Speaker 0 00:00:11 You are listening to right on radio on cafe 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Webber tonight on, right on radio. Ian, we'll be talking with Lynn anger about his latest novel American gospel, radically personal and quintessentially American. This intimate drama takes place on a small farm beside a Lake in Minnesota's North woods, where an old man is waiting for the rapture, a graduate other Iowa writer's workshop. He has received a James Michener award in Minnesota state arts board fellowship, and a Drome travel grant. He teaches English at Minnesota state university Moorhead, and the last part of the hour, I'll be talking with Marissa King professor of organizational behavior at the Yale school of management to discuss her research in social chemistry, decoding the pattern of human connection, all the, some more so stay tuned to right on radio. <inaudible>. Hello, Ian Lynn, are you there? Hi, I'm here. I'm here too. All right. You both are on the air whenever you are both. Ready, Josh.
Speaker 1 00:02:01 Hi, Ian. Good to see you. I can't read a passage from the book so you can go ahead and read that. That would be great. I will allow, I'm going to read from, uh, early in the novel starts on page 39. Um, just to set it up quickly. Um, what's happened, um, in the first few pages of the book, is this a young boy? About 16 years old, um, has been hunting with his father in the woods. He hears a shot. He runs to her, his father's, um, deer stand his and finds his father dead on the ground with his, uh, with a terrible wound in his head. Um, and so he has gone through a surreal 48 hours or so, um, um, uh, on the, on the, you know, on the heels of, of, of this catastrophic loss in his life. Um, and it's nighttime, he's in a car he's been driving around, has visited a friend and now he's, he's parked by the, the, uh, water, um, of this Lake that he lives near. Um, and, and it's it's November and the, and the Lake is, has been freezing over and, and the heavy wind the ice has, has broken up and there's ice. Uh, that's that is, uh, coming ashore with these big waves. And he's just sitting there watching the water, um, in a kind of an, a kind of trance.
Speaker 1 00:03:33 So I'll, I'll start on page 39. I was trying to decide whether to stay a little longer and eat the baby Ruth bar or gone home to bed. When I saw him in the black water, he was 30 yards out, the far reach of my headlights chest deep arms of float on either side of him, hands rising and falling on the waves and the plates of ice. He was still wearing his blaze orange vest, the hood of his hunting coat flapping about his head. Now, as I remember, it brings to mind a monk in flight from some secret order. He tottered straight for me into the glare lurching. As he entered the shallows one leg splayed to the side at the front of the mercury. He reached out and touched the Chrome hood ornament with the tips of his bloated fingers, tentatively as if he expected an electric shock, I popped open the door and stepped from the car.
Speaker 1 00:04:32 I could smell the sharp cordite stink of gunpowder, and also the bees wax. He used on his hunting boots. What are you doing? I asked the sound of my voice straightened his shoulders and the canvas hood of his coat, blue free. And I saw in the headlights that his face was like a burned out black and at the windows and caved in on itself. His right eye was illuminous blue, grape red veined, the Willard, it blinked at me suspiciously. The other had disappeared somewhere behind its empty socket. Odd as it might seem, I wasn't surprised or frightened. He was my dad after all. And I'd spent part of every day of my life with him. And because he'd left so unexpectedly, it seemed fitting that he should come back to explain himself. I was angry though, furious. I wanted to scream in his face. I wanted to shoot him, kill him again.
Speaker 1 00:05:32 Who did he think he was ripping my life apart and stomping on it. He spoke then, and there was no mistaking, the sound of his voice, which had never been suitable for the man. He was, it was a voice that made you wonder if he'd stuck something up his nose when he was a kid, a bean or a little pink pencil, eraser, and forgotten it in there. My anger melted against my will. I'm lost. Dad said, can you help me? He looked me up and down as though he'd seen me someplace, but couldn't remember when or where his face held a concentrated darkness, heavy, dense, compact. My impulse was to jump back into the car and drive off, but I couldn't move. My legs felt heavy as if they were filled with sand. You are so beautiful. He said, then he started coughing Lake water, rattling in his lungs.
Speaker 1 00:06:29 When I stepped forward and pounded his back, I was surprised at how solid his flesh was. I let my hand linger on his shoulder, which was soaked through an ice cold. You finally straightened himself and scrutinized. My face is grape blue eyes blinking and glimmering. As a things are beginning to clarify for him. He looked all around at his old green hunting car at the clouds above us, dragging their miss details at the wild Lake and the shattered ice tumbling ashore everything. God in heaven, everything so lovely. His voice was breathless. His lips trembled. Again. I had the urge to get away, to put distance between us. The dad reached out and took my elbow to strengthen his fingers was uncanny. My arm went numb at his touch. I didn't shoot myself. He said, you have to believe me. He tried to laugh, but it broke off in his throat.
