transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Welcome to The Curiosity Shop, a show from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Speaker 2:
[00:10] Hi everyone, I'm Brené Brown.

Speaker 1:
[00:11] And I'm Adam Grant.

Speaker 2:
[00:13] We're going to talk today, Adam, about the word ringing in the halls of every organization that I am walking through at this point.

Speaker 1:
[00:23] Which is?

Speaker 2:
[00:24] Uncertainty. This is uncertainty.

Speaker 3:
[00:27] Are you sure?

Speaker 2:
[00:27] Yeah, I'm 100% certain that uncertainty is the level of uncertainty and the velocity of change right now is tough.

Speaker 1:
[00:40] Not just in organizations, but people are grappling with it in everyday life. The world is in flux.

Speaker 2:
[00:46] The world is in flux. So why don't we do this? We'll start with some listener questions. We had many questions come in through social media. I think you grabbed some off Spotify. Let's dig into some of the questions that we received and unpack some of the answers. Also, I want to say shout out to some of the learning. I really learned some stuff from these conversations, so I'm grateful for that. Let's do that for the first half and then we will springboard from one of the questions into the second half of the podcast today on uncertainty.

Speaker 1:
[01:19] I mean, there's no faster way to a diver's heart than to use the word springboard.

Speaker 2:
[01:24] I mean, I was just trying to make your day. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[01:27] Done. Day made.

Speaker 2:
[01:28] Day made. Okay. So, I posted on LinkedIn one of our takeaways from our episode, was it episode two, we talked about pre-mortems, and we talked about pre-mortems as a risk assessment tool. So, we are launching a project, and we ask ourselves during the launch, hey, if it's six months or a year from now and this thing's gone to shit, what will we be talking about then? And why can't we talk about it now? And what should we be talking about now? And we actually did in episode two, our own pre-mortem on our podcast. So, I posted this. Why are you laughing?

Speaker 1:
[02:10] Well, one, because we're still here.

Speaker 2:
[02:12] Yeah. I mean, we have made it. So far, so good. It was helpful.

Speaker 1:
[02:17] Well, I found it helpful too, and it really did leave me thinking, this should happen in every important relationship, not just in work decisions. I think that new parents should talk about, what are the things that are most likely to screw up our kids in two and five and 10 years, and how do we avoid that? And I just love how universal the fear of failing is. And I love this as a tool to try to prevent failure by anticipating some of the things you could have prevented.

Speaker 2:
[02:46] Yeah. And I love the two questions that I use a lot in a pre-mortem, because one of them is, what should we be talking about? And the other one is, why aren't we talking about it right now? And I got to tell you, the people who work in risk are big fans of the pre-mortem and the LinkedIn. All the risk assessment people are like, now you're speaking my language. I did a quick qualitative analysis of the comments that came in. And there was a question that Stephen, who is an executive and leadership coach, we got into a conversation and it got the most kind of like, yes, please take this to the episode. We want to hear you and Adam talk about this. So I'm going to read it. It's going to take a minute or so to get through it. But I think it's a really important framing. So Stephen writes, what stood out to me, and this is in our podcast, Episode 2, is how often teams treat risk as something to review instead of something to reveal. I've seen leaders wait until the post-mortem, not because they don't care, but because naming risk early feels like slowing down the momentum or questioning the plan. But underneath that, it's usually something deeper, protecting confidence in the room. The shift happens when risk becomes a shared language, not a personal judgment. That's when teams stop managing perception and start building real traction. In my experience, the best pre-mortems aren't about predicting failure. They're about creating enough safety for people to say what they already know, but haven't said yet. I'm curious, where do you see the real friction show up more in identifying the risks or in creating the space where people feel safe enough to speak them out loud? Let me say that again, because it's really... We know from the research and we know from our own experiences. I do this all day long for years. I'm with senior teams facilitating these. We know there's friction around a premortem. Stephen's question, where does it show up more in identifying the risks or creating the space where people feel safe enough to speak them out loud? This question of, is it really new information that you're excavating in a premortem or is it psychological safety that you're built... Where is the real friction? This was the question. I mean, across 80% of the comments.

Speaker 1:
[05:16] Can I just vote for both right off the bat?

Speaker 2:
[05:18] 100%. So that's actually how I answered him because I want to say... And there were some people with whom I disagreed in the comments who said, it's nothing but psychological safety. The friction is all about everybody already knows what the risks are and no one is saying it and because the friction is just about the room is not safe enough. And I absolutely wholeheartedly disagree. I think a good pre-mortem is about excavating new information that requires new skills that very few leaders have today because the world is new. And those are the skills of peeking around the corner, anticipatory thinking, situational awareness, temporal awareness, systems thinking, critical thinking. I would say if in a good pre-mortem, you are building these skills, they're not strong muscles, you're doing it as a team, and it cannot be done without psychological safety. You're building both at the same time, which is why these are best done, and probably facilitate it. What do you think?

Speaker 1:
[06:38] I think that's so well put. I think it reminds me of one of the first projects I ever did as a young organizational psychologist was studying a bookstore, you probably remember, called Borders.

Speaker 2:
[06:53] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[06:53] And I watched that company go out of business. And there may have been people in the company who saw Amazon coming. But it was not on the radar as a major risk. And I've thought so many times, if they had the skills to do the pre-mortem, people would have been very comfortable saying, hey, what if this all goes digital? What if physical bookstores are not even necessary anymore? Which I don't agree with, by the way, it's a premise. I'm glad we have physical bookstores. I think there's a place for them in the world. But it wasn't the problem there, I don't think was a lack of psychological safety. I think they had the safety, and they just had a lot of people locked into the mindset that books are physical objects that you want to go and browse in a store. There's a study of Polaroid going down the same road. They just could not let go of, this is a Tripsas and Gavetti paper, where they do a deep dive into what went wrong at Polaroid. And people could not let go of the business model that we sell film. Like they had digital imaging technology. They knew how to build digital cameras, but they couldn't embrace the change that was underfoot. And they failed because of it. And so obviously, if you can't get people to feel comfortable speaking up, because they're afraid they're going to damage their reputations or their relationships or risk their careers, that is a psychological safety challenge. But surmounting the psychological safety problem is not enough in and of itself to get all of the new ideas on the table that raise problems then that lead to new solutions. I mean, so I think I'm agreeing with you.

