Dacher Keltner is a Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley and Faculty Director of the Greater Good Science Center. Professor Keltner's research and new book, The Power Paradox, focuses on two questions. First is the biological and evolutionary origins of human emotion, with a special concentration on compassion, awe, love, and beauty, and how emotions shape all kinds of judgments. Second is the study of power, status and social class, and the nature of moral intuitions.
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ExecEd: Today, our podcast interview is with Dacher Keltner, full professor at the UC Berkeley psychology department and director of the UC-Berkeley social interaction lab. Dr. Keltner also serves as the faculty director of the Berkeley Greater Good Science Center and has taught executive education at UC Berkeley for over 15 years. Dacher has published several books as well as 190 scientific articles. He has written for the New York Times, the London Times, and UTNE Reader and has received numerous national prizes and grants for his research. In fact, his research has been covered in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the BBC, CNN, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and in many other outlets. He had collaborated with directors at Pixar and a design team as Facebook, as well as on projects at Google.
A renowned expert in the biological and evolutionary origins of human emotion, Dr. Keltner studies the science of compassion, awe, love and beauty and how emotions shape our moral intuition. Dacher received his B.A from UC Santa Barbara, and his Ph.D from Stanford University. He is the author of the best selling book, "Born To Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life." And of, "The Compassionate Instinct."
Today, we're going to be focusing on Dacher's latest book, entitled, "The Power Paradox."
Welcome Dacher, thanks for joining us today.
Dacher Keltner: It's good to be here, thanks for having me.
ExecEd: Before we dive in and talk about power, can you give me a little background on what drove you to try to research that topic.
Dacher Keltner: It's interesting, the power paradox really comes out of 25 years of research that we've been doing and then people in different labs around the world. Very simply put I was interested in 2 questions which is, "What is power and how do we fold into social hierarchies and different kinds of context." I've studied social groups on college campuses and summer camps and organizations and different places to understand who rises and who falls in social hierarchies. Along side that line of research I was also, for 25 years, really interested in, really beginning with my postdoc with Paul Ekman at UC-San Francisco on how do we express emotion. This is this ancient language, a mammalian language of subtle movements in the face, in the voice, in the body and eye contact. Through which we convey things like, "I'm interested in you." Or, "I respect you." Or, "I'm angry about this circumstance." Ironically what happened is these two lines of work started to dovetail which is power in many ways is about empathy and social intelligence and about reading people really carefully. It's been a wonderful journey.
ExecEd: I'm so fascinated by that juxtaposition because when you think about power you think about the opposite.
Dacher Keltner: Yeah.
ExecEd: In your new book, "The Power Paradox." You start talking about Machiavellian sort of power and how it's manipulation and the whole legacy of his power juxtaposed against.
Dacher Keltner: Right.
ExecEd: What you bring up, the Taoist and Eastern traditions and I love the quote you have in there from the Taoist leader you had, "To lead the people, walk behind them."
Dacher Keltner: Yeah.
ExecEd: Can you talk to me about that contrast.
Dacher Keltner: It's so interesting. When I started this work on power and we dissect this in our classes with executives is that there was this very deep legacy in thinking about what power is that traces back to Machiavelli, a 16th century politician in Florence, Italy who wrote The Prince, which is the most important book in Western thought ever written about power. In that book what he argues is that power is really about force and manipulation and coercion and violence. Animo in the language of his times. What we have to remember is books are written in historical context. Machiavelli was writing at a time in Florence, Italy, as beautiful as it is it was arguably one of the most violent places in human history. It was as if he was writing a book about power that would apply to the violence of drug cartels or illegal arms salespeople.
We've evolved a lot since 16th century Italy. We have laws, rights, social organizations and forms of accountability. What I argue is those ideas of force and manipulation and violence are really outdated and don't apply to power today.
ExecEd: What is 21st century power. How do you define that.
Dacher Keltner: I think what we have to take a look at is all of the social changes. I define power as making a difference in the world. As altering other people as influence. What we know today is that we are a social networking society, we are a society that works most of the time in teams that is getting things done, be it a patent or a scientific discovery or moving people in an emergency room, collectively. We do things more collectively today than at any time in human history. What that means is power, the ability to get things done or to make a difference in the world is about stirring other people to effective action. It's about moving other people and inspiring them.
ExecEd: Are you saying that in the 21st century with technology it's a different kind of power plan because of that.
