Your Difference Is the Superpower

Sandy Gould has spent 36 years studying where people's "superpowers" come from, and his answer is simple: the thing that makes you different is the same thing that lets you create what no one else can. In this conversation with Eric Ressler, the longtime GLAAD advisor and author of the forthcoming book Interlightening explains why conformity feels safe and isn't, and how the same rules that grow an individual grow an entire organization.

Episode Highlights: 

[00:03:00] From tech recruiting to GLAAD: a career built on unleashing people 
[00:05:30] Why the "why" leads to the what and the how 
[00:08:30] How one word, "should," quietly holds people back 
[00:15:30] Your organization is just one big person 
[00:16:30] Why success is the scariest moment for a team 
[00:27:00] Why your team should see you fight

Notable Quotes: 

Sandy Gould [00:19:25]: "The difference engine is what drives every human, every group of people, and our life and our world. If you and I were exactly the same, this conversation would be nothing." 

Sandy Gould [00:24:15]: "'I don't know' is a very powerful, honest thing to say. But honesty is more important. First, establish trust, then invite them in to help you figure it out."

Resources & Links:

• GLAAD — glaad.org
• Sandy Gould on LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/sandy-gould-077354
• Sandy Gould on Instagram — instagram.com/spidersandy
• Interlightening: Unleashing Your Superpowers — forthcoming on Amazon

Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday.

→ Subscribe: designingtomorrow.show → Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com

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Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_04 0:01

People build their superpowers off of a combination of what they know they're good at, their friends tell them they're good at, and then they find out they're good at through work and creating. And so that process is really important to both frame and decode. Everyone does think they're different, and they are. And so we have to help and support that, encourage that. And the more people feel comfortable expressing that, which is why diversity matters so much for communities that are underrepresented and need to be more represented, the more enriched our lives will be. I think difference gives meaning. Success for a community and an organization and an individual is when you can understand other worldviews and yours and connect them and then see what happens when they come together through their difference to create something different. Let's replace who's right with human rights and make that our priority. Can we enter into a conversation with the goal being, I'm gonna broaden my lens by understanding what you're thinking instead of I'm going to share what I'm thinking? And if those are our goals, I think we get to better outcomes.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

It is my pleasure, Eric. So I often like to just kind of dig right in with our guests, but um today I actually want you to give me an abridged version of your backstory and how you got to where you are because I think it's it's quite interesting.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

Thank you for saying that. Here goes. So um I was born sick, mom got sick in pregnancy, doctors said I'd be sick forever. Parents told me, don't believe what other people tell you is true. You can do anything if you work hard enough. Uh, I figured out as a kid by watching people that everyone was different. Their creativity came from their difference, which means every person of the people who've ever lived create in a way that no one else who will ever live creates. So they're exclusively unique. So I fell in love with difference. I realized it was a superpower. Uh, I used that inspiration to start working really hard. And by the time I was 16, I had overcome the illness and I was all pro-football, basketball, track. I was ranked in the top fastest people in my region, won all my sprint races, and realized my parents were right. Anything's possible if you work really hard and you live your authentic truth and you unleash the superpowers of your difference. So that became my mission in life. Went to school, trained as a rabbi and a psychoanalyst because I wanted to decode everything for everybody, which takes a lifetime, by the way. So I'm still working on that one. But uh then I fell into recruiting in the tech space and eventually HR and leadership. But my mission and all my roles were very focused on working with CEOs who wanted to unleash the superpowers of all their people to change the world for the better. And had a great career doing that with many different kinds of um tech and new emerging technology organizations. Then, after my corporate career hit some really great high points, I decided it was time to um find a mission that would help the world move even further in advancement of these superpowers and of people's right and ability to be their authentic identity. And the universe answered by having me get a call from GLAD. And I've been working with them for the last two years to really help accelerate acceptance, ensure equality, uh, drive representation and storytelling for the LGBTQ and all diverse communities, and just making sure we are helping people create and be and live the identity that they've always dreamed of. That's what I do. And that's led to a book I'm about to publish about how I discovered that superpowers were real.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Great. And and what's the title of that book? And it should be coming out pretty shortly after uh we dropped this episode. So plug, plug away, man.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

Thank you. It's called, it's so fun, exciting, and weird to plug my book, but it's called Inner Lightning, Unleashing Your Superpowers. And it really is about from the start of my life and fighting the illness and the power and inspiration my parents brought me, to how I figured out that I had superpowers and were was able to unlock them with the help of a lot of great people and coaches. And then how I started to study it in other people. And, you know, I started recruiting in 1990. So between 1990 and now, over the 36 years of my career, um, I've interviewed thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And I started really studying where the superpowers of their difference turned into their mission and then created the superpowers to fulfill that mission and allowed them to shape the world in ways nobody else was. And the more I did it, the more of their stories I understood, I was able to analyze and really identify what it was that activated those superpowers and unleash them so that I could then start hopefully helping people do that too. And so the book is about turning that into a process so that you can take the steering wheel of your destiny, of your mission, build those superpowers and go change the world and have a great time doing it.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

So I feel like you're in a very unique position and have unique experience to have developed this framework, this point of view around superpowers and how people can dig into those and translate them and focus them towards missions. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about like what have you learned in doing all those interviews, in writing this book, in working in the corporate world and now um in an impact-driven way. What are some of the big kind of themes that you see? Like what gets people stuck and prevents them from taking their superpowers and activating them?

