Latest / Pathological Positivity / You’re Not Playing With a Full Deck – with Stephen Shapiro – Episode #696
Transcript
- This is Live On Purpose Radio episode 696, You're Not Playing With a Full Deck with Stephen Shapiro. Now is the only time to create and live the life you love. I'm doctor Paul Jenkins, the positivity psychologist. My job is to connect you to powerful positive psychology principles that immediately upgrade your relationships, business, and mental health. Are you ready? Let's jump in. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Live On Purpose Radio. This is doctor Paul the shrink who expands your life with another episode of Live on Purpose Radio? What if the very differences that create conflict are the same differences that create strength? And in this episode, I get to have a fun conversation with my friend, author, hall of fame speaker, Steven Shapiro, about his new book, You're Not Playing With a Full Deck, and a powerful metaphor of personality poker. Steven, welcome to Live on Purpose Radio. Fantastic to be here. Looking forward to seeing where we go with this conversation. Well, I've read the new book. You, graciously provided me with, with an advanced copy to take a look before our interview here today. And what struck me is that differences create conflict, and differences make us relevant and interesting to each other. And I think you've captured this. You've used a metaphor of playing cards, basically, to show that that we all have differences in our personality traits or tendencies and that those become very important as we work together with our fellow humans. So that's kinda my initial capture on it. But, Steven, I would love to have you just talk for a minute about why you are so passionate about this. Where did this come from for you? Yeah. So this all started thirty years ago. Hard to believe that it's been that long. Mhmm. So I was, working at Accenture at the time and one of the things which I was, able to do with the help of other people was we created and launched this 20,000 person innovation practice at Accenture. And the first project I got a very large budget. I got a $30,000,000 budget and I was sort of this young guy, young ish guy. And I thought, holy moly. What a great opportunity, and this could be a total disaster. If this thing fails, that's the end of my career before it gets started. So I decided I would, have a co leader who would take the fall if things went terribly wrong and that was John. John was a good buddy of mine. John and I were so much alike. I mean, we just got along great. We loved hanging out together. We we would generate ideas and brainstorm forever. We liked being around people. And there's three things I can say about this project. The first thing is that, we developed more new creative ideas probably than any other project in the history of the company and it was really cool. The second thing is people loved the project. They had a great time. But the third thing is it was the biggest waste of $30,000,000 you've ever seen. Because John and I loved ideas and people and those types of things, but we forgot that we actually had to produce something of value. And so that's when I realized I wasn't playing with a full deck. And my next project, which we could get into later, is, really the the genesis of the game. It really was the reason why I created it. That failure taught me something which then I used in my next project and that really helped me understand that, sometimes the person you like the least is the person you need the most. If you're hanging around with people who you get along with great and you don't have any tension, maybe you're not innovating. So that's really how it all came about initially. It's it's interesting to me, that whole idea right there, because I think as as humans, we tend to gravitate toward people who are... I've heard the phrase like minded. Right? Or they're similar to us. We tend to bend... Band together in tribes. It's kind of like in your analogy with the with the playing cards, people of the same suit. And that puts some limits on us. I think I'm hearing from from what you just shared that it it created a painful realization at some point. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The realization is if I only surround myself with people who are similar to me, I'm going to end up in trouble. I mean, one of one of my mantras is if you only hire people who fit the mold, eventually the organization is going to grow mold. Because you just get stale ideas. They're musty. The same things you've always thought of. And so Yeah. I've been in the innovation space for thirty years. Innovation doesn't come from the past. It comes from making new connections in new ways that create something different and better. And, that doesn't happen when you have everybody who thinks the same way, like minded to use your expression. It's, it it doesn't work. Better is always different. Now that catches people's attention sometimes when I say that, but... Because it's not true the other way around. Different isn't always better, but better is always different by definition. And so when we remember that and and we open up the possibility of, okay, maybe I'm not playing with a full deck here. Maybe I'm missing something. And I think it's a pretty safe assumption that we're always missing something. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so as individuals... I mean look, I think there are some rare individuals who really do have every single facet, as part of their DNA. But even then, even then, you know, it's important for people to understand there's things that we are innately good at that give us energy. Right. And then there's things we learned to be good at which rob us of our energy. And so when I talk about strong suits, a strong suit isn't a strength. It's not what you're good at. It is actually something which is your natural state of being, something that energizes you, something which you could just sort of do forever because it actually, raises up your energy level as opposed to the things that we learn to be good at, which we might be great at, but they tend to drain us. And so most people have an area, something that really makes them special. And we need to double down on that rather than trying to be great at everything. I'm seeing some really direct applications here to how we interact as humans. And I I think I started by saying, you know, that that differences create conflict. And that's true. I mean, you look even at a, a marriage relationship, for example. I've