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I'm Adam Grant I'm here with Mitch album
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brilliant journalist and author you may
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know him from Tuesdays With myy The Five
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People You Meet in Heaven and today new
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book The Magic strings of Frankie Presto
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welcome hi Adam so what inspired you to
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write the latest book well ever since I
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wrote Tuesdays with myy uh I've had
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people who have said to me that book
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changed my life you actually said it to
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me not too long ago and I have to say
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the first hundred times that that
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happened I probably internally rolled my
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eyes and said well that's nice but I
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mean a book doesn't change your life
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it's a book having heard it so many
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times at this point I started to think
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well you know actually people's gifts do
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change other people's lives and uh I I
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got intrigued about maybe writing a
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story about how that would happen and
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I'd always been a musician um I buried
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it after I became a writer but my real
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dream was to be a musician and I had you
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know I worked at it when I was younger
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so I came up with this story about a
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fictional guitar player named Frankie
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Presto who's the greatest guitar player
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to ever walked the Earth the the music
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gods have just chosen him to be their
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their vessel and uh he suffers as a
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child he's an orphan and he goes through
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a you know a lot of Abandonment and as a
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result he's sort of rewarded with this
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magic guitar when he's 9 years old that
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has six strings that are able to change
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people's lives and over the course of
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his life which traverses through the
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whole 20th century of Music the real
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20th Century Music Duke Ellington and
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Elvis Presley and Woodstock and all the
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rest he he gets these opportunities to
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play so brilliantly that he actually
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changes somebody's life and when he does
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the string turns blue and then it
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dissipates and disappears and then he
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has five left and four left and three
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left and two left and it follows the
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story of that but the metaphor and the
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kind of Point behind it is that
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everybody gets a blue string in life you
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know they have a gift and if they share
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that gift with somebody they can
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actually change somebody else's life you
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became a professor uh and now you teach
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and I'm sure some students along the
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line have said you know what I want to
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do what he does or he made this so clear
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to me that I want to now pursue that so
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now you have as a professor change
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somebody's life with your particular
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gift of teaching I've written books and
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people say oh that's changed my my life
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uh um a Pianist could give a performance
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and someone in the audience could say my
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God that music I want to make that music
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myself and now they want to become a
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Pianist so all of us have this ability
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to sort of um play a blue string and I
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just thought that that was an
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interesting uh theme to write a book
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about I think it's fascinating and it
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makes me wonder how do you think about
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discovering what that gift is well uh
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that's a very good question because I
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think a lot of people have gifts that
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they deny and U they want to be
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something other than what their gift is
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or they see that their gift is not
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satisfying enough that that well yeah
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you know so what that I'm good at music
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but you know I want to be a a baseball
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player you know or so what that I'm good
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at sports but I really want to be this
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or or this gift doesn't make me enough
