How to fix any problem (w/ Anne Morriss and Frances Frei)

Some problems seem impossible. But this week’s guests say any problem can be solved. Leadership coach Anne Morriss and Harvard Business Professor Frances Frei are the power couple behind the book, Move Fast and Fix Things, the TED podcast Fixable, and more. They join Chris to discuss why any problem can be solved — whether the issue is in your business, family, or community. Learn how simple, everyday logic, authenticity, and empathy can guide you to the best solutions to your trickiest problems. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts http://go.ted.com/BHTranscripts. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts https://go.ted.com/BHTranscripts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Chris Duffy?

  This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot. What can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them, in and out of court. And that fight needs your support today. Donate at N R D C dot org slash human and your gift will be matched five times.

• 0:49Chris Duffy?

  Today's episode is sponsored by Smart Travel, a new podcast from NerdWallet. You know that one friend who always finds the best travel deals, picks the right cards, and somehow ends up in first class for the price of coach? Smart Travel is like that friend, but in podcast form. They cover things like the smartest way to book flights without planning your trip around the cheapest days to fly, or the quick math for knowing when to pay with points or just swipe your card. It's like having a travel savvy tour guide right in your pocket to let you in on all the little known tips and tricks to avoid all the hassle and extra costs that make travel so much harder than it has to be. Travel smarter and spend less with help from NerdWallet. Follow Smart Travel wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:34Chris Duffy?

  You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and today we're talking about problems. So how do you fix a problem? One time I lived in a place where whenever we told the landlord about a problem, he would send over this handyman to try and fix the issue. But the handyman fixed it always in the absolute cheapest and fastest way possible. Like one time, there was a leaky pipe, and the solution that this man came up with was to just wrap the pipe in like 20 feet of duct tape. It was truly incredible. Or another time, we had a hole in a cabinet door, and he came over and his solution was he just filled the entire cabinet. With that inflatable spray foam stuff so that there just wasn't a cabinet anymore at all. And I'm pretty sure that that is not how you're supposed to fix either of those problems.

• 2:18Chris Duffy?

  But here's the thing, that guy actually was not the worst. There are a lot of people who don't even try and fix problems. They completely ignore the issues, or they make problems worse. And many, many, many problems that people are dealing with these days are a lot more significant than a weird cabinet or a leaky pipe. I'm talking about broken down systems. I'm talking about malfunctioning international organizations. Things like that can feel unfixable. But today's guests, Anne Morris and Frances Frei, they are all about finding solutions to problems, whether they're big or small. And those two, they refuse to accept the idea that nothing can be done. They never resort to duct tape or spray foam unless those are appropriate for the solution, and they so rarely are.

• 3:00Chris Duffy?

  To give you a sense of how Anne and Frances work, here's a clip from Anne's TED Talk.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Move fast and break things is still a widely held belief that we can either make progress or take care of each other, one or the other. That a certain amount of wreckage is the price we have to pay for inventing the future.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  My wife and I have spent the last decade helping companies clean up this wreckage. And one of the main lessons from our work is that the trade off at the heart of this worldview is false. The most effective leaders we know solve problems at an accelerated pace, while also taking responsibility for the success and the well being of their customers and employees and shareholders. They move fast and fix things.

• 3:49Chris Duffy?

  We're going to figure out how to solve problems, even seemingly intractable ones, right after this. But don't go anywhere, because Anne and Frances, the only problem they can't help me solve is how to get you back if you've shut off this episode before the interview even starts. So don't go anywhere, we'll be right back after these ads.

• 4:14Chris Duffy?

  This episode is brought to you by Planet Visionaries, a podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. What connects a hidden laboratory in the Amazon, giant pandas in China's mountain forests, research relating to the ocean, and communities living alongside wildlife in India? That's what you'll hear on season six of Planet Visionaries, stories from the explorers, scientists, and conservation leaders whose work addresses research, biodiversity, and conservation issues in specific locations. Planet Visionaries, hosted by environmental advocate and professional climber Alex Honnold, brings you real stories of discovery, determination, and research and initiatives relating to environmental change.

• 4:58Chris Duffy?

  In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

• 5:08Chris Duffy?

  This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. With the holidays approaching, it's a good time to give your home a little attention. Maybe that means making room for guests, finally organizing that closet, or finding a few things to make your space feel more festive. I personally started with my garage, which had become a real mess, a place where things go to be forgotten. I found some storage racks on Wayfair that helped me get things organized. And while I was browsing, I also checked out their selection of Christmas trees, which were beautiful and festive, and I'm really excited about having for the holidays. What I love is it's so easy to find what you're looking for using the filters, customer photos, and reviews on Wayfair. I always feel confident that I have found the right fit for my home. And if you want a shortcut to the good stuff, shop Wayfair Verified.

• 5:52Chris Duffy?

