1186: The Hidden Cost of Undersharing with Leslie John

How to Be Awesome at Your Job

In this episode, behavioral scientist and Harvard Business School professor Leslie John argues that professionals systematically undershare rather than overshare, a phenomenon she terms

Key takeaways

• Leslie John shares a story about peeing herself on stage at an academic conference, which unexpectedly led to mentorships from senior professors who valued her authenticity over polished humblebrags.
• Research analyzing job interview transcripts shows that qualified candidates who admitted real weaknesses (e.g., being quiet to process information) were more likely to get hired than those giving rehearsed answers.

Main topics

• Oversharing versus undersharing (TLI)
• Workplace vulnerability and transparency

Notable quotes

"Oftentimes what we think is oversharing is just sharing."

Conclusion

Listeners gain practical frameworks for navigating social and professio

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:05) These things are not as risky as we often perceive them to be. And even when there is something negative that comes out of it, you can always go back to them and say, hey, I'm worried about how my comments went over. One really easy low-hanging fruit way to start is with praise. That's a kind of sharing that is very much low-hanging fruit that we so frequently undershare. Speaker 1 (0:37) That's Leslie John. She's a professor of business at Harvard, a behavioral scientist, and an award-winning researcher. She's also the author of Revealing the Underrated Power of Oversharing, which we're discussing today. So you'll learn one, the surprising upsides to oversharing. Two, the easiest and loveliest thing to overshare. And three, why it's a good sign when people cringe. And if you want a quick summary write-up of the actionable wisdom that Leslie shares, I recommend you head on over to awesomeatyourjob.com and sign up for the free Gold Nugget email newsletter there. I'm Pete Bukaitis. This is How to Be Awesome at Your Job. And now, here's Leslie. Leslie, welcome. Speaker 2 (1:13) Hi, thanks for having me. Well, Speaker 1 (1:15) I'm excited to chat about oversharing. And could we start at the beginning? Could you make the case for oversharing? I think even the word itself seems like it's a bad thing. I know, I Speaker 2 (1:27) know. It's off-putting and it's a cheeky title, my book, The Underrated Power of Oversharing. It's ooh, la la. So let me just disarm things right off the bat. There is still such a thing as TMI as oversharing and there's lots of oversharing that is not good. The point of the cheeky title and my cheeky point is to say that oftentimes what we think is oversharing is just sharing. And sharing is incredibly helpful for our relationships, for our well-being, and of course, in the workplace. Speaker 1 (2:03) Okay. So what we think is oversharing could just be sharing. This reminds me, we've had guests who've said what you're calling micromanaging is really just managing. So... Speaker 2 (2:12) Well, that sounds like rationalization that a control freak would use. But I'm kidding. No, but when I'm teaching my PhD students, it is true. Like to really teach someone, you got to get really micro. So I agree with that. Speaker 1 (2:25) Tell us then, could you maybe orient us with an example of what's something that some might call over sharing that you think is just great level of sharing? Speaker 2 (2:36) Well, so here's something that I shared at work. Speaker 2 (2:41) which was when, and I was junior too. So I was a baby academic just starting out and it was a conference, a work conference, and it was late at night, a party, and we were all gathered around myself, a bunch of junior people, and then two super grand poobah senior people who we were all desperately trying to impress. And someone came up with the great idea of saying, let's go around the circle and never ends well, right? And share our most embarrassing story ever. So most people, you know, they start, they're like, oh. You know, like I work too hard and like one day I got caught working like at an odd hour of the day or, oh my gosh, there was a typo in this abstract of a fancy academic paper I published, the horror. Like they're just these eye-rolly humblebrags, right? Like they're not actually embarrassing moments what people were sharing. They were just kind of trying to present themselves in some, there was like a form of posturing, right? But for whatever reason. I decided to go for it and share my actually most embarrassing story ever, which is also in the book. You're welcome. But it basically entails me going into grand detail about an episode where I peed myself on stage in the front of like a thousand people. And so I told that story in lots of graphic detail and people cringed afterwards. The next morning I woke up and I'm like, oh my God, like. I've been canceled. That was career suicide. It's like I poured gasoline all over my body and lit a match, like the end. So it really felt like a tremendous overshare TMI moment. But thinking back, those two grand poobahs, they became my closest mentors. They opened doors in academia that I didn't even know existed. And I'm close with them. And they said, it's not. In spite of what you shared that night, it's partly because of it, because you were real and you were like actually funny, even if it was at your own expense and you weren't a robot. And like, we want to work with people. We're drawn to people who are actually human. And maybe. have the humility to joke about themselves. I don't know. I don't want to flatter myself too much, but that's an example of something like sharing an actual embarrassing story in a work context to people that are way higher status than you. Like they didn't even know I existed. That was the first thing they knew about me. So I think that's like a pretty strong example in the sense of like pushing some skepticism that we may actually have about this idea that oversharing is redeeming. Speaker 1 (5:15) That says it so well, right? Well, I've accidentally had an accident as a