Scott Webb (Host): Welcome to the Healthcare Executive Podcast, providing you with insightful commentary and developments in the world of healthcare leadership. To learn more, visit ache.org. I'm your host, Scott Webb, and on today's podcast, we're joined by Daniel Pink. He's an expert on innovation, competition, and the changing world of work.

He's also a New York Times bestselling author and the author of The Power of Regret, How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. Daniel, welcome to the podcast.

Daniel Pink: Thank you, Scott, for having me.

Host: Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you here. I would like to take some time to read your book at some point, but I'm going to get the Cliffs Notes, if you will, today from you.

So, just want to have you start off by talking a little about yourself, your career, your background, what led you to becoming an author and an expert in leadership and innovation.

Daniel Pink: I grew up in the American Midwest. I went to college. Believe it or not, I went to law school. I decided that I didn't want to practice law. So I ended up working in politics. I did that for a while becoming a political speech writer. I eventually grew tired of politics and realized that what I really wanted to be when I grew up was a writer, write my own stuff.

And that's what I've been doing for the last 25 years or so. Writing books about science, about creativity, about business, about work, trying to give people some really evidence based lessons for living better, working smarter, and trying to give them new ways to understand their world.

So I've written books about the science of motivation, about the science of timing, all the when decisions we make in our life, about the science of influence and persuasion, about the peculiar science of this peculiar emotion called regret. So that's what I've been doing and I've been doing it out of my office, which is my garage in Washington DC.

Host: I love that. Yeah. And it really does feel like a science and good that we have experts like yourself to help us through this. Wondering how your past roles in, as you mentioned, government and politics, how did that inspire the work that you're doing today?

Daniel Pink: Well, I mean, I was inspired having worked in politics earlier in my career to stop working in politics earlier in my career and do something more valuable with my life. So I think that was the deepest inspiration. As a writer, as a communicator, there was actually, I guess some kind of value in working in politics because, and even as a researcher, it was helpful too.

I guess as a researcher, working in government, working in politics helped me understand just how interconnected many issues are. We like to look at problems as like this is a problem about economics, this is a problem about psychology, this is a problem about politics. When in fact, it, problems, , tend to be multifaceted, multidisciplinary, and the solutions and the way we analyze them also needs to be multifaceted and multidisciplinary.

 So that's one thing that I guess I've learned. The second thing I guess is that in politics, in government, in any complex undertaking, it's actually really important to communicate clearly and simply. To not make complex things more complex, to actually make them as simple as possible without dumbing them down. And that's what I've tried to do as a writer.

Host: That's interesting. Yeah. My background was in radio and I had a program director tell me once that, uh, less is more. And I said, yeah, but I got into radio to say more. I want to talk more. And he said, really simply put the less you say, the more you economize your words and get right to the point; the better off you and especially the listeners will be.

So, I can connect with what you're saying there and I know that you mentioned regret and that's the sort of the subject of your latest book. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the emotion of regret. Why'd explore this and what really surprised you from your research?

Daniel Pink: Well, I decided to take on this subject of regret largely for personal reasons. There's this old adage in science that all research is me search. And that's really the case here. I started studying regret because I had regrets of my own. I was at a point in my life where the eldest of my three kids, was graduating from college.

 I realized that I had more of my life behind me than ahead of me. And as I look back, there were things that I wish I had done. There were things that I wish I hadn't done. And it made me feel bad. And I thought that was some kind of singular experience, that I was the only one. And yet when I came and very gingerly mentioned some of my regrets to other people, even though I knew that nobody wanted to talk about regret, I discovered that everybody wanted to talk about regret.

As soon as I started talking about my regrets, they wanted to talk about theirs, and so as a writer, that's a very, very powerful signal. So I did a deep look into this emotion of regret, looking at about 50 years of science on this emotion, conducting my own public opinion survey; the largest public opinion survey of American attitudes on regret ever conducted.

