My name is Alana Weiss. And today, it is my pleasure
to welcome Robert Steven Kaplan to the Leading
at Google series. Rob is the Martin Marshall
Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard
Business School. And prior to joining HBS, Rob
served as vice-chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group. In 2011, he joined us to speak
about his last book, "What to Ask the Person in the Mirror."
And today, he will speak to us about his recently published
book, "What You're Really Meant to Do, a Road Map for
Reaching Your Unique Potential." Please join
me in welcoming Rob. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Thanks, Alana. You hear me all right? I guess you can hear
me all right. OK. So thanks for having me here. Here's what I'm going
to talk about. What are you really
meant to do? This is a fancified title, but,
basically, the point of this is, how do you reach
your potential? Great companies, in my
experience, work with their people to reach their
potential. OK? And I think this company
is a great example. Google is a great example. And I'm going to talk about
today, what it means to reach your potential. And basically, every company and
everybody here is trying to do-- and this is what
my last book was about. I scribbled a few
things up here. Every company articulates a
clear vision about how you add value, and what you need
to be great at. So how you add value to
customers, people using your service, and what you
need to be great at. And then the rest of your life
is spent trying to update that vision, set priorities. And the rest of your time is
executing, trying to align so you achieve that vision. That's what great
companies do. But they do one other thing. Within that, they try to help
people that work there be the best that they can be. And that means, in a company of
many thousands of people, each person is unique. And the best that you can be,
is going to be something different, depending
on who you are. And to build a great company,
you need as many people as humanly possible, being the best
that they can be and not trying to be like
everybody else. And that's been my experience
in business. And I think that's been key to
building a great company. It's also the key, in
my opinion, to you reaching your dreams. So what do I mean by reaching
your potential? Reaching your potential, to me,
means creating your own definition of success. What is success to you? Now, you say, OK, of course,
it means creating my own definition of success. My experience is most
people don't. And most very smart people
often don't. And why? Because we grew up in an
education system and a society that is constantly defining
success for us. When you go to school, if you're
majoring in something, you have a bunch of tests
and things you're trying to do to excel. And you're worried about
metrics, grades. Once you get in a
job, same thing. You're worried about metrics,
the next promotion, trying to achieve whatever the metrics
are of the business. And in every magazine,
newspaper, television program, society is constantly defining
what success is. Usually, based on money, it may
be based on other-- power may be another one. And then you've got your friends
and your family and your loved ones who are
constantly trying to beat in your head what they'd
love to see you do. Now there are exceptions
to this. But conventional wisdom, and
peer pressure, and other people defining our success, is
so pervasive that most of us are not even aware that
it's influencing us. We're not even aware
we're doing it. And the reason I see this, is
I have people come visit me from age 20 to 30 to 50 to 70 to
85, who are struggling with this problem. It may be that there's somebody
who's thinking about their first job and trying to
figure out what they really want to do. It may be somebody who's 20
years into their career and wonders how they got into this
situation that they're in, and trying to figure out
how to get out. Better yet, I get people who are
70 years old come to me, who's had great career, been
CEOs, achieved the dream, everything society
could say is-- and they don't feel that way. And now they're trying
to figure out what they're going to do now. So what I've learned from this
is, the key is not necessarily to reach somebody else's
definition of success. It's to reach your
unique potential. And let me explain
what that means. What that means to me is,
how do you add value? What competencies do you build
that are meaningful to you? And here's the reason it's so
damn hard to reach your potential, you never
get there. OK. In any given job, when you were
in college, you probably reached your potential
to get a job here. That's fine, but college
is over. Now you've got to go to work. OK. So now you're a junior
person or a mid-level person at Google. You may be reaching your
potential now. But it's still not over. The company is changing,
you're changing, you might get promoted. You've got to try again to
reach your potential. You may get bored. There may be other changes in
the world and needs in the world that you believe
you want to attack. And what I've learned is, you
