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April 25, 2023

255 The Path to Meaningful Work and Happiness in the Age of Smart Technology and Radical Change With Edward Hess UVA Darden Emeritus Professor | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader

255 The Path to Meaningful Work and Happiness in the Age of Smart Technology and Radical Change With Edward Hess UVA Darden Emeritus Professor | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader

In this Partnering Leadership conversation, Mahan Tavakoli speaks with Edward D. Hess. Ed Hess is a Professor Emeritus of Business Administration at the Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia. Ed Hess is the author of 15 books, including OWN YOUR WORK JOURNEY: The Path to Meaningful Work and Happiness in the Age of Smart Technology and Radical Change. In the conversation, Ed Hess shares why the rapid speed of technological change drastically differs from the previous eras and the impact it will have on companies and individuals.   Ed Hess then shares the importance of becoming adaptive learners, its value to organizations, and strategies on how individuals can do that. Finally, Ed Hess shares specific ideas on becoming adaptive learners to keep up with the speed of change and quiet our egos for greater happiness and resilience through turbulence.    



Some Highlights: 

- The importance of being an adaptive learner

- Ed Hess on three ways to add value in a way that technology can't

- How to listen effectively and its importance

- Why quieting the ego is hard and why it's so important

- Ed Hess on three ways to add value in a way that technology can't 

- The importance of higher-order critical thinking 

- How to build caring, trusting, positive emotional relationships

- Ed Hess on the value of mindfulness and meditation

- How to become an iterative problem solver 



Mentioned in this episode:

Partnering Leadership Conversation with Professor Edward Hess on How to Adapt to the Speed of Change Through Hyper Learning and Humility



Connect with Professor Edward Hess:

OWN YOUR WORK JOURNEY!: The Path to Meaningful Work and Happiness in the Age of Smart Technology and Radical Change 

Ed Hess at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business

Ed Hess on LinkedIn


Connect with Mahan Tavakoli:

Mahan Tavakoli Website

Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn

Partnering Leadership Website


Transcript

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

[00:00:00] video1916662141: Professor Ed Hess, welcome to Partnering Leadership. I am thrilled to have you back in the conversation with 

[00:00:06] Ed Hess: me. I'm thrilled to be here with you 

[00:00:09] Mahan Tavakoli: ed, in 250 plus episodes. I couldn't have thought of a better person for me to have as a repeat guest.

You being an author of 15 books, hyper learning. Humility is the New Smart and your newest book. Own Your Work Journey, the Path to Meaningful Work and Happiness in the Age of Smart Technology and Radical Change. So can't wait to have a conversation on your newest book Ed, but you also start out this book talking briefly about you as an outsider, 

would love to find out a little bit more about your outsider status. 

[00:00:50] Ed Hess: I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. The first outsider part. I was born two pounds, 13 ounces at a time when babies that weight did not live. I was six weeks in an oxygen tent , so it's like I started out an outsider. I wasn't supposed to be, but somehow I was. My family moved to the western part of rural Georgia. My father was an immigrant to this country. From Germany. My mother was from Boston, Massachusetts.

Her family were factory workers, and here we came was this little kid and a German guy and a Massachusetts woman into rural Georgia and Western Georgia. And this was during a time when there was lots of issues going on. Brownie Board of education, segregation integration, et cetera.

 Lots of very serious issues. So my family was an outsider. And I was an outsider because I didn't fit in the culture. But also if you grow up in the south, as you probably know sports is so important. So I went out for peewee football in the third grade, and here I was in this little small town, little small school, and I'm the only guy that wasn't chosen to be on the football team because I was , not an athlete and too chubby or whatever.

 So my family was an outsider and then I became an outsider. So I sat back and said, I gotta do something. And I said, , I wanna be the smartest guy in the room. That. May sound like , a know-it-all. But no, that's how I would make my stand and my mother would save up money in every say couple of months, take us to the bookstore and I'd get to buy one or two books and I'd buy books about successful people, doctors, lawyers, sports people, and none of those people lived in my town.

They were people all from all over. And so I dreamed about, can I be one of those, I read about New York City. Wow, what would it be like being there? Would it be better for my family, so reading started me out and then my mother and father saved up money and bought the Encyclopedia Britannica.

And that was how I learned. All of a sudden people were saying, Hey, this kid is smart.

