Unlocking Team Performance With David Burkus

Skot Waldron (00:39.397)
David, welcome to the show. So good, man. So good to have you.

David Burkus (00:42.742)
Yeah, yeah. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.

Skot Waldron (00:45.615)
Well, there, you know, we've, we've connected in the past on the whole world of speaking and what that looks like. And you've been so gracious as to give me advice and, share ideas with me, as a professional speaker going out, what is your topic of choice? Enlighten us. What is the, what is, what are people wanting right now from you?

David Burkus (01:05.538)
Yeah, I mean the number one thing, number one reason people come to me is that something is wrong with their teams and by teams I mean, by wrong I mean like just not optimal, right? So sometimes that's like, hey, we just got our employee engagement scores and they're lower than we expected and the individual, there are individual teams that are driving it. Can you come work with us on that? And other times it's just, hey, we really need to enhance our collaboration. We have to do more with less.

slowing growth, etc. And so we really need to up the performance of our teams. But that word teams is the one I'm trying to to own. And by teams, I don't necessarily just mean the group of people who report to the same boss. I mean, any group that is formed, even if it's outside of just one company that is charged with achieving a certain objective, right? So like this earlier this week, I was working with a variety of teams, some of worked with a company who hired me and some of whom were collaborative partners who were invited into this particular event.

Right? I take a very broad definition of teams. That's been my background. I've been an organizational psychologist for the last 20 years, taught business school on org behavior and teams and motivation and that sort of thing for about a decade before the demand to work directly with corporate clients was too great. And, it, you get to the point where you're like, it's costing me money to stay in the classroom. So I'm going have to minimize that as much as possible and focus on our corporate clients. And I'm having an absolute blast.

on that. It's one thing to help shape the minds of future leaders. That's great and rewarding in its own right. It's also another somewhat cooler experience to help active leaders who are struggling with an issue right now and get feedback two months, three months, six months down the road on how they put what you said into practice and it made a difference.

Skot Waldron (02:49.947)
Give me a scenario where that's happened lately and you've, you've felt the, the, the like, I don't know, the angel singing and the glorious sound and feeling of the sun rays and everything because a team implemented what you said. What was the scenario that was going on?

David Burkus (03:05.962)
Yeah, yeah. So I have to be a little bit vague on this because a lot of times when I work with corporate clients, especially if it's the engagement side, there's NDAs involved and that kind of stuff. I worked about a well, about a year ago, a group reached out to me because the exact scenario I was talking about there got their first engagement numbers. It was the first engagement survey they'd done since Covid, which to be honest with you, was kind of a mistake. Like, why would you not be keeping up with your people during the most stressful time?

I'm in their lives, but whatever I digress and so it was lower in particular. It was lower around the issues of trust and the feeling of psychological safety and that sort of thing. And so you know sign an NDA and then I almost always want to dive into your data like as much as you'll give me that engagement data. I'd like to look at it and one of the things I note a lot of times when it happens by the way they give it to me and it's broken down by question and I'm like no no no no either give me the raw data or can you help me break it down by region by team specifically and what have you so that I can kind of understand.

Because ultimately company culture, company-wide engagement, those are driven on a team level. If you ask most people what it's like to work at X company, which is funny because now there is a company called X, but that's not the one I'm talking about. If you, if you ask them what it's like to work at their company, they're actually going to tell you about the teams they work on. Right. And so very quickly diving into all of that data and talking to a bunch of different people, it became obvious that the issue was not necessarily that managers, team leaders were unaware.

Skot Waldron (04:15.473)
I like how you did that there. Yeah. Good job.