SPEAKER_04 5:35

Great questions. So the first thing I learned is that the why leads to the what and the how. And so I always want to know people's origin stories. And when I interview, that's what I do. I ask them to start with their origin story the way I just told you mine. And once they give me the why, like you can find out in a person's first 18 to 20 years of life the significant single moment that defined their mission and activated their superpowers. People don't think that that moment exists. When I ask them, tell me about a really profound moment that shaped you, they always end up finding it pretty quickly. Wow. So once they talk about it, and then I ask them a few questions, and then they tell me what they proceeded to go do as a result of it, the why turns into the what and the how. I would actually contend it doesn't matter what job you give them, they will do that same mission expressed through every one of those jobs.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 6:33

And so that's like the first big thing I learned. Um, second thing I learned was people build their superpowers off of a combination of what they know they're good at, their friends tell them they're good at, and then they find out they're good at through work and creating. And so that process is really important to both frame and decode. And then the third thing is we are all born broken. So every one of us thinks we used to be the universe and now we're just us. And we're all trying to reclaim the universe. And so there's two ways to do that be unique and be the best. This is the way we think. Be unique and be the best, or conform and align to what everyone else is doing. So individual, collective. The real answer is both. We have to express and create and connect to others from who we are and what is unique about us, which everyone shares. It's the one thing we all share. And then we do have to be collective because it gives us meaning and aligned to that collective, but you define the collectives you're in. You define how you want to be in those collectives. And we grow up thinking the way to be in the collective is to conform and be dislike them. That's not the answer. The answer that actually works the best for the human, because we're both individual and collective, is to be a part of a community because we're different and in our difference. Let our difference be the thing that makes us part of a community, celebrate that difference, and then celebrate the connection points too. And so, but we discover that. That takes a life and experience. Another big thing I learned we're experiential learners. Even though our brain is an idealistic machine and it wants to know all the answers immediately, we don't know anything until we experience it. Usually five, six, or seven times. Then we start to figure it out, right? So one of my most powerful things that I knew early, and I I credit my parents, I knew that the word should did not make sense. So my joke is should never be used, even though I'm using it to set the rule, right? That's the one time should works. So why is that? What's the problem with should? The problem is it's the conflict between what I just described, which is we think we are an idealistic thought machine, a brain of ideas, but we are actually an experiential learning being. So the mind wants to know everything on day one and then know it forever. Experience means we're not going to know it till we experience it many times from many different points of view, which is why in life I think we all go through cycles and repeat them a lot. And then at some point we make them or we break them. I call it the difference between cycling, recycling, and free cycling. But that's another way, so we'll talk about that later. So what I noted early on, and it gets to your question earlier about what holds people back, should hold people back, right? So people think if I'm not perfect, should I really express my unique nature? Or is it safer to conform? And and our human animal brain wants to avoid risk, it wants safety. And conformity is feels safer. It's actually not. It turns out differentiation is what's better for humans, and even for animals, those who differentiate move to the top of the pack, right? And it's necessary until they evolve too. But it's scary and we're very fear controlled. And eventually we will turn that fear into like inspiration to create. And then, you know, being scary will be an exciting part of it. But I remember early on, I just, and throughout my career and my life, should I would hear should. You know, the first time I heard should was I was in high school in gym class and I was wearing two different socks. And I was wearing shorts and jersey. And all my friends were like, you have to wear the same socks. I'm like, why? And they said, You you're you're you should wear the same socks. You're supposed to. It's like everyone's supposed to do. I'm like, doesn't make any sense to me. It's gym class. The socks don't matter, and normally I'm wearing pants, you can't see them. Right. I literally didn't understand why that was some sort of weird imperative. But what I knew is that expressing that I was different was exciting and felt great. And I not only liked it in me, I liked it in everyone else around me. And so that was the beginning of me recognizing this weird social should that didn't make sense that we imposed on ourselves. And then one day I was talking to somebody, now I'll go forward into a sort of career, and they were telling me about they they had pulled off an event and it was a huge success. So then they did a second event and it wasn't a huge success. And they said it should have been as good as the first one. And and they said, I know I could do better. And I had this revelation. I said, I want to try and divide these into two different things. I said, knowing you could do better, that there's more in you, you have more superpowers and more to create, more to learn. That's great. The reason that's great is you're setting this higher bar knowing you have it within you. You have faith that there's more to you you can create. So I can do more is a really good motivator. But I said the opposite, I'm not good enough is a terrible demotivator. Because that form of guilt, they're both kind of like intellectual guilt. The secondary one holds you back. The first one moves you forward. Because it's not I'm not good enough, it's the opposite. I am good enough. I just haven't harnessed that yet.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

