Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things (Pt. 3)

Welcome to Readers, the podcast for the lifelong learner. Join us on our weekly dose of wisdom where we talk about the real life lessons and applications of books. Enjoy. Hello and welcome back to Readers. This is the third and final episode of us covering Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. Last episode, during part 2, we discussed a plethora of concepts, including teamwork and coaching to maintain harmonious passion, deliberate play, and even the importance of the temporary plateau. Today we are on part 3, chapters 7 to 9, where we'll talk a little bit about creating windows where hidden potential can truly shine. Today I have with me Mr. Gandhi once again. Welcome to the podcast. Let's begin with chapter 7 titled Systems of Opportunity: Opening Doors and Windows. So in this chapter, the author refers back to the last 2 parts when he mentions that character skills and scaffolding helps to unlock potential. But when it comes down to doing greater things, it's actually quite simple. The answer is just opportunity and systems. He says good systems provide opportunity and open doors. And you know, that's, that's a pretty easy thing to say. Good opportunities provide, or good systems can provide those opportunities. They can open doors, they make things easier. But I want to ask you, Mr. Gandhi, can you talk a little bit about the opportunities that might have allowed you to go to both UCLA and USC for law, and the systems that helped you succeed there and in your field today?

Sure. I, I, I guess there's a lot of, there's a lot of different elements, right? So one of the probably biggest things that I've always had throughout life is just having good mentors. And that's, that's just a huge part of my systems, having people around me who are able to give me advice, help me out, bring, you know, bounce ideas off of when I'm trying to make important decisions. And so That, that's been number one, just having an amazing network of older brothers and friends and, uh, respected elders that I could turn to for advice. Um, individually, I have my own systems of how I study that probably helped me be successful, whether it's how I take notes or, you know, the way, the way in which I prepare for an exam. Um, and, and those are, I guess, personal systems, but I think here, obviously, he's talking kind of about the the larger systems, like the, the grander system that can impact people at large. Um, look, I, for me, I, I've been blessed to, you know, I went to private school growing up, uh, through 8th grade, you know, and I had opportunity. I went to high school in a really affluent neighborhood. So those opport— those, there's already systems in place for you to succeed. And I think the question that he really raises here is how do you create those kinds of systems for people who don't have those same advantages, right? Like, What for the people who are disadvantaged, how do you make that less of a disadvantage for them? Uh, he talks about Finland, how they, and as a really cool case study of how, you know, being disadvantaged was less of a disadvantage in Finland than anywhere else because they had the highest, not only did they have the highest rate of high performers, they had the lowest rate of low performers. So a lot of times we're, we're so focused on raising the bar for the people at the top. But it's about how do you raise the floor so that the floor is not so low and so you don't have this big disparity. And I really like how he focuses on that.

Yeah, for sure. And let's dive into that right now. You know, there's— there was an international standardized test called the OECD that the author brings up. This was an international test which millions of high schoolers took when it came out in 2000. Now, the results of these tests were analyzed and it came out that the winner was Finland. As you mentioned, this was definitely the underdog, and they won 3 times in a row from 2000 to 2006. The test was taken every 2 years. And, you know, while you think that, you might think, okay, you know, maybe this was just a fluke. Even if it happened 3 times, America must still be up there. But the author says that America was actually in the late 20s and 30s in terms of placement. Now you might be thinking, right, how does this happen? These guys are the number 1 economy, you know, people are pretty affluent here. Um, we have so many great things, but the author says that this success wasn't due to the money and all of that. It was due to their culture. He says that they truly believe in the potential of all students, not just the current best and brightest. He says that their educational motto is, "We can't afford to waste a brain." And he also brings us brings up another interesting point, and he says that the US education system is rooted around the winner-take-all mindset. It's basically the opposite of what Finland believes in. He says, we believe potential is rooted in innate ability. That's why you see the richer kids go to better schools, they have better programs in education. The smarter kids, the more talented ones right off the jump, get into the gifted and talented programs. They're the ones who who are invested in, and they're the ones who are pushed and pushed to do better. If you guys remember from Outliers last time when we read by Michael Gladwell, he also talked about that where he says the people who are born— the hockey players who are born in those certain months are just older, and they keep— it's like the snowball effect where they just keep getting better because they're the ones getting invested in, whereas the ones who aren't given that initial boost or that initial jump don't really, whereas Finland, it's the other way around. Mr. Gandhi, did you feel like you saw this a lot growing up, you know, in the American education system? Do you feel like it's changed through the years? How do you think that really affects us today?

