August 1, 2024 • 20 mins
In this episode of Inside Learning Podcast, we welcome Shlomo Ben-Hur, Professor at IMD Business School and author of 'Rewriting Your Leadership Code'. Shlomo reveals how early childhood experiences and traumas shape our behaviours, relationships, and effectiveness as leaders. He discusses the concept of a 'leadership code' influenced by our upbringing and offers insights into self-awareness, dealing with stress, and avoiding the pitfalls of creating echo chambers in leadership roles. Tune in for a deep dive into the psychological foundations of leadership and practical strategies for overcoming childhood-derived limitations.
00:00 Introduction to Inside Learning Podcast
00:16 Exploring Leadership Under Pressure
02:06 Impact of Childhood on Leadership
05:17 Reflecting on Personal Experiences
10:14 Understanding Feedback and Criticism
13:46 Stress Responses and Early Influences
16:37 Avoiding the Echo Chamber
19:28 Conclusion and Further Resources
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:00):
The Inside Learning Podcast is brought to you by the Learnovate Centre.
Learnovate's research explores the powerof learning to unlock human potential.
Find out more about Centre's researchon the science of learning and the
future of work at LearnovateCentre.
org.
Aidan McCullen (00:16):
In his work with leaders, our guest continually hears that leaders
can struggle to have the impact theywant when operating under pressure,
and they find themselves running onautomatic without the time to think
about how they are being as leaders.
So his book is about those moments it'sabout what leaders bring to those moments
(00:37):
when they act the way they do, why theyact the way they do and how they can
take more control of the impact they haveon others, why this book on a podcast
about neuroscience and learning and thefuture of work you may wonder well the
topics will cover today will absolutely
Intro (00:56):
fascinate you our guest speaks to not only how we show up
as leaders but also how learning,teaching and nurturing in our younger
years can impact us later in life.
His work reveals the hidden waysour past experiences influence
our behaviors, relationships andconfidence at work and his work offers
(01:19):
a practical guide to change thisnarrative to cope with the stress and
complexities of the modern workplace.
Can being a good kid make you a bad boss.
Whether your teachers taught you to hatecriticism later in life, why playground
conflict can make us reluctant orrebellious as leaders, , how our stress
(01:41):
response stems from our childhood.
How to rewrite our leadership code atwork it is a great pleasure to welcome
professor at the IMD business school inswitzerland and author of his fourth in
a trilogy rewriting your leadership codeshlomo ben her, Welcome to inside learning
Shlomo Ben-Hur (02:03):
Thank you.
Aidan.
It's a pleasure to betalking to you today.
Aidan McCullen (02:06):
It's an absolute pleasure and i was telling you before we came on
air your book absolutely fascinated me, it brought me back to early childhood
traumas that i'm absolutely sure haverewritten my own leadership code.
To be the way i am today whetherthat's good or bad but i thought we'd
open up with why this book and in away this is i mentioned the fourth in
(02:30):
the trilogy and how all those otherbooks led to this one and this one is.
piece dela the resistance in many ways
Shlomo Ben-Hur (02:38):
yeah, well, well, why this book is because I've been honored
and had the privilege of actuallyaccompanying top executives for the
last 15 years of my life as they gothrough some soul searching that we
do when IMD business school programs.
And I take them to the mountains,we have the Alps, which are
very close to our campus.
(02:59):
And I spend sometimes it's a weekend.
Sometimes it's, it's more days with themagainst the backdrop of the mountains.
And, and one of the things that we dois that we take time to reflect on their
leadership to reflect on their successes.
And most of these people areextremely successful, right?
They've scored and ticked all the boxes.
But at the invitation to think abouttheir leadership, to think about their
(03:21):
performance, to think about what'sgoing on, we go back to talk about like
meaningful junctures in their lives.
And what we discovered interestinglyis that a lot of those critical moments
that they bring to their leadershipHave to do with their childhood.
Whether they're very early experiences.
(03:41):
Now, we've known this, as a psychologist,and so I could behave as a developmental
psychologist all along, but it wasfascinating for me to start hearing that
from people who have been busy buildingcompanies, building organizations, showing
up in the world, failing miserably insome cases and resurrecting themselves.
(04:02):
who start talking in a reflectivekind of way about what it is that
they took from their childhood.
