00:00:02
we often look at our relationships in
00:00:03
terms of extremes someone is either a
00:00:05
friend or a foe but a new book suggests
00:00:07
that we should actually be looking at
00:00:09
how someone is both a friend and a foe
00:00:11
friend and foe is also the title of the
00:00:13
new book by Wharton Professor morce
00:00:15
Schweitzer and Adam galinsky who's a
00:00:17
professor at Columbia business school
00:00:18
they're here today to talk to us a
00:00:19
little bit about their book and how you
00:00:21
can apply it in both your life and work
00:00:23
Maurice and Adam thanks for being here
00:00:25
thank you thank you now you write that a
00:00:28
key Insight of the book is that both at
00:00:30
work and at home we're competing and
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cooperating all the time often at the
00:00:34
same time you also point out that we
00:00:36
often miss the mark by focusing the on
00:00:38
the discussion about whether it's better
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to do one or the other so wh why is that
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well I think it starts with the idea
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that we love to categorize things in our
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world it really helps us navigate our
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way through our social experience so
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from a very young age we categorize
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their girls and their boys and that
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extends to thinking about people as
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other are friends or our foes we just do
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that natural categorization and and as
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academics we also do that natural
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categorization when we construct our
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theories you said you know we missed the
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mark all the time because it's really
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easy to come up with Theory it says we
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are born to compete it's also very easy
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to come up with the alternative Theory
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it's like we have an innate Instinct for
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empathy and so even as academics we're
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trying to simplify the world to try to
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understand it and it's easy to take that
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one's lens now to keep both those lenses
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you know and describe this idea there's
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a tension between them and a balance
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between them it makes the world a little
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bit more complex although obviously more
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realis realistic um and so this idea
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that we're competing cooperating all the
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time exists for every relationship in
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fact it it you know it even exists for
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co-authors I think right yeah it was
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true for us I mean even going back and
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forth uh taking terms writing and
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revising and you know we we talked about
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whose name is going to go first on the
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book and we had to go with the
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convention of alphabetical order even
00:01:58
though you know we both contribute are
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equally Cadena coin TOS you know there's
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really no difference between um it's
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just it's just an alphabetical but even
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that you know creates some tension like
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how are we going to decide who gets to
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be first who gets to be second because
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being first is still a little bit better
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you know and so fortunately I was born
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with a slightly you know earlier name in
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the alphabet but you know it's it's it's
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you know you see that cooperation
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competition tension existing even as we
