
MANOUSH ZOMORODI, HOST:
It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. Back in the late '90s and early aughts, companies that were churning out new software and internet tools had to start making business decisions just as quickly, and so a new ethos for business was born. You've probably heard of it - move fast and break things.
ANNE MORRISS: The mandate being handed to entrepreneurs was to sprint. And if you hit some things with your tail along the way, that's just the cost of doing business.
ZOMORODI: This is leadership coach Anne Morriss. Anne saw this, at times, reckless strategy play out again and again.
MORRISS: This ethos of move fast and break things was encouraged and rewarded by the people writing the checks. So the venture capital community at this time was very clear that it was growth that mattered - speed of growth that mattered - and everything else was secondary. And your job as a company builder was to deal with the collateral damage later.
ZOMORODI: And later eventually arrived about five years ago.
MORRISS: Yeah. I mean, the moment was when the phones started to ring.
ZOMORODI: Anne and her wife, Harvard business professor Frances Frei, started getting these calls.
MORRISS: You know, Uber called. Riot Games called.
ZOMORODI: WeWork called, too.
MORRISS: Anne and Frances, can you help us clean up the wreckage here? That's when we got involved.
ZOMORODI: CEOs were imploding. Their rash methods stopped working once their companies were established. They'd built businesses but no sense of trust. And so Anne and Frances started studying how successful CEOs were approaching the changing market.
MORRISS: The most effective change leaders were not moving fast and breaking things. They were moving fast and fixing things. And they were moving with urgency and building trust at the same time.
ZOMORODI: Anne decided to turn their approach into a method, one she could teach to CEOs or anyone who was struggling at work.
MORRISS: This is really for anyone who wants to solve problems and has them, which describes most of the people on the planet.
ZOMORODI: We spend so much of our lives working. In the U.S., the average person will put in about 90,000 hours during their lifetime, and most of us would like to make all that time at work better. So on this episode - Monday Through Friday, ideas from the front lines of work, from how we structure the workweek, why we valorize work and what we can do to give our work meaning. So let's get back to Anne Morriss and the method she developed.
MORRISS: It's a playbook for fixing problems quickly.
ZOMORODI: She frames it around the workweek, each day a step towards a big change.
MORRISS: It's Monday through Friday. Each day has a distinct agenda that builds on itself, and the headline is that you earn the right to move fast by Friday by moving through these steps. And the payoff is speed.
ZOMORODI: So let's start with Monday.
(SOUNDBITE OF DIGITAL CHIME)
MORRISS: Good morning. It's Monday. Your job today is to identify your real problem, which may not be the problem that you thought you had just a minute ago.
ZOMORODI: Here's Anne Morriss on the TED stage.
(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)
MORRISS: As human beings, we tend to be overconfident in the quality of our thoughts, particularly when it comes to diagnosing our own problems. My investors don't get it. My Gen Z employees are entitled. My dog is mad at me. The thing that's going to help you out most today is your own curiosity. So turn that original diagnosis - my Gen Z employees are entitled - into a question rather than a statement. What's going on with my Gen Z employees? Now, your next move sounds obvious, but you might be surprised to learn how infrequently people actually do it. Talk directly to the other people who have a stake in your problem. Ask them things you might not normally ask in polite company, things that require a little courage on your part. Sometimes just a single brave conversation can reveal an entirely new structure to your problem.
Some of you will discover, for example, that you have a role to play in creating the problem that you're now solving this week. You might discover it's you who feels entitled - to burn them out and pay them less than what they're worth, simply because that was the broken work contract that you put up with at their age. Whatever it is you learn today, you're going to be closer to understanding what's really getting in the way of the relationship or the organization or the life you want. All right. Excellent first day, everyone. Get some rest.
ZOMORODI: It's Tuesday, Anne.
(SOUNDBITE OF DIGITAL CHIME)
MORRISS: Oh, it's Tuesday.
ZOMORODI: All right. What do we do today?
MORRISS: Tuesday, we're solving for trust. The mission of today is really to create a good enough plan to strengthen the relationship at the center of your problem. So we call it learning day or experiments day. We really want you to be in a learning mindset on Tuesday.
ZOMORODI: Can we apply this to an example? Like, let's say someone wanted to figure out why they were passed over for a promotion.
MORRISS: Yeah. So ideally, on Monday, they would have learned the reason they were passed over for promotion. And that probably took a brave conversation because it's easier to conclude someone knew the hiring manager. It was political. That's an easier conclusion than the harder work of figuring out, OK, well, what was my role in the outcome here? So let's say you have a conversation with your boss, and she's pretty direct. I wasn't convinced you could do the job.
ZOMORODI: And so then on Tuesday, you need to do some brainstorming - come up with a plan like...