And what we know when we think aboutthat leadership code that we named our
book after is that these underlyingsensitivities and preferences and
tendencies within us It's something thatwe develop very, very early in life.
(04:24):
It's the simple associationrather than complex knowledge.
It's like what makes me thinkthat this is good and that is bad.
That if I do this, this will happen.
And those are the productof our experiences.
These are the lessons that are learnedthat we've written into our brain.
like a pre programmed instructions.
(04:44):
At a very, very early age, youcan, you can call it our computer
source code in many ways.
And then when it comes to people,this usually lives in the dark.
It's something we don't talk about,except that I actually started hearing
executives start talking about it in ourwalks in the mountain that can't stop.
(05:05):
And that, that made Nick Kinley,my co author and myself think that,
that we really ought to go moresystematically to try to surface
some of the origination of that code.
aidan_1_07-05-2024_140629 (05:17):
i'm reluctant to do this but i was telling you all
fair i had a couple of instances asa child that i am absolutely certain
have, impacted me and they're theway i am whether that's good or bad
in my later life i'll give you oneinstance which was when my very first
day in primary school so this is when.
i would've been four or five and i'ma big guy and i always was a big kid
(05:41):
as well i walked into the class andi you know happy excited scared all
those emotions that goes through akid's mind hanging up my jacket in a
small country school in ireland, sitdown at my desk the teacher doesn't say
anything she's quite an elderly womani remember her just say anything to the
class she walks up and she absolutelytakes the head off me with a slap.
(06:06):
And I was a good kid.
As I was saying to youbefore, I was always learned.
Well, didn't make noise,respected the teacher.
And the only thing I can think is thatshe was doing it to get respect from
the class, or she picked on the tallestkid or the biggest kid in the class.
And she said, somebody told herperhaps that that's what you need
to do to get respect of the class,to get the discipline in the class.
(06:28):
And I'm sure that has been, it'ssomewhere written into my source code
that has manifested later in life.
in some ways and i want to really usethat as a talking point to bring us to
points that you talk about in the booklike can being a good kid make you a
bad boss and, whether your teachers toldyou to hate criticism i think those two
(06:50):
things are so interesting to see how theymanifest fast later not only as leaders
but as as normal workers in the workplace.
Shlomo Ben-Hur (06:59):
What an incredible experience, Aidan.
I could relate to it because Iwas always the shortest kid in
the class, but I could imagine.
That you are carrying it and it has beenimpacting your code because here you are
a successful person after so many years.
Actually remembering thatvery defining moment.
And this is stuff that'sthat's there that defines us.
(07:23):
We are not consciously aware of itand we don't have control over it,
but it leads us in certain directions.
As we lead, as we lead our ownlives, as we lead other people.
And I wonder if that teacher did notact that way coming from her own code
and issues that she may have had withpeople who may have projected authority,
(07:44):
which may have been something thatshe saw in you as a threat to her
authority or whatever was going on.
That situation so, so we can't knowthat we are anxious in general.
But we can know that we're anxious ingeneral about something, but we don't
know it in the moment in which we'rereacting in an anxious kind of a way.
(08:05):
We can tell ourselves that wewon't feel anxious or worry about
something, but it doesn't reallyhelp our nervous system that reacts.
It's very specific way.
And that's what we're tryingto decipher with this book.
We're trying to go back to theorigins of where anxiety or any other.
element has been instilled in us aspart of our code and try to recognize
(08:30):
it while it's happening and maybe evenbefore in order to really make sure that
we're learning from the experience inorder to create different scripts for us.
To react in a different kind of a way.
it could contribute to oursuccess as leaders and as
people showing up in this world.
And, and, and that reflection, thatspace, that more stepping back and
(08:51):
looking at what's happening and the wayI react and I show up in the world is
something that leaders say they have very,very limited space for in their lives.
In fact, when we asked leaders where,how they spend their days, the average
number that we got to is around 72percent that they said that their day
is being spent running on automatic.
(09:13):
And what they're describing is alife in which they're moving from
one meeting to the other whenthere's no time for reflection.
And when you run on automatic, usuallyyou fall into that code that was
instilled in you at a very young age.
aidan_1_07-05-2024_140629 (09:29):
I think that is such a valuable point and it
stands to not only working on yourself.