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wrote the book right now you identify
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actually three forces that influence how
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we shift from friend to Foe and those
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are scarcity sociability and dynamic
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instability can you describe each one of
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those one of those and talk a little bit
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about how they interact with each other
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yeah so you know let me give you one of
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the examples Us's in the book which I
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really love which is the grevy zebras in
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Africa now you take these three forces
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of sociability scarcity and sort of
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dynamic instability and you can see that
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happen so they have an incredibly scarce
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important resource on the plains of
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Africa and that's water now when water's
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abundant they form in a particular form
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of social organization these strong
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collectives with lots of people
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interacting with each other in stable
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units around the water sauce but when
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water becomes scarce then they quickly
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sort of dissipate from the collective
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form um they they're um uh they form
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more sort of small bonds with each other
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um and that often are temporary bonds
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too and so you can see how this scarce
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resource which is dynamically changing
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over time produces different types of
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social relationships yeah that's true
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even with people um we find for example
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siblings often compete for a scarce
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resarch which is Parental attention and
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so we have siblings and we think about
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Brotherly Love where siblings can be
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incredibly collaborative the best of
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friends but we also think about sibling
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rivalry they can be incredible
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adversaries often competing for some of
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these scarce resources and this can
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change quickly dynamically as the family
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structure changes or even at at the very
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beginning uh breastfeeding for example
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is one way infants delay the arrival of
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a new sibling uh that is by
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breastfeeding longer women are less
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likely to get pregnant and that that
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preserves their their attention uh for
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for as long as they possibly can and you
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can even see that change happen let's
00:04:22
say a parent gets a new job that's more
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demanding of their attention the family
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structure hasn't changed but now the
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cooperation might become a little bit
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more competive
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as they compete for that that scarce
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resource and one thing that actually
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connects Maurice and I is that I'm I'm a
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twin and his a wife as a twin and so
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even in the womb you're competing for
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scarce resources so I was born much
