We are Losing Our Humanity and I’m Tired of Watching it Happen | Mitchell Levy | TEDxTenayaPaseo

[Music] my first boss out of business school did a phenomenal job of teaching me how to be a horrible boss he taught me so many dubious lessons how to treat the people who work for me with no respect how to have a large ego and how to be inauthentic i lump all of those things under the word dubious his lesson stayed with me for 33 years and it took major life events for me to actually let go of those lessons leaving corporate having my e-commerce consulting business go to zero during the dot-com days and completely reinventing my book publishing company because of amazon i can't believe i spent over half my life acting dubiously it's been 36 years now and three years ago i thought he was completely out of my life in practicing for this talk joe lau my 10th reviewer said something that made me recognize there was one more dubious lesson i needed to let go blame joe said those people that teaches dubiousness are innocent because that's what they were taught and those before them were taught the same thing so i want to say thank you joe i no longer place fault with my first boss for who i was you see we're all born innocent we're born neither credible nor dubious as we grow up we are taught to live and work dubiously just like my boss taught me the seeds of dubiousness are planted in so many different ways and one example is the first time a parent tells a child to lie about their age so they get the free kids meal so as we're going down the road we don't see the turn to credible we only see dubious because that is what we're taught that is what we know let me point out the dubiousness of two historical events during the dot-com days people were encouraged to spend stock option money they didn't cash in and they got so full of themselves they stop going to meetings and they stop paying their bills today because they can pay the bills tomorrow during the 2007 financial crisis the creative financiers made billions and instead of getting the penalties they deserved they were given a slap on the wrist the rules were changed and we were showing society that dubious ways pays over the last couple decades dubiousness has crept more and more into society as can be seen by the american state of credibility survey it shows that only 57 percent of americans are considered dubious considered credible 43 are considered dubious and 50 thought it was worse in the year the survey was done versus the previous year the survey went on to list the bottom four professions in terms of credibility national news media lawyers members of congress and automotive salespeople now when i was growing up i couldn't possibly imagine that the national news media and congress would be in the same negative list as lawyers and automotive sales people this got me thinking about our humanity so i looked up the definition and according to the american webster dictionary it's the compassionate sympathetic or generous behavior or disposition the quality or state of being humane now in looking at this definition and thinking about this survey i came to one depressing conclusion the continual teaching of dubiousness is causing us to lose our humanity over one year period i interviewed 500 thought leaders on the concept of credibility and i had a number of positive and negative surprises and many aha moments i didn't realize when i first started doing the interviews i needed to keep track of when and how people showed up it turns out that two percent have no integrity by not showing up to their scheduled interview and not letting me know why before or afterwards four percent were rude by coming late to a live show and overall 23 percent of the people were late 80 percent who were really phenomenal in this one-on-one conversation have a really shitty online presence and 98 needed clarity on who they serve and how best they serve them after 95 of the interviews were done i had a massive aha moment you see i have a lot of video testimonials over 400 and they go something like this mitchell i've needed clarity for the last two four 10 12 years and you gave it to me in five minutes thank you very much now with over 400 testimonials and people telling me i'm brilliant that dubious lesson of ego started creeping up again that's when i realized it shouldn't be that easy no one should be able to talk to you for five or ten minutes give you some words of wisdom and in some cases completely change the trajectory of your life what i realized is that it wasn't me it was the framework it involved throwing away the positioning that we have and focusing on and delivering and clearly articulating our purpose we've been taught wrong we've been taught to do business the hard way we've been taught to do business dubiously instead of credibly so after 95 of the interviews were done i had a wake-up call i have a son who's in his 20s and i'm unhappy about the state of humanity he's living in today versus what it was when he was growing up versus what it was when i was growing up i want us to reverse this dubious trend for this generation and the next since business school i've been looking for that person who would teach me and others how to actually bring humanity back into business what i recognize is i need to stop looking and that we all need to do it and we need to do this now so i ask you can we bring humanity back into how we live work and play is there a path for us to be more humane is there a path that would allow us to cross from the dubious to the credible side of the river the answer is yes let me start by sharing with you the current definition of credibility and then give you the updated definition that came out of the research to the oxford dictionary credibility is the quality that somebody has that makes people believe or trust them so unless you're reading between the lines that's only one third accurate based on the research the phrase know like and trust is brought