138. How to Stop Assuming the Worst About People with Dallin Cooper

Transcript – Episode 138: How to Stop Assuming the Worst About People with Dallin Cooper

Dallin: I just think it’s wild that we are so comfortable saying, man, these 18-year-olds don’t know anything compared to what I know as a 46y old. And it’s like, yeah, every generation that has entered the workforce has needed to learn and grow and mature and develop skills, which they developed over time by being exposed to those circumstances. None of us just like burst into existence. Capable and functional at it.

Joe: Welcome back friends to the show that is food for the boss’s soul. Here on Boss Better Now, we talk with leaders, experts, and change makers about their experiences in the workplace. All in the name of helping you understand how to create the conditions at work for people to thrive. Today I am joined by my friend and colleague Dallin Cooper. Dallin is a speaker and author who teaches leaders and teams how to communicate and work effectively with people you disagree with and might not even like.

Joe: Now, this is going to sound strange, but in a very wide-ranging conversation that touched on Pizza Hut, Chinese tourists, road rage, and international toilets, Dallin repeatedly dropped nuggets of wisdom about what gets in the way of people actually working well together on the job. Listen carefully to what he describes as the biggest source of strife and conflict in the workplace today. And now, here’s our conversation.

Joe: Dallin, welcome to the show. Are you ready to do this?

Dallin: I am so ready to do this. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.

Joe: Me, too. And I love that at the center of your work is helping people learn how to see each other differently and collaborate better, even when there are personality conflicts involved. And we’re going to get into some of that today.

Joe: But here’s where I want to start. You and I have a fun early career experience in common. We had the same first job. We both worked at Pizza Hut.

Dallin: I didn’t know you first worked at Pizza Hut.

Joe: That’s right. And when we were gathering our intel for this interview, I went, “Oh, wow.” Cuz that was my first job, too. So, what do you remember most vividly about that first job experience?

Dallin: I was bad at it is what I remember. So, there are two memories. I do have one boss memory and then for me that was a very short stint. I think I worked at Pizza Hut for two and a half months maybe one summer I think before junior year of high school between sophomore and junior year of high school and that was my first time having a job that wasn’t like the family business helping out on the ranch things like that and I hated that there was someone who told me when I could do things and when I had to be there and how to do them and dictating my life and schedule. I was like, this is like this sucks.

Joe: Being an employee sucks and entrepreneurial spirit, right? Like you hear when you talk to people who are and that’s you and we’re going to get into that a little bit. You’ve started uh and sold a couple of different businesses, but did you always kind of have that orientation that like I don’t want to work for somebody else?

Dallin: I think that I had the orientation for as long as I can remember. My parents are that way. I grew up that way where it’s like you work really hard, but you’re your own boss and maybe you’re working more hours than you would at a normal job, but at least you’re in control of your destiny. Like that was our family to a tea. And then that first job cemented it where after that two months I quit Pizza Hut and I started baking cookies and brownies that I put in a shoe box in my backpack and sold them at school. And I said I can make just as much money doing this as working at Pizza Hut and I can do it on my own time and my own terms. And if I decide I don’t want to, then I can decide like I don’t want money this day and I can just choose, do I want money, do I not? And I can trade my time for my money at my own discretion. Whereas at Pizza Hut, if I said, you know what, I’m just not that worried about making money this week. I’m not going to come in. They didn’t like that for some reason.

Joe: They needed somebody to fold those boxes. Do you remember the box folding? I was a box folding monster. I was I was really good at that part of it. But here here’s what I’m curious about. Was that being were you a different case compared to your friends? Right? Did your friends look at you funny for wanting to sell the things out of your backpack and run your own business and do that and be like why aren’t you like just going to go like do the Pizza Hut thing?

