You are listening to the DFJ Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series, brought you weekly by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.

You can find podcasts and videos of these lectures online at eChorner.standford.edu.

Today's guest is Adam Grant, who studies original thinkers.

One of fortunes 40 under 40, Adam is a leading expert on living a more generous and creative life.

A best-selling author, he writes about work and psychology for the New York Times and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

Here's Adam Grant.

Yeah, it's all downhill from here, I can promise you. I actually want to take you back about 15 years.

I was working in advertising. It was my first real job. And I hired this guy that I thought was going to be a creative genius. He spoke six languages fluently. He was self-taught. He had brilliant ideas in the interview. I hired him, and then he didn't do anything. And he starts falling way behind on a deadline. I'm trying to figure out, like, how am I going to cover my tracks and make sure that I don't get fired for hiring him? And while I'm trying to sort this out, a senior leader in our organization walks over to his desk and starts screaming at him and says, if you don't get your act together,

you're going to be fired. And I watch this happen. I've got a choice to make. Do I speak up

or do I stay silent? And I know my whole life I have been the person who

stayed silent. When I was in elementary school, I got called to the principal's office. I got

there, found out I was not in trouble, and I still cried. And I was just, I was so motivated to

follow the rules that I also followed rules that didn't exist yet,

just in case one day somebody would create them. And I really wanted to, you know, conform,

respect my elders, please authority. And yet in this situation, I felt like I had to say something.

And so I looked around the organization and I found the person who I knew would have my back.

It was my boss's boss. She had nominated me for an award the previous year. She had also stopped

by my desk religiously every week to talk about Survivor, which meant I had to watch Survivor.

And I just, I felt like she was the safe place to go. So I marched into her office and I said, look, I think this is a terrible injustice. Nobody should be treated this way. And that aside, I'm worried that this guy is going to quit. And if you think we're behind on the deadline now, just wait until he leaves the organization. We're going to be screwed.

Deep breath, nothing bad happened.

Except then my boss's boss drags me down the hallway and shoves me into a dark room.

The light goes on, I'm totally disoriented, and I'm standing somewhere I've never seen in my entire life.

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