grown-up as well. Tell more. It was, we had a lot of luggage and a young child and a long, a mass transit ride. Speaker 2 (5:35) Yep. Speaker 1 (5:36) And it didn't seem like I had an opportunity to exit. And so. That happened. To be Speaker 2 (5:48) clear, it wasn't your child. Speaker 1 (5:49) No. Okay. So it happens to the best of us. To your point about we like working with people who are actually human. Yeah, Speaker 2 (5:58) that's apt today. I think Speaker 1 (5:59) that says a lot. Because I have. Even before AI, I remember back in the day when I was on the other side of the career fair for the first couple of times, you know, so I was with Bain and Company back at the University of Illinois trying to get some sharp young associate consultants in that mix. And whenever I heard people say, hello, I am looking to merge my interests in accounting and finance in a high impact. And I was like, are you really? Is that like what's in your heart of hearts, your burning desire? I love it. And so I'd be like, I would much appreciate, even if it feels offensive, I was like, how on earth are companies paying half a million plus a month for a team of five young folk like you to do stuff? I'd be like, now that's a real question. And I would find that person memorable and interesting and want to have a closer look at that resume application. Speaker 2 (6:58) Right. And in fact, there's data to support this too. There's research on job. I love this example of job interviews because job interview, it's easy to say when you're in a high status position, everybody loves and respects you. You have a lot more leeway of what you can share often, except for immoral things, which is we're in a higher standard category, but I'm setting those aside. But when you're junior and you're being evaluated and it's super competitive, like a job interview, even then it can benefit you from being a little bit more open, not talking about like your rashes, your like trauma, like not like a little bit more open, a little bit of authenticity, a little bit of humanity. And that's a great example. And so this research study, they got transcripts of people in job interviews. And then they looked at, they analyzed the transcripts and they looked at what predicted getting the job. And they found that among the people that were qualified, it was the candidates who were real. That got the jobs. Who answered the question like, you know, that dreaded and kind of unfair question of like, what's your biggest weakness? And people are like, usually, oh, I work too hard. The ones that answered and a real weakness, like, or a real perceived weakness, like, you know, sometimes I'm quieter in meetings. That's because I spend a lot of time listening and processing, right? Like something, so sometimes I'm misunderstood. Right. So that's that kind of answer is what I mean by being a little bit more open in that situation. Right. So key, of course, is reading the room and understanding the situation. Speaker 1 (8:22) OK, well, that is a juicy bit of research. Do you have more like that? Well, Speaker 2 (8:27) in fact, I do have lots of juicy research. I actually insulted the Harvard prof that was interviewing me in my Harvard. interview. So that research, when I read it, I'm like, oh, redemption. There's method to my madness. Because when I was interviewing, I inadvertently sassed the interviewer. I inadvertently made a comment about his weight. And so like super meanie move, but it's kind of sassily delivered in the moment. And again, one of these, like my face turned bright red. I'm like, oh my God. They think I'm a horrible person. Why did I do that? You know, sometimes when I'm nervous, I just blurt things out. It's a tick or something. I don't know. But then three days later, they called me. It was Harvard. And they said, when you sassed us like that, we thought you'll fit right in here. Our students are tough, so you got to have the chutzpah. It easily could have gone the wrong way. But the point is, these things are not as risky as we often perceive them to be. And even when there is something negative that comes out of it, like, You know, you're at a party, you say something a little bit offside, you feel, or you're in the workplace and you feel like you insulted someone. You can always go back to them and say, hey, I'm worried about how my comments went over, right? So it's not like this one-shot thing that it's oversharing. And then you can see even there's a benefit to that because now, okay, maybe you shouldn't have said the thing, but now by approaching and talking, now you're forging a relationship with the person. The person respects you because you're asking them questions. You're hearing them out. You're learning about each other, right? So it's like even those moments that feel cringy and overshary, there can be an upside. And when I was writing the book, it made me reflect on all these funny moments in my life where I thought, oh, my God, what did I do? And looking back, I realized the long game, there was always some amazing redemption to them, so much so that like every single one of these things, I would do them all over again. Speaker 1 (10:26) Okay. Well, so this is eye-opening. And we've heard the acronym TMI, too much information. You also introduced the acronym TLI. Correct. Too little information. How should we be thinking about the concept of TLI? I Speaker 2 (10:41) think TLI. is way more common and way more problematic, actually, than TMI. TLI, too little information. You know, we didn't even have a word for it. That's how, like, much we've ignored this problem. It's not to say TMI isn't real. For sure, there's still TMI. But the more I learned and the more I really practiced opening up more, the more I realized, wow, this societal... fetish with TMI or the societal, it's like the greatest social sin, TMI, right? That's how we treat it. But it's really not the bad, like, of course, sometimes you really can, you can get canceled, you can get fired for telling your boss you have a hidden disability, whatever, all these things, of course, of course, of course. But on