You the Changemaker: Mattering as Only You Can

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. What's Working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, Doctor Relise Cortes. Welcome back to the Working on Purpose Program. Thanks for tuning in again this week. Great to have you. This show has been brought to you with passion and pride since February of twenty fifteen, and it has been ranked on the top ten most inspirational leadership podcast on the web and meet are number one. I'm your host, Doctor Relies Cortes. If we have not met before and you don't know me, I'm an organizational psychologist and local therapist, speaker and author. My team and I at Gusto Now help companies to enliven and fortify their operations by building a culture and leadership activated by

1:30 meaning and purpose. Our mission is to help our clients create a destination workplace where people flock to join, are intrinsically lilivated to perform at their best, can grow into their higher potential than our committee to stay and and I've been delivered on the company's mission, all which translates to higher profits for you. You can learn more abou us and now we can work together at Gusto dashnow dot com or my personal site at least quotes dot com. Now getting into today's program we have with us today. Alex budak He is a UC Berkeley faculty member, social entrepreneur, author and speaker at UC Berkeley. He teaches His wildly popular course called Becoming a Change Maker, directs the Berkeley host Global Access Program and teaches in Berkeley executive education programs. He co founded Starts Some Good, which has helped over twelve hundred change makers in over fifty countries raise millions of dollars to launch and scale new change initiatives. He's slightly up to something. He is the author of Becoming a Change Maker and Actionable Inclusive Guide to Deleting Positive Change at Any Level, which we're talking about on today's program.

2:30 He joins today from Berkeley, California. Alex A hearty welcome to Working on Purpose. Please, thanks for having me. Happy to be here, so great to have you. And as I mentioned, I was in your neck of the woods when I was reading this. I was right in Berkeley reading your book. As I said to you, waiting for you to come into that cafe and sit down with me and talk about your book. Well, we have to do it here anyway. So how's that perfect? I'll take it. Okay, Well, let's crack into this. So you know you are clearly, you know, riveted on this idea of making change. So where did the fascination come from? Well, like so many things. It's sort of like the Steve Jobs commencement address, where it only makes sense looking backwards. I guess I've always sort of found myself in areas of change.

3:13 I grew up in the Silicon Valley Bay area, so I've always kind of been around innovation and entrepreneurship. But for better or works, it was just never driven to create something just for the sake of money. That's fine if you are just that wasn't me. And so for me, it happened while I was living and working in India that I first got introduced to the concept of social entrepreneurship. And that's really what you do at least, and it's blending the idea of purpose off it together. And so that so I kind of catalyzed my journey as a social entrepreneur. My social ventures starts some good. I really aim to help change makers make a difference in their community. But as I did that work, I realized that, you know, some many my friends were social entrepreneurs that loved being around social entrepreneurs. But I also recognize that we're a weird bunch, We're not the typical people, and that not everyone can or should be a social entrepreneur. It's one amazing way to make change, but far from the only. And so as I reflect on that, started thinking, what's a more inclusive way we can think about meeting change. How do we think about empowering everyone to be an agent of change, not just the people with a fancy title or that start their own organization. And so that's where sort of building on my previous experience, my lived experience and sort all came together and said, Yeah, change making, that's that's where I want to That's where I want to be, and that's what I've dedicated the last fifteen years or so of my life. I think it's fantastic. And I one of my things that really causes me to, you know, really get the kogibis, if that is an actual word, is when I go into organizations and I hear, well, that's just

4:45 how we do things around here. Oh my gosh, please don't say anything like that. So for you, you've got a very unique perspective on change. Why do you think change making is so important in the world. Well, there's both the macro reason and then the micron reason. And so the macro reason and if you just look at all the trends shaping our world today, from COVID which appeared on the scene a few years ago, to climate to inequality. And you could say, like, hey, I just want to keep things the way that they are, and I guess that that's comfortable. But as COVID showed us, if we just try to stay the same, we might not exist for much longer. And so I think there's an imperative at just the macro scale that the world is changing faster and faster than ever before, and it will also never change this slowly ever again. So we've got to get comfortable with the changes around us. You know, you could hope that things will slow down, you could wish things would change less, but that's not going to happen. So that's the macro reason. Why.

5:39 Then on the micro reason is I believe it everyone can have a sense of meaning, a fulfillment of purpose, of belonging. And it's sad to me. It's understandable sometimes, but it's sad to me when people just feel so beaten down by systems. And again, there are really unfair, unjust systems, and there's plenty bureaucracies that try to take that life out of us. But there's also that opportunity to sort of turn on your own switch and say, look, change can be a huge threat, and it's scary, but there's also opportunity in the threat. I love the word of the singer songwriter John Bias. She says action is the antidote to despair. It's fair to say, look, don't feel any despair, don't feel frustration, don't feel like things shouldn't changed. Feel that, but then find a bias towards action, and then that action you often find your meaning. Oh, Alex, I love that you know. In the world of psychology, we have a fun word to describe what you're talking about that and that is human agency.