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money or this gift doesn't get me famous
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but I think
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that if people recognize that everybody
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has a talent of some kind and in this
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book which is actually told by the
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spirit of music it's uh and I did it on
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purpose so the narrator is music it's
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music itself
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and he comes at the beginning of the
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book to take the talent out of Frankie
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Presto's body because he just died and
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he's going to take the talent out and
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he's going to distribute it over other
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souls and music explains that here's how
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talents work when you come out of the
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womb before you ever even open your eyes
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you're an infant there's all these
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colors that you can actually see bright
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brilliant colors and when you clench
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your fists for the first time you're
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actually grabbing the colors that appeal
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to you
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and taking them and those become your
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talents so why does one kid grow up to
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have a great aptitude for Math and
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another kid grows up as a great dancer
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and another kid just is naturally
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Musical and we always say where did that
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Talent come from well in the book The
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Talent comes from because that's what
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you grabbed if you recognize that the
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talent that you grabbed you grabbed for
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a reason this is my conceit you know way
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early on it attracted you for someon it
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was a good fit for you and you allow
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yourself to sort of
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explore your talent and and develop your
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talent not be jealous of other people's
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talent but just say this is what I do
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well let me do it well you will be at
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peace with your talent and you'll be
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effective with it so talk to us about
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this in your own life um we have
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millions of readers who are grateful
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that you walked away from music but what
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what was that decision process like and
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why did you come back to it well that's
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a perfect example I mean uh well first
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of all before I before I ever became a
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musician you know I was one of those
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kids that did well in school I I got
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good grades and so naturally your
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parents say well you should you should
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be a doctor you should be a lawyer you
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know and many kids at the same uh level
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with me went on and did that and many of
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them have proven to be quite unhappy
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because that's not really where their
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talent lied that's not really where
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their gifts were but that's what Society
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told them to do or somebody else told
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them to do I was blessed that despite
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the fact that my parents wanted me to go
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do those things I said no music I feel
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music I want to I want to do music uh
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and so I pursued music music didn't
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really work out for me uh I volunteered
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for a local newspaper uh writing stories
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and uh and I found that very the very
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first day I wrote a story I'd never
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written anything before I had no
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training uh but I must have had some
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kind of aptitude for storytelling
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because I wrote a a newspaper story
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about parking meters that was my first
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assignment for a local rag that they
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gave out in the supermarket obviously
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yeah yeah why not to why not parking
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meters and um they put it on the bottom
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of of the front page when it came out
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the next week and I went to the
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supermarket I picked it up and I saw my
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name and I saw the print after it and
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something clicked in in me and so
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there's like almost a sh I still get a
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little Goosebump when I tell the story
