Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:00:59 · Lenny Rachitsky
[00:00:59] S0: Is there a corollary to adult work environments in potty learning? Today, my guest is Dr. Becky Kennedy, a clinical psychologist, author, and CEO of one of the most popular parenting books, podcasts, communities, and apps called "Good Inside." Why would I have a parenting expert on this podcast? Because if you think about it, many of the people that we work with in the workplace act a lot more like babies than adults. And I'm half joking, but I'm half not. Think about coworkers that got really mad when they had to share their stuff, that always need to be the center of attention, that get really upset about not getting their way, that need other people to fix things for them. These are just a few examples, and there is a lot that we can learn about how to effectively deal with people at work from a parenting expert like Dr. Becky. I have never heard a conversation like this anywhere that bridges the gap between parenting advice and leadership advice, and you will leave this conversation both a better leader and a better parent. We talk about the power of repair, the importance of building long-term resilience versus short-term happiness. Why your goal as a leader is to become sturdy, the power of curiosity over judgment, the framework Dr. Becky calls the most generous interpretation, also a ton of really specific phrases that work really well with kids and adults who you're having a hard time with. And so much more. I am so honored to have Dr. Becky on this podcast, and I hope you have as much fun listening to this conversation as I had recording it. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. That helps tremendously. And if you become an annual subscriber of my newsletter, you get a year free of a ton of incredible products, including a year free of Devin, Lovable, Replit, Bolt, n8n, Linear, Superhuman Descript, Wispr Flow, Gamma, Perplexity, Warp, Granola, Magic Patterns, [inaudible 00:02:46], ChatPRD, D-Mob and PostHog and Stripe Atlas.
00:05:23 · Becky Kennedy, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:05:23] S1: I am truly very excited to be here. I'm an avid listener of your podcast and all of your content, so I'm honored to be here. [00:05:29] S0: I can say exactly the same thing. I'm even more excited. First of all, just what is Dr. Becky doing on this podcast? Let's help people understand what's going on here. I have an explanation, but I want to ask you first, actually. What's the idea here?
00:05:44 · Becky Kennedy, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:05:44] S1: I think Good Inside, which is kind of I guess the company and the method around all the things I've thought about is known for helping parents with parenting struggles and different things that are going on with our kids at various ages. But at the end of the day, it's a set of core principles that help us better understand human beings, ourself, the core relationships we're in, why we do the things we do and why we act the way we do in certain systems. And the system I tend to focus on the most is the family system. But the workplace is another system, a marriage is a system, sibling relationships are a system, extended family over the holidays, that's a system. And once you start to think through a lens of understanding how we operate in the system, any good principle can then be applied to any system. And I'm very oriented around efficiency also. So to me, what Good Inside really gives people is a way to think about themselves and the way to think about leadership. And whether we're talking about leadership in parenting or leadership in the workplace, it's actually the exact same principles that can be applied. And the good news for that is whether you're a parent, you're a leader at work, you're both, learning one system and applying it to multiple areas becomes a very efficient way to think about showing up in our relationships in a way that feels better to everyone. [00:07:02] S0: Awesome. Okay. I love that explanation. I have another lens that's- [00:07:06] S1: Oh, okay.
00:07:06 · Becky Kennedy, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:07:06] S1: Oh, okay. [00:07:07] S0: ... maybe funny, maybe too real. So I have a former podcast guest, Shreyas Doshi. He's one of my favorite product thinkers. He's been on the podcast a couple times. He's got this brand that most adults in the corporate environment are really just babies in disguise. They look like adults, they act like adults, but they're really babies. For example, they want to always be the center of attention. They don't want to share stuff they've accumulated. They want to keep their resources, their budget, their people. They get irrationally upset about things not going their way. Even when it's just a terrible idea, they're just like, "Nah, that was my idea. I wanted this thing to happen." There's also just power struggles and, "No, no, I want this to happen because it's what I want." And they often just need people to fix things for them. For example, today my toddler, he just grabbed this Yoto player that we have and he threw it across the room. He's like, " Pick it up." So with that, I think understanding how babies think and toddlers think and operate is helpful in the corporate environment where we think we're working adults, but a lot of times they're more like babies. How does that resonate?
00:08:15 · Becky Kennedy, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:08:15] S1: I guess my most generous interpretation of what you just said is slightly different but similar, which is that all humans need the same things. Whether we're one or five or 45 or 85, we tend to need the same things. When the needs are not being met, we all tend to express ourselves in kind of ineffective, less than ideal ways. And so maybe that's my interpretation of agreeing with what you're saying. [00:08:39] S0: Awesome. Okay. Okay. So let's get into the first topic lesson. Let's talk about the power of repair, one of your more important and impactful lessons that you teach parents. Explain the toddler, kids version of this and how this is useful in raising kids and then just how this might translate into a corporate environment.
00:08:57 · Becky Kennedy
[00:08:57] S1: Yeah. I think repair is kind of the number one relationship strategy we have. And the thing that keeps us from repairing, which really is the idea of going back to a person after a moment we didn't feel proud of, taking responsibility for our part, maybe acknowledging the impact it had on them and talking about what you would do differently the next time, is actually this very false idea that there's a goal to be perfect. Right? And in our family, we say something, we actually now say it at work, "Perfect is creepy." I just think it encapsulates... You don't even want to be perfect. It's actually very creepy. Only non-humans can ever be perfect. And what defines kind of the human condition is that we want to do well and we mess up over and over again. And one of the things I remember learning in clinical psych grad school was that the thing that really differentiated secure attachment, which is the nature of a relationship you really want to have with your kid is the presence of repair. And I remember the professor continuing to talk and I was kind of stopped in my tracks thinking, "What? Oh, so secure attachment isn't defined by getting it right all the time? Secure attachment is just defined by, we're all going to mess up, but secure attachment has an adult who's willing to repair?" That felt very hopeful to me because it felt like something I could realistically get good at. And over and over, whether it's with your kid, when you say to them, "Hey, sorry I yelled." Some version of, "I had a stressful day at work. That wasn't your fault and I'm working on staying calmer even when I'm upset." Or we say to someone, I don't know, on our team, "Hey, earlier in the meeting, I totally cut you off. I used a really harsh tone. Honestly, I did disagree with what you're saying, but it's no excuse for me to talk to you the way I did. Stuff was going on before the meeting. I'm sorry. I'm going to work on that." There's just nothing to reestablish trust and connection like repair. And when trust and connection are reestablished, then whether it's your kid or someone at work, they cooperate better, you don't get into conversations that are kind of run on conversations that are really an act of defensiveness and you can just get a lot more done.