46: Linda Ginzel
Source: Chicago Booth
“And I said, ‘Oh! You’re not asking my opinion. Oh, I see, you want me to do this… Okay! I mean, I can do it, whether or not I think it’s a good idea, that’s a whole other thing.’”
About Linda
Linda Ginzel teaches Managerial Psychology at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Linda was born in Seoul, South Korea but as a military brat, she was a citizen of the world, growing up in Germany before moving to the US.
A hard worker since childhood, Linda got her first job at Montgomery Ward – for the younger members of our audience, that was an OG department store back in the day – followed by stints as a hair salon receptionist, apartment complex manager, life insurance saleswoman, corporate training consultant, and others.
By all accounts, Linda and her husband Boaz lived a charmed life. And then tragedy struck. In 1998, their son Danny was strangled by a portable crib that had previously been recalled. That the tragedy was avoidable added insult to injury, and, ever the activist, Linda, along with Boaz, founded Kids in Danger, a non profit dedicated to preventing other families from suffering the same fate through education, industry training, and advocacy for improvements in children’s product safety. Through their work, Linda and Boaz helped push the state of IL in banning the sale of recalled children’s products and were instrumental in the enactment of the state’s Children's Product Safety Act in 1999.
Meanwhile, Linda continued her rise through the ranks of academia, teaching at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Business, and in 1992, she took on her dream job as a senior lecturer in behavioral science at Booth, where, among her other accomplishments, she established the Corporate Executive Education Program, which now ranks number one in the world for Executive Education programs.
Linda does not shy away from novel approaches to teaching, once climbing up onto a desk during a lecture, and continuing to lecture while walking around the room on top of all the desks, just to illustrate the concept of norms.
As if all of this was not enough, Linda also wrote a book, Choosing Leadership, which spent time on multiple bestseller lists and was featured in Forbes’ "Top Life and Career Design Books to Plan Your Year,” and is now incorporated into curriculums at Indiana University Maurer School of Law.
Linda has earned dozens of awards, including the Faculty Excellence Award, Phoenix Award, was voted by her students as an impact professor, and recognized as a woman of influence multiple years in a row. Her most prestigious award is the President’s Service Award, given by President Clinton for her work on Kids in Danger. But, as Linda will tell you, her proudest academic achievement is the Academic Excellence Award, given by students enrolled in the evening and weekend MBA programs at Booth.
-
Max Chopovsky: 0:02
This is Moral of the Story interesting people telling their favorite short stories and then breaking them down to understand what makes them so good. I'm your host, Max Trapowski. Today's guest is University of Chicago professor Linda Ginzel, who teaches managerial psychology at the Booth School of Business. Linda was born in Seoul, South Korea, but as a military brat, she was a citizen of the world, growing up in Germany before moving to the US. A hard worker since childhood, Linda got her first job at Montgomery Ward For the younger members of our audience, that was an OG department store back in the day followed by Stints as a hair salon receptionist, apartment complex manager, life insurance saleswoman, corporate training consultant and more. By all accounts, Linda and her husband Boaz lived a charmed life and then tragedy struck. In 1998, their son Danny was strangled by a portable crib that had previously been recalled, but the tragedy was avoidable. Added insult to injury and ever the activist, Linda, along with her husband, founded Kids in Danger, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing other families from suffering the same fate through education, industry training and advocacy for improvements in children's product safety. Through their work, Linda and Boaz helped push the state of Illinois in banning the sale of recalled children's products and were instrumental in the enactment of the state's Children's Product Safety Act in 1999. Meanwhile, Linda continued her rise through the ranks of academia, teaching at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Business, and in 1992, she took on her dream job as a senior lecturer in behavioral science at Booth, where, among her other accomplishments, she established the corporate executive education program, which now ranks number one in the world for executive education programs. Linda does not shy away from novel approaches to teaching, once climbing up onto a desk during a lecture and continuing to lecture while walking around the room on top of all the desks, just to illustrate the concept of norms. As if all of this was not enough, Linda also wrote a book, Choosing Leadership, which spent time on multiple bestseller lists and was featured on Forbes' Top Life and Career Design Books to Plan your Year, and is now incorporated into curriculums at Indiana University Morrer School of Law. Linda has earned dozens of awards, including the Faculty Excellence Award, Phoenix Award, which was voted by her students as an impact professor and recognized as a woman of influence multiple years in a row. Her most prestigious award is the President's Service Award, given by President Clinton for her work on Kids in Danger. But, as Linda will tell you, her proudest academic achievement is the Academic Excellence Award given by students enrolled in the Evening and Weekend MBA programs at Booth. Linda, welcome to the show.
Linda Ginzel: 2:48
My goodness, max, I know that you do research on your guests, but I want to tell you, montgomery Ward, did you read some article from my college? Where did Montgomery Ward and hairstylist come from? We dig very deep, my goodness, I'm very impressed. So I thought, you know, I listened to you do the intro for my friend well, several of my friends you've had on your podcast. But Sunny, and Sunny said where did you find this out? And I read, I heard that, and I thought, well, if he says that one of her goals was to read without a highlighter in her hand, I will just fall over right there. And so I thought you were getting close to that statement which I made, you know, when I was in my 20s, and I thought, well, I'm honored, I'm flattered, I'm almost speechless, but thank you so much for doing so much research. It's a very kind of you.
