Kerry Sulkowicz of Boswell Group
Are you centered?
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 271: Kerry Sulkowicz
Here’s a question. Are you centered?
I’m Charles Day. I believe that leadership offers us the greatest opportunity of our lives, to make a difference. I’m asked to help leaders discover what they’re capable of, and then to maximize their impact. Welcome to the intersection of strategy and humanity.
This episode’s conversation is with Kerry Sulkowicz, the Past-President of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the Founder and Managing Principal of Boswell Group. They provide leadership advice to boards and CEOs.
Kerry and I have been friends for a long time, and he has taught me much about the psychodynamic aspects of leadership. Whenever we talk, his advice strikes me as clear and straightforward, and always very human.
“One of the things that's hardest for leaders when bombarded by information, bombarded by constituents wanting this or that, bombarded with decisions that are impossibly complex that they've never dealt with before, and senior leadership roles, are like that every day. One of the most important things for leaders is to be centered enough so that they don't lose the ability to think, to reflect. If they do, they’re sunk.”
Being centered doesn’t happen through accident, chance, or hope. It happens by intent.
And that intent is driven by recognizing two obvious truths.
Leadership is lonely.
And leadership is stressful. Much, much more so than many are willing to admit publicly.
The old-world view is that leadership demands that you project strength, certainty, invincibility. Even in the face of threats that can feel like they are existential - because these days, for many businesses, they might be.
If some days that means you feel like you’re a leader in a fight for survival, well, that’s not surprising. Because that’s exactly how your brain responds to that set of circumstances.
And under that kind of stress, the part of your brain that’s responsible for executive function, for risk assessment, and problem-solving, and for planning, suddenly starts to develop tunnel vision. And at the same time, our amygdala kicks in and suddenly survival gets added to the emotional maelstrom, and then finally comes the impulse to hurry up and do something. Anything.
Being centered is the shelter in that storm. It’s held up by a strong sense of self, by awareness and honesty about how you respond under stress, and it’s helped by having a clear and multi-faceted definition of success.
Those foundations, when combined with a willingness to take a little time to turn down the short term noise, and dilute the adrenaline fueled feelings of urgency, will give you the ability to lean on yourself and think things through.
Leadership is sometimes about taking action and it is sometimes not.
But it is always about being centered.
So, how well do you know yourself?
Here’s Kerry Sulkowicz.
Charles:
Kerry, welcome back to Fearless. Thank you so much for coming back on the show again.
Kerry Sulkowicz:
It's always great to see you, Charles. Thanks for inviting me back.
Charles:
This is a really strange first question, and maybe an unfair one, but I don’t know anybody else that I would trust with the answer. What do you think is the general state of mental health at the moment? I mean, just broadly. As you kind of look out in the world, and wander through it, what's your general sense of people's mental health?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
It's a maybe more complicated question than it appears on the surface, Charles. I mean, you, you hear a lot of people talking about how, you know, the world has never seemed crazier, which, of course, is not a scientific assessment of the state of the world's mental health. But there does seem to be a great deal of anxiety in the world about the state of it. And, you know, for good reason. There are a lot of crises going on, two, more than two wars, two that make the headlines. But far more human rights abuses going on around the world. Climate change is progressing. So there's a lot to be anxious about.
What I think makes the question more interesting and more complicated are a few other factors. One is that, as I think you and I have talked about in one of our many earlier conversations, the last few years of political and social upheaval, and perhaps most of all, the years of the pandemic, brought out what many people have seen as a mental health crisis, a kind of pandemic of anxiety and depression. And it's hard to argue with the fact that prolonged periods of isolation and stress and alienation and division and polarization bring out, not necessarily the best in humanity, but sometimes the worst.
What I think makes it even more complicated is that the amplification of social media, which increases the extremes and crowds out the middle, as my friend Jonathan Hyt and others have written about, I think quite compellingly. But there's yet another dimension that I think makes it even more complicated, which is that so many of what in the old days, in the old days, I think probably came to an end about a decade ago, so they're not that old. In the old days, what many of us in the mental health world–psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and so on– might have seen, frankly, as the problems of living, have now gotten a diagnosis attached to it.
