The Conversation Factory

How do you turn a question, a problem, or just a list of needs, into an agenda? At the close of a recent cohort of the facilitation masterclass, the participants were still sitting with some big questions. Which is good, because that's what the closing session is for! But I felt that some of these questions were too big for one conversation. So, I invited four alums of the facilitation masterclass to come together and share some thoughts on a fundamental challenge: turning a question into a conversation, an agenda and an arc.  I’m joined by  Erica O’Donnell, a hybrid professional working at the intersection of design thinking, strategy, facilitation, and innovation, Kyle Pearce, a leader in collaborative change with an extensive background in the health and social services sector. Frankie Iturbe, a Program Manager at Newsela, a K12 EdTech company And Kate Farnady, Director, Chief of Staff, Strategic Technologies at Autodesk, and also the community coordinator for the Conversation Factory Insiders’s Group! We only scratched the surface, but there's lots of goodness in here. Just a few of the things we discussed: How stated goals may not always have the whole group aligned with them, and what to do about it. Sharing responsibility for the agenda and outcome with stakeholders and session attendees How good insights can sometimes arise even in spite of (or perhaps because of) chaos Different approaches to facilitating agendas around messy goals and questions If you want to dive deeper, check out my course on the 9Ps of meeting planning. I'd also recommend signing up for the conversation factory insiders group...we ran another deep dive on this question, reflecting on the question "why do I need an agenda?" and sharing our responses together. You can join here and check out that session as a subscriber here. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes  and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Also: I use and love REV for the accurate transcripts they make for me...it makes making my podcast notes and essays more meaningful and insightful. I love reading the transcript and listening to the session at the same time….it really gets the conversation into my brain! I also use the automated transcription feature for my coaching clients to help them get maximum value from our sessions. Head over to http://bit.ly/tryrev10off to get $10 off your first order. In full transparency, that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get $10 too! Links Kate on LinkedIn Frankie on LinkedIn Erica on LinkedIn Good Seed Digital Think: Act Consulting

I'm thrilled to be able to share this conversation with Carrie Melissa Jones with you! Carrie is the co-author of Building Brand Communities, with Charles Vogl, and she's kind of a big deal in the community-building world. She's also an alum of the facilitation masterclass and a friend.  This is Part Two of a Three-part, wide-ranging conversation. You can enjoy this conversation even if you haven’t listened to part one, but you can find links to that episode here.  Today, We dig deeper on the subject of community as a conversation. As Carrie says, every community starts with a conversation, and conversations are what sustain communities and hold them together. You’ll learn about the pitfalls of trying to manufacture and own every aspect of a community, the importance of many-to-many conversations in communities, and why you need to think about your community as a circle, not a megaphone. You’ll also hear more about Carrie’s perspective on the importance of inner work for community builders. The less I say the better! If you haven’t checked out part one, you can still enjoy part two…but you can find the link to part one below. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Also: I use and love REV for the accurate transcripts they make for me...it makes making my podcast notes and essays more meaningful and insightful. I love reading the transcript and listening to the session at the same time….it really gets the conversation into my brain! I also use the automated transcription feature for my coaching clients to help them get maximum value from our sessions. Head over to http://bit.ly/tryrev10off to get $10 off your first order. In full transparency, that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get $10 too! Links: Communities are Conversations, Part 1 Carrie's Website Podcast episode: Being a Beginner is Often the Key We Need for Empathy and Creativity Building Brand Communities, by Carrie Melissa Jones and Charles H. Vogl The Power of Ritual with Casper ter Kuile