Max Chopovsky: 3:39
You're so welcome, and there's one part of your bio that I forgot, which is it is one of Linda's goals to read without a highlighter. You are so good. So you are here today to tell us a story before we get started. Is there anything that we should know? Do you want to set the stage?
Linda Ginzel: 4:02
I don't think so. I think you set the stage very well and I don't think I need to say anything in advance. Lovely.
Max Chopovsky: 4:09
All right, let's get into it. Tell me a story.
Linda Ginzel: 4:10
Okay, I don't know if it's going to be a story, but if I were to title this story I would call it the accidental author and that would be the title. But the story is this. So I am trained as an experimental social psychologist at Princeton and I was the first experimental social psychologist to take a job in a business school. Now now social psychologists all are in business schools. But then it was sort of heretical. She was just going to go teach executives how to manipulate people and I'm like, no, I'm going to teach people how to use science for good use social psychology to make a bigger difference. And I can do that in business schools. I can do that with people who go to work the next day after I teach them. So management was my first love, and at Stanford I taught the organizational behavior course, which is basically the basic management course. So I teach management. I started the business. You mentioned executive education not the MBA, but the executive education certificate, custom programs here and when I went back to the faculty full time, I started teaching negotiations and I'm an educator, that's my identity. I'm a teacher. So one day my dean asked to speak to me and he says you know, linda, we're thinking about maybe putting a capstone leadership class into the executive MBA program. So this is a program we teach in, well, now, hong Kong, london and Chicago. It's 18 months. It's a pretty lockstep. And they want to add a leadership course at the end as a capstone. And I'm thinking, yeah, I tell them. I say you know, I don't think that's a good idea, I really don't think that's a good idea. And he looked at me and said well, why don't you think about that? And I said, oh, you're not asking my opinion. Oh, I see you want me to do this. Okay, that's different. I mean I can do it. I can do it, whether I think it's a good idea or not. That's a whole other thing, but I can do it. But I actually didn't know how hard it would be. So I had put my toe in leadership. Remember, my first love is management, and management is teach managerial psychology, founded in the basics of social psychology. It's conceptual. But leadership, what is leadership? Nobody knows what leadership is Right. So I took on this task and you mentioned the fact that I have a dead child. Just like other people in this world, I have had my share of difficult times. Very few things keep me up at night. Trying to teach leadership with integrity kept me up at night. I read so much crap, so much stuff. That was horrible and I really thought people will just sell you anything you're willing to buy and they call it leadership. And what am I going to do? I have to teach a leadership class at the Booth School. What am I going to teach? Everything was just getting crossed off my list, everything I read. I'm not going to put someone there to some charismatic person to model yourself after. Be like this person. I'm not going to have you have these. These are the attributes. These are the five things. I'm not going to teach the theory of leadership. I'm not going to teach the history of what am I going to teach these people? So I did the very best I could and I told you I'm an educator, right, I'm a teacher. That's what I do and I think I'm a very good teacher. And I put everything I had into this class and I would give myself a B plus. Now, b plus is okay, but not for me. Putting everything I had into this class and keeping me up at night trying to figure out how do I teach this course with integrity. So the next year I decided I am going to create a set of handouts, a packet with things that I say which people think are kind of abstract and they don't really get it in the moment, but they'll be in writing and they can go back to it and they can see it and think about it, and exercises and activities that people can do on their own because we don't have time to do them in class. For example, there's no accepted, correct definition of leadership. I mean, you can borrow someone's definition or you can do whatever you want, but there's no. This is definition. So I want students to figure out for themselves what do they think leadership is and start working on your definition. And it can change over time. So there's a. You know what's your zero draft definition of leadership? What's your earliest leadership experience? So all these things that we didn't do in class but that I thought would be helpful for them outside of class, because we can't do everything in class. Well, the class took off that year. It was like oh, this is what you're talking about, oh, that's what you know this means. So the students said could I get an extra copy of this for my boss? My boss could really use this, could I get a copy for my spouse, my neighbor? And I'm like no, no, no, just handouts, just handouts for my students, only for my students. It's just handouts. But it was clearly working. So the next year because I teach every this class every year I hired an editor and had it proofread and created a table of contents and hired a designer and made a little booklet for my students. But it looked like a book, it was a workbook and I was very proud of these and I printed them for the students and gave them out. And students were saying could I get a copy of this? My boss could no, no, no, they're just handouts, just for my students. And toward the end of class, one of my students said to me now he's a Pakistani student and I don't know why, but it is relevant to the story. He said to me may I get two copies of this for my high school children? And I found my mouth say yes. And that's what happened and that's how I became an accidental author, because I thought, linda, what are you an idiot? People are telling you this is useful. You're like no, no, no, no, no, just in my class, no, just for this little narrow purpose, you know, just for this. And that's how I became an accidental author. I ended up thinking that if high school children and different people could find this useful, maybe I could have reach outside my classroom and I love teaching and I love making a difference and I'm kind of in the penultimate chapter of my career and this notion that I could make a bigger difference outside my classroom with high school children and surgeons and lawyers and stay at home parents and soccer coaches was just kind of amazing. So I'm an accidental author, just like I'm an accidental activist, wow.
