The Conversation Factory

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Leading with Respect with Marcy Syms

2025-09-1057:07

Marcy Syms is a pioneering businesswoman and advocate for respect in leadership. She's seen leadership fads come and go. She was a CEO when people still thought "women shouldn't do that sort of thing" And she's done something many folks have never had to endure - shuttering her family's business while making her key creditors whole - an act deeply in line with her core value of respect. Marcy shares insights from her journey in the retail industry, her experiences with leadership dynamics and her advocacy for the Equal Rights Amendment - something she hopes to see made part of the constitution while she's still around to enjoy it! Why Respect? 🗝️Respect drives sustainable growth - respect for your team allows them to feel empowered to be the face of your business and to build the processes and systems that make growth sustainable. 🗝️Giving respect helps you get respect - starting first, leading the conversation with respect at the core helps get things done, especially in times of stress and turbulence. 🗝️Respect is outer behavior and inner work - to make it a core habit and your default behavior takes strategic reflection and personal growth. Check out the full conversation 👇 🎙️ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3QzcPAW 🍎 Apple: https://apple.co/4ifh6pb 📺YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@danielstillman-TCF-podcast 🌐more episodes at https://theconversationfactory.com/listen And please subscribe on Spotify or iTunes! Also! support the podcast with a monthly contribution here: https://theconversationfactory.com/conversation-factory-insider or a one-time donation here.: https://dastillman.gumroad.com/l/dscoffee Don't have time to watch or listen to the full episode? To learn more about leading conversations more powerfully and beautifully, watch these short clips 👇 👀make respect a habit and start from within https://youtu.be/tmURMgvcnIs 👀How to Respond to Disrespect with Dignity and Strategy https://youtu.be/f21aAalKGLU 👀To Scale you need to Respect your team https://youtube.com/shorts/HczFY9-ASFw 👀Leadership Balances Top Down Strategy and Bottom up Insights https://youtube.com/shorts/57yWfiQtykw 👀Know your board as humans https://youtu.be/eH5Mv95iunE One Takeaway to not forget: Fight for the ERA! Marcy shares how she sees the ERA as the ultimate sign of respect and continues to fight for women's full inclusion in the constitution. Watch here: https://youtu.be/YAbEAqIVxzU Key Links: Marcy's book: Leading with the Respect Marcy's website

The Seven Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems

2025-08-2557:39

Download free chapters from Good Talk and master the art of conversations big and small: https://www.danielstillman.com/good-talk Listen now 👇 🎙️ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3QzcPAW 🍎 Apple: https://apple.co/4ifh6pb And please subscribe on Spotify or iTunes! Also! support the podcast with a monthly contribution here: https://theconversationfactory.com/conversation-factory-insider or a one-time donation here: https://dastillman.gumroad.com/l/dscoffee Full show notes: https://theconversationfactory.com/listen SUMMARY In this conversation, Adam Kahane discusses the complexities of transforming systems, emphasizing the importance of understanding systems thinking, collaboration, and the role of individual contributions. He shares insights from urban transformation examples, the significance of culture, and the necessity of engaging with systems responsibly. Kahane introduces seven habits for transforming systems, highlighting the importance of finding cracks as opportunities for change and the balance between closeness and distance in understanding systems. KEY TAKEAWAYS Systems can't be transformed without understanding them. Transformation requires many people to do many things. You can't just change a system by force. Look for what's unseen in a system. Forget your perfect offering; there's a crack in everything. Acting responsibly is crucial for transformation. We all have bells we still can ring. Engaging with the system is a collective activity. You can make wiser decisions by understanding others. Change how you think, change how you are. CHAPTERS 00:00 Understanding Systems for Transformation 02:29 The Role of Collaboration in System Change 05:05 Insights from Global Examples 07:46 The Importance of Proximity in System Change 10:10 Cracks and Leverage Points in Systems 12:46 The Journey of Transformation in South Africa 24:31 The Journey of Collective Engagement 24:55 Radical Engagement: Understanding System Transformation 26:13 The Role of Outsiders vs. Insiders 27:41 Spotting Cracks: Micro Interactions in Systems 28:46 The Art of Persuasion vs. Convincing 30:29 Granular Habits for System Transformation 31:41 Relating in Three Dimensions 33:43 Understanding the Seven Habits 39:32 Acting Responsibly in Systems 43:21 Finding Light in the Cracks LINKS Learn more about Adam's work at www.reospartners.com , www.reospartners.com/adamkahane and find him on twitter/X at @adamkahane

Innovation, Connection, and Conscious Leadership with Othership CEO Robbie Bent

2025-08-0649:31

The Founder's Financial Compass: Navigating Emotions and Assumptions with Fractional CFO Lauren Pearl

