:33:37] working together? Imagine that on a basketball team, right? If LeBron and somebody else are

[00:33:43] fighting over the ball, it's like, just get it in the goal. That's the point.

[00:33:47] Yeah. Man, this really, it's so funny because when I was working a product, one of the things we did

[00:33:53] on my team was we literally called them assists and we made a point of celebrating them and it made such

[00:33:57] a difference. And one of the things I've observed in both sport and the workplace on teams is

[00:34:03] there are those teams in which teammates view the success of other teammates as a threat

[00:34:09] and environments where you view the success of teammates as part of your own success and

[00:34:13] something to be celebrated. And it's kind of two sides of a continuum and the teams are dynamic,

[00:34:19] right? They're constantly evolving. And so making sure that you're celebrating those assists and the

[00:34:25] very least acknowledging them, but taking it a step further to celebrate them continually nudges the

[00:34:32] team in that direction of seeing each other's success as their own success and something to be

[00:34:36] celebrated. I want to go back to something else that you said about being able to rely on each other

[00:34:41] in an environment where you have those citizenship behaviors. I'm thinking back to a moment in my

[00:34:47] racing career where it's really similar to basketball in the sense that on a cycling team,

[00:34:52] we are just trying to get somebody in our team jersey across the finish line first. Like we don't

[00:34:57] really care who wins the race as long as it's someone from our team. And usually what happens

[00:35:02] is most of the members of the team will put in a lot of work so that they're totally gassed by the

[00:35:09] time the finish comes around in order that one of the team members can be really fresh at the finish

[00:35:13] and have the best chance to win. So in a sense, most of the team is giving up their chances at a result

[00:35:18] in order to make sure that give the best probability for a team win. And I remember there was the team where I

[00:35:24] had just really awesome chemistry, like that magical chemistry when you just, you know, you can really

[00:35:30] depend on each other. And one of the things that I noticed about it was we all have bad days. Like

[00:35:36] we're not all showing up at a hundred percent every day. Like it's just not possible. Like there's just

[00:35:41] too many things outside of our control. And so I would have better days and worse days. And so would

[00:35:46] my teammates, but I always trusted, for example, I always worried, right? If I wasn't, if I was having an off

[00:35:51] day, I worried, I wanted to make sure my teammates knew that, Hey, this is just an off day. It's not

[00:35:56] that I'm, I'm not slacking off. I'm giving you a hundred percent of what I have today. It's just

[00:36:00] that maybe it's not a hundred percent of my potential. And I remember there was a race where

[00:36:04] one of my teammates was having an off day and we could see it. And it was like, I never for a second

[00:36:12] doubted in my mind that she was giving everything that she had on the day, not for a second. And we all

[00:36:18] jumped in to cover and make sure that we got the job done. And we ended up getting a really great,

[00:36:22] we won the race with one of our teammates. And I remember after the race, she felt so bad. You

[00:36:28] know, she was, she was in tears, apologizing that she had had this off day and wasn't able to step

[00:36:34] up the way she would. And I remember thinking to myself, you know, of course, reassuring her,

[00:36:39] like we know, like we know if you had more to give, you would have given it. And we know that

[00:36:44] that was all you had to give today. I felt so good about covering for her that day. I felt so

[00:36:50] good about it. And it reminded me of the days that I was in her position and I was feeling so bad that

[00:36:55] I didn't have more to give. It gave me this perspective that even on those bad days, my

[00:37:00] teammates can count on me that I'm doing the best I can. And it gives them an opportunity to step in

[00:37:05] and help me, which honestly sometimes feels good for them too. And that works when you have that

[00:37:11] bedrock of trust, right? It wouldn't work if people were suspecting that I was just slacking

[00:37:17] off and expecting them to cover me all the time. And if it became a pattern, like that would be a

[00:37:21] real problem. But in a really positive team environment, even when somebody has an off day,

[00:37:26] it can be a net positive for the entire team, which is so cool.

[00:37:30] I couldn't agree more. And I think that that right there is the ballgame. That's why you have a team,

[00:37:35] you know? And I think that that's like, there's only so much we can do individually because

[00:37:41] we aren't on our game every day. Like we just aren't. We're humans, you know? And that's okay.

[00:37:48] And in environments where it is okay to be flawed, that I think is really the foundation of trying to

[00:37:57] build that trust, right? And to have that trust. I mean, we have it all the time, even in my company,

[00:38:02] like where it's like, listen guys, my kids are, they woke up and chose violence today. Like I can't,

[00:38:09] I can't process what's happening, you know? And they're like, it's cool. Like we got you,

[00:38:15] you know? And I think that that's really everything. And I even noticed about myself,

[00:38:20] I'm just a much better worker in those environments where that trust is built. Because I find that in

[00:38:26] moments in the past where like, I haven't really had that trust with people, I become very helicopter-y.

[00:38:32] I become very like, okay, can you check in? Can you tell me what you're doing? Like I'm,

[00:38:37] you know what I mean? And I think that we know in a team dynamic, we can see when that trust is not

[00:38:42] there, right? It's a very clear thing when that is missing. And it's almost one of those things where

[00:38:49] when it's there, you kind of are like, oh, it's the air, right? It's just sort of like, there it is.

[00:38:56] And it's like, you can count on it. No, I completely agree. And I think that there's

[00:39:00] part of this too, speaks, I think, to leadership of teams, where it took me a little while, but,

[00:39:08] and a good friend of mine actually said this to me when I was trying, going from kind of like

[00:39:12] being an academic to being a CEO. And those are very different jobs, right? And yeah, totally

[00:39:19] different. And I was so used to like putting out output. Like my job was creating things,

[00:39:24] writing things, having output, having feedback on that output, and then creating more output.

[00:39:29] As a CEO, that's not my job. I barely create output these days. What he told me was that

[00:39:35] your job as a CEO is actually to find great people and great engines and point them at things.

[00:39:41] And that is really what a team is, right? And so I have to trust that on the days that I'm off,

[00:39:49] or on the days where I can't give my whole self, this team is made up of phenomenal engines,

[00:39:54] and they're going to go do their job, because that's what they're doing. And any individual on

[00:40:00] that team trusts the same thing when they're having an off day. And I really do think that,

[00:40:06] you know, I think that that's just really what it's about.

[00:40:08] Yeah. This really is hitting hard, like right in the feels. Good. I think one of the tensions,

[00:40:16] and you alluded to this earlier, is when we don't account for the assists, and we don't account for

[00:40:23] those small things, those trust-building things. Like you said, taking out the garbage, that builds

[00:40:28] trust. And it's almost those smaller, and I mean, I'm thinking this also applies to,

[00:40:34] you know, romantic relationships. It's those small actions over and over again that continually

[00:40:41] build or erode trust. And it's not the big heroic actions that build that trust and create that

[00:40:48] bedrock over time. And yet, when you go in for a performance review, those are typically not things

[00:40:56] that are going to be incorporated in whatever that performance rubric is. And I really feel for folks

[00:41:01] who are putting together those rubrics, because it's difficult. Like, you want to have some

[00:41:06] something, some kind of an objective metric, right, that you can refer to and use as a touchstone,

[00:41:14] use as a framework that's, you know, objective and defensible, right? So that if you're deciding,

[00:41:20] you know, who's going to get a raise, who's going to get a promotion, there are these very clear

[00:41:25] metrics that you can go back to and point to. The problem then is, you know, we have this saying,

[00:41:29] like, what gets measured gets managed. But then the drawback to that is some things are really hard

[00:41:35] to measure. And when the important things are hard to measure, often what happens is we start to over

[00:41:40] index on the things that are easy to measure, even if they're less important to the overall success of

[00:41:47] the team or the company. Is that something that you've come across? And is that something that you

[00:41:51] kind of wrapped your head around? Oh, man, it's, it's honestly, it's just so like, what, what timing

[00:41:59] that you're asking this question? It's, um, do I have it all figured out? Absolutely not. So like,

[00:42:05] maybe call me when you have it when you have it figured out. But I am, we have gone back and forth

[00:42:10] at my company about this, because from a research perspective, it is so clear to me,

[00:42:17] and I think to a lot of other people in my field that we have to start measuring things as a team

[00:42:23] and as a company. And it is really important to do that for the overall success of an entity.

