Deep Curiosity to Solve Hard Problems

Recently, AMD CEO Lisa Su spoke at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. She described how leaders should be aiming to provide opportunities for their people to tackle hard problems. She argued that you won't be sure they can achieve those ambitious goals, but your job is to create those opportunities and provide them support. For employees, their goal should be to have an intense curiosity about solving tricky problems and an interest in exploring new challenges. Together, a leader looking to provide challenges and an employee with curiosity can be a perfect match. Here's an excerpt from Lisa Su's interview:

Well, I think the most important thing for all of us is to have a deep curiosity of just solving problems. That’s my view of the world. When I think about… In the early part of my career, some of the most difficult things, like the first product I ever worked on was a product that was a microprocessor, and we were just about to announce the processor and nothing worked. I mean, the chip did not work. We didn’t know why it didn’t work, but the company was about to announce it. And you think, “Oh, that’s terrible.” That’s very stressful. But actually, what it is it allows you to really galvanize teams on really taking, opening up every ounce of creativity you have to figure out, okay, how are we going to figure out why is this not working and how do we bring it, move the projects forward?

And so that’s what I view as the beauty of hard problems. You can work on anything in life, but when you work on a really hard problem, or in a company context, when you work on, let’s call it the most important projects, you can garner an incredible amount of just resources, creativity, focus that will allow you to do something that you wouldn’t imagine possible. That’s what I believe is the most important thing managers do or leaders do. What leaders do is they actually bring teams together to do something that nobody thought was possible. And that’s what I enjoy about the world that we’re in, is that you’re working on problems that are super interesting and quite impactful to the industry, and you’re also working on something that someone hasn’t done before.

Are You Leaning on AI Because You Are Afraid To Speak With Your Manager?

Are You Leaning on AI for Advice and Feedback Because You Are Afraid To Speak With Your Manager?  Perhaps many employees are doing so these days.  Fortune's Brit Morse writes:

Given an increasingly personal reliance on AI, HR professionals should also take note of where employees—and especially the youngest office workers—are getting career advice. Around 40% of employees overall say they rely more on ChatGPT than their manager to answer questions about work, with nearly half (49%) of Gen Zs agreeing. Pichura career coach for Resume.org.) notes that this generation is accustomed to receiving instant feedback, and when they’re not getting that from their manager, they may look to other sources instead.

What do we make of these findings?  I see two forces at play here. First, managers may not be providing the type of constructive, real-time advice and feedback that employees desire.  Second, many employees may be leaning on AI models because they are not comfortable speaking with their manager about their performance and opportunities for improvement.  I'm certainly not against using AI to enhance your productivity and performance on the job.  However, something very important is missing if we are avoiding conversations with our managers out of discomfort or conflict avoidance tendencies.  Managers need to make themselves more accessible and need to help their employees become more comfortable asking for help.  Employees need to tackle their discomfort head-on, and they must be willing to hear the hard truths needed to enhance performance. 

The Pressure To Appear Confident

Do you feel pressure at times to appear confident in your decisions and plans? Are you actually certain, or are you trying to put on a brave face for your team members and/or external constituents? Are you afraid of appearing as though you are not sure how to proceed, or how the future will unfold for your organization? Fast Company's Kate O'Neill addresses the topic of confidence in a great new article titled Why the best leaders embrace ‘strategic disappointment’ (and how you can, too)  

O'Neill argues that the more success you have, the more likely you will disappointment your followers at some point. After all, expectations grow quickly if you deliver good results.  Moreover, she argues that you are probably not pushing the boundaries of innovation if you never disappoint.  O'Neill argues that we have to work through lofty expectations and potential disappointment, rather than trying to avoid ever disappointing others.  Managing expectations (our own and others' expectations) means understanding feelings of confidence very clearly. She writes: 

Part of the challenge is that we fundamentally misunderstand confidence. As Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman explains, “Subjective confidence in a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that this judgment is correct. Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it.”  In other words, our feeling of confidence often has more to do with how neatly our story fits together than with its actual likelihood of being correct. This creates a dangerous dynamic in leadership, where seemingly “confident” decisions may simply reflect coherent but flawed narratives, especially when those narratives align with what stakeholders want to hear... True confidence comes not from eliminating uncertainty, but from understanding precisely what we know and what we don’t, and responding appropriately.

In my view, this last sentence makes a crucial point. The best leaders acknowledge the gaps in their own knowledge and expertise.  As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says, they are "learn-it-all" leaders, not "know-it-all" leaders.  You can be confident without fooling yourself into thinking you have made all the correct assumptions and have made clear and accurate predictions of how the future will unfold.  Christa Quarles, CEO of Alludo, put it well when she says that effective and authentic leaders explain, "Here's what I know.  Here's what I don't know.  Now let's assemble the team and the people to go solve those problems in a holistic way."  

Hiring and Collaborating with Higher-Paid Employees

Source: Berkeley Economic Review

What happens when we know that others are paid more than us?  Does it affect our willingness to collaborate with them?  What about hiring decisions? Are we more or less likely to hire someone who may earn more than us?  Cornell Professors Kevin Kniffin and Angus Hildreth examined this question in a series of experimental studies.  They found an interesting, but not surprising, dichotomy when it came to collaboration vs. hiring.