And, it's actually very concerning to me. One might think on the surface that as somebody, I, as you know, I don't practice in the mental health profession anymore, but it certainly informs my work and business. I think that with the idea that so many more conditions of living now have attached to them some kind of psychiatric diagnosis, I'm not sure we're doing society a service that way. When I talk to presidents and deans of universities, for instance, one of the things that they decry, and I share their deep concern about it, is what some have referred to as the medicalization of childhood and adolescence, that, something that you and I, when we were kids, might have gone through as an adolescent, which is a hard period for everybody, now gets a diagnosis. And sometimes what follows quickly after a diagnosis is a prescribed medication for it. And I don't see that as a good trend. I actually see it as deeply troubling. So, long-winded answer to a rich question.
Charles:
No, but fascinating, and I think incredibly insightful. Because that had never occurred to me, honestly, that… but as soon as you said it, it's one of those responses that makes you go, well, yeah, actually, I could feel that and see that, in fact. If that is all true, what is the right next step? Where does society go from here?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
It's a great question. I think that some balance is needed, is the short answer. And yes, there's a kind of pendulum, I think with the progressive destigmatization of mental health, which I think is a good thing, there's come a kind of excessive freedom to make mental health related diagnoses and see a mental health problem everywhere. Which I think, unfortunately, can interfere with ordinary people's ability to simply cope with what I refer to as the problems of living. But I also want to be clear that there are some true mental health conditions, of course, that do warrant rigorous diagnosis and treatment, you know, severe depression, anxiety, other conditions that are established diagnoses, and that really do interfere with one's ability to function. I would argue that some of these other conditions, these so-called problems of living, don't interfere with one's ability to function. Especially if you think of, you know, everybody's entitled to a bad day, or a bad week, or a difficult month even, what have you. That's just part of living, but not something that needs to be treated per se.
Charles:
So putting that issue aside, to the point you made earlier, a lot of people feel like this is the craziest time we've ever lived through. My sense has been that we're dealing with massive undiagnosed PTSD from COVID. Is that fair, reasonable? Is that an… would you regard that as an accurate reflection?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
I probably quibble with your diagnosing that as PTSD, although it was clearly a difficult, and for many a traumatic period of time. I think it's brought about societal changes that are still very much in flux. I don't think we have settled in any one place. And I think the world, certainly in our lifetimes, Charles, has probably changed forever. And maybe beyond that. Certainly in the use of digital technologies we're communicating, as you and I are doing right now, the ability to work in a more flexible way, and as well as the sequelae of long periods of isolation, of working remotely from colleagues, of living remotely from family members. So, there's no question that that was a turbulent time, historically turbulent time, and we're still trying to understand its implications. I think those who feel like it's over, it's in the so-called rear view mirror, and now we're at a new normal, I think they're fooling themselves. The changes are still evolving.
Charles:
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because we were at a party on Sunday, and we got an email on Monday from the wife's co-host announcing he had COVID, and suddenly we were thrust back into that 2020, 2021, all those feelings came flooding back. And I was shocked to see how close to the surface they actually were, and how quickly I was triggered back into a, oh my God, and how close were we, and where were we in relationship, and what if I've got it, and what does that mean, and am I going to be safe? And, you know, all of that stuff, just… which I felt, to your point, had kind of been put to bed, or at least as part of my past, was suddenly very much part of my present again. And it feels like many people are very, are still much more fragile than they realize about those kinds of issues. Do you think that's fair?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
Yeah, I think that is a fair comment. I've seen that, too. And certainly there's been a, certainly in my circle of friends, there seems to be an upsurge of COVID cases recently. Fortunately, I haven't had it for a couple of years now. But yeah, it brings back some of those early feelings, especially when COVID was so much more mysterious and frankly, so much more dangerous. It does bring you back to those days, even if rationally, we know that for many people today, COVID is not a big event. It's like having the flu, you know, a bad cold.
Charles:
Given all of this, given the fact that for various reasons we're living through, I think, uncertain times, and that's being added to by, it seems to me anyway, by the advent of AI and the massive disruption that that is already having on society, and the structure of society, and the disruption it's clearly going to have going forward. Where do you think leadership sits in all of that? What is the role of leadership today, given all of this fluidity?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
You know, Charles, I teach a class on leadership at NYU, and we've been talking about some of these issues in that class. And one of the common comments that I hear, not only from my students but from others, when we talk about leadership today, is a lament about the lack of moral leadership in society. Where are the Gandhis, the Churchills, the Mandelas, the Martin Luther King Jrs? Where are they today? I don't see too many of them. And I'm not sure why that is. They may be out there and somewhat reluctant to stick their head above the parapet, which actually may make you wonder about whether or not they're really leaders, because leadership takes courage. But we need people speaking out, to all, not just to their preferred sympathetic audience about what's going on in the world, and trying to be integrators, assimilators, synthesizers, rather than splitters and dividers.
