Uber, and how to fix things when trust is broken (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Anne Morriss:
Hi everyone. Welcome back to Fixable. I'm Anne Morris. I'm a company builder and a leadership coach.

[00:00:10] Frances Frei:
And I'm Frances Frei. I'm a Harvard Business School professor. And I'm Anne's wife.

[00:00:14] Anne Morriss:
We hope you had a great summer break. We had a great summer break. Frances, is that a fair statement?

[00:00:18] Frances Frei:
Oh, we certainly did. We certainly did.

[00:00:20] Anne Morriss:
What was the highlight for you?

[00:00:22] Frances Frei:
I think the highlight was going to the beach, fishing, swimming, and by fishing, I mean watching our boys fish.

[00:00:31] Anne Morriss:
Yes, yep.

[00:00:31] Frances Frei:
Swimming, mostly watching our boys swim, but we, we moved as a, uh, as a family unit in a really wonderful and joy sparking way.

[00:00:42] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. I think the memory I'm gonna hold onto is, is the joy of the fish coming outta the water.

[00:00:49] Frances Frei:
Yes.

[00:00:49] Anne Morriss:
On the end of some makeshift hook. Yeah.

[00:00:52] Frances Frei:
Followed by delight of our children. I don't know that there's anything that causes more delight in their lives right now than catching a fish.

[00:01:00] Anne Morriss:
And throwing it back and catching another. Uh, but we've also been hard at work putting together a brand new batch of Fixable episodes for you. I'm, I'm really excited about the second half of this season. We're gonna be tackling some fascinating stuff over the next few weeks, including how to set boundaries as a leader, how to authentically promote yourself on social media, what to do about automation anxiety, and, and lot more.

[00:01:25] Frances Frei:
Oh, automation anxiety is gonna be really good. Today’s episode is a good one too. In fact, it's pretty special. Wouldn't you say?

[00:01:34] Anne Morriss:
I would use the word special. Uh, I, I'm a little bit biased, but, uh, tell the people what we're up to today, Frances.

[00:01:42] Frances Frei:
Oh, we're not gonna have a caller today. And that's because we need the entire episode, and we're gonna talk about how to build and rebuild trust.

[00:01:50] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, it's something we’ve thought a lot about, written a lot about. It’s, it's really at the core of our work. And here's the thing, it's often talked about at this mushy, esoteric level that's not particularly actionable. And so today we really wanna drill down and not only make the case for why trust is so critical, uh, in any organization, but also give people a really solid foundation for how to build trust. What are the mechanics of trust and what do you do when it gets lost?

[00:02:24] Frances Frei:
In fact, our hope is after this single episode, everyone knows how to build and rebuild trust in a really pragmatic way.

[BREAK]

[00:02:44] Anne Morriss:
You and I do two kinds of work, at least. The first is what we sometimes refer to casually is firefighting. So there's a company or organization that is in some kind of crisis and we get the phone call and we show up quickly and roll up our sleeves and join the team in fighting the fire. We also help organizations that are trying to reach a very ambitious goal to more often than not, shorten that timeline.

[00:03:16] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:03:17] Anne Morriss:
Or otherwise get there faster and better.

[00:03:19] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:03:19] Anne Morriss:
Is it fair to say that Uber was in the first camp?

[00:03:24] Frances Frei:
Uh, the reason I laugh is because it was so obvious then, like this was 2017, right? There are some people that won't have known but very cleanly in the front pages of newspaper, the whole world knew it had a crisis.

[00:03:38] Anne Morriss:
And so what the, what the hell were we thinking? How did we end up, uh, as part of the story?

[00:03:47] Frances Frei:
Well, a main protagonist is Megan Verena Joyce, let's just name her, which is, uh, a grad of HBS. She wasn't my student, but she came back to talk to me after she graduated, and she's like, “I work for Uber. Um, would you be willing to come and talk to our CEO Travis Kalanick?” And I said, “Megan, no. Anne and I only help good people who win. I've never met Travis, but what I have read in the newspaper, it's not even like ambiguous.”

[00:04:20] Anne Morriss:
Um, and what was the nature of the crisis, for people who don’t remember?