I'm thrilled to be able to share this conversation with Carrie Melissa Jones with you! Carrie is the co-author of Building Brand Communities, with Charles Vogl, and she's kind of a big deal in the community-building world. She's also an alum of the facilitation masterclass and a friend.  In this wide-ranging conversation, we dig deep on the subject of community as a conversation. As Carrie says, every community starts with a conversation, and conversations are what sustain communities and hold them together. Some of what we cover in this 3-part episode: What community really is, and how organizations get it wrong The power of online relationships and how they can help us How the community-builder affects the community The inner work that goes along with community building, and how that affects brand communities The conversation that launched a book - the story of Building Brand Communities The difference between meaningful engagement and empty engagement Why brand communities? What role do they play in rebuilding our social fabric? How modern community-building efforts are still being shaped by outdated ideas Parts 2 and 3 are coming soon! Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes  and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Also: I use and love REV for the accurate transcripts they make for me...it makes making my podcast notes and essays more meaningful and insightful. I love reading the transcript and listening to the session at the same time….it really gets the conversation into my brain! I also use the automated transcription feature for my coaching clients to help them get maximum value from our sessions. Head over to http://bit.ly/tryrev10off to get $10 off your first order. In full transparency, that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get $10 too! Links Carrie's Website Podcast episode: Being a Beginner is Often the Key We Need for Empathy and Creativity Building Brand Communities, by Carrie Melissa Jones and Charles H. Vogl The Power of Ritual with Casper ter Kuile

I can’t believe it’s taken me SO long to share this conversation with the Amazing Elise Foster. Elise is a powerful coach, an accomplished author, and a friend. She’s the co-author of The Multiplier Effect with Liz Wiseman and Beautiful Questions in the Classroom with Warren Berger (who’s written several bestselling books on powerful questions). She was a thinking partner for me when I was in the early stages of writing my second book, and I was shocked and honored when she decided to come to my Facilitation Masterclass and even more shocked and honored when she actually got something out of it - proving that it really is more about what they practice and the container I create than what I teach! I’m also honored that she’s been a great member of the Conversation Factory Insiders’ group - we started 2 years ago with alums of the masterclass meeting monthly for experiments and intentional practice, and 2 years and 22 sessions later, we’ve all learned a tremendous amount about leading groups online. Elise was kind enough to lead a session for the community on the QFT, a Question Formulation Technique from the Right Question Institute which has shifted how I think about Powerful Questions and how I coach teams on them, too. In this conversation, I wanted Elise to unpack not just some of her favorite “Eye Opener” warmup exercises to help get teams to think differently, but also how she thinks about bringing them into sessions with teams, and why they matter. Lots of folks talk about icebreakers - and they can be helpful to help us connect to each other from afar…but they are such a broad class of activities - they can include games like “Two truths and lie” which are just about connecting people as humans or “three things”, a classic improv game which helps folks just warm up their brains. Priya Parker asks folks to check into the chat with where they are and what actual substance is beneath their feet, to help ground and connect us. Eye-openers are both about what we do, as leaders and coaches of people in the moment, in order to create an experience for people…and eye-openers are also about how we help people reflect and unpack that experience and how to connect it to a larger idea about transformation and development. Elise kicks our conversation off by talking about the “Hand Clasping Game”, a classic exercise that you can try now since we talk about it, but don’t give it enough time to “breathe” in the conversation. Just clasp your hands together naturally. Of course, this assumes you have two hands. If this doesn’t apply to you, I hope you can imagine the process. Now, unclasp your hands and “reclasp them” but shift hands - whatever hand was “pinky out” let the other hand be the “pinky out” hand. Elise calls this “reversing the weave” of your hands. What do you feel? Discomfort. Oddness. Weirdness. That is a raw, visceral experience. Now, the magic happens when Elise unpacks this experience, and applies it to the context she works in - Leadership Transformation.  Having a toolbox or a mental “file” of these exercises can be great…in fact, I have a whole online course about them. But as Elise and I discuss, having the wherewithal to bring one of these out in a session also takes some guts and some faith. You take some trust the team has in you and burn it…risk it on an edgy experience…and hopefully you earn that trust back, with dividends, at the end of the unpacking. Also worth noting is that this is the second episode on the theme of “An experience is worth a thousand slides” when it comes to coaching executive mindset shifts... The first conversation was with Jeff Gothelf, most notably the co-author of Lean UX, where we talked about the Vase and Flowers exercise, another powerful eye-opener that I love very much. This episode is short and sweet, so without further delay, enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes, and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Also: I use and love REV for the accurate transcripts they make for me...it makes making my podcast notes and essays more meaningful and insightful. I love reading the transcript and listening to the session at the same time….it really gets the conversation into my brain! I also use the automated transcription feature for my coaching clients to help them get maximum value from our sessions. Head over to http://bit.ly/tryrev10off to get $10 off your first order. In full transparency, that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get $10 too!