Speaker 1 00:07:28 He let go of me and made fists with both hands and brought them up beneath his chin. A spasm or seizure took hold of them, twisting his face to one side. And when it left, he spoke again, his eye fixed on me in horror. As if I were the ghost, his finger, his fingers covered both sides of his face, jowl to cheekbone. I was sitting there on my stand, listening to the wind. He said, I was thinking about climbing down and going home. And that's when I felt him there behind me. I swiveled around on my butt and he put the end of the barrel on my forehead right here. I can still feel it. It's so cold. So cold. All he said to me was sorry, Harold, nothing else. And then he sent me away. I didn't want to leave Jesse. I loved it here.
Speaker 1 00:08:21 I loved my life like a balloon on a string. The image of my uncle's face bobbed up in front of me. I said, clay, play. Every good thing I had was a knife in his heart. Dad said, and now look at me. I wasn't ready for this. Jessie. I wasn't ready. None of us were dad turned and peered off to the East where a break in the clouds revealed the moon three quarters full and nearly down. It rested gingerly on the pointed tops of the pine trees. I have to leave. He said to go where I asked him, you opened his mouth, covered his face with his hands and shuttered from between his fingers, his remaining eye. Glimmered at me like a blight, like a bright blue ring. Listen, Jessie, you can't allow this to stand. You can't let him do this. Do you hear me?
Speaker 1 00:09:16 There's no one else. Just you, the words cracked and scraped from his throat. And don't tell your mother, he whispered not about this, not about him. Do you understand it wouldn't be safe and nodded to show I was listening. Dad lifted an arm and pointed past me towards something on the beach. I turned and saw a deer, 50 yards off a dough mature, and well-formed probably four or five years old. As I watched. She stepped lightly toward the water and lowered her head to drink than a wave tumbled in isolation. And she jumped back and spun around white tail flicking and disappeared up the shoreline into the trees. I turned back to dad, but he was gone.
Speaker 2 00:10:02 Wow. That's something to hear you read that tore Jessie and, uh, uh, my goodness. Um, I don't know where to start with that thing will effort. Let's introduce you first while I get myself calmed down from that scene. Uh, there manga is the author of three novels undiscovered country, which was first published in a hardback by little Brown back in 2008. I divide, which is what you've just been listening to read from high divide, 2014 and American gospel, which is just out, uh, last October, 2020, also in collaboration with his brother, then all of this leaf anger, six mystery novels, and the stories have been published in literary journals, such as glimmer train the center of American fiction. He's also been a finalist for awards from the Midwest books, booksellers association, the society of Midland authors and reading the West. And he's received the James Michener award and the Minnesota state arts board fellowship and a Jerome travel grant. He's a graduate of the Iowa writers workshop and teaches English at the Minnesota state university at Morehead. Welcome to rice, one radio infer finger. Do you have to pronounce it, but you do do it the Norwegian way.
Speaker 1 00:11:25 Well, you know, uh, Norwegians would probably do it more anger, hangar, softer G um, but, but, um, but yeah, my family has always had a harder G
Speaker 2 00:11:37 Anger you say? Yeah, I would say promoted in the North of the UK. It's sort of a fairly well-known name and usually pronouncing it. Okay, good
Speaker 1 00:11:48 To know. I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't aware of that.
Speaker 2 00:11:50 No, lots of nos up in the North of England.
Speaker 1 00:11:56 It's a common Norwegian name. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:11:58 That's right. And you got a lot of Norwegian themes running through this book.
Speaker 1 00:12:02 I do. I do. It's uh, and of course, you know, Hamlet, uh, one of its sources, um, is, uh, I think, uh, Shakespeare was working with an old Danish, uh, legend called ambulance. And so, yeah, I, I come by it from that direction and also from my own heritage. And, and of course, uh, I grew up not far from where the Kensington Runestone was, was dug up in the 1890s. So yeah, I had it coming at me from all directions.
Speaker 2 00:12:34 And in your story, you have a battleax, that was a wonderful addition. And he finds the battle ax and this inspires him to open a, a supper club called
Speaker 1 00:12:50 Well holla and copper club called the Valhalla when I was younger in Alexandria in Minnesota. And it was very dark with dark, dark boots on very much like the, uh, like the supper club in the novel.
