How Understanding Social Hierarchies Can Help You Inspire Others and Get What You Want with Adam Galinksy
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This is Smart People Podcast, a podcast for smart people, where we talk to smart people, but not necessarily done by smart people. Hello and welcome to Smart People Podcast, conversations that satisfy your curious mind. Chris Stemp here. Thanks for tuning in. Let's make this short and sweet because my nose is so blocked up, I can't breathe when I talk. So let's get to it.

In this episode, we're going to uncover the psychology behind influence, connection, and those subtle but extremely powerful forces that shape our interactions with others in the world around us. Adam takes us behind the scenes of his role as an expert witness in major legal cases, including a famous recent one, which is Dominion vs. Fox News.

He shares how the principles of influence and persuasion applied in the courtroom and beyond. We're going to break down how understanding the dynamics of power and relationships can help you navigate life with confidence and clarity. And we're also going to dive into why people believe even the most far-fetched stories, how to communicate in ways that stick

and how to move others to action. So let's get into it. We are talking with Adam Galinsky about his brand new book, Inspire, The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others. Enjoy.

In doing research for this, I noticed, I came across that you serve as a damages expert. So it's like reputational damage where I guess people's reputations have been tarnished and you're there as the expert. So you're the guy in the courtroom. Like when we see on these murder mysteries, when they're like, we brought in our expert witness. Is that real? Is that a thing? Yeah.

It is to a certain extent. I've been part of 14 cases, including Dominion versus Fox News. And of those 14 cases, I

You know, some of them are ongoing, but all but two have settled. And so there's a lot of work of writing these reports and then getting viciously deposed and berated by the opposing counsel. They have you for a maximum of seven hours of actual deposition time. So the day could take like 11 hours. But it's crazy. The Fox News one, Dominion versus Fox News, like they were about to do opening statements when they settled.

I was part of the Dr. Luke, a record producer sued Kesha for defamation. I was part of that case. And that went on for about three years and

maybe two weeks before trial, they settled. So most of these cases, people get cold feet as you get closer to the thing, like what's going to happen here in the courtroom. But it's been a great experience. Lawyers are some of the smartest people you'll meet in the world.

You might not know that. They're almost like academics or intellectuals because they have to get very knowledgeable about whatever case or topic that they're dealing with. And they're incredibly good at their job. But I started that in 2006, so I've been doing it for almost 20 years. And it's been a lot of fun because I've gotten better and better every time I've done it. Are you allowed to talk...

not on specifics on the Fox one. I'd be curious on just some of it or no. Yeah.

I mean, I think I can talk in general. Just generalities. That was a really interesting one because I've been teaching for years about influence and persuasion, and there are certain topics, right? Like what are features of the message that make it influential or persuasive? What are features of the source that make it influential? What are features of the audience, right? And in this case, I basically just –

in some ways, applied those principles. Like, so what was the defamatory comments? Like, what was it about them that made them, you know, particularly damaging? What was it about them coming from Fox News that would make them particularly damaging, you know, Fox News as a credible source? What was it about Dominion as a target that made them vulnerable to the defamation industry?

And in their case, they were an unknown, right? So an unknown is a blank slate, which makes them in some ways more vulnerable. And it was also really attacking the core of what they did, which is election integrity. And then who's the audience? The audience is potential employees of Dominion and also government procurement officials. So in some ways, if you just... Like I basically applied...

the same thing that I teach, but just sort of kind of inverted it a little bit to understand instead of like, how might I persuade you? How might,

I damage you, right, in that same process. And so it was a really, it was, I mean, the lawyers were incredible to work with. And, you know, they, you know, wanted me to continue with a couple of other cases they had, but I was so busy writing the book, I wasn't able to. But I was going to be the second to last expert on the stand when it went to federal court in Delaware. I was literally on with the lawyers from the same firm, but a different case. And they're like,