2025-07-2458:22

Get free chapters of my book, Good Talk, and master the art of conversations big and small: https://www.danielstillman.com/good-talk Please support the podcast! 💌 subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3QzcPAW 💌 iTunes: https://apple.co/4ifh6pb or with a monthly contribution here: https://bit.ly/support-tcf-monthly one-time donation here: https://bit.ly/support-tcf-once Check out https://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/the-founders-financial-compass-navigating-emotions-and-assumptions-with-fractional-cfo-lauren-pearl for the full transcript and video highlights. Money! It can be an emotional topic. But, as my guest on today's podcast, fractional CFO Lauren Pearl says, it's emotional for everyone in different ways! In this episode, Lauren reveals her perspectives on how to approach these difficult conversations. Given how many leaders she's worked with, we also explore her thinking about effective leadership, intentional decision-making, and how it's crucial for founders to be endlessly unafraid to ask why. She makes an excellent point in the opening quote: we often listen to respond. And when we respond from that place we're missing a lot of crucial information. It's hard to do but it's so important to take the risk to slow down, to ask why and to be a little bit more vulnerable with what you don't know - it's that inner willingness to face your blind spots that separates the best from the rest. We talk about the life experiences that taught her how to adapt her communication styles for diverse audiences, how she approaches talking with founders about triggering money topics, and we unpack some insights from her course on Business Modelling - how she helps founders turn their core understanding of their business into plain-English business math. I particularly enjoyed Lauren's insights around reframing tough decisions not as losses but as opportunities. We unpacked how shutting down a "pet project" can be reframed not as a loss or a mistake but as a day one decision - ie, we made a choice and a decision one day with the information and the knowledge and insights that we had and today with different knowledge, different insights and different information we're making another decision. We linked this notion back to one of the key ideas in Annie Duke's classic "thinking in bets" - the idea of "resulting", or judging a decision based on its outcome. A good bet is one that a reasonable person with the amount of information we had would have made at that moment, not necessarily one that works out exactly as you'd hoped. And Lauren urges founders to start admiring business leaders who didn't just get lucky once…but ones who repeatedly make smart bets - and can explain why they made them. Strap in! We also unpack some common financial misconceptions, discuss how to be a founder whose advisors can help them, and we unpack some interesting case studies in strategic decision making. Lauren's on-the-fly explanation of some key financial assumptions was dizzying in the best way possible. Links https://www.laurenpearlconsulting.com/ https://www.laurenpearlconsulting.com/newsletter Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke - A Visual Summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H49lFODYp7g Video Highlights Adapting your communication style on the fly - https://youtu.be/rWtSvkoMkiw The Founder Finance Gap: Managing Emotions and Unearthing Assumptions - https://youtu.be/Dfc8r9BBtyY Using Clear Language to define your Critical Business Math - https://youtu.be/l7oosTdqTLo Admiring Founders who make good bets repeatedly - https://youtu.be/cuwZIjW01TU

Join or Die: Behind the Scenes of Creative Collaboration

2025-05-2201:15:46

Founder-Led Sales and Building Co-founder Relationships

2025-04-0354:19

Get free chapters of my book, Good Talk, and master the art of conversations big and small: https://www.danielstillman.com/good-talk Please support the podcast! 💌 subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3QzcPAW 💌 iTunes: https://apple.co/4ifh6pb or with a monthly contribution here: https://bit.ly/support-tcf-monthly one-time donation here: https://bit.ly/support-tcf-once Check out the episode page for the full transcript and video highlights. https://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/founder-led-sales-with-parallel-health-ceo-natalise-kalea-robinson We break down: The Importance of Deep and Authentic Conversations and unpack how Natalise fosters honest and open conversations and has worked to build a company culture that reflects these values. Intentional Co-founder Relationship Building: We talk about how Natalise and her co-founder, Nathan Brown, approached building a strong relationship intentionally by having regular in-depth conversations and retreats together in some of their favorite spots. She shares some of her favorite questions to bring into these co-founder conversations. Founder-Led Sales and CEO as Science Translator: Both Natalise and her co-founder Nathan are actively involved in explaining their product to both investors and consumers. We talk about how she approaches adapting her message for different audiences, always striving to put the science ahead of marketing. Highlighting the Potential of Phage Therapy: We dive into some of the science behind phage therapy and its potential as a precise and sustainable alternative to antibiotics. The Value of Open Feedback and Continuous Evolution: Natalise encourages feedback from all levels within her company and believes that good ideas can come from anywhere. She also emphasizes the importance of ongoing communication and alignment between co-founders. Key Chapters 00:00 Exploring the Depth of Conversations 03:01 The Ambivert Spectrum: Understanding Social Dynamics 06:06 Creating Safe Spaces for Honest Conversations 09:01 Feedback Culture: The Art of Positive Feedback 11:57 Building Authentic Relationships in Business 14:57 The Journey of Co-Founders: Nathan and Natalise 21:01 Navigating Vulnerability in Professional Relationships 24:17 Navigating Co-Founder Relationships 30:14 The Art of Communication in Business 37:45 Understanding Phage Technology and Its Impact 46:02 Building Strong Co-Founder Foundations Links https://www.parallelhealth.io/ Parallel Health on TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/20/parallel-health-takes-a-biotech-forward-approach-to-skincare-with-custom-phage-therapy/ Video Highlight Links 👀Giving Praise with powerful Specificity: https://youtube.com/shorts/5zwdVyJr_mc 👀Leaning into Difficult Cofounder Conversations: https://youtube.com/shorts/MjeDjSIUeDM 👀In Founder-Led Sales, the Marketing Serves the Science: https://youtube.com/shorts/fp6oKVhq-FQ

