Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I just wanted to share a quick note
Speaker 1: that Eric will be live on Instagram this Friday, July
Speaker 1: seventh at five pm Eastern time. He'll be joined by
Speaker 1: former guest and friend of the show, Ralph de la Rosa,
Speaker 1: and they'll be discussing the powerful effects that spending time
Speaker 1: in nature has on our mental health, how to connect
Speaker 1: mindfulness and nature and more. Be sure you are following
Speaker 1: us at one Underscore you underscore feed so that you
Speaker 1: can connect with Eric and Ralph live on Instagram this Friday,
Speaker 1: July seventh at five pm Eastern. We hope to see
Speaker 1: you there.
Speaker 2: There's glory and routine and comfort and familiarity. It's like
Speaker 2: one of the great things of working relationships, which is
Speaker 2: just how comfortable that feels. And well, I know both
Speaker 2: of you might need more than that.
Speaker 1: Wow, Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great
Speaker 1: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 1: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Michael
Speaker 1: Bungay Stanier, whose book The Coaching Habit is the best
Speaker 1: selling coaching book of the century, with over a million
Speaker 1: copies sold. In twenty nineteen, he was named the number
Speaker 1: one thought leader in coaching. Michael found a Box of Krans,
Speaker 1: a learning and development company that helps organizations transform from
Speaker 1: advice driven to curiosity lead. He's the author of many books,
Speaker 1: including the one discussed here, How to Work with Almost Anyone.
Speaker 1: Five Questions for building the best possible Relationships.
Speaker 3: Hi, Michael, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Eric, it's nice to be back. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: I am happy to have you back, and we've actually
Speaker 3: been talking some in between interviews, so it feels like
Speaker 3: a conversation with a friend, which is always the best
Speaker 3: kind I was telling you before. Listeners, if you're watching
Speaker 3: this I'm wearing the brightest shirt I've ever worn in
Speaker 3: my life in honor of Michael, who's a pretty bright guy.
Speaker 2: I'm wearing the dullest shirt I've ever worn in my
Speaker 2: life just to kind of fit with you, Eric exactly.
Speaker 3: You're like, that guy is pretty bland. I better tear
Speaker 3: it down.
Speaker 2: It's like, can I have something gray, please?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Even gray that please?
Speaker 3: Literally, if I walked into my mom's hospital room right
Speaker 3: now and she saw me in this shirt, she might
Speaker 3: fall out of her bed because my color palette is
Speaker 3: like dark blue, gray, black, white. Yeah, I'll go skyblue
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 2: If you're feeling really kind of punchy, well, you know,
Speaker 2: you're wearing a purple shirt, and purple is my favorite color.
Speaker 2: As a thirteen year old joining a high school, we
Speaker 2: were assigned houses and we were put into the purple house,
Speaker 2: and I'm like purple. It was a particularly ugly purple
Speaker 2: they had. But a mother of a friend of mine
Speaker 2: taught me how purple was the color of royalty in Romana.
Speaker 2: You know, they used to line the togas with this color,
Speaker 2: which was much rarer than gold because it was made
Speaker 2: by crushing tiny, tiny, tiny marine snails. So since that day,
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I'm just trying to, you know, make
Speaker 2: a buger feature. I don't like purple. It's now my
Speaker 2: favorite color, so I'm all in on the purple and
Speaker 2: you nailed it. So thank you for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Did you have a sorting hat for
Speaker 3: being put in these houses?
Speaker 2: It was kind of it was kind of like that.
Speaker 2: We didn't have a sorting hat exactly, but it was
Speaker 2: a very kind of Empire school. I now realized our
Speaker 2: school uniform was kind of this muddy brown, but we
Speaker 2: had light blue and dark blue stripes around the socks
Speaker 2: and other places, in homage to Oxford and Cambridge. It
Speaker 2: was like it was a very colonial Oh. You know,
Speaker 2: we're Australian, but you know we look to England for
Speaker 2: all the wisdom we have. So it wasn't quite Harry Potter,
Speaker 2: but they aspired to do it in their own Australian way.
Speaker 3: I'm reading a book by an Australian writer right now.
Speaker 3: We haven't even gotten to the parable yet, We're totally
Speaker 3: off topic. It's called The Long Road to the Dark North.
Speaker 3: Perhaps that is not correct, but it's a great book.
Speaker 3: It won a pullets are a number of years ago,
Speaker 3: and right I should know the title of.
Speaker 2: It is that Peter Carey perhaps or no, no, There
Speaker 2: are some wonderful Australian writers. David Mloof was such a
Speaker 2: big influence on me growing up and imagining life. A
Speaker 2: really short book, but this exploration of a journey out
Speaker 2: of the head, into the heart and into the body
Speaker 2: through the story of Ovid and his exile. Peter Carey,
Speaker 2: who's most famous for a book called Oscar and Lucinda
Speaker 2: from years ago, but his new book is called Amnesia.
Speaker 2: I've just read and it is such a brilliant piece
Speaker 2: of writing. And then there's an Australian author who I
Speaker 2: think might be your guy whose name has gone on
Speaker 2: my head. But he writes about the loneliness and the
Speaker 2: isolation and the pain of an Australian man in a
Speaker 2: way that is just amazing. His best book is called Breath.
Speaker 3: This guy is called Richard Flanagan The Narrow Road to
Speaker 3: the Deep North.
Speaker 2: I read it. He's also a Rhodes scholar like I am.
Speaker 2: So you know Richard and I buddies. Not really. All
Speaker 2: of his stuff is fantastic, so I'm glad you're reading that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's turn this into a book podcast. I know people
Speaker 2: are expecting something else completely, but we'll just do literary criticism.
Speaker 3: Well, you have a book podcast which I was on
Speaker 3: What a great podcast idea?
Speaker 2: Oh thank you. It's called for people who don't know it,
Speaker 2: which is everybody, because not many people listen to it.
Speaker 2: It's called two pages with MBS. So people like Eric
Speaker 2: read the best two pages from a book that has
Speaker 2: moved them and a book that has shaped them, and
Speaker 2: then the conversation springs out of those two pages, and
Speaker 2: it's like a different doorway you enter into conversation with people.
Speaker 2: I love the conversations.
Speaker 3: Yep, it's a really great show. Speaking of shows, this
Speaker 3: show actually has a format which we are now going
Speaker 3: to honor. Yes, And it starts with a parable, and
Speaker 3: the parable goes like this. There's a grandparent who's talking
Speaker 3: to the grandchild and they say, in life, there are
Speaker 3: two wolves inside of us that are always a battle.
Speaker 3: What is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 3: and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf,
Speaker 3: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 3: the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second,
Speaker 3: and they look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 3: which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that pair of what means to you in your life
Speaker 3: and in the work that you do.
Speaker 2: Well. In my life, some of the most powerful work
Speaker 2: I've done has been turning towards the bad wolf, which
Speaker 2: is counterintuitive. It's kind of you know, JUNGI in shadow work.
Speaker 2: I came to it through a book called The Dark
Speaker 2: Side of the Light Chases, which is like one of
Speaker 2: the worst book titles ever by Debra Fort, and it
Speaker 2: is my first introduction to this type of work. And
Speaker 2: as I understand it, shadow work is, we are made
Speaker 2: up of light and dark. As children, we are taught
Speaker 2: to be good, you know, behave well, and so we
Speaker 2: shove a bunch of stuff into our shadow, into I
Speaker 2: imagine a big sack behind us, and that shadow. The
Speaker 2: stuff in our sack drives us, triggers us, makes us reactive.
