Ep262: How to Work with Challenging Colleagues Without Losing Your Mind (or your job) | with Amy Gallo

Zack Arnold

I'm here today with Amy Gallo. And she is a workplace expert whose advice has been featured in little known publications like I don't know, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Fast Company just to name a very, very select few. You're also the author of the latest book, Getting along how to work with anyone, even difficult people. And you're also the co host of Harvard business reviews, Women at Work podcast. Amy it's a tremendous pleasure, after all the back and forth to finally have you on Zoom and record this conversation with you today.

Amy Gallo

Yeah, it's so great to be here. And isn't it amazing when something takes months and months to happen? And it happens, it feels so good.

Zack Arnold

Yes, that's the story of my life, all these visions and ideas, and they're gonna happen someday in the future. And then all of a sudden, you're like, where are we talking about this, like nine months ago, and here we are, we finally made it happen. So very, very excited about this. So I'm actually going to frame the beginning of this conversation from a conversation that I just had with my wife last night, she and I went out to dinner. And on the way home, my wife said, What are you reading right now? And I've got a whole stack of books that I'm going through. And I've got four podcast interviews this week alone. But I had mentioned that I'm reading this book about getting along with difficult people. And her question was, I would you be reading that? And I realized, I'm not sure I have a really succinct answer. And then the answer just came to me, and it just happened to come to me on page 22 of your book. So I'm gonna I'm going to share this passage as a way to kind of frame what it where I really want to go today. And you mentioned that the research is clear. If you want to thrive at work, if you want to perform your best if you want to be engaged and productive, and you want to think creatively and expansively, you have to pay attention to your relationships. I talk about relationships all the time ad nauseam, which is very ironic, given that I'm an extreme introvert. But I believe that the quality of your life is dictated by the quality of your relationships. And I've been teaching relationship building and networking for years. But I've never really talked about relationships from the angle of how it enhances or detracts from creativity or productivity. So that's essentially the crux of today's conversation. But where I actually want to start, is asking a simpler, maybe not as simple question as it might sound, but the simple question is, what led you to say, I'm going to spend my entire life and my career dealing with conflict and difficult people all day every day?

Amy Gallo

Could I give a two word answer? Yes, divorced parents, which is actually not true. But I did grow up with witnessing conflict and witnessing what happens when relationships fall apart? And how you repair them, and how you build other types of relationships that that matter and that fulfill your life. And that help you? You know, the sort of more professional career answer is that I worked as a management consultant for a strategy and organization firm in New York many years ago. And what I found is, you know, all my colleagues were drawn to strategy, how do we make build a strategy for this company? How do we get these executives to agree on this, and I was sitting in those rooms, just watching how people interacted. And I remember this one particular project I was on where we spent a ton of time, obviously a ton of money, getting these paid this organization, a new strategy. And we had an all day session with the senior leaders at this company to hash out sort of the final details, put everything in place. And I remember walking out and saying to my colleagues, that's not going to work. Because people are not getting along. It doesn't matter what's on paper, it doesn't matter how much money and resources and how much smarts they have, because they were incredibly smart people. But they could not navigate conflict, they could not navigate their differences. And it was clear that that those sort of fractures in those relationships are really gonna love it. The strategy. So, you know, I have always been sort of drawn to this topic. But I really, I think it was around that time that I realized this is exactly as you said, this isn't like the icing on the cake, right? Like the relationships aren't a positive benefit you get from work, they are the work, and it dictates whether you make something amazing, or whether you all walk away tail between your legs, ashamed of what happened.

Zack Arnold

It's funny you say that because I just had a conversation recently that most likely by the time I released this, these two will be paired together, talking with Chris Deaver, who wrote the book brave together, talking all about this process of co creation, and talking about you know, creatively how we're just we're usually in all these silos, and we're kind of doing our own work and how the best ideas really come from co creation. We didn't talk much about conflict, but I think that I want to get more into that today. But I would guess that the 25 year old version of me and I'm not going to date myself, but there was a ways as a long time ago, the 25 year old version of me and a lot of the people that are listening today, we would classify ourselves as the people that would say, give me four walls, take the windows away, don't bother me and let me do my thing. That's when I do my best creative work. And I realized how much that was actually hindering my creativity. But I figured I don't really work well with people. I'm horrible at working for people. And my best ideas come when I'm left alone. So tell me all the reasons that I'm wrong about that?

Amy Gallo

Well, you are wrong. And it's, it's partly because you can come up in that dark, sad room. I'll call it sad. I'm an introvert too, but it is sad to envision it, you can come up with amazing ideas. But and you may actually, you know, come up with the your best idea in that room, but to execute it to come to get from the idea from the vision to actually creating something requires other people I don't I read it. It's this notion of this lone genius in a room producing something mean even a book right thinking about the book, The Yes, did I sit at this desk here and spend hours and hours by myself generating words and you know, editing and all of that? Absolutely. But that book did not get into your hands did not get onto the shelves of bookstores, or you know, vailable on Amazon, by myself it had there were so many people who touched it. And I had to have relationships with every single one of those people. And even the process of creating the book, I worked with two different editors, I had, I couldn't name five trusted advisors who I would go to when I would say I don't know what's going on with tap chapter three, I'm really stuck. It's, it is rare that we can actually sit alone somewhere and produce the best work. And you anyone who has been part of a fun constructive brainstorming process really knows that it's the best idea didn't start as the best idea, it started as an idea that had some potential, and someone built it on it, and someone critiqued it, and someone else pushed it even further, and then put a different frame on it, and then brought it back to steps, right? It doesn't those ideas just don't come spewing out of someone's brain or mouth or hands, they have to be molded. And you have to have relationships. And I would argue you have to have conflict in order to make them as good as you want them to be.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, and this is a process that I've learned over many years, again, going back to my 20 or 25 year old self, I was convinced as me at least in my previous life, I was a film and television editor. So I always had it in my mind. And I know this is so common for other people that do similar work, I am the only one that sees all the materials, I see all the moving parts, there's a whole team creating all the different individual pieces, but I see all of them, it comes into me and I put together what we will call my editors cut. It's like what you would call your first draft of a manuscript, right? Here's my editors cut. The younger version of me was, this is the best version that there is because I'm the only one that seen everything. So I know these are the best combinations. Right? Now I see it as this is the absolute best possible version of the first really shitty draft. Right? I don't think the first shitty draft can be no better than this, but it's still a piece of shit. And I need help from others to make it better. So one of the processes that I've honed and refined now that I'm building a business and I've got a team is I do the exact same thing I always used to do, I go in a room and I stare at a wall all day long. And it's now a whiteboard. And I draw a bunch of stuff on and ideas and I come to them. And I say, All right, here's the idea, it totally and completely sucks. Now let's make it better. So the seed of the idea, my process is the same. But my mindset of the idea is done and fleshed out, let's execute is changed to now let's start talking about making the idea better. And let's turn it into our idea. So it's no longer my idea. That's kind of my own learning process over the last 20 years. Yeah,

Amy Gallo

and I mean, I went through a similar learning process of like, you know, one of the best gifts I've given my teenage daughter is the the embracing of the first draft because I when I was her age, she's 17 When I was her age, I would just type out my essay and just be like, done. It's perfect, right? No editing, no. And it wasn't really until late in I wouldn't say late in my career, but later than I'd like to admit that I started being edited by professional editors. And I was like, Oh, wow, yeah, no, not only were first drafts not even like close to finish, but they were really shitty. And it's that process of the back and forth, even if it's just comments in a Word doc Right? Or for you sort of the piecing together of all the the elements. But you have to have that that the back and forth with people you have to have those disagreements you have to have debate like what's, what are we trying to do? What does the audience want to see? What do we want them to feel in this moment if you don't have all have that sort of debate, dissent, disagreement, friction, you're not going to produce the best possible product.