So that became a principle, a guiding principle for me for myself and to other people. I would say to people, in fact, who worked for me, I would say, when you experience guilt because you made a mistake, only use the first nanosecond of guilt that says to you you could do more to motivate you to go learn the lesson, fix it, and do more, right? But then release the rest because it's just going to hold you in place and it's kind of a fear strategy and it's just not helpful. So stick with the beginning and then don't feel bad because I didn't want people to feel bad. Number one. And number two, I'm like, that's a waste of time and it's a passive strategy. The other thing I did is I started to learn that, and this came from, I think, rabbinical school, where we studied all the time and argued all the time. I learned that you had to reframe mistakes into experiential learning and experiments. If we were all scientists working in a lab, every single mistake, we would look and say, oh, we're now that mistake closer to the answer because we're experimenting, right? So that reframing became very powerful. And that became a very powerful attribute in people who became successful reframing, adapting, and knowing they were meant to change, right? Liking change.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

So the whole time you were sharing all those perspectives, I was thinking about how you were you were talking about through the lens of individuals. And the whole time I was also thinking this is so directly applicable at the organizational level for orgs who are trying to move their missions forward, create an impact, grow their fundraising. You know, you talk about differentiation, you talk about experimentation and adapting. And I think these are a lot of the same modalities, but even this entire framing around finding a superpower and understanding this tension between the psychological safety of conformity and how that's actually a trap and that standing apart and doing things differently and to a degree, kind of questioning some of these norms and standards is actually what allows you to thrive long term. So I'd be curious to hear like, have you thought about this at that level, in or even though your work is more primarily with individuals?

SPEAKER_04 14:13

Yes. So when I started, I remember I thought of myself, and I would even frame this to people. I'd say, I'm really a champion of the individual. And so when I worked in recruiting and at a small boutique agency in uh Seattle, Washington, I remember people, you know, I was consulting organizations, large corporations, Microsoft, Amazon, et cetera. And people would say, Well, are you ever going to join one of those organizations on the inside? And I would say, Oh no, I'm too much of an individual. I'm too weird, I'm too much of a champion for individuals. And so I could never do that. And then eventually I did. And I loved it, but I did bring the spirit of individuality and a focus on human amplification, of which business was a part of it or nonprofit mission was a part of it, as the way I was going to approach it. So I approached it very differently. For me, that made sense. And I remember one day I was talking to someone was saying to me, like, Oh, all of our employees are having this reaction to growth of the organization. The organization had grown. So literally suddenly there was a line of people out the door saying, We want raises. And the CEO said to me, What is going on? And the head of marketing asked me the same question. And this was the moment I created this concept. I said, You know what? Think of an organization as just one big person. Really simple model. Just think of it as one big human. It's like one big collective human. Goes through the same thing, has ego, self-awareness, eyes get open. So all these people are working on the mission. Suddenly the org is making a lot of money. So they're like, oh, I did this, which is good. We want them to feel that pride. But with that pride comes compensate me. Right. Because the org's now making hundreds of millions. I should be making millions, right? And so that opened a door for me that would continue throughout my career, which is whenever I wanted to think about what's going on in the culture, because I'm a student and really focusing on the culture and understanding it. If I think of it as a person, the model fits. It has an ego and it contracts and then it's successful and then it has more confidence. Then it gets insecure about can it maintain that level of success. A few weeks ago, I went to do a keynote for an off-site of a company I used to work for. And I'm now going back to them and I've seen that they've doubled in size. So they've grown, they've had big success. They kind of broke through some big barriers. And so I showed up to tell them, like, I'm so proud of you, and look at this change you created and look at the superpowers you used to do it. And now you can take all that information and use it to prepare for the next summit up the mountain you're gonna have to go to. And this wall you're gonna have to break through. And I realized, and then I could see they were all nervous. And so their leader said to me, Why are they nervous? We've just had success. I said, No, that's when it's scariest. Because they'd rather sit on that success instead of have to prove themselves again. Number one. Number two, they don't want to blow it. When when you when you were at the bottom, there was nothing to blow, there was nothing to break, right? Everything was up, but now they're up and they don't want to be the one who loses it or causes the organization to fall back down the mountain. So you have to help them be aware that that's what's going on, and then do what I was doing with them, which was pointing to what they had just done. Because this is the other thing that happens. We're humans, we're born broken, and we're neurotics. We spend all of our time on the bad list, the the I didn't get done list instead of what we did get done and what's good. Right. Like famous thing. We all go to sleep at night worrying about what might happen tomorrow, bad. We don't go to sleep pro-worrying about what great things are going to happen tomorrow. But we should. We should actually balance it, right? So when you do recognition in an organization, like I was doing with them and say, look at the last two years, look at what you managed to overcome. The reason that's powerful, it's nice. It's a nice thing to do. That's not why it's powerful. It's powerful because if an individual and a group of people, an organization all have a collective superpower rating, every time they accomplish something, they realize they can do more. The superpower rating goes up. But if you call it out and recognize it, it goes up even more. And when does it need to really go up? Right before they're about to take on something really hard. Yeah. That they can be reminded and remind themselves, we've figured this out before. We're gonna figure it out again. That's where faith in yourself matters because you don't know what the answer is yet. And great leaders, what I learned from I remember great CEO in 2002 or three that I was working for got all their leaders together and said, Oh, we have to now go from level four to level five of success. And level four was hard to get to. And they said, How are we gonna do it? And we were all like, Oh, good. He's gonna tell us the answer. And he goes, I don't know. He said, But I know everyone in this room can figure it out because look at how you figured out four.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:04

