96: Shawn Vanderhoven: Leadership, Curiosity, Building an Intelligence Culture and the Power of Pause (Partner, Wiseman)

Simon Brown (00:02.77) Hello and welcome to this episode of the Curious Advantage podcast. My name is Simon Brown and today I'm here with my co-author, Garrett Jones. Unfortunately, we don't have Paul today, but we are thrilled today to be joined by Sean Vanderhoeven.

So Sean is a partner at the Wiseman Group where he leads executive development for senior leaders and rising talent. And he helps organizations build what he calls an intelligence culture. Garrick (00:11.918) Hello.

Simon Brown (00:30.568) He's also a collaborator on the New York Times bestseller multipliers, How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. And he's also author of the upcoming book, PAUSE, How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World. So I think there's going to be lots we can learn from you, He's worked with global brands, including Apple, Microsoft, Deloitte, and LinkedIn.

And earlier in his career, he helped scale his family's software business 30-fold. Garrick (00:48.302) you Simon Brown (00:57.69) So lots would like to hear about that as well, I'm sure.

So warm welcome, Sean, to the Curious Vantage podcast. Shawn Vanderhoven (01:04.248) Hey, glad to be on here with the both of you. It's an honor.

Simon Brown (01:08.296) It's great to have you. So maybe let's start where we always do on the topic of curiosity. So Sean, when you think of curiosity, how do you define it and what's sort of the definition that's evolved through your work with senior leaders of how you sort of think about curiosity?

Shawn Vanderhoven (01:25.618) you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, I've got a funny relationship with curiosity because I want to admit that early in my career as a leader, I wasn't very curious at all. And I remember we can get into it later, but I remember when I really learned that it was, it was, it was a bit of a painful experience, but what, what I learned about curiosity is leaders who are curious about what other people can do, what they're thinking, what they're capable of that they just.

They lead in a way where they're constantly asking questions, they're creating space for people to step up and play bigger. They're figuring out how they can give people more responsibility and how they can draw out their very best thinking in those responsibilities. you know, it's like we've all worked for that leader who you know they really want to know what you have to say. And we've all worked for the leader who, you know, you're pretty sure they don't want to know what you have to say.

And so I'd say that curiosity just manifests itself in this kind of like cross section between lots of questions and then also space, a stage if you will, where they are trying to draw out what you might create. And that's a thrill. That's an exciting proposition to work for somebody that's curious. Garrick (02:45.

624) interested in how you relate that to the idea that you have of building an intelligence culture. I mean, what in your mind when you talk about an intelligence culture, what is that and where does curiosity fit in with that, Sean? Shawn Vanderhoven (02:59.598) Yeah, mean, the idea of how do you build an environment where you're accessing everybody's best thinking?

I mean, just the underlying notion of wanting to build a place where everybody can, where you are accessing people's thinking is, people's best thinking rather, is that first of all, that people are smart, that they've got loads to contribute, that they can figure things out. And so I think the question is, Is how do you lead in a way and work together where that intelligence is is always not only is it always coming, but it's also being amplified and and and you're pressing on it as well to be able to see, you know, in any challenge, right?

I mean, you know how it is. You work for people. If you give a good challenge, people want to go to work. They want to do something big.

They want to that, you know, they want to, you know, it's like if you look back at the end of your year and if somebody asks you what you're proud of. almost always will go to something that was difficult that we worked through and that we recognized that it wasn't a foregone conclusion that we would do that thing, but we did it anyways. And we're excited about how our capability and our intelligence came out in that project to make that thing happen. And I think that that's the essence of building an intelligence culture is that you're building a space, if you will, where through curiosity, you can access people's very best thinking.

You can challenge them to do something interesting and useful with that thinking. that the system itself draws that out of people. you're not leaving anything on the table, so to say, and that's just in the water. Simon Brown (04:40.

412) which I would imagine everyone listening is thinking, well, that's of course what I want to do. I my team to bring out their best thinking. I want to create that atmosphere, but it's, I guess it's not as easy as all of that. through your research for multipliers, what can leaders actually do in practice to create that rather than maybe sort of shutting it down or blocking it or just not encouraging it?

Shawn Vanderhoven (05:04.25) It's a good question. know, and I've got to give, so Liz, the, she's the primary author on multipliers. She, she started this idea with this observation that there were leaders who shut people down versus these leaders who were these multipliers that access people's capability.

But somewhere along there in the journal, I in the journey, there was a realization that most people are A little bit of both, of course. You we have these moments where we show up as multipliers and we get people's best thinking. And then maybe even in just the next meeting or maybe even the next moment, we don't realize it, but sometimes we shut people down. And most of the leaders that are diminishing people aren't these headline grabbing narcissists.