Speaker 2:
[08:44] Yeah, I think we're in agreement. I think one of the things that is interesting, Steve and I had this big long thread. One of the things that he asked, he says, I'm curious how you approach the balance, the psychological safety and skills balance at the C level. Do you intentionally develop anticipatory thinking and psychological safety in parallel, or have you seen one reliably unlock the other first? And I'm going to get very practical right now. And people won't love it. And that's great. I think it's because I was an athlete, and I think it's because I do a lot of work in sports, that I approach this in a very practical way, which is this. If you want to play to win, whatever it is that you're trying to win, market share, you know, competitive advantage, stock, I mean, like, you know, impact, if you're an NGO or nonprofit, do a lot of work there. If you want to win, you must create an environment of productive challenge. You must want to win more than you want to protect your ego, period. So I do not come in first with psychological safety or the skills. I come in outcome-focused with performance. What is it that you want to do? Increase organic growth, you know, whatever your thing is. Then let's talk about two things. What does it look like to play to win? And secondly, what does it look like to play not to lose? And let me tell you what teams do who play not to lose. There's no productive challenge. They don't have hard conversations. They allow negative contagion. And so for me, it's about, it's almost design thinking. It's almost, tell me what's keeping you up at night. Tell me what's on your heart and mind. And tell me what winning looks like. And then I will tell you the collection of skill sets, mindsets and behaviors that we're going to need to see in this room for that to happen.

Speaker 1:
[11:01] I think what's so effective about that is you're then, you're not pitching them on a culture change or a set of practices that you're passionate about, that they need to adopt.

Speaker 2:
[11:12] No.

Speaker 1:
[11:13] You are finding out what their goals are.

Speaker 2:
[11:15] Right.

Speaker 1:
[11:15] And then helping them solve the, you're basically helping them clear the obstacles that are in the middle of their path to their goal.

Speaker 2:
[11:23] Yeah, and I think it's really interesting because I'm going to do a shout out right now for two people in tandem, actually, Amy Edmonson's work on psychological safety, I think is you can't have high performance without it. And I also want to shout out Aiko Bethea's new book, Anchored, Aligned, and Accountable, because I think it's a tool for building it. I think having a team that's anchored in their values, cares about the alignment between, and this is a big one in pre-mortems, cares about the alignment between intention and impact, meaning, I'm trying to engage in task conflict and make us better, but I've moved over to emotional conflict and been shitty to you, and now I'm going to make a repair for that, because it gets in the way of winning, and then last is accountable to each other. One of the things that we didn't talk about when we talked about pre-mortems that came up a lot in the comments that I really loved, was a pre-mortem really increases team ownership. Of the project, you know? And so, you know, to Amy Edmondson, who put the concept of psychological safety out into the world, and then to Aiko, who's got new work coming as a coach and a facilitator about how she builds it tactically, this is playing to win to me.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 3:
[14:01] Until the Pentagon passes one damn audit, we shouldn't pay any more taxes.

Speaker 4:
[14:08] People don't want to pay taxes anymore because they don't trust the way the government is spending and tracking our money. Americans are fed up with paying taxes. And I know, I know, but hear me out. Americans are extra fed up with paying taxes lately, according to some Gallup polling and some posting. But are we being short sighted?

Speaker 5:
[14:27] I think that it's important to have a government. I think that humans tried anarchy for quite a long time, and it didn't work so well. A lot of people got hit over the head with rocks. We didn't have a whole lot of economic development. Almost everyone agrees that the United States should have a military to protect it from foreign invasion, that we should have law enforcement, firefighting, schools, etc.

Speaker 4:
[14:52] Anti-taxers and where this could all be heading on Today Explained, dropping every weekday afternoon.

Speaker 6:
[14:59] When you think of a phone, not a smartphone but like a telephone, you almost certainly think of one particular device. This boxy thing that sat on your desk, it has a bunch of buttons on it, it has a handset that you pick up, it has a braided cable. You're thinking of a phone called the Western Electric 500. For decades, it was absolutely everywhere in American homes. It was essentially illegal not to have it in your house if you had a phone. This week on Version History, our chat show about the best and worst and most interesting products in tech history, we're telling the story of the Western Electric 500, which is actually the story about the AT&T monopoly and how it fell apart. All that on Version History on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts.

Speaker 1:
[15:42] Well, that actually is a good segue to one of our other questions. I love it.

Speaker 2:
[15:46] I love a segue. Nicely done.

Speaker 1:
[15:50] This is a question that this is one of my most thought-provoking and popular comments. This came in from Eva who works in Customer Success. She's asking about why people continue to stay committed to organizations, to relationships that lack psychological safety, and that might be crushing their souls a little bit. She says, I'd be curious to hear a conversation about why people stay loyal to systems that quietly exhaust them. Many people can clearly see when something in their environment no longer aligns with their values or even their well-being. Yet instead of leading, leaving or confronting it, they adapt to it and sometimes even end up defending it. What psychological forces make us protect structures that are slowly draining us? I thought this was a profound question. Thank you, Eva.

Speaker 2:
[16:43] Yeah, I hear it all. I hear it very often. And I've got, you go first.

Speaker 5:
[16:48] All right.

Speaker 1:
[16:48] I'm more curious about what you're going to say than what I'm going to say. But I already know what I'm going to say.

Speaker 2:
[16:52] I know what I'm going to say too, but I'm very curious about what you're going to say.

Speaker 5:
[16:57] All right.

Speaker 1:
[16:58] I'll kick us off. So the first thing that came to mind on this was I was thinking about the classic Hirschman framework that Withy and Cooper then elaborated, Exit Voice Loyalty Neglect.