MORRISS: Absolutely. So here's a stretch assignment I think I could do. Let's try it. Let me show you what I'm capable of. Let me lead the next staff meeting. Let me go out and bring in a new customer. Why don't you come with me on the next sales call, and I'll show you what I can do? Literally set up experiments that have the potential to solve the problem.
ZOMORODI: OK. So we've identified the problem. We've come up with a plan.
(SOUNDBITE OF DIGITAL CHIME)
ZOMORODI: Now it's on to Wednesday.
(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)
MORRISS: On Wednesday, your job is to do something that adults generally don't like to do - it's to make new friends. But the research is really clear that whatever problem you're trying to solve this week, you're going to be better at solving it with people who don't already think like you do. So describe your good enough plan, the one you came up with yesterday, to someone whose life experience has been materially different from yours. If you've been at the company for a decade, talk to someone who started last week. If you're a white partner, talked to a Black partner. If you're queer like me, talk to the straightest person you can find. Contrary to what you may have heard recently, they're everywhere.
(LAUGHTER)
MORRISS: And when you're done with that conversation, have another conversation with someone else who's different from you on some other gorgeous dimension of the human experience. This is going to take you all day, and some of you are going to be surprised to discover that it's your favorite day of the week. At the end of the day, you're going to be smiling, and your good enough plan is going to be an even better plan.
(SOUNDBITE OF DIGITAL CHIME)
MORRISS: Good morning. It's Thursday. You're so close. Your job today is to tell a good story.
ZOMORODI: Why is that important? Who am I - telling a story makes it sound like I'm making something up. But that's not what you're asking us to do.
MORRISS: No. I think there's two levels. I think when we're working in systems like an organization, stories, they help us make sense of change. They help us find our place in, what we say, the script of it. But they also help you to activate and focus all the other people you're going to need to help you with that change. At the individual level, stories also give you a really strong why as to, why are you going to go to all this trouble to change your behavior? It's not easy for humans to do, so it helps a lot for us to get in touch with the payoff.
(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)
MORRISS: We did some work with Uber when it was going through its very public crisis in leadership. And when the new guy came in, the new CEO, and hosted his first all-hands meeting, he committed to retain the edge that had made Uber a force of nature. Now, this line was met with thunderous applause, the applause of relief. Listen, Uber had serious problems to solve, as anyone reading the news could figure out. But the people in that room had built something extraordinary, and they had something real to lose in an uncertain future. Instead of setting himself up as some kind of company savior, the new guy honored that complicated truth. Honor the complicated truth of the people around you, the ones who aren't so sure about all your big plans. Then tell us why you want to change things. Finally, tell us about the future in vivid and specific language. Tell us what it's going to feel like when your story becomes our reality.
ZOMORODI: OK. TGIF.
(SOUNDBITE OF DIGITAL CHIME)
MORRISS: TGIF. This is the payoff day, Manoush. Now you get to do stuff. Now you get to go as fast as you can. You've earned the right to go fast because you're far more likely to succeed, and you're far less likely to break things.
ZOMORODI: Can we go back to the example you gave about a boss who's trying to figure out why their Gen Z employees aren't happy? What is that boss doing on Friday?
MORRISS: Yeah. So you know, maybe one of the things that surfaced in your conversation with your Gen Z employees is that they're impatient to make progress in their careers. What they're saying is, you know, I came here to get real skills. I came here to get in touch with my ability to make a contribution, and I don't want to wait. And, you know, after doing the hard work - like, you got in touch with I don't want to wait on Monday. You came up with a plan on Tuesday. You got some great ideas on Wednesday from maybe people who weren't at the table, at the brainstorming table on Tuesday. You told a whole story to the company about why this is important and also helpful to the business, and now you do it.
These are projects that matter enough that we're going to speed them up, and they're going to move past all the other projects because they matter. And I think that's really an opportunity to signal, this is a priority. It's a priority for me as a leader. It's a priority for the business. I've heard you, and we're going to make this happen.
ZOMORODI: I can imagine someone also saying, this sounds great. I really need to clear my calendar for a Monday-through-Friday approach sometime very soon, but, gosh, not now. I am - we're so busy. My calendar is packed. I can't take the time to do this.
MORRISS: Yeah. It's a - we hear that all the time. People ask us all the time what the right time to start is. And the answer is always, you know, what about now? Now seems like a pretty good time.
ZOMORODI: I mean, but you're saying clear your calendar because...
MORRISS: No.
ZOMORODI: ...None of that work matters? Is that what you're saying?
MORRISS: No, no, no, no, no. Listen, you have my blessing to take longer than a week, Manoush.
ZOMORODI: Oh, OK.
MORRISS: What I don't want you to do is to take months and even years, which tends to be our timeline for solving hard problems.
ZOMORODI: That's Anne Morriss. She's a leadership coach and author. Her new book is called "Move Fast And Fix Things: The Trusted Leader's Guide To Solving Hard Problems." You can see her full talk at ted.com. On the show today - Monday Through Friday. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us.
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