[00:04:23] Frances Frei:
The… Um, they were many, but it was the press reporting on a horrific, uh, sequence of events of sexual harassment; the Delete Uber campaign happened, which is when riders banded together and were so upset with how Uber was treating drivers that they had a Delete Uber campaign. Um, there was how Uber behaved during a taxi strike. Their relationship with regulators was terrible, so that it just was a perfect storm of public events that gave light to what was going on privately.

[00:05:05] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:05:05] Frances Frei:
And Megan, she was like, “There's limited information in the newspaper. Um, if you could do me the kindness of flying out meeting with him, I would be super grateful.”

[00:05:15] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:05:15] Frances Frei:
And Megan could do anything. And she was choosing to work for Uber largely because of Travis. Largely because of the CEO. And so I said yes.

[00:05:25] Anne Morriss:
And what was that first meeting with Travis like?

[00:05:28] Frances Frei:
Oh my gosh. So, you know, I had the flight back on the same day, right? I was gonna… it was an hour meeting or a 90 minute meeting. I allowed it two hours, and I was taking the red eye home, and I got there and, and met him, and first of all, I was just wasn't expecting how boyish and earnest and super quick and bouncy that he was. And he was so affable and made me feel very welcome and we just got down to business. And so he was drawing on the whiteboard.

Um, and then here's what I really liked about him. There was turn taking. And then I was drawing on the whiteboard. And then he was, and then we both were. And if I could play the piano and he could play the piano, it was as if it was a duet. And so that one or two hour meeting, it lasted three days. I changed my flight home five times.

[00:06:28] Anne Morriss:
And what was on the whiteboard?

[00:06:28] Frances Frei:
Oh, everything from the business model to the multi-stakeholders, drivers, writers, regulators, board, employees, management, and what the value propositions were for them, the economics that were, the organization was competing within.

Um, and he was like, “What else? Come on. I don't believe those are all your questions.” And so we went after everything and I'm like, “Look, Travis, I read the newspaper, and it sounds like you are a tyrant. Help me understand why would reasonable people think that and tell me why it's not true.”

[00:07:09] Anne Morriss:
I want us pause here for a second.

[00:07:11] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:07:11] Anne Morriss:
And look at the challenges of Uber through the lens of trust, which is the topic of today's conversation.

[00:07:18] Frances Frei:
Yeah. Yeah. So Uber had lost trust with every single major stakeholder. Employees, riders, drivers, regulators, owners, leaders—

[00:07:35] Anne Morriss:
Key groups of employees.

[00:07:35] Frances Frei:
Every single stakeholder, and everyone loved the idea of Uber, but wow, were they unhappy.

[00:07:44] Anne Morriss:
And if you go one layer down, on your own diagnosis of the problem?

[00:07:49] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:07:49] Anne Morriss:
What, what's the headline story?

[00:07:52] Frances Frei:
Well, the headline was—

[00:07:52] Anne Morriss:
Why trust was breaking Down.

[00:07:53] Frances Frei:
Yeah. Well, the headline was they had problems with like an emotional blockade that wasn't permitting things to go through. So even when the logic made sense, there was still an emotional blockade.

[00:08:04] Anne Morriss:
And then it's in the case of drivers, for example, the absence of empathy around what it was really taking to feed your family in the gig economy was getting in the way of designing a viable job.

[00:08:20] Frances Frei:
For drivers. And even more specific, like small things, like they were like, “Why do you send me in the opposite direction of my home when it's my last ride?”

[00:08:28] Anne Morriss:
Right.

[00:08:28] Frances Frei:
Right. Like, and so, and the drivers had all kinds of reasonable ideas, which were entirely implemented within like five minutes of work because none of them were hard, but we just hadn't focused on it.

[00:08:43] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:08:43] Frances Frei:
And it just felt like what we had seen so many times it felt like trust.

[00:08:48] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. And we talk about as the foundation of leadership because it is the thing that allows me to be willing to be guided by you.

[00:08:57] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:08:57] Anne Morriss:
And this was the problem at Uber at this moment in time. It was an example of how a lack of trust with a range of stakeholders could bring a company to its knees. And then how do you rebuild that trust? It's not about trust falls or company retreats. It's about real thoughtful, step-by-step work that anyone can learn. And Frances, it's what you had to do with the company to real success, which we'll talk a little bit more about at the end of the episode.