They're, you know, they're actually just well intended. And so you have a talented individual. You think about this career path. You have a very talented individual who does great work.

They are promoted for that great work. And then as a leader, they continue to lean on their ability to get things done. Totally sensible way to approach that. However, the, the things that you do as a contributor, whatever that is, maybe you're a great writer, maybe you're great at negotiating.

When you start to lead other people, it's like being a coach in a sport. Like you can no longer take the pitch. You've got to stay on the sideline, but it's, but it's not that clear in, in, knowledge work. Garrick (06:22.

114) Mm. Shawn Vanderhoven (06:25.497) It's so easy to continue to take the pitch. you so so so for example, if I'm a writer, it's easy for me to rewrite that person's, you know, piece or it's easy to raise my hand for the tough ones.

And not because I don't think anybody else can do it, but just because I've been around the block and maybe it'd be better for me to take that challenging, you know, piece of work on. And so what we've learned is, is that the things that you do to get promoted into management oftentimes are the very things the strengths that sometimes show up as a leadership liability. So contributor strength, leadership liability. Like for example, you know, maybe you have a tendency to, as a contributor, you were rewarded to save the day.

Things started to go south. Everybody knew you'd step in, you'd, you know, you'd get the project back on track. You'd rescue the project if you will. But if you're a leader and somebody's struggling and you rush in and rescue them from their challenge, and maybe too early and too often.

Well, what happens? Simon Brown (07:28.112) Yeah, you stop them from actually getting the experience and learning from it. Shawn Vanderhoven (07:32.

825) And so what we found is that what the very first thing that leaders can do to to to kind of make this shift from maybe a would be accidental diminisher to an intentional multiplier is to become aware. This is the number one thing. It's to become aware of how are your strengths as a leader. If maybe you're full of ideas or you tend to protect people from challenge or you You're quick to respond.

You're rapid in your responses. you're, you know, somebody, somebody sends an email in and you're like, you know, two, two minutes later, you're always responding. These we call the accidental diminishing tendencies. If you can become aware of how your strengths and your tendencies show up in a way that are making it difficult for people to show up and play their biggest, just by becoming aware, becoming aware of it, you can start to tweak.

your behaviors just a little bit to make sure that you create the necessary space for other people to show up and play really. Simon Brown (08:35.528) which is really interesting because everyone's busy, everyone has more than they can do. But actually in those situations, by doing less, you're actually creating a better situation.

So yeah, I've got to respond, I've got to come in, I've got to save the day on it, it creates workload. stopping, pausing, leaving it and letting someone else pick it up is giving someone else the chance to do it, to take on that responsibility. And yeah, so actually it's a win-win all round by pausing and letting someone learn from their own challenges. Shawn Vanderhoven (09:09.

465) Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I well, let's just play a little game. So I'll just name a few actual mission tendencies and you both kind of like self kind of self indict if you will. OK, so there's the idea fountain, the leader who's full of ideas that can't shut it off.

If you bring a problem to them, you're going to get loads of ideas on how to solve that problem. Or there's the leader who's always on. You know, they can't turn it off. They're thinking all of the time.

They have a tendency without meaning to, but to kind of suck the air out of the room. You know, it's because there's so much to contribute. There's so much to do. You know, there's the rapid responder, the leader that's responding to everything at light speed.

And that makes it difficult for other people to feel like they can wait. So then it shuts down like the incubation time that you can have for a response because you know that your leader's responding so quickly and then everybody feels like that they've got to respond that fast or they just kind of know. That's come in five minutes ago. They're getting ready to press send, know, so they stop trying.

There's the strategist. This is the leader who's thinking big ideas all the time, break through the next level of success. You can see this in yourself. And so when that leader's thinking, well, they're talking about the big idea all the time and how to break through to that 10x accomplishment.

But what happens for those that they're not wired that way? Well, they start to think, well, maybe they don't have. they can't see the bigger picture. So they just, you know, defer to the, to their boss's thinking, or there's the perfectionist, you know, the leader who just can't help but correct things, you know, they're going to correct a little bit of everything.

You turn something in, you know, you're going to get. Simon Brown (10:49.96) on page 30 that you missed in the... Garrick (10:52.

961) You Shawn Vanderhoven (10:54.073) Exactly right and so you know you're going to get feedback all the time. People that work for perfectionist that can make it where either you give up at 80 % because you know that your leaders going to finish the work anyways or you do 120 % all the time and you lose the ability to discern when good is you know good enough. So think about these.

I mean if you can see which of these you do in yourself so you know Gary you you you you raised your hand on a few of those as soon as you're aware of it you can. You can start to ask people, hey, when I go into strategist mode and it feels like I'm just talking big picture all the time and I'm not really getting your thinking on how you see your car connected and so whatever, could you like, just give me one of these or you should have saying like, now all of a sudden you can work with people to help them have this conversation with you.