[00:42:30] But then inevitably, you've got the human side of it, right? You've got the people side.

[00:42:36] And people want feedback. Humans crave validation. We crave feedback. We crave,

[00:42:44] tell me how I'm doing. Because if I don't know how I'm doing, I can't figure out what to work on.

[00:42:50] And I can't grow. Yes. And so you have to, the best I can tell you is that you have to walk and

[00:42:56] chew gum, right? You have to do both. And so the way we've thought about it in semantics is,

[00:43:05] okay, what are the incentives that we want to align with the individual?

[00:43:09] Mm-hmm.

[00:43:10] And what are the incentives that we want to align as a team and as a company?

[00:43:14] And so starting with company goals, then dialing back into team goals. We have an engineering team

[00:43:22] and an ops team. How do those goals feed into what our overall company goals are? And then

[00:43:30] thinking about the makeup. And granted, I want to also note that I'm coming from being in a place

[00:43:37] of privilege of having a very small company. So these things are a lot easier to put a magnifying

[00:43:43] glass on and understand and really get nitpicky about because I only have 11 people.

[00:43:50] And you have much better visibility there.

[00:43:52] A hundred percent, right? And time. We can take the time to understand individual wants and desires.

[00:44:01] I do think it can be managed in a larger company, but you almost have to view managers and small

[00:44:08] teams as their own sort of goal entities, right? You have to give the manager kind of that power to

[00:44:14] really uniquely look at everybody on their team that they manage and then figure out what are the

[00:44:19] individual goals here? How can I help hold them accountable to those individual goals? And how do

[00:44:24] those individual goals lead into our team-based goals? And we've gone back and forth about,

[00:44:30] should we do the same percentage raises for everybody if the organizational goals are met?

[00:44:35] Should we do the same bonuses? And so where we've landed now is that we do the same bonuses

[00:44:41] for everyone, but we do raises individually based on individual goals. So come back and ask me in two

[00:44:48] years if that actually works. But I think that it's really hard, but I would say one thing I encourage

[00:44:55] people to really think about is how to honor both, how to honor the team-based incentives and goal

[00:45:03] structures and reward the collaboration, reward those citizenship behaviors that you see happening in

[00:45:10] a team, regardless of profit, regardless of the success of the widget that sells. Really try and

[00:45:18] reward that because I firmly believe if you reward that, other things will come. That's what I see.

[00:45:25] But also recognize that you're dealing with a group of individuals and I need feedback just like

[00:45:29] everybody else. And if you tell me that my professional presence when I'm doing this demo

[00:45:35] needs work, then that's something that I can focus on. And that's something that I can really

[00:45:40] work and aim to better. And I think that that also helps individuals go a long way in their

[00:45:47] mission alignment and their loyalty to an organization.

[00:45:50] Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And bringing it back to a sports analogy, surprise, surprise.

[00:45:56] I'm thinking about in cycling, like I said, we have most races, most of the team is giving up their

[00:46:01] chance for a result to get somebody else on the podium. And unlike basketball, where the whole

[00:46:06] team wins in cycling, there's only one person on the podium. Whereas the entire team put in,

[00:46:11] you know, may have just like put their blood, sweat and tears into making that happen.

[00:46:16] Totally.

[00:46:16] And one of the things I've seen over time is exactly what you're describing is if the director of that

[00:46:23] team takes the time to see each athlete as the whole person individual they are and to understand

[00:46:29] what's motivating them, what's driving them, what are their personal individual goals. And then

[00:46:35] where can we as a team support each individual in their individual goals? Because there will be

[00:46:41] sometimes when the individual goal doesn't align with the team goal, and we really have to prioritize

[00:46:45] the team goal. But me as the individual, if I have to give up my individual aspirations for the team

[00:46:52] goal, that is going to feel so much better. And I'm going to feel so much more invested in that team

[00:46:57] goal. If I know that there will be other opportunities, and that I can trust my team and

[00:47:04] my director to honor my own motivations, my own desires, my own aspirations at other times when it

[00:47:12] does align with the team or, you know, in other ways. Whereas like if I'm constantly being asked to

[00:47:18] give up my own aspirations, my own desires and interests for the sake of the team, and that part of me is

[00:47:26] being ignored, erased, unacknowledged. Yeah. That doesn't set me up to be a really like

[00:47:34] enthusiastic contributor. It'll build resentment, right? And you know, it's so funny we're talking

[00:47:39] about this. I think about this all the time. I'm probably just like every other female millennial on

[00:47:44] the planet right now. I'm a big F1 fan. So I've been watching like Drive to Survive. And I think about

[00:47:49] this all the time. And I'm like, wow, if I could like go undercover for a day, I would love to be an

[00:47:54] biopsychologist for an F1 team. Because this is the exact same thing I think about in their culture

[00:48:00] and their dynamic, because you have two cars, right? Two racers on an F1 team. And usually you've got

[00:48:06] the one that usually wins. You can't have both of them win, right? And they're all fighting for,

[00:48:12] you know, first place pole position. They're all fighting for that. And you have the constructors

[00:48:17] championship that everybody gets points and the team with the most points wins the constructors.

[00:48:22] But then you have the driver's championship. And so that's the individual with the most points.

[00:48:27] And you see over time, the dynamics between these two drivers that are part of a team where one of

[00:48:34] them kind of always somehow is in second place or is not winning to the point where like, the strategy

[00:48:41] is to figure out how to win the constructors championship and have one of the drivers win the

[00:48:46] driver championship. But you watch, you know, over time, and you realize that this person that like,

[00:48:53] even when they are basically in front, you've seen instances where like maybe the manager or the coach

[00:49:01] of the team or whatever is like, you need to give this position to the one who actually has the most

[00:49:05] points so that he can get first place, right?

[00:49:08] Right.

[00:49:08] And you watch over time. And some of these instances, you can see that the resentment builds

[00:49:13] between the one who is always like, well, no, let's let's let this person win versus this person

[00:49:19] that is always having to give up something to help this person, this other person win.

[00:49:24] And it's just fascinating to me because I'm sitting here and I'm like, if you just let this

[00:49:28] other guy win occasionally, you probably wouldn't have the level of resentment that you have by the

[00:49:35] end of four years between these two drivers, you know?

[00:49:38] So anyway, that's yeah, my next career maybe is going to be an IO psychologist for an F1 team.

[00:49:42] We'll see.

[00:49:43] That would be so interesting.

[00:49:46] So fun. Oh my gosh.

[00:49:47] But yeah, that resentment is such a culture killer, right? Like that is, it's the thing that's

[00:49:54] going to erode trust and just take the whole thing down from the bottom up.

[00:49:59] Totally.

[00:49:59] It's huge. It's huge. And it goes back to what you were saying about even,

[00:50:04] it's analogous to selecting for those, those virtual roles. Some people thrive in a virtual

[00:50:09] role. Some people thrive in a, in an in-person role, but they're also like in cycling. I love

[00:50:15] to win. Like it was always fun to win races, but I also really enjoyed being the helper. And I think

[00:50:21] that there are definitely people in the sport who naturally gravitate to that helper role. So

[00:50:25] somebody like me, I would be more likely to feel good about adopting the helper role more frequently

[00:50:33] than being the person who everybody else is writing for. And so learning that about each person on the

[00:50:38] team and understanding that like, okay, this person's going to need maybe more opportunities.

[00:50:42] And this person is genuinely going to feed off from and feel motivated by being that helper and

[00:50:48] being the person who's, you know, doing the assists and just understanding your team.