David Burkus (04:33.238)
of the importance of psychological safety. It was that they really didn't understand that there's more to that than just building trust. Like you can't just trust fall your way into psychological safety. You have to teach managers what it is to listen respectfully to ideas you disagree with, to, be able to receive criticism on your ideas and disagreement, to build a place where people not only trust you to disagree, but also where you have the skills to demonstrate respect while they're doing it. and so we went in, we started planning. so,

That survey they reached out. We started planning out the event. The event happened about. If I remember right about six months ago, maybe it was five months ago and then I just got maybe three weeks ago. I got the results of their next engagement survey, which was awesome because the two biggest things that you could see that had improved were that feeling of trust and that feeling of psychological safety. And again, I didn't do anything to convince managers. Hey, you need to take this seriously. I think they already knew that.

What they didn't know is how to put that into practice. What does it actually look like to listen respectfully when someone's pushing back on your idea as a leader, et cetera? And so moments like that are sort of super exhilarating to me when you can see it, not only in the anecdotal stories, but you can actually see it in the data of like, did this, we taught some habits and some behaviors and enough people put it to practice. I'm not naive. I don't think everyone did it, but enough people put it to practice where you could see the difference in the company wide data. That's really cool and exciting.

Skot Waldron (06:01.157)
Trust, psychological safety, core components of a high performing team. but when we're thinking about high performing teams versus low performing teams, do you see that as some of the common themes that you're hearing over and over and over again? Or are there other things that you think determine a high performing team above the others?

David Burkus (06:07.063)
Yeah.

David Burkus (06:21.602)
Yeah, so fundamentally when I look at probably the last 40 years of research on team culture, again, not company culture, company culture is just the average of each individual team's culture. But when you look at team culture, psychological safety is a huge element and driver of high performance. The other two that you can kind of isolate out and see in almost every high performing team are what I call a sense of common understanding, which is how well the team understands each other's roles and responsibilities.

knowledge, skills and abilities, but also their work preferences, their personality differences. I call it sort of this mix of clarity and empathy, right? I'm clear on the job and what's expected of me. And I know that other people are going to deliver on what's expected of them, but I also know how Scott acts. I know his behavior. I know that he's more of a talker than an emailer. And I know his individual personality styles and what have you, right? And so I can, I can learn not only, not only do I know that I can trust him to deliver on

what's expected of him. know what to expect of him behavior wise, right? So that's common understanding. That's kind of the second element. And then the third element is what I decided to label a sense of pro social purpose. I don't think I have to convince anyone on this show that purpose driven teams outperform other teams. But when it comes specifically to purpose and to teams, one of the interesting things we find is that teams as a whole, the thing that kind of drives them to collaborate more is a sense not of knowing why we do what we do.

but a sense of knowing who we as a team exist to serve. I call it the who is served question. I think the best answer to a compelling why is by outlining the who as in as in who when we do a great job, their job is made easier. Their life is made easier. Sometimes on some teams this is end users and clients, etc. Other times it's other teams inside the organization. Every team has a different answer to who a why for a company is going to be sort of universal. This is why we as an organization do what we

what we do, who is going to be specific to the team. And that works not only from an internal motivation standpoint, right? Intrinsic motivation, the desire to, but what we find, and this is kind of nerdy research is there's an increase in what we call organizational citizenship behaviors, which is a really dumb term because it's way too long. but it describes when people

David Burkus (08:39.394)
do work that's outside of their job description. When they put their own agenda aside and focus in on the needs of the team, when they go sort of above and beyond their role. I like to think of it as when they put we over me and the needs of the team over my own individual needs. Not to the level that they were like burning out, but when people stop thinking about here's what I can get out of the team and start thinking about what I can put into it, those are organizational citizenship behaviors. And you see this massive increase when people are connected to their who.

to that pro-social protecting and promoting the well-being of others purpose, you see a massive increase in that organizational citizenship behavior on an individual level, which no surprise makes collaboration on a team level that much easier because of everybody's putting we over me, then we operate a lot more effectively. Hey, that rhymed and I didn't plan on

Skot Waldron (09:29.154)
You're dropping all kinds of things here. This is so good, man. So good. Are you a speaker? I'm just wondering. I'm just wondering, tell me this then. How do we keep, how do we keep that at the forefront of our minds in this whole purpose thing? If that is such a critical piece, cause here's, here's what I find. Organizations are worried about the fire of today, right? The fire of the day is what I'm looking to put out. Cause as businesses, are constantly just solving problems.