always think, oh, if only I could get to here, then-- And it never works that way. Because once you get to here,
you say, uh, now what? Now what? You know, maybe it's
my personal life. If I were married and had children, and then my children-- that's what's missing. And you get that, and you
realize, well, that's good. But now what? It's always a question
of now what. So what I'm going to
describe today is a little bit of a process. And the best way I would liken
reaching your potential, is the same as losing weight
or getting in shape. Because if I told you, lose
20 pounds and you're done. You never have to worry about
what you eat again. You'd say, that's stupid. OK. Or if I said, get in shape and
then you don't have to exercise any more. You'd say, no, that's stupid. And reaching your potential
is the same. And you should think of it
the same, but we don't. We tend to think of it as a
magic answer or destination. And what it is, is a
series of steps. It's about process. In the same way losing weight,
or getting in shape, or becoming a great something,
is about process. And most of us don't think
about it this way. And what I'm trying to get
people to do is realize, this is a process. You need to follow
this process. I do not have an answer. I don't have an easy
destination. No, you are not going
to get there. It's going to have
to keep evolving. You'll reach your potential at
various stages, then you'll change your mind and you'll
go for something else. But if you learn the process,
I think you're going to be very satisfied with
where you get. I don't know what that means
about how much money you're going to make, or how much style
you're going to have, or how much status. But I think you're going to
learn, in the long run, those are outcomes that tend to follow
performing at a high level and reaching
your potential. All right. So my question is, if you
believe you really want to reach your potential, what
are you willing to do? Are you willing to
follow a process? And this is simple enough,
but it's hard as can be. OK. And the reason I've learned
about this-- I've been working on this for
30 years because I've built companies, I run a venture
philanthropy firm, we build non-profits-- Draper Richards Kaplan-- and everything I'm trying to do,
every day, is get people to reach their potential. Why? Purely selfish on my part. In that, if I can get people in
our organizations to reach their potential, then I got a
better chance to reach mine. OK. And that's what builds
great organizations. A group of people, thousands
ideally, that are working to achieve the vision of the
company, but working to be at their best. And companies, normally,
will help you. But I would argue, you've
got to own this. You've got to own it. If you're waiting for somebody
else to tap you on the shoulder and tell you how to
reach your potential, stop. You can stop now. You own it. You're going to own it the
rest of your life. And I want you to own
it and to get in a habit of owning it. So how do you do that? Number one, first-- and I'm just going to talk
through for 20 to 30 minutes, what some of the steps are. And they seem brutally simple,
because they are. But they're really hard. Step one, you have to actually
be able to write down on a piece of paper-- and I'm going to probably
encourage you to try this. The book has lots of exercises
on how to do this. Can you write down your
strengths and your weaknesses? Now, most people say, oh,
yeah, I can do that. And normally, the reason I
know this, I meet with ridiculous number of people
every year one on one, CEOs all the way down to
college students. And it's unusual for me to
meet somebody who can accurately write down
their weaknesses. I say to them, tell me
what your strengths and weaknesses are. When we get to the weaknesses,
well, I'm very impatient. Doesn't suffer fools gladly. Knock it off. Tell me the truth. What are your weaknesses? I know you got them,
what are they? Uh. Well, tell me what you heard
in your last review. Well, they said, just keep
doing what you're doing. OK. Did you get paid at the top
of your peer group? Well, I don't think so. Well, how'd they explain that? Uh, they didn't. OK. [LAUGHS] So the point of this is, you
get in your year-end review and you're like-- and
I'm the same way. I'm like, thinking, oh my god,
I hope this goes well. And oh my god, I don't hope I
hear anything that's going to make me feel terrible. And you get the heck out of
there, and it's over. And what I'm saying to you is,
you've got to own being able to find out what your strengths
and weaknesses are. And it's not so easy. But my experience is, extremely
high percentage of the time, if you know what your
weaknesses are, you're almost always going
to improve. My experience is, why don't
people improve? Why have I had people in their
careers where I think, god, this person's got all the
skills, what's the problem? They're not willing to recognize, I have this weakness. The second you do, you'll
either decide it's not realistic to improve on
it-- let's say you're quantitatively weak. Could be, you're just
