Why the smartest person in the room is asking the “dumb” questions | from TED Business

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He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafés are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. This episode is sponsored by Rula. When you're going through a difficult breakup or a tough time at work or just dealing with the anxiety and stress of everyday life, the last thing you want to do is scour the internet for therapists who take your insurance. A lot of online therapy won't accept insurance at all, which means taking care of your mental health requires paying out of pocket or signing up for a pricey monthly subscription. But Rula does things differently. They partner with over 120 insurance plans, meaning the average copay is just $15 per session. That's real therapy from licensed professionals at a price point that actually makes sense. 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Molly came onto the TED scene back in 2024 when she gave a talk telling people to dish the stairs and jump off a cliff. Don't worry, it's a metaphor. Molly loves metaphors. And now she's back, this time as the new host of TED's WorkLife podcast. She's taken the reins from longtime host Adam Grant, and honestly, I can't think of a better person for the job. After a long career of supporting leaders at some of the country's largest tech companies, Molly wants to use her vast experience to help more people feel less alone in their careers. During our conversation, Molly shared some special tips on how to embrace change, especially during a time where all of our jobs are rapidly changing, whether we like it or not. But first, a quick break. This episode is powered by AT&T Business. If you're running your own business, you know that the Sunday scaries are real. You're thinking about the invoices, the client calls, the inventory, the list that never actually ends. 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Toyota's new all-electric family leans into that idea. The C-HR, for example, has a bold, distinctive design. Something that stands out a little in a good way. While the BZ and the BZ Woodland each bring their own personality to the table. It's a reminder that the things we use every day don't have to be neutral. They can actually reflect who we are. Learn more at Toyota.com. The new all-electric family. Toyota. Let's go places. And now, my conversation with Molly Graham. Molly Graham, it is so nice to have you on the TED Business Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I am delighted to be able to spend time with you today. And you're not new to TED in 2024. You did give a TED Talk. I did. And you told folks in that talk that they shouldn't take the stairs. Can you tell our listeners what you told them? The stairs is my sort of metaphor. I live in metaphors for kind of what I think what we think careers are supposed to feel like. Or maybe it's like what our parents told us careers are supposed to feel like. Where you're supposed to show up in college and know what you want to do. That major is supposed to lead you to your first job. And then you get another job and you get promoted and promoted and promoted forever. The best part about the stairs is safety and security. It feels like you know what you need to do to get ahead. The worst part of the stairs is that it's like a weird video game that you can get stuck inside of for years. The stairs will make you feel like your self-worth is tied to your title or your last performance rating or your next promotion. And I would say that I followed that path for a little while. And then at some point someone offered me a crazy opportunity. And actually drew on a whiteboard for me what he called a cliff jump. He was like, you can stay on the stairs. It's boring over there, but why don't you jump off a cliff? Most people do not stay stuck on the stairs out of necessity. They stay there out of fear. The trick is to learn to tell the difference between the kind of fear that says, I'm scared I might run out of money, which you should actually listen to, and the kind of fear that says, I'm scared I might fail, which you should take as a giant green flashing light to jump. Cliff jumps teach you what you are capable of in spite of fear. He was like, you know, cliff jumps are fun. They're also terrible. He was like, you're gonna fall. You're gonna fall for a while. They do take you down and backwards and you sort of feel like maybe it was a mistake. But then there comes a moment when you're like, hit the bottom and start to climb out. And this sort of climbing out can take you places that the stairs don't even go to. That's the thing about jumping off cliffs. It doesn't just take you a couple flights up on the stairs. It's like a weird elevator that takes you to a whole new place. Cliff jumps teach you who you are and what you are capable of in ways that the stairs can never. After saying that, what did you hear from folks? It's been so fun because I think one of my favorite things to do in the world is to help people feel sane in the middle of change. And I think a lot of what I talked about in my TED Talk was like what it feels like when you take a risk, which is, first of all, the fear that comes before the jump and how you navigate that. And then all of the emotions that come as you jump and as you're falling and you just feel like an idiot all the time and you often are like, you know, did I make a mistake? Should I go back? And I think talking about those feelings, talking about the fact that even if you have those feelings, it doesn't mean it was a mistake and that there will be a moment, and it often takes longer than you think it should, like