Speaker 2:
[17:10] Wait, wait, say that again.

Speaker 1:
[17:11] Exit? Exit Voice Loyalty Neglect.

Speaker 2:
[17:15] Okay. Oh yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[17:17] Those are four possible responses to dissatisfaction. If you're unhappy in a relationship, in a job, in a country for that matter, exit is you leave, voice is you speak up and try to change it and fix it, loyalty is you bite your tongue and you do your best. Anyway, and neglect is you do the bare minimum to not blow it up. That's like the office space response for those who are fans. I think that for a lot of people, what happens is they feel trapped. They're in a relationship that they don't feel they can leave. They're in a job where they don't think they have alternatives. So exit is just not an option, and there's not enough psychological safety to voice. They think that it might damage the relationship or it might lose them their job, and so they don't speak up, or they've tried and their voice has fallen on deaf ears. And so people start cycling through their options, and they're basically left with loyalty or neglect. And for many people, loyalty is a matter of integrity. I am not the kind of person who half-asses it. I'm not the kind of person who does the bare minimum. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to keep giving this organization my all. And at that point, what kicks in is cognitive dissonance. And you get what psychologists like John Jost and Mazarin Banaji have called system justification, where the more that you show loyalty to the person or the organization, the more you are persuading yourself, I care, this is important to me. And the more trapped you are in the sense that, but I've invested so much, I now have all these sunk costs. And, Brene, I'm really curious to hear your reaction to this. I just want to overlay, I have become convinced recently that there is a gender difference in this tendency. There's a pretty sizable body of evidence that women are more likely to internalize distress and say, well, this is on me. Like, this is my problem. And therefore, I just need to, you know, I need to keep trying to solve it or fix it in my life. But I still owe something to the organization or the other person. I have a duty of care. I have a duty of responsibility. Whereas men are more likely to externalize problems and say, like, you know what? That's not the right person. That's not the right job. That's not the right organization for me. I'm out. Over to you.

Speaker 2:
[19:42] OK. I don't think this is gender. I think it's experiential maybe. So but maybe gender too. So Eva, right? That's who asked. So one thing I would say is when we observe, I would say exit, voice, loyalty, or neglect. I would say there, I would add something to this. And I would say necessity. And so I'm reminded of so many things when I think about that question. The first thing I'm reminded of is like a personal story for me. When my parents, my whole family life like blew up like a cartoon where you just have one of those things and you're like shh, it just kind of blew up. And I found myself in school and putting myself through school, no money, broke, no real support from my parents who were just both like, our whole family was just dissolving. And at some point, you know, I sold my car to pay tuition, I took a bus to wait tables, I cleaned houses on the weekend. And I waited tables at a place that was probably one of the most abusive places I've ever worked, like the kind where the restaurant manager would throw you up against the wall if you dropped a plate or something. And it wasn't about like, I couldn't exit. Like, that's how I paid my rent. That's how I paid my tuition. That's how I couldn't exit. Voice was dangerous. I wasn't loyal. I hated them. And neglect wasn't really an option because it was too scary if you didn't do your job well. And so I think when we see someone in that situation, if the question, if the answer is consideration set, is exit voice loyalty or neglect, I think we're forgetting about, you know, I'm a single mom. My kid has leukemia. This is my health insurance. And I can't leave. The job market is not favorable and a paycheck is a priority. So I think the most important thing I would say to this question is, and Eva demonstrated this in the question, get curious rather than judgmental. Because the question, whenever I hear the question as a social worker, why didn't, why don't you leave? I go directly to my work in domestic violence and sexual assault, where women in that position know that the majority of people who are killed in that position kill, are killed while leaving. You know, and so people don't leave for a lot of reasons, which is why my favorite question is, you know, tell me what about what's going on and what does support for me look like? Because I think there are and it does get gendered very quickly. But it's not just women who have to put food on the table and have health insurance for a sick kid or a million other reasons. But I think getting curious about people's thinking and people's lived experiences is the most important thing when I see this. And sometimes it is real desperation and a lack of choices. And related to that too, I think I would add another one, which one is just economic reality, I would add to the list. But I'd also add to the list some combination of privilege and agency. Like, I think about if my one of my children was caught in a position, bartending and waiting tables that I was caught in, they would never have to stay there more than five minutes because I am a safety net for them.

Speaker 1:
[23:40] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[23:41] And I think in today's employment environment, it's hard to find a job right now. I mean, it's really hard depending on what your skill set is and your industry is. So I think this is when our commitment to curiosity really pays off.

Speaker 1:
[23:56] All right, should we go to the next question?

Speaker 2:
[23:58] Yeah, let's do it. A really beautiful question about the apologizing. The person wrote, I know the apologies between you and Adam were personal. Is there anything you can tell us about repair that we could learn from? Are there any like toolkits or ideas about repair that could be helpful? And I think we're both bringing one to the table, so you go first.

Speaker 1:
[24:25] All right. So I've learned a lot from Beth Polin's research on what I've come to think of as the five R's of an apology, which are regret, rationale, responsibility, repentance, and repair. So regret is basically showing remorse. And that's the typical, I'm so sorry that I made you feel this way, or I'm so sorry that happened. That turns out, though, in the research to be less important than some of the other components. I think the rationale is kind of table stakes to explain what you were thinking or why you made the mistake you did. But the part that I think most people overlook that really matters is responsibility, saying, this is on me. Either I caused the problem, or I contributed to the problem, or I don't even know what caused the problem, but I am taking responsibility for preventing it from happening again. And I think that goes to repentance, which is basically making a commitment to do better. I love the saying, the best apology is change behavior.

Speaker 2:
[25:35] Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1:
[25:35] And you're almost there when you've expressed regret, you've given your rationale, and you've taken responsibility and repented. But ultimately, repair is demonstrating that you mean it all by not committing another offense and failing to change your actions. And to me, if you do those things, you've shown that you take really seriously the offense or the impact of your actions, and you are sincere about your desire to make it right. And I think if I could pick two, I would say I want responsibility and repair. I want you to say, here's what I own, that I did wrong or that I need to change, and then I want you to prove it through following through and actually walking your talk.