Each of us has a conversational range. What size of conversation brings you alive? In this little audio experiment, I read aloud an essay of mine about Conversational Range.  I hope you enjoy it! Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Support the Podcast and Get insider Access https://theconversationfactory.com/conversation-factory-insider Link to original article: https://www.danielstillman.com/blog/conversational-range

I'm so excited to share this book club experiment with you. I've been inviting alums of my facilitation masterclass and subscribers to the conversation factory insiders group into intimate conversations with authors of transformative books. In this conversation, my friend Brian Pagán, Author of "The Creative Empathy Field Guide," is our guest. Brian points out early on that empathy is lauded by many thought leaders and no lack of articles - with the simple, inspirational message that empathy is good for you! And while that is absolutely true, what is missing is the how of empathy - not the why. Brain sought to fill this gap with his book, "the creative empathy field guide" which is a very short and very helpful book....and if you follow the links to Brian's website at the Greatness Studio, he's got a "greatest hits" selection from the book that you can access, free of charge. So: Just to clarify our definitions: Creative Empathy is the use of empathy in the creative process. That is, we are making things and those things are not for us. So, we must learn to both connect with those people we are creating for and to detach from them - we have to tap into our skills of emotional agility to lean in and out of creative empathy. One thing that you'll find most surprising (or at least I did!) is that creative empathy benefits from some of the tools of method acting - the ability to connect to your own experience and bring that experience into the present moment. One thing that is missing from this conversation is my friend and guest from early in 2021, Dr. Lesely Ann Noel, who really helped me understand that there are limits to us-them dichotomies in design thinking and that designing for others can reinforce existing power dynamics, stereotypes and "othering" of people. Brian does address this in his book, but I recommend my conversation with Dr. Noel, DeColonizing Design Thinking. Dr. Noel has a complementary array of tools to help decolonize our thinking, like her Positionality Wheel which we turned into a Mural template to help you facilitate that conversation with your teams. In this conversation, Brian and the Conversation Factory Insiders Community dives deep into The Empathic Design Process that Brian adapted:  1. Discovery, 2. Immersion, 3. Connection, 4. Detachment Discovery: As creators, we approach the other person’s world, which provokes our interest, curiosity, and willingness to empathize. Immersion: We enter the other person’s world, look around, and absorb what we see without judgment. Connection: Here, we resonate with the other person’s experience by recalling our own relevant experiences and memories. Detachment: Finally, we leave their world to focus on creative action, before starting the cycle afresh. Also check out Brian’s site for Free Creative Empathy Tools like an Ethical Design Checklist, his Journey Map Canvas and a Character Map Canvas (as an alternative to personas). Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Also: I use and love REV for the accurate transcripts they make for me...it makes making my podcast notes and essays more meaningful and insightful. I love reading the transcript and listening to the session at the same time….it really gets the conversation into my brain! I also use the automated transcription feature for my coaching clients to help them get maximum value from our sessions. Head over to http://bit.ly/tryrev10off to get $10 off your first order. In full transparency, that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get $10 too!

What is a "perfect conversation"?  What about the "perfect" conversationalist?  I'm thrilled to share this discussion that Michael Bervell and I had around those questions and more. Michael is a Ghanaian-American angel-investor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and philosopher. He currently serves as the youngest President of the Harvard Club of Seattle and works as a Portfolio Development Manager at M12, Microsoft’s Venture Capital Fund. He's also the author of Unlocking Unicorns and the host of the blog "billion dollar startup ideas"  He's also a conversation design nerd, like me… and his insights into conversation design are not to be missed. We unpack some essential questions, like: Understanding the types of Conversations with the “Concentric Circle” model of Conversations The Importance of Self-Talk in Conversations The Art of Noticing: What to “read” when you're reading a conversation. Being an “authentic chameleon”: Balancing being adaptable in conversation with being authentic The Power of non-questions and Questions with a period. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did! Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes, and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Also: I use and love REV for the accurate transcripts they make for me...it makes making my podcast notes and essays more meaningful and insightful. I love reading the transcript and listening to the session at the same time….it really gets the conversation into my brain! I also use the automated transcription feature for my coaching clients to help them get maximum value from our sessions. I sent the transcript to Rashmi so she could pull out what she needed from the conversation. Head over to http://bit.ly/tryrev10off to get $10 off your first order. In full transparency, that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get $10 too! Links Unlocking Unicorns, by Michael Bervell Michael's website Billion Dollar Startup Ideas Michael on TikTok The TikTok Michael told Daniel to make