quantitatively weak. Fine. Pick something else. But can you write down your
weaknesses and learn how to deal with it? I'm not saying you have to
improve on every weakness, but you have to have a strategy
for how to deal with it. OK. So that's point one. Can you write it down. Now here's why this
is complicated. It has to be relative. It has to be skill-based. OK. Not popular, is not a strength
or weakness. It's got to be skill. Analytical skills, written
skills, speaking skills, domain expertise-- I've got in the book, 25
different skills that you could list and put next
to each one a plus, a minus, or a neutral. It's got to be skill-based,
number one. Number two-- it has to be relative
to a job, to a task. Here, let me give you
an example, I am a very fast runner. I've always been
a fast runner. That's fantastic, that's
a strength. Except, if the job is to be an
Olympic sprinter, it's not a strength anymore. Versus a peer group that's
superb at that job, it's now a weakness. In fact, I couldn't even
bother to try out. They won't even let me
try out, I'm so slow. And same with a job. You need to look at the job
you're in or, especially, the one you aspire to. And can you write down the two
or three skill weaknesses that you have, relative
to that job? OK, try that. Now second, here's the other
reason this is so darn hard, in my experience, you
can't do this alone. You'd love to think, OK, I
can do this by myself. My experience is, no. And here's why. All of you and all of us, me
included, have blind spots, in that you don't see
yourself clearly. So you may have a weakness that
you're not even aware of. But I can tell you for darn
sure, if I ask that question to all five or 10 people who
work with you every day, and I said, tell me the strengths and
weaknesses of so-and-so, relative to the job
they're in. They can give them to me fast. They know your weaknesses. They don't even have
to think about it. The only person that may
not know, is you. Now how's that possible? Why wouldn't they
just tell you? Because they don't want to
upset you or offend you. They want to be on good
terms with you. Or you may send off a vibe that
you don't want to know. OK, so my experience is, you've
got to seek coaching from people who observe you, as
to what they observe your weaknesses are, and
your strengths. But the problem is, they're
not going to tell you unless you ask. You have to give them
permission. And you have to be convincing
that you really want to hear it. Because the most difficult
weaknesses you have, they may not want to tell you. Here's a good one I
used to struggle with, in coaching people. You say different things
to different people. Under pressure, you kind
of shade the way you explain what happened. That's a weakness. How do I tell you that without
offending you? OK? You're going to have to come to
me and say, I really want to improve. And would you give me any
advice from what you've observed in my behavior? And you're going to have
to convince me you really mean it. Because when I give you that
one, you're going to think, what a jerk. Right? That guy is a jerk. Right? And then me giving, and I'll
think, ugh, why did I stick my neck out? OK? But the stuff you need to hear,
is the kind of stuff that people are not necessarily
going to want to tell you. The easy stuff, you know. The deeper stuff, people may be
fearful of offending you. You've got to ask. And in this regard, I wrote
down one other thing. There's a difference between
coaching and mentoring. A lot of you may think
you have a mentor. We use coaching and mentoring
like they're the same thing. They are absolutely not. Mentoring is, I tell you a
story, you give me advice back based on my story. Problem is, your advice is
only as good as my story. And my story paints me
as, like, a savior. You know? I did this, and I did
this, and then I got screwed over this way. Or I had this bad
happen to me. And you say, oh, my god, those
people you work with, they sound terrible. Oh my god, they're probably
very jealous of you, uh, because, uh, you went to Harvard
Business School. And I say, no, they went to
Harvard Business School, too. Well, OK, then they're
just jealous of you. Maybe they think
you-- well, no. So mentors often give advice. They get people blown up. OK. But a lot of people, if you've
given as many year-end reviews as I have-- I've had people say back to
me, my mentor tells me I'm doing a great job and there's
something wrong with the review system. OK. That's mentoring. It's got its limits. It can be useful for certain
tactical advice. But it's not the same
as coaching. Coaching is different. It requires direct
observation. Any of you play tennis,
or a sport? Golf? How often do you call a tennis
coach and say, let me describe my swing to you over
the telephone. I put a leg out and then I-- and they say, oh, that
sounds pretty good. Then they see you swing,
and it's terrible. [LAUGHTER] OK. That's the difference between
mentoring and coaching. In order to write down your
weaknesses, you need coaching. Meaning, someone who actually
sees you in action. Because you may not even realize
your weakness well enough to even describe
