How to Step Outside Your Comfort Zone as a Leader
In today’s episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we welcome Andy Molinsky, Professor of Organizational Behavior and International Management at Brandeis University. Andy dives into the art of breaking through comfort zones, sharing how to build resilience and foster cross-cultural relationships that lead to real impact.
He reveals practical strategies to overcome psychological roadblocks, embrace a global mindset, and thrive in challenging environments. Andy also highlights how personalization and repetition can turn discomfort into lasting success.
🎓 In this episode, Andy discusses:
How to build resilience through repetition and reflection
Why comfort zones limit personal and professional growth
Practical strategies for customizing leadership approaches
5 psychological barriers to stepping outside your comfort zone
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Chris Rainey 0:00
Andy, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me. I feel like I'm in your little universe now, in your in your office.
Andy Molinsky 0:07
Yeah, you see, see the little globe in the back there? Oh, yeah,
Chris Rainey 0:11
I didn't even notice that as well. Yeah, be honest with me, have you read all of those books on that bookshelf? Yeah? Actually, yeah.
Andy Molinsky 0:21
Well, I got rid of a lot of books. I only kept the ones that I've read, and then I'm not gonna feel like I'm flexing a little bit here. But then there's ones that I wrote.
Chris Rainey 0:31
Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. So combination, I just find like because I felt like an imposter. Sometimes, I used to have a bookshelf in the back of my old podcast set, and I never, I think 50% of I hadn't even read because I'd get, like, a lot, a lot of people send in their books for the show, and I'm like, I just don't have time to read this book. Yeah,
Andy Molinsky 0:51
no, I hear you. You know, it's funny. I'm not, even though I'm an author, I'm not a huge reader. I'm not a huge reader. My wife is a voracious reader. She'll read. She reads like a book a week. She just, just loves to read. I'm more of like a podcast guy or a radio guy. I read occasionally, but not a huge reader. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 1:13
I don't read whatsoever. Actually, I done pure audiobook, yeah? And I have a couple of apps that, like Blinkist, that like, summarize books into like, 30 minute episodes, which is really cool, yeah. So you can listen to, like a book, an audio book that will be, like 10 hours. It breaks it down to 30 minutes, and I can consume them, like one or two of those a day, and it kind of gives you the key takeaways and actionable items of how to go and implement that. And then I can just go and implement it straight away. So, like, I'm even quite sad. It kind of sounds weird to see on the podcast. I even have it on a speaker stuck to the wall in the bathroom. So even when I'm having a shower or I'm like brushing my teeth, I'm like, learning something. I'm like, I try any any moment I can cram it in, all right,
Andy Molinsky 2:00
I listen to podcasts while I cook all
Chris Rainey 2:05
that. Yeah, even when I'm working out, like listening to a podcast and I'm trying to lift a really heavy weight. But it's like, it just works for me anyway, whatever works for you, what you're listening right now, like, wherever it's a book podcast, whatever works right before we jump in, tell everyone a little bit more about yourself, personally and your you know your current role, obviously, and the many books that you've read, you obviously have a very diverse career, which I love to share with the audience.
Andy Molinsky 2:32
Yeah, sure. So I'm a professor of organizational behavior and International Management at a Brandeis University, which is a small research university outside of Boston, in the US. I'm in the business school, but my background is in psychology and business so I have a PhD from Harvard Business School and Harvard psychology department. So that's kind of like my background. I've, in addition, I write academic stuff, but But I, but about, you know, I really like I got, I didn't get into this only to speak to other academics. I got into this to almost try to use academia is like an R and D factory of ideas, so that I could then do stuff that could hopefully make a difference in the world. And that's where the books come from. I've written a, you know, probably 50 or 60 Harvard Business Review articles. I've got a LinkedIn newsletter. I've got a regular newsletter. I just do a lot of stuff because I think it's really important to not just sort of sit in the ivory tower. Yeah, I think that's one
Chris Rainey 3:30
of the exciting things about when I saw your work, is about taking turning ideas into action, yeah, right, and then you've been able to help companies then deploy that, which is then having the meaningful impact that you want, right? Because it's great to do the research, it's great to have the R and D, but how does that then follow through to changing people's lives the way they work and society as a whole?
