The Conversation Factory

Today I talk to Gayle Karen Young Whyte, former Chief People Officer for the Wikimedia Foundation and currently part of the faculty for the Leadership programs at the Full Circle Group. Together, we unpack the ideas of Conversational Leadership. In a conversation, there are usually at least two points of view, and movement forward comes through a give and take. The world asks things of us, and we ask things of the world...what we get is the conversation that is our lives. We can demand all we like of the world, we will get what we get. And just the same, the world will never get all it asks of us - we get to choose. Leadership in organizations is absolutely accomplished through dialogue - leading through dictatorial fiat is not a sustainable model. That old mode of command and control is losing its hold on the world. Gayle presents us with this idea of leadership as sensing and steering - of getting data and feedback from the world and “turning up the volume on what works”. Feedback loops are the essence of conversation and leadership. The image brought to mind my episode with Aaron Dignan, founder of the Ready who asks leaders if they would like to ride a bicycle where they get to steer or one with a fixed steering wheel - you can only point the bike in one direction and keep going. Everyone always chooses the steering bike, the ability to make little corrections to your course, rather than stay in a line….and yet most organizations are led like a fixed bike, with an annual budgeting and strategy process that isn’t conversational or adaptable mid-course. In terms of the Conversation Operating System at the core of my book, this is about Cadence - having a lively pace of feedback, rather than a slow or non-existent one. Gayle and I also dive into the importance of Narrative in leadership. Data is critical, but data, in the end, doesn’t tell us anything. We tell stories with data. There are at least two ways to shift a story - one is with new data and the other is with a new story. And for this, Poetry is a surprising tool. Poetry can give us new words, the seeds for a new story. My interview with Nancy McGaw from the Aspen Institute is another conversation to juxtapose here - she talks about poetry as a profoundly simple way to start a group conversation with depth. Gayle offers that: Poetry helps me tap into a deeper well, helps me get grounded so that when I go on with my day, I'm much more able to be responsive and not reactive.   Gayle reads us one of her husband’s poems, Mameen, which I’ll place in the notes for you to read along with. (It might help to mention that Gayle’s husband is the rather famous poet David Whyte!) Gayle also helps us understand how to unpack poems with groups and help the words go deeper - starting with a story about why it’s significant to you or allowing people to choose a line that resonated most with them and to share it with another person. Leaders need to be intentional in how they communicate with the world...and that’s work, to design all of those conversations. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did and you use it to deepen your leadership. Mameen Be infinitesimal under that sky, a creature even the sailing hawk misses, a wraith among the rocks where the mist parts slowly. Recall the way mere mortals are overwhelmed by circumstance, how great reputations dissolve with infirmity and how you, in particular, stand a hairsbreadth from losing everyone you hold dear. Then, look back down the path to the north, the way you came, as if seeing your entire past and then south over the hazy blue coast as if present to a broad future. Recall the way you are all possibilities you can see and how you live best as an appreciator of horizons whether you reach them or not. Admit that once you have got up from your chair and opened the door, once you have walked out into the clean air toward that edge and taken the path up high beyond the ordinary you have become the privileged and the pilgrim, the one who will tell the story and the one, coming back from the mountain who helped to make it Links and Resources   More about Gayle on the Web   The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram   Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How to Thrive in Complexity by Jennifer Garvey Berger     Nancy McGaw on the Conversation Factory on Leading Through Asking   Naomi Shihab Nye on Kindness: https://poets.org/poem/kindness   Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.   Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.   Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere   like a shadow or a friend.   More About Gayle Gayle believes the world needs more leaders who are “able for” what lies ahead, who have developed the capacity to meet the complexity of global challenges. Working in the field of leadership for the past two decades, it has become abundantly clear to her that there are the visible, tangible, practical, and pragmatic aspects of leadership that need to be executed on a day-by-day basis, and then there is the work of caring for the the spaces between people, of seeing complexity and interdependencies, of understanding relationships and power and all the ephemeral things that still excise tremendous influence on the day-to-day behaviors of people. Thus it is the invisible work of leadership, the work of showing up, setting culture, and creating spaces for others to thrive that is the focus of her work. She believes in meeting people and systems wherever they are, and then developing people to work with the full range of who they are to meet the full complexity of the organizational system and operating ecosystem, working with the intangible but critically necessary human substructures to move a strategy forward. Gayle Karen Young