Human Nature At Work!

One of the best parts of this job is just sharing incredible people with you. Today we have David Lee. He goes under the moniker of Human Nature at Work. Not only is he one of the world's leading thinkers in this whole human-centric leadership movement, he's one of the pioneers. And I have the blessing of having him as a mentor. He was one of the first people that got me involved in this whole adventure, and I have nothing but gratitude for all the friendship and encouragement he shared with me throughout the years. So today I get to introduce you to my dear friend, David Lee. Well, in the spirit of practice what we preach, I'm going to share some vulnerability with you. We're going to get into this in a second. Um, I just had an amazing conversation with a dear friend of mine, David Lee, uh, who actually, not only is he a brilliant person, we're going to talk about his work, Human Nature at Work, But he was also instrumental in getting me started in this whole adventure. He gave me some of my early opportunities to speak and share these ideas with people. And he's always been just a tremendous person in my corner, encouraging me and helping me along the way. So anyway, we're gonna bring him back for another— he's been generous, he's gonna stay with me for another half hour and we're gonna talk about some of the stuff we talked about before, but I think we opened up a whole new avenue, right, David?

So actually, do you want to share what happened and then I can immediately link it to what we talked about before?

I think that would be brilliant. Oh, I screwed up. I, I, we had this wonderful conversation. I'm messing around with my Stream Deck here for people who are doing podcasts that have been following us. That's a great tool. I don't get a commission, so just saying it's a really good tool. But I was so engaged in that and I, you know, I was wondering because I was looking at the clock and I said I didn't see my master clock, so I was watching another clock as we were going along, and sure enough, uh, I just never hit the record button. There's, uh, there's 40-plus years of broadcast experience right down the toilet, huh? So yeah, do you want to— you want to take it from there? We were talking about vulnerability, weren't we?

Yeah, I love that. So, um, in our earlier conversation, um, we were talking about like how to humanize the workplace and for leaders how to be more of a human. And by doing that, or bring more of your humanity to the workplace, and by doing that, how it inspires others to bring more of theirs and to be their best. And so one of the ways of doing that is sharing our humanity, so our imperfections. And so I think one of the takeaway from that funny little vignette is that's a great— so that's a great story that you could use in the future about sharing your vulnerability.

I'm blessed with plenty of imperfections, sir.

It's also a great example of one of the other things that we talked about which is engage, and it's something that I try to do, is engage, engaging in the practice of, well, there's two pieces to it. This first part is not true for me in this situation, but I mentioned it in the earlier conversation, is one way of growing as a person and therefore a leader, is when people do things that annoy us, to use that as a mirror and to ask ourselves, how do I embody that trait? Or when do I do that thing? So for instance, let's say there's somebody in the meeting who never seems to listen. And you bring up an idea and they immediately, as soon as you stop talking, they bring up their idea so nobody gets a chance to take in yours or absorb it. And like, man, it drives you crazy that Sally does that.

And then, well, actually, actually, I have another story about that. No, I'm just—

good comedic timing. That's great. Um, and so after, like, we get over our judgy moment to say, like, oh, do I do that in some ways? And so So if somebody drops the ball or makes a mistake and we get in a judging mode, so I'll give you an example for me is if somebody asks for something and I email it to them and then they don't confirm that they got it. And I'm like, "Jeez, can you just acknowledge it?" And I'm now wondering if you're wondering, like maybe it didn't get to you and you're wondering, "How come I," you know, blah, blah, blah. So I do all this like negative judging. And then I catch myself forgetting to do it. And like, bingo, like you did the very thing you're judging. Give this person some grace.

Now that's a huge one, isn't it? It's funny because we'll sit there. I think that's a huge one for leaders to think about because believe it or not, some people might not understand. First of all, we're all leaders, so there's that. But leaders are people. We're people. And when there's a misfire in communication like that, we think the worst sometimes, right? Oh my God, I screwed up, or this person's upset with me, or I made them angry or something. We need to presume that other people might feel that way too, huh? When we don't get back to them or, yeah.