David Burkus (09:33.772)
Yeah, yeah, believe it or not.

David Burkus (09:46.082)
Mm-hmm.

David Burkus (09:51.662)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Skot Waldron (09:57.015)
That's what we do. We solve problems every day, all day. And if I'm constantly in the mode of solving problems, and then I'm going to be in the mode of getting my tasks done today that needs to be done today, how do I keep purpose front and center in that mindset?

David Burkus (10:13.484)
Yeah, so that's a great question because I've very rarely when I explain this kind of pro-social modifier to purpose, I very rarely met a leader that disagrees with me. It'd be really kind of weird and probably sociopathic to disagree with me at this point. But what I do run into is exactly that. Hey, in the moment, I don't know what to say or we have so many demands on our time, et cetera. And so if you, let's back up a bit, right? If you don't already have a clear and compelling sense of who your team's.

who is and we need to start there and the thing I love to work with teams on to get them through this is what I call the it's a wonderful life test. You know, it's as we're recording this we're either just about to be or in Christmas season depending on who you talk to right. It's after Halloween. I like to think Christmas starts on whatever the fourth first Sunday of Advent is but that's just me. Apparently amazon.com says it starts now because that's the ads I'm getting. But anyway, it's a wonderful life. It's Christmas movie.

George Bailey is the main character. He's like depressed bummed out taking a walk or walk over a bridge. We won't talk about what he's going to do on that bridge. And he is thinking his life has no meaning. And then this angel appears to him, right? You know, Clarence, which by the way is the worst name for an angel ever. Clarence, Clarence. mean, come on. You have like Michael and Gabriel and Clarence.

Skot Waldron (11:27.885)
Is it though? Is it? Is it?

Skot Waldron (11:34.898)
I know, but Clarence got some TV time in one of the most famous Christmas movies of all time.

David Burkus (11:38.508)
Yeah, no, it's fair. God is, yeah, God is wings by the end of it. What Clarence does to help George have this sense of purpose is he shows him an alternative reality. Here's what your town would look like if you weren't here. And so I asked teams to do the exact same thing. If our team, let's say we were all in a team, let's not get morbid, but if we were all in a team wide retreat and we were in a cabin in the woods and the power went out and suddenly we couldn't communicate with the rest of the organization, what would happen? What would the downstream effects be, right?

If you want to think superhero wise, right? If Thanos like snapped us all out of existence for a time, what would the downstream effects of that be? In other words, what would the impact of our absence be? And in doing so, we can have a better understanding of the impact of our presence and our good work, right? So that's sort of how we identify that who and it's usually going to be multiple. And then we go with which one are we feel most compelled for? And that's the one we're going to keep the forefront of our mind. Okay, so that's sort of like step one. Step two.

Is to create a system where we as a team are collecting any evidence of that impact on a regular basis. Right? So for me personally, this is, have a folder in my email inbox that when I get positive reviews or when I get like those engagement results that we were talking about, not the results, but like the emails saying great job and here's what happened. I dragged them into that folder. I work with other teams and they create a dedicated like Slack or teams channel where they share them all. But the idea is that we shouldn't have, once we know what it is, it's not about keeping it at the forefront of our mind.

It's about developing the habit of capturing it when it goes across our radar. It's already going to come at the forefront of your mind multiple times. Clients are going to say thank you. Internal customers are going to say, Hey, great job on that presentation. You're going to see all sorts of little pieces of evidence that you're having an impact. The thing is to capture them and save them, right? Because when you're putting out fires in the moment, you're probably not thinking to look through them, but that's what we do. We develop that habit of capturing them. And then when, when things get hard, when we need that good reminder, et cetera,

We've got that channel or that folder to go back to where we've got all of that evidence. So we've got all of those stories captured. this isn't, like I said, so much about keeping it at the forefront of our mind all the time. It's already there. It's about making sure we grab it while it's in front of us so we can keep it forever.