is a cultural architect and a catalyst for human and organizational development. She comes from a rich organizational consulting background with both corporate and nonprofit clients. She was in process of becoming a Zen monk when she became an executive instead, taking on the role of Chief Culture and Talent Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation (CHRO for Wikipedia and its sister free-knowledge projects) until early 2015 when she joined Cultivating Leadership. From high-level strategic thinking to practical implementation, her skills include leadership development, change management, facilitation, training, strategic communications, speaking, team building, and personal and organizational transformation. Gayle holds a Masters degree in Organizational Psychology. Gayle is passionate about global women’s issues and supporting women in leadership. She is also very much a geek that loves attending Comic-Con and reading science fiction, which inspires a passion for technology and its leverage for societal change. She is keenly interested in the intersection of technology and human rights and supports futurist humanitarian causes. She lives in both San Francisco, California, and Whidbey Island, Washington.   Full Transcript on the Conversation Factory: https://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/conversational-leadership-gayle-karen-young-whyte

Finding an opening quote from my conversation with Ayse Birsel – One of Fast Company magazine’s ‘World’s Top 15 Designers’ and author of Design the Life You Love was a challenge, mostly because I delighted in re-listening to each moment of it. In this opening quote, Ayse is talking about the joys of having a process that guides her in her design journey.    Her wonderful book, Design the Life you Love is not self-help BS...it’s a visual thinking masterpiece and a guide to one of the most powerful and simply stated design processes I’ve ever seen….and I’ve seen and made a lot of them.   The double diamond of design thinking was my first design process, the first map to creativity that I followed, and it helped me design entire work engagements, hour-long meetings and multi-day workshops.   But underneath that framework is a deeper one: Ayse’s De:Re map. De:Re stands for deconstruction and reconstruction, and this idea is essential if you’re going to design anything well.   In the context of designing conversations, meetings and workshops, the key question is: What are the parts that you can see? If you can’t see the parts, you can’t shape them.   That’s why we love frameworks...they help us know what to look for!   The idea of deconstruction is controversial in some spaces. It made me think of one of my favorite quotes from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:   When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process. That is fairly well understood, at least in the arts... Something is always killed. But what is less noticed in the arts—something is always created too.   -Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance   What is created through deconstruction is the opportunity to reconstruct something new.   Ayse asks us to apply this framework, methodically, to our lives, so that we can build our biggest design project, our lives, according to principles we can (literally) live with.   What’s truly delightful about Ayse’s perspective is that many people still assume that design is for the few - designers. And that designers are akin to artists, disheveled and mysterious and creative. And that creativity is more magic than method. Watch Ayse’s TEDx talk, read her book, and you’ll see...design is for everyone.   The question is...when you look at a problem, what do you see? A messy mass? Or do you start to deconstruct the challenge into its parts?   This is true of a workshop or meeting or a conversation...what are the parts? Who are the players? What are the goals and constraints? Once you start deconstructing...you can start reconstructing a new configuration and a process to get there.   I could go on, but I don’t want to keep you from enjoying this conversation any longer! Full Transcript here Links and Resources   Ayse on the web   Design the life you love: The book   Ayshe’s Inc Column  About Ayshe   Ayse (pronounced Eye-Shay) Birsel is one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People 2017. She is the author of Design the Life You Love, A Step-By-Step Guide to Building A Meaningful Future. On the Thinkers50 shortlist for talent, she gives lectures on Design the Organization You Love to corporations. Ayse writes a weekly post on innovation for Inc.com. Ayse designs award-winning products and systems with Fortune 100 and 500 companies, including Amazon, Colgate-Palmolive, Herman Miller, GE, IKEA, The Scan Foundation, Staples and Toyota. She is the recipient of numerous awards including Interior Design Best of Year Award in 2018 for Overlay, a new Herman Miller system, multiple IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Awards) and Best of NeoCon Gold Awards, Young Designers Award from the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Athena Award for Excellence in Furniture Design from Rhode Island School of Design. Ayse is one of only 100 people worldwide to be named as one of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches—a program Goldsmith conceived during Ayse’s Design the Life You Love program—along with the President of the World Bank, the head of the Rockefeller Foundation and the President of Singularity University. She is a TEDx speaker. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the MoMA, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art. Born in Izmir, Turkey, Ayse came to the US on a Fulbright Scholarship and got her masters degree at Pratt Institute, New York.

