Temple Grandin On Why Clarity is the Key to Candor 7 | 7

[00:00:00] Amy Sandler: It’s Amy here and Kim often gets asked how Radical Candor should work with neurodivergent employees. After hearing Dr. Temple Grandin relay an experience where Temple’s boss gave her feedback in just the right way, we thought it would be really helpful for you, our listeners, to hear directly from Temple. We are so excited to share this conversation between Temple Grandin and Kim Scott about the feedback Temple received, why it was helpful, and so much more wisdom. 

[00:00:33] Dr. Temple Grandin is a world renowned inspirational autism activist, author of twenty-eight books, and an animal welfare and behavior expert. She’s a prominent proponent of the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter and the author of more than sixty scientific papers on animal behavior. A designer of livestock handling facilities and a professor of animal science at Colorado State University. Facilities that Temple Grand has designed are located in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. 

[00:01:10] In 2010, Time 100, an annual list of the hundred most influential people in the world, named Temple in the Heroes category. Dr. Grandin was also the subject of the Emmy and Golden Globe winning biographical film Temple Grandin starring Claire Danes. Dr. Grandin has been an outspoken proponent of autism rights and neurodiversity movements. And in 2017, she was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame, and in 2018, made a Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. We are honored to host Temple Grandin in this insightful, powerful, informative, and authentically radically candid conversation. We hope you enjoy it.

[00:02:04] Kim Scott: Hello everybody. I’m Kim Scott. Welcome to the Radical Candor podcast. And Temple, welcome to you. I’m so excited to have this conversation with you because I get questioned very often that I do not feel that I am qualified to answer, but I think you are very well qualified to answer the question. So here’s the question. What’s the best way to give radically candid feedback to my employees who are neurodivergent? When I met you told me a really good story about a time when someone gave you some feedback in exactly the right way. So why don’t you share that story with folks? 

[00:02:48] Dr. Temple Grandin: No, the first of all, vague feedback does not work. 

[00:02:51] Kim Scott: Right. 

[00:02:52] Dr. Temple Grandin: Like saying you’re not a team player. You’re rude to colleagues, that doesn’t work. This is on my very first project and I criticized some welding and I said it looked like pigeon doodoo. 

[00:03:03] Kim Scott: It probably did. That was probably accurate. 

[00:03:06] Dr. Temple Grandin: An engineer at the swift plant. Harley. He was a very good job coach and he quietly pulled me into his office. Very quietly in private. I remember that little office down in the boiler room. And he says, we have to nip these little cancers before they metastasize. Whitey, the welder is up in the cafeteria right now on break. You are going to apologize to him for that kind of rude talk. And he also explained to me how Whitey, a welder, was his employee. And if I didn’t like the welding, I should have come to him to complain about it. He also said, well, Whitey’s a maintenance welder and his welds are rough, but they really do hold. And I went right up to the cafeteria to Whitey. And I apologize for the rude talk. You see, he told me exactly what I should do in private.

[00:03:58] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:03:59] Dr. Temple Grandin: You know, he didn’t say a vague, you’re rude to colleagues. 

[00:04:02] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:04:03] Dr. Temple Grandin: And a lot of people on the autism spectrum want this kind of feedback. They find, you know, they need to be told what they’re doing, what to do. It’s sort of like teaching a person how to behave in a foreign country. You know, there might be certain gestures that in this country are fine, that in another country would be bad.

[00:04:20] Kim Scott: That is such a good analogy because we’re not often aware. Like you probably were not aware that what you had said to Whitey the welder was rude. 

[00:04:30] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, it was rude. I should have known better than that and keep calling it pigeon doo doo. 

[00:04:37] Kim Scott: But that also could be considered,

[00:04:39] Dr. Temple Grandin: He was telling me exactly what I had to do. Now a lot of autistic people have some hygiene issues. And there’s a scene in the HBO movie where they slam down the deodorant and said, you stink. That happened. 

[00:04:48] Kim Scott: Oh, really? 

[00:04:49] Dr. Temple Grandin: And I wanted that job. So I, uh, cleaned it up, right?

[00:04:53] Kim Scott: So you used the deodorant. 

[00:04:55] Dr. Temple Grandin: It shows exactly how I think visually. The other thing is, I don’t think in broad generalities. You know, something like polite behavior or considerate behavior, I have to, I like see little phone videos, um, like you’d have on your phone of, um, of memories. I now think it’s something that was not considerate when I was a very young child, mother was sleeping and I asked her to open this little blue thing for me. So I could put my model together. That was not being very considerate.

[00:05:27] Kim Scott: Because she was asleep. 

[00:05:28] Dr. Temple Grandin: That is a specific example of something that was not considerate.

[00:05:34] Kim Scott: Right.

[00:05:36] Dr. Temple Grandin: Another thing that would be being considerate is, I had to get something out of her sewing box, she was asleep and I did it very quietly. 

[00:05:43] Kim Scott: So that was being considerate? 

[00:05:45] Dr. Temple Grandin: That was being considerate because I made sure I did not wake her up.

[00:05:48] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:05:48] Dr. Temple Grandin: But that’s the kind of specific examples I need. 

[00:05:52] Kim Scott: So when Harley told you that that was rude you, you understood why. 

[00:05:56] Dr. Temple Grandin: I understood why. 

[00:05:57] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah. 

[00:05:58] Dr. Temple Grandin: And right after he explained to me that also the chain of command, because Whitey was his employee.

[00:06:03] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:06:04] Dr. Temple Grandin: I went right up to the cafeteria, sat down next to Whitey. I’m now remembering it, this really, really super well, and I apologize for the rude talk. 

[00:06:14] Kim Scott: Yes. And how did Whitey respond to you? 

[00:06:17] Dr. Temple Grandin: He was fine. We and Whitey were kind of best buds after that. 

[00:06:22] Kim Scott: So, it, so this worked out really well. It did prevent, uh, a small thing from becoming a big conflict.

[00:06:29] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, that’s right. 

[00:06:30] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah. So, so, 

[00:06:32] Dr. Temple Grandin: But on the other hand, I didn’t praise the welding as being wonderful. 

[00:06:36] Kim Scott: Yes. You didn’t but, 

[00:06:37] Dr. Temple Grandin: I apologized for the rude talk and I said nothing about the quality of the welding. 

[00:06:44] Kim Scott: Yes. That’s, and that’s important because if you had lied, uh, about what you thought about the welding, then your apology would have come off as insincere. 

[00:06:53] Dr. Temple Grandin: No, no, no. I just apologize for the rude talk. 

[00:06:55] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah. Uh, that is, so let me see if I can, uh, abstract up from this specific example for people who do think, and in abstractions, what worked. I think one thing that worked is that he was very specific about, he didn’t say, you know, you need to be more collegial. 

[00:07:15] Dr. Temple Grandin: No, he didn’t say that.

[00:07:16] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. He said you were rude to Whitey when you said. 

