Dori Clark, author of The Long Game, explains why hiring attitude beats credentials and how to protect deep work time. She advocates for Google's "20% time" to build skills on speculative projects, and schedules dedicated days for focused work separate from meetings and interruptions.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do. Thanks, Pete.
My name is Dori Clark. I teach at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. I help Individuals and companies get their message heard in a noisy and crowded environment, and my new book is called The Long Game.
Well, Dori, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Question number 2: What is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry?
One of the things that I find funniest is all of the purported Instagram business influencers, and I just enjoy it so much when they pose with the fancy cars. And I was in Florida recently with my mom, and she got she got inspired by them too. So she posed with a Lamborghini that was not hers, and now that is, uh, the photo on the lock screen of her phone.
That's a great, great story. I love it. And you're just thinking about so many people that I've seen, uh, the same situation where they have the car and you barely can see them because they're farther away in the picture. So it's great. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
I think the chapter that most companies should read in the Answers for All Business book is actually about how to hire the right people, because I think that everything stems from having high-quality folks. It's not about your credentials or background. That can be helpful. But ultimately, for me, I am a big believer that attitude and willing to— willingness to learn is critical. And I think about my assistant who's worked with me for 3 years, who trained as a composer and an audio engineer. And we met in a musical theater training program that I'm part of. And he just has so much hustle and just an ability to problem solve in a great way, even though he didn't come in knowing very much about the world of business or business authorship or consulting.
I love that. And, you know, it's been my experience as well, you know, especially, you know, when they talk about how you need to have this technical knowledge. Well, you can learn the technical stuff, but some of the people-based things like the communication, everything like that, you really have to be strong at that as well. And for, like, say, for example, for sales, and, you know, if you don't have that sales ability, it's going to be hard if you have the technical ability but you can't sell. But it's a lot easier for a salesperson to learn the technical information and be able to communicate that. So I love that example of your, your assistant too. It's great. Question number 4, other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
Well, one insight that's been on my mind a lot, Pete, is something that I talk about in my new book, The Long Game. And fundamentally, it's a book about how to apply the principles of strategic thinking to your life and your career. And there's a section where I talk about the importance of 20% time. Now, this is something that Google popularized. It's the idea that employees would take 20% of their time to spend on kind of speculative projects that are outside the scope of their regular work. And I think this is an incredibly useful strategy, both at the enterprise level and at the individual level. If your company is not giving you 20% time, use your own time for 20% time, because we need to constantly be developing ourselves and learning. And sometimes it can be through listening to great podcasts like this one. It could be taking online courses. It could be reading books or doing informational interviews or building your network. But we have to keep ourselves sharp. COVID showed everybody that we can't really predict what's coming down the pike. And so you need to be ready for anything. And the way to do that is to build a Swiss Army knife of skills with that 20% time.
Oh, I love that. And it's so true how you describe that about if the company isn't doing that as a specific part of your time, you carve that time out. Do you have any recommendations how— what works best for you in terms of blocking that time?
Well, for me, I think there's a few different strategies. One is I am a big fan of using a framework that Paul Graham from Y Combinator used, where he talks about manager time and maker time. And that's forming a distinction between the manager time, which is, you know, meeting, meeting, meeting, project update, all the kind of hurly-burly that we have. And then maker time is blocks of unstructured time where you can do deep work projects. And so I actually try to intersperse that throughout the week where I have some days that are manager days and some days that are maker days. And on the maker days, I'm able to, go deep. If there's something that I want to learn about or practice or try out, it gives me an opportunity to do that in a much more flexible way. And I'm also a really big fan of using time where you're doing something else, like your commute time, your exercise time, to do self-development in one form or another, usually listening to a podcast or an audiobook.
I think that's really wise. And, you know, utilizing that time, especially in the commute. I remember commuting into in San Francisco and being in just a completely jam-packed subway. And, you know, having that podcast or, you know, reading whatever article I was reading helped me just kind of tune it out that I was a sardine in this big can, basically. So I love that advice. So I appreciate you sharing that with our listeners. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
Well, a great person that I would recommend for your podcast, Pete, is my good friend Alyssa Cohn. Alyssa is someone I actually write about and profile in The Long Game. And she has a new book that is coming out just about a month after mine. Mine is coming out today, as a matter of fact, as this episode is dropping. But in about a month, Alyssa has her first book coming out called From Startup to Grownup. And it is about lessons for founders about how to evolve into great leaders. And of course, the leadership lessons extend not just to founders, but for anyone who wants to grow into, uh, the best leader that they can be.
I love it. I look forward to, uh, to talking with her. So I appreciate that referral. And our final question, question number 6: please tell me about your first job.
So my, my first job was— I was in college and I actually was a writing center tutor. And, uh, it was fun, you know, a few hours a week they would pay me to, uh, basically sit in a little room, and students would come in who are having trouble writing their papers, and I would read it and critique it and offer suggestions about how to make it stronger. And in some ways, I feel like I'm still, I'm still living it out. I feel like I'm still a little bit of a writing center tutor, uh, because for a lot of my executive coaching clients, many of them are, uh, you know, smart professionals. They may be coaches or consultants or entrepreneurs that want to grow their platform and get their ideas out there and be heard in the marketplace. And so a lot of that is centered around writing for high-profile high-profile publications. So I will often work with people literally breaking down their, their articles and evaluating them and offering feedback and helping them think through how to strengthen them so that they can get published in those high-profile outlets that, that really help build the credibility you need.
And I love that too, because I've, I've had that opportunity to use professionals like yourself as well in the past, and it's amazing when realize that sometimes you're writing this article and you're too close to it and you don't realize a broader audience or a very specific audience. And having someone who has experience like that to be able to share some insights and modifications that would work better is golden if you allow that advice to transpire in that article or that writing piece. So I think it's great. And Dori, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
Pete, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Well, for folks who want to learn more about my work, and especially if they want to dig into how they can apply the principles of strategic thinking in their own lives and careers, I actually have a free resource which is the Long Game Strategic Thinking Self-Assessment. And folks who are interested can download it for free at doryclark.com/thelonggame.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Get hundreds of amazing business insights from previous guest episodes on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening.