Speaker 2 00:13:06 Yeah. And that's a, it's very interesting. There's also the, the personalities that those are super in the know. Um, mostly if you live in Minnesota or, or come from the UK, there's a kind of, uh, there's a kind of dark and brooding element of, of personality, which you bring out in this, which finds itself in the, the classic Hamlet situation where he doesn't 17 year old boy doesn't really know what to do about revenge.
Speaker 1 00:13:37 No, he, he certainly, he certainly doesn't and you know, what, what intensifies the situation for him psychologically, as well as that, he's the only one who carries the burden of truth. Everyone assumes this is a, a suicide, um, and the way it looks, the coroner judges it as suicide. Um, and, and of course, you know, as in Hamlet, uh, you know, the, the, the ghost reveals the truth to the, to the sun. Um, so, so Jesse Mattson, uh, the narrator, he is, he carries that himself. Um, and as with, with Hamlet, um, he's turned between action and, and contemplation, um, and Hamill it, of course, um, his father Hamlet was, was a warrior King and in that Scandinavian tradition, but, but Hamlet, um, himself in the play, you know, is a, is a student who has been studying at the university in Germany. So he's much more contemplative. And, and, um, uh, he, uh, there was his phrase. He doesn't, he doesn't want to be passioned slave. Um, and so, and so of course, Jesse finds himself questioning is what is this ghost, a real ghost? Is this message legitimate? Do I act on it? How do I act on it? What if, what if it's wrong? What if I kill a man who, you know, who is innocent? So, yeah, he, he is turned between, um, action and, uh, holding back
Speaker 2 00:15:11 Or the, the, the way that you described the ghost coming out of the water and the injuries that he sustained, some of which you put earlier in the book, when the, when you write about boy discovering the body, um, quite grizzly, and yet the scene feels absolutely real. And it reminded me and took me back to years ago. And I, when I fell in love with the Icelandic sagas, and when those ghosts appear in sagas, they are real there, they are onstage. They're just like us. They just happened to be dead there. Was there any influence there, and you're thinking with this scene.
Speaker 1 00:15:55 Yeah. Pro probably. So, um, that, uh, the Icelandic sagas, um, the, uh, um, you know, the Hamlet play, um, when I, when I wrote that scene, I wanted it to feel absolutely, um, real, I D I didn't want it to feel like some kind of a psychological reaction, although, you know, readers can certainly take it that way. Um, I had an interesting phone call, uh, not long after I published the novel and an old friend called me. And he said, I just finished reading your novel. He said, I was so angry at you at first for writing those ghost scenes said, you know, how are we supposed to believe in? And this was in 2008, 2008, that some ghost is going to, you know, going to come and talk to the kid. And he said, then I sat on it for a while. And I realized that after my father died, my friend said he came and visited me. And it was as real as you described in the novel. And, um, and that's what I, that is what I wanted. Um, I wanted it to be, uh, I w I wanted it to be, to feel like his dad was, you know, a, a legitimate fleshly presence. And, um, and I haven't experienced that, but I've known enough people who have that, uh, I felt like to be honest in the storytelling I had, I had to write it that way.
Speaker 2 00:17:22 Well, it's very interesting. You should say that somebody called you on that and said what he said, I lost my dad when I was quite young. I was 16. And he does, he still comes back, but it's injury. It's definitely in dreams. Your PCR reminded me of that because it's always him. And it's always me creating him or recreating him. The funny thing is, as I get, I can't make him speak anymore. Yeah. I've forgotten, you know, there's a reality to getting older and dreaming and the, the kinds of stuff that comes into your dream, which, you know, writers always try to then parlay into something that goes onto the page. Can't make him speak anymore. I'm making that up now. Very clear.
Speaker 1 00:18:13 Yeah. That's interesting to me too. Um, I I've had dreams too, where people I've lost come to me. Um, and I have never, ever had the experience of, of, of remembering when I wake up anything. They said, I remember the emotion of their presence. I remember the visual element, but, but for me, there's never an audio. I can't, I can't recreate speech, um, from the dreams I've had, where, where the dead come and come to me.
Speaker 2 00:18:44 Yeah. And that's, and that's why I think I, I read this with a view to thinking about it as a saga, because the sagas, they put those, they put that speech right on stage and famous in saga and the old Ingersoll and things like that. So I really felt this whole thing felt very strongly Scandinavian to me in that sense. And, uh, I liked that very much about it. And, um, one of the back in, uh, 2013, a fellow called James Olson wrote on Amazon about your book, what I'm going to RSU here by having him read it, because it a scam, even you probably hate any kind of praise, right? Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:19:27 Oh, I can handle it.