  Their product specialists hand-vet everything so you know you're getting a quality product. When refreshing your home this holiday season, Wayfair delivers exactly what you need. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone. This is Elise Hu, host of the TED Talks Daily Podcast. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that the people who make the biggest difference aren't waiting for the right moment, they're building toward it. Creighton University's online graduate programs in business, healthcare, and leadership are designed for exactly that kind of person. You'll sharpen the skills that matter and connect with others who share that drive. If you're ready to grow in your career and do work that actually counts, start at graduateprograms.creighton.edu.

• 6:52Chris Duffy?

  Today, we're talking with Anne Morris and Frances Frei of the podcast Fixable.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Hi, everyone. I'm Anne Morris. I'm here with Professor Frances Frei from the Harvard Business School. She's also my co-author, my co-conspirator, my co-parent, my wife. We do all of our work together now, and we help organizations that are taking big swings strategically, operationally, and we also help individual leaders who want to solve problems.

• 7:21Speaker 03

  And Anne and I tried to work separately and just had a lot of fear of missing out. And we have become each other's favorite collaborator. I usually stand in the front of big rooms, and Anne does all of the intimate stuff, all of the one-to-one coaching.

• 7:38Chris Duffy?

  Anne, in your TED Talk, you talked about this commonly-used phrase, "move fast and break things," and then you kind of flipped that on its head. Can you both talk about why moving fast and breaking things might actually not be the best philosophy when it comes to business or to life?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it is this ethos that defined the innovation economy for decades. And of course, Mark Zuckerberg made famous and put it on company posters. But he wasn't the only one, and I think he was just saying out loud the assumptions that were defining a particular neighborhood in Silicon Valley. But then, of course, it had huge... Implications for everyone else starting things. I think with distance, we now know that that's not the best way to do things. So a big part of our motivation to write the book, which we titled Move Fast and Fix Things, was to get the word out that the most successful leaders that we know, and there's a lot of great research to back us up on this,

• 8:37Speaker 01

  are solving problems at an accelerated pace, but they're also taking responsibility for the success and the well-being of their customers, shareholders and employees. They're refusing this false trade-off that is built into this idea of moving fast and breaking things, that you have to choose one or the other.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  And in Mark's defense, he did, it was about 10 years later, say that move fast and break things wasn't the right idea. And then he changed it to move fast with a stable infrastructure.

• 9:03Chris Duffy?

  Well, so you two are really dedicated to this idea of fixing things. I mean, you have your book, Move Fast and Fix Things. You have a podcast, Fixable. I think one of the interesting things about the way that you both approach fixing things is the idea of the time scale that you think is an appropriate time scale to work on. In your podcast, you work to solve guests' workplace problems in 30 minutes or less. In your TED Talk, you talked about how you can fix most really big problems in a workplace, or you can at least make a real impact on them in a week. And people, I think, tend to think of these problems as intractable, months, years, decades-long problems. So talk to me a little bit about the idea that problems can be solved quickly, or more quickly than we think.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  I actually would go even farther and say, if you give too much time, you won't solve the problem. So one of the reasons so many problems are so stubborn is because we're so permissive with them. Things will fill the allotted time. And if you give a lot of time, we will fill it with things that will slow down everything else. If something is important enough to solve, and we're very big advocates of, please don't solve it if it's not broken. But if it is important enough to solve, you've got to communicate to everyone that it's at the top of the priority list. And when you communicate to everyone that it's top of the priority list, you can't make it slide down and up and down and up. And so that what happens when people take a month, a quarter, a year to solve a problem

• 10:27Speaker 03

  is they just had it episodically move up and down the priority list. It's like, from an operations perspective, guaranteed to have mediocre quality at best.

• 10:36Chris Duffy?

  It's interesting because immediately I want to be like, but what about this problem? And what about that problem? And I imagine that happens to you a lot, where people come up with all these ideas of problems that it doesn't seem like you could possibly fix quickly.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Our usual pushback is if you look more closely, we can start with big messy problems that have plagued the human condition since the beginning of time. But if you really look closely at the movements that have made progress, and some of the movements may have lasted generations, it really did start with somebody deciding to make progress and taking real steps. That's really what we're talking about, is make the decision to make progress, make the decision that the problem you're trying to solve is fixable, and start the flywheel of action that's going to release all of the energy and emotion that is going to really accelerate your progress.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  The emotion we experience most often, you know, on day two after we show up, is relief, right? It's not that this problem has not been lost on anyone in the system because you haven't decided to address it. So the decision to address the problem, it's a huge accelerant. That's the posture we're trying to get people in, is to make the decision that it's fixable and take these initial first steps, and then do it again the next week, and do it again the next week, and do it again the next week. And the nature of the problem evolves as you go. But there's a lot of power in this week-long increment, because it's how we organize our lives. It's how we organize sprint, recover, sprint, recover.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  And so if you start thinking about problems in those sprints, you can move forward at a really exciting pace, and in a way that allows you to build enough momentum to really get that plane into the sky.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  I would say that when you ask people, "Look backwards, you solved a problem, look backwards, take all of the value-added steps, ignore all the false starts and all of that." How much time did that take? It is startlingly close to 40 hours. Startlingly close to 40 hours.