The Inner Work of Leadership with Carole Robin, PhD

2025-03-1441:57

Master the art of conversations big and small - both inside yourself and in your teams and organization. Get free chapters of my book, Good Talk: https://www.danielstillman.com/good-talk Please support the podcast! 💌 Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3QzcPAW 💌 iTunes: https://apple.co/4ifh6pb or with a monthly contribution here: https://bit.ly/support-tcf-monthly or make a one-time donation here: https://bit.ly/support-tcf-once For the full transcript, video highlights, and more show links, check out the episode page here: https://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/the-inner-work-of-leadership-with-carole-robin-phd Every conversation - especially the hard ones - is an opportunity to learn more about yourself, to learn about another person and to learn about interpersonal dynamics - if you can set aside judgment and be open to curiosity. I'm SO excited to share this epic podcast conversation with the "queen of Touchy Feely" - Carole Robin, PhD. Carole taught the most popular elective at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Interpersonal Dynamics (mostly known affectionately as "Touchy Feely"!) for nearly 20 years and is co-author (with co-teacher David Bradford) of the excellent book Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends and Colleagues. She has a vast reserve of wisdom to share. We discuss the importance of navigating vulnerability and intentional connection as an essential leadership skill and unpack some of her most powerful principles of effective communication. We also talk about Carole's conversations with her own personal AI, trained on all of her past writings and course notes…and how it helped her evolve how she tells her own story! Building exceptional relationships is work that's done one conversation at a time. Carole's insights can help you unlock the potential in each conversation. Key Moments 00:00 The Art of Greeting with Interpersonal Dynamics in mind 03:00 AI and Personal Narratives: The Evolution of Carole's Story in collaboration with her personal AI 06:01 Leadership Lessons: Emotions in Business 09:06 Vulnerability vs. Strength: The Leadership Paradox 12:04 Transparency in Leadership: The Balance of Sharing 14:58 Strategic Authenticity: Navigating Vulnerability 18:01 True and Kind: The Principles of Effective Communication 20:50 The Importance of Self-Care for Leaders 21:59 Navigating Emotions in Leadership 23:49 Vulnerability and Authenticity in Leadership 30:07 Self-Management and Emotional Discipline 32:59 Curiosity as Leadership superpower 37:57 The Work of Building Relationships

Your Brain on Beautiful Conversations with Anjan Chatterjee

2025-02-2650:41

Download free chapters from Good Talk and master the art of conversations big and small Please support the podcast by subscribing on Spotify or iTunes, making a monthly contribution here, or making a one-time donation here. Check out the episode post for the full transcript and video highlights. Dr. Anjan Chatterjee is a renowned professor and the founding Director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics. He's a leading expert on how our brains perceive beauty and art, and author of an engaging book on this topic: "The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art" In this beautiful conversation, we explore: the intersection of beauty, conversation, and the human brain how our biological evolution has left us in a world that often feels disconnected from our innate ways of communicating the aesthetic qualities of conversations, the biases we hold toward beauty, and how cultural representations influence our perceptions the importance of awareness in mitigating biases how to embrace complex ideas, rather than simplify them Links Dr. Anjan Chatterjee and the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics (PCfN) online PBS News Hour feature: 'Brains and Beauty' exhibit explores how the mind processes art and aesthetic experiences The PCfN 2024 Year in Review Dr. Anjan Chatterjee on Bluesky The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art