Max Chopovsky: 10:59
Have you thought back to that time about what was the source of the hesitation around not wanting to release it to a wider audience?
Linda Ginzel: 11:11
100 percent Because I had an episode years earlier. I teach executive education, so all these executives come to Booth and I have them for three hours or two days or whatever. When the students came up to me some years ago and said, do you have a book? I'm like I don't have a book, I don't need a book. It's like I'm happy to just have my efforts consumed in my classroom by my students. I actually thought it was arrogant. I actually thought it was not me. I just didn't feel like it was who I was. I never set out to write a book. People say best-selling author. I look around the room who's a best-selling author? That's just crazy. It has something to do. We were talking earlier about immigrants and the first person in my family to go to college. I just didn't have this notion that I had. I don't know if it's not the right to do it, but it wasn't in my consciousness, it wasn't in my realm of possibilities, I think that if you picked at random 10 students out of the last five years of your class, because what you're exhibiting is imposter syndrome when it comes to being an author.
Max Chopovsky: 12:33
Who am I to write a book? What qualifies me to write a book? I just have this handbook that I want to give to my students and they're coming to you. They're saying you should write a book. You're like I don't know. You should give more of these out to other people. I think that if you asked 10 kids out of the last five years of your class and if you pulled them about your qualification to write a book, the response rate would be 10 out of 10, a resounding yes, you should write a book.
Linda Ginzel: 13:06
I have to tell you, Max, I actually I love, I think you're amazing and I love your insights, and when I'm listening to your podcast I'm always almost as interested in your insights as your guests. But I got to tell you I think you're wrong on this one. Oh, okay, I'm a social psychologist. I study imposter syndrome. It's not that I don't think I'm worthy, it's just that it was never a goal. It was never in my. I mean, why should I write a book? What do I want to write a book for? Why do I want to put my energy and effort to that? What's it going to do? I think I'm completely qualified, I think I can do anything I want to do, but it wasn't a goal to write a book. It wasn't something that I thought I should spend my time on, and you may find this hard to believe, but I am very. When I commit to doing something or I do it with all my heart, with every bit of energy, and I think very carefully what do I want to put my time into? I honestly didn't realize that a book would have so much reach. I thought it was like a vanity project. That's more of what I was trying to say.
Max Chopovsky: 14:05
Interesting, so it was more about this.
Linda Ginzel: 14:08
isn't sort of the highest and best use of my time. Who I am. This is not who I am. I'm not looking to be an author. I'm looking to be a teacher and educator. I want to make a difference in people's lives, and I didn't realize the book would be a vehicle for that.
Max Chopovsky: 14:22
Interesting, interesting. I do think that part of it was if you were giving yourself enough credit around the ultimate reach of the book, then maybe the decision might have been accelerated, right? I mean, don't you think there's a small part of that? That? It was kind of you thinking I understand where you're coming from, Like, hey, I don't want to. There's a lot of things that I could be doing in life and this is just going to take a whole lot of effort, right, and if I'm going to do it, I want to do it right. I have the same approach to everything I do, but I kind of feel like I wonder if there's a small part of you there that thought that you kind of underestimated the demand for your wisdom.
Linda Ginzel: 14:58
Well, that's also very kind of you to say. I'm not sure it's my wisdom. So I actually brought you a copy of the book, thank you. And when you see the book you will understand that it's not my wisdom, it's yours. The book is intended to be a vehicle, a container for people to capture their own knowledge, their own wisdom, in writing, and then to share that knowledge and wisdom with other people in their community, at their workplace, in their home. And my idea is that it's individual written reflection plus collective wisdom, and that's how we will all move up the curve faster. I call it being wiser younger. So my goal is to help everyone be wiser younger. We all have more knowledge, and especially when it comes to leadership, I'm telling you no one knows the answer, no one knows the definition of leadership. There's not a consent, it's not a discipline. You know, I have a PhD in Experimental Social Psychology. There's a body of knowledge. There's a comprehensive exam. You pass it, you get a PhD. You know this discipline. There's nothing. I mean, you might get a PhD in leadership, but leadership is not a discipline. It's multidisciplinary, it's everything. It's philosophy, it's religion, it's economics, it's everything. And so that's why people can call whatever they do, leadership and sell it and people buy it because they don't know what it is and everybody wants it. And so you know, people say, well, that's not what I thought leadership was. You know, that's not the course I wanted in leadership. I wanted this course. And then they get that they're like, oh no, that's not what I wanted. I wanted this because nobody knows what it is, and so I think it's that I should probably have as much right as anyone to write a book on leadership, because look how many books on leadership there are out there and most of them are not very good. And so why would I contribute to that mess If I? You know what I mean? Like why would I want to put a book out there on leadership? There's so much out there that's so bad. But this book is really different. This is a workbook. This is a book that you do. You don't read this book, you do it. And so I brought you a book and my inscription is Formax to your future self. I love that.
Max Chopovsky: 16:58
Thank you, that is so kind of you, it's so kind of you, but you got to do the work.
Linda Ginzel: 17:02
It's not a book you read, it's a book you do.
