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WorkLife with Adam Grant

ReThinking: Breaking leadership barriers with hockey coach Jessica Campbell

37 min episode · 2 min read
·
Hockey Coach Jessica Campbell

Episode

37 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Productivity, Relationships, Leadership

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • The "Listen, Lift, Love" Framework: Before delivering any feedback or film review, Campbell asks players "where are you at right now?" first. Knowing a player's emotional state determines how to deliver information effectively. Skipping this step means coaching into resistance. The sequence — build relationship, elevate potential, then set high standards — earns the license to challenge without triggering defensiveness.
  • Feedback Research on Praise vs. Criticism: A meta-analysis by Kluger and Denisi covering 100 years of feedback research found no overall difference in effectiveness between positive and negative feedback. The real variable is target: feedback aimed at the person triggers defensiveness, while feedback aimed at specific behavior or task drives change. Ask "what's the first thing you'd do differently?" to shift immediately into controllable actions.
  • Self-Assessment Before Feedback Delivery: Grant's method for reducing defensiveness is asking performers to self-assess before receiving any coaching input. This converts a one-way monologue into a dialogue, surfaces blind spots the coach can address as novel information, and gets the person talking about specific behaviors rather than defending their identity or ability.
  • Trailblazer Competence Threshold: Research on Olympic figure skating judging shows that going first benefits highly skilled performers — they set the standard — but penalizes average performers who face harsher initial judgment before realistic expectations form. The implication for leaders breaking barriers: the more demonstrable the competence, the lower the psychological cost of being first in a space.
  • Guilt as a Leadership Driver: Research led by Becky Schomburg shows leaders prone to guilt outperform those prone to shame. Guilt — focused on a specific action rather than personal identity — produces anticipatory accountability: the drive to not let the team down. This motivates servant leadership behaviors including planning, care, and follow-through, rather than withdrawal or defensiveness that shame typically produces.

What It Covers

Adam Grant interviews Jessica Campbell, the first full-time female assistant coach in NHL history with the Seattle Kraken, exploring her three-part coaching framework of listen, lift, and love, how being a trailblazer shapes leadership identity, and what research reveals about feedback, trust-building, and the psychological cost of going first.

Key Questions Answered

  • The "Listen, Lift, Love" Framework: Before delivering any feedback or film review, Campbell asks players "where are you at right now?" first. Knowing a player's emotional state determines how to deliver information effectively. Skipping this step means coaching into resistance. The sequence — build relationship, elevate potential, then set high standards — earns the license to challenge without triggering defensiveness.
  • Feedback Research on Praise vs. Criticism: A meta-analysis by Kluger and Denisi covering 100 years of feedback research found no overall difference in effectiveness between positive and negative feedback. The real variable is target: feedback aimed at the person triggers defensiveness, while feedback aimed at specific behavior or task drives change. Ask "what's the first thing you'd do differently?" to shift immediately into controllable actions.
  • Self-Assessment Before Feedback Delivery: Grant's method for reducing defensiveness is asking performers to self-assess before receiving any coaching input. This converts a one-way monologue into a dialogue, surfaces blind spots the coach can address as novel information, and gets the person talking about specific behaviors rather than defending their identity or ability.
  • Trailblazer Competence Threshold: Research on Olympic figure skating judging shows that going first benefits highly skilled performers — they set the standard — but penalizes average performers who face harsher initial judgment before realistic expectations form. The implication for leaders breaking barriers: the more demonstrable the competence, the lower the psychological cost of being first in a space.
  • Guilt as a Leadership Driver: Research led by Becky Schomburg shows leaders prone to guilt outperform those prone to shame. Guilt — focused on a specific action rather than personal identity — produces anticipatory accountability: the drive to not let the team down. This motivates servant leadership behaviors including planning, care, and follow-through, rather than withdrawal or defensiveness that shame typically produces.

Notable Moment

Campbell describes her most effective disciplinary tool as silence. When she is visibly disappointed but says nothing, players respond more strongly than to direct criticism. She attributes this to having built a foundation of care first, making her disappointment carry disproportionate weight compared to coaches who lead with toughness.

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Episode Transcript

This episode is brought to you by National Business Furniture. You can find them at nbf.com. I've been thinking about how the environment of our workspaces can help or hinder the way we work. So many organizations claim values like productivity and collaboration, but their spaces are built for a different era of work and tell an entirely different story. The truth is our surroundings don't just influence how we work. They can have an impact on how we think, how we feel, and who we become while we're there. That's where National Business Furniture comes in. National Business Furniture is built on a simple idea. Every business deserves furniture that lasts, service that cares, and a partner who gets it at a budget that works. For more than fifty years, they've helped companies like yours create spaces that work best. If you wanna create a space where people can really thrive, visit nbf.com and use the promo code pod 10 to save 10%. That's nbf.com, a better way to buy office furniture. What's up? Adam Grant from Work Life, a TED podcast here. If managing supply runs is still on your to do list, here's your sign to upgrade. Walmart Business has the tech, tools, and services that make it ridiculously easy to stock up for your office or TeamThink schedule deliveries, multi user accounts, and even IT setup. Bonus. With a Walmart Business Plus membership, you get free shipping, spend analytics, and 2% rewards on orders of $250 or more. Join the smart way to shop at business.walmart.com. Terms apply. This episode is sponsored by Dell. Dell PCs with Intel Inside are built for the moments that matter, for the moments you plan and the ones you don't, built for the busy days that turn into all night study sessions, The moment you're working from a cafe and realize every outlet's taken. The times are deep in your flow, and the absolute last thing you need is an auto update throwing off your momentum. That's why Dell builds tech that adapts to the way you actually work. Built with long lasting batteries so you're not scrambling for the closest outlet, and built an intelligence that makes updates around your schedule, not in the middle of it. They don't build tech for tech's sake. They build it for you. Find technology built for the way you work at dell.com/xps. Built for you. I never ever dreamt of being the first in a space where I've always been part of this game. I've been on fantastic all girls teams. I've had men's coaches. I've had women's coaches. I was the only girl on an all boys team. I've always saw myself belonging in hockey, but I never really understood what I was doing until I was standing behind an NHL bench in a space no woman had held before, and I felt this flood of emotion and pressure and responsibility to do something good with it. Hey, everyone. It's Adam …

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