Carole Robin on Connectedness

Carole Robin, Ph.D. who taught the legendary Interpersonal Dynamics course (affectionately known by students as “Touchy Feely”) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business was the Dorothy J. King Lecturer in Leadership, Director of the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows Program, and Director of the Stanford Interpersonal Dynamics Programs for High Performing Executives (Executive Program) before co-founding Leaders in Tech, which brings the principles and process of “Touchy Feely” to executives in Silicon Valley. Prior to coming to Stanford, she had careers in sales and marketing management and was a partner in two consulting firms. She is the co-author of the highly acclaimed and award-winning book, Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends and Colleagues which contains the lessons of "Touchy Feely" that thousands of students have consistently described for decades as life changing and worth the price of their MBA. She lives in San Francisco, California, with her husband of 36 years.

Carole had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“We’re all works in progress” (14:00)

“Every opportunity with another human being is an opportunity to learn” (14:15).

“I don’t think I can be a good teacher if I’m not constantly a good student” (15:15).

“The more I learn as a student, the more motivated I am to teach” (15:30).

“Too much education is loaded with baggage around teachers being the ones who know and students being the ones who don’t” (15:55).

“Asking someone to give you feedback has the potential to make them feel vulnerable” (20:55).

“I was, and am, unafraid to lean into the discomfort” (25:00).

“A fundamental premise of learning and growth is that you don’t learn anything unless you step outside your comfort zone” (25:20).

“I’m going to show the world that it doesn’t matter that I’m a girl” (32:30).

“Our tendency when we feel pinched is to say nothing” (43:00).

“Substitute the pronoun ‘it’ for ‘I,’ ‘you,’ or ‘we’” (43:40).

“There’s so much trouble in business when it comes to using emotions effectively” (47:25).

“There’s an important place in business for feelings, as long as we learn to express them in ways that are productive, and we learn to use them in the same way that we use thoughts” (47:45).

“Thoughts and feelings are like treble and bass in music” (48:00).

“What is needed for two people to relate and to connect with one another?” (54:15).

“We’re all works in progress. Sometimes learning something once isn’t enough… that’s where we often need someone else” (1:01:00).

Additionally, make sure to check out Carole on LinkedIn! Moreover, if you want more information about Leaders in Tech, click here, and if you want more information about Carol’s book, click here.

Thank you so much to Carole for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.