Max Chopovsky: 17:04
I am not against doing the work. That is one thing I'm not against. I do think not because I want to argue with a PhD in social psychology. I'll keep arguing. I mean, we're in an academic setting. There's nothing wrong with a little healthy debate. There's a part of you that thought, hey, there's so many books out there, what could I possibly add to it? Right, and I think that you just weren't giving yourself enough credit around what you can add to the field because, to your point, not all those books are on best seller lists. What is interesting to me is that you are tackling a very difficult issue, which is how do you accelerate wisdom? Because as we get older, we earn our wisdom through life experiences and mistakes that cost us something, and there's probably some correlation between the magnitude of the mistake and the impact it has on you and how well you learn your lesson right, Not always.
Linda Ginzel: 18:07
Sometimes it's the opposite. If something's so big, you could protect yourself from learning the lessons because you can't go there.
Max Chopovsky: 18:13
I could totally see that point. I could see that point. What you're trying to do, though, is you're trying to say hey, I believe that people who are younger also have wisdom to share, 100%. I mean, if you asked me when I was in my 20s, I would have told you all the great things that I am and all the wonderful leadership traits that I have, and if you asked everyone around me, they would have been like he's actually a terrible leader because he's the last person I would imagine to be a servant leader. Right, and servant leadership was not something that I learned until I was a little bit later in my career, because it was all about, hey, I want to show everybody that I should be standing here in front of them and sort of leading them, but, in reality, a good leader is somebody. I'm speaking to the authority on this, so please push back and tell me where I'm wrong on this. To me, a good leader is somebody who's almost elected by the people, or at least validated, right? Because if you have somebody who is CEO of a company and they're not a great leader, people aren't gonna stay at that company, so they might not have elected them the way somebody would elect a leader democratically, but they certainly have a choice as to whether they follow that person.
Linda Ginzel: 19:21
So servant leadership is one theory or one angle of leadership. There are thousands of angles or theories or approaches to what is leadership, and what happens is that, depending on what speaks to us individually our goals, our identity, our context, we find different approaches to leadership, more or less in line with what we think. So I don't think that servant leadership is the way to be a leader. Let me tell you what I think. Okay, I think that there are a lot of stereotypes out there about what a leader looks like, about as you just said. People would say you're not a leader because you were this way or that way. You would have thought that you were a leader. Just look at the word leader. Tell you a small story. I was asked to do a lunch for the full-time MBA students, a lunch talk and about helping them think about what they're helping them to think, about interviewing, and I thought well, you know, they're probably gonna be asked about leadership in these interviews that they take, so I should get a sense from them of what their answer would be what's your definition of leadership? So, but instead of just asking them that, I started with what I thought would be a softball. I said, okay, just sit for a minute and take your pen, because I always think if you don't write it down, it doesn't exist. If you don't write it down, it's a figment of your imagination. If you write it down, it becomes data. Data is observable to the self and others and you can collect it. You can organize it. So always you write things down in my class Welcome to my classroom, max, and your listeners Happy to be here. So I started with a softball and I said so. What I'd like you to do is, you know, talk to your neighbor, talk to the person next to you about your earliest leadership experience. What is the earliest time that you remember exhibiting or engaging in leadership behavior? Silence, silence. These are MBAs at the Booth School of Business. These are accomplished young adults. Silence, and I'm like a couple minutes. Let's take a couple minutes here, and I'm thinking, and so I say what's going on? You know, it was like literally just the beginning of this and one of the women raised her hand and she said well, I haven't really had a chance to lead, I've just been a manager. And I thought, oh my gosh, if these students, if my accomplished amazing, changed the world. Already students think that they haven't led yet. What do they think leadership means? What is their definition of leadership? And I have found that people have these definitions that are so inhibiting. They inhibit their choices and then they inhibit the choices of others. And so that was my epiphany of people have to come up with their own definition of leadership. And your definition is as legitimate as mine. And people are like well, you know, I don't know, I have to fake it till I make it. I said, fine, just don't fake it too long. You know, figure it out, figure out what it is about you that gets people to wanna follow you, and it can be as unique as the number of people in this room. It makes me crazy when we have these books that say be a Q4 leader, be a X, y, you know what are you talking about. Even be a servant leader, I mean that doesn't work for all people, in all situations, for all time. If you wanna be a servant leader, then you should be a servant leader, but it doesn't mean that other people should say that's my aspiration. I wanna be that Because I think that it's more complicated than that. Leadership is more complicated than that. I'm even trying. You know, don Quixote, how he has the windmill and he fights. I mean how he has the sword and he fights windmills. That's me, I'm Don Quixote. I am trying to stop the use of the term leader. I'm trying not to use the word leader and I try to have my students not use the word leader. Try to use the words to manage and to lead as verbs, and then you need a new noun for lead for the category right. So I used to use executive because I teach executives, but then with the book you know we're teaching, we're using this book with high school students in prisons, in workplaces, and people don't identify with themselves as an executive. People think an executive is if you're in the C-suite, and this book is not only not maybe even, but it should be for people in the C-suite. This book is for you, this book is for everyone. So I had to come up with a new label and I was having a