Yeah, I don't think it's really changed. I mean, I think, I think it is the same type of system, right? Like you still have a focus on getting into gated, you know, GATE programs or gifted students programs or accelerated learning programs or IB programs and There's obviously a high emphasis on kind of the top students getting into top programs. All the best teachers focus their attention there. Those are the teachers that probably get compensated a little bit better as well. So I don't know that the system has really changed. I mean, again, for me personally, I was on the other side of it. So I was the student in the AP classes. I was a student in the gifted programs. And so I was the beneficiary of it. But certainly as someone who's been around the education system, my wife taught in public elementary schools. Including in inner cities, you do see that there just isn't much of an investment in all kids. Right? And so he talks a lot about in Finland how he uses a couple of things, how like, A, in Finland, the teachers have a great deal of autonomy to use their judgment to help students grow. So they don't have to just waste their time testing, teaching to the test. They're able to focus on like, hey, what is this particular kid's needs and create individualized learning plans. And they do this in a public system where you have 20 kids in the classroom. So it's not like it's a one-on-one tutoring program, because obviously everyone's like, oh, one-on-one tutoring would be great, but we can't afford it. And that, that totally makes sense. And so clearly there are other options. Um, for the other example that he gives is looping, where he talks about how having the same teacher for 2 years in a row provides this huge opportunity for that teacher to really invest in the particular student. So how you design the education system can actually really produce better outcomes for the low-performing students. And then also like this idea of like having individualized mentors and coaches from a young age. I think he talks about the fact that in Finland they have these programs where you have a dedicated person who goes around and he gives an example of a principal who herself takes time out to mentor and tutor individual kids who are maybe struggling, so that again you bring the floor up. And if you bring the floor up, then everyone kind of, uh, succeeds together.

Yeah, I mean, like you said, you know, just going a little bit more about depth, Finnish schools really create that culture of opportunity by tailoring the education to the individual, right? Whereas you see here, you have, you know, your public school system where the students are kind of expected to mold into that system, whereas Finnish schools create that culture of opportunity. Um, they do this with a few things. The first is a process of looping, right? So this means that their students share the same teacher for up to 6 straight years. Um, you might be thinking, you know, why does that help? But in this way, teachers get to know their students better. They have a chance to evolve from an instructor to a true mentor And they can even help with real social and emotional challenges. I mean, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to talk to somebody who I've just known as a teacher for just one year about, you know, my personal challenges and issues and different things like that. But these guys know them for 6 years. And he says even the people at the top, right, these principals are expected to take responsibility for children's education. They take out time out of their weeks to teach classes. Every student has, or every school has like student welfare teams Private tutoring is very, very common. Um, and along with all of this, Finland even has an hour less of school for students and teachers. And the author says that this helps maintain harmonious passion, more time to complete work during the school day rather than over weekends or nighttime, and it also promotes a love of learning. They're given breaks and they're even encouraged to play.

Yeah, I, you know, I thought another really interesting thing outside of just focusing on teachers that he talks about is just giving students the opportunity and the freedom to explore their interests. He talks about how they have this program called Me and My City where, where kids have the opportunity to do entrepreneurial thinking, take on projects. They could run an imaginary ice cream shop, for example. And these kinds of experiential learning tools, again, how we operate rather than lecturing to kids for hours upon hours or having them sit at a desk. If we are able to incorporate project-based learning, these kinds of tools can really empower a lot of students who maybe don't learn the same way that the top students do, which is just reading and memorizing. And then also really fostering a love for reading. I think they talk about giving Uh, in Finland, let's see, it says they give a free bag of books to every baby born in Finland. That was a program that, um, and again, the, the benefits of book ownership, I get there's been a lot, a lot written about it, but simply owning a book and seeing a book makes the book much less daunting, right? Like when you don't, when you grow up in an environment that's devoid, you know, that's void of books and then now suddenly you're put in front of, you know, call it Homer's Iliad, you're like, what do I do with this thing? It's daunting. But if you've seen books throughout growing up, um, now you're— you feel comfortable with them, you— they're approachable. And obviously it fosters a natural level of learning. So, uh, so many, so many things that could be done at a mass scale that can really encourage people to love learning and encourage kids to enjoy reading, which is really the build— the fundamental, uh, building block for so much of education.