Dallin: Yeah. Yeah. But that was really on brand for me at that point. It was very like Yeah; that’s the kind of thing we would expect Dallin to do. Uh, I had been the problematic enterprising oddball for a long time at that point. Yeah. And they knew like I don’t know when that moment came, but I know that by seventh grade, I’ve got pictures of a yearbook where what I wanted to be when I grew up was an entrepreneur and I was voted most likely to be a millionaire. And so, it’s like I was the guy who was obsessed with enterprise and also maybe a little bit money, which isn’t as good of a thing to have as a label as like that one’s the kid obsessed with making money in middle school, but I like but I was. And so, while I was the weirdo, nobody batted an eye when it was like, “Oh yeah, Dallin’s quit the normal thing and is doing his own weird thing now.”

Joe: So, how does someone who started out growing up on a sheep farm, eventually went to school for a time in China, then started a digital marketing company, then started and sold a dog chew business? How does somebody on that journey then become an expert on getting people with different personalities and viewpoints to work better together? What happened along the way that nudged you onto that different path than maybe the one that you originally imagined?

Dallin: That actually kind of was the path I imagined. I did not know the route it would take, but the goal was be in control of my own life and don’t have a boss who’s going to tell me when I do and don’t have to come in to work like at Pizza Hut. uh because that really was the sticking point and I go back to him and this is a slight tangent, but my dad has said the same thing. He got his degree in agricultural education, never taught a day in his life after student teaching. And our local town, you know, 10, 15 years ago, he was semi-retired and they needed a long-term substitute a teacher. And they said, “You’re here. You know the kids. You love the kids. They love you. Yeah, like your teaching license might be a little expired, but can you just like long-term sub for us? We’ll give you the sub license. Do this.” this and he was like, “I thought that would be really fun.” And then I thought about it for a bit and I realized they’re going to want me to go there every day. Every day they’re going to want me to go teach those kids even on the days that I don’t want to. And I was like, “Yeah, Dad, they are.” And he’s like, “I just think I’m old enough that I don’t want to do that.” and he’s like, I had to have a lot of fun for a couple weeks and then they want me to keep coming. Uh, so that that idea of just being the one who gets to decide when and how I do things like that was the goal and I knew I wanted to speak even from middle or high school when I had people come to my school and say, you know, don’t do drugs, don’t bully each other. And I sat there and I thought, “These guys are getting paid to come tell us not to bully each other. That sounds awesome.”

Dallin: The reality of what that looks like is very different from what I thought as a teenager. Is a lot more sending emails and sales and the realities of travel. you know, it’s not as uh glamorous as you imagine at 15, but that vision in some form was already there. What changed was what is that passion topic? Mhm. And I actually reached out to you many years ago.

Joe: That’s right.

Dallin: when instead of a friend, you were like this big terrifying industry icon that I was like, “Oh, I hope that Joe Mull will talk to me.” Uh, which I’m grateful that you did. I knew that I wanted to share a message and make the world better, but I didn’t know how or in what way. And you and other people said, Dallin, like if there was one thing that you felt was just so important that would change everything that you would drive eight hours one way to go tell someone for free, like what’s the thing that’ll just make you rant passionately?

Dallin: And what it came back to was my experience going to China because there might not be any place more different from rural central Wyoming than a large city in China. Like opposite sides of the world, opposite cultures, like rugged individualism versus the urban collectivist mindset. a very different culturally and racially and uh religiously homogeneous group. And all the sudden I was a minority, a straight white Christian man in rural Wyoming who had been like a pretty stable not minority my whole life. Yeah. I got to go somewhere and experience for myself. This is what it’s like to be a minority. to be someone where people look at you different, where people touch your skin without asking you because it’s like this is weird being a redhead. I mean, yeah, once you get outside the tourist areas, there were people in where I lived in uh Harbin, which is up northern China near Russia, like they’d never seen a redhead before. Mhm. And just to see the assumptions that one I had made about China.

Dallin: We live not that far from Yellowstone. We had a lot of Chinese tourists come through to Yellowstone and people in Wyoming made fun of them constantly. They were sometimes demeaning and belittling uh about their habits, their intelligence, their ability. and then to go to China and run into people questioning my intelligence and my ability and treating me like I’m a child because my language skills are rudimentary um or that I had an accent or because I wasn’t familiar with how their public transportation worked or you know the list could go on and on. One of the biggest examples being uh toilets. I use toilets a lot because I didn’t know how to use the toilets. And like that’s such a basic human thing that is like my three-year-old knows how to use a toilet, but I didn’t know how to use theirs. Sometimes they don’t know how to use ours.