Dacher Keltner: Yeah it is. It's radically different. In every fashion we do things more collectively today than even 50 years ago. We work on interdisciplinary teams in different kinds of sectors. We are connected to people through Facebook and through new social media. We work in more complicated teams of more women in organizations, people from different backgrounds. What that means is the quality of our work, it really rests upon who well we can inspire and motivate teams. It really is different than it was 50 years ago.
ExecEd: Getting back to this idea, this juxtaposition of what we think power is and how you get it and how you really do get it. Talk to me more about how you get power.
Dacher Keltner: This one is such a interesting discovery in the scientific literature. 40 years ago scientists started to look at, drop a human being in a group and who rises to power, who earns the respect of their peers, who has opportunities for influence. Who develops a really strong reputation. A lot of people have Machiavellian intuitions like, "Well it's going to be the ruthless manipulated who's charming but deceptive." Who will rise in those groups. That turns out to be dead wrong. That's a stereotype of power, a myth of power, that turns out to be misguided. In fact what studies find is, I tend to call it sort of more socially intelligent individuals gain power.
It breaks down to some really simple things like if you really are reaching out to other people and enthusiastic. If you're open to other peoples ideas and their feelings. If you are really focused on the task at hand. Believe it or not if you're kind. Kind people who share resources and opportunities and ideas rise in organizations and you're calm. Calm people tend to rise and have perspective and handle stress do well. What's sticking, Joanne, is that these social intelligent principles, they work for kids on grammar school playgrounds, it's kids who are more socially intelligent rise in power. They work in every kind of organization you could study in different parts of the world. They work in military units, they've actually studied what cadets rise to the position of officer. They really are quite a contrast to the Machiavellian view of power.
ExecEd: We're here on campus as UC Berkeley and I think in your book you talk about college dorm as an example of ideas of power.
Dacher Keltner: Yeah.
ExecEd: Can you talk to me about that.
Dacher Keltner: One of the things that the science of power that I've been part of has taught us is we really have to, and anybody in their own life will recognize this, which is that we used to think of power as, "Well that's just politics or it's money or it's military action." Really power is everywhere. Bertrand Russell, the great British philosopher said, "Energy is the fundamental question in physics. It's about how object relate to each other. Power is the fundamental question of social dynamics. All relationships have a dimension of power to them." Guided by that, social scientists like myself have studied power dynamics in families, between parents and kids, romantic partners.
In my own lab, we study who rises to power in dorms at Berkeley, in sororities, fraternities, basketball camps. Again, what we do, and college dorms allow us to do this, they all come their first year, they're excited about being part of this dorm, they don't know each other, they come from different backgrounds and then we can study who, quickly, gains the respect of their peers. What we find is really interesting and it replicates. For example, in financial advising firms, which is really quickly people fold into social hierarchies. You meet people, you interact with them a bit and you realize this person is somebody I'd respect and I'd like to see in a leadership position. Secondly, that reputation you develop moves through your social networks through casual conversations, and gossip and things like that.
Quickly, groups of different kinds start to give power to certain kids of individuals. The people who are good for the group.
ExecEd: It's giving as opposed to getting.
Dacher Keltner: Yeah. Again, the science and science is good because it challenges our stereotypes and our cultural assumptions. There's this idea out in the broad culture of, "How you get power is you grab it." We love literature and dramas and television shows about power grabs. We think about, I've been watching Breaking Bad and about how Walter White becomes this Machiavellian and he grabs power. That's fiction, and more often what you see in the organizations that make up our lives is people, groups, kind of give power to certain individuals. In fact, individuals who want to go out and grab power in Machiavellian ways quickly develop reputations as Machiavellians and they become isolated in the activities of the group.
ExecEd: Even in Breaking Bad he had a sweet spot, a little compassion for his partner.
Dacher Keltner: Yes he does.
ExecEd: You talk about that in your research about compassionate instincts.
Dacher Keltner: Yeah.
ExecEd: Again, so curious to know it does fly in the face of what one naturally thinks is about power.
Dacher Keltner: It's so striking. Again, this is where, we have these old ideas, cultures have ideas. We had ideas long ago about how you treat an illness, you bleed people, you leech them, and those were bad ideas. We have these old ideas about power, that it's really about violence and taking people down. In fact, time and time again, I'll give you a couple of examples, studies find that people who are generous, who give resources away, give opportunities away, rise in power and just as critically they keep their power, they have enduring legacies.