• 12:40Chris Duffy?

  Obviously, you both work most frequently with businesses and with leaders of organizations, but I know from Talking to you that you believe that this works in society, in interpersonal relationships across the board. And I'll just speak for myself. Often I get kind of paralyzed by thinking about the scale of the problem, rather than by just doing something over and over. So this is a small example, but like, it seems impossible to write a book. For example, you both have written a book. I'm working on a book right now. But if you just write a page a day, in a year, you've written a book. And most people can write more than a page a day. But it's the hard part is sitting down and convincing yourself to write that first page, and then to do it again

• 13:20Chris Duffy?

  the next day and the next day. I guess the more that I get older and see the world more, the more that I'm kind of convinced that a lot of problems are like that. Like, it's easy to throw your hands up in the air and say, how could X societal issue ever get changed? But what did you do today on that issue? It's really hard to do anything if you haven't actually done anything.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  The scale of book can be paralyzing for people. But if you reduce it to chapter, and then if you reduce it to page, or I'm just going to write this next paragraph, or I'm just going to write this next sentence, that beautiful flywheel of action begins. And then suddenly, you are in a place, when you were looking at book as the challenge here, you weren't emotionally in a place where you were going to make progress. But you reduce the scale, you get your head around, you realize, oh, yeah, I can put this sentence together. I can do subject, verb, object, and move forward. That's what we're trying to do with organizations, and teams, and leaders, is to get them to realize that they actually can solve this problem. And sometimes, you know, scale is one of the unlocks, for sure.

• 14:26Chris Duffy?

  Let's get some specifics in this. Rather than just talking about you all fix problems, let's start with a problem that you have worked on, and that was one of your favorites to work on. I know that's kind of an odd thing to have a favorite problem, but I'm sure you have one.

• 14:40Speaker 03

  I'll start with one. It's my recent favorite, which was, an organization was so strapped for time, they didn't have time to, they thought, to do the most important things. So, the young version of them, they got To make a lot of progress because they got to concentrate on what mattered. And the bigger portion of them, they just didn't have the time to do that because they were doing so many other things. And so the symptom was no time. Getting from the symptom to the real problem is another unlock. In fact, that's what we call Monday. That's the first thing to do. And so everyone was just lamenting how much time they didn't have.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  When we worked with them on it, and it's a very fun story, and we were able to liberate 50% of their time for all of them.

• 15:29Chris Duffy?

  Wow.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  And they get to do higher quality work. And I think their problem was the same at almost every other company in the world, which is if you address the symptom of the problem, I don't have enough time, then you'll start thinking of, well, let's have no meeting Fridays and let's, you know, like, let's just do all of these things that address the symptom, but don't actually address the cause of what was going on. And when we helped them get down to the cause, we could address that in a really scalable and beautiful way that has shown this company that bigger doesn't need to be worse or less noble or less purposeful. It's actually better.

• 16:09Chris Duffy?

  And what was the cause?

• 16:10Speaker 03

  And the cause was that they were inviting too many people to meetings. That was one of the reasons. I'm just, I'm inviting people to meetings that didn't need to be there, that didn't need to be there live. Notes would have done. The way in which I was running the meetings was about 2X inefficient. So for example, it was a very inclusive company, and they thought that everybody should have a voice. Well, that's a terrible way to run a meeting. But it's a terrible way because not everyone's voice is novel. So if you, Chris, have already said something and I have the same thing to say, the last thing you want to do is hear me speak. But because they didn't have anyone facilitating the meetings for rigor and for process,

• 16:54Speaker 03

  they were just these bastions of everyone talking and no idea was a bad idea and they weren't. So with some how to run, some meeting management and meeting facilitation, and then attendance guidelines and some follow-up, post-follow-up afterwards, we were able to bring it down to fewer, better meetings with fewer attendees, taking half as much time and achieving much more.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Francis, the headline statistic on that example was astonishing. I think the amount of time people are spending in meetings in this organization is down 50%. And this happened in a matter of months. And as you said, commitment to some norms of meeting management. Who are we going to invite? Liberating people to just watch the video.

• 17:37Speaker 03

  2X speed, listen to the audio. Pro tip.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  We worked with one organization that introduced a new rule, no agenda, no attenda. So that if, you know, if the meeting invitation didn't come with an agenda, you could decline.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  By the way, the reason you need an agenda, just as a fun fact, because you have to know when to declare victory. If you don't have an agenda, then literally anyone can bring anything up. But if I tell you we're going to do these three things, when we're done those three things, even if we're only 20% of the way through the time, you congratulate everyone. But without an agenda, you can't declare victory.

• 18:09Chris Duffy?