[00:09:30] Frances Frei:
Yeah. And, and I'll just add that I hope it's clear from this story that the stakes of getting this right could not be higher. I mean, trust is everything. It's the foundation of all human progress.

[00:09:42] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:09:42] Frances Frei:
Too strong?

[00:09:43] Anne Morriss:
No, I don't think so.

[00:09:45] Frances Frei:
Right, like?

[00:09:46] Anne Morriss:
No, I mean, it's the foundation for everything we do. It’s, I mean, it's foundation of our marriage—

[00:09:49] Frances Frei:
For the economy when we buy stock.

[00:09:52] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:09:52] Frances Frei:
When we, you know, like whether or not we can trust one another, whether or not we can trust our systems. In the absence of trust, we re-litigate again and again. Again, it's like being in quicksand, and we can make almost no progress and it takes a really long time. In the presence of trust, holy Toledo, things can move really fast and things can go much higher.

[BREAK]

[00:10:27] Anne Morriss:
Let's get into the mechanics of trust.

[00:10:28] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:10:28] Anne Morriss:
As you and I think about this all day, we talk about it all day. Um, and I think you go one layer deeper, which is what's really driving trust, and there's a very stable pattern. So describe the pattern.

[00:10:43] Frances Frei:
Yeah. So that stable pattern is that when we see trust between two people, we always, always, always observe three specific dynamics. And anytime we don't see trust between two people, one of those three is missing. So you are more likely to trust me if you experience that it's the real me in it for you with rigorous logic. So you are more likely to trust me if you experience my authenticity, my empathy, and my logic. The real me in it for you with a rigorous plan that is worthy of your trust.

[00:11:27] Anne Morriss:
Right. So Frances, what is this, this wobble that we talk so much about it?

[00:11:33] Frances Frei:
It's when, it's when either authenticity, logic, or empathy gets in the way and is shaky between two constituents. So for example, the drivers at Uber did not think that the company was, like, really in it for them.

[00:11:51] Anne Morriss:
Mm-hm. Right.

[00:11:51] Frances Frei:
So they didn't believe in the company’s empathy towards them. They believed that the company was being authentic and maybe even they believed in the rigor of the plan, but they didn't think that they were a key constituent in it. Whereas they saw the riders were a very key constituent.

[00:12:05] Anne Morriss:
Right?

[00:12:05] Frances Frei:
So they were like, “Okay, Uber, you have the capacity in our eyes to display empathy. You're just not displaying it towards us.” And that is guaranteed to put quicksand instead of a solid foundation.

[00:12:19] Anne Morriss:
Excellent. Um, what's your wobble, baby?

[00:12:22] Frances Frei:
Oh, I have an empathy wobble, uh, which is in 2023. The most common wobble by our estimates of people that we work with around the world. It's 60% or greater people have, uh, empathy wobbles.

[00:12:38] Anne Morriss:
What’s a recent example of when you wobbled on empathy?

[00:12:41] Frances Frei:
Oh, goodness. Um, yesterday I was in a meeting with a team that had various stakeholders. Every one of them was there to be helpful to us, every one of them. And one of the stakeholders was not performing as pristinely as I wanted, and I was so quick to impatience. And my impatience, I think, “Oh, you know, I'll just be impatient, but no one will notice.”

And here's a public service announcement to empathy wobblers: we know your empathy is wobbling when you're speaking, and we definitely know your empathy is wobbling when you're not speaking. So I was non-verbally impatient with someone whose entirety of their job is there to, uh, help set us up for success. Amanda, I'm sorry. And I'll, and I'll apologize to you directly.

[00:13:36] Anne Morriss:
Um, my wobble is not empathy.

[00:13:37] Frances Frei:
No, you're, as we like to call, an empathy anchor, which is, folks, empathy wobblers out there: marry up.

[00:13:45] Anne Morriss:
Team up.

[00:13:45] Frances Frei:
Team up. Marry up, whatever up. Like go, go find yourself empathy anchors.

[00:13:51] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. The, the bad news is that we all have wobbles. There's no shame in it.

[00:13:54] Frances Frei:
No.

[00:13:54] Anne Morriss:
The good news is that we also have anchors.

[00:13:57] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:13:57] Anne Morriss:
So one of these three drivers of trust is rock solid. Yep.