Studies are finding, for example, that more generous individuals of social networks tend to earn the respect and status of their peers. In studies of organizations and military units, schools. It's the more generous individual who enjoys enduring power, who doesn't fall from power. Another really compelling example is in the political realm, and this really tests the Machiavellian hypothesis in the strongest way and what you find, historians have rated the legacies of US Presidents and you find that the great Presidents were also really empathetic and kind Abe Lincoln is most typically rated as the, has the greatest legacy of any President, along with FDR and few couple others. He was defined by his interest in other people.
ExecEd: In his empathy.
Dacher Keltner: In his empathy.
ExecEd: In the book you're talking about social intelligence versus social Darwinism.
Dacher Keltner: Yeah.
ExecEd: Are we saying forget Darwin? Survival of the fittest and everything else.
Dacher Keltner: It's interesting. What we're starting to see is this juxtaposition between our old ideas about power, like social Darwinist ideas, survival of the fittest, take all of your competitors down, Machiavelli even has phrases where he says, "Once you've risen to power to the position of The Prince, kill your allies." That is an earlier version of social Darwinism among on this side, in this corner, is the socially intelligent way, which is make good ties, get people to work well, give resources away and so forth. I think that in general the data lend, they give the nod to this, "Practice social intelligence, be respectful, listen carefully, ask good questions." You have to be tough at times, obviously, but really focus on enhancing the welfare of others.
ExecEd: Lets talk about the paradox then.
Dacher Keltner: Yeah, I know.
ExecEd: You spend a lot of time talking about how yo get power and all this compassion and empathy and then you talk about the abuses. What happens.
Dacher Keltner: I know. This was the striking thing that happened in my 25 years of studying power and teaching it for 15 years here at Haas. When I teach this, it's such a fascinating moment. Leaders immediately recognize this. In fact, I think the power paradox might be the central puzzle of human life, which is the following. As we've been discussion we earn the respect of people. Our teenagers at home, the people we work with, our critics, the members of our community, by doing the hard work that advances the welfare of many. That's how we get power. That takes social intelligence. It takes listening and empathy and really careful navigation of circumstances. Then here's the paradox, which is the feeling of power. Suddenly when you feel, "Man, am I on top of my game." What we know is you start feeling enthusiastic and empowered and hopeful and a little bit manic, arrogant and on top of the world.
ExecEd: You go to the dark side.
Dacher Keltner: The dark side comes in, and you are vulnerable to all of the abuses of power that we see in our newspapers and in our history books.
ExecEd: What can we do when we're leaders whether we're at an organization, in a dorm room, in our life, what can we do to avoid that.
Dacher Keltner: I actually think it's pretty simple and it's starts by, I see the abuses of power as almost warning signs. The abuses of power come in two categories. One is what has been well documented and people see this in their work all the time which is what you might call empathy deficits, which is people when they're feeling powerful and no one's keeping them on their game they really stop listening carefully. Studies find that when you feel powerful you don't judge other peoples emotions as accurately, you listen less carefully, you have trouble taking other peoples perspectives. Whereas you could do so when you felt less powerful and you're rising in the hierarchy. You stop showing signs of compassion. We have a study that shows that if people feeling powerful are listening to another person talking about a really serious issue in their life, like the illness of a relative or trouble at work, once you feel powerful you stop making nice eye contact and connecting with the person.
The first abuse of power is the empathy deficits and then he second is the stuff that is just, you see it in every culture. It's one of the most perplexing qualities of power is a lot of impulsive behavior. I like to say power turns you into an impulsive sociopath. When you give people power in experiments they speak more rudely, they're more likely to swear at people, they touch people inappropriately. We had a study where we gave participants power, they were working on a team, we brought them in a nice plate of chocolate chip cookies, the powerful person was more likely to take more cookies and eat the cookies really impulsively with their mouths open and cookies falling on their sweaters. You can survey organizations, "Is the powerful person who's more likely to swear at colleagues, more likely to have sexual affairs." It goes on and on.
Those are warning signs. When you feel like you're not listening to people carefully, the empathy deficits, when you suddenly find yourself like, "Oh, I just interrupted my colleague." Or, "I swore at somebody." Profane language is part of life. Or are you feeling like you're impulsive, those are warning signs that you're going to lose your power. To your question, what do we do. I think what's interesting is people are, if you look at what's happening in the study of organizations, practices in organizations, people are really getting interested in anecdotes to the power paradox. Things like, "How do you stay empathetic with your colleagues, how do you listen carefully, how do you handle stress well so you don't fly off the handle and shout at your team." I think there are a lot of thing you can do to counteract the abuses of power.