I need to know this kid. And that was how I got into being semi accepted. Not accepted. I wasn't accepted in my family, wasn't accepted in the community until, I went to the eighth grade and I talk about it in the book at the end of the seventh grade. I'd made All As and everything and I had friends because, I was the smartest guy in the room.

I was the only man not wearing Levi pants because couldn't fit me. I wore all Wrangler pants. Everything was off base. But at the end of the seventh grade, I was sitting at home and I got a call and I answered and said, hello. He says, is this Ed? I said, yes, sir.

I said, who's this? He says, this is Coach Grisham. Coach Charles Grisham was the most outstanding football coach in the state of Georgia. He was a little g God. He said, you come into the eighth grade, right? I said, yes, sir. He said, would you like to be an athletic trainer? I said, what's an athletic trainer?

He says, you tape ankles and I'll teach you, and you'll like my aide. And I said I don't know how to tape ankles. He says, I know that I'll teach you how to do it. He said, there's only one requirement. I said, what's that coach? He said, I want you to be at my house at seven 30 every morning and for the next five years, you're gonna ride to school with me.

And so September comes my father drops me off, and I'm sitting shotgun next to the most powerful man in West Georgia. All of a sudden everything changes for my family, for me. It was like he put his hand on me and the family and said, blessed be these people.

Don't mess with 'em. That was amazing. And he stayed with me all the time. He encouraged me to write article on being a trainer in high school. And it was published in the national magazine. And that led to me getting a full athletic scholarship as a trainer to University of Florida.

So I got to go to college because of him. And , If you look at my career, I've had four different careers, 

three of 'em I weren't trained for. So all my life I've been a lifelong learner. Going into the unknown and figuring stuff out. .

[00:04:53] Mahan Tavakoli: There are two beautiful aspects that come out of the story.

You shared Ed. One is that what you admire so much in the coach having taken you under his wings and made your family one that was accepted in this new community is something that I have seen you do often with others yourself. So it is the fact that. Get joy out of elevating other people. Yes. And additionally, you mentioned the fact that you've changed four careers.

You talk in this book about how we are going to need to unlearn, relearn at a faster rate and careers will not look anything like even they do today, let alone what our parents experienced. So you have also had to go through some of that reinvention. Yes. Now you talk about the fact that this is a new time, a new era.

What is so different about this era? Why do you think now is a different time with respect to technological progress and this radical change requiring us to retool ourselves?

[00:06:15] Ed Hess: That's a very good question. And there's two reasons. Speed and if you will, closeness, the speed of change is definitely accelerating knowledge.

Or information is dumped upon us every day so the quantity of information is huge. The speed at which it's changing and accelerating is the highest it's ever been, ?

 Even if you go back to the, industrial revolution, it took lots of years for the industrial revolution to occur, but it took a lot of years for the outcomes to be manifested the life cycle of a company today is much, much shorter than it was 20 years ago

the ability to access, whether it's capital information or the ability of people to work from home, work remotely, work in Asia, for US companies as an example. It's a whole different game and this game is going to continue to accelerate. I think a big move has been made when you look at the big technology companies and count up the tens of thousands of layoffs they've made in the last three months.

If technology. Is saying, we don't need as many people. Technology's doing more, goodness gracious. What does that say to a quote non-technology company? I think it's accelerating internally. It's accelerating globally 

so what does that mean for us? What it means for us is that we've got to become a highly adaptive learner to learn and unlearn and relearn at the speed of change. . Every organization, I don't care whether you're nonprofit, profit, what type of business you're in, whether you're in the education field.

Every organization is gonna be challenged by keeping up. To have a highly adaptive learning organization. What do you need? Highly adaptive people. And we're not wired to be highly adaptive people. We have to rewire ourselves, and that's what this book is about. We have to rewire ourselves because whether we like it or not, we're all going to be impacted.

 So the book is an invitation. Take ownership of you and learn how to learn better, to think better, to listen better, to collaborate better. . And. To manage what's going on inside of you better. That's when people will be able to have meaningful work, meaningful relationships, and ultimately, in most cases, that's happiness.

[00:08:52] Mahan Tavakoli: One of the things I appreciated, ed, is that you have both laid out a framework and made this a workbook for us to take ownership over our own journey. I agree with you that we have a very hard time with understanding the scale of change.

I had a conversation with Zema Har, he was talking about the exponential technologies and their changes, and I do a talk for leadership groups on exponential change. In most instances, while they're nodding, most people have a very hard time conceptualizing the changes that we have in front of us.

So you say we need to add value in ways that technology can't.