Speaker 2:
[26:24] I agree on all counts. And I am bringing to the conversation Harriet Lerner's work. Harriet Lerner was a clinician at Menninger for many, many, many years. And she actually, funnily enough, she wrote the first kind of self-reflection psychology book I ever read called The Dance of Anger. And my mom gave it to me as a cassette, a book on tape. And I remember getting it in the mail, and it's The Dance of Anger. And I was like, I don't know. And then a month later, did you read it? No. Did you listen to it yet? No. And then now it's like, oh, OK, I get it. She, I did a two part interview with her on Unlocking Us, and she has kind of nine essential ingredients of a true apology. I want to go through them pretty quickly, but they're going to line up very much with the research you're talking about. One, I hate this part. It does not include the word butt. Get your butt out of the way. That's a hard one for me sometimes, but it doesn't include the word butt. Keeps the focus on your actions and not on the other person's response. Includes an offer of reparation or restitution that fits the situation. It does not overdo, which I think is really interesting. Does not get caught up in who's more to blame or who started it. Requires that you do your best to avoid a repeat of performance. It should never serve to silence, which I think is really interesting. Have you ever been on the receiving end of apology that was very much meant to just like, and that's the final word?

Speaker 1:
[28:00] We're done here.

Speaker 2:
[28:01] Yeah, we're done here.

Speaker 1:
[28:01] I don't ever want to speak to this again.

Speaker 2:
[28:02] Right, right. Eight, it shouldn't be offered to make you feel better if it risks making the hurt party feel worse. God, this is complicated and really good. And then nine, does not ask the hurt party to do anything, not even to forgive.

Speaker 1:
[28:21] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[28:23] What do you think?

Speaker 1:
[28:25] I mean, the complementarity is great, but the one, well, two things. One, I think the but is such an important qualifier. And two, that last one, there is a sixth R in the apology research, which is a request for forgiveness. And that has always bothered me because I don't think you should be asking something of the person you're trying to make amends to.

Speaker 2:
[28:50] Agree.

Speaker 1:
[28:51] You're putting the burden on them. I think it's up to you to earn their forgiveness, but you shouldn't be seeking it. You should try to make it right because it's the right thing to do.

Speaker 2:
[29:01] OK, I got to tell you a really funny story. You got to watch this shit with your own kids. Let me tell you why. We were very conscious when Ellen and Charlie were little that they would apologize to one another. We would apologize to them. I did not grow up with parents who apologized. So Steve and I were both very quick to apologize to our kids. And one of the things we taught our kids was to never say, that's OK, but to say, thank you. And I never thought much about it except, look at me, PBS, NPR mom, giving myself a pat on the back. And then one day I really got frustrated with one of my kids. And I knocked on their door and I was like, I came to apologize. I got scared and I can get scary when I'm scared. And that's not OK. And I apologize for how I showed up in that conversation. It was not helpful. And it did not honestly convey my excitement about you trying this new thing. And my kid looked right at me and said, thank you. I was like, what the shit? What are you?

Speaker 1:
[30:26] I was like, wait, what?

Speaker 2:
[30:29] I was so dumbfounded. I was like, wait, this is the part where you go, that's OK, mom. I totally get it. You just, you know, you got some mama bear in you sometimes and nothing, just a solemn, like this, this is what you do in the whole time. OK, thank you. I was like grounded for a month.

Speaker 1:
[30:54] You got no validation.

Speaker 4:
[30:55] No, no.

Speaker 1:
[30:57] No acceptance there whatsoever. That's so funny. You know, we've had a similar conversation in our family. And it's what's hit me that I never had thought about going in, which might be missing from both of our favorite apology frameworks is, I think when people, when people come in with that's OK, what the apologizer is really looking for is a we're OK.

Speaker 2:
[31:25] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[31:27] And I think that distinction is so important. I want to when I have wronged someone, including when I wronged you, Brene, I don't want you to tell me that was OK. It wasn't OK. I'm not OK with the impact that I had. But I do want to know that we're OK and that we can still respect each other and like each other despite the mistake that I made.

Speaker 2:
[31:46] But you know what I do think that is, I do think that is asking the hurt party to, because I think there have been times where I have had an apology, I've given an apology to someone and I've literally asked, are we OK? And I've had that person say, not quite yet. And so I think that I am looking for, we're OK, but I don't get to dictate the timeline for that. So I just think the, I think the, I appreciate the apology. Thank you. I will tell you, it's hard to hear. Like I do think there's an, I don't know. I really wanted to respond to it with, well, you're grounded, you little smart ass. But I was actually so proud. It's like when your kids beat you at sports, you're either like, I'm going to beat you and I feel great, or you just beat me and hey, I raised you. Either way, I'm awesome. So great. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[32:44] It does, it does feel like a rejection a little bit though. And I wonder if, I wonder if a modification of it is to say something to the effect of I hope we'll be OK.

Speaker 2:
[32:56] No, I still think that's putting too much on someone. I actually don't think it's a rejection. I actually think it is when, when my, when they looked back at me and said, thank you, I think it just left me sitting in my own accountability. And like, I think half my family are very, you know, half of us are very fast processors. Great. Let's go grab some Chinese food. And the other half are like, it's going to be a while before I'm OK. And, and that's my timeline and my call.

Speaker 1:
[33:27] As it should be.

Speaker 2:
[33:29] No, no, OK. It was a great question. So I'm glad.

Speaker 7:
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Speaker 2:
[34:05] Last question is from Cecile. Boy, this is going to put us right in an area where we see the world differently. Are you ready?

Speaker 1:
[34:15] I'm ready.

