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From the Ted Talk by Taken for Granted: Jane Goodall on Leadership Lessons from Primates

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Hey, we're Leifer's, it's Adam, we're getting close to the premiere of Season four of our show, but today I've got another conversation for you from our taken for granted series of uitcnsrepd interviews about rethinking apsnumiosts this year and last. Many of us have been forced to communicate with our closest colleagues and friends from a distance, and that skill is not uniquely human. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, this is the distance greeting. And that slmpiy means this is me going. Yep. This is Jane Goodall, legendary eihsogltot, an expert on primate beohiavr. Jane greeted us from her home in the U.K. over Zoome. It's an unnatural htaibat for a person who usually spends most of her time outdoors. More than 60 years ago, Jane started her career studying chimpanzees in Tanzania, along with aohoglponrsitt Lewis Leakey. She famously immersed herself with wild chimps and made groundbreaking discoveries about how primates behave and communicate. It turns out that we have a lot more in common with apes than we realize. And by observing their actions and ianecrttonis, I think we can lraen a lot about leadership, status and culture among humans. I'm Adam Grant and this is taken for granted by paosdct with the TED Audio Collective. I'm an organizational pgslochyisot. My job is to think again about how we work, lead and live. So I guess the place to start is can you tell me a little bit about where you are right now and what it's like to be working from home instead of in the wild? Well, first of all, I was very lucky to be caught and grounded in my home. This is the house where I grew up, although this is the longest I've been here in one place since the age of, well, 18, I think. Wow. You know, here I have all my work, all my books behind me. If you could see this, the bokos I read as a clihd outside the window of the trees that I climbed when I was a child and you asked about how I was coping and what it was like working from home. Well, to be honest, I've never werokd so hard in my life as in the last four months. I mean, it's just been nonstop video mgseniasg. Do you do virtual calls with chimps as well? I don't speak to the chimps. No, I wasn't sure. So it's really interesting that you've you've never worked this hard before. Does that mean you're you're adapting well to roetme work and being sort of in one place in an office? Well, it's not an oiffce. It's up in my room. It's a little area and it's very small. And so my my little studio is stinitg on a very hard stool. But, you know, I'm hpapy. What I miss, I mean, I was travelling 300 days a year around the world, and you would think that was harder work and it surely was sometimes I got exhausted, but in between there was, you know, minkag a really, really good friends and relaxing with them and lanugihg and telling soitres and then giving lectures to rooms filled with up to 15000 people. You get a buzz from it. So even if you start off feeling tllotay exhausted, some energy that comes. And whereas now I'm having to give talks, gaizng at a little tiny geern light on the top of my laptop. It's it's a big eofrft to do it well, but I won't do it unless I do do it well, so. Well, you do it beautifully. And Jane, I can very much rlatee to that erxpniceee. I've done more varutil talks the last four mthnos than I think in the rest of my life combined. I want to ask you more qtunesois about your remote work life, but I also want to make sure we get a bunch of commentary and an iihsngt on on paimtres. So I've been interested in what primates can teach us about leadership and how we all work together. And so I gsues the place I'd love to start on that is if you could just describe some of your key insights and observations around when you see primates collaborate. What does that teach you about how humans work? Well, you know, the reason Dr. Leakey sent me off to study chimpanzees in the first place is because he spent his life searching for the fossilized renmais of sonte Age humans. And you can tell an afwul lot from a fossil, but behavior doesn't fossilize. So Leakey was actually ahead of his time in thinking that way back when there was a common ancestor, ape like, human like. And maybe that behavior has been brought with us through our separate evolutionary pathways. So it gave him a better feeling for how early humans might have bhveaed. That's why he sent me anyhow. Eventually I began to realize how, like us, they are in so many ways their non-verbal communication, kissing, embracing, hodnlig hands, pntitag one another on the back. We find that the males and this was obvious pretty early on to me, they have this very rigid dominance hierarchy, but it's always changing as young ones start moving up a hierarchy starting at the boottm when they're in late adolescence. And the itrseinnteg thing is they have different methods of climbing the ladder. And when you consider those who've made it to the top, the alpha males, you know, there are some who just use physical strength, aggressive and slightly brutal and do a lot of attacking. They don't last as long as those that use their intelligence and they use that intelligence in different ways. So one was Mike, and he was very low ranking in a in a group of 11 adult males, was right down near the bottom. But he just had this motivation to cilmb the ladder. And some some males do and some males don't. A big difference there anyhow. At that time, you know, it was findeeg the bnaanas. It was the very early days, neeitenn sixty four. And we lit the camp at night with a little paraffin lamps, kerosene lamps and call them, I think Will Mike took this chance experience with a can and he deevepold it. So in the end he learned to keep three cutnos ahead of him and would charge towards males who were his superiors at the time. And it was a scary thing to have three cans hturlnig towards you making this nsoie. So they got out of the way and then, you know, he would sit exhausted and still with his hair bristling and they'd come and grab him. And as far as we know, there wasn't one single serious fight, because when they fight, they tend to pull each other's hair out and there are wnduos. But Mike had neither ptehacs of hair nor wounds, and he reigned six years. And then you ask about leadership. Well, Mike became alpha male, but being an alpha doesn't make you a leader. It makes you the boss. And others will be submissive to you and greet you with submissive gestures, but then other males are leaders and leaders because they're much more gentle and other chimps like to follow them and choose to follow them. Oh, this is so fascinating. I have so many questions for you. I'm not even sure where to start, I guess. So I'll start at the question of who becomes a leader versus who's an efvfceite leader. So one of the things we find over and over again in my world of organizational psychology is that the iadivuldnis that we elevate to leadership roles are often the most nsirssaiictc, sesflih takers because they show dominance and strength. But that ultimately, when we look at who leads well and and both inspires people and guides a group toward achieving a common goal most productively, it tends much more to be the humble, other oriented, generous givers who are willing to put the team or the ooatarizgnin above themselves. And it seems like you see a similar dynamic with chimps. Yes, and of course, chimps don't have leadership in quite the way of what you will study in humans because I guess that are syduntig leaders in politics or business or both. Exactly. Yes. And for chimpanzees, you know, it's the srvite for some of the males is the alpha position. They want to dominate the others. And of course, that's what we see in some politicians. Right. We effect when I see two chimpanzee males brtnsilig, swaggering, upright, furious scowl on their face using intimidation tactics because it's a waste of time to fight, you might get hurt. So mostly it's intimidation. And it reminds me just exactly of some human male politicians. They do the same. It's so true. Why do you say human male politicians? Well, I don't think human female politicians used the same tactics, at least I haven't seen them. I mean, I'm thinking of the last election and I'm thinking of when Hillary Clinton was talking and Donald Trump was kind of looming, you know, how he used to loom behind her. Yes. Threatening, swaggering way of that was so chimpanzee like. It's so interesting to think about this, I guess, you know, one of the things that I've long been curious about when we see those kinds of differences, how much are they driven by social rleos versus, you know, more evolutionary and biologically reootd forces? Where do you come down on that? Well, I think it's mostly I don't know. I mean, we do know now this chimpanzee culture, a different chimpanzee communities have slightly different ways of doing things. But that's mostly we see it in things like tool using and sometimes using a gesture that's common to both. But in a slitlghy different ctoxnet. How it compares pelciersy with what you're talking about is it doesn't really it doesn't quite gel somehow. What do you what do you think? I mean, OK, a male and he's motivated to climb the sicaol ldader. Why? He wants to get to the top. He wants sometimes you feel honestly, it's because he really enjoys the submissive behavior of others and that I think we can compare with some human leadership. Would you agree with that? Oh, it's hard to disagree with that one. Yes, I would agree, especially when we start to see those differences vary from one culture to another. I start to believe that there's there's a lot to be lareend from studying the way that cultures are created, which which I'd be very curious to hear your take on, because you mentioned that chimpanzees have cleurtus. They lack a lot of the tools we normally use to build cultures. Right. They can't they can't tell stories the same way that humans do. Certainly language cabpliatieis are more limited. How do chimpanzees build cultures through oseirvobatn, imitation and pccirate? And that is one definition of human culture. Behavior passed from one generation to the next through observation and that it's demonstrated so clearly. You watch the development of an infant, for example, you see the young ones watching and at first they don't even try. Then they use an inappropriate tool. Then they use I mean, one one little infant quite determined that she was going to really try and do what her mom was doing, having watched her mom. And she she got this thick little stick, which was much too tihck, but she pushed and psuehd and it went down into the hole or she couldn't get it out. And it was just so funny. But gradually, by the time they're about four, especially the females, they've got it down to up to a fine art. The males, they have a different role in that society. They're the ones who control the territory. They're the ones who got to be alert for individuals from another cotimmnuy iandnvig their territory. So there's quite a big difference in male and female characteristics. And that's the same with humans. And this is what bothers me as we move into the era of feminism, is that the females who first sdeeucecd in breaking into male business and pcitiols, for example, did so by trying to become more male than the males used the same tactics. Whereas what we need in our scotiey is the two different, the male and the female who who do have different ways of doing things. We need both. Yeah, I think so too. And you know, some of the reserach on Queen Bees has suggested that that's much more of a rosnsepe to inequality than a cause of inequality. So that, you know, it's not that that women lrdeaes necessarily want to operate this way, but they feel like they have to do it in order to get and then maintain their position. I wondered if there's a there is a plelraal in chmip society there as well. I don't think so, I mean, they you know, they don't so far as I can understand, they don't think things through like that. They just do what their nature tells them to do. And a female behaves like a bite, like a female. We had