Yeah. And so one of the practices I try to remember is— Is replying to your email.

I love it.

That's great. Is when I get triggered by somebody is to say, okay, like, make sure I get my house in order. Am I doing that thing? Um, so like the email thing, but if it's a behavior, to be willing to look in the mirror and am I doing that behavior? Um, and then also the giving grace because so They're giving grace back to your not hitting recording. I can't tell you how many times I've— I joke sometimes, and I heard this from somebody else where they said that they had a calendar disability. I have this like rear calendar, like I, I— yeah, you can relate to that. Yeah. Like, and that's why we've had that with us. Like, I think I put it in my calendar or it's in my calendar and I quote, know what my schedule is for the day and it's right there. But I don't even see it. No, it's not there.

Yeah, you, you don't make that mistake. It's always me, but I'm gonna let you off the hook. You're really good with your calendar. Alex is really good with my calendar. I just suck at it. Yeah, no, no, it's awful.

I tell you, when, when you like miss that appointment, at first like, geez, Jim, and I'm like, dude, how many appointments have you missed because you either put it like a month later or it was there on the right day but you didn't even see it. So no, believe me, I— it still plagues me to this day.

You know, it's funny, and I don't want to bore our listeners by keep referring to the, to the first conversation we had, which was fantastic. We'll have many more. Um, the, uh I don't want to miss the story that you were telling about that program that you invited me to be a part of, where you said that, you know, you were uncomfortable with hosting, with being the MC, because I think that's a terrific story, not only about what we started off with, about the idea of vulnerability as a strength, and uncertainty, which is something we keep, you know, we keep running into. It's the uncertainty thing's keeping me busier than almost any other topic right now. People trying to embrace this And I mean that, I'm not trying to reduce anybody's uncertainty. I think, was it a few years ago we came up with this bumper sticker, I'm gonna change it. Originally it was adversity, but I'm gonna say, celebrate uncertainty. It's your opportunity to become the person you might not have ever discovered without it. And you certainly discovered something about yourself. So why don't you share that story again?

Yeah, and I'll actually reframe the story So it relates more to uncertainty. And so the— I typically, if I'm teaching storytelling, I describe this as a "I didn't think I could, but I did" story. And so one of the ways, one of the ways that we can help ourself deal with what I call change, challenge, and uncertainty, or one of the way— well, I'll finish the sentence— is to remember is to remember times when we didn't think we could do something, but we did. Hmm. And one of the ways of inspiring a team who's feeling like overwhelmed and scared of the uncertainty and the challenges that we're facing right now, et cetera, is to have them remember times when they didn't think they could, but they did. And so the story that you're referring to is, the story I typically use when I'm teaching that type of story. And it was a really pivotal experience for me that I still, you know, think back on. So it was that event that you and I did, man, it's over 15 years ago, I think.

Oh my God.

I know. And so for the listeners or viewers, I reached out to a nonprofit and asked them I asked the executive director if she'd be interested in me pulling together some fellow speakers to do a fundraising event that related to their audience, which was some cancer survivors. And she said, "That would be wonderful." And then she goes, "Can you be the emcee?" And it was clear she was even more introverted than I am. So it's clear she didn't want to be the emcee. And when she that, my inner voice was like, no, because even though, you know, even at that point in my career, I'd spoken to lots of large audiences, was really comfortable public speaking as an interviewer. I was never like super comfortable with networking and schmoozing. And I thought, well, to be an emcee, you have to be good with that stuff. And I'm not. But she clearly doesn't want to do it, so I'll put my big boy pants on and like be the MC. So we have the event. As you know, you're one of our featured speakers. And when it was over, one of my friends who attended said, so what did you think? And I'm like, yeah, it was great. Remember how good the audience was? They were like a really receptive audience. I'm saying that to you, not to her. Like, do you remember how good the audience was?

No, no, yeah, no, but also I remember how good you were. That's why this surprises me when you talk about— yeah, yeah.