Speaker 2:
[34:15] Okay. Back on LinkedIn, Cecile wrote, looking forward to the new podcast. How about this for a topic? Does great leadership require the courage to remain uncertain? And how do we show our uncertainty or hide it? And does it depend? She writes, and I love this because it's one of my favorite, it's one of my favorite quotes from a book. She said, here's the context for this. In Robert Harris's novel Conclave, the Dean of the College of Cardinals gives an opening sermon where he warned that certainty can be dangerous in matters of faith because it closes the mind. I love this quote from Conclave. I mean, I was so excited to see it on LinkedIn because I always think it's like a secret quote that only I'm obsessed with. But let me read the quote to you. My brothers and sisters, in the course of a long life in the service of our mother, the church, let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. It goes on with this. This line goes on to it. It concludes the quote. Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and there was no doubt, there would be no mystery and therefore no need for faith. I love Cecile's question about whether the ability to be in uncertainty is a strength or a deficit for a leader. I actually love the mysteries of faith, but I am not sure and I want to ask you this as the org psychologist that you are. I'm not sure that we're neurobiologically hardwired for the amount of uncertainty we're facing right now. I want all your thoughts. I want your thoughts.

Speaker 1:
[36:06] This is such a great topic.

Speaker 2:
[36:07] I know. I want your thoughts on faith is only faith when it walks hand in hand with doubt, and I want your thoughts on our hardwiring for certainty.

Speaker 1:
[36:20] Well, I'm not qualified to weigh in on the first one because I don't know anything about faith.

Speaker 2:
[36:25] Were you raised agnostic or atheist or just not, religion was not a big part?

Speaker 1:
[36:34] Yeah, I just don't remember thinking much about it, talking much about it.

Speaker 2:
[36:38] Got it.

Speaker 1:
[36:40] I think the second part though, I have a fair amount, I have a reasonable amount of knowledge on, but you can calibrate me. So I'm not convinced.

Speaker 2:
[36:51] Sorry, I love that. Throwback to the last episode on metacognition. We're calibrating each other. I like it go.

Speaker 1:
[36:57] To bring it on, you always calibrate me. And I think that's one of the most fun things about learning from you.

Speaker 2:
[37:04] Same.

Speaker 1:
[37:04] Is you are not shy about saying, no, nope, nope. I don't think you got that right.

Speaker 2:
[37:10] Neither are you. It would be so boring if we were.

Speaker 1:
[37:13] True. So I think we are absolutely hardwired for the level of uncertainty we're experiencing. I actually think we're hardwired for much more uncertainty than we're experiencing. I mean, can you imagine, if you think about where our hardwiring comes from in our evolutionary history, imagine not knowing at any moment in daily life, if there was going to be a creature emerging from the jungle that would attack you. Not knowing if all of a sudden the heavens would send a tsunami or an earthquake to destroy your entire life. I think not only were there threats that we just had no tools and systems to deal with, but we didn't even understand what was causing them. Think about all the diseases that people just died of, and they didn't know that germs were a thing. They didn't know that you needed to avoid eating certain plants. There was tremendous uncertainty in daily life, and you could just be fine one moment and die the next moment, and have no idea what the cause was going to be. I think we live in a much more predictable world now, than the world we were hardwired in, and so I would diagnose the problem differently. But let me pause there. I'm really curious to hear your reaction.

Speaker 2:
[38:32] No, keep going. I'm absorbing.

Speaker 1:
[38:37] Okay. The different lens I would bring to this is to say, I think what we lack is not the wiring, but rather the practice in dealing with uncertainty. Precisely because we have built a world that shields us from it, that any time there is a problem, we know where to turn. I think it's why so many people struggled with COVID, is all of a sudden, you weren't sure if you could trust your doctor, maybe for the first time in your life. Or maybe when you've dealt with that in the past, you at least knew where to go for a second opinion, and you knew what specialists to see. And now you weren't even sure if those people were accurate. And I think that what we're facing now is a tension between our hardwiring, which is very much primed to respond to threats, and our experience, which doesn't necessarily equip us to deal with the kinds of threats and the sources of uncertainty that we're now facing, which would include AI, climate change, political instability and turbulence, and what have I forgotten?

Speaker 2:
[39:51] I am really taking this in. Okay. Yeah. I have like...

Speaker 1:
[39:57] Pause cast. Here it is.

Speaker 2:
[39:58] Yeah. The pause cast. Okay. So I want to walk through what you're thinking is, it's really interesting to me. Can we agree? Can we go to some underlying assumptions and start to see where things take different paths? Because I'm not as... I think there's a lot of merit in what you're saying, actually. And for some reason, it doesn't feel as opposed to... I want to understand where the differences and where the similarities lie. So can we agree that our brains are wired to treat uncertainty as a threat and that ambiguity activates the same neural stress response as danger, as physical danger, that ambiguity and physical danger are very similar in terms of our threat response to it?

Speaker 1:
[40:53] Yes, with the caveat that there are pretty strong individual differences. So if we allow for the fact that there's a personality trait or two, that will lead some people to not treat uncertainty as a threat. Yeah, I think on average, yes.

Speaker 2:
[41:07] So let's talk about intolerance of uncertainty. Are you familiar with that field? Okay. Oh, boy. Did y'all see that? Look, I hope y'all caught that. Aaron, I want you to do a double zoom in on that look. That is the freaking Adam Grant. Oh, yeah. Let's go. You want to dance? You want to talk? Intolerance of uncertainty? You want to talk? Rubbish show? Let's go. Okay. I know that look. I love this look. Okay. So let's just walk people through it. So intolerance of uncertainty, a measurable cognitive vulnerability, not a personality weakness, right? That there is an intolerance for uncertainty and that it drives a lot of the anxiety spectrum, right? Way in. Go ahead.

Speaker 1:
[41:57] Yes. And it's so pervasive that for people who have a strong intolerance for uncertainty, they would actually rather hear bad news or criticism than just not know. Certain negative information is more reassuring to them than uncertain possibly positive information, which tells me this goes really deep. Who would rather be told they sucked than just not get feedback? Somebody who does not like uncertainty.

