Sheryl Sandberg discusses lessons from Fred Kaufman on authentic communication and taking responsibility. She argues that stating your own truth without demanding agreement creates space for real dialogue, and that adopting a player mindset rather than victim stance empowers you to scale your impact at any career stage.
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I think for all of us at every stage in our career, there's also something really deep to think about in terms of how we interact. Once again, how do you scale yourself in compelling ways? And then this I'll mention two thoughts. And they're two thoughts I learned from a man named Fred Kaufman. I have a great deal of respect for, who runs a consulting firm called Excellient. And Fred was an MIT professor, he was an accounting professor. And he learned tons of stuff about accounting. And then one day he realized that, wow, all the really hard things are not about accounting. They're all about how people interact, how they scale themselves vis a vis other people. And he talks about two concepts I think are really important. The first is authentic communication. And the second is what he calls being a player, not a victim. If you have children, and I do now, you note, you actually learn from them, almost how dishonest every adults are all the time. So my favorite story is my friend Beth. This is a true story. She was pregnant and she had a five year old. And the five year old said to her, you know, mommy, where's the baby? She was like, the baby's in my tummy. He was like, mommy, like, where's the baby? She's like, well, the baby's in my tummy. Like, well, mommy, aren't the baby's arms and your arms and the baby's legs and your legs and all that? And she was like, no, no, the whole baby's in my tummy. And then her five year old looked at her and said, then, mommy, what's growing in your butt? And kids are really honest. I mean, my four year old will be like, mommy, that's an ugly shirt, or mommy, I don't like that story. And as we get older, polite society teaches us to have better manners. And we don't walk around telling pregnant women that their butts look big. Please learn that lesson. I'm not suggesting that. And we don't walk around just blunting out the blunt truth, but we're more polite. But you have to ask yourself, if you're in a group, whether it's a friend group or a family circle or in a business that you're trying to lead as an entrepreneur, how do you get to the truth? How do you make great decisions when no one's saying the truth? How do you communicate authentically? How do you figure out what to say and what not to say in a way that's authentic? And what Fred says, and I really believe this is true and is it starts from the fundamental understanding that there is no truth. There's my truth, there's your truth, that everything is subjective. And so if you always start from the position of this is what I believe, I don't expect you to believe it. I don't think you have to believe it. I'm not saying it's true. You can actually always communicate authentically, because if you walk in the room and this gets worse as you get more senior, here's the answer. You're not giving anyone else any room to say anything. And if you walk in the room and say, I believe this for this reason, what do you believe? If you share your truth in that language, you give people room to authenticate, to communicate authentically. And that is hugely important to these relationships at any stage. The second thing he talks about a lot is being a player, not a victim. And if you listen, you realize once again to children or to others, that children speak in a passive voice when something they don't like happens. Mommy. The toy broke. Interesting. You were on this side of the room. The toy just up and broke, right? Just up and broke. I didn't do anything. The toy broke. That same person comes to work. The project didn't get finished. Shocking. The project didn't finish itself. Right? How often do people use the passive voice? Now, there is no such thing as complete control. Nothing. No one has complete control in any situation. People that leading organizations in some ways have less because not only do they have to control what they do, they have to help persuade everyone else what they do. But if you are able to take responsibility. I'm not late because there was traffic. I'm late because I didn't leave early enough to account for the fact that there was traffic. The project didn't get finished, not because my friend, my partner, didn't do it. My colleague didn't do his part. The project didn't get finished because I didn't set up a team where my colleague wanted to do his part. When you take responsibility and you take full responsibility, that is the most empowering thing. And you can do it at any stage. You have to do it. If you're raising money as an entrepreneur, you have to do it. If you're trying to persuade people to work with you, you have to do it at all stages. And it is in that authentic communication, and it is in that taking full responsibility that we really find the power to scale ourselves and have the kind of impact we want to have.