Speaker 2 00:19:31 So once you take up undisclosed country, you will find yourself in a commonplace, common people, and your spine will begin to tingle, and your mind is set by doubts and the mystery grow deeper and deeper. You will be in link angers, undiscovered country, and you won't want to get out until the very last page. And if you're like me weeks will pass and many odd moment, you'll find yourself back there again. And without a doubt, a year later or less, you read the book again, that's very kind, very kind. Yeah. I can see you going red.
Speaker 1 00:20:14 That's so generous. Yeah. Thanks.
Speaker 2 00:20:17 Yeah. Did you know about that? Yeah, that's on, on Amazon and I think I feel the same way. There's a, there's a beautiful stylist, stylistic simplicity to what you do, which creates really clear imagery. And that's what I always used to try to teach my students, try to write that way myself. Um, absolutely wonderful work. Um, uh, there's a lot else to talk about, funnily enough, as well as this book, tell us a little bit about the publishing history at the head of this. I mentioned that the book was first published by little John Little, little Brown, and it was in hardback and they didn't send it into paper that tells the story of how it eventually got published by the university and sort of press. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:21:08 Yeah. Um, so what happened was, I mean, and every, every writer, you know, has, has a publishing story and the publishing story for this book, which was my first standing stand-alone novel life. And I had written a series of mystery novels with, uh, pocketbooks and Simon and Schuster in the nineties. But, but this was my first, uh, first, uh, literary novel. And, um, and I, and I had trouble finding an agent for it in 2006, 2007. But once I found an agent so very, very quickly, um, it took about two weeks and we had three offers. So, you know, there were publishers were, were vying for the book when it, when it went on the market in 2007. So a little Brown was behind it, um, in a big way. And, um, what happened was usually there's about an 18 month gap between the acceptance of, of a, of a manuscript and the publication of that book.
Speaker 1 00:22:03 And so the book sold about this time of year. It was March 1st of 2007. And, um, and it came out in, uh, July of 2008. So that's about whatever 14, 15 months, um, what happened was as soon as I did the rewrite, which was right away in the spring of 2007, my editor there, uh, left the company. And once she left the company, they handed it off to a young man, very nice young man who had never, uh, ushered a book from manuscript to, into the world before. And in fact, he left publishing about the time my book came out and he, and he entered the world of, uh, I think he started a construction company. Um, and so the book didn't have, uh, any, any, uh, support from little Brown when it did come out, they, they had moved on. And because, I mean, as you know, Ian, the, the engine behind your book, uh, the, the power behind your book is usually the editor who sits in on all the meetings and marketing meetings and publicity gatherings, and, and that person who is promoting you as their writer.
Speaker 1 00:23:16 Um, so I didn't have that. And, um, the book just sank to the bottom of the, of the ocean of books and, uh, and they had no interest in bringing it out in paperback and let it out of print, um, rather quickly. So, so the book was accepted with some kind of fanfare, um, and, and they brought me out to New York and I, you know, I had photograph taken and met people and it was of a big deal. And then they just, I was nothing after that. So I learned very, very quickly, you know, how capricious that world is, um, how fickle, uh, they are. And, um, so, so the book just, um, died and a quiet death. Um, and then when I, um, sold, um, American gospel to the U of M my wonderful editor there, Eric Anderson asked me out of the blue. I wasn't expecting it. He said, it's undiscovered country, um, out of print. Um, and I won't get into the details on what outer print actually means these days, because, you know, we have eBooks, I said, I'll look into it. And I looked into it and I found out that I could justify saying that it was out of print. And so U of M then picked up the, picked up the rights and, um, and they published it, uh, this, um, winter and paperback. Um, so that, that's how it came to be.
Speaker 2 00:24:47 I'm good. I'm good for Eric, Eric. Wonderful. That's, that's really what should happen, right? Something like this, because this is an extraordinary book. And I read some of the American gospel as well, which obviously they bought the paperback rights to undiscovered country on the backers from their gospel. And that's very different kind of book, isn't it? That's for you, but it's still fathers and sons.
Speaker 1 00:25:19 It is, you know, it is. And so is the book that comes in the middle there. Uh, the middle book, the high divide is,
Speaker 2 00:25:28 Well, that's a part of the who leaves and the children go after him and then the mother goes after them. Um, yeah, but, uh, let's talk just a little bit about American gospel because it's a, it is your newest book. It came out in October and perhaps at some point we'll do a, a full half hour on that sometime in the future. But tell us a little bit about that story. American gospel.