That is impossible without it. Garrick (11:46.326) It's true. It reminds me so much of, you know, I come out of a research background and that was where I got a lot of my kudos, if you like, from research and knowing the answers and going deep and so on.

And what I had to learn was that the truth is one thing or the research data is one thing. But actually it's more important to stop and to allow other people to participate and not to be totally obsessed with what the right answer is and sometimes allow everybody to participate so that we come to an answer together. That was a huge shift for me. And what it reminds me of is when you're talking about creating the environment and the space and the pause, which allows other people to fill that pause rather than me jumping in with the answer the whole time.

And I know that that annoyed people who worked for me for sure. Took a long time to learn that. But the other thing it reminds me of, I'm smiling, is because, do you remember the television program, Ted Lasso? I mean, there's so much to learn from Ted, who's a normal guy going through hell.

You know, he's got a divorce situation. He's got kids who are not behaving. He's in a foreign country. He's coaching outside of his experience in a different sport.

And yet he finds a way to be human and finds a way to... Shawn Vanderhoven (12:49.644) Yeah, right. Garrick (13:13.

058) focus on the human, which is what gets the great results. And there's something about the way he behaves in the locker room with the team and allows them to shine individually, mostly because he doesn't have the resources anymore. He's so busy trying to cope with his own life. He just lets them get on with it.

And that's where the success comes from in some respects. This is why, mean, Pause, it's such a brilliant title. How did you come up with the term Pause and how did you get to why this is so important in today's always-on world? Shawn Vanderhoven (13:54.

041) Well, I want to let me hit that in one second. I just want to comment something you just said there. I think it's really interesting this idea and what the writers didn't have. So, you know this, he was aware of the fact that he just didn't know soccer.

And this has a tendency to make it to where we play a little smaller and allow other people to play bigger. And maybe the dangerous for me in my career has you to see if you see this is when you really know the territory. That's when it's so easy to show up as one of these unintentional, know, accidental diminishers where it's just come so naturally to you know the territory so well that you're just happy to give the answers or to give people the guidance or fix the problem or, you know, and the more sure you are of yourself, the harder it is to be aware of how you are over contributing and just not leaving space for other people to play bigger.

And I think that that is what's so brilliant about that piece that is written is that, know, of course he just didn't know. And so this creates this humility. And with that comes some curiosity that provides this stage, if you will, for other people to play their role and to play big. Oh, but my problem is when I know the answer.

It's when I'm so familiar with the idea that I just can't even see how I'm playing, you know, I'm taking the stage. And that somebody else, you know, I'm not even obsessed with the answers because I'm just sure that I have the answers in those scenarios. And so it might just be a warning for all of us if you're leading this scenario where you are the expert. my gosh.

It's more likely that you will be diminishing others than multiplying others just because it kind of goes with the territory of familiarity and confidence. Those two things can really be a tough combination for us as leaders. because we're just not going to naturally be pulled into a place of curiosity. Simon Brown (15:51.

708) particularly where you couple that with what you were saying earlier, where if you're the expert practitioner, you've been promoted into the leading the team, maybe a period of time has gone past. What you did to make you successful, particularly with the speed the world is moving today may not be the thing that's needed anymore. But if you go back on the, well, that's what I did and that made me successful. So we should do that again, actually can be hugely harmful because the world has changed and you're relying on what you did previously.

Garrick (16:20.952) You're describing my everyday life, Simon. I built a career based on stuff we did 40 years ago, 30 years ago, and that's lasted a long time. But with the whole AI revolution and everything else that's been going on, I really don't know the answers to how do you get collaborative decision making going on, for example, in the new world.

We haven't figured that out. Shawn Vanderhoven (16:21.208) Yeah. Shawn Vanderhoven (16:25.

014) Hahaha Simon Brown (16:29.85) you Shawn Vanderhoven (16:41.792) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, that's right.

So I can go to this other question that you asked about where did this idea of pause come from. Well, there was this observation that we had in studies that we were doing that people were losing, leaders and individuals felt like that they were losing their very best work to distraction and to burnout. And They couldn't get deep into their projects. They found themselves going in and out of things so quickly.

I don't know that AI has made this any better. think that this is in some ways made it a little worse. And so the question that we had was, man, how do you lead in a way so people don't lose their very best thinking to all the distractions and then feel this sense of burnout? And so we, you know, with that question, we started to run interviews for people exploring what had leaders done for them that made it possible for them to get deeper into their work, have more time in a flow state, feel like that that was not just welcomed on those teams, but encouraged, even protected, if you will.