Speaker 2: And it's only in integrating between the good and the
Speaker 2: bad that we become whole. And Jung says, I'd rather
Speaker 2: be whole than be good. Jung says, the gold in
Speaker 2: the dark. So I want to feed both the wolves,
Speaker 2: not to favor one over the other, but to realize
Speaker 2: they're both the same wolf. It's the same wolf. And
Speaker 2: you know, I'm the eldest son. I'm brought up to
Speaker 2: be a good boy and a high achieving boy, and
Speaker 2: I've had some of that success, and my journey is
Speaker 2: to integrate so that I'm trying to be the richest,
Speaker 2: most complex, most nuanced, most whole person I can be,
Speaker 2: and that means I need both of these wolves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting to think about our journey with those
Speaker 3: because as you were talking, I was thinking about, I mean,
Speaker 3: one advantage of just letting all hell break loose in
Speaker 3: your life like I did for a good number of years,
Speaker 3: is your shadow is pretty well expressed. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: it's out and surprise, you know, it's right there, got
Speaker 3: to the point where it was running the show. And
Speaker 3: so then in an attempt to correct that, right then
Speaker 3: you start doing the at least in my case, shoving
Speaker 3: the impulses that aren't good kind of back underneath. And
Speaker 3: then there's a period of sort of you know, reckoning
Speaker 3: with those again and going okay, well, geez, that energy
Speaker 3: is still there or if I do that. You know,
Speaker 3: for me, the biggest downside I think of pushing all
Speaker 3: that shadow stuff down is that it pushes my energy
Speaker 3: level down right. It takes away my zest, my word
Speaker 3: that will get to in your book, my vitality. So
Speaker 3: I do think it is this integration of those two
Speaker 3: things and really knowing how to work with them when
Speaker 3: and in what levels and situations. And you know, because
Speaker 3: I think it's obvious we know enough about psychology now
Speaker 3: from young and for many other people to know like,
Speaker 3: you can't repress things that doesn't work. I mean you can, actually,
Speaker 3: but it's not going to work out well. So to me,
Speaker 3: it's the question of the nuance is when to lean
Speaker 3: into what.
Speaker 2: Part of the gear and shadow work is what annoys
Speaker 2: you and other people, It is part of what is
Speaker 2: not yet integrated in yourself. So when I think of
Speaker 2: like a former boss I had, I'm like, he is
Speaker 2: power hungry, napoleonic, status obsessed, money driven, drives me nuts.
Speaker 2: And then when I own up to that in myself,
Speaker 2: which is like I am status driven and I am
Speaker 2: money obsessed, and I have napoleonic qualities and not the
Speaker 2: good ones you know, it's when I own that in
Speaker 2: me that actually I spend less time being angry at him,
Speaker 2: and so it's less about energy levels for me. It's
Speaker 2: more around contentment and a willingness not to be kind
Speaker 2: of wound up by other people.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Does that mean that the fact that other people
Speaker 3: chewing annoys me so much means that I just want
Speaker 3: to be able to chew like a cow?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not sure what that means.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it means either, but it's a
Speaker 3: bigger problem than it really should be.
Speaker 2: That's noted when we hang out in person, I'm like,
Speaker 2: eat with your mouth shut, Michaeler, take small mouthfuls. Don't
Speaker 2: you like a because you.
Speaker 3: Just stick to liquids and don't crunch your ice.
Speaker 2: By the way, Okay, yeah, don't go to it. I
Speaker 2: do notice like when little things like that drive me nuts.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm like, I just have standards and I think
Speaker 2: people should behave and be nice and be good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what's interesting is just rather than just reacting and
Speaker 2: responding in a way that you don't fully be mindful with.
Speaker 2: It's a classic. It's like just you notice your irritation
Speaker 2: and go, this is irritating to me, I wonder why
Speaker 2: that's curious, isn't it? How will I choose to respond
Speaker 2: to that? Do I actually want to go and say
Speaker 2: to that person, you know, we're in a movie theater here,
Speaker 2: if you could eat with your mouth shut and not
Speaker 2: crunch the ice, that would be great because that would
Speaker 2: be my preference. You know, ask for what you want.
Speaker 2: You know, you may get no, They may go now
Speaker 2: I'm going to chew my ice, and you're like, okay.
Speaker 2: But part of it is understanding your response and then
Speaker 2: deciding your reaction to it. Sometimes it's I'm just take it, Michael,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it's how about you do something about that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: And I think one of the things that this isn't
Speaker 3: only young, but I attribute it to him often is
Speaker 3: this idea of bringing what's kind of submerged into consciousness, right.
Speaker 3: And I think it's the essential step in any sort
Speaker 3: of development. And we're going to talk about relationships in
Speaker 3: a minute. It's critical in relationships, it's critical in our
Speaker 3: own self awareness. We've got to take these things that
Speaker 3: are driving us and make them conscious and then we
Speaker 3: can choose what to do with them. Like I don't
Speaker 3: know how to turn off that irritation. I think it's
Speaker 3: technically called mesophonia. It means that you're emotionally overreactive to
Speaker 3: very common sounds. Oh yeah, it's a disorder. I suppose,
Speaker 3: like I need another. But by being conscious like, oh
Speaker 3: that's what's happening, you know, I can ideally react a
Speaker 3: little bit less. I can be a little bit nicer
Speaker 3: to myself instead of thinking like what a shallow, awful
Speaker 3: person you are, Eric like, come on, there are big
Speaker 3: problems in this world, like what are you getting up?
Speaker 3: You know, and just be like, well, that's kind of
Speaker 3: what happens sometimes. And no, I'm not going to say
Speaker 3: anything to anybody because that's just kind of a crappy
Speaker 3: thing to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is men search for meaning, you know. In
Speaker 2: between stimulus and response, life's freedom life choice and choice
Speaker 2: is freedom, yep. Because sometimes the thing to do is
Speaker 2: not to act, and sometimes the thing to do is
Speaker 2: to act. It's being mindful about why would I make
Speaker 2: the choice? And whom I being is just the best
Speaker 2: version of myself making this choice. Yeah. All right.
Speaker 3: So you've got a new book out and it is
Speaker 3: called How to Work with Almost Anyone. I love that title.
Speaker 3: Five questions to building the best possible relationships. Yeah, that
Speaker 3: almost in parentheses is a stroke of genius. And I
Speaker 3: do think it's the sort of title that almost anybody,
Speaker 3: I would think would stop and be like, hang on,
Speaker 3: I need to read that. So do they actually mean
Speaker 3: I could work with my power hungry boss that you
Speaker 3: just described, like is there a way? And your point is, well,
Speaker 3: almost anyone. But there is a point that you make
Speaker 3: that I think is really important, and you talk about
Speaker 3: in the book. We're going to get to this in
Speaker 3: more detail, you know, best possible relationship, And it points
Speaker 3: to this idea that I really love, which is that
Speaker 3: nearly any relationship can be made better. It's a core
Speaker 3: philosophy I have, which is nearly any situation, anything that's
Speaker 3: happening with us, there's a positive move You may not
Speaker 3: build it eliminated, that there may be just a small
Speaker 3: window of movement, but there's always somewhere to go. And
Speaker 3: I love that idea because it comes through in this
Speaker 3: book a lot too. And that qualification like the best
Speaker 3: possible relationship. Say a little bit more about.
Speaker 2: That, sure, you know when we're going through titles of
Speaker 2: the book, Originally it's going to be called the Operating Manual,
Speaker 2: and then I'm like, I can come up with a
Speaker 2: better title than that. Then it went to how to
Speaker 2: Work with Anyone. I'm like, that may be over promised it.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure I can pull that one off. But
Speaker 2: when we came up with how to Work with almost Anyone,
Speaker 2: else like, oh, that is such a good That's like
Speaker 2: the best book title I've ever come up with, because
Speaker 2: I've not met a single person who I've told that
Speaker 2: title too, who hasn't laughed, who hasn't kind of immediately
Speaker 2: recognized something that is true about that. And it's just
Speaker 2: as you said, I think there are some people where
Speaker 2: you like it's probably impossible or it's just not worth
Speaker 2: the effort to try and improve that. But when you
Speaker 2: think back on the working relationships you have or you've had,
Speaker 2: they will kind of map out on a bell curve.
Speaker 2: You'll have some up one end where you're like, this
Speaker 2: is so delightful. Somehow there was magic in the air.
Speaker 2: We brought out the best in each other. We did work,
Speaker 2: we cared about, We navigated the hard things with grace
Speaker 2: and ease. There's definitely some down the other end, which
Speaker 2: is like, you know what, this was a grind sand
Speaker 2: in the gears a whole way. We just couldn't click,
Speaker 2: We couldn't make it work. And then most of them
Speaker 2: are probably somewhere in the middle being they're good enough
Speaker 2: most of the time. And the idea is that every
Speaker 2: working relationship can be better, you know, asterisks except for
Speaker 2: the one that you're thinking about. But yeah, let's work with.