[00:14:02] Frances Frei:
Literally, my logic is always there and my authenticity is sound. My empathy, you put little sticky notes to remind me of my empathy.

[00:14:11] Anne Morriss:
Right. Right.

[00:14:12] Frances Frei:
What would somebody in a room observe if they saw your authenticity wobble?

[00:14:19] Anne Morriss:
Um, here's a recent example. I'm an excellent bedtime valet to our children.

[00:14:28] Frances Frei:
You really are.

[00:14:29] Anne Morriss:
And one of our sons basically said he was ready for his turn down service, uh, the other night. And I said, “Great, I'll be there in five minutes.” And, uh, he said, “No, you won’t.” I was like, “Yeah, I just gotta, I just gotta, you know, wipe the counter down.” He is like, “No, you're gonna, like, you're gonna let the dogs out and you're gonna, you know, do the dishes and you're gonna, it's not gonna be five minutes, it's gonna be 15 minutes.”

[00:14:57] Frances Frei:
Stop saying things that don't, that aren't authentically true.

[00:15:00] Anne Morriss:
Right. And it was, it was my empathy anchor kicking in, knowing what he wanted to hear and, and giving it to him. But it was at the expense of my authenticity. And so, uh, there was a, there was a trust Nic that happened in that moment.

[00:15:14] Frances Frei:
It's such a beautiful example.

[00:15:18] Anne Morriss:
Alright, so I wanna start to get into fixes. Let's start with logic, since it's relatively neutral territory for us. Frances, what is a logic wobble and what can you do if you have one?

[00:15:31] Frances Frei:
Yeah. So first I just wanna tell you the good news. If you're a logic wobbler, it's the easiest one to solve, I think. Shocking. It, and I think it'll be solved by the time you're done listening to this episode. So if I don't think you have a rigorous plan, I'm not gonna trust you. So how do we fix a logic wobble? Well, the first thing is to realize that logic wobbles come in two forms. One form is that you might doubt my logic when I actually have great logic. And this one is tragic, and it's because the way in which I choose to communicate my logic doesn't give you access to it. My logic is great. It's just my communication style that has to change.

So the first logic wobble, we call a style wobble, a communication style wobble. Don't go to the library to get more rigorous.

[00:16:20] Anne Morriss:
Right.

[00:16:20] Frances Frei:
Just change the way in which you communicate.

[00:16:23] Anne Morriss:
So, in our experience doing this work, most logic wobblers are stylistically wobbler, not logic—

[00:16:29] Frances Frei:
Well, north of three quarters.

[00:16:30] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. So if, if that's my self-diagnosis, how do I fix it?

[00:16:34] Frances Frei:
Oh goodness. So, um, you know, when I, like, take you on a winding road and I give you a few paragraphs and then I get to the point? And it's like beautiful storytelling. Well, beautiful storytelling only works on top of logic. So if people are doubting your logic, start with the point, headline first and then give supporting evidence. Um, is—

[00:16:57] Anne Morriss:
So if I know that my exposure and moments of stress are—

[00:17:02] Frances Frei:
Right? Yeah.

[00:17:03] Anne Morriss:
Uh, I tend to get wobbly on logic. Um, one simple fix is to, when I'm communicating my ideas, start with the point first.

[00:17:11] Frances Frei:
Yeah. And I will just say for those of you for whom this is an issue, I get it why you wanna delay your point, 'Cause you wanna, like, assert your credibility. You wanna give all kinds of context and, and, and you're warming the audience.

[00:17:24] Anne Morriss:
No bad parts.

[00:17:25] Frances Frei:
No bad parts. You're warming, warming the audience up and you're warming yourself up. And I just wanna say, you have to do the unnatural act of begin with your point, and then give the supporting evidence and oh my gosh. gonna be like, “People are no longer questioning my logic.” It works like magic.

[00:17:42] Anne Morriss:
Beautiful. Okay. When you do see logic substantively getting wobbly—

[00:17:48] Frances Frei:
Right. Yeah.

[00:17:48] Anne Morriss:
Uh, in the workplace, what tends to be going on?