Zack Arnold

So I realized that the easiest answer to my next question is just get the book. So I'm very aware of that. Right? But off the top of your head, I'm curious, can you think of kind of any seminal research or statistic that you just find you've memorized and use over and over and over? When somebody asks the question like, can you actually prove to me that relationships lead to better collaboration and creativity? Yeah,

Amy Gallo

well, I will tell you, there's, this is one that sticks out in my head all the time, which is that the end it's not directly related to creativity. But I think it really shows the power of positive relationships, which is a team of researchers at Rutgers looked at people who said they had a best friend at work, and then compare the people who said, Yes, and people said, No, looked at their performance reviews, people who said they had a best friend at work, we were far more likely to have positive performance reviews. And in fact, they think they even gave them a rating. It was like several points higher. And so we know that we perform better when we have people who feel support us who we get along with. And we those relationships are critical in sort of pushing us to think differently. And I think that that's, and then you can look at the flip side. So Chris Paul Rath, who's a professor, now at University of North Carolina, who studies incivility at work, she has tons and tons of research that shows the damage that's done, not only to our productivity, but certainly to our creativity, not only when we experience incivility so rudeness, harsh comments dismissiveness, but also when we witness it, so you don't even have to be the target of it. If you just witness to people have a rude conversation, it dampens your your creativity. So there, there's so much research that shows us the one study I'll mention is the backpack study in the book. And it's this notion that it's about stress, which I think of course is connected to creativity and to productivity, which is that if you take two people put them at the bottom of a hill, put a bunch of rocks in there in a backpack and ask them to put it on. If they're standing there alone. And you ask them to look up the top of the hill and estimate how heavy the backpack is, they will say it's much heavier if they're alone, than if they're with a friend. Right? So that positive again, that positive relationship, that interaction makes us feel like the load is lighter. What better way to free us up to produce our best work than to reduce that sort of stress and anticipation.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, I love this image of the literal backpack being filled with rocks. The reason being is that one of my passions has been Spartan Races for over 10 years and American Ninja Warrior. So I'm literally physically putting myself and my students in the worst conditions imaginable. Because I believe that we have to train for adversity because when adversity comes for us, which it has done at a mass scale, we have to be ready for it. And I've seen over and over and over the difference between me trying to train on my own, which is my default state, I just leave me alone, let me do my own thing, and how much physically stronger I am. And like I can literally get more reps of push ups or pull ups or whatever it might be. When I'm surrounded by groups. I mean, it's it was a mesmerizing thing for me to realize that. I think this is my maximum number of pull ups. And then all of a sudden, I'm in front of a group and I'm like, oh my god, I did like 20%. More. What Where did that energy come from, and to be able to apply that to the collaborative and the creative process has also been mesmerizing, which is why I do my best to get out of the small, dark, or as you say, the sad room as much as I can.

Amy Gallo

I've worked with a coach, and she has told me for two years has been drilling into my head. When you feel overwhelmed. The first question you ask is who can help? It's still hard for me to do it happened this week. It happened on Tuesday, where I was totally overwhelmed by a decision I had to make. I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna make this. And I just sat with it alone at this desk for a long time being like, this is terrible. And then I went to bed woke up the next morning I was like, oh, no, I just need to call Kelly on my team. And it was a five minute conversation decision was clear. And not only was the decision clear, but she asked a question that let me build on the decision. So then, not only were we resolving this one problem, but we created the next step, right it was it was a five minute generative conversation 12 hours previously, I was like this is going to bury me there's no way I can do it. All of

Zack Arnold

this sounds wonderful. It sounds fantastic. I'm I'm working in this environment. I'm collaborating with like minded professionals. We're just spewing ideas back and forth. This sounds fantastic and nothing at all like the reality that I live in right so ever. I'm guessing you you you probably know a thing or two about that alternate reality. Yes,

Amy Gallo

yes. And the alternate reality is I want to be clear, most work relationships are neutral. A positive. However, there are those relationships that drag us down, that are incredibly challenging, that take up an outsize portion of our mental energy or emotional energy. And that's when you think about collaborating. Most people if you ask them, I mean, I think most people are like you and me and you say, Oh, you're gonna collaborate with people, you're like, oh, gosh, they're gonna be slow. They're gonna have stupid ideas, right? Like, our immediate instinct isn't like, Yes, I bet we'll all get along like perfectly, we're going to anticipate some bumps. And that's smart, because you will have bumps, human interaction is messy. And so you have to embrace that alternate reality, which is, this isn't going to be pretty. And it might even be painful. At times, I might even have to pull the plug. And I'm sure we could all name a few projects where the relationships and the inability to get along, killed that project, right. So there, there's the risk of of having all of that happen. But there's also the joy or the upside of being able to navigate that in a way that you do produce something better. And even if you don't, you learn so much about yourself in the process that the next project you get on, it's going to be goes so much better, right? I'm really good at dealing with passive aggressive people, because I've dealt with so many of them, right? And that sometimes the instinct is to say, I dealt with a passive aggressive person on this project, it was terrible. Everything went wrong. I'm never working with anyone like that again. But I think what we have to think is know, how do I build the interpersonal resilience? Because passive aggressive people are all over the place. I am one of them. None of us is above behaving that way. Right? So you have to figure out how do I feel less stress in the moment when I'm interacting with this person? And how do I feel more confident when someone just likes them comes back on my next project. And I have to deal with them again.

Zack Arnold

It's funny amongst all the things that you mentioned, the first image that came to my mind was my daughter, who's now almost 12, she's in sixth grade, I can picture her coming home a week or two ago, she was so upset, she was so frustrated. So what's wrong, she's like, I have to do a group project. And I have to do it with other people. I'm like, Oh, my God, you are so my daughter. Because that's it. I literally remember when I was in fourth grade, my parents doing a parent teacher conference, because I refused to work in groups. That's how myopically focused I was on I just want to do my own thing and my own ideas, oh, my god, crap, I pass this along to my daughter. But the lesson that I've learned, I'm trying to impart it on her is that there's so much value in sharing these ideas with others, but like you alluded to, there's going to be a lot of conflict along the way. And the easiest thing to do, it's not the best thing. But the easiest is I just, I don't want to deal with any of you, I'm just going to do my own thing. And I've gone that direction more than once. But again, it just it yields a much worse product, at least at the time, I was at the pinnacle of my career working on something that was probably one of the most creatively fulfilling jobs I've ever had. And I was absolutely miserable. And I hated my job and every second of the day, and I was burned out. And I just wished that at the time somebody had said to me, maybe it's not the work, maybe it's the people. That's right. And once I realized that, I thought it doesn't matter how successful this project is, it doesn't matter how much I enjoy the day to day of my process. I just can't work with these people because they're literally killing me. And that's when I made the transition from and this is a very hard transition to make in Hollywood, from it's all about the credits. And it's all about the name above the billboard. And it's all about the paycheck to it's about the people I'm working with day to day, I really learned that lesson. And it's made a huge difference in my career. Yeah, and

Amy Gallo

I occasionally get asked, I love that story, first of all about your daughter. Yeah, I totally relate. When I got a group project when I was her age is how do I get them to do nothing, so I can just do it all right, which is terrible. It's terrible. But I also like the this idea of the relationships like choosing, I occasionally get asked for career advice, you know, from from younger people, and I always say, follow the relationship. If you enjoy working with that person. If you have a good rapport, you don't have to be exactly like you don't have to agree on everything. You don't have to see eye to eye on everything, but follow the relationships and you want to be able to work with people well, and as you said it was literally killing you. There are so many stats about the the rudeness the incivility toxic behavior, that the impact on our physical well being. And there's another amazing piece of research that was done actually in couples married couples, where they made a small cut on their skin and then monitored how long it took to heal. And couples who reported having animosity in their relationship. The healing time was like seven times slower and that's not the exact number but that's how I remembered I can't remember the exact number but the point being we Our bodies aren't healing themselves as fast when we are in relationships marked by animosity. So by all means we want to choose to work with people we want to work with. Now, that's not always possible either, right? We don't get to choose who we get to work with people get staffed on certain projects, we just show up. And this is who the editor is, this is who the director is right? You just have to deal. And that's where the skills in my book come in really handy is that because you're going to have those difficult relationships, there are going to be people who push your buttons. And yes, occasionally, the right thing will be to pull the plug to get off the project, especially if there's physical effects of the stress of those interactions. But more often than not, you're gonna have to figure out how do I nudge this person into a more productive interaction with me? How do I feel less stress when I'm in it? And how do I sort of set the boundaries so that it's not having that truly negative impact on me and my body? Yeah,

Zack Arnold

and I want to get into the meat of all of that very, very shortly. There's one other thing that I want to cover that I think is really important, is well, two things, actually one of what you said you can't choose who you work with. I agree to an extent, but I disagree. To an extent, one of the reasons that essentially what went from kind of a side conversation I'd have with a few clients has become the foundation of my entire business is how to reach out to people and build relationships cold, like how to build your dream network. And people thought, why are you teaching outreach emails and like, because it gives you more control, to be able to build positive relationships around you with like minded people that want to solve similar problems and have a deeper why for the impact that their work creates, rather than Well, I got hired on this project, and I work with who I work with, I think we have some control, we don't have total control. But I want people to feel like they have a little bit of control over who they get to choose to work with.