Changing the Political Conversation with Nick Troiano

2024-10-3042:12

If you want to change the game, changing the rules and incentives of the game is a powerful approach. Few people who watch the news - or those folks who avoid watching the news! - would say the political system in the United States is going according to plan. The founding fathers, if they were alive today, would be aghast at the unbridgeable chasm that seems to have developed in our political culture, making dialogue, compromise and progress nearly impossible on some of our most pressing issues. In fact, our founding fathers warned against the rise of what they called factions in their time, and what we today call political parties. All of this is happening at a time when the majority of Americans agree that common-sense laws for guns, healthcare and other issues are badly needed. If you look at the numbers, we're closer together on more issues than you'd think. Research shows that our leaders are often much more polarized than we as a people are. Meanwhile, the US and local governments get less done, eroding our confidence in our democracy. What can we do to change the game? Some people say "let's get rid of the electoral college!" but such large scale changes are hard. My guest today has a simple solution that starts at the local level to change the political conversation. Nick Troiano is a civic entrepreneur based in Denver, Colorado, and is the Executive Director of Unite America –– a non-partisan organization that seeks to foster a more functional and representative government. Nick has been a leader in the political reform movement over the last decade, beginning as a founding staff member of Americans Elect in 2010. Nick ran for Congress in Pennsylvania's 10th District in 2014 and drew national attention as both the youngest candidate that cycle and the most competitive independent U.S. House candidate in nearly two decades. He subsequently worked for Change.org to launch a mobile application to help voters cast informed ballots. In 2016, Nick was named to the "Forbes 30 Under 30" for Law & Policy. He earned a Master's degree in American Government from Georgetown University. He has spoken on the topics of political and fiscal reform to dozens of groups across the country, including along three national bus tours that collectively visited over 40 states. Nick is the author of The Primary Solution an *excellent* book that explains the challenge and a viable set of solutions to political division in America, and a producer on the 2024 film Majority Rules which lets you watch political change unfold in real-time. I highly recommend watching Majority Rules - you can rent it on Youtube now! You will see partisan politicians learn to navigate a different political game as the rules are changed - and become more issues-focused instead of attacking personalities, and more inclusive than divisive. I also highly recommend supporting primary reform in your region - it's a non-partisan issue that can help us become less partisan! Listen to the end where Nick and I discuss how he leads his organization and builds coalitions while living his leadership and political values. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links The Primary Solution https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Primary-Solution/Nick-Troiano/9781668028254 Majority Rules. https://majorityrulesfilm.com/ David Mayhew's Book "Congress: The Electoral Connection"

The Secrets of Motivation and Systems Change with Becca Block, PhD

2024-08-1951:08

Warning - this episode uses a specific curse word - a lot. And once we started using one, we started using more of them. So…if f-bombs, sprinkled like salt are not your cup of tea, this is a good episode to skip! My guest today is Rebecca R Block, PhD, who is an expert in helping organizations build programs, services and products that equip young people to develop the confidence and skills they need to enter adulthood as thriving and adaptable lifelong learners. She has spent the last 14 years leading the design, improvement, and evaluation of educational programs and services to make them more impactful and learner-centered. She has built R&D departments from scratch and managed large and small teams responsible for creating, measuring, and improving learning experiences. She also wrote a book with the word "Shit" in the title…or Shit, with an asterisk where the "I" goes, which actually makes her book a bit hard to google! The book is titled "Can You Help Me Give a Sh*t? Unlocking Teen Motivation in School and Life," and she teamed up with Grace L Edwards, a current undergraduate student, to talk to young people across the country and gather their stories about what truly makes for engaging learning environments. In the process, she learned a lot about how motivation works for everyone, not just teens, and has taken those lessons learned into her work as a leader, parent, and educator. In the opening quote Becca outlines the ABCs of Motivation. These ABCs are true for children and adults - we're basically the same species. And the work of luminaries such as Peter Senge and Amy Edmondson make it clear that great working environments are great learning environments - places where we can create and sustain positive feedback learning loops with ourselves and others. So it's essential for anyone leading or managing others (or themselves!) to understand how motivation really works. We also talk about Becca's essential values when it comes to co-creation - that is, making a systems change along with the people in that system who will be affected by that change. Co-creation is not just a good idea… it leverages the truths about motivation that Becca shared in her opening quote. People are much more likely to want to participate in change that they've taken part in forming, rather than going along with something forced on them. Two Levels of Systems Change We also talk about the need to work on at least two levels when engaging in systems change: Helping people, now Helping make a bigger shift, over time. Given that Becca knows how challenging it can be to transform a system as complex as education, she focuses her work in this book on helping people, now, to work to create change for themselves, within the current system. This perspective is helpful for anyone leading a team in a larger organization or anyone leading an organization within a larger industry they are hoping to transform. Listen in for Becca's deeper breakdown of the ABC's of motivation, as well, summarized here! The ABCs of Motivation Ability Belonging Choices Ability: In any situation where you want someone (or even yourself!) to have sustained motivation, you need the Ability to do (or learn how to do) the things you want to do. Indeed, whenever you find that someone isn't doing something you have asked them to do, it's important to ask - is this an issue of Will or Skill? In other words, can they do the thing? If they can't yet, do they have the confidence in their ability to learn the thing? Belonging: Real relationships help us accomplish things. I show up for my Spanish lessons (partly) because I've paid for them, and partly because I'd feel bad for standing up my tutor, even though the classes are online. Ditto for my exercise classes. Real relationships create real motivation. In a recent episode, I spoke with Robbie Hammond, Co-founder of the High Line, who talked about how his relationship with his Co-Founder Josh David kept him going through a difficult decade of bringing their dream to reality - talk about Relationships = Motivation! Choices: Having real choices means you have the autonomy to determine for yourself what you are going to do. "Liberty or Death" isn't much of a choice - although it is one many have taken. Becca suggests that dysfunctional workplaces create crappy or fake choices, and functional ones enable everyone to see how the work fits into their own personal why. I connect these ideas to my recent interview with Ashley Goodall, author of "Nine Lies about Work" and most recently "The Problem with Change." Ashley says, "The ultimate job of leadership is not disruption and it is not to create change; it is to create a platform for human contribution, to create the conditions in which people can do the best work of their lives." This is what every human (and teenager!) actually really wants, if they can connect to the ABCs of motivation. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links Get the book here BeccaBlock.com Becca's podcast CanYouHelpMeGiveA.com. If you want to be on her podcast: fill out a form here!