And I also collected regrets from about 25,000 people from more than 100 countries. And what this taught me was that everybody has regrets. It's one of the most common emotions that people have. It's ubiquitous in the human experience. Truly, everybody, who isn't a little kid or doesn't have some kind of neurological disorder, experiences regret.

And I also learned that if we treat our regrets properly, not ignoring them as we like to do, putting our fingers in our ears and saying no regrets, and not wallowing in them, that regrets can be a tool for progress, that it can help us become better negotiators, help us become better problem solvers, help us become clearer thinkers, help us find more meaning in life.

 And what's more, the final thing is that what regret does is it teaches us what we value. And so when you know what people regret the most, and I think we do now, when you know what people regret the most, we know what they value the most. And so this emotion that we kind of steer away from is actually revealing.

It reveals what it takes to lead a good life and it gives us clues about how to make progress.

Host: It's so interesting. As you say, it seemed like no one wanted to talk about regret until somebody was talking about regret and regrets, and then everybody wanted to talk about it. And I, interesting to think of yourself as sort of a collector of regrets, right? 25,000 regrets, you know, to sift through and try to make some sense of.

And if we just focus in, Dan, on healthcare leaders, how can they adapt regrets and these negative emotions that they might have at times to inform their particular you know, leadership style.

Daniel Pink: Sure. I think there's a lot of lessons for leaders in this emotion of regret. So among them is the importance of just normalizing this regret and recognizing that as a leader, you're going to have regrets. And that's fine because you're a human being. What really is key is what you do with them. Again, not ignoring them, not getting stymied by them.

But confronting them, thinking about them, using them as signals and information, and there's a systematic way for us to essentially forgive ourselves for our past mistakes, to talk about our regrets, to write about our regrets, to make sense of them, and then to extract lessons from them. And it ends up, as I was mentioning earlier, it ends up being powerful in a lot of leadership capabilities.

It can help improve your strategy. It can help clarify your thinking and avoid cognitive biases. It can help you become more skilled negotiator. What's more, the other thing for healthcare leaders is that, we know what people regret the most. We know what leaders regret the most. And typically what leaders regret the most are not acting boldly and not doing the right thing.

 Many times in your leadership journey, you're at a juncture. You can play it safe or you can take the chance. Play it safe and take the chance. And what I found among leaders, among all people, is that overwhelmingly, not all the time, but most of the time, people regret not taking the chance.

We also see overwhelmingly, people regret over time inactions much more than actions. Over time, people regret the things they didn't do much more than the things that they did, particularly when it comes to acts of boldness. So I think that's the biggest lesson for leaders.

The second biggest lesson for leaders is how many regrets have a kind of a moral component to them. Once again, you're at a juncture in your life. You can do the right thing, you can do the wrong thing. You can take the high road or you can take the low road. And most people who take the low road, who do the wrong thing, most people, and I don't, when I say most, I don't mean 51%.

I mean, 98%. Uh, regret it. Because most of us are good and want to be good. And so once again, if we understand what people regret the most, it gives us this kind of photographic negative, a reverse image of what we really want out of life and what we really want out of our organization.

So I do think that this emotion reveals an array of clues and an array what it takes to lead a good life and what it means to be a good leader, along with some very specific practical action steps that leaders can take.

Host: Yeah. I was just listening to you and processing and sort of reflecting on my own life. And I, I think that's so right. That the things that I regret, that I spend time when I'm being mindful and making time for mindfulness and reflecting on my life, the things that I regret are always the things that I didn't do.

As you say, you know, those acts of boldness, it makes me wonder, well, then, if we know that about ourselves and we know that that's the most common thing that folks regret, how do we not regret that? How do we in those moments be more bold, and do the things that we, so that we don't end up regretting not doing them later, if you follow.

Daniel Pink: That's a great question, Scott. I'll give you two very specific techniques for that. One of them is, uh, I think one of the very finest and easiest leadership techniques that I know, it comes from Andy Grove, who was the former CEO of Intel. And he found that when he was making a tough decision, when he had to decide what to do, particularly when it came to acting boldly or playing it safe, he would ask himself this question.