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that
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okay this is where I'm supposed to be
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you know it's creative like music um but
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I can use words and my my brain is kind
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of coming into it and I I settled into
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it and I found out this is my aptitude
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now do I still love music of course I do
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did I just write a book about music yes
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I did but did have to recognize that
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well I may have wanted that but I've got
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a I've got an ability here and if I
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cultivate this it can be just as
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satisfying maybe more so than the music
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career and I lucked out I was able to
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stumble upon mine but I think everybody
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sort of has that if they can do that
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search your career trajectory since then
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has been so interesting right an
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award-winning Sports journalist then
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writing Memoirs then turning to fiction
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um so you're at least try trilingual as
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an author and I when I think about
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leadership I think that actually a lot
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of leaders are fiction authors in the
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sense that they have to create a vision
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that doesn't yet exist they have to
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craft a narrative or or tell a story
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that hasn't been told before um as as a
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gifted Storyteller what advice can you
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offer to leaders about how to create
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better more compelling
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narratives well you know there's a joke
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that uh you know prostitution is the
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oldest profession in the world I
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actually think the one that came before
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it was storytelling uh the reason that I
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never fear about you know they say well
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you know journalism is dead or print
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journalism is dead or this is that is
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that the world has always told stories
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and it will always have to tell stories
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and so the first thing that I would I
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would say to leaders of any kind is
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everyone can relate to a story and if
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you learn how to tell a story whether
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that be your vision for a company or um
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just a way to be empathetic towards your
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customers or a way to just understand
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the world if you put it in a
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storytelling form as opposed to a a
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dactic factual PowerPoint presentation
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everyone will be able to relate to it I
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have an orphanage that I run down in
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Haiti and the uh I go every month and
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the kids natural language is not
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English first they speak Creole and then
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they speak French and then we teach them
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English and so they're slowly getting
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into it when I stand in the middle of
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the group of kids and I try to relate
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some kind of thing or what story uh you
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can see that they're looking at me but
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they don't necessarily understand what
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I'm saying there are various ages and
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they're English but when I start to move
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my hands and my inflection reflects
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happy and then angry and then sad or
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whatever um they come alive and if I'm
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telling a story with that that kind of
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stuff even if they don't get the words
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you can tell that they're intrigued by
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whatever story I'm telling because it's
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got all the elements of story a
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narrative emotion a give and a take
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conflict and all the rest of it
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so sometimes leaders should remember
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that you know it may be important to you
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and you think well if I just spit the
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facts out people but but one of the best
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ways to relate to somebody is not to uh
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lecture them but to tell them a story
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and so I always found that if I was
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trying to make a point about something
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rather than saying um you know uh here's
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the simplest thing in