one female who was sterile. She never produced an infant, and she behaved much more like a male. And yet at the same time, she had female characteristics and she adopted a whole lot of motherless ornaphs. So they they seem to behave more in tune with when, like you say, they can't talk, they don't spaek, they don't discuss. So they just behave the way they feel. Which is why I always say, you know, only hmauns can be really evil, cpmihs can be brutal and aggressive and kill and have a kind of war, but they are not capable of sitting down in cold blood and planning to torture an individual who's not even present. Wow, that's what I consider evil. That's such a pewurofl setamtent. This touches on a theme that you mentioned earlier, and it's another theard that I wanted to pull, which is about this distinction between dominance and rsepect or prestige. So you mention that a lot of chimps are able to gain alpha status and eanlseitsly eicilt submissiveness, but they're not necessarily admired or wlnglliiy followed. Does that mean that the dominant aplha males actually lose their status featsr, whereas the the ones that either use their intelligence or other strategies are more likely to sasuitn the rvipesetce of a gruop? They are aggressive. One last that long usually. I won't say always, but but I mean, the most aggressive one we've ever had, Humphrey. He only lseatd one and a half years. I'm really interested in hanrieg your take on the mechanisms behind this pattern. So if they're if they're really aggressive , chimps don't last as long. How do you explain that? What do you think is dnrviig it? I don't know. I mean, it's just that they all have different personalities. And I suppose the aggressive ones don't necessarily use their bniras. And maybe if you use your intelligence to get to the top, you can use your intelligence to stay up there. That tracks is one of the mechanisms that I was thinking about, which is that, you know, when studying humans, I've seen pttery consistently that the dominance path to the top, as is often the shortest, but also the shortest lived because if that's the strategy that's that's going to get people there, then you only last until there's another more dominant individual who's going to overpower you. Yes. And clever, cveler coalition. I mean, coalitions play a very major part in chimp society. Really important part. Well, I think that's another pecie of the puzzle that I was wondering about, is it seems that if if dominance is the strategy to gain power or status, then you're essentially creating a culture in which everybody's position is is determined by strength. And so the moment that a few individuals would get together and oamturst the strongest one, they have a catiiooln that's that's able to overpower. How does that happen? How did how did chimps coordinate that kind of coalition blniidug the kind of coalition that's one that might be between, interestingly, either between brothers and they can be supporting each other for a very long time or between a male who was dominant and the one who's taken over his dnmonciae. And that's what I found absolutely ftiaainnscg. So, OK, one male tkeas over the dominant role through aggression. He fights and having taken over and it's very clear he's now the top and the peourivs Alpha is very submissive. Every time he sees him, he gives a submissive and grunt and reaches out to touch. But the new alpha continues to beat him up and he beats him up really savagely, even though the other one is ginvig all the sibmissvue responses. And when he's behave that way for about, let's say, a mntoh or so, then suddenly there's, of course, that the previous alpha is now very, very, very nervous and submissive. And then the alpha changes completely. He's always grooming him. It's really nice to him. He never attacks him. He rushes them to protect him. Another male challenges him. And because of that, these two then become so strong an alliance that nothing breaks it. And I think just absolutely fascinating. Wow. Yeah, and then the other kind of alliance is a temporary one, so two males are wtnniag perhaps, I don't know, to take bananas from a high ranking one and neither of them on their own could do it. And so they gang up. And that's a temporary ailclnae. And I guess I'm trying to visualize how this happens. You know, when chimps get together and form an alliance, whether it's temporary or more lasting, is there a this is going to be a strange question, but I'll give you a sense of how I think is there is there a workplace analog so, you know, to chimps coordinate like they're working on an assembly line. Does it look more like a farm? Do you see them in an office with cubicles or am I stretching, stretching this parallel too far? That's way too far. It's a thing of the moment. We want to attack that guy over there. You can't defeat him on your own. You look around, you see another male who normally you don't have much time with, and you run over to him and you touch him and you look at the high ranking one and the other male tihnks, oh, this is an oourpittpny to get the better of him. And so the two of them chgare or atactk together. So I think that speaks to some really interesting questions about ctoiianmcoumn and coioatondirn. You know, certainly since drawin wrote about facial epeionsxsrs, we've been curious about the universality versus sipitcicefy of of different kinds of facial signals of emotion. This is this has been an incredibly heated debate in psychology over the last few years. Which facial expressions of etomoin do you think are most universal from your studies of chimps and which ones seem to be idiosyncratic to either individuals or to groups or cultures? Well. You know, the facial expression that goes with bigging, pouting, the lips, the facial expression that goes with fear, drawing the lips right back and having the mouth wide open, the facial expression that shows lteauhgr and play, I think we find them in chimps of all different groups that have been siuedtd and in captive chimps as well, for the most part. And then what about what about body language? What do we learn about the way that the chimps communicate through the gestures they make? I'm curious about other human analogs and plaellars there. I mean, if you wtcah chimpanzees communicating nonverbally, you more or less know exactly what they're doing because we do the same. I mean, we we really do. We shake ftsis. We if you don't like something, you make that flapping, flapping movement. You reach out and beg. You threaten with your fist raised. You spike up from foot to foot if you want to impress. One thing that I was really istentreed in is when you talk about how the alpha mlaes often lose their piiotosn or they don't live as long in some cases I've seen versions of that in business and in political life. And I feel like the the myth of the alpha male is very aggressive and persistent in societies around the world. There are a lot of people who don't necessarily want to operate that way. Intimidation or dominance is not their default. It's not pteelrcfy aligned with their value system. But they look up the hierarchy and they see very influential, very visible role models doing it and they think they have to follow suit. And I guess you sepnt so many years interacting with wolrd leaders. I'm interested in what you think it's going to take to break the myth of the Alpha. Probably more woemn coming in and more women using their feminine qiautiels rather than trying to ape the male qualities of the existing system and which, quote unquote, feminine qualities do you think are most important in leadership? It's very imaporntt to be understanding, to be intuitive, to be patient and to be compassionate. And is your hope that we ctnouine seeing those as feminine qualities or that we dismantle these stereotypes at the at the ground level and say actually these are leadership qualities? I don't know, I've never thoghut about that, so I couldn't I couldn't possibly answer it, but what I love is he was one of the chiefs of a Latin American indigenous tribe, and I forget which country. But he said to me, he said, you know, Jane, we consider our tribe as like an eagle. And on this eagle, one wing is male and the other wing is female. And only when the two wings are euqal will our tibre fly through my. That's beautiful. Yeah, it does make me wonder about something you just mentioned, which is patients you mentioned, that's something we need more in leaserhdip. You also mentioned that it's something that that your work has rieuqerd over the yares. And there are these legendary stories about you being five years old, waiting, just waiting around for chickens to lay eggs. And then is that real stuffy hen house for four and a half hours? And you just sat there? Yeah, first I followed him because I wetnad to know where the hole was, where the egg came up and nobody told me. So I remember seeing this brown hen going into one of these hen houses and crawling after her, which was a big mistake and squawks, I presume, fear she flew out past me. I can still feel her wing on my face. It was a bit scary and I must have thought in that little four and a half year old mind will know hen will lay an egg here. This is a scary place. So I went into an empty hen house and waited and saw the egg come out. And you see, I had this enormous benefit when I was a child of my mother. She was so supportive. So instead of getting arngy at me, how dare you go without telling us? Don't you do it again? They called the police. By then, she said the wonderful story of how a hen laid an egg. And when I announced age 10 that I was going to go to arfcia and live with wild animals and wtrie books about them, everybody laughed at me because I was a girl and war was raging then and Africa was far away when we have basically no money. But Mum said, if you really want to do something like this, you could end up to work awfully hard to take advantage of every opportunity. And then maybe if you don't give up, you'll find the. That's what I've told young people all around the world, and so many have come up to me or wtitren to me and said, Jane, I want to thank you, because you taught me that because you did it. I can do it to. That's that's it's so mivnog to hear and it's clear you not only found her right, you cleared the path for so many others to follow in your fstpotoes. Do you have techniques or strategies to maintain your patience and delay gratifications? No, I never thought of it. I mean, like just born that way, you know, I was obviously born patient, wasn't I? And I could sit for hours until I got used to me. And then I could watch laying eggs and watch the parents feed the babies and watch the bebais fly away. And that took huros of just sitting. I think that to be a good mother, which is a woman's role throughout evolution, really going way back, you have to be paietnt. You can't be a good mother if you're not patient. I don't think. This is qiltuay, we've been tlnkiag about being patient and oinbattse and resilient. I imagine that came in handy early in your career when people are tilenlg you you can't do this work without a doctorate and a woman can't do this work anyway. Can you talk to me a little bit about how you dealt with the criticism from closed minded men? Well, you know, honestly, people always say that. But I didn't have that kind of cisicritm any more, I think, than if I'd been a male. I was criticized for giving the cnezmpaeihs nmaes, but I guess that criticism would have come even if I'd been a male student, I guess. And Leakey wanted me because I was a female and because I had an ueaisbnd mind. And the when I got tempted, it was just becoming independent. So there was resentment towards the white males who dominated the country for so long, but a white fleame. And they wanted to help me. So I didn't have this, you know, when when there were these male scientists, when I dvrceoseid tool using saying, well, why should we believe her? She's just a girl. She doesn't have a dregee. She's only got moeny from the geographic cause she's got nice legs. All I caerd about was getting back and learning about the chimps. I didn't even want to be a sisniectt. It was Leakey who made me to the degree. And I'm really glad he did. By the way, I loved learning how to think in, you