Amy Gallo

Yes. And I think you're, I think you're really smart to point that out. And I think that that's sort of an elite level of career, people should aspire to be able to do that right to be able to create their own opportunities. Most of the people I talked with, don't feel like that yet. And I think you're absolutely right to help them build the skills to do that, because it's so critical. So now

Zack Arnold

I want to add on to that before we get into all the details. And as I've mentioned, many of my guests will probably hit about 5% of my notes by the time we're done in the next hour, because there's just so much good stuff to cover, which thankfully, you've got a 270 page book to answer many of these questions. But the one other thing that I want to answer might be a potential objection to Why do I even need to figure this out. And it's because I kind of do my own thing at work. I don't really like anybody. But I've got a good social network outside of my work. I've got hobbies, and I've got friends, and I've got buddies. So isn't that enough? Why do I need to worry about having work friends, too, because the last thing I need is more friends.

Amy Gallo

Been there? That was that was me for my entire 20s? Like I was like colleagues, whatever colleagues, that's who you are, I think the shortest answer is you're gonna have relationships with those people. And I'm not telling you, you have to have friendships with them, like this is not going out for drinks getting together on the weekend, um, you're gonna have a relationship with them, you're gonna have to interact with them. It is so much better if that relationship is positive. And by no means do you have to buddy up with the people you work with. But you do have to navigate interactions, whether that's over email, instant message in person in meetings, on site like you, you're going to have relationships with them whether you choose to or not. So why not make them as pleasant and as productive as possible?

Zack Arnold

Yeah, I love that. You said that you don't need friendships, but you need relationships, there's no way to avoid it. I only wish that you and I talked like I don't know, about 20 years ago, you would have saved me a decade of stress and burnout and anxiety, like if I just figured this out so much earlier. But that's why we're here to be able to share this. That's right. So now so now we're going to assume that at least as of now we've overcome the barrier of why should I even bother worrying about relationships, just let me do my own thing. Because I've learned you've talked about you've got the research to prove you're going to be better at your job and be more creative and productive if you prioritize relationships done taking care of check. Now all of a sudden, I live in this world called reality where not all the relationships are smooth. And what I love about your book, is that it's a combination of high level ideas and concepts to prove a theory. But then it's not just a book. It's a handbook. It's all crap. I've got this passive aggressive comment when we got to page 178. What should I say to them right now, right? So it's really, really practical. And it's so in depth that it's not just one of these, you read it, and I get the ideas. Let me move on to the next book. This to me is kind of one of those like, Alright, I need this next to wherever the window is that has slack open right now. So then in the incident, I can go to this page and figure out how do I respond to this? So I say that because I really think this is a great handbook guidebook for somebody to kind of have next to them if they're struggling with relationships, we cannot cover all of it. But I think at least the place to start is very briefly discussing your eight archetypes. And then there's three that I want to zoom into a little bit further, because I think they're the most relevant for both my world and the world that a lot of my audience lives in. So talk to me about how you organize this on a very practical level amongst these different archetypes and conflicts.

Amy Gallo

Yeah, so eight archetypes, these are not mutually exclusive, meaning people can fit into multiple of them, and they're not exhaustive. It's their people. I'm sure there are lots of people who wouldn't fit into any of these categories. I organized it this way, because I wanted people I knew there was research and advice that's applicable to these patterns of behavior. And I wanted people to get that specific advice to deal with their situation. You know, I'm not happy if unless someone puts this book down and says, I can do this right now, which is what you you really made me very happy with pinpointing that exact piece, right? Like, I love the theory. I love the research, but I also want to give people tools. So the eight archetypes are insecure manager, pessimist, victim, passive aggressive, going out of order here, but biased colleague, political operator, the tormentors. So that's someone who you expect to be a mentor, but actually torments you instead. And then I'm forgetting what oh, the No at all. Of course, I always forget the No at all, because that's me. But we can get

Zack Arnold

the three that I resonated with the most as far as if I could just walk away tomorrow and better manage the people that I've worked with, these are the three that I would want to dig into. But the other thing that I want to get to a little bit later, but I think we can also weave in here as well, is sometimes it's not always about them. And it's about you. And guess what, whoever's listening this trying to figure out how to resolve conflict, you're probably one if not more of the art types. And they're thinking the same things about you that you're thinking about them. So I think it's really important that we put ourselves on the hot seat before the end of today's session, to really understand that sometimes, I'm the one. And on the other end of the slack call. They're the one that's reading Amy's book, trying to figure out how to deal with me. Having that level of awareness I've learned even though it can be painful, and really uncomfortable. Sometimes, I found the better understanding me and my tendencies helps me better manage relationships, because I can step outside myself. So I just want to set the table that this is not about all how you deal with difficult people. And you're perfect. It's you're one of those difficult people. Yeah. So how do

Amy Gallo

they tell you? Oh, sorry. I just want to tell you a funny story. This literally happened like three hours ago. So several months ago, a colleague reached out and said, I need help dealing with this person. They're being told no at all. They're being a jerk. And I said, Okay, give them my best advice. This happens a lot as someone who writes books like I do. So I gave her my best advice. I got a call today from someone who said, I need help dealing with someone who is a complete No at all and being really rude to me. And it was the original person who had reached out to me who was now we are in like a leapfrog of No at all like this is. And I think that's the perfect that I think this person would be horrified to know that they had behaved in the way that they had had suffered from, you know, months earlier. But that's exactly it were none of us is beyond this behavior. And I think it's really important to embrace that.

Zack Arnold

Yeah. And the other thing that I want to add to, which is a totally different tangent for different podcasts with a different book, but I think if we really get into the deepest levels of psychology and human interaction, quite often the traits and others that bother you the most are because they're just like you. And there's more than one time I've gotten so frustrated with a colleague, I'm like, oh, it's because they're just like me. Right. So I think that that, for me is one of the biggest triggers is when I realized this is making me so mad, because that's exactly what I would do in this situation. Right? So having said that, the three that I think there might be audiences, or people in the audience that are listening, saying, Yeah, but what about this? Or what about this, but if I'm gonna do my best to speak for the creatives in the small dark room, the three that resonated with me the most, and I have a feeling my Podcast Producer is going to frantically say no, no, no, but what about these, but for me, it's it not even the insecure boss, just the insecure team members and collaborators. It would be the passive aggressive person, and it would be the Tor mentor, and I'm gonna I want to frame why and then I want to dig into each one. So I have this hypothesis, and it's not based on a tremendous amount of research, at least not quite yet. But I believe that the epicenter of the universe of insecure creative people that just want to be seen and heard, they all move to Hollywood, California, or Washington, DC, Washington DC a year you know, New York, but I think that when it comes specifically to storytellers that really want their voices heard. They want their ideas out there. They want to tell their stories, and they're doing because there's a high level of insecurity, this is the epicenter of the universe for them. And over and over and over, I feel that so many of the conflicts that I deal with are just because I'm dealing with people that are over exerting their insecurity with overconfidence, or just being downright mean or rude. So let's start with the insecure people that we're working with to better understand how can we understand where they're coming from? And how can we better manage conflicts driven by insecurity? Yeah,

Amy Gallo

I've had people tell me, I like working with people, I just don't like working with their egos. Right. And I think that's, that's exactly where the insecurity comes in. So in each chapter, I really tried to break down. Why would someone behave like this? What's the rational explanation, just to give you a little bit of insight, hopefully a little bit of empathy, also, maybe a little bit of recognition, maybe I also behave that way. Because I agree with your point that things that bother us are the things that are that are in other people or things that we have ourselves. And then I talk about tactics and in sample language you can use. So let's talk about insecurity. Why does it happen? It happens because it is a normal human trait, right? There is a very descriptive label for people who have no insecurity and that is psychopaths, right? They have no self doubt 100% Confident having that insecurity is normal. The problem is, is when they take it out on you, so it becomes uncontained, right, and then they start taking it out into you by micromanaging over criticizing maybe gatekeeping resources, that's a big one right to make themselves look more powerful. All of those behaviors are sort of trying to cover up the sense that they don't feel like they're enough. And I think even just knowing that and reminding yourself that this micromanager or this person who's sort of constantly like puffing themselves up so they look bigger than others. They're basically a child that is trying to feel okay. And I think sometimes that alone softens my stance toward them. The challenge is, though, and I will actually your your comment about Hollywood is not surprising, partly because the other thing you would think is the more senior or more powerful someone gets, the less insecure they feel. But research has shown the opposite. polar

Zack Arnold

opposite Oh my God, that's the worst insecurity I've ever dealt with were the people at the very highest levels.