  We're going to take a break, but don't worry, we are not declaring victory yet. We'll be right back to keep fighting the good fight for solutions with Ann and Francis right after this. Don't go anywhere.

• 18:26Chris Duffy?

  This episode is sponsored by Peloton. Sometimes the world gets loud. There's always something to think about, something to check, something demanding your attention. And one of the things I love about moving is that for a little while, you can turn some of that noise down. Maybe it's a run, a walk, a hike, whatever gets you moving. You focus on the next step, your mind gets quieter, and you get a chance to be right where you are. Peloton helps you find that feeling. And now, the new Peloton Tread Flex makes the joy of running feel even more accessible. It's movable, foldable, and designed to fit easily into your space. All you need is a corner, not a home gym. Run, walk, or hike when you need to, then roll it away when you don't. With programs for every level and instructors who feel more like friends than drill sergeants, Peloton meets you where you are.

• 19:11Chris Duffy?

  Let yourself run. Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com.

• 19:18Chris Duffy?

  This episode is sponsored by ADT. It's that time of year again when life gets busy. Back to school, back to work, back to routine. When everyone is out the door and on the go, it's comforting to know your home is taken care of while you're away. ADT makes that part easy. Enjoying the little moments with friends and family is easier when you have one less thing on your mind. With their customizable systems that can be professionally installed, ADT has your home security covered. The ADT Plus app lets you access your whole system from your phone. You can arm, disarm, and even check live camera feeds. Visit ADT.com or call 1-800-ADT-ASAP. When every second counts, count on ADT. This episode is brought to you by Planet Visionaries,

• 20:03Chris Duffy?

  a podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. What connects a hidden laboratory in the Amazon, giant pandas in China's mountain forests, research relating to the ocean, and communities living alongside wildlife in India? That's what you'll hear on season six of Planet Visionaries. Stories from the explorers, scientists, and conservation leaders whose work addresses research, biodiversity, and conservation issues in specific locations. Planet Visionaries, hosted by environmental advocate and professional climber Alex Honnold, brings you real stories of discovery, determination, and research and initiatives relating to environmental change. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative,

• 20:47Chris Duffy?

  this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

• 20:55Chris Duffy?

  And we are back. Today, we're talking with Anne Morris and Frances Frei about how to fix things. And very appropriately, they host a podcast that's called Fixable. I'd like to play a clip from that podcast for you right now before we get back into the conversation.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Let's get into the mechanics of trust. Because you and I think about this all day. We talk about it all day. And I think you go one layer deeper, which is what's really driving trust. And there's a very stable pattern. So describe the pattern.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. So that stable pattern is that when we see trust between two people, we always, always, always observe three specific dynamics.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  And anytime we don't see trust between two people, one of those three is missing. So you are more likely to trust me if you experience that it's the real me in it for you with rigorous logic. So you are more likely to trust me if you experience my authenticity, my empathy and my logic. The real me in it for you with a rigorous plan that is worthy of your trust.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Right. So we use this framework called the trust triangle all the time in our work.

• 22:12Chris Duffy?

  Give me the three points on the triangle again.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Logic, authenticity and empathy. And the idea is that you, Chris, are more likely to trust me. And if you are convinced of my logic, so if you're convinced I'm capable and can do something, if you're convinced that my thoughts and words and emotions are all aligned, like you're interacting with the real me, we call that authenticity. And then if I care about you and your needs and your success, we call that empathy. So one of the patterns we've observed is that if you think of these three pillars of trust, for most people, they're all three are firing most of the time. Right? But whenever we lose trust or fail to build as much trust as might be possible, one of these pillars tends to get a little shaky. It used to be the same one. Right? It tends to be the same one. So we call that your wobble.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  So Frances is a self-identified empathy wobbler. But that fix of being in this I-centric space to this we-centric, going from I to we might be the most efficient way to describe an empathy pivot. Really powerful choice to make. And it works for individuals, it works for teams, it works for organizations. This is a good example of not stopping at this kind of surface level analysis. Like we talk about Monday, you have to go beneath the surface and tunnel down to the root cause of a problem. You know, Frances is irritated at dinner and I'm irritated that Frances is irritated. Right? But it like, if we just leave it there,

• 23:42Speaker 01

  if I'm just pissed, if she's uncomfortable and I'm mad about it, like, we're not going to make any progress. So we spend a lot of time in our work trying to pop the hood on problems. And figure out what's really going wrong. And you know, we come from the Business Academy. And so we love a good framework, but the reason frameworks are helpful is because they do allow you to use the patterns of the past to reveal what's going on in the present and to really kind of surface what's underneath things.

• 24:12Chris Duffy?

  Hmm.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  And the whole point of figuring out which one it is, is you have to steady the right pillar.

• 24:18Chris Duffy?

  Hmm.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  So you can't solve an empathy wobble by doubling down on your logic.

• 24:23Speaker 03

  I tried it for a long time.

• 24:25Chris Duffy?