On today’s episode, I talk with Cameron Yarbrough, the Co-founder of Torch, a leadership development platform integrating coaching, behavioral science, and agile feedback. Cameron is also a licensed therapist and prior to starting the company, applied his knowledge and learnings to executive leadership coaching, working with high profile founders like Reddit Co-Founders Alexis O'Hanian and Steve Huffman, Founder of Twitch, Justin Kan, Partner at Y Combinator Gary Tan, and a bunch of other well known startup founders.  full transcript is at: theconversationfactory.com/podcast/scaling-leadership-development   Cameron offers some deep insight on how to step up as a leader and as a coach of leaders. We also dive into the challenges of designing a product for multiple customers and needs - his platform, Torch.io is designed for Learning and Development leaders to set up programs, and also for coaches and coachees to have a streamlined experience...all while working to deliver insight on the ROI of coaching - both top line and bottom line impacts on the business - spoiler alert - it’s a hard thing to do, but worth it. Why?   We close the interview with a Carl Jung Quote:   “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Cameron offers:   “To me, this is a perfect reflection on what it means to really look at your blind spots. If you do not look at your blind spots, if you do not do the painful hard work of bringing in, bringing attention to your blind spots, those blind spots are going to run your life and you're going to call it fate.”   That is what having a coach can do for a leader, and what a facilitator can do for a team, to be sure.   Cameron also shares his insights from his experiences in Zen philosophy and Psychology and puts much of modern facilitation practice in a larger context and history from T-Groups at MIT in the 1960s to Stanford’s Graduate School of Business’ Interpersonal Dynamics course today. Torch on the internet: torch.io Twitter at @torchlabs Cameron on twitter @yarbroughcam The johari window The Peter Principle On users, customers and power: Chelsea Mauldin, Executive Director, Public Policy Lab IXDA 2017 Keynote: Design and Power: https://vimeo.com/204547107 (ff to 7:00min for the “good part”   T-Groups   The Ladder of Inference   Stanford GSB Interpersonal Dynamics Course About Cameron  Cameron Yarbrough is the Co-founder of Torch, a leadership development platform integrating coaching, behavioral science, and agile feedback. Cameron is also a licensed therapist and prior to starting the company, applied his knowledge and learnings to executive leadership coaching, working with high profile founders like Reddit Co-Founders Alexis O'Hanian and Steve Huffman, Founder of Twitch, Justin Kan, Partner at Y Combinator Gary Tan, and a bunch of other well known startup founders. This is how Torch was created- Cameron wanted to create a streamlined process integrating a tech platform and real leadership coaching for executive level employees and founders.  Check out this article to learn more about Cameron: https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/19/breaking-into-startups-torch-ceo-and-well-clinic-founder-cameron-yarbrough-on-mental-health-coaching/ Enjoy the conversation.