No, absolutely. And that's kind of an interesting topic you brought up. Like, I'm just thinking, for so many people, their first impression of something like math or something like reading, you get it in school, right? And it's, um, it's like, hey, finish this book and pass this test. It becomes automatically a chore, you know? Um, and I'm just thinking back to when I was much, much younger, um, first, you know, reading when I've been lucky and, um, fortunate enough to develop a, a love of it, which is, you know, why I'm doing this podcast in the first place. But, you know, just having that exposure to books from a more of a positive angle from my parents and people around me who were always encouraging me to read and learn more from the process, not just as a way for me to get a grade. And there's, yeah, go on.

Yeah, on the reading topic, there's a really interesting piece that they share about this elementary school teacher who realized like, hey, kids are trending more and more. And we see this across the world, but kids are trending more and more towards time on televisions and screens. And not reading obviously creates a huge barrier to your out, you know, to your learning. Like you, it stunts your growth when you're not reading and you're not enjoying reading. But one of the things she explores is like, she explored is that like kids don't enjoy reading because they're forced to read certain books. They're, you know, our schools I think are still doing it. You go to an AP language class in high school, kids have to read classics. And I love classics. I enjoyed my AP literature class and AP language class a lot. But at the same time, I know for a lot of people it was a big drag. And giving kids the opportunity to just choose what they're interested in and just read because just reading in itself is important. So she did this thing called Library Recess where elementary school kids could go to the library and get whatever book they wanted. It could be about unicorns, it could be about Power Rangers, Avengers, whatever it is that you, that you want to read. And there was no limitation, but the idea was just give them something to talk about that, that, you know, inspires their imagination and creates like this enthusiasm for wanting to read. Because again, those, that will have a much bigger, uh, better outcome over the long run.

Sure. And you know, while reading all this, I was like, you know, this sounds like This is pretty cool, you know, why can't we all do this? But the author actually says that this is a lot to do with that culture aspect. If you go to the US and, you know, there have been tests and studies done, the author says the most respected profession in the United States is being a doctor, right? But in Finland, it's actually teaching. And this is definitely not a result of chance, right? It's due to Finland's 1970s education reformation. Which the author goes more into depth about. He talks about how, um, Finland requires all teachers to complete master's degrees from top colleges. They trained all of them really well, and they pay them much better than they do here. Um, and in the 1990s, Finland even gave teachers the right to change curriculums and have autonomy with their classes. Now you think about it, right? They're given incredible freedom as well as responsibility. They're given a good paycheck. They're required to go to a good college, which automatically elevates you a certain status, right? You're able to say, you know, I had to work hard for the position I'm in today. And that, yeah, that creates a sense of not only pride, but it also motivates you to do better in your own field, right? You're not at the bottom of the chain anymore. You're somebody who truly is inspiring others and motivating kids to achieve their own full potential because that's what you've been working towards your whole life. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Mr. Gandhi, you know, what do you think makes a certain profession have a certain level of respect, certain level of value? What makes it coveted? And what did you kind of go through that process when you were choosing your own profession?

I mean, I think you choose to do what you want to do because you're passionate about it for some people. And for a lot of people, look, at the end of the day, your career is a means to an end. Something that you're doing to provide for your family and to have a better life. And I think in terms of when you think about education, you know, a lot of the smartest people, a lot of the brightest people, a lot of the most motivated and inspired people, they're not going down the education path because the teachers don't get paid very well. And I think there's plenty of data to support that, that across other countries, you know, just out, even outside of this book, there's plenty of studies that have shown that. Teachers have a higher standard of living in other countries, and that's just a bottom, you know, of reality. And so that obviously discourages many. But then on top of it, even those who still feel passionate about it because it's their calling, there's like a lack of autonomy. So you, you know, you have these big curriculums that are set forth by the government, and you kind of have to teach that, and, and you have to stay within those lines. And for a lot of teachers, they're, you know, again, if you're smart and you're creative, You're like, I want to inspire young minds and I want to do things and have some flexibility to be creative and think outside the box to do that. And so that autonomy also does bring with it respect because then you can really feel like, hey, this person's not just— a lot of times the comment is like, oh, a teacher is just someone who just takes the material that they get and they just kind of regurgitate it. But that's not really the case. There's a lot more that goes on in the classroom. And sure, there may be some subset of teachers who do that. Um, but the teachers that we want to bring into our education system, they're the ones who want to go outside the box, and we really should be able to empower them to use their skills and their passion to do something amazing.