6:34 So when we can activate our own sense of agency, yes, and it's incredibly energizing and fulfilling. So yes, I am. It's one of the reasons I wanted to have you in my program. I want more of these change makers that can actually exercise that agency. So all right, So now we have to go next to this wonderful part that I loved so much in your book about learning. How it is that you know this now famous change making course that you teach at UC Berkeley. But the way that it really began is fantastic. You were really quite precocious. And how that came to be, I know the story about our listeners and viewers don't. So if you could tell the story you know of that, how it came to be, that you proposed that offered it, and then how you actually created it, that'd be great. Yeah. I mean the story of life is so often there's a lot of luck, and there's also the people that are looking out for you. And I think I had kind of a perfect storm there. Combined with what you said, you know, that idea of human agency, I think that's the underpinning. But I'd been in UC Berkeley's host School of Business for about a year or so, and I found out that my role was getting changed, and so I went into one of my mentor's offices. He happened to be the person that oversaw all the faculty and all the curriculum at Berkeley HAAS, and so we're kind of talking about my transition, what was my next step going to be. But I think he could kind of tell that my heart wasn't in it. He knew me to be very passionate, but I think he saw that I wasn't really in it.

7:53 And then he said to me, just very directly, he had what do you really want to do? And you know, in that moment, I just became super clear to me. I said, well, I want to teach. And again, keep in mind that I don't have a PhD. I'm not a traditional faculty member and had never taught even at high school before. But to my surprise, instead of shutting me down or telling me all of the dozens of reasons is not a good idea, he said, okay, we want to teach. And again it was very clear to me. I said, I want to teach a class called becoming a change Maker. And I pretty much expected him to say, like, okay, that's nice, but you know we're a business school, we're not going to teach that here. But again to my surprise, he said, okay, put together a syllabus, show it to me, and we'll go from there. And so I shook his hand, leaping out of my seat, left his office, closed the door, and then literally immediately googled how to create a syllabus.

8:41 Because I didn't know what ey what I was doing. I'd be too good an opportunity to fly by. And so that was the beginning of it was someone that gave me a chance and this clear sense of purpose of wanting to say, how can we create a class help more people become change makers? Well, and then you go on, I love that story. Listeners and viewers just listen to that, right, take some inspiration from that. If there's something you want to do, just be bold, be preroocious. You know my daughter, when she was like five, she said, she came back from this summer camp. She goes, Mom, I learned something today. You don't ask, you don't get And I said, boy, you just remember that throughout your whole life and you'll be just fine. But then it gets better because then you actually create the course, and then the day comes when you're going to open the doors for the first set of students and you're hoping there's going to be a couple of people in there, and the thing is overflowing with students everywhere. So great, Alex. It brought me to tears, honestly, because it's very meaningful to put your own self into the world in this way. You do this with your books, you're speaking, That's what it's something about. You know, if I were teaching accounting class every school has an accounting class, and that's important. That's not sort of deeply who I am. This class was deeply who I am.

9:54 My value is, my philosophy is my belief in people that could be leaders. And so yeah, I opened up that door and found that not only was every seatful, that there were students sitting on the stairs, sitting on the windowsills, like people just wanted to be part of this. And it wasn't me. It was just I was tapping into something, this idea that these students were hungry for someone greater than themselves. They had maybe this energy and enthusiasm, but they wanted a sense of how do I turn that into real purpose? And that really crystallized for me that this was a meaningful thing I was about to start, and gave me so much meaning going forward to say, yeah, I'm serving these students. Yeah, I really understand that when you create something of your own and you present it and people really respond to it, there's nothing better than that feeling. But that's exactly why.

10:39 So you know what I got from your share and what you said in the book is this is an indication of how much people really want to matter. People don't want to go through life hoping that they squeak under the radar screen and nobody notices they want to matter, which is why I put that into this episode title by the way. So yeah, I think you were tapping into this craving that we all have to matter, and of the work that I'm doing in the world too is let's help more people do that by the way that we create our organizations and our cultures and lead people. So, yes, brilliant alex, I want to take yes to mattering and yes to feeling like they're connecting into something greater than themselves. Yeah, you can have to make that in folks. Yeah. So then I just I like to what I do in this program is I like to do a little bit of teaching. Of course, there's always an inspirational component here, but there's a few things in your book that is kind of wanted to pepper and bring forth.

11:28 Obviously, we can't discuss everything in your book because there's just so much in it, but I did want you to cover off on the three fundamental building blocks that you talk about in change making that I just think is really useful. Can we start there, Yeah, absolutely, So. I mean we talked about having a change maker of mindset. You know, we first start by recognizing that really change happens at the edges of things. I'm in a university, and universities love this idea of what's your major, what's your discipline? As you get a higher pirap as professor, it's not just that you are, I don't know, a psychology professor. You're an expert in the social psychology of small groups. Like you get so hyper focused. But the truth is that any of the meaningful problems we're going to solve won't be solved by anyone discipline, anyone approach, or anyone person. And so change makers learn to innovate at the edges, to find ways where one discipline starts the other begins, and that sort of magic point in between. It's messy and it's not clear, but that's where a lot of the magic happens.