How to Turn a Conversation into a Public Park

2024-07-2201:03:31

Sometimes the bold goals we set out to achieve actually happen, and sometimes something even more amazing happens - something better than we can imagine. Usually that happens because of the people we meet along the way, the conversations we have, the unexpected connections we make that open up new doors - in a word, Serendipity. I had always wondered about what amazing, powerful and sustained conversations led to the High Line Park in New York City becoming a reality. Have you walked the High Line? Literally millions of people a year walk some of its 1.45 mile length, enjoying expansive views of the city and hundreds of local plantings, as well as amazing art installations. But it was slated for demolition and considered an eyesore and a relic, as long ago as the 1980s. Built in 1933, it was at the time a revolutionary elevated train line that was colloquially called the Lifeline of New York City since it was regularly bringing millions of tons of meat, dairy and produce by rail, directly into the warehouses and factories of lower manhattan for preparation and distribution. The rail line wasn't just a lifeline because of the food it brought, it also moved the rail lines safely above the city's growing traffic - in the 1910s, hundreds of people were killed by the ground-level trains that ran in the middle of the bustling 10th avenue! By the 1960s the line was growing obsolete due to the rise of trucking, and by the 1980s, it was a hulking relic of the past. In 1999, Robbie Hammond, my guest for this conversation, co-founded the Friends of the High Line along with Joshua David. The two met at a local community board meeting where the High Line's future was being discussed. Rudy Guliani, NYC's mayor at the time, had signed an executive order for its demolition - many property owners wanted it gone so they could take back the land occupied by the tracks and build bigger buildings - a dream of greater square footage and increased rent rolls. Currently Robbie is the President & Chief Strategy Officer for Therme Group US, where he is leading an initiative to bring large scale bathing facilities to the United States. He also currently serves on the boards for Little Island, Sauna Aid, Grounded Solutions Network, and the San Antonio Museum of Art. When I was a little kid in NYC in the 80s, I looked up at the hulking tracks and thought "what the hell is that doing in the middle of the city?!" Many adults thought the same thing. Robbie and Josh looked at the tracks and thought "we should really do something cool with that instead of tearing it down." In 2009 the first section of the high line opened to the public. In 2019 and 2023 new sections were completed. Against all odds, "two neighborhood nobodies" (as one writer described them!) created a coalition, learned to raise money and garner the favorable attention of local politicians, and persisted and succeeded. The park is maintained, operated, and programmed by Friends of the High Line in partnership with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation and is run on donations. There are many amazing angles to the story of the Highline: Maybe you DON'T need a coherent or complete Vision or Mission?! Robbie makes it clear that they didn't even have a clear vision or strategic plan for some time…just the idea that the elevated line was worth saving and doing something with…they discovered what they wanted to create along the way. He actually credits the vagueness of the mission with creating a "big tent" that attracted more people to the organization. From a conventional dream to something better than anyone could imagine One surprising insight is that the property owners had a rather conventional dream - tear the elevated tracks down so they could build bigger. Turning the High Line into a park seemed like a low-value, impossible pipedream - sex workers and drug users congregated under the overpasses, after all! But the High Line's millions of visitors have transformed the value of the area far beyond the addition of a few extra square feet. The High Line as a symbol for dreamers of impossible dreams One of Robbie's greatest points of pride is that the High Line now stands as a symbol to many "crazy dreamers" who find inspiration in the story of outsiders persisting and accomplishing more than they ever dreamed possible. The High Line is now a global inspiration for cities to transform unused industrial zones into dynamic public spaces. But Robbie loves the personal stories of folks who come up to him at talks, who are working on all sorts of projects and who find inspiration in Robbie and Josh's "keep going against all odds" story. The importance of Talking to People Robbie talks about how he was always willing to pick up the phone and talk to anyone - the fearlessness of someone raised in sales. But the Friends of the High Line were also willing to host conversations with community groups and listen to them, and learn from them and communicate with them about why they were listening to their ideas and why, in some cases, they weren't going to. Open lines of consistent communication made the High Line possible. The Alchemy of the Co-Founder Relationship In this conversation, Robbie is bracingly reflective and shines a sometimes harsh light on himself. Here at the 15th anniversary of the opening of the Highline and the 25th anniversary of the start of the project, the founding of the Friends of the High Line, Robbie looks back and is refreshingly honest about his own challenges and shortcomings, as well as missed opportunities along the way to do things differently. What was truly surprising to me in this conversation is that Robbie was so open about his challenges as a co-founder, and is so open-eyed about how essential this most intimate of relationships can be…and how much he and Josh were willing to invest (in time, energy and resources) in that relationship to keep it intact, functional and flourishing. The Energy and Anxiety of Creation Robbie suggests that it is common for creative people (which includes entrepreneurs, and anyone that starts anything) to have a drive to accomplish their dream - that is what keeps them going… but that there is often "an undercurrent of anxiety". Meditation helped Robbie reclaim a higher level of happiness as the High Line approached realization, but it took him years to undo the deep grooves anxiety etched in his psyche. It's a worthwhile lesson for anyone listening out there who's creating something, start taking care of yourself sooner rather than later. You can follow Robbie on Instagram at thehighlineguy and stay in the loop on Therme's projects at https://www.thermegroup.com/. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links https://www.thermegroup.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thehighlineguy Therme post (2021) Robbie's Book: The Highline:The Inside Story https://www.thehighline.org/history/ Early documents from the highline: Reclaiming The High Line: A Project Of The Design Trust For Public Space With Friends Of The High Line (2002) Talks: Rail Yards Talks 2011 "High Line: The Inside Story of New York City's Park in the Sky" - Richard Hammond https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_hammond_building_a_park_in_the_sky