Yeah, for sure. And you know, the purpose of all of this info is, is really to just explain that an education system, or, or any system, is only successful if everybody— and in this case, all children and all teachers— have an equal opportunity to reach their potential, right? And this brings us to the end of chapter 8, chapter 7. Let's move on to chapter 8, Mining for Gold. So as was shown in the past chapter, growth isn't done alone, right? It takes a village to raise a child, as you might know, Mr. Gandhi, from raising kids, or in some cases, a country, right? At the end of the day, success is a team effort. Now, the author brings up an interesting concept, what he calls collective intelligence. This is a group's capacity to solve problems together. And collective intelligence is what measures team success. He says it's not IQ, it's not ability, and it's not even expertise. It's this concept of collective intelligence. And he says collective intelligence rises as team members leverage each other's strengths in pursuit of a shared purpose. And often unleashing hidden potential is actually less about having the best pieces and more about the best glue.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting, right? I'm, I'm a sports fan. So when you think about, and he talks about the NBA a little bit, but not in this detail, but think about all the good teams that have come together. Mm-hmm. And you have like the stacked team with 3 stars, 4 stars, and they, they flame out entirely, right? And they don't work out. Everyone's like, on paper, they're amazing. Why are they not performing on the court? And I think it's about this collective intelligence that you can have 4 experts on a team of 5, or you can have the best people in the same team, but those teams often underperform. And you have a scrappy young team that maybe doesn't have any experts, and they have this incredible collective intelligence, and that's what leads them to be good at what they do. I really like what he says in terms of We're always taught that the sum of the parts is greater than the parts themselves. But in many cases, that doesn't end up being the case. And the reason for that poor outcome is this lack of collective intelligence, or when you don't have people who are team players. And so really focusing on collaboration is really important.

Yeah. No, I mean, I wanted to ask you, actually, can you give some examples and speak on your personal experience with that? Collective intelligence in, in the workplace for yourself, you know, working, um, in your own job?

Yeah, sure. I mean, well, I think law firms are great examples of that, right? Because at the law firm, you know, when you, when you go to a law firm out of law school, you have all these people who are top of their class, doing, do, you know, really smart graduates. Um, and so you have a lot of talent, but, uh, you don't often end up with the most effective outcomes because there's this pro-social or like this collaboration skills that are still missing. And that's something that's developed over time, which is why you have a lot of companies that will go to a smaller law firm over the biggest law firm because they know that, hey, the smaller law firm will deliver actually better outcomes and better results, even though these people didn't graduate from Harvard or Stanford or Yale Law School.

Yeah, you're a big fish in a small pond.

Yeah, exactly. And so You know, I think, I think you see that again and again. I mean, it happens in corporate America as well, where, you know, you, you go to a company and they hire all these top executives and then the top executives don't really, they don't gel together because they're not collaborating. They're working in silos. They're not sharing information freely. They're not select. They're like, the whole point of having really smart people is to solicit everyone's input because in theory everyone has really good ideas. And so now you can pull the best ideas and from them, pick the right one. But a lot of times you don't see that happening. Those people are working in their own silo, making their own decisions and coming back to this, you know, kind of like, I wanna be the leader mentality, which ends up backfiring. And so then you underperform.