I was and I remember looking at him going, wow, what a great leader. That was smart. And we figured it out, and we got to the next level, right? So your point about individual to org, to me, it is the same blueprint. Just expand it out. And and and when you think about encouraging all the things, the most powerful thing being diversity, diversity of thought. Like I think the difference engine is what drives every human, every group of people, and our life and our world. Like if you and I were exactly the same, this conversation would be nothing. So that you have to cultivate that all the time because everyone does think they're different and they are. And so we have to help and support that, encourage that. And the more people feel comfortable expressing that, which is why diversity matters so much for communities that are underrepresented and need to be more represented, the more enriched our lives will be. I think difference gives meaning. And that's a big part of the book, too.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

So I'm hearing a couple of things. One of the things that I'm hearing is that belief is such an important part of this, not necessarily knowing how you're going to get to the next level individually or as an organization or for your mission, but believing in yourself, believing in the collective. Hey, we've gotten from level, I think the way you said it, to level four. So we're going to get to level five with the same crew. And one of the things that I think reflecting back on that, even myself running Cosmic over the last 16 years and having many breakthroughs and many setbacks, and that kind of just like ebb and flow of things feeling like they're gelled and easy, and things feeling like they're not easy. When I don't have self-confidence individually or self-confidence as an org, and I lose that belief where it feels like you're spinning in place, you can't get traction, everything feels like it's just going against you, the experiments are all failing. That to me is one of the things that's hardest to hold on to is that belief that like we can figure this out, we haven't yet, but I know that we can. And and it's I think it's a hard balance to strike because you also need to be willing to admit when your ideas are bad and they're and or your hypothesis has failed, even though, of course, you always want it to be the one that's gonna win, that's gonna get you to that next level. So, how do you find and how do you coach and advise folks at the individual level and at the org level to strike that balance of belief but also realism around, hey, this strategy failed, we need a new one?

SPEAKER_04 21:37

Yeah, so it's a great question. So people, we all do this interesting thing. We equate confidence and hope and faith with bullshit. And they're two different things. So faith that you can figure it out, hope that You will, confidence in your ability. Those are all about investing in something you can create. Bullshit is saying something is other than what it is. Right. And authenticity actually is more significant, and so is trust, in order to activate superpowers and ability to seize opportunity, right? So I remember when I joined the corporate world, one of the first things I experienced was spin. And I remember I had to start um coaching leaders how to communicate. And you know, in the old days, when I was growing up, leadership was know the answer and have confidence and tell people what to do. But in the emerging generations we've found ourselves in, I believe it's really shifted to be a power learner, adapt and get the most out of your people, help them figure things out. So it's the figure it out, right? Because we've all lived through so much change.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:04

So I remembered I had to start coaching leaders, and leaders would say when something bad happened, either they wanted to hide it or not talk about it or spin it. Or so I remember a leader was getting ready and I was preparing this leader for a conversation with the company about something bad that happened. And they said, Um, I'm gonna tell everyone that it's okay. And I said, How do you know that? What do you mean it's okay? What does that mean? And how do you know? And he couldn't answer the question. I said, Don't say anything you don't know. I said, also don't tell people how to feel. Only say things that are true. And if you don't acknowledge something as bad, number one, you have lost trust. They stop listening to everything else you say. Right. So he's like, Well, but what do I say? So I'm gonna give you sort of an example. This one company I worked at, we lost a really big deal. And you know, it was a time when the company was struggling. So the loss of this deal, this client was a blow. And so they're like, What do what do we say? And I said, say if you knew it was coming, say you knew it was coming and that you prepared a plan, that you've identified other accounts you're gonna replace this account with, or if you're gonna get it back, that. Or if you don't know, say we're on the road to figuring it out, and here's how we're gonna do that, and we'll keep you updated as we do.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