12:26 Then the second thing is learned hopefulness. I think in some of our circles we run the risk of something called toxic positivity. That's the idea that you sort of like ignore all the problems, go, oh, don't worry, abo, Everyone's gonna be fine, Like, don't worry. And that's not what I'm saying here. What I'm saying is this idea of you've learned helplessness, kind of like you talked about with someone that says, ah, that's just the way things are. But learn hopefulness is the idea that, yeah, things are tough, but things can be better. We can do something about it. You Recasula says that hope isn't just something that you clutch, it's an ax used to break down doors with. It's gonna be better and you can actually do something with it. And so that's how we can kind of start conceptualizing the change maker mindset of how we in the world and how we see change around us. Yeah, and did you always already? Did I miss it? The first one that had to is there's always another way?

13:18 Did you already talk about that one? No, that's right. I can speak to that as well. I love that, you know. That also speaks to how we open the show. There's always another way to do something. Yeah, what we might call it a possibility intelligence that it's so tempting to just go like, okay, it's either A or B. And once you get comfortable recognizing that the world is complex, you actually see that it's not just CD. It's almost infinite that there's always other ways. And I learned a lot of this from one of my mentors. He's an entrepreneur, and he was so good at not just taking the first offer that even when an offer was good, he'd always explore, like he wouldn't just feel tempting to go what else can we do there? What else is possible? I think this is actually being really empathetic and listening to the other person. We think about, for instanceotiation, we sometimes think the point of a negotiation is to win. I'm going to beat that other person. I'm going to get as much as I can and as little as they can. But actually the best negotiations are where you care a lot about your own needs and about the other person's needs. And when you do that, you find that it's not just a versus b that all these new possibilities come out as a result the creative friction from new ideas coming together. It's holding that space. It might take a little bit longer, it might take a little more values work, might take a little focus on process, But once you start realizing that the world isn't as black and white, then you see it's not just sort of shades it great. It's actually multi colored, like there's wonderful possibilities that are there if you're just willing to see them. I love that, Alex, you know I love that. Now for this next thing I wanted to have you speak to which really speaks to this notion of how much change making is available to anyone and actually really facilitates us. I love how you talk

14:52 about there being three ways to rapidly accelerate your career and your impact. Most everybody has a career, and most everybody wants to make impacts. So let's just quickly talk about those three ways. It's a step point become a change maker. Yeah, absolutely, so that's sort of the table stakes. Then the next one is can you surround yourself with other people who are change makers? I say, like kind of all things equal, If you think about a new job, can you join a team that's filled with change makers? Can you find a manager who's a change maker, someone who will champion you, who will get we'll see those possibilities for you and you could be the most outstanding change maker. But I see unfortunately a lot of folks that have that energy when they first enter the workforce, get the kind of beaten out to them because they don't find the community of change makers. So one become a change maker to surround yourself with change makers. And the third and most powerful is help other people become change makers. There's a saying I love, which is that when you teach, one person teaches and two people learn, and so you're always learning. There's no better way to learn than by teaching yourself. But also can you create and catalyze those moments where other people become change makers too. An example here I think about is Mohammed Unis. He's the Nobel Prize winner. He's often thought of as the godfather, the founding father of microfinance, getting small loans to people, especially women, especially in the Global South, that then allow them to start businesses for their family with incredible repayment rates. So this was thanks to COVID and again sort of that idea of seemore possibilities. He's an idol of mine. I reached out to

16:22 him and figured out, well, at worst he'll say no, I can't come speak to your class. But at best, hey, it's COVID. Maybe he'll just say yes, I'll join virtually whatever. And he said yes, and as he spoke to my class, was we thought about his career. He often gets a lot of credit for this sort of visionary idea, the way he revolutionized finance, but actually what he did was empowered hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people to see themselves change makers, to give him that capital that they need. And that's what those real ripples have. Change can happen, and that's so inspiring, the very stuff that we talk about in the show, Alex, thanks for that beautiful example. Just before we go and break, let people think about that. I am your host, doctor Release Cortes Vandier and talking with Alex Budak. He is a UC Berkeley faculty member, social entrepreneur, author and speaker. We've been talking a bit about where this idea, this fascination with change making came from, and kind of getting into some of the crucial elements of it. After the break, when you start talking about a few of the concepts and tools you can start to fold into yourself to become your own change maker. We'll be right back.

17:37 Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, an inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite at Lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Eliscortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to a lease a Lise at eliscortes dot com.