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sports the baseball player hits
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333 that's a fact right baseball player
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hits 333
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or one out of every three times that he
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comes to the plate something good
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happens now which tells you more about
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which intrigues you more about the
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baseball player right it's the same fact
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but if you tell it in a little bit of a
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narrative now you've engaged somebody
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that way and you know I think leader
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should probably keep that in mind how do
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we know when a story is worth telling or
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when we're on to a compelling narrative
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some of it is if it's passionate to you
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then it will be someone else uh there is
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no empirical litmus test I don't think
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about whether a story is interesting or
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not I've heard people you know tell
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stories about the invention of a
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chemical compound and and hold people's
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attention and I've heard other people
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tell a war story and put people to sleep
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so it it's it has a lot to do I think
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with the passion of the Storyteller what
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is your creative process look like well
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I'm I I'm pretty predictable and I I
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know sometimes there's this notion that
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uh
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writers you know they just get hit with
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lightning in the middle of the night and
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they get up and they start scribbling
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and and and you know next thing you know
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they got a novel but I I have to say
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that that's not really the case in my
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experience with with me or with most
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writers that I know who who make a
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living at this uh I get up every morning
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about the same time I follow a very
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similar pattern I I get up brush my
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teeth say a prayer grab a cup of coffee
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and go downstairs and start writing I
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don't read anything else I don't look at
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anything else I don't listen to anything
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else I don't turn on a television I have
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no input I want my brain to be a blank
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slate as close as it can be and then I
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begin to fill up that slate with the
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words and the creativity I work for
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maybe from about a quarter to 7 in the
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morning till maybe 9:30 uh you know
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quarter to quarter to 10 and I'm done
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and I've recognize that I could sit at
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the computer for 10 more hours I'm not
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going to get anything better so I know
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when to stop I'm out of gas and then I
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come back the next day but I do it every
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day uh except when I'm out on book tour
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like this and it's almost impossible but
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I do it every day I do it seven days a
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week and I I try never to quit when
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things are going badly and this I think
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is a good lesson for no matter what Walk
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of Life you're in because no matter what
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there's always going to be an end of the
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day for you whatever that end of the day
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is going to be minus this sort of run
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out of gas point but if you stop when
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you're in the middle of something that's
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not going well and you say h I'll come
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back tomorrow these sentences just
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aren't working I I'll go out when I'm
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fresh tomorrow when you get up the next
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day you are not in excited about going
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back down to that computer because
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you're like uh that problem is down
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there waiting for me on the other hand
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if you quit in the middle of a sentence
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that's just great you say stop then you
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can't wait to get back to it the next
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morning and uh you know I think that's
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probably a good philosophy all across
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the board do you find as you're writing
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if I heard you correctly you write less
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than three hours a day typically that's