Speaker 1 00:25:57 Yeah. American gospel is, is a book about, uh, a man who is the head of a, of a, um, Christian commune slash cult. Very, very small in Northern Minnesota. It takes place in 1974. And the book actually unfolds during the month of August. The backdrop of it is the Nixon resignation. Um, and, um, this old man believes that God told him in a, in a kind of, he had an, a near death experience. He believes that during that time, God told him the precise date of the end of the world or the rapture. Um, and he thinks what's going to happen in 14 days. And so the book is a countdown of those 14 days from the vision he has prediction to, to that, that day that he believes he's going to be ushered up into heaven with all true believers. So that that's the, the, the jumping off point for the novel and, uh, premise of the plot.
Speaker 1 00:26:59 And in that book, um, is that doing anything at all? Is that selling, how's that doing? You know, um, I, that's a good question. Um, I don't really know at this point it's only been out since, uh, end of October. Um, and it's gotten some nice reviews. Um, and, you know, I don't know, one never really knows about sales. Um, certainly this early on in the, in the life of a book, I hope there's some people reading it. Um, um, I've heard from a lot of people. I know that say, they've, they've read it and liked it, but, but I don't really, I really can't answer that question. Well, what a time to bring it out in October during COVID it has been very odd. The first two books, even, even with a little Brown, I, I went on book tours on nine West coast in Chicago and, and, uh, Florida and Texas various places.
Speaker 1 00:27:58 Um, well this book, I stayed home and I did zoom events, um, and him and the beauty of that is that many times you one can show up at a, at an event and, and, you know, a sprinkling of people show up and, and, you know, it feels a little humiliating. Um, had a couple of zoom events with this book where there've been an excess of a hundred or 150 people. And so, you know, I think in a way it reaches an audience, it may not have reached otherwise. So I guess it remains to be seen. How, how, um, ill-fated the books publishing date was we'll see, well, the times they are changing, this is the first time that I've done a zoom interview and not being in the KFA office or studio doing this. So it's new for me too. And I really love it.
Speaker 1 00:28:47 Yeah. They're getting me in there again. I like it too. I do too. Yeah. All right. Well, it's really great to talk to you. So we were just talking to ZN gravelly skit, and I was speaking with Lynn anger about his book undiscovered country and his other work as well. So let's have you back for American gospel at a time, perhaps when it, when the conversation can be a bit more fruitful, we get, get it out on YouTube and help you a little bit. I would love that. And I look forward to it. Thank you, April. I think a wonderful writer. Thank you very much for being on rotten radio. Thank you. Pleasure.
Speaker 3 00:29:30 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:29:42 Today. I'm talking with Marissa King professor of organizational behavior at the Yale school of management, where she researches social networks, social influence, and team dynamics, her new book, social chemistry, decoding the patterns of human connection shows how anyone can build a social network that will dramatically enhance the personal relationships, work life, and even your global impact based on insights from neuroscience, psychology and network analytics. Welcome to write on radio. It's a pleasure to be here. So you open the book by bringing up a quote from Vernon Jordan, uh, that he gave it to a 2012 commencement address and explaining his network skills. It's a quote from Herman Melville. Uh, we cannot live for lives alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand visible threads. And along these sympathetic fibers, our actions rise, causes and return to us as results. You call this quote, a new lens that we can apply to the idea of networks. What did you mean by that?
Speaker 4 00:30:35 Yeah, I think the Melville quotes so beautifully encaptures. What I mean when I'm talking about a network far too often, I think people, when they're thinking about networks are thinking about networking, but our networks are really then during traces of our social interactions. And whether it's bumping into a stranger at the coffee shop or your more enduring relationships with your friends and your family members and your colleagues, the form and shape that those relationships take, and those traces have huge implant packs on your health, your happiness and your wellbeing. And what I also love about that quote in particular is it shows that your network not only has important implications for you, but also everyone around you.