[00:07:19] Dr. Temple Grandin: He basically after, he said, Whitey’s in the cafeteria right now on break. And he said in just about that tone of voice, and you’re gonna go up there right now and apologize for the rude talk 

[00:07:31] Kim Scott: Right. So the second thing that, that was very helpful about this feedback was that he told you what to do, when to do it, and where to do it. Like, very specific next step. 

[00:07:45] Dr. Temple Grandin: Oh, it was very, very specific because the, uh, Whitey’s break was thirty minutes. 

[00:07:50] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:07:50] Dr. Temple Grandin: So, I would have had to have gotten up there within fifteen minutes. 

[00:07:53] Kim Scott: Yes, yeah. So, that’s also, that’s another thing that people should know is be specific about what went wrong and be as specific as possible about the what, when, and where of how to make it right.

[00:08:05] Dr. Temple Grandin: No, I was to go up there soon as I walked out of his office, I was to go straight to the cafeteria and make the apology. 

[00:08:12] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah, and I have a question for you, what if you didn’t agree that what you had said was rude or you didn’t understand why it was rude? 

[00:08:23] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, saying somebody’s work looks like pigeon doo doo is pretty obvious that that’s not a nice comment.

[00:08:30] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:08:30] Dr. Temple Grandin: I understood that. 

[00:08:32] Kim Scott: Yeah. It’s interesting. I worked with an employee, uh, so I would love to get your advice on this. Can I give you a scenario and you can give me advice? Okay, so there was an employee who worked for me. He was on the spectrum, he was an engineer, so he’s very good at being very specific about what he thought about things. And there was a team of people, about six people, and we had to get together to meet. And this guy who was working for me, the one time that was convenient for everyone else was the time when he usually took his run every day. And he was very, uh, focused on his workout regimen. And he didn’t like to change the time of his run. And when it emerged that this worked for five of the six people, and maybe he could do his run an hour earlier or an hour later. What he said was, this makes me mad because I care more about my run than this meeting.

[00:09:32] Dr. Temple Grandin: I would not have said that. 

[00:09:33] Kim Scott: No, you would not have. But he, when I explained to him the problem with what he said and why it made everybody so mad, he really didn’t understand why it was a problem. And from his perspective, he said, I’m just telling the truth. Like this, my run is more important to me than this meeting. Uh, and why is everybody so upset? You know, why are people having these emotions? And why do I have to care about people’s emotions moreover?

[00:10:07] Dr. Temple Grandin: One of the things I’ve figured out after being on a lot of jobs, I’ve worked for a lot of different companies because I was a freelance designer. I’ve done equipment installs and stuff like that for every major meat company.

[00:10:18] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:10:18] Dr. Temple Grandin: I’ve worked for the best bosses, I’ve worked for the worst bosses, I’ve worked with all kinds of different people. And so I kind of developed the thing called project loyalty. You’ve got to get the project done. 

[00:10:32] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:10:33] Dr. Temple Grandin: And, um, it may be the other people couldn’t meet at any other time. The other thing is, I also would be thinking about how actually important for the project, whatever the engineering, was this meeting. Some meetings are definitely more important than others. 

[00:10:49] Kim Scott: Yeah. And this was a really important meeting. 

[00:10:51] Dr. Temple Grandin: I need to know more about what he was doing on the engineering team.

[00:10:55] Kim Scott: He was the lead engineer building the, 

[00:10:57] Dr. Temple Grandin: The lead engineer, he has to be there. 

[00:10:59] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. He really, he had to be there. 

[00:11:01] Dr. Temple Grandin: That’s the kind of thing I need to know. 

[00:11:04] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes. 

[00:11:05] Dr. Temple Grandin: Where I was, um, we’d have project meetings at this big plant that was getting built. And my, just my part of it was all the cattle handling part, all of that part. Well, if they’re going to have a meeting on the new chiller, maybe I don’t have to go to that. 

[00:11:22] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:11:22] Dr. Temple Grandin: That’s not my part of the plant. 

[00:11:23] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:11:24] Dr. Temple Grandin: But, um, he was the project manager. 

[00:11:29] Kim Scott: Yeah . So he had to be there. 

[00:11:31] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, he needs to be there. And the thing is, you’re the project manager for something, that’s pretty important. What was the project actually? 

[00:11:39] Kim Scott: It was, um, an app that managers could use to get advice on how to be more radically candid. So that was the project. 

[00:11:49] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, he said running is more important than that. 

[00:11:51] Kim Scott: Well. 

[00:11:52] Dr. Temple Grandin: One thing I had to learn, and I’ve worked with so many different companies, is every job, and it took me a while to learn this, no matter how good a job it is, you’ll have some things you don’t like.

[00:12:03] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:12:04] Dr. Temple Grandin: The difference between good places and bad places, is good places have less of these problems. 

[00:12:09] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:12:10] Dr. Temple Grandin: But these other managers may have commitments like, you know, picking kids up from school or something else, things that they’ve got to do. And, um, I think someone needs to counsel him that changing your run by one hour shouldn’t be that big a deal. I’m not saying don’t do your runs. 

[00:12:29] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:12:30] Dr. Temple Grandin: That’s kind of getting down to what’s more important, your job or, you know. Before I could fully answer it, I kind of got to know, um, what he was doing. You know, maybe there was something where, let’s say he was working on just some, uh, part of the app. It will, maybe wouldn’t, have been so important for him to be there.

[00:12:48] Kim Scott: Yeah, he was the engineer on this. So there’s no point 

[00:12:51] Dr. Temple Grandin: He is the project manager. 

[00:12:52] Kim Scott: Yes. He was the, he was going to build it. So if he wasn’t there, there was no point in having the meeting. 

[00:12:58] Dr. Temple Grandin: No, he’s out of order here as far as I’m concerned. 

[00:13:01] Kim Scott: Yes, yes. No, I agree with you that he was out of order, but my question I guess is, how could I explain to him why it was worth it to him to pay attention to the emotions of the people in the room. Um, and so I’ll tell you what I said to him. 

[00:13:17] Dr. Temple Grandin: You want your team to get stuff done? 

[00:13:20] Kim Scott: Yes, yes. 

[00:13:22] Dr. Temple Grandin: And, and changing the time of the meeting may have been more difficult for those other team members than changing a run. Like picking your kid up from child care.

[00:13:32] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:13:32] Dr. Temple Grandin: That’s a bit more rigid.

[00:13:34] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:13:34] Dr. Temple Grandin: Then the time of your run. You see, I am like giving examples of other things that the other people might have to do. 

[00:13:42] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That’s really helpful. That’s really helpful.

[00:13:45] Dr. Temple Grandin: That, you see, so this is why in a lot of situations, I got to have very specific, um, information.

[00:13:51] Kim Scott: That is really helpful, uh, for me and for people, I think, listening. To know that you can’t talk in abstractions, you’ve got to get very specific. 

[00:14:01] Dr. Temple Grandin: And one of my books on animals, uh, animals and translation, I talk about government policies and things being too abstractified. 