Guess what? You're not going to Delaware on Sunday because I was supposed to go to Delaware that Sunday because they just settled when they found out they had settled. For those listening, I mean, most people know, but that was the case of, you know, Fox kept saying that Dominion, who ran the voter machines in, I believe, Wisconsin? Oh, they did it in 30 states. They were all over. The primary place, I think, was Wisconsin. They were saying they were rigged. And Georgia, too.

was not true. And hence they settled. I mean, that's the outside perspective. They settled. Yeah. For 787.5 million. Yeah. I remember that. And I felt like good. And I really wish, like, I really wish it went to trial. And the thing was, the reason I think they settled, that's why I wanted to ask you is like so much dirty laundry would have come out. It would have been fantastic to have to see maybe Tucker Carlson or somebody up there talking about a comment he made like 10 years ago.

or whatever. Yeah. And part of it is, yeah, that's exactly right, is that there's something called discovery, right? And so you make your, whatever you sue, you also make yourself vulnerable because they can ask for, you know, materials from you. And that makes it, you know, a particularly difficult situation. I mean, the comments about Dominion were even, you know,

more far-fetched than you can think because it was like it was created in Venezuela by Chavez and it was this multi-year sabotage. So it was like they created this

a simple algorithm to switch votes, you know? So it's like, it was simple at one level, but very complex at another. So yeah, it was, it was, you know, this is all public information, you know, what they actually said. So I'm not revealing any, any inside information, but it was, but yeah, it was, it was, you know, I think the thing that, that, you know,

one of the things that I talk about in the book, right, Inspire is about, you know, how to be visionary, right? And, you know, what you want to do is you want to create a simple, internally cohist, you know, a consistent, coherent message. And that's kind of, even though each of the elements are farfetched, they kind of fit together in this sort of puzzle, right? You know, this is what a communist dictator would do, right? You know, this would be part of the

plan. And, you know, oh, it would be so simple to add an algorithm, you know, that you could put in place 10 years earlier that you could activate whenever you wanted to. But of course, that's not true. But like, it seems so straightforward, you know, from, you know, and why it was so believed by many of the Fox News audience. When you see a case like this, are you just amazed? One, how are we even here? Two, how did anybody believe this? Three,

How are they trying to defend themselves? Like, this is crazy. Do you ever just go, I can't even believe this is real life? No, I mean, it just, it makes sense because, you know, one of the things that I talk about in the book, right, is that there's an interesting phenomenon, which is the more details that we add to any scenario, make it less likely to occur because it's making it a more specific and narrow, you know, potential situation.

The problem is the more details that we add to any scenario makes it psychologically more likely to occur because we can visualize it more effectively. So like, you know, one of the funny things that, you know, about the Fox News case was there was, you know, this algorithm, but then there was this other story that got added, which is that Dominion had bribed government officials like in the state of Georgia. Yeah.

Now, of course, that's adding this crazy detail to this case. But if you have an algorithm in place that's designed to pervert the election, it'd be a natural consequence that you would also bribe officials to hide it. Right. So so you can start to see how coherence and details become really important.

But part of it is like, what makes something come to life in someone's mind, right? And so one of the things that I've studied is the idea of using sort of visual and metaphorical language. So we'll go from defamation to presidential victories. So one of the things that my colleagues and I have studied is,

Let's take every presidential election since World War I, right? And we had the convention speeches for the Democratic nominee and the Republican nominee. And we coded those for the amount of... We coded for lots of things, but one of the things that we coded for was the amount of visual and metaphorical language that was in the speeches. And they predict, in fact, strongly predict who wins the election. Right?

We control for everything in the state. We control for economic factors like GDP, unemployment, inflation. We control for political factors like incumbency. We even control for Gallup poll numbers at the time of the first convention.

And so this idea of like using visual language, telling a story with details, that's how you make something stick in someone's mind. And one of my favorite examples I like to give is like, it's very subtle, but the difference between our mission is to make our customers happy versus our mission is to make our customers smile.

And the word smile makes it from sort of abstract into a visual image of seeing someone smile. Right. And so then, you know, research drew Carton of Wharton and other people have shown like, you know, having that visual stuff is more engaging and more motivating. And I've shown in the political sphere, it's more attracting to potential voters.