[00:50:52] Totally. Well, and this can come to light in a lot. Like when you are thinking about how to select your

[00:50:59] team and when you're talking to various people, that's why it's so important to understand what

[00:51:04] drives people, what motivates people. And, you know, I have people on my team who will say,

[00:51:10] they're like, I love being of use. I love being of service to the people around me. It makes me

[00:51:17] fulfilled when I can help and enable this other person reach their goal. And then you have other

[00:51:23] people who are like, I really like accomplishing this. I really like getting the validation that I have

[00:51:30] done something or, you know, I really, I love being kind of in the spotlight. It feeds me to lead a team

[00:51:38] or be kind of the person that people are relying on in that way. And you have to have a healthy mix

[00:51:44] of these people, right? I think that there was a, gosh, I forgot if it was Google or Microsoft or

[00:51:49] there was some large, you know, fortune 500 company a while back that was what was putting information

[00:51:55] out about their selection process and how, what they initially were doing is they were kind of

[00:51:59] selecting all a students, the overachiever superstars, right? Well, try putting all the

[00:52:07] superstars on one team. That doesn't work. You're going to have explosions, right? Because we all,

[00:52:13] everybody wants the same thing. So you, you have to select for the makeup of a team in a way where

[00:52:19] people get nourishment from different phases and different roles in a team. And that's really when

[00:52:25] you know that you've, you've hit the jackpot is when you see your team working in such a, you know,

[00:52:30] a symbiosis, a really organic, wonderful way. Not everybody's fighting for the spotlight. Not

[00:52:37] everybody needs to succeed outwardly in this way, but you do see everybody sort of playing to their

[00:52:44] strengths, which is really, I think a sign of an excellent team and one that you can see does great

[00:52:51] things. Yes. Yeah. That's where you get to the, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts

[00:52:56] where together you can achieve just magical, amazing things. We'll be back with more from Dr.

[00:53:03] English Sol after this quick break. We want to make this podcast financially sustainable and need

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[00:53:27] That's ko-fi.com slash be a good wheel. And now back to our conversation with industrial and

[00:53:35] organizational psychologist, Dr. English Sol. I want to dig a little bit more into the metric

[00:53:44] side of this because when I was doing my research, you described yourself as a data enthusiast. And I

[00:53:49] know that data has been such a big part of your story. And I'm curious, what do you love about data?

[00:53:55] You know, I love data because I love pattern detection. I love when, you know, it kind of

[00:54:03] gets back to like sort of like chaos theory and how what seemingly looks like a lot of unrelatedness

[00:54:10] can come together and you can see a pattern. You can actually see things organically form.

[00:54:16] I also love data quite honestly because it's flawed, right? Like it is a metric. It's something we put in

[00:54:24] place to measure humans or to measure patterns or to measure organic things in the world. And

[00:54:30] therefore, it is not always right. And it's up to people to figure out what about it is actually

[00:54:39] useful. I think it was a, there was a statistician called, his name was, I believe it was George Box.

[00:54:43] And he said, when it comes to statistics, you know, all models are wrong. Some are useful.

[00:54:50] And, and so I think that that is really the beauty of data and science and statistics is like,

[00:54:56] it actually, there's so much humanness in it because we get to detect what's useful and we get to apply

[00:55:04] what is useful.

[00:55:06] Yeah. What is it that drew you to it in the first place? How did you kind of get into it? How did you

[00:55:11] come to like love it in this way?

[00:55:13] I really started really getting into it, I think in my graduate career, because one of the things

[00:55:19] that's really special I feel about IO psychology is we learn to figure out how to measure really latent

[00:55:26] things in a really mathematical way. And so when I say latent, I mean like psychological traits or

[00:55:35] personality traits, right? Like we, we spend a lot of time learning how to develop surveys or questions

[00:55:42] that measure personality and, and put some actual sort of metrics and tangible things against something

[00:55:50] that can really only be observed. And so you think about how do you measure it? You know, we have the

[00:55:55] big five personality constructs here, which is like openness, extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness,

[00:56:03] and oh my God, I'm forgetting the last one. This shows you how far out I am from actually studying

[00:56:08] this stuff. It'll come to me, but these things that you can only observe them and how people behave.

[00:56:14] And so you have to develop a way in which, you know, very specific questions. Do you like being the life

[00:56:21] of the party? That then leads to this measurement of a latent construct through data, through math,

[00:56:28] that we actually can, can put something on and say, yes, this person is high in extroversion.

[00:56:34] And that to me was just the coolest thing. It was like detecting patterns that hadn't ever been

[00:56:38] detected before. That's so awesome. That's so awesome. And one of the things I find really

[00:56:43] interesting about that example, and it kind of goes back to some of the things I observed even just in

[00:56:47] software is we could survey customers and say, you know, and they would tell us, oh, we prefer this,

[00:56:53] we would use this in this way. And then what they reported was often so different

[00:57:01] how they actually behaved, which was so interesting. And that's definitely something that I know that

[00:57:06] especially in research that relies on self-reporting, that's where you have to get

[00:57:11] really tricky with how you're formulating those questions to get at, especially if you're looking

[00:57:16] for the behavior itself.

[00:57:18] Yes, absolutely. And there's, I mean, we have studied a lot around how people,

[00:57:23] you know, a lot of times people will say what they want you to think about them,

[00:57:29] right? Like the humans are smart. If I want you to think a certain way about me,

[00:57:33] I know how to answer questions in that way that maybe hides the thing that you're trying to get at,

[00:57:40] right? And so even when we're measuring things like the really like dark things,

[00:57:44] there's like the dark triad, which is like Machiavellianism, psychopathy, like that kind

[00:57:49] of stuff. You have to be so in tune with humans to be able to catch when people are maybe saying

[00:57:57] something or altering the survey or saying what they want you to hear versus what is really true.

[00:58:04] Yeah. Which I feel like there's two levels to that. There's like the intentional,

[00:58:07] and it might not even be conscious that they're doing that, right? Like they have a particular

[00:58:10] self-concept that they are, you know, maybe even subconsciously trying to protect or give that

[00:58:17] image. But then, so there's that, there definitely this happens intentionally. But then also I think,

[00:58:23] you know, sometimes it's not even something that we're aware of that we're maybe performing in a way,

[00:58:27] we're performing to expectation that in a way that's become habit, that's become a part of who we

[00:58:33] think that we are. And then the behavior itself sort of like belies that. And it's, it's so,

[00:58:39] it's really, it's a really fascinating juxtaposition, I think. And I want to tie this

[00:58:44] back to creating a team. So is this something that you think about when you're hiring or selecting

[00:58:49] for a team?

[00:58:50] Ooh, I think that it's something that people should think about anytime you're selecting,

[00:58:55] right? Even like, let's take this to the next level and talk about dating.

[00:59:00] Like there's, there's, there's going to be moments when you're dating where everybody's trying to put

[00:59:07] on their best selves, right? And so for the first six months, we, you know, we call it the honeymoon

[00:59:13] period, either in dating or even in work and selection. Like there's going to be this sort of

[00:59:19] amp up of like, well, they're putting on their best selves or they're performing. And so there should

[00:59:26] always be an expectation, right? That you're probably going to plateau that you're going to,

[00:59:31] eventually that will level out. And maybe like this person who was the one who was literally taking

[00:59:36] out the trash every day is not going to do it forever. Right? Like that's just like, we just

[00:59:42] need to like know that. And like, that is okay. But what I see happen a lot, and you know, this

[00:59:47] happens in relationships, it happens in selection and recruitment, is that we take that honeymoon phase.

[00:59:54] And then that's where we develop our performance metrics. That's where we set our expectations.

[00:59:59] Oh.

[01:00:00] And if we don't understand that, because it's true for us too, right? Like we have to remember that

[01:00:06] I'm going to be in the honeymoon phase at the beginning of my relationship. I'm not going to,

[01:00:11] you know, start wearing face cream to bed and, and all of those, you know, things before,

[01:00:16] before I'm so sure that he's actually in love with me.

[01:00:19] Right.

[01:00:20] And so how do we really set our expectations for that? Because on the flip side, what also happens

[01:00:27] when that honeymoon phase starts to sort of come down is you, you're able to really actually start

[01:00:33] to build those trust bonds, right? Because that's when the vulnerability is there.