[00:14:08] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:14:08] Dr. Temple Grandin: And they don’t have any way of, um, how are you going to actually do the stuff?

[00:14:14] Kim Scott: Yes, exactly. 

[00:14:16] Dr. Temple Grandin: I think about things very, very specific examples, and then I can take a whole lot of specific examples. And I can put them into categories. 

[00:14:26] Kim Scott: And one, one of the things that I love about your book, uh, is your ability to explain how you think. 

[00:14:36] Dr. Temple Grandin: Oh. You’re talking about my visual thinking book? 

[00:14:38] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes. Such a great, such a, such a great book. Such a great, great book. 

[00:14:43] Dr. Temple Grandin: Um, my memory, I think the best way to just explain them using modern uh, technology is they’re like little phone videos that move in just a little bit. And I can access them, and I’ll get okay, let’s look there. It’s also associative because, um, uh, we talked about pigeon doo doo, uh, that I can also get in the pigeon file.

[00:15:04] Kim Scott: Right. 

[00:15:04] Dr. Temple Grandin: And I was at the Newark airport last week, and I’ve been got a new way to help with back pain. I make myself look up and I’ve got to become connoisseur of the airplane, the airline ceilings and tops of buildings as I walk because that forces me to stand up and it helps my back. And I saw the coolest pigeon, the Newark airport, and it flew full speed down an entire concourse. 

[00:15:27] Kim Scott: Wow. 

[00:15:29] Dr. Temple Grandin: So now I’m in the pigeon file. 

[00:15:30] Kim Scott: Yes. Okay. And that’s good. 

[00:15:32] Dr. Temple Grandin: Yeah. I can get out of the welding file, get in the pigeon file. We also have some pigeons over the door at the Denver airport and what they do over the door is not so nice. 

[00:15:40] Kim Scott: They leave some poop there. 

[00:15:41] Dr. Temple Grandin: Yes, they do. And they really try to clean it up and it’s just a mess. See, now I’m in the pigeon file. 

[00:15:46] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:15:48] Dr. Temple Grandin: But as I see these things, I see the pigeon flying. And it’s like a video that moves a little bit. I see the pigeons roosting with their butts hanging out in the early morning. I see them. They come up like a, pulling a picture up on a phone. 

[00:16:03] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:16:03] Dr. Temple Grandin: Yeah. 

[00:16:05] Kim Scott: And I think that one of the things that’s so interesting about your book is that you notice things that I never in a million years would notice. Uh, so for example, in your talk, you shared a picture from an airport where there was sort of a UFO thing. 

[00:16:27] Dr. Temple Grandin: Oh, that was a sign at the Denver airport. It’s a really funny sign, it’s been there for years. 

[00:16:33] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:16:33] Dr. Temple Grandin: And it says, don’t forget me. You come out of security. It has like headphones, passport, your belt. 

[00:16:40] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:16:40] Dr. Temple Grandin: I mean, things like that, that you would want on, you know, your, uh, phone, kind of stuff.

[00:16:46] Kim Scott: Your boarding pass, your keychain. 

[00:16:48] Dr. Temple Grandin: Your boarding pass. But the boarding pass, if you look at it, is a flight to area 51, at gate A51. 

[00:16:56] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:16:58] Dr. Temple Grandin: With a, and the flight duration is like, the beaming duration is like two seconds. 

[00:17:02] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes.

[00:17:03] Dr. Temple Grandin: It has a picture, it has a little flying saucer on it, beaming you up. 

[00:17:06] Kim Scott: Yes. And then describe the keychain.

[00:17:09] Dr. Temple Grandin: And the keychain has a fob that has a ufo on it. 

[00:17:13] Kim Scott: So you noticed all these details? 

[00:17:15] Dr. Temple Grandin: Yeah. I tend to notice that kind of stuff. I also notice on electronic signs. If there’s anything wrong with electronic sign one pixel off in an electronic sign, I’ll see it. 

[00:17:25] Kim Scott: You’ll notice it.

[00:17:26] Dr. Temple Grandin: I’ll notice it. 

[00:17:27] Kim Scott: Yeah. Another thing that you describe in your book, like if you tell me to draw a steeple, I will draw a triangle, two lines. That’s it. 

[00:17:38] Dr. Temple Grandin: Just two lines. Well, I thought when I was younger, when I was doing my cattle work, I thought, everybody thought in pictures the way I think. 

[00:17:45] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:17:45] Dr. Temple Grandin: And this helped me in my work with cattle because I got down in the chutes to see what they were seeing. Oh, they’d be afraid of a shadow. They’re afraid of a reflection, uh, some little piece of string hanging down, some little thing like that. And if you took these things out of the chute, they’d go up the chute. Always afraid of getting slaughtered. No, they’re more afraid of a weird shadow. 

[00:18:06] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah. They had no idea they were going to get slaughtered. 

[00:18:08] Dr. Temple Grandin: But that’s looking at what they are seeing. 

[00:18:11] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:18:11] Dr. Temple Grandin: Then I discovered a speech therapist that when I asked her about a church steeple, all she got was just sort of a skinny triangle. Where a visual thinker like me starts naming off the steeples where they’re at.

[00:18:24] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah. And so you see all the details on various specific steeples. 

[00:18:30] Dr. Temple Grandin: It’s, uh, they come up like PowerPoint slides. 

[00:18:33] Kim Scott: In your mind.

[00:18:34] Dr. Temple Grandin: But they also are specific places. 

[00:18:37] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:18:38] Dr. Temple Grandin: It’s not generalized. Now, why would I pick church steeple for this question? Because most people can see their own car, their own pet, or their own house. I’ve asked you something like church steeple, and I was doing this before cell phone towers existed. Now that’s another thing I could ask you about. I’m seeing as a really pretty good fake tree that we have here. I’m also seeing a cell phone transmitter on our equine center that’s worthless once you’re inside the building. I’m, you see, I’m seeing specific ones, especially ones that are kind of unique. 

[00:19:10] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes. And that has so much value, your ability to see something to, with, in all its details and something that’s very concrete. Whereas I just immediately abstract all the details. 

[00:19:25] Dr. Temple Grandin: I want to just talk a little bit about the kinds of thinking. In my visual thinking book, I talk about three kinds of thought. You have object visualizers like me, whose memories are like little phone pictures. We’re good at photography, animals, mechanical devices, anything to do with fixing and building mechanical devices and art. And another kind of mind is the visual spatial math pattern thinker. They think patterns, not pictures. They’re chemists, computer programmers, physicists. 

[00:19:53] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:19:53] Dr. Temple Grandin: And then your word thinkers. And there’s actual research and I have this in my visual thinking book that shows that the object visualizer and the visual spatial mathematical mind are actually two different kinds of thought. And there’s research to back that up. In fact, there’s some fabulous new research that was just published in Nature that shows that words are not required for thought. 

[00:20:17] Kim Scott: That’s amazing. And I believe that. Yeah. 

[00:20:20] Dr. Temple Grandin: But I think there’s some verbal thinkers can’t imagine thought without words. But, you get things too abstract, you have no idea how you’re actually going to do it.