Speaker 2: Every working relationship can be better, as lovely as it
Speaker 2: is to go. How do we keep the good ones
Speaker 2: being brilliant and even more brilliant? Consider taking your five
Speaker 2: most irritating or difficult or troublesome working relationships and making
Speaker 2: those ten percent better so that they're workable and they're
Speaker 2: bearable and that they're good enough. That is such a
Speaker 2: big win because our happiness and our success is so
Speaker 2: dependent on our working relationships, and yet most of the
Speaker 2: time we kind of back away and we just cross
Speaker 2: our fingers and we hope for the best, particularly for
Speaker 2: the hard ones, which is like, ah, I'm just going
Speaker 2: to endure this until it falls apart or we're moved
Speaker 2: apart for whatever reason. What if you go, look, look great,
Speaker 2: don't like this person, particularly, we don't click, but let's
Speaker 2: make this as good as we can, so we maintain
Speaker 2: our sanity, we maintain respect for each other, and we
Speaker 2: get what needs to be done done.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I think that's such an important point
Speaker 3: because I know with coaching clients over the years, I've
Speaker 3: experienced this a lot. And the general way of thinking
Speaker 3: of it is do I just need to accept this
Speaker 3: person the way they are or do I need to leave? Right?
Speaker 3: And those are fairly binary options, right, And what you're
Speaker 3: proposing is a third way, which is like, before I
Speaker 3: get stuck into one of those two, maybe there's some
Speaker 3: work I can do that's going to make this a
Speaker 3: little bit better, and that works not all inside me.
Speaker 3: I think that's the thing your book is pointing to.
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of relationship stuff rightfully, so
Speaker 3: we have to look inside, you know, but we also
Speaker 3: have to be willing to be courageous enough to try
Speaker 3: and cross some sort of imaginary barrier that is there,
Speaker 3: and that's really what your book kind of helps us
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think if there's a singular call to action
Speaker 2: that's at the heart of this book is be the
Speaker 2: person who reaches out and says, hey, how do we
Speaker 2: make this a little bit better? Yeah? I heard the
Speaker 2: other day a saying which I love. Nobody likes to
Speaker 2: be the first person to say hello. Everybody likes to
Speaker 2: be greeted. And this willingness to say this is not
Speaker 2: the work for me to do. But what if we
Speaker 2: did this work together? So the work for you to
Speaker 2: do is to make the invitation. The work for the
Speaker 2: two of you to do is go, could we create
Speaker 2: something that is a little bit better, a little bit safer,
Speaker 2: a little bit more vital, a little bit more reparable
Speaker 2: in terms of working on this because just as you said, Eric,
Speaker 2: those two binary things, which is like to endure it
Speaker 2: as it is or to walk away from it. There's
Speaker 2: other things you can do. Yeah, and it may not
Speaker 2: even work all the time. It probably won't work all
Speaker 2: the time, but it will work some of the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think, as you said, some of it
Speaker 3: is this courage to actually be willing to address the
Speaker 3: fact that there is a relationship with somebody at work
Speaker 3: and that you actually want to work on that. And
Speaker 3: what I like about the book is it makes tangible
Speaker 3: how you might do that. You know, even if I
Speaker 3: somehow became convinced it's a good idea, which might take
Speaker 3: some convincing, right right, I still don't have a foggiest
Speaker 3: idea what to do, like what this.
Speaker 2: Is good in theory? Now? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so the book, you know, kind of breaks
Speaker 3: that down. So we've kind of covered this idea of
Speaker 3: best possible relationship, right that nearly any relationship can be
Speaker 3: made better. And you talk about that. In the best
Speaker 3: possible relationship, they have sort of three kind of core
Speaker 3: elements to them. Who we talk through what those are?
Speaker 2: Sure, I think the best possible relationship is safe, vital,
Speaker 2: and repairable. So I'll go through those one by one.
Speaker 2: Safe is the one that most people already have cottoned
Speaker 2: on too, because for ten years or more we've been
Speaker 2: talking about the importance of psychological safety in the way
Speaker 2: we work with other people. Amy Edmondson from Harvard kind
Speaker 2: of really popularized this, and you know, people like Google
Speaker 2: have done a ton of research around effective teams and
Speaker 2: effective managers, Project Oxygen and Aristotle, and constantly there's a
Speaker 2: sense of we've got to make this safe. People feel
Speaker 2: safe in terms of what they say. People feel safe
Speaker 2: so they can say what needs to be said without
Speaker 2: negative consequences, and safe to kind of show up more
Speaker 2: wholly as they are.
Speaker 3: A couple quick thoughts of there. One is before we
Speaker 3: go further. We're talking about work, but I assume these
Speaker 3: principles apply kind of to any kind of relationship.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: So you actually you have a story I meant to
Speaker 3: have a start with, but I got distracted by discussing
Speaker 3: Australian authors about your mother and father. Yeah, can we
Speaker 3: hit that real quick before we jump back in, because
Speaker 3: I think it's a beautiful story that illustrates how this
Speaker 3: is more than just how to talk with your coworker.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I write for a specific audience, which
Speaker 2: is often people at work, but I try and write
Speaker 2: in a way that it's useful for humanity, because honestly,
Speaker 2: if you interact with other human beings, there's stuff here
Speaker 2: that might be helpful for you. About three years ago,
Speaker 2: my dad was dying and he had come home from hospital,
Speaker 2: which was miraculous in itself because he got sick pretty quickly,
Speaker 2: ended up in the intensive care unit, and he came
Speaker 2: very close to dying in the ICU there, and we
Speaker 2: kind of assumed that was going to happen, but somehow
Speaker 2: he came back, and he came back and he ended
Speaker 2: up living for another couple of months living at home,
Speaker 2: so we had a hospital bed set up. He at
Speaker 2: Oxygen and I was back in Australia. I live in
Speaker 2: Canada most of the time, and I was living in
Speaker 2: the house in my childhood house as well, where I
Speaker 2: grew up childhood bedroom, which was great and weird at
Speaker 2: the same time. And you could tell that Mum and
Speaker 2: dad were both delighted that he was home, and also
Speaker 2: that the relationship was under stress for all the really
Speaker 2: obvious reasons. They knew my dad had a terminal illness,
Speaker 2: they knew that he was dying. He was also stuck
Speaker 2: in a hospital bed so not able to do a
Speaker 2: whole lot kind of Mum was having to be the
Speaker 2: primary caregiver, and for all the reasons you can guess,
Speaker 2: a relationship that had been very successful and very happy
Speaker 2: for fifty five years was understrain, and parts of me
Speaker 2: were screaming, don't do this. I went, let's have a
Speaker 2: conversation about how you would like to be with each
Speaker 2: other in the remaining weeks or months that you have
Speaker 2: so that, particularly for my mom, I was like, I
Speaker 2: want your memory to be as good as it can be,
Speaker 2: because you know, through psychology, we know about the recency
Speaker 2: effect and how the most recent thing influences your sense,
Speaker 2: your memory of the whole thing, And I'm like, I
Speaker 2: want this to be as good a memory as it
Speaker 2: can be, so that you remember how good this relationship
Speaker 2: was for fifty five years. So I sat down and
Speaker 2: I kind of facilitated a conversation similar to the five
Speaker 2: questions that I set out in the book, this kind
Speaker 2: of keystone conversation, which is a conversation about how they
Speaker 2: would like to be with each other over the remaining
Speaker 2: time and what it meant when they were doing certain
Speaker 2: things and what it didn't mean. And it was definitely
Speaker 2: a bit of an awkward conversation. Mum thoroughly didn't want
Speaker 2: to do it. Dad was pretty resistant to it as well,
Speaker 2: but they kind of said, well, okay, why not. And
Speaker 2: it created a freedom and a lightness in that relationship
Speaker 2: because it meant that they kind of named and owned
Speaker 2: their stress and the anxiety and what kind of drove
Speaker 2: each other crazy about each other in this kind of
Speaker 2: new dynamic of working together. And I've been thinking about
Speaker 2: this book for quite a few years, because I've been
Speaker 2: practicing this on and off for about twenty five years.
Speaker 2: But suddenly I was like, this feels like a really
Speaker 2: important type of conversation that people kind of know about,
Speaker 2: but nobody really knows how to do it, and I
Speaker 2: think I can help with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a beautiful story. We talked to earlier about
Speaker 3: having the courage to do these things, like it takes
Speaker 3: courage to do this stuff, and yet it turns out
Speaker 3: to be really positive. So we were on safety, and
Speaker 3: safety is one of the most influential books on me
Speaker 3: over the years about having conversations is something called Crucial Conversations,
Speaker 3: which has been a great book, and it really to
Speaker 3: me introduced that idea of safety quite some time ago
Speaker 3: and became clear to me in certain very difficult relationships,
Speaker 3: relationships that ultimately were not repair able even with a
Speaker 3: fair amount of effort, was how quickly we went out
Speaker 3: of safety. I mean, we did be like four words
Speaker 3: and it'd be like, well, nobody fell safe. And the
Speaker 3: thing that I learned, though, was that to carry on
Speaker 3: beyond that was always ruinous, right always, it never was productive.