Speaker 0 00:31:15 There's a metaphor you use in the book to describe how different social networks give rise to different properties like graphite and diamonds, both are made from carbon, but the arrangement of the atoms create different properties. How is this similar to people's networks
Speaker 4 00:31:30 In much the same way that if you take carbon and you put it in one form, private, a diamond, right? It's hard, it's clear. It's one of the most valuable materials on earth. And you take those same particles or Adams, and you arrange them in a different form in flat sheets and you get graphite. It's soft, it's cheap. You can find it in a kid's backpack. Our personal networks are very much the same. So if you take a work group and you imagine that it's composed of the same people, if you arrange it in such that everyone's talking to each other all the time, and they're all deeply connected, you get a certain set of properties. You get trust, you get reciprocity, you can convey complex information, but if you take that same group of people and you split them in two groups with one person going between them, where you get more innovation, you get more creativity. And the same is true in our personal lives that we can characterize everyone's network based on one of three types. And by starting to understand what are some of these basic elements or basic structures of social interaction, we can think about how we can utilize our networks more effectively, whether that's to me, professional needs and professional goals are to help with our personal fulfillment. You
Speaker 0 00:32:40 Just mentioned the models now for the different networks we have. I want you to break this down for me. Uh, just maybe overviews for each type. Right now you break down different networks. People have into three models, there's expansionist, there's brokers, and there's conveners. What are they? And what are the strengths and weaknesses for each type?
Speaker 4 00:32:56 So we think about conveners as being one type conveners friends tend to be friends with one another. They spend a lot of time maintaining their social relationships. They have deep ties, but to a smaller set of people, uh, conveners in part, build this in part due to predisposition. So for instance, conveners are, don't like changing things at the last minute. They like more certain days, so there's psychological predispositions, but also our networks are formed by our stations and lives. So conveners don't tend to move very often. They may have been at the same job for a long period of time and the benefit of this type of network and which our friends tend to be friends with one another. And there's a lot of depth here. Social relationships is there's a lot of trust. There's a lot of reputation and no benefits. There's a lot of reciprocity. So conveners actually felt fair quite well during the pandemic because of the emotional support that type of network provides. The downside though, is that they tend to live in echo chambers. So the networks tend of conveners, tend to be pretty homogenous, and they are really at risk for group. Think,
Speaker 0 00:33:56 What did you score for you for your type?
Speaker 4 00:33:59 I'm a broker. I want to be a convener. And I always try to work towards that narrow type, but I'm naturally a broker and brokers tend to spend span different social worlds. So for instance, a lot of my research is in medicine and on mental health, but I also spend a lot of time talking to people and computer science and talking to people in the business world. And because I tend to span these different groups that don't normally talk together, theoretically, anyway, my work should be innovative and creative. Um, and that's really the benefit to a brokerage type network. And what's interesting about brokers is that they tend to be something called high self monitors. So when people are thinking about what determines what is the strongest personality temperament of a network type, they often think introversion versus extroversion matters, but it's actually something called high self monitoring. So high self monitors are chameleons. They can make impromptu speeches about things that they know nothing about. That's a high self-monitor, which makes them a good broker. So I also fit the high self monitoring category. And the benefit rate is I mentioned it's and they tend to be more innovative. They tend to be more creative. The downside is they often face reputational penalties. People oftentimes distrust them because they are somewhat of an outsider. That's one of the biggest drawbacks to that type of network.
Speaker 0 00:35:15 So I squares broker as well. And I definitely can see while reading it, I could see different parts of my own personality manifesting. I'm like, I definitely see how this person is. And it was really odd and very, um, insightful about into myself. But you do have a point and this is your word we use in the book. Brokers have, um, are overrepresented among people who are class-wise I think, in the business world. Why is that?
Speaker 4 00:35:39 Oh, it's always terrible. When your words come back to bite you just to be clear, I'm not in all right. Often Greta with suspicion, and this becomes because they impart because that they are a part of a group, but they're not really part of the group. So they're not a part of this core convener network, but also because of this high self-monitoring people often see them as an authentic, um, and that can million light character can oftentimes be off pudding. And what we know from a lot of research is that you can, this can be overcome, but it has to be overcome by seeming or truly being empathetic and trustworthy.
Speaker 0 00:36:20 I was wondering if you can discuss, there's a point you bring up in your book, why is the quality of our social connections, a strong predictor of your cognitive functioning work, resilience and work engagement?
Speaker 4 00:36:30 So this is one of the most powerful things I think about networks is they truly do get under our skin. So when we're in a high quality interaction, in which we're feeling a deep sense of connection, actual physical biomarkers change. So for instance, our cortisol levels drop, which is a social physical signal of stress. And so we can actually measure heart rates, getting lower cortisol levels, getting lower when we're in high quality interactions. And because of that reduction in stress, many ways, because we're meeting a basic biological need and we feel less threatened, we can think better and we can engage more fully.
Speaker 0 00:37:08 You give an anecdote from teaching classes that people avoid giving their attention to your lecture. When the conversation turns to networks saying, people just don't want to think about people in their lives in a purposeful way. What's the raising for this.