[00:17:51] Frances Frei:
So one of my favorite singers in the world is Cheryl Wheeler. Cheryl Wheeler wrote a song called Frequently Wrong, but Never in Doubt. Ah, it’s a substance wobble, so you'll never have a substance wobble if you just speak confidently about what you know well. Substance wobbles come out to play when you speak just as confidently about things you don't know well.

[00:18:14] Anne Morriss:
Got it.

[00:18:14] Frances Frei:
And so what, you know, so the prescription, it's gonna, it's a little, it's just as easy to state. Make sure you know something well before you speak with confidence. So either delay or lower your confidence.

[00:18:27] Anne Morriss:
Right. I love that. I, I, I feel like we saw a lot of that happening over the last few years around the question of COVID policy.

[00:18:34] Frances Frei:
Oh my gosh. So much confidence.

[00:18:36] Anne Morriss:
So we employees basically say to management, “When will COVID end?” Which was not, which was an understandable question.

[00:18:45] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:18:45] Anne Morriss:
The shocking part was that we would have managers answer the question.

[00:18:49] Frances Frei:
Um, and I think there are two prescriptions there. Lower your confidence, which we didn't really think anyone knew. But then when someone says they do know, well, then we are gonna start doubting everything you say.

[00:19:01] Anne Morriss:
Right.

[00:19:02] Frances Frei:
Because we don't know when to trust your confidence.

[00:19:03] Anne Morriss:
I, I feel like you have some beautiful phrases to lower confidence.

[00:19:08] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:19:09] Anne Morriss:
And still communicate what you have to say.

[00:19:11] Frances Frei:
“Here’s my initial thought. This is my hypothesis.” That's all I gotta do.

[00:19:16] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:19:17] Frances Frei:
It’s, it's rarely more than five words.

[00:19:19] Anne Morriss:
This is what I think, but I wanna go confirm the data.

[00:19:22] Frances Frei:
This is what I think. Yeah. That’s why I like to say this is my initial thought. As opposed to this is what I think. 'Cause that one could be gray.

[00:19:28] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Nice. Nice. I like that.

[00:19:30] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:19:30] Anne Morriss:
Great.

[00:19:31] Frances Frei:
This is my current hypothesis.

[00:19:33] Anne Morriss:
This is my current hypothesis. Yep.

[00:19:34] Frances Frei:
You can go say anything you want then.

[00:19:37] Anne Morriss:
I think a fair answer is also “I don't know, but this is the process I'm gonna follow to get to the answer.” Alright, let's move on to empathy. Because we are in the age of empathy wobbles.

[00:19:47] Frances Frei:
Yes.

[00:19:47] Anne Morriss:
’Cause I'm looking at an empathy wobbler.

[00:19:50] Frances Frei:
Yes.

[00:19:50] Anne Morriss:
I do feel like it's important to share that there are some demographic tendencies in empathy wobblers.And that you people, and I'm saying it with so much love and affection—

[00:20:04] Frances Frei:
I feel it with love and affection.

[00:20:07] Anne Morriss:
—tend to be the traditionally smartest, most analytical, fastest processors in a room.

[00:20:15] Frances Frei:
Yes. We’re super speedy processors.

[00:20:19] Anne Morriss:
You're super speedy processors. Um, let me give you an example of where I feel like empathy wobblers are on flamboyant display, which is in a meeting.

[00:20:29] Frances Frei:
Oh yeah.

[00:20:29] Anne Morriss:
Which is where we are all spending so much of our time. So if I were to follow you into a meeting in a moment where you were not particularly self-aware and I were to chart your engagement in the meeting, I would say it would peak pretty early.

[00:20:50] Frances Frei:
Super early.

[00:20:52] Anne Morriss:
Uh, because you, you got it.

[00:20:55] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:20:56] Anne Morriss:
And you, you maybe got it before most of the other people in the meeting.

[00:20:59] Frances Frei:
Yeah. And I'm at like, right, the moment right before I get it, I'm at peak engagement.

[00:21:05] Anne Morriss:
And then what happens, Frances?

[00:21:08] Frances Frei:
Well, the second I get it, my engagement plummets.

[00:21:12] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. And we see that a lot. Yeah.

[00:21:14] Frances Frei:
Yeah. And then it frankly, and then it flat lines. And it flatlines until the meeting mercifully comes to an end.

[00:21:23] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. We call it the arc of the super smart, or ASS for short.