takes six to nine months to feel that moment of competence, but there will be a moment of competence that will help you realize, oh, this is why and this is how much I've learned. So all of that is to say that I think describing Well, I think that's right. And I also love your point about signals. To your point, the emotions are trying to tell you something and you can listen to them and you can observe them and you can take the information, but the point is to just not let them control you. Control you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and not be reactive. Right. Your two weeks allows you to be proactive, not reactive, you know? And your talk resonates with me a lot because I'm on sabbatical right now and having a really unique experience. I've had to embrace my inner professional idiot, which you talk about. I've had to do it. I can tell you that this is one of my greatest strengths. I am comfortable sounding like a moron. I am great at sitting in rooms with brilliant people asking very dumb questions. But what that actually means is that I have become an extraordinary learner. The first meaningful jump I ever took was leaving HR at Facebook and somebody asked me if I wanted to build a mobile phone. And I actually didn't mention that detail in the talk, but it was such a dramatic change. I was like, why are you talking to me? Like, I know nothing about mobile. I know nothing about hardware. This friend said to me, you've proven that you're good at like running these big company-wide projects in HR. Why don't you go see, like, if it's transferable? Why don't you go see how actually good you are? And it was such a good challenge to 25 or 26-year-old me. I was like, ooh, yeah, I'm gonna go see. And so I took this job and started on this project. And I spent six to nine months feeling just like a complete moron. And I was sitting in rooms with all these amazing engineers. And I was like, excuse me, what is a CPU? Or like, what is that? And what does that word mean? Or what does that acronym mean? And at first, it was just me in my head being like, am I the only, I think I'm the only idiot in this room that has no idea what is going on. And then I taught myself to just kind of pull people's sleeves after the meeting and say, hi, sorry if this is a dumb question, but like, what did that mean? Or I didn't understand that. And part of what I learned when I would tug people's sleeves is that they loved teaching me, that they were happy to answer the question. They didn't think it was dumb. It, I mean, for them, in a lot of cases, it let them feel like an expert. And the other side of that is that most dumb questions are not actually dumb. And the beginner's eyes and the beginner's mindset often are actually just like the most valuable resource because even if you walk into an organization, having those beginner's eyes, like you see things that everybody else just takes for granted. So many people are afraid of sounding dumb that the world is littered with important questions that never got asked. Questions like, can you define that word for me? Why are we doing this? Why are we having this meeting? Embracing being a professional idiot often actually makes you the most valuable person in the room. At my last company that I ran, we had a 30-day presentation for all new hires. It started with all new executive hires and then we started doing it for every single new person. We just said, tell us what you're seeing. Tell us what seems strange. Tell us what you expected. Tell us what you're planning to do. You know, give us like a little bit of your roadmap. But a lot of it was just about hearing what they were seeing so that we could learn from them. We have to remember we are our harshest critics. Yeah. And so you're sitting there like, I think this is a dumb question. And then everyone's like, no, this is a good question. Oh my God, so real. And often I tell like more junior people starting off in their jobs or whatever, if you had a question and someone senior or someone else asked it, that is a reminder that your questions matter and you need to ask them and raise your hand. A hundred percent. And actually, I think at Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg was actually very good at that. She used to get really mad at any of us, but definitely at me when we made ourselves small. She was always like, ask the fucking question. You know? Ask it. Hello. Just ask it. And what are you afraid of? This is going back to the fear. What are you afraid of? I don't think I've ever left a meeting and said, can you believe that person asked such a dumb question? Yeah, totally. This episode is brought to you by Framer. A new website or landing page can quickly turn into a chain of requests and handoffs. If your team wants a site that looks handcrafted, but is still fast to ship, Framer is built for that. Framer is the pro website platform trusted by companies like Miro and Perplexity. What sets Framer apart is that AI agents work directly inside the canvas. The same place where the real site is designed, managed, and published. Agents help draft pages, manage content, and optimize SEO so your team can review, refine, and publish all without leaving the tool. Agents bring the speed and scale, and your team brings the taste, judgment, and final call on what goes live. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com/worklife for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/worklife for 30% off. Framer.com/worklife. Rules and restrictions may apply. 