So I, so I said to her like, yeah, you know, I think it went great, the audience was great, um, you know, had a fun time. And, and then she goes, um, what was the biggest takeaway for you? I'm like, oh, okay, let me think about that. And then it hit me and I said, "Do you remember in my talk when I, one of the points was challenge self-limiting beliefs?" And she goes, "Yeah, that was, you know, that's a good reminder." And you know that saying, "Don't believe everything you think." And I said, "You know what just hit me? Like all these years I've been telling myself that I couldn't be a host or an MC of an event." because I'm an introvert. And not only was I able to do it, but I enjoyed it and I got a lot of positive feedback about it. So now I'm thinking, all these years you've been telling yourself you can't do this thing and you can, and it's actually easy. What else have you been telling yourself you can't do, but you can, and maybe it'll be easy? So that's an example of a "I didn't think I could, but I did" story. And so I really encourage listeners, viewers, to think about like, what are times you didn't think you could do something? And maybe it was really hard.

Yeah, I was gonna say, even when it's not easy, because yeah.

And then also maybe you surprise yourself where you needed to update your self-image. Like, yeah, maybe back in the day it would have been hard, but I've got a lot more skills, more confidence, whatever, and now it was easy. So like maybe this thing, this uncertainty that we're dealing with, and this big like the market upheaval or whatever, maybe I do have what it takes to deal with that.

You know, it's so, so interesting that you say that too, because I know after we thought we had recorded and before we started recording, we were having another interesting conversation that we probably should have recorded too. But you mentioned something about— we were talking about hate, which we'll save for another episode. But one of the key takeaways that relates back to this idea of uncertainty and vulnerability and how being true to our human nature can really make us a much stronger leader is that thought that maybe people don't get punched in the face enough. We talked about that a little bit, right? Have we crippled a couple of generations? And in general, because there's always no description of a generational— no generalization of a generational cohort, that's kind of awkward, but can really describe the individuals in it, right? I mean, there's always remarkable exceptions and whatnot. But have we made it too safe? Have we made it so that people are afraid of failure? They're afraid of this uncertainty. They're afraid to take the chance, right? Oh, I could embarrass myself. I could end up on Facebook making an ass out of myself trying to MC see this show, right? I don't know, man.

Um, a couple of things come up for me. One is, yeah, is the social media side of it, and I think it's a legitimate concern. It's like when we were growing up, we could do really dumb stuff and it's not immortalized.

Wait a minute, I know all we had to worry about was the Polaroid camera and the Xerox machine.

Right? It's, and that part I'm not gonna get into. The part that I think is something that really speaks to the leadership is the whole phenomenon of how oftentimes in the majority of educational settings, you're rewarded for getting the quote, right answer. As opposed to rewarded for asking more interesting questions, rewarded for trying new stuff and failing and learning from that. So I mean, I even remember when I was in graduate school, I was actually taking an undergraduate class. I can't remember, it was maybe, you know, social psychology class. And it was before like the midterm, and the professor was asking people to ask him any and all kinds of questions. And one or two students asked questions that seemed a little tangential. And this young woman raises her hand and she goes something like, "Um, can we just stick to questions on topics that are going to be on the midterm.

Ah, yeah.

And, and to his credit, he's— he kind of laid into it. That's not the tour credit part, but he said something about, you know, the, the goal of education isn't to ace the midterm, it's to, you know, develop, to acquire knowledge and wisdom. And so We're not just talking about what you need to learn to ace the midterm. And unfortunately, that student's mindset is way more prevalent today.

Right? Even having, even learning how to have that conversation is more important than most of the material that's there, right? I mean, that's wild.

And here's the thing that I think about back to your initial question about, you know, don't look at me.

I don't remember what it was. You're the one that's better. I always rely on you to bring that together. I love it.

I'm good. As far as having to be right and feeling safe enough to make mistakes. That even though— okay, so I, I sometimes cringe at how the concept of this is a safe place gets used and how about safe place means a place where you're not going to get triggered. And that's not what a safe space should be, in my opinion. A safe place is how do I make it as comfortable as possible as a leader for people with less position power to speak up, right? Say their points of view that are maybe different from me, and especially when they're different from me.