[00:20:30] Kim Scott: Yes. And you also often, when things get too abstract, people are often talking about two different things and completely miscommunicating, which is me. 

[00:20:39] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, and I get, you get, you know, they talk about the existentialist meaning of life or something like that. Now it’s an old, there used to be this old magazine we read, it was called Life Magazine. But I said that I saw that, which I know is inappropriate. And I’m also seeing my Hubble deep space field poster I’ve got behind me. 

[00:20:59] Kim Scott: Yes. So I think it’s so important. One of the things that, that I love about your book is you talk about the value of getting different kinds of thinkers on the same team together.

[00:21:12] Dr. Temple Grandin: We need them. 

[00:21:12] Kim Scott: Yeah, it’s essential. 

[00:21:15] Dr. Temple Grandin: Nobody’s fixing elevators and escalators. 

[00:21:17] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:21:18] Dr. Temple Grandin: It’s just terrible. 

[00:21:19] Kim Scott: Yeah, and our school system is failing us because we’re not rewarding, well, the only kind of intelligence where we’re rewarding is the, is sort of the math intelligence. 

[00:21:31] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, we’re not even doing a good job with our math kids. 

[00:21:34] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:21:34] Dr. Temple Grandin: I’m hearing horror story after horror story of like a fourth grader in math, bored doing baby math turns into a behavior problem when he probably ought to be studying high school math in fourth grade, they’re not being developed. And I talk about how, how we need the visual thinkers to do all the mechanical things. Um, I just read today’s Wall Street Journal that forty-seven percent of all the ship building’s in China. 

[00:21:56] Kim Scott: Wow.

[00:21:56] Dr. Temple Grandin: And they can’t get anybody here to work on building ships. 

[00:22:01] Kim Scott: Yes. And why is that? What’s the reason?

[00:22:04] Dr. Temple Grandin: I think it goes back to taking shop classes out of the schools. I think it’s one of the worst things that we ever did. We’ve got kids growing up today that have never used a tool. I had a sixteen year old in my livestock handling class and they have to do a scale drawing in my class who had never used a ruler or tape measure in her whole life. 

[00:22:24] Kim Scott: Wow. 

[00:22:24] Dr. Temple Grandin: She had never measured, physically measured something. 

[00:22:28] Kim Scott: Wow. 

[00:22:29] Dr. Temple Grandin: So we get all these people totally separated from what I call the world of real things.

[00:22:35] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:22:36] Dr. Temple Grandin: And I was in the, in a hotel just the other day. I’m hoping I was not going to get stuck in this elevator. The door was truly geriatric. You know, I was moving super slowly. I said, I hope it doesn’t get stuck. I don’t want to get stuck in this elevator. 

[00:22:49] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:22:50] Dr. Temple Grandin: That was just the other day. 

[00:22:51] Kim Scott: Yeah, nobody can fix the elevator like, we’ve lost contact with the real world. 

[00:22:57] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, some of the people that can fix elevators really could be some of these autistic kids. 

[00:23:00] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:23:01] Dr. Temple Grandin: You’ve got to get them exposed to stuff, you know, like elevator mechanisms. I love to look at the elevator mechanisms you can see in some of these glass elevators at hotels. Well, that’s something you can show that to an autistic kid because it’s visible through the glass. 

[00:23:14] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:23:14] Dr. Temple Grandin: You’ve got to show kids interesting stuff. To get them interested in interesting stuff.

[00:23:20] Kim Scott: And that’s another thing I love about your talks and also your book is you talk about the interesting things that you were shown as a child. So what were some of the most inspiring, interesting things that you were shown as a child? 

[00:23:34] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, I remember, um, being fascinated by these tide gates they had that when they would close under a bridge and it would keep this one little harbor full of water when the rest of everything else was mud flats.

[00:23:45] Kim Scott: Wow. 

[00:23:45] Dr. Temple Grandin: My grandfather took me out there and explained how they worked and so when the tides changed I could watch them close off the bridge. That kind of stuff I found really interesting. Um, in the HBO movie about me, I was all interested in optical illusion rooms. And they actually showed the original Bell Labs movie that I saw that got me interested in optical illusion rooms. How did I end up in the cattle industry? I was exposed to it as a teenager. Exposure, you’ve got to expose kids to lots and lots of different stuff. I like when math gets really turned on to good stuff. Like I was just at this school that was right next to a great big data center. Well, you gotta see the electrical stuff coming into that place, the amount of power it eats. 

[00:24:27] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:24:27] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, they won’t let you go in there, but you can drive around it. This whole big warehouse is full of thousands of computers in here. 

[00:24:35] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:24:35] Dr. Temple Grandin: They make a city’s worth of electricity. 

[00:24:36] Kim Scott: Yes, yeah. 

[00:24:37] Dr. Temple Grandin: Wouldn’t you like to grow up and design computers, that’ll take half the electricity. So when you stream movies and stuff, it’s half the electricity.

[00:24:46] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s so, is it such good advice for parents of kids, no matter who your kids are. Because often your kids are fascinated by something that, that you yourself don’t find fascinating. And so being willing to follow your children’s fascinations, uh, can help them grow and 

[00:25:07] Dr. Temple Grandin: They also have to get exposed to things. My grandfather was an engineer, he was the co inventor of the autopilot for airplanes. And when we’d go over to Granny and Grandfather’s house for like Sunday dinners, um, he and I would go retreat to the study. He’d smoke his pipe and I’d ask him why the sky was blue and he’d explain it. And I think he actually liked doing it. 

[00:25:27] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:25:27] Dr. Temple Grandin: Why is grass green? Why do tides go in and out? 

[00:25:29] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes. 

[00:25:30] Dr. Temple Grandin: I’d ask him those kinds of questions. 

[00:25:32] Kim Scott: Yeah. So being open to these kinds of questions. 

[00:25:34] Dr. Temple Grandin: And explaining it. And too many kids, I mean, don’t know, research is showing we need to be getting them off the screens. And getting them out doing more real things.

[00:25:44] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:25:45] Dr. Temple Grandin: That’s why I’ve got little books like, like The Outdoor Scientist, which is just get kids looking at stars and things like that.

[00:26:03] Kim Scott: And another thing I think that is important about this, you had a really interesting statistic that the majority of the patents that were issued in this country, uh, early in the patenting, early on, yeah, when it first started, we’re, actually tended to go to visual thinkers. 

[00:26:22] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, they were all mechanical devices?

[00:26:24] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:26:25] Dr. Temple Grandin: Early patents were all mechanical devices like grain harvesting and things like that. 

[00:26:30] Kim Scott: Yes. And the world got much more efficient and life got much easier thanks to all these inventions. Um, but now that we’ve taken shop out of the schools and that we’ve devalued, uh, you know, working with the real world.

[00:26:46] Dr. Temple Grandin: People don’t understand that visual thinking is a different kind of way of solving problems. 

