Esther Perel on the relationship baggage we bring to work

This tension is inherent. It's intrinsic. Every relationship straddles. How do I stay connected to myself without losing you? And how do I connect with you without losing me? This is core. Hey everyone, it's Adam Graham. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast with Ted on the Science of What Makes Us Take. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. A stair parallel is a leading psychotherapist who focuses on personal and professional relationships. You might know a stair from her books or her fascinating podcast. Where should we begin? Today, I wanted to talk with her about the hidden influence of relationships, including her concept of the unofficial resume, which includes all the connections that have shaped us and affect how we show up at work and in life. This conversation is extra special because my own relationship with a stair has had a big impact on me. We've long been friends and colleagues and a bonus episode of Work Life we did back together in 2020 actually helped spark the concept for Rethinking as a show. Six years later, I'm excited to finally have her on. Okay, a stair. Welcome. It's been a while since we did a podcast together. Yes, yes, but you know what it is? Sometimes we get on the phone and we talk at length and it feels like we just actually did the podcast, but it was a private conversation. Then we say we should do a podcast about this, but you can't repeat the conversation. I think we need to just record our calls. We should record our calls. That's the takeaway. So I want to talk to you about relationships today. I'm so intrigued by your concept of unofficial resumes and I thought that would be a fun place to start. So we all know what the official resume is. What's the unofficial resume? So there are two parts in my mind to the unofficial resume. One is the many different things that you have done and experienced in your life that are not specific about your work history, but that have actually shaped who you are. And then the one that I am most interested in at this moment is your relationship history. To what extent does the way that you are socialized, the norms and the roles and the values that you were inculcated, how do they translate from family, community, religious institutions into your work life? Because that is never on the resume. You can see where the person worked, what they did, all the tasks, but you actually have no idea from what you read or what they tell you, what it's like to work with them. So I love this concept and it's a bit of a stretch for us in organizational psychology because normally we think about past relationships mostly in terms of prior jobs. So we know that people tend to imprint on their first boss and then they assume that other leaders are going to be like them. And so if they were lucky to have a really caring leader, then they carry positive assumptions into their future jobs. If they hadn't abused a boss, watch out, they tend to assume that future workplaces are going to be hostile. But you want to take us both broader and farther back in people's histories, don't you? Yes, yes. Because you're just emphasizing which boss you had. I am looking at what was the relationship between you and this boss, not just because of who the boss is, but also because of who you are and then what sauce did you cook together? And that leads me, there's a question I like to ask a lot, you know, it's just an opening door, it's not like everything resides there. But I often will ask people, "Where you raised primarily for autonomy and self-reliance?" Or would you say that you were raised more for loyalty and interdependence? Rist for autonomy and self-reliance, it's sometimes in the circumstances of one's life that you were just left to your own devices. But you have a message in your head, "I've got my own legs to stand on, I have to be the one to do it. Nobody can do it as well as me." When you have a problem, start thinking, "What can I do?" And baked in that is also, "How did you deal with authority?" Did you learn to challenge it? Did you learn to succumb to it? Did you learn to be obedient, compliant? Did you fight it all the time? Did you trust it? Did you distrust it? Did you think it was a notoriety that betrayed you? And that can be parents, operental figures, it can be teachers, coaches, it's not just the nuclear family, it really goes much further. And with your raised for loyalty and interdependence, yourself is embedded in a network of connections. It's not your own two-feet. My problem is everybody else's problem too, and my happiness, my decisions are measured by how they affect others, not just what's good for me. These kind of worldviews, they really are more than just their velta and shouns, as they used to call it in German, really trouble with you. They trouble with you to work. And when you have had a bad relationship with a manager or a boss, it's not just because the boss was acting a certain way, it's also because of how you interpret it and how you respond to what the boss was doing. The same boss can often be liked by some and is totally disliked by others because a relationship is not just one person's personality, it's the dance between two personalities. So we have sort of a template then that we walk into our jobs with. So let's take my, I guess my upbringing as an example. I think I was raised primarily for autonomy and self-reliance, but have come to value some degree of loyalty and helpfulness over time. I wrote a whole book about it. I did. So what does that mean for how you would expect me to approach my professional interactions? It's not a deterministic view, it doesn't say you