Daniel Stillman is a former industrial designer turned conversation designer, who wants to help leadership teams and entire organisations stop wasting their time having ineffective conversations. We spoke about the concept of Conversation Design, the Conversation OS Canvas, and the perils of "Sheep Dip" organisational transformations.

Episode highlights:

1. Sheep-dip organisational transformation doesn't work

You can't send everyone on a 1-hour course, not talk about it afterwards or have any kind of follow-up, yet somehow expect to sustain organisational change. Transformation takes sustained effort & you need to keep talking.

2. All conversations are inherently designed, even the ones that aren't

There's an implicit design in any conversation. You should use whatever works for you, but being aware of what isn't working allows you to re-design the conversations that don't work and get better results.

3. Leadership is the ability to create the conditions for a transformational conversation

If everyone's stuck, leaders can help people get unstuck by getting people to ask the right question to offer the right insight in service of what we want to create more of in the world.

4. We all have a mental OS running on a mental CPU

And, like all software, and all CPUs, there could be problems with clock speed, or bugs in the system that prevent us from getting to where we want to go. Thoughtfully designing conversations allows us to iron out the bugs.

5. Active Listening is a great hack to help design conversations

Getting away from the desire to respond within 200ms, not tuning people out because you're formulating your next thought & playing back people's words can really help change your conversations for the better.

Buy "Good Talk"

"Life is built one conversation at a time. Learn which conversations matter, how to transform those conversations, and balance them all while leading change.
Human beings are conversational animals. Every day we're in constant communication with ourselves, other people and the world around us, and while not all conversations may seem important, they all have the potential to transform our personal, professional and cultural lives for the better. This book explains how conversations work and offers practical advice on how to improve the quality of our exchanges."

Check it out on Amazon.

Contact Daniel

You can catch up with Andres on LinkedIn, or visit his website or The Conversation Factory.

The Way of the Dharma Warrior

Free Buddhist Audio

Companions, Brotherhood and Kalyanamitra

The AI-powered Podcast Player