what you're doing. OK. But this is the key. In a company, and I used to run
companies, you can change everything. Given enough time,
determination, and money, I can change a lot of things
in the company. Sadly, with human beings, you'd
like to think you can change everything
about yourself. I'm afraid not. There are limits. I am only 5' 11". And as much as I would like to
dunk a basketball, and I'll always want-- I'm never going to do it, OK. And I can't change things
to change that. I can't even palm
a basketball. But I still try. But the point is, with you,
everything you do has got to start-- reaching your potential
starts with an honest, accurate assessment of
your strengths and weaknesses relative to a job. You need to learn to
get in the habit of writing notes down-- and I would say, for the
rest of your life-- relative to a job, and seeking
the feedback of those that observe you. So you can do it accurately. Because my experience is, if
you know your strengths and weaknesses, you can either
decide to improve on some of the weaknesses, you could decide
it's not realistic to improve on some of the
weaknesses, and you can surround yourself with people
who complement you. Or you can pick a
different job. But you have lots of options. The reason people make a lousy
choices and don't reach their potential, often, is
they are unaware. And why do smart people fail? Two reasons normally,
isolation and inability to learn. That's why outstanding people
fail, and I see it every day. Isolation-- this is why CEOs fail,
too, by the way-- you get isolated, which
means you don't know. You don't know your strengths
and weaknesses. You're isolated because you
don't seek feedback. And you don't want to know,
inability to learn. I can tell you all, whatever
you guys end up, if you are willing to get advice from
others who observe you, and you're willing to learn, I don't
know where you're going to go, but you've got a
heck of a good chance. But it starts with strengths
and weaknesses. This is painful for
many people. And by the way, just like
getting in shape, doing what I'm talking about, if you
actually do this, you're going to be sore. You're going to use muscles
you're not used to using. But you're going
to get better. Second, you do have
to understand what your passions are. Now many of you think, you
pick Google, you're done. I already decided my passion! I decided to work at Google,
what more do you want from me? OK. Here's the problem. There's lots of different jobs
in this company, in the same way there were lots of different
jobs where I was. You may or may not be
in the right area. But I do know this, passion is
the rocket fuel that allows you to work on your weaknesses,
makes you get advice from people-- because
it's painful to do-- and helps you do all sorts
of other things. Bad days, bad months, bad years,
tolerating adversity-- passion is the rocket fuel
that lets you do it. But you do need to know what
tasks your passion is about. OK? And I think many of
you who are here, probably do know that. But you got to be able
to write that down. It is hard to perform at a very
high level, for a long period of time, unless
you are passionate about what you're doing. And here's the problem. Most of us, including me-- I loved what I did for almost
my entire career. I love what I do now. But there was a time,
eventually, in my career, I stopped loving what I did. And I never dreamed that
could possibly happen. It will happen to you. Either you've been in the same
job for too long and you get bored, or maybe the
industry changes. Or maybe you change. Or maybe something
else changes and you run out of gas. Don't stop thinking about what
you're passionate about, including in the community,
outside work. That's step two. Step three is understanding
yourself. OK? Step three is understanding
your life story. And when I said, why
do leaders fail? Isolation, inability to learn. And the biggest issue many
people have is they don't understand themselves. And in particular, so you got
your strengths and weaknesses. You understand your passions. Fine, simple enough. Do you understand
your own story? And for many of you in this
audience, as you get more senior, you'll start
to see what I mean. When you have to start
delegating more. When you have to get up more and
speak in front of a group. When you have to fire people. When you have to hire people. When you have a highly valued
person working with you, who you have to give bad news to. Or you have to give them
criticism and you realize, I can't do it. I can't confront them. And so for most people, I
do a little exercise. When many people come to me for
advice, one of things I talk to them about
is their story. Because I ask them a series
of questions. Why did you do this? Why did you do that? Why did you do this? And the truth is, sometimes,
you don't know why you did what you did. Why'd you lose your temper? Why'd you get impatient? It has to do with your story. And I would comment, you've
got three stories. I'm only interested
in one of them. There's the facts of
your life story. Where were you born? Where did you go to school?