got this messaging or you were raised this way, therefore you are that way. This is the thing that influenced you more and from that place some people will say this suits me. This is my view and this is how I live in the world. Other people say I have missed that other side for so long. Other people say I learned over time that this approach had its limits. It may be a default setting, but I need to expand on it because these two approaches are not exclusive of each other. They are actually themselves interdependent. Yes, okay, that was the next question then, which is what do you do when you want both of these things? So I want to have meaningful connections with others. I also value my own autonomy and sometimes those goals are intention and other times they're not. That tension is not sometimes there, it is always there actually. It is inherent, sometimes higher and lower, but it is essential to relationships and it is a constant negotiation and a constant balancing. It is not something that you resolve to make go away. It is actually if you enter the world of relationships, this is going to be one of your primary tasks. For some of us it is high tension and it is really complicated. I constantly comply. I am pleased that I succumb. I don't really hold down to my own views and for others I am rigid. So you have compliable and then you have rigid. Some people need to become more pliable and some people actually could use solidification. But you know, I asked a question earlier this morning. I said to the people around, I said, what would you say are some of the messages that you received that you think went with you to work? So one of the people was saying, when you start something you end it. It's just a one-liner, but you know that in that one-liner is an entire way of acting and responding to one's subligation. Another person said integrity. I said a central message for me actually was, don't just listen to what people say, watch how they act. I think when you ask it like that, most people have an immediate answer. They have a, if you say, there is a cartoon above your head, what would it say in the balloon? They have their line. They know they are unofficial resume, relationally. What would you say Adam? Well, okay, ask me. What's the question? Yes, you began by saying, I was raised with autonomy and then I came to understand the importance of what, relying on others, asking for help, letting myself be influenced by others. What is the transition? Well, for me the core value is helping others. And so it was, I think it was a realization that if I thought about autonomy as independence, then I wouldn't be able to show up for the people who mattered to me and my contributions would be limited. On the other hand, helping others is a form of never needing them. Guilty is charged. It actually reinforced the autonomy. I hate needing people. Okay, so that's the thing, but I think one of the things you say you learned is you learned the interdependence a little bit more. You realized that there was something that you needed to soften that has to do not with helping them, but with letting them either help you advise you intermingle with you. Fair. Is that accurate? Yes, that happened. Okay. Because helping others is actually an expression of autonomy that says, you need me, but I never need you. Wait, what are you trying to accuse me of this, Sarah? It's not, it's a descriptive, not an accusative. It's definitely a valid analysis, I will say, because I have been accused in the past of having unbalanced relationships where people will say to me, you're always helping me and you never let me help you back. My excuse for a long time was, I didn't become a professor to get help from students, right? This is a relationship where there's a mentor and a mentee. And I've really had to rethink that over time because I learned so much from my students. And they want to feel that they have value to add. And by making that one-sided, I was actually limiting the relationship. Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. And so now the next question is, do you see the value of adding this perspective? Into the workplace, right? I mean, you're an organizational psychologist. I'm a clinician. To me, the reason I began to think about that is because I think that relational skills have changed meaning in the workplace. They've always used to be soft skills. You kind of disregarded them. They were often seen as feminine skills. And I think that the research, especially with the rise of AI and everything around us, there is a sense that actually relational skills are often the bottom line. And actually, we don't call them skills anymore. It's relational intelligence because it's systemic. It's not just knowing how to talk and communicate. And it's understanding the relational system inside companies. That's how I began to think about it. I thought, there's something to bring to companies by bringing this relational way of thinking. So do you think that is valid too? Who showed you think this is? I was going to ask you that question. No, it's actually really interesting as I was listening to even your description of relationship resume. It never occurred to me to talk about kind of my childhood as part of what it's like to work with me. And yet, it's such useful information. Do you micromanage? No, because I don't like holding other people accountable. I want them to be responsible. Do you have a real system in place? Yes, yes. You want them to be as autonomous as you. Correct. You want them to be as self-reliant as you. The ideal collaboration is one where we're both totally independent. Do you hear the contradiction in terms? Yes, of course I do. That's the joy