Skot Waldron (13:51.973)
That's powerful. The idea of celebration. There are a lot of people that forget about that. acknowledging the wins that just kind of move on to the next thing, kill the next thing, win the next thing. but, but harboring those wins are going to be really important for the times when we aren't winning, to remember that, we, we have one and we can do it again. So.

David Burkus (14:16.738)
Yeah. Yeah. Even just like even just saying thank you to each other, right? Like there are a lot of organizations that already do this well. Maybe they have like a kudos program where they send little points or what have you, or just maybe they're good at sending emails. let's say thank you. Ron Friedman, a social psychologist friend of mine found that high performing teams express gratitude five times more often than mediocre and lower performing teams. The thing that I've noticed from a pro social purpose standpoint,

is that they do something really, really well in how they express gratitude. It's usually not thank you so much for whatever you did. It's that plus because it helped me too. Right? In other words, I'm to say thank you so much for your hard work, getting all of the data ready for that client presentation because it helped me really wow them with our robust knowledge of the industry and we won the deal. So my thank you is not just a thank you for your effort. It is itself evidence of your impact.

And so every message of gratitude becomes another one of those impact things that we can collect and see on a regular basis.

Skot Waldron (15:24.465)
There is a really interesting concept. so Steven Schleck ski, I'm not sure if you know, Steven, you call them shed. Yeah. So, so, he's, he's, he's gonna be guest on the show as well. And he talks about this FBI principle, feeling behavior impact that he calls it. And it is the impact of the behavior. Now he talks about this in the, in the instance of like difficult conversations. When you do this thing, I feel this way.

David Burkus (15:32.098)
Yeah, shit. Yep.

David Burkus (15:50.584)
Mm-hmm.

Skot Waldron (15:53.583)
because this behavior causes me to think these types of things and like, et cetera, et cetera. But I hear you saying it almost taken that idea and put it on the positive spin of saying, Hey, I actually feel grateful when you do these types of things because it allows me to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, which is the impact. So you can take that same model and like twist it into the positive, which is, which is really cool. I love that.

David Burkus (16:16.984)
Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. didn't know that that particular model, but I'm totally gonna. I won't say steal, cause that makes it seem like I'm not doing right by shed. I'm sure I'll give him credit, but I love that. I love that. I'm always trying to collect these little these little tidbits. I love it.

Skot Waldron (16:26.789)
Well, yeah, give she a credit. Yeah.

It's really, it's really smart. So, all right. Tell me about the book.

David Burkus (16:37.516)
Yeah, so best team ever fundamentally is a collection of case studies, the data, and most importantly, the takeaways behind those three fundamental elements of a high performing team, right? I was kind of inspired to write it when I had that realization that it's not necessarily about company culture, it's about team culture, right? And that, you know, it's interesting when we think about what makes for a high performing team, a lot of us go to...

sort of the easier answers like, it's talent. We just need to recruit talent. know, Jim Collins said, I don't know, a hundred years ago, it feels like that we need to get the right people on the bus. And that's true. But I think a lot of people have had this experience with being the right person and getting on the bus and then finding out like, this bus is awful. It's toxic. I'm getting off as quickly as I can. Right. Or, or I'm reducing my own output to match kind of the culture of the team. Right. So this team element becomes really, really important.

And so that led to all of the research to find those three fundamental elements. But I think the thing that I wanted to do that's different on this book than anything I've done before, I've written four other books and they're all kind of big idea books, right? Like here's just an exploration of this concept, et cetera. Every chapter for every element and every sub element that we've been talking about, there are takeaways like the, it's a wonderful life test. Like here's the proper way to write a thank you note, right? And a myriad more. And so my goal is to make it sort of

imminently practical, which is fun because when you're on a podcast and people are like, how do you put that into practice? Now, you know, because you've been researching it and that's, that's where I collected. So yeah, so best team ever. been out for probably 18 months now. The response has been really, really great. It's been really fun to see. And again, what I'm lucky enough to have happen is people will read it. We'll try and put something in practice. We'll send me an email to say thank you so much and guess what I'll do.

drag it into that folder so that me and the content team that supports me and that sort of thing always have this evidence of.