Sure. You know, one thing he kind of switches, he kind of switches topics a little bit here. And he talks about not just the parts, but he talks a little bit about leaders. He says, likely, more often than not, we often choose the ones who dominate conversations, not the ones who elevate them, right? So we often pick the leaders, the loudest guy in the room. He says it's called the Babel effect. You know, it's the guy who's always talking, the guy who's dominating the conversation, the one who often isn't actually letting other people speak and basically just wants to be seen as the smartest person in the room. Often they're not. But he says these are the people who we often choose as our leaders. Mr. Gandhi, do you feel like you agree with that take? Do you feel like you've kind of seen something different? What would you say?

No, absolutely. This is true, right? Like, I mean, you see this no matter what, whether even if it's your temple group trying to do a project together, a service project, or it's at work on a team, right? Like the loudest voice ends up being the one who kind of gets the most limelight. They look like they're the most successful. They end up being the leaders. The introverts, and there's a lot, I think I'm blanking on the name of the book, but there's a really famous book about introverts and how they're really the most successful leaders. But that ability to observe and take in and digest everyone's feedback, the ability to kind of pay attention to what are people's strengths and respect that and appreciate and bring them together. It's about having that, the glue guy, right? Like, I think the best leaders are often the introverts who are that glue guy who like, they kind of see the whole thing and then they take a moment to reflect on it and bring people together. But yeah, it is very easy to automatically defer to that person who's speaking and you're like, hey, that person clearly knows what they're doing. Yeah. They talk about it so clearly and they're the loudest and, and that person gets more and more opportunity. And so kind of like, Uh, it's like becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where like, you know, you speak a lot and so then you get more opportunity, and now, now suddenly what you've said sounds right. So then it kind of goes back in its loop, um, uh, and you kind of forget about some of the other people who may have a lot of talent.

Absolutely. And the author actually, I mean, he doesn't deny it. He says narcissists are more likely to rise into leadership roles, right? He says it happens all the time, but he says that they are actually less effective. They undermine collaboration and they make lots and lots of selfish decisions. He says collective intelligence is served by a leader who utilizes pro-social skills to serve his team's cause, not his ego. And he even goes as far to say, is if we only listen to the smartest person in the room, we often miss out on discovering the smarts that the rest of the room actually has to offer. Our best, our greatest potential isn't always hidden inside us. Sometimes it sparks between us.

Yeah. You know, I, one of the things I really like that he talks about is meetings and how to run meetings. And I thought this was a super practical idea, like this idea of brainstorming, right? What do we do when we brainstorm? It's like, hey, what are everyone's ideas? And so now the first person speaks and the first person's usually like one who has like, you know, who likes to be in front of everyone. So he shares the idea and then everyone after that basically will re— we've all sat in a meeting like this. They'll all— that becomes the paradigm through which now you're seeing the solution. And so everyone's reiterating on that or providing some variation of that version. And now suddenly, like, you've shut off all the other potential ideas. And so he talks about how he has this really awesome picture of, like, what we think works and what we call brainstorming. Everyone's going to speak up and all that. And what ends up happening is just like it doesn't end up working. And so the way brainstorming might actually work much better is when you do brainwriting by making everyone write down what they think first and then eval— reading it out loud, maybe on an anonymous basis and then discussing it, right? Now you've taken out that kind of effect of that one person who has a lot, uh, the loudest voice. Um, and I really like that idea because then you can truly benefit from the power of the group. I thought that was something that we can all implement in any kind of meeting that we participate in. Again, it doesn't have to be something major at a big business or anything like that, but we all sit through those meetings regularly.

No, absolutely. And I want to end this chapter with just a pretty interesting quote that I heard the other day. I forget, I always forget where I hear these from, but it was basically that a bad leader always wants to be the smartest guy in the room. Right? So anybody else on their team or with them will never be more able than them. Which usually makes for a bad team. A humble leader always wants smarter people around them so that they can learn from them. And a great leader elevates the level of ability and excellence in the room. And I feel like that was kind of interesting, you know, because that really speaks to that collective intelligence aspect of it.

Yeah.

So let's end with that. Let's end chapter 8 with that and let's move on to chapter 9, Diamonds in the Rough. So one of the biggest problems in our current selection system is that we only detect achievement and not progress. We see experience, we see performance, but we don't see background, potential, and growth. Adam Grant says the test of a diamond in the rough is not whether it shines from the start, but how it responds to heat or pressure. So this has been the case for a while, right? I mean, opportunity has been given by birth, and we pass up those who are on their way to excellence for those who have already peaked closer to it. So Mr. Gandhi, how do we detect hidden potential?

