***DISCLAIMER: Please note that the following AI-generated transcript may not be 100% accurate and could contain misspellings or errors.***

Mahan Tavakoli: Welcome to Partnering Leadership. I'm really excited to speak to you welcoming Joanne Irving. Joanne works at the intersection of business and psychology as she helps influential and accomplished leaders improve their business outcomes as well as their lives. 

She's also the author of the C2 Factor for Leadership: How the Alchemy of Curiosity and Courage Helps Leaders Become Champions and Lead Meaningful Lives. I really enjoyed this conversation along with the many examples Joanne gave on how we can both become more effective and have a more meaningful life as well. I'm sure you will enjoy it too. 

I also love hearing from you. Keep your comments coming, mahan@mahantavakoli.com. There is a microphone icon on partneringleadership.com. You can leave voice messages for me there.

Now here is my conversation with Joanne Irving.

Mahan Tavakoli: Joanne Irving, welcome to Partnering Leadership. I'm thrilled to have you in this conversation with me.

Joanne Irving: Oh, I'm so delighted to be here. Mahan.

Mahan Tavakoli: Really excited. Can't wait to talk about the C2 Factor for Leadership: How the Alchemy of Curiosity and Courage Helps Leaders Become Champions and Lead Meaningful Lives. 

But before we get to that, Joanne, would love to know whereabouts you grew up and how your upbringing impacted the kind of person and leader you have become.

Joanne Irving: Yeah. So, I grew up in a small town in Vermont. It was a small town that thought it was a big city because we were the capital but we had 7,000 people in it. So I was actually thinking about how my growing up impacted what I wrote about and an incident, maybe give you a flavor of growing up in Vermont where the family had moved to a new neighborhood and I was eight years old and I was really eager to play with there's a big gang of kids and I was so excited to play with them. 

And this group of kids, they all went to day camp in the summer. So, of course I wanted to go to day camp. And you know how when you're gonna do something new, you're sort of excited and nervous and all that stuff, and I was all of that. And there were these veterans of nine and 10 years old. You know, they had been doing this for a while. So, you know, I was a little intimidated. 

But I got to camp and the camp was fantastic. You know, we, you know, wanna go swimming in a kind of brownish water lake, freezing cold and swim out to that raft. Sure. You know, you wanna play softball with the boys, absolutely. You know, do arts and crafts, do archery, all that stuff. And it was, I had a great, great time. And at the end of the session, they had this awards day, and so we were all sitting around on these tables, and they were announcing various awards to campers as they went through the day. 

And they announced the happy explorer Award and I jumped off the table and then I looked around and I said, oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed. I thought they said it by name. And my friend said, they did say your name. Go get that award. it had never, but it had never occurred to me particularly that I was a happy explorer. You know. It just never, never dawned on me. 

But as a psychologist all these years later, I know that your self-image is a major determinant of your behavior, right? If you know you have a strength, you can draw on it and so if you think of yourself in a particular way, if you think of yourself as courageous, you act courageously. If you think of yourself as curious, you act curiously, and that was true for me.

Mahan Tavakoli: What a magnificent story, Joanne, because it shows I love what you're mentioning with respect to this being a great way for the beauty we see in ourselves. We can exhibit it then to the external world. I also see the value of what other people saw in you, helping you see beauty or strength that you had in yourself to a certain extent the pig millian effect, right? 

In that, when the teachers expect more from the students, the student's performance rises. So I think it's a combination of both your self perception and how others perceived you that helped develop that strength.

Joanne Irving: Right. It's a feedback loop, right? You feel courageous, you act a little bit more courageously. People notice you for it, and it becomes a feedback loop. And I think that's so important as parents, as friends, and as leaders, what do we call out in other people? What do we take the time to notice?

As you know, like coaching, that's kind of one of the secrets of coaching is really just reflecting back to leaders their strengths so that they can access them and use them. And so, I think that's so important to think about what we are seeing and what we are telling other people that we see in them.