[01:00:38] Yeah.

[01:00:38] Yeah.

[01:00:39] You've performed. Now I'm going to be vulnerable. And I'm going to say, I'm going to take the mask

[01:00:44] off a little bit. This is who I am. This is how I want to interact. And so I do think that there's a

[01:00:49] really wonderful flip side to that, but you have to be open to it. And you can't set your expectations

[01:00:55] on this person's peak level of outward performance. And so I really do think it's about expectation

[01:01:01] setting in that regard.

[01:01:02] Gosh, that's such an interesting idea. And it's so wise because it's really easy to get caught up

[01:01:08] on both sides of that honeymoon phase. And as you were describing it, I'm reflecting back to,

[01:01:13] I feel like every year of my racing career, we went through a honeymoon phase because it was like

[01:01:20] the way that the infrastructure of the sport worked, at least on the women's side at the time was

[01:01:24] there's just really high turnover in sponsorship commitment. So we would typically have a suite

[01:01:30] of sponsors for a one-year contract. And at the end of that year, we would, you know,

[01:01:35] the team management or team owner would re-up with those sponsors and that would determine whether

[01:01:38] the team would continue the next year. And so there was, because of the high turnover in sponsorship,

[01:01:43] there was a very low level of job security year over year. So we were pretty much negotiating a

[01:01:47] contract every year. And you were really lucky if you got to stay on the same team multiple years in a

[01:01:54] row, not necessarily because of anything performance-wise for you as an individual, but just by nature of the

[01:01:59] fact that there was this high turnover in sponsorship. And every year we would come into the beginning of

[01:02:04] the year with this new team, you've got a new set of athletes and the director and everybody's just

[01:02:10] like, this is it. Like, this is the year. This is going to be the greatest team of all time.

[01:02:17] And then, you know, you get through those first few races and you start hitting some of the bigger

[01:02:21] challenges and the masks come off, right? Because that's just, you know, first of all,

[01:02:27] you can't sustain that level of performance. Exactly. And I don't mean performance in like,

[01:02:34] in terms of athletic performance, but just that, like putting the best foot forward and

[01:02:38] everything is rainbows and puffy clouds. Exactly. Exactly. And I like what you're saying about,

[01:02:44] it's so easy to get caught up on in that because it feels so good. And you want,

[01:02:49] I wanted to believe it about the team and I wanted to believe it about myself.

[01:02:54] Yes. Like I wanted to believe that I could be this person 24 seven. And that part made it so

[01:03:03] seductive. I'm imagining how difficult it would have been to stop myself and say, okay, we've been

[01:03:10] at this for a few years now. We've seen this pattern before. And, you know, with time, like that did happen.

[01:03:15] It was sort of like, okay, I was a little bit more tempered. I still got caught up in it because it

[01:03:20] was really fun. But I also had that expectation of like, okay, I do know two months in this,

[01:03:24] things are going to get hard. It's going to hit the fan and things might be a little bit different,

[01:03:28] but I like that idea of going into it with that framing of like, okay, we are going to have a

[01:03:34] honeymoon period and we are going to have this cooling off period. And I like what you're saying

[01:03:38] about the cooling off period, not necessarily being something to dread because that's when the

[01:03:44] door opens to that real, real connection, right? Because when the mask comes off, that's when you

[01:03:49] can really connect. And that's when somebody can really see me as that whole human being,

[01:03:54] the way you were saying earlier. Well, totally. And I, and I think the other thing too,

[01:03:58] to remember is like the honeymoon period serves a purpose, right? Like it actually, it does help us

[01:04:03] get there. And I think that like, I think it's wonderful when I have, when I hire new people in the

[01:04:08] company and there's a reinvigoration of excitement because there's this new person and we're all

[01:04:14] trying to learn about this new person and they're trying to learn about us. And I think it is good

[01:04:19] incentive for people to put their best foot forward and actually, you know, you hit that peak of

[01:04:24] performance, you know, that outward performance, right? Like it, it serves a very important human

[01:04:30] function. But I think that also like, let's just not trick ourselves that that's going to last

[01:04:35] forever. It's probably going to ebb and flow, you know? And, and if we set our expectations that

[01:04:40] it is just always going to be roses, that's when disappointment happens. Yeah. I like setting that

[01:04:46] expectation for others, but also for myself, like, and I do this to myself all the time. I hold myself

[01:04:52] to the standard of my best day ever. It's like, if I haven't been productive as my most productive

[01:04:59] day ever, like it's a complete failure. And I laugh about that because I do try to temper

[01:05:04] that. It's something I recognize in myself, but it is really hard not to do that because you know,

[01:05:10] like you're capable of that. So why can't I just do that every day, even though it's kind of an

[01:05:15] absurd expectation? It is, you know, and I think that this is true. I've been encountering this sort

[01:05:22] of self expectation around productivity with myself, with a lot of my peers, with a lot of my friends,

[01:05:29] especially women who are like, you know, there's a handful of days in my life where I'm laying in bed

[01:05:35] and I'm like, I rocked it at work. I rocked it at being a mom. I rocked it at being a wife.

[01:05:40] I rocked it at being a person like, damn, I'm awesome. Like a handful of days. And then I'm

[01:05:47] thinking that and my husband's over here being like, that was awful. Like she was just miserable.

[01:05:53] But it's, you know, if we have to think about our productivity in different ways, right? Sometimes

[01:06:01] it can't always be external. Like it can't always be how did I show up for other people? It has to be

[01:06:08] a little bit of a mixture of how did I show up for other people, but also how did I show up for myself?

[01:06:13] And so trying to rearrange, and I tell this to people in my company too, where it's like,

[01:06:18] you have to rearrange your definition of productivity. What are the wins that you had,

[01:06:24] not only at work, but also like, did you get outside today? Good. You should check that off.

[01:06:29] Like, that's great. You showed up for yourself. Did you eat well today? Great. Did you hydrate?

[01:06:35] Great. You know, like we have to be a little easier on ourselves because I think that sometimes,

[01:06:41] and I'm guilty of this too, but when we think, you know, when we just have productivity as the

[01:06:47] overarching end all be all goal, I don't know. It throws off, at least for me, it throws off my

[01:06:52] balance of kind of how I want to show up. Completely. And it's funny because as we're

[01:06:57] talking about this, I'm like nodding and I'm going, this makes so much sense. And I

[01:07:00] completely agree with everything you're saying. And yet I really struggle with this because it kind

[01:07:05] of goes back to that metric, that rubric, because the showing up for myself, those are the squishy

[01:07:13] parts, right? Like those are the going outside those. But when I'm, I'm going to do air quotes

[01:07:18] here, productive, I have an email to show for it. I have a document to show for it. I have

[01:07:23] a podcast episode to show for it. Like I made something concrete that I can look at, I can put

[01:07:29] out into the world or I can, you know, check it off a list versus like, okay, yeah, I went outside

[01:07:34] today. But like, what did that really do? It's so easy to fall into that trap because it's not

[01:07:41] part of that. Like, it doesn't count. Why did like, it's hard to make it count in my mind.

[01:07:47] It's an output game. We're all just playing an output game. And it takes a lot of intentionality

[01:07:53] to expand our definition of productivity. It takes a lot. I mean, I, I'm not good at it yet.

[01:08:01] Like, there's just no way. Yeah. But it's definitely so. It's like, it's one of those

[01:08:05] things when I, that I try to emphasize, at least in the culture of my company is that like your

[01:08:10] value as a person is not directly related to your value as an employee at this company.

[01:08:18] And I think that that's a really hard thing because ultimately when I'm starting a company,

[01:08:23] when I have a company, yeah, I want people to work really hard for my company and I want my

[01:08:27] company to be the priority. But as a human being, I also recognize that that is not a good idea.