done a lot of couples coaching over the course of my career. And it's the differences, you know, the different preferences that people have or to your point, the different skill sets that we might have. Some of which come very naturally to us. Others we have to work at. One of the parts you didn't mention is the stuff that we suck at because there's a whole category of that too. And it's something that we suck at, somebody else might really rock at. And so these differences make us relevant and interesting to each other. And conflict, I don't think, has to become a problem. In fact, you make it... You made a point of this in your book that there might be different kinds of conflict, conflict over ideas versus interpersonal conflict. Can you just talk to that for a moment? Yeah. So let... Let's talk about a couple of things here because I think they're all interrelated. I think the first thing is that, you know, the things that you suck at, to use your term, these aren't weaknesses that you should improve upon. These are opportunities for collaboration. Yes. Sort of rephrasing what you said. You know, it's... For me, it's really important for people to understand that I will never be good at planning. I don't like plans. I find them restrictive. I find them limiting. I don't really like to hang around with people who actually are planners because I find them restrictive and limiting, but I also know I need them. So I need them. So the the the people who, the areas where we aren't great represents people that we need. We need people who compliment us and unfortunately we tend to focus on compliment with an I. Hey you're great. Look at you. You're awesome. As opposed to people who compliment you with an E which is, Hey I'm I'm bad at plans. I need to surround myself with people who are better at that. Which then leads to conflict because, if you are with people who are not like you then we also know that people who are not like you are often people you don't like because they're just different. It's not easy. And so that really is one of the key things is it's not just about bringing together diverse perspectives diverse personalities diverse experiences but it's also then taking the time to understand how we'll drive each other crazy starting to understand, why... How and why we add value and how can we help each other out in a way that actually works. And so it's really becomes a catalyst for conversation rather than labeling people and putting them into a box. And I think that's the key right there. If we can keep the differences in in the context of, okay. We have different ideas about this. We have different experience with this. That opens up more bandwidth to handle whatever the challenge or the problem is. But if we slip into that old trap of, well, you're different from me, and therefore, I need to keep my distance, then it becomes more of an interpersonal conflict. And it's a little hard maybe to keep it in the space that's helpful, productive. But I think that there's a a key there, you know, as you're saying, to acknowledge that the the skill set or the experience or, whatever is supporting the different idea is actually valuable, and it's a card that I'm missing from my deck. I don't have that one. And that helps me to complete a a more full hand. I know I'm not doing justice to your whole idea of personality. Paul, no. This is great. No, this is, the concept is pretty simple. If you think about all the things that we can be great at. Now personality poker focuses a little more on the personality side. So I'm great at plans. I'm great at data. I'm energized by, creativity or I like to hang around with people. Those are sort of the general categories and those map to the suits. Yeah. But the bigger, more important part of all this is my work has been around innovation for the past thirty years. And I never set out to create. This is not a personality assessment. I'm not trying to create another DISC or Myers Briggs or B-five or none of it. That was never my intention. But what I found was when I worked with my clients, I was able to very quickly diagnose why they couldn't grow. And the reason why they couldn't grow is because they couldn't innovate. And the reason why they couldn't innovate is they didn't have all the different styles that they needed on their teams in order to innovate. And so it's really an organizational diagnostic tool that helps me very quickly understand what's getting in the way of the success of your business. I'm reminded, Steven, of of something one of my clients shared with me. And I've shared it here on the show before probably several times because it's become almost a mantra for me. And that is that there are two kinds of people that now this isn't a personality test either. But when my client said this, I was interested. I'm a psychologist. Tell me what are the two kinds of people he said, there are those who are humble and those who are about to be. And that resonated with me because I think we go along through life if we have some level of... I I label it destructive pride, you know, where we think, well, I've got everything I need and I don't need you. That is eventually going to show up in a way for us that humbles us through our circumstances because we don't know everything. I had to go through a bankruptcy to learn this, you know, where I realized, oh, apparently, I don't have it all figured out. Right? And that humility, we've got some traditions around when the when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And I think it has something to do with that humility. And that's one of the things that I really like about your work, Steven, because you're, you're illuminating that to us, hopefully in a way that we don't have to wait until life humbles us. We can open up and say, okay. Maybe I'm not playing with a full deck. And that is a statement of humility in a lot of ways. And where's your brain going with that? I'm just curious. Yeah. Well well, I I love this because one of the challenges in writing a book is to me not writing the book it's coming up with the title. And I had so many different titles and originally the book was called You're Not Playing With a Full Deck and when I started to ask people what do you think? I got things ranging from well it's too long but the biggest pushback I got is well you're insulting people. And so they said it shouldn't be that it should be well maybe we soften it and say are you playing with the full deck or maybe even more simply not playing with a full deck or playing with a full deck. And so I