I don't know is a very powerful, honest thing to say, but honesty is more important. First, establish trust, then invite them in to help you figure it out. I said, say all those things. You can say, I know we'll figure it out. I have faith in that, but don't tell people how to feel and don't tell people the outcome when you don't know it, right? I also remember one time a CEO was talking about some difficult changes we're making at the org. And they didn't want to say anything bad. They said, I don't want to deflate everyone. And I said, But you have to answer honestly. If you don't know, you don't know, which is powerful because you show that it's okay not to know, and a lot of times we don't know. Um, I said, the other thing is I had to give this person a rule. So I said, I want to give you a rule. We're gonna call it the politician's rule. When someone asks you a question, the very first thing you have to say is yes or no, or whatever the answer is, X. Yes, no, or X. Do not go on a story, do not distract or divert, right? Do not deflect. Because the moment you don't answer the question in your first word, they don't even hear your second word. They know you're not answering the question. Right. And that rule has served many a leader and me too, when we are all so tempted as leaders to want to make it okay or explain context before giving the painful truth. So start with the answer. So someone says, Did we fire people? Yes. Are we gonna fire more? If the answer is yes, yes, and if it's maybe, maybe, and if it's we don't know, we don't know.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Right.

SPEAKER_04 25:46

And if we can't tell you, it's we can't tell you. Yeah. Why? Right. So those become really important to that build of trust and confidence. Then once people know they're they're in it with you, you'll figure it out. Now, here's the other thing I want to address that you said stuff is bad sometimes. That's life. And there's a great book that a close friend of mine had me read. And one of my favorite things, my friend Jason had me read this book, and one of everyone's read this book, but I can't wrap the name of it right now. One of his principles is why do humans avoid pain? It is life. You can't avoid it. It's coming for you, whether you do or you don't. And it's how we learn, and and in pain, we are forged, right? Right. That builds us. So um, you know, recently I was coaching a leadership team, and they're like, Oh, we don't we need to be aligned because we don't want the team to see us fight. I'm like, no, that's not true. You should be 70 or 80% aligned. You should not be 100% because diversity should keep breeding different ideas. And everyone knows that no people, no two people or more are 100% anyway. They should see you fight. They should just know that you know how to do it.

SPEAKER_03 26:51

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

And how to get to resolution in a way where it's collective. We've come to an agreement. We've agreed and committed, we've disagreed and committed, we are aligned in the go forward. That's what they need to see. If you don't show them you fight, they just think you're hiding something and that lowers trust. But if they see fight and they're like, oh, fight is fine, we get through it, and then we have better ideas at the end, that is power because you got to adapt, and adapt will mean friction. So that's the other thing when people say to me, like, we're really off right now. The org feels offer, I feel offer, we're all uncertain. That is the feeling of your being telling you it's time to change something. And let yourself feel that way until you change something.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Hey friends, real quick before we continue today's episode. I'm Eric Ressler, founder and creative director at Cosmic. Cosmic is a creative agency purpose-built for nonprofits and mission-driven organizations. For the last 15 years, we've helped leaders like you nail your impact story and sharpen your strategy. But we're not here to just leave you with a fancy slide deck and a pat on the back. We roll up our sleeves and help you bring our ideas to life through campaigns, creative, and digital experiences. Our work together helps you earn trust, connect deeply with your supporters, and grow your fundraising and your impact. If you've valued the thinking we share here and want it applied to your biggest challenges, let's talk at design by cosmic.com. All right, back to today's conversation. And I've talked about this before on the show, and I don't want to get too into it again, but last year was a particularly difficult year for us and for a lot of social impact organizations, just with all the stuff going on with the funding ecosystem changing, you know, orgs, especially progressive orgs being under extra scrutiny from the current US administration. And, you know, basically we saw a lot of orgs, and I don't say this judgmentally, essentially kind of freeze up, like, you know, hunker down and wait, kind of see what's going on. You know, how do you plan in a year like last year when so much is uncertain and and chaotic? And what that does to an agency like ours that helps organizations through transformational pivotal moments is that a lot less people are calling folks like us to help them get through those moments. And I had to have a lot of really tough conversations with my team about yeah, some of that uncertainty and some of the not knowing and you know, the reality of like, hey, here's where we're at, here's the trajectory, here's what's gonna happen if this doesn't start to go better. We're gonna have to do pay cuts or reductions, you know. I and I struggle with that a lot, frankly, to figure out, you know, in a time like that where my team is also uncertain and you know, they're smart folks, they're looking at the space and looking at who we are and putting two and two together pretty quickly. And there's an impetus for me to be like, don't worry, it's gonna be okay, we're gonna get through this, right? Or uh try and kind of paper over the difficulty. And I chose instead to, I think, follow a lot of the advice that you just outlined um in your earlier response, which was to be transparent about here's what might happen. We don't really know what's gonna happen. Uh, we can't make promises because we we don't know, right? And it's really hard as a leader to say we don't know or we're not sure because you want to be able to provide that certainty for your team. Yeah. Hey, you're safe, you're okay, we're gonna figure this out. And I think one of the other things I've struggled with too as a leader that I've heard other leaders express to me as well is like you feel a sense of wanting to take care of the team, right? Of wanting to keep them safe. And and even like, hey, it's not their job sometimes for these folks to figure out how to keep the business alive. They didn't sign up for that, right? They signed up for their role. But I do think there is a shift, and I think a healthy shift if it's done in in the right way, where everyone gets ownership over keeping the ship alive. And and this obviously depends very highly on the type of org and the size of the org. But at the end of the day, to your point, an organization is just one organism um made up of people. And it's not um, we're not in a place, and I think this is healthy where like leadership figures it out, develops a strategy, and it's just kind of top-down, you know, hunker down, do your job, and everything will work. Like, first of all, that's not how it's ever been. It's not gonna work like in this current world where things are evolving so quickly, it's it's not gonna be possible. And so I think there's a there's a tension there for me around like how do I engage my team deeply and authentically without asking them to do things that maybe they didn't sign up for, right? That feels like, hey, this is these are high stakes. This is like, you know, you hired me as a designer or developer, like you're asking me about like our business strategy now. Now, what I found is that my team steps up to those and and and feels good about being included in those levels, but I still think there's kind of a balance around like how there are certain things that leadership probably should be responsible for at the end of the day. And I think everyone's gonna have to find their own balance there. So I'd be curious to hear like how you think about advising leaders on where to strike that balance and how to think about making those choices.