really hard time. You know there are so many stories embedded within stories I want to tell you. I had a hard time thinking what story am I going to tell today? I really did, and now this is my third story that I'm about ready to tell you. You're going to have to cut me off. So Richard Thaler, the Nobel Laureate, he's my senior colleague. He's a great man and he was so kind and generous of his time. He gave me handwritten comments on the first four chapters of my book, but he took a long time because he's busy and he gave it to me like right when I was due. I had to turn it in. And so he says you know, you got to lose executive. You got to lose executive Because these people, if you're writing for them, they're not going to identify as executives. I'm like, yeah, but let me tell you, I have searched high and low. There is not another label. And besides, I'm using the word executive, like Drucker. Anyone who's responsible for the performance outcomes of their organization is an executive. And me, linda Ginzel, I'm an executive, I'm responsible for the performance outcomes of my organization. And he said Linda, people would look at you and they'll say she's a leader, but no one would say she's an executive. You got to lose executive and I'm like well, I got this deadline and I got to turn this book in. He's like buy tomorrow, give me 10 words to substitute for executive or for leader. For executive. Oh, max, that's the Thaler assignment. You know the homework assignment. My kids play baseball. I was talking to the baseball moms. We were coming up with words like servant leadership came up, guide, advocate, actor. Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible words. It's nighttime, I'm Googling, I'm synonyming, I can't find anything. I find five words that I can put in an email to him that I'm not like, completely embarrassed of. And he writes back and he says champion, champion's your word. He's like, not in the sense of number one or winner, but in the sense of to champion, a cause to advocate. And so I did a global search and replace that day 44 instances of executive for champion. And I have not fully embraced champion yet, but I'm really trying hard to say Max, you are a champion, you are champion Most of the time you are managing. Managing is when you're in the present, right now, my dear, you are managing, you're recording this. You're getting the job done, you're in the present, your feet are on the ground, you know what to do. You're getting it done right, whether for other people it's making sure we have diapers in the house or meeting the streets expectations. And as Sunny Garg told you I just listened to the podcast he did with you he's one of my favorite people said management is noble. Management is what allows us to live our dreams, to go on vacation, to buy those home, to send our children to college. So don't let anyone ever tell you that management is not as important as leadership, it's just different. So you're a champion and right now you are managing. Most of the time, it doesn't matter what your title is, you're managing, you have, you're in the present, you're getting things done. You can be getting them done through other people, but you're still managing. Once in a while, max and you've done this already in your past and you probably do it daily to some degree you'll make a choice to leave the present and to go to a place it doesn't exist, which is the future, because usually you go there because of some dissatisfaction with the present. There's something about the present that and they call that a vision, you know, vision of a better tomorrow. So you have a vision and you feel so confident in your vision that you want to leave the stability of your feet on the ground, go to a place it doesn't exist, unchartered. And you have to believe so strongly in that vision and you have to have the commitment of the people who follow you, because you might be taking them over a cliff. You've never been to the future, you don't know where you're going, you just believe and they believe in you. That's when you make the choice to lead, and it can be leadership with a lower case L, a small, or it can be leadership with a capital L. That's another stereotype. Everyone thinks leadership has to be big, transformational leadership where you're not leading, and I think that's also an inhibiting notion of the definition of leadership. So my idea is that when you most of the time so, there's a map. When you are in the present, there's a map. And when you go, when you make the choice to leave the stability of the present, go to the future, it's a compass because the terrain is uncharted and all you can do is have a sense of direction. And that's my theory, that's my way I think about leadership and I'm trying so hard to stop using the word leader and manager, Her voice rings in my ear. I'm not a leader, I've only been a manager.
Max Chopovsky: 28:36
That's a good mantra to keep repeating to yourself as a reminder of how important this is. It made me think of this kind of framework that I had when I was in college. It was, and I remember, writing it down on my weekly list of goals and the schedule that I would have. It was VSTT. So it goes from the big picture to the small picture Vision, strategy, tactics, tasks. Each one will be broken down into the components of the next level, and that was my, you know, sort of attempt at taking a vision, which we ascribe these grandiose meanings to that word, because it is this ambitious sort of quest to make a big difference in something. It's vision right the way that just sounds grand and that makes it less approachable. And so, as you, at some point you have to connect the compass to the map. So my thought was well, a vision is supported by a strategy to achieve that vision, and then that strategy is supported by tactics. But even the tactics could be a little bit much to bite off. So if we can break that down into tasks, then we can look at a marathon that you want to run and say, well, today I'm going to run a half a mile, and so you take that vision of. I did my first triathlon this summer.
Linda Ginzel: 30:18
Congratulations.
Max Chopovsky: 30:19
Thank you. And I'd never done a triathlon. I said, you know, I'm going to do an Olympic tri because my buddy talked me into it and the vision was to do a triathlon right, but taking it all the way down into the smallest possible component of it. It's now that I have this training plan, which would have been sort of the strategy. The tactic would be to get my time to a certain point in each of the three disciplines and then the task is I'm going to run a half a mile, I'm going to swim 200 meters. It starts small, right, so it's interesting that you talk about it in that context. That's kind of how I thought about it when I was younger.