Mahan Tavakoli: That is a really important skill. Joanne, I know you also have your own consulting firm and coaching that you do. Part of the challenge that I see with a lot of leaders that I interact with is that we live in such a noisy environment whether the noise being in our hands, the little smartphones that we carry, or the noise being with everything that's going on in people's minds. That focus and the ability to pay enough attention to be able to find those strengths to call out in another people is oftentimes missing. 

So, when you are working with leaders, how do you get them to work on that ability to truly notice those special elements and strengths of others to be able to elevate?

Joanne Irving: Yeah. So, one of the things I talked to them about is the courage to slow down and not do anything for a period of time, which takes real courage. Right? To be in this busy world, you know, there's a million things and to say, I'm gonna face, I'm gonna sit here , and I'm just gonna breathe and reflect for a minute, take some effort, especially for the busy leaders that I work with. right? 

And really we have to create that space. If we don't, if you're running from meeting to meeting to meeting and after thing after thing after thing, there's no time to reflect on what happened? What was going on for other people? What was going on for yourself? But it takes courage.

Mahan Tavakoli: It does, it does, Joanne. But I laugh a lot because, I also mentioned that to others, I am not very good at doing it myself. Even like on one Sunday when my girls don't have different volleyball and swimming activities, I have a hard time to have that courage to be silent, quiet, not actively feel like I am doing things.

So, how can we develop that skill and ability to live in that silence? I appreciate that you say it takes courage and I agree. How can we do that?

Joanne Irving: Well, first of all, I have to say that I was there for a while, I was saying, you know, I talk a whole lot more about meditation than I actually meditate, you know. So, it's not like I have that nailed down. But I do think it's taking little moments. It's building on little moments. And being conscious. 

As a psychologist, it's all about what am I consciously doing things versus so much of our lives that we actually live kind of remotely and unconsciously. So, if I can be conscious and say, that's a value for me, the next time I'm in the grocery store line or I'm stuck in traffic or I've got a space to resist the urge to pick up the phone and start scrolling through, you know, in my case Instagram or you know, something like that. 

Or the endless emails that people get and to just take that moment, you know? So, it's finding also moments. It isn't that you have to sit down for hours. You know. Five minutes would be good.

Mahan Tavakoli: That consciousness is really important and it reminds me, there is a Persian poet from back in the 13th century. The poem is a little bit longer, but a key part of it is the differentiation between people that know that they don't know and those that don't know that they don't know. It takes consciousness to be aware of the fact that we need to isolate and be able to have those moments to reflect. That's really important. 

But before we talk more about courage, I would love to find out, you are a psychologist. You practiced. How did that then end up in you working with the executives as CEO coaching, executive team coaching and consulting?

Joanne Irving: Yes. So, first of all, Freud said that there's only two things, love and work. And so, I spent a great deal of the first part of my career on love. And I decided, second career at work. But actually I had always been interested, even as a clinician, on the impact of organizations and environment on people and on how they experience themselves.

And, so much of our lives is spent on work, right? I mean, in some ways I used to say you should choose your work as carefully as you choose your spouse, cause you're gonna spend more time there. And so, it really came from thinking about how can I have a big impact? And also, I was fortunate to work here in DC where I worked with a lot of very accomplished people.

Even in my therapy practice, they were doing great in so many parts of their lives. And what did I find myself talking about a lot? Well, work and struggles with work and that kind of thing. And so, it was quite a while ago, I'll date myself here that I decided to do that. You know, okay, how can I do this more directly without a pathology label to it that therapy can sometimes have?

And I stepped over that zeitgeist called coaching and just began there, to bring that. And you know, coaches and therapists would like guild wise to make a very big separation between the two. And there is a big separation sort of at the tail ends of each of those, but there's an awful lot in the middle that is quite overlapping.

Mahan Tavakoli: There really is. In many of my conversations, and coaching sessions with CEOs. Sometimes I think, okay, now I am not trained as a therapist and you need a therapist. So, you are right. There is a lot that goes into it. 

So, you have been working on the business side, that was your passion. Then, what gave rise to you writing this book? And specifically why curiosity and courage? Because there's lots of different factors that go into leadership and leading meaningful lives. Why did you focus specifically on curiosity and courage?