Speaker 3: Once we didn't feel safe. We may not get anywhere
Speaker 3: by terminating the conversation when we don't feel safe, but
Speaker 3: we don't do further injury.
Speaker 2: Right. So part of what I'm suggesting in the book
Speaker 2: is this idea of a keystone conversation, which in a
Speaker 2: sentence is, let's have a chat about how we should
Speaker 2: work together before we have a chat about what we
Speaker 2: should be working on. And most of the time we're
Speaker 2: just pulled immediately into the stuff. Let's fix this, solve this,
Speaker 2: get going on this. There's always something to crack on with,
Speaker 2: you know, and this is at work. But you know,
Speaker 2: let's say you're having this conversation with your partner, like
Speaker 2: let's talk about my parents, and let's talk about the kids,
Speaker 2: and let's talk about the holiday, and let's talk about
Speaker 2: the house, and let's talk about the money, and let's
Speaker 2: talk about the careers. And there's always the things that
Speaker 2: you can put your attention to. But this is the
Speaker 2: way you stop and go, hoh, should we be together
Speaker 2: to bring out our best and avoid the things that
Speaker 2: might bring out our worst. And there's a few benefits
Speaker 2: to it. The first is you're having the conversation before
Speaker 2: the moment of stress, and that classic saying we don't
Speaker 2: rise to the challenge, we fall to the level of
Speaker 2: our preparation or the level of our systems, whatever it
Speaker 2: might be. You're trying to set up systems, you're trying
Speaker 2: to prepare for this. So when you fall out of safety,
Speaker 2: and it happens all the time to all relationships, you go, oh,
Speaker 2: we've done that thing that we said we'd do. The
Speaker 2: second is when you have that conversation, you actually get
Speaker 2: some clues as to what will make it unsafe for
Speaker 2: that other person or what will make it safe unsafe
Speaker 2: for you. So there's a sense of going, oh, we
Speaker 2: have a sense of how to negotiate this and manage this.
Speaker 2: But the reparability, so say vital and repaarable. The reparability
Speaker 2: is this recognition that the relationships that last are ones
Speaker 2: where there's an understanding and a commitment that we're going
Speaker 2: to need to fix it at some stage because everything
Speaker 2: gets a bit dented and cracked and broken. And when
Speaker 2: I read the people who are the classic writers in
Speaker 2: this space, so people like Esther Perrell or Terry Reel,
Speaker 2: or Dan Siegel or John Gottman, these people who just
Speaker 2: specialize in trying to figure out how to make relationships
Speaker 2: work at a kind of more classic intimate partnership relationships,
Speaker 2: they're like reparability is everything in terms of longevity. Most
Speaker 2: of us are terrible at repairing because they haven't figured
Speaker 2: out how to do it. So part of really the
Speaker 2: biggest win from having a keystone conversation is it allows
Speaker 2: you to talk about the health of the relationship. It's
Speaker 2: become a topic that is part of what you talk about.
Speaker 2: So what I would hope, what I dream of, Eric,
Speaker 2: is when you're in those conversations and you lose the safety,
Speaker 2: you're able to go, we've lost the safety, what will
Speaker 2: it take to get this back? Not every relationship then
Speaker 2: gets to be magically repaired, but many more do because
Speaker 2: you've both got a shared commitment to this best possible relationship.
Speaker 3: It's really astounding how in relationships we don't tend to
Speaker 3: think of the processes that happen in them very much.
Speaker 3: We tend to think of the people, and that's what
Speaker 3: we focus on. But my experience has been and I
Speaker 3: think the experience of reading lots of different things like
Speaker 3: you have, is that the ability to talk about how
Speaker 3: we're going to talk is foundational and that if that
Speaker 3: can be figured out, there's so many things that can
Speaker 3: happen that are really positive. And if that thing can't
Speaker 3: be figured out, You're in trouble.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean on a related note, you know, for
Speaker 2: quite a while my wife lecture in the business with me,
Speaker 2: and it was terrible to start with because she's like,
Speaker 2: I hate having a boss that I was her boss,
Speaker 2: I was married to her. She's like, down with the man,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, Marcella, I am the man. I'm literally
Speaker 2: the man. And then it was really good in the middle,
Speaker 2: and then it was bad at the end again, but
Speaker 2: we figured our way through that. But the thing that
Speaker 2: moved us from bad at the start into a really
Speaker 2: good period of working together is that our coach went,
Speaker 2: look what you're seeing here is not Michael versus Marcella.
Speaker 2: It is actually a visionary somebody who has a certain
Speaker 2: role and a way of showing up in the business,
Speaker 2: versus an operator somebody who has another role. I'm Michael, visionary,
Speaker 2: big picture, make it all happen, kind of loose relationship
Speaker 2: to reality in terms of how how much time and
Speaker 2: effort everything takes, always thinking that there's more available, always
Speaker 2: wanting to go faster. Operator, I'm going to make this
Speaker 2: stuff happen. I'm worried about the details. I'm practical. I
Speaker 2: care about the people doing the work, and there's just
Speaker 2: a natural tension between that. When we discovered language that
Speaker 2: allowed us to talk about the processes between us, it
Speaker 2: became less personal. I'm like Masilla railing against me. As
Speaker 2: a boss, I could take that personally, but if I'm
Speaker 2: like it is the operator going it's really hard to
Speaker 2: work with a visionary because it always is. Then it's
Speaker 2: like slightly less personal and slightly more solvable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ginny and I work together and we find our
Speaker 3: way through it. By and large, it goes incredibly smoothly,
Speaker 3: but there are those moments and it is that weird
Speaker 3: thing where you're like, well, but I'm the boss, but
Speaker 3: I'm mostly your partner. And yeah, you know, it's shape
Speaker 3: because those roles can get mixed up if we're not careful.
Speaker 3: But that repair ability piece is really important. It's the
Speaker 3: knowing that, Okay, when we get off track, we can
Speaker 3: talk about it. Yeah, we've sort of hinted it this
Speaker 3: keystone conversation a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, let me talk about the remaining two factors of
Speaker 2: the best possible relationships. So safety we kind of covered
Speaker 2: and then kind of went into interesting conversation about the
Speaker 2: two that are remaining of vitality, more vital, and more apparable,
Speaker 2: a repaarability we've kind of talked about as well. So
Speaker 2: I just want to just touch on what vital means.
Speaker 2: First of all, I love that it has two meanings.
Speaker 2: One is that it's essential, but also that it's full
Speaker 2: of life. And that's really what I want to talk to.
Speaker 2: And after I'd written the book, I came across a
Speaker 2: phrase that I'm now using to describe it, which is
Speaker 2: psychological bravery. I really love this idea that you're looking
Speaker 2: to create a relationship where you find the right balance
Speaker 2: for you and another person of psychological safety and psychological bravery.
Speaker 2: So it is both a place where people feel that
Speaker 2: they've had the fear removed, but it's also a place
Speaker 2: where they can amplify the good, amplify the adventure, push
Speaker 2: each other, challenge each other, step out to the edge,
Speaker 2: being competent, try new things. There's a way that I've
Speaker 2: experienced relationships where I'm like they were very very safe,
Speaker 2: and they were a bit dead, a bit kind of
Speaker 2: bored by it. Also, I had relationships which we are
Speaker 2: full of Indiana Jones, full of adventures and I'm like,
Speaker 2: but when it went wrong, it went really badly wrong,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't It didn't feel like it was fixable
Speaker 2: because it didn't feel safe. And what you're looking for
Speaker 2: is this tension between safety and vitality with this idea
Speaker 2: that repaarability lies underneath that, so that when it does
Speaker 2: go off the rails, whether that's from one or the other,
Speaker 2: there's a way of fixing it. So that's just to
Speaker 2: describe the three core attributes of the best possible relationship.
Speaker 3: I love that idea of psychological bravery.
Speaker 2: It's good, isn't it. I can't remember even who I
Speaker 2: heard it from, but I'm like, I will just steal
Speaker 2: that immediately, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an area I think for me is an
Speaker 3: interesting place to explore a little bit because having had
Speaker 3: the number of bad relationships I've had in my life. Right,
Speaker 3: I'm divorced twice my growing up, it was just the
Speaker 3: number of them, right, I'm just like, oh, it's safe, okay, good,
Speaker 3: then that's it. Like keep it safe enough is enough?