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remarkable as as a writer well uh you
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know they say the average American uh in
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an 8 hour day only actually does between
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two and two and a half hours of real
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work and the rest is emailing and phone
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calls and coffee breaks and daydreaming
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and so uh if you applied that principle
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to my writing hours it's concentrated
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writing it's not I I don't Veer off um
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um but I think you know creativity is
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funny that way you know you I it's a
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little bit like a Play-Doh I mean you
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can mold it uh into different shapes or
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different hours of your day but you only
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still have as much Play-Doh as you have
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you know and it's you could stretch it
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out and you can sit at a typewriter like
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I said for 10 hours and you'll get
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you'll get the same amount of Play-Doh
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stretched out or you could compress it
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and do it into an a I have to say mo
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it's not surprising pattern for most
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writers it may be to you but uh to most
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of the novelists I know first of all
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they all treat it like a job you know
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get up go someplace a lot of people have
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separate offices from their home because
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they don't want to mix the environments
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you know and they want to I know some
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writers that actually go to an office
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building and sit with other writers one
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at a desk and one at a and they all work
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on their own novels together these are
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these are not fiction writers but they
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want it to feel like a job which ironic
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because a lot of people who have those
00:14:01
kind of jobs dream about like oh if I
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could just be a novelist and I could sit
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at home and smoke my pipe and write my
00:14:06
thing and look at the ocean but a lot of
00:14:08
people who have that option choose to
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come into an office um I uh I have a a
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separate office downstairs below
00:14:16
everything so that there's no traffic
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and no you know normal life otherwise I
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might do the same thing I've also found
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that if the view is too nice you don't
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focus on your work so uh I you know I'm
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blessed to live in an in area that has a
00:14:30
a nice uh woods and everything that I
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could look at and I'm always I always
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position everything away from it so I'm
00:14:36
not distracted how do the stories you
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tell shape your own identity um as you
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as you write a book or a column that you
00:14:43
spend a lot of time on does it change
00:14:45
the way that you think about who you are
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no uh what changes is the reception to
00:14:50
it uh for example um Tuesdays with myy I
00:14:54
wrote to pay Mor's medical expenses it
00:14:57
wasn't supposed to be a big book it it
00:14:59
wasn't supposed to be a philosophical
00:15:00
book nobody even wanted to publish it I
00:15:03
mean I got turned
00:15:04
down 90% of the places I went they said
00:15:07
you're a sports writer it's depressing
00:15:09
nobody wants to read anything like that
00:15:10
Etc but I pushed forward because I
00:15:12
wanted to pay his medical bills before
00:15:14
he died and that's what we did now for
00:15:18
me what changed for me was when I was
00:15:22
visiting with Mory and and the
00:15:24
transformation that I went through and
00:15:26
the lessons that I learned and then I
00:15:28
put that down on the page
00:15:30
page but what changed as a result of the
00:15:33
book wasn't my writing of the story
00:15:35
because it had already happened to me it
00:15:37
was the reception to the book uh Amy Tan
00:15:40
who's you know who wrote The Joy Luck
00:15:41
Club and is a friend of mine I had sent
00:15:43
her the manuscript for Tuesdays with myy
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because she was like one of the only
00:15:46
people I knew who maybe delved in that
00:15:48
area a little bit most people I knew
00:15:50
were Sports writers I said what do you
00:15:52
think do I have anything here I I've
00:15:53
never written a book like this and she
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said well she read it and she said I'm
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going to tell you two things number one
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this is a wonderful book and it's going
00:15:59
to be really big which I didn't believe
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at the time and she said number two
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you're about to become everybody's Rabbi
00:16:06
and uh I had no idea what that meant but
00:16:09
I sure do now because everyone who has
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ever dealt with a terminal illness ALS
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whatever who comes through my path wants
00:16:19
to talk to me wants to hear what I have
00:16:21
to say wants to share a story with me or
00:16:23
whatever and so which is fine I mean
00:16:25
that's that's it's been a blessing but
00:16:29
it does change you you know uh the
00:16:31
conversations you have and the way that
00:16:33
people look at you uh and and what they
00:16:35
look for from you has changed uh and has
00:16:39
changed with every book really what was
00:16:42
the biggest impact that Tuesdays with
00:16:43
myy had on you um if you think about and