  Oh, yes.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Decades, for decades. Here's like an example we see all the time in organizations right now. You have Gen Z coming into the workplace, pissing off all of their older colleagues, asking for things that we didn't have the courage to ask, wanting to know when they were going to get promoted on day two. We would classify that as a, you know, as a logic request. You know, I wouldn't understand the terms of this arrangement if I'm going to give you my time, labor and energy, what am I getting in return? Fine. And organizations are saying, great, I hear you. Here are some extra yoga classes at lunch.

• 25:00Chris Duffy?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  You know, or here's some matcha tea. We know you kids like the matcha tea. Right? So you have to pair the solution with the problem, which means you have to tunnel down and really understand it.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  And that was an empathy solution to a logic problem. And not only does it not work, it enrages people.

• 25:15Chris Duffy?

  I'm thinking about how we've already kind of touched on in one of the frameworks that you use in your talk, we touched on Monday and Tuesday. But can you give me just like the top line of like what each day is in this?

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Monday, we say find the real problem, right? And so that's going from getting it at the right scale and going from the symptom down to the cause. Tuesday is solve for trust because the dynamic, if there are people involved in your problem, there will be a trust issue in the lens of authenticity, logic and empathy. As you just saw, it can be very helpful. By the end of Tuesday, you're going to have what we call a good enough plan. You're going to have Plan V1.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  The job on Wednesday is to create an even better plan. We can guarantee you that whatever plan you had at the end of Tuesday, we can guarantee you a process that it will be better at the end of Wednesday. And that is if you invite people that you don't typically talk with. So if you solve this problem with your senior team, invite people that are not like your senior team. If you solve this problem with people who you just feel comfortable solving problems with, invite other people. So if you can bring difference to the table, and then be super inclusive of the difference. So we call Wednesday "Make New Friends." So it's bring difference and then convince them, be inclusive of their voices, convince them that what we want is their unique perspective.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  So you have a good enough plan on Tuesday, it will be an even better plan on Wednesday if you make new friends. Now you're ready to take it for a test drive for the rest of the organization, but you need it to exist in your absence. But if I want people to understand this without me having to go door to door, I have to tell it in the form of a story. We really learn through stories. And stories are super memorable for us. So Thursday is all about how do you craft a story that can withstand our absence? So that everyone who hears the story or reads the story understands it as if I had a one-on-one conversation with them. That's Thursday. And then you get to go fast.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  So when we say move fast and fix things, you're only allowed to go fast on Friday. If you go fast on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, you're actually going to move fast and break things. But if with all of those things under control, now you get to do all of the beautiful speed accelerants. And so that's what we do on Friday, is show you the classic ways to speed things up.

• 27:41Chris Duffy?

  The thing that it really strikes me about this, though, is how much of this relies on...

• 27:47Chris Duffy?

  Psychological and self-awareness shifts. And I think that some of those can be really hard, even for the most self-aware people. So what about for those of us who kind of have the classic problem of self-awareness, which is, I think that I'm more self-aware than I am. Like, I think surely I've gotten the real problem. I already did Monday. And Tuesday, oh, I have built trust. But you actually haven't done Monday or Tuesday. How do you know if you're not as good at either of those days as you think you might be?

• 28:20Speaker 03

  Well, one way is when you get started on Wednesday, when you bring in the new voices, they're pretty quick to show you. But if you wanted to, like, save yourself from waiting till Wednesday, the test we ask you to do on Monday is, what's the symptom? Like, what's the annoying symptom? And what is your estimation of the cause? If they're the same thing, I promise you, you're not there.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  And we don't leave it to chance, Chris. We assume that all of us, at the beginning of the week, are overconfident. We've been trained to be overconfident, particularly if we're sitting at the top of hierarchies. We've been trained to be overly reliant on our intuition. So we're not going to give you the opportunity to do that. We're going to slow you way down and force you on Monday to make sure that you're solving the right problem. And we offer lots of different ways to do that. For instance, your point, the most humbling is to be in genuine, authentic dialogue with the people around you about what they think the problem is. Right? And that will tend to invite you into a more open, more curious space.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  One of the things that's interesting about the psychology literature that really looks at this question is that one of the key findings is that curiosity and judgment don't play well together. They essentially can't coexist in our brains. And so we really push people at the beginning of this process to tap into their own curiosity by any means necessary. But with the thing that you are measuring yourself against on Monday is not, do I have the right answers? Am I asking the right questions? We really, that's what we're solving for, really great questions.

• 29:57Chris Duffy?

  But how do you convince people who are a little more skeptical or who are pushed back on the idea of that they even have problems that need to be fixed or that they want to fix them in this way?