[00:21:25] Frances Frei:
And then, you know, you'd think, well, wow, am I suffering privately?

[00:21:35] Anne Morriss:
No, we're not. We're not wondering that, Frances, because you are. That's what I mean by flamboyant display. You are using every non-verbal cue to tell us that you are fucking done with this meeting. You're multitasking, you're fidgeting.

[00:21:52] Frances Frei:
Arms crossed.

[00:21:53] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Yeah. Like you're, you're, you're not happy.

[00:21:56] Frances Frei:
Furrowed brow.

[00:21:56] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. So if I were to inject empathy—

[00:22:02] Frances Frei:
Oh, yeah.

[00:22:02] Anne Morriss:
—into Frances Frei empathy wobbler in this meeting. I think what we would see is that that level of engagement stays high.

[00:22:13] Frances Frei:
Yeah, so I get it just as quickly, I think this is a good public service announcement.

[00:22:16] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:22:16] Frances Frei:
The presence of empathy does not make us less smart, less speedy. So, um, but yeah, I would stay deeply engaged until the last among us gets it.

[00:22:27] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:22:28] Frances Frei:
It’s like a beautiful educator’s point of view.

[00:22:29] Anne Morriss:
And what does that look like?

[00:22:30] Frances Frei:
Oh.

[00:22:30] Anne Morriss:
I mean that sounds like beautiful poetry, but what does it actually like practically look like?

[00:22:34] Frances Frei:
Oh, so like I'm observing what are the pebbles that are getting in the way?

[00:22:38] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:22:38] Frances Frei:
And I might ask a sort of artful question that will surface the pebble and then let someone else come in and swoop in with a beautiful prescription to the answer. So without anyone really knowing it, we just accomplished so much and so little time and my fingerprints aren't even on it.

Or I'll be listening to someone who I know well, and I know that they love to garden, and we're doing something and I can just see they're not catching this example. I'll use a gardening analogy. Boom. They get it immediately.

[00:23:08] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:09] Frances Frei:
What, what's your shorthand for coaching people and empathy wobbles?

[00:23:12] Anne Morriss:
It's to be present in the presence of other people.

[00:23:14] Frances Frei:
Yeah. It's so liberating to just have it be that and that if I can't be present, video off.

[00:23:20] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. All right. Let's fix my authenticity wobble.

[00:23:24] Frances Frei:
Oh, a pleasure, baby.

[00:23:25] Anne Morriss:
What’s my first move?

[00:23:28] Frances Frei:
Uh, the first move is to just realize that it's the hardest one to fix and you can't fix it alone. I know you don't like that.

[00:23:37] Anne Morriss:
I don't, I don't like where we're starting.

[00:23:38] Frances Frei:
All right. Well, here's the thing about authenticity. If I'm gonna show up authentically in front of a group of people, It's naive to think what the group of people does is immaterial. Think about how much easier everyone else in the room can make it for me to show up as my authentic self.

[00:23:56] Anne Morriss:
And what's the headline on what that kind of work looks like?

[00:23:59] Frances Frei:
Oh, uh. First, realize that the comfort showing up as yourself is not equally distributed throughout the world. So, if I am in the majority for whatever that is, if I'm in the majority, it's so much easier for me to show up with myself. But if I represent a small, minuscule bit of difference, so much harder.

So I think the first thing is to acknowledge that we don't have equal access to comfort showing up as ourselves and that it changes as we change with the majority to the minority. Right, so being queer?

[00:24:33] Anne Morriss:
Right.

[00:24:44] Frances Frei:
I can't, it's gonna be really hard for me to be authentic in a country where it's illegal to be gay. Just frankly why I don't go to them, because I won't feel safe. So I think safety is the first thing. Everyone else in the room has to make sure that each person that walks in the door, are they reasonably feeling safe? Once you check that off, are they reasonably feeling welcome? You know, when I walk in the room and I look it open, like people are vying for me to sit next to them. I'm welcome. They're smiling, so it's safe. Then welcome.

And then it gets really interesting. And now it is, is my unique contribution sought after? So what if I can answer a question that comes uniquely from my lived experience or uniquely from my, you know, you asked me something about Uber and no one else knows about Uber in the room, you're now, you know, celebrating my unique experience. My authenticity is just gonna flourish. So we wanna really set the conditions for unique contributions to come forward. Um, and then we wanna make sure that we can do that at scale. And I feel like you think about it at scale better than I do.