The Conversation Factory book club is an experiment I’ve been running for a few months now. I’m experimenting with deeper conversations and collaborations with the subscribers of the Conversation Factory Insiders group as well as working to go deeper with some of the ideas that have been shared on the Podcast. This is a round-table conversation with Adam Kahane, author of Facilitating Breakthrough, with a few special guests from the Conversation Factory Insiders group. If you haven’t listened to the interview I did with Adam last season OR read the book, I think you can still enjoy the conversation. Adam does show some slides during the conversation, so head over to YouTube if you want to follow along.  A note on process: In this session, you’ll hear the panel share what parts of the book were most impactful to them, and then Adam responds to their comments with some deeper thoughts. The wisdom Adam drops here is absolutely worth the price of admission! Check out the show notes on theconversationfactory.com for links to Adam’s book, our podcast conversation last year, and his work as a Director at Reos Partners. If you’re unfamiliar with Adam and Reos, Reos is an international social enterprise that helps people move forward together on their most important and intractable issues. Adam has over 30 years of experience facilitating breakthroughs at the highest levels in government and society. His own breakthrough facilitation moment came with an invitation to host the Mont Fleur Scenario Planning Exercises he facilitated in 1990s South Africa at the dawn of that country’s transition towards democracy and the twilight of apartheid.  He’s gone on to facilitate conversations about ending civil wars, transforming the food system, and pretty much everything else in between. Adam is amazingly honest and open about how he looks back at his past books and sees them as not just incomplete, but sometimes dangerously incomplete. So, read Power and Love, Collaborating with the Enemy, Transformative Scenario Planning, and Solving Tough Problems (all amazing books) with a grain of salt...or just get Facilitating Breakthrough! It’s all about 5 key pairs of polarities in transformational, collaborative work and it’s an eye-opener. As you’ll hear, many of the panel members had an eye-opening moment, as I did, around the idea of Vertical and Horizontal facilitation. Vertical and Horizontal Facilitation In the opening quote, Adam points out that Vertical and Horizontal facilitation are two poles of a polarity. And like all good polarities, the key is to hold them lightly and dance between them mindfully. Vertical Facilitation is focused on singularity: We have the right answer, and a right answer can be found and advocated for. Horizontal Facilitation is focused on multiplicity: We each have our own answer, our own view, and there is no right path. As Adam says...the “bad guy” isn’t one or the other pole of the polarity...it’s choosing one over the other. I also deeply loved that Adam makes clear that the work of the Facilitator mirrors the work of the group. Adam points out (on p.70 of his book) that: A facilitator can only help participants if they, like participants, move back and forth between bringing their experience and also listening and adjusting to the needs of the situation Again: it’s not about choosing verticality (finding a single answer) or horizontality (exploring multiplicity)...it’s about the opening and emergence created when we shift from one side of the polarity to the other. Can we move between Inquiring (the move to the horizontal) and Advocating (which shifts to the vertical)? Complex situations rarely have solutions that can readily and easily be identified and advocated for. So, finding a path through truly complex challenges requires careful and artful shifting between these two modes of Vertical and Horizontal. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did, and that you check out Adam’s recent book, Facilitating Breakthrough. If you want to take a deep dive into mastering facilitation and leading conversations through complexity, check out my Facilitation Masterclass. The next 12-week cohort starts in February. Learn more here. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes, and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Also: I use and love REV for the accurate transcripts they make for me...it makes making my podcast notes and essays more meaningful and insightful. I love reading the transcript and listening to the session at the same time….it really gets the conversation into my brain! Go to http://bit.ly/tryrev10off to get $10 off your first order. In full transparency, that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get $10 too! Links Facilitating Breakthrough, by Adam Kahane Reos Partners Adam Kahane on The Conversation Factory