I mean, if I had the answer to that, I, I, I'd be sitting here on this podcast talking to you. But, um, I, I think it's— he, he, he gives a lot of really interesting ideas. I, I do wonder how practical some of these are and how we can implement them. But, but for example, I do think that when you're interviewing, like, let's say we're all gonna be in a position someday where you're looking at 4 resumes and you have to interview, right? And it's easy to go, right? He talks about the typical ways you look at what someone's already, someone who's already excelled, like, oh, they already graduated top of their class. Oh, their GPA. And so you're overlooking all the people who might be capable of great things, because they haven't lived up to it yet, but their best is still ahead of them. But how do you kind of figure that out? And so one of the things he talks about is like looking at their trajectory and is their trajectory like, have they always been at the top and then just stayed at the top? Because then their trajectory is not upwards. Or have they been in a bad place and then they've worked their way up and shown steady growth? Because that suggests that even though they're where they are today, maybe lower, if they're on an upward trajectory, they will surpass the other candidate. And really paying attention to that. So from a practical perspective, looking at someone's GPA, for example, not just as one fixed number, but year over year to say, hey, how is this person progressing? If you're looking at someone's career background or their education background, saying like, hey, they went to community college, but then what did they do next? And what did they do third? And so someone from community college to, you know, a good university to one of the top universities, you might say, wow, This person has really grown as opposed to someone who just started at Harvard and then kind of stayed at Harvard or, or maybe even went downwards. Right. And so you're like, oh, they graduated Harvard, but then the next move was downward. So I really like that in terms of, um, rethinking how we look at, you know, resumes, for example.

No, absolutely. And, um, yeah, so that, that, uh, great performance over time, he actually says that exact thing of we should propose an addition to school performance metrics. And he said instead of GPA, we should have GPT, Grade Performance Trajectory, which would show the growth of a student's grade over time. I think this is pretty interesting. You know, like our current day, whether it's the education system, whether it's even a job, things like that, you know, they basically look at the last thing you did, right? When you go into— when you go to college, They look at what your high school grades were. You know, obviously they don't really care about your middle school grades. When you go to— when you graduate from college, they don't really care much about your undergraduate studies. They care about your graduate studies if, you know, you completed a master's or PhD. So, you know, that— I think that's really interesting that he brings that up because sometimes you often overlook the people who are really having to work harder because they've started from a lower point. Whereas the people who've started from a higher point might not have had to do so much to get where they are today. And I thought that was, that was pretty interesting. So yeah, go on.

So I, I, I think this is a really interesting place where you can think about kind of DEI and, and when I say DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, inclusion, there's obviously, it's a big movement right now in corporate America. There's a, it's actually become a little bit of controversy right now. In the news for anyone who's been following. You know, some people think that DEI has become— it's like a bad word because it's really just like you're just like giving, giving, giving positions to people who are unqualified for the sake of, you know, creating diversity or saying you're included by, you know, giving underqualified people opportunities that they shouldn't have. I think that unfortunately the conversation is kind of, you know, distracted from the main purpose. But really what DEI is about is about finding the diamonds in the rough, which is exactly what he, Adam Grant's talking about here. For example, it's recognizing the fact that if you're a first-generation American or first-generation college student, you have a lot of invisible disadvantages. The fact that you have to pave your own path, it creates self-doubt, it puts pressure on you. So when you show up for that interview, you're already more nervous than the other people who are showing up because you're like, man, I gotta carry the weight of my family. I gotta carry the weight of my whole race, whatever it may be. And so being able to recognize that is part of what it is. Again, just knowing even that there's a stereotype about your group. If you're Indian and everyone knows that you're really good at math, but you're actually struggling at math, that puts pressure on you and it helps, it perhaps causes you to underperform because of that pressure. Again, there's different stereotypes each group has, and you have to face those. And so knowing about— knowing that that exists, again, is another barrier. And so when you think about what the DEI is really about, it's about leveling the playing field and leveling it by taking into account all of these disadvantages, all of these uphill battles, all of these extra layers of challenges that certain groups face. And it's gonna vary from group to group, and that's why we need to take time to understand each person, each group's background, their challenges. But I, I, I think that the people are making those efforts, and, and, and it shouldn't be a controversial topic. It's, it's about finding the diamonds in the rough so that we all win. Right? Like, there is— this isn't about helping. You can look at it, of course, as a selfless act about helping others, but I think that there's something selfish too. Like, we all benefit it's enlightened self-interest. We all benefit when we find those diamonds in the rough because those people end up helping all of our lives be better, including financially. Your organization will perform much better if you have a great, you know, business leader.