[01:08:36] But yeah, it's easier said than done. Yeah, it really is. And that conflation of worth as a human

[01:08:42] being with value as a productive member of a company, a productive member of a team is so hard

[01:08:51] not to get enmeshed in. And I've talked to a few athletes on this podcast who have, you know,

[01:08:58] gone through a racing career and transition out of the racing career. And that transition out is

[01:09:01] really challenging and definitely has been for me. And part of it, I think is a combination of

[01:09:08] attaching that self-worth as a human being to performance, to productivity, to output results,

[01:09:14] you know, whatever it happens to be. And when you come from an environment where there are really

[01:09:20] clear metrics, like you won the race or you didn't, you came in 10th or you didn't finish,

[01:09:26] you know, it's like, it is a number assigned to the output. Yeah. And then you move into a space where

[01:09:33] it's not quantitative anymore, or that success isn't determined by the order in which you cross the

[01:09:39] line. That success is determined by something that is far more ambiguous or qualitative, where,

[01:09:45] like you said, you have to define for yourself what productivity means. You have to define for yourself

[01:09:51] what success means. And moving out of a framework where that was so clearly defined for you is so hard.

[01:09:59] And when you're in a framework where that is defined for you and you're attaching your worth to

[01:10:06] that quantitative outcome, when you move into a space where those outcomes are more qualitative,

[01:10:11] or they're depending on you for your own definition, it is so disorienting because not only do I now

[01:10:19] feel like I am adrift at sea and I don't know where, like, I don't know what to anchor myself on,

[01:10:25] but it's not just me. It's my whole sense of worth as a person. What do I anchor my worth as a

[01:10:30] person on? And that is so challenging. It's really hard. And this is where I think

[01:10:35] people struggle with this in the world of careers in general, right? Because I think that we, as people,

[01:10:43] you know, at the risk of overgeneralizing, people exist at work and people exist at home,

[01:10:48] right? Like, that's kind of these two loosely, these two facets of who we are. And I see this a lot

[01:10:54] even when people move from academia out because, again, it's a really similar metric. It's like,

[01:10:59] your grades. Yeah. Are you published? Do you have tenure, right? Like, there's clear metrics of

[01:11:04] success in how you move through that sort of career path. That's whole system. Yeah.

[01:11:10] Exactly. And I've seen a lot of people who move from more of these sort of very kind of cleared

[01:11:15] metrics to like entrepreneurship, for example, where you're just like, I have no idea what I'm doing.

[01:11:21] So messy. I have no idea if this is right. I don't get feedback. Like, there's just no...

[01:11:27] Like, I'm just existing in space at this point. Yeah.

[01:11:29] And these moments in time where there's kind of a career shift or, you know, even like a work

[01:11:35] identity shift, you're moving from one industry to another, you're moving from one clearly defined

[01:11:41] role to another less clearly defined role. That... Those moments in time I have found with my friends and

[01:11:49] with people that I interact with is that you kind of have to go into like this mode of self-reflection.

[01:11:56] And you have to work really hard to disentangle your own value with your role value.

[01:12:04] Yeah.

[01:12:04] And it's a really hard thing to do. And I was listening to this podcast and I believe it was

[01:12:08] an interview with Simon Sinek. Have you... Do you know who's Simon? Yeah.

[01:12:12] Yeah.

[01:12:13] And he was like, he said something that it just like hit home for me. He's like,

[01:12:17] if you are struggling with your identity and your value, call up your friend and ask them one

[01:12:24] question and ask them, why are we friends? And I guarantee it won't be because you're the CEO of

[01:12:31] a company or because you've won a race or because you, you know, it's because of how your person is.

[01:12:39] It's your personality. It's how you shine. It's how you interact. It's how you receive. It's how you

[01:12:45] hold space for other people. And how might we as a society lean into elevating those parts of our

[01:12:53] identity, even in the world of work, even in the roles that we take to help make those transition

[01:13:00] moments, I think a little bit less jarring because it is really hard. It's really hard to go from

[01:13:06] like, this is how I thought I was measured to now I have no idea where I can put a stake in the ground

[01:13:13] around my identity.

[01:13:14] A hundred percent.

[01:13:15] So yeah, it's tough.

[01:13:17] I love that idea of calling up a friend. And I also just, I'm thinking the flip side of it is

[01:13:22] when you think of a friend, you know, take that time to reach out to them and say, Hey,

[01:13:26] I just want you to let, let you know, this is what I really appreciate about you. Because hearing that,

[01:13:31] I think sometimes can disrupt these self-reinforcing loops we have in our minds of like,

[01:13:36] Oh, I'm not good enough because I didn't do enough. I didn't produce enough. I didn't

[01:13:40] get enough results. And, and hearing that from people, I I'm struck listening to you describe that

[01:13:45] one of the things that's been really powerful for me is becoming a mom and looking at my daughter

[01:13:52] and in my own mind, I hold myself to these absurd standards. And then I look at her and I think,

[01:14:00] would you in a million years hold her to those standards in order to earn a sense of worth or

[01:14:07] in order to earn being worthy of love? And it's so ridiculous. And yet when I reflect it back to

[01:14:14] myself, it's harder for me to accept how absurd it is when I'm, I'm doing it for myself, but it's

[01:14:20] slowly, it's starting to sink in a little bit. It's so true. Kids are such an amazing mirror.

[01:14:26] I think about that with my boys all the time. It's like, wow, I would never say some of the

[01:14:31] things to them that I say to myself. It's like, wow, why am I so mean to myself?

[01:14:36] And we can do that with friends too, right? Like I would never allow somebody to speak to my

[01:14:42] friend the way that I speak to myself. We would have words.

[01:14:47] Yes, exactly. Exactly. No, it's so true. It's yeah. So true.

[01:14:52] Well, I want to back up a little bit. This is starting to transition to

[01:14:55] a topic that I think is really important and that's how we show up for each other in the world. And

[01:15:00] just that description of like, why do you appreciate your friends? Why do you care about your loved

[01:15:05] ones? What is it about them? And like, I think about the people in my life who are important to me.

[01:15:08] And of course, the reason they're important to me has nothing whatsoever to do with their

[01:15:13] productivity. Yep, exactly.

[01:15:17] And I think about that in terms of our connection and how we show up in the world. And you mentioned

[01:15:23] really early on this idea of when we were first talking about IO psychology at the beginning of

[01:15:27] this conversation, you mentioned impact and impact careers. And you were at one time the co-director

[01:15:33] for the Aspen Institute's impact careers initiative. What is an impact career? Let's start there.

[01:15:38] Yeah, that's such a good question. I think that an impact career can come in a lot of different

[01:15:45] forms. I think kind of historically, maybe the way I would have defined it at that time is a career

[01:15:53] where the prioritization set centers on impact first, and then career success and profit second.

[01:16:02] Right. And impact, again, is just, you know, ask someone on the street, they're going to give you

[01:16:07] a different definition of impact. But I think that it's really about how to use, you know, in a lot of

[01:16:15] ways, your time, talent, resources to move a system or kind of change the world in a way that allows it

[01:16:24] to be a place that everyone is okay being at the mercy of.

[01:16:29] That's a good way to put it.

[01:16:31] Yeah. And I think that it's really, it can come in all different shapes and sizes and it can happen.

[01:16:37] You know, you can be the VP of Salesforce and say, I'm in this to make impact. I'm in this to help

[01:16:45] better XYZ people's lives, right? It doesn't have to be that specifically at a nonprofit or specifically

[01:16:52] at a, you know, not for profit kind of entity. I think that a lot of people when asked say that

[01:16:58] I got into my career because I wanted to make some change. I wanted to change people's lives. And so,

[01:17:05] yeah, and I think it's always evolving too. I think that is interesting. I was talking to a friend of

[01:17:09] mine about their career and they were saying that they actually view their life now more in sort of a

[01:17:16] project based timeline where it's like, Oh, interesting.