And then also, we needed to see the opposite. What do leaders do? What do they think? And what do they do that makes it almost impossible to...

get into a place of clarity and focus and a piece of work. And so that's where we started as we ended up interviewing well over almost 400 people and searching through their eyes what did their leaders do who gave them that space for deep focus versus those who just made the craziness that was already in the water much worse. And the news in the research was the one thing that leaders did to create space for brilliant work in a very busy and distracting world was they were really great at slowing things down.

They knew when to tap the brakes. They didn't go slow for the sake of going slow, but they went slower at times so people could actually go faster. They could get in deeper. They could have more compound interest in their work, if you will.

which you wouldn't be surprised, the leaders Shawn Vanderhoven (19:00.279) who made it worse, this always on world hyper-connected, was this pressure to always be going as fast as you possibly could. So people communicated that they always had more than they could do, that they were over-committed, that they felt like that they were going so quickly, were barely hanging on, they weren't able to get deep in their work, et cetera, et cetera, and you know how this goes. And so we realized, well, there's news here.

The art of the pause, slowing things down so people can go faster. Man, if leaders do that, it makes a massive difference in the amount of brilliant work that you're going to get from the people that you're leading. Simon Brown (19:37.224) It's sort of counterintuitive that by stopping, or by slowing down, I actually go faster.

Say more on what those 400 interviews discovered. was it my assumption, which may be wrong, be by stopping and thinking about it, I actually get the clarity that I don't need to do all of these things, or actually here's the answer here, and it saved me whole bunch of time. What was the finding of why that pause was so important? Shawn Vanderhoven (20:06.

86) Well, the it came with a mindset that was quite different between these two sets of leaders. One leader, let's take those leaders that tended to amp up distraction. They had this belief, you know, we have to go fast and we have to do it all. And when you combine those two, you kind of get this bias towards activity, action where you're doing, you're going, you know, you're an opportunity presents itself.

You go for it. You know, as things are coming in, you quickly delegate those things, you know. You're moving at such a click that it's difficult to recognize what's going on with your team members. It's difficult to recognize how clear things are for people.

You're not really probably slowing down to clarify, you know, what is it? What is a real priority look like? How will we know when we've been successful? What's the best strategy for us to get there?

There's not a lot of ex. There's not a lot of collaborative work on making trade offs. You know like a lot of times people would say trade-offs there were no trade-offs you just did it you know you were just told to do it. There's very little discussion about trade-offs.

It feels like there's no buffer where you you've got space to go you disconnect for three or four hours to work on something and that will be okay. And then as well not only were there not buffers that people felt they didn't feel seen and so. Simon Brown (21:06.792) you Shawn Vanderhoven (21:28.

853) When your leader's going so quickly all of the time and you're struggling, it's pretty difficult to raise your hand. know, it's like trying to stop a leader that's running sprints on a field. You're not going to have a conversation when they're running sprints. And so they communicated to us that they felt like the leader couldn't see them when they were struggling.

If there was a failure that they made, there was no time to learn from the failure. instead maybe more a little bit of blame and punishment when you're going quick and you've got to get results fast. And so there was this these kind of three broad strokes. So there was this belief, this bias towards action.

We've got to go. We've got to go fast. And then there was very little work on clarifying what does matter here of all the things that we could be doing. There was very little buffering.

There was very little space to get deep into something as a result of this mindset and these set of behaviors. And then and then also it was difficult to communicate the things that you were suffering with, that you were unsure about, that you were, you know, failures that you were struggling with. OK, so this was on the one side, this bias towards action. These other leaders that had this exact opposite result, they were these leaders that had mastered the pause, if you will.

There's this great quote we found when we were the research that Shakespeare said, he says, make pause in your haste. And that's what these leaders had the ability to do. There was still an intensity battle. a high standard, a desire to move projects along fast, but they just approached it in this different way.

So they believed that you can't do it all and people need space to do great work. And that leads to this thing that we came to call the bias towards impact. So still a deep desire for action, but action for a result. You and you kind of need the opposite thing a lot of times with the people you're leading.

You almost need to have them to have a bias towards action. they're, you know, they're, Garrick (23:12.579) Hmm. Shawn Vanderhoven (23:20.

683) They're experimenting, changing, they're working through things. But as a leader, if you're not really thinking through what are the few things that we can do to have an impact, then you just tend not to look for those little moments naturally to slow things down. And so in contrast, these leaders were brilliant at clarifying what success looked like. They were very good at working with their team, harnessing their brain power to make trade-off decisions.

They were exceptional at They understood kind of the things about themselves that tended to get them into trouble. You know, like the rapid responder that we talked about earlier, where maybe they weren't creating space. And so with this little bit of awareness, especially in digital communication, they tended to create more space instead of take it away. And then finally, one of my favorite practices in the book, well, there's two I'll share real fast that we in the research was one.