to a whole new level as credibility is the quality of being known being likable and being trustworthy as you could see no like and trust are there pillars of credibility let me dive a little deeper and share with you the composition the first pillar being known as comprised of four components being a servant leader having the desire to serve others have the intent and commitment to do the right thing and having integrity the survey went on to highlight the top three areas in terms of credibility nurses doctors pharmacists now why is that their perceived notion that they're there to serve their patients they don't have a personal agenda they don't have a political agenda they have a human agenda now imagine what would happen if the sales people in your company were perceived by your prospects as serving them versus serving themselves the second component of credibility is being likable and i love this pillar it makes it easy to see a definition of what we need to do to be more likeable it involves two components sharing your stage and showing respect now a word that came out of the interviews is cred dust it's a fun word it's that sparkle that happens when you share somebody else's ideas thoughts or actions everybody wins the person you recognize is seeing more you are recognized as someone who is there to serve your audience by sharing other people and your audience is benefiting by the new knowledge the second component showing respect by showing up when you show up this involves coming early being prepared and coming with your heart now once i recognize the need to keep track i define coming early as 10 minutes or before and coming super later rude is after the hour you need to update these numbers to reflect the types of meetings you have i need to remind you that four percent of the interviewees came after the hour to talk about their credibility for a live show let's give them the benefit of the doubt let's say they were taught dubiously they were taught that having 10 to 20 meetings a day was credible and when one meeting goes late they all go late they still think they're credible and they're not they're acting dubiously and they're being rude to the people that they're meeting with on coming prepared it involves googling the person's name and company ahead of time so that you have the information and you could be of service i'm coming with your heart it means not holding back it means 50 of the people who came to the interviews did not originally show me their heart i was able to move that number from fifty percent to eighty percent but it shows me that people were not prepared to show me who they are if i can't get to see you how can i get to respect you how can i get to like you and most importantly why would i want to do business with you the third pillar of credibility is being trustworthy it's being authentic having integrity vulnerability what came out of the interview very strong was coachability one of the people who came to the interviews didn't prepare he wasn't really good and so i said hey would you mind if i do a little bit of coaching he said yes i do i have my way of doing things and you have yours and i don't want to learn yours we decided not to do the interview now i consider not being coachable very dubious and i have to ask you if you're hiring somebody for your firm whether it's an employer or a contractor why would you want to hire somebody who doesn't want to listen to the board doesn't want to listen to the executive staff doesn't want to listen to any other employees doesn't want to listen to outside experts and doesn't want to listen to your customers because they know how to do things you don't so the framework has three pillars and i've talked about this composition what i think about when i think about the credibility framework are the gray areas and one of the gray areas is the bimodal construct of credible versus dubious we need a pattern interrupt it's not as simple as credible versus dubious black or white red or blue right or wrong heaven or hell credible people can and do step into dubiousness it's important to catch ourselves and to surround ourselves with accountability partners that could let us know many people on the dubious side of the river are there because they don't know better that is what they were taught that is what they know and it works for them so they keep on doing it we need to teach people credibility we need to teach people dubious and encourage credible we need to show people the path to move from the credible side of the river from the dubious side of the river to the credible side we need to do this now we can't wait we need to educate and you could start educating yourself first before you start educating others and you could do that by thinking about the top three things you can do to be credible versus dubious the top three things you could do to be a better human sprinkle some cred dust show up when you show up and be open to coaching the message is simple and it's hard to ignore if we teach people to be dubious they'll be dubious if we teach people to be credible they can be credible i believe that we could make this a much more humane planet for this generation in the next and i want you to join me we all deserve our humanity let's teach each other on what is credible and what is dubious credibility is a conscious choice credibility is more than a word credibility is a way of living credibility is the blueprint to bring back our humanity i am vulnerable i have integrity i am authentic and i am trustworthy i have the intent and commitment to do the right thing i am coachable i share the stage and i treat others with respect i am credible i am a humane human what are you thank you very much

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 50,424

Rating: 4.9865232 out of 5

Keywords: Education, English, Humanity, Life, TEDxTalks, Vulnerability

Id: Ge2zZhk766o

Length: 16min 27sec (987 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021