Speaker 2:
[42:27] Hey, I'd rather have bad news. I'd rather have bad news and no news. I mean, that's like, that's the whole thing. I mean, I just did. We did a fun kind of launch for Maya Shankar's new book, and she was referencing some uncertainty research about whether, you probably know this research, I don't know it that well, but I relate to it, where you had a choice of there's a 50-50% chance you'd get a shock, or a 100% chance that you'd get a shock. The majority of people chose the 100% chance.

Speaker 1:
[42:58] The 100.

Speaker 2:
[42:59] Of course, me too.

Speaker 1:
[43:00] Yeah, because in the 50-50, you suffer twice, right?

Speaker 2:
[43:03] Yes. But what would you pick?

Speaker 1:
[43:05] I think it depends on how severe the shock is.

Speaker 2:
[43:07] Okay. Let's just say it's tolerable but uncomfortable.

Speaker 1:
[43:09] I think if the shock is bad, you go for the 50-50.

Speaker 2:
[43:10] But I'll say it's uncomfortable but tolerable. I mean, you're not going to get any other shit through human subjects. So let's say.

Speaker 1:
[43:18] I think old me would have chosen the 100, and I hope new me would choose the 50-50.

Speaker 2:
[43:22] So you have some empathy for people that would rather have bad news.

Speaker 1:
[43:25] Oh, yeah. I think I might still be one of them. I've been one of them for a lot of my life. You?

Speaker 2:
[43:34] I don't think. I think when you get to my age, you've lived through enough bad news that you'll roll the dice with the 50-50. Do you know what I mean? I just think waiting one more day for the call back is really tough, but it's not as tough as you're not going to be put out of your misery with a really terrible call at nine o'clock on Monday. That's always going to be worse than a five o'clock at Tuesday call. That was good news. I think I have aged into some tolerance, but not from becoming smarter, just having lived through some more bad news.

Speaker 1:
[44:18] You are tracking with the lifespan development trends where as people move from their 20s toward their 50s and 60s, they do tend to be a little more comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity over time. And I think you're right, there's something to the life experience there. I also want to know, can we accelerate that? Can we help people become more comfortable with uncertainty when they are in their 20s?

Speaker 2:
[44:42] Okay. So given that we come from, given that we understand, we do believe that our brains are wired to create, to perceive uncertainty as a threat. And barring some personality differences, we can experience the same kind of neural stress response to physical danger as we do to ambiguity or not knowing. I'm trying to make sense of the comparison from a biological evolutionary perspective that you're saying to today. And I'll tell you why. Like, is there any cultural relevance? Like back then, like you knew like 50% of your family is going to, you know, be dinner for something. And today we're sold a bill of goods that human life should be happy and certain. And is that part of capitalism and marketing? And so are there other cultural forces at play today that make uncertainty? Wait, let me let me think about this. Are there cultural forces today that make uncertainty more difficult because certainty is positioned as an acquirable privilege?

Speaker 1:
[46:04] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[46:04] That if you're wealthy enough, smart enough, white enough, straight enough, male enough, like that you can privilege your way that is possible to be a human and privilege your way into a certain life. It's a big question.

Speaker 1:
[46:22] Yeah, it is. It's interesting. I was going somewhere similar, which is I think that in the past, if we rewind a lot of industrial revolution progress and understanding in the world, I think that uncertainty was expected and accepted. Now, there's an increasingly common assumption that I will not have to deal with unpredictability in my life. When that assumption is violated, it's very uncomfortable. I see this all the time with our students who, if you talk about the bill they were sold, the bill they were sold is like every generation before you, you're going to be better off than your parents were. Yeah. And all of a sudden confronting the uncertainty of, I don't know if I'm going to find a job when I was supposed to have a better job than my parents got. What is that? That's not right. That's not fair. How am I supposed to thrive and survive in that world? And I think that that is hugely threatening against the backdrop of those expectations, that it was going to be predictable, certain. And let me say another word that I think is core to what the problem is, which is controllable.

Speaker 2:
[47:35] Yes, controllable.

Speaker 1:
[47:37] I don't actually think that what people are looking for is certainty or predictability. I think what they're looking for is control. And uncertainty threatens their ability to feel like they are in charge of their destiny.

Speaker 2:
[47:50] God, it's like, it's like, I'm just, I don't know why the first thing that pops up for me, it's going to be random. And you have to promise me, if I say it out loud, we're not going to go on a rabbit trail. But the first thing that comes up for me when you say, when you're talking about the relationship between certainty and uncertainty and control is how enmeshed the relationship is between addiction and shame, that researchers really have a hard time temporally understanding which comes first. But I feel like that, I just have that same feeling when you talk about control and uncertain uncertainty, like it's just, it's like, are they the same things and which came first? And what do we need more of? It's almost so inextricably connected. And I don't want to lose the point either that, but say it.

Speaker 1:
[48:43] No, no, go ahead.

Speaker 2:
[48:43] I don't want to lose the point either that, you know, there's a storytelling mechanism that I think about all the time, which is world building, you know, so when you're going to tell a story, especially a fiction story, you build the world first. So like if you're going to tell the story of Lord of the Rings, you know, you've got the hero's journey, but first you build the world. So everyone understands the world in which the protagonist is acting. And, and, you know, I think part of, part of today, the world building is if you do everything right, you can have less uncertainty and more control. And, and it plays into, it plays into everything. I mean, the way everything is marketed, advertising, it plays into politics, which I want to get into. But the world building today leverages that the human brain and our threats and our fears around control and uncertainty. Do you agree?

Speaker 1:
[49:45] Yeah, I do. And I think, I think the, the thing that jumps out at me about control being a really important piece of this puzzle is, I think about the classic Glass and Singer experiments with, with stress where people are blasted with these uncomfortably loud bursts of noise. And you, this is exactly in the range that you were describing earlier of, it's tolerable, but it is definitely not pleasant. And in, in, in one version of these experiments, people are given a button they could press. And they find the blast of noise less unpleasant, even though they never pressed the button. Because they knew they could control it.