18:21 Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for saying with us, and welcome back to working on purpose. And I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I too, am dedicated to helping create a world where people realize their potential. At work, they are realizing how they can matter. They're led by inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness. And we do business at Betters in the world. I keep researching and writing my books, so my last one came out in March of twenty twenty three. It's called The Great Revitalization. How activating meaning and purpose can radically enliven your business, and I wrote it to help readers understand the change lay of today's workforce, what do they want and need to stay with you, and then it offers twenty two best projects is to help you fold into your culture to actually make that. So you can find more about it at at leastcore test dot com or on Amazon if you are just joining us now. My guest is Alex Buddak. He is the author of Becoming a Change Maker, an actionable, inclusive guide to leading positive change at any level. Okay, so Alex, let's get into some of the nuts and Bulturo again. One of the things I love about your book is that you're teaching us some things, but then you give us these tools and concepts that we can really start to work for ourselves. So the first one that I wanted to talk about here and I love this. I think this is so so important again going back to the beginning of the show, is talking about the idea of questioning the status quo. It's one of the values of Berkeley Haas. It's literally written into the cement in front of our buildings. And so when I found myself there, I thought, this is this is a place that I want to be.

19:49 And as we think about the world today, there's a lot of status quoes that need to be disrupted. When you step into your workforce, there's a lot of status quothes, a lot of things that are done. And you know, like you said, someone asks you, why do we do things? Oh, it's the way it's done. It's the way it's always been until we need books that are willing to sort of shake up the status quo and to have the courage to question it. Now, as we think about it, I think there's first a framework that comes from social psychology that's helpful. It's called idiosyncrasy credits. This is the work of Edward Hollander, kind of a classic social psychologist, And what I often hear from students and executives is they want to question the status quo, but they think they won't be well received. So Hollander tells us that you can earn these idiosyncrasy credits.

20:33 These are little credits you can use to diverge from group norms. Everyone's going one way, you can go the other. How do you earn these? You earn these through two ways. One is through competence, by doing good work. You know, if you trove on their first day of work and you try to question everything, people go, who is this person? Why should we trust them? So you've got to first do competent good work. The second one is that you go along with the flow on some things. Think of this as sort of picking your battle. If there's some questions of status quot on literally everything, people won't know if you're actually serious about it, if you're just a contrarian. So instead the idea is, maybe there's ten things you want to change, there's two you really care about, Well, let those other it go, you know, let them be, and then focus your energy on the two. So that's a helpful framing perhaps to know like how and when you decide to go about questioning the status quo.

21:23 Then the other tool I'll suggest is a mental framework of zigging when others zag. So oftentimes when you see everyone going in one direction, with one trend, one approach, there's often opportunity going the opposite way. If everyone in your industry is going low price, cheap margins, shaving out every penny that they can, well maybe there's an opportunity to stand out in another way. If every company is going, let's cut our customer support and just go all AI. Well, maybe there's an opportunity to really go deep and human, so really invest in your indo street what makes sense. But change makers are comfortable with seeing, Okay, everyone's going one way, and sometimes we feel pressure go oh, if everyone's going that way, it must be the right way. Maybe, but often there's big opportunity if you can zig when others that. I love that. I just think there's so much utility in that, especially as a change maker. So I love that tool. That's interesting. Now, the next one that I thought was I thought was to be quite interesting and compelling, and I don't know why I was so surprising to see it there. But the concept that you talk about over the tool is confidence without attitude. I'm a deep believer in humility. I lived in Stockholm, Sweden for three years, and Scanning even culturally values humility, and I've always been someone who values humility. You can imagine being in Silicon Valley that's maybe not the most humble of places, right, a lot of place, but in Scannavia I saw well, no, actually, humility can be

22:56 a strength. And I think that a lot of Americans really get this wrong. The sounds. We think that humility is a weakness. It means people will walk all over us. But I think at its core, I think of it the way that Clayton Christians and the classic professor from Harvard thought about it, which is that to truly be humble you see the very best in others. You can only do that if you feel good about yourself. So I see confidence in humility actually going hand in hand. I teach at business school, and not everyone, of course, is humble. We see a lot of people that have that sort of allse bravado. You're the ones that always want to hear their voice. The people that raise their hand start speaking, They don't know what they're going to say, and they just figure I'll figure it out as I go. And sometimes my more humble students are intimidated by that. But a lot of times when people are like that, they're sort of overly boisterous. It actually belies a lack of self confidence. That's right, Yes, the true confidence comes from knowing yourself, knowing your values, knowing who you are, knowing that it's okay to be quiet sometimes if it's in service of something else. The way I think about confidence without attitude is a both and that in order to be an effective leader, you have to have the confidence. You've got to be confident enough to stand up and say, look, I want to fight for this change. I believe in this. Here's my vision. Come along with me. That takes a lot of confidence, but it also requires humility to have other people listen to you, to listen to them, to be open to their ideas. There's an idea I just recently read about which I love. This comes from the work

24:26 of Bob Sutton and Huggy Row at Stanford University and they talk about this idea of flexing the hierarchy. We often think that it's either or right again, change me here seeing possibilities, so that either we have a very strict hierarchy it's the CEO, the senior vice president, the vice president all the way down, or we have this completely flat egalitarian organization. And the truth is neither of those work. You don't want one that's either or what you want as a leader that can flex the hierarchy. So an example you might think about is maybe it's the Navy seals and they're due to military exercise. Well, in the middle of the exercise, you need to be pretty top down. You need to have the person who's in charge giving commands, tell people where to go, having the plan. But then once you get into let's say the post mortem, where you're wrapping up and say what worked, what didn't work, But then you can be totally flat. Then you want everyone's voices. And so I think leaders often feel pressure to either the top down leader or that everyone's equal leader. But I think actually you want to flex the hierarchy, and you do so having confidence without attitude, the confidence to stand up. But it's the humility to listen and be up to others.