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Exclusive offers available now. Explore further at rangerover.com. You have the vision for your business. You have the plan. And you just got handed a huge opportunity. But is your business connectivity reliable enough to make a move? Spectrum Business delivers fast, reliable internet, phone, TV, and mobile services so you're always connected when it matters most. Get connectivity packages built for your business with savings that keep your budget in check. And with fast, reliable internet and 100% US-based customer support, you'll stay connected and ready to bring your vision to life. Learn more at spectrum.com slash business. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. What are some of the lessons you've learned about what it takes to scale a company and be effective? I started my career in tech at Google. Google was really quite big at the time. I think maybe 10,000 employees or something. But my department that I joined, which was communications, was 25 people when I joined it. And nine months later, it was 125 people. So 5X growth in a really short period of time. And one of my many lessons from scale is that the rate matters more than the number. Growing from one to five can feel as crazy as going the rate that I went through. It is just that percentage growth that really dictates the experience of it for people. But one of the things that I really saw was when you're going through that level of scale, and then I saw it again and again and again at Facebook in the time that I was there, was fear. Like what we were talking about. There's so much changing and so much happening that people get scared. And the instinct when you're scared is to hold on to what you know. The instinct when you're scared is to control, right? And so in a lot of these cases, particularly when you've been early at a company, you have built an identity. You're like, I am the person that does X. And the truth is that if you don't evolve, right? If you stay trying to hold on to that thing that you're known for, that thing that you're good at, the whole company is growing and changing around you, right? So if you hold on and you stay attached to one identity that was relevant in this one year or this one instance, you're sinking because everything around you is growing. So what was true for me at Facebook was the graph of how fast our business was growing felt to me like the graph, not only of how fast the company was changing, but also of how fast my job was growing and changing and therefore how fast I needed to grow and change. I came up with this talk that I used to give folks that worked for me called Give Away Your Legos. And it was just like, I know you've built this beautiful house and you're really proud of it and it's very shiny and new and maybe it's not quite done, but I need you to like hand them off. And I need you to give them to that new hire we just hired and I need you to go work on this new thing. And yes, it's scary and yes, it's hard and all the emotions that we've been talking about. But part of the rule with scale is that you have to grow as fast as the company is growing. Yeah, my God This point that have enough experience that they have some scars and battle wounds, but also want to keep learning and growing and want to find a safe space to say, this is crazy and how do I do this? And I'm scared or I don't know what I'm doing. And to be able to have that kind of community around you is, for me, one of the most powerful forces to to help you be the best leader you can be. Nobody had the answers, you know what I mean? It's not like anybody's out there like being like, I've done this before. It's like, no, we're all facing down this incredible sense of what is this gonna look like in five years? And you really need people that you can say, what are you seeing and what are you seeing and what are you trying and what are you failing at? What are some of the key themes that you hear people express? So much of what we talk about is about the humans. I always say, we try to make all the playbooks and all the frameworks in the world, but at the end of the day, companies are just organizations of humans. It's an entity that was designed to pull a group of humans together and hopefully create something that's greater than the sum of its parts. And what are humans made up of? Humans are made up of talents and time. So the job of leadership at the end of the day is how do you create the conditions for success? And part of my point to the folks that we work with, and this is something you have to learn when you're earlier in your management career is you can't make people successful. You can create the conditions that give them the highest likelihood of being successful. And I always think the holy grail is you want the highest performer in the world to think, I want to work for that person, right? Because they created this beautiful environment where I can do my best work. But the point is not to make that person successful. The point is to build the environment where they can do their best work. And so that is what we talk about and we talk about all the messy human stuff that's part of that, right? How do you manage people? How do you create those conditions? What is your job? What isn't your job? I actually feel like one of the things more and more I'm seeing with even the AI conversation is just these days anyway, it's about how the humans use the tools and watching the behaviors of humans and how they integrate with AI is fascinating. But yeah, at the end of the day, it's all about the humans. Yes. And you did not say the humans and their crazy and their baggage and their trauma from their mama and their dad. I do tell my students, like this leadership thing you're signing up for is not easy, you know? No, I know. You just said something that I actually say inside of Glue Club a lot. I