Yeah. So actually, you know, when you were talking about the interview, I was kind of thinking about what Adam Grant had written in the book. And, you know, I want to just share a direct quote. He says, interviews are scary, they're discouraging, and they're often actually irrelevant. You know, this is a pretty big take to make, you know, when interviews are part of the very, very common job, getting a job process. So, you know, it's easy to say, you know, something's not good or something doesn't work. But Grant actually talks about a company that does something completely different. And what they do is inviting, they invite prospective employees for not an interview, but a trial day in the workplace, right? So during this trial day, you get to kind of walk around, experience a day in the life of what that job will be like. And during that process, sure, they ask those questions, but they do it much more conversationally. They ask you about not just your work experience, which you can already see from your resume, but they ask you about passions, they ask you about your interests, and they, they are genuinely concerned about if you're interested in your life in this field and if you really want to do this. And the point of a process like this is to turn outliers into the norm, right? And our job isn't to apply that pressure. Our job isn't to overlook people, but it's really to bring out their own brilliance. And that's what these processes are trying to do.

Yeah, you know, I think, look, someday you're going to be in a position where you're maybe interviewing others and Maybe I will be as well. And I think it's important for like a skill, right? At the end of the day, when you're hiring someone, just taking the work context, you want someone who's gonna be able to do the job. What they've done in the past, what they say about what they've done in the past is not particularly relevant to what they can actually do at the job. And so some kind of practical opportunity for them to showcase their skills helps that, right? Some people just get nervous. They're introverts. They're not great at answering questions on the fly. And so I like that, you know, I actually recently had a chance to do an interview because I was looking for jobs. And I did one interview where I had to complete an assignment. And that assignment was like what I would do at work, like, hey, review this contract and provide us your markup. And so that was like the perfect example of this kind of skills-based, like, hey, it doesn't matter what you say in an interview. We just want to know, like, can you review a contract and do a good job of it? And I may be very— I know many lawyers who are very good at that. Who may not be great communicators, or they might not be the best interviewers, or they might have had a bumpy one or two experiences, but that doesn't mean they can't knock this particular job out of the park. And so yeah, that idea of doing some kind of practical interview or like an on-the-job working interview, I know in dentistry they do that. One of my friends owns a dentistry practice and he has people come in and do a day where they interview by working as an assistant and to see like, hey, what are the actual skills? I think those are far more— they again provide people opportunities to uncover what they truly know and just discount some of the stuff that's just on paper on a resume.

And look, the point of this is really just to show how much potential they have for progression, right? I'm not looking for the guy who went from Harvard to Harvard I'm looking for the guy who went from a community college maybe all the way to maybe not Harvard, but maybe a college almost as good. And that really shows their potential for progress. And the author, I wanna end with one last point that the author says. He says that the point of a process like this, such as that replacement for the interview process, is to turn outliers into the norm, right? Our job isn't to apply the pressure that brings out their brilliance. it's to make sure we don't overlook those who have already faced that pressure and ultimately recognize their potential to shine. With that, we are now at the end of Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. As a student, a psychology buff, and at the end of the day, a lifelong learner, this book has taught me so much. I've learned incredible lessons from effective leadership to creating systems of opportunity in every environment and even the science of progression. Thank you all so much for tuning in today and for all of the past episodes. And a big, big thank you to you, Mr. Gandhi, for taking out time and talking about this book and your lessons with me.

Thanks for having me. I've really enjoyed it. And best of luck to your, to your podcast and all your future endeavors.

Absolutely. You too. Thank you. And we hope to see you all next time. And never forget to keep learning, keep changing, and keep growing. We'll see you next time.