Andy Molinsky 3:49
Absolutely, I mean, to be honest. I mean, that's, that's like, my why that's, like, why I do this. Because otherwise, you know, it just wouldn't be as meaningful. I mean, I would say teaching also as part of my why I love teaching. I love connecting with younger, you know, younger people. But no doing stuff that's that's actionable. And then, you know, I create trainings. I do coaching, like seeing it first hand. And then when you get notes or emails or whatever about you know, I really liked your book. We used your book, whatever it is that's really gratifying, too, yeah,
Chris Rainey 4:21
where I want to start is this something that I've been thinking a lot about recently is, and I think it's your 2017 book you talk about the comfort zone. Is that right? Yeah, elaborate. A little bit more on the why behind the book, and then we'll jump into some of
Andy Molinsky 4:35
the time. Yeah. So that book is called Reach, yeah. And so my first book was global dexterity, which was in 2013 that was about stepping outside your cultural comfort zone. Ah, okay, I got a lot of, I got a lot of emails and LinkedIn messages and stuff, you know, following that first book saying that, you know, we think this is really cool. Well, but what about stepping outside your comfort zone in general, not just across cultures? Just can you say something broader? Because people are often having to step outside their comfort zone to grow and learn. And you know, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're if you're taking on a different role in your company throughout your career, you're trying something new, you're you're sort of stretching and so on. We're constantly, you're becoming a parent for the first time. Yeah, we're constantly stepping outside our comfort zones. And so how can we understand that, you know, from from an intellectual standpoint, but in a way that's like, super practical and easy to understand.
Chris Rainey 5:37
And you know we should do then, let's do a Star Wars here, and go in chronological order. So, so anyway, so let's start with talking about global dexterity. And I think that's a great segue into into reach. So firstly, what is global dexterity? Just break that down for people, yeah.
Andy Molinsky 5:55
So, so, so lots of, most of the stuff on crossing cultures out there, you know, global business, huge topic. Most of the stuff out there is about differences, right? About how people from the UK might be different from Germans, or how people are French or different from, you know, I don't know people from China, or whatever it is, and they they talk about differences, like all the books, all the training, everything. But what I noticed from my research, you know, on the ground, and I can tell you about that if you want, but you know, real world stuff, I noticed that the real problem people were having wasn't some sort of understanding of the differences. It's useful. But the real problem that a lot of them were having was how to step outside their cultural comfort zone so they know about the differences. But how can you switch and adapt your behavior in light of those differences? And so it that's what the book was about, and that's the idea of dexterity. So it's not just understanding the differences, but adapting your behavior in a different culture. And so what that book talks about is it talks about sort of the the the internal world of people as they try to do this, because it's not always easy, actually, what can stop them and then how they can do it more successfully. And that book is his, has made a really good impact, which I'm like, super proud of. It's used a lot in a lot of different contexts. It's helped a lot of people. And so that's what the book's about. Yeah.
Chris Rainey 7:23
Can you share some practical ways that you things that you share in the book to people to actually execute that in your organization, or personally, what does that look like?
Andy Molinsky 7:32
Yeah. So, so one of the biggest parts of that book is what I call the cultural code. And this has become a very useful tool for people. And the idea is that you can take any situation that you're in. Let's just choose a professional situation. Let's say you're describing achievements to your boss, you know, like, oftentimes that's a way, that's something you need to do in an organization to be able to describe achievements to your boss at your performance review. You know, because your boss might not know what you're doing and you need to, that's just something that you need to do, oftentimes just as a example. So what I've discovered in my research is that you can describe any situation, whether it's describing achievements to your boss, or, really frankly, any situation, participating in a meeting, giving feedback, anything in terms of six dimensions, and that's what I call the cultural code. These dimensions are directness, how straightforwardly are expected to communicate in that situation, directness, enthusiasm, formality, assertiveness, self promotion and then personal disclosure, like how much you're expected to reveal about yourself. So you got directness, enthusiasm, formality, assertiveness, self promotion and personal disclosure. So what you can do is you can take any situation in the world, right, and you can understand what the cultural code is like on a scale of one to seven, high to low, however you want to do it. What's the cultural code in your native culture, and then for that situation, and then what's the cultural code for that very same situation in a different culture? Then where are the gaps and where are the overlaps? So an overlap would mean where the code in your culture is pretty similar to the code for that particular dimension in another culture. But where are the gaps? That's the key question. So for example, take my so I teach in a business school. We've got tons of International MBA students. Take a student from India. I've got, I'm teaching in about an hour, and I can tell you I'm going to meet, I see a bunch of Indian MBA students. So imagine describing achievements to your boss. Now, in the US, your level of enthusiasm needs to be fairly high. It's appropriate in the US to show excitement for what you've done. It's not off the chart high, but it's high. It's relatively, uh, assertiveness you want to be seen as in the US, as a go getter. You know, you don't want to appear weak or timid. Again, this is cultural, yeah. And that's sort of, you know, expected. And then self promotion in the US. A lot of people think of us might be a eight on a one to. Up in scale. It's not, you know, but, but it's, but it's also not a one. It's definitely more of like