And remember, these convention speeches are three, sometimes four months before the election, and we're still able to predict. Presumably someone who uses that language in the convention is also using it when they're giving their various speeches. But I think it's another example how

What I study, right, it can be applied to presidential elections. It can be applied to defamation trials. It can be applied in lots of different ways. The book is called Inspire, but a lot of this feels like it's talking about influence. How do you differentiate or tie those two together? Yeah. So influence is a great word. So there's a term that I coined to describe a phenomenon called the leader amplification effect.

And the leader amplification effect is basically that when we're in a position of leadership, but really any time people are looking up to us. Right. So I've also coined the phrase the parent amplification effect. Right. So how we have that. And so when we're in these positions of leadership, we are going to.

influence people, i.e. impact them no matter what we do, because people are bearing very close attention to all of our behaviors. So even our small, subtle, offhand, indirect behaviors, they get amplified. But so do our negative behaviors, right? Our big behaviors. Everything gets amplified, the signals we're sending, and they have a deeper impact on people. So I would say leaders influence.

But they have a, and this is probably the foundational most important thing in the book, which is that leaders have a choice of whether we inspire or infuriate. We're going to influence people. We're going to have an impact. And the question is, what is that impact going to be? Is it going to be good or is it going to be bad?

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Got it. And I would venture to guess that a lot of the point is you can and do both of those things. How do you do more of the inspire instead of the infuriate? Absolutely. So, you know, I'll say two things about that. One is, um,

None of us are perfect, right? And we lose our cool. We say the wrong thing. We ignore someone when they really need our attention. And the question is, how do we set up practices? How do we set up type of psychological states of mind that increase the probability that we're going to be more inspiring? Another thing that I've studied, which I also think is really important, is

Because we're not perfect, because we're both, because we veer towards the infuriating side of the continuum, um,

One thing that we don't want to ever do is feel shame. So shame is a particularly noxious emotion. I've studied shame. Shame turns us into ostriches where we want to hide from things. It can also turn us into defensive monsters, right? Where we, you know, we go after people. Shame is not a very constructive, it's more of a destructive emotion. So also the question is to be inspiring, we also have find ways in some ways to,

forgive ourselves. But that doesn't mean to exonerate ourselves. That means to churn that forgiveness into commitment and intentions for a better tomorrow. I like that. And I want to get into, we're talking about leadership and shame and the amplification effect. I can't help but to think, right? So I have a team.

I lead a learning and development team for Nestle in the US. And so we're in charge of 50,000 people and primarily leaders. And there's a lot of both direct and indirect influence. One thing that I dislike about leading is the...

intensity in which your team focuses on your every move. And in some ways unintentionally, right? Like I have an amazing team. I don't like that focus because I don't want to have to be so intentional. I like to be authentic and relational, but I,

I mean, I do spin on thinking like, if I say this, then they feel this. Is that right? Or instead of, I'll be very aware of your needs and I will try to do my best to make this a great experience, but like it's draining. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, it's a burden, right? You know, and I think you're exactly right. And we have to recognize that, you know, we think of leadership and power as free, you know, and de-constraining in some ways it is, but in other ways it actually is constraining because of that leader amplification effect, if you take it seriously.

I'll give you one example. It's a story I share in the book, but I had been on sabbatical for a year. I came back. I started being a vice dean. I was teaching my first class in the new building. And I walk in, it's literally the first class that's being taught in the entire MBA experience for the new MBAs. And there was something wrong in the classroom that morning. Yeah.

And there's a loud buzz and I called tech support and they came in and they basically told me they couldn't fix it. And I basically looked at them. I was like, that is completely unacceptable. Like this is the first day of class. This is their first experience. How is this not checked out and like made sure it was ready to go? But, you know, whatever. And then they, I guess, spent all day fixing it. And they sent me a note, you know, saying we fixed it. And I wrote them this really gracious, very thankful note back.