Skot Waldron (18:36.379)
What's your favorite part of the book? When like, I would say, well, okay, let me start there. What's your favorite part of the book? What is the thing that you think everybody should like pay attention to in this book?

David Burkus (18:47.564)
Well, are two different answers, if you will. My favorite part of the book is right at the very end, we tell the story of the Savannah Bananas baseball team. know the, aren't you in Georgia, Atlanta area? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Skot Waldron (18:59.151)
I'm in Georgia man. Yeah, I just I was hanging out with some of those guys at another event. They were speaking at with me.

David Burkus (19:04.642)
Yeah, so it's funny. I've known Jesse for probably eight years at this point. I met him on that sort of speaking circuit and when I wrote about him in the book, I wrote this opening line in the chapter, which is that the Savannah bananas are the greatest baseball team you've never heard of. And then in between the time you write something and it goes to print, he went had did a mini series on ESPN, sold out MLB stadiums and now I feel like everybody's heard of them, but.

The thing that I was particularly looking at before they were touring and all of that, they were a small college summer league team, right? That was committed to putting on this really fans first environment. And the thing that I think is cause I'm a, I'm a nerd. I'm a researcher. I'm an academic. I'm a data guy. Right? The thing that I thought was most interesting is there was a professor from Georgia state who actually did an analysis of what happens in college summer league is you take all of these college players who are playing for their universities.

And they're given, this is, this is before, NIL. So I'm actually not sure how it works now. They're given a stipend, like a living stipend to play for this team, but they're not allowed to be paid because they're NCAA people. They're not allowed to be pros yet. and they play all summer for, you know, usually in vacation areas like Savannah or like, I grew up and it was the Cape Cod league cause they were in all the different beach towns in Cape Cod area. And it's just a way to make, keep baseball sort of America's pastime, right? Well, here's what's interesting. Jesse has a totally different approach.

They're a hundred percent committed to the fans. Yeah, they do crazy stunts and things that make them go viral on Tik Tok, but they also have shaped their environment such that like instead of nickel and diming you for tickets and food, et cetera, your ticket covers everything, right? It even covers parking at their stadium in a Grayson Stadium in Savannah, which parking is a little rough probably because it's free. So, you know, take an Uber if you ever go see them in Savannah. They do.

not only a lineup before the game, they do a whole party with the fans after the game. Like you cannot be a player for this event of bananas and not have a ton of in-person experiences with the fans. Here's what the Georgia state professor found. If you look at the stats on how players perform in college for their college team, the one they're actually getting a scholarship to be a part of the one they're getting looked at by recruiters for the major league baseball. And then you look at their stats in the summer when they're with Jesse's sort of fans, first team.

David Burkus (21:23.606)
almost every player consistently outperforms his stats from college. The players literally play better because Jesse's create an environment where they see the fans directly, where they interact with them on a regular basis, where they know who they're actually out there playing for. And so I think, I mean, it's cool. The TikTok videos are cool. The trick plays, all of that sort of stuff is cool. But I think it's amazing just to see that, that these are kids, right? These are college students who literally play better.