Joanne Irving: Yeah. So. for one thing, I thought about, I've worked with a lot of clients over the years and a lot of senior executives and I thought about who do I really like working with? You know, who do I enjoy being with? And I found that the people I enjoyed the most were the ones that were most interested in learning. Most curious about things. 

And also had the courage, frankly, to take a look at themselves, to take a look at what they were doing. And I thought they made some very courageous decisions in their lives. And so, I thought those things kind of stand out together. And, I also thought I experienced them as working together.

And so, there is a lot that's been written about courage and curiosity as separate things about leadership. But I thought, I think there's something goes on between those two things, those two traits. At one point, I was interested in writing about agility and centeredness kind of and it's kind of the same thing.

What are the things that enable us to lead in these very rapidly changing times? These are signature traits. They're not the only traits. Obviously, leaders need other skills. But what differentiates that person that's going to embrace the future and what's the person that is gonna be kind of reactive to it?

And so, I think I told you, I interviewed, so I thought, is this some just crazy idea of mine or what? And so, I decided to interview people other than my clients. And I did, I interviewed over 60 executives across the United States and in Europe, some across industries. You know, Silicon Valley, Midwestern manufacturing education, the judiciary, and I interviewed them about their leadership journey. And it was really a lot of my ideas then developed from the things that they told me that were so powerful. And I thought that the book was important so that leaders could recognize it in themselves and so they could bring it out in others. And that's why I wrote it.

Mahan Tavakoli: Yeah. And part of what you say, and I couldn't agree with you more is that we all have that curiosity and courage in us. So, it's not that some people are curious and some people are courageous, we all have it. And with a growth mindset, we can continually develop that curiosity and that courage. 

You also talk in the book, Joanne, about some myths that we have around curiosity and courage. What are some of the myths we need to overcome in order to be able to develop more of our curiosity and courage as leaders?

Joanne Irving: Well, I think, one of the myths is that curiosity is kind of a waste of time. It's like, you know, oh, that's a frivolous little thing. Like, you know, well, I got work to do. I can't be like investigating all sorts of little things. I can't be, you know, I got things I gotta accomplish here. And I think that’s important to think about the value of curiosity.

I'll tell you, I interviewed the executive director of the Imagination Stage. Bonnie Fogel, I'll name her name and she's a great woman. Just a terrific woman. And she had such an interesting way when she was the executive director. She encouraged her team to read magazines and read things outside of their subject and to bring back, every week at the leadership meeting, something that they had read about that just interests them. Right?

Because she felt like this is what's gonna help us understand where we need to be in the future. And, I'll tell you something, she is a very curious person. And so, one day she was just sitting chatting with the girlfriend of one of her employees. And so, she's asking the girlfriend, well, what are you interested in doing? And you know, what, what's important to you? And the girlfriend was talking about working with special needs kids. 

And out of that conversation with the girlfriend of an employee, she ended up developing a major part of their organization. And now the imagination stage is as much about giving expression to a wide variety of kids as it is about putting on plays.

And I think that's an example of how the serendipitous conversation that she was curious us to ask about ends up being so important. So yeah, that's, that's one of the biggest myths I think about curiosity. 

And there's different types of curiosity, right? You're not just curious or not curious. Some people are curious deeply, right? Like a scientist or something. And some people like a more scattered approach to curiosity. And actually, if you have both, somebody describes it as T-shaped across and deep, then, that's a great quality to bring to an organization. Depth of understanding, curiosity about one subject and interest in everything.

Mahan Tavakoli: I love the example you gave Joanne, which, first of all shows the curiosity and the benefit of genuinely asking questions and listening with curiosity to all people without an end in mind. That's the partner of the person that worked at Imagination Stage. It's genuine curiosity, and when you are curious, it might not end up anywhere. But it could lead you to some thoughts and insights. 

The other thing is, uh, a lot of times when I'm working with organizations in strategic planning, one of the things that I have to work the executives through is that typically they are in the mindset of we want to know who is doing what else within our space, however, they define their space.