So Aristotle first know thyself is wherewe need to begin because so many people
are in leadership roles in a turbulentbusiness world, trying to change the
organization while leading people.
And it's very difficult tolead others when you don't
(09:52):
actually start with yourself.
And I think.
That whole idea is leaders eat last.
There's some value in that, but youneed to actually work on yourself.
And I love the work that you do, forexample, with IMD and your leadership
coaching, because it's so valuable wherepeople actually uncover who they are.
And it's almost like an excavation projectto go back to the source code and go.
(10:14):
oh this is why this manifests later on inlife and one of the things i'd love you to
share is the criticism aspect so feedbackis a gift if people give us feedback, i'm
not feedback is coming from a very verygood place it's the best way to get better
whatever we're doing it somebody holdingup a friendly mirror to you, but when you
(10:38):
talked about whether teachers teach us tohate criticism later on in life i'd love
you to unpack that a little bit because,So many of our guests or listeners
will have experienced this themselves.
Nobody really likes being toldyour cooking sucks or you get a 360
feedback review and people in yourorganization that you think that you're
(11:01):
doing a good job and it's damning.
And people can go through a little bitof trauma when they experience that.
But if they can intercept it early andreading your book and understanding
this early and going back to theorigins of that, they can actually
intercept it later on in life.
Shlomo Ben-Hur (11:17):
Right.
So it's really aboutthat interception, right?
This is what we're looking to create.
And you talked about friendly feedback,but depending on our early experiences,
we will have a tendency to eithersee it as unfriendly feedback or
unsolicited feedback or whatever else.
And, and many of us wouldimmediately put the defense up there.
(11:38):
What we're seeing is that our earlyexperiences are actually determining
a whole range of things, and we focusin this book on on three key areas,
which I think matter when it comesto feedback it first focuses on what
it is that we actually focus on whatis how is our childhood experience?
(11:59):
impacting our ability to see andto hear information and events
in an objective kind of way.
So when a person is giving us feedback,some of us based on our upbringing
will tend to see only the criticalaspect of it, while other people would
see the supportive aspects of that.
That has to do a lot withwith those early experiences.
(12:22):
So it's what we focus on.
What is it that we hear and not hear?
We have all these tests of like thefamous gorilla test or some other video
testing in which we ask people to describewhat it is that they see on the screen.
And many people miss out on likesome, critical information that's
projected on the screen because they'relooking for other parts of the, of the
(12:44):
display that's being on the screen.
And, and I think we dothat in life all the time.
We see what we want to see, or we seewhat we look for to see, and we miss
out all of the other information.
So we don't see events andinformation objectively.
And that is one part that we focus on.
The other part is, what is itthat is triggering us emotionally?
(13:06):
And how able are we to regulate that?
How, how, how good is our selfregulation, which is a critical
component in leadership and theway we show up in the world.
And then last but not leastis like, how do we interact?
In terms of our ability toengage people, to resolve
tension, to manage relationships.
So when, when it comes to the feedbackthat you're talking about, I would say
(13:27):
that we're touching on all of those.
We're touching on what itis from the feedback that we
actually tend to focus on.
Then how does that make us feel becauseof all of those early experiences
and how does that lead to eitherimproved or actually a more tense
or critical relationship with thepeople who are the feedback providers?
Aidan McCullen (13:46):
Shlomo, I'd love you to share a little bit about
this stress response and how that'salso stems from our childhoods.
I'm that may make sense on a high levelto people but you dig deeply into that
i'd love you to share that but that andthen also how, key moments from our early
years can impact your self esteem andpeople have had this where things that
(14:08):
were said to them in the classroom or.
Maybe conflict on the playground hashad a dramatic effect later on and
maybe made them as i said in the introreluctant or even rebellious as leaders,
i love you to share the high level someof those things you pick up at your
preference which ones you wanna talk about
Shlomo Ben-Hur (14:27):
Of course if you're just thinking about the first relationships
that we have, if we have been fortunate,enough to grow up with a mother and
father or two fathers or two motherswhatever the parental construction,
in your household is we know that whenthere's strict parenting or inpatient
(14:47):
parenting or critical parentingthat this, immediately impacts the
way we tend to listen to people.