[01:17:20] Right now, this is at the phase of my life. I'm working on this project and it just so happens to

[01:17:25] be, I'm at this company with this title, but it's really about making coding more accessible,

[01:17:31] right? And I think that we're moving more and more towards a knowledge economy and working,

[01:17:38] not being so specific around you go to work nine to five, this is it, you have an output and then you

[01:17:45] call it a day. I think that we're moving into more of a, in a sense of project based,

[01:17:50] the knowledge based economy where as people, we can wear many different roles and have many

[01:17:56] different hats. And I think that we can emphasize impact in this stream or in this identity,

[01:18:02] but it doesn't have to be like, you know, can we can have multiple things that we do?

[01:18:06] You know, I have a podcast. I'm the CEO of a company. I make investments.

[01:18:10] I do work in philanthropy and I think about all of those things and how they align with each other

[01:18:17] because of some of my ultimate goals as a person is to be of use, be of service, try and change

[01:18:23] systems. So I think it's about how people approach what they do. Yeah. I want to dig into the systems

[01:18:28] piece, but before that, I want to share a quote that you said in a different interview that I found,

[01:18:33] and I love this. Oh no, what is it? It's great. He said, my ultimate success is being able to help

[01:18:42] people see better themselves as part of a broader change and see their role as valuable and contributive

[01:18:48] to the change that we want to see in the world. And that hits. Thank you.

[01:18:55] It really does. And I see that in everything that you're doing and it really hits for me too. Cause I

[01:19:01] mean, I, I feel like I couldn't articulate it better. That's really what I would also love to do.

[01:19:06] And when I think about how that relates in the realm of sport, one of the beautiful things I love

[01:19:12] about sport is how through sport, people realize their own power and potential and that they are

[01:19:19] far more capable, far stronger, far more resilient than they may be ever imagined. And as they discover

[01:19:28] those things about themselves through sport, it prompts them then to question, you know,

[01:19:31] what else in my life have I not been giving myself enough credit for? What else in my life have I been

[01:19:37] shrinking from because I didn't think I was good enough or I didn't think I was strong enough. And

[01:19:41] now that I know I have this capacity for growth, for strength, for resilience, what else can I do?

[01:19:47] Like, what else am I actually capable of that I didn't think I was capable of before? And I love the

[01:19:52] idea of moving that sense of value and contribution toward something impactful, something meaningful.

[01:19:58] And I think that's something that most people crave is feeling that sense of meaning and impact in what

[01:20:02] they're doing. I want to bring this back to your podcast system catalysts, because the idea of

[01:20:08] working within systems is so central to everything that we've been talking about today. So can you share

[01:20:14] a little bit about what inspired the podcast and then specifically kind of dig into the title

[01:20:20] system catalysts? Yeah. No, Amber, I love what you're saying here. And for me, I think a lot of

[01:20:27] where kind of that quote came from is I'm a firm believer that I think you can change the world

[01:20:32] ultimately by changing the way people see themselves, right? Oh, I love that. As being part of something,

[01:20:41] being part of building something, being part of this shared human experience that we all have,

[01:20:46] right? The definition of solidarity is being able to see my human experience in you and fighting for

[01:20:54] a better human experience that benefits both of us because we are uniquely tied in this world.

[01:21:02] And I think with the podcast in particular, there's this idea around changing systems,

[01:21:09] right? I think that, gosh, there's this thing that I'm trying to make sure I get this quote,

[01:21:13] right? But a friend of mine said it to me and he said, if you don't work to achieve to the height of

[01:21:19] your goals, you will fall prey to the complexity of your systems. And I think that it's a lot of the

[01:21:27] way the world works right now is that it's comprised of systems and processes that work for a select few

[01:21:34] and don't work for everyone. And I think that not every system will work for everyone,

[01:21:41] but everyone should have a system that works for them. And so I think that the genesis really of

[01:21:46] the podcast was that there are these people and there are these entities and there are these teams

[01:21:53] out there that are really doing their best to either build something from nothing, build systems that

[01:21:59] don't exist that should, or move systems, change the way in which we interact with the world around us.

[01:22:06] And they have amazing stories of how they're doing this. And I think that in a lot of the world that

[01:22:13] I exist in, there's a lot of emphasis around kind of this idea of entrepreneurship and social

[01:22:19] entrepreneurship and creating solutions. And I think that that's really valid. And I think that,

[01:22:24] I mean, I've started a company to put a product out there that is a solution, in my opinion.

[01:22:29] Yeah.

[01:22:29] And it's really great. And you need those people. But the difference between what I'm talking about

[01:22:34] with a system catalyst and an entrepreneur or a social entrepreneur is that those entities and

[01:22:40] those people exist to sort of say, hey, here's a problem. And here is a solution that could help

[01:22:45] that problem. Whereas a system catalyst is taking a sort of forest of the trees type of point of view

[01:22:50] saying, here's a bunch of solutions that I want to kind of bring together. And I want to make sure

[01:22:58] that all of these different solutions or all of these different kind of processes or stakeholders

[01:23:03] are moving in the same direction. Because I'm trying to change an entire system,

[01:23:09] not just kind of pointing at one specific problem or one specific gap.

[01:23:14] Yeah.

[01:23:15] And so that's really what our podcast is centered on is these people, these entities that are saying,

[01:23:20] I'm trying to look at the whole system. I'm trying to move it slowly. It takes a lot. It takes a lot

[01:23:26] of effort. It takes a lot of people to be able to sort of move a system in its entirety so that it's

[01:23:33] actually working for the people that it is meant to be working for. And our podcast is really just

[01:23:38] centered on those folks and those stories.

[01:23:40] I love that because even the idea of that is so daunting because I have this picture in my mind of

[01:23:47] just an incredibly busy whiteboard of all of these interconnected lines pointing at each other and

[01:23:53] thinking about the world around us and how there are so many systems that are then like interdependent,

[01:23:59] interconnected, that affect each other and how taking that systems level approach.

[01:24:07] While I totally see the need and how effective that can be, it also seems so daunting. And I love

[01:24:15] the idea of hearing stories of other people who are doing this because I feel like we can learn so

[01:24:19] much from that and get inspiration from it. Especially, I think a lot of us struggle with

[01:24:24] feeling like, you know, there's some days where I feel like I feel really inspired and empowered.

[01:24:29] And I feel like I can, for sure, I can do something that's going to make a difference. And then there

[01:24:32] are other days, most days where I'm just like, I'm just one person. I don't even know what I'm doing.

[01:24:39] I'm making it all up as I go. Like, how can I possibly, you know, contribute in a way that's going to

[01:24:45] have real meaningful impact, you know? And that systems level in particular feels really daunting.

[01:24:54] What's something that you've taken from hearing these stories that maybe makes it less daunting?

[01:25:00] Or is there a common thread among people who are taking this on who don't feel daunted by it for

[01:25:04] some reason?

[01:25:05] I think everybody feels daunted by it. Everybody that I've ever spoken with who is,

[01:25:09] who touches this world is daunted by it. Because it feels, it does feel insurmountable, right? I mean,

[01:25:16] you're talking about trying to steer a massive tanker ship, right? And thinking about these huge

[01:25:23] ships and thinking about what it takes to steer it just a little bit more that way. It takes so much.

[01:25:28] And I think that I just am in such awe and admiration of every guest that we have on the podcast,

[01:25:35] because they're very honest about that. They're very honest about the fact that, like, it's really

[01:25:41] hard. But I do think, and this is a lot of what we try to emphasize, but it really is the people

[01:25:48] that make it less hard. In the same way that working with a team that you love makes winning

[01:25:55] the race a little bit sweeter, right? And a little bit easier. Even though it's like the hardest work

[01:26:01] that you have ever done, it feels better. And I think that that's the same with system catalysts.

[01:26:07] And I think that everyone that we talk to cites the mentors, they cite their team,

[01:26:14] they cite the people that give them hope and give them nourishment. And that's really what it's about

[01:26:21] is doing it together. My co-host of that show, Jeff, Jeff Walker, we hold these dinners sometimes.

[01:26:27] I call like Jeffersonian dinners where there's a topic and everybody kind of speaks to that topic,

[01:26:32] but he will often start these dinners and he will get everyone there to hum, just hum together.

[01:26:40] And he's like, okay, everybody hum. And everybody's like, okay, this is weird.