They're really good at slowing things down when they delegate. So I'll just give you an example. So we have this one practice in the book called tune in before you jump in. Well, the leader who just gets something from senior management, they just jump right in.

They just give it to you right away. They're not really aware of what you've got on your plate. Whereas the leader who tunes in, let's say that, Simon, you give me a task for my team. It's going to be a multi-person task.

I can't take it on my own. So I'm going to have to do some delegate. And so instead of rushing to my team, go and kind of, I do a split step. I go to my teammates and I start with questions.

Hey, what do you got on your plate? Or once we clarify that, so let me, let's talk about who wants this thing that I have and why they want it. If we were to do this thing, what would you have to say no to? So there was, they would do this little tune in.

was just a few minutes to make sure they understood what was going on. What, what did that person already have on their plate? What was the project they were working on? How did that compare in value?

to this new thing that I was showing up to give them. And this little tune in, these little trade-off conversations before making the little pivots gave people to kind of make the additional pivot, if you will. They just slowed things down for a moment. And that made it possible for them to be able to get kind of clarity to make a better decision.

So anyway, another thing that they did was they were very good at recognizing when somebody would struggle and when they would see somebody struggle. Shawn Vanderhoven (25:43.158) There's this other practice that we called, they cleared their desk. They knew when it was time to close the laptop to turn the phone over and just kind of, you know, let's get into what's going on for you.

What's the challenge here? Let me make sure that I've seen you, that I've listened to you have downloaded. They were mindful, if you will, of what was going on with others. Garrick (25:59.

768) That's amazing. I love the fact that you refer to Shakespeare. And the fact, you know, how did this dude know 400 years ago, so many of these axioms that are relevant today? I mean, what a life.

And then, I mean, this is axiomatic, the idea of, in order to, you have to slow down in order to speed up. I mean, it's remarkable and it's so simple and yet it's so profound. Paul and I often talk about the tempest. Shawn Vanderhoven (26:10.

017) Seriously. Garrick (26:31.374) because it's such a great story about the idea for utopia and innovation and the new world and part of what, know, living in business life, were always creating the new world in some way. And yet all the pitfalls and the things that come with it can be found in the Tempest.

And there's lots of things to learn for us there. But to slow down in order to speed up really speaks to me a lot. You've mentioned, you were talking about why we follow certain leaders. And there was so much in what you've just been saying.

What are you discovering about what actually makes people choose to follow? And where would you say curiosity fits in with that? Shawn Vanderhoven (27:10.012) Mm-hmm.

That's a question. Well, I think one thing to be sure is what we see in the data is when people believe that their leader really is interested in what they have to say. It's like they're not just kind of playing games. They're going to stop.

They're going to ask you a question. They're going to stop. They're going to create space. They will expect you to respond.

And they use your work. Garrick (27:31.374) Authenticity, the authentic tuning in. Shawn Vanderhoven (27:39.

146) that not only in that space that they ask you to fill, when you fill it, they use the best work that you have. And then if there's work that they would look for you to see improve, they tell you, hey, like, I want to use this, but you're going to have to improve it to meet this standard. So there's a challenge in it for us. We like that.

We all thrive on challenge. So we're invited to step up and play at the next level, but we're given the space to do that and the coaching when we fall short. I think this is people want to follow that kind of curious leader. There was this great quote from C.

K. Prahalad, who was he he we lost him to cancer, unfortunately, years ago, but he was he ended his career as a professor at the business school in Michigan, the University of Michigan. And he you know, he said that he thought that the the skill for leading in the 21st century isn't what you know, but how you access other people's intelligence. How do you access other people know?

And I think that that skill, that capability, which is born of the assumption that people are smart. Garrick (28:30.894) Yeah. Shawn Vanderhoven (28:37.

204) and then developed in this way where you give people space, you challenge them in that space, and then you use their work. You hold them accountable for getting things done. I think that that's what we want from a leader. We want that space to step up and play bigger.

We know that they will be asking us for our point of view and for our contributions. And if we don't contribute or if we don't share a point of view, they're going to want to know why. You know, hey, why are you so silent on this? You know I It's because there is genuine intellectual curiosity.

talent curiosity, if you will, on what it is that you will create and bring to the table. And so then when it doesn't show up, it's like an obvious, you know, person to the party that didn't show there's a missing table there. I the mission chair at the table. And the question is, well, wait a minute, where is this contribution from you?

I need this from you. And when we work for somebody like that, you know, and actually it's been this way for me working with Liz. You know, not only did she find the idea in the research, she really leads this way. There was a time when we were working on the second edition of multipliers that my job was to, I was doing some research for the final chapter of the book and we were, we were going out to literally like 150 clients on how had they successfully implemented the concept of multipliers among their leaders and where had they tried but failed.