The kind of views that we will beopen to, so when we have strict or
critical parenting being imposedon us, we tend to actually focus
on people who provide clear views.
(15:07):
Boys with strict parents orfathers, figures, very often would
react very differently than thosethat had more permissive parents.
The dinner table etiquettes that, thatwere like typical in your household
would impact the way that you will beopen to debate things or to believe
that there's not just one way oranother way my way or the highway.
(15:32):
It impacts the openness tonew thinking and to ideas.
Parents that are offering littleoutward affection, for instance.
are impacting my ability asan adult later on in life to
actually open up to new ideas.
Parents who are encouraging curiositywould really end up with children who
(15:52):
are really much more open to actuallyexplore the world, to take risks.
If, if we're looking just at the riskor reward like aspect of things how
openly affectionate your parents wereor how controlling they were really
tends to have an impact on whether youend up playing to win in your life.
(16:13):
As psychologists love to divide the worldto playing to win and playing not to lose.
And, and, and we see that parentswho brought that very controlling
aspect of their parentingprevented them from taking risks.
Thanks.
Made them actually try to play not tolose versus parents who opened children
(16:34):
up to a situation where they play to win.
Aidan McCullen (16:37):
Of the things that so many leaders are guilty of is hiring in
their own image or surrounding yes men orwomen and people that will be sycophants
and tell them no bad news or agreewith them and we end up creating this.
echo chamber where we get back theinformation we want we get that
(16:58):
confirmation bias we get the hit ofdopamine because we heard what we want
to hear on our decisions are soundit leads to terrible decision making.
Inside an organization, a lack ofcritical decisions, but more than that,
it's very damaging to us as leaders.
If we do that, I'd loveyou to unpack this.
Shlomo Ben-Hur (17:17):
Right.
So, so, so you're describinga very true phenomenon that's
going on for a lot of leaders.
And to be a successful leader,to some degree, you need to
be a little bit deaf, right?
A little bit actually hardof hearing, I would say.
Because you need to separate from thenoise that's out there and to follow
your convictions and to go to whatyou believe is the right strategy, the
(17:40):
right direction for the organization.
But the problem happens when peoplemove away from being hard of hearing to
being deaf because of the echo chamberthat they create for themselves in
which they surround themselves withthe with the people who support them,
with people who believe, make thembelieve their own commercials and, and,
and people who actually share theirpoint of view or just kind of like,
(18:04):
cater to their needs because of theirown issues with authority figures.
And what happens is that that goes backto that leadership code that we talked
about, whether you are a risk focusedperson or reward focused person, the
standards by which you, you judge people.
And that leads to the kind ofinformation and solution that you prefer.
(18:27):
Are you looking for Hearing thechallenging news, or are you
looking for confirming evidenceto what you think about the world?
And this in terms leads us tosurround ourselves or not with people
who are telling us what we want tohear or people that would actually
provide us with broader view ofthings or challenge our thinking.
(18:50):
So for leaders, one of those criticalthings that we try to work with
is who is in your inner circle?
Who do you tend to consult with?
Who do you listen to and how much isthat providing you with the useful
information for your leadershipor depriving you from that?
And, and, and you wouldsee that with top CEOs.
In board members that we work with.
(19:10):
Some who know how to actually tapinto a broader set of considerations
in a broader set of people providethem with important critical feedback
and some that would actually deprivethem of that to the degree that
leads to surprises and to derailment.
Aidan McCullen (19:28):
Shlomo where can people find you to find out more about the
book i'm sure they're fascinated todig deeper and know themselves and
understand why they act the way they areparticularly under stress, where's the
best place to find you and more about the
Shlomo Ben-Hur (19:41):
Well, if people would like to really not just learn about themselves,
but actually think through what it isthat they might want to do about that,
to further increase their success and,and, and think about what it is they
could do with their childhood code.
They could read the book.
The book is available inall like book outlets.
It was published by Palgrove Macmillanand me personally, I'm a full
(20:04):
time professor at the IMD BusinessSchool in Lausanne in Switzerland.
My email is on the website of the businessschool and I will be delighted to follow
up with any of our listeners via email orany other way and hope to see some of you
face to face in our leadership developmentprograms on the IMD campus in Switzerland.
aidan_1_07-05-2024_140629: professor at the imd business (20:25):
undefined
school in switzerland and author of.