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smaller than my my my sibling and
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there's a weight difference for with
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marica's wife and and her twin sister
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you know I'll give you just one other
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example think about Thanksgiving
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Thanksgiving starts as the most
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Cooperative day of the entire year we
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come together as family and friends we
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have an abundance of resources all this
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food and then we switch sometimes within
00:05:04
an hour of the end of Thanksgiving
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dinner into one of the most competitive
00:05:08
moments of the Year Black Friday these
00:05:10
what's scarce these incredible deals two
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TVs you know for $30 and what do people
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do they literally trample each other to
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death to try to get one of these TVs and
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so we can see these these re scarce
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resource whether it's a good deal
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whether it's parental tension whether
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it's water it changes quickly over time
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and fundamentally Alters social
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relationships
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now you also have a lot of examples in
00:05:32
the book so again I mean where how can
00:05:33
we take kind of the daily things that a
00:05:36
leader of a country goes through which I
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mean I don't think a lot of us could
00:05:39
really even imagine but then also we can
00:05:41
apply them to our lives I think you know
00:05:43
I think there's I think we can talk
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about just three examples of presidents
00:05:46
you know one of the things that we talk
00:05:47
about is um one of the key things that
00:05:50
we want to do is we want to Signal trust
00:05:51
to other people we want them to trust us
00:05:54
and since the Advent of Television um
00:05:57
every president in the United to Signal
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trust in one very very simple but
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specific way they get a dog right so
00:06:05
take Barack Obama Barack Obama's
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daughter is allergic to dogs and yet he
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still felt compelled to get a dog Scott
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Walker he's got two dogs Scott Walker
00:06:13
headline in the New York Times is Scott
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Walker allergic to dogs will he defy
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history by knocking dogs so that's you
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know one of these examples but we also
00:06:22
even see like in presidential or uh you
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know in parliamentary politics right how
00:06:27
important social comparisons are which
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is another incredibly important part of
00:06:31
the book and you know Maurice has a
00:06:32
great example there well I mean yeah in
00:06:34
the book we talk about uh two brothers
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David and Ed Miland and if you're from
00:06:40
the United Kingdom they those will be
00:06:42
familiar names they were both vying for
00:06:45
the leadership of the labor party in in
00:06:48
the United Kingdom and uh David was the
00:06:52
first to announce that he was going to
00:06:54
run and his younger brother Ed announced
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that he was going to compete for that
00:06:59
position they went through several
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rounds of voting and finally at the very
00:07:04
end uh the younger brother Ed edged out
00:07:07
David now this this social comparison
00:07:11
there is we're constantly comparing
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ourselves with people around us
00:07:14
including our
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siblings and here that sibling
00:07:18
comparison is a really intense one and
00:07:21
when we go out of order when the younger
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brother gets Advanced first or we can
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think about when one sibling gets
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married before another sibling when we
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go out of order we're making these