Joe: Okay, so you lost me for a bit. What’s So I I’ve not been to China. What’s different about the toilets?

Dallin: Okay, so I didn’t want to go like all into this because I’ve said it so many times. I was sure I had told it to you, but this is like one of one of the defining lessons of my life is people.

Dallin: So, in 2015, over a dozen toilets were shattered in Grand Teton National Park by international tourists. Like, it was a huge issue here. And everybody made fun of the tourists. It’s like, these idiots don’t know how to use a toilet. But then you go there uh and they have eastern style toilets. Some people call them squatty potties. They are like just in the ground. There is no apparatus. It’s just like kind of a trough and you squat and use the toilet. You flush with your foot. Like there’s no touching anything in a bathroom. It’s a whole different operation. Whole different operation. Like e every part of it. And culturally and just realistically, it’s a lot more sanitary in that you don’t touch anything. And so if you have only been primarily exposed to those and maybe most people would be familiar with western toilets, though they may not have used them a lot, but then you come to America and you are in a national park public bathroom, some of the grossest toilets probably in the country if we’re being honest, and then someone’s saying, “Hey, you’re supposed to sit on that.” The knee-jerk reaction is like, “Well, that’s just filthy.” But what they’re used to is standing on a little porcelain thing and squatting. So, they stand on the toilet and squat so that they aren’t touching the disgusting toilet. But toilets aren’t designed to be stood on and then the toilets shatter and it becomes this whole thing. So, we had spent all our time like we spent years making fun of and like I am ashamed to admit I joined in the mockery of like these idiots. Yeah. And there’s signs the signs we would laugh at the signs where it’s like this isn’t how you use the toilet and it’s got like X’s through these ridiculous diagrams of people like standing on the toilet and like all the weird positions and we’re like who needs signs about how to use a toilet? But then I got there and I was like; I need a sign. Like, I need a handy diagram on how to use the Chinese toilet because I don’t know what I’m doing here. And it was a big moment of being like, oh, shoot. Yeah, they of course they aren’t idiots. Like, some of these tourists are doctors and engineers and physicists. Like, they’re brilliant. They just have an entirely different experience. And once I’m put in their situation, like I knew their toilets were different, but that’s a very different situation than actually being there and trying to figure out the logistics.

Joe: I will tell you that in all of the planning for our conversation today, I never imagined we would spend this much time on toilets, but this is such an interesting and in its own special way kind of beautiful catalyst for how you ended up doing this work that you do. So, take me from the toilet experience, which is both uh literal and a metaphor, and you’re on stage, you’re in front of a of a team or you’re in front of a room of leaders and you’re talking about how to work with people who are different from you. Like, what’s the core message? What is the key insight or piece of advice that is at the heart of what you’re trying to do when you’re in front of that group of people?

Dallin: The core message is about challenging that assumption. In my mind, it is the phrase they might not. These tourists are idiots. You know, they go get gored by bison. They mess up the toilets. They’re just like they’re just dumb. And then I went there and realized, well, they might not be stupid. They just have a different experience. The other one being that all the animals I experienced in China experienced interacted with all the animals I interacted with in China were friendly. Even like deer, elk, if you were allowed to touch it, it was friendly. I held a tiger. Like the rules for wildlife are different. So, when they came here like yeah people get hurt by the wildlife in Yellowstone but it’s because they’re operating with a different set of rules not because they’re just dumb. The that they might not, and you see it with generations. Oh, kids these days I know you also like to you’re with me on ranting about people saying kids these days don’t want to work. They’re just so lazy. Like they might not be lazy. That’s right. What is the context you’re missing? They might not be crazy is the title of like my big keynote because we love to dismiss people with a different urban and rural, Democrat, Republican, they might not be crazy, they might not be evil. The office drama of like, oh, so and so just hates me. I don’t know the boss like I don’t know what I did. My boss just hates me. I never get the promotion. I don’t get the opportunity. like they might not hate you, they might not be angry. Like what are you assuming?