Rewriting your leadership code shlomoben her thank you for joining us
Shlomo Ben-Hur (20:34):
Thank you very much, Aiden.
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks for joining us on Inside Learning.
Inside Learning is brought toyou by the Learnovate Centre
in Trinity College, Dublin.
Learnovate is funded by EnterpriseIreland and IDA Ireland.
Visit learnovatecentre.
org to find out more aboutour research on the science of
learning and the future of work.
The Inside Learning Podcast is brought to you by the Learnovate Centre.
Learnovate's research explores the powerof learning to unlock human potential.
Find out more about Centre's researchon the science of learning and the
future of work at LearnovateCentre.
org.
Aidan McCullen (00:16):
In his work with leaders, our guest continually hears that leaders
can struggle to have the impact theywant when operating under pressure,
and they find themselves running onautomatic without the time to think
about how they are being as leaders.
So his book is about those moments it'sabout what leaders bring to those moments
(00:37):
when they act the way they do, why theyact the way they do and how they can
take more control of the impact they haveon others, why this book on a podcast
about neuroscience and learning and thefuture of work you may wonder well the
topics will cover today will absolutely
Intro (00:56):
fascinate you our guest speaks to not only how we show up
as leaders but also how learning,teaching and nurturing in our younger
years can impact us later in life.
His work reveals the hidden waysour past experiences influence
our behaviors, relationships andconfidence at work and his work offers
(01:19):
a practical guide to change thisnarrative to cope with the stress and
complexities of the modern workplace.
Can being a good kid make you a bad boss.
Whether your teachers taught you to hatecriticism later in life, why playground
conflict can make us reluctant orrebellious as leaders, , how our stress
(01:41):
response stems from our childhood.
How to rewrite our leadership code atwork it is a great pleasure to welcome
professor at the IMD business school inswitzerland and author of his fourth in
a trilogy rewriting your leadership codeshlomo ben her, Welcome to inside learning
Shlomo Ben-Hur (02:03):
Thank you.
Aidan.
It's a pleasure to betalking to you today.
Aidan McCullen (02:06):
It's an absolute pleasure and i was telling you before we came on
air your book absolutely fascinated me, it brought me back to early childhood
traumas that i'm absolutely sure haverewritten my own leadership code.
To be the way i am today whetherthat's good or bad but i thought we'd
open up with why this book and in away this is i mentioned the fourth in
(02:30):
the trilogy and how all those otherbooks led to this one and this one is.
piece dela the resistance in many ways
Shlomo Ben-Hur (02:38):
yeah, well, well, why this book is because I've been honored
and had the privilege of actuallyaccompanying top executives for the
last 15 years of my life as they gothrough some soul searching that we
do when IMD business school programs.
And I take them to the mountains,we have the Alps, which are
very close to our campus.
(02:59):
And I spend sometimes it's a weekend.
Sometimes it's, it's more days with themagainst the backdrop of the mountains.
And, and one of the things that we dois that we take time to reflect on their
leadership to reflect on their successes.
And most of these people areextremely successful, right?
They've scored and ticked all the boxes.
But at the invitation to think abouttheir leadership, to think about their
(03:21):
performance, to think about what'sgoing on, we go back to talk about like
meaningful junctures in their lives.
And what we discovered interestinglyis that a lot of those critical moments
that they bring to their leadershipHave to do with their childhood.
Whether they're very early experiences.
(03:41):
Now, we've known this, as a psychologist,and so I could behave as a developmental
psychologist all along, but it wasfascinating for me to start hearing that
from people who have been busy buildingcompanies, building organizations, showing
up in the world, failing miserably insome cases and resurrecting themselves.
(04:02):
who start talking in a reflectivekind of way about what it is that
they took from their childhood.
And what we know when we think aboutthat leadership code that we named our
book after is that these underlyingsensitivities and preferences and
tendencies within us It's something thatwe develop very, very early in life.
(04:24):
It's the simple associationrather than complex knowledge.
It's like what makes me thinkthat this is good and that is bad.
That if I do this, this will happen.
And those are the productof our experiences.
These are the lessons that are learnedthat we've written into our brain.
like a pre programmed instructions.