Charles:
Do you think that the reason they're not reaching out beyond their own audience is because it's just so easy to build an audience these days, even on a local level or intimate level, that in some cases you're not really conscious of the fact that you don't have a broader appeal? You know, like Martin Luther King, it was sort of binary, right? I mean, he's out in the world, and the people that are drawn to him are drawn to… there was, you had to communicate publicly, you had no choice. You couldn't filter. You either attracted people or you didn't. Today, that's not true. You can build an audience, to your point, of like-minded sympathizers, and feel like, okay, I'm doing my job because I'm out here speaking my version of the truth, without consciously realizing that that message is not spreading very far. Is that part of the issue, that people are just not conscious of how deep their impact could be?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. There are very few, and some might argue there are no remaining common and generally accepted sources of information. There's the route to the right, and then there's the route to the left, and there's nothing much in the middle. I think there are probably some exceptions in my view. There are some news organizations that really are striving to be equidistant. The BBC here in the UK, I think, strives for that. Do they always get it right? No, of course, never. But, they try.
Charles:
I think it's hard to have this conversation without talking somewhat about politics at the moment. Just picking up your point about the media, one of the things that I've been conscious of over the last two or three weeks with the American political situation is, more and more people willing to call out mainstream media for what clearly seems to be increasingly a dual standard. The way that they cover Biden's age and the way they covered Trump are completely different. There is a completely different standard. If Joe Biden had done 1/1000th of the things that Donald Trump was doing, we would never have heard the end of it. And yet, Trump goes on these sort of mad cap meanderings, and people are like, well, that's just Trump being Trump.
Is there a way, do you think, to bring focus and attention to that disparity? I mean, first of all, do you see that disparity yourself? And B, do you think that's something that more of us should be calling out?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
I agree with you completely. You and I have had many political discussions, and I think we tend to be largely in agreement. I think the example that you gave is a really critically important one. You've heard that often repeated expression about the news business, that when a dog bites a man, it's not news, but when a man bites a dog, that's news. And I would argue that the issue of Biden's age and particularly catalyzed by his disastrous performance in his last debate, that was a man biting a dog. That was really news. Whereas Trump's mendacity and his chronic fabrication and all of the manifestations of his narcissism and sociopathy, sadly, it's not news anymore. It's the norm, not the exception.
Charles:
Yeah. I mean, they've essentially normalized it.
Kerry Sulkowicz:
Yeah, that's right. It has become, sadly, normalized.
Charles:
Going back to your point about powerful leaders, prominent leaders, people willing to do extraordinary things. I said this on a podcast last week, but my sense is that Joe Biden's act of utter selflessness to withdraw from his party's nomination, the first time in history that's ever happened. Whatever the pressure was that he was being given, he didn't have to do it. And this is a man who's totally capable of withstanding pressure, right? You don't get to be president of the United States because you need to please everybody. How do you see what he did, and what would the psychological challenges of that have been for him, from your perspective?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
I don't know that I have a particularly original set of ideas about that. I do agree with you that what he did was in the best interest of the country. He, in my view, unfortunately waited too long to have made this something even better for his own legacy. Although in the end, I think he still did it, to your point. And clearly it was the right thing to do. My sense is that the office of the presidency, probably more than just about any other role on the planet, suffers from some of the challenges that all leadership roles, top leadership roles, suffers from. Which is the risk of insulation, and of being surrounded by people who are in the sense sycophantic, who tell the leader what they want to hear, rather than what they need to hear, which is the truth.
I was really worried during those couple of weeks until Biden made the decision, that he was squandering the opportunity from going from being a very good president, I think, to being a great man. Somebody who did something selflessly, putting country ahead of self. But I think ultimately, one could still make that argument that he did do that. But, on balance, I think history will remember him well.