Amen.

That's, and that's why I, I like beat the drum of psychological safety as well as If I'm, let's say I'm not in a position of overt or, you know, formal leadership, but I've got a real intense personality, like I'm a Tony Robbins, you know, kind of like strong, intense person, that force of nature personality, my belief is my responsibility is to know how to dial that in a way so people who are more gentle souls, you know, are willing to speak up.

Yeah.

So it is, yeah, it's position power.

Let me stop, right?

How about that?

No, you're hitting on all cylinders. And especially that idea that, um, yeah, I don't like— I'm with you. I don't like the application of safe space the way it's used so often now, as an absence of fear, an absence of danger, an absence of risk, right? I think A perfect safe space is a space where we can have a spirited debate without the fear that we're going to get canceled, and having it respectfully, obviously. But I don't like it when people aren't arguing passionately. I don't like it when people make it too personal, you know, start throwing ad hominem attacks or something like that. But yeah, we need to have that happen. Wow, you know what? I knew round 2 was going to be even better.

Some other time we'll get to round one again though, because yeah, there's really cool stuff. I want to share my, my, um, like different, like, I don't know if it's slightly or slightly different or different take on that.

Oh, that's it, we're on.

It's, um, when I think about it now, you have, which I really admire in you, You have way higher comfort level with conflict than I do. And willingness to like— Oh, really? It makes it even more impressive. Which makes it even more impressive. You're willing to like throw out political issues and stuff. Like I'll see you on Facebook and like, oh my God, Jimmy. You're willing to do that. What I mean is not so much, although I'm like all for what you're saying, like how to make it more comfortable where people are talking about conflict. When I say the safe space, the part that I sort of cringe at is the part of if I'm triggered by your idea, that means you're wrong and need to not say that idea so I can feel safe.

Right.

And there's a— and with your years of immersion in Eastern philosophy, there's that saying, if it's a Buddhist saying, about you can either ask for the world to be carpeted so your feet don't hurt, or you can get leather soles and have shoes kind of thing. And so that's kind of where I was going.

Yeah, no, we're in harmony. Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's— and I think the two go together, you know. It's, uh, we've created— I think we've created an environment where some people expect never to be challenged, you know, never to be in a situation where they feel uncomfortable. And I don't know, I, I don't think I have a right not to be offended.

Right, right.

Besides, good conversations come from that, right? It causes us to think. If we're offended, it means something's— somebody challenged something on us if we're offended. I think that's a good place to start. I can't stand it when people don't express that either, you know. If I offend you, I want you to tell me, because then we have the beginning of a conversation. If I don't know, then we just go away angry, right?

And that's actually the What you just mentioned is sort of what I think of as the flip side of the concept of safety and psychological safety. And the part that I really emphasize in my work is when you said about if you don't say it and then you go away angry and then the resentment builds. And that's that scenario in the workplace is one of the reasons why, again, I'm always like banging the drum for psychological safety because how many, you know, how many times, like in any audience you speak to or I speak to, how many times in each participant's career have they had a managerial moment of truth with their boss that they were upset with something their boss said or did, but they didn't feel psychologically safe to speak up. And so instead of speaking up and being able to clear the air, work it through, and like, okay, move on, they held on to that resentment.

Yeah.

And, um, and what did they do? They did the, quote, quiet quitting. Oh God, a little less. They worked a little less harder. They started You know, searching for new job opportunities on company time, et cetera. And so I still remember when I first got into this business doing focus groups for an organization where they were having morale issues. And it was so wild because I felt like I was doing an anger management group or something. You know, because when I would ask people, people about like, what is it like working here, et cetera, et cetera, they would regale me of stories from years ago where their boss or senior leadership did something that they felt was disrespectful.

Oh yeah.

And they were still holding onto it, but they never felt safe enough to bring it up. So they were never able to talk it through and let it go. And so they were what Gallup referred to as road warriors, R-O-A-D, retired on active duty.