(04:44):
At a very, very early age, youcan, you can call it our computer
source code in many ways.
And then when it comes to people,this usually lives in the dark.
It's something we don't talk about,except that I actually started hearing
executives start talking about it in ourwalks in the mountain that can't stop.
(05:05):
And that, that made Nick Kinley,my co author and myself think that,
that we really ought to go moresystematically to try to surface
some of the origination of that code.
aidan_1_07-05-2024_140629 (05:17):
i'm reluctant to do this but i was telling you all
fair i had a couple of instances asa child that i am absolutely certain
have, impacted me and they're theway i am whether that's good or bad
in my later life i'll give you oneinstance which was when my very first
day in primary school so this is when.
i would've been four or five and i'ma big guy and i always was a big kid
(05:41):
as well i walked into the class andi you know happy excited scared all
those emotions that goes through akid's mind hanging up my jacket in a
small country school in ireland, sitdown at my desk the teacher doesn't say
anything she's quite an elderly womani remember her just say anything to the
class she walks up and she absolutelytakes the head off me with a slap.
(06:06):
And I was a good kid.
As I was saying to youbefore, I was always learned.
Well, didn't make noise,respected the teacher.
And the only thing I can think is thatshe was doing it to get respect from
the class, or she picked on the tallestkid or the biggest kid in the class.
And she said, somebody told herperhaps that that's what you need
to do to get respect of the class,to get the discipline in the class.
(06:28):
And I'm sure that has been, it'ssomewhere written into my source code
that has manifested later in life.
in some ways and i want to really usethat as a talking point to bring us to
points that you talk about in the booklike can being a good kid make you a
bad boss and, whether your teachers toldyou to hate criticism i think those two
(06:50):
things are so interesting to see how theymanifest fast later not only as leaders
but as as normal workers in the workplace.
Shlomo Ben-Hur (06:59):
What an incredible experience, Aidan.
I could relate to it because Iwas always the shortest kid in
the class, but I could imagine.
That you are carrying it and it has beenimpacting your code because here you are
a successful person after so many years.
Actually remembering thatvery defining moment.
And this is stuff that'sthat's there that defines us.
(07:23):
We are not consciously aware of itand we don't have control over it,
but it leads us in certain directions.
As we lead, as we lead our ownlives, as we lead other people.
And I wonder if that teacher did notact that way coming from her own code
and issues that she may have had withpeople who may have projected authority,
(07:44):
which may have been something thatshe saw in you as a threat to her
authority or whatever was going on.
That situation so, so we can't knowthat we are anxious in general.
But we can know that we're anxious ingeneral about something, but we don't
know it in the moment in which we'rereacting in an anxious kind of a way.
(08:05):
We can tell ourselves that wewon't feel anxious or worry about
something, but it doesn't reallyhelp our nervous system that reacts.
It's very specific way.
And that's what we're tryingto decipher with this book.
We're trying to go back to theorigins of where anxiety or any other.
element has been instilled in us aspart of our code and try to recognize
(08:30):
it while it's happening and maybe evenbefore in order to really make sure that
we're learning from the experience inorder to create different scripts for us.
To react in a different kind of a way.
it could contribute to oursuccess as leaders and as
people showing up in this world.
And, and, and that reflection, thatspace, that more stepping back and
(08:51):
looking at what's happening and the wayI react and I show up in the world is
something that leaders say they have very,very limited space for in their lives.
In fact, when we asked leaders where,how they spend their days, the average
number that we got to is around 72percent that they said that their day
is being spent running on automatic.
(09:13):
And what they're describing is alife in which they're moving from
one meeting to the other whenthere's no time for reflection.
And when you run on automatic, usuallyyou fall into that code that was
instilled in you at a very young age.
aidan_1_07-05-2024_140629 (09:29):
I think that is such a valuable point and it
stands to not only working on yourself.
So Aristotle first know thyself is wherewe need to begin because so many people
are in leadership roles in a turbulentbusiness world, trying to change the
organization while leading people.
And it's very difficult tolead others when you don't
(09:52):
actually start with yourself.
And I think.
That whole idea is leaders eat last.
There's some value in that, but youneed to actually work on yourself.
And I love the work that you do, forexample, with IMD and your leadership
coaching, because it's so valuable wherepeople actually uncover who they are.