Charles:
And given the power of the office and given the isolation and insulation of the office, it just strikes that it was a rare act. It was an act that many people, I think, would not have been capable of. Do you think that's fair?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
So, so hard to say. We have so few opportunities to do a sort of a double blind study on this sort of thing. What was interesting about it, too, is, everybody talks about Trump's narcissism. And you don't have to be a psychiatrist to see that, because it's so egregious and on display every day. With Biden, what’s seemingly dithering about deciding not to run until he eventually made that decision, what that seemed to reveal was that everybody, including Joe Biden, has at least a modicum of narcissism. We all have some. Sometimes it takes more malignant forms, as Trump's does. I think with Biden, I wouldn't call it that at all. But I would say that it probably interfered with his ability to make that decision. The combination of the insulation of the role plus his own emotional investment, what I, which is related to narcissism, his emotional investment in being president. And so I'm sympathetic to his not wanting to give it up. Even though it was the right thing to do.
Charles:
I was struck by a conversation I had with a friend, actually, in the week before he decided to step down. We were talking about him, his unwillingness to do so, and we also were talking about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and how she had refused, essentially, to leave strategically and ultimately died in office, which created the conditions in which Republican leadership could use the system to their advantage and create a tilted court.
And this friend of mine described both behaviors as hubris, that it was a sense of, essentially, only I can do this. I'm uniquely qualified. It must be up to me to decide. In Ruth Bader Ginsburg's case, it was damaging, ultimately, to the very causes that she had spent her whole life fighting for. And you could argue that by not stepping down sooner, she's actually created the opposite of what she was trying to achieve. If she'd given the president at that point, the ability to replace her, that we would not be where we are today in terms of women's rights, for instance.
How does somebody who is leading find that balance between the sense of having the confidence to be able to do things that are difficult and challenging and stepping out and being brave, versus going too far and believing that only they can do it?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
I don't think that hubris is an essential leadership quality. In fact, I think it's rather dangerous. That's different than what I think you were just describing, which is a sense of self-confidence and resilience, and the ability to keep going in the face of very difficult, you know, adverse circumstances. I think one thing that's important to remember, and maybe relevant both to Biden's recent decision as well as to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which I agree with you, again, it was tragic for the country that she stayed as long as she did, because it allowed Trump to replace her with a far right wing Supreme Court justice. And that is… related to narcissism is denial. There was Biden's denial about the seeming impossibility of his being able to defeat Trump a second time. And denial, frankly, also about his own condition, his frailty, his lack of cognitive sharpness that he once enjoyed, but really clearly doesn't have anymore. And I think a similar thing perhaps could be said about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and denial about mortality, in her case, even though she was ill for a long time, before she died in office. Denial is an essential part of the human condition. And I think, our capacity for denial is essentially bottomless.
Charles:
And when we bring that into the world that you and I tend to occupy, which is helping leaders maximize their own potential, part of that is also recognizing when their time is coming to an end, and how to provide a constructive, powerful, positive transition. You and I have talked in the past about meeting leaders and knowing leaders who have reached that point and can't see it. How do you go about helping somebody in that position move past their denial, or find a different place to look at their situation from? How do you go about helping them shift their perspective?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
One is, I don't lie to them. I tell them the truth. I think there were too many people in the Biden administration and in government, on the Democratic side of the aisle, saying that he was fine, and that he, you know, he was still capable of serving in office. And that is not what a leader needs. They need people to tell them the truth. And sometimes that truth is pretty unpleasant.Bbut those are the more, most important truths to be told. The unpleasant ones. You know, to tell a leader how good looking and smart they are, that's easy. And it may even be true, but at some point there's much more to it than that. So, the first thing is telling them the truth even, and especially even when that truth is really difficult and unpleasant when it's what they don't want to hear.
You could describe that as a confrontation of their denial. But I think also, to empathize with their denial too. It's not just confronting them. It's confronting it while, at the same time, expressing some sympathy for their wish to not believe the truth. In Biden's case, for his wish to stay in office, because he really believed that he could save us from Trump and carry on for another four years, even though it's so obvious that that was not the case. So, confrontation and empathy are not mutually exclusive. I would argue that they go hand in hand.
Charles:
Obviously, when you do what we do, we have agency. We have the ability to decide who we work with and under what circumstances. If somebody decides they don't want to work with us anymore, it's not an existential threat to our lives or our careers. If you are working for somebody in their employ on a full-time basis, that kind of speaking truth to power, to use a cliche, is very hard, if not impossible. What advice would you have for people who are working for somebody whose behavior is not constructive, who are acting against the best interest of the business? Is there a path for an employee to have a conversation of any value with a leader who is just not connecting with what the company needs?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
It would be naive of me to suggest that every employee who has a concern about the boss's behavior should take that on. In an ideal world, sure, give it a try. But there's so many more nuances to it than that, that need to be considered. One is to have a coldly realistic perspective about that leader's ability to receive feedback. Some receive it quite well, and in fact, invite it and welcome it. Those are the best leaders. And they make it rather easy. But they still need it. They still need it. It's not that they can't be in denial, but they receive it well and are even grateful for it. Sometimes, moving further on the spectrum towards narcissism and denial, which is really what we're talking about here. It has to do with [inaudible] the amount of narcissism in that leader, the level of narcissism.