[01:26:44] But we all do it. And he's like, okay, just for a minute, y'all experience what it was like to do

[01:26:49] something together, to create a sound, to create music together. And it feels so much better doing that

[01:26:56] with a group of people than just sitting there humming in the corner by yourself, right?

[01:27:00] It also feels a little less crazy. And so I think that that's a really amazing,

[01:27:07] symbolic way to say, this is what system change feels like. It feels like collaboration.

[01:27:13] And it feels like this ability to keep going, even when you're really tired, because you know that

[01:27:20] it's like a relay race. You can kind of put somebody else in while you rest and then pick

[01:27:26] the torch back up and go again. And it's a long game. It's a real long game.

[01:27:30] Yeah. I can only imagine. And thinking about that, how it feels good to do that with other people,

[01:27:36] I'm reflecting back on the best moments in my career are these incredible highs of not even

[01:27:42] necessarily winning a race, although those times were really fun. But when we executed really well as a

[01:27:49] team, like we may have been bested by somebody else who was just having a better day, but we as a team

[01:27:55] came together and we were there for each other. We had that trust. We had that reliability. We did

[01:28:00] exactly what we said we were going to do. We executed to a T and my gosh, the magic of those moments.

[01:28:08] They weren't the norm, but they were so powerful that I was willing to go through a lot

[01:28:20] of, we'll say subpar experiences. Chasing that feeling just for another taste of that. It was

[01:28:29] like just one more time, just one more time. It's just the best feeling. And it wouldn't be possible

[01:28:34] on my own. There were times when I would go to smaller local races where I didn't have teammates

[01:28:42] and I could win the race and it felt good and it was fun, but it could never hold a candle to those

[01:28:48] moments where I was part of something bigger and accomplishing something with other people side by

[01:28:54] side. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I love that. That's a really incredible and powerful reminder. I love

[01:29:00] the idea of system catalyst too, because I think like you said, it's easy, not easy, but looking at

[01:29:08] really salient problems around us. Like in my day-to-day experience, let's say as an athlete,

[01:29:14] like I could look around and say my day-to-day experience training, for example, I might go and

[01:29:19] catch a local group ride. Well, when I started racing, I was usually one of a few women on each

[01:29:24] ride and there were always a bunch of dudes. And that was really intimidating. And after a while,

[01:29:30] I got to never know everybody and it felt like a welcoming group, but that idea, you know,

[01:29:35] for a long time of feeling like I'd really love to see more women in the sport. And one example,

[01:29:41] I've seen both in sport and in science, technology, engineering, and math fields or STEM fields.

[01:29:47] I do some work at university of Connecticut for the college of engineering. And this is something

[01:29:51] that's a big topic of discussion there too, is how do we, you know, as a woman, my perspective on this

[01:29:57] is clearly like, let's get more women in STEM, let's get more women in cycling. And like,

[01:30:01] you could say this for a lot of different groups, let's get more people of color. And

[01:30:04] there's this genuine enthusiasm for that. And a lot of those efforts get focused on that entry point.

[01:30:11] Like, let's create more opportunities for people to get into the sport. Let's create more opportunities

[01:30:15] for people to get into STEM and further down that path. Or one of the words that they use a lot is

[01:30:21] pipeline. It's like, we have this leaky pipeline problem. Like, okay, we got these people in,

[01:30:25] they're jazzed, they want to be in STEM, they're excited about a STEM career, or they're excited about,

[01:30:30] you know, the sport of cycling, they want to get into it. But the systems,

[01:30:36] the systems that are in place, that govern the path forward that govern growth that govern progress

[01:30:43] in these paths, are not set up in ways that support sustained, you know, a long career longevity

[01:30:51] for people who aren't white men in these cases. So looking at that system problem, I think is so

[01:30:59] interesting. Is that something that you've also encountered in terms of like,

[01:31:04] focusing in on like, you mentioned that, like, the obvious gap versus the system in which it exists?

[01:31:11] Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, this is something that I do think about a lot. Even when I was like,

[01:31:17] initially raising for funds for my company, at that point, I had a male co-founder who,

[01:31:24] quite honestly, I think that some of the reasons we got into the doors that we did

[01:31:28] was because I had a male co-founder. I think that it is really hard. And I, you know,

[01:31:35] I was watching this, I think it was, I want to say it was like a clip from an episode of Shark Tank.

[01:31:41] And there was, you know, the sharks, the investors there. And I think that Sarah Blakely,

[01:31:45] who is an idol of mine, was actually one of the guest judges. And one of the male investors was,

[01:31:51] I think he was like, asked a question around like entrepreneurship or something. And he was saying

[01:31:56] something around like, you have to be, as an entrepreneur, you have to be ruthless, you have

[01:32:00] to be intense, and you have to take no for an answer. And, you know, he was kind of illustrating

[01:32:05] and talking about all these very masculine traits that you need to succeed as an entrepreneur.

[01:32:10] And she kind of was like a little timid in saying this, but she was like, I actually don't agree at

[01:32:15] all. I built my very successful billion dollar business not being that way and being caring and

[01:32:25] being heartfelt and empathetic to the world around me. And we built a very successful business doing

[01:32:31] that. And we need more women who are in these positions of power. Granted, it's few and far

[01:32:39] between. But we need more of them to say, you don't have to do it the way that the boys do it.

[01:32:45] Yeah. And it's okay. And also, there is a lot of, I think, initial moments in time where you get women

[01:32:54] into STEM or you get women into sports. And my hope is, is that the women who have made it through and

[01:33:00] even the men can sort of start to look at the messy middle, you know, and what we call it and start to

[01:33:06] say, okay, how do we actually start changing some of this to sustain those women, to sustain those

[01:33:14] minorities? And, you know, you look at VC funding, less than 2% of VC funding goes to women-led

[01:33:19] companies. Even less goes to minority-led companies. And these statistics have been glaring us in the

[01:33:26] face for a long time. And so I think it's really starts to have more conversations about, well, what are

[01:33:32] we going to do about it? Is it, we need more women fund managers. We need more women decision-making

[01:33:38] at the top. We need more women. Where do we need them to start to really address the messy middle

[01:33:45] of sustaining long-term? Because women need different things than men do in the workplace.

[01:33:51] We need more flexibility. We need to be able to bring our whole selves with our children and our

[01:33:57] multiple identities into the space. And we need to be able to feel comfortable taking up space

[01:34:04] in a way that doesn't inflict judgment on us and make us seem less strong or less tolerant of certain

[01:34:12] situations. You know, I remember a fair amount of situations as a woman in tech of not being afforded

[01:34:19] the same types of even conversational luxuries as my male counterparts, right? Like, it's so easy for

[01:34:26] them to be like, oh, well, I'm doing this and I'm doing that and I'm really stressed about X, Y, and Z.

[01:34:32] And I'm sort of thinking like, if I was in this situation and I told you all the things that I'm

[01:34:36] stressed about, you would fire me. I would literally not be welcome in this environment.

[01:34:43] So I think that we really need to start having more conversations around this because I think that

[01:34:47] we know what's wrong. We know that there needs to be more women in these positions of power

[01:34:52] talking about these things and moving and changing the systems in a way that's saying,

[01:34:59] hey, how can I help you maintain your trajectory here? What different types of benefits do you need?

[01:35:06] What different types of hours do you need? What different types of rooms of safety do you need

[01:35:11] in order to sustain? And asking, asking the questions and not being afraid to actually sort of leverage some

[01:35:18] of these things and actually say as investors or as people at the table who are making the decisions,

[01:35:24] I'm willing to spend money on that. Yeah.

[01:35:27] I'm willing to say that, spend money on it, and actually walk the talk of making life easier for

[01:35:34] women and minorities in these industries.

[01:35:36] Yeah. That really, really resonates. And I like that phrase that you use,

[01:35:41] you don't have to do it like the boys. And I think that that is really important and interesting.