• 30:07Speaker 03

  You're at the Achilles' heel of what we do, which is, we can only help people who want help. So one way we get people in touch with it is we ask the magic dust question. And so on Monday, we say, if you had magic dust and you could sprinkle it on what everybody else is saying a problem and you're not sure it's a problem, but if you could sprinkle it on that, what would be different, what would be better? And tell us with as much specificity as you can. And they'll talk around there, but you might hear some metrics and they'll come up with, you know, profit will go up a little. So we have the magic dust question and then we pause, a dramatic pause, and then we say, add a zero and then we'll help you. So magic dust to get in touch with how much better things can be.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  So you don't like thinking of a problem? Think of it in the future, how much better it can be. And then we want to turbocharge your ambition.

• 30:58Chris Duffy?

  I love that.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Chris, I think people do sometimes show up with some anxiety that this process is going to be exposing to the organization or to them personally. And what I want to say with the confidence of looking backwards, in 100% of cases, the teams walk away looking and feeling like heroes. The power of, again, releasing that energy and making progress on the things that everyone is getting stuck on is transformational.

• 31:29Chris Duffy?

  I also imagine that many people who are listening to this are going to say like, I want to implement this, but I'm not the leader. I'm not the boss. How can I get my boss to take these ideas and to actually put that into place? What advice do you have for someone who is like, I'm not the decision maker, but I want the decision maker to do this?

• 31:49Speaker 03

  So I would say two things and then I'll invite Ann in. One of them is I would use some version of what is the upside and focus on that. And so with whoever it is that you want to do it, you're not going to convince them they have a problem. That's what I wouldn't do. But you might be able to convince them of how much better things could be. So see if you can captivate them with the upside. That's the first part of it. The second part of it is for you to be a credible messenger, fix something yourself in your own scope so that you can show you're a credible messenger. The best way to have implement change in an organization is have somebody come knock on the door and say, how'd you turn that around? So instead of just going around and saying, "Go to that door, go to that door, go to that door."

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Do something within your own sphere of influence that shows that you get it and you can talk about it credibly. And then I promise you, you'll be a much more palatable messenger.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  A lot of our work is helping people get in touch with the agency and power they do have. It can be a very common feeling, even as a, you know, chief executive officer with all of the decision rights on paper, to feel like you don't, you don't have the power to make things happen. And so when we coach people to get into that changemaker role, you can really lead from wherever you are in the organization. What is the hook that's going to get their attention? One, it may be that I have demonstrated that this is a really powerful approach. But can I also bring a whole bunch of data with me on why the status quo is not super sustainable? And the alternative is an exciting, beautiful future.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  We think in metaphors and learn through stories as a species. So what's the story you can tell from wherever you are in the organization about the beautiful future and the path towards it? From where we are right now, let's honor where we are and where we've been and create a compelling change mandate and then a rigorous and optimistic view of the future. That's the architecture of a great change story. And you can tell that from anywhere in the organization.

• 33:55Chris Duffy?

  For me personally, so many problems feel dispiriting. Like, I think about a problem and then honestly, my main reaction, a lot of the times is like, "Oh, I just want to go to bed."

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Take a nap.

• 34:07Chris Duffy?

  I want to go to sleep. It's 10 a.m. and I'm ready for it to be the nighttime because like, I just can't think about this anymore. And it's kind of hopeless and what am I doing? And I love the way that you two don't deny the reality and yet focus on, okay, like, that doesn't really change anything. So what actually can you do? For me, that just feels so hopeful in a time where I actually feel like there's not a ton of hope around problems in the popular culture.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  I think to my wife's dismay, we find ourselves thinking and talking about emotions all the time in this work. And Francis is an operations professor. This is the last thing.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  I thought I would be talking about.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  She thought she would be talking about. But it, I mean, it's very, you know, Friday Night Lights, Coach Taylor, clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. You need really clear eyes. You need to know what problem you're solving. You need to look directly at the issue. And then you need to get into the emotional posture. You need to find that emotional frequency that's going to allow you to make progress. We sometimes joke about can do lesbian spirit. Like if we had to sum this up in a couple of words, it's can do lesbian spirit. Everyone has an inner lesbian, right? Who's like, ready to like suit up and go for it. And we just invite you to get in touch with her.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  And what I would say, Chris, is if you can't find your inner lesbian on 10 a.m., call a lesbian.

• 35:31Chris Duffy?

  We don't normally title an episode like this, but it may be that this episode needs to be titled, Call a Lesbian. I think really what I would love for listeners to experience is just how you start. Like, I'll tell you what the thing is, and I kind of am like, I'm not quite sure, honestly, even if this is fixable. And I'd love to just hear how you start it.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  We're very excited at this prospect, Chris. This is, and even when we're not recording, you can call us anytime.

• 35:57Chris Duffy?

  Oh, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  We are the lesbians next door for you, Chris Duffy.

• 36:01Chris Duffy?