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comparisons that can be very unpleasant
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and and David for example he he not only
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resigned from Parliament he ended up
00:07:42
leaving the country he actually came to
00:07:45
New York he he didn't do it right away
00:07:47
but but he talks about the invidious
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comparison that was really corrosive for
00:07:52
him and as a as a final example you know
00:07:54
just take presidential debates we're
00:07:56
going to see Republican debate tomorrow
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night and the question is you know do I
00:08:00
want to like break out on my own or do I
00:08:02
want to sort of be in step with other
00:08:04
people and and one study that I did with
00:08:05
some of my colleagues is we actually
00:08:07
analyzed every transcript of every
00:08:08
televised debate and we looked at
00:08:10
something really simple did I mimic or
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was my verbal structure similar to the
00:08:16
person who asked me the question or the
00:08:17
person who I was responding to let's say
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my opponent and now you might think you
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know if I really use a different sort of
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verbal structure I'm going to show him a
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leader I'm going to be different but if
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I use a similar verbal structure it
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shows I'm kind of in tune with you that
00:08:31
I'm makes it more smooth it makes it
00:08:32
easier for you to process what I say and
00:08:34
so we actually showed that people who
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did more verbal mimicry actually got
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higher boost in the polls after the
00:08:40
debates now this occurs in every Walk of
00:08:43
Life so just for example waitresses
00:08:45
studies showed that if waitresses mimic
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the behavior um and words of their
00:08:49
customers they get higher tips study I
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did if you know you like to lean back if
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I lean back a little bit my in my chair
00:08:56
and we're negotiating I get a better um
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I get a better deal if you like lean
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forward if I lean forward a little bit
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towards you I get a better deal and so
00:09:03
this mimicry occurs at the presidential
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level you know in restaurants in
00:09:06
negotiations at work all over the place
00:09:09
there's a lot of examples in the book
00:09:10
that seem to contradict a lot of
00:09:12
commonly held thinking and one of the
00:09:13
ones I thought about is you know two
00:09:15
that really stood out was one that teams
00:09:17
may actually be better off when they
00:09:19
have less talent and another one is that
00:09:20
it's actually better to be interviewed
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last for a job whereas I think our we
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might all think that you know it's it's
00:09:26
better to be first because then you're
00:09:27
first you came in first so I was just
00:09:30
curious about like how did that how does
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that play out like why is what we think
00:09:34
is true not actually the case yeah so
00:09:37
with the talent one you know we call
00:09:38
this the too much talent effect um and
00:09:41
the idea is that when we have a lot of
00:09:43
talented people in a group one of the
00:09:47
problems that can occur is it can create
00:09:48
what's called status conflicts like
00:09:50
who's really the best person who's going
00:09:52
to be the alpha person who's going to
00:09:54
take control who's going to dominate now
00:09:56
sometimes that's not really a problem at
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all let's take a sport sport like
00:09:59
baseball right um in baseball the more
00:10:02
Talent is always better right if we get
00:10:05
a bunch of people can hit home runs
00:10:06
you're always going to win more games a
00:10:08
bunch of people can pitch really well
00:10:09
you're always going to win better but in
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baseball I don't need to coordinate my
00:10:12
behavior very much with anyone else I
00:10:14
just need to hit the ball as hard as I
00:10:15
can now let's take another sport like
00:10:17
basketball it turns out in basketball
00:10:20
you see this too much talent effect you
00:10:23
really see this phenomenon where at a
00:10:24
certain point Talent is helpful but then
00:10:27
it goes down and actually hurts you now
00:10:29
in basketball we have to coordinate our
00:10:31
Behavior incredibly well when I'm
00:10:33
shooting that means you're not shooting
00:10:35
and so therefore who gets the ball is a
