🤸 Emotional bids, re-thinking meetings, & a 4-year-old rapper

Hey — it’s Cristina & Jenni.

Each week, we share leadership reflections, resources, and laughs to help you excel in your role (+ have fun along the way).

As two tech leaders, we’re here to “lead in public” by sharing what we’re learning in our day-to-day roles, encouraging others to do the same, and learning and growing as leaders together.

Enjoy!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming with a quick survey!

In the spirit of Lead(ing) In Public, we’d love to learn more about you so we can make this newsletter - and our community - as great as possible for leaders hungry to reach their full potential.

If you have 5 minutes to spare, give us your thoughts right here.

What we’re reflecting on this week

As a self-proclaimed business nerd, I've read dozens of leadership books over the years. (Who’s with me? 🤓😅)

But a couple years ago, I stumbled upon a random podcast and got nearly as much value from 1 single concept than from all those books combined.

It’s helped me become a better leader, teammate, partner, and friend… and it's not even work-related.

This concept was coined by John and Julie Gottman, 2 researchers who also happen to be happily married to each other. The Gottmans have spent 40+ years studying couples and how they interact.

Their concept is called an "emotional bid."

As we go about life (with our partner and with others), we put “bids” on the table:

👉 Questions: "Want to go for a walk?"

👉 Statements: Beliefs, jokes, observations, ideas

👉 Emotions: A smile, a laugh, a frown, some tears

These bids are invitations for the other person to engage with us, to meet us where we are.

They can choose to either "turn towards" or "turn away" from our bid.

The answer doesn't need to be yes all the time, and not all yeses feel good. "Turn towards" them = make them feel heard and valued.

These bids - these tiny units of human interaction - compound over time.

Intuitive when you think about it, but the results from the Gottman lab are still incredible.

Ready for the mic drop? 🎤

The Gottmans brought newlyweds into the lab to study their interactions. Then they checked in with them 6 years later.

Yep, you read that right.

Bids are so powerful to building successful relationships that they can literally be used to predict divorce 🤯

So, let’s bring it back to you and to leadership: take a moment to think about your own relationships.

✅ How often are you ACCEPTING the bids of the people you love? Your direct reports? Your boss? Your customers?

❌ How often are you REJECTING those bids?

💡 As a result, how strong (or weak) are those relationships?

We humans are relationship-focused creatures. For me, the idea of “bids" puts language to something universal. Something we all feel but don't quite have words for.

And when it comes to leadership, relationship-building is pretty much our full-time job! From direct reports and managers to cross-functional team members and the C-suite, it’s difficult to succeed - or to create a path to success for your team - without dozens of strong relationships invested in over time.

Here are 5 workplace bids we’ve come across that you can keep an eye out for:

My challenge to you?

Pay special attention to others’ bids next week and find ways to accept them.

And remember: bids are an invitation to connect with someone - “leaning in” doesn’t always mean saying yes. The important part is finding a way to make the other person feel seen, heard, and valued.

→ How can you apply the concept of bids on your next round of 1:1s or in your upcoming leadership huddle? (And what about in your personal life?)

What we’re learning this week

• 🎙️ Podcast: WorkLife with Adam Grant ft. The Gottmans - If you’re interested in learning more about emotional bids and hearing not only additional examples but also live role play scenarios, carve out some time to listen to this incredible conversation. So much goodness in here from the relationship pros!

• 🧵 Twitter thread: Level up your meetings - Our very own Cristina wrote a great thread inspired by CEO Coach Matt Mochary’s frameworks. Highly worth a read if you want to rethink stale meetings and amp up the collaboration and effectiveness of your team.

• ✍️ LI post: 10 visuals that will transform your mind - We could (and might) write a newsletter on each of these simple but powerful Hannah Wilson visuals. There’s something for everyone - time management, personal growth, learning from mistakes, etc.

What we’re enjoying this week

Van Van is the cheerleader we never knew we needed - if you want some good vibes, look no further than this video!

That’s it for this week — thanks for reading.

See you next Thursday! 🤸‍♀️