Sometimes, the use of language, the choice of language is so important in being able to give feedback. Sometimes it's as simple as asking the person if you can give them some feedback before giving it to them. That sort of prepares them for something that you know they're not going to like to hear. And allows them to prepare themselves, equally importantly, to hearing it. And sometimes leaders, again, very good leaders, who are generally resistant to feedback. They may take it in, they may push back, they may resist it, but then they, they'll sleep on it. They'll talk to their friend or their spouse or whoever about it, and slowly but surely it seeps in. And so they can still be grateful, even if there's a delayed receptivity to it. That is often the case.
I've just, I think those kinds of people are more common than the first that I was describing. Those who just, you know, invite it and take it in, readily. Others, further still on the spectrum of narcissism, meaning, a kind of fragility, a kind of focus on the self, not really interested in what other people have to say about them, not caring, and feeling they've got it all perfect anyway. Trump is a good example of somebody pretty far out on the narcissism spectrum. There, I think one has to be realistic. In those cases, no matter how careful you are with your choice of language, how you picked your right moment to deliver the feedback, those people tend to have a highly defensive reaction. Some, like Trump, actually have a much more strongly than just defensive. It's a punitive reaction. You get fired if you say something critical. And so those people who work for narcissistic, severely narcissistic people like that, need to just recognize how fixed that character structure is, how unreceptive they are to any kind of feedback, no matter how gifted and smooth you are about delivering it. And better off, working for someone else. It rarely ends well.
Charles:
Yeah. Given the dynamic nature of society and the world as we've talked about, what should we expect from our leaders today? What is a reasonable set of expectations, for leaders to provide the people that work for them?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
Leaders need to be firmly grounded in the reality of their situation, of whatever it is that they're leading. The internal reality, if it's an organization, of the good things, but also the challenges inside that organization, or their constituency, which is everyone, not just the people who voted for them. They need to be firmly grounded in that reality, as well as the realities of the external world that impinge on whatever it is that they're leading. But given that that reality is sometimes difficult, if not particularly painful or unpleasant, they also need to find a way to not just be talking about the reality, because that reality can be so depressing. It can be a downer. They also need to be able to provide some hope and some inspiration. And they need to be able to think clearly, in the face of such difficult circumstances. One of the things that's hardest for leaders, when bombarded by information, bombarded by constituents wanting this or that, bombarded with decisions that are impossibly complex that they've never dealt with before, and senior leadership roles are like that every day. One of the most important things for leaders is to be centered enough so that they don't lose the ability to think, to reflect. If they do, they're sunk.
Charles:
I'm assuming you mean they need to make the time to do that, right? I mean, that's one of the issues that many people in leadership positions have, which is, their calendars just get swallowed. Their calendars get overtaken. So, finding ways to make sure you have enough time to think and not be swallowed seems to me to be pretty critical.
Kerry Sulkowicz:
It is absolutely critical. Leaders who schedule themselves every minute of the day, they're doing that, not just because they're busy and people want, you know, a piece of their time, which of course is always the case with leaders. But they're almost doing that defensively, I think. They're doing that in such a way to make sure they don't have exactly what you said, which is the time to think, to reflect, to sleep on it. It's also true that leaders, sometimes not… the less effective leaders, feel like they have to be in action mode all the time. Like, they always have to be doing something. I think that's a terrible mistake that leaders make. They do have to take actions, quite often, of course. But sometimes decisions, especially the most complicated and ambiguous ones, require thinking, require consultation with others, require sleeping on it, and maybe most of all, require waiting and seeing how the situation evolves and unfolds further. It may be that making a decision today in a crisis is unwise, because if you just let it play out a little bit more, you'll have more information, more time to think, or more time to consult with others.
So, I'm not arguing for inactivity. That's different. I am arguing for taking time to let things unfold and to be able to think about it along the way.