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scarce resource in addition it's much
00:10:40
easier to score if I get the ball in a
00:10:42
position close to the basket or there's
00:10:44
not a Defender so that means it requires
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a lot of coordination even like
00:10:47
rebounding and defense requires a lot of
00:10:49
coordination and so what we found is
00:10:50
when teams get above a certain level of
00:10:52
talent they don't coordinate very
00:10:54
effectively they don't have a lot of
00:10:55
assists they have more turnovers and
00:10:57
their winning percentage actually goes
00:10:59
down and just take you know a good
00:11:01
example recently was when um the Los
00:11:04
Angeles Lakers at Kobe Bryant Dwight
00:11:06
Howard Steve Nash and even their coach
00:11:09
said I don't even like watching us play
00:11:11
it's like no one likes watching an
00:11:12
All-Star game because All-Star game is a
00:11:14
Just J bu people jacking up shots this
00:11:16
is what we have right now is we have an
00:11:18
All-Star team but we don't have a real
00:11:20
team and so you can see this too much
00:11:21
talent so the key variable and this is
00:11:24
what really matters is how much do you
00:11:26
and I really have to coordinate if we
00:11:28
have to work together as a team you can
00:11:30
have too much talent and sometimes you
00:11:32
do you're you're better off less is more
00:11:34
getting a little bit less Talent if we
00:11:36
don't have to coordinate it all and
00:11:37
we're just independent people um whose
00:11:39
own talents contribute directly to
00:11:42
Performance more Talent is always better
00:11:44
so it's really cool because we can
00:11:45
really see like basketball and baseball
00:11:47
how one variable interdependency and the
00:11:50
need for coordination determines whether
00:11:52
more Talent is always better or you get
00:11:54
too much talent I mean related to these
00:11:57
sort of structural ideas you can think
00:11:59
about uh these order effects you
00:12:01
mentioned before and in many cases it's
00:12:03
better to go last particularly when
00:12:06
there are many different competitors or
00:12:08
we're we're choosing among a lot of
00:12:09
different candidates if you look at for
00:12:11
example American Idol you look at
00:12:13
ratings of the Olympics uh going last is
00:12:17
a huge benefit particularly when the
00:12:19
judgments are subjective where one of
00:12:23
the things we're doing as judges is
00:12:26
we're holding out we leave room in our
00:12:29
first judgments because we want to see
00:12:31
if somebody better might come along by
00:12:33
the time we've gotten to the end we no
00:12:35
longer need to keep that buffer uh and
00:12:39
second there's a recency effect that is
00:12:41
our memories are remarkable but they're
00:12:44
limited and we forget things over time
00:12:47
and our memories are sharpest for the
00:12:49
most recent things so there are two
00:12:52
benefits at least two benefits that the
00:12:55
last person receives and you see this
00:12:58
play out in a lot of of different
00:12:59
competitions where it's often best to go
00:13:02
last and and you know part of this where
00:13:03
I got really interested in this topic
00:13:05
was back when I was in grad school I got
00:13:07
an interview at the University of
00:13:08
Chicago great you know job and they
00:13:10
wanted me the first one to come in and I
00:13:13
was back of my mind feel little
00:13:15
apprehensive but I asked you know uh a
00:13:17
lot of my f professors like oh we always
00:13:19
want our best candidate come first and I
00:13:21
went and interviewed it was the first
00:13:22
one interview didn't get the job you
00:13:24
know and then still kind of thinking in
00:13:26
the crawl of my mind about this and then
00:13:27
I realized in my entire five years at
00:13:29
Princeton we had had five Job searches
00:13:32
and the last person had gotten hired
00:13:33
every time and then you know when I was
00:13:35
at Kellog and and I got interviewed
00:13:37
there I was the last person to be
00:13:39
interviewed and I got the job and so you
00:13:41
can really see how you know the this
00:13:43
effect really really takes place I don't
00:13:45
know if everybody knows this everyone's
00:13:47
gonna want to go last now and now
00:13:49
there's speaking of job interviews there
00:13:50
was also something in here that there
00:13:52
was also something in here about you
00:13:53
guys had a colleague who used a really
00:13:55
interesting exercise right before her
00:13:58
inter interview that actually helped her
00:13:59
aset and this was in your chapter about
00:14:01
power so you tell us a little bit about
00:14:03
that yeah so you know many years ago I
00:14:05
was trying to understand how to study
00:14:07
power and you know if you go in the lab
00:14:09
and you say you know Maurice you're
00:14:10
going to be the boss you know Adam
00:14:11
you're going to be the subordinate
00:14:13
there's a lot of things going on to
00:14:14
really just try to understand the basic
00:14:16
psychological consequences of being in
00:14:18
power um other than just the power like
00:14:21
Maurice has to think about what am I
00:14:22
going to say to Adam and direct him um
00:14:24
and so we came up with this you know
00:14:26
manipulation to study experimentally
00:14:27
where we just said think about a time
00:14:29
when you had power really just sort of