25:33 I think that is a beautifully render at Alex. In fact, when I was reading that section of your book, I texted a friend of mine and I told him about the humility aspect of this, and I said, this is you, this is how you lead. And he is a very very high level executive and organization has a lot of authority, and he brings that beautiful humility. He's radically altered the course of the organization just because of his presence. So thank you, profound, because I think often it's the humble leaders, some of the quieter leaders that maybe you don't get that craz that they are leaders. But we tend to overvalue what we traditionally think of as a leader. And I've seen so many folks in my work, especially with teams and organizations, where there are these amazing leaders, people who get things done, but you ask them, are you a leader? And they don't.

26:17 Oh, no, I mean I'm not. But the truth is that they actually are. And so the need to raise up those folks who are humble. I think that's a wonderful thing. It really is, and it's so refreshing, and you know, there's increasingly you know, you can't really read anything about leadership today without seeing something about emotional intelligence or empathy, which is where I want to go next. And so you know, I am. That's one of the things that I'm doing Alex with with my consultancy is we are doubling down on humanity. We are we are teaching organizations and their people how to access their greater humanity, their greater emotional spectrum, their greater spiritual relational spectrum, you know, across their lives. So where I wanted to go next, And by the way, I had so many people when I was in California helped me so much. My foot and I've been hobbling around. As I mentioned, talk about empathy, people really reaching out to be empathetic with me. So I was really intrigued, especially as I was experiencing all that as I was reading your book while I was in California, when I read about this empathy exercise that you have your students do. Let's talk about that. Tell us how you set this up and what it is you are wanting the students to get out of it. It's fascinating. Thanks.

27:23 Ye. First, it might be helpful just to identify there's actually three parts of empathy. We started to think about empathy as one concept, actually three things. So the first is being able to recognize expressions and emotions in others, right like meeting another person. Yeah. The second one is being able to share emotional states. So if you maybe go to counseling, your therapist is probably very good at that's right. They can kind of see where you're feeling, feel those those emotions. Great managers can do this. And then the third is really being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes see things from their perspective. And I want to again just make very clear that empathy is not the same as sympathy with them. It just means you're able to see things from where they are. And so I really want my students focus on this third one, this idea of seeing things from another perspective.

28:07 I recognize that in leading change, there's inevitably going to be conflict. It's going to happen if you're questioning the status quo. There will be people who just prefer the status quo. So conflict is inevitable, and so I want to prepare my students for thinking how do they approach that conflict in thoughtful and effective ways. And so we do this experiment, and I actually think it works better to write it down rather than just think in your head. So we begin by asking students to just come up with a recent frustrating experience. It could be small. It could be as small as I know someone cuts you off while driving. Could be something that's a more stemic issue. Maybe your boss always interrupts you at work when you're talking, and once you just like really sit with that kind of feel those emotions. I get them to feel that frustration, that sadness, that anger. Then the part that's maybe the most fun is I go, okay, let your most judgmental self out nil with your judgments. You know, make all the worst judgments you can about someone. If someone cuts you off driving, well, they're just titled and obnoxious and rich, and you know whatever it is that you want to say. And soon as obviously like that part. Then I asked the question, and I go, okay, so you've made these assumptions out someone, Is it true? And there's sort of a moment of silence. Then I go, okay, ask yourself this question. Is it one hundred percent absolutely true? There's no possibility that you are wrong, that your judgments of them are exactly one hundred percent correct, And I go, if you are, well, cool, then you're done with the exercise. You've done it.

29:37 But if there's even point oh one percent chance that you're wrong, well then let's continue on. And now that we've made the worst assumptions about someone, now we put ourselves in their shoes and say, you know, where might they be coming from? And you're not saying that you know for sure, you just imagine what the scenario could be. Then you still with that for a little longer. I try to help them elevate to understand like where that person's coming from. But then think in terms of values. So once we give to a values level, values are neutral. It's not good or bad. It's how we operationalize the values. I think all of us, to some extent value security or efficiency. They most show up in different ways we don't like, but we all like those things. And so we think about someone who's I don't know, cutting you off at work, not when you speak, Well, maybe they're valuing efficiency. Maybe it's not a good way of putting that into practice, but that's what they're valuing. Once we move to this sort of values level, it allows you to speak to them at a more human level. Again, sympathy not empathy not the same thing.