First, the scholars discovered that, "People chose to collaborate with higher- rather than lower-paid peers unless explicitly told that their potential collaborators’ knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience were similar, suggesting that pay was viewed as a signal for competence."  On the other hand, they found that, "People were less likely to hire a candidate with a higher (versus lower) pay history for a subordinate position on their team."  

This study has some very interesting practical implications with regard to the pay transparency movement.   The collaboration finding seems quite positive, though one has to wonder whether it is appropriate for workers to always use pay as a sign of competence.  In some organizations, we know that compensation and position is not at all a sign of strong capabilities!   The hiring dynamic is perhaps more problematic.  We would hope that people would hire the best talent, and that they would not feel threatened by someone who had excellent capabilities warranting high compensation.  Naturally, though, people's emotions are affected by compensation differences.  If it means that we don't hire the best people, then that would be very worrisome. 

How to be a Supercommunicator

Have you met someone who is a highly effective communicator who engages you in enjoyable and helpful conversations with ease?  Why are they so effective at making conversation?  Recently, I read Charles Duhigg's terrific book, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.  Charles earned a Pulitzer Prize as a writer for the New York Times.  Many years ago, he was my student in the MBA program at Harvard Business School.  In Duhigg's book, he explores the behaviors and methods of people who are particularly effective at connecting with others.  When he published the book, Duhigg sat for an interview with McKinsey & Company.  He commented on one very important trait of supercommunicators: 

Supercommunicators ask ten to 20 times more questions than the average person. Those questions can include something like, “That’s interesting. What did you think of that?” or “What did you say next?” They pose questions that invite us into the conversation.  Some of their questions are “deep questions.” These questions ask people about their values, beliefs, or experiences. An example of this could be as easy as saying, “You’re a lawyer. What made you decide to go to law school?” They ask questions that dig into learning who people are. They aren’t overly intimate questions but an opportunity to share who we are. People love the opportunities to share those things, which could feel amazing.

Duhigg notes that supercommunicators also are very good at detecting the type of conversation in which others wish to engage.  Is it an emotional, practical, or social conversation?  Many people mistakenly approach all conversations as practical ones, i.e., we are trying to solve a problem together.  Sometimes, though, others do not want help coming up with a plan of action or making a decision.  Instead, they want to share how they are feeling and would like someone to simply listen and empathize.  In short, you have to understand the purpose of the conversation.  In other words, what does the other party want from the dialogue?  

Finally, Duhigg stresses one technique that is very helpful in any conversation.  The term for this approach is "looping for understanding."  Sometimes, people describe it as the "playback" method. When we engage in looping or playback, we are listening actively, restating what we believe we have heard, and then we seek confirmation from the other party.  In short, we ask: Did I understand you correctly?  That question enables others to clarify their thoughts and helps us avoid misunderstandings.   

The Value of Companies with Many Occupational Options for Employees

Is it valuable for an employee to seek out employers that will offer the possibility of a variety of roles that they may fill over a period of years?  New research by Professors Inês Black and Ana Figueiredo suggests that role variety boosts wages, employee retention, and job satisfaction.  Duke Fuqua Insights recently summarized their research:

• workers starting their career at firms with more occupational variety switch occupations internally more often within the first 10 years;
• as a result, workers starting their career at firms that offer more job titles tend to have higher wages in 10 years;
• independently of firm size, the more occupations a firm offers, the more likely it is to retain their employees.

Professor Black goes on to comment on the impact that role variety can have on retention: "For every one more occupation that I offer to my workers, I'm 10% more likely to retain them 10 years from now," she explained.  

Role Playing the Competition at Dick's Sporting Goods

In 2021, Dick's Sporting Goods introduced a new store format: Dick's House of Sport. These stores are  experiential retailing at large scale.  The stores exceed 100,000 square feet, and they feature rock-climbing walls, batting cages with HitTrax technology, golf hitting bays with simulator technology, putting greens, and a service department that will repair bicycles and other athletic equipment. In 2024, Dick's experienced strong comparable store sales growth, and they have announced plans to open 16 more locations this year. CEO Lauren Hobart commented on the new format:

The success of House of Sport and Field House concept stores isn’t just about climbing walls and large-scale experiences, Hobart said – although that helps.  “The experience is delighting athletes,” Hobart said. “We’re seeing athletes drive longer distances. They’re spending more time when they come. The community is just absolutely embracing House of Sport.”  Vendors like them too because they have more potential to bring a brand to life, with opportunities such as the “Collab” approach that looks like small brand stores within the large House of Sport concept, Hobart said.

How did Dick's Sporting Goods create this new concept?  Executive Chairman Ed Stack explained recently in a Forbes article:   “The brief I gave everybody was we need to sit down, and we need to design the concept that will kill Dick's Sporting Goods.”  I love this idea.  It reminds me of Lisa Bodell's "Kill the Company" exercise.  Bodell explains: "Kill the Company [allows you to] pretend that you are your number-one competitor. You have three minutes: How will you put yourself out of business?"  Stack used this type of thinking with Hobart and her team to develop the Dick's House of Sport concept.  It certainly represented a bold bet - doubling down on brick-and-mortar in an age of e-commerce disruption.  Yet, so far, the investment in experiential retailing seems to be paying off.  Are you ready to role play your competitors and ask the question: What could they do that would be devastating to our business?  It might just lead to a creative breakthrough.