SPEAKER_04 32:07

Yeah, I mean, that's a great point and a just a great framing question about that balance, because we've had to deal with that and I've had to deal with that at almost every organization I've been at, right? Right. So, okay, a few things. With the kind of social and tectonic world shifts that have happened in the last few years, even going back to COVID, right? Where suddenly survival was mingled with daily existence and no longer a given, right? Right, you had so many situations where all of us as as leaders and when you are a leader, there is a built-in salvation savior complex, right? Just like paternal, maternal, protect, take care of, um, help them save them and get them to happiness and safety and survival. And as we all know, no one can save anyone else, like generally. So what do you find? You find that you you discover what it is you can do to help somebody and to help empower and unleash them, and that is the most you will do for them. Because anything you do to actually save them that doesn't put agency in their hands is not only secondary, it can become risky because then it's a dependency out of self-sufficiency, which is sort of more foolproof. And then if humans are like a tool in the world, this tool is meant to function. So a human is meant to create, their identity is meant to mature, and they have to be the driver of that. We just have to support and equip them. So I remember right after COVID, uh I was training and meeting with a bunch of managers, and I asked them how successful they were in the last few years. And like 53% said they failed. And I said, why? And they said because we couldn't make our people feel safe during both COVID and the racism that followed. And I said, That means you're becoming a really good manager when you realize you can't do that. All you could do in that situation is a really good example is let them know you were there for them, engage them in what they were experiencing, and understanding the best ways you could support them in all those situations, right? Being an ally, standing up, helping to drive an unleash and support diversity, um, guiding them on the things they needed to do, stay safe through COVID, et cetera. And it's always the case. So if you think now over the last year or two, when suddenly the world for many turned upside down again, leaders have to say, well, what can we provide? So transparency, inclusion, putting, you know, co-designing with them where they have the ability to co-design, but then knowing where there's not enough expertise for co-design. So it's more like input or awareness. And then where they want you to own more of it. So, you know, if if I'm in the house with my parents and we go for a drive, it doesn't make sense for them to ask me to drive, also if I'm eight years old. Right. And if I'm 10 and we have to get out of the house because there's a fire, again, I don't think I should be co-designing that process. They should just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Right.

SPEAKER_03 35:29

Right.