Yeah.

55% of the population, they've retired emotionally, but they still show up for the check. Whereas if they're able to talk about what's up, like, drives me crazy that you micromanage me. I wouldn't recommend saying it that way, but you know, bring up the micromanaging or I'd really appreciate if you would not blah, blah, blah in meetings. Say this to me. And whatever it is, work it through and move on versus hang on to that hurt.

Don't you think too many leaders are afraid that opening up that line of communication is a little bit risky too? Because, and I know we've talked about this before, we're not saying you have to kowtow to every wish, right? You're not going to bend to every whim, but at least it's the start of the negotiation. You know, somebody's feeling this way, the leader's feeling that way, the organization needs are— we're going to do a Venn diagram now, right? But somewhere we have to find where all these things intersect. But it starts with that expression and having— and you know what, I'm going to put a little onus too, because this comes up in our Rising Leaders Workshops a lot lately. Like, so, and again, it's just a this is an awful generalization, so I don't mean to paint everybody with the same brush, but just for the sake of conversation, there is a trend where a lot of younger managers, younger leaders, um, don't know how to approach, you know, somebody that's senior to them. They're a little bit hesitant, they're a little bit afraid. And to me, well, that's where courage comes in, right? Courage is not the absence of fear. The absence of fear is stupidity. You know, courage is our ability to see what what frightens us and act in spite of— in fact, if there isn't any risk or danger, there is no courage. Courage is defined by that, right? So how— I know, I know this is something you help people overcome. How do you help people get through that first step where maybe if they're lacking in confidence or experience that they can embrace a little bit of courage and take that first step forward?

Yeah, and if I could back up, I want to close the loop before we do that. When you— we said about Leaders are afraid to bring up those issues, and you're not advocating kowtowing. I really love that you mentioned that, and I really want to emphasize because it's, it's one of the most common and both understandable but not accurate fears that I see in, or I hear in seminar. And so So one of the terms that I use to describe language that refers to this phenomenon of like bringing up an issue is mentioning the unmentionable. And so it's like when you're in a position of power, there are certain things that the person with less power is probably not going to mention.

Right.

So let's say you're a micromanager, man, you tend to micromanage, for instance. And so you can mention that thing that they're not going to mention.

In fact, you should, right?

Exactly, exactly. That being the case though, doesn't mean— so let me give you an example. So I, um, one of the types of conversations that I work with managers on having is what I call the autonomy conversation. And so, um, one of the most useful and I think important, uh, stats in the world of management, uh, comes from Blessing White, which shows the number one driver of discretionary effort, i.e., employees working harder than they need to you know, if you have to work X units of productivity to not get fired, but you do X plus 20, whatever, whatever units, you know, imaginary units, that extra 20 discretionary. The number one driver of discretionary effort is autonomy. So people getting to be like the small business owner of their job. So that being said, oftentimes what I'm when I'm working with managers on that, they'll say, or I'll tend to bring it up if they don't bring it up first, that I'm sure on their team they've got some people that the idea of giving them more freedom is scary to them because they're not really doing a great job as it is. And so one of the things I coach the managers on is, And having the autonomy conversation, you can bring up you want them to have more autonomy. And when they express, which you expect that they will do, that they feel like you're a micromanager, it doesn't mean you like suddenly say, "Oh, okay, I'll give you more autonomy because you think I'm a micromanager." It's like, no, now that we've brought the issue out in the open, you know, the elephant in the room, we've mentioned the unmentionable. Now we can talk about it. And the takeaway isn't like, okay, I'll be totally hands-off. The takeaway is going to be, I'll explain why I've been doing the level of oversight that I've been doing.

There you go.

Yeah, you help me understand what you need from me in order to feel more self-directive. I will also share my perspective of—

More empowered. Yeah.

Yeah. How much oversight I need in the interim as we give you baby steps to incrementally grow your autonomy, et cetera, et cetera. So just because you bring up the issue doesn't mean necessarily that it's Pandora's box and now you're going to have to give people whatever they ask for. It's like, no, now we could talk about it and have a mature conversation about it. Whoops, you're muted. Still muted.