00:16:45
there's so many inspiring lessons in
00:16:47
that book what was the one that has
00:16:48
really stuck with you the most
00:16:50
personally or professionally let's one
00:16:52
of
00:16:53
each well personally um
00:16:59
I
00:17:00
think the way that myy would say you
00:17:03
know don't buy the culture if you don't
00:17:05
like it and I saw that he was able to be
00:17:09
sort of countercultural himself now he
00:17:12
wasn't a radical just certain things
00:17:13
that he didn't care for he didn't buy
00:17:15
into and he died quite contentedly Al
00:17:20
albe it with the worst disease you could
00:17:21
ever imagine and I saw that I said
00:17:24
okay that's always stuck with me and and
00:17:27
there's a lot of things that I just
00:17:28
don't get into in American life that
00:17:31
everybody gets into like reality TV for
00:17:34
me is it's not I don't even have an
00:17:36
opinion on it because it's non-existent
00:17:38
for me I don't allow it to become part
00:17:40
of my life I don't know any of these
00:17:42
people I know who the Kardashians are
00:17:44
because you can't live in this country
00:17:46
and not know who they are but I don't
00:17:47
know which one's which and and and it's
00:17:51
fine I I push a lot of that stuff to
00:17:53
side and other parts of the culture I
00:17:54
embrace and I learned that from myy and
00:17:56
I think that's why I've been able to do
00:17:59
as much as I've been able to do is just
00:18:00
I I don't feel obligated to play on
00:18:02
every field just the ones that interest
00:18:05
me and I think I can make it a
00:18:07
difference in um
00:18:10
professionally you know Tuesdays with
00:18:13
Mory uh uh took me off of a path of um
00:18:18
pure sports writer ambition and plopped
00:18:22
me into a whole different world the best
00:18:25
way that I can think of this is uh when
00:18:26
I was a sports writer
00:18:29
solely um people would stop Me Maybe in
00:18:31
airports if they recognize me from the
00:18:33
Sports reporters or something like that
00:18:34
and they'd say uh hey who's going to win
00:18:37
the Super Bowl and I learned from Chuck
00:18:39
Daly the coach of the Pistons he would
00:18:40
always say answer them but never stop
00:18:43
moving your feet you know keep moving
00:18:45
your feet and so I would move my feet
00:18:47
I'd say the Patriots you know and I just
00:18:49
keep walking and then after Tuesday Mori
00:18:51
came out people would stop me in the
00:18:53
airport and they'd say you know my
00:18:55
mother just died from ALS and I wonder
00:18:57
can I talk to you about it for second
00:18:59
well you can't go Patriots you know uh
00:19:02
and so you have to stop and um you have
00:19:05
to engage and consequently I have heard
00:19:08
so many
00:19:10
stories that I have I think what it did
00:19:13
for me Adam is it developed a
00:19:16
sensitivity to the suffering in the
00:19:19
world and the pain in the world that I
00:19:21
did not have before that and I remember
00:19:25
a few years after Tuesdays with Mor
00:19:27
going to football games and beginning to
00:19:29
look at the crowds that I would be
00:19:30
sitting amongst and you know you I
00:19:33
always work amongst 60 70 80,000 people
00:19:36
you know I mean that's a common office
00:19:39
for me and I would look at the crowd and
00:19:42
I'd say at least half of those people
00:19:45
who are jumping up and down and
00:19:46
screaming have lost somebody in their
00:19:49
life in the last six months and have a
00:19:51
sad story to tell you know and I started
00:19:53
to realize how many people are just
00:19:55
walking around with these stories and
00:19:57
then all of a sudden I hear them because
00:20:00
I'm the guy that they can tell them to
00:20:02
so it's made me sensitive to that and
00:20:05
recognize that you can't just judge
00:20:07
somebody by whatever expression they
00:20:09
happen to have on their face or they're
00:20:12
yelling or they're laughing everybody
00:20:13
walks around with some heartbreak in
00:20:15
their in their soul and some more than
00:20:18
others on the Lighter Side uh one of the
00:20:21
things we see a lot of Business Leaders
00:20:22
doing is trying to emulate great Sports
00:20:24
coaches yeah what you've been observing
00:20:27
sports for decades what the the biggest
00:20:29
lessons that you've learned from the
00:20:31
greatest of great
00:20:32
coaches well you know I'm not sure I buy
00:20:35
into that whole business equal Sports
00:20:38
thing I just think it's easy and um I
00:20:41
think a lot of coaches are are are
00:20:44
admired by um leaders of business and
00:20:49
it's turned into a cottage industry for
00:20:51
coaches to sort of create these um
00:20:54
winning philosophy books uh and uh and
00:20:58
and if you just follow my 10 rules for
00:21:00
Success you but you know one of the
00:21:03
rules for success for many of these guys
00:21:04
is make sure you get a number one draft
00:21:06
pick you know uh or make sure you
00:21:08
recruit the best athlete to come to your
00:21:11
college and it's not so easy you know
00:21:13
some of that is luck of the draw some of
00:21:15
that is is uh is where you're
00:21:17
geographically located I'm not sure
00:21:19
coaches have the secret to how to run a
00:21:21
successful business I just think they're
00:21:23
easy targets
00:21:25
because you know you can see their
00:21:27
success on the field the best coaches
00:21:29
that I've seen are the ones that
00:21:31
understand that you have to
00:21:34
simultaneously be coaching a team and an
00:21:39
individual at the same time again Chuck
00:21:43
Dy comes to mind used to say you know
00:21:45
and and Bo schembecker told me this too
00:21:47
I treat them all fairly but I don't
00:21:50
treat them all alike and uh you know
00:21:53
they understood that this guy may
00:21:56
require a little bit of extra and this
00:21:59
guy just a tap in a back and he's good
00:22:01
to go and this guy and some people want
00:22:03
to cookie cutter everybody some people
00:22:05
want to make sure when they run their
00:22:07
companies that everybody follows exactly
00:22:09
the same rules and they send out emails
00:22:10
and they say this is our policy and this
00:22:12
is but everybody's going to ingest that
00:22:14
differently and you can't make a person
00:22:17
into a a a robot Soldier uh you may
00:22:21
think that by everybody standing lock
00:22:23
step and everybody moving at the exact
00:22:25
same time you've got an efficient
00:22:27
operation but what you're missing is the
00:22:30
efficiency that could come from
00:22:31
cultivating everybody's particular
00:22:33
Talent while still moving towards a
00:22:36
greater good now I think a lot of the
00:22:37
younger companies quote unquote the
00:22:39
newer companies they might almost take
00:22:41
it the opposite direction it's like you
00:22:43
do your laundry here eat your food here
00:22:45
you know you be part of our thing and be
00:22:47
whoever you are wear whatever you want
00:22:48
and and I I think sometimes that can go
00:22:51
too far the other way and and and all
00:22:53
people really are doing is sort of using
00:22:55
your company as a springboard for their
00:22:57
own personal you know startup uh but
00:23:00
somewhere in between the two is the
00:23:02
right balance and that's what good
00:23:04
sports coaches do you know you find that
00:23:07
the players all buy into the program but
00:23:09
they don't all get told the exact same
00:23:11
thing yeah we started this conversation
00:23:14
with you being surprised that Tuesdays
00:23:16
with myy had a life-changing impact on
00:23:17
some people and I have to imagine that