[01:35:46] It's one of the things I remember early in my career. There was a particular athlete who was

[01:35:51] really, really successful in the sport. And we were somewhere at some event. And it was sort of

[01:35:58] the first time that I had interacted with this person outside of the racing scene. They were not

[01:36:03] a pleasant person. And I remember one of my teammates looked at me and said, oh man, if I have to be an

[01:36:14] asshole to be a champion, if I have to be that much of an asshole to be a champion, I'm not sure I want to

[01:36:20] be a champion. And it just cracked me up. But it was this really illustrative example of you don't have

[01:36:29] to have a certain personality type. You don't have to have a certain approach. That particular judge

[01:36:35] on Shark Tank, that worked for him being the don't take no for an answer, all these things.

[01:36:41] And because it worked for him, he's automatically assuming that that's the model that everyone

[01:36:46] should follow rather than making space for, hey, that's what worked for me, might not work for

[01:36:52] everybody. And furthermore, that might not have even been the optimal approach for me. There may have

[01:37:00] been a different approach for me that could have been even more successful, but we'll never know

[01:37:04] because that wasn't the approach that he took. And I think that that's a really powerful

[01:37:11] framing. And what's difficult, and I've run into this even myself, is I think about when I was

[01:37:18] growing up in the early 90s, there was this girl boss feminism and women in power suits. And it was

[01:37:24] breaking the glass ceiling meant getting into the C-suite. And I've since sort of grappled with that

[01:37:32] and been like, well, wait a minute, is that really what I aspire to because that's what I want?

[01:37:37] Or is that what I'm aspiring to because that's what I've kind of been culturally conditioned to

[01:37:41] believe as being success? Yeah. And going back to what we were talking about, what we were talking

[01:37:47] about earlier was anchoring on quantitative metrics of success and struggling to move into qualitative

[01:37:54] metrics of success. It's so easy to reach out for the nearest role model or the nearest example of

[01:38:01] success. And to say, you know, this person is successful by these standards, you know, whatever,

[01:38:08] they're an executive, they're rich, they're, you know, what have you. And then using that person as

[01:38:14] a role model or a model of success, rather than stopping and having those reflective moments

[01:38:19] internally and saying, wait, is that what I really want? Is that what really feeds me? Is that what

[01:38:24] really would help me feel whole and fulfilled? And like, I'm on a meaningful path. And it's so much

[01:38:32] messier. It's so much harder when there isn't just like a really clear number or person that you can

[01:38:40] index on like that. It is. And, but I think the other thing too, well, two things. One is on the

[01:38:46] societal piece, you know, back when I, when I was in grad school, there was this sort of idea called,

[01:38:51] it was an internal leadership theory, meaning how do I picture a leader? How do people, you know,

[01:38:57] picture leaders, right? And so my professor of leadership would do this exercise where he was

[01:39:04] like, write down the top five leaders that could come to your mind. And as you're, I bet, as you're

[01:39:07] thinking right now, you're thinking of all men. Mostly men, yeah. Because that's just what mostly,

[01:39:13] yeah, we've been conditioned to do because that's who exists in our vision, in our society.

[01:39:19] And I think that there has been work, but there needs to be more work done on just changing the

[01:39:25] definition of who a leader is and thinking about it, thinking about leadership as a verb or an

[01:39:33] adjective versus a noun. And how does that change the way that we start to think about leaders in

[01:39:39] the, in the world? And I think the other piece that I think is really important is there's this

[01:39:43] quote, right? Don't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, right? Like they're not going to

[01:39:50] do that well. And I think that's the thing, like stop judging women leaners on their ability to play

[01:39:55] boys games. Yeah.

[01:39:56] You know, and I think that it's, you see now we have clear concrete evidence, women companies,

[01:40:03] women led companies are more profitable. Women handle crises better in organizations than men do.

[01:40:09] Women give more in philanthropic spaces than men. Women are just killing it. They're crushing it. And so

[01:40:18] like, why are we still at these decision-making levels? Why am I still having to raise money

[01:40:25] in a room full of men where I am judged against my male counterpart in what the success looks like

[01:40:33] for him? Yeah.

[01:40:35] Because I'm really good at building culture in my company. I'm really good at holding space for

[01:40:40] people. I'm really good at fostering collaborative teams. And my company is on a metric of success.

[01:40:47] We're doing pretty well. And so I think that there's just a lot to be unpacked about how women

[01:40:55] lead and how we've got to start changing the conversation and the metrics and really stop

[01:41:01] kind of this overarching vision of success of women leaders are just different and we do it well,

[01:41:07] but we do it differently. Yeah.

[01:41:08] And that's okay.

[01:41:09] Yeah. Many years ago when I was racing, we used to go and do school visits and we would talk to like

[01:41:14] elementary schools and give a presentation. And usually the theme was something along the lines

[01:41:19] of encouraging kids to have a healthy, active lifestyle. And I remember one time walking into

[01:41:24] a classroom and introducing myself and I'm a professional cyclist. And I remember one of the

[01:41:29] girls in the class couldn't help herself. She just said it out loud. She was like,

[01:41:32] I didn't know girls could do that. And I remember walking out of the room and thinking,

[01:41:36] it doesn't matter if that girl ever gets into sports, has any interest whatsoever in bikes.

[01:41:42] The most powerful thing about that moment was I got her to question what's actually possible.

[01:41:49] Right. It's like, yeah, there might be things that you can do that you can't even imagine right now

[01:41:57] because you haven't seen it or, you know, it hasn't crossed your path. And that to me, I was,

[01:42:02] I remember walking out of there being like, okay, you know, don't care less if any of these kids

[01:42:08] felt inspired by like the athletic component of this. At the very least, there was this aha moment of,

[01:42:15] oh, there are more possibilities for me in this world than I previously thought. And that was really

[01:42:21] cool. I love that. I hope we can move closer to that. Me too. Me too. And sometimes it really is

[01:42:28] just about showing up just like you did. Sometimes it's about showing up and saying,

[01:42:33] I did this and so can you, right? Like that's sometimes that's the biggest, the biggest impact.

[01:42:39] Yeah. Well, English, thank you so much for taking the time. This was so much fun. I feel like

[01:42:45] we could just grab a coffee and keep going for another few hours, but we should do that for sure.

[01:42:51] I love it. No, this is awesome. Thank you so much for having me.

[01:42:54] Oh, thank you for coming on the show.

[01:42:55] When I was in grad school, my favorite subject was behavioral economics because it took these

[01:43:00] abstract concepts and grounded them in the simple fact that for all the mathematical models,

[01:43:06] economic systems are driven by human behavior, psychologically and socially driven choices of

[01:43:12] imperfect, often irrational people. It's also what I loved about bike racing. We had specific parameters

[01:43:18] within which we made choices that would manifest each race as its own unique design,

[01:43:22] all driven by the very human passions, strengths and imperfections of the athletes and team dynamics.

[01:43:28] It's no surprise how much overlap there is between sport, business and our personal lives.

[01:43:33] This conversation with Dr. Saul dug into all of this and more. And in particular,

[01:43:37] I love her takes on the importance of trust within a team and the significant role of incentive

[01:43:42] structures in building up or breaking down trust. And not just behavior incentives,

[01:43:48] but systemic ones. All of us exist and participate within systems whose incentives shape our choices,

[01:43:54] interactions, and even possibilities. When we take the time to cultivate an honest awareness of those

[01:44:00] systems and structures, especially the roles we each play, we can step into our full agency and

[01:44:06] actively influence those systems with intention and for the better. Thank you for joining us for

[01:44:13] today's episode. This is an abridged version of the full interview. To get full length and extended

[01:44:19] versions of each episode, sign up for a membership on Ko-Fi. Memberships start as low as $3 a month.

[01:44:26] Check out all the perks at ko-fi.com slash beagoodwheel. That's ko-fi.com slash beagoodwheel to sign up.

[01:44:36] The Be A Good Wheel podcast is produced by our wizard behind the curtain, Maxine Filovan.

[01:44:41] If you loved today's episode, don't forget to rate us five stars. Until next time,

[01:44:47] thanks for listening and thanks for being a good wheel.