Joe: Yeah. That you are just missing context on and what and our brains try to do that, right? I wrote about this a little bit in me in my second book and I talk about this a little bit in workshops that our brains take shortcuts and they fill in the gaps of stories with assumptions that are rooted in our own experiences. And they do tend to assume that when we encounter somebody who says something that we don’t understand or don’t agree with that it must be a result of their character. It’s not because of their circumstances. It’s not because of a completely um legitimate reason for why a good person, an intelligent person would act that way. We jumped to an assumption of some kind of deficit or gap. And you know the idea that sometimes what we need to do in the workplace as leaders is to challenge assumptions when we hear them and ask people is that true or what would be what would be a different reason or what would make a good person act this way? What would make a really intelligent person act this way? I love that it sounds like that’s really at the center of the work that you’re doing. Do I have that right?

Dallin: Yeah. And like that’s pretty much all of it. And then how do you have the conversations? ask the right questions, get in the right space to get the information that the brain is filling in the gaps. Yeah. With those assumptions. And it’s so powerful. I’m sure you’ve done similar things. I’ll do activities with my audiences and I’ll tell them like, I’m going to trick you. And then I have them do the activity and they still fall for the assumption. Yeah. Yeah, even though I warned them because it happens so automatically that like even if I’ve told them there’s a trap like don’t listen to your assumptions like they still do it because it’s just it’s instantaneous.

Joe: Yeah. I used to do this really cool scenario years ago in a workshop that I was teaching where um I would tell the story about how you went to uh get your oil changed at the local service plaza or dealership and you’re there and all of a sudden you see a mechanic run out of the garage, throw their tools on the ground and say, “I can’t stay here anymore.” And then they jump into their car and they drive away. and you know why do you think they act that way? What like what do you assume about that story? And so, I would source all these different answers from the people in the audience and sometimes you would get a story about well they had an argument with a co-worker or maybe their boss said something that they didn’t like or maybe a customer was out of line, right? There’s always some kind of negative spark. And I usually do like a reveal where I would say something about, you know, how many of you assumed that they got a phone call from home saying that their kid had been taken to the hospital. And so, we would kind of break down all these different things that it could be. But my favorite part was the reveal was when you pictured the scenario in your head, how many of you pictured the mechanic as a woman? And nobody did. And that was the point of the story, which was our brain fills in the gap. And the gap that our brain filled in in that experience was that the mechanic was a man because there’s a gender bias attached to the gap that our brains fill in around that. And those kinds of reveals where you kind of go, “Oh.” And you can see your brain do the thing that we know that it does, but that sometimes you sit there and think, “Well, no, I wouldn’t do that.” Those kinds of reveals are fun. And because it’s like my core message, I will do that four or five times in a keynote where we’ll do a thing and I’m like, “Oh, and by the way, like you’ve already misinterpreted this entire situation because of one piece of information.” And right and even though it’s clearly the message, it just like it hits over and over and over because it’s, so it takes so much time and practice to stop. Uh my wife and I like to practice it with road rage, which is a very common one of like the fundamental attribution error where Yep. I have good intentions and make mistakes. Other people are bad people. When I cut you off, it’s because I didn’t see you or I have an emergency. When you cut me off, you’re a terrible driver and they should take away your license. Anytime someone’s being an idiot, we’re just like, we tell ourselves stories like, “Well, maybe their wife is in the passenger seat in labor and then they’ll turn the opposite direction from the hospital and we’ll be like, maybe they’re late for a big meeting. Maybe they really need to go to the bathroom.” It’s like, what’s the best possible interpretation we can make for them just to like and when we think about taking that step and doing that kind of self-t talk and that mental work, it’s not about being nice to other people. It’s about like I would much rather be a calm, forgiving, compassionate person behind the wheel or in the workplace. Like think about the toll that it takes on us when we allow our brains to jump to those conclusions and fill in those gaps with those stories that aren’t true. Well, you’re more likely to die. Like if you assume the other driver is a road rage idiot and then you’re like, I’m going to I’m going to cut him off. I’m going to do this thing. Aggressive drivers die more. That’s right. So, it’s like I don’t know. I’d rather not die. I’m I am loving that we’re nerding out over the fundamental attribution error, which uh it’s funny because I talk about that in my no more team drama keynote and I wrote about it in my book and I actually use like the uh driver taking someone to the hospital who is in labor scenario because of course that’s not where our brain goes first, but that happens every day. that happens in real life that there are completely legitimate reasons why people have to take actions that others from the outside looking in without enough information would go what’s wrong with them.