  Okay, amazing. Well, so I have for several years now volunteered every week at a food pantry because I am a hero. An amazing, incredible person. Thank you so much. I accept your applause. But I'll just be honest that one of the biggest reasons why I kept going back, week after week, is because it was so fun. Genuinely really fun. Great group of people, probably like six or seven regulars. Every time I get there around the middle of the day on Wednesday, because I have a flexible schedule, we have a lunch together and then we sort a bunch of donations. We bag it up and we distribute it in that afternoon. And it is genuinely fun. Like, it makes me feel good about myself, but also it's just a great time. However, as there has been more need in the community, we've served more and more

• 36:46Chris Duffy?

  people. And so that got a little stressful and we were able to solve that problem by doing some more outreach and fundraising. As a result, we kind of had money for the first time to buy supplies and food. And so we created like an oversight committee. You would think that this was like really big success. Like now we have our own bank account and we have like, we can do a monthly newsletter and raise more money and serve more people. And I think that kind of across the board, people felt like it's not fun. It feels more like a job and we all have jobs. We were struggling to figure out like, how do you continue to grow and solve this real need? But not make it so that everyone kind of feels like this thing that used to be fun now is like an unpaid job that is not actually that fun.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Here's what I would do for your Monday, which is, what is it that you liked so much about the problem? And not from hearing you, I'll tell you the three things I heard, and then you can tell me and maybe adjust them, which is, you like it because it was purposeful, it sparked joy, and you accomplished something.

• 37:51Chris Duffy?

  Yeah, the only thing I would add is community.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Community, yeah, I actually wrote that down, Chris.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  Great, so community. So now, we now know the architecture of any future solutions. So if I put Oversight Committee there, first of all, it's not going to make its way out of any of our data, because joy, not a single Oversight Committee in the history of time. Accomplishment, they don't accomplish anything. They just, I mean, it's just, community, it's no, it's now it's them and us. And now, if it's just for Chris, then maybe the organization moves on without you. But if this is for like, the core of the folks, and these are it, we get to discard all solutions that don't have this. And here's, what's on the other side of discarding the Oversight Committee, is a solution that actually will work at

• 38:36Speaker 03

  scale. So it's not that this thing isn't scalable, it's that the first solution that people came up with, they poured liquid cement on it, but it was knowingly wrong, but we don't stop there. And it's not knowingly wrong if you don't detail out purposeful joy, accomplishment, and community. But when you do, everything becomes self-evident.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  What I love about that, Francis, is we're starting with the assumption that the creation of this Oversight Committee was a well-intentioned attempt to solve a problem. So, like, let's just honor the stakeholders here. And then if we assume it was a pilot, if we bring, like, an experimental framing to this, you know, what worked, what didn't, what do we want to keep doing, what do we want to stop doing, what do we want to start doing, if you can invite the system from where you are, which is, you know, a lowly volunteer, you don't have a lot of formal authority here, but if you can bring the stakeholders into evaluating this step, and learning from it, as opposed to just marching forward.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Then I think, you know, that's one possible route here. I mean, one of the challenges for a lot of nonprofits is they don't think, they don't manage their volunteer workforce with the deep awareness that you got to get something back. If you're not getting paid for this, what else, what are you getting back? You're getting this really powerful list. You're having fun. You found a sense of community. You got like a kickback in terms of your own sense of self. That's really powerful. That kept you coming back week after week. But all of that psychological income is now gone under the new regime. Like if we scale that problem over time, that's a big deal. There's a step here that we often talk about on Monday, which is discuss the undiscussable. Everyone's frustrated in the system. My suspicion is that the Oversight Committee is not having a great time either.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Right? Because they're pretty disliked right here. Right? That's what holds a lot of us back. We're like, oh, I'm not a UN level conflict negotiator. So I'm not going to have this difficult conversation. No, the teams that make progress are willing to get in there and talk about it. So if you, with the informal authority you do have here, which is that you're donating your time and you're pretty spectacular at it and you're, you're pretty representative of the other volunteers this organization is going to need to thrive. If you can make this discussable and then bring this experimental framing to people who do have formal authority in the system, like here's our feedback on how this is going. Here's some suggestions. Our expectation is that you can find a breakthrough here.

• 41:05Chris Duffy?

  It's so helpful. It's so true. And it also makes me think of the only real, deep marriage advice that I would give and that I live by, which is you have to say the thing you're afraid of saying and give them a chance to respond to it and give yourselves a chance to work through it. And of course, that's true in every setting. That's how we work as humans is like with kindness, right? It's not say the mean thing, but it's like say the thing that you're afraid might not be okay to say.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  My shorthand for that, Chris, as I've learned it is we have to use our words.

• 41:36Chris Duffy?

  What you just said, use your words, it makes me think that so much of what you've talked about with fixing problems and with identifying problems and all that, these are also skills that I find myself really learning and using as a parent, right? I mean, like, asking why five times. You know who's great at that? A young child. Why? But why? And what? And why? You know who's really good at having to learn to use their words rather than just to feel the pure emotions? Young kids, right? Who's curious about the world? Young kids. So, so much of this feels like things where it's in some ways like stripping away the bad habits that we've learned as grownups and having to get back to

• 42:16Speaker 03

  It sounds exactly right.