--your parents, family, just the facts. There's a second story, which
you've got a lot of practice at, most of you here and most
people I deal with. It's called your success story,
which is a story of how you overcame obstacles
and excelled and got to where you went. Where you are now. It normally has drawbacks. It has failures. It has terrible things that
happen to you and you said, I will not stand for that. I will overcome that. And I decided right then,
I was going to do this. And then I went and I did it. And I mean, you're going
to cry, it's such an inspiring story. And you walk right in here to
Google with that resume, and you told that story, and they
said, you belong here. And you said, I guess I do. [LAUGHTER] OK. Here's the little problem. There's a third story. This is not one that you're
telling in your job interview. And this, I would call your
failure narrative. And every one of you
has got one. And I know this because
I've dealt with people at all levels. And I've got one, several. And this is a story that
is based on the same facts of your life. It's about-- by the way, most of you-- how
many of you have been fired? So this is interesting,
very few of you. But if I talk to a normal group
of people out there, especially entrepreneurs, you'd
be shocked how many of them have been fired, or
believe they've been mistreated, or had an injustice
done to them. Now, if many of you feel like
you haven't had an injustice done to you, just wait. You will. All of us do. By the way, injustice happens. The key is, though, for most
people, it feeds into your childhood, maybe events growing
up, injustice that happens to you, maybe
a difficult boss-- feeds into your self-doubt. And all of you have a narrative
that's in your head, whether you're aware of it or
not, right now, that says, I'm not good enough. I can't do this. I doubt that I'll ever be
a "blank" at Google. I don't think I can. And if you don't think you've
got it-- let me give you an assignment. Write down your failure
narrative. I go through it at length
in the book. And the reason I urge people
to write this down, this is the one that isn't politically
correct to talk about. You're not sharing it. You're not sharing it
with your peers. Most of us wear a
mask every day. But we have a self-doubt
about something. And I might ask it to you this
way, what's your biggest fear? What is your biggest
area of self-doubt? What is it you can't do? And if you say, nothing, bull. You've got something
in your head. And for many people, they're
not even aware that it's in their head. But I can tell you, it's
affecting what you do every day. It's affecting your ability
to reach your potential. And you get more senior, and you
get more responsibility, and the stakes get higher,
the failure narrative comes to the fore. And so what I'm encouraging
people at all levels to do, write it down. It may surprise you. It may be as simple as talking
about injustices in your life. You know, a coach that
was difficult. Anything. But why do people fail? Why do people fail
to get feedback? Why do they fail to be able to
understand their passions? Why don't they go for it
when they see something they want to do? Why do they keep quiet when they
should speak up and act like owners? Normally, it's doubt. What is that doubt for you? Can you write it down? Are you aware of it? OK. And I'm going to do
this quickly. Now, performance and career
management is taking, as simple as, your strengths and
weaknesses, your passions, understanding your story, and
matching them to a job. And I don't mean any job. I mean your dream job. Now, question. How many here have
a dream job? And how many are not sure
what their dream job is? And let me give you an
assignment from here on, you should be thinking about it. Because my experience is, if
you think about your dream, you are much more likely
to get to that dream. And I would say to all of you,
whether you think you have a dream or not, you do. All of you have an aspiration. When you daydream. When you fantasize about what
you're going to be doing. How you want to impact
the world. The value you want to add. You've got a dream. Think about what it is, and
can you write it down? Reaching your potential, in my
opinion, is about taking your strengths and weaknesses, your
passions, understanding who you are, and trying to connect
them to a dream. Now, some of you may say,
I don't have a dream. My dream is to be employed. I'm just glad to have a job. My dream is that this company
does well, and I can just come in here every day and
not be bothered. By the way, and for some
people, including me-- I had years I went through,
where I felt that way-- but my experience with human
beings is, that will not sustain you. And my experience is, I've not
met anybody, yet, who is happy with that for an extended period
of time, or performs at their best level if they don't
push themselves more. So my question is, what's
your dream? And then the second question is,
you've got to understand-- and I talked about this when
I was here two years ago-- what are the two or three most
important things you must do well to succeed in the
job you're in or the job you want to do? How does Google add value? And the area you're
in add value? Can you write it down? And your boss certainly needs
to be able to write it down. This is how you mobilize
people. How do we add value? What things do we need
to be great at? What things do you need to be
great at, to be outstanding? Can you write down those
two or three things? The reason a lot of people fail
to reach their potential is, they're spending their time
on all sorts of things every day, but they don't have
on their wall the three things they must do at a
superb level. There's a lot of things that I
get asked to do every day. There's only three or four, in
the job I'm in right now, that I need to do at a superb level
if I'm going to be great. And what you learn to do--