Recently, I’ve been reading a book called “Ethic of Excellence” by Ron Berger. He teaches teachers about how to invoke pride in students, to invite them to work through community engagement and thoughtful feedback, and multiple drafts of work. Check out his classic short video called “Austin’s Butterfly” here. He asserts that thoughtful feedback (ie critique) is essential to making great work, which he also asserts is the whole point of life: Make great things. He boils a philosophy of critique down to three principles: Be Kind Be Specific Be Helpful I wanted to bring together three of my favorite leaders to have a roundtable conversation about leading a culture of critique, and to open up about how to bring these ways of working together to life at work. Aaron Irizarry has been on this podcast before, with his co-author of “Discussing Design” Adam Connor. He’s the Senior Director of Servicing Platforms Design at Capital One and is a deep, deep thinker on this subject.  Aniruddha Kadam recently left LinkedIn, where he was a Senior Design Manager. He’s also an Advisor at Rethink HQ, which recently released an excellent guide to leading critique.  One of my favorite points in that guide is: Make it clear what you are NOT asking for feedback on!  And the roundtable is rounded out by the amazing and delightful Christen Penny, who is a Design Educator & Community Builder and leads the Design Education team at Workday, an enterprise cloud application for finance, HR, and planning.  I wanted to open with Christen’s quote about culture change being challenging, because it’s critical to have empathy for ourselves and others as we try to facilitate and lead change.  Creating rituals around critique takes time. Getting people to lean into the discomfort takes effort. Building psychological safety doesn’t come for free. We should remind ourselves that we’re asking people to lean into discomfort - to run into the fire. Ron Berger’s perspective is ultimately the goal:  We want our work and our organization’s work to be excellent. And we need outside feedback to make that possible. Critique before a launch is a lot less painful than realizing a missed opportunity after we hit “send”. There is so much goodness in this conversation! I hope you take the time to absorb it all. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes  and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Also: I use and love REV for the accurate transcripts they make for me...it makes making my podcast notes and essays more meaningful and insightful. I love reading the transcript and listening to the session at the same time….it really gets the conversation into my brain! I also use the automated transcription feature for my coaching clients to help them get maximum value from our sessions. I sent the transcript to Rashmi so she could pull out what she needed from the conversation. Head over to http://bit.ly/tryrev10off to get $10 off your first order. In full transparency, that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get $10 too! Links and Questions: Aaron Irizarry, Sr. Director, Servicing Platforms Design at Capital One  is here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaroni/ Adam Connor & Adam Irizarry on a way-back episode: Designing a Culture of Critique Aniruddha Kadam, Advisor at Rethink HQ, formerly Design at LinkedIn  is here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/aniruddhakadam/ Rethink HQ Critique guide: https://www.rethinkhq.com/design-critique/leading-effective-design-critiques Christen Penny, Design Educator @Workday is here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/christenpenny/ Some questions that guided our conversation: Why is Critique important? Why is a culture of Critique important? What are the barriers to cultivating a culture of critique? What are best practices on the individual, team and org levels to invite more critique?

The Conversation Factory book club is an experiment I’ve been running for a few months now. I’m experimenting with deeper conversations and collaborations with the subscribers of the Conversation Factory Insiders group as well as working to go deeper with some of the ideas that have been shared on the Podcast. This is a round-table conversation with Fred Dust, author of Making Conversation, with a few special guests from the Conversation Factory Insiders group. If you haven’t listened to the interview I did with Fred OR read the book, I think you can still enjoy the conversation. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes  and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Also: I use and love REV for the accurate transcripts they make for me...it makes making my podcast notes and essays more meaningful and insightful. I love reading the transcript and listening to the session at the same time….it really gets the conversation into my brain! I also use the automated transcription feature for my coaching clients to help them get maximum value from our sessions. Head over to http://bit.ly/tryrev10off to get $10 off your first order. In full transparency, that’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get $10 too! Links: Making Conversation by Fred Dust Debt, the First 5000 Years by David Graeber Otto Scharmer's Presencing Institute