In some instances this industry, some instances nonprofit or government, while some of the most disruptive and breakthrough ideas come from curiosity about spaces that initially, you see no relevance to. 

So, part of what I have to push them on is being curious about things that they don't see in their space. And it sounds like what you're saying is we all need to be more curious about things that fall out of our typical normal space.

Joanne Irving: That's right, that's right. And I was thinking of so many things. Amy Chang, who is an executive, senior executive at Cisco. I did not interview her, but she's on all sorts of boards and all sorts of that. She says that every board opportunity she ever got is from networking and just being curious about people.

And she says, you just never know who’s sitting across from you at the table. And like you said, it's not with the intent of I'm going to use this in some way. It comes from curiosity. Actually, the research shows that people who are curious are better liked by other people. One can imagine why, right?

Mahan Tavakoli: It's also a wonderful way to lead our lives especially in a more uncertain world. In that, as the pace of change is picking up and we are hitting the exponential curve on a lot of new technologies. things around us will change at a faster and faster pace, which means the old patterns and what worked before don't work anymore at a much faster pace.

So, that curiosity will keep us interested and learning as the world changes rather than all of a sudden be blindsided that the world has changed and we haven't.

Joanne Irving: Right. Well, and it's, see, the courage comes in being willing to look at that because there's an awful lot of us who can feel like, I'm just gonna put the blinders on and keep on keeping on here in the face of that. So, it takes courage. It takes courage to overthrow an assumption about how things need to be.

When you just look at what happened with Covid, we overthrew the idea that people needed to be face-to-face five and six days a week, you know? And there were people that resisted that notion. But it takes courage, you know, you're stepping into the unknown. And so that's how I see them working synergistically.

If you just have curiosity and no courage, you're like an academic. I mean, it's great. It's great, but you're gonna be an academic leader, right? And so you have to have the courage to say, okay, I'm gonna put that to action. I have a great story. I was interviewing the CFO from a, at a very high tech company. And she said to me, we had this lawyer working for us. And she said, this lawyer was just fascinated in all of our technology and all the things that we were accomplishing at this company. And she just asked question after question after question. And the executive says to me. 

And you know, I said to her, I love your curiosity, but we gotta get going here, And I thought that was a perfect example of somebody like, too much curiosity, not enough courage. Right? So, they work together.

Mahan Tavakoli: Yeah. There is that balance that curiosity needs the courage to lead to action. Now, part of what you say in the C2 Factor Beginning at Home is that we need to begin with ourselves. However, be mindful and aware of our cognitive biases. 

What role do cognitive biases play, whether it is in our curiosity or then the courage to move forward?

Joanne Irving: So, the thing about cognitive biases is that they're kind of invisible. I might be able to see yours and you might be able to see mine, but with our cognitive biases, we're not seeing bias. We're seeing reality as we see it, right? And so we need people around us to challenge us. By the way, cognitive biases are very useful.

Heuristics are really useful. You do not wanna have to think through every little thing you do like with precision. You just wanna be able to go on automatic pilot. You professionals use, doctors will use what they call pertinent positives, right? They don't wanna hear everything. They just wanna hear a few things because they have that bias, right?

Those are useful. It's just that when we are constantly applying them because we don't have other people around us that challenge us, because they look too much like us, because they came from the same background as us, because they had the same education as us, whatever it is, they're not asking us questions that help us answer a question, and become aware of. I'd already always thought about it. 

In teams, there's one of the team facilitations that I did. We had a person in the room who was from a different, different part of the company. She, I think she was in marketing and everybody else was in, I dunno, some technical aspect. Got it. And so she asked this, And someone in the team answered the question, what?

She said, well, why is A and B? Why do they go together? And this one person in the team said, well, because A goes with B, it's obvious. And someone else in the room said, wait a minute, is that why it goes together? Because I didn't think it went together that way. And, and it takes someone around you that doesn't have your automatic way of thinking to help you recognize how you've, you've been, your mind has been on a bit of a rut,

Mahan Tavakoli: Yeah. You know, so you make a great point there. Joanne, because initially when I'd become familiar with cognitive biases, I thought of them as, I think a lot of people do, as negative things, meaning we can get rid of cognitive biases, talk about confirmation bias as an example of it. 