[00:26:52] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:26:52] Dr. Temple Grandin: You see how to make something work. You can see a risk. Like, okay, here’s just a real simple example. When I’m giving talks, I make sure the water is far enough away from the laptop so that it won’t spill on the laptop and wreck.

[00:27:07] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:27:08] Dr. Temple Grandin: I make sure the water is far enough away so that will not happen. 

[00:27:13] Kim Scott: And I wouldn’t have noticed that that could happen. 

[00:27:16] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, I know a guy on a plane. I couldn’t believe he did this. We’re on a plane and we’re flying and he takes this little plastic cup of water and sets it on his open laptop.

[00:27:29] Kim Scott: Yes, you wouldn’t do that. 

[00:27:31] Dr. Temple Grandin: Have to be kidding. 

[00:27:34] Kim Scott: I would do that. 

[00:27:35] Dr. Temple Grandin: Uh, I would not. 

[00:27:36] Kim Scott: Uh, but I would be grateful if you told me, Kim, it’s going to spill. 

[00:27:42] Dr. Temple Grandin: No, what I would have done is I would have had the laptop closed because if I spill it on the lid, it’s closed. It’d probably be okay. 

[00:27:48] Kim Scott: Probably okay.

[00:27:48] Dr. Temple Grandin: Drink the water down. 

[00:27:50] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:27:50] Dr. Temple Grandin: Get rid of it and then open the laptop and use it. 

[00:27:54] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:27:55] Dr. Temple Grandin: That’s what I would do because water spilling on the keyboard in a laptop wrecks the laptop. 

[00:28:00] Kim Scott: Yes. I’ve been known to spill not only water but milkshakes on my keyboard of my laptop.

[00:28:05] Dr. Temple Grandin: What happened, now keyboards one thing but, 

[00:28:08] Kim Scott: I mean, on the actual, you know, on the open laptop.

[00:28:11] Dr. Temple Grandin: Okay, an external keyboard, that’s not when you’re. 

[00:28:14] Kim Scott: Not the external keyboard.

[00:28:15] Dr. Temple Grandin: The laptop. Okay, that’s really bad. What happened to the laptop? 

[00:28:18] Kim Scott: It died. 

[00:28:19] Dr. Temple Grandin: Uh, that’s what I figured it goes right into the guts of it. 

[00:28:23] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:28:24] Dr. Temple Grandin: You spill it on external keyboard. 

[00:28:26] Kim Scott: It’s okay. 

[00:28:26] Dr. Temple Grandin: There’s a lot of computer parts in there that might survive. 

[00:28:29] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes. So what is your advice, if you, uh, if you were working with someone like me, who tends to abstract away things to think in terms of words, not images,

[00:28:41] Dr. Temple Grandin: I have bosses ask me this all the time, because I’ve done a lot of my different kinds of minds talk. I’ve done it for different companies. No, I’ve talked to oil rig companies, travel website companies, just all kinds of companies. And I tell, I’ve talked to the head of the company and I said, the first thing is you have to realize different thinking exists. 

[00:28:59] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:29:00] Dr. Temple Grandin: I did not know that verbal thinking existed until I was in my late thirties. I simply didn’t know. 

[00:29:06] Kim Scott: And I didn’t understand visual thinking until I read your book, Temple. 

[00:29:10] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, that was the reason for writing the book. 

[00:29:12] Kim Scott: Thank you for writing it. 

[00:29:13] Dr. Temple Grandin: Because you really do need all the different kinds of minds because you take something like in a food factory, for example, my kind of thinker makes all the mechanical equipment. And then more mathematical engineers do things like refrigeration, structure of the building so it doesn’t fall down. Things that require a lot more math. And you see, you need to have both. 

[00:29:33] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:29:33] Dr. Temple Grandin: You also need verbal thinkers for organization. Every tech company that ever was eventually has to hire a grownup. And that grownup’s usually a verbal thinker. I want you to just run the company. 

[00:29:45] Kim Scott: Yeah. And I think when the verbal thinkers don’t appreciate, acknowledge, and honor, uh, the other kinds of thinking, things go badly wrong. 

[00:29:55] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, I get asked all the time. People ask me, well, how do I teach autistic kids, autistic individuals? Well, I got to know who am I dealing with? A three year old? The first question I got to know is age. I don’t have to have the exact age. I have to know, is it early intervention we’re going to be talking about? And I can give a pretty general answer for that. Don’t wait. 

[00:30:12] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:30:12] Dr. Temple Grandin: You two year old’s not talking or three year olds not talking. You’ve got to start working on one of them now.

[00:30:16] Kim Scott: Right. 

[00:30:17] Dr. Temple Grandin: You know, is it bullying? Is it, um, noise in the classroom? 

[00:30:21] Kim Scott: And are they being bullied or are they inadvertently bullying others? 

[00:30:25] Dr. Temple Grandin: Yeah. I have to know more about it. I just talked to some parents today where their kid that’s partially deaf, um, has had really bad problems at school. And then the more I talked to them, I find out they changed a whole bunch of stuff that they hadn’t even thought about that could have had an effect. They changed the teacher, they changed the student, they changed the school. 

[00:30:46] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:30:47] Dr. Temple Grandin: Okay, you didn’t tell me that. 

[00:30:49] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:30:50] Dr. Temple Grandin: You said you have this behavior problem. But then when I start questioning them, I find out they changed the school, they changed the teacher. They changed a whole bunch of stuff. 

[00:30:57] Kim Scott: And what about, let’s imagine that you’re giving me advice. I’m hiring a new team and I’ve hired, uh, say three employees right out of, um, university who are autistic. So they’re, 

[00:31:11] Dr. Temple Grandin: What is the team? What’s the purpose of the business? That’s the first thing I gotta know. What’s this business for? 

[00:31:15] Kim Scott: Okay, so I’m, you’re talking to a word person. I’m now making up an imaginary scenario. So 

[00:31:21] Dr. Temple Grandin: Okay, we’ll make it up.

[00:31:23] Kim Scott: I’ll get, I’ll give you that, but this is really helpful, by the way, this is what good writing is, is these kinds of questions. So thank you. Uh, so I am starting a company that is building a, um, an AI, uh, bot that will help people, um, become better managers. And let’s imagine I’ve hired a, 

[00:31:48] Dr. Temple Grandin: The AI system is going to help them become better managers.

[00:31:50] Kim Scott: So what the bot will do is, uh, there’s going to be, it’s going to be trained on my books. So there’s going to be a small language, 

[00:32:01] Dr. Temple Grandin: First of all, what kind of business is they’re in? This is going to matter. 

[00:32:05] Kim Scott: What kind of, what is my business or there’s, 

[00:32:08] Dr. Temple Grandin: The fictional business you’re talking about? What do they do?

[00:32:12] Kim Scott: They’re building software. They’re software engineers. 

[00:32:15] Dr. Temple Grandin: Making software. I’ll tell you what you don’t do. 

[00:32:16] Kim Scott: Okay. 

[00:32:17] Dr. Temple Grandin: You don’t just go to an autistic programmer and say, develop new software. That’s too vague. 