Speaker 2: Right? Right?
Speaker 3: And it's that you know, knowing that it's safe, and
Speaker 3: it's repair terrible to say okay, it is okay. Then
Speaker 3: to lean a little bit more into this idea of bravery,
Speaker 3: or this idea that things tend to stagnate if the
Speaker 3: same sort of thing happens again and again and again
Speaker 3: again and again.
Speaker 2: And look at you, You're wearing a purple shirt, like
Speaker 2: great things are happening even as we speak.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean I've taken up surfing over the
Speaker 3: last year and a half, rock climbing, all kinds of
Speaker 3: stuff because I felt that actually that need for some
Speaker 3: degree of vitality that those activities seem to give me.
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's two things to look at. One
Speaker 2: is just what it means to keep growing. Like you
Speaker 2: and I are both roughly the same age, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Like I'm mid fifties, you're probably roughly the.
Speaker 3: Same early thirties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I have to say for somebody in their
Speaker 2: early thirties, you're looking pretty terrible, Eric, I mean, if
Speaker 2: you look like your mid fifties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been a rough life. I'm early fifties, fifty three,
Speaker 3: mid early fifties.
Speaker 2: And there's a way, which is like a commitment to
Speaker 2: our own lives, which is, how do we not stagnate
Speaker 2: in the processes of our own lives. I think very specifically,
Speaker 2: you can say, what does it take for this relationship
Speaker 2: between you and me to have a vitality and a freshness.
Speaker 2: There's glory in routine and comfort and familiarity. It's like
Speaker 2: one of the great things of working relationships, which is
Speaker 2: just how comfortable that feels, and why or both of
Speaker 2: you might need more than that, you might need some
Speaker 2: degree of that, And that's what you get to talk about.
Speaker 2: That's what you get to kind of co create together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's talk about the keystone conversation. Yeah, we've
Speaker 3: sort of hinted at it, but describe it a little
Speaker 3: more fully. What are we talking about?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the idea to walk away with is what if
Speaker 2: we had a conversation about how we be together, how
Speaker 2: we work together, and figure that out so we know
Speaker 2: how to bring out the best in each other, and
Speaker 2: we know how to avoid the worst in each other,
Speaker 2: and we know how to fix it when things go wrong.
Speaker 2: You know. In the book, I say, look, here are
Speaker 2: five questions you can use to structure or spark a conversation,
Speaker 2: And with each question comes two or three exercises so
Speaker 2: that you can deepen your own self knowledge, so you
Speaker 2: have more nuanced language, and you're better able to articulate
Speaker 2: who you are and what helps you thrive. But you
Speaker 2: don't even need those five questions. It can be simple
Speaker 2: as what's a good relationship for you? Let me tell
Speaker 2: you what a good relationship is for me, what's a
Speaker 2: bad relationship for you? Let me tell you what a
Speaker 2: bad relationship is for me. What should we do about that? But,
Speaker 2: as I say in the book five Broad Questions, there's
Speaker 2: the amplify question, there's the steady question, there's the good
Speaker 2: and the bad date question, and then there's the repair question.
Speaker 3: So as you were talking, I just had a thought
Speaker 3: or question, which is, let's say I've got a coworker
Speaker 3: that falls right in the middle of that bell curve.
Speaker 3: It's pretty good. We generally have a pretty good relationship.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It feels to me like if I go to that
Speaker 3: person and I say, let's have a conversation about our relationship,
Speaker 3: it's the equivalent to me of like when your partner
Speaker 3: says to you, well we need to talk.
Speaker 2: And you're, oh, boy, right, no good comes from this.
Speaker 3: Which actually very often much good comes from it. But
Speaker 3: still I shy away. But how do we set that up?
Speaker 3: With somebody so it doesn't feel like we're saying we
Speaker 3: have a bad relationship or I have a problem with you.
Speaker 3: You know, like, how do we put this in a
Speaker 3: growth mode not a there's something wrong mode?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you try and be obvious about it.
Speaker 2: Like if I was talking to you, Eric, I'd go, look, Eric,
Speaker 2: I would love for us to take a beat and
Speaker 2: just say, I mean, I'm really enjoying working with you
Speaker 2: right now, but I wonder if what we could do
Speaker 2: to make it even better. And I'm wondering if you
Speaker 2: and I could have a conversation around that, just to
Speaker 2: kind of explore what else could we do to make
Speaker 2: this relationship stronger and better and really flourish. And it
Speaker 2: could be as simple as that. You know. The book
Speaker 2: I'm known for is The Coaching Habit, and I think
Speaker 2: the power of that book is that kind of Unweird's
Speaker 2: coaching for people. A lot of people go, Okay, now
Speaker 2: if that's what they're talking about, well, I can do that.
Speaker 2: And what I'm hoping with this book is it Unweirds
Speaker 2: this idea of having this type of conversation and with
Speaker 2: there was this inclination to make a big deal out
Speaker 2: of it Eric, come into my office. It's our monthly
Speaker 2: coaching call. I'm going to coach you for an hour.
Speaker 2: The person is being someone is like that sounds terrible
Speaker 2: to me, and it is terrible because I come in
Speaker 2: and like, okay, we've got to act differently. We were
Speaker 2: to be differently. We had to have a conversation where
Speaker 2: I'm clearly coaching you, and somehow it feels awkward and
Speaker 2: weird and broken and fake all of that. And I'm
Speaker 2: trying to find the way to give people the language
Speaker 2: to do something similar in terms of how they calm
Speaker 2: this down, which is just to say, hey, look, this
Speaker 2: is great. But I would really value a conversation just
Speaker 2: where we take a moment and go, is there anything
Speaker 2: else that we can be doing to make this working
Speaker 2: relationship even stronger? Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's a really good point by comparing it
Speaker 3: to coaching, because there is an assumption, rightly or wrongly,
Speaker 3: that many of us have, which is, if I need coach,
Speaker 3: there's something wrong with me. And the same thing here,
Speaker 3: even when you sort of teed up our relationship conversation
Speaker 3: as nicely as you just did, there's a part of
Speaker 3: me hearing that going, well, what did I do wrong?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: What did they do wrong? So? I guess, like most
Speaker 3: things in life, it's a matter of saying. You know,
Speaker 3: I found it very often to be like, what I'm
Speaker 3: not saying is x. Exactly what I am saying is why?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: So to name that thing like this is not a
Speaker 3: hidden way for me to bring up a problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. So this isn't me being sneaky and
Speaker 2: about to launch an attack on your integrity and anything else.
Speaker 2: Behind this conversation lays a great cloud around power and
Speaker 2: structure and expectations and who do you have these type
Speaker 2: of conversations with because, for instance, and we're talking working
Speaker 2: situations but kind of the same things echoing beyond work.
Speaker 2: But if you're the boss, it's easier to go to
Speaker 2: the people on your team let's have this conversation than
Speaker 2: if you're wanting to have the conversation with the boss.
Speaker 2: But it's still possible if you've got a working relationship
Speaker 2: that's been going for six years. In some ways, it's easier.
Speaker 2: In some ways, it's harder to have this conversation if
Speaker 2: you're about to start working with In some ways that's easier.
Speaker 2: But they're like, Okay, I've never done this before, but
Speaker 2: it can be a really powerful way to kind of
Speaker 2: kickstart a working relationship. And then with different types of relationships,
Speaker 2: you have a choice about how deep you want to
Speaker 2: go with this, like, for instance, I've just recently hired
Speaker 2: somebody to help me with my website and we had
Speaker 2: a version of this or I went, ok, I'm excited
Speaker 2: to talk to about the website because we need to
Speaker 2: update it and all of that. But tell me about
Speaker 2: when you've worked with a client like me and it's
Speaker 2: been really great, what do they do? And tell me
Speaker 2: when you've worked with a client like me and it's
Speaker 2: kind of been pretty sucky. What happened? What did you do?
Speaker 2: What did they do? Why did it fall apart? And
Speaker 2: then I go, well, let me tell you about vendors,
Speaker 2: the best I've worked with, the most frustrating I've worked with,
Speaker 2: and just what they did and what they didn't do.
Speaker 2: And the first time I do that, you can see
Speaker 2: the vendor's eyes going, what what are we doing here?
Speaker 2: Nobody's ever asked me that before.
Speaker 3: Doing a little Java script here and Michael, relax.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't do this with every vendor. I
Speaker 2: need you to do thirty minutes work. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to spend an hour and a conversation to set that up.