this is how you choose priorities, you've got to decide
how to spend your time. Do you match your time
with those top three? How many of you can write down
the top three tasks that you must be great at, to be
great at your job? How many of you don't
know what they are? And I will tell you, go back,
interview your boss if you have to, and write them down. I assure you, your boss, he or
she, has them in their mind when they're reviewing you
at the end of the year. I certainly do. I can tell you that for sure. And they're measuring you,
every day, against those. It would be better if you took
ownership of knowing what those are, and strive, and then
re-look at, again, your strengths and weaknesses
versus those tasks. How do you rate? Where are you strong? Where are you weak? What do you need to work at? OK? You've got to do this. And I would say, the
other thing-- most of you are too young for
this-- but as you get promoted, they change. Whatever you need to be great
at in your job, when you get moved to a new job,
different three. If you get promoted,
different three. By the way, world changes,
competitors take actions, you have a new strategic
initiative. Might be a different one
or two or three. Do you know what they are? Because this is what you're
driving against. And by the way, you may
say, well, I don't have time to do this. I'm working a ridiculous
number of hours. And I would say, this is the
prism through which you drive every action you take and
every decision you make. If that's true, if you're
driving a Maserati, or whatever you drive,
at 150 miles-- I don't drive one of those. I wouldn't know how to drive one
of those, because I can't drive a stick. But if you drove 150 miles an
hour, it would be nice if you knew where you were going. What's the vision? What are the top two or three
tasks you must do well? Can you write them down? You should gear your skills
development against those. Your dream job, you ought to
think about what the tasks were that you would
dream about. When were you at your best
working at Google? When did you shine? When were you your best
in your life? When did you shine? What were you doing? What tasks were you
performing? How does it fit with
your current job? Maybe there's a job three doors
down that's a better one, that's a better fit. But I'm saying, you need to
take ownership of thinking about this. That's performance and
career management. It's not being nice to the boss,
or pretending that you think what he or she thinks,
or, like, how are you? And all that. Forget that stuff. I hate to break it to you, your
boss wants to like you. And I know you want
to like your boss. But I'll tell you, much more
important, they want to think highly of you and how you
perform key tasks. They care about that
a whole lot more. Take ownership of that. OK. Let me go very quickly. Good versus great. And I've only got a
couple of minutes. My main advice is, once you've
done strengths, weaknesses, passions, your story, matching
all that to the job you're in and what's most important,
do you act like an owner? When you walk in every
day, do you speak up? When your boss says something
dumb or is about to walk off a cliff, do you say,
no, I disagree? Do you stick your neck
out appropriately? Do you act like an owner? Do you help others who need
help, even though you don't get any credit for it? This is what makes a difference,
in my experience, between people who are decent
or good, and great. Great companies are made up of
people who act like owners. Do you? By the way, if you do for
others without regard to what's in it for you, I strongly
believe, you will get multiples more back in return. But if everything you do is, I
won't do this, unless I get some back, tit-for-tat. Good luck. You're not an owner. I want to build a company
around people who act like owners. You got to act like
an owner, do you? OK, and then the last
part is, I said, you can't do this alone. You've got to have
relationships. And I don't mean, be connected
to 1,000 people on Facebook, or have 500 followers or 1,000
followers on Twitter. That's not a relationship. And one of the things I've
learned, which has been a shocker to me, in the job I'm
in, is when I ask somebody, like one of you here, what
problems are you having? --And people usually come to
me when they're desperate. Harvard is like Switzerland. When they've tried everything
and then, it's sad, they're so desperate, they come to me. And I'll ask them, after they
give me this earth-shaking revelation and a terrible
problem, who have you talk to you about it? And the answer, more often
than not, is no one. And I say, no, no. I must have ask that wrong. Who have you spoken with? And they say, no, you heard
me right the first time. No one. Well, how could that be? And the reason is-- I wrote this down. We could talk about
this for length. Do you have a relationship where
you understand someone, you trust them, and
you respect them? And they understand, trust,
and respect you? Are you willing to disclose
things to people? Do you have people you can
trust, that you're willing to tell things to, and
seek advice? It helps to do all the steps in
"Reaching your Potential" if you have relationships. And I will tell you, if you have
three or four or five, you're doing well. Very well. Most people think,
oh, I have 30. Or I've got all sorts
of friends. That's not what I'm
talking about. Who can you talk to when
you really need to confide in someone? And for many people,
it's no one. This is not something you
do over the telephone. You can't do it by email. It means face-to-face time with
people, where you have mutual trust, respect,
and understanding. OK so we're about out of time. We're going to take
questions here. So here's my point. I've just described
a series of steps. You may be better at certain
steps than others. But this is a process. Reaching your potential is not,