Amy Gallo

And there's a reason for that, because the expectations for their performance are so much higher, so that that gap between how competent they feel, and how competent people expect them to be. There's a perception there, that creates a perception gap, that creates a huge amount of insecurity for them. And you look at, you know, there's a couple of surveys have done of CEOs, sometimes the biggest thing that keeps them up at night, is this the fear of being found out to be a fraud, right? Like, it's your like, you're a CEO, what are its what's going on, like, you have the money, you have the authority, you have the title, what is happening, but that's the reality. So what do you do with now, I have to say the advice that the research points to for this particular archetype is my least favorite, because I don't like to tell people to do it, but we know it works. And that first and foremost is about calming that ego. Which is about flattery. Right? It's genuine flattery. You they because because they're up there going, I'm good, right? I'm good, right? I'm good, right? And the more you're like, Yeah, you're good, you're good, the more they're gonna put sort of soften that ego a little bit and let you in and let you then collaborate with them. It is the last thing I want to do when I'm dealing with someone who's insecure, like, you're so good at this. Like it just feels gross and anxious. And but we do know it works. And it has to be genuine, right? If someone is terribly indecisive, don't compliment them on their decision making skills, right? Like can't find something. Did they work on a project that you really admired? Did they make a decision about something that you actually thought was brave, but other people didn't? And you want to you want to comment on that? Right? Anything you can just sort of show them that you actually believe they're good at their job will help to sort of come that ego. You know, you mentioned your daughter, right? i My daughter is who's now a teenager came home when she was younger. Had she had this issue with this. This kid on at school. She was about eight years old. And it was always we called it the Natalie report. Like every night there was something about how terrible Natalie was at recess. And one night, we're like, what's the Natalie report? And she said, No report. They said, why? And she said, because when we got on the playground, I just said, Natalie, I liked your shirt. And then we played and it was totally fine. And I was like, Oh my gosh, she's figured out like what decades of research has shouldn't been about dealing with insecure people have just a well placed compliment can sometimes just sort of take the tension out. Now, of course, you're not just going to sit there and flatter them flatter them. Another tactic you can use is to actually change the power dynamic, right? So especially if this is someone who's more powerful than Do a boss or perhaps more senior on this project you're working on together this project you're working on together is that you want to show them you have something that's valuable to them a source of knowledge, a special skill set, a prior experience, not in any threatening way. But in a way that sort of, listen, I have this I can give it to you, I can bring this to the project that sort of takes a little bit of the power dynamic of them feeling like they need to micromanage or they can't trust you like that's alters that a little bit. So that's that's another tactic now of just reality check. Does any of this seem like it would be helpful when you're thinking about the insecure people that you work? Oh

Zack Arnold

my god did the the amount of flashbacks that I've had in the last five minutes I almost can't even recall, recall all of them. But the first thing I want to share is that and I really hope that this girl's parents don't listen to my podcast they don't they do. We literally right now on a daily basis, have the Abby report. Oh, my just had this conversation yesterday. What happened with Abby yesterday? How did this go like because my my daughter's former best friend. Now these two are just constantly going at it. And I'm already thinking I know exactly what to tell her to do tomorrow. Because I painful I've and I've really probably to my own detriment, and I shouldn't have because I'm of these eight archetypes. I too am the know it all. And I've had to spend my entire life trying to be more compassionate about realizing that other people may not be coming to the same conclusions that I am quite as quickly. But I've really psychoanalyzed why she's having this issue. Because I talked to my daughter like she's 25 not like she's 11 We have adult conversations. And I said, Listen, this is because she's really insecure. She's just really insecure. And she wants people to like her, and she's lashing out. And she's saying all these mean things because she wants attention that's not about you. It's about her. What I didn't provide her was a solution. Now I have a solution. So this is really, really helpful. But for those that are not dealing with middle school girls and author hanting I had several flashbacks. But one thing that I've used often when I feel like I'm fighting with an ego rather than with an idea, and I want to talk more about the idea of collaboration and fighting with ideas, but I'm not gonna say the name. But I've worked with one of the biggest, most difficult egos in the industry, anybody wants to go on IMDb Pro, they're gonna be like, it's probably this person. But I'm not gonna say their name. But what I learned worked really well with this person. And I didn't have this framework, but I was doing the same thing is that I could tell they were very, very insecure. And every time I gave a thought or an idea I was attacking their identity. Yes. And I realized that if I framed it as like, Listen, this, you're the best at this. This is amazing. It doesn't change the fact that the scene isn't working right now. It doesn't change the fact that I think we can do better with this transition. By framing it that way. It went from Oh, I'm working with this person to Oh, great. That's really good idea. Let's work on that. Because it wasn't about the attack on their identity. It was attacking this one little idea. So I've used this before very, very successfully. Yeah.

Amy Gallo

And that's actually that's exactly. I mean, you want to affirm, like, think about this with difficult conversations a lot. Right? You want to affirm the relationship, right? I love working with you. Again, if it's true, right? I really learn from you, every time we work together. It's something that that sort of, again, damping, like sort of takes down that ego, what we call ego sensitivity, and then actually then introduced the new idea or the conflict or the disagreement and saying, the one thing I think we need to do though here is this, right, and then you're using a tactic that's been really proven to work, not just in your experience, but but in research as well. So I

Zack Arnold

want to get into the other ones. But I this is going to be a little bit of a tangent, not tangent, I want to dig deeper into this idea of the best idea wins and attacking ideas, not attacking egos, because I've spent half of my career as I mentioned earlier, chasing the credits and the prestige and the name on the top of the movie poster. And I've spent the second half of my career building relationships with people that just also so happened to be very successful and have great shows. But for me, the choice is first great people. And secondly, is this a great show, and it's successful, terrific. But that, to me is a side effect. It's not what I'm chasing. And one of the biggest and I don't ask this question outright, when I'm going to interview people, and I want to actually have you helped me workshop, how I can figure out the environment I would be going into. The most important thing for me is that I work with people where the best idea wins is by far the most important working environment I want to be in. And I have had crazy heated arguments about what we should do this or that or these sheets should be in this order. What about this or that? But then as soon as you figure it out, you're like, cool, that was fun. Let's go have drinks as opposed to urinator you can't write or like, I hate those environments, and I've been in those. So I want to help people better understand how with the limited amount of control we have Have, we make sure we're entering environments where the best creative ideas win and there can still be conflict and arguments and disagreements? But it's about the idea and not about the ego? How do we make sure we can build that world around us? Yeah.

Amy Gallo

To you're talking about something that Linda Hill who's a professor at Harvard Business School who studies creativity, a lot called Creative friction, right? You want that friction around ideas? You want to say, Nope, that seems not gonna work. No, we need to change this grip this way. Right? And you want to be able to do that all the time without anyone going. But that was my idea. Or like, no, or the worst is someone who defends something to the death, where, you know, they don't actually believe that's the best idea. But it's theirs, right? And so they have or even worse is, if they're defending it, because it's the most powerful person in the rooms idea, right? And then they're just sick of fan Anyway, did to get to that environment, there's, there's a couple of things you can do. One is just normalize disagreement, right? Right from the beginning, say, we're not always going to see eye to eye, that's a good thing. I like that tension, I want that tension, we should really lean into that tension. Because this is this is about us, creating whatever it is the show this episode where you're really trying to emphasize both the shared goal. So you're you're putting yourselves metaphorically all on the same side of the table, as opposed to this tug of war of whose idea is going to win. Right. So emphasizing the shared goal, normalizing disagreement right from the beginning. And then I think even asking people, if you have the opportunity to sort of suss people out before you start working with them, like how did you handle disagreements on that project? Right? What was the biggest fight over? How did how did it get resolved? Like just trying to get a sense of how do people think about these these points of conflict? Some people are really good at telling a great story around that. But you will get a sense, there might be some red flags that come up, or you might get some green flags of, oh, they're going to be able to be able to do this. And even saying things like, I like to work in an environment where we talk about ideas, not egos. Like, people often say things they want without actually. And then they were like, I don't know why I can't find that. I'm like, Well, did you say it? Like did you are actually voice it? I work with leaders all the time who say I want someone to disagree with me? I'm like, did you tell them that? Like, did you tell them five times because that's how many times you gotta tell them before they're willing to do it. So I think that's the other thing is just saying this is the kind of environment I want here.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, I love that you just brought up the idea of from the other perspective, not I want to work with people. But I want to build a team, I literally just had this conversation on Monday, where I was trying to figure out how to realign one of my team members roles, because they're trying to figure out where they fit in where they don't fit in. And we talked about some of the specifics in the day to day. And I said to them, the most important reason that I need you on this team is you constantly disagree with me. You always challenge my ideas. And I want that that's really important. I want you to challenge my thoughts. But you do it in a respectful way, where you and I disagree on the approach or the idea, but I never feel threatened. I never feel like you're doing it because you're trying to posture. It's just you think your idea is better than mine. And more than half the time you're right. I need that on my team.