Speaker 4 00:37:21 If we have a strong moral aversion, which is completely understandable to thinking intentionally about our social relationships, one of my favorite examples of this, it was actually an experiment that was done by Tiziana cuchara at Rotman and her colleagues when they asked people to think about instrumental networking in particular. And when I say that is the idea that you're going to professional event with idea that you're going to get something out of it. And when you ask people to recall that type of interaction, versus for instance, a spontaneous social interaction. So I bumped into someone at a party and we ended up going on a date, that idea of being really intentional about relationships with ID, I'm going to get something out of it is really morally off-putting. So in their experiments, but they found as it truly made people literally like one to wash their hands, more washing away their sins and work completion task.
Speaker 4 00:38:07 If you showed them w blank, S H they were twice as likely to think of wash versus wish. And what that's really capturing is this moral contamination that we feel truly dirty about the idea of being instrumental or purposeful about our relationships. Um, and importantly, that's important also just due to the self-focus. So the easiest way out of this is if you're approaching one of these situations is to think about what can I give or how I be of service instead of what can I get out of that re interaction. And so that reframing can really help overcome this natural moral version that so many of us have.
Speaker 0 00:38:45 There's a great statement in your book about authenticity and misunderstanding and how it leads to complacency. Why does an unwavering sense of self get in the way of new challenges or getting bigger roles or bigger promotions in our life?
Speaker 4 00:38:58 Yeah, I mean, I think so often we're given this advice that we need to be authentic, and I think there are two confusing points about that piece of advice. It can often be misleading in part, I think oftentimes people think about that means that you need to show everyone everything, and particularly in the workplace, like, I don't need to see your whole self, right? Like you can be authentic without showing me everything. Um, and being authentic is really about staying true to your own set of personal values. And the flip side is that that can also be inhibiting in the sense that if you think of yourself as being fixed, that you have one true, authentic self, and that doesn't change that really impedes your ability to learn and change and grow. And so I like to think about it, like we have multiple right authentic, true selves, and that it's really just trying to stay true and consistent with what you value rather than thinking about being fixed or rigid, or even fully open
Speaker 0 00:39:54 In my reading of your book. I really liked this section where you discuss the value, does giving and generosity in social relationships. How has the reciprocity, the fundamental building block of social relationships?
Speaker 4 00:40:06 Oh, that's a great question. So the norm of breasted prostate really is at the heart of all of our relationships. And if you think about how trust, where trust comes from it often, most often comes through reciprocity. And I think one of the misconceptions when people are thinking about reciprocity is they often think like it's a tit for tat. So I do for you. And then you do for me. But what we know about social relationships is it's first off, it's much better to think about what you can give than what you can get, which too hard to predict, right? A one-to-one transactional approach, but in thinking about this reorientation about thinking about giving, um, and then trusting in the process that those will come back to you, but there that's through the individual interaction or through your broader network. That's one of those powerful things I think about networks and reciprocity is you can have generalized reciprocity. So I may do a favor for you, and then you do it, you pass it on to someone else. And somehow it comes back to me. And that's the power of changing this reorientation about when we think about reciprocity, about it being about giving rather than a tit for tat
Speaker 0 00:41:08 A huge takeaway had from, from that piece in your book is that there's not just a matter of his giving of giving something as a means to trying to build relationships, but there's multiple resources we can use in terms of what we give, what are those options we have, because it's not just a matter of giving physical objects. It could be time, it could be a skill set. It could be some kind of technical service.
Speaker 4 00:41:28 There's so many things that we have to give, and we can think about giving. And far, often people think about resource exchange, but there's so much we can give, I think, particularly during this time of the pandemic. So it can be as simple as reaching out to someone and saying, you know, Hey, I heard this show on the radio and it made me think of you. And that gives us a sense of belonging. It gives us a sense of connection. Even asking for help can be a powerful way of giving, asking someone else for help, gives them a sense of mastery. It gives them a sense of purpose and it allows them to get outside themselves. So that's another powerful thing we can give, but arguably more than anything right now, I think we can give one another social connection. And in many ways that's more valuable than the resources we typically think of. When we're thinking of giving
Speaker 0 00:42:14 You bring up a study by Jeffrey Hall, the university of Kansas, where they, they found that it takes 50 hours to go from acquaintance to friend than another four to become true friends with someone. And then it become close. Friends requires more than 200 hours. That's not the full story. However, why does simply just investing time in a relationship doesn't instantly transform an acquaintance into a friend supporter, or
Speaker 4 00:42:38 It's a great question. And I think it helps explain the mystery of why you don't feel particularly close maybe to a colleague who sat next to for four or five years, that it's not simply the amount of time that you spend with someone. It's what transpires in that relationship. And part of that is about reciprocity, but it's also about self-disclosure. So how much do you really truly know about the other person? And that's one of the key foundations of social relationships is that there's a reciprocal self-disclosure. So I allow you to see a little bit about me and then you do the same. And through that, we truly get to know one another and that helps build trust and it helps build connection. And it's through those investments, whether it's self-disclosure or reciprocity, um, are asking and giving help that really the bonds of relationships get their quality and our strength. It's not just simply how much time we're investing
Speaker 0 00:43:30 The infrastructure in many companies are built around the idea that more social, international result, more innovation studies have proven. However, this has been ineffective and often more offices are being less productive, less creative and less motivated. Why is this?