Yeah, you know, it builds on that idea. You know, one of the greatest assets of leadership is trust, but there's a couple key things I wanted to reemphasize that you just said too. Amazing. First one is you said a lot of the leader's reactions, fears, if you want, trepidations, uncertainty, they're understandable. And I agree with you 100%. I understand why it's tough sometimes to share power, to share authority, to share autonomy. But I'd argue that these things will not grow unless you're willing to share them. But, you know, when you see threats around you, especially that position, you know, that— in fact, one of the things I coach people to do is always train your replacement. And I've had people come up with very rational reasons why not to do that, and the most The obvious is, well, I'm training this person to take my job. And I said, yeah, but one of the saddest things I ever hear in workshops is when someone, and it happens a couple times a year, someone will tell me about this great opportunity they had that they weren't able to take advantage of. And I'll say, well, why? He said, 'Cause there was nobody there to take my place. And that's, get somebody ready. The other thing that you hit on a while back was this idea, I'm gonna say, I'm going to say it the way I usually say it. Again, I think, I know we're singing in harmony. Leadership has nothing to do with rank or title or position of authority. Has nothing to do with that at all. It has to do with your ability to inspire, empower, and guide others. So everyone does it to some degree. The trick is to become more conscious, more aware of it, and build your toolbox, build your skillset, right? But we all do that. We all touch people's hearts instead of just their heads. We all give people some of what they need to succeed, and we all guide people. It's funny because I know I told you about working with the incarcerated kids, and some of them are fantastic leaders. They're very inspirational. They give people the tools they need to get the job done, and they're willing to mentor them. It's just what direction are we going to go in? But it's the same thing, right, with an effective leader or effective manager or not. So yeah, no, you hit on so many key things. Each of these is going to turn into another episode, by the way.

Wait, and actually, um, related to everybody's a leader, I want to touch on that, but I, I also want to go back to the, the natural fear of opening up Pandora's box.

Yeah, yeah.

And so two things, um, that I totally relate to when I'm hearing managers have reluctance. One is— and I experienced this when I'm soliciting input, and I bet you do have the same experience— where I will interview people in an organization that I'll be speaking with to get a sense of what would be most helpful, you know, for them to learn, etc. And so often people bring up issues or topics that are so far afield of what I'm being brought in to talk about. There's part of me that fears like, oh, are they going to feel like, oh, he asked me for my input and now he's not going to cover it. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, so you're asking— so just like leaders I do.

I actually created a disclaimer for that because almost every presentation I start with this. I said, look, this can go anywhere you want. What you need to talk about, what you want to talk about, is much more important than what I think you need to hear. And that lets me off the hook.

I love it. So, uh, like a simple example of like, man, I don't want to like open Pandora's box, is just the simple SMART example of supervisors, managers, senior leaders asking for input from people in the trenches for ideas for improvement. And like, oh, I don't want to ask for ideas, and then what about if we can't implement them all? Well, not all the ideas are going to be good, and no, you won't implement them all. The key is to be clear up front, this, you know, here's, here's the rules of engagement, the parameters, etc. So, so that's one way of mitigating the fear of opening the door to a deluge of suggestions or feedback that I can't address.

And you can, and you can always acknowledge it and appreciate their input, right? Whether it's going to be used or not.

Man, and that's a really important point. So a real practical takeaway for listeners or viewers is the last thing you want to do is emphasize your input matters. We want everybody to be looking for opportunities to make things work better, delight our customers more, et cetera, and then to constantly be shooting down ideas and people thinking like, oh, I guess they didn't mean it. And so what I always recommend is separate the idea from the initiative that they're showing and coming up with ideas. So man, Jim, you know, high five! I love it that you're always looking for ways to improve how we treat our customers. Um, so thank you for that idea.

Well, I stole it from you actually. I was just listening. I said, what would What would David Lee say in this situation?