don't know that I say it publicly that much, but I feel like one of the things people come to Glue Club for is to be like, is this crazy normal or is this crazy extra special bad? So much of what we hear in like the first couple months that people sign up is like either it's like, oh, okay, it's normal crazy or it's like, oh, this is not good. That is not right. And in addition to Glue Club, I think it's also really good that senior leaders have executive coaches to really have other sounding boards about like what kind of crazy is this? Is this extraterrestrial crazy or is it crazy, crazy? Yeah, totally. Well, and one of the things that I talk about with folks that are curious about the community is that I think executive coaching is one of the most beautiful things in the world. I was gifted one in one of my last leadership roles and it made all the difference in the world to me and my sanity and me figuring out who I was and where I needed to go. And not everyone can afford it, right? And so part of what I think we do in Glue Club is sometimes provide an on-ramp to that because nobody can do this alone. Do you know what I mean? Well, you can try, but it is like lonely and hard and it will make you think you're nuts. You know, the more senior you get, the less likely you are to find that support inside the four walls of your company. The more likely people are looking at you thinking, what should we do? And you're like, I don't know. So you need support. I think one of the things I love most in the world is helping people that I'm not necessarily going to be able to meet, but helping them not just in a sort of superficial way. Like making them feel like, oh, you moved me forward or you unstuck me or you made this make sense. And that's the kind of emails that I get from my writing. And that brings me a lot of joy. And it sounds like that is going to continue because the new exciting news, you're taking over from Adam Grant and you will be the new podcast host of Work Life. Yeah. What are you excited about? You're going to be my TED cousin. Yeah, I know. I'm so excited. TED Audio cousins. Yes. TED gave me a call about nine months ago and asked, they said that Adam was going to stop doing Work Life and that they wanted to figure out the new version of the show. And they asked if I wanted to be the host of it. And I had this immediate fear reaction. I was like, I don't know if I could do that. I don't know if I'm going to be good at it. I'm terrified. And because of all my experiences, I was like, okay, we have to say yes to this, you know? But the other thing that I really felt and feel more now, even that I've started making episodes, is just this deep excitement to have a platform to connect with more people and to help them feel less lonely and more confident in their work journey. And so much of what has made my leadership journey sane is having mentors and these smart, wonderful people in my life that I've been able to learn from. And so a lot of what I'm excited about is bringing on some of the people that I've learned the most from, but also just all these other amazing humans, some of whom I'm even meeting for the first time, and drawing out their lessons that we can all use, you know? And so trying to give people access to that wisdom that helps us feel a little bit less alone and hopefully helps give us new tools that can make us better sort of humans at work. Well, I felt the exact same way around six years ago when I started as the host of TED Business. And if there's any advice I'd offer, it's have fun and then just continue to remember that you have incredible things to share. And I know that for sure, having just spent this short time with you, I have enjoyed every minute of our time together and I really wish you all the best with your podcast as my TED cousin. And thank you for your time. This was so fun and it's such an honor to get to learn from you. Feeling's mutual. Thank you. Thanks. That was Molly Graham and I in conversation at the TED Conference this past April. You can catch episodes of Molly's new season of Work Life wherever you get your podcasts. That's it for today. TED Business is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced by Hannah Kingsley-Ma, edited by Alejandro Salazar, and fact-checked by Julia Dickerson. Special thanks to Maria Laddius, Farrah de Grunge, Daniela Balarezo, Tom Sakasong Manibong, and Roxanne Highlash. I'm Madhu Pack-Agnola. Thanks for listening. This episode is sponsored by Toyota. One of the most interesting parts of being human is that we're all a little different. Different preferences, different priorities, different ways of seeing the world. And ideally, the things we use should reflect that. Toyota's new all-electric lineup is built as a family, but not a uniform one. Each vehicle has its own personality, from the sleek, expressive design of the C-HR to the more rugged feel of the BZ Woodland. It's not about standing out for the sake of it. It's about finding something that actually feels like you. Learn more at toyota.com. The new all-electric family. Toyota. Let's go places. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com slash bank. Capital One N.A. member FDIC. There's a lot people don't tell you about owning a home. And for most of us, the questions pile up a lot quicker than the answers. The costs you don't see coming. The decisions you don't feel ready to make. It all leaves you wondering, do you own your home or does it own you? I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. And in my new podcast, Own It, I'm talking to the experts for real talk and real tips to understand what homeownership really takes. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.