ExecEd: Is the onus on those business leaders in those organizations to be self aware, or is it something that you're looking for a movement that we're codifying and kind of looking at what we need to do.
Dacher Keltner: Great question. I think it's both. I think the great leaders, people like the Abe Lincolns of the world who build up strong organizations, they know. They stay close to a set of practices that keeps them sharp. It might be things like practicing gratitude and appreciation, which we know makes organizations strong. Or it might be things like telling good stories, great leaders are great storytellers and when they tell those stories, their teams and the organizations feel like, "This is my identity, I feel connected to this." Great leaders listen carefully, great leaders are playful. It's funny, the physicist Richard Feynman, when I teach leaders in the biotech world and some of them were around him were like, "God, he was brilliant, yes, but he was playful and funny." It loosened up and gave everybody a sense of camaraderie. They are just the day to day stuff that can keep a sharp. Leaders need to be responsible for that, and then I think organizations need to build in opportunities for them.
ExecEd: How does that relate, then, to culture at organizations. You've consulted, you've worked with Google, Facebook, Pixar, others. Look at Apple, one could say was Steve Jobs, in terms of power. What do you have to say about culture in this instance.
Dacher Keltner: It's so interesting when you step into an organization. Thanks to Haas, I've had the chance to teach at Lawrence Livermore Labs and biotech companies, Google, Facebook, financial advising firms, really all sorts of different sectors. When you step in you can immediately get a sense of where the culture is on these dimensions. People will tell you spontaneously, like, "My leaders treat me with respect." Or not. Or, "Wow, my leader's really are thoughtful and empathetic, this is a really playful organization." Or not, "We tell great stories." Or not. When you step into organizations the sense of culture that you have about it can be captured with these qualities I've been talking about. About the properties of the social network, is it open and free flowing information or not. Is it a respectful appreciative culture or not and that's what I go into working with the organizations around.
ExecEd: What does it mean in terms of performance at the organization in terms of this power that we're talking about.
Dacher Keltner: We intuitively recognize that these are, and philosophers have been talking about this for a long time, people like Adam Smith, that gratitude, respect and empathy being great storytellers or great human attributes but do they enhance the bottom line. In many ways that's the key question as organizations think about shifting culture in this direction. The data are rolling in that they do in really striking ways. There are studies showing, for example, that managers who lead in more empathetic ways, or just kind of asking the right questions and listening carefully and taking that minute to connect. Their workers are more productive and have fewer sick days because they feel respected. There are great studies of gratitude in organizations now showing if managers just say, "Thank you." And are appreciative and mean it, their workers will actually be more productive. For example in making more calls and soliciting more funds in fundraising. A lot of the data are starting to show that as organizations move to these socially intelligent qualities, their workers are more committed, their having more fun, their working better, fewer sick days. It's good news for the bottom line.
One of the interesting questions is what I've talked about it power and the unsuccessful qualities of Machiavellianism and ruthless violence in organizations and families. There are a lot of data that suggest these principles of empathy and gratitude and kindness work at the dyadic level between romantic partners. One of the questions is how do we take these principles that work at organizations and then apply them to the international scene with nations and states and terrorist entities and the like. I think we're learning really interesting things that are germane.
One that really struck me that I saw as a challenge to the Machiavellian view of power at the international level is historians have rated the success of protest movements. When you're a small entity, like ISIS, and you want to challenge power. What they find is ruthless violent strategies do not work. Rather, more collaborative, non-violent, consensus building strategies are successful. What that tells us historically, and this is an analysis of I think over 500 international or political struggles is ISIS is not going to work. Just on that basis alone because people look at it and they go, "Sexual slaves, you're beheading people, you're torturing people, you're doing this." No one will align with that as a broader demonstration of power.
I think the other place where the principles that we've been talking about really matter and in fact there's a complimentary conversation going on right now with people like Joseph Nye at Harvard. You start hearing this concept of soft power, that is juxtaposed to the older models of power, of hard power, of you go in and you blow things up and you get boots on the ground. Right now, I think we're seeing this shift in foreign policy to soft power which is you have more enduring power when you don't just strike out, when you don't just kill and you instead build a consensus, spread ideas, build norms, build institutions. That aligns with some of the stuff we've been talking about. You're only as good in terms of the respect and the strength of your social network.