We just wanted to gain the insights on how could we pass on the wisdom from both those that tried but failed and those that tried and were successful. How can we pass that on to future readers? I'd been working on this piece for three weeks and had really been pulling some long hours. I sent it to Liz and she, it was pretty late at night, nine o'clock in the evening and I was getting, getting ready to wrap up and go to bed.

I sent this off to Liz about 10 o'clock. I've been getting ready to climb into bed. I check it. I know she was on the East coast.

She happened to send an email back and she said, Hey Sean, I don't have time to tell you why. other than a few anecdotes, but I can't use this research. I've got to present in the morning and then I've got to send this off to the publisher by X time. It was that next day.

I don't know what to do about it, but if you have any ideas on how you can solve this problem, she gave me kind of a vague direction to look. I'd love it, but I understand if you can't. This is 10 o'clock now, PM. And I think to myself, okay, I've just been crawling into bed and I thought...

Shawn Vanderhoven (31:04.597) Man, there's a challenge in this. Like, she doesn't want me to lose all this work, but she's also telling me that I haven't met the standard. And she's kind of given me an idea on how to go about it.

So I get out of bed. My office at the time was on the porch. And I got some of these, I had these mittens that I put on and then pull the, you know, the hand pieces up. So I go out onto the, you know, I never worked late at night, right?

So I go out on the porch. I live in Menlo Park, California. So don't worry. It was November, but it wasn't that, it wasn't that cold.

It was only like 40. And so. I go out and I worked and I worked until the sun came up and then I sent her the file one minute before she she said that she could take a look at it, sent her text, had to send it. She sends an email response back, this is brilliant, I can use it.

And she did, it ended up going in the book and if you read chapter nine of multipliers, the second edition, you'll see all of that work. But let me tell you why that was special for me as a contributor, it was because Even when I failed, she would tell me, hey, look, I really want to use this material, but it's got to meet this standard. Here's how you may fix this. And most of the time, she would have more time to coach me through it.

But then she would say, listen, you have to choose to step up into this challenge. But if you do, I will use your work. And that has had a massive multiplying effect on me. The combination of space to create with the challenge to do it.

And then always my work is used. Good work is used. Poor work is sent back and is upgraded. And it's really made it to where I've wanted to be that same kind of leader where I'm super curious about what people can accomplish.

I create this space for them to do that work and challenge them to do maybe something a little bit outside of their comfort zone. That's where we learn, right? So they can lean into that. Simon Brown (32:55.

258) of it. Maybe we're coming towards the end, but it's a practical piece for a leader who's sitting there thinking about pausing sounds great, but I look at my diary and it's back to back and how am I going to pause? So what are some practical tips that you've seen from your research in how people can actually make that pause happen, whether that's practical bits like in the diary or whether that's a mindset piece of actually motivating oneself to stop and actually make that pause.

Shawn Vanderhoven (33:29.137) It's a question. So maybe we'll hit both. The things that you can kind of plan out and then the things you can do in the moment.

So leaders who pause will schedule a little bit of time to listen to all the team members. They rarely leave that to chance. So it's on their diary, if you will, even if it's very short blocks where maybe they're going to ask a couple of questions and listen for 10 minutes, depending on how many people that you're working with. But they don't leave those.

Maybe it's not a once a week, maybe it's once a month, but they don't leave listening to chance. And so you can schedule that, afford some time for that, and that saves problems in the long run. Another little practical thing that they can do is they spend a few minutes thinking about what failure looks like. And this is important.

whenever you've got to, if you just take right now, if both of you wrote down your top three projects, the things that matter the most to you this year, it won't be hard for you to get that on paper. Even if you're not sure which of those three are the most important, you can write down the top three projects you have. And then if right next to that in a column you write out, OK, what might, you know, who's going to be working on this team and what might failure look like? You've been around the block and as a leader, a lot of times we have a sense on kind of where some failure can be.

And you simply communicate, hey, I think that we could have these failures. Let's just watch for these and work with them as they come. All of sudden now there's this, there's this, you've just slowed things down for just a second and now you've giving people a chance to be able to slow down with you, to be able to figure out how we can deal with some of the failures that will occur and that we can anticipate. So that's just another little very small practical thing that can be done.

On the prioritization side of the house, this is something that we found to be ubiquitous. Leaders who were very good at pausing, they programmed time to talk through what of the many things were the number one priority. And they spent time both trying to select what the priorities were and defining the value proposition. Why is this the thing that we're going to go after?

Why would we go after this versus that, for example? And so they spend their time trying to pick what we call the priority targets to define for the team. These are the priority targets that we're going to go after. Shawn Vanderhoven (35:44.