[00:32:22] Kim Scott: Okay. 

[00:32:23] Dr. Temple Grandin: You might want to say, I want you to develop a translation program that can translate all the slang language from English into French.

[00:32:33] Kim Scott: Yes, yes. 

[00:32:34] Dr. Temple Grandin: You see, that’s an example of something specific. 

[00:32:37] Kim Scott: Yes. Okay. So, 

[00:32:39] Dr. Temple Grandin: Where there’s a specific outcome of the work. 

[00:32:42] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:32:42] Dr. Temple Grandin: That’s the way I would work with the autistic programmer. 

[00:32:45] Kim Scott: Right. So, and I think that that’s really useful feedback for folks. Because I think that some people might feel like they’re micromanaging to give that level of detail. But they’re not in this case, they’re working 

[00:32:58] Dr. Temple Grandin: You don’t tell them how to do the program.

[00:32:59] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah.

[00:33:01] Dr. Temple Grandin: Anything I did with my design work. I’ll do the design work. But I have to know the parameters. 

[00:33:06] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:33:06] Dr. Temple Grandin: What is the cattle handling facility supposed to do? What is the software supposed to do? 

[00:33:12] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:33:13] Dr. Temple Grandin: It has an outcome. 

[00:33:14] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:33:15] Dr. Temple Grandin: And I like being, I like a clear outcome. Like when I’ve done writing projects on animal welfare guidelines. Um, I like to have a piece of the guideline that I write is, you know, is to find what area I cover, get it done at a certain time, do the references in a certain format and then do it.

[00:33:33] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes. And I think the other thing that I read in your book that was really helpful is that you knew where your parts began and also more importantly, perhaps where it ended. Like you got the cattle to the slaughterhouse, but once they had been slaughtered, that was no longer, 

[00:33:53] Dr. Temple Grandin: It was somebody else’s problem and there’s a place in the line. There’s a switch in the line. That’s a definite. 

[00:33:58] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:34:00] Dr. Temple Grandin: Now that doesn’t mean that if they, if I see mistakes in the other end of the plan, I’m rubbing their nose in it or anything like that. But also, I’m looking at it from a contract standpoint, my responsibility for the equipment ends at that switch.

[00:34:15] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah. 

[00:34:16] Dr. Temple Grandin: That specific. 

[00:34:18] Kim Scott: Yes. Uh, and it can be drawn. 

[00:34:21] Dr. Temple Grandin: Yeah. And it can be drawn. I can say, okay, I have to unload, do unloading everything in yards, whole thing. And it ends at a certain place. I developed this thing called a center track restrainer system. And at the end of that system is basically where my responsibility ends.

[00:34:40] Kim Scott: Yes. And you also told an incredible story. So thank you, first of all, for that feedback. Like, I think the, what I’m learning from you is that if you, if I hire these three autistic engineers. 

[00:34:54] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, don’t tell them how to do programming. 

[00:34:55] Kim Scott: Yeah, but I need to be very specific about. 

[00:34:58] Dr. Temple Grandin: Exactly what you want the software to do.

[00:35:01] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:35:01] Dr. Temple Grandin: You know, you might have some software on a phone or something, eats up too much memory. You just don’t, say that, I want new software that does exactly the same thing on half the memory. 

[00:35:10] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:35:11] Dr. Temple Grandin: Okay. That’s specific. That’s the outcome. 

[00:35:13] Kim Scott: That’s really good. That’s really helpful. Um, the other thing that I really like about, that just sort of inspired me about your work is you had a huge impact on the whole industry. Talk to people about how you, how you managed to get into so, I mean, something like a third of all the cattle go through your equipment at this point. Yeah, in North America. Um, so how did that happen? How did you make that, that’s unbelievable. 

[00:35:43] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, it’s started out, well, one really important scene in the HBO movie, Temple Grandin, is where I go up to the editor of our state farm magazine and I get his card and then I wrote an article about my master’s thesis. And then I volunteered writing a column, and then I became livestock editor. That press pass got me into so many things. 

[00:36:07] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:36:07] Dr. Temple Grandin: Another thing needed was credibility. 

[00:36:10] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:36:10] Dr. Temple Grandin: They didn’t want to let me into that Arizona cattle feeders meeting. But I got in and I summarized those talks absolutely accurately. I was a good note taker and I got respect for that. And then when I designed stuff, I wrote about it. I wrote, and I wrote a lot of just how to articles, how to lay out corral systems, how to work the flight zone, the point of balance in cattle, lots of practical how to articles. And there’s a lot of other people have done some great work. Nobody knows about it, they never wrote about it. 

[00:36:42] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes. So good PR. Good, good writing. 

[00:36:46] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, and not just PR fluff. 

[00:36:47] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:36:48] Dr. Temple Grandin: My idea of an interview, I’ve got to show you this one drawing, my, this is one, oh that’s right, this doesn’t have video on it.

[00:36:54] Kim Scott: Well, you can show it to me, I can see it.

[00:36:55] Dr. Temple Grandin: I can show it to you. 

[00:36:56] Kim Scott: Okay.

[00:36:57] Dr. Temple Grandin: I’ll show it to you, but my idea of an interview was to just put the drawings down in front of everybody. That’s how I sold my work. I showed off the drawings. Now, I can’t find it going in there, put the book away. But I learned to sell my work by showing off my drawings. Here it is right here. 

[00:37:17] Kim Scott: Oh, wow Okay, so somebody who sees that knows, you know, 

[00:37:21] Dr. Temple Grandin: Be a two foot by three foot drawing. 

[00:37:23] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:37:24] Dr. Temple Grandin: And I’d lay it out on the desk. I didn’t lay it out on the desk in front of HR people. I showed the plant engineer and the livestock yard people.

[00:37:32] Kim Scott: Right.

[00:37:33] Dr. Temple Grandin: They’re the ones that would care about it. But I learned to sell my work. And they thought I was weird, but when I laid that drawing out in front of them, they go, hmm, you did that?

[00:37:43] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yes. So I think that’s another thing that some of our listeners can, uh, learn from you is what you want to do is you want to look at people’s work. You don’t want to reject them on an interview because you may have a hard time communicating in the interview. But once you’re, once you see the work, then you realize, uh, you know, let’s, I better learn how to work with this person because this person does incredible work.

[00:38:13] Dr. Temple Grandin: I worked with autistic shop people like, uh, they all, these are people that were very autistic, undiagnosed, they own big metal fabrication shops. And they were inventing and patenting equipment. Like the mathematical engineers might say, well, those people just build equipment. I’m sorry. No, they make equipment and they invent it.

[00:38:32] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:38:33] Dr. Temple Grandin: Yes. I just was, um, in a little small plant, brand new one just the other day, some very nice equipment in there from Poland. And I could tell by the way some of the stuff was put together. It was very nice, but you know, it was a small shop making this stuff. Why aren’t we doing it? 

[00:38:50] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:38:51] Dr. Temple Grandin: Because we, the kids are playing video games in the basement instead of making stuff. 