And about two weeks later, the chief operating officer of the business school came to my office and said, hey, I just want to let you know that you're always wearing your Vice Dean hat. And I was like, duh, I know. She's like, oh, really? Do you? You know that first day when you were teaching, you made that tech support person cry. And I was like, what? She's like, you're not just a regular faculty member. Now you're a Vice Dean yelling at her. Here's the crazy part.

I was literally teaching about the leader amplification effect that day. Thank you. I was literally teaching about inspire and infuriate. So even though I teach this, I was teaching it like 10 minutes later. It's hard. And so you have to – it requires – it's a psychological burden of awareness.

You got to be aware that you're in this position. You know, it was funny once a few years ago, I became friendly with about 10 years ago. I became friendly with an MBA student. We became pretty good friends and he later took a second class with me. And he said to me at one point, he says,

Have you noticed that whenever I email you about the class, I call you Dr. Galinsky, but when I email you as a friend, I call you Adam. And I was like, I hadn't even picked up on that, but he was really distinguishing between when are you in this position of power versus in a more casual situation. And so sometimes, I'm sure you've been in this situation where someone's like, okay, what are we doing now? Are we doing Chris and me or are we doing boss and me? And just trying to figure that out. I...

I personally struggle to differentiate those two things. I'll give you an example. I'll never forget. Who was it? I think it was Seth Godin. I was interviewing him on the podcast and he said, look, you know, authenticity is for amateurs. And I was like, what? Because I always considered myself authentic. And he said, no, no, like that is an excuse that we use to maybe not be the version we need to be in that moment.

He said, so if you want an authentic surgeon and they've got a headache, do you want them to come in and be like, Hey, look, just want to be straight with you. Like, I'm not feeling great. No, you want them to like get their stuff together. And I really liked that because I always said like, I'd be authentic. And now to your point, it's well, sometimes you're leading and sometimes you're a friend and sometimes you're a companion and sometimes, and that is that, that switching feels kind of gross sometimes.

Yeah, I think that's right. Um, but it's also really important because, you know, essentially what leadership is and what power more broadly, and I've been studying social hierarchy and power and status, you know, for over two decades, it's really about a state of dependency, right? Some people are more dependent on you than you are of them. And because of that dependency, right? You, in some ways are potentially their protector, right? Or, you know, you could be their, um, uh,

You know, they're a monster, right? You know, and so I think that, you know, because of that and recognizing that, I think, you know, we're both parents. And so we both think a lot about how to be a good dad, you know, a good parent to our kids. And I think the single most important thing that I've discovered is, you know, what do they need in this moment?

Right. That's the question that you always have to ask. Like, you know, what is it that they need and do they need me to be empathic? Do they need me to be strong? Do they you know, what is it that that they're what they're searching for? And it's going to help resolve that. And I think actually, you know, I think, you know, the core of this book is really the fact that there are.

These three fundamental factors that make up what it means to be inspiring versus infuriating, and they are universal. And the reason why those three factors are universal is because each one satisfies a fundamental core human need. So one of the factors we talked about is being visionary. Now, one of the core fundamental needs that satisfies is being visionary offers people a sense of meaning and understanding, a sense of coherence.

And, you know, we know that fundamental human need actually comes, its roots are in parenthood, but they're not specific to parents. So, you know,

You have a, I think you said a one-year-old and then you have some older kids and like, you know, you talk to a new parent and they're like, you know, you, you almost never eat. You hardly sleep. You rarely shower. You, you never have sex. Right. And you know, your life gets worse and that, you know, that you look at the numbers and like,

Mothers, fathers, doesn't matter. But then you talk to new parents and they talk about the wonder and the meaning and the sense of purpose. And so it tells us that we as humans are biologically conditioned to crave meaning, even if we don't have kids. It's like that's what we're built to desire, that sense of meaning and purpose and coherence, which is also why...