of it, isn't it? But you're right. I've worked really well when I think about the students that I've mentored, for example. I've been most successful when they're very independent and proactive. And I have struggled and consistently failed when they have a sort of a more-- Deferential. Deferential, yes. Tell me what to do. Give me the guidelines, et cetera. Now, that tells you which students you may want to work with and which ones should go to somebody else. Correct. And who you should hire to work with and who should be working with someone else. I think this is extremely useful information because too many bad matches are being made. It's about this. This is a very important dimension. A good collaboration is too independent. People, it's really-- it says a lot. Help, of course, is in micromanaging, is in how you communicate what you want to be done. The amount of people who tell their bosses, you don't tell me clearly what you expect. You expect me to know what you want without having to spill it out because it's so obvious to you. I mean, you can see the scripts. And each one of these scripts refers back to a particular relational dimension, which refers back to a particular type of socialization. Yeah. I see this is going to be therapy, which I clearly needed. I've had a hard time saying no to those students because it conflicts with my identity and value system around being helpful. And I don't want to turn them away. And I end up then being unhelpful to them. And I realize after the fact, yeah, I should have encouraged them to go to somebody else who's a better match for what they're looking for. It's interesting because I'm thinking about me as a therapist. There are many times when I just say, I don't think I'm the right person. And at first people don't like it. It's not a nice thing to say. Like, is there something with me? No, it's because there is something in the way that I think would work better with you. For me, it often has to do with pacing. Not everybody can go at the speed that I am accustomed to go. And for some people, it's just so welcome because I don't spend 20 minutes listening, not saying a thing. And for other people, this is not what suits them. So that's one distinction. Another distinction is that people tend to choose the manager, the mentor, the therapist, who often strengthens their defense system or their default system. But in fact, what they need is a person from the other side. So don't worry too much about saying, no, I think this matching thing is really useful, especially when you think who is going to work on what project with home. It's less-- people are constantly thinking skills and tools rather than also relational styles. It's funny because this is exactly why you are such a great foil for me. Is my instinct is to pair up with people who are also very cognitive. And your emotional orientation always pushes me in new directions. So-- We've had that conversation. We've had that debate in many flavors. But I appreciate it. And same for you, you tell me, where's the research? You tell me. No, no, it's really-- it's a very good counterpart. Well, yes, go ahead. Next question. So I think that-- Since you want to turn it around. I do. I do. So I'm thinking about this idea of complementarity. And of course, I'm immediately thinking about some relevant studies. There's a great paper that Chad Hartnell led showing that if you have a task oriented culture and you hire a relationship oriented CEO, that leader will add more to the bottom line. Then if you brought in a task oriented CEO, who basically just cloned what was already in the culture-- Cool rigs. --and the reverse is true, too. That if you have a relationship oriented culture that's more kumbaya, the task oriented CEO adds more value. Yes. That's not the person we choose, to your point. No. No. If we're a task oriented culture, we want the results driven, hard-charging leader. How do you think about getting people to abandon that preference, knowing that the complement may be more valuable but is harder to get excited about that person. Sometimes it's like a failed organ transplant when they come in because they seem like such a mismatch. My first framework, which I'm sure you are familiar with, but it's an old one and I'd find it so relevant still is high context, low context. Do you know it? Yep, but not as well as you. You know, high context. I'm going to just define the term is communication that derives its meanings from the implicit, from shared understandings, shared history, nonverbal cues, body language. It is extremely contextual. That is the relational versus the task. Low context society are often task oriented societies. It's actually not just high context, low context, it's relational versus task. They're more literal, they rely on the words, they go for clarity and efficacy rather than for relationships. So the model of high context, low context, applies directly to relational versus task. The question of complementarity is this, what are the pieces that are needed to do this? It needs a combo of relational and task. What is our strength task? What do we need to bolster? What is the side of us that we have actually not developed that we often negate or neglect or diminish, choose the other one? Because the system needs the other one. Even if you don't need it personally and you don't like it, your company does, usually your relationship does, usually your culture does. You know, by definition, most of these complex situations straddle dualities and it needs to integrate them. Complementarity is the ability to integrate the two parts, the opposite of complementarity is polarization, actually. Oh, that's so interesting. Because what is