Speaker 2:
[50:30] Oh my God, those people, those people are Texans. That's a Texas woman. Those are Texas women. And I'm going to tell you, those are Texas women. I'm going to tell you why. This is why I hold my purse while I'm on the side of the stage before they call my name out to talk to 8,000 people. I need to have my pocketbook and an exit strategy if you want me to do something at all times. I'm not, I've never run, but I need my pocketbook or my purse, whatever y'all call it, the purse. And I need an exit strategy and I won't use it. But if you don't give it to me, fuck you, I'm leaving.

Speaker 1:
[51:06] And that's, I think you're reacting not just to the uncertainty, but to the threat to control.

Speaker 2:
[51:13] I mean, have you checked out Texas Men recently? Yeah. Like, I mean, there are some good ones, but there are some not great ones. So yes, like, okay. So they do better if they have an off ramp.

Speaker 1:
[51:29] Yeah. Even if they don't use it, just knowing I could press the button to shield myself from the noise, is enough to help me cope with the, the, ugh, that's not good. But also the uncertainty of, I don't know when it's going to come and I don't know exactly how loud it's going to be. And maybe, I think you're right. It may be that the desire for control leads us to dislike uncertainty. It may be that the desire for some degree of certainty leads us to dislike a lack of control. Having control might be the most important antidote that we have to the sense of uncertainty that people are struggling with.

Speaker 2:
[52:08] Yes. I mean, just give me my pocketbook and a protein bar and a diet coke. I will all be up for anything, but I'm going to have my own money. I'm going to have my own protein bar and I'm going to have my own diet coke. And then we'll see how it goes. But at any point, I can tuck and roll and go. Like that is just that. I mean, why are you laughing?

Speaker 1:
[52:31] Don't roll if the diet coke is open.

Speaker 2:
[52:33] No, I will always save the diet coke. So let me, this is so interesting. I want to read this research to you. This is from Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions on Uncertainty Avoidance, which I love a cross-cultural study. You are looking like you are gunning for a conversation. I like it. I'm in your territory here. I love it. So the principle is that, and this is true across cultures, many cultures, his research, Hofstede's research found that entire societies are organized around managing uncertainty through religion, law, and technology. Okay, I'm going to go on now and I'm going to move from Hofstede into Compensatory Control Theory, which I love, which is because-

Speaker 1:
[53:20] McGregor.

Speaker 2:
[53:21] Yes, because this is a part of Terror Management Theory. So, okay, so let me just back it up. So let me just, in order to not like nerd out on y'all, like what just happened, example 1A, Adam Grant.

Speaker 1:
[53:35] You're just citing, like you went right from organizational behavior to psychology, and you're in the center of my world.

Speaker 2:
[53:45] In your universe, okay.

Speaker 1:
[53:46] Welcome to my playground.

Speaker 2:
[53:48] I think this is where the weirdos live and think. I like it. But we're going to put all the references in the notes, the show notes. Our team member, Paul, is amazing at doing that. So he will hook you up if you want to nerd out. Okay. So Hofstad's research says that entire societies organize around managing uncertainty through religion, law, and technology. When uncertainty spikes, this is now going into control, kind of compensatory control theory. When uncertainty spikes, economic threat, loss of control, humiliation, mortality reminders, mortality reminders happening everywhere right now, the psychological demand for certainty does not just increase, it accelerates. And this is huge. This is, is it Jost? I always pronounce this researchers names Jost. Jost. Yeah, Jost. This is universal. No ideology, education level, or income bracket is immune. So we try to create certainty in societies with religion, law, and technology. When uncertainty spikes, the demand for certainty doesn't just go up, it accelerates. And this is universal across ideologies, education levels, and income brackets. What clusterfuckery does this set us up for politically?

Speaker 1:
[55:21] I mean, this is, this is the world we're seeing right now. I think it explains a lot of the polarization and extremism that we've been tracking across countries, which is in response to increasing levels of uncertainty. One, you get what McGregor called defensive zeal, which is this kind of, it's a compensatory conviction response where, okay, the world is unstable and I'm not sure what's going to happen, so I am going to cling to an ideology. I'm going to cling to a political tribe that gives me a sense of coherence and order.

Speaker 2:
[55:54] Like a buoy in an ocean.

Speaker 1:
[55:57] Yeah, I think that's a great metaphor for it, and I won't let it go because it is my survival raft. I think the other thing it gives us is something we didn't touch on in our conversation about narcissistic leadership in our third episode, which is this is under uncertainty, that's when people gravitate toward authoritarians and narcissists who peddle certainty, who promise that they have all the answers, who are basically charlatans and snake oil salespeople. And yet they are more appealing to people, this is some brand new research that has come out in the last year or so, that leadership, authoritarian leadership, leadership that's high certainty is more appealing to people who have low self-esteem, who are searching for somebody that will make them feel like, yeah, I can handle the challenges, we are in good hands. And it's almost like it's, they're getting lulled into a false sense of security and safety by people who are overconfident and persuading them that, yeah, yeah, I will take care of everything. As opposed to just accepting, the world is complex, it's messy, we're not sure exactly what's gonna happen.

Speaker 2:
[57:16] Oh my God. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[57:18] Sound familiar?

Speaker 2:
[57:19] Yes, no, I'm thinking about the research term, mortality salience. Do you know this work? Terror Management Theory, Greenberg and Solomon, and-

Speaker 1:
[57:30] And Pyszczynski, don't forget.

Speaker 2:
[57:32] Yes, and Pyszczynski. You are so scary when it comes to these things. Like, where were you when I was getting my PhD? I would have been like, let me just pontificate here and if you could just attach every idea to some peer reviewed. Okay, so this is terror management that I think is interesting. When reminded of death or existential threat, people cling harder to leaders who promise protection and meaning. Let me read it again. This is terror management theory. When reminded of death or existential threat, people cling harder to leaders who promise protection and meaning. This is mortality salience. Oh my God. Listen, I mean, yeah, I mean, I mean, go ahead. This is happening. This is happening. I mean, this is like a lot of people clinging to their buoy in the shit soup. Amanda Brown, 2026. Okay, let's just do this. Go ahead.