00:14:31
recall the experience and what we found
00:14:32
is that actually the same effects if I
00:14:35
if I told marce to think about time you
00:14:36
had power is the same effects if I
00:14:38
actually made him the boss and so what
00:14:40
happened is one of my former students
00:14:41
Jillian CP who's now a tenur professor
00:14:43
at London business school but she went
00:14:45
for an interview and her first interview
00:14:46
was at at Harvard and it didn't go very
00:14:48
well they really plunged her with
00:14:50
question she was kind of knocked off her
00:14:52
game she walked out of there feeling
00:14:54
pretty demoralized and so when she goes
00:14:56
to do an interview at London Business
00:14:57
School you know she's trying to sort of
00:14:59
you know regain that sense of confidence
00:15:01
and they give you about a half an hour
00:15:03
before your talk to settle in she said
00:15:05
you know what I'm going to do I'm
00:15:06
actually going to do Adam's experimental
00:15:07
manipulation you know just see if it
00:15:09
actually get the same effects and so she
00:15:11
wrote about a time when she had power
00:15:12
literally physically wrote it out to
00:15:14
really like get into it and then she was
00:15:16
complete control of situations she was
00:15:19
just you know knocking the questions
00:15:20
back you know answering things and you
00:15:23
know she got the job and you know she's
00:15:24
still there to this day and it was you
00:15:26
know just one of those examples we had
00:15:28
another who had been in the market a
00:15:29
couple times um hadn't done as well went
00:15:32
in the market a third time before every
00:15:34
talk wrote out a um the power Prime um
00:15:37
and got four offers that year you know
00:15:38
so you can just really see how you know
00:15:41
you can just by taking this reflection
00:15:42
and thinking about time when you had
00:15:44
power has this transformative effect
00:15:46
let's say I mean there a lot of great
00:15:47
examples but um but Adams run hundreds
00:15:50
of studies where not hundreds I mean do
00:15:53
yeah probably hundreds uh where where
00:15:55
this this experimental manipulation
00:15:58
brings back it sort of creates a
00:15:59
psychological sense of power and it's
00:16:01
been incredibly widely uh adopted yeah
00:16:05
now the book I mean we it stresses that
00:16:07
you know we're both cooperating and
00:16:09
competing constantly and simultaneously
00:16:11
but I'm wondering now I mean are some
00:16:12
people better at one than the other I
00:16:14
mean like if I'm really good at
00:16:16
confidence but maybe I don't always know
00:16:19
how to defer who to defer to like how
00:16:21
can I use the knowledge about which one
00:16:23
I'm better at to sort of help me in
00:16:25
these situations kind of check myself
00:16:27
for example well yeah so so certainly
00:16:29
some people tend to be Cooperators some
00:16:32
people tend to be competitors and some
00:16:34
of us are sort of in the middle harder
00:16:37
to classify and there's a social value
00:16:40
orientation scale that can help us
00:16:42
classify people so so there are
00:16:45
definitely individual differences and
00:16:47
there are things about a context that
00:16:49
can push us one way or another that is
00:16:52
there there cues in our environment that
00:16:55
can easily push us one way or another
00:16:58
yeah and I I think you know you asked us
00:16:59
really a great question of like how do
00:17:01
we you know recognize the fact that
00:17:03
there always is this tension and we're
00:17:05
Co cooperating and competing um and that
00:17:08
we have to find a balance between these
00:17:09
forces and I think about the interview
00:17:11
context is a really great one how do we
00:17:13
do well when we're going for a job
00:17:14
interview well we want to express
00:17:16
confidence but we also don't want to
00:17:17
express arrogance so the key balance
00:17:20
there is to express confidence as a way
00:17:22
to sort of compete well but also to
00:17:25
express some humility as a way to sort
00:17:27
of show cooperation and I think that one
00:17:29
of the things that you know Maurice and
00:17:31
I really think as valuable about this
00:17:33
book is that it it allows people to ask
00:17:36
themselves the question am I finding the
00:17:38
right balance am I finding the right am
00:17:40
I being exploited so I'm cooperating too
00:17:42
much am I losing opportunities to make
00:17:44
connections because I'm competing too
00:17:46
much and I think that just by asking
00:17:48
ourselves that question periodically
00:17:49
maybe once a month it allows us it gives
00:17:52
us a sense of power it allows us to
00:17:54
correct course um but allows just asking
00:17:56
the question allows huh no know maybe I
00:17:59
need to be a little bit more Cooperative
00:18:01
to get back more in balance or maybe I
00:18:03
need to toughen up a little bit to get
00:18:05
back more um into the competitive mode
00:18:07
and so I think that what we hope this
00:18:09
book does is allow people to recognize
00:18:11
we're always cooperating we're always
00:18:13
competing to recognize that tension and
00:18:16
also to ask ourselves if we're finding
00:18:17
the right balance well and I I had one
00:18:20
other idea which is um something that I
00:18:22
tell my students uh I think you a lot of
00:18:25
us tell our students to keep a journal
00:18:27
um for