when they're better connected to who is served and who they're there to actually play for. And so that's the reason it's sort of my favorite, favorite example, right? Now, the one everybody should focus in on, that's a totally different story. And it's probably Alan Mullally and the turnaround of Ford Motor Company, which if you haven't already heard it, a lot of people are familiar with it. I think the most interesting thing that I found in interviewing Alan that wasn't covered by any of the previous stories about it,

was that Alan actually took the time to set ground rules for behavior inside the senior leadership team. So here's how we're gonna address each other. Here's how we're gonna give our updates. There was one rule that actually took a while to get UNAI Misenforcement on, and it was we never make jokes at someone else's expense when we're interacting, right? Because it's not funny to that person. And most importantly, undermines that feeling of being respected by your peers. And if you don't feel respected by your peers, then you don't trust

your peers to talk about what's really going on in your division to ask them for help, right? You don't trust them enough to sort of disagree with them. And so the effectiveness of the team is diminished. I talk about psychological safety all of the time and Alan's turnaround is a great example of that. But the thing that I think most people miss is again, it's not just about trust. It's also about teaching people what respectful behavior looks like that perpetuates an increase in trust over time. And Alan really took the time to do that. And I haven't seen any other CEO deal with their senior leadership team.

in such a way that, I'm going to teach you what this respectful behavior looks like. So all of that said, if you grab the book and I hope you do in triplicate, yeah, read the banana story first. It's a total, total blast, but don't skip the other story because I think it's the single most important for lesson for leaders to learn is that respect on a team is a learned behavior and it starts with you, the leader of the team and how you demonstrate respect to the people on your team. And it determines whether or not that team trust you and trust each other in the long run.

Skot Waldron (23:47.909)
How do you write this book? it written where you have these kinds of stories and then you have these applications for people that you want them to implement? Or is it like, I've got this data and I'm just harping on the data. it like more like, you know, I don't know this idea of like data or story or application or where is it?

David Burkus (24:08.62)
Yeah. So it starts from the data. it's me being an academic. always sort of starts from the data, but, not like we don't, I don't get to, talk about the studies and the research in the book, but really it's the way the data informs the model. Right? So in other words, serving all of the data on team culture and arriving at like, Hey, it looks like it all boils down to these fundamental three elements. Now the model is created. Right? So now that the model is created, we go look for what are the, what are the exemplars of these? What are the case studies, the stories we can tell?

that'll get people to really remember that bananas and purpose Alan Mulally and trust and respect, right? and then the takeaways sort of happen organically, but then you also have to search for some of them. Like as you're, I mean, if you're thinking about something as simple as psychological safety, right? And then you're interviewing the exemplars of that, the people who built on a team, you find little details, like never make a joke at someone else's expense. And so over time you get to, like I told you earlier, like I love that FBI idea. I'm going to

pocket that obviously give credit to shed but like that's another one in the collection right and so the takeaway sort of happen organically occasionally have to go out and find like. Some additional things and do a little bit of additional research but most of the time they're really just the way to put the best practices from the case study into practice yourself and they kind of happen organically so so yeah I start from all of that I kill a lot of trees unfortunately I probably need to you know pay to plant a few more to offset that.

Because what I'll do is I'll every page. If I'm reading a book, I'll photocopy every page that's useful. I still print up the actual research studies. I highlight the heck out of them. And then every chapter turns into like a pile on my floor. So when I'm writing a book, this, bookshelf behind me has like 11 different piles on it that represent like, this study is going in this chapter. So it's in the chapter 12 pile. Right. and then when it comes time to writing, we just grab a pile and kind of work through it. I spend.

probably two thirds of my time writing a book, doing the research to make the one third time of writing it really, really easy. Right? So very rarely get writers block. What I get is like research block, meaning I didn't do enough research and that's probably why I didn't don't know what to write here. So let me go back and do that first.

Skot Waldron (26:22.831)
the nerdiest thing I've ever heard. man. Okay. Tell me this when you work with teams, what is the thing like they'll come to you and say, Hey, David, we got this problem. got this problem. got this problem. got this problem. And you'll go, no, you don't. You've got this problem. Like what, what is the thing that like it boils down to most of the time?

David Burkus (26:25.548)
Yeah, sorry, I apologize.

David Burkus (26:46.765)
Yeah.