And so separating the way to go, keep bringing those ideas. Well, actually, let me redo this because I don't want to do sandwich technique, which oftentimes comes across as contrived and manipulative. So let's say, we'll replay that. So you come to me with an idea about how to delight the customers more. And let's say I have some serious doubts about why that might not work. So I, I, if I'm on my game, I, I won't shoot that idea down. If I'm on my game that day, I'll remember to, if I think it's like not a great idea, to say, can you tell me a little more about that? So I'm gonna, um, uh, um, as you mentioned in our first conversation, seek first to understand. So I'm going to gather data and then I'll probably say, I'll say, I love it that you're always looking for opportunities to make a contribution. Thank you for that. Let me think more about it. And then we could talk later about whether we can implement that or we need to tweak it or what. And so So I'm trying to separate the way to go, showing initiative and using your brain, from whether or not that idea is feasible. That's kind of a simple practical takeaway. Let me stop. Anything you want to say before I say the other part?

No, no, no. I'm good.

Okay. I'm making notes here.

Yeah.

Another point about Pandora's box. So there's the— be clear on me asking for— me, the supervisor, manager, leader, asking for input and feedback is a data gathering. It's not a one-to-one, everything you ask for or say gets given or implemented. The very, very legitimate concern and You know, even though my first career was as a therapist, when I'm in a seminar context, I have this in the back of my mind where, you know, people are complicated and people— everybody has their cross they're bearing, their burdens they're dealing with. And the opening Pandora's box around an issue is so the manager being afraid of bringing up issues that they're not able to handle or emotions that they don't have the ability to deal with and manage themselves.

Yeah.

So, and, and I, so I get I get that.

Well, there it is. You know, leadership is sharing. A leader shares. You know, the rest of the conversation is about what we're willing to share and how. And I think you— boy, I'm making notes because now you've got about— you're committing— you just committed to about 6 episodes where we'll— and I'm going to make the bold promise to everyone that we're going to dig into a lot of these ideas in depth. We're going to get the big shovel out. Because they're all important, and it's interesting in a short conversation you can only touch on so many, stimulate some thinking. But no, you're right, it speaks again back to that idea of vulnerability and uncertainty, that we might— one of the reasons we don't implement ideas is we don't have the resources to do it right now, right? Or the timing is not right. And there's nothing wrong with sharing that information with somebody and say, hey, you know what, thanks, thanks for contributing. That's an interesting idea. It's going in the file, and not the circular file, right? The active file, the one we churn out every year and re-examine what the contributions were. So, yeah, hey, listen, we just cooked up almost— we're going on 45 minutes, so it's almost time to wrap things up. I want to make sure people understand how to get in touch with you.— to have you come and speak with them and work with them and consult with them. Tell us a little bit more about how to get in touch with the amazing David Lee and Human Nature at Work.

Thank you, good sir. And then, and we can add to our list the last thing you said about how we can avoid creating learned helplessness in the workforce. That I just wrote that down. We definitely—

Okay, cool. That's, that's 7. We've got 7 episodes to—

So thanks for asking for that. So, uh, humannatureatwork.com. Um, and I'm slowly repopulating my website with articles. I, I've got, I don't know, half a dozen. I've got over 150 that I've written, but again, repopulating. Also, excuse me, uh, if you want to follow me on LinkedIn, I do, um, a fair amount of posting, you know, 1 to 3 or 4 times a week on both personal and organizational performance. If you, uh, if you go— since there are a lot of David Lees— if you put in David Lee Maine and, you know, the state of Maine, you'll find me. And I, um, related to psychological safety, if you, if you look at the featured section, I just have a link to, um, a recent article, um, that got a lot of traction on on what happens when an employee doesn't have psychological safety. And I imagine most viewers or listeners will relate to the story behind that.

Cool, we'll link that one directly on the episode here then. So it'll be right there. David, thank you so much as always. What a wonderful conversation. And, uh, can't wait to have you back. We've got 7 episodes to tick off here.

There you go. Thank you. Uh, super fun. I look forward to continuing the conversation. All right.