Art that Changes the Conversation

2024-07-0152:18

Art has the power to change and even lead the conversation, to spark curiosity and fuel real engagement. But what comes first in a powerful creative project? The idea and the message? The tools and the talent? Or The Funding, that can make or break it all? My guest today is Benjamin Von Wong, who creates art on a grand scale that goes beyond awe. He is an Artist focused on amplifying positive impact. He does that both in the process of how he creates his art, through community, and in the images it produces, finding visual metaphors that stick with people, long after they've seen the work. His mission is to help make positive impact unforgettable. For the last seven years, Von Wong and his team, under the banner of "Unforgettable Labs" have generated over a billion organic views on topics like Ocean Plastics, Fast Fashion, and Electronic Waste for organizations like Dell, Greenpeace, Nike, Starbucks and Kiehl's. In this opening quote you can hear him wrangle with the dance between art and marketing, and his new mission to find ways to create sustainable funding streams that allow him to create message-shaping art in times and places where the world is gathered to solve some of our most pressing challenges. It's a move that can make his work more deeply sustainable - for himself and for his team. Von Wong's The Unforgettable Project leverages the collective power of philanthropy to help build broader campaigns around environmentally net-positive innovations worth spotlighting - instead of waiting for corporations that are seeking eyeballs and leveraging their funding for good, he's building a funding source that actively seeks the next project that needs to go viral. Some of his notable work includes the Giant Plastic Tap which used trash from the slums of Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya, to demand that corporations #TurnOffThePlasticTap. The Giant Tap was displayed prominently when 193 different countries and 1,500 delegates came together at UNEA 5.2 in 2022 to discuss what was then termed the "Paris Agreement For Plastics" and was eventually used in the United Nations official Plastics Report while raising over $100,000 for the Human Needs Project. Recently he installed a grand sculpture at the Highline in New York City in collaboration with Kiehl's to raise awareness and drive adoption of refillable products in the beauty world. Von Wong, along with a large community of volunteers, collected and assembled 2 tons of plastic bottles into a "single-use hydra", seen by nearly 300-thousand visitors and close to 3 million social impressions for their message of #DontRebuyJustRefill…but as he points out in this conversation, most of the people on the High Line don't have the leverage to change the system - which is why he seeks to place his epic art in places where the system changers meet. I learned about Benjamin's work through his wonderful talk at Creative Mornings (a global, IRL community of creatives that hosts monthly talks all around the world). His presentation spoke to some beautiful topics - like the importance of nurturing the conditions of success (like inner narratives and cultivating community) vs chasing success, and the notion of sifting your feelings from reality when it comes to deciding what is enough - personally, financially, and in the work - ie, is my work having enough impact? Von Wong shared the ways in which he's rewriting his inner narrative to balance his personhood and his purpose or impact. I found the talk profoundly moving and beautiful and highly recommend watching it. In this conversation, you'll find: Ruminations on Creationships - relationships that exist to co-create something wonderful together (4:09) The Importance of an Interface or a Container to foster Conversation (7:47) Benjamin's perspectives on going to where the conversations are already happening to have the deepest impacts. This is certainly true for the large scale work that he creates, but it is also true for anyone looking to change a big conversation. Making people come to you vs going to them means the activation energy of change is that much lower. (13:18) Benjamin's thoughts on Community Building and Co-creating art with a community (16:43) The polarity Benjamin is threading right now: Balancing Speeding Up (to do more work and have more impact) and Slowing Down (in order to build deeper creationships) (26:21) The difference between an Audience and a Community (32:44) The power of creating a word that summarizes and defines an idea that people flock to (which we might term the Rumpelstiltskin or Le Guin Rule (as she famously wrote in A Wizard of Earthsea "To weave the magic of a thing, you see, one must find its true name out." (33:39) Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links https://www.vonwong.com/ unforgettablelabs.com https://www.thevonwong.com/ How I made plastic pollution more shareable with a Mermaid and 10000 plastic bottles - 3/3 https://creativemornings.com/ Benjamin Von Wong Featuring Possibly Poet: "Is activism sustainable?"

Leadership is Designing Moments of Impact

2024-05-1501:05:36

Today my guests are Lisa Kay Solomon and Chris Ertel, the co-authors of the powerhouse 2014 book Moments of Impact: How to Design Strategic Conversations That Accelerate Change, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year! I devoured this book 10 years ago and I think you might enjoy it, too! Lisa Kay Solomon is currently a Designer in Residence at the Stanford d. school, where she teaches classes such as Inventing the Future where students imagine, debate and analyze the 50-year futures of emerging tech, and works closely with the K12 community to make futures thinking a mainstay of 21c core curriculum. She has also been named to the Thinkers50 2022 Radar List and is one of ixDA's Women of Design 2020. Chris Ertel is a managing director of Deloitte Consulting LLP with a specialist role designing and providing high-stakes strategic conversations for clients and priority firm initiatives, in the Deloitte Greenhouse® signature environments. Chris is an innovation strategist with 18 years of experience advising leading organizations. He holds a PhD in demography from UC-Berkeley. We talk about What it really means to be a facilitative leader, and why it's so impactful. As Lisa and Chris say in MOI: "At these critical moments, everyone will be looking at you, not for all the answers, but to help them unearth the answers together" The Five Core Principles of Moments of Impact, which can form a Design Process 1. Define your purpose (your design intent!) 2. Engage multiple perspectives (with your facilitation skills!) 3. Frame the issues 4. Set the Scene 5. Make it an experience (even an intense or challenging one!) How designing conversations is different from facilitating them: Lisa makes it clear that Conversation Design is about intent and purpose while Facilitation skills are the tool that helps orchestrate those Moments of Impact. Why Conversation Design isn't taught to leaders but should be (Lisa also tells us why it's so hard to teach, since it brings together strategy, psychology and emotional intelligence) Why Chris always coaches leaders to condense and delete content from their strategic meetings (to 10 slides!) instead of making what communications expert Nancy Duarte calls a "Procument" (something that's neither an easy to use and digest presentation or a leave-behind document!) How crucial discussing decision-making rights are - as Chris suggests many leaders want to keep their options open and wind up creating an "air of democracy without the reality of it" Why You should start becoming a junkie of learning theories The importance of balancing humor and levity with challenging-ness and sparkiness to create productive environments The importance of knowing that the "yeah buts" will come when we're hosting challenging conversations as in: yeah, but, that won't work here! or… yeah, but, what will we be able to report next quarter? Or… yeah, but who's budget is going to cover that? And so much more! If you have Moments of Impact that you need to shape, design, and lead and you *don't* have Moments of Impact on your desk - get it! Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links Get Moments of Impact! https://www.lisakaysolomon.com/about https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/profiles/certel.html A plan is not a strategy: The short video from Roger Martin we were talking about!