However, as you said, there is a good reason for us to have those cognitive biases. It helps us in general make better decisions, more quick decisions, otherwise we would be paralyzed. There are times, however, cognitive biases get in the way of that curiosity at us being able to show courage. And that can be revealed best when we have open trusting relationships with others that can point out that in this situation, your confirmation bias is getting in the way of proper decision making.

So, it's not that cognitive biases are inherently bad, without our cognitive biases, we would be paralyzed in much of what we do. It said we need to be aware of them and therefore surround ourselves with people that, when necessary, are willing to speak up and challenge us. And when necessary, we can speak up and challenge them.

Joanne Irving: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, for confirmation bias, absolutely. We need to find someone who will challenge those things that we just go with goes without saying, you know?

Mahan Tavakoli: You also mentioned, uh, the Dunning Kruger effect, which I love and I would love for you to touch on. How does that play a role in curiosity?

Joanne Irving: Well. So, the Dunning Kruger means that people assume that they're a lot more expert at things than they are…

Mahan Tavakoli: Wait. I liked you up to this point, Joanne. I don't know if I like you. Well, I'm the expert. Sorry. Go on.

Joanne Irving: That’s right. And the less you know, the more certain you are. It's really what's crazy. And they did these great experiments where they asked people to rate their knowledge of a particular subject. And then they gave them like words of scientific words. And they said, well, how many of these words do you understand the meaning of and embedded in this list were complete nonsense words.

And people said, oh yeah, I understand that. I understand that. It's so dangerous because some of our leaders who will go unnamed in this, uh, this setting, have discovered that things are a little bit more complex than they initially thought. Healthcare, for example, is like, that's kind of a complex problem.

It looks so easy from the outside, right? So being a little bit humble. Again, so now, I'll go back to my matrix here about Dunning Kruger, but, and also bull in. What happens when you have no curiosity but all courage, right? That's when the Dunning Kruger is really in effect, right?

Often in error, but never in doubt, as we say in my family, right? And you can think of some leaders recently of some who had plenty of courage. So much, so that I sometimes wonder, was that, were they, like, was this not purposeful? Were they really that lacking in curiosity? But I think you look at someone like, um, like Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos.

There was a person who had lots of courage and not nearly enough curiosity, right? And so was this expert in something that she was not an expert in? Right? And Elon Musk one might think is someone who's taking a lot of action with perhaps not as much information as he thinks he has on how to run things like Twitter.

That's what happens when there's a real overconfidence. You have all, all courage, no curiosity.

Mahan Tavakoli: So what I wonder about this, Joanne, is with respect to the Dunning Krueger effect, again. Part of what they have shown in the studies that Dunning and Kruger initially did, which is why it's named after them, is the fact that we tend to the people a lot of times with very little knowledge, and end up having the greatest confidence in it.

While, oftentimes, the people with more knowledge and more understanding of a discipline or an area end up having somewhat less confidence because they know all that they don't know. So, it ends up the curve, ends up going down in terms of that confidence. 

What I wonder is, how does that balance and relate with imposter syndrome? Because part of what I've seen and I talk about is, I repeatedly mentioned the value of that humility with respect to leaders. Being humble. And many of the leaders I interact with are humble. 

At the same time, they feel a great sense of imposter syndrome. So, would love to know, where is the balance? You don't want to be overconfidence with the Dunning Krueger effect, but you want to have humility and confidence married together so you don't feel imposter syndrome. How can that be managed?

Joanne Irving: So, I think of like the, uh, curiosity and courage as existing together on kind of the, uh, an infinity symbol, if you will. And so, that you're in different parts of that, that symbol, that curve at different times. And I think it's kind of asking myself, am I too far on the curiosity part of the curve and I need to swing back more to courage?