Speaker 2: But I hope this is going to be a long
Speaker 2: standing working relationship. So I'm like, I want this to
Speaker 2: be good, and I don't want you to piss me
Speaker 2: off inadvertently because I haven't told you what annoys me.
Speaker 2: So you have that conversation, and that's a certain type
Speaker 2: of conversation. If I'm sitting down with somebody who I've
Speaker 2: just hired on my team, I'm like, let me tell
Speaker 2: you what it's like to work with me. Here's the good,
Speaker 2: here's the bad, here's the ugly, because I got all
Speaker 2: of that because I want to give you every chance
Speaker 2: to delight me, and I don't want to give me
Speaker 2: every chance to delight you. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because as we're having this conversation and as
Speaker 3: I'm reading the book, ideally one would be reflecting on
Speaker 3: their own life, right, that's the point. And I'm reflecting
Speaker 3: on certain working relationships where I'm like, they're pretty good,
Speaker 3: and this inclination in my mind, like do I need
Speaker 3: to do that? I mean, things seem to be going
Speaker 3: pretty good, right, But it's back to that idea of
Speaker 3: we're trying to say, is this the bat possible and
Speaker 3: is just working okay? Or do we want it to
Speaker 3: be better than that? And so I just noticed that
Speaker 3: bias like so sort of right in the fabric of me.
Speaker 2: I feel you. I would say that I've noticed entropy
Speaker 2: in relationships, which is things decline over time, Things get
Speaker 2: a bit rote, things get a bit broken, things just
Speaker 2: get a bit chipped at the edge, and there's a
Speaker 2: slow deterioration because that is the nature of the universe.
Speaker 2: And even if I'm like looking at a relationship and
Speaker 2: I'm like it's pretty good, part of what having an
Speaker 2: initial keystone conversation does is it gives you permission to
Speaker 2: keep talking about the relationship. So you're like, look, it's
Speaker 2: pretty good, but let's check in. I'm wondering if it
Speaker 2: could be better. I'm wondering what would make you happier,
Speaker 2: What might me be happier? Is there anything that I
Speaker 2: kind of haven't really been talking about, But it's just
Speaker 2: it's a minor niggle, but I wouldn't mind bringing it up.
Speaker 2: A little adjustment in terms of our processes and maybe
Speaker 2: they're not much comes out of that initial conversation, But
Speaker 2: then you get to go every three months, Hey, checking in,
Speaker 2: how are we doing? Am I still the best client
Speaker 2: you can be? Am? I still the best employee you
Speaker 2: can be? Am I still the best podcast host that
Speaker 2: you're producing a show with. What would it take for
Speaker 2: me to be the best podcast host that you're producing
Speaker 2: the show on? What else would I need to do?
Speaker 2: And they may not have an answer for you, But
Speaker 2: what an invitation? What a commitment to say, I'm really
Speaker 2: committed to try and make this the best possible relationship
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 3: I probably about to get a long list of things
Speaker 3: from Chris our editor.
Speaker 2: Actually, Chris, Chris, slip me twenty bucks to kind of.
Speaker 3: Talk about exactly at the very top of it is
Speaker 3: just be mildly coherent.
Speaker 2: Just just aim in the direction. Just step up to
Speaker 2: mildly coherent.
Speaker 3: I'd be so happy. Okay, So this keystone conversation has
Speaker 3: these five essential questions which you sort.
Speaker 2: Of tease them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you tease them. Yes, very good. So now that
Speaker 3: you have teased us, what is the amplify question?
Speaker 2: So the amplified question is what's your best? And I
Speaker 2: know that's actually just slightly awkward question, as I think
Speaker 2: about it and keep saying it. But I didn't want
Speaker 2: to say what are you good at? I didn't say
Speaker 2: what are your strengths? And I didn't want to say
Speaker 2: what are your values? Because those all take me in
Speaker 2: directions that aren't quite the answer I'm looking for. I
Speaker 2: want to know when you shine and when you flow.
Speaker 2: That feels to me the essence of this, When do
Speaker 2: you shine and when do you flow? This idea, this
Speaker 2: concept of flow from Michael Chuck sent me Hiqi, the
Speaker 2: Hungarian psychologist that talks about the flow state, where you're
Speaker 2: in that right balance between work that matters and work
Speaker 2: you know how to do, and work you're learning how
Speaker 2: to do, and kind of time speeds up and slows down.
Speaker 2: What's that for you? What brings out your very best?
Speaker 2: And when do you shine? When do people look at
Speaker 2: you and go oh man? Eric is lit up at
Speaker 2: the moment. He is in his happy place. I can
Speaker 2: see it. And this idea of right, let me tell
Speaker 2: you when I'm at my best. You tell me when
Speaker 2: you're at your best. And that is already so helpful
Speaker 2: because I'm like, right, I need to do what I
Speaker 2: can to give Eric more of that. So he's at
Speaker 2: his best more often. And then also it's a great
Speaker 2: place to start because it is not what's broken, why
Speaker 2: do you screw up? Or where is it hard? It's like,
Speaker 2: let me just tell you what my best is, because
Speaker 2: the best possible relationship is two of us at our best.
Speaker 2: Within the context of this working relationship.
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Speaker 3: So the way you described it, what is my best
Speaker 3: is it sounds task related?
Speaker 2: I think it can be more than that.
Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, explain to me ways that it can
Speaker 3: be more than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'm going to steal a modal from the
Speaker 2: coaching habit book the three P Model. The three P
Speaker 2: modal says a coaching conversation can kind of three doorways
Speaker 2: into it. It's the projects, the people or the patterns.
Speaker 2: Projects are the tasks? What's the stuff? So in this context,
Speaker 2: what's your best? It's like, what's the work that likes you?
Speaker 2: What what gets you super excited? Where are you kind
Speaker 2: of in the flow around that? The people is what
Speaker 2: are you at your best at in relationship? What does
Speaker 2: it look like when you're working with people and you're
Speaker 2: at your best? What does that look like? What does
Speaker 2: it sound like? What does it feel like? What's going
Speaker 2: on that allows your best to be there? And then
Speaker 2: patterns is the kind of inner stuff which it's like,
Speaker 2: how are you showing up? And that gets more into
Speaker 2: what are your essential qualities? What is the core of
Speaker 2: who you are? You know, what are your values if
Speaker 2: you want to put it like that, But what's like
Speaker 2: the most important statements about this is me on this planet,
Speaker 2: when I'm showing up as me on this planet, And
Speaker 2: so it can be a mix of those three different things.
Speaker 3: I think you make an important point multiple times through
Speaker 3: the book, which is that the answers are useful, but
Speaker 3: it's the asking of the question that is the primary purpose.
Speaker 3: And I would assume that has to do with us
Speaker 3: getting to know about each other, right and also in
Speaker 3: just making it safe to talk.
Speaker 2: I think it's about making it safe to talk because
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, we've just this is an act of
Speaker 2: trust and vulnerability and building an adult to adult relationship
Speaker 2: by having the conversation. Yeah, the answer is you're going
Speaker 2: to remember some of them. You're going to forget some
Speaker 2: of them. When you're tell meling me what you're like
Speaker 2: at your best, I'm seeing you at your best because
Speaker 2: you're light up, so I'm like, oh, like one of that, please.
Speaker 2: So it is this understanding that you've started something important
Speaker 2: in having this conversation.
Speaker 3: Does it make sense to know how you're going to
Speaker 3: answer those questions before you have one of these conversations,
Speaker 3: because part of my hesitancy to do this. If I'm
Speaker 3: putting myself in the spot of doing it would be
Speaker 3: like I don't know how to answer those questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a great insight. You know, in
Speaker 2: the book, I suggest there is this kind of structure
Speaker 2: to how you have this conversation. One is you prepare,
Speaker 2: two as you have the conversation. Three is you actively
Speaker 2: maintain the working relationship. So the keystone conversation is not
Speaker 2: a one and done thing. It's like it needs you
Speaker 2: constantly going back and you know, adjusting a little bit
Speaker 2: and amplifying a bit as needed. I think most people
Speaker 2: can come up with some answers on the moment, on
Speaker 2: the spot, but I really noticed that if they have
Speaker 2: had time to think about it and prepare for it,
Speaker 2: that can be really helpful. So you asked before around
Speaker 2: how you might start this. You can make it a
Speaker 2: little more formal. You can say, look, I'd love to
Speaker 2: have us a conversation around how we can work better together.