difficult for us is to actually bring those two things together. What do we do typically in a relationship? I become the relational person, you the task person. In a company you have them split, in a country you have them split, in the gender wars you have them split, and politically you have them split. And instead of understanding that each actually needs the other, what do we do? I outsource on to you the part of the equation that I don't want to have to deal with. You take care of that and I don't have to integrate anything. If I was alone, I would have to integrate those two parts, those dualities all the time. But since we are often not alone, we split. It's called splitting the ambivalence. Because complementarity deals with ambivalence, with opposing forces, opposing needs, opposing sources. When you manage to split it completely and you don't have to deal with micro picture, macro picture, spending, saving, hiring, not hiring, or whatever, the tensions that people have. AI, not AI, remote, not remote. It's this or that. And once you have to do this and that and how we're going to do it, you're in complementarity zone. If it becomes an either or and you become the or that I don't want to have to deal with, then we are in a polarized situation. That makes so much sense. OK, so this is letting a bunch of different sparks. Oh, I want to hear your response. Because I'm in the thick of this thing. And I love complementarity. And couple therapy is filled with it. And the opposite of it is polarization. Yeah, I never thought about that as the opposite. but I think you're right. I think so. First of all, this is. I mean, this is why the idea of culture ad has become popular instead of just culture fit, right? Because we're looking for somebody who's going to help us develop what's weak or what's missing, as opposed to just replicate what's already there. I think though after listening to you talk about complementarity, ad is not enough because it suggests that we can, like, we're the task oriented culture, we bring in the relationship oriented person and they're basically in their own silo, managing relationships. Correct. What we want is culture multiply where they actually have to interact with our culture and there's some kind of dynamic tension and to let themselves be influenced by each other. In both directions. Exactly. In both directions. I think, you know, this is why a lot of mergers and acquisitions fail is you, you see it, either two companies come together or one decides to buy another and the assumption is, wow, you know, this culture is going to bring something we're missing, but they don't do the integration work and they don't have the hard conversations about, are we actually going to start over and build a new culture together? Are we going to try to take elements of each that are successful? Are we going to have one absorb the other and expect, you know, usually the firm that's coming in that has less power to basically adapt and conform? And I think in some cases, the misfit or the tension is so profound that leaders realize it's actually better to just do the acquisition and let the two organizations maintain their independence. So I think about, as an example, I think about Amazon buying Zappos and saying, you know what? We realized this appo's culture is different from the Amazon culture in a lot of ways. We don't want to mess with it. We're just going to let it run autonomously or more recently Microsoft did that with LinkedIn. This makes me curious about how you think about when it's a good idea to do the integration work and when it's a good idea to maintain the separation. The first thing, just to complete the circle in the version where you actually create an integration, the integration can only take place if each culture or each side or each person or each company says, I need that. That saying I need that is the invitation to interdependence versus separateness. So that's the first thing. I would probably say I'm more aware of when it's necessary than when people want it. It's necessary when you see people who absolutely do not want to be influenced. It's the rigidity that tells you it's needed. So they're the ones who need it most. They're also the most resistant to it. Exactly. As always, when you're forced, you know you need it, but you're not as open to it and as creative to doing it. And it's voluntary, there is less pressure, you're more creative, but there's less motivation, there's less incentive to do it. So then the question becomes does it have to come from the bottom up or does it have to come from top down? I think my sense is it needs to come from the top down with a very clear explanation for why this is so important. Yeah. Well empirically you're right. You know, the evidence is strong that it's important for leaders to deliver this message to top down and explain. They don't do it enough, right? And explain here is why our culture is incomplete. Here's how we actually want to evolve. Here's what we want to learn from the organization we're merging with. Here's how our values and our practices and our norms are going to shift and we see a lot of potential there. I also think though that this is a time to talk about the collective relationship resume. And for people across different teams to say here's how we've done things historically. Here's what's not working for us. Here's what we're hoping to get better at. So I think that one of the ways that I've found always useful to do this is actually to use the polarity model of Johnson. You know it? The quadrant? No. It's really helpful. So imagine you have one model and another model. Centralize decentralized, something like that. And you're not going to