How defamatory comments can become so believable, right? You know, there's the good and bad in it. And so that's one of the things, you know, you talked about authenticity, but, you know, the second factor, so the first universal factor that exists in every country in the world is this

we inspire people through the way we see the world, right? Our vision. The second one is we inspire people how we are in the world, our presence, right? Our gravitas, our courage, our passion, our, you know, that sense of calmness that we can give to other people. And that really satisfies that need for security and protection that we all have. And then the third one is being what I call being, you know,

And the third universal factor is being a great mentor. And that really satisfies. And when we're a great mentor, we empower people, we elevate them, and we empathize with them. And that really comes from these two core fundamental needs, the sense of belonging and the sense of status. Right. And so when you put those, that's, you know, how we see the world, how we are in the world and how we interact in the world.

Mm hmm. I love this. And I had those three written down to talk to you about. I know they're in your book. And one question I have is I think about a lot of leadership development that we do is about tailoring your approach based on the we use like personality profiles, all types of different things. But it does get to the point where it feels almost you have to contrive

every situation that you almost lose some of that autonomy or authenticity as a leader. So how do we do it where we can be a visionary when needed, you know, an exemplar when needed, a mentor when needed, but do it in different ways for the people we're leading, you know, really quickly. It's like, okay guys, that's too much for me. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, one of the ways to think about it is, um,

One of the foundational things that transform of things that we can do at almost any moment in our lives is reflect on our values. What are our core values? Like, what is it that's really animating us? So I'll tell you about a study that we did. And it'll come back to your question, which is, you know, one of the worst things that can happen to you is to lose your job.

Right. Like it's one of the biggest stressors, makes you at risk for suicide, anxiety, depression. I lost my first post-college job three months after being hired. I got fired. It was humiliating. So we did a study with the Swiss government. And so we did is when people came into an employment agency, everyone has to get unemployment benefits in Switzerland is for half of them. We gave them a little values reflection task and intervention. And this is all we asked them to do.

Think about your values, your top five values and put them into a hierarchy, right? Where the top value sort of animates the rest. Think about why those values are important to you. And then also think about times in your life recently when you've displayed those values. Two months later,

The people who got the intervention were twice as likely to have a job. We actually ended the experiment and gave everyone the values intervention because it was so impactful. So the reason why I'm telling that story is sometimes we put ourselves in situations which kind of can seem rote or bureaucratic. Here's a good example. There's so much research out there that suggests the way to make interviews fair is to ask everyone the same questions.

Right. So one of the worst things you do, you look at someone's CV and you're like, oh, hobby, you go sailing. I go sailing. Let's talk about sailing for 30 minutes. And then you're like, we should hire that person, you know. And so, you know, when I was vice as vice dean, I've had to be in a bunch of hiring, you know, for the head of career services, the head of admissions, you know. And I kind of was chafing a little bit at the rote nature of asking everyone the same questions.

But then I reflected on the value of fairness. Once I recognized this is actually the only way to give everyone equal opportunity, it transformed the way I looked at that as living up to my values rather than being bureaucratically constrained.

I see. So the kind of takeaway is we were talking about leadership, but really in all aspects, I like the study you were doing. It's define your values, which make the difficulty of this task more palatable. Yeah. And like Nietzsche has a great quote that I have in the book, which is people who have a why can handle any how.

Right. You know, and so it's like if you if you have that optimistic why what you're doing, if you can make sense of how like, you know, like here's a good example. My two sons, each of them threw up in the last week.

you know, and my one son, my one older son has, has to this day, never successfully thrown up in a trash can or toilet. So, and so like, you know, I got to clean up the throw up, you know, and, and, and like, you know, it's a disgusting thing, but like, it's, it's,

the value of supporting them, being there for them, you know, makes it all okay, you know, and, you know, my wife, I have a really high disgust threshold. So I don't get disgust so much. My wife has one of the lowest disgust thresholds you could ever imagine. So, you know,

poop in the bathtub. I had to clean that up. Me and your wife should hang out. That's me, by the way. Okay. Because if she cleaned up the throw up, she would throw up. So basically, I have to do it because I can just handle it. But it doesn't bother me because I know I'm supporting her and I'm supporting them at the same time. And so that's part of what it means to be visionary, right? Is to see the larger vision, put what you're doing into context. Right.