Speaker 1:
[58:42] I do want to caveat that some of the terror management findings have failed to replicate in the last few years. Well, there have been, I mean, obviously social psychology has undergone what's been called a replication crisis. And I think underpowered studies that didn't have big enough sample sizes or in some cases were not well designed, have not stood up to scrutiny when replicated many, many times with larger pools of participants. But I think that this particular effect seems to be robust. That when people are facing a threat, whether it's to their lives or their livelihoods, they will gravitate toward people who offer them a false sense of certainty and security. I think that it's dangerous in terms of who we let run our workplaces. It's dangerous in terms of who we let run our countries. It's something that we don't have great societal solutions to. It's like, well, lower the threat level. Good luck with that one. How are we going to solve that at a country or societal scale? So, Brene, I want to ask you as a social worker, how do you think about what we can do in our own lives and in the local systems that we actually do have influence over, with our teams, with our families, to manage the uncertainty level so that it doesn't become an overwhelming threat?

Speaker 2:
[60:14] So, I think the two things that come up for me that are both kind of research-based, right off the bat, is critical thinking education and everything that this administration has banned. Critical theory, critical thinking. I think that there is, there are a lot, I think there's evidence that to be able to think critically and through a systems theory lens, like we used to teach our students, follow the money. You know, just, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, so I think some critical thinking. I think intellectual humility. I also think building connection and community. So, I think when community connection and community trust is high, I think we're less, our susceptibility is lower when we have levels of community trust. This is an idea that I didn't, I had never heard of, and I'm so interesting. I really hope you know it. Do you know inoculation and pre-bunking?

Speaker 1:
[61:12] As a way to fight disinformation?

Speaker 2:
[61:14] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[61:14] Yes. I'm thinking of Sander van der Linden, for example.

Speaker 2:
[61:17] Yes. I don't know how you do that. It's wild to me. So learning to recognize manipulation techniques, not just specific false claims before you're exposed to them. So I think the studies that I came across and read, and I'm going to fully just say I just read abstracts. And then next, I read the top and the bottom, which I know is dangerous in itself. But this idea that not to teach people the content of what false ideas are, but to help to teach pre-bunking by teaching them most common ways misinformation is distributed. What do you know about it? Tell us about it because it's like, I want my kids to have this. I want this.

Speaker 1:
[62:00] Yeah. I mean, some of this is basic media literacy training, right? To interrogate sources as opposed to just accepting them. To have standards of evidence and say, okay, let me see. Is this claim backed by a randomized controlled trial or by a longitudinal study? If not, it might just be someone's opinion. I think that we spend so much time putting out little fires as opposed to zooming out and asking, what is causing the forest fire? The problem that we need to solve is not, there's a specific piece of misinformation that people are buying into. It's that people lack the tools to evaluate information accurately. Also, sometimes they lack the motivation to evaluate it accurately. There was some research that Jay Van Bevel turned me on to, showing that you could get people to be less likely to spread fake news, demonstrably false information on social media just by prompting them to consider, is this true? And that people weren't, by default, they weren't thinking about, is this accurate? They were thinking about, could this be true? Or is this interesting? Is this going to get me likes and shares? And so they just kind of instinctively posted it or reposted it. And just getting them to pause and reflect and ask the question, is this true, was enough to reduce the rate of spreading bad information. And so I think that this is partially a skill problem. It's partially a motivation problem.

Speaker 2:
[63:35] Yeah, I mean, the algorithms are not, don't reward truth and complexity. The algorithms reward misinformation, vitriol. Yeah, I mean, it's just, I think it's, I think it's, it's, and I will say that like AI and unskilled users of AI, AI can be so sycophantic that you can really go in. And I will just, I mean, I think I've told you this before. We did all of the lit review with human researchers and a parallel team that was using just AI for the lit review. And 60 to 70% of the sources, including a source that said had Brown and Grant as an MIT Sloan, was completely a hallucination. And AI gave the same weight to a real peer-reviewed academic article as it did, you know, Reddit user, I got a new boat. You know, and so I think this is an interesting conversation. We're at the end of time. I do want to thank the people who are writing in questions and comments and, you know, taking the time just to say, to get feedback on the podcast, which we love and we're open to. And also, you know, writing things like, hey, I want you to go deeper here, or I disagree with this. Can y'all revisit it and think about this perspective? I'm so grateful for that. I love, I miss community of discourse and debate and ideas, because it's not just harder to find these days. So I'm grateful for that. What are you grateful for today?

Speaker 1:
[65:20] Oh, well, I don't want to be redundant, but I'm actually grateful to have an audience of people with us and a partner in, what's the opposite of crime? In attempting to offer something useful to the world.

Speaker 2:
[65:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[65:37] A partner in detective work, whatever it is, who don't take uncertainty as a threat, but take it as an occasion for curiosity. I think that that's part of what this show is about. I think that it's so easy to cling to the comfort of certainty, and ignore the discomfort of doubt. But I think doubt is where the learning happens, and it's often the engine of curiosity.

Speaker 2:
[66:04] Yeah, 100 percent.

Speaker 1:
[66:05] We need more of it.

Speaker 2:
[66:06] I promise. I know that you're not a faith person, but can I just share one quote before we go by one of my faith mentors, Father Richard Rohr. I thought it just reminded me of us a little bit. He writes, this is Richard Rohr's writing, My scientist friends have come up with things like principles of uncertainty and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories, but many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution, and clarity while thinking that we are the people of faith. How strange that the very word faith has come to mean its opposite. It's interesting. We can agree on that, I think.

Speaker 1:
[66:43] I did not expect to get my now new favorite take on scientific thinking and uncertainty from a religious figure.

Speaker 2:
[66:51] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[66:52] Well played.

Speaker 2:
[66:53] Richard Rohr. All right. I'll see you next time. The Curiosity Shop is produced by Brene Brown Education and Research Group and Granted Productions. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app.

Speaker 1:
[67:07] We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.