a four or five or six, you know, whatever. But in India, in India, these very same things, enthusiasm, serveness or self promotion are probably fairly low in the Indian cultural code, you know. So if someone is sort of like prototypically Indian in terms of their upbringing, it might be very difficult. There would be a gap on each of these dimensions of the cultural code that they might have to somehow deal with and overcome. Now I should say, I do want to say that not every person from India is the same, not every person from the US is the same, not every situation is the same. You could have someone from India who had a bi cultural upbringing, maybe spent, you know, had a one parent from the UK. One parent, yeah, you know, so, so, so, so what you end up having to do is, is, is look at the cultural code of the situation you're going to and then compare it to your own personal cultural code. Your own personal code might be influenced by where you're from, but not just where you're from, from your personality or life experience and so on, my grander point here, I know this is hard without a blackboard and all that my my grander point here is that what the book does is, a lot of people think culture is this squishy idea, you know, and that book, you know, gives you a very simple, but I think sophisticated scientific method for being able to make sense, you know, that's the idea. And people really have grasped grasp, you know, grasped that I've
Chris Rainey 11:25
literally, probably had hundreds of conversations on the podcast with CHROs who have, you know, a chro that was in North America, that's now been sent over to, you know, Asia, and have told me disastrous stories about how they've led and and led meetings, one to one, meetings and sessions with the same approach they would in the US, and it's been a disaster, uh, for that how? And so I love the fact that you given a practical framework for them to kind of assess against. And I suppose it works on both sides, like right, both as an employee and as a manager and as a leader, you can use the same, same, absolutely, same playbook right on both sides of the fence. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I love that, that, and those are the things that people love. So I'm excited to be able to grab, grab the book and a practical way for them to do that, because typically, most people that I speak to, they only learn that for experience of spending 10 years working across all of those cultures, and learning it the hard way, right, right? And they also,
Andy Molinsky 12:24
they also might only have their own experience, as opposed to learning from a variety of different
Chris Rainey 12:28
exactly, no, I love that. So then that, so that's so from there, that kind of led into the the reach,
Andy Molinsky 12:36
yeah, yeah. So reach was so, so Exactly, so reach. So for reach what I did is I interviewed like over 100 people from a variety of different professions, like tons of different professions. I'm talking doctors, lawyers, police officers, priests, actors, managers, executives, like you, name it, entrepreneurs. Trying to understand, I also did academic research on this topic as well, but to understand what, basically my that book was about, why is it hard to step outside your comfort zone? Like, why? Obviously, it's hard. It creates anxiety, but why, and I can share that with you, what some people's findings are. Why is it hard to step outside your comfort zone? How do we avoid doing it, what are our sort of top techniques for avoiding and then, most importantly, what people can do to be more successful? And that's, that's what distinguished the people who were successful from the people who weren't, or for the same person, what, what made me successful in this situation but didn't make me as successful in that situation. So that's what that book was about. Again, my goal with all this stuff is to try to, like, take something that's complex and make it simple, not simplistic. Like, captures the complexity a bit, but it's simple, it's usable, like a like a recipe. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 13:55
I love that. That's the idea. So let's start from again, why is it so hard for people to step outside their comfort zone? Yeah.
Andy Molinsky 14:03
So what I found was that I found that that there were five across everyone, there were five, what I called psychological roadblocks, or challenges to step outside your comfort zone. Now, not everyone experiences every one of these in every situation, but even one of them, or two of them can make it, you know? It can cause people to like their two doors. Door number one is, okay, I'm gonna give this thing a shot. Door number two is, I think I'm gonna avoid it. It's not that, you know, and then all the rationalizations, it's not that important. I'll do it another time. It's like door number one and door number two. And the more these psychological roadblocks people have that they don't deal with, the more they're going to go to door door number two, they're going to avoid it, right? And so what these psychological roadblocks are, are the first ones, authenticity. This doesn't feel natural to me. AI, you know an entrepreneur, a young entrepreneur having to put their grown up voice on when pitching to venture capitalists. They're 20 years old. They're trying to get funding for their company. They feel completely out of their out of their comfort zone doing this. They feel like a poser, like an imposter. Actually interviewed for the book several people who were on Shark Tank. The The Big Show in the US. I don't know if you have it in the UK. Yeah? Watch that. Yeah, yeah. Shark Tank, yeah. So a variety of different people. So authenticity, this doesn't feel like me, this doesn't feel natural, and that creates anxiety a second, a second. Core challenge is what I called likability. It's sort of the idea that that if I act in this way outside my comfort zone, but people won't let what if people don't like this version of me? So for example, you know, there's a story in the book about someone who needed to act more assertively than she was used to, and she's not a very assertive person, but this, it's a long story, but there was a guy who was really making her life miserable, and she needed to stand up to him in her company, and it was so hard for her to do is very much outside her comfort zone. And one of her worries was that, is that this person would ironically, because he was really the hateable one, but this person would hate her or not like her if she act, if she was more assertive than than she's used to being, because it's just so much outside her comfort zone. So