And it's almost like an excavation projectto go back to the source code and go.
(10:14):
oh this is why this manifests later on inlife and one of the things i'd love you to
share is the criticism aspect so feedbackis a gift if people give us feedback, i'm
not feedback is coming from a very verygood place it's the best way to get better
whatever we're doing it somebody holdingup a friendly mirror to you, but when you
(10:38):
talked about whether teachers teach us tohate criticism later on in life i'd love
you to unpack that a little bit because,So many of our guests or listeners
will have experienced this themselves.
Nobody really likes being toldyour cooking sucks or you get a 360
feedback review and people in yourorganization that you think that you're
(11:01):
doing a good job and it's damning.
And people can go through a little bitof trauma when they experience that.
But if they can intercept it early andreading your book and understanding
this early and going back to theorigins of that, they can actually
intercept it later on in life.
Shlomo Ben-Hur (11:17):
Right.
So it's really aboutthat interception, right?
This is what we're looking to create.
And you talked about friendly feedback,but depending on our early experiences,
we will have a tendency to eithersee it as unfriendly feedback or
unsolicited feedback or whatever else.
And, and many of us wouldimmediately put the defense up there.
(11:38):
What we're seeing is that our earlyexperiences are actually determining
a whole range of things, and we focusin this book on on three key areas,
which I think matter when it comesto feedback it first focuses on what
it is that we actually focus on whatis how is our childhood experience?
(11:59):
impacting our ability to see andto hear information and events
in an objective kind of way.
So when a person is giving us feedback,some of us based on our upbringing
will tend to see only the criticalaspect of it, while other people would
see the supportive aspects of that.
That has to do a lot withwith those early experiences.
(12:22):
So it's what we focus on.
What is it that we hear and not hear?
We have all these tests of like thefamous gorilla test or some other video
testing in which we ask people to describewhat it is that they see on the screen.
And many people miss out on likesome, critical information that's
projected on the screen because they'relooking for other parts of the, of the
(12:44):
display that's being on the screen.
And, and I think we dothat in life all the time.
We see what we want to see, or we seewhat we look for to see, and we miss
out all of the other information.
So we don't see events andinformation objectively.
And that is one part that we focus on.
The other part is, what is itthat is triggering us emotionally?
(13:06):
And how able are we to regulate that?
How, how, how good is our selfregulation, which is a critical
component in leadership and theway we show up in the world.
And then last but not leastis like, how do we interact?
In terms of our ability toengage people, to resolve
tension, to manage relationships.
So when, when it comes to the feedbackthat you're talking about, I would say
(13:27):
that we're touching on all of those.
We're touching on what itis from the feedback that we
actually tend to focus on.
Then how does that make us feel becauseof all of those early experiences
and how does that lead to eitherimproved or actually a more tense
or critical relationship with thepeople who are the feedback providers?
Aidan McCullen (13:46):
Shlomo, I'd love you to share a little bit about
this stress response and how that'salso stems from our childhoods.
I'm that may make sense on a high levelto people but you dig deeply into that
i'd love you to share that but that andthen also how, key moments from our early
years can impact your self esteem andpeople have had this where things that
(14:08):
were said to them in the classroom or.
Maybe conflict on the playground hashad a dramatic effect later on and
maybe made them as i said in the introreluctant or even rebellious as leaders,
i love you to share the high level someof those things you pick up at your
preference which ones you wanna talk about
Shlomo Ben-Hur (14:27):
Of course if you're just thinking about the first relationships
that we have, if we have been fortunate,enough to grow up with a mother and
father or two fathers or two motherswhatever the parental construction,
in your household is we know that whenthere's strict parenting or inpatient
(14:47):
parenting or critical parentingthat this, immediately impacts the
way we tend to listen to people.
The kind of views that we will beopen to, so when we have strict or
critical parenting being imposedon us, we tend to actually focus
on people who provide clear views.
(15:07):
Boys with strict parents orfathers, figures, very often would
react very differently than thosethat had more permissive parents.
The dinner table etiquettes that, thatwere like typical in your household
would impact the way that you will beopen to debate things or to believe
that there's not just one way oranother way my way or the highway.
(15:32):
It impacts the openness tonew thinking and to ideas.