Speaker 2: I'm using this idea of a keystone conversation, and there
Speaker 2: are five questions. Here are the five questions. I'm going
Speaker 2: to do some thinking about what my answers are before
Speaker 2: we get there. You know, it's up to you, but
Speaker 2: I'd love you to do some thinking as well, just
Speaker 2: so we've got the best possible chance of a useful exchange.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 3: So preparation can be helpful, and you can not just
Speaker 3: prepare yourself so that you prepared, but actually set the
Speaker 3: other person up so they're prepared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the more preparation you do, the less you'll be
Speaker 2: doing kind of sweeping generalities and jazz hands and more. Going,
Speaker 2: let me give you some really specifics about me at
Speaker 2: my best.
Speaker 3: I was going to say I am all about jazz hands,
Speaker 3: but that's a lesson about preparation. That is a good one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's funny the way, like the thing I prepare for
Speaker 3: most in the world are these conversations, right, And it's
Speaker 3: amazing what that preparation does. And as I'm saying this,
Speaker 3: I'm having an AHA moment in my mind, like you
Speaker 3: might want to try that with some other things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because like I'm a transitory person in your working relationship.
Speaker 2: I'm a guest, which I love on your podcast, but
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, the people you work more closely with,
Speaker 2: It's like, what if you did the same preparation for that,
Speaker 2: and really, Eric, I'm trying to be sneaky because I'm
Speaker 2: really getting people to do self development work, no know
Speaker 2: myself by doing the work to prepare for this so
Speaker 2: that you're ready for the conversations. But you're just more
Speaker 2: attuned to who you are are in this world. I mean,
Speaker 2: it comes all the way back to where we started
Speaker 2: around shadow work and the Two Wolves, which is like,
Speaker 2: know who you are in the light, know who you
Speaker 2: are in the dark. And the better and more granular
Speaker 2: and more metaphorical or more specific the languages around that,
Speaker 2: the more helpful for you and the more helpful for
Speaker 2: other people as well.
Speaker 3: So the next question is the steady question. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: what are your practices and preferences? And when I first
Speaker 3: read that, I was like, well, okay, what do you mean?
Speaker 3: So can you give me some examples of like the
Speaker 3: sort of questions we might ask in relation to this question.
Speaker 3: And again we're primarily talking about working relationships, so we
Speaker 3: can keep it there, but you could take any of
Speaker 3: these sort of they all apply in their own way
Speaker 3: to whatever relationship.
Speaker 2: It's kind of the preferred logistics and mechanics of life.
Speaker 2: So this can be if you're starting a working relationship,
Speaker 2: just even understanding somebody's name and their pronouns. Like, for instance,
Speaker 2: my name is Michael Bungay Stanya. It's a located name.
Speaker 2: When I got married, I took my wife's name, she
Speaker 2: took mine as well. We became the bungay Staniers, the
Speaker 2: only existent ones in the entire universe as far as
Speaker 2: we're aware. But there's no hyphen in between Bungay Stanya.
Speaker 2: So there's a way that like that gets complicated and
Speaker 2: people are not quite sure what my surname is. But
Speaker 2: what really drives me nuts is when people unilaterally decide
Speaker 2: my name is Mike, and I'm like, it's truly not Mike.
Speaker 2: Mike is what I'm speaking into at the moment as
Speaker 2: part of this interview. My name is Michael, so I'd
Speaker 2: be like, let me just tell you my name. I
Speaker 2: prefer to be called Michael, not Mike or Mick.
Speaker 3: How often do you get called Mike? I'm curious how
Speaker 3: often like these just really obnoxious things happen, because that
Speaker 3: just strikes me as obnoxious, Like, yeah, to not even
Speaker 3: figure out the.
Speaker 2: Thing is, I don't think people are being obnoxious when
Speaker 2: they're doing it. They're like this is my active friendship.
Speaker 2: By shortening your name like this, I see. I assume
Speaker 2: it's done with the best possible intent. You're probably right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like, hey, I shorten all my friend's names. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna call you Mick or Mike's Yeah exactly. I might
Speaker 2: call you easy or eas or something. And I'm like, you, like, nah,
Speaker 2: my name is Eric, never call me that. I'm like, great,
Speaker 2: So it could be that. But here's a domestic example.
Speaker 2: I quite like vacuuming. I hate mopping. My wife really
Speaker 2: doesn't like vacuuming at all, but she loves to run
Speaker 2: a wet thing around the floor and kind of And
Speaker 2: it honestly took us twenty years to discover this. We're like, ah, well,
Speaker 2: then we figured this out a lot earlier, not that
Speaker 2: it was causing a great amount of pain, because you know,
Speaker 2: we only clean our house once every six months or something.
Speaker 3: But your wife might be an outlier too, if I
Speaker 3: just I bet if we pulled one hundred people, most
Speaker 3: of them are going to prefer the vacuum to the
Speaker 3: wet thing.
Speaker 2: But I know I don't understand it. But I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't mind washing up because I washed up for
Speaker 2: years in restaurants, so I reckon I do a good
Speaker 2: washing up. I know how to stack something drives me
Speaker 2: nuts the way that I mean, you know, I stack
Speaker 2: the kitchen sink like a Scandinavian architect. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: brilliant at it, and like maximum amount of stuff per squerience.
Speaker 2: This actually like some drug crazed maniac just throw stuff
Speaker 2: on the thing of it. It's like a disaster.
Speaker 3: Somebody trying to do domino structures on LSD.
Speaker 2: That's right exactly. So it's such a small thing, and
Speaker 2: yet we can get really irritated by these small differences.
Speaker 2: So a conversation about just what how do you tend
Speaker 2: what is common sense for you is a really clarifying conversation. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I work. It's like I'm a slack person.
Speaker 2: I'm an email person. I tend to work in the mornings.
Speaker 2: I tend not to have meetings before ten o'clock. I
Speaker 2: love to send emails late at night. Doesn't mean I
Speaker 2: expect a response. I work over the weekend. I don't
Speaker 2: work over the weekend. I orient my working life around childcare.
Speaker 2: I pick up my kid from school at four o'clock.
Speaker 2: So that's a period of time where I'm not going
Speaker 2: to be available. It's kind of that back and forth
Speaker 2: on just some of the practicalities about how you work.
Speaker 2: Often it kind of confirms that you mostly do things
Speaker 2: the same way. Sometimes it uncovers things where you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're quite different around that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love this question of what feedback tends to
Speaker 3: be most helpful to you, and how do you prefer
Speaker 3: it to be expressed? Like, right, that's a really good question.
Speaker 3: Like knowing that we're going to need to give each
Speaker 3: other feedback if we want to have a vital relationship,
Speaker 3: how do we do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like Ainsley, who's on my team, she generally prefers feedback. Well,
Speaker 2: I sat with me first. I like my feedback as
Speaker 2: blunt as possible. I'm like, look, I've got a very
Speaker 2: healthy self esteem, and beating around the bus drives me nuts. Actually,
Speaker 2: just give it to me really clearly, really straightly. A
Speaker 2: deearly is in as fewer words as possible, so I
Speaker 2: really get it because I'm a little slow. Ainsley is
Speaker 2: not psychologically fragile or anything, but there's a way that
Speaker 2: she likes us softer in root into the feedback conversation
Speaker 2: and like, that's really helpful for me to know, because
Speaker 2: otherwise we tend to go this is how I like it.
Speaker 2: I'll just project it onto the other people and assume
Speaker 2: that that's how they like it as well. Ye, let
Speaker 2: me give you the three remaining questions really quickly. Okay,
Speaker 2: the good date and the bad date questions. They are
Speaker 2: sister questions. The first is what can you learn from
Speaker 2: successful past relationships? That's the good date question? And then
Speaker 2: what can you learn from frustrating past relationships? That's the
Speaker 2: bad day questions? Because patterns from the past repeat again
Speaker 2: in the future. So do some forensic exercise around what
Speaker 2: was done and not done, and said and not said
Speaker 2: by both parties in the good and the bad relationships,
Speaker 2: and then bring that forward and say share that with
Speaker 2: the other person so that they know how to do
Speaker 2: more of the good stuff and how to avoid the
Speaker 2: bad stuff. And then the repair question, and we kind
Speaker 2: of talked about this in some depth already, which is
Speaker 2: how will we fix it when things go wrong? And
Speaker 2: there's different ways you can think about how you'll repair it,
Speaker 2: but the power of this question is it says things
Speaker 2: are going to go wrong, there's not going to be
Speaker 2: you know, Honeymoon and unicorn farts for the whole time
Speaker 2: is going to have an impact at some stage. How
Speaker 2: will we do that? And it's really a statement of
Speaker 2: intent around we are both willing and potentially able to
Speaker 2: repair this when things do go wrong.