If I were replaced tomorrow, what would my successor do? If I were replaced tomorrow? And he almost always knew, and it was almost always, being less timid than he was about to be at that moment. So that kind of what in psychology is called self distancing, taking a step back and evaluating your own problem as if you're evaluating someone else's problem is a very sturdy, powerful, and frankly, inexpensive technique.

So that's one technique. The other thing, which is a little bit, I don't mean to get woo woo on you here, but it's, it's, you can imagine having a conversation with yourself 10 years from now. Imagine if you could get on the phone and call yourself 10 years from now.

So 2034, it's pretty clear to me what 2034 you wants you to do. And so if you go and you meet the you of 2034 and you've played it safe, you've been timid, you haven't taken the shot; 2034 you is going to say, come on man, what were you doing? You're like, you're not going to be here forever. When are you going to step up?

 If you take the low road as a leader, if you do something unethical or cut corners, 2034 you is going to say, hello, I got, we got to have a little talk here. And so, uh,

Host: Right.

Daniel Pink: And so when we think about our future selves, we can make a pretty safe prediction about what we'll care about. Most things we won't care about, but there are certain things, particularly connecting with others, acting boldly, being moral, building a stable foundation for ourselves and our teams. Those are things we will care about. And that technique offers a way for you to make future self happier by making your present self act better.

Host: That's perfect. I think I've got, Dan, the easiest question you're going to get today. What do you like to do during your downtime? I know you have a lot of books, so I'm guessing some reading, a fair amount of reading, going through regrets, but generally what do you like, what do you like to do with your downtime?

Daniel Pink: I'm a writer, so not surprisingly, I do a lot of reading. I'm not really that big on hobbies. What I like doing in my downtime, really more than anything else, is exercising. The older I get, the more I am just a fervent believer in the importance of movement and exercise and, this vigorous activity almost every day. So that's the thing that I like most. And then I guess the second thing, which absolutely counteracts all the exercise I do, is that I also am a very passionate amateur bartender.

Host: Interesting. And I know you're presenting the Parker B. Francis Distinguished Lecture, Leadership Culture and the New Principles of Influence at Congress. So give us a sneak preview of your session and generally what can attendees expect?

Daniel Pink: Well, for that, when I'm in Chicago, I'm going to be talking about this really, really interesting body of research on selling, influence, persuasion. What it shows us is that if you look at what executives do, if you look at what leaders do, a huge portion of their day, they're doing things that are not always explicitly in their job description.

They are selling, to put a very fine point on. They're not necessarily selling services or medical equipment or anything like that, but they are persuading and influencing, convincing and cajoling. They're trying to get people to, on their team, to go this direction rather than that direction. They're trying to get people to join their team rather than go to a competitor.

They're trying to get people to stop doing things. They're trying to get regulators to change their minds on things. And so we're going to look at sort of what it means to be a leader and why being a leader is essentially a persuasive job. But most important, we're going to look at some very, very exciting and rich bodies of science, giving us specific practical tools about how to do that more effectively.

How to take another person's point of view, which is extraordinarily helpful in any kind of persuasion or negotiation. How to bounce back from rejection, which you often will get as a persuader, how to curate information as we were talking about earlier and make it even simpler, how to spend less time changing people's minds and more time getting people to act. All kinds of really interesting science based tools and tips to become more persuasive, and to do it ethically and effectively.

Host: Uh, it's perfect. This has been great today, Dan. Just great to meet you, learn about you, what you do professionally, your bartending aspirations. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

Daniel Pink: Total pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Host: And you can learn more from Daniel Pink at the 2024 Congress on Healthcare Leadership, March 25th through the 28th in Chicago.

To learn more and to register, visit ache.org/congress. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it on your social channels and please consider rating and reviewing our show. Thanks for listening.