SPEAKER_04 35:30

So, but then there are other areas where either I'm learning and I can offer input that actually is guided and material. And then as I'm even more senior, like senior employees in an organization or domain experts in an area, then there's more you can put in their hands. So, as an example, I I believe in a leadership model around distributed leadership. Put as many decisions in the hands of the employees doing the work as you can because they're closest to it and they have the expertise and they have the context, right? Right. And then balance with decisions that might be more remote to them or less familiar, or perhaps tied to bigger picture elements where there's different domain expertise required and different context. And then just share and help in learning and teaching that. But you have to invite people and say, this is what this now means. Here's what we want you to participate in. And sometimes you have to experiment and see when it doesn't work. So I've, you know, the last few companies I've had moments where an employee said, like, we don't want to co-design. Like a lot of times they want to co-design, but sometimes we'll be like, No, you just tell us the answer. And that's fair, right? And then sometimes we put stuff in people's hands and then we see that it didn't work or they can't handle it, or they're handling too much.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

Right.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

So we take it back and say, you know what, this didn't totally work in the way we wanted it to support you. So that means we just need to do some more build if we're ready for this kind of co-design. So let's stage that. And I'm a big believer in roadmaps. So one of the things you made me think of just now is I I played Dungeon Dragons since I was like 12, and it's all about maps. So I think when an organization exists, it should have a map of where it is now, where it was in the last two years and where it's going to be in the next two. And it should say one or two things that'll be changing about the major business and vision. And then the one, two, or three things the people, the process, and the technology will need to do to keep up and to help that should just be there. And eventually you have all your employees building that together and putting it on the walls as like cool art with milestone moments for off sites and things like that. It makes a huge difference. It really does. It's the difference between if you're driving the car and I'm in the backseat and I'm your kid and we hit a bump and you didn't say a word to me, how I'll react, versus if you told me there's about to be a bump, don't worry about it. Right. So it's the same thing with organizations, but multiplied. And so it allows people to know, like, oh, next we're gonna have to adapt more. We go to fewer meetings, or we proxy more of our perspective, or our worldviews need to, we need to spend a lot more time sharing our worldviews and aligning them. Uh, or this part of the company is most important this year, but then next year that part will be, and everyone gets a turn. Like all those things become really helpful as you're defining to what unique contributions and unique superpowers the individuals and the teams bring. Because just like we were comparing individual to collective, self-esteem is the same way. There's corporate self-esteem. So what I found there was this one point where we had this organization I was at, we were very centralized. There were a lot of satellite offices. We had a new CEO and we'd moved a lot of decision making back to the headquarters. But it was a global organization, and of course, everyone else felt really excluded and suddenly unimportant and and a bit dethroned. So everyone's like, What do we do? And I said, Well, each one of those offices has an expertise. They have a set of superpowers that we rely on. It's like Singapore is great at payments, London is great at mobile, like we had all these different things. And I said, We should make that known because humans are need-based. When they understand we need them because in London, because they are mobile experts, and mobile is the tip of the spear for our business, they will get a lot more comfortable with their position. And that worked. That actually worked. You have to build it and make it real. You can just like say it at a meeting. It has to show up in the decisions you give them to make and the responsibility and the resources they get. But once we did that, then that became a really strong unifying force, an identity, unifying force for each different team. And and it gave them sort of support when they weren't going to be the center of something going on. Um, but then we were also honest and said the headquarters is the headquarters. It is the steering wheel of the organization. So just know that you know, when we do meetings, we'll make sure we're super inclusive. Other offices will present, other people will be involved, there'll be communication. We designed strategies to support distributed staff, but the headquarters is the headquarters, and that's where the CEO is. So we also were just our CEO made a really smart move, which was she said, that is the reality. Yep. And so we're gonna balance this, but we're gonna be honest with you too. Working in London is not the same as working in wherever the headquarters is. So I think that learning helped too. So to your point about teams, I mean, it is a lot. This last this last period of time has been so intense and and we're in a fractured state of media. We're you know in divided nations and worlds, there's so much conflict, and that's when you have to get into like everyone has different worldviews. Success for a community and an organization and an individual is when you can understand other worldviews and yours and connect them, right? And then see what happens when they come together through their difference to create something different. So I came up with three principles after trying to moderate a lot of debate about really intense issues over the last two years that have helped. One was whenever I'm dealing with parties who are really going in debate, I say let's focus on getting to unity through division. Like let's make that our goal. How do we, what will we decide? What will we go forward with, right? And we'll do the debate, but the idea is to get to a point of unity. And then the second one was because a lot was coming up about being right, who's right? So I said, how about we just focus on we let's replace who's right with human rights and make that our priority more than who's right, because who's ever right, right? And then um my third one was can we enter into a conversation with the goal being I'm gonna broaden my lens by understanding what you're thinking instead of I'm going to share what I'm thinking. Yep. Right. And if those are our goals, I think we get to better outcomes. Right. But what we then say, what do we have an opportunity to now create by bringing these different elements together instead of just a war of worldviews, which is it's endless, that doesn't end. It's not constructive, right? No, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:22

There's possibility to get to something amazing if we combine what you and I are thinking, and then so on and so forth, and multiply that exponentially, but that has to be your goal. That has to be your framework. Otherwise, all conversations are ridiculous. They're just me going, This is my worldview, and then you go, This is my worldview. And I go, Okay, well, mine's right. And you go, Yeah, mine too. What a coincidence, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