I love, first of all, I like that story. And second of all, you know how weird it is. I just had almost an identical conversation with my wife about two weeks ago. We were driving up to New York and we were reminiscing about, we passed this gas station and we remember, we were like, remember when Austin got sick and we stopped at this gas station. Anyways, I said this, I said, cause I don't even like to change poopy diapers and my wife doesn't mind and all that stuff.

But the times when it's just me and a kid, every time there's been grossness, which is apparent there is like,

all of a sudden my body changes and I'm fine with it. I can touch it. I can what, and it's, it is miraculous. But to your point, I mean, this is kind of a gross side note, but to your point, I do think it really articulates almost that, that Nietzsche quote, or a lot of what you talk about in the book is we're doing so much. And I think we are in a world of overdue often and overprove and over consume and over everything.

Uh, it's hard to stop and sit back and say why, and actually give that thought, but that can power a lot of the do. Yeah, exactly. And I think, and not the do-do just the do. Yes. Adam, there's so many interesting things that you do and we're talking about the book, but I want to pull a little bit of other stuff for our listeners, which is you mentioned social hierarchy and power, something you've studied for quite a long time.

I'm very interested recently about how we learn from humans as we evolved. Meaning, I'll never forget when I interviewed Yuval Noah Harari and he said, if you took a human from 20,000 years ago, a dead one, and pulled him out of a morgue and you pulled somebody from two days ago, you pretty much can't tell the difference. We look and we appear and we kind of are similar. What is it

about humanity if you've studied historically that you have learned about how we are with social hierarchies and power? Like what is something that's universal with us as far back as we know?

I mean, first of all, you know, social hierarchy, and this is something that I've researched extensively, is it is, you know, from an evolutionary perspective, right, it is the most powerful force for organizing groups of individuals, right? It is, it satisfies, you know, it solves so many fundamental needs of groups, right? So let's just, you know, and I've written about this. So one example it does is,

Within a group, we have a problem of conflict, right? But a social hierarchy solves that because people who are lower ranked defer to people who are higher ranked.

right? And so there's that element to it. We also have issues of coordination, right? And so what hierarchy also helps is create role division, and then it creates ways to coordinate that behavior. We also want to motivate and incentivize people to contribute to the group. Well, a great way to incentivize people is to say you can rise up the hierarchy if you do a really good job in your current position, and not just

individually competent but contributing to the group. And so, you know, social hierarchy, you know, there's something, I don't know if you've heard this phrase before, called superorganisms, right? And superorganisms like ants and bees. When a group

basically becomes a superorganism. Like a beehive can be thought of as a single, like almost body, right? It's basically functioning together as one unit and, you know, with different factors. And, you know, research, evolution and biology shows us that no superorganism has ever gone extinct, right?

Like once you achieve that state, you're basically almost like, you know, foolproof. Right. And so there's no group, you know, so many groups have just tried to eliminate hierarchy. You know, you mentioned Zappos. I know exactly that story. Yeah. And so, you know, Google tried it. They tried to get rid of middle managers, you know, and, you know, it just led to chaos.

It led to conflict, right? So what social hierarchy does, it solves chaos, it solves conflict, it solves coordination, it creates incentives for commitment and contribution. I got a lot of C words in there, I just realized. And so I think that that's one of the things. So

And that's really foundational to the research I've done. And the research I've basically shown is that we can activate very quickly into people, their place in a social hierarchy, and they instinctively and really quickly adapt, right? So, you know, you can go and, you know, I have this great example of this, like, you know, I was teaching, you know, a group of people, and I was like,

up there, you know, on, you know, in front of them and I was in total control. And then I left my class, drove, and then I took a Pilates class. And now, now I'm the student. And I just realized how much I was deferring. And like, I just completely, you know, immediately switched to this new role of, you know, this is the teacher, I'm the student, they're in charge, you know, I follow their lead. And so I think that social hierarchies is incredibly important. Now, I think

And it's one of the reasons why I mentioned being a mentor is one of the universal factors of being inspiring is because status is a fundamental human need. We want to feel that other people not just like us, but respect us. And they see us as having competence.