with authenticity, you feel unnatural with likability, you worry other people won't like this version of you. So those are two of them. Another one is competence. That's one a lot of people probably immediately thought of, what if, what if I'm going to look like a fool doing this? Like, what if I'm bad at this? What if people see I'm bad at this? That's like, you know, you're a lot of people avoid public speaking, you know, afraid that you'll look like a fool giving a public speech, that that would be an example of competence. For the fourth one, they're five, the fourth one is resentment. So this is the idea that logically, you know you need to do something at work or in your career to accomplish some goal, but psychologically, you might feel resentful. It's like you're frustrated or angry or annoyed that you have to do this. And a good example of this might be I talked with a lot of people who were sort of shy or introverted but incredibly high performers in companies, and they were extremely frustrated that they seem to be getting overlooked in their companies to get cool opportunities, compared to people who were less skilled than them, but who were really good at making small talk about like, you know, last weekend's Premier League game or something like that and that, those are the people who are able to get because they could build the trust and create the rapport and so on. Which wasn't which? I think it's a useful professional skill, of course, but you know, relative to the actual work they were doing. The shyer person's actual skills and abilities were much more important. And when they realized that what they needed to do to be able to get ahead was to start doing this small talk stuff, they were like deeply frustrated and annoyed and resentful about that. So so that's a fourth road block in terms of stepping outside your comfort zone, and the last one is morality. Actually, like, I feel like I'm doing something wrong here. I actually opened the book, the book reach with a story, a true story, of a young entrepreneur who started a company with a few people, one of whom was her best friend, and it turned out that she ultimately needed to fire her best friend from from the job, because the best friend was not holding her weight. She was holding the company back. And it was a real dilemma for the entrepreneur for multiple reasons. You've got the likability challenge there. You've got the authenticity challenge. You got the Confidence Challenge. You got the and then you got the morality challenge. She thought she felt she was doing something wrong. I mean, she she understood the context. She understood why it had to be done, it had to be done, but she she honestly felt she was doing something wrong. So all these psychological roadblocks can weigh on you, um, either in the moment, or they can weigh on you anticipatory, like, like, you can avoid doing it. That's where you go to door number two, and you're like, I'm not doing this, like, you know, I'll get someone else to do it, or I'll do it another way, or, you know, and so, so these are the challenges that people have. And so what I find in the training and the work that I do is that, like, usually it's a cocktail, you know, it's like a couple of them, and it's in but what I also find is that it's actually empowering to be able to have people read the book or understand these concepts, because it puts it gives people language to discuss why they're struggling. Usually, without this language, without this insight, people might just be like, Oh, I'm stressed. You know, some sort
Chris Rainey 19:36
of you have to give them the language to have the conversation. Yeah,
Andy Molinsky 19:39
exactly, yeah, exactly, exactly. So, so that's that. There's other stuff in the book I love
Chris Rainey 19:47
that already. It's the same. That's the same thing. I one of the first things I thought when you was, when you was describing the culture code. You gave them the language, yeah, to have the conversation. And this is what I mean by otherwise, you just, it's just vague. I thought. Right to do. And I love your examples. By the way, I kind of saw myself in so many of those, and I'm sure everyone listening could all relate. You know, I, too, had to fire a founder in the past, and it was a friend, and it was one of the toughest things I've ever had to do. I also, early in my career, when I was a manager, had that frustration of seeing my peers being promoted around me because I didn't drink smoke or go out and do the parties with the other founders and the other leadership team, and even though I was out performing my counterparts, they were being promoted because they were at those parties. They were in those discussions and conversations. And I remember, I just had a flashback where you're saying how frustrated that I was being like, What the hell is going on right now? Why? Why are these people being promoted when I'm literally bringing in the sales environment, bringing double the revenue that they are, and then I'm building a better high performing teams? And I was like, okay, because I'm not at the pub on a Friday after work. That's that's why, as well, and yeah, all of those examples you say, I love the way. So what? So when you look at people that, let's flip it on the other side, when you look at people that, on opposite end of the spectrum, that kind of seek discomfort, have a very high comfort threshold, what is the key to that? Is it repetition, for example, that they keep going for it and they build a level of resilience that they Shane and I, we always talk about seeking discomfort, like one of our one of our main focuses is we the magic and the pot of gold is when we're seeking discomfort. And Chester, my coach as the Elton, he would always tell me, Chris, you just got to put more and more reps, and the more reps you do. You know, I saw Elon Musk's wife. They interviewed her recently, and she said, you know, why is Elon so successful? And she said, he lives in a level of discomfort that will break most people, and he's just comfortable in the chaos and his so his level of resilience, he's just, most people will just break, and that's where he thrives. That's where he lives, because he constantly puts himself in that position. And I thought that was really, really insightful. Yeah,
Andy Molinsky 22:14