30:38 Doesn't mean you have to agree with them. You're just being able to see things from where they are, and you can still totally disagree with them. You can still think that their behavior is reprehensible. We can at least understand where they're coming from and then asking the question, Okay, now that you've identify this, what make you do differently? And we found that he is doing this slow experiment which takes five seven minutes. It's one thing to go, oh yeah, I'm an empathetic person. When you deeply empathize with someone who really annoys you, it forces you to actually sit with the complexity of the human experience and then to go forward with new perspectives. I just think that's incredibly powerful. And then you've said that you've seen students just on a verge of tears as they realize that what it seemed like an intradubal problem, including a room matus or whatever it was, suddenly they start to see that there's something else happening here. It opens something talk about that possibilities might set you were mentioning before. So that's incredibly powerful that you have your students do that. So oh, I couldn't. I couldn't let you go without us talking about that. All right, let's grab our next break. I am Alice Cortez. We've been on the air with Alex Budek. He is a UC Berkeley faculty member, social entrepreneur, author and speaker. We've been talking about some of the crucial concepts and tools in his book to help you become a change maker. After the break, we're going to get into the idea that he has reinventing leadership. Will be right back, Doctor Elise Cortes is

32:15 a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to a lease A l I s at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Lei's Cortes. As I mentioned in the last break that my latest book came out in March of twenty twenty three, called The Great Vitalization. What I did for you, since that's a book about creating optimal culture is I gave you on my website a three page assessment that you can download so it'll be able to help you understand the extent to which your organization is meeting the discerning standards of today's workforce. You can find it at gustodashnow dot com if you are just now joining us. My guest is Alex Budek. He is the author of Becoming a Change Maker, an actionable, inclusive guide to a leading positive change at any level. So, I, as a person who helps develop, especially inspirational leaders I was

33:46 really intrigued at your idea of in reinventing leadership. So let's go there next. If you want to first talk about how you define leadership before you get there, Oh, sure, Samy. I define leadership just simply as making meaningful things happen through and with other people. I love it. It's so christ Yeah. We often like to think about well characteristics or personality types or things like that, but no, I think it's actually about how do you do meaningful things through and with others. Let's keep it simple, let's keep it open, and then let's create on top of that. Mm hm. So I love that. So then you do talk about four different aspects that you believe we need in the twenty first century leadership skills. So you know that's your idea of reinventing leadership. Yes, that's right. I guess I could share where it comes from, which is that when I first began my career in academia running a leadership center for Berkeley Haas. And I love this because it gave me the wonderful excuse to reach out to all these people, these leaders I admired, and people who would honestly never take my call otherwise.

34:49 But because I came from a center, they were willing to sit down with me, have coffee for lunch, and I got to just have conversations. You know, at least it's a little bit like what you get to do, just talk with interesting people, and I got to ask some questions, you know, how did you develop your own model of leadership? And what was so interesting to me was that I found that the number one reason, by far is that they had experienced bad leadership that experiences they're a boss, a leader who didn't make them feel good, they weren't inclusive, or they did something that just wasn't right, and they made the conscious decision to do things differently. And I really love that because again, it's about to finding that human agency that we find in a lot of toxic cultures. This idea of a bad culture gets passed from the vice president down to the manager.

35:32 Then the manager becomes the vice president and they go, well, that's how we do things here, and so continue those toxic behaviors. There's an actually wonderful agency and freedom that comes from saying, no, that's not how it should be, and I'm going to choose my own model, and so I invite change maker leaders to actually learn from those bad experiences and then choose new things differently. I love that you brought that up, because when I was doing my research on meaning and work and identity, which is part of the basis of these fifteen mods of engagement, that I found people talked about that a lot. When I asked them about their choices and such and what they found either meaningful or not. They would talk about these people that were bad experiences, and I came to describe those people because they had a role in their life. I call those people the anti role models, and people are like, yes, that's it, that's exactly what they were. Show me who I don't want to be. Yeah, that's right, And there's there's real power in that in choosing your own path. There's a chapter of the book which is called Become the leader you wish you had. Yes, yeah, there's power in that. And by the way, that's a nice little framework for doing a lot of things. You know. It's become the parent you wish you had, it's becoming the friend you wish you had, Become the coworker you wish you had. You can't take with the bad things that happened to you, You do have a choice in terms of what you do going forward, and can often inform how you want to show up.

36:55 Indeed, And so you know, what I think is interesting is I think sometimes people, well, one thing, people conflate leadership and management. And we're talking about leadership here, and I appreciate that you outline four steps to reinventing leadership. So let's let's talk about those. They're very I think they're very simple and incredibly actionable, but they're still there are a lot of meat in them too. You get throw each to be one at a time, and then I can yeah, okay, So the first one that I want you to talk about, if you would, is just stop waiting for permission. Don't wait for somebody to hire you as a leader or to give you the role as a leader. Just stop waiting for permission. Yeah, if we keep waiting for that magical moment, we're finally a leader where someone tapsus on the shoulder and goes, okay, you and toiling away really hard for twenty five years ago, your leadership here, then them will never happen.