Dallin: While I haven’t ever seen it, I suspect that your No More Team drama keynote and My Ener have a lot in common. Uh just we need to double bill together. We need to like

Joe: Yeah, we gotta we got to go we got to take this show on the road. Dallin, I’m not going to argue. All right. All right. Well, we got a couple of signature questions here on the show uh that I want to get into with you a little bit. And let’s start here. Tell us about the story of the worst boss you’ve ever encountered.

Dallin: Encounter… I’m going to go with had because I’ve encountered a lot of people in in my work, but I’ve only had a few bosses. Uh I’ve only had three because I’ve been self-employed most of my life. But it probably was at Pizza Hut. Not because he was even that bad, but because my other two bosses were really good. And the moment that stuck with me is that on during my onboarding, he signaled to me that none of the rules matter.

Joe: Oh, interesting.

Dallin: Which isn’t a great start. I think he was trying to be like really cool manager. you have a lot of students, college and high school working there. Like you don’t want to be the obnoxious guy. But he was taking me on the tour going through all the places. I did a lot of like the lunch buffet, and you know dinner things like that. And I was I was a waiter uh specifically. I wasn’t old enough to be a driver or anything or a cook. And right next to like the washing station, all the things were all the big garbage stuff. Obviously, when you take things off the buffet, if they’ve been there the two hours they’re allowed to be there or whatever, you put them here to go into the trash later, just because for time, we usually just let them all hang out and then drop them away. It’s like, it is important for you to know that you are not allowed to eat the buffet food that’s been taken off the buffet and is waiting here to get thrown away. It’s against policy. It’s not allowed. And then he grabbed a piece of pizza off and he said, “But we all do it anyway.” And then he walked away and was eating the pizza, which granted was really handy because a lot of times you are hungry, you don’t have time for an actual break or to get food, the food’s getting thrown away and wasted anyway. And so, it is less wasteful and like the ethicist in me says like this is a reasonable moral thing to do. Yeah. But like the flippant casual way that he kind of chuckled and said like it is against the rules.

Joe: Yeah.

Dallin: But we all do it like just don’t let customers see you.

Joe: Yeah.

Dallin: Did in in young me just this little sense of like okay like but where else is that? You know like when you say hey you have to wash your hands after you do this thing. Is that another like but none of us do anyway? like how many hey you’re supposed to do it this ways are not actually ways that you have to do it like what rules can I bend and what can I get away with and I just thought this feels like a bad precedent to set though I was very happy about it at the time well when you and when you see that pizza and you’re hungry and like I don’t know about you but when I was 16 years old in my first job I didn’t have any extra money and that little free personal pan that they gave you after your shift wasn’t always enough to cut it but The it’s such a fine line, isn’t it, between because we all want that leader who isn’t so beholden to the to the rules or like so bought into corporate speak that they can’t engage with you as a human being, right? Because there are sometimes when we want our boss to be that person that’s like, “Hey, look, I understand the rules say this.” You know, sometimes we’ve got to operate around the edge of those based on the situation that we’re in, right? that’s real and in some places that’s legit. But at the same time, we get into those scenarios where there’s the leader who tries to position themselves as like you said, you know, I’m the cool boss or I’m going to flaunt the system, right, because I go my own way. And whether that’s because they want to be liked or whether that’s because they don’t respect why those things are in place, it’s such a fine line to try to show up as the kind of leader who is reasonable and authentic and not a tight ass to use a technical term. and also, be able to find a way to create a set of expectations and lead in an environment where expectations are necessary, rules are necessary. Well, and I do want to make it clear, he wasn’t a bad manager. Yeah. I mean, as far as Pizza Huts in relatively poor rural Wyoming communities go, I feel like they were doing pretty good. Yeah. But that like that memory has stuck out with me. I’m glad he did it. It made me think more fondly of him and but it’s just one that has stuck with me as like I wonder what impacts that had long term. Obviously, I don’t know cuz I quit two months later.