that is interesting, like a forcing mechanism. I mean, I think so there's a lot there that you just said, in my view, so, so one thing is that certain people are more predisposed to that, right? Certain people are, you know, have have sort of personalities that are conducive to being resilient in terms of, you know, withstanding some of the stuff that we're talking about, right? And that could be just that could be your personality that you were born with your genetics could also be how you were raised, in a way. So it could be, usually these things are nature and nurture and psychology. But for in the other couple other things, I'll say, another thing I'll say is that is that usually think about it as like a portfolio, just like you might have a portfolio of stocks and bonds and things, you've got a portfolio of situations in your life, you know, some of some of them, you might be willing to give it a shot and go outside your comfort zone, you know, think about it, but, but others not. Think about it in terms of like, you've got a comfort zone, you've got a stretch zone, and you've got a terror zone, right? And so like, you know, you might be willing to do stuff in your stretch zone, maybe even at the outskirts of your stretch zone, but that terror zone, that's a tougher one. You know, you kind of need to, you need to have a deep sense of conviction that whatever you're doing in this terror zone is worth it, right? Like and in fact, what I find is that to help people learn to step outside their comfort zone. There are two core things that they need to learn. The first is, is mindset that you might you know we talked about the work with your coach or your you know, your your your business partner, you need to have conviction that it's worth it, that there's that it's your why. And that can come from a lot of different places. You know, it can come from a professional place, like, you know you need to grow and develop, and maybe have certain goals that you want to reach, or you could, you know, whatever it could be, could also be personal. Like for me, I have to tell you that one of my one of my sources of conviction. I have two kids now, now young adults, but when they were younger, I was my wife and I were always trying to nudge our kids outside their comfort zones, not in some crazy way, but like my son, for instance. You know, for him, he's a bit shy. On the shy side, for him, out of his comfort zone, would be trying an activity where he doesn't know anyone. You know that that for a kid like that, that's that's outside his comfort somebody, but it's we're not like doing something cruel, like, you know, like choosing something that he might want to do, right? And so, you know, but then, so we're doing that. But then I start to reflect about my own life, and I'm seeing myself like a. Avoid things outside my comfort zone, I sort of feel like I'm not practicing what I preach. And so that sort of role of wanting to be a role model for my kid, that ends up being a real source of conviction for me, actually, in terms of stepping outside my comfort zone, so it can come from anywhere, that's the mindset side. I'll just briefly mention that the other side is what I call customization. And so it's conviction and customization. Customization is the idea that there's often, I would say, almost always, no single way to do anything, right? We customize all sorts of stuff. We, you know, we my coffee right here, customized. The one I'm holding in my hand. It's got almond milk and a little bit of ginger in it. That's my customization. The point is, is that you can usually find a way in any situation to tweak it to make it just a little bit more comfortable. I'll give you one quick example that I was working on with someone the other day. They're really afraid of public speaking, really afraid, so much so that they try at all costs to avoid it. The problem is, is that they want to become they're, they're, they're the head of their company. Thinks that they have the potential to be a real leader, and to be able to achieve that, though, they have to make a name for themselves, become sort of a known figure. And so I'm trying to help this person with public speaking. And so what I mean by customization is there are a lot of little tweaks and tricks that you can do to make a situation your own. So as it turns out, this person is a morning person, and she absolutely is terrified of giving a speech at the end of the day, because she'll just stress about it all day, so it's way better for her to tweak the timing. That's an example. Another example for her is that if she can either meet someone before the talk or have someone she knows in the talk be sort of in the center, kind of in the front, and give her sort of like positive feedback, so that she can end up speaking to that person, not entirely but, but to always know that she can come back to that face. Need to, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's another customization. Another customization would be that she likes to wear a bracelet. She calls it her fierce bracelet. It means, for some reason, it's the bracelet she always wears, afraid of doing something, and so she'll pop that bracelet on. I mean, there are variety of different things you can do here. Some people, by the way, for speeches or public speaking, they might be more comfortable delivering an actual speech. Someone else might be more comfortable with Q and A. Like for me, for instance, I actually really like the Q and A I like the give and take. I'm not afraid of public speaking, but I used to be when I was younger, but not anymore. I've done this so much, but you can sometimes tweak the format. My point here is that the way that you learn to step outside your comfort zone is that you develop the conviction to figure out your why. You find a way to make that situation your own a little bit, and then you do what you just said. You try it. You keep doing it right. You It's reps, but it's in the reason that that's so important is because reps. The reason reps are important is because if you avoid something you're never going to learn you're never going to learn about yourself, never going to learn about, you know, hey, this isn't as hard as I thought it was. Or, Hey, I'm, I'm actually a little bit better at this than I thought I was. You're not going to learn anything if you don't do the reps right. And so it's not just the reps, though. It's the reps and then some degree of reflection about what it was like. And that's why a coach is you is useful too. So, yeah, that's, that's what that that whole body of thinking around that book reach is about,
Chris Rainey 28:41
yeah, I love that you kind of create, like those little rituals in, you know, now she knows when she's speaking. These are the, these are the, you know, these are the check boxes. Gives me kind of a solid foundation to operate from, yeah? Also, it's, in a way, not a distraction, but I mean something to ground you beyond focusing on the specific task.