know, in a siitecnifc, logical way. I enjoyed that so much. It's helped me in everything, actually. Hi and welcome back to my conversation with Jane Goodall. There's a Max Planck saying that it gets paashreprad as saying that science progresses one funeral at a time. And I think you've known many more scientists than I have who just were unwilling to let go of their pet theories. And this is clearly not a problem for you. It almost seems like you're immune to confirmation bias. And, you know, to go and discover not only the chimps use tools, but even make their own. I'm interested in how you, I guess, kept such an open mind to discover things that flew in the face of what everyone thought was true because I hadn't been cellgoe. You do. I mean, that's what he told me later. He said I I wanted somebody with an unbiased mind. And I don't like the way the reductions thinking of scientists today. So he also felt that a woman might be more patient on the field. So I was really lckuy in those ways, you know? I think so, too, although it poses challenges then over time, as you get older and you become more steeped in the assumptions of the field. There's there's a term in my world called cognitive entrenchment where experts srtat to take for granted assumptions that need to be qeoestuind. How have you prevetend yourself from getting entrenched over the years? I suppose it's personality. I don't know. Also, rbeeemmr, I never got into the academic, but, you know, I was I never had an academic position in the university. I just got that PhD as quickly as I could and went back and learned from the chimps. When you're out there learning from the chimps, you can't get entrenched because you're continually getting surprises. And you know the other animals, too, that I've watched it. You can't get entrenched when you're really absolutely keen on understanding another species. So I guess going out into the wild then forces you to to juxtapose what you think you know, against what is. Yes. And in a way of travelling around the world in all these different ciruoetns and meeting all these different cultures. It's kind of the same. You can't get entrenched in one culture when you meet people baneihvg in a completely different way, maybe from the same motives. You know, your mind is continually wants to expand and grow. And I've been really lucky in that way. And then, you know, you're also going back to this chimp human thing, and you touched upon it already, but what ? Because we're so like them, more like them than any other liinvg creature, it helps you understand how we're different. And I think the main difference is the fact that at some pniot in our eoivtouln, we developed this way of speaking with wdros so that we can teach children about things that aren't present. We can gather together and discuss something people from different views. And that is what I believe led to this explosive denveplmeot of our intellect, which is what really does make us different. So animals are way, way, way more intelligent than many pelope used to think and some people still wouldn't believe it. But, you know, I can think of a species that designs a rocket that goes to Mars from which a little roobt creeps to take photographs for people who think about discover stars that are billions of light miles away. I mean, my gsnodoes. And I think Galileo back then in those days couldn't think of anything else. I mean, the haumn iecltnlet has been extraordinary. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's it's it's hard to it's hard to disagree with with those those observations. So a few things that I want to make sure we cover. I wanted to do a slightly shorter lightning round where we build a little cloor around maybe the size of a view that most people don't get to see. So the first qsoutein I had for you on that is if you weren't a primatologist, what other jobs might you have wanted? Well, anything to be out in nature before that really crlzlaeytisd, I wanted to be poet lratauee. I used to read so much poetry and write books. What is the worst career advice you've ever received? Well, I suppose it was what the professors told me when I went to Cambridge that I've done everything wrong. And it turns out they were the ones who had done everything worng, didn't it? That's poetic justice to your poetry. Yeah , write your poetry fashion. And then I was talking with my sister the other day, and she said that if she could have dinner with anyone on erath, you'd be at her table, which, of course, made me wonder who would be at your table. Are there are people you would most like to sit down with and learn from that you've never met or that you've only had limited interaction with people who are alive tdaoy? Yes, I would really like to sit down privately and have dinner with the pope. What would you talk about? Well, it would depend. I mean, I don't really talk to people about anything until I sussed them out, as it were, and found a piece of common ground and something that you can share and then let the conversation run. But he's been so outspoken and amazing about the enivmernnot. And, you know, he actually has said just because we can breed like rabbits doesn't mean we should, which for a pope is quite extraordinary to say something like that. And I think he's done a lot to persuade Catholics to take more concern for the environment. It's fnuny to hear you say that because I think you paved the way for the kind of eareiputnrerenl activism that he's done in his work. That goes to something else I wanted to ask you about, which is as you moved into activism, both, you know, to protect animals and now the environment and our planet, I think you've seen, as I have, a lot of ivefiftcene strategies for trying to get people to care about non humans. And I'm cuouris about what you've learned from all this activism. What is it that gets people to care about animals? What is it that gets them to step up in and take care of the planet? When I first raelized that chimpanzees were dpiseapirang and the forests were were being destroyed in 1986, I felt that I had to learn more about it. So I went I got a bit of money and got to spend. It was six different brain states to learn about what was happening to the chimps. And at the same time, I was learning about the plight fcead by so many African people living in and around chimp habitat know the crippling poverty, the lack of health and education, the degradation of man growing human populations and flying over Gumbley that had been part of this equatorial forest belt. When I began by 1990, it was just a tiny island forest surrounded by completely bare hills, and that's when it hit me. If we don't help the people to find ways of making a living without dysrinetog the environment, we can't even try to save the chimps. And so because we began this program Take Care or country, which is very hslitioc, that the people trust us now and they've come to understand that prttcieong the environment is for their own future. They need the forest for clean air and clean weatr to prevent soil erosion and and control rainfall and the climate. And so they've become our perarnts and they help us conserve the environment. And we teach about the animals in our yotuh parogrm. And they're all helping to protect the ainlmas and tell people about the animals. And again, you can't it's not a blanket answer I could give you about how do you persuade people to step up and care about animals? But I do it by telling stories. And different stories, depending on who you're talking to. Yeah, it reminds me of a campaign the Environmental Defense Fund ran years ago, which I think was their most successful campaign ever, which was just a picture of a polar bear on a melting ice cap. Yeah, that's right. We've got a whole audience of listeners who are trying to fuirge out how to get through the next year or so of the pandemic. And given given all the difficult conditions you've endured throughout your life and your career, I'm wondering, what advice do you have for for anybody who's just trying to figure out how to stay, how to stay on track, how to avoid burning out, how to deal with all the uncertainty we're facing? What what guidance do you have? Well, you know, there again, how can you give a blanket guidance? Because the people are so different. I mean, some of them, the ones who've lost their jobs, some of them like in Africa and India, you know, they live by slnlieg things. And what they get selling their little bits and pieecs is how they eat in the evening and provide food for their children. So acdvie that you were giving to them would be totally different from somebody sitting in Silicon Valley, you know, with his pots of money and ability to communicate with people around the world and think of new ways of making more money or making more inventions, dindneepg on the person's what you say. I mean, you have to help that people have hope. I mean, without hope, you give up, don't you, if you hope for a better future. So maybe for whatever jobs being lost, you can sort of talk to that psroen and say, well, you know, like if we can create a new green economy, there'll be hundreds and tduoahnss of jobs to do with saolr and wind and all these other technologies that could be developed provide jobs for people. Yes. Jane, have there ever been times when you've lost hope and and if so, where have you turn to to rediscover it? I never totally lost it. You can't look around the world today and really look around and see what's happening and really read about what's happening to the environment and to society and not feel depressed. I defy anybody with any kind of igeletlnnice not to feel depressed, but when I get those flegenis, something pops up in me to say, well, I'm not going to be browbeaten by this. I just won't. I suppose I was a born fighter. Maybe it's my genes. I had an amazing ghdrmatnoer, an iecindrble mother. I think that's such a hrntaneieg mgsasee to say I will not be btoaewbren by this. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't let the tmprus and balseros browbeat me into saying, well, they've done so much damage, there's nothing I can do. So I'm not going to do anything. That's the danger. People do nothing because they feel powerless and helpless and hopeless. And that's why I srtaetd the youth program recently, which because so many young people telling me that they felt depressed or angry or mostly apathetic because we've csmeorpoimd their fuutre, there's nothing they can do about it. And so, yes, we have compromised their future. We've been stealing it. We're still stialneg it today, actually. But I believe firmly that we have a window of time. And if we get together and put our brains together, that we can at least heal some of the harm that we've inflicted and slow down climate change. But we've got to do it now. And that's why I was travelling all over the pclae. And that's why I'm trying to create this virtual Jane who actually reaches far more people. Well, I love virtual Jane. It certainly seems it seems more efficient and convenient for you. But I do I do hope you can get back out in nature in the near future. Jane, it's been such an honor to speak with you. You've done so much for humanity, for animals, for the planet. Are just really grateful that you're willing to take the time to do this. So thank you so much. Well, thank you to I think everybody listening should remember that every single day we live, each one of us makes an impact on the pnaelt. And we have a ciohce as to what kind of impact we make. That's a really important thing to remember. Scientists, conservationist, activist Jane godalol now has a new title to add to her collection podcast, her her new show is claeld The Jane Goodall Hope Cast. It's currently available in English, but I'm hoping for a chimpanzee version since. Taken for gntraed is a member of the TED Audio clcevtlioe. The show is hosted by me, Adam Grant, and produced by Ted with Transmitter mdeia. Our team includes Colin hmles, Redken, Dan O'Donnell, jcssiea Glaser, jnnoae DeLuna, Grace Rubenstein, Michelle Quint and Ben Chang and Anna Feeling. This episode was produced by Constanza Gelada. Our show is mixed by Requite Original Music by Handsell, Sue and Allison Layton Brown and huge gratitude to Melissa Shifta for introducing me to Jane.