David Burkus (26:50.734)
Yeah, I you know, I'd love to be able to say as an outsider that I'm like, I'm a master of identifying what the root cause, what the upstream problem is. I'm not, but that what you just described, and cause you work with teams a lot too, you know how this happens all of the time. What I find is the thing that's preventing us from going upstream is that level of trust. Like I tell this to leaders all the time. When people come to you with a problem,

they are not coming to you with the real problem. Unless you've worked with them for a very long time and you built a tremendous amount of trust and respect and rapport with them, they're coming to you with a version of the problem that they feel safe to talk about. So maybe it's a sort of smoothed out, we shave off the rough edges version of the problem, or maybe it's a symptom of the problem and they're not gonna tell you the problem. Or maybe it is the problem, but they waited two months to tell you and so now it's a much bigger problem than it would have been two months ago, right?

And so the root core of the problem is we're not, we don't have enough candor. We don't have enough feeling of safety to talk about what's actually going on and ask for help. and and the reason I cite this is that leaders have this awful tendency to jump right into problem solving mode and skip over the fact that they're not solving the right problem. Right. You've ever been this, my, my friend, Michael Bungay senior, I don't know if you've interviewed him, but he calls it the, the advice monster.

Right? Somebody comes to us or the whole team is talking about a problem. And as a leader, there's our little advice monster pops up on our shoulder and here's what you should tell them to do. And I, and I get it. I get it because you were promoted into that leadership role because you're brilliant, because you had the answers much more often because you did the work really, really well. And so it is really tempting to go, I know exactly what to do in this scenario. And then spout your advice.

But if you've ever been in the situation where you gave someone your advice and then they went off and attempted to implement it and nothing positive happened and a week later you're frustrated at them because you feel like they didn't take your advice and they feel like your advice didn't work, that's the indicator, right? That, we don't actually have enough safety here to talk about it. And the fix is so simple. The fix, this is what's amazing to me, Scott. The fix is so simple. It's just don't give advice first. Ask questions. Just ask more follow-up questions.

David Burkus (29:07.394)
Tell me more about that. What else have you tried? Michael's question, the advice monster guy, his question is, and what else? Three words, right? Just create this pregnant pause to say, no, no, I really actually do want to hear this. I'm not going to shoot the messenger. I'm not going to rip your head off. I'm not going to judge you. I just want to get at the core of the problem. So what else? And then be willing to sit there in that silence and you get at a lot of times you get at the core of the problem. And more importantly, the next time that person knows, I can come to them with a bit more details because they didn't.

didn't, you know, martyr me because I had this problem. They actually wanted to hear it, listen and help me. So just ask questions long before you give advice.

Skot Waldron (29:45.809)
Long before, and I'm going to show you something, man. See this? at it. So if you're not watching it, have Michael's questions of how to go into it and what else is his second question on there. I have this on my next to my desk and so I can reference it and kind of pull out these questions because he poses some just brilliant questions. They're just so simple, but.

David Burkus (29:49.418)
I love it. I love it.

Skot Waldron (30:13.819)
The advice monster, when you read his book is so real. We all do it. And my wife actually yesterday, she goes, Scott, think when Tallulah, who's our 14 year old daughter, when she's venting and stuff, I think you need to resist the temptation to give her the solutions all the time. And I'm like, ugh, it's so hard. I just, I want to help her so much. So it's tough. We're doing it all the time.

David Burkus (30:33.56)
Yeah.

David Burkus (30:39.938)
Yeah, no, I get it. It's like, you know, we I'm sure you've seen it. There's that viral video that floats around the Internet every couple of years about the nail. Have you seen this? It's not about the nail, right? I know it's funny because like in that scenario you empathize with the guy who's just trying to say you have a nail in your head and that's why you have all these migraines and all this pressure and what have you. But the reality is a little more complicated, right? The reality is like you can't see the nail most of the time.

Skot Waldron (30:49.035)
The nail in the head.