00:18:29
negotiations uh and I tell my students
00:18:31
you know after the course ends you know
00:18:33
keep keep this journal as you go through
00:18:36
life jot down some things about your
00:18:38
negotiation what you expected what
00:18:40
surprised you and how things ended and I
00:18:43
told them to look for one thing in
00:18:44
particular if you look back across 10
00:18:48
negotiations and you find that you're
00:18:49
satisfied with your outcome every single
00:18:51
time you're probably not setting your
00:18:54
goals high enough if you look back
00:18:57
across Ross an arc of negotiations and
00:19:00
you find that you've ruptured
00:19:01
relationships nine out of 10 times
00:19:04
you're probably being too competitive
00:19:06
and so here we can think about looking
00:19:08
for data to help us bring ourselves back
00:19:10
into
00:19:11
balance now one of the things I thought
00:19:13
was interesting I mean you're talking
00:19:14
about the individual there but I also
00:19:16
found that the book I would think has a
00:19:18
lot to offer for say I'm a manager and
00:19:21
I'm managing a team and I have a diverse
00:19:23
team of people like really thinking a
00:19:25
lot more deeply about the team dynamic
00:19:28
and how to deal with them and how to
00:19:30
kind of structure things so I'm getting
00:19:32
the best out of each person we talked
00:19:34
about social comparisons before we
00:19:35
compare ourselves with other people and
00:19:37
as a manager we might think well okay
00:19:39
let's try to make everything equal or
00:19:42
let me try to gain trust by by creating
00:19:45
better transparency and so gravity
00:19:48
payments they they made payment
00:19:50
information transparent they so they
00:19:52
shared that information and they brought
00:19:55
everybody up to you know sort of equal
00:19:57
salaries uh a disaster is sort of and
00:20:02
and I would say a rather predictable
00:20:04
disaster that is we We crave comparisons
00:20:08
we we want to know how we're doing
00:20:11
compared to the people around us that's
00:20:13
how we figure things out in our in our
00:20:16
social
00:20:17
world the salary information a really
00:20:20
key piece of information um and there's
00:20:22
a good reason why we don't talk about
00:20:25
salaries as freely as as we might um
00:20:29
because it's going to make some people
00:20:30
feel absolutely terrible and when you
00:20:33
start moving people's salaries around
00:20:36
people are going to find
00:20:38
inequity uh it's it's easy for us to
00:20:40
justify why I should be paid more
00:20:43
somebody else should be paid less and
00:20:45
and it's an easy source for us to become
00:20:47
completely miserable and I think in this
00:20:49
case it's really interesting he was
00:20:50
motivated by an incredibly well-meaning
00:20:53
intention which is some my employees
00:20:55
can't afford to live in the Bay Area
00:20:58
like they're getting paid $35,000 they
00:21:00
just can't pay rent what if I just move
00:21:02
them up to $70,000 everything's going to
00:21:04
be great they're going to be able to pay
00:21:06
now how do the people who are getting
00:21:07
paid $70,000 feel now they before were
00:21:09
getting paid twice as much and it made
00:21:11
them feel like I'm twice as valuable
00:21:13
maybe they have more valuable jobs maybe
00:21:15
they work a little bit harder now
00:21:16
they're like you know it means nothing
00:21:19
right and so then they end up getting
00:21:21
and quitting and then you actually lose
00:21:22
some of your best workers because they
00:21:24
don't feel they're being rewarded for
00:21:26
their value and so you can see how this
00:21:28
fluctuation changes dramatically and so
00:21:31
by understanding social comparisons we
00:21:33
can we can motivate people sometimes but
00:21:35
we can also sort of undermine them
00:21:38
incredibly well without without Our
00:21:39
intention now in this book I mean it's a
00:21:41
lot about accepting the inevitable of
00:21:43
that you know we're going to make social
00:21:44
comparisons we're probably going to be
00:21:46
labeled or we're going to label other
00:21:47
people or sometimes people are going to
00:21:49
be deceptive in negotiations and
00:21:51
sometimes we ourselves might be
00:21:53
deceptive in negotiations so I mean when
00:21:55
you're entering into a relationship with
00:21:57
someone just as kind of a final question
00:21:58
I mean are there certain sort of taking
00:22:00
stock questions that you can ask when
00:22:02
entering into a new relationship to kind
00:22:04
of assess this and figure out what the
00:22:06
dynamic is and how the dynamic might
00:22:08
change and I mean I think you know the
00:22:11
question that you're going to want to
00:22:12
ask at the beginning of a relationship
00:22:14
also in the middle you know it's like
00:22:16
how do I find the right balance right
00:22:17
between these forces how do I recognize
00:22:19
what are the competitive forces and what
00:22:21
are the Cooperative opportunities you
00:22:23
know is one way to think about it and I
00:22:25
love this one example that I that I've
00:22:26
often taught in class a guy named John
00:22:28
Clint Denon who got hired um right out
00:22:31
of Harvard NBA at Xerox and he got a job
00:22:34
that the person just below him had
00:22:36
really wanted to get his name was Tom
00:22:38
gunning you know he was gunning for that
00:22:40
job right and John talks about how do I