Open Cloze

Hey, we're Leifer's, it's Adam, we're getting close to the premiere of Season four of our show, but today I've got another conversation for you from our taken for granted series of __________ interviews about rethinking ___________ this year and last. Many of us have been forced to communicate with our closest colleagues and friends from a distance, and that skill is not uniquely human. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, this is the distance greeting. And that ______ means this is me going. Yep. This is Jane Goodall, legendary __________, an expert on primate ________. Jane greeted us from her home in the U.K. over Zoome. It's an unnatural _______ for a person who usually spends most of her time outdoors. More than 60 years ago, Jane started her career studying chimpanzees in Tanzania, along with ______________ Lewis Leakey. She famously immersed herself with wild chimps and made groundbreaking discoveries about how primates behave and communicate. It turns out that we have a lot more in common with apes than we realize. And by observing their actions and ____________, I think we can _____ a lot about leadership, status and culture among humans. I'm Adam Grant and this is taken for granted by _______ with the TED Audio Collective. I'm an organizational ____________. My job is to think again about how we work, lead and live. So I guess the place to start is can you tell me a little bit about where you are right now and what it's like to be working from home instead of in the wild? Well, first of all, I was very lucky to be caught and grounded in my home. This is the house where I grew up, although this is the longest I've been here in one place since the age of, well, 18, I think. Wow. You know, here I have all my work, all my books behind me. If you could see this, the _____ I read as a _____ outside the window of the trees that I climbed when I was a child and you asked about how I was coping and what it was like working from home. Well, to be honest, I've never ______ so hard in my life as in the last four months. I mean, it's just been nonstop video _________. Do you do virtual calls with chimps as well? I don't speak to the chimps. No, I wasn't sure. So it's really interesting that you've you've never worked this hard before. Does that mean you're you're adapting well to ______ work and being sort of in one place in an office? Well, it's not an ______. It's up in my room. It's a little area and it's very small. And so my my little studio is _______ on a very hard stool. But, you know, I'm _____. What I miss, I mean, I was travelling 300 days a year around the world, and you would think that was harder work and it surely was sometimes I got exhausted, but in between there was, you know, ______ a really, really good friends and relaxing with them and ________ and telling _______ and then giving lectures to rooms filled with up to 15000 people. You get a buzz from it. So even if you start off feeling _______ exhausted, some energy that comes. And whereas now I'm having to give talks, ______ at a little tiny _____ light on the top of my laptop. It's it's a big ______ to do it well, but I won't do it unless I do do it well, so. Well, you do it beautifully. And Jane, I can very much ______ to that __________. I've done more _______ talks the last four ______ than I think in the rest of my life combined. I want to ask you more _________ about your remote work life, but I also want to make sure we get a bunch of commentary and an _______ on on ________. So I've been interested in what primates can teach us about leadership and how we all work together. And so I _____ the place I'd love to start on that is if you could just describe some of your key insights and observations around when you see primates collaborate. What does that teach you about how humans work? Well, you know, the reason Dr. Leakey sent me off to study chimpanzees in the first place is because he spent his life searching for the fossilized _______ of _____ Age humans. And you can tell an _____ lot from a fossil, but behavior doesn't fossilize. So Leakey was actually ahead of his time in thinking that way back when there was a common ancestor, ape like, human like. And maybe that behavior has been brought with us through our separate evolutionary pathways. So it gave him a better feeling for how early humans might have _______. That's why he sent me anyhow. Eventually I began to realize how, like us, they are in so many ways their non-verbal communication, kissing, embracing, _______ hands, _______ one another on the back. We find that the males and this was obvious pretty early on to me, they have this very rigid dominance hierarchy, but it's always changing as young ones start moving up a hierarchy starting at the ______ when they're in late adolescence. And the ___________ thing is they have different methods of climbing the ladder. And when you consider those who've made it to the top, the alpha males, you know, there are some who just use physical strength, aggressive and slightly brutal and do a lot of attacking. They don't last as long as those that use their intelligence and they use that intelligence in different ways. So one was Mike, and he was very low ranking in a in a group of 11 adult males, was right down near the bottom. But he just had this motivation to _____ the ladder. And some some males do and some males don't. A big difference there anyhow. At that time, you know, it was _______ the _______. It was the very early days, ________ sixty four. And we lit the camp at night with a little paraffin lamps, kerosene lamps and call them, I think Will Mike took this chance experience with a can and he _________ it. So in the end he learned to keep three ______ ahead of him and would charge towards males who were his superiors at the time. And it was a scary thing to have three cans ________ towards you making this _____. So they got out of the way and then, you know, he would sit exhausted and still with his hair bristling and they'd come and grab him. And as far as we know, there wasn't one single serious fight, because when they fight, they tend to pull each other's hair out and there are ______. But Mike had neither _______ of hair nor wounds, and he reigned six years. And then you ask about leadership. Well, Mike became alpha male, but being an alpha doesn't make you a leader. It makes you the boss. And others will be submissive to you and greet you with submissive gestures, but then other males are leaders and leaders because they're much more gentle and other chimps like to follow them and choose to follow them. Oh, this is so fascinating. I have so many questions for you. I'm not even sure where to start, I guess. So I'll start at the question of who becomes a leader versus who's an _________ leader. So one of the things we find over and over again in my world of organizational psychology is that the ___________ that we elevate to leadership roles are often the most ____________, _______ takers because they show dominance and strength. But that ultimately, when we look at who leads well and and both inspires people and guides a group toward achieving a common goal most productively, it tends much more to be the humble, other oriented, generous givers who are willing to put the team or the ____________ above themselves. And it seems like you see a similar dynamic with chimps. Yes, and of course, chimps don't have leadership in quite the way of what you will study in humans because I guess that are ________ leaders in politics or business or both. Exactly. Yes. And for chimpanzees, you know, it's the ______ for some of the males is the alpha position. They want to dominate the others. And of course, that's what we see in some politicians. Right. We effect when I see two chimpanzee males _________, swaggering, upright, furious scowl on their face using intimidation tactics because it's a waste of time to fight, you might get hurt. So mostly it's intimidation. And it reminds me just exactly of some human male politicians. They do the same. It's so true. Why do you say human male politicians? Well, I don't think human female politicians used the same tactics, at least I haven't seen them. I mean, I'm thinking of the last election and I'm thinking of when Hillary Clinton was talking and Donald Trump was kind of looming, you know, how he used to loom behind her. Yes. Threatening, swaggering way of that was so chimpanzee like. It's so interesting to think about this, I guess, you know, one of the things that I've long been curious about when we see those kinds of differences, how much are they driven by social _____ versus, you know, more evolutionary and biologically ______ forces? Where do you come down on that? Well, I think it's mostly I don't know. I mean, we do know now this chimpanzee culture, a different chimpanzee communities have slightly different ways of doing things. But that's mostly we see it in things like tool using and sometimes using a gesture that's common to both. But in a ________ different _______. How it compares _________ with what you're talking about is it doesn't really it doesn't quite gel somehow. What do you what do you think? I mean, OK, a male and he's motivated to climb the ______ ______. Why? He wants to get to the top. He wants sometimes you feel honestly, it's because he really enjoys the submissive behavior of others and that I think we can compare with some human leadership. Would you agree with that? Oh, it's hard to disagree with that one. Yes, I would agree, especially when we start to see those differences vary from one culture to another. I start to believe that there's there's a lot to be _______ from studying the way that cultures are created, which which I'd be very curious to hear your take on, because you mentioned that chimpanzees have ________. They lack a lot of the tools we normally use to build cultures. Right. They can't they can't tell stories the same way that humans do. Certainly language ____________ are more limited. How do chimpanzees build cultures through ___________, imitation and ________? And that is one definition of human culture. Behavior passed from one generation to the next through observation and that it's demonstrated so clearly. You watch the development of an infant, for example, you see the young ones watching and at first they don't even try. Then they use an inappropriate tool. Then they use I mean, one one little infant quite determined that she was going to really try and do what her mom was doing, having watched her mom. And she she got this thick little stick, which was much too _____, but she pushed and ______ and it went down into the hole or she couldn't get it out. And it was just so funny. But gradually, by the time they're about four, especially the females, they've got it down to up to a fine art. The males, they have a different role in that society. They're the ones who control the territory. They're the ones who got to be alert for individuals from another _________ ________ their territory. So there's quite a big difference in male and female characteristics. And that's the same with humans. And this is what bothers me as we move into the era of feminism, is that the females who first _________ in breaking into male business and ________, for example, did so by trying to become more male than the males used the same tactics. Whereas what we need in our _______ is the two different, the male and the female who who do have different ways of doing things. We need both. Yeah, I think so too. And you know, some of the ________ on Queen Bees has suggested that that's much more of a ________ to inequality than a cause of inequality. So that, you know, it's not that that women _______ necessarily want to operate this way, but they feel like they have to do it in order to get and then maintain their position. I wondered if there's a there is a ________ in _____ society there as well. I don't think so, I mean, they you know, they don't so far as I can understand, they don't think things through like that. They just do what their nature tells them to do. And a female behaves like a bite, like a female. We had one female who was sterile. She never produced an infant, and she behaved much more like a male. And yet at the same time, she had female characteristics and she adopted a whole lot of motherless _______. So they they seem to behave more in tune with when, like you say, they can't talk, they don't _____, they don't discuss. So they just behave the way they feel. Which is why I always say, you know, only ______ can be really evil, ______ can be brutal and aggressive and kill and have a kind of war, but they are not capable of sitting down in cold blood and planning to torture an individual who's not even present. Wow, that's what I consider evil. That's such a ________ _________. This touches on a theme that you mentioned earlier, and it's another ______ that I wanted to pull, which is about this distinction between dominance and _______ or prestige. So you mention that a lot of chimps are able to gain alpha status and ___________ ______ submissiveness, but they're not necessarily admired or _________ followed. Does that mean that the dominant _____ males actually lose their status ______, whereas the the ones that either use their intelligence or other strategies are more likely to _______ the __________ of a _____? They are aggressive. One last that long usually. I won't say always, but but I mean, the most aggressive one we've ever had, Humphrey. He only ______ one and a half years. I'm really interested in _______ your take on the mechanisms behind this pattern. So if they're if they're really aggressive , chimps don't last as long. How do you explain that? What do you think is _______ it? I don't know. I mean, it's just that they all have different personalities. And I suppose the aggressive ones don't necessarily use their ______. And maybe if you use your intelligence to get to the top, you can use your intelligence to stay up there. That tracks is one of the mechanisms that I was thinking about, which is that, you know, when studying humans, I've seen ______ consistently that the dominance path to the top, as is often the shortest, but also the shortest lived because if that's the strategy that's that's going to get people there, then you only last until there's another more dominant individual who's going to overpower you. Yes. And clever, ______ coalition. I mean, coalitions play a very major part in chimp society. Really important part. Well, I think that's another _____ of the puzzle that I was wondering about, is it seems that if if dominance is the strategy to gain power or status, then you're essentially creating a culture in which everybody's position is is determined by strength. And