Parents that are offering littleoutward affection, for instance.
are impacting my ability asan adult later on in life to
actually open up to new ideas.
Parents who are encouraging curiositywould really end up with children who
(15:52):
are really much more open to actuallyexplore the world, to take risks.
If, if we're looking just at the riskor reward like aspect of things how
openly affectionate your parents wereor how controlling they were really
tends to have an impact on whether youend up playing to win in your life.
(16:13):
As psychologists love to divide the worldto playing to win and playing not to lose.
And, and, and we see that parentswho brought that very controlling
aspect of their parentingprevented them from taking risks.
Thanks.
Made them actually try to play not tolose versus parents who opened children
(16:34):
up to a situation where they play to win.
Aidan McCullen (16:37):
Of the things that so many leaders are guilty of is hiring in
their own image or surrounding yes men orwomen and people that will be sycophants
and tell them no bad news or agreewith them and we end up creating this.
echo chamber where we get back theinformation we want we get that
(16:58):
confirmation bias we get the hit ofdopamine because we heard what we want
to hear on our decisions are soundit leads to terrible decision making.
Inside an organization, a lack ofcritical decisions, but more than that,
it's very damaging to us as leaders.
If we do that, I'd loveyou to unpack this.
Shlomo Ben-Hur (17:17):
Right.
So, so, so you're describinga very true phenomenon that's
going on for a lot of leaders.
And to be a successful leader,to some degree, you need to
be a little bit deaf, right?
A little bit actually hardof hearing, I would say.
Because you need to separate from thenoise that's out there and to follow
your convictions and to go to whatyou believe is the right strategy, the
(17:40):
right direction for the organization.
But the problem happens when peoplemove away from being hard of hearing to
being deaf because of the echo chamberthat they create for themselves in
which they surround themselves withthe with the people who support them,
with people who believe, make thembelieve their own commercials and, and,
and people who actually share theirpoint of view or just kind of like,
(18:04):
cater to their needs because of theirown issues with authority figures.
And what happens is that that goes backto that leadership code that we talked
about, whether you are a risk focusedperson or reward focused person, the
standards by which you, you judge people.
And that leads to the kind ofinformation and solution that you prefer.
(18:27):
Are you looking for Hearing thechallenging news, or are you
looking for confirming evidenceto what you think about the world?
And this in terms leads us tosurround ourselves or not with people
who are telling us what we want tohear or people that would actually
provide us with broader view ofthings or challenge our thinking.
(18:50):
So for leaders, one of those criticalthings that we try to work with
is who is in your inner circle?
Who do you tend to consult with?
Who do you listen to and how much isthat providing you with the useful
information for your leadershipor depriving you from that?
And, and, and you wouldsee that with top CEOs.
In board members that we work with.
(19:10):
Some who know how to actually tapinto a broader set of considerations
in a broader set of people providethem with important critical feedback
and some that would actually deprivethem of that to the degree that
leads to surprises and to derailment.
Aidan McCullen (19:28):
Shlomo where can people find you to find out more about the
book i'm sure they're fascinated todig deeper and know themselves and
understand why they act the way they areparticularly under stress, where's the
best place to find you and more about the
Shlomo Ben-Hur (19:41):
Well, if people would like to really not just learn about themselves,
but actually think through what it isthat they might want to do about that,
to further increase their success and,and, and think about what it is they
could do with their childhood code.
They could read the book.
The book is available inall like book outlets.
It was published by Palgrove Macmillanand me personally, I'm a full
(20:04):
time professor at the IMD BusinessSchool in Lausanne in Switzerland.
My email is on the website of the businessschool and I will be delighted to follow
up with any of our listeners via email orany other way and hope to see some of you
face to face in our leadership developmentprograms on the IMD campus in Switzerland.
aidan_1_07-05-2024_140629: professor at the imd business (20:25):
undefined
school in switzerland and author of.
Rewriting your leadership code shlomoben her thank you for joining us
Shlomo Ben-Hur (20:34):
Thank you very much, Aiden.
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks for joining us on Inside Learning.
Inside Learning is brought toyou by the Learnovate Centre
in Trinity College, Dublin.
Learnovate is funded by EnterpriseIreland and IDA Ireland.
Visit learnovatecentre.
org to find out more aboutour research on the science of
learning and the future of work.
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