595) And what that does is that actually speeds things up as the new work piece, as the new pieces of work come. It's a much easier to sort things into their houses, if you will. If you've really clarified upfront, what are the things that you are going for? For example, this month, this quarter, this year.

And it's clear to everyone what those things are and why those things are the priorities. Listen, I tell you what, that was the kind of the surprise for me out of the research is that almost always people that felt like that they were overwhelmed and overcommitted and that they were burning out. The thing that they said that was synonymous with that was, I'm not clear on what matters and what doesn't. It's easy to take that for granted.

And so many people are operating with this kind of sense of, I don't know what matters and what does. So there's another little thing that you can do is just simply clarify what are the top three priorities. What does success look like in those areas? And to involve one's team with this to make sure that they know as well.

Garrick (36:49.294) Sean, so many great tips. Beyond your book multipliers and your book pause, beyond all of your current work, what's something you're curious about in your life right now? Shawn Vanderhoven (37:05.

237) Let me think about that for a second. Garrick (37:07.65) Take a pause. Shawn Vanderhoven (37:10.

293) Okay, I have it. I'm very curious about in life how to think from an intergenerational perspective. So I have three boys, 24, 22, and almost 21. And I'm just thinking about what's my role as they have become adults and as they're contributing to the world and two of them have recently been married.

How do I think about my role today, which I've never had more opportunities and exciting work to do? And that means it comes with a responsibility. It's busy, it's challenging, it's for me to contribute. And so I'm thinking about what's my role in my current work and then what's my duty to them and their families and the people in that generation to think, how can I, what's my role?

to them from a leader's perspective and also in my current role from an intergenerational perspective? And then what's my responsibility to my parents, who I'm fortunate enough to still have both my parents right now? So I think I'm interested in this idea on as we age, what is our intergenerational responsibility? And how do we show up well as we think about those that are older than us, those people that we are responsible to contribute to now in our current work?

and then those people that, you know, we're trying to encourage to step up and take our place. I'm very interested in this. That probably might not be very interesting to everybody else, but I find myself in the situation that I wanted to. Simon Brown (38:49.

234) So in a moment, I'll summarize and come back to you for sort of one key takeaway. But there's something you said at the beginning that I want to come back to first, which is you started out saying that you didn't used to be curious as a leader. So was there an aha moment where suddenly you was like, maybe this is the answer I need to be more curious? Shawn Vanderhoven (39:06.

046) There was. Shawn Vanderhoven (39:10.91) There was a very, there was an aha moment and I'm no longer embarrassed about it. was initially, and you'll see when the lightning strikes why I was probably a little embarrassed, but here it was.

I'm working in Germany and we were living in this little town called Weinheim right outside of, in the Rhein-Neckar Valley, right? It's at Mannheim. And I was the youngest on this team of say 30, many German engineers that were, you know, twice my work experience. We had a very large complicated project that we were working on for the US government.

And it was failing. I mean, it was bad. It was so bad that I was pulled into the VP's office, Tilo Oberheimer. he said, it said considerations.

And I was a subcontractor working with Siemens. And I thought, I wonder what considerations he's going to give me. had no idea that that meant. was going to ask me to give him things, considerations for my poor performance.

So I mean, I was just very young. was probably 28, 29, leading in this position. And I was very excited to go home one evening to speak with a friend who was actually researching for Liz when she first started working on multipliers. So I remember speeding home up the A5 to our little place that we were renting in Weinheim.

And I was thinking about on the way home how I was going to tell him what my plan was to fix this project. And we were the linchpin for like a $30 million project. And so I sped home and got on the phone with this fella. And I started telling him about how I was going to fix the problem.

And my colleagues were dense. And they were slow. they had caused all these problems. But I had this idea on how I was going to rescue the project.

And I remember getting to be said, well, actually, John, it's interesting you say all that. And I'm like, I've just spoken for 30 minutes straight on how I was going to save the day. He's like, know, Shawn Vanderhoven (41:08.788) Consider who you're working with.

He's like, one of the things we found in this research is that the very best leaders use other people's intelligence to fix problems instead of trying to save the day on their own. Oh, I remember how I felt in that moment. I felt small, very small. And I saw in an instant, I saw how it was just me in the room.

I could just see how I thought that my job as a leader was to have the answers, was to fix the schedule, was to, you know, to know what features we should be working on, should be to tell the engineers, you know, what their approach should be. Oh, I had gotten it all wrong. I went back, I didn't know what to do with the Garrick (41:24.507) Yeah.

Shawn Vanderhoven (41:51.955) So I went back and met with my colleague, my counterpart that was his name was Hartmut Becker. And I just, the only thing I could think to do was listen and ask questions. So I just said, Hey, listen, I just would love to have you tell me all of the problems that you see and maybe even how you think we should sort this out.