Linda Ginzel: 31:00
Well, let me tell you you are ahead of your time, or ahead of the curve, because this is called. You even called it a framework. So I teach executives how to create frameworks like the one you just talked about, in order to take something abstract and take it down, what I call it on the mezzanine. So there's the abstract. You know, 30,000 feet Like. My favorite abstraction is we have to align individual and corporate goals. You got that, max, we're going to align individual and corporate goals and it's like, oh yeah, that sounds good. What it means, nobody knows. So that's 30,000 feet. That's too abstract. And then the other extreme is too concrete. We're just in the muck, you're in the mud, you just can't see the forest with the trees, you're just. So each of us kind of defaults to either abstract or concrete, and my idea is that we bring it to the mezzo level, the sweet spot where it's abstract enough to be generalizable but concrete enough to be actionable. And that's what you did. You created your own framework in order to come down from this abstract place to this mezzo level, to this sweet spot where you can actually use it and it's generalizable. So your framework is like the kind of framework I teach my students to create which is useful outside a given situation. Right, so you can use it for any situation. But this is how you manage ambiguity. People are like I don't know what to do. You know, I don't know what to do. If you have structure, you know. If the teacher gives you a rubric and says this is how, this is what we're going to grade you on, you can do that. Right, you're smart. All my students can do that. When I tell them you create your own rubric, they're like huh, but this is how you can manage ambiguity. So one of my students told me she got this big job as a like. I don't know. Talent scout recruiter I don't know. And she said you know what these companies are looking for. They're looking for executives who can manage ambiguity. And they can't find them. And I thought this is my fault. Do you know? It's partly my fault. You know how many thousands of executives I teach every year and they can't find executives who can manage ambiguity. What are we as educators doing wrong? So I started teaching in my leadership capital. I call it leadership capital to echo human capital and social capital. I have my students create at least two frameworks to practice managing ambiguity, so that they understand that you know there's no ambiguity if your boss or your teacher, whatever gives you the framework. When you don't aren't given the framework, you have to create your own and you have to get comfortable. My hope is that students will get comfortable creating frameworks, but you did it a priority and maybe some people do it, but many of my students don't.
Max Chopovsky: 33:38
Well, I'm a chronic overthinker, so I think this is a byproduct of it. But I think, to take it one step further, I think maybe what some educators are doing wrong is eliminating all the ambiguity which is exactly what you're saying by giving them the rubrics. That takes all the guesswork out of it. I would take it a step further and say actually, people should understand that life is ambiguous. We don't have the answers because things could change tomorrow. Right, like we were talking about this before we started recording, a few thousand people went to a rave in Southern Israel. Right, they had no idea what was gonna happen the next morning. Right, they had no clue. I think part of this is just my humble opinion, but I feel like part of getting older and wiser is the ability to tolerate ambiguity, because some ambiguity you just can't get rid of. You could put together frameworks and rubrics and that'll address some things, but my sort of trajectory personally has been to try to tolerate ambiguity and understand that I will not always have the answers and I will never have all the answers. Right, and there's a distinction there. Right, like, I'm never gonna have all the answers and I will always not have all the answers. You know what I'm saying. That's the part that I think is the biggest challenge is how do we raise a generation? This is a massive question, but how do we raise a generation of people who understand that ambiguity is a part of life and you manage what you manage and things you can't control. You just have to understand that that's a part of the sort of human condition.
Linda Ginzel: 35:20
Well, first I would tell you that I'm doing my best. I just started teaching college students at the University of Chicago three years ago. So I've taught MBAs and executive MBAs my entire career and now I'm going younger and starting with the college students, and I also have created curricula for high school students. So I'm doing my best to go younger and start this process sooner, I would tell you. Just listening to you, you said tolerate, and I think that that is a base goal. I would have the goal to embrace. Yes, exactly Okay, because tolerate makes it sound like a negative thing that we have to do, whereas embrace is a positive thing that we can aspire to. So what I'm thinking is that there's something I teach in my class. It's called the zygarnic effect. So Bluma Zygarnic was a psychologist and you've experienced the zygarnic effect anytime. You are not finished with something and you're doing a big project at work and you're in the shower and you're not thinking about it, but all of a sudden an idea comes to you or you're asleep and you wake up and you have that pad next to you and you write down the notes because so that's zygarnic. It's kind of like. I think of it as like the. It's like running in the back of your mind. You're not conscious of it, but every once in a while. Now, the definition of the zygarnic effect is things that are incomplete are more active in our mind, in our memory. So once you put a ribbon on something and put it away, it's finished. My hope for you, and for society perhaps, is to let zygarnic be with you, to not have to rush to closure. We have to close. We're not amoebas. We can't live without structure we have to figure it out. We can't just be in this semi-solid state. But uncertainty, ambiguity, lack of closure, if it's negative it can be anxiety, if it's positive it can be creative tension. And so how do we get comfortable, how do we get used to feeling that physiological, psychological tension and label it more positively so that we can at least maybe harness the energy that comes from the incompleteness, from the uncertainty, from the unknown? So my hope for you, max, and maybe for the listeners, is may zygarnic be with you and may you feel more and more comfortable with the lack of closure and uncertainty. That can also be very creative and not necessarily anxiety-provoking.