Amy Gallo

Yes. And that's, I could give one piece of advice to senior people, no matter what industry they're in, tell a story, often of a time where someone disagreed with you. And it helped. Because the biggest the more senior we get in an organization more power, the less likely you are to be disagreed with we know that from research, right? People are not going to give you input, they're not going to give you honest feedback, they're going to sugarcoat everything. If you want the true feedback, tell a story exactly. Like you just did have a time someone disagreed with you. And it was helpful and how how you rewarded them as a result, because that's, it's, you know, countering someone's perspective. Especially someone in power is intimidating. Our natural instinct is not to challenge someone disagree, it's to get along, it's to be likeable. So the more you give people permission, and layout and illustrate the will rewards they'll get for taking that risk, the more likely it'll come to you.

Zack Arnold

Yeah. And without getting too much context. I just I want people to understand how valuable this was for me. And it can be for others. If you're thinking, Well, I always disagree with somebody, but I never want to say anything. This wasn't just I have an idea for a project, or it should be this font choice or whatever. It was literally the kernel foundation of the idea that led to the business that I'm building and the business that I was going to expand. It was literally the kernel of this is what I want to build. And he said, Yeah, but what if it wasn't that what if you did something totally different at the time? I was like, fu this word started seven years ago. How dare you? And then I went home I'm like,

right? Right.

And now I've gone in a completely different direction because I was working under a false assumption for so many years. I needed that that was so valuable to me. So I just I want people that are questioning well should even engage with somebody that's insecure or question their ideas. A lot of times they're actually seeking that. And it's valuable when again, it's about the idea. And it's not about the ego. I want to move on to oh, sorry, go ahead.

Amy Gallo

I just want to point out what your what your team member did was so, like, so smart, which is like the what if question, right? You don't have to say, I think you're wrong, this isn't gonna work. Let me point out all the risks. What if, what if the assumptions we made aren't true? What if we looked at this differently? What if the audience hates it? But just anything to ask the question, what if question is a great way to introduce that friction without having to attack someone's ego? Yeah,

Zack Arnold

it's the again, a million and a half flashbacks to my past. This is going to be a little bit more of an anecdote, but I worked on a TV series for years that was called Burn Notice. That was about a spy that was formerly in the CIA. And when you get fired, it's called your burn. And they basically blacklist you and they try to kill you what it's just so it's, it was this long running series. And sometimes we would get these just most ridiculously ignorant notes from people that you would think are like executives and some tower that haven't even seen the show. And the joke was always well, what are the notes today? And I said, the notice, well, what if he wasn't a spy? Like, that's the whole show. Right? But those are the kinds of notes as it gets a little late for that. So I want to go to to least these other two, if not more, but I got to ask as a side note, what in the world does a furry squirrel have to do with any of this conversation? Oh, gosh,

Amy Gallo

this was a piece of advice from a Michigan professor who was it was amazing. And she, you know, I

Zack Arnold

asked her she was blue, by the way as the Michigan Professor Yeah.

Amy Gallo

Um, oh, my gosh, she putting me on the spot. And I'm gonna I'm so terrible recalling names. It'll come to me.

Zack Arnold

She's in the same Don't worry, yes, she's

Amy Gallo

great. Oh, shoot, it's gonna come to me. I was interviewing her for the insecure chapter. And she was talking about someone senior in her organization who was, you know, basically really intimidated by her. And she, and she was working with a coach to help sort of navigate this relationship, because it was a critical relationship in her work. And she was finding it so frustrating. And her coach said, just before you go into the meeting with them, just imagine yourself as a fluffy little squirrel. And she said, I think she said it. She said, it's the most ridiculous mental exercise, but it helped me just sort of soften my edges a little bit. And it totally changed the tenor of our interactions. And she's like, I wasn't actually doing anything differently. But I just think I was just a little bit softer, in a way that didn't threaten them. And I, again, I don't love I don't love giving the advice of like, diminish yourself. Like, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just saying change. Because we often go into these interactions, especially with someone who's insecure, where it feels like a battle. And if you go in thinking this is a battle, they're going to feel that, right. But if you go in like I'm a cute little fluffy squirrel, like it's, you're just going to be a little bit softer, a little bit more open. It's going to make the collaboration a little bit easier.

Zack Arnold

So it's basically the same concept is like Amy Cuddy's like, I'm going to stand here in my power pose. But instead before the meeting, I'm going to do this and

Amy Gallo

maybe yeah, maybe you have a few minutes before you. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Lindy Lindy Greer, your broadcast producer, just put it in the comments. Thank you so much. Lindy is amazing. Alright,

Zack Arnold

so the next one I want to go to I mean, like, you know, if you want to find, you know, I mean, I guess I don't know, passive aggressive. Yeah. I mean, if you want to talk about something else, it's cool. But yeah, it's I mean, you know, it's up to you. progressiveness. I guess we should talk about passive aggressiveness. Yeah.

Amy Gallo

I mean, it's up to you. If you don't want to do it, it's totally fine. Totally fine. You tell me, whatever you want. It's good. Oh, man, this is a good one. This was the first chapter I ever wrote for the book. It was actually in the book proposal. Because I get asked, I can tell whenever I give a talk, or workshop, you know, about conflict, difficult conversations, whatever I can count, it's going to be the first second or third question in the q&a. How do I deal with someone who's passive aggressive, right? And we don't, we don't even have to, like define it. We just acted it out a bit. But we don't even have to define I mean, it's the person who says one thing does another tells you they're fine. When they're really upset about something. They basically don't feel comfortable for some reason, exhibiting their or sort of conveying their thoughts and feelings in a direct manner. So they do it in an indirect manner. And then when you try to sort of pinpoint what they're thinking or feeling, it becomes shadowboxing. And then they're like, No, all good. No, no, I didn't say that. No, I didn't mean that. And it's interesting. The origin. The passive aggressive term was first used in the US military in the I think it was the first world war to describe soldiers who were non compliant with their, with their officers directive, and then went through a whole host of, you know, different psychological diagnoses. It was part of the DSM. It wasn't It's just a very common behavior. And the reason that we all behave passive aggressively, is because of a fear of something, right fear of conflict, fear of rejection, perhaps because of some anxiety that they might feel. Or honestly, oftentimes people are trained to views this way of communicating, they see other people do it, and it works well. For them. It's often we often see people who don't have traditional access to power, who, therefore are not expected to be assertive or direct, they'll often use this as an effective way to get their ideas across. We can debate whether it's actually effective, but usually think about the last passive aggressive person you interacted with, you knew exactly what they felt they just weren't saying, right. And that's the key when you get to sort of tactics, one of the most personal never call them passive aggressive, because no one comes home from work and was like, I was so passive aggressive today, right? They might say they were petty, they might say, the other person was too assertive. Like, who knows, or they might even admit they're conflict averse, but no one thinks they're passive aggressive, and that's just gonna upset them. But what you can also do is focus on what's the underlying message like what, right, like if I were to just take our silly interaction right there? I'd say, well, Zack doesn't really want to talk about passive aggressive, you know, and so I can say, now I have a choice, I can either just continue, because Zack didn't say it directly. Or I can hypothesis test and say, Do you sure you want to talk about this? I get the sense. Maybe this isn't the best topic, we could do this instead. Right? So then your now they might say, because they're passive aggressive? No, no, it's fine. Let's go, let's go. But you now put them on notice that I'm not just taking what you say at face value. I'm also paying attention to your body language, the tone of delivery. And it might hopefully ease them a little bit into trying out to be more direct with you. I have a friend who's incredibly passive aggressive. And if I say, Do you want to have dinner at eight o'clock on Friday, she'll say, you know, yes. You know, but I have to be here at this time. And I have to, and I'm like, Okay, you're sure you want No, no, I want to have dinner. But oh, you know, and it's like, I know, I'm not sure what's actually happening here. And so I've started, what I'll do is I'll text her and I'll say, you know, do you want to have dinner on Friday? Just write A for yes. And B for No, right? I've removed the need for her to actually explain to me why or why not, or what you know. And I think sometimes you just want to sort of pave the way for these people to be a little more direct. It's a lot of work on your part. But I think if you're especially if you want it, a lot of times what they actually think and feel is very valuable information or crucial information. So the more you can reduce the hurdle. For them to have to be direct, the more you can mate smooth the way it's going to it's, you're going to get that that input.