Charles:
Yeah, I think it's so critical, and I think you're right. It's often a sign of insecurity, I find, where you see leaders who are just wall-to-wall, 12, 15 hours a day, in some cases. One of the pieces of advice that I give people that I work with quite often is, do the things that only you can do. Identify, what is it that you're doing? Is there anybody else in the organization that could be doing this instead? And if so, why are they not here? And why are you in this room? And I find that if you can help them filter down the things that other people could be doing, but they're sort of grabbing onto, either by habit or through insecurity, that you power the organization in an entirely different way. Because suddenly the people below are given opportunities and responsibilities they hadn't had before, which help them lift their own leadership capability. And the organization gets lighter because the heavy sort of bureaucracy of the stuff just keeps getting forced down, and ultimately, in many cases outta the organization. Does that resonate for you?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
It resonates completely. I think it's really good advice to give leaders. I give that kind of advice to leaders, as well. What I have found so interesting is that how they respond to it is often revealing about something central to their personalities. Some leaders, the best leaders, I suspect you would agree, are able to do that. And with little help from an advisor, they do delegate more, and they focus on, as you said, the things that only they can do, because of the uniqueness of their role and because of their particular talents. The leaders who, even when faced with that kind of advice repeatedly struggle to do that, often struggle for a few reasons. One has to do with their ability to trust others. They don't trust others to do things, at least not the way they would do it. And they're such control freaks sometimes that the idea that somebody else might do it a little bit differently than they would, is untenable to them. So they have such a hard time, devolving that kind of responsibility down. And that lack of trust gets communicated through their inability to have others take on some of what they might otherwise be doing themselves. It's not empowering, it's disempowering, if they can't do that.
Charles:
One of the most popular themes, topics around leadership is that of imposter syndrome. How do you think about imposter syndrome? What's your perspective? What's your analysis of it?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
I'm always reluctant to think of it as a syndrome, because that gets back to an early part of our discussion today about wanting to put a label on things and, you know, almost making it sound like a diagnosis, even though I know that's not how you're using it. But I would say that the feeling of being an imposter, which I would describe as the feeling of being entirely unqualified to be doing something that one is doing. Like, how did I wind up in this leadership role? That, I think if people are really honest with you, is probably universal. If people are really honest, they would acknowledge that there are times when they can't believe they get to do what they get to do. I've certainly had that feeling in my work from time to time. And there is no preparation for being the leader of something until you're in the seat. And then there are times when you don't feel prepared and don't really know exactly what you're doing. And that's part of the experience of being in roles with lots of responsibility, and dealing with situations of uncertainty and ambiguity every day.
Charles:
Are there other ways to help people through that, other than to point out that, essentially, if not every single person, almost everybody is, has some version of this?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
Well, it is helpful to do just that, to help people see that they're not alone in that feeling, and that they're, that these are… in a sense to normalize it for them. And to explore it even further in terms of why, in particular, right now, doing, you know, this particular task or dealing with this certain challenge, that, why does that bring out these imposter-like feelings? I think that's really helpful. I think it's also helpful to give people the perspective of time. Things that feel insurmountable or anxiety provoking in the moment. It is hard, when you're in such a moment, to see to the other side of it, and to help them try to visualize that somehow or another, you're going to get through this. I'll be there with you to help you get through it, and so will other people. And oftentimes, that's exactly what happens. And they can remember back to that time when they felt, earlier in the challenge, that they were an imposter, and that then becomes embedded for the next time that such a feeling arises. That, oh, you know what, I've been there before, and I'll get to the other side of this next one, too.
Charles:
It's so true, isn't it? Time is such an extraordinary asset and ally in our journey. An inevitable one, obviously. But there is that line, but I think between feeling like you have something to contribute and being confident and comfortable that you can, without that becoming self-centered or egotistical.
Kerry Sulkowicz:
Yeah. We all muddle through at various times. And we all have learned something, hopefully, along the way. What's so important is to maintain at least a modicum of humility about it. I think you and I may have talked about this before, Charles, but sometimes people will say to me, you know, you've been working with CEOs for nearly 30 years, you've probably seen everything. It's amazing the value of pattern recognition there. Haven't you seen this a million times before? And my response to that is always, no, that's not the way I think about it. I mean, yes, of course there's value to experience, and I have learned a lot along the way. I'm still learning.