[00:38:57] Kim Scott: Uh, and giving different kids opportunities to do different kinds of work feels like an opportunity to give different kinds of kids different kinds of opportunities to succeed in the world. 

[00:39:09] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, there’s a lot of stuff talking about, okay, how can we support them in the workplace? 

[00:39:12] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:39:13] Dr. Temple Grandin: Let me give you some very specific things for the workplace. 

[00:39:16] Kim Scott: Okay. 

[00:39:17] Dr. Temple Grandin: These are things that have come up over and over and over again. First thing, let’s avoid the rapid multitasking chaos, like a McDonald’s takeout window. 

[00:39:27] Kim Scott: Not a good place. 

[00:39:29] Dr. Temple Grandin: Chaotic Christmas wrapping station. Just chaos. Another thing is, let’s say I have to close out a cash register at Walmart. Let me make a little pilot’s checklist of steps. Step one, step two, step three. Because I have very bad working memory and bosses get mad. We’re gonna show them how to work that machine. Are they stupid? 

[00:39:50] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:39:50] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well making little checklists. Now, I never had an issue with being on time. I, that was pounded into me. And there’s some autistics that have trouble getting work on time and certain jobs, that’s not going to go well. And when I worked for the magazine and we had deadlines, I had to get my stuff done.

[00:40:07] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:40:08] Dr. Temple Grandin: And I did. 

[00:40:09] Kim Scott: Yeah. And how did you learn, how did you learn how to do that? How to be on time, how to get your, your articles in on time? 

[00:40:18] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, my mother had a thing called high expectations with some accommodations. One thing I used to do is make, print out those calendars where you can see the whole month and write stuff on that and I always tried to get my stuff done early. I didn’t wait until the day before to write the article. 

[00:40:37] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:40:37] Dr. Temple Grandin: I usually, what I tried to do, if I covered the cattle feeders meeting, is I would come home and I’d write the article either that, the next day, while they’re still really fresh in my mind. 

[00:40:47] Kim Scott: That is, those are good tips. And I really love what your mother said high expectations with accommodation. 

[00:40:54] Dr. Temple Grandin: I’ll give you some examples of accommodation. 

[00:40:56] Kim Scott: Okay. 

[00:40:57] Dr. Temple Grandin: Yeah. I mean, we could do, by the time I was five, you know, I was very nonverbal, very severe behaviors at age three. You know, by the time I was five or six years old, we could do family gatherings. And one of the things that we would do is I needed a place to exercise. So when we went to my grandmother’s apartment that was five floors up, I’d run up the fire stairs and do beat the elevator, always beat the elevator. And that burst of exercise helped me to be calmer. Hey, that was an accommodation. And when we had to go on a ferry boat that had a super loud horn, I hated that horn. She didn’t force me to sit under the horn. 

[00:41:29] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:41:29] Dr. Temple Grandin: I was allowed to ride in the cabin below. 

[00:41:33] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:41:33] Dr. Temple Grandin: But I was going to go on the ferry. The family had to go on the ferry, it was one of those ferries you drive cars onto, and the accommodation was to sit below. Now they didn’t have noise cancelling headphones, so those didn’t exist. 

[00:41:44] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:41:45] Dr. Temple Grandin: But these were accommodations. You’d make some accommodation, but we’re going to do the family dinner at granny’s and we’re going to go on the ferry. 

[00:41:55] Kim Scott: I love that. 

[00:41:56] Dr. Temple Grandin: That’s what she did. You know as I talk about it , I’m seeing the ferry. I remember when I was five the horn went off. I flung myself on the deck. Because when it was nice weather, people wanted to ride on the deck on the ship. 

[00:42:07] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:42:07] Dr. Temple Grandin: They didn’t want to ride in the cabin, it was raining. Everybody was in the cabin, but usually it wasn’t raining. 

[00:42:11] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:42:12] Dr. Temple Grandin: I mean, I’d go right straight to the cabin. 

[00:42:14] Kim Scott: Insulated from the noise. 

[00:42:15] Dr. Temple Grandin: Yeah. It was far enough away, it didn’t bother me. 

[00:42:18] Kim Scott: I have one last question for you. There was another story that you told that was very moving about as you were publishing these articles, you also persuaded, uh, a leader from a large, um, I think fast food restaurant to go to a slaughterhouse where things were not going well.

[00:42:40] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, I was hired by McDonald’s. Designed a lot of equipment. This was eighties, early nineties. I had a lot of equipment out, especially in the beef industry. 

[00:42:50] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:42:50] Dr. Temple Grandin: A lot of equipment out there and it was very frustrating. I mean, half my clients tore stuff up and wrecked it. 

[00:42:54] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:42:55] Dr. Temple Grandin: That was very frustrating. And then McDonald’s corporation had to, was forced to look at the animal welfare issue. And I was hired, this is about 1997 to take, uh, heads of McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King out on their first trips to slaughter plants. And when things were going good, that was fine. When things were going bad, they were horrified. Yeah, we need to be fixing some stuff. 

[00:43:18] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:43:19] Dr. Temple Grandin: I caught, it was just like that show Undercover boss. And I came up with a very simple way to evaluate the slaughter plants. There were five things you measured, you know, things like falling during handling electric produce, cattle bell run, things like that. You can measure these things. And I taught their food safety auditors that were already out in the industry on how to do these welfare audits. And the good news is that most of the places, even the older places, didn’t have to buy all new equipment. They had to repair a whole bunch of stuff. 

[00:43:52] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:43:52] Dr. Temple Grandin: And they had to put in non-slip flooring, and they had to, um, supervise employees and do better cattle behavior, moving smaller groups of animals, for example.

[00:44:02] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:44:02] Dr. Temple Grandin: And out of seventy-four plants on the McDonald’s approved supplier list, only three had to buy expensive things. Now I sold expensive things. But one of the things I did is what I call reverse conflict interest. I did everything possible to make whatever they had their work. That’s one of the reasons why the industry didn’t go into a revolt, you know, revolt against me. 

[00:44:26] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:44:27] Dr. Temple Grandin: Because I was not forcing equipment down their throat. That I was not doing.

[00:44:31] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:44:32] Dr. Temple Grandin: And there were three plants with hopelessly overloaded equipment and that had to be replaced. 

[00:44:37] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:44:37] Dr. Temple Grandin: I let that slide for a while. But that’s something I’m very proud of. It was very, very simple. It’s sort of like traffic. Really, when you get right down to it, what do the police enforce? The two most important things, drunk driving and speeding. 

[00:44:50] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:44:53] Dr. Temple Grandin: They might pull you off for not signaling when you change lanes, but not many people get pulled over for that. 

[00:44:58] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:44:58] Dr. Temple Grandin: The most important things are drunk driving and speeding. 

[00:45:01] Kim Scott: Yes.

[00:45:02] Dr. Temple Grandin: And then stopping violations and seat belts. 

[00:45:04] Kim Scott: And so you said here are the five things that you have to measure in order to approve your suppliers.

