⏰ Quest Minutes : Carole Robin
The Touchy Feely Queen
This piece is written by Felix Wong, Editor & Writer at The Quest.
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🎓 Introducing : Carole Robin
Catch the full conversation here:
Carole Robin is the founder of Leaders in Tech, a non-profit organization that helps train technology company founders and executives. Carole has taught the most popular class at Stanford Business school: Interpersonal Dynamics, AKA ‘Touchy Feely’ for over 20 years.
Her latest book, Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends and Colleagues, is based on the course that has inspired a revolutionary approach to leadership strengthened by emotional vulnerability and introspection.
Raising Leaders
Taking a pragmatic approach to parenting, Carole and her husband made a ‘life plan’ to balance their career pursuits with the demanding commitments of family life.
“We both wanted to be very involved in raising our kids…so we made a deal, we would take turns being the primary caregiver.”
Carole realized a passion for helping others achieve their potential after eventually returning to working life, and sought to foster a new age of vulnerable and interpersonal leaders.
Interpersonal Dynamics
Carole was recommended to David Bradford, the Stanford course coordinator for ‘Interpersonal Dynamics’, and future co-author of Connect. Seeing her natural aptitude for educating others, David persuaded her to teach the course. Although she was initially hesitant to become a full-time teacher, Interpersonal Dynamics quickly became a student favorite.
“I fell in love with my students, and I decided to become a full-time teacher at Stanford…I was the first person to teach this from the business world…Like how does this make you a better leader and a better all-around human being?”
The Queen of Touchy Feely
Interpersonal Dynamics is affectionately nicknamed ‘Touchy Feely’ by students, and touted as a transformative experience by participants of the program. Carole sought to inspire her students to apply the ongoing learning process of emotional honesty in business leadership and in all aspects of life.
“The main modality of learning in this course is called T-Groups. The idea is that you don’t learn about how to become more interpersonally effective [me] lecturing…you learn by interacting with other people!”
The purpose of T-Groups is to create a vacuum environment, encouraging people to be emotionally vulnerable and candid. Carole teaches others to continously reflect on their emotions, and seek to understand others by slowly pushing out of their comfort zone.
Human after all
Carole had been socialized into believing that there was no place for emotions in the workplace. In a moment of finally sharing her pent-up emotions with her team members and demonstrating vulnerability, she saw it as the moment where she truly became an effective leader.
“I held this strong mental motto that if I showed vulnerability, then people would see me as weak, especially as a woman. I had gotten very good at [hiding] it. But in the meantime, no one saw me as human…Frankly, I’m leaving the (most important) half of myself in the parking lot every day – the part that people could connect to.”
Realizing that she had lost sight of the fact that people do business with people became a watershed moment in Carole’s life, and inspired her to author Connect with David Bradford.
Connect
For years, Carole and David were repeatedly approached with opportunities to publish Touchy Feely into a book. They held off, explaining that the impacts of T-Groups could not be conveyed by reading – it had to be experienced.
However, there was an increasing concern that these vital lessons and transformative experiences were becoming exclusive to a small group of privileged people. They determined that this message was too important to keep from the rest of the world.
“David and I sat down and looked at each other. Maybe it’s time to bring Touchy Feely to our readers…it’s not an academic book, it conveys all of the lessons through 5 storylines. At the end of each chapter we ask you, the reader, ‘what do you think you would have done?’”
By fostering empathy with the characters, Carole and David guides the reader through the process of self-reflection that participants in T-Groups would experience naturally. Through the medium of storytelling, they encourage readers to apply these lessons to their own relationships.
Carole’s book, Connect, is available for order now.
Carole continues to teach Touchy Feely and emphasizes the importance of having difficult but honest conversations. Being emotionally candid with ourselves and others builds a stronger foundation for relationships compared to cosmetic rhetoric.
She hopes that her book serves as a helpful reminder to her students, and can inspire new readers to build better relationships and become more effective leaders.
This piece is written by Felix Wong, Editorial Lead and Writer at The Quest with Justin Kan.
You can connect with him via LinkedIn and Clubhouse! (@flexyw)
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