Speaker 3: So I agree one hundred percent that the heart of
Speaker 3: that question is the recognition it's going to need to
Speaker 3: occur and the permission to do it. But what are
Speaker 3: some examples of a response to that question? What are
Speaker 3: some examples of ways that people systematize repair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been thinking about that, and I think there
Speaker 2: are three great gifts you can bring to the act
Speaker 2: of repair. The first is speaking when you've been hurt.
Speaker 2: You know, so often damage gets done and you swallow
Speaker 2: it and you hold on to it and you feel
Speaker 2: resentful about it, or you feel sad about it, or
Speaker 2: you feel something about it, but you don't tell anybody
Speaker 2: that this has happened. And sometimes it's like I don't
Speaker 2: know how to tell them. Sometimes it's like they know,
Speaker 2: but they're just like they're just terrible people. So I
Speaker 2: think there's something to say. Can you name it when
Speaker 2: you've been hurt? The second is can you notice it
Speaker 2: when something's not quite right. And this is something that
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get good at because occasionally I just
Speaker 2: stomp on people's toes in a way that's unintentional, but
Speaker 2: I hurt feelings or something happens. Not least because in
Speaker 2: the companies I work, I'm the senior person. I started
Speaker 2: the company, so I have that status and authority and
Speaker 2: that power. And so there it's about that curiosity where
Speaker 2: you go, something feels not quite right, let me check
Speaker 2: in with you, how you're doing. You know what needs
Speaker 2: to be said that hasn't yet been said, So it's
Speaker 2: an opportunity to allow that to be spoken. And then
Speaker 2: the third thing is a generosity in apologizing or making
Speaker 2: it better, because we've all met people who are weasels
Speaker 2: and how they apologize I'm sorry you decided to feel
Speaker 2: like that. It's like it's not an apology at all,
Speaker 2: it's just an insult. But that ability to say, I
Speaker 2: see that that was a mistake, I shouldn't have done that,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, sorry, I'll try not to do that again.
Speaker 2: That is a really powerful act.
Speaker 3: We've only got a few minutes left, but I want
Speaker 3: to talk about a chapter in the book around orienting,
Speaker 3: around knowing what's going on, will you put it in
Speaker 3: context kind of where that fits. Yeah, I'd like to
Speaker 3: go into a couple pieces of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, after you have that conversation. First of all,
Speaker 2: celebrating you for having had that conversation, because having the
Speaker 2: keystone conversation is already such a powerful start. But what
Speaker 2: I hope is that people don't go, that's great. I've
Speaker 2: done my relationship work for this person for now forever
Speaker 2: I never have. It's going to be just great from
Speaker 2: now on. There's this ongoing process where you want to
Speaker 2: keep thinking to yourself, how do I keep making sure
Speaker 2: that this is the best possible expression of the best
Speaker 2: possible relationship between us as a facilitator, As a teacher,
Speaker 2: you're worrying about the content. You're worrying about the audience,
Speaker 2: and you're worried about the energy and the experience in
Speaker 2: the room. You're worrying about all these things all at once.
Speaker 2: So too, in this working relationships, you're worrying about how
Speaker 2: you work together. You're worrying about yourself, or you're worrying
Speaker 2: about the other person, and you're worrying about the two
Speaker 2: of you and how you work together, and so This
Speaker 2: idea of actively orienting and kind of noticing what is
Speaker 2: going on feels like a really powerful commitment to the
Speaker 2: working relationship. And in the book, I talk about the
Speaker 2: famous Ouda loop, which developed by a US fighter pilot
Speaker 2: as a way of this is the best way to
Speaker 2: decide what to do when you're in the stress of
Speaker 2: a fighting situation. Ooda orient, observe, decide, and act so orient.
Speaker 2: I think of it as like pulling yourself out of
Speaker 2: the hurly burley, so you can see what's going on.
Speaker 2: You get yourself in a position where you can notice it,
Speaker 2: and that is such a powerful act in itself. I
Speaker 2: think of it kind of almost as a secret to
Speaker 2: emotional intelligence as well, which is like, can you observe?
Speaker 2: Can you get into a position where you're not got
Speaker 2: blood in your ears and blood in your eye and
Speaker 2: you're in the hurly burly of it? Can you pull
Speaker 2: yourself out of that moment? Once you're an orient you
Speaker 2: can actually observe and you're like, what am I noticing here?
Speaker 2: What am I seeing? What's true? What am I assuming
Speaker 2: to be true? What are my judgments around the facts
Speaker 2: that I have? How are you interpreting what's going on.
Speaker 2: Once you decide and make an interpretation, then you go
Speaker 2: through those next steps, which is deciding what needs to
Speaker 2: be done and then acting on what needs to be done,
Speaker 2: and that kind of moves you into the kind of
Speaker 2: more of the maintenance piece. But this ongoing piece where
Speaker 2: you keep pulling back and going what's actually happening here
Speaker 2: and is there anything we need to do about it
Speaker 2: is a really powerful commitment to the ongoing health of
Speaker 2: the working relationships.
Speaker 3: In that section, you talk about what are the facts?
Speaker 3: And I love the way you sort of break this
Speaker 3: down because I think the other thing that goes into
Speaker 3: emotional intelligence is a first like you said, actually trying
Speaker 3: to look around, but also tweezing apart like Oh, I'm
Speaker 3: feeling acts in my body, I'm feeling X emotionally, I'm
Speaker 3: having these thoughts, I'm having these urges.
Speaker 2: I love this model. Yeah, it comes from non violent communication.
Speaker 2: I think that's its origin, and basically it says all
Speaker 2: the stuff that's swirling around in your head as you
Speaker 2: experience something can be teased apart. That's a great verb
Speaker 2: that you're using. Eric into one of four different buckets.
Speaker 2: It's either the facts, the data. It can be your feelings,
Speaker 2: how are you feeling about the facts? Mad, sad, glad,
Speaker 2: as shamed, and afraid of might kind of go to
Speaker 2: five main feelings. Then there's the judgments. How are you
Speaker 2: interpreting the facts and how you're feeling. There's a relentless,
Speaker 2: endless amount of judgments you have about the situation, about
Speaker 2: them and about you and about the situation. There's lots
Speaker 2: of judgments. And then there's about what you want or
Speaker 2: what you need. And part of what you're doing in
Speaker 2: this observation thing is, particularly when you're doing this work,
Speaker 2: you're like, what are the acts or facts here? There
Speaker 2: are always fewer facts than you think. How am I
Speaker 2: feeling around this? And this somatic wisdom? I'm not that
Speaker 2: good at this one. I'm trying to get better, which
Speaker 2: is like, what am I noticing in my body? You know,
Speaker 2: how is this actually making me feel? What are the
Speaker 2: judgments that are feeding the feelings? And what are the
Speaker 2: feelings feeding the judgments? Because those two danced together. I'm
Speaker 2: furious because Eric's let me down again. Feelings and judgments.
Speaker 2: I'm sad because I've lost control of the podcast. Feelings
Speaker 2: and judgments. None of those are the truth it's just
Speaker 2: my interpretation of the truth. And then there's what you
Speaker 2: want or what you need, which is really what allows
Speaker 2: you to decide and act really powerful if you can
Speaker 2: get clear on this is what I think is needed
Speaker 2: from here.
Speaker 3: You know, it's so hard to tweeze apart that fact
Speaker 3: and judgment piece, like if you can really do that,
Speaker 3: like what's actually real?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And what is my what I'm making it mean?
Speaker 2: Because your judgments sound really convincingly like the truth to
Speaker 2: you totally, and they're not the truth the it's just
Speaker 2: your interpretation of the data.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, we are no surprise out of time again
Speaker 3: for a book that's as succinct as that, there's a
Speaker 3: lot in it, you know. It's one of the things
Speaker 3: I love about your work is that you are very
Speaker 3: to the point. Your things are easy to understand and internalize.
Speaker 3: You don't have to learn a ton of information. It
Speaker 3: gets quick and easy to put into action. But there's
Speaker 3: also a lot of depth there too, so you've done
Speaker 3: a great job with that in this book. It's called,
Speaker 3: as I said earlier, how to work with almost anyone.
Speaker 3: And thank you for coming on. It's always a pleasure
Speaker 3: to talk with you.
Speaker 2: Eric it's been a delight. Thank you so much.
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