Zack Arnold

I feel like this is the absolute perfect place to insert the following quote from the notebook. What do you want? And what do you watch? Right? Because you're just like, could you just could you just tell me what you're feeling or what you need for me instead of going around it? Yeah. So I love the idea of breaking it down from a big decision into little micro decisions. This might be a little bit of a tangent, and maybe it won't be but one of the things I just realized, and I don't know if you talk about this too deeply in the book, but I just had the realization that in different contexts, I'm more dominant with one of these than the other. In a professional context, I feel like the one I have to be the most careful of is the No at all. In personal and relationship conflicts. I'm totally the passive aggressive one, because I'm like, No, I'm, I'm fine. I'm not upset. And I know where I get this from, because my entire family is the same way. And I very much to the person is like, No, I'm fine. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. Boom, all of it comes out. So is it common that you find that people in different contexts have different kind of default tendencies?

Amy Gallo

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that, you know, the, it's partly because of our expectations, like what's professional? Or what's the norm in this group, right, you're fit our family is a great example of like, we we have norms about how we behave, and those norms are deeply ingrained in us. But that doesn't mean we're going to necessarily apply them to another context. You know, I think we're probably, you know, if we were to choose to three archetypes that we fall into most often, chances are you probably there's probably shades of those everywhere. But oftentimes, they're sort of socialized out of us, right? I was very passive aggressive earlier in my career, and then I realized it was getting me nowhere, right, the more I saw senior people, people I admired, not behaving that way and being very direct and assertive. I was like, Oh, wait, that's this is what's gonna get me success right. So you you can have Have these things socialized out of you? You know, I think the thing about families that are really interested like my sister in law, when she first married, my husband, or her first Christmas with us was horrified because I opened a gift from my mom and said, Oh, this is nice. I'm going to return it. And she, she was like, what? Because in her family, you said, Thank you, you loved it, you put it on display, when they showed up in an airfield, we were just sort of like, yeah, it's not quite right, I'm gonna get a different color. And it to her that that sort of directness was so uncomfortable. And you have to remember, it's not, that's not because her family was wrong, or because they were passive aggressive, like, we just have to remember people have different tolerances for assertiveness and directness. And it's not, it's there's no judgment on that. It's just the tolerance that they that they've got. And

Zack Arnold

this brings up another topic that I wanted to hopefully get into. And I think this is the first perfect place to insert it, there was a phrase that you had that to me could literally be an entire book or a book series, which was that people treat you according to the boundaries that you set. And it seems to me that passive aggressive behavior could largely come from people that are too afraid to set those boundaries and assert those boundaries. So let's talk a little bit more about boundaries, or lack thereof often leads to passive aggressive behavior.

Amy Gallo

Yeah, I mean, I think if you if you, if someone behaves passive aggressively, and then you and then you reward them for that right in you, you sort of don't allow you don't set the boundary of like, I'm confused, what exactly do you aren't right there, they're just going to continue to do that behavior. And I think you really, you may not, this is such a critical point of the book. And it's so basic, but I think we all forget it is you cannot change another person, I am not going to hammer the passive aggressiveness out of my colleague. But what I can say is, or what I can demonstrate is, I'm I until I get a direct answer or until I can, you know, sort of set up a framework in which you can be a little more straightforward, this is not going to move forward. And that doesn't mean you have to say the project stopped until you figure this out. You You have to figure out what is what is appropriate for you what is tolerable for you, in terms of this sort of level of directness, or the level of maybe it's passive aggressive, or no at all, like, we all have different tolerances for that. And then you have to educate people in your interactions about how to do that, because people, and I don't think it's intentional, I don't think people are trying to take advantage, I think they're just trying to succeed, they're trying to interact, and they're gonna do that at the place they feel comfortable with. Unless you shift those bounds a little bit, you're going to just be dealing with what they give you. I don't know if that's what you were sort of alluding to with the the boundaries. But that's sort of how I think of it is that you really have to educate people about what your tolerances are.

Zack Arnold

I do agree with that. And well, I want to actually even take this a layer deeper, which is another area that I know you spent a lot of time researching that you talked about some in the book, but in a lot of your other work is that I brought up this idea of passive aggressiveness, specifically asserting boundaries, because my guess is when it comes to managing passive aggressive behavior, there's a big difference in women versus men. Talk to me more about how just conditioning and gender expectations really factors into these kinds of conflicts.

Amy Gallo

Yeah, there is a whole and this was something that was really important to me in the book is to really, because I think a lot of the advice about dealing with difficult conversations dealing with difficult people default to a certain style, which is often associated with men. And I think that that I really wanted to pay attention to issues of identity in the book, because what works for one person may not work for another depending on their identity. There is tons and tons of research that shows that we expect women to be collaborative, to care about the collective, it's even be demure right to not be what we call in the literature agentic which is to be assertive. And when they do we tend to penalize them the sort of one of the most sort of vivid examples of this as research where they had women negotiate their salaries, compared with them negotiating their salaries. Then they asked the people who were on the receiving end of the negotiation, how likely they were to want to work with this person. When men negotiated their salaries, there was no impact people reported wanting to work with them or not no differently than than if they didn't negotiate for women universally. People reported not wanting to work with them, right? They did not like the idea that they were being assertive. And it's incredibly frustrating as a woman to think about that, that research and think about, well, does that mean I can't be assertive? Obviously not like there are lots of women we can all think of, I'm sure many examples who are assertive, it just means that we have to balance it with a little bit of warmth, because that sort of shows that we're still at adhering to the gender expectation. You know, the classic example that that I think this is I think it's from lean in which that's a whole other conversation. But is that now if my dad, why can I not think of named Cheryl, Cheryl Sam, Sheryl Sandberg Thank you God names deliver really hard when she went to negotiate with Mark Zuckerberg about her salary, instead of saying, Here's what I deserve, here's the here's the number, here's what I was making. She said you need me as your CEO to be a good negotiator. So I'm going to show you right now how I can negotiate. So I'm gonna negotiate my salary. What she did is she gave it this frame of like, I'm not doing this for myself, I'm doing this for the collective, I'm helping you by showing you what a good negotiator. Now that's exhausting mental gymnastics to have to do. But it does show that and truthfully, it that would be a good tactic, no matter your gender, right? Balancing assertiveness and warmth, makes people trust you gives you status, right? So it's just more imperative, given gender stereotypes that women do it.

Zack Arnold

The next question I'm going to have to table because I think it would probably, again, take up an entire episode and maybe an entire book series, which is where did all that conditioning come from? to? Because I my guess is that even if it were me, in the experiment, negotiating with a man versus a woman, knowing all of the things you told me, I bet my default setting subconsciously is to feel exactly the same way. Both fascinated and terrified by the fact that that's the world that we built. So maybe there's like a one minute version of that that could become an entire series someday. But what's the one minute version of why even somebody who's conscious of it is going to have that same reaction?

Amy Gallo

Well, because it's in the air. It's like sexism, racism, like, all these biases are not just, we like to think that we own them, like I have them or I don't or right, but they're, they're everywhere, right? They're in the media we consume, they're in the way we treat, you know, people in interactions in a coffee shop, like it's just everywhere. And so we sort of get steeped in it, and it's gonna take a real reckoning, to actually address it. And that's why I like to give advice for people who fall into these categories. Because, you know, I'm not going to tell you to wait around for 150 years while we dismantle the patriarchy, like, you need your money now, right? You need to interact with people now. And so I think we have to think about what are the tactics to deal with the real world? But yes, that is a much longer conversation. And yeah, fascinating. Fascinating. Yeah,

Zack Arnold

there's, there's a joke that I often tell and for anybody that listened to part one, or has heard other shows, they're probably are going to know the joke that's coming. But I feel like it's just the best explanation of both of biases, but a lot of times of our perception of the world, you've got two fish going to work crossing paths. One says, How's the water today, and the other one says,

What's water?