you climb a mountain and you're there. It doesn't work that way. It is a process. And what I'm trying to get
people to do is treat it like getting in shape, or losing
weight, or whatever extended, regular process. Start using these muscles
to reach your potential. It is a long-term,
lifelong effort. And once you think you've
got there-- because I've had many
times in my life I think I've got there. And then I realized, no,
I actually don't. I still want to do more. I want to be wanted, needed. I want to make an impact
on the world. It never ends, and it won't end
for the rest of your life, is my experience. I have a 90-year-old mother,
she still wants to reach her potential. It's human nature. OK. And so let me stop there. Let's go to questions. Just wanted to ask your thoughts
on, have you done any c correlationship between
reaching your potential and happiness? Are people, typically,
happy when they reach their potential? Or are they beating up
themselves, and then trying to reach higher and higher,
as you move forward? Well, I've read studies
of people, of what creates happiness. And I've read books. And I, obviously, work
in academia. And a lot of my experience,
also, is anecdotal. Let me put it this way,
everybody has a little bit different personality makeup. And there's some people, as they
kid around, can never be happy unless they're
unhappy, right? And then there's some people
that are just much more peaceful, contented,
et cetera. My experience, though,
on this score-- reaching your potential-- I haven't met anybody, yet, who
doesn't want to be wanted, and needed, and loved, and feel
that they're vital to someone, or someones. Reaching your potential is about
figuring out where that is and being able to do it. So does that mean you still
won't be aggravated about three or four other things in
your life, depending on your personality makeup? Yeah, you might still be. But I think, people's
satisfaction is much higher if they're working to get to a
place, not trying to please everybody else, but to try
to make sure that they're satisfied with where they are
and are adding value and making a positive difference
in the world. And most people start off
thinking, if I could just make money, or I could get to this
position, I could get this metric, something-- then I think, I'm going
to be happy. Because everybody in these
magazines or television programs, everybody
seems to be-- And then, what they learn is, A,
they're not happy, because they're not adding the value
they want to have. And they're realizing, a lot of
people that they looked at, who they thought were
happy, aren't as happy as they thought. And so that would be
my answer to that. It may not be the whole
enchilada, but it's a good part of it. When you say, if you have
three, four, five relationships you are
doing pretty good-- Yeah. Who are these people
going to be? Like, can they be your coworkers
or do you need to select outside of work? What type of people? All right. So let me talk about that. Let me define again,
more slowly, what a relationship is. And you should decide, by the
way, as I say this, make a list on how many people fit
this criteria for you, OK? So to your point of
relationship, in my opinion, could be a coworker, it could
be a friend, it could be a family member, it could be
somebody in the community. It might be somebody you don't
even like that much or wouldn't want to
hang out with. But it's got three things. You understand them, and
they understand you. You trust them, and
they trust you. There are a lot of people that I
understand and would like to talk to but, no offense,
they've got big mouths. And I know if I tell them, I
don't trust them enough or they've got some
other agenda-- And even though they're a great
thinker, I'm not really sure where they're coming
from, right? So you've got to trust
them and it helps if they trust you. And then respect. You've got to respect them, and
they need to respect you. Those are the three elements
of a relationship. My experience, how do you
develop a relationship? Three ways. Each of you has to be willing
to disclose something about yourself to the other person. Sometimes in groups, when I
have enough time, I do a little 10 minute exercise where
I have you pair-up with the person next to you. And I say, disclose to them
something about yourself that they don't know, that
would help them understand you better. And everybody giggles
nervously, and then they tell them. For example, I grew
up in Kansas City. My father was a traveling
salesman. My mother was a real
estate agent. And I go on and explain it and
they say, OK, I understand you a little bit better. OK. Are you willing to disclose
something about yourself? Second thing I do is, can you
ask the person you just spoke to, a question that would help
you understand them better? This is the one most
of us are lousy at. How often do you go on a plane
trip with people, you don't really learn anything
fundamental about them on that plane trip for business? Or vice versa, they didn't
learn anything about you. Because they didn't ask a
question that would allow you to explain yourself, so they
could learn about you. OK. For example, I've seen people
who've worked together for 20 years, did not know one person--
the boss did not know the subordinate had a
special needs child. All these years, that was the
most important thing to them, never came up. What was that about? So are you willing
to ask questions? And then the third one, can
you disclose an area of self-doubt and seek advice
from that person? I really doubt I'm that great a
"blank." What do you think? Any advice you would give me? What could I do about this? I do this with people who don't
even know each other, or some who have been working
together for 20 years. Just sitting there for 12
minutes, do it fast. And invariably, people who've
been working together for 15, 20 years say, that's the best