Speaker 4 00:43:45 Yeah, I think that idea that more interaction is better guided a lot of our thinking. Um, and this misguided notion that like, if we, you know, often built offices or even downtown Las Vegas was built on this idea, right? If we can just get more people interacting, we're going to have more creativity and more innovation, but more in, are they more interactions sometimes just build more complexity? And the truth is it doesn't take into account these fundamental structures that we need, nor does it take into account the quality of interactions. And if there's one another silver lining during the pandemic, I think that this would be one of them that we become more, much more conscious, that necessarily more interaction isn't better. And that there's a lot of different benefits to different ways of structuring work or structuring social interaction. Speaking of interactions now. So one
Speaker 0 00:44:32 Of that gets a bad rap has gossip. It's a, but according to professor Robert Dunbar, gossip is what makes human society, as we know it possible, what makes gossip essential to our lives?
Speaker 4 00:44:43 And I think this is a strength of convenient networks is that they really benefit for gossip and, and professor Dunbar's work. He's also shown just how much time we spend gossiping with one another. And I think it's close to 60% of conversational time is spent talking about someone else who's not in the room. And why that's so important is it was critical to us being able to evolve into bigger social groups and part, because we need to be able to enforce basic social norms and know who's got our back. And without the ability to gossip, we have no idea, right? Who's likely to stab us in the back. Who's likely to not be following the rules and be threatening the group. And so golf gossip in many ways has evolved because it's evolutionarily necessary. Why it continues, I think is a different matter. But I think it also continues because we still face the same fundamental limits on how big of groups we can be in without the ability to be able to monitor who's in it. And what they're doing
Speaker 0 00:45:41 Google. Now try to, uh, try to avoid this issue. They set up, they set out to make the most perfect team. I was working to talk about the results from this experiment.
Speaker 4 00:45:50 It's a beautiful experiment that was led by a former student, Julia resort ski. And she was curious about what makes for a more perfect team, right? Is it more social interaction that we were just tossing talking about? Is it more gossip? And so what they did at Google is they studied pretty much every facet of teams that you could imagine. So who's in the team, um, what their background, what their skill set was like, did they have lunch together? How much time did they spend together? Um, what were their working arrangements? And out of all of these factors, what they found the single most important predictor of how well a T team function was something called psychological safety, which has really been reframed by the person who developed it as being radical candor. So it's the extent to which someone feels like they can speak up without fear of reprisal.
Speaker 0 00:46:37 And my last question for you, what surprised you most while you're writing social chemistry,
Speaker 4 00:46:43 The pandemic, did
Speaker 0 00:46:44 It help with your overall writing process? Did you help you consolidate the different ideas you wanted to put into the book? What, what changed for you? I guess, with the pandemic then
Speaker 4 00:46:51 I think the biggest thing about the pandemic is it really brought into focus. Just how important face-to-face momentary social interaction is. And I knew that in an abstract sense, but I didn't fully appreciate what the implications it would have for me personally, but also for us as a society. And as I look for what the future will look like and moving forward, I think that more than ever, that the ability to reconnect has become clear. And so the importance of that, so it's, there's so much possibility and potential when we can all get together once again. And so I think that that perhaps is the, um, outcome of the book is just realizing how important it is. And hopefully soon having the ability to actually reconnect with one another.
Speaker 0 00:47:39 I, we were at a time right now, if you'd just been tuning in, I've been speaking with Marissa King about her new book, social chemistry, to coding the patterns of human connection. I cannot recommend it enough. There was a great way, I think, to kick off 2021 versus thanks so much for being here with me, talking about your work. Thanks so much for having me. And now this.