So yeah, I we've learned uh through some work with clients this concept of constructive disagreement, which I think is basically what you're describing. And um, one of the things that stood out to me about that is you have to go into those conversations with the goal not being to prove yourself right, but the goal being to truly, deeply and fully understand the other party's point of view and to really empathize with it. Um, even if you don't end up agreeing with it, even at the end of the day, you walk away saying, Hey, you know what? I I understand more about your perspective. And I still feel that mine is actually more accurate or that my idea is the right one. But now I have a better understanding of where you're coming from and how you got to your idea.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:21

Um, and it broadens your lens. So early on in career, after I joined the corporate world and saw this constant debate of who's right. Two principles I formulated based on my logical, the logic training I did in rabbinical school. One was um always, whenever someone would come to me and say, like, I'm gonna fight with this other team, my first question, first premise, what are they thinking? Yeah, right, exactly. I want you to know what they're thinking, I want them to know what you're thinking. Second premise, you can't challenge an idea until you understand why it might be right. Yes. So defend the other side first. Then we can talk about the challenge. And then the third one is you gotta be able to debate and battle through things. To get to a better conclusion of what happens when they come together. Right. Right. And so we all have to be comfortable with that. We have to accept the personal, the passionate, but focus on we're going to get to this collective shared goal together that'll take us further than if we just did it individually.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Right. Right. And if you have that shared vision, then there's something to have a debate about. And we should welcome diverse opinions and ideas and hypotheses around how to get there and not just pick one and go all in on it, right? Let's try a couple things. Now you can't always do that, but I think often you can, right? You don't need to make a choice that's like, well, uh, we all disagree, so we're going with this strategy. How about we all have different ideas around how to get there? Let's test them and let the world decide which one's going to win. Um, I think that's more of a kind of almost scientific method experimental approach to doing the work.

SPEAKER_04 44:50

I agree. And it leads me to an idea that I want to share that I came to. I kind of realized, I don't, someone said something to me in an interview years ago that made me realize this. But uh, I think, you know, I was telling you that um, well, I've been reading comics since I was eight, right? I really like 30 a week. And so I realized when we share our stories with each other through media, we end up creating ourselves and each other. We're all like walking amalgams of all the people that we've met in our in our lives. So when you think about it that way, every time you interact, you're creating a being created anew. And so looking at it as I'm about to go into a meeting and debate with Eric about whatever is gonna become Sandy plus Eric and Eric plus Sandy, and that new equation is more. Right. And that that's the experiential learners that we are. And so if we start framing it like that, then anything is possible because we'll always come up with something new, we'll always be able to go somewhere new because it's gonna be more than just me or you, right? And that discovery is if if you center that, I do think people can do anything, as we've seen.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

I think that's a a great place to wrap up. Um, before we do, where can folks who are interested in learning more about you follow you, see your work, eventually buy the book and and and get a little bit more of this thinking? Because I think it's so important for people to be considering these things in their journey as individuals, as leaders, as organizations. Yeah, this is your time to just kind of plug all the things.

SPEAKER_04 46:27

Awesome. Thank you so much for that. And for this conversation, I love conversations like this because they're transformative. Um, and you do a great job at it. So that mission is really important. So I'm glad you're doing it because humanity needs it.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 46:39

Uh we need those activators, which is sort of one of my ideas, right? About the people who activate us. So um my website is sandygool.com. It's not live yet, but it will be by the time the book goes out. That's one. The book will also be on Amazon. You can find out about me on my LinkedIn. I do a lot of posting and videos on LinkedIn about creating, about superpowers, and about the job market and things like that and your career. Uh, and on Spider Sandy, which is my Instagram, um, and more to come in September. There'll be the book will be coming out. And then I'm going to be doing videos in the similar format where I'm interviewing people that are in the book that I've interviewed, like Abby Wombach and Bobby Brown, and people who just um Takidra from Waymo, people who I've met along the way who really, you know, showed me their mission and how it was turning into their superpowers as they were changing the world in some pretty profound ways. So those videos will be out. And then there'll be one-minute videos too about different aspects of the book about superpowers and activating your superpowers.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

Very cool.

SPEAKER_04 47:45

Looking forward to doing all of that with the world. That's the goal.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Awesome. Yeah. Thank you, Sandy. This has been great. Really enjoyed the conversation and uh looking forward to checking out the book when it's out.

SPEAKER_04 47:55

Awesome. You'll be getting it. So don't you worry.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

All right, man. Thank you for your time today. Thank you too. Be well. Okay. Cheers. If you enjoyed today's video, please be sure to hit like and subscribe, or even leave us a comment. It really helps. Thank you. And thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.