Joe: Your long and storied career at the local Pizza Hut.

Dallin: Yes, it was. I was technically on the roster for a while longer and I think I accidentally stole an apron for many years before it made it back. But yeah, it I just thought about that uh probably more than any 16-year-old should. And I appreciated it, but it did stick with me as just a concept that and I’ve wondered if maybe it wouldn’t have as much if he had been really crisp and clear and been like it is so important that we follow protocol. Yeah. On all these things. I do make one exception, and I make this exception because I believe that food waste is a detriment to our society and especially in our community where many people go hungry. And so, I am not going to stop you guys from taking the pizza. Like make sure you’re getting enough. I care about you. You’re working long hours on your feet. I want you to feel like you have energy and keep going. And so, like I’m happy to look the other way on that but like that is the only exception. All these other policies like they need to stand. And I feel like that would have instilled a lot more confidence in me right in him as a manager where it’s like I have made a deliberate choice that this policy is not serving our people the best. Yes. And so, I’m going to let you know there is an exception to this policy here, but like don’t tell corporate as opposed to a very flippant, yeah, yeah, we don’t do it. We all do it like whatever. And there was that attitude towards a lot of other rules in the kitchen. It felt like of just like, yeah, what are rules? Who cares? Yeah. And if you’re like, I don’t know, growing up, I was a rule follower. I’m still a rule follower as a as an adult. And so, like it’s such a tension point like it’s a such con like there’s that internal conflict that comes from being pulled in one direction where if you’re a rule follow your follower your brain is oriented to say there’s a probably a really good reason why this rule is in place. And so, like this doesn’t feel right. It it’s anxiety producing right. And so, when you’re 15 16 years old that’s a really difficult place to be put into. Yeah. So, I have seen far worse bosses in my career and I have heard stories, but as far as my personal interactions with my own boss, that is honestly the one that stands out to me and a relatively minor

Joe: Yeah. that memory is seared into your brain.

Dallin: Yeah. I assume that’s far from the worst boss story you’ve heard, though. That’s probably pretty tame. Pretty tame.

Joe: Yep. Pretty tame. All right, we have a couple of kind of fun and playful questions here that we like to fire off on the show and so here’s one to throw out to you, Dallin. If you could ban one workplace phrase, like lingo or jargon or turn of phrase forever, what would it be?

Dallin: There are so many good options. And my first gut instinct is to go with like the really cliche that’s just the way it is because I have, I’m a big believer in an internal locus of control and that we are the masters of our own destiny and we can just change the way it is. Yeah. But I am going to not pick that one. And more in line with my entire life theme and goal, it is probably going to be every variation of they are just blank. They are just lazy. They are just stupid. You know how customers are. They just they don’t actually know what they want. Interns, man. They’re just clueless. any they are just where you are taking a person and reducing their entire 10 to 80 years of existence into a single adjective. Yep. Like that is the antithesis of all that I am. And nothing makes me more frustrated than labels of that or any type. I mean, labels can be useful because there are some things that need labeling, but reductive labels specifically. Those Gen Zers, man, they just can’t communicate.

Joe: Yep. That Oh, that one. Me and that one have gone some rounds. Yeah. And what do you say what is your response because that I mean that that’s not that is not an isolated incident that is a theme that is treated as conventional wisdom.