Add value. How can we add value in a way that technology can't 

[00:09:44] Ed Hess: there's three ways to do that. Thinking in ways that technology can't think right now. . . Is going into the unknown and figuring things out. . Being explorers. So

 Higher order critical thinking, higher order exploration, thinking making decisions when there's lots of uncertainty and little data. That's one area. The second and probably will end up being. The key way that we are different than technology is the ability for human beings to build caring, trusting, positive emotional relationships with other human beings and the workplace.

What this means, in this pace of acceleration, most human work is gonna be done in teams, and so the quality of the output of the team is directly dependent upon the quality of the emotional state of the group. At. In the foreseeable future, yes, we've got, AFS being built where children can have their little robot who's gonna say nice things to them, but it's gonna be a long time.

 Before a robot will be able to, relate emotionally to human beings, ? At different levels, depending on the situation. That's probably the ultimate differentiator. The third thing is trade jobs. ? If you're in a trade that basically requires dexterity, lots of moving around in iterative diagnostic definition of the problem, and then iterative trial and error approaches to solving the problem, 

you're gonna have work for quite a while. . The technology's not at the point of being able to go, underneath, basements to go, up and around. But also the ability to diagnose, then the ability to come up with fixes, but to iterate the fixes.

? So technology is advancing very fast, on the thinking side weather's data 

so going forward we have to sit there as human beings and say how good a thinker I asked 2000 senior executives over a period of time. . How do you think, , that's a simple question. And I rarely got an answer that made sense.

The key answers were, it just pops up in my mind. I don't know what happens. . I'll give you another example of what's going on ego is a big issue in our country.

? It's very competitive. ?

I've done it with, I think it's 1400 leaders, from military leaders to corporate leaders, to people that are in, foundations looking at if you will, the, the question in having them do diagnostics and the number one winner of the biggest. Is to learn how to quiet ego. Ego is such a big problem in our culture and in our people.

? And then the second one is how to listen reflectively. Most people come to the table

to advocate or to get affirmation or to win, many people, when the other person's talking, their mind is creating the answer while the person's talking. ? So all of this stuff about how we are wired to become a highly adaptive person for this new age, we gotta rewire ourselves.

 That's why there's 29 tools in the book. It's a how to book, ? How to overcome, what will hold us back, how to develop ourself. It's what I call becoming the champion of you to take ownership of it, to own it, and to use tools and practices, 

[00:13:38] Mahan Tavakoli: These are practices. You also talk about growth mindset. Carol Dweck's work in that. We are not there yet. We need to continually work on it. Yeah. And the ego that you mentioned, which is a big challenge for all of us, and I see a huge challenge with respect to the way leadership has worked.

So part of what you're saying is we need to take ownership of our own ego. Yes. Yes. So there is internal work that needs to happen. Yes. With this external pace of change. So how would you encourage leaders to do that, ed? 

[00:14:17] Ed Hess: That's a big challenge. . The two biggest inhibitors of learning are ego and fear.

 The funny thing is, the biggest enabler of change in A C E O is ego in the sense that they're fearful if they don't do this, they will be a loser. With CEOs, I have found there has to be a compelling why that they're doing this.

 I don't have an easy answer on how a leader transforms, transform themselves in light of the speed at which things are going.

I'm only sharing with you that in those. Engagements where I have been successful, I have used ego as a positive way with the leader to say and ask the questions, what do you want your legacy to be? ? 

 But it doesn't come easy. That's why the concept of deliberate practice and people working on small number of things and holding themselves accountable and having accountability partners, that comes out of the cognitive science.

[00:15:17] Mahan Tavakoli: Higher level of performance Ed requires that recognition that, competition going forward, is not other people, therefore being able to quiet our ego, you talk about the six attributes that define humility, and I also mentioned repeatedly on the podcast, , confidence and humility are not mutually exclusive.

Actually, some of the most confident people I know, such as you have tremendous humility. It's typically people who lack confidence, who don't have that humility. Yeah. So you address those in the book as well, in a way that, as you mentioned, These are practices that you talk about that we need to work on an ongoing basis.

Yes. As the world around us is changing. Now, one of the other things you briefly mentioned is that need to calm our minds, the power of mindfulness and meditation. Yes. Which by the way, another brilliant author, Yuval Noah Harari, who is a little bit more dystopian in his view of where AI is headed.

 Part of what he says can help us tap into our humanity is also that mindfulness meditation and getting to know ourselves better. So what are practices you recommend for us to engage in, in order to do better with that as the world around us changes at faster rate? 