In other words, am I gonna be willing to embrace and take action on something I'm not a hundred percent certain of? Or have I drifted on over to too much courage and too much self-confidence and I'm not being curious and I'm not being humble? Because to be humble as a leader takes enormous courage, right?

To be able to say, I don't know. And yet I think that we have a lot of respect for those leaders who are willing to do that. So I think it's that, I think it's constantly moving back and forth and asking yourself that question, where am I on this? Am I, have I got too much hoop hubris, or am I being too, do I need more courage to just act on what I know?

Mahan Tavakoli: And how do we best determine that, Joanne? I understand the point that you are making that there is a balance and we can go too far to either one of the extremes. 

When you are guiding leaders in working with them, how do you guide them to determine whether they are too far on one side or the other?

Joanne Irving: I think it's by surrounding themselves with people who have different perspectives and who they can have conversations with about whatever it is they're grappling with. Both conversations with people who are experts in the area and people outside that expertise. And so, I think that's where, you know, I talk about how important relationships are and it's the relationships that keep us on course.

You know, as one of my executives explained to me, you know, I'm the person in the room, sometimes that's kind of like pulling the reins on these guys that wanna take all this action right away and saying, wait a minute, let's just think about this. Let's just analyze this a minute. And so, you wanna have different people from backgrounds, also different styles. 

And so I think that's how, uh, it's not that I determine that for my leaders, it's that I ask them who are they talking to? What input have they gotten? And that's really the source of knowing where you are.

Mahan Tavakoli: And that input is really important. It's hard, but really important because the other thing you mention is self-awareness is critical in this journey. And I find it very hard. I repeatedly mentioned it in the podcast because I see it repeatedly with the clients I interact with in all kinds of organizations as people move up in experience and in status within society and within the organization.

In many cases, their blind spots grow and their self-awareness becomes less. Because everyone becomes a tiny bit more mindful of how they present information to them. These are people that have been very successful for many years, have been proven right repeatedly when others around them have been proven wrong.

So therefore, they become more convinced of their way of thinking and their self-aware awareness shrinks. So, how do you challenge leaders, especially as they move up higher in organizations to continually nurture greater self-awareness?

Joanne Irving: Again, I think that it takes courage. It takes courage for them to be able to do that. And I think holding it up as a challenge, frankly, to these very accomplished people, is helpful in motivating them because they like challenges, right? And also I think some of the great, I think there's plenty of models also of great leaders, John Chambers, who started Cisco, used to say to people, don't tell me what I'm doing right.

Tell me what I'm doing. I mean, he asked them. He asked them. and I think it's who, going back to who they select, but selecting people who have courage. Right? So, I have a great story. One of the executives that I interviewed is currently a senior vice president at a, uh, an organization with like 160 billion worth of assets. 

And she's a senior executive and she told me this great story about how when she was starting out in her career, she was like 25 years old and she's working at an investment bank. And she's an attorney. And it came to pass that the leader of the organization, whose name was part of this investment bank name, so we know who we're talking about, said, wanted to do something. And she said, you can't do that.

You just, you can't do that. And so he calls down and says, I wanna see so-and-so. So, she goes up to his office and she knows, she knows exactly what you know he's gonna see her about. And she says, she goes in and there's this huge desk of course. And he and this chair in front of the desk, and he comes around and sits on the edge of the desk.

So, now he's peering down at her and he's saying to her, I wanna do this. And she says, but you can't do this. And he said, I want to do this. She said, I'm sorry, I can't. And he asked her another time and he said, you really telling me that I can't do this? And she said, yes. And he said, well, yeah. Okay.

And he goes back around to the other side of the desk. And so, she gets up to leave, to escape and um, and he says, wait a minute. Come. and she's like, oh God, I'm gonna get fired for sure now. And he says, he said to her, do you know how many people there are in this organization that say no to me? And she looked at him and he said, exactly one, and you are it. 

And he said, that will be your secret sauce to success. And she told me that later, she always spoke to her after that at parties and stuff and he said, told her later, he said, you know, I had gotten to be a bully. I was so used to people saying yes to me that I just was used to getting my way and bullying people into it.