conversation I've had in years with this person. 12 minutes. How's that possible? OK. That's a relationship. That's how you build trust,
respect, and understanding. You got to be able to tell
something about yourself-- OK, not how many drinks you had
last night, but something fundamental real, that helps
them understand where you're coming from, maybe what
you're worried about. Can you ask them a question
that helps you understand them? Can you seek advice from them? And so, by that, you may have a
few people at work you feel that way about. You may have some people
outside work. My problem with many of you is,
do you have anyone that you can do that with? And I've been surprised. And this is-- I'll date myself-- generational. My generation is better
at this, to my shock. We're worse at most everything,
but at this, I'd say, we're better than yours. Why? Because we only had two options
for communication. Telephone, yes, we did
have a telephone. Or you could write a letter. Yeah, but that was a pain. Or you could meet in person. You guys have a zillion other
modes, cell phone-- terrible. If you really want to understand
someone, email-- terrible. I see people, business leaders
and people communicating important messages or trying to
have a serious conversation by email-- forget it-- misread
each other completely. And you see this all the time. People send an email on
something that shouldn't be done by email. It shouldn't even have been
done by telephone. Needed to be done in person. What are they thinking? OK. So that's what a relationship
is. The problem is-- if I get back
to reaching your potential-- strengths and weaknesses,
passions, self-doubt, how do you work through that stuff
if you don't have any relationships? Because we all have
blind spots. Why do leaders fail? And outstanding people? Isolation. Inability to learn. If you're connected to a zillion
people, but you don't have any relationships, I can
tell you without knowing you, you're isolated. And good luck on being
able to learn. You're not going to reach
your potential. So that's the thought. And I wouldn't have guessed 10
years ago that this was even an issue out there. But I've realized, I've dealt
with so many people, it is a big, big issue for people. Big issue. There's a relationship
shortage. Much more than a leadership
shortage. I'm just wondering, what's your
advice for people, if they always playing big portion
in their mind, to have failure in their attempts? Right. Well, so here's the reason
I like talking about the failure narrative. First of all, the one thing that
you should-- if you have the failure narrative, always,
in your head, it might make you feel better to know, you're
not the only one. I mean, everyone in this room,
to varying degrees. Now, that would shock
you, right? Oh my god, no, I'm
the only one. Most people think that their
failure narrative is unique to them and they're the only one. Not so. I can tell you with a certainty,
everyone in this room has got one that is in
their minds, much more than you would believe. Now, they cover it over. They look great and their
hair is nice. And everything is great. But I'll tell you, if you watch
them enough, and could see what they can do and where
they just can't do it, that failure narrative is there. So step one is to realize,
you're not the only one. There's not something wrong with
you because you have a failure narrative. Step two is, do you
know what it is? And then, step three is,
how is it affecting your behavior now? And then you get
to a question. Do you need to be a
prisoner of it? You're not going to get
rid of it, by the way. I have no clue how to
get rid of one. But I do believe, if you're
aware of it and you try to address it-- and I'll give you an
example real fast-- you address it, you don't need
to be a prisoner of it. I was petrified, if you can
believe this, of speaking. I could speak in front of 300
people at Goldman Sachs. But when I'd get in front of
1,000 people, I tried it. I couldn't do it. I freaked. I couldn't do it. Not everybody saw me freaking
out, but I freaked out. OK, fine. If I was going to be head
of investment banking-- I was running corporate
finance at the time. They called me in. My boss, Hank Paulson, said,
we're going to promote to be head of investment banking. And I talked him out of it. I tried, furiously, everything
I could do to talk him out of it. And then, he was co-head, at the
time, with Jon Corzine and they didn't get along that
well, which has been well documented. So I went around to Corzine
and talked him out of promoting me. OK, Paulson, rightly,
wanted to kill me. OK? But I was so scared, I promised
myself, I will never become head of investment
banking because I never want to get up in front of the annual
conference, in front of 1,500 people, and speak. And I'm going to do whatever I
need to do to get the hell out of here, before that happens. No one would have dreamed that,
because I was such a polished speaker, they thought,
in front of groups. And I seemed confident
and everything. And what I should have
done, is gone to Hank and say, I am scared. But I didn't think I could. I was afraid to even
disclose it. Because I thought,
I'm the only one. I'm some weirdo. And then, unfortunately, I had
to give a eulogy at a funeral, for someone to my family, in
front of a giant group. And I was petrified. But I learned that if you speak
from the heart, I can give that speech. And it got me over it, but I
would've gotten over two years sooner if I just told somebody
and got advice. So my question for you, if
you've got that, you're not alone, but can you reach
out to somebody? Do you have relationships
with one or two people? You can disclose it to them
and get their feedback. Because I think you
can improve on it. You don't need to be
a prisoner of it. That make sense? Thank you very much,
everybody. Good to talk to you. [APPLAUSE]