[00:45:12] Dr. Temple Grandin: That’s right. And then if we find some abuse. 

[00:45:14] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:45:15] Dr. Temple Grandin: Automatic failures.

[00:45:16] Kim Scott: So you pulled it down to five simple metrics that they could track so they could make, 

[00:45:20] Dr. Temple Grandin: Five simple things. 

[00:45:21] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:45:22] Dr. Temple Grandin: And there were, um, electric prod use, falling during handling, vocalization when you’re handling them, cattle fellering, stunning. You better make them unconscious ninety-five of the time on the first shot. Now the points are at ninety-nine point something plus. 

[00:45:41] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:45:41] Dr. Temple Grandin: And when you hang it up, it better be unconscious. 

[00:45:44] Kim Scott: Yes. And that’s 

[00:45:46] Dr. Temple Grandin: Those are very, very simple things. 

[00:45:48] Kim Scott: And when you told me the story, I remember two things. I remember the five simple metrics, but the thing that I really, so now you see how my mind works. The thing that is burned into my mind about the story you told me is, that there was, there were a couple of, uh, I forgot which of the fast food chains. But there were a couple of people on one tour and the cow had, uh, had been hung up, but it was still conscious and it was terrible what was happening.

[00:46:16] Dr. Temple Grandin: No, that’s totally terrible. You don’t do that. 

[00:46:19] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. And when he, but he needed actually to see it. 

[00:46:23] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, that’s the thing. It’s like that show Undercover Boss. 

[00:46:27] Kim Scott: Okay. 

[00:46:28] Dr. Temple Grandin: Everything is an abstraction. 

[00:46:30] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:46:30] Dr. Temple Grandin: Until they actually see it. 

[00:46:33] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:46:34] Dr. Temple Grandin: I’ll never forget the day when a skinny, emaciated, half dead dairy cow went up the ramp into the, to their product boy. That’s all I talked about on the way back to the airport. I can assure you of that. 

[00:46:47] Kim Scott: Yes. But it’s also, um, so important because you were able to, you knew that you, those images were already in your mind. And you found a way to get them into the minds of these people. 

[00:47:02] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, I also explain, it’s like traffic. When you really think about it, the police, they, so you have five things for it. 

[00:47:07] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:47:08] Dr. Temple Grandin: Drunk driving, uh, speeding, red light and stop sign violations, seatbelts, and now texting. 

[00:47:15] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:47:15] Dr. Temple Grandin: And they don’t, and they measure drunk driving. They measure the speeding. They have devices to measure that. They don’t just say, they think you’re speeding. So we would count. a hundred head cattle sample. How many animals fell? How many animals got poked with the electric bug? You count that. It was very, very objective. So when I first started doing it, I’d have a McDonald’s representative beside me. I’d have the plant manager beside me and we’d all get the same score.

[00:47:45] Kim Scott: Yeah. So you had an objective measure. 

[00:47:47] Dr. Temple Grandin: Yeah, we had an objective measure. 

[00:47:49] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:47:49] Dr. Temple Grandin: It’s one of the reasons why it worked. 

[00:47:51] Kim Scott: Yeah. So, so a highly emotionally charged image of something going wrong and an objective measure about how to prevent that from happening. 

[00:48:01] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, it’s similar to traffic. I mean car accidents are horrible.

[00:48:04] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:48:05] Dr. Temple Grandin: Brutal. 

[00:48:05] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah 

[00:48:07] Dr. Temple Grandin: But it’s, the trick is, what are the five important things to measure? And a lot of times I’ll do an exercise with traffic and I’ll have people say, forget to do the turn signal or something like that. That’s important. But sometimes I find when I do that exercise, the people are slow to put the, what I call the eight hundred pound gorilla, which would be drunk driving. That’s big number one. 

[00:48:32] Kim Scott: Yes. Yes, it is. Uh, and hopefully we’ll see more, uh, more enforcement. 

[00:48:40] Dr. Temple Grandin: But the whole thing, but the thing that, um, what worries me with too many verbal thinkers, you know, in charge is they, you have to figure out which details are important. 

[00:48:51] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:48:51] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, let’s look at something like the iPhone, Steve Jobs was an artist and he made an interface that was easy to use. Most of the programming was an artist. 

[00:49:02] Kim Scott: Yeah. Steve Jobs used to say that Apple was at the intersection of the liberal arts and technology and the arts were an important part of it. 

[00:49:11] Dr. Temple Grandin: And he took a calligraphy class that made a very big impression on him.

[00:49:16] Kim Scott: Absolutely. 

[00:49:16] Dr. Temple Grandin: You know, that’s why. You know, and that’s a humanities course. Um, it made a very big impression on Steve Jobs. 

[00:49:24] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:49:24] Dr. Temple Grandin: I remember one time he said about the iPhone, I wanted to make a device that people didn’t know they wanted it until they saw it. 

[00:49:31] Kim Scott: Yeah. 

[00:49:31] Dr. Temple Grandin: Now most of the improvements on the phone are just incremental.

[00:49:34] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah. And I think what, part of what you’re saying here is that it, the value of the collaboration between a verbal thinker and a visual thinker. 

[00:49:48] Dr. Temple Grandin: Well, let’s go back to my book, Visual Thinking. Which was Betsy’s and I’s big COVID project. Um, I wrote the rough drafts kind of disorganized, ’cause my thinking is associational, like I’m talking about the pigeon welding thing. 

[00:50:01] Kim Scott: Yeah.

[00:50:01] Dr. Temple Grandin: Then I’m now seeing a pigeon flying through the Newark airport. Now I’m in the pigeon file. 

[00:50:05] Kim Scott: Right. 

[00:50:06] Dr. Temple Grandin: You know, that is associational, um, associational thinking. And then Betsy would go through it with a highly verbal line and she smoothed it out for me. So we were using our skills in a collaboration. 

[00:50:20] Kim Scott: Yes. 

[00:50:21] Dr. Temple Grandin: Using benefits of both kinds of skills. That’s really important. 

[00:50:25] Kim Scott: It is really important and it yields a much better product. So amazing. So amazing. Well Temple, every time I speak with you, I learn so much. Uh, and I know our listeners have learned a lot too. And so I’m going to say one of my resolutions for 2025 is to partner with more visual thinkers, uh, because I know, uh, that that would really deepen my thinking about anything I’m working on. Well, Temple, I want to thank you so much, uh, for being on the show and for sharing your wisdom with, uh, with our listeners, this was a great conversation. And I think we will help all kinds of different people learn how to work together better. 

[00:51:10] Amy Sandler: The Radical Candor podcast is based on the book, Radical Candor: Be a Kick Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott. Episodes are written and produced by Brandi Neal with script editing by me, Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co-founders Kim Scott and Jason Rosoff and is hosted by me, still Amy Sandler. Nick Carissimi is our audio engineer. The Radical Candor podcast theme music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Follow us on LinkedIn, Radical Candor, the company and visit us at RadicalCandor.com.