played around with all those and I can see the value in each of them. But at the end of the day, none of them are true. You're not playing with a full deck is the only true statement. Nobody's playing with a full deck and I just decided even if if somebody's gonna be annoyed by the title of the book then maybe they're not the person who wants to read the book. But if we can have a little bit of a hey maybe I'm not playing with a full deck Those are the people coming back to what you were just saying. They'll probably be humble enough. They're not gonna be insulted by it because I'm not trying to insult people. And that's, I think really the the key with all this is just recognizing we can't be great at everything because if we try to be great at everything we'll be great at nothing. And if we try to be great at the things we learn to be great at we will be robbed of our energy. And so if I can do whatever I do best and I can find other people who do what they do best, and we can have a deep appreciation for how we all work together, that to me is the beauty of it all. That is that is beautiful. And it matches my experience as a professional psychologist. You you know, in our heart of hearts... And I think I identify with this... With the heart suite or suit, I think we all know, we sense at some level that we're not playing with a full deck. There's something missing. And we erroneously conclude that that means there's something wrong with us. It it it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with us. When when I read your book, I get a very clear message that you have a strong suit. You have unique abilities. I think this is part of the message. Right. And other people have different ones, and you're not supposed to have all of them. I mean, what if we combined all of the suits and we just add some combination of black and red in the coloring and some combination of all of those symbols, it would just become ambiguous noise. But because there are clear delineations between those, it makes the game worth playing. And and I think that there's some some clear, overlap there with with human interactions. So I just... I've enjoyed it as a psychologist, Steven. I enjoyed reading your book and just thinking about what that means for us. Maybe we can give up, let go of some of that, demand that we have all of the skills and allow our fellow humans to do what they do well. And then we get to collaborate instead of beat ourselves up. I I think that's that... Absolutely. That's the the key perspective is that... Here's the beauty of personality poker. So basically what they are is they're poker cards, suits colors, numbers, but there's also words on them. And we trade cards and the goal is to get five cards where the words best describe how you see yourself. And then also during the process, we will gift cards to other people. So we get to see how the world perceives us. Allegiance. So when we're done, we end up with five... Yeah. Which is fascinating because often people don't see us the way we think they see us and so it's Right. I mean there's some things that are just absolutely beautiful with that. But the great thing is when you have five cards I mean I've, you know personally I poker there have been about a quarter of a million people who have played it now and one of the things we know is that when people choose five cards, 95% of the people will be missing at least one suit from their hand. And I would argue that 5% of the people who have all four suits probably misinterpreted something along the way. So what that tells us is we have maybe more than one suit. Most people aren't one suit. Most people are two or three suits. It's rare for somebody to be all four suits and it's pretty rare for somebody to be just one suit. But what that tells us is they're suits we are not. And who we are not is to me always the big insight. Because everybody's gonna be I'm this and I'm that I'm this letter I'm this color I'm this whatever but what I love about this is that people very quickly get to see when they look at their hand these are the suits I don't have in my hand. What does that mean? Those are the suits I need. Those are the people who might drive me crazy. They're the people who are gonna be different than I am and they're the people I need the most. And if I can really start to embrace how they contribute to my business success and how we can work together, we end up with something that's beautiful. That is an interesting idea. Identify who I'm not. That's a little counterintuitive in some ways, but really powerful if we can accept that and not insist that we be someone that we're not, but really lean in to what our strengths are, where we can truly contribute. Love that. Steven, I knew this would be a fun conversation. Your book, You're Not Playing With a Full Deck, is coming out soon. The recording of this podcast, we're early March right now. Where would you like people to go to connect with what it is that you're doing? The easiest place to go just to see where I am is the innovationspeaker.com. And if you go there at the very top, there's a link to the You're Not Playing With a Full Deck book, which is actually just as of yesterday on preorder for the ebook. We're not really doing... But the formal launch date isn't until April, but sometimes it's just easiest to get something out there and get some momentum around it. So the final watch date is April 21, which is World Creativity and Innovation Day. And so I thought that's a great day to launch the book. But, the ebook is out there. The paperback and the audiobook are coming in the future. And you may be listening to this episode, dear listener, at a time when it's already available and you can go grab it. So the book is... Once again, You Are You Are Not Playing with a Full Deck by Stephen Shapiro, and you can go to the innovationspeaker.com to connect with everything that Steven is doing and and get a hold of that book. You would be well served if you brought this man in to your organization, your event. He is an excellent speaker, hall of fame, as I said earlier, and really dialed into some great ideas. Steven, thank you for sharing your wisdom with us here today at Live on Purpose Radio. It was my pleasure. Thank you so much. Alright, guys. You've heard it. It's time to apply it. Let's go live on purpose. Did you get what you came for? Give yourself the gift of taking real action on what you realized today. Please share this episode with someone you know would value it, and leave us a rating too. It's time now to live on purpose.