Andy Molinsky 29:04
Yeah, and you're not helpless. Like, I think a lot of times people feel they're helpless, but you're not. You've got more. It's like, you got a little bit more power and control, and you don't have total control, you don't have total power, but you've got a little bit more than you think
Chris Rainey 29:16
you have. And like, there's something people always surprise about me, because I've done, you know, 1000 of these shows. I've, you know, moderated and hosted our Citro in person, round tables all over the world. But I'm terrified of probably speaking still, right, like, and I'm terrified now I would say, like, I just, I've never, I've never done it and not felt uncomfortable and then, but after the first five minutes, I just forget about it. So it's just sort of that, like, be all like, build up beforehand, like, like he was describing that, and then when I finally go, then I'm like, the rest of the two days that I'm moderating, I'm fine, right? It's just like, that initial hello and the initial, like, first use minutes almost. And if I can get past those first few minutes over. Say I always do, then the rest of the day I'm good. It's just like, the that's, that's, that's like the little hurdle for me. And then when I get and people like, do you do this? You've done this for 20 years? Chris, why? And I'm like, I don't know. I just because I just put pressure on myself, because I want it to be a good experience for people. So it's not, it's less about do I think I'm good, capable, because I know I am and more about, am I creating the experience that because these people have taken two days out of their, you know, busy lives and schedules to be here, am I delivering expectations to make this a great experience? That's the pressure I'm putting on myself. Less about, am I capable? Am I prepared? And more like, am I delivering for the audience, yeah, I
Andy Molinsky 30:41
totally understand that in the you know, some people think anxiety is bad, but no, there's, there's a, there's a you want to have. The psychologists talk about, like, sort of like a U curve, like a parabola of anxiety, like too little anxiety. You don't want too little anxiety, because anxiety has a motivating factor to it, right? You don't want, you don't want too little, you also don't want too much, because then you're sort of paralyzed. You want me sometimes, yeah? Well, it could be, but then you can use some of the stuff we talked about before to try to bring it back into the middle range, you know, and that that's, you know, that's, that's where you want to be. I think, yeah,
Chris Rainey 31:21
I've gone too far at moments, you know, and that's because led to me and I've talked about this public Ian on LinkedIn around I've gone too far, and I've had anxiety attacks, panic attacks. I had a panic attack actually, before an event, before I was about to go on stage one time. This is like eight years ago at General Mills, at their HQ, I'm about to go out president. I had a full blown panic attack. I had to go out on the balcony. My co found balcony my co founders, like your own. I don't know what's happening, right? So that's terrifying, yeah, and I had panic attacks growing up, and it's something I hid for 15 years, like no one knew about. Literally, I hid it from friends, family, wife, no one knew so, because I was kind of, you know, that's a whole other episode and story, but it's only something recently I started talking about, and I haven't had one since, which is kind of interesting when you think about the psychology behind that, right as well. But, um, one of the things that really helped me, which I was ashamed of, which I think you, I love to hear your insight on this, is growing up. I I had a tough upbringing, so it was, you know, a lot of domestic violence in the house. I don't remember it because I was kind of young, but I kind of, like my body remembers the trauma, if that makes sense, I don't visually remember it. It was just, you know, we my mom was raising four kids. She did an incredible job on her own, which was tough, but she's amazing, and what she did so it was, it was rough growing. I was bullied really badly, so I it was really, really hard, and I was ashamed of that for a long time. And also I didn't do good well in school, I obviously started that job, actually in sales at 17, didn't even go to school, and for a long time, I was ashamed of all those things. It was only kind of years down the line, when I was very successful in my job that I realized that that level of resilience that I built for going through those experiences made me exceptional at my job, because, because when everyone was complaining about hard, how hard the day was, or that the customer said, No, I was like, Dude, I'm gonna go home and don't know if we have electricity. I'm gonna go home and not know if we're gonna have food. I'm gonna go home and I don't know what's gonna be hap to happen when I get home, right? Like, and you're complaining about trivial stuff, right in my mind. And it was only only then that I was like, wow, like, this is sort of my differenti here, that my level of resilience, of picking up the phone and calling and sell talking about reps, hundreds and hundreds of no's before I get my Yes. I was like, that's fine. That's normal, right? And everyone else was like, taking it personal, like it was a personal no to their ego, to their personality, to their to their self worth. So that was kind of one lesson that I learned, and the other. And I'm very thankful for this, that Shane, who's my co founder, his dad, who's changed my next door neighbor, my co founder, his dad, uh, kind of helped me, and because obviously we didn't have much money, he and he took me along to play ice hockey at a very high level, basketball and all of the sports as Shane and I did. And by doing that, you fail a lot. You lose games. Shane, with Shane and I would go home crying in the back seat because we lost our ice hockey game. Well, you know, like and we, we, we also were coachable. So we there was reps. We knew that the more reps we did, the better we get. So by the time I went into the business world, we both had this really weird combination of coming from a tough upbringing combined with being in sports where you lose, you learn to get you know, we do the reps. You fall over on the ice a lot. And you if you bring those two together, it creates quite a power. Full combination of resilience, and then also, I was like, the first thing I said to my boss when I got that job is, who's the person making the most money? I want to sit next to them, because I took the same principle from ice hockey and the other things, I was like, whoever's the best player I need to learn from that person. And I didn't know any of this at the time, I just unconsciously gravitated towards that, but now I realize that that's kind of and that's why we talk about seeking discomfort, because they're like, wherever we do, we kind of just run towards it, and it's scary, it feels terrible. You feel terrified, but you understand that that's the price you pay. So yeah, I know it's a long story, but I mean, that was something that I think really helped us to continue to grow and innovate?