Right, like we so I don't have biases, but we don't even we don't even see them in the world around us. And I'm glad that at least the awareness is developing. But like you said, it's not going to be you know, six months in a couple of workshops, and we've rewired all of it. So I like that there's this interim step of how to work with it practically, rather than just waiting for everything to change, which is actually a really good segue to the third one that I wanted to talk about, which is the Tor mentor. Right. And the reason that I'm pinpointing this one for this audience, is that there's this and I want to talk more about how not just gender or inequity, but generational gaps factor into these conflicts. Because what I see so much in the entertainment industry is the mentality of it's always been done this way. If you can't handle 16 hour days, this is just how we do it, right? You go get a normal job, go work at a bank, go become an account, if you can't handle it, this is how we've always done it. And it's always worked just fine. And I came out just fine. And my response is, clearly you're not fine if you're okay with treating people this way. So talk a little bit more about the Tor mentor the people that we expect to be our leaders and lead us into this next generation that instead of just want to bludgeon us to the point of like, well, we're gonna hate you. This is just the way that it is. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, this isn't made for you. Yeah,

Amy Gallo

I'm glad you use the word hazing, because that's exactly what it is. Right? It's like I went through this, it was hard. You have to prove that you can, you can be as tough and I think a lot of times in fact, I talked to a couple of women for this chapter where that explained like i The the person who was tormenting them was another woman, a senior woman. And they said, I think they're truly trying to toughen, toughen me up. Like, I don't think they're trying to say, oh, it has to, you know, you you must suffer. I think they're really trying to make sure I have what it takes to succeed. Now think about it. Like if you gain power, prestige, money playing under certain rules. When you got to the top, would you say we should change the rules, right? No, changing the rules would mean you maybe don't retain that power, you don't retain that status. So I think that's really What's going on in the mind that the tormentor is? These are the rules under which I succeeded. These, I'm not going to change these rules, and I just have to make sure the people below me can actually win under these rules, too. It's a very short sighted view, right? Like, I agree with you. If once you get there, take a look back and go was that did that was necessary? Like, do I have to suffer in that way? Did I do those 16 hour days? And if you can change it, do it. And there was lots of people who are right, a lot of people who are, but that torment or attitude is oftentimes I think, well, meaning, you know, and sometimes it's not sometimes I think it's an abuse of power of I got up there, I was mistreated, and I'm just going to pay it forward in the worst way possible. So I think the the, you know, that that tormentor attitude is it can be really, really hard to sort of, to dismantle. And one of the biggest things is to actually display sympathy for the struggles they did, right of even saying things like, wow, like, the fact that you made it under those circumstances is impressive. Like, I feel so lucky, I'm coming up in a different time, right? Just sort of emphasizing this is not the same as that, right? And asking them questions like, What was the hardest part? How did you actually do do that? Right? Like, how did you? What what do you what skills or traits do you think really helped you actually get to where you are? Because it shows appreciation? Rather than a resistance? Right? I think that's the that's the hard part is you can there's the call it the kids these days effect, right? But like, kids these days, don't understand kids these days, you know, it's the equivalent of like, I walk to school and back both ways up hill and sleep, you know, and, and you, you want to make sure you appreciate that you show you respect that. But that also, it doesn't need to be that way. And I think sometimes there's you know, a lot of the tactics I share so range from very direct, saying, you know, actually having a real conversation and giving people feedback to sort of indirect right, the pain of a compliment, the insecure person is a little more indirect, I think, but the torment, or sometimes it can be helpful to have the meta conversation not Why are you torturing me? Why are you challenging my work ethic? Why are you giving me unnecessary work? All the things which tormentors do, but saying, I feel like our relationship isn't as strong as I want it to be? What can I do to improve it? Right? So that just sort of having that bigger conversation? Or I feel like we didn't quite get off on the right foot on this project? How can we switch things up? How can we make things better, and sometimes you might just get resistance, and I'll say, work 16 hours and keep your mouth shut. But you might also get some clues of like, how they prefer to be treated. You know, I think you both want to appeal to their empathy, but also set up set some boundaries. This is the chapter I will say where most of the people I interviewed actually quit. And and it's not, it's not ideal, but I think it is a really hard behavior to change. And it this is where the boundaries come into play, right? So much of the, that behavior is not a reflection of me, it's a reflection of them, right? And really watch yourself around the generational stuff. Because I think it's really easy to start with kids these days, or old people are like, you know, there's so many disparaging comments about people from different generations. But the reality is, we're all going to we've all either been there or going to be there, right? You know, I'm Gen X. And I would love to say Millennials are entitled, and Gen Z is even more entitled. But the truth is, when I was 25, I was entitled, right? It's just about the age at which you are and you know, people who are older often look back and think these kids have a way too easy. And we'll all be there someday. So try to have a little empathy around that the generational differences. Yeah,

Zack Arnold

and this was part of the conversation that I had in the previous part about the creative collaboration is really understanding the turnings of history and society, and how fascinated I am by these generational gaps. Because if we'd had the internet for the last 500 years, you could find every 10 to 15 years articles on Business Insider that say Gen Z is unhappy in the workplace. millennials aren't happy in the workplace. Gen X is unhappy in the workplace, the silent generation is unhappy in the workplace. Right? So the kids these days effect has been going on for hundreds of years. Nothing is new about it. But I'm curious how better understanding the difference is and the way that we came up and whether it it doesn't even have to be about the tormentor versus passive aggressive versus all the other options. There's a lot of nuances and all of them when it is somebody that came up 30 or 40 years ago versus somebody that's coming up today. So how can that kind of be its own kind of framework within a framework with these different archetypes?

Amy Gallo

Yeah, I mean, I think that you have to think about There are different, right? We have different life experiences, there's different access to technology, there's different, right? There's all of those differences. And I think you have to really be conscientious that you're not getting. So like, this is my experience. This was the right experience. And it's about as I mean, I asked some of my Gen Z colleagues and like, you know, show me the best Tiktok you saw this week, right? And I know I sound old doing you know, and I know, but it's, but it helps me, right. And it helps me understand. And just having conversations with them as people, it's so easy to sit with someone and be like, Wow, they're so older, oh, I'm old, or they're so young, and just to be focused on that, but just try to engage with them as people and and recognize, yeah, they're gonna have totally different experiences and exposure to different things. And there's different norms, like my daughter will often be like, Why are you mad at me? And I was like, What do you mean? And she's like, we sent that text at a period at the end. I'm like, really? That's angry now. And it's like, she's like, Yeah, so like it and I have to laugh at it, because it is her experience. And to deny that denying that that's the norm in which she grew up in is just not fair. Right? Because it again, like you said, 500 years, there's the generation before us, the generation after us there, they're having the same judgments.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, and I've read so many articles that blow my mind about the, the way to use emojis the right way and the wrong way, and capitalization and punctuation. And I'm like, I'm 100 years old, because I capitalize the beginning of a message, and I put a period at the end. And that means something to different people in different generations. Right? And people know, you're old, if you use the thumbs up, or the smiley face, like, Oh, my God, I can't believe you thumbs up me. And like, it just meant, hey, got your message. Oh, you meant this and like, what is happening? So there's a lot of nuance to take it to dig into all

Amy Gallo

Yeah, and I think you have to have some self like humor about it. Because like, you know, I can sit there going, Oh, my gosh, you are an idiot, why are you so upset about a thumbs up? Right? Like I could, that would be rational ways to react. But that's not going to connect me with that person, that's not going to help me understand them, that's not going to help me have a good relationship with them. Instead of being like, Yep, I'm old. Or like, oh, gosh, like I didn't even realize that thank you for telling me, you know, anything that just sort of makes it clear, you're not, you're not there to police, everyone else's behavior, right, you're there to form connections, like to go back to the beginning of our conversation, you're there to have positive working relationships. So you can be the most productive creative self, in collaboration with other people.

Zack Arnold

And it sounds to me like if we were going to look at these eight archetypes, and PS spoiler alert, I might add a ninth for you in a second, I just completely blow up the whole framework. But it seems to me that the meta skill underneath all of these is empathy, it's being able to say to yourself, I understand why you're behaving this way, or I want to, which helps me better understand the intention behind your behavior. Once you get dig into that you're like, oh, this, this is maybe more about them than it is about me. Yes.