full transcript and show notes at https://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2020/a-game-changing-solution-to-gender-inequality Eve Rodsky is working to change society one marriage at a time with a new 21st century solution to an age-old problem: women shouldering the brunt of childrearing and domestic life responsibilities regardless of whether they work outside the home. In her New York Times bestselling book Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live), she uses her Harvard Law School training and years of organizational management experience to create a gamified life-management system to help couples rebalance all of the work it takes to run a home and allow them to reimagine their relationship, time and purpose. Eve Rodsky received her B.A. in economics and anthropology from the University of Michigan, and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. After working in foundation management at J.P. Morgan, she founded the Philanthropy Advisory Group to advise high-net worth families and charitable foundations on best practices for harmonious operations, governance and disposition of funds. In her work with hundreds of families over a decade, she realized that her expertise in family mediation, strategy, and organizational management could be applied to a problem closer to home – a system for couples seeking balance, efficiency, and peace in their home. Rodsky was born and raised by a single mom in New York City and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband Seth and their three children.

Today I’m sharing an interview with self-described On-Air Personality on SiriusXM and Idiot Grand Random.  Grant has had  a long-time career in radio: In college he was hired to board op Christmas music for WLS-FM in Chicago when it was transitioning from Talk to Country music. He was at the controls the day the station flipped to "Kicks Country," which was really cool in a geeky radio kind of way. He now hosts on SirusXM’s Octane channel.  Grant has interviewed some big names: from Billy Corgan to Marilyn Manson and many, many in between so as I transition the show into its fourth season, I thought it would be awesome to sit down with someone who interviews people for a living! We all need to get amazing information from people at work and in life...and doing it in a way that makes people feel comfortable and excited to share that information is a tremendous skill. So even if you don’t work for a radio company, I suspect you’ll find some gems in here...or at the very least enjoy Grant’s sparkling personality. Grant was kind enough to host me at Sirus XM’s amazing studios in Midtown Manhattan and share some insights on how to interview people like a rockstar.  Spoiler alert: Ask interesting questions, prepare...and do it, a lot! Enjoy the conversation... Show Links Grant Random on the Web: https://twitter.com/grantrandom https://www.instagram.com/grantrandom/ Grant and Marilyn Manson text Justin Beiber: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQbAwXgPphw Daniel’s Conversation OS Canvas: https://theconversationfactory.com/downloads Full transcription at https://theconversationfactory.com/episodes-all  

Today I share my deeply lovely conversation with the amazing Esther Derby, Author, Coach and author of, most recently, 7 Rules for Positive Product Change. Esther started her career as a programmer, and has worn many hats, including business owner, internal consultant and manager. From all these perspectives, one thing became clear: our level of individual, team and company success was deeply impacted by our work environment and organizational dynamics. As a result, she has spent the last twenty-five years helping companies design their environment, culture, and human dynamics for optimum success. She's a founder of the AYE Conference, and is serving her second term as a member of the Board of Directors for the Agile Alliance. She also was one of the three original founders of the Scrum Alliance. Esther has an MA in Organizational Leadership and a certificate in Human System Dynamics. We discuss Systems thinking in problem solving, Clock time vs Human time, the power of invitation, Ritual vs Ritualistic thinking and how forests are a better metaphor for change than installing a new OS. Enjoy the conversation! Show Links Esther Derby on the web https://www.estherderby.com/ 7 Rules for Positive Productive Change: https://www.amazon.com/Rules-Positive-Productive-Change-Results/dp/1523085797 Back when it was 6 rules!