David Burkus (31:07.37)
And so if you're trying to fix the symptoms, which are just the headache and what have you, and not talking about the root cause of the issue, you're never going to find the nail. And that's why you need to silence that advice monster and answer the questions. And all of that is what I lump under the category of like making sure that you're demonstrating respectful behavior to that person instead of just trying to solve the problem or try getting agitated and trying to blame them for the problem they brought to you. Right. I really hate.

the phrase, don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions, because as a leader, like it's your job to help them find the problems. But if you're not willing to listen to the whole problem uninterrupted and experimented more and just soak in that, if you want to get to solutions that fast, you're never going to get to the real problem.

Skot Waldron (31:50.959)
Hmm. That's really good. That is really good. speaking circuit, you're out there all the time. You're all over the world doing stuff all the time. who would hire you and why would they hire you?

David Burkus (32:05.806)
Yeah, the bread and butter meeting for me, at least the most common one is typically like either you'll do your all company meeting and just before that you'll have your top 200 managers doing their day of meetings, et cetera. Or you'll do just that. Hey, we're getting the top 150, top 200 managers together. That's probably, if I had to guess 60 % of my work, probably another 30 is more like the senior leadership team retreat. Hey, it's only the top, the 18.

C-suite and director level folks and then the remainder is kind of the the kind of all company or association work or that sort of stuff but but at its core the the most The audience is where I make the biggest impact are the ones that are a group of team leaders ready to talk about Hey, how do we make our specific team better? Not the whole company? like let's just focus on the team that you're charged with and how we can make that better

Skot Waldron (32:58.363)
And where do people find out all the awesome stuff you talk about and see samples of your stuff and get access to your book and everything else.

David Burkus (33:06.816)
Well, if you've listened to this long, first of all, you're awesome. And you probably already know if you're listening that you can check most of that out in the show notes to this episode, which Scott wants you to check out anyway. But those show notes will link to, and while you're at those show notes, like tap to leave a review as well. That'd be super helpful. But while you're there, you're gonna find those show notes link over to DavidBerkus.com. I'm really lucky in that when I was a kid, I got made fun of for my very odd last name.

Skot Waldron (33:12.529)
awesome.

David Burkus (33:35.382)
But nobody has David burkus, B-U-R-K-U-S as usernames, etc. So it turned out to be a blessing when I got older. So it's really easy to find me on davidburkus.com. You could also type that into any of your socials and you'll find us there. Everything from LinkedIn to X to Facebook to we're even on TikTok. Although I hate to disappoint you, I don't dance, at least not on TikTok. Yeah, no, I don't do it.

Skot Waldron (33:58.285)
I thought I saw you as a dancer, man.

David Burkus (34:02.528)
Yeah, I mean, I will. I just don't film myself. I don't think anybody's interested in watching me do that.

Skot Waldron (34:07.535)
Okay, all right. You don't know that though, you don't know that. Okay, I'm interested, I know we're gonna end the show, but how do people give you crap about your last name when you're a

David Burkus (34:19.886)
I mean, first of all, Berkis sounds a lot like butt kiss, Dick butt kiss, the famous football coach, but also it's just weird. know, when you're middle schoolers are stupid and brutal. And when you have a safe name like Smith, right? Everybody that's got an, I mean, come on, Scott, you're Scott with a K. You got this too, I'm sure when you grew up, right?

Skot Waldron (34:24.783)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (34:38.181)
No, I created my Scott with a K in sixth grade because I was sick of being the same Scott W in every class in elementary school.

David Burkus (34:44.738)
Well, you are a braver sixth grader than I was.

Skot Waldron (34:48.665)
Yeah. Well, you know what it helped me do later in life is get scottwaldron.com and nailed it, you know, nailed it. So, dude, this has been good. Thank you so much for hanging out with me and the rest of us and spreading your wisdom and knowledge and guidance and continue crushing the circuit out there. Good job.

David Burkus (34:53.954)
So easy, right? Yep. Yep.

David Burkus (35:07.261)
thank you. Thank you. My pleasure. It's always great to talk to you.