Dallin: Yeah. So I usually approach that one from two different directions and I know one of them you have also done which is to trace the many instances over the last thousand or more years where people complain about the previous generation all the way back to Turesa Yoshid Kenko who talked about what a oh what is it a deplorable terrible corruption of language and that people will just say trim it instead of saying trim the lantern wick as is right and proper or you know he goes on it’s like a three paragraph rant that he goes on about the deplorable corruption of language in the youth and this is in like 1300 right yeah I have like an Aristotle slide on one of my workshops where it’s like Aristotle’s like boy these kids today are really full of themselves aren’t Yeah. And so obviously there’s that where it’s like this is not an isolated incident. We always think that the kids are worse at communicating. But what I feel like is the great injustice we do anytime we look at the younger generation is it is correct that they don’t know how to communicate relative to what you know 40 years later. And I just think it’s wild that we are so comfortable saying, man, these 18-year-olds don’t know anything compared to what I know as a 46y old. And it’s like, yeah, yeah, spot on. Got it. Or they’re like, kids these days are so immature. And it’s like, yes, that is the definition of kids is immature.

Joe: That’s right.

Dallin: Right. Of course, every generation that has entered the workforce has needed to learn and grow and mature and develop skills which they developed over time by being exposed to those circumstances. Yeah. None of us just like burst into existence. Yep. Capable and functional at it. And I think it’s just a virtue of our need for comparison that we compare where people are at to where we are now. Whereas if you put 18-year-old me and 18-year-old you next to current 18-year-old, they are probably better at us than some things and worse than us at other things. And yes, there are broad generational trends where people communicate in different ways and they convey information differently. But once again having like there was a day that I spoke three languages fluently. Today is not that day. But English, Spanish and Chinese all convey information differently and communicate differently and some things take a long time to say in one language and a short time to say in another one and it changes how you see things. But none of us would look at Chinese or Spanish and be like that language doesn’t know how to communicate, right? Just because it does it like in a different manner and with different structure. It just it feels insane. Sorry, I’m ranting now.

Joe: You’re No, you have feelings. You took us to a really fun and interesting point here at the end of the conversation. It’s something that the psychologist David Joerger, Dr. David Joerger um refers to as the illusion of moral decline. this idea that I believe the generation coming in behind me has deficits that are unique and you know which is just fundamentally not true most of the time that everything that we want to say about the people coming in behind us are the same things that people said about us when we got here and we do this revisionist history as we get older and acquire more confidence and more competence to say that no there are unique deficits in this group where the truth is that The biggest challenge facing young employees is that they’re young. And that what young people need more than anything else in the workplace is patience and mentoring. And guess what? Very few leaders have time for anymore. It’s patience and mentoring. That’s right. That’s right. Um, and so we do sometimes have to remind leaders in the workplace that, you know, when you were starting out, you if you had a leader who showed up with patience and mentoring, you had a much greater likelihood of thriving in that environment and wanting to part with effort in that environment as opposed to places where somebody gave you a desk and a drawer full of manuals and said, “Start reading, kid, and let us know if you have questions.” That doesn’t really get people very far.

Dallin: And that is I the reason I had such an underwhelming bad boss story is because my only other two bosses have been such great bosses. Yeah. That that did those things that very clearly were especially my one that I had in college when I was, you know, 19 or 20 and exactly in that spot. like the patience, the education, they she was not looking to yeah, extract value from me as an intern. She was saying, “Hey, if you contribute some while you’re here, that’s great.” But I’m here to help you.

Joe: Wow. Along your journey and like we’re still in touch.

Dallin: She actually sent me a referral a month or two ago. No kidding. low 12 years later and it’s like those that’s how you create meaningful connections with Yeah. with showing up in service to the people around you. Yeah. I also this is absolutely a tangent, but I always think it’s interesting with the moral decline thing. I love watching it with technology.