Amy Gallo

And I will, I just want to underscore that empathy is not being generous, right? It's not about, oh, let me give them empathy. Let me it's strategic, because the more you understand them, the more you're sort of open to a collaborative, different way of working, the better it's going to be for you. Right, and I and you should never give someone empathy at the at the sort of risk of not giving empathy to yourself. But But I think it is just such a strategic move, to try to understand what's motivating this person, what what matters to them? How can I sort of think about that, and interact with them in a way that diffuses some of the tension by keeping that in mind.

Zack Arnold

I've also found that that's really helpful, not just with the person you're interacting with directly, but if you're in a position like me, people are often coming to you saying, oh, this person did this and that, blah, blah. And it's always about, like, let's I get why you're upset. Let's let's try to understand why we think they did that. And once you do, like, I think their intentions were actually good. Like, yeah, they were so stupid that they said that, but all right, I get why they said that. So I really understanding the intention behind the action, I find can be incredibly helpful, which again, doesn't excuse bad behavior, or abuse or anything else. But I at least want to understand it from their perspective. And I think that any creative whether it's in the work itself, it's in the interaction with other people, you have to develop the skill of empathy. Yes, it's not just about how good you are with Photoshop or Premiere or whatever it is, like you have to be able to manage these relationships with others. So I'm gonna throw a grenade in your archetype, and you can totally tell me if I'm wrong, but I feel like there's there's one other are kind of conflict style and I think it might not be in here because it's a lack of conflict style. And I say this because this is a complaint I get a lot from the clients and the students that I work with is that especially in the remote work environment, I work with a neglect her. I'm just sitting there all day long and all I get her notes in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. There's no interaction, there's no relationship. I'm just a keyboard to them. I'm just a button pusher. Yeah, yeah, that's that lack of conflict is still a tremendous conflict and causes burnout and causes depression and causes people to leave. How can we manage neglect errs?

Amy Gallo

Oh, it's such a good addition to the archetypes such an it's, it's funny, sometimes we were like, I have a new archetype. And I'm like, wow, that's actually the know it all in a different era. Like, but this genuinely is a new one. So, so good on you. You know, I think this is I think about this as like the hands off boss or the the hands off caught, like the person who's just like slippery, like you asked for feedback. And it's just like, you know, like, think just sort of, like glide like nothing, actually. And you're sitting there waiting, like you need them to do something or you need them to engage and they're just not engaging. The one of the things I'll talk about empathy is think about like, what's, what's preventing them from doing it, right. Like, is it lack of interest is a lack of time? Do you think there's maybe some insecurity underlying that, that sort of neglect? And then I think it's about asking for it directly, right, explaining why right is saying, you know, it's helpful when you put your comments or your notes in the Excel spreadsheet, it's even more helpful when I can sit down and we can hash them out together, would it be possible to do that, right, like just an even a direct request and the end, and explaining why you want that right of like, it helps me be more creative. I feel like the end product is is is stronger when we do this, or whatever. And I think it's just about asking, now, you may ask and not get anything. And that's that you have to accept that and you're not going to draw their engagement out of them. But then the question is, can you get what you need from someone else, that that's when I'm dealing with a neglect, or I'm not going to, you know, there's no, like, putting your hand down their throat pulling out the words that you need? Or like pulling, needing the validation, to instead think about, is there someone else who can fill that role? And that doesn't mean like sidelining the neglect, or it just means, well, maybe I'm not getting the mentorship I need. Or maybe I'm not getting the feedback I need. Maybe I'm not getting the validation I need is there someone else on this project in my life that I can actually pull it in to give me that so that I still get everything I need to do my best work?

Zack Arnold

Love all that. Want to end this with one last simple question that, frankly, again, could be in another entire episode. And it's should you quit? At some point, you're gonna ask yourself this question. I've done all the things I've read the book, I've told them, they're amazing. I've asked them for what they wanted, like, I have an entire conversation for 90 minutes with this with Annie Duke already. So don't feel like you have to cover this entire gap because she's one of the world's experts literally has a book called quit. So I want I'm taking that burden off. I can send people to Annie Duke for 90 minutes. But based on what we've talked about today, how can we use this to determine whether or not it's time to quit? Yeah, I

Amy Gallo

love Annie's work, by the way. Highly recommend her book. Two things I want to say about quitting. Number one, if you are feeling like when you said earlier, they were literally killing me, right? If you are feeling the physical, mental emotional effects of stress of interacting with this person, and you've tried multiple things to try to change the dynamic between you and it has failed. It is not worth it to suffer. Right. I think that's the first and foremost concern. If you can instill, you know, get the income you needs to pay your mortgage, whatever to pay your rent, whatever it is you need, and you can quit and then please Don't torture yourself. I think the the connected to that. I will say that I think quitting is both overrated and underrated. I think it's overrated and that we often think I'm going to quit this, I'm going to move on to the next project. And then you show up and you're like, oh, there's a passive aggressive, no at all here too. Interesting. Right? So I think the grass often seems greener. So you want to really be realistic of is this specific to this one person? Is this specific to this project? Is this not going to is Am I sure this isn't going to happen again. And I think it's also an underrated option. And then I think we often sit think people should just toughed it out. And I'm not a big believer in that. Like, I'm not a big if you're what I would like people to do is really say what's making me want to quit and list out those things, or any of those things in my control to change. Right? Okay, yes, I'll change those things. Can I experiment with changing some of the other things see if I can nudge this person into into be more pleasant civil, whatever it is, and set a time limit, six weeks, three months, I'm going to see if I can make progress on these three things. If I can't, then I'm out. In those three months, you start working on your resume that working whatever it is you need to do to find your next gig so that you are not stuck, because that's the worst piece, I don't want to tell people they're ever stuck. And I think that's because that's when we start when we don't have that agency, when we don't have the sense that I can take action, I can take positive action, that takes a real toll on us mentally. And I think you have to remember you have agency, there are other things you can do, there are more boundaries, you can set there, hopefully other opportunities you can pursue, you're not stuck, and there is hope. And you it's in your control, not to change that person, not to change the entire team dynamic. But at least change your mindset in the way you set boundaries around you.

Zack Arnold

I appreciate the sense of giving somebody some sense of permission, control and awareness. The only thing that I'll add to it, which I want to be very conscious of your time, and that could end up becoming a whole nother conversation and it doesn't need to be. But if you find yourself going from one job to another to another to another, and it's the same problems might be time to look in the mirror. Yes,

Amy Gallo

yes, I couldn't agree more. And I think and I do talk to people, I remember I was there someone in my network who I didn't want to say too much about who this person is, but who when I was looking for stories for articles or for books, she always had a story about the terrible boss. And I kept thinking, Oh, she must be talking about the same boss. And then I realized it was every boss she ever had. Now, I will not deny there are a lot of terrible bosses out there. But to have a track record of 00 good bosses seems really unlikely. Ultimately, you have to look at yourself, you have to look at your behavior, how you're reacting, what you're doing to contribute to the dynamic, because at the end of the day, the thing that's going to the next job is you. Right, that person's hopefully not going with you. And so what have you learned? What can you do differently? How can you lay the groundwork to have the best possible relationships with the people you work with?

Zack Arnold

Oh, my mind is blown from the last 90 minutes or so. And I've learned so much beyond the things that I read and learned about in the book. And I want to make sure that anybody else that is feeling similarly has the opportunity to find the book, subscribe to your newsletter, whatever it might be. What's the kind of most central or best place that you'd like to send people listening today,

Amy Gallo

my website is the best place to go. It's Amy e gallo.com. And there is I send out a bi monthly newsletter all about positive relationships at work dealing with conflict disagreements. So definitely sign up for that. There's also links there too. I've written hundreds of articles for Harvard Business Review, you can find a lot of my work there, you can purchase my book there as well. That's the best place to

Zack Arnold

go. Well, this was tremendously beneficial to me to my audience, i and i plus i just had fun today. This is just a fun conversation. And I'm really thankful that you were willing to take the time out of your calendar and chat with me today and share your years and years of insights with my audience of creative so I can't thank you enough Amy. Thank

Amy Gallo

you Zack. This has been so pleasant. I honestly like 90 minutes felt like nine so we could have kept going

Transcribed by https://otter.ai