Andy Molinsky 35:42
Yeah? I mean, it's talk about a source of conviction. You've got this strength, you know, that's, that's that that enables you to see challenges in a very different way than other people do. So, yeah, that's, that's a superpower, yeah,
Chris Rainey 35:56
I say that. Oh, my God, you tested my coach. She said to me one time, resilience is your superpower. There you go, he said. And I was like, what? And he was like, Chris with after like months of working together, I was like, you know that resilience is your superpower, and you need to make sure that you always remember that. So it's crazy that you just said that as well, in terms of the you've already so we needed a whole series on your work at this point, the most recent book, global, forging bonds in a global workforce. This talk about that before we wrap up, because I want to make sure, because there's some great work that you're doing there.
Andy Molinsky 36:37
Yeah, sure that. So that books about that book is sort of like the second step from global dexterity. So global dexterity is about stepping outside your cultural comfort zone as an individual person, like, how can I be successful as an individual person? Forging bonds is about how to build relationships across cultures. So I've seen in my work the critical importance of building relationships across cultures in a business context. But, but you know, in I never found anything that was written about it that was good, like, people need to do that, you know, on team, individually and so, so that's what that book's about. It. I can share one little snippet from the book, which is sort of, you know, along the lines of my other book, something that people can take away. And what that would be for this book is that we we found that there were that that relationship, the process of relationship building, can differ across cultures, and that that's critical to understand when you are trying to build a relationship with someone from another culture. Of course, people might not be characteristic of of of your impression of that culture, but they might be. So here's some examples, like so, so, so cultures differ in relationship building in terms of power, who can have a relationship with whom? Purpose? What's the goal of the relationship? Is it purely personal? Is it instrumental? Is it both and cultures differ on that too, privacy? How quickly people tend to share information with each other? You know, in one in some cultures, people readily share very, very quickly, like, I'll say Brazil, for instance, versus somewhere like Germany, where it can take a while to crack that, that sort of personal barrier. So that's privacy, presence. When you first initially meet someone, you're trying to establish rapport. How formally do people tend to act? How much positive emotion do they show cultures differ on that plate? Place is another one where does relationship building typically take place in a given culture? And so, so these, of course, these start with P where we, you know, we're we drama, our purpose, privacy, presence, place. And the point here is that these are sort of ways to understand and unlock some of the cultural differences in the relationship building process itself. So that's, I mean, the books, of course, has way more in it, but that's just one, no good
Chris Rainey 39:03
to share. I love it again. I we were all discovering this on the podcast. You have a very great way of distilling information into is that five Ps or like, well, missed, ah, there
Andy Molinsky 39:12
were six. And I'm misremembering.