And he said, you were the only one that would stand up to me. So, it is no doubt why she got so far as she got, but those are the people you. in your executive suite, in your organization that have the courage to force you to look at that.

Mahan Tavakoli: What an outstanding example of courage on both sides. Joanne. Courage to speak up and courage of that founder, CEO to seek and then be eventually open to getting that feedback. 

One of the people who's done outstandingly well, founder of Bridgewater, Ray Dalio, has a culture of radical transparency and that feedback, which is a secret sauce of their success. It's very hard for many leaders and organizations, but what I find the people that excel are the ones that, as you said, have the courage to surround themselves with truth tellers, the courage to seek that truth and the courage to reward that truth. 

Because a lot of times people, everyone's watching someone is sometimes willing to take half a step out of line and say something. Everyone else quickly notices how that person was dealt with. So, this is incredibly important and really hard to do. Vast majority of leaders I have conversations with and interact with think they're doing this, but they aren't doing it. So, it takes a lot of courage to do it.

Joanne Irving: Right, right. You know, one of the execs I worked with, I, I, um, wanted to do a 360 for him. You know, I also have feedback from people, and, and he says, he said to me, I, I, I, I'm aware of all my blind spots. And I'm like, okay. Totally without irony, he says. I'm aware of them all. And of course he thought he was, and he thought he was open and in, in some ways his book, he was sincere , but he hadn't gotten feedback.

He'd gotten feedback in another position, but not recently. So, but I love that. I know all my blind spots,

Mahan Tavakoli: What a brilliant quote. I, I love that. I'm aware of all of my blind spots. So, this culture of curiosity and courage can also help teams become higher performing teams as, uh, listeners are guiding in some instances, organizations, but in many instances, teams of their own.

How can they create a culture and nurture a culture that encourages curiosity and courage within the team?

Joanne Irving: So, I talk about, uh, a lot about leading with questions. And, getting the team to appreciate leading with questions. I think I wrote about, uh, this one team where we used action learning, which I think is a great complex problem solving methodology that's based just on asking questions.

And while it isn't that every conversation is gonna be just question, question, question, it does create a mindset of, and a valuing of good question over the fat answer. And so, I think that's so important in teams also that leaders include those difficult people on teams. There's a lot written about this person who's so disruptive and we have to get rid of them because they bring morale down and blah, blah, blah.

Well, yes. and sometimes they're the person in the room saying the things that nobody else wants to hear. And so, a leader will see that and not protect them in the sense of not having them interact with other people, but value their input. And instead of just seeing it as obstreperousness, seeing it as an opportunity to explore something.

So, who a leader respects gives the team the message around what we will talk about and how we'll solve problems.

Mahan Tavakoli: One of the challenges I see with this, Joanne, is that those people are oftentimes seen as not being a culture fit for the team or for the organization. So, rather than saying, yes, we need voices that are different, people say, well, no, there wasn't a fit because that ended up always being the person that would highlight things that the rest of the people around the table didn't want to hear.

I would submit having people that are not a good culture fit is a great way to engage in more robust conversations than making sure everyone thinks and acts and behaves the same way.

Joanne Irving: A hundred percent. I think that way there's way too much emphasis on the notion of culture fit, for exactly that reason. I couldn't agree more.

Mahan Tavakoli: And, you also mentioned leading with questions, which is really important. And the one thing I have to underline is leading with the genuine curiosity that you talk about in asking questions. I've seen a lot of times leaders lead with questions, but it's either questions that they already have the answers to, those are not worth asking, or questions that don't have meaningful answers.

It's genuine curiosity and leading with questions where you are truly seeking engagement and answers that will be of value, not questions for the sake of questions or questions that you know the answers to.

Joanne Irving: Right. I call those the lawyer questions. A lawyer never asks a question that he doesn't know the answer to already. Right? That's not the kind of questions were interested in. 