• 42:17Chris Duffy?

  Our pure children selves.

• 42:19Speaker 03

  So I hadn't thought of it quite as cleanly as you just said it, but we do often say there are so many parallels between leading, between parenting, and between coaching. What you just added to that, which is really lovely, and being a child.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, the visual that's coming to me is like the, that evolution of man. Because I think it's on Monday where we really want you to be a little kid and just wide-eyed and curious about the world. And then Tuesday, we want to get, we want you in the sandbox playing. And then Wednesday, we want you to do this hard thing, which is to make new friends. Nobody wants to do that. But by Friday, we actually want you to stand up as an adult.

• 42:56Speaker 03

  And run!

• 42:57Speaker 01

  And like, lead, and run! Run! And lead the charge. And so it is a rapid-fire human development experience, Monday to Friday.

• 43:06Chris Duffy?

  I love that. Okay, I cannot let this interview go without bringing up that in some of the research for this show, we found in an interview Francis that you did, you said, and I'm quoting here, "Impossible. There has never been a 48-hour period where I haven't consumed some stand-up comedy. What role does humor and laughter play in allowing for problems to be fixed and allowing us to use these skills and have these transformations?"

• 43:32Speaker 03

  So I watch Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Kennedy Center acceptance speech at least once a week. And one of the things that's in it, and it is so re-watchable, and she is underrated, with as big of a star she is in the world, underrated. But one of the things that she says with beautiful comedic timing is, and she goes on with this punchline of, "And then this bad thing happened. Hilarious. And then this bad thing, hilarious. And then I got another record-breaking Emmy, and then I found out I had cancer." Hilarious. My parents got divorced. Hilarious. Does all of these things, but then she says, "There is not a single thing," and she says it as she can, "not a single thing that is not made better by laughter."

• 44:16Speaker 03

  And she had just listed all of the things that you would say wouldn't, might not, and every one of them, she was the credible messenger for. So here's what I love about comedy. One, it does the sanding for me. It just sands away all of the armor so that people can talk directly to me because I'm laughing and I'm like... And then they come in with some of life's most important lessons. So Julia Louis-Dreyfus in anything, but if you haven't watched the Kennedy acceptance speech, and if you're a Seinfeld fan, she brings out the dance in it, which is just incredible.

• 44:51Chris Duffy?

  Beautiful. I love that answer.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  We use humor all the time in our work. In our experience, I think it is the fastest path to shared humanity and connection between two human beings. And often what we're trying to do is invite people to be human beings in their own environment. Right? Because sometimes people are armored up with their executive, you know, character, right? And we have to peel some of that back for them to sometimes see problems clearly, see the stakeholders who are in pain in their environment, and that's part of the process. And, you know, humor allows us to connect with them at the level of a human being.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  And then, again, it's one of those very infectious, flywheel emotional impacts where then other people around them and us can also show up as three-dimensional human beings.

• 45:47Chris Duffy?

  Beautiful. Well, Anne and Frances, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for making the time. This was incredible. It was really a true joy.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Oh, Chris, we will meet you anywhere, anytime, for anything. So don't be shy.

• 45:58Chris Duffy?

  Careful what you say, because I'm going to take you up on that.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  What she said, and preferably if we're consuming some stand-up comedy.

• 46:07Chris Duffy?

  That is it for this episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guests, Anne Morris and Frances Frei. You can find their podcast Fixable wherever you're listening to this. And you can find more about them at anneandfrances.com. That's A-N-N-E and F-R-A-N-C-E-S dot com. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and other projects, at chrisduffeycomedy.com. How to Be a Better Human is put together by a team of fixers. On the TED side, we've got Daniela Balarezzo, Banban Chang, Chloe Shasha-Brooks, Laney Lott, Antonio Le and Joseph DeBryan. This episode was fact-checked and fixed to truthful perfection by Julia Dickerson and Matthias Salas.

• 46:51Chris Duffy?

  On the PRX side, we are already doing Friday's work while the rest of you all are only on Monday. We've got Morgan Flannery, Nora Gill, Maggie Goreville, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez. And of course, thank you, thank you, thank you to you for listening to our show. You make this possible. If you are listening on Apple, please leave us a five-star rating and review. No matter where you are listening, please share this episode with someone who you think would enjoy it. We will be back next week with more How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much for listening and take care.

• 47:27Chris Duffy?

  This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot. What can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them, in and out of court. And that fight needs your support today. Donate at nrdc.org/human and your gift will be matched five times.

• 48:15Chris Duffy?

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• 48:45Speaker 04

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• 49:15Speaker 04

  That's G O O dot G L E slash Workspace with Gemini. Hi there, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. And this episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. I get to spend my days studying how people think and what it actually takes to change our minds. It's work I find deeply meaningful. But even in meaningful work, there's still busy work. The admin, the repetitive processes, the invisible load that pulls attention away from what really matters. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it. Start to finish, cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.