But while pattern recognition is super important, it's part of experience. It's also perilous, too, if you come to believe in it too strongly. Because, if you believe you've seen it a million times, and this is just 1,000,001, you run the serious risk of missing a critical nuance, something that makes this next situation different from the last time. And so, you know, you're talking about hubris before. It is hubris to think you've seen it all. When you run into leaders who come across that way, I've seen it all, I've been a CEO so many times, I know how to do this. I worry about those leaders, because I think that's a kind of arrogance that that is a setup for a derailment.
Charles:
Yeah, it's a very interesting point, actually. We have a phrase that we've used in our consulting and coaching practice over the years, which is that every creatively driven business is unique, but their problems are not. And I think that that balance also equally applies at the human level from a leadership standpoint, right? Which is, you can fairly accurately define the set of problems that leaders face these days, where there is a finite definition of that, but the way that they can approach them, the circumstances by which they find them, who they are, the life journey that they've had. All of that makes every one of those situations, to your point, entirely unique. So while we can define the problems fairly accurately, the way that they need to be solved is entirely unique, in my experience, in almost every situation.
Kerry Sulkowicz:
Yeah. Absolutely agree. And that is the creative aspect of our work, isn't it?
Charles:
Yeah. Entirely.
Kerry Sulkowicz:
To appreciate the uniqueness of the situation, and to help our clients solve problems and navigate situations in a creative way.
Charles:
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Last question for you. As you look at the future, what are you optimistic for? What are you hopeful for?
Kerry Sulkowicz:
The fact that I'm hesitating as I think about that, is probably part of the answer. (Laughs) There are some things that I'm optimistic about. I am hopeful about some of the political changes in some parts of the world, including in some elections in the United States, where the extremists, haven't done as well as we might have feared. That gives me some hope that there is some healthy backlash against some of the populist authoritarian trends. I'm also hopeful about another kind of backlash, against what I would see as the illiberalism of the extreme left. Because, as much as I lean left, I don't lean all the way to the left, to the extent that there's a kind of intolerance there that I think is destructive and, in fact, delivers us into the hands of the far right. And so I think, there's a lot of work being done, a lot being written about some of the excesses of the extremes on both ends of the spectrum. And that gives me some hope. Certainly not a hope that I feel at all complacent about, and it won't just happen unless we nurture it along. But that gives me some hope, as well.
Charles:
It's an interesting time, actually, I think, on so many levels. But one of the things I find fascinating is that you and I both have relatives who fought in world wars, and suffered in those circumstances. Our generation, you know, my generation have not… I mean, Vietnam, clearly from a US standpoint, people went away. But there has not been this kind of existential conflict or the need to take up arms and fight for what we believe. And I think, in some way, this feels like a much less physically demanding, but nevertheless, emotionally demanding version of the same thing. That this is, in some ways, is our fight for what we believe is right. And to set the course of the world over the next generation or two. I don’t know whether that resonates with you, but it has become more and more a subject of contemplation for me.
Kerry Sulkowicz:
Yeah. It does resonate with me. War takes many forms. Our parents and our ancestors’ generation, the war was a very physical thing, fought on land and sea and in the air. And of course, it still is in some places, tragically. Our capacity to destroy one another and not just each other, but the planet, is exponentially greater than it was in those days, even though it was pretty great back then. But war is now electronic. It's now chemical. It's now viral. And so our capacity for destructiveness, I think, has, tragically, never been greater. And a lot of war takes place in the mind. You know, it was a famous British psychoanalyst, WR Beyond, who wrote about how, in war, the goal of the enemy. I'm paraphrasing very loosely here. But that the goal of the enemy was not simply to defeat you, to destroy you, but to interfere with your ability to think. And that has always been true, I think, and it’s particularly true today, something we ought to think about. And so your job, when faced with some kind of attack, whether it's physical or psychological, is to try to maintain the ability to think, under the circumstances of attack. And if we can hold onto that idea, I think it'll serve us well.
Charles:
I want to thank you so much for coming back on the show today. It is always thought provoking, inspiring, educational, uplifting, to see you and to talk to you. And I'm grateful to you for making the time. And I think these next few months will be fascinating and we'll see what kind of world we're left with, by late November.
Kerry Sulkowicz:
Let's talk.
Charles:
Indeed. Thank you so much, Kerry.
Kerry Sulkowicz:
Thanks, Charles. Great to see you.
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Frances Harlow is the show’s Executive Producer. Josh Suhy is our Editor. Sarah Pardoe is the show’s Producer.
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