00:22:43
start off with this relationship right
00:22:45
we're going to be co-workers you know
00:22:46
anytime we walk into a job we're going
00:22:48
like how am I going to preserve that
00:22:51
right balance between these forces and
00:22:53
he said the first thing I did is I
00:22:55
didn't invite him for a first meeting
00:22:56
into my office CU he's going to be
00:22:58
thinking this should be my office right
00:23:00
it's going to make him competitive I
00:23:01
didn't invade his office maybe you know
00:23:03
as another way of power play I found out
00:23:05
what his favorite restaurant was and I
00:23:07
invited him out to lunch to show a
00:23:09
little thing and the first thing I said
00:23:10
to him was like I need you and the
00:23:13
reason why I need you is you know lots
00:23:14
of people at Zer I'm new here right you
00:23:16
can really help give me the lay of the
00:23:17
land and you probably need me too right
00:23:20
you didn't get the promotion that you
00:23:22
wanted and maybe I can help you get the
00:23:24
next promotion but then he you know to
00:23:26
make sure that it's the right balance
00:23:28
he's like and if you're not the person
00:23:29
that can help me I can find someone else
00:23:32
right so it wasn't just all hugs and
00:23:33
kisses it was a little bit to like you
00:23:35
know we're there's a there's a tension
00:23:37
here and it's just a great example of
00:23:38
saying we can work together but I'm not
00:23:40
going to be exploited by you but I'm
00:23:42
also not going to exploit you either you
00:23:43
know and so just recognizing I think
00:23:45
that example is a is a really great one
00:23:48
well I think it's important yeah this
00:23:50
idea of you know getting off on the
00:23:51
right foot is exactly exactly right
00:23:54
there we need to think about this
00:23:55
balance and I think often it's you know
00:23:57
start stting cooperatively but also you
00:24:00
know recognizing that that tension in
00:24:02
many
00:24:03
relationships we often come to a place
00:24:06
where we violated somebody's
00:24:08
expectations so we can think about how
00:24:09
to rebuild a relationship and and we
00:24:13
talk about an example from uh Baptist
00:24:16
Hospital in Florida where there was a
00:24:19
tragic medical error uh there was a very
00:24:23
young child who had uh who's breathing
00:24:27
to had been disconnected uh during a
00:24:31
scan and because of that error suffered
00:24:34
severe brain
00:24:36
damage now what's interesting about this
00:24:39
case after this tragedy the hospital
00:24:42
staff took actions to repair that
00:24:45
relationship they were very candid they
00:24:48
were quick they they apologized
00:24:52
immediately and they took actions to
00:24:54
change things at the hospital they ended
00:24:56
up bringing this family
00:24:58
in to become advocates for the h the
00:25:00
hospital and the parents talked about
00:25:03
how these changes were dramatic how
00:25:04
they're committed to making sure this
00:25:06
never happened again they ended up
00:25:09
transforming what would be an adversary
00:25:12
into an ally and there a couple of
00:25:14
interesting things about this first
00:25:16
there are specific steps that they
00:25:17
followed to transform this relationship
00:25:20
but second these steps had been
00:25:24
instituted at a policy level from the
00:25:28
head Administration so that is they had
00:25:30
instituted steps to transform these
00:25:32
relationships and they were informed by
00:25:35
by research that is the the steps they
00:25:39
followed um had a very predictable
00:25:42
outcome and so I think there's a
00:25:45
predictability to how we can transform
00:25:47
our relationships to really transform
00:25:50
foes into friends and find and find our
00:25:52
balance yeah and and I think you know
00:25:54
what Maurice said I think really
00:25:56
captures um I think the the essence of
00:25:58
the book whether it's you know the
00:25:59
beginning of relationship whether it's
00:26:00
in the middle of relationship just again
00:26:03
asking your your yourself a couple
00:26:04
questions one is have I found the right
00:26:06
balance between cooperation competition
00:26:08
um what do they need getting back to
00:26:10
perspec taking but also what do I need
00:26:12
we're most successful when our needs are
00:26:14
being met and your needs are being met
00:26:17
simultaneously um are there areas where
00:26:20
I could be exploited right but are there
00:26:22
opportunities to make a connection and
00:26:24
cooperation and so if we periodically
00:26:26
ask ourselves that question
00:26:28
sometimes the beginning of the
00:26:28
relationship sometime it's after a
00:26:31
violation has occurred sometimes it's
00:26:33
just maybe we think the relationship is
00:26:35
sort of you know not humming along as
00:26:37
well as it could um it gives us those
00:26:39
opportunities and that's whether we're
00:26:40
parent thinking about child or their
00:26:42
spouse thinking about our partner
00:26:44
whether a friend thinking about a friend
00:26:45
whether a colleague thinking about
00:26:47
another colleague a boss thinking of
00:26:48
employee and vice versa asking ourselves
00:26:51
these questions are just going to give
00:26:52
us so much more control so much more
00:26:55
balance balance and they're going to
00:26:56
make us so much more successful in
00:27:06
[Music]
00:27:21
life