37:44 Sorry, it's not going to happen. So then you need to be waiting and waiting and waiting, and instead you can actually find give yourself that permission to step up. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that you're going to walk into the CEO's office and go, here's all the things you're doing wrong. Let me tell you. The point is that you find that permission to sort of step up, to go beyond things. And maybe it's that your manager gives you a task and goes, hey, I want you to do it this way, and okay, yeah, I'll do it that way. But also by the way, I did what you asked. And here's the other thing that I did which I thought would be helpful, or here's someone else. The things we should talk to are but compiled a list of ten folks we should give this presentation to. Those are things that very rarely will a manager tell you, oh, you went too far. If you did, fine, scale back a little bit. But giving yourself that permission instead of waiting for it change the whole identity. When you start seeing yourself as a leader. You know, I say that the leadership is not a title, leadership is an act, and so give yourself that permission to actually step up and serve. And there's so much value add in that too, So we had to start there. Now. The second one that I think is really incredibly powerful and I think horribly underutilized, is you talk about the leadership skill of leveraging the power of networks. Yeah, we often as leaders want to make everything about us. Julius Ze wrote a great article in Stanford's Social Innovation Review talking about the most impactful leaders we've never heard of. The concepts is that you want to be a node, not a hub. In other words, a hub is where all the energy is swirling around you.

39:06 You are central to everything. But instead be a node. Be helpful. You plug into things where you can be of service to others where you can. This is the lesson I learned the hardway myself as an entrepreneur in the early days of start some good. I would judge myself based on how often did my team come to me for advice for making a decision for them, And on that measure, I was doing really well because they were constantly coming to me. But what I realized is that I'd become a huge bottleneck to our team. That they're asking me everything to like what do you think about this tweet we're about to send? And I thought I was doing great, but actually I was slowing our team down. I realized that our team had become like a merry garound, that I was the poll firmly in the center, and there's all these activities swirling around me, but we weren't going anywhere.

39:54 And so it wasn't until I stepped back and gave my team power and realized that I want to judge myself based on how many decisions do I not need to make? Can I set the vision and the values so that they know the right decision to make? The one we want to make is a team that's in line with where we want to take this company, and they don't need me. And that's when we started taking off. Was once I get myself out of the way. So being a node not a hub. You were elevating everyone. That's fantastic. I love that. Okay, Then the third one is that you talk about it is the three v's of leading with purpose, our vision, values, and victories. I love that. That's a fantastic combination, especially the last one. Yeah, those change makers as leaders. One of the greatest gifts we can give to those on our teams is giving them a sense of purpose. I think people you've written about this, you talk about this. I people are hungry for a sense of purpose, and one an amazing thing you can give to have someone feel like their work matters, that their contributions matter, and purpose unlocks that. But it's not as simple. It's just sort of saying, oh, we're going to have a culture of purpose, and so I really say, like to create that. There's three v's. So the first it's I had to find vision is painting a picture of the future that's so compelling that people can't help.

41:06 But when we part it with you and you know, there's a story which I think is apocryphal, but I like it to exemplify this, which goes a journalist was walking through the halls of NASA and she finds a janitor, and she asks the janitor what do you do for a living? And just to be clear, janitors do really important and totally underappreciated work, which she goes, you know, what do you do for a living And he goes, I help latch rockets into space. Is the guy that's so bought into the mission and vision of NASA that he sees how his work, however removed, is connected in your own work. If you're trying to influence someone to be part of your changes, can you help an accountant see how them doing the numbers in the right way will lead to the change you're creating.

41:47 Can you also get a sense of the vision where the marketers pull into it and then create something even better than you could have some vision. Second is values giving people a way of working, and the data here are super clear. If you want to engage gen Z, you've got to be thoughtful about your values. According to seventy percent of gen Z wants to work for organizations that match or reflect their values. So it's no longer a nice to have, it's a must have. It's a table stakes. Theres ways you can define yourself. So again I mentioned that I love working at Berkeley Haas. And a big reason is because one of our values is questioning the status quo. That felt comfortable to me. I'm an atypical person to be at a business school, but when I saw, oh, this is a business school and it's to question the status quo, I said, Yeah, that's that's what I am. I want to be part of that. So values can people a sense of working of purpose. And the third is victory is some people, maybe those that naturally find themselves as change makers. We have this kind of long term perspective, or at least you've written three books at least, and you know how hard it is to write a book, and you're in it for long because you have that vision. But not all of us do. Right. Sometimes it feels really overwhelming or want to be part of a big change, but then also feels all take forever. And this is a mistake that I honestly made myself because I'm so bought into that large vision where I want to be in fifteen years, twenty years, that I kind of forget to celebrate the milestones along the way. Now, you or I might not rest until it reaches that big systemic change. We've got to our teammates see how their contributions are leading to that change. So stopping to celebrate

43:20 those victories, the small things, the small steps that bring us closer to that vision. So to lead with purpose, focus on vision, on values, and on victories beautifully rendered, Alex just and I'm you know, I'm like, I'm hanging on everywhere because I totally align with everything that you said. Of course, because of the work that I do too. I think that was everything. There's also leading values means giving your team away, working as you cover that in small ways. Okay, so that's good. So that'll create these four steps to reinventing leadership. For me, this this is in complete alignment with with the work that I do. So if that's what you mean by reinventing leadership, I am right in your backyard, in your back pocket with you. Let's do it. Let's do it reinventing it together.