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDyoUdVHwbg Kairos vs Chronos: Clock time vs living time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos Forest Succession as a metaphor for change: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/ecology/community-structure-and-diversity/a/ecological-succession “People are easy to see. People are easy to blame. Systems are hard to see and you can't blame systems.” The Laws of Open Space:  https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology Ritual vs Ritualized: The Power of Ritual to create a safe container Esther on Retrospectives:  https://www.estherderby.com/seven-ways-to-revitalize-your-sprint-retrospectives/ https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Teams-Great/dp/0977616649  How to facilitate Safety: “I have people fill-in-the-blank in two different index cards. And the first index card says, "When I don't feel safe, I fill-in-the-blank," and then I collect all those, and I have them do another index card that says, "When I feel safe, I..." They fill-in-the-blank and I collect those, and I shuffle them all up, and then I read all the ones about, "When I don't feel safe, I..." Sometimes I hand them out to people in the room, just at random  and they read them. Then I have people read the ones about, "When I feel safe..." Then I say, "What do we need to do at this time, in this meeting, so we can live into this?" The Use of Self in Change: “The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor” – Bill O’Brien, former CEO of Hanover Insurance Radical Participatory Democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_democracy Virginia Satir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir

Influence and Leadership aren’t things you turn on and off...it’s a muscle you have to practice all the time. And while being “on” all the time might sound exhausting, Stacey Hanke, my guest today, suggests that the key to leadership is being consistent. Leadership and influence is something you practice “monday to monday” and every day in between. Stacey is the author of Influence Redefined and Yes You Can! … Everything You Need From A to Z to Influence Others to Take Action. Her company exists to equip leaders within organizations to communicate with confidence, presence and authenticity, day in and day out. One thing I really heard from Stacey is that in order to grow it’s critical to see ourselves from the outside. That can mean recording yourself speaking or presenting or it can mean having a coach or trusted advisor who can give you honest feedback  - and that you have to prepare for that feedback. If you want to dive into how to develop a culture of critique and feedback about your work, check out the show notes for my interview with Aaron Irizarry and Adam Connor, authors of “Discussing Design”. One of my favorite questions in this episode came from Jordan Hirsch, who was in the most recent cohort of my 12-week Innovation Leadership Accelerator:  How do you lead from the middle, without formal authority? Stacey had some solid, down-to-earth advice: Don’t waste anyone’s time - be brief and clear in your communication Have your message clear and crystallized so you can speak to it without notes Be clear on how you want to be perceived and how you are currently perceived Deliver value, consistently Show up for others - listening deeply means you can respond deeply If you want to connect with a community of innovation leaders keen on growing in their authentic presence, you should apply to the upcoming cohort at ILAprogram.com One other fine point I want to pull out from this interview is how influence shifts depending on the size of the conversation you’re holding space in. 1-to-1 : It’s easy to adapt and influence one to one: Stacey suggests that we listen deeply and get our conversation partners to do most of the talking. Also, mirroring their body language can create connection as well. Groups - if it’s more than five people Stacey’s rule is to get on your feet. You’ll have more energy and the group will feed off of that. Large Groups - be “bigger” - use more of your voice, and use the whole stage. Connect to the whole room, purposefully, with your eyes One side note: I misquote one of Newton’s Laws. The Third law is about how every action creates an equal and opposite reaction, not the second law! How embarrassing! Check out the show notes for how to find Stacey and her work on the web as well as links we mentioned in our conversation. Show Links https://staceyhankeinc.com/ The trusted advisor Ed Sheeran on giving up his phone: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/ed-sheeran-doesnt-have-cell-phone Deep Listening on Ian Altman’s Podcast: https://www.ianaltman.com/salespodcast/deep-listening-impact-beyond-words-oscar-trimboli/ Developing a culture of critique: Designing a Culture of Critique http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2018/9/2/culture-of-critique 