Shock and awe, which caused this mess, most people believe, was a demonstration of pure hard power with no consensus and no collaboration and it failed. Diplomacy is moving more toward how many countries can you align, are there democratic ways to build up support around this, are there softer ways we can influence through building schools or institutions and that's where the enduring power will lie.
ExecEd: Actually, you see it on a global scene is what happens as a reaction to that is compassion.
Dacher Keltner: Yeah, exactly.
ExecEd: Everyone stand with Paris, you know what happened with 9/11 so you see linking of arms virtually.
Dacher Keltner: I always think about this evolutionarily. It's so interesting, you think about the raw politics of the small groups in which we survived. This is for hundreds of thousands of years. We lived in these small tribes of 100 people of so, collaborating and cooperating, and facing violent raids against tribes nearby. Mainly raids that were targeting Machiavellians in our group by the way, which is interesting. Most of the violence of the olden times was directed at Machiavellian times. We live in these small groups and anthropologists were lucky enough to study 48 of those societies and find out who lead those groups. Again, it lends credence to this model of power I've been talking about, which is they were fair, generous, kind, impartial, open to other people, respected, connected. Also, they were courageous and knew how to fight the fight at the right moment.
I think that's true toady which is you go with the soft forms of power and then if you cross your lines you go after it. That's the debate, I think, that's happening today. That we have moved more toward softer power, moving away from indiscriminate interventions and then if they cross lines we have to take action.
ExecEd: One of the places that you consulted was Pixar and I can't leave without asking you about, "Inside Out." Talk to us about that experience.
Dacher Keltner: That was a highlight of the career. One of the real delights being here at Berkeley for 25 years, I run a big lab and I've worked on emotion, power, strong communities and social networks. For 3 and a half years got to work at Facebook, Google and the like and really one of the shining moments of my careers was this consulting work as a scientist for Inside Out at Pixar. It began I was on a panel with Pete Doctor, who always does really deep research on his topics. That was about 9 years ago, and then before he started inside out, it takes about 5 years to make a film, he calls me up and he's like, "Hey, I'm thinking about doing this movie." I'm like, "Well, I highly recommend it." "It's going to be about emotion." I'm like, "Wow, well that's exiting." He's like, "It's going to be able how emotions are inside a persons head and then they shape the outside world." I was like, "Well that's what emotions are." "I'm going to do it and the main character's going to be an 11 year old girl." I'm like, "Good luck."
I got to visit the campus, Pixar's campus several times and meet with his team and meet with Pete individually and watch the film develop and give talks on science of empathy and communication. I think it's the most important statement about what emotions are and how important they are to not only families and identities but as we're learning now about work and organizations, that emotions are the language of social life.
ExecEd: It's shown on the face. I know you've done a lot of work on facial coding and all of that.
Dacher Keltner: Yeah. I've spent.
ExecEd: Give us you're faces.
Dacher Keltner: I've spent more time coding facial expression than any human being alive. We've done more work on the voice than any lab. These are amazingly important signals that we're emitting all the time that drive how credible you are at a pitch or how you do in a negotiation. Does your team think you're trustworthy it's really through this ancient language that's been evolving for millions of years and one of the great delights of Inside Out was to give a science talk on here's what we know on the face and voice and then to see it play out in the film. At the very end of the movie the main character, Riley, reunites with her mom and dad and they have this nice embrace, I studied the power of touch on teams, and then she emits this little vocalization just about her delight in being connected to her parents again that we study in our lab. They got the science absolutely right and really the fundamental lesson about how important emotion is to strong connection.
ExecEd: Lessons for business leaders from Pixar’s movie. Yes?
Dacher Keltner: I think.
ExecEd: Is that required viewing.
Dacher Keltner: It is, it's interesting because, I get emails about the movie almost every day, it's changed my life. I think what it is saying is really what we've been talking about which is strong social ties are fundamental to organizations and creativity, innovation, commitment and trust. They're rooted in what the film Inside Out really captured, which is listening carefully to other people, embracing emotion and letting peoples emotions unfold and that certainly is part of being a great manager is to embrace the stresses and to find ways to transcend them. To be playful and to handle the difficulties of family life and work life in a playful spirit of mind.
I think that the lessons of that film, the fundamental lesson is one of social intelligence and being empathetic and it works in every imaginable context.