convince by just saying you central people you have to decentralize or reverse. What you do is you first start by talking quadrant one about all the good things that belong to the model that has been used. Then you talk about all the liabilities and the weaknesses in the model that you are proposing. Then you go to the liabilities and the weaknesses of the model that they have used. And only then do you go to what you think would actually be a more complementary model. Because if I try to convince you that you need to change the meaning I do is reinforce your desire not to. It will only shift once I have acknowledged all the good you've done, all the weakness of mine, then the weakness of yours, and then maybe what I propose. This is why when we teach group decision making, I love to cover the evidence around discussing the pros and cons of each option. Before we even share our preferences around which option we think is better because once preferences are known, people start to jump on the bandwagon of what's popular, you get groupthink. And also we run into the issue of it's if we're allowed to talk about which model we like, then we're going to have too much advocacy and not enough inquiry. If we're forced to go through the exercise. Yes, I want to repeat that because it's really important, too much advocacy and not enough inquiry or too much reactivity and not enough reflectivity. Yes. It's the same. I just want to highlight that because so much of where we come in, is companies who are exactly on the fault line of reactive or advocate. Yes. Now this goes to something else that is thinking about, if we go back to the beginning of this conversation, we were talking about autonomy versus interdependence. Then we mapped that on to one of the core dimensions of organizational culture which is task versus relationship focus. You also mentioned what was your relationship with authority? Were you obedient, were you more defiant? And lo and behold, it turns out that is the other measure dimension of organizational culture which is risk versus rules. This is what we're starting to talk about now is I think too many organizations and too many teams. It's the rigidity you were describing. They've got a set of rules that they're very comfortable with. Following them has led to success in the past. It also creates a sense of predictability and comfort. And safety. Exactly. It's rules for safety. Yes. And I find myself really struggling in a lot of cases to nudge toward risk taking to say, look, you've got to manage risk like a stock portfolio. You can't have all of your decisions be secure because then you will have an unbalanced portfolio. You need a mix of very predictable safe bets and also some more unpredictable higher risk potentially higher return choices. How do you think about getting people to take a little bit more risk? We all have these two fundamental sets of human needs, security and adventure, change and stability, continuity and innovation. I mean, it's all these dualities and they spring from different sources and they pull us in different directions. But I think you're the one who said this to me once and you said the research on trust is inconclusive and it basically operates with a complete definitional vagueness. We don't really know what is trust. Is it a condition? Is it a feeling? Is it an outcome? What exactly is it? And we don't also know if you need to trust in order to take risks. That was Rachel Botsman who added that to our conversation. Or if it actually is the act of taking risks that strengthens the trust. I have found this extremely important and useful. I don't have an answer, but the first thing is really to explain to people the necessity of both. If you just do rules, if you just do structure and security and safety and dependability and predictability and all of that, you will fossilize and die. If you just do change and innovation and dysregulation and risk taking, etc, you may go chaotic. You will dysregulate and go chaotic. But systems become ineffective and unhealthy if we want to use that word. So again, they need each other. On any team, you need both. You need a bunch of people who say we can't do this and you need a bunch of people who say, let's go. This is another complementarity. It's essential that they sit at the same table and that they hear each other and that they understand that I focus on this, but I need you because the issue at hands needs this. Most issues are a negotiation between risk taking and risk assessment. Well, as usual, you make me think about some data. So Ella, Mirror Inspector and Miriam Arez have shown that you get more innovation in teams if you have a mix of creative and conformist members. Which is exactly the dialect that you're describing. They also find that encouraging people to accept paradoxes as opposed to resist them, boost creativity. And so I think what would often gets in the way of creative thinking and problem solving is people saying, well, we've got to resolve our differences. I am somebody who loves to take risks. You are somebody who's very comfortable with familiar rules. So we've got to pick one or the other and find a norm to follow. And the reality is that creativity flourishes when we hold those two values in tension. And we have to be open to accepting that. How? Paradox experts? Yes, yes. The same as what we talked before. You know, most relationship issues, most organizational issues, most systemic issues, are complex problems that you learn to manage, paradoxes that you hold and not problems that you solve. It's the holding of it that is actually what's going to yield the creativity, the innovation, all of that. It's the either all that is actually not the