00:23:20
there are some books you've read that
00:23:21
have had that kind of effect on you if
00:23:22
you were going to point to one or two
00:23:24
what would they be well the Bible ranks
00:23:26
up there uh you know and I only say that
00:23:29
half kiddingly in that I think there are
00:23:32
uh there are Psalms that when I found
00:23:36
you know I had a stretch of time in my
00:23:37
life where I was going through a lot of
00:23:40
trouble and issues and um you know I'd
00:23:43
never been a person who really thought
00:23:45
much about reading the Bible for any
00:23:47
kind of comfort I had a very very
00:23:49
extensive religious education when I was
00:23:51
a kid I went to a religious uh day
00:23:54
school and high school for much of my
00:23:56
life so I knew a lot about it but I put
00:23:58
it all aside when I got out but there
00:24:01
are some beautiful Psalms written by
00:24:03
David that I find that actually
00:24:06
Encompass all of sort of the human
00:24:08
misery and the desire to you know like
00:24:11
help me help me you know come to my Aid
00:24:13
and and those things you know if you
00:24:15
talk about a the printed word having an
00:24:17
effect I have to first say that of
00:24:19
anything that I've ever read when I you
00:24:21
read that you you realize this was
00:24:22
written by somebody thousands of years
00:24:24
ago and it's exactly what you're feeling
00:24:28
in terms of like come to my Aid and help
00:24:31
me it's it's like wow so people felt
00:24:34
this way even then and and you know I
00:24:37
know other people the minute they hear
00:24:38
religion they go well I don't want to
00:24:39
have anything to do with this but read
00:24:41
the Psalms the Psalms are a little bit
00:24:43
different than you know uh uh uh the
00:24:46
golden calf or or Noah's Arc U and then
00:24:50
as far as books that um you know are are
00:24:53
are secular most of them have inspired
00:24:55
me um from a writer's point of view you
00:24:58
you know like what you can create if
00:25:00
you're really good and there uh uh I
00:25:03
look at A Book Like A River Runs Through
00:25:05
It written by Norman mlan when he was in
00:25:08
his 60s you know not even published
00:25:10
until he was almost 70 and then you know
00:25:12
he didn't even live to see the movie
00:25:14
made out of it and it is poetry about
00:25:18
his own life and uh you read those
00:25:21
sentences and you know even the end of
00:25:23
the book I'm paraphrasing but said you
00:25:24
know in in the end all things come
00:25:27
together and uh you know and and and and
00:25:30
become one and a river runs through it
00:25:32
I'm haunted by waters you know and you
00:25:34
can read that a thousand times over and
00:25:37
still say what beauty I want to create
00:25:40
something that beautiful and um I think
00:25:43
that that's how books like that have
00:25:44
inspired me what would you say as you
00:25:47
reflect on your career to date is
00:25:49
something you believed early on about
00:25:51
what it took to be successful or to to
00:25:53
have some influence that you've decided
00:25:55
is no longer true uh
00:25:58
that ambition was equal to it was a
00:26:02
direct equation to success that the more
00:26:05
you pushed the more you wanted the more
00:26:07
you got I have come to observe
00:26:11
that although this defies physics there
00:26:15
are times when if you take your foot off
00:26:17
the gas you go faster I don't know how
00:26:21
it works I could not explain it through
00:26:24
the laws of physics I just have observed
00:26:26
that it does I used to think
00:26:29
was the only way to go and uh I I I I
00:26:33
find that that's not
00:26:34
true and you've actually spent a good
00:26:37
chunk of your career working in
00:26:39
organizations uh you have a a chance as
00:26:42
a journalist and as a writer uh to hold
00:26:44
up a mirror a little bit and think about
00:26:46
how does this organization really run
00:26:47
how should it work differently what are
00:26:49
the mistakes that you see people making
00:26:51
when they think about how to organize
00:26:52
the way that people work together uh
00:26:55
well you're right I I have especially in
00:26:57
the last
00:26:58
number of years as I formed Charities
00:27:01
because here writing is a fairly
00:27:02
solitary existence it's so your
00:27:04
organization is an organization of one
00:27:07
uh but as I have uh gotten more and more
00:27:10
into charity work I I operate in
00:27:12
orphanage in Haiti that I'm at every
00:27:13
month I have a about about 20 some odd
00:27:18
people working I like to say with me not
00:27:21
for me uh in Detroit on all my assorted
00:27:23
charity things and other Ventures I
00:27:25
think the mistakes that I've made and so
00:27:28
therefore I see other people uh make is
00:27:31
that uh when you are the driving force
00:27:34
of a
00:27:35
company
00:27:37
um the element of not wanting to
00:27:40
disappoint
00:27:41
you becomes part of everybody's work day
00:27:46
and the way that you talk to people or
00:27:50
the way that you might even praise
00:27:51
somebody else has a direct effect on the
00:27:55
performance of the other people and you
00:27:58
want to say well I wasn't talking to you
00:28:00
you know or why should that bother you
00:28:02
or uh you know and and what you need to
00:28:05
understand is if you are in a company
00:28:08
where you are kind of the magnet that
00:28:11
Drew the people there or that they look
00:28:13
to you for leadership at the top you
00:28:16
have got to
00:28:18
consider the way that they are
00:28:20
processing the information that you're
00:28:22
putting out even if it's to somebody
00:28:24
else if you ignore it and you just say
00:28:26
look this is I'm I'm the boss and I said
00:28:28
say this to this and I say this to this
00:28:29
and that's all that should matter you're
00:28:31
going to have trouble and you're going
00:28:32
to go what's wrong why why isn't that
00:28:34
person doing what I thought they should
00:28:36
do why are they reacting that and
00:28:37
ultimately when you get down to it you
00:28:39
find out that they were jealous of your
00:28:42
praise of somebody else or or uh Angry
00:28:46
that you didn't notice something that
00:28:48
they did or uh overly content because
00:28:51
you praised them and they thought well
00:28:53
I'm home free so the way that you come
00:28:56
across to people within your own organiz
00:28:58
ation is not as simple as just saying
00:28:59
I've called you all together here and
00:29:01
I'm going to say this has everybody got
00:29:02
it yeah yeah yeah you need to sit with
00:29:05
each person and say okay no one else is
00:29:07
here because group think is one thing
00:29:10
and individual think is another and it's
00:29:12
I see it when I go out and talk to
00:29:14
groups you know you say Okay are there
00:29:15
any
00:29:16
questions you know everybody looks
00:29:18
around no questions one person raises
00:29:20
their hand everybody's hand goes up why
00:29:23
if you had a question you had a question
00:29:25
obviously there's a dynamic right
00:29:28
same thing in running an organization
00:29:30
and you have to recognize therefore that
00:29:32
what you would get oneon-one if you took
00:29:35
the time with your employees one-onone
00:29:36
is not what you're going to get when you
00:29:38
call them all together and if you really
00:29:39
want to understand what's going on in
00:29:41
your place you better sit down oneon-one
00:29:43
periodically with those people terrific
00:29:45
well Mitch thank you for sitting down
00:29:47
one-on-one here my pleasure thanks Adam
00:30:00
[Music]