ExecEd: Any other final advice to business leaders or people working in organizations.
Dacher Keltner: I think, one of the things that I've seen emerge in the 15 years teaching organizations, we think of the stuff I've been talking about as being empathetic, listening well, communicating with a lot of adroitness and refinement emotionally, we think of it as, "Oh, some people have it and some people don't." Being kind. It's actually a set of skills, like everything. It's like a set of skills that you would incorporate in a great workout or things that you would add to your diet. These are just skills that you can practice every day, very intuitive, rooted in who we are as a species and I would encourage. Great leaders already know this, "Wow, what I've learned is I have to take a minute or two each day just to be grateful and appreciative of my colleagues." It makes a world of difference. Treat it as something you can work on.
ExecEd: Was there anything you wanted to say about the Greater Good Science.
Dacher Keltner: I'm sure.
ExecEd: I didn't ask you a lot about that. That probably feeds into what we're talking about too, the juxtaposition. You've been the director, you created this. Talk about that.
Dacher Keltner: One of the things I'm most proud of out of life at Berkeley is the Greater Good Science Center. 13 or 14 years ago we got a gift from the Hornadays, who are alumni of Berkeley. They had just lost their daughter to early death of cancer and it's kind of in the aftermath of 9/11 and there's a lot of deep questioning where we are as a culture. They were like, "We want to build something that makes as many people in the world happy as possible." I think that I was starting to teach human happiness at Berkeley and a lot of the data were saying that if we go after materialistic things it doesn't make us happy, if we create inequality it makes us less happy, if we work too hard it makes us less happy. This is this age old question that was very poignant at the time, "What makes us happy."
We created, out of their gift, the Greater Good Science Center. What it does is it takes the 7 or so big themes in the happiness stress literature, and they're familiar themes for great organizations. Gratitude, mindfulness, generosity, compassion, being empathetic. We take the best science, we distill it into very viral, readable essays and now we've built out something called Greater Good in Action, which is if you are interested in developing a practice at work or in your family or at your school around these themes of gratitude, empathy, compassion, what we've been talking about, here's what you can do. Here's a little one minute exercise you can do that's been tested by science. The idea is to take the science and give it away to schools, to hospitals and nurses, prisoners, teachers, organizations, Google and so forth, and Facebook.
We have about a million visitors to the website each year. We have institutes for teachers and lots of stuff happening in the workplace. It's right there for free, greatergood.berkeley.edu, we hope that people take it and then they do with it what their uniquely designed to do.
ExecEd: Is there science around, we all know that when we give we feel good. Is there actual data, what happens in the rain.
Dacher Keltner: That's an amazing story which is, we've thought way too narrowly about self interest and happiness. You survey the average American, I think it's changing though, 15 years ago it would be like, "Oh it's really about making more money, then I get my self interest in enhances. Having more material goods, experiencing more personal pleasures." That's the game. That's what Adam Smith was interested in and that's why drives healthy societies forward. That's partially true. There's this new science on, and it makes sense when you go back in the deep evolutionary story of how collective and collaborative we are. We're the only primate that really gathers food and hunts and feeds each other and shares food. You could go on with examples like that.
What happened is our brains became wired so that we actually enjoy giving things away. Which doesn't make sense from a very narrow view of self interest. Brain studies find if somebody gives me some money it activates an old part of the brain called the ventral striatum where dopamine circuits are. It experiences reward. When I give that money away I have the same active pattern of activation giving has the same brain reward activation as receiving. There are other studies that show, even more on point, that if I give money away I get a boost in my happiness and if I spend it on materialistic desire, my happiness goes down.
There are other studies that show if I give resources away the people that I'm working with in an organization will do better work and they'll respect me more. It's been built into us, to share.
ExecEd: Does that relate then to why people are good mentors, is out of giving.
Dacher Keltner: Oh yeah. I think that probably the defining characteristic of who's identified as great mentors and leaders is their generosity. In some sense in the service of their own self interest because their careers will end, their organizations will end and there legacy is defined by who carries on their traditions. Do they give away tools and ideas and resources and opportunities that keep things going. There are a lot of reasons to give.
ExecEd: Thank you for that positive note on the end. I really enjoyed the time talking with you.
Dacher Keltner: Thank you.
ExecEd: Thank you.
Dacher Keltner: It's been real fun.
ExecEd: Good luck with the book.
Dacher Keltner: Thank you.