so the moment that a few individuals would get together and ________ the strongest one, they have a _________ that's that's able to overpower. How does that happen? How did how did chimps coordinate that kind of coalition ________ the kind of coalition that's one that might be between, interestingly, either between brothers and they can be supporting each other for a very long time or between a male who was dominant and the one who's taken over his _________. And that's what I found absolutely ___________. So, OK, one male _____ over the dominant role through aggression. He fights and having taken over and it's very clear he's now the top and the ________ Alpha is very submissive. Every time he sees him, he gives a submissive and grunt and reaches out to touch. But the new alpha continues to beat him up and he beats him up really savagely, even though the other one is ______ all the __________ responses. And when he's behave that way for about, let's say, a _____ or so, then suddenly there's, of course, that the previous alpha is now very, very, very nervous and submissive. And then the alpha changes completely. He's always grooming him. It's really nice to him. He never attacks him. He rushes them to protect him. Another male challenges him. And because of that, these two then become so strong an alliance that nothing breaks it. And I think just absolutely fascinating. Wow. Yeah, and then the other kind of alliance is a temporary one, so two males are _______ perhaps, I don't know, to take bananas from a high ranking one and neither of them on their own could do it. And so they gang up. And that's a temporary ________. And I guess I'm trying to visualize how this happens. You know, when chimps get together and form an alliance, whether it's temporary or more lasting, is there a this is going to be a strange question, but I'll give you a sense of how I think is there is there a workplace analog so, you know, to chimps coordinate like they're working on an assembly line. Does it look more like a farm? Do you see them in an office with cubicles or am I stretching, stretching this parallel too far? That's way too far. It's a thing of the moment. We want to attack that guy over there. You can't defeat him on your own. You look around, you see another male who normally you don't have much time with, and you run over to him and you touch him and you look at the high ranking one and the other male ______, oh, this is an ___________ to get the better of him. And so the two of them ______ or ______ together. So I think that speaks to some really interesting questions about _____________ and ____________. You know, certainly since ______ wrote about facial ___________, we've been curious about the universality versus ___________ of of different kinds of facial signals of emotion. This is this has been an incredibly heated debate in psychology over the last few years. Which facial expressions of _______ do you think are most universal from your studies of chimps and which ones seem to be idiosyncratic to either individuals or to groups or cultures? Well. You know, the facial expression that goes with bigging, pouting, the lips, the facial expression that goes with fear, drawing the lips right back and having the mouth wide open, the facial expression that shows ________ and play, I think we find them in chimps of all different groups that have been _______ and in captive chimps as well, for the most part. And then what about what about body language? What do we learn about the way that the chimps communicate through the gestures they make? I'm curious about other human analogs and _________ there. I mean, if you _____ chimpanzees communicating nonverbally, you more or less know exactly what they're doing because we do the same. I mean, we we really do. We shake _____. We if you don't like something, you make that flapping, flapping movement. You reach out and beg. You threaten with your fist raised. You spike up from foot to foot if you want to impress. One thing that I was really __________ in is when you talk about how the alpha _____ often lose their ________ or they don't live as long in some cases I've seen versions of that in business and in political life. And I feel like the the myth of the alpha male is very aggressive and persistent in societies around the world. There are a lot of people who don't necessarily want to operate that way. Intimidation or dominance is not their default. It's not _________ aligned with their value system. But they look up the hierarchy and they see very influential, very visible role models doing it and they think they have to follow suit. And I guess you _____ so many years interacting with _____ leaders. I'm interested in what you think it's going to take to break the myth of the Alpha. Probably more _____ coming in and more women using their feminine _________ rather than trying to ape the male qualities of the existing system and which, quote unquote, feminine qualities do you think are most important in leadership? It's very _________ to be understanding, to be intuitive, to be patient and to be compassionate. And is your hope that we ________ seeing those as feminine qualities or that we dismantle these stereotypes at the at the ground level and say actually these are leadership qualities? I don't know, I've never _______ about that, so I couldn't I couldn't possibly answer it, but what I love is he was one of the chiefs of a Latin American indigenous tribe, and I forget which country. But he said to me, he said, you know, Jane, we consider our tribe as like an eagle. And on this eagle, one wing is male and the other wing is female. And only when the two wings are _____ will our _____ fly through my. That's beautiful. Yeah, it does make me wonder about something you just mentioned, which is patients you mentioned, that's something we need more in __________. You also mentioned that it's something that that your work has ________ over the _____. And there are these legendary stories about you being five years old, waiting, just waiting around for chickens to lay eggs. And then is that real stuffy hen house for four and a half hours? And you just sat there? Yeah, first I followed him because I ______ to know where the hole was, where the egg came up and nobody told me. So I remember seeing this brown hen going into one of these hen houses and crawling after her, which was a big mistake and squawks, I presume, fear she flew out past me. I can still feel her wing on my face. It was a bit scary and I must have thought in that little four and a half year old mind will know hen will lay an egg here. This is a scary place. So I went into an empty hen house and waited and saw the egg come out. And you see, I had this enormous benefit when I was a child of my mother. She was so supportive. So instead of getting _____ at me, how dare you go without telling us? Don't you do it again? They called the police. By then, she said the wonderful story of how a hen laid an egg. And when I announced age 10 that I was going to go to ______ and live with wild animals and _____ books about them, everybody laughed at me because I was a girl and war was raging then and Africa was far away when we have basically no money. But Mum said, if you really want to do something like this, you could end up to work awfully hard to take advantage of every opportunity. And then maybe if you don't give up, you'll find the. That's what I've told young people all around the world, and so many have come up to me or _______ to me and said, Jane, I want to thank you, because you taught me that because you did it. I can do it to. That's that's it's so ______ to hear and it's clear you not only found her right, you cleared the path for so many others to follow in your _________. Do you have techniques or strategies to maintain your patience and delay gratifications? No, I never thought of it. I mean, like just born that way, you know, I was obviously born patient, wasn't I? And I could sit for hours until I got used to me. And then I could watch laying eggs and watch the parents feed the babies and watch the ______ fly away. And that took _____ of just sitting. I think that to be a good mother, which is a woman's role throughout evolution, really going way back, you have to be _______. You can't be a good mother if you're not patient. I don't think. This is _______, we've been _______ about being patient and _________ and resilient. I imagine that came in handy early in your career when people are _______ you you can't do this work without a doctorate and a woman can't do this work anyway. Can you talk to me a little bit about how you dealt with the criticism from closed minded men? Well, you know, honestly, people always say that. But I didn't have that kind of _________ any more, I think, than if I'd been a male. I was criticized for giving the ___________ _____, but I guess that criticism would have come even if I'd been a male student, I guess. And Leakey wanted me because I was a female and because I had an ________ mind. And the when I got tempted, it was just becoming independent. So there was resentment towards the white males who dominated the country for so long, but a white ______. And they wanted to help me. So I didn't have this, you know, when when there were these male scientists, when I __________ tool using saying, well, why should we believe her? She's just a girl. She doesn't have a ______. She's only got _____ from the geographic cause she's got nice legs. All I _____ about was getting back and learning about the chimps. I didn't even want to be a _________. It was Leakey who made me to the degree. And I'm really glad he did. By the way, I loved learning how to think in, you know, in a __________, logical way. I enjoyed that so much. It's helped me in everything, actually. Hi and welcome back to my conversation with Jane Goodall. There's a Max Planck saying that it gets ___________ as saying that science progresses one funeral at a time. And I think you've known many more scientists than I have who just were unwilling to let go of their pet theories. And this is clearly not a problem for you. It almost seems like you're immune to confirmation bias. And, you know, to go and discover not only the chimps use tools, but even make their own. I'm interested in how you, I guess, kept such an open mind to discover things that flew in the face of what everyone thought was true because I hadn't been _______. You do. I mean, that's what he told me later. He said I I wanted somebody with an unbiased mind. And I don't like the way the reductions thinking of scientists today. So he also felt that a woman might be more patient on the field. So I was really _____ in those ways, you know? I think so, too, although it poses challenges then over time, as you get older and you become more steeped in the assumptions of the field. There's there's a term in my world called cognitive entrenchment where experts _____ to take for granted assumptions that need to be __________. How have you _________ yourself from getting entrenched over the years? I suppose it's personality. I don't know. Also, ________, I never got into the academic, but, you know, I was I never had an academic position in the university. I just got that PhD as quickly as I could and went back and learned from the chimps. When you're out there learning from the chimps, you can't get entrenched because you're continually getting surprises. And you know the other animals, too, that I've watched it. You can't get entrenched when you're really absolutely keen on understanding another species. So I guess going out into the wild then forces you to to juxtapose what you think you know, against what is. Yes. And in a way of travelling around the world in all these different _________ and meeting all these different cultures. It's kind of the same. You can't get entrenched in one culture when you meet people ________ in a completely different way, maybe from the same motives. You know, your mind is continually wants to expand and grow. And I've been really lucky in that way. And then, you know, you're also going back to this chimp human thing, and you touched upon it already, but what ? Because we're so like them, more like them than any other ______ creature, it helps you understand how we're different. And I think the main difference is the fact that at some _____ in our _________, we developed this way of speaking with _____ so that we can teach children about things that aren't present. We can gather together and discuss something people from different views. And that is what I believe led to this explosive ___________ of our intellect, which is what really does make us different. So animals are way, way, way more intelligent than many ______ used to think and some people still wouldn't believe it. But, you know, I can think of a species that designs a rocket that goes to Mars from which a little _____ creeps to take photographs for people who think about discover stars that are billions of light miles away. I mean, my ________. And I think Galileo back then in those days couldn't think of anything else. I mean, the _____ _________ has been extraordinary. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's it's it's hard to it's hard to disagree with with those those observations. So a few things that I want to make sure we cover. I wanted to do a slightly shorter lightning round where we build a little _____ around maybe the size of a view that most people don't get to see. So the first ________ I had for you on that is if you weren't a primatologist, what other jobs might you have wanted? Well, anything to be out in nature before that really ____________, I wanted to be poet ________. I used to read so much poetry and write books. What is the worst career advice you've ever received? Well, I suppose it was what the professors told me when I went to Cambridge that I've done everything wrong. And it turns out they were the ones who had done everything _____, didn't it? That's poetic justice to your poetry. Yeah , write your poetry fashion. And then I was talking with my sister the other day, and she said that if she could have dinner with anyone on _____, you'd be at her table, which, of course, made me wonder who would be at your table. Are there are people you would most like to sit down with and learn from that you've never met or that you've only had limited interaction with people who are alive _____? Yes, I would really like to sit down privately and have dinner with the pope. What would you talk about? Well, it would depend. I mean, I don't really talk to people about anything until I sussed them out, as it were, and found a piece of common ground and something that you can share and then let the conversation run. But he's been so outspoken and amazing about the ___________. And, you know, he actually has said just because we can breed like rabbits doesn't mean we should, which for a pope is quite extraordinary to say something like that. And I think he's done a lot to persuade Catholics to take more concern for the environment. It's _____ to hear you say that because I think you paved the way for the kind of _______________ activism that he's done in his work. That goes to something else I wanted to ask you about, which is as you moved into activism, both, you know, to protect animals and now the environment and our planet, I think you've seen, as I have, a lot of ___________ strategies for trying to get people to care about non humans. And I'm _______ about what you've learned from all this activism. What is it that gets people to care about animals? What is it that gets them to step up in and take care of the planet? When I first ________ that chimpanzees were ____________ and the forests were were being destroyed in 1986, I felt that I had to learn more about it. So I went I got a bit of money and got to spend. It was six different brain states to learn about what was happening to the chimps. And at the same time, I was learning about the plight _____ by so many African people living in and around chimp habitat know the crippling poverty, the lack of health and education, the degradation of man growing human populations and flying over Gumbley that had been part of this equatorial forest belt. When I began by 1990, it was just a tiny island forest surrounded by completely bare hills, and that's when it hit me. If we don't help the people to find ways of making a living without __________ the environment, we can't even try to save the chimps. And so because we began this program Take Care or country, which is very ________, that the people trust us now and they've come to understand that __________ the environment is for their own future. They need the forest for clean air and clean _____ to prevent soil erosion and and control rainfall and the climate. And so they've become our ________ and they help us conserve the environment. And we teach about the animals in our _____ _______. And they're all helping to protect the _______ and tell people about the animals. And again, you can't it's not a blanket answer I could give you about how do you persuade people to step up and care about animals? But I do it by telling stories. And different stories, depending on who you're talking to. Yeah, it reminds me of a campaign the Environmental Defense Fund ran years ago, which I think was their most successful campaign ever, which was just a picture of a polar bear on a melting ice cap. Yeah, that's right. We've got a whole audience of listeners who are trying to ______ out how to get through the next year or so of the pandemic. And given given all the difficult conditions you've endured throughout your life and your career, I'm wondering, what advice do you have for for anybody who's just trying to figure out how to stay, how to stay on track, how to avoid burning out, how to deal with all the uncertainty we're facing? What what guidance do you have? Well, you know, there again, how can you give a blanket guidance? Because the people are so different. I mean, some of them, the ones who've lost their jobs, some of them like in Africa and India, you know, they live by _______ things. And what they get selling their little bits and ______ is how they eat in the evening and provide food for their children. So ______ that you were giving to them would be totally different from somebody sitting in Silicon Valley, you know, with his pots of money and ability to communicate with people around the world and think of new ways of making more money or making more inventions, _________ on the person's what you say. I mean, you have to help that people have hope. I mean, without hope, you give up, don't you, if you hope for a better future. So maybe for whatever jobs being lost, you can sort of talk to that ______ and say, well, you know, like if we can create a new green economy, there'll be hundreds and _________ of jobs to do with _____ and wind and all these other technologies that could be developed provide jobs for people. Yes. Jane, have there ever been times when you've lost hope and and if so, where have you turn to to rediscover it? I never totally lost it. You can't look around the world today and really look around and see what's happening and really read about what's happening to the environment and to society and not feel depressed. I defy anybody with any kind of ____________ not to feel depressed, but when I get those ________, something pops up in me to say, well, I'm not going to be browbeaten by this. I just won't. I suppose I was a born fighter. Maybe it's my genes. I had an amazing ___________, an __________ mother. I think that's such a __________ _______ to say I will not be __________ by this. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't let the ______ and balseros browbeat me into saying, well, they've done so much damage, there's nothing I can do. So I'm not going to do anything. That's the danger. People do nothing because they feel powerless and helpless and hopeless. And that's why I _______ the youth program recently, which because so many young people telling me that they felt depressed or angry or mostly apathetic because we've ___________ their ______, there's nothing they can do about it. And so, yes, we have compromised their future. We've been stealing it. We're still ________ it today, actually. But I believe firmly that we have a window of time. And if we get together and put our brains together, that we can at least heal some of the harm that we've inflicted and slow down climate change. But we've got to do it now. And that's why I was travelling all over the _____. And that's why I'm trying to create this virtual Jane who actually reaches far more people. Well, I love virtual Jane. It certainly seems it seems more efficient and convenient for you. But I do I do hope you can get back out in nature in the near future. Jane, it's been such an honor to speak with you. You've done so much for humanity, for animals, for the planet. Are just really grateful that you're willing to take the time to do this. So thank you so much. Well, thank you to I think everybody listening should remember that every single day we live, each one of us makes an impact on the ______. And we have a ______ as to what kind of impact we make. That's a really important thing to remember. Scientists, conservationist, activist Jane _______ now has a new title to add to her collection podcast, her her new show is ______ The Jane Goodall Hope Cast. It's currently available in English, but I'm hoping for a chimpanzee version since. Taken for _______ is a member of the TED Audio __________. The show is hosted by me, Adam Grant, and produced by Ted with Transmitter _____. Our team includes Colin _____, Redken, Dan O'Donnell, _______ Glaser, ______ DeLuna, Grace Rubenstein, Michelle Quint and Ben Chang and Anna Feeling. This episode was produced by Constanza Gelada. Our show is mixed by Requite Original Music by Handsell, Sue and Allison Layton Brown and huge gratitude to Melissa Shifta for introducing me to Jane.

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Original Text

Hey, we're Leifer's, it's Adam, we're getting close to the premiere of Season four of our show, but today I've got another conversation for you from our taken for granted series of unscripted interviews about rethinking assumptions this year and last. Many of us have been forced to communicate with our closest colleagues and friends from a distance, and that skill is not uniquely human. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, this is the distance greeting. And that simply means this is me going. Yep. This is Jane Goodall, legendary ethologist, an expert on primate behavior. Jane greeted us from her home in the U.K. over Zoome. It's an unnatural habitat for a person who usually spends most of her time outdoors. More than 60 years ago, Jane started her career studying chimpanzees in Tanzania, along with anthropologist Lewis Leakey. She famously immersed herself with wild chimps and made groundbreaking discoveries about how primates behave and communicate. It turns out that we have a lot more in common with apes than we realize. And by observing their actions and interactions, I think we can learn a lot about leadership, status and culture among humans. I'm Adam Grant and this is taken for granted by podcast with the TED Audio Collective. I'm an organizational psychologist. My job is to think again about how we work, lead and live. So I guess the place to start is can you tell me a little bit about where you are right now and what it's like to be working from home instead of in the wild? Well, first of all, I was very lucky to be caught and grounded in my home. This is the house where I grew up, although this is the longest I've been here in one place since the age of, well, 18, I think. Wow. You know, here I have all my work, all my books behind me. If you could see this, the books I read as a child outside the window of the trees that I climbed when I was a child and you asked about how I was coping and what it was like working from home. Well, to be honest, I've never worked so hard in my life as in the last four months. I mean, it's just been nonstop video messaging. Do you do virtual calls with chimps as well? I don't speak to the chimps. No, I wasn't sure. So it's really interesting that you've you've never worked this hard before. Does that mean you're you're adapting well to remote work and being sort of in one place in an office? Well, it's not an office. It's up in my room. It's a little area and it's very small. And so my my little studio is sitting on a very hard stool. But, you know, I'm happy. What I miss, I mean, I was travelling 300 days a year around the world, and you would think that was harder work and it surely was sometimes I got exhausted, but in between there was, you know, making a really, really good friends and relaxing with them and laughing and telling stories and then giving lectures to rooms filled with up to 15000 people. You get a buzz from it. So even if you start off feeling totally exhausted, some energy that comes. And whereas now I'm having to give talks, gazing at a little tiny green light on the top of my laptop. It's it's a big effort to do it well, but I won't do it unless I do do it well, so. Well, you do it beautifully. And Jane, I can very much relate to that experience. I've done more virtual talks the last four months than I think in the rest of my life combined. I want to ask you more questions about your remote work life, but I also want to make sure we get a bunch of commentary and an insight on on primates. So I've been interested in what primates can teach us about leadership and how we all work together. And so I guess the place I'd love to start on that is if you could just describe some of your key insights and observations around when you see primates collaborate. What does that teach you about how humans work? Well, you know, the reason Dr. Leakey sent me off to study chimpanzees in the first place is because he spent his life searching for the fossilized remains of Stone Age humans. And you can tell an awful lot from a fossil, but behavior doesn't fossilize. So Leakey was actually ahead of his time in thinking that way back when there was a common ancestor, ape like, human like. And maybe that behavior has been brought with us through our separate evolutionary pathways. So it gave him a better feeling for how early humans might have behaved. That's why he sent me anyhow. Eventually I began to realize how, like us, they are in so many ways their non-verbal communication, kissing, embracing, holding hands, patting one another on the back. We find that the males and this was obvious pretty early on to me, they have this very rigid dominance hierarchy, but it's always changing as young ones start moving up a hierarchy starting at the bottom when they're in late adolescence. And the interesting thing is they have different methods of climbing the ladder. And when you consider those who've made it to the top, the alpha males, you know, there are some who just use physical strength, aggressive and slightly brutal and do a lot of attacking. They don't last as long as those that use their intelligence and they use that intelligence in different ways. So one was Mike, and he was very low ranking in a in a group of 11 adult males, was right down near the bottom. But he just had this motivation to climb the ladder. And some some males do and some males don't. A big difference there anyhow. At that time, you know, it was feeding the bananas. It was the very early days, nineteen sixty four. And we lit the camp at night with a little paraffin lamps, kerosene lamps and call them, I think Will Mike took this chance experience with a can and he developed it. So in the end he learned to keep three counts ahead of him and would charge towards males who were his superiors at the time. And it was a scary thing to have three cans hurtling towards you making this noise. So they got out of the way and then, you know, he would sit exhausted and still with his hair bristling and they'd come and grab him. And as far as we know, there wasn't one single serious fight, because when they fight, they tend to pull each other's hair out and there are wounds. But Mike had neither patches of hair nor wounds, and he reigned six years. And then you ask about leadership. Well, Mike became alpha male, but being an alpha doesn't make you a leader. It makes you the boss. And others will be submissive to you and greet you with submissive gestures, but then other males are leaders and leaders because they're much more gentle and other chimps like to follow them and choose to follow them. Oh, this is so fascinating. I have so many questions for you. I'm not even sure where to start, I guess. So I'll start at the question of who becomes a leader versus who's an effective leader. So one of the things we find over and over again in my world of organizational psychology is that the individuals that we elevate to leadership roles are often the most narcissistic, selfish takers because they show dominance and strength. But that ultimately, when we look at who leads well and and both inspires people and guides a group toward achieving a common goal most productively, it tends much more to be the humble, other oriented, generous givers who are willing to put the team or the organization above themselves. And it seems like you see a similar dynamic with chimps. Yes, and of course, chimps don't have leadership in quite the way of