And so, you know, and I already mentioned, you know, that some of the downsides of making, you know, we think the way I'm going to motivate people is I'm going to crush their spirit and make them feel shame and they're going to rise up. But what you're going to do is just crush your spirit and break them and make them want to hide in a hole, you know? And so I think that, yeah,

I used the word elevate before. And I think one of the great ways that we can change the world is if every single person out there would spend more time acknowledging the contributions of others, expressing gratitude when people help them out. I have a paper coming out January 2025 that is this month that is called The Vicious Cycle of Status Insecurity.

And it's really about how when we're feeling insecure about our status. And the one thing we want more than anything else is to look good in the eyes of others. We think the way to do that is to focus on ourselves and what we've done, but they get it all wrong. So they think status is zero sum. So if I acknowledge you, I'm going to lose status. But in fact, if I acknowledge you, you're going to rise in status and I'm going to rise in status. People, it's actually- How does that work?

Help me with that one.

You can respond any way you want. And when people are feeling secure in their status, they're more like, or let's say when they're feeling insecure in their status, they're more like, I say, thanks so much. I worked so hard on the project. I was really dedicated. But when they're feeling more secure in their status, they'll say, it seems like, thanks so much. We worked so hard as a team. Chris, for example, did a great job on really structuring some of the conclusive

conclusions. And so then you're also going to be raised in status, but the client's also going to look more positively at me. So we get it wrong. We think I got to highlight myself, but people don't like self-promoters. They don't like people do that. They like people that share the credit with others. And so we've shown in our research in, you know,

dozens of studies across the world that when people share credit with others, they expand the status pie. Their status rises and the person that is. And so I think that's one of the most powerful things that we can do.

Working at a large corporation, as I have for a couple of years now, there is this common refrain of like, well, you have to amplify your wins and tell people about it because it's the only way people see it and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's one of the reasons I actually don't love corporate America because I don't do that very well. But what as we're talking about it, what I'm realizing is.

I do think there is this fine line of you do need to, people need to see you do good work. But if you are sharing credit in the right way and people who have actually added to it, those around are probably just going to like you a little bit more. And if they like you more and see you do good work, that's better than if they know you do good work and they don't like you. I mean, it probably fairly straightforward.

straightforward-ish to that extent. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that, you know...

So I'll give you two quick stories that I think really highlight this. So every time I teach about the leader amplification effect, at some point I'll say, I'm going to give you a call to action. I want you to pick three people who have less power than you, and I want you to reach out to them and either compliment them or praise them for something they did really well, or express gratitude for some way that they made your life better. And I say, you want to be specific.

because general platitudes are infuriating, right? And so I did this once with a group of CEO and presidents of YPO, the Young Presidents Organization, and I was at 10.15. And so we're going into break at about 10.30. At 10.29, one of them raises their hand and says, I already sent my three emails. I already got three responses back. They were so effusive and joyful. One person even said, I'm finally going to take my spouse to that new restaurant they always wanted to go to to celebrate your emails.

I'd like to point this out because it actually confirms two things about my research. The first is people in power, like CEOs, they're impulsive. This guy couldn't even wait to the break. He did it while I'm lecturing. But the other is it didn't take very much time. He changed people's lives. Another example is there's a person I mentioned. He's president of a bank. He's got 1,400 employees.

And every morning over coffee, he sends a birthday message to everyone who has a birthday that day. And they're incredibly simple. Like he showed me some of them. It's like, you know, hey, Chris, happy birthday. How did track and bowling go this weekend?

And then he showed me the responses. You know, so his is one line. The responses are a novel. Like, oh, my God, I had so much fun doing them. And so and he says it takes him less than 15 minutes a day to do this, you know, but 1400 people, you know, and another CEO told me a great story. He said, you know, I actually do the same thing over coffee. I send one email or one text message a day.

to someone and just says, you know, hey, you asked such great questions in that last podcast. That was amazing. I really love how you dove into X, Y, and Z, right? It would be sort of an example. And he said that, you know, he started doing it and he continues to do it because he realized he's putting a skip in their step, but because of their joyful replies, they put a skip in his step.