[00:25:46] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. I mean, you're describing our inclusion dial framework.

[00:25:50] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:25:50] Anne Morriss:
So authenticity is co-produced. There's, uh, an essential part of that, that equation that other people can, must, should be doing to create authentic spaces.

[00:26:01] Frances Frei:
Yes.

[00:26:02] Anne Morriss:
Where people can show up as their multidimensional selves.

[00:26:05] Frances Frei:
Yes.

[00:26:06] Anne Morriss:
The other side of the equation is what can I do as an individual to show up more fully as myself in environments where it's safe to do so.

[00:26:15] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:26:15] Anne Morriss:
And I am confident, I've been experimenting with this for decades on myself. I think where it starts is in, what, a bucket that I sometimes call authenticity hacks or authenticity boosters.

[00:26:29] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:26:29] Anne Morriss:
So what are the things that remind me of my multi-layered, multi-dimensional self? And I have tried lots of things as you know.

[00:26:39] Frances Frei:
Everything.

[00:26:39] Anne Morriss:
Um, I have sometimes brought our son’s Lego pieces and put them in my pocket. I love to—

[00:26:46] Frances Frei:
To remind you of your evening valet work,

[00:26:49] Anne Morriss:
Just, just to. Yeah.

[00:26:50] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:26:50] Anne Morriss:
Just to remind me of that version of myself.

[00:26:53] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:26:53] Anne Morriss:
Which is very authentic. You bring out a very authentic version of me, which is part of why I love, uh, the work we get to do together, because when I'm standing next to you, I'm far less likely to wobble on authenticity than when I'm not. And I think for authenticity wobbles, you too must partner up and have an opportunity to partner up. Um, and surround yourself with people who remind you of who you are and build a team.

[00:27:21] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:27:21] Anne Morriss:
You know, and meet with that team regularly and make sure that they are as comfortable with your audacity as they are with your insecurity, or as comfortable with your insecurity as they are with your audacity.

[00:27:34] Frances Frei:
Yeah. You know, when you said, surround yourself with people who, like, remind you of, of who you are. I also think it helps to just hang out with people that are, they themselves are very authentic.

[00:27:45] Anne Morriss:
Totally. I mean, we talk about empathy being infectious. Emotions in general are infectious.

[00:27:49] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:27:49] Anne Morriss:
Uh, authenticity. It's very infectious as well.

[00:27:52] Frances Frei:
It is. Yeah. It's why we don't just do this work and have people know their wobbles.

[00:27:56] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:27:56] Frances Frei:
The reason we want people to know their anchors is that's where you can go proactively be helpful. Right.

[00:28:00] Anne Morriss:
Exactly. If I'm listening to this conversation, how, how do I go about figuring out—

[00:28:06] Frances Frei:
My self diagnostic?

[00:28:07] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:28:07] Frances Frei:
Yeah. It's a great question. So here's what I would say. Think back to the most recent time when you had a skeptic and assume it was your fault. What did the skeptic doubt about you? Did they doubt that it was the real you? Do they think you were trying to be someone you're not? Did they doubt that your intentions included them? Did they doubt that you had a good idea?

[00:28:27] Anne Morriss:
Right.

[00:28:27] Frances Frei:
And that is authenticity, empathy, or logic. So whichever one that is, identify that as a wobble. And if it's not perfect, it'll be your first draft. We find that eight out of 10 people have an accurate initial diagnosis. Um, so which is the one that tends to get in the way?

And here I just want to let listeners know: I'm an empathy wobble. But I definitely, my empathy is on display the vast majority of the time. These are only for the rare instances when I lose trust.

[00:28:55] Anne Morriss:
Right.

[00:28:55] Frances Frei:
So it's not that I don't, all of us have all three.

[00:28:58] Anne Morriss:
Right, right, right, right.

[00:28:59] Frances Frei:
It’s just, which is the one that gets in the way? And then I think it's important to do a self-diagnostic first and then go ask someone who knows you and loves you and just believe them because we are revealing who we are all day, every day to everyone else and occasionally to ourselves.