Today’s conversation with Dorie Clark taught me some essential lessons about how to build a following around one’s ideas - which is no surprise - Dorie has given several excellent TEDx talks on just this topic, and I’ll summarize my insights from our conversation in a moment.  I learned something more surprising during my conversation with Dorie - that she is living her principles, constantly. I also learned that she’s into musicals, big time. I wasn’t expecting to learn this about Dorie, but I followed the conversation, as you’ll see.  Dorie is the author of a trilogy of books all about reinvention. Starting in 2013, Dorie wrote “Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future” which she followed up in 2015 with “Stand Out: How to Find your Breakthrough Idea and build a following around it” which was named Inc Magazine’s #1 Leadership book of that year. Most recently, in 2017, she penned “Entrepreneurial You: Monetize Your Expertise, Create Multiple Income Streams, and Thrive.” Maybe I’m just a cynic, but I often expect people who have this much time to write about their ideas to have less time  to apply them. Dorie walks her talk, however. The opening quote is about Dorie’s dream to learn to write and produce musical theater...and how she’s going about it - slowly building skills, insights and networks, long before she plans to tap them. If you take nothing else away from this episode, that alone is a solid gold lesson. This approach makes logical sense - you have to plant before you can reap - and networks are no different. What I loved learning about Dorie is that she’s not sitting still - she still has dreams of constant reinvention and she’s working to make those dreams possible, steadily. In the last several years in hosting this podcast, I’ve come to see conversations in a new light - sometimes they can seem like a wave, building, cresting and receding. Dorie certainly treats her own musical reinvention in this way - like a conversational wave she needs to build. But I’ve also learned that conversations also have key sizes that act differently - small, medium and large conversations are all essential to master, as a leader or facilitator, and with reinvention, this is still true. Dorie takes me through three key conversational size “phase transitions” in building a following around a breakthrough idea. You don’t get to massive impact overnight. Zero to one: Start talking about your idea. It may seem obvious, but many people just keep their ideas and their dreams in their heads. Getting it out of your head is like Peter Thiel’s Zero-to-One innovation and gets the ball rolling. One to Many: Finding ways to get to talk to many people about your ideas at once, like writing for a publication or speaking to a group. Many-to-Many: The goal, at the end of the day, is to develop a many-to-many conversation. You don’t want to be the only person talking about your idea. For me, the more people who see conversations as something worth designing, the better it is for me and for the world (at least, that’s how I see it) - which is why I keep making this show! This episode is full of other insights, like how to write a great headline or choose a collaborator for a project. For the show notes and links to Dorie’s books and videos, click over to the Conversation Factory.com Show Links Dorie Clark on the Web https://dorieclark.com/ How to Build a Following Around your Ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fQ92UVoXqc Zero to One innovation: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296

Questions need silence. Great questions are provocative. Great questions defy easy answers. Answering them takes time - they can be the work of a lifetime or a workshop. A great question can guide an organization, a Design Sprint or an educational program. Great Facilitators ask great questions - on purpose.   In this episode I sit down with the effortlessly scintillating Nancy McGaw, Deputy Director of the Aspen Institute Business & Society Program (Aspen BSP). Nancy also leads corporate programs designed to cultivate leaders and achieve Aspen BSP’s mission of aligning business with the long-term health of society.   In 2009 she founded (and still directs) the First Movers Fellowship Program, an innovation lab for exceptional business professionals who have demonstrated an ability and passion for imagining new products, services, and management practices that achieve profitable business growth and lasting, positive social impacts.   I would suggest you listen to this episode at 1X speed if for no other reason than it’s good to slow down sometimes - it’s a point that Nancy makes early on in our conversation.   Nancy and I meditate on the power of questions: Asking instead of telling lights people up and will surprise you, the asker, if you design your questions with care.    Nancy shares three of her favorite questions.   Tell me about a time when you were working at your best…? What would have to be true…? Why do you do the work you do?   Starting with Stories The first question shows the power of Starting with stories. Any user experience researchers or Design Thinkers listening will know this to be true - if you’re talking to a customer or a client, the best way to get rich and detailed information is to ask a “tell me about a time when…” question. Stories light up our brains in ways facts cannot, and starting our gatherings with a story is a luxurious and powerful way to generate energy and connectedness.   