Chris Rainey 39:16
That's fine. I mean, what a great again, great framework that when you're entering that conversation to be like, let me, let me address these six and then, and depending on the nuance, to be able to have that framework again, to have the conversations, to build it, to understand it. I there was a Citro on a show recently who moved to Asia to be the sitter of a large company there, and he made a huge blunder when he was trying to build a relationship with one of the executives, and he bought them flowers, right? But the flowers he bought were the flowers that they buy when someone slide and didn't know so and he presented it in front of the whole company. Imagine, OH. Yeah, and he didn't know for months why this person wasn't talking to them, why he was getting the cold shoulder. And it was only when someone actually said, Hey, you don't do that, right? Like, I mean, that's an extreme situation, but very you know, what happens if I pause? That happens so, like, I mean, that's an extreme version, but it's really important to your point. In our company, I've had employees in the past. There was a, actually an Indian employee come in and we had a morning meeting. And the reason I say Indian, you'll understand in a second, he said to me, I can't believe that. So and so in the meeting disagreed with you and said that you're wrong and that there's a better way of doing it. You're the CEO. How dare they do that? Right? Because he was like, That would never happen in India, right? And I had to take a step back for a second, because I was like, What do you mean? Like? And then I was like, Ah, okay, culturally, that just wouldn't happen in most companies. Again, you can't blanket statement across all of this. And he was like, but you're the CEO. Like, how can they say that you're wrong? And I'm like, Okay. I was like, let me sit down. It's not about me being my job title. It's about I hire these people for their perspective, their insight, the diversity of thought. And it's about I not even, not even the best ideas win, because sometimes I'll disagree, and it may not be the best idea, but I will still let that person carry through, because I want them to learn from it, right? So go, go through it, learn from it. And some of our best ideas and innovations that come from things that we thought were crazy, that weren't going to work, but I realized I had to have more and more conversations to actually encourage him to give me feedback to, you know, challenge, if he has, if he if he feels that something's could be done, better speak up and that that was hard for him. Absolutely. I have
Andy Molinsky 41:50
an example of that in one of my books, where an A American, American CEO, but similar to, you know, British and the same sort of philosophy wants, believes in the importance of participation, not just sort of in terms of a moral idea, but in terms of the idea that often the very best ideas come from people that are closest to the work, right? So, so what he ended up doing in India was to make it a requirement for the person to pitch three ideas. So like he blended the idea of bottom up and top down. The bottom up was the ideas. The top down was, it's a requirement, right? Like, so, yeah, it was kind of cool,
Chris Rainey 42:27
yeah. But then that could work. But then you get, like, an introvert of, like, how would they want to present that idea? So you do, you'd have to give the the freedom of, hey, you can send me an email because I know you don't want to pay, because I know you want to present that in front of the entire company. You'll be careful about that part that gets the customization we talked about. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. How do you customize that? What would you say like, when you think about building relationships across cultures? What do you think is like, the biggest myth or misconception?
Andy Molinsky 42:59
Well, gosh, there's so many myths and misconceptions. I would say that maybe one of the biggest ones is that, like people, often feel that they need to do their homework and discover and master the do's and don'ts of another culture. By you know, whenever they go to try to meet people in another culture. But the thing is, is is that you're not working with another culture, you're working with another person, right? It's not a culture, it's a person. So that person might or might not be characteristic of what you predict or expect. And the key is not to focus on differences. I think you want to be aware of them, but the key is actually to discover similarities, not differences. And so I think that's one of the biggest errors as well. And whenever you think about culture, one of the first words that trip off your tongue is differences, cultural differences, right? But that's not how you build relationships, like in your own culture. Let's talk about older things are different. Yeah, exactly. You build relationships by discovering, you know, discovering similarities. And so I think that's another related myth. And so, yeah, I think, I think, I think that I think there's great opportunity and and I think that the benefit of this book is to sort of open people's eyes to some of the myths and then give them some tools to try to overcome these, you know, myths or challenges. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 44:22
I think that's one of the mistakes we always make, like you just highlighted briefly, though, is, is don't assume anything. Yeah, you know, we get in trouble so many times. So in this we're when intent, we have good intentions sometimes, but we our assumptions sometimes get in trouble. Yeah,
Andy Molinsky 44:39
I totally agree. That's why I was but, but at the same time, cultural differences are useful to know about. So what I always say is that, you know, come, come with sort of, like a hypothesis or an idea of what you might see, but be ready to be have that disconfirmed. Like, be, be ready. Like, you know what I mean. So, so you're getting the best of both worlds there. Yeah, listen,
Chris Rainey 44:58
I could talk to you forever. Yeah, I love, I love what you're doing, and I love how you distill everything into very practical things for everyone listening to go away and do that. So before I let you go, where can people learn more about you? If they want to grab copies of the books, connect with you. Where's the best place?
Andy Molinsky 45:16
Sure, I would say my, either my website or LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm easy to find in both places. My website is Andy Molinsky, so it's andymolinsky.com, and you can find me on LinkedIn as well. Amazing.
Chris Rainey 45:36
Listen. I appreciate you coming on the show. We've learned a lot, and I feel like a lot of topics that you are covering HR leaders now, more than ever, is on the priority for for them as well. So I appreciate all of your work. And for everyone listening, all of those links are going to be below. So wherever you're watching, listening, whatever player in in the description, there'll be a link to the website, a link to to connect there on LinkedIn as well. But apart from that, enjoy your should day draw your class that you're off to right now, and I'm gonna go prep press for my club, and I look forward to speaking again soon. Thanks so much.
Andy Molinsky 46:10
All right. Sounds great. Thanks a lot.