useful path, but it's very difficult to explain that to people. So how you ask people, at a situation where you wish you had been more open to discovery, to curiosity. Sometimes I say, you are a very curious person. What makes this one more challenging for you? You know, something about this one makes you react with more stiffness, and yet usually you are quite open to alternatives. And often, by the way, this goes right back to the relationship history. This is where the layers underneath begin to reveal themselves, and it's not just a work issue. It just plays out in the work issue. Sometimes I say, knowing yourself as well as you think you do, what makes it hard to work with you? Because in those situations, when people can't integrate that, risk and security, they polarize. They instantly polarize, and they dump on the other side. If it doesn't work, it's because of you. It's not because we did not succeed in really becoming interdependent parts who make the system thrive. It's because you did something, and if we had done it my way, and all of these are often scripted more about fear than about problem resolutions. One thing we know is that the people who are most hesitant to take those kinds of risks are people who are minorities in an organization. Because they worry that if they share, especially their cultural backgrounds, they're going to stand out instead of fitting it. And despite that, you will be happy to know that there's some research by Rachel Arnett, which shows that if you as a member of a minority group that's underrepresented in an organization, if you talk about your cultural background and your upbringing, you actually end up being included more by the majority. Yes. In part, that may be individuating. In part, it allows them to see you as a human being, as opposed to just a stereotype of a group. They learn more about you. They can find commonalities with you. And I found that really encouraging to say, the very people who are most hesitant to open up are often the people who benefit the most from doing it. But it's not just that they benefit. The whole organization benefits. We want to give lip service to diversity, but in fact, it's really about integrating particularism with universalism. I mean, it's having colors and shades and experiences and different hierarchies and different priorities of values. And I really think that this has taken a toll because of remote work, because there's a drainage of possibilities of situations, opportunities to say, do you want to know how we do it? In my country, where I'm from, the way I learned it, then the question is, how do you elicit that? It takes people to say, you know, I'd go up to here from you. And you may have a different perspective. Are there other points of use in the room? It could be really rich to know what are the other ways to think. It's not like the human experience is infinite. Whatever you are going through, a bunch of other people have gone through it in their own version. So please, do speak. And I think that every leader, every manager, every team leader should elicit that. Ron Heifetz talks very eloquently about how much you want to elicit the minority views whenever you have an adaptive challenge. It's not so important when you have a technical problem, but adaptive challenges demand that people tolerate anxiety. And to bring in other points of use, other cultures, other narratives can be anxiety producing to those who like to live in certainty. But it's necessary. OK, last thing, lightning round. Are you ready? Yeah. No, I'm sorry. Yes, go ahead. OK, what is the worst relationship building advice that you hear? Do what's right for you. And don't think about what other people think. OK, best advice. The quality of your relationships will determine the quality of your life. Don't neglect them. And don't think there is tomorrow. If you have something to say to someone, say it now. OK, quick, hot take, an unpopular opinion you're eager to defend. Don't text, leave a message call, because the voice is the first thing we hear in utero. It is the most intimate. You can't mistake an voice and a tone. And all the implicit meanings that are attached to it versus writing texts that are rife with misunderstandings and misinterpretations speak to people. I think this is why asynchronous voice memos are becoming popular. Yes, yes. OK. What is something you've changed your mind about lately? I changed my mind back and forth about AI almost weekly. Depending on if I see something that I find really helpful and inspiring and useful, and times when I think it's just going to make the species disappear, if this goes on. So I vacillate. I don't know that I change my mind, and it's definitive, but I vacillate constantly about my thinking and AI. OK. And then last question. What's the question you have for me? Can we do this again? Yes, we must. I insist. Thank you so much. Thank you, Esther. What a blast, as always. It's a pleasure, really. Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by Ted with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glazer. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Polar Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winnick, and our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne Highlash, Ben Ben Cheng, Julia Dickerson, Tansaka Sung Manivong, and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hans Dail Sue and Alison Layton Brown. Do you have a hard stop? I do. What time? We aren't going to sell 11.30. 11.30. Yes, we can go over a little bit. And we can give the full hour. All right. Well, that is not a hard stop then. Done. It's all baked in. Yeah, I'm just going to call you out on all your lies today. Watch out.