Appreciative Inquiry   This first question also connects to one of the most important ideas in this episode - even though it’s mentioned only briefly: Asking with focus on the positive and the functional over the negative and dysfunctional. Appreciative Inquiry is a rich body of work and a unique approach to change.   The Art of Possibility Nancy’s second question is an excellent act of conversational Judo. Asking “What would have to be true…” can transform conflict into collaboration...or at least, honest inquiry. Asking this question can allow skeptics to dream a little and open the door into possibility.   That question came out of another question, from Michael Robertson, who attended the recent cohort of my 12 week Innovation Leadership Accelerator. He wanted to know if an “us vs them” mentality is ever appropriate when trying to lead deeply important change. Nancy’s answer is profoundly empathetic. As a side note, the next cohort of the ILA is in February - we’re accepting applications through January. If you want to dive more deeply into your own personal leadership, head over to ILAprogram.com to learn more and apply.   Why over what I love the idea of asking people “Why do you do what you do?” without even knowing what they do. This question also points to understanding people’s history, which is one of the key components to change - how did we get to now? What was the arc of the story? Nancy has added some amazing books to my reading list - check out the show notes for links to them all and enjoy the episode! Nancy at the Aspen Institute   Business and Society Program   First Movers Fellowship Program   Edgar Schein’s Humble Inquiry   The Four Quadrants of Conversational Leadership   Appreciative Inquiry   John McPhee’s Draft No. 4    The Four Truths of Storytelling    Carmine Gallo’s Storytelling Secrets   Rosamund and Ben Zander’s Art of Possibility   Leading change with and without a Burning Platform   Hal Gregersen’s Questions are the Answer   Elise Foster’s The Multiplier Effect   Full Transcription at https://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2019/12/24/leading-through-asking  

Daniel Stillman Interviews Ian Altman I am so thrilled to share this conversation with author and speaker Ian Altman about a conversation we all have to contend with one way or another - sales! Everyone sells something at some point, whether it’s in a job interview or a client presentation...and at some point everyone is going to be sold to. Ian’s book, Same Side Selling, asks “Are you tired of playing the sales game?” The most widely used metaphors in sales are those related to sports, battle, or games. The challenge with this mindset is that it means one person wins, and the other loses. Instead of falling victim to a win-lose approach, what if you shared a common goal with your potential client? How might things change if the client felt that you were more committed to their success than making the sale? As Ian says in the opening quote - it’s not about a series of tactics, it’s about selling something you care about that helps people solve real challenges that you also care about! I wanted to share my own takeaways form Ian’s approach that have helped me facilitate deeper conversations with my clients and potential clients. Stay in the problem space slightly longer than feels comfortable. My listeners with Design Thinking experience will not be too surprised to hear that jumping from problem to solution quickly is not any more effective in sales conversations than it is in innovation conversations. Staying in the problem space means listening longer and more deeply to people before you share your amazing solution to all their worries. Ian’s “same side quadrant” notebook has actually been a helpful reminder to do just that. Ask “what’s the cost of not solving this challenge?” Make sure you understand not just the problem today, but the cost of not solving the problem in the near future. This conversation can help you both understand how to measure the impact of any effort you make to solve the problem. The Cost of your solution is often irrelevant in the face of the cost of the problem. Once you really know the cost of the problem, talking about your fees can feel less challenging. What is particularly interesting me to are the wider implications of Ian’s metaphor driven-approach. What metaphors are driving the key relationships in your life? Those metaphors are narrative threads that link (and color) each and every moment of the relationship. The simple shift from a game to be won to a puzzle to be solved is a profound one. If you think of your marriage as a battle or your job as  circus, the way you name the game will affect how you play it.  I’m really grateful to Ian for this new metaphor - and I think you’ll enjoy it too!   Ian’s Same Side Sales Podcat: https://www.ianaltman.com/same-side-selling-podcast/ Your Chocolate is in my peanut butter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLDF6qZUX Same Side Sales Journal: https://www.ianaltman.com/store/Journal/   Full Transcription at  https://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2019/12/04/what-is-your-sales-metaphor