[00:16:45] Ed Hess: Mindfulness meditation is foundational.

. Taking ownership of your mind. . And it is a lynchpin, which enables other things. It helps enable a quiet ego, ? It enables a quiet mind. It helps enable a quiet body. So if you're gonna start out mindfulness, meditation is a key practice.

 And you start out, trying to meditate for two minutes or three minutes, ? And you do it. The key is the consistency Your goal is a state where you're totally quiet inside, ?

But as soon as something pops in your mind, instead of letting it take over you, you basically ignore it by breathing in and out. ? So that's the first key step that if you were say, where do I start? The second step that works very well is gratitude practices. And gratitude practices helps generate a quiet ego. So let's say that you buy into the program and you're gonna do mindfulness meditation.

You're gonna start out for two to three minutes. And in the book, it basically has exactly what you should do. And it's start two to three minutes, then you go up to five, then you go up to 10. 20. And then as someone like you who's been working for years at it, you, who knows where you are, but you could be 30, 40 the really, the Dai Lama meditates three hours a day.

None of us are ever going to get there. . And still be working, but you don't have to get there. But after the meditation to give gratitude, . To say, I'm grateful to Jane for doing this. So you do gratitude practices. . Even in thinking about gratitude.

I am thankful to Jim for helping me. you, Jim. Saying those words generates positive emotions in our body. . Being able to generate positive emotions is mission critical to the journey we're on, as well as being able to manage negative emotions. But the positive emotions, the gratitude practices, also sends another message to us.

We didn't do this all by ourselves, and that will help quiet ego. So if you start out with mindfulness, meditation, and gratitude practices at the beginning, , you start small, it will be frustrating it is for most people, because our minds, especially, Busy people, smart people.

Everybody's got so much going on. Oh, sit here and just be quiet. Oh, this is boring. This is boring. I gotta get the kids breakfast, oh, what am I gonna say to the boss? No. Start one to two minutes. It'll take you time. . You maybe in two months will be at 10 minutes.

Maybe it doesn't matter because it's all working. You're rewiring yourself and everybody that has stuck with it, that I know says it is not only mission critical,

but they're not going to turn. So those are the two, mindfulness meditation, gratitude. And then I'll add a third one. Breathing, deep breathing. You're going into a meeting. You're just coming out of a meeting. The mind is flying, blood is flying.

You're, oh man, I'm just energized. Slow down. Let's do , one or two minutes of deep breathing. There's two, different practices, coherent breathing practices and the Navy Seals. Box four, breathing, breathe in. Counting four. Hold your breath. Counting four.

Breathing out, counting. Do that four or five times. Then you walk into the meeting and you've calmed your body down. That's all part that helps you with the meditation. So taking deep breaths can slow down. Many people use words that are not appropriate or hurt people or do things they wanna regret because they're reflexive.

I feel this, do this. No, slow down. Take a deep breath. So you take deep breathing before you go into a meeting. Stillness. You see all these practices. People are listening , and they're saying, this is not complex. What's the big deal?

You're right. It's not that complex. The big deal is you. Taking ownership and doing it consistently. That's what retrains your body. That's how you take ownership of your mind, your body, your emotions, your listening, your behaviors, your words, because you're taking ownership of.

[00:21:54] Mahan Tavakoli: I love that for so many different reasons. I might have mentioned to you in the past, I had initially done my undergrad and did some grad work in human nutrition before going to business school. And sometimes I would get frustrated. With the fact that people are looking for magical answers and cures while the reality of diet was captured by Michael Pollen.

And also some work that Dan Butner had done, which is eat real foods, mostly plants, not too much, and add the Dan Butner part move naturally and connect with community. It's very simple, yet it is hard for all of us practice. However, a lot of times people are looking for magic cures.

Start your day drinking this, drink or juice, or take this vitamin. It will solve all of your problems. That's part of what I love about your point at your message is that it's well researched and people might not and say, oh, gratitude. That makes sense. Ah-ha. Take a breath. , good. I've heard that before.

Mindfulness. Sure. Yes. Because these work when practiced. Yes. And part of what we need to do is not look for magical cures, but go through the exercises that you lay out to practice this. That is how, whether it is with nutrition and health, we improve our nutrition and our health. Yes. Or in this instance, Improve ourselves, our minds in this fast pace of change and smart technology.

So it's the practice that is important. 