[00:29:15] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. That’s great. And most of us are building trust most of the time. It's one of the great advantages of our species.

[00:29:22] Frances Frei:
Yes.

[00:29:22] Anne Morriss:
And we're really talking about those rare moments where you have lost trust. And then how, I mean the, a central question of our, the work we do is how do you rebuild trust quickly, which is what we're gonna do now.

[00:29:34] Frances Frei:
And a central additional public service announcement is trust can be rebuilt quickly.

[00:29:38] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:29:38] Frances Frei:
So there's a lot of myths out there that once you break it, you can never rebuild it. And I just want to go on the record and say nonsense.

[00:29:46] Anne Morriss:
Right? I mean that we see it every single day.

[00:29:49] Frances Frei:
Every single day.

[00:29:49] Anne Morriss:
At the individual level, the team level.

[00:29:51] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:29:51] Anne Morriss:
So Frances, uh, to close this out, I wanna circle back to our Uber story. You spent a year there, give or take. What was different by the end?

[00:30:12] Frances Frei:
Oh, everything. So the, the headlines that we saw in the newspaper, they had stopped by then. Everyone just was brought together. And by the way, when I arrived, I’ll round it off to everyone was embarrassed to work there. And that embarrassment manifested and people didn't, were less likely to go out to parties, they would self-report, because they didn't wanna have to defend Uber at the parties. People didn't admit to their Uber drivers that they worked at Uber and people wouldn't wear Uber t-shirts and carry around Uber loot.

And so when I got there, I said, “Look, I see the future, and I am, I'm so optimistic about it, so I'm gonna wear an Uber t-shirt every day until everyone else in the organization feels comfortable wearing their Uber t-shirt again.” Um, and so lots of Uber swag was, was there. Uh, people were going to parties. They were admitting that they went there and they were also thriving in just magnificent, magnificent ways.

So remember that the company's problem was an empathy wobble. We had diagnosed that when we arrived, and that created a huge breakdown in trust between the company and a variety of stakeholders. That got fixed one by one with each of these stakeholders. For drivers, we took their suggestions seriously, and we added tipping. We changed the last drive of the day. We had numbers that they could call where they could get service in three minutes, not three hours, not 30 days.

[00:31:36] Anne Morriss:
Or three weeks.

[00:31:36] Frances Frei:
Or three weeks. For employees, we made sure that managers were trained. And that in particular for female employees, we made sure that they were cared for so that if you had a problem, there was a trusted third source that you could go to. And if you didn't feel like your manager was the right person, we had alternatives that you could go to. And we had an increase of people who came and talked to us about their problems, whereas before, oh my goodness, you had a problem. You went to your manager, it was handled horribly, and then you just felt silenced and shut down.

For regulators, we made sure that they were being collaborated with. Not, we weren't competing with them. We weren't antagonizing them, we weren't running over them, but we were talking with them about what we were trying to accomplish and what their needs were. And we co-produced solutions. And I'll say what happened, really what happened after a year, I became obsolete.

[00:32:32] Anne Morriss:
Which is our favorite metric of success.

[00:32:33] Frances Frei:
It is indeed.

[00:32:33] Anne Morriss:
Awesome. So here's a closing reflection we’ll invite our listeners to think about is what can you start doing tomorrow to build more trust with the people in your lives, your kids, your customers, your colleagues? What's one action you can take based on this conversation?

And thanks for listening today. We wanna hear from you too. If you wanna figure out a workplace problem together, send us a message. Email us fixable@ted.com or call us at 234-fixable. That's 234-349-2253.

[00:33:23] Frances Frei:
Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by me, Frances Frei.

[00:33:27] Anne Morriss:
And me, Anne Morris. Our team includes Isabel Carter, Constanza Gallardo, Lidia Jean Kott, Sarah Nics, Michelle Quint, Corey Hajim, Alejandra Salazar, BanBan Cheng, and Roxanne Hai Lash. Ben Chesneau is our mix engineer.

[00:33:45] Frances Frei:
If you're enjoying the show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And tell a friend to check us out.

[00:33:51] Anne Morriss:
And one more thing, if you can, please take a second to leave us a review. It really helps us make a great show.

[00:33:59] Frances Frei:
And it totally helps the search algorithm.