Although I do find that with group dynamics, while that might start off, if you kind of stick with the notion of asking questions, that often the groups will begin to sort of compete in a way for asking a better question, and not a rhetorical question and not a, would you agree Mr. So-and-so? That kind of question, right? So yeah.

Mahan Tavakoli: I had a conversation with Warren Berger who calls himself a questiologist and has written a series of books on asking questions, including A More Beautiful Question. So, it is an art and a skill for leaders to develop. 

So, I'd love, uh, the thoughts that you have around alchemy of curiosity and courage and would love to know your thoughts, Joanne, with respect to, are there any practices or resources, anything that you typically recommend to leaders as they want to lead to both have more meaningful lives and greater impact with their teams and organizations?

Joanne Irving: So, let me just think a minute beyond what we've talked about in terms of who you surround yourself with and who you listen to. Yeah. You mentioned Ray Dalio. He is someone, by the way, who meditates regularly. And so he's, his culture is not just about the radical transparency and feedback, but also about taking that same curiosity to yourself. 

So, I do believe that things begin at home. Tell me again about resources. Are you looking for ideas of people, what people might read or what they might do?

Mahan Tavakoli: Any or all the above in that when you're working with leaders or trying to guide them or you run into someone at a networking function and you want to recommend, here are a couple of things you should consider doing or reading that will help you become a better leader or a more courageous and curious leader.

What would you recommend in addition to your own?

Joanne Irving: Well, there's some great books on curiosity and courage. Jim Detert from the University of Virginia wrote a really good book on courage in the workplace. And he has a courage ladder where you actually, he's kind of mapped out ways that people can take small steps to being courageous. 

So, I think that one of the books that I like is one by Todd Cashton on curiosity. And, um, and he talks about the different kinds of curiosity that there are and has some great stories about, um, looking to use curiosity as to build a fulfilling life.

I  think, uh, I think one of the best sources is asking people like your kids about how you handle things. You know, looking outside of work, looking right at the people around you. The people who love you enough to tell you you have spinach on your teeth, and to say, You know, it, it's always funny to me, the CEOs like, it's the kids that'll say, daddy, you are too bossy, or whatever.

They'll tell the truth to you, uh, whether you like it or not. So, I think that it's slowing down. It's taking the time, it's being, it's exposing yourself to a variety of things. And for me, I think that executives have to be intellectually convinced that it makes sense, that they will make better decisions, that they will be more curious When those two things work together. It's like you have to have a map before you go to the country, right?

So, I think something that intellectually makes sense to them and then they can begin to experience it. So, that's going to the country but you wanna have a map that says, this is why it works. This is why you'll make better decisions. This is why the two work together.

Mahan Tavakoli: Those are great recommendations. I had a conversation with Jim Detert and love his book on courage, and he has a lot of great resources on his site as well as what you mentioned, whether it is in the workplace or with the loved ones at home, making sure that we get their feedback. A lot of times, unlike what, uh, uh, that individual CEO had told you, we don't know our blind spots and we all have blind spots.

So, getting feedback can help us reduce some of the blind spots. And that curiosity to get the feedback can lend itself, can lend itself then to the courage to act on it, which helps us become better ourselves, lead more meaningful lives, and become better leaders as well. So, Joanne, how can the audience find out more about you, connect with you, and also your book, the C2 Factor for Leadership?

Joanne Irving: So, the best way to connect really with me and about the book is at, um, my website, my book website, which is www.thec2factor.com. I also have a little self-assessment. If people are interested in seeing kind of where they would fall in the curiosity and, uh, courage quadrant, they can go to www.courageouscuriousleaders.com and you can fill out a little questionnaire and get some feedback on both, actually some very concrete feedback of both kind of on the quadrant and also some suggestions for things that you can do to, to, uh, be more in the champion quadrant of having both. So, those are some resources.

Mahan Tavakoli: Well, I really appreciate the conversation, Joanne, and the example. As you help all of us be more curious, have more courage to end up in that champion quadrant. Thank you so much for joining the conversation, Joanne Irving.

Joanne Irving: Thank you so much for having me. This has been a delight and I appreciate it so much. So take good care. Bye.