Max Chopovsky: 37:56
That's a lofty goal. That's a lofty goal because it goes against a lot of human nature, which is to label things and have answers, and that's just not something we can do. A lot of the time, we talked about how leadership is different for every person and, being someone who studies this and has written about it extensively, what do you think makes you an effective champion of your disciples, your students, the people that you lead?
Linda Ginzel: 38:30
That's a great question. I mean, if you asked my students, they would tell you my passion, because I really believe. I mean I told you my first job was in a business school. No one went to business schools. That was like crazy. I wanted so much to make a difference in people's lives, for them to take action with knowledge, not just to pour knowledge into their head. So I believe 100% and I'll tell you, I tell my students look, I can't behave for you, but the only way you're gonna improve your outcomes is by changing your behavior. So everything we do in this class is geared towards you figuring out what you're gonna do with this knowledge. All right, so knowledge is like butter in the hot sun you can collect it all you want and it can just go away. You can collect it, you can display it, you can dust it off, you can. But what we have to do is think about what is the link to action, and that is unique for each person. So I think it's my focus on changing behavior and believing very strongly that I can help you do that. I can't act for you, but I will encourage you, I will motivate you, I will surprise you, I will help you practice in my classroom and then kick you in the pants and send you out the door. That's probably mostly it. I think it's also that I'm a mom and being a mom is a really big part of my identity, and I think the students know that I'm real, that I care for their growth, that I really really do and that I tell them look, I got a lot of things to do with my time. If I didn't believe I could help you, change your behavior and improve your outcomes, I'd go do something else today. So I don't wanna waste your time or mine. My time's precious too, and so maybe it's just that they believe me and because they believe me, they listen to me and because I mean it, but they have to be at a place where they wanna listen. Not everybody wants to go there, not everybody, you know. Some people just want the answers Like give me the bullets, give me the definition, check off the boxes here, and I have to wait for those people to come around because they're not really ready, and it's not a function of age, it's not always a function of age.
Max Chopovsky: 40:34
That's true. I think it's not a bad rule of thumb, but you're right. They want you to think for them.
Linda Ginzel: 40:41
They want answers. And people are like you're the professor, we're paying you. What are you kidding me? I'm supposed to come up with my own definition. I'm like, yeah, that's right. Like this just doesn't make any sense, you know, because it's not an equation, that you have an answer, it's not an algorithm. It has to be about you or it's not yours. Like I said, you can borrow somebody else's definition and I'll tell you the whole thing about leadership. You know, I talk to people who do leadership for a living. One I said to this one man. I said so what's your definition? Ask people what their definition of leadership is. It's fascinating. This person said well, it's motivating others to pursue a goal or two. It's basically energizing and motivating people. And I'm like and how's that different from management? And this is a guy who gets paid to do leadership, consulting. And he looked at me and said well, I guess it isn't. I'm like so what is leadership? Give me a break, you know, I mean people. Just, it makes me crazy. So it's that I really believe what I'm doing. I believe that I don't have the answers that you do. And it's OK. You can pay a professor, you can pay a guru, you can pay people. That's great, but in addition to that, you have to do the work. You have to realize that you have wisdom and knowledge, and so do other people, and that you have to decide what's relevant for you, and it doesn't come prepackaged.
Max Chopovsky: 41:56
That's true. That's true. You have to get to the other side of discomfort to get to your unique answer you have to create your own bullets.
Linda Ginzel: 42:04
Basically, that's right.
Max Chopovsky: 42:05
That's right. So, as you think back to your story about being an accidental author, what, looking back on it is the moral of that story.
Linda Ginzel: 42:13
I was prepared for this question, oh good. The moral of the accidental author is that sometimes choices that are made for you by others turn out to be better than the choices you might have made for yourself. I would not have taught that leadership class, I would not have made that a book, because I had a narrower view of what was possible. And sometimes people are disappointed at the university. They don't get tenure, they think they failed. Then they go to another university where they fit better and they're so happy. So sometimes the choices we don't make for ourselves can be better than the choices we do. That's interesting.
Max Chopovsky: 43:00
That also requires being open to other people's observations and commentary and leaving your ego at the door, because otherwise you would say, well, why would they know what's best for me?
Linda Ginzel: 43:17
Well, I was dragged kicking and screaming into leadership. I did not go willingly. I did not go willingly and look what happened. Now I'm a leadership person. How is that even possible? Like in what universe is Linda Ginzel the person that people ask about leadership? Here I am, max, and you're doing it.
Max Chopovsky: 43:32
This is what I'm saying. I think that you don't give yourself enough credit. There are a lot of things that you could be doing with your time, but I think that it's about time that you recognize just how deserving you are of all the honors you've gotten.
Linda Ginzel: 43:45
Thank you. Thank you, max, of course.
Max Chopovsky: 43:47
Of course, you tell stories for a living.
Linda Ginzel: 43:51
You've told multiple stories just in the last 40 minutes.
Max Chopovsky: 43:56
What, in your mind, makes for a good story?
Linda Ginzel: 44:00
I listen to the moth and I am just blown away by these stories and I don't know what is the gist. I don't know what is the essence of a good story. Maybe because sometimes it's surprise, sometimes it's humor, sometimes it's coming back to the beginning and wrapping it up. I think it has to be something that is meaningful to the storyteller and I think that that's different for everyone, so maybe that's not a good answer for you, but I think that what makes a good story is that you tell something because it's meaningful to you and then other people see that and it somehow becomes meaningful for them.