And I would just, I just restated just, you know, active listening. just restated asked to tell me more about this. And I was amazed at what I saw. So I went to the next person, Stefan on the team and, then the next person and and started to slowly draw out a picture and like, whoa, like these people know how to solve these problems and the problem is me.

So, so we went from, from, from me trying to solve the problems and causing them to me working through others to fix the problems. And it was, you know, I dunno, a year later, the project had completely turned around. It was a wild success. And it was not because of my intelligence.

It was because of the talent we had on this team. I just was, I was just diminishing them all. with this mindset that if it was going to be, was up to me and I needed to show how much I knew and tell them what to do and that's how we would win and I couldn't have been more wrong. Simon Brown (43:02.

492) Such a powerful example. So we've a lot. So we've gone through how you... build an environment where you can access the best thinking, where people are smart and how do we amplify their intelligence and how people appreciate a good challenge that if it's something that's actually difficult and they can work through, then you get more from it.

We went into how do we build that space via curiosity to access people's best thinking. We talked about the work that you've done with Liz on the book and how some leaders shut people down and most people do a bit of both. you shared a series of types of leader and think Gareth and I. we probably are guilty of several of these.

The idea of fountain, the always on leader, the rapid responder, the strategist, I think that one I'm particularly guilty of, and the perfectionist. And how maybe just becoming aware of those helps us to address them a bit. And then we talked about your new book, Pause, how actually the counterintuitive piece of actually slowing down, pausing, actually can help us to go faster. and yeah how do we leave people so that people don't lose their best work and some great examples that you shared from from how we can do that.

Simon Brown (44:18.62) I love the Shakespeare quote of, yeah, make pause in your haste. I think that's something that we can take away from there. And then, how the people that we have, some people do have that bias to action, that there's little prioritisation, that it's hard to communicate for people who are struggling with them.

And then those who get it wrong recognise that we can't actually do it all. They make that space for people to have an impact and they really clarify what success looks like and help people in really understanding. what's there, that we tune in before you jump in even if it's just a moment to figure out who actually wants this and who has the space for it and who would or what would you be giving up if you did it and then some really helpful practical tips so yeah scheduling the time to listen Ask a couple of questions and just pause and actually listen to people.

Take a few minutes to think through and share what failure would actually look like so that we can discuss and address what that would be. And then actually put some programming time to walk through what is the top priority and make sure that there's a real clarity around what that is. And then we heard about what you're curious about of that intergenerational perspective, which with a 17 and a 19 year old, I also share that curiosity. So we covered a lot.

any sort of one major takeaway from all of that that you'd like to leave our listeners with, Shaun. Shawn Vanderhoven (45:40.307) I would say that when you think about things from a multiplier perspective, if you get the sense that you have this tendency to overplay and that your strengths as a contributor show up as a bit of a leadership liability and you might be accidentally diminishing others, the place to start is first and foremost is asking questions. If there's a superpower that we found among multipliers, of course, it's just right for for what you all are doing on this podcast, is to be curious.

It's to use questions as the way to help you pause, to slow down. If you're concerned about things before a meeting, you can sit down and write out all of your concerns and then rewrite them as a question. So instead of going in and telling your team what's all the things you're concerned about, you can ask questions, sharing what you're concerned about so they can respond. You can you can tell people what you're expecting in a question, know What's the best way for us to get this done by next Thursday it instead of just walking into a room telling people hey We got to get this done by Thursday.

So I really have learned in this this multipliers work that If you spend a little bit more time thinking about what questions to ask Sharing your concerns and questions sharing what needs to get done in questions Asking people what questions you should be asking This has a natural pausing effect and that kind of curiosity creates an environment that people love to work in. So I'd say that, you know, that this is kind of like the superpower to become, to lead where you are creating an intelligence culture is, you know, if you make pause in your haste in that pause, can, you can be writing out the questions you should be asking.

And I think that that that's just maybe the one thing that we can all rely on and you will get much better thinking from everybody that you. Simon Brown (47:38.056) So. Thank Sean.

And we'll put a link in the comments to your upcoming book, PAUSE, How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World. So thank you. So you've been listening to a Curious Advantage podcast. This series is about how individuals and organizations use the power of curiosity to drive success in their lives and businesses, especially in the context of our new digital reality.

It brings to life the latest understanding from neuroscience, anthropology, history, business, and behaviorism about curiosity and makes these useful for everyone. As always, we're curious to hear from Shawn Vanderhoven (47:45.555) Thank Simon Brown (48:08.424) you so if you think there was something useful or valuable from this conversation do write a review or share the podcast with someone that you think would find it valuable and we always appreciate hearing your thoughts and having a curious conversation using the hashtag curious advantage.

Check out the curious advantage book on Amazon worldwide and do subscribe today to keep exploring curiously. See you next time!