what you will study in humans because I guess that are studying leaders in politics or business or both. Exactly. Yes. And for chimpanzees, you know, it's the strive for some of the males is the alpha position. They want to dominate the others. And of course, that's what we see in some politicians. Right. We effect when I see two chimpanzee males bristling, swaggering, upright, furious scowl on their face using intimidation tactics because it's a waste of time to fight, you might get hurt. So mostly it's intimidation. And it reminds me just exactly of some human male politicians. They do the same. It's so true. Why do you say human male politicians? Well, I don't think human female politicians used the same tactics, at least I haven't seen them. I mean, I'm thinking of the last election and I'm thinking of when Hillary Clinton was talking and Donald Trump was kind of looming, you know, how he used to loom behind her. Yes. Threatening, swaggering way of that was so chimpanzee like. It's so interesting to think about this, I guess, you know, one of the things that I've long been curious about when we see those kinds of differences, how much are they driven by social roles versus, you know, more evolutionary and biologically rooted forces? Where do you come down on that? Well, I think it's mostly I don't know. I mean, we do know now this chimpanzee culture, a different chimpanzee communities have slightly different ways of doing things. But that's mostly we see it in things like tool using and sometimes using a gesture that's common to both. But in a slightly different context. How it compares precisely with what you're talking about is it doesn't really it doesn't quite gel somehow. What do you what do you think? I mean, OK, a male and he's motivated to climb the social ladder. Why? He wants to get to the top. He wants sometimes you feel honestly, it's because he really enjoys the submissive behavior of others and that I think we can compare with some human leadership. Would you agree with that? Oh, it's hard to disagree with that one. Yes, I would agree, especially when we start to see those differences vary from one culture to another. I start to believe that there's there's a lot to be learned from studying the way that cultures are created, which which I'd be very curious to hear your take on, because you mentioned that chimpanzees have cultures. They lack a lot of the tools we normally use to build cultures. Right. They can't they can't tell stories the same way that humans do. Certainly language capabilities are more limited. How do chimpanzees build cultures through observation, imitation and practice? And that is one definition of human culture. Behavior passed from one generation to the next through observation and that it's demonstrated so clearly. You watch the development of an infant, for example, you see the young ones watching and at first they don't even try. Then they use an inappropriate tool. Then they use I mean, one one little infant quite determined that she was going to really try and do what her mom was doing, having watched her mom. And she she got this thick little stick, which was much too thick, but she pushed and pushed and it went down into the hole or she couldn't get it out. And it was just so funny. But gradually, by the time they're about four, especially the females, they've got it down to up to a fine art. The males, they have a different role in that society. They're the ones who control the territory. They're the ones who got to be alert for individuals from another community invading their territory. So there's quite a big difference in male and female characteristics. And that's the same with humans. And this is what bothers me as we move into the era of feminism, is that the females who first succeeded in breaking into male business and politics, for example, did so by trying to become more male than the males used the same tactics. Whereas what we need in our society is the two different, the male and the female who who do have different ways of doing things. We need both. Yeah, I think so too. And you know, some of the research on Queen Bees has suggested that that's much more of a response to inequality than a cause of inequality. So that, you know, it's not that that women leaders necessarily want to operate this way, but they feel like they have to do it in order to get and then maintain their position. I wondered if there's a there is a parallel in chimp society there as well. I don't think so, I mean, they you know, they don't so far as I can understand, they don't think things through like that. They just do what their nature tells them to do. And a female behaves like a bite, like a female. We had one female who was sterile. She never produced an infant, and she behaved much more like a male. And yet at the same time, she had female characteristics and she adopted a whole lot of motherless orphans. So they they seem to behave more in tune with when, like you say, they can't talk, they don't speak, they don't discuss. So they just behave the way they feel. Which is why I always say, you know, only humans can be really evil, chimps can be brutal and aggressive and kill and have a kind of war, but they are not capable of sitting down in cold blood and planning to torture an individual who's not even present. Wow, that's what I consider evil. That's such a powerful statement. This touches on a theme that you mentioned earlier, and it's another thread that I wanted to pull, which is about this distinction between dominance and respect or prestige. So you mention that a lot of chimps are able to gain alpha status and essentially elicit submissiveness, but they're not necessarily admired or willingly followed. Does that mean that the dominant alpha males actually lose their status faster, whereas the the ones that either use their intelligence or other strategies are more likely to sustain the respective of a group? They are aggressive. One last that long usually. I won't say always, but but I mean, the most aggressive one we've ever had, Humphrey. He only lasted one and a half years. I'm really interested in hearing your take on the mechanisms behind this pattern. So if they're if they're really aggressive , chimps don't last as long. How do you explain that? What do you think is driving it? I don't know. I mean, it's just that they all have different personalities. And I suppose the aggressive ones don't necessarily use their brains. And maybe if you use your intelligence to get to the top, you can use your intelligence to stay up there. That tracks is one of the mechanisms that I was thinking about, which is that, you know, when studying humans, I've seen pretty consistently that the dominance path to the top, as is often the shortest, but also the shortest lived because if that's the strategy that's that's going to get people there, then you only last until there's another more dominant individual who's going to overpower you. Yes. And clever, clever coalition. I mean, coalitions play a very major part in chimp society. Really important part. Well, I think that's another piece of the puzzle that I was wondering about, is it seems that if if dominance is the strategy to gain power or status, then you're essentially creating a culture in which everybody's position is is determined by strength. And so the moment that a few individuals would get together and outsmart the strongest one, they have a coalition that's that's able to overpower. How does that happen? How did how did chimps coordinate that kind of coalition building the kind of coalition that's one that might be between, interestingly, either between brothers and they can be supporting each other for a very long time or between a male who was dominant and the one who's taken over his dominance. And that's what I found absolutely fascinating. So, OK, one male takes over the dominant role through aggression. He fights and having taken over and it's very clear he's now the top and the previous Alpha is very submissive. Every time he sees him, he gives a submissive and grunt and reaches out to touch. But the new alpha continues to beat him up and he beats him up really savagely, even though the other one is giving all the submissive responses. And when he's behave that way for about, let's say, a month or so, then suddenly there's, of course, that the previous alpha is now very, very, very nervous and submissive. And then the alpha changes completely. He's always grooming him. It's really nice to him. He never attacks him. He rushes them to protect him. Another male challenges him. And because of that, these two then become so strong an alliance that nothing breaks it. And I think just absolutely fascinating. Wow. Yeah, and then the other kind of alliance is a temporary one, so two males are wanting perhaps, I don't know, to take bananas from a high ranking one and neither of them on their own could do it. And so they gang up. And that's a temporary alliance. And I guess I'm trying to visualize how this happens. You know, when chimps get together and form an alliance, whether it's temporary or more lasting, is there a this is going to be a strange question, but I'll give you a sense of how I think is there is there a workplace analog so, you know, to chimps coordinate like they're working on an assembly line. Does it look more like a farm? Do you see them in an office with cubicles or am I stretching, stretching this parallel too far? That's way too far. It's a thing of the moment. We want to attack that guy over there. You can't defeat him on your own. You look around, you see another male who normally you don't have much time with, and you run over to him and you touch him and you look at the high ranking one and the other male thinks, oh, this is an opportunity to get the better of him. And so the two of them charge or attack together. So I think that speaks to some really interesting questions about communication and coordination. You know, certainly since Darwin wrote about facial expressions, we've been curious about the universality versus specificity of of different kinds of facial signals of emotion. This is this has been an incredibly heated debate in psychology over the last few years. Which facial expressions of emotion do you think are most universal from your studies of chimps and which ones seem to be idiosyncratic to either individuals or to groups or cultures? Well. You know, the facial expression that goes with bigging, pouting, the lips, the facial expression that goes with fear, drawing the lips right back and having the mouth wide open, the facial expression that shows laughter and play, I think we find them in chimps of all different groups that have been studied and in captive chimps as well, for the most part. And then what about what about body language? What do we learn about the way that the chimps communicate through the gestures they make? I'm curious about other human analogs and parallels there. I mean, if you watch chimpanzees communicating nonverbally, you more or less know exactly what they're doing because we do the same. I mean, we we really do. We shake fists. We if you don't like something, you make that flapping, flapping movement. You reach out and beg. You threaten with your fist raised. You spike up from foot to foot if you want to impress. One thing that I was really interested in is when you talk about how the alpha males often lose their position or they don't live as long in some cases I've seen versions of that in business and in political life. And I feel like the the myth of the alpha male is very aggressive and persistent in societies around the world. There are a lot of people who don't necessarily want to operate that way. Intimidation or dominance is not their default. It's not perfectly aligned with their value system. But they look up the hierarchy and they see very influential, very visible role models doing it and they think they have to follow suit. And I guess you spent so many years interacting with world leaders. I'm interested in what you think it's going to take to break the myth of the Alpha. Probably more women coming in and more women using their feminine qualities rather than trying to ape the male qualities of the existing system and which, quote unquote, feminine qualities do you think are most important in leadership? It's very important to be understanding, to be intuitive, to be patient and to be compassionate. And is your hope that we continue seeing those as feminine qualities or that we dismantle these stereotypes at the at the ground level and say actually these are leadership qualities? I don't know, I've never thought about that, so I couldn't I couldn't possibly answer it, but what I love is he was one of the chiefs of a Latin American indigenous tribe, and I forget which country. But he said to me, he said, you know, Jane, we consider our tribe as like an eagle. And on this eagle, one wing is male and the other wing is female. And only when the two wings are equal will our tribe fly through my. That's beautiful. Yeah, it does make me wonder about something you just mentioned, which is patients you mentioned, that's something we need more in leadership. You also mentioned that it's something that that your work has required over the years. And there are these legendary stories about you being five years old, waiting, just waiting around for chickens to lay eggs. And then is that real stuffy hen house for four and a half hours? And you just sat there? Yeah, first I followed him because I wanted to know where the hole was, where the egg came up and nobody told me. So I remember seeing this brown hen going into one of these hen houses and crawling after her, which was a big mistake and squawks, I presume, fear she flew out past me. I can still feel her wing on my face. It was a bit scary and I must have thought in that little four and a half year old mind will know hen will lay an egg here. This is a scary place. So I went into an empty hen house and waited and saw the egg come out. And you see, I had this enormous benefit when I was a child of my mother. She was so supportive. So instead of getting angry at me, how dare you go without telling us? Don't you do it again? They called the police. By then, she said the wonderful story of how a hen laid an egg. And when I announced age 10 that I was going to go to Africa and live with wild animals and write books about them, everybody laughed at me because I was a girl and war was raging then and Africa was far away when we have basically no money. But Mum said, if you really want to do something like this, you could end up to work awfully hard to take advantage of every opportunity. And then maybe if you don't give up, you'll find the. That's what I've told young people