44:05 Okay. Well, and then part of that that I think is really quite also unique that you put forth in your book something that I really haven't seen before. Alex. And this idea that your idea of micro leadership. Let's just briefly hit on that. Yeah, a new concept I put forward, which is making that shift because so often when you read a lot of leadership books, it's about that single heroic act. It's about New Jaws pulling the iPhone out of his pocket, it's about Lena Roosevelt leading the declarations of human rights. There's a role for that type of leadership, but I think when we put those leaders up on a pedestal, it causes so many of us to say, you know, that's not who I am. I'm not that charismatic, I'm not outgoing, I'm not an extrovert. We give ourselves a reason to say that's not us. But leadership isn't an acts, sorry Lush, hasn't a title. Leadership is an act of showing up in the world. And so things look very different going back to our idea of agency when you say, look, it's not about having a title. It's about seizing leadership moments. And there's moments appear before dozens of times per day, small little moments, small chances to step up and serve others. And so for me, there's really three steps to practicing micro leadership. So the first giving yourself permission is say, yeah, you know what, I don't need someone else to tell me I could step up and help in a small way.

45:19 What does this look like? Maybe it's during a team meeting you notice one of your colleagues hasn't spoken up, and you say, hey, no, no pressure, but love to hear from you if you're willing to share your perspective. Maybe it's being the one person saying no when everyone else is saying yes. Or maybe it's staying late to help a new college clean up after their first event. These are tiny moments. You'll never go too far, but you give yourself that permission. So give yourself permission. The second is serve others. My definition of leadership is rooted in serving others. Fundamentially. I love servant leadership, small little actions, ways of going beyond yourself that make things better for those around you. And then the third is do it again and again and again. The idea that any one act of micro leadership will be insignificant, but do you practice it every single day. You might look back after a month or a quarter and realized, well before my own eyes, I've just become a leader. Because when you stop waiting for that title. And so, if you see these acts, then there's acts hed up and before you know it, you've become that leader. Beautiful, and that is such a beautiful, easy, open entree point for every single person listening to this program. So that's micro leadership, Ladies and gentlemen.

46:28 We have pretty much come to the end of the show already here, Alex, but before we do, I just want to quickly say, and before I want you to close, I do want to just quickly share with their listeners and viewers that you list six traits of an inclusive leader that I just think is really important for today's world. And then listeners and viewers, you just got to read the book to learn more about them, but they are visible commitment to inclusivity. Number two is humility, which we talked about. Three is curiosity about others. Can't emphasize that enough. And then fourth cultural intelligence also very critical. Fifth effective collaboration, and six awareness of bias. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, every single one of us has biased. That's part of the human condition. So just wanted to give that a quick shout out, Alex. I think this is a fantastic list for inclusive leadership.

47:10 They say that's actually the work of Julie Borg and Andre Espadina, so I fuilt out that age originally created that of course, giving credit where credit to do, I appreciate that. So you know by now that this show is listening to by people around the world, and what they tune in for is to learn something about how to either experience a destination workplace, or how to develop their own skills, or to become the kind of leader that can steward that kind of a work world for others. What would you allowed to leave them with? Well, there's so many wonderful threads that we built together today. I think I wish we had this more time because I'd like to build on some more of them. But I think that if there's one thing, the theme that kept coming out again and again, this idea of agency, this idea that you're more powerful than you ever thought that you are. And I also believe that the world has never been more ready for you. And so I hope that you'll leave this being willing to give yourself permission to see leadership as being at less scary than otherwise might be. You also lead in your own way. There's no one way to lead. Lean into your values, lean into vision, but more than anything, stop waiting from depression, give it to yourself and go be a change maker. What a beautiful way to finish the show, Alex. I am so grateful our passive cross.

48:21 I am so grateful that I get a host the show and I come into contact with brilliant minds like you that when I read your work, I become a better version of myself, and then I get to share with my listeners and viewers. So thank you for being on working on purpose and being you. Thanks list I've really enjoyed our conversation today, me too. All right, listeners and viewers, you are going to want to learn more about Alex Buddock and the work that he does helping to create change makers all around the world and his book Becoming a Change Maker, So you can start by visiting him at his website alexbudak dot com. Let me spell that for you, Alex A l e X budoc a bu d Ak alexbudek dot com. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch it be a recorded podcast. We were on air with David Perl, the creator and founder of Street Wisdom, which provides walk shops of curious discovery around the world, and he's also the author of Wonderful Find wonder in the every Day, every Day. It was an amazing conversation in I had him saying opera as well in Italian it was beautiful. Next week we'll be on air with Maija Djevik talking about her new book, The Possible Self, The Leader's Guide to Personal Development. See you then, and remember that work is one of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential and making the impact we crave.

49:35 So let's work on Purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on W four C Why Together We'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, Leadership inspires and passion performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work work on Purpose. Mmm mm hmm