Max Chopovsky: 44:45
Well, I think it's very on brand for you to give that answer, because it is very much in line with your philosophy that there is no one size fits all. So I like that. Do you think that every story has to have a moral, and if it doesn't, is it still a good story?
Linda Ginzel: 45:05
My gut is yes, as long as people are engaged in listening, they're going to come up with what the meaning is for them, and if it's not a good story, then they've stopped listening and they're not going to come up with it. So a good story. You have to listen, you have to want to listen and maybe you have to want to listen to the end.
Max Chopovsky: 45:24
Yeah, there is a book called 4,000 Weeks and the author of the book because his name is Oliver I don't know his last name, but he was in a podcast that I listened to by Peter Atia called the Drive, and he makes this really interesting point about how we want every hour that we spend to be filled with the most profound experiences, whether it's making the most unforgettable memories or coming up with something incredibly creative or solving some really complicated problem, and what most people don't realize, especially people who are super ADD achievers like me or kind of overachievers total type A complete type A is sometimes you have to let go of that control, of the need for control, embrace the ambiguity and understand that some of the best experiences come from spontaneity and come from an unexpected place.
Linda Ginzel: 46:35
Choices you might not have made for yourself 100%, 100%.
Max Chopovsky: 46:39
Yes, man, I love how that loop back to your philosophy because it's true. He says you have to be willing to waste time in order to have a meaningful experience, and that is so hard for some people to get their minds around Like waste time. I don't have a lot of time, I mean waste time.
Linda Ginzel: 46:58
Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency Totally.
Max Chopovsky: 47:01
But sometimes you just have to go for a walk along the river, sometimes you just have to sit and look at the lake or look up and look at what kind of cloud formations are in the sky, and that might seem so, that might be anathema to so many people's philosophies that are rooted in, yeah, these incredibly high efficiencies, like everything has to be tied to a goal, but sometimes you just have to let go. You just have to let go. You wrote a book that was me. I know it's almost like it was an accident. Now you also have done a ton of reading, I'm sure, countless and countless books. What is one book besides yours that you feel gets storytelling right? That just nails it.
Linda Ginzel: 47:51
Wow, it would depend on your definition of storytelling. Martin Luther King by Jonathan Eyck blows me away, by the way. I want you to interview him on your podcast. He's a Chicago author, bestselling author. He's unbelievable. I would love it. I love everything he's written. His most recent is Martin Luther King. But that's a type of storytelling. It's like a, you know, it's like nonfiction, it's that kind of storytelling. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think I like that kind of storytelling. So I also like historical fiction. I just read Killer Angels. Do you know this book? I do not, so I don't remember the author. He's a, I think this one Pulitzer Prize. It's about the Battle of Gettysburg and it's another book that I would say gets storytelling right. But Jonathan's my favorite author. Killer Angels captivated me in a way that most books don't, except if they're written by Jonathan.
Max Chopovsky: 48:55
Of course, of course, all right. Last question for you. Okay, if you had a few minutes with 20 year old Linda, what would you say to her.
Linda Ginzel: 49:10
Be kinder to your parents, younger. I didn't appreciate. My parents are very, very strict, and I didn't appreciate my parents until I was in my forties, and then it was pretty late. Be kinder to your parents, younger. Good advice.
Max Chopovsky: 49:32
That's good advice. It is, I will say, I think, a part of every human's trajectory to really be able to appreciate their parents when they get older and when they themselves become parents, because then they see the other side of it. And it was very hard for me to really understand the complexities of parenthood and all of the competing priorities and, frankly, the sense of not having it all figured out while needing to look like the champion to your children, until I myself had children and knew that and realized that, you know, on one hand, they need to see me as the fearless leader that has their back and has all the answers, while at the same time understanding that I absolutely do not have all the answers. And how do I impart lessons to my kids while knowing that I don't have all the answers? And it's hard, and I think that it's going to be, you know, the same story arc with my kids, which is it might take time for them to understand. Oh, got it, he had a lot going on and he did his best, right. But sometimes we don't appreciate them till we're older, until they're older, and then in that case you just don't have as much time left with them. There's a saying I'm sure you've heard this that you get 19 years with your kids. Have you heard this? You get 19 years with your kids. The first 18 are when they're in the house and the 19th year is every moment after that because they move out, right. And then how often are you going to see them? And if you look at it from the other perspective, it's like, yeah, you get 19 years with your parents, right, and if you're out of the house, you're on that 19th year.
Linda Ginzel: 51:20
So that's beautiful, and you just described parenting as the ultimate active leadership.
Max Chopovsky: 51:26
Totally, totally. We do learn to be better champions when we become parents. Well, that does it, linda Ginzel, author, professor and very thoughtful human being. Thank you for being on the show.
Linda Ginzel: 51:42
My pleasure. Thank you for the honor.
Max Chopovsky: 51:44
Of course. Of course, the honor was all mine For show notes and more. Head over to maspodorg. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast on. This was more of the story. I'm Max Trapowski. Thank you for listening. Talk to you next time.