[00:23:41] Ed Hess: That's right. You have to do the practice. That's right. And that's why when I talk to people, I talk about great athletes or great warriors or great musicians, a great violinist. . How long does she or he practice? And even the great ones.

, the great ones at the top. You speak with them and they're practicing every day more than they practice when they started out. And I'll ask them, how many times do you do this every day? . It's that deliberate practice and. And I've also found that it helps a lot to have an accountability partner, my friend Go Smith has an accountability partner, ? Wherever he is in the world doing his consulting work he calls that partner at a certain time every night to check in on where he is on his practices. So people have to trust us what we're talking about, try it do the deliberate practice, have the accountability partner and give it.

Time, and then once it catches you and you say, this is working, you keep it up. . 

[00:24:59] Mahan Tavakoli: One of the practices that I've learned in part through these conversations, has been. Journaling and trying to be reflective in that. It's easy, to talk about ego and controlling the ego. I can say it to other people. However, there are times when I reflect on my day, the way I have behaved, the way I've interacted, or the decisions I've made have been driven by ego rather than being driven by deeper thoughts and emotions.

So it is a practice. And part of what you're saying is some of it comes with the intention of the practice, the mindfulness around it, and some of it can come from reflection Yes. Because the same way as a violinist, as you mentioned, or a warrior or an athlete has to practice.

Every single day consistently to maintain and improve their level of performance. If we want meaningful work and happiness, most especially in this age, where our world is changing at a very fast pace, it requires going through this practice. So you mentioned the importance of critical thinking so what are some practices you recommend for us to be critical thinkers in this noisy world? . 

[00:26:26] Ed Hess: First I think the biggest void in our country is the lack of critical thinking.

There's scientific research out there by top-notch people at NYU and Stanford and other places that we're not critically thinking in our colleges or universities. is so sensitive and fragile. . 

If we basically accept the fact, , that we don't know everything and that what we know may be wrong because we haven't stress tested or we haven't done the practices, we get to the point of being able to say how do I think? And basically the book has got a critical thinking checklist, critical thinking, purposes and questions.

The five why's root cause analysis, my friend Gary Klein's Premortem tool the US Army Action Review. So people will have a template, the questions to ask themselves that will help them think critically. The challenge we have.

In our society right now is to have people understand that a significant amount of what we know may not be correct. ? Because we don't have enough data and so much of it is emotionally driven. ? And this is a big issue here. It's a big issue culturally, you'll see a different way of thinking today in the Nordic countries or some of the other countries in Europe, in the Netherlands, for example in their education system.

And so we have gotten to point where it's hard to have debate. It's ego, plus it's emotional. Everybody wants to be loved. Everybody wants to be liked, and everybody's looking out for who's against them we've gotta change that , 

[00:28:26] Mahan Tavakoli: I find that the questions in the book move us toward where we need to move to, which is greater clarity and less certainty.

One of the challenges with critical thinking is the fact that in a slower changing world, it would be okay to feel certain about the future and not be a critical thinker. Still, it was good back then, but now it's essential as you say. Yes. We can have clarity, but with critical thinking, avoid that certainty, which also affects our conversations, whether in the education system or elsewhere.

So I really appreciate that, this book is one that I am continuing to because I believe, that this pace of technological and radical change is going to pull both at the fabric of society.

And the individuals, however, the positive message comes from Professor Ed Hess. We have control over that. Our competition is not others, it's us. And you have laid out the framework of how we can do that. So how can the audience find out more about your book Ed and connect with you? 

[00:29:56] Ed Hess: They can connect with me on LinkedIn is the easiest.

They can also find out, at the University of Virginia, my school, and I think that you're quite correct. It's the getting started in understanding. That I can take ownership.

I need to be on this journey. I invite people, give it a try and give it a real try. The end of the book. It basically starts out with here's things that are mission critical for your first three, four months, work, three, four months on this. And it doesn't add up to, an hour a day. ? Start small, start deliberate. Have an accountability partner. Keep your journal.

[00:30:40] Mahan Tavakoli: you want to have a positive impact and help elevate others. And you have done that through your work, your books, and most especially this book, own Your Work Journey, the Path to Meaningful Work and Happiness in the Age of Smart Technology and Radical Change. And you say in it, this is a how to book.

Yeah. It is a learn by doing book. It is a create your new storybook. Yes. Thank you so much Ed Hess, for helping us create our new stories. 

[00:31:26] Ed Hess: Thank you very much.