And he said, and it was something he said really interesting to me, this guy. He said, I do it over text or over email because if I did it in person, like if I compliment you in person, you kind of get shy. Yeah. You get a little embarrassed. It's a little awkward. You're like, oh, thanks. He said, when I send it by text or email, they get to savor it. They get to let it land. They get to share it.

Yeah. And they get to reply in a way that makes me feel better. You know, so it's like, it's a win-win. So like, you know, if anyone out there, I'd say, if there's one thing that you take from our conversation today is if you could put in a daily practice of at least one person a day reaching out to them and letting them know they hit a presentation out of the park or they did this thing that was great or just, you know, the way...

your spouse read to your kids that night and how excited they were. Just finding some way to compliment someone every day, you are going to spread the seeds of inspiration, but you're also going to reap what you sow because you're going to get more of that back to you. You're going to pour love into people, but they're going to pour love into you. You mentioned, as we were talking about social hierarchies, you mentioned this idea of ranking. We naturally form into these things.

That can have a negative connotation, right? And immediately I was like, well, wait, am I ranked high? Am I ranked low? How can we think about that in human context? And then two, can you just tell me, is there any truth or do you have any research on this whole like alpha beta? You know what I mean? Like you hear all that phrasing. What do we know about that? I mean,

I mean, look, when someone's in a position of leadership, we want them to be in charge, right? It is fundamental to the fabric of the human mind, right? And it's, you know, go back to non-human primates, go back to queen bees, right? We talked about, you know, there's a natural hierarchy. At the same time, one of the things that I think is central to one of the things that I, and I coined this phrase in some ways, you know, expand the status quo.

pie. And I already mentioned one way we can expand the status pie is that when we give credit to the contributions of others, they rise in status, but so do we. But here's another way that we can also think about expanding the status pie is that there's so many different contributions that have to happen to make something. Think about a movie, right? So many different people are involved in making a movie.

And all of their talents are essential. And different people are really great at different things. We have a leadership teaching team here, you know, and we all bring different, you know, parts to the class. You know, my colleague, Madhupe, is just, she's incredible at framing things, but also like teaching.

just figuring out what the structure needs to be. I'm really good at creating interesting slides and little exercises. My colleague, Michael, he's like the naysayer. He won't let us put in any research if he doesn't think it's incredibly credible. He won't let us wave our hands, oh, it's good enough. He's like, no, we can't tell our MBA students this because

that is, you know, it's just not, you know, have the scientific validity we need, you know? And so different people are bringing, bring things. And so one of the ways that we can expand the status pie is acknowledge the different strengths that people bring, you know, to any interaction, you know, putting together, uh,

you know, a podcast, you need to have a producer, you need to have someone helping vet stuff, different people are involved. And so, you know, highlighting the fact that all of those talents are essential and necessary becomes a big key. Adam, thank you so much. We've talked in depth on it. The book is Inspire the Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others, brand new at the time of listening to this. It will just come out. Where else can we find you, Adam? AdamGlinski.com.

There it is. Short and sweet. We'll link to it as well. Adam, thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much for having me. A thank you to this week's guest, Adam Galinsky. The episode was hosted as always by Chris Stemp and produced by yours truly, John Rojas. Adam's book, Inspire the Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others is available wherever books are sold.

And now for some quick housekeeping items. If you'd ever like to reach out to the show, you can email us at smart people, podcast at gmail.com or message us on Twitter at smart people pod. And if you want to stay up to date with all things, smart people, podcast head over to the website, smart people, podcast.com and sign up for the newsletter. All right. That's it for us this week. Thank you so much for sticking with us with both Chris and I being under the weather and just being

not sounding like ourselves, but it's all good. Hope you are having a fantastic 2025 so far. We know we're looking forward to the content that we're producing this year. So make sure you stay tuned and we'll see you all next episode.