all around the world, and so many have come up to me or written to me and said, Jane, I want to thank you, because you taught me that because you did it. I can do it to. That's that's it's so moving to hear and it's clear you not only found her right, you cleared the path for so many others to follow in your footsteps. Do you have techniques or strategies to maintain your patience and delay gratifications? No, I never thought of it. I mean, like just born that way, you know, I was obviously born patient, wasn't I? And I could sit for hours until I got used to me. And then I could watch laying eggs and watch the parents feed the babies and watch the babies fly away. And that took hours of just sitting. I think that to be a good mother, which is a woman's role throughout evolution, really going way back, you have to be patient. You can't be a good mother if you're not patient. I don't think. This is quality, we've been talking about being patient and obstinate and resilient. I imagine that came in handy early in your career when people are telling you you can't do this work without a doctorate and a woman can't do this work anyway. Can you talk to me a little bit about how you dealt with the criticism from closed minded men? Well, you know, honestly, people always say that. But I didn't have that kind of criticism any more, I think, than if I'd been a male. I was criticized for giving the chimpanzees names, but I guess that criticism would have come even if I'd been a male student, I guess. And Leakey wanted me because I was a female and because I had an unbiased mind. And the when I got tempted, it was just becoming independent. So there was resentment towards the white males who dominated the country for so long, but a white female. And they wanted to help me. So I didn't have this, you know, when when there were these male scientists, when I discovered tool using saying, well, why should we believe her? She's just a girl. She doesn't have a degree. She's only got money from the geographic cause she's got nice legs. All I cared about was getting back and learning about the chimps. I didn't even want to be a scientist. It was Leakey who made me to the degree. And I'm really glad he did. By the way, I loved learning how to think in, you know, in a scientific, logical way. I enjoyed that so much. It's helped me in everything, actually. Hi and welcome back to my conversation with Jane Goodall. There's a Max Planck saying that it gets paraphrased as saying that science progresses one funeral at a time. And I think you've known many more scientists than I have who just were unwilling to let go of their pet theories. And this is clearly not a problem for you. It almost seems like you're immune to confirmation bias. And, you know, to go and discover not only the chimps use tools, but even make their own. I'm interested in how you, I guess, kept such an open mind to discover things that flew in the face of what everyone thought was true because I hadn't been college. You do. I mean, that's what he told me later. He said I I wanted somebody with an unbiased mind. And I don't like the way the reductions thinking of scientists today. So he also felt that a woman might be more patient on the field. So I was really lucky in those ways, you know? I think so, too, although it poses challenges then over time, as you get older and you become more steeped in the assumptions of the field. There's there's a term in my world called cognitive entrenchment where experts start to take for granted assumptions that need to be questioned. How have you prevented yourself from getting entrenched over the years? I suppose it's personality. I don't know. Also, remember, I never got into the academic, but, you know, I was I never had an academic position in the university. I just got that PhD as quickly as I could and went back and learned from the chimps. When you're out there learning from the chimps, you can't get entrenched because you're continually getting surprises. And you know the other animals, too, that I've watched it. You can't get entrenched when you're really absolutely keen on understanding another species. So I guess going out into the wild then forces you to to juxtapose what you think you know, against what is. Yes. And in a way of travelling around the world in all these different countries and meeting all these different cultures. It's kind of the same. You can't get entrenched in one culture when you meet people behaving in a completely different way, maybe from the same motives. You know, your mind is continually wants to expand and grow. And I've been really lucky in that way. And then, you know, you're also going back to this chimp human thing, and you touched upon it already, but what ? Because we're so like them, more like them than any other living creature, it helps you understand how we're different. And I think the main difference is the fact that at some point in our evolution, we developed this way of speaking with words so that we can teach children about things that aren't present. We can gather together and discuss something people from different views. And that is what I believe led to this explosive development of our intellect, which is what really does make us different. So animals are way, way, way more intelligent than many people used to think and some people still wouldn't believe it. But, you know, I can think of a species that designs a rocket that goes to Mars from which a little robot creeps to take photographs for people who think about discover stars that are billions of light miles away. I mean, my goodness. And I think Galileo back then in those days couldn't think of anything else. I mean, the human intellect has been extraordinary. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's it's it's hard to it's hard to disagree with with those those observations. So a few things that I want to make sure we cover. I wanted to do a slightly shorter lightning round where we build a little color around maybe the size of a view that most people don't get to see. So the first question I had for you on that is if you weren't a primatologist, what other jobs might you have wanted? Well, anything to be out in nature before that really crystallized, I wanted to be poet laureate. I used to read so much poetry and write books. What is the worst career advice you've ever received? Well, I suppose it was what the professors told me when I went to Cambridge that I've done everything wrong. And it turns out they were the ones who had done everything wrong, didn't it? That's poetic justice to your poetry. Yeah , write your poetry fashion. And then I was talking with my sister the other day, and she said that if she could have dinner with anyone on Earth, you'd be at her table, which, of course, made me wonder who would be at your table. Are there are people you would most like to sit down with and learn from that you've never met or that you've only had limited interaction with people who are alive today? Yes, I would really like to sit down privately and have dinner with the pope. What would you talk about? Well, it would depend. I mean, I don't really talk to people about anything until I sussed them out, as it were, and found a piece of common ground and something that you can share and then let the conversation run. But he's been so outspoken and amazing about the environment. And, you know, he actually has said just because we can breed like rabbits doesn't mean we should, which for a pope is quite extraordinary to say something like that. And I think he's done a lot to persuade Catholics to take more concern for the environment. It's funny to hear you say that because I think you paved the way for the kind of entrepreneurial activism that he's done in his work. That goes to something else I wanted to ask you about, which is as you moved into activism, both, you know, to protect animals and now the environment and our planet, I think you've seen, as I have, a lot of ineffective strategies for trying to get people to care about non humans. And I'm curious about what you've learned from all this activism. What is it that gets people to care about animals? What is it that gets them to step up in and take care of the planet? When I first realized that chimpanzees were disappearing and the forests were were being destroyed in 1986, I felt that I had to learn more about it. So I went I got a bit of money and got to spend. It was six different brain states to learn about what was happening to the chimps. And at the same time, I was learning about the plight faced by so many African people living in and around chimp habitat know the crippling poverty, the lack of health and education, the degradation of man growing human populations and flying over Gumbley that had been part of this equatorial forest belt. When I began by 1990, it was just a tiny island forest surrounded by completely bare hills, and that's when it hit me. If we don't help the people to find ways of making a living without destroying the environment, we can't even try to save the chimps. And so because we began this program Take Care or country, which is very holistic, that the people trust us now and they've come to understand that protecting the environment is for their own future. They need the forest for clean air and clean water to prevent soil erosion and and control rainfall and the climate. And so they've become our partners and they help us conserve the environment. And we teach about the animals in our youth program. And they're all helping to protect the animals and tell people about the animals. And again, you can't it's not a blanket answer I could give you about how do you persuade people to step up and care about animals? But I do it by telling stories. And different stories, depending on who you're talking to. Yeah, it reminds me of a campaign the Environmental Defense Fund ran years ago, which I think was their most successful campaign ever, which was just a picture of a polar bear on a melting ice cap. Yeah, that's right. We've got a whole audience of listeners who are trying to figure out how to get through the next year or so of the pandemic. And given given all the difficult conditions you've endured throughout your life and your career, I'm wondering, what advice do you have for for anybody who's just trying to figure out how to stay, how to stay on track, how to avoid burning out, how to deal with all the uncertainty we're facing? What what guidance do you have? Well, you know, there again, how can you give a blanket guidance? Because the people are so different. I mean, some of them, the ones who've lost their jobs, some of them like in Africa and India, you know, they live by selling things. And what they get selling their little bits and pieces is how they eat in the evening and provide food for their children. So advice that you were giving to them would be totally different from somebody sitting in Silicon Valley, you know, with his pots of money and ability to communicate with people around the world and think of new ways of making more money or making more inventions, depending on the person's what you say. I mean, you have to help that people have hope. I mean, without hope, you give up, don't you, if you hope for a better future. So maybe for whatever jobs being lost, you can sort of talk to that person and say, well, you know, like if we can create a new green economy, there'll be hundreds and thousands of jobs to do with solar and wind and all these other technologies that could be developed provide jobs for people. Yes. Jane, have there ever been times when you've lost hope and and if so, where have you turn to to rediscover it? I never totally lost it. You can't look around the world today and really look around and see what's happening and really read about what's happening to the environment and to society and not feel depressed. I defy anybody with any kind of intelligence not to feel depressed, but when I get those feelings, something pops up in me to say, well, I'm not going to be browbeaten by this. I just won't. I suppose I was a born fighter. Maybe it's my genes. I had an amazing grandmother, an incredible mother. I think that's such a heartening message to say I will not be browbeaten by this. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't let the Trumps and balseros browbeat me into saying, well, they've done so much damage, there's nothing I can do. So I'm not going to do anything. That's the danger. People do nothing because they feel powerless and helpless and hopeless. And that's why I started the youth program recently, which because so many young people telling me that they felt depressed or angry or mostly apathetic because we've compromised their future, there's nothing they can do about it. And so, yes, we have compromised their future. We've been stealing it. We're still stealing it today, actually. But I believe firmly that we have a window of time. And if we get together and put our brains together, that we can at least heal some of the harm that we've inflicted and slow down climate change. But we've got to do it now. And that's why I was travelling all over the place. And that's why I'm trying to create this virtual Jane who actually reaches far more people. Well, I love virtual Jane. It certainly seems it seems more efficient and convenient for you. But I do I do hope you can get back out in nature in the near future. Jane, it's been such an honor to speak with you. You've done so much for humanity, for animals, for the planet. Are just really grateful that you're willing to take the time to do this. So thank you so much. Well, thank you to I think everybody listening should remember that every single day we live, each one of us makes an impact on the planet. And we have a choice as to what kind of impact we make. That's a really important thing to remember. Scientists, conservationist, activist Jane Goodall now has a new title to add to her collection podcast, her her new show is called The Jane Goodall Hope Cast. It's currently available in English, but I'm hoping for a chimpanzee version since. Taken for granted is a member of the TED Audio Collective. The show is hosted by me, Adam Grant, and produced by Ted with Transmitter Media. Our team includes Colin Helms, Redken, Dan O'Donnell, Jessica Glaser, Joanne DeLuna, Grace Rubenstein, Michelle Quint and Ben Chang and Anna Feeling. This episode was produced by Constanza Gelada. Our show is mixed by Requite Original Music by Handsell, Sue and Allison Layton Brown and huge gratitude to Melissa Shifta for introducing me to Jane.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

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ngrams of length 3

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