Dallin: Yeah. where, you know, fiction books were going to corrupt the brains of the youth and then the radio was going to stop them from reading and then the telephone was going to destroy the radio and then the TV was going to ruin the skills and then the internet and video games were going to ruin. And as someone from that generation, I thought it was wild that my parents, who are phenomenal parents, would be like, “Well, Dallin, make sure you don’t play video games as a teenage boy for longer than whatever.” And then they would go up and sit on the couch and watch TV for like 4 hours. And I was like, “Wait, wait, wait. Why is it okay to watch TV for 4 hours and not play video games?” And like, well, video games are new and scary and maybe evil. And that’s right. I you I’m seeing it now. Even sometimes with myself, I’m like, well, video games are fine. I grew up with them. But like virtual reality video games or like AI or it’s like these are new technologies that are scary for me cuz I’m not used to them. And obviously there are actual concerns with all technology to be aware of. But it’s always the technology I didn’t grow up with. This is the one that will destroy the country and the world and the children. all there there’s always the sinister uh new platform or uh new source that we have to pay attention to. But they might not they might going back to the theme they might not destroy the country like they might not be evil. They might be but they might not. Right. Is does is the story reality? Probably not.

Joe: Well, listen, I am so grateful to you for doing this. Um, it it’s fun because alluding to what you said at the beginning about how you reached out to me years ago and it was during one of the first seasons of this podcast and uh, I will share this for our listeners because it was it was just a really cool experience to have. I got you sent me a copy of your book in the mail, and you wrote a note in the front of it. And when you host a podcast and you speak to audiences and you do some things that have some visibility over the years, it’s not uncommon to have people from the audience reach out to you and send you a note and express appreciation or share something that they want to share with you. But yours was different because you sent me a letter like inside the book for those of you listening. Dallin wrote me like a five-paragraph letter, and it was citing a bunch of the themes and ideas that I had been talking about I think in in the podcast season. And so immediately it was like oh this this is a person who like is really paying attention and who’s really engaged. And then uh I sent you a note in response and here we are however many years later probably five years later and you know you’re on your own journey as a as an expert and as a speaker and I just couldn’t be more thrilled for you man and I’m just so grateful for the work that you’re doing out there because here’s the other thing uh boss heroes who are listening to this Dallin doesn’t just speak to leaders and teams he does a lot of work with schools and teachers too and so um if I couldn’t think of a more important place for us to be having the kinds of conversations that you’re having, challenging people’s assumptions, uh, pushing them to think differently about the people in the world around them. So, thank you for doing that work, my friend. Where can people follow you or learn more about the work you do?

Dallin: Obviously, I have a website at dallincooper.com, which I try to fill with all the questions people could have about me, perhaps too many answers to the questions you have about me. The only social medias I really do are LinkedIn and YouTube. I’ve pretended I do the other ones. You can find me on them, but I’m not like I’m not there. There might be things I’ve put there, but not me. If you want to connect with me, find my website, LinkedIn, YouTube. You can email me. It’s my email’s everywhere. Uh I’d love to I’d love to talk to you about whatever.

Joe: Love it. D-a-l-l-i-n-c-o-o-p-e-r.com

Joe: Well, there you have it folks. My deepest thanks to Dallin for the great conversation today and for spending this time with us. If you liked this conversation, be sure to hit that subscribe button so that you don’t miss an episode of our show. And of course, I am always grateful for your reviews, your shares, and your feedback. Tell me what you thought of this conversation by either dropping a comment in the box below our episode here on YouTube or if you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform. You can email me at any time for any reason at bossbetternow@gmail.com.

Joe: In the meantime, don’t forget commitment comes from better bosses. Visit joemull.com for more information. See you next time.

Joe: It’s rooms like this one where when we gather together for a couple of days at a time to really understand what it takes to activate employee commitment in the workplace that leaders experience profound transformation. If you’ve been wondering how to take your leadership knowledge and skills to the next level. If you want to go deeper on what it takes to be successful at leading people in today’s everchanging workplace, then you should check out Boss Hero School. Over 3 days, I’m going to teach you both the methods and the mindset for activating employee commitment in the workplace. This is not theory. We are getting into the weeds. We are upleveling your skills. We are giving you scripts. We are giving you blueprints and frameworks that you can take back to your workplaces to meet people where they are and propel them forward doing whatever it is you’re asking them to do on the job. For more information, visit bossheroschool.com.