The Problem with Change and the Power of Stability, Humanity and Praise with Ashley Goodall

2024-05-0701:08:53

My guest today is Ashley Goodall, a leadership expert who has spent his career exploring large organizations from the inside, most recently as an executive at Cisco. He is the co-author of Nine Lies About Work, which was selected as the best management book of 2019 by Strategy + Business and as one of Amazon's best business and leadership books of 2019. It is an awesome book - highly recommended. If, after listening to this conversation you want to hear more (and I think you will!), take a listen to him and his co-author, Marcus Buckingham, talking on the HBR Idea Cast about lie #5 - the idea that people need feedback - and how most managers think about giving feedback in an utterly wrong way - which is also an idea we dive into later in our conversation today. Prior to Cisco, Ashley spent fourteen years at Deloitte as a consultant and as the Chief Learning Officer for Leadership and Professional development. His book, "The Problem with Change: and the Essential Nature of Human Performance" is about what we might call lie number 10: the idea that change is good and that leaders must lead change in order to be good leaders. Wholesale belief in this lie has created what Ashley calls "Life in the Blender" - driven by what I've heard some folks refer to as "The Reorg of the Day". I love love love the musical analogies Ashley uses to describe leadership - not as the lead guitar or first violin, but as the Ground Bass - the principal structural element of a musical piece. The Leader can help teams navigate change by playing a backbeat of stability and consistency, supporting a range of free expression and variation. Find a link to Pachelbel's Canon here and listen to the Goldberg variations here (which he mentions in the extended version of the analogy, later on in the conversation). What is that Ground Bass? For Ashley it's about helping people feel seen, connected, celebrated and clear on the story of the meaning of their contributions to the work. This perspective aligns very well with the message Bree Larson offered here some years back. Bree is a Partner at SYPartners and shared her framework around the challenges of designing organizational change - that most change can easily result in one or more of the Six Types of Loss she identified: Loss of Control Loss of Pride Loss of Narrative Loss of Time Loss of Competence Loss of Familiarity All of which Ashley suggests leaders can deflect or reduce through 9 key leadership skills that he outlines in depth in his book: Make space Forge undeniable competence Share secrets Be predictable Speak real words Honor ritual Focus most on teams Radicalize HR Pave the way Prior to releasing the book, Ashley wrote a New York Times Op-Ed piece which is a blockbuster and is an even more succinct, poignant and straight-on condemnation of modern corporate leadership - it is also highly worth reading. This book feels a bit like a Burn Book - Ashley is pointing out fundamental misconceptions at the heart of corporate life in a direct and unvarnished manner - in the hope that some leaders will listen and start doing things differently - Leading in a way that takes into account how humans really are and what we really need to thrive at work. Ashley is very clear: companies need to look beyond wellness initiatives and corporate cheerleading and shift their focus to the fundamental environment of daily work. The effects of a corporate life caught in constant change are more than clear to anyone who's been through it: uncertainty, a lack of control, a sense of unbelonging and of displacement, and a loss of meaning As Goodall says, "The ultimate job of leadership is not disruption and it is not to create change; it is to create a platform for human contribution, to create the conditions in which people can do the best work of their lives." Also - do listen for an extended exchange around minute 40 where we talk about the power of praise and the Paul Hollywood handshake - if you're not a Great British Bake off fan, there's still time to watch a few episodes to get in the mood - or at least witness the effect of the Hollywood Handshake on Friends star David Schwimmer here. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links Find a link to Pachelbel's Canon here and listen to the Goldberg variations here. Ashley wrote a New York Times Op-Ed which is a blockbuster Take a listen to Ashley and his co-author, Marcus Buckingham, talking on the HBR Idea Cast about lie #5 - the idea that people need feedback - and how most managers think about giving feedback utterly wrong. Canon in D Major by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-... Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Witness the effect of the Hollywood Handshake on Friends star David Schwimmer here.

Reunion: Leadership and Creating a Culture of Belonging

2024-04-2957:23

Rabbi Tarfon said: The day is short, and the work is plentiful…It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it. (Pirkei Avot 2:15-16) My conversation today with Jerry Colonna closes with him paraphrasing this powerful notion - and the work we are discussing is the work on yourself and the work to create a better world - one where everyone feels like they truly belong. In a world where many organizations are retreating from Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging initiatives, I'm grateful that Jerry is leaning into this conversation. I see the work of antiracism as firmly in the realm of what my peoples call Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. It's absolutely essential that men in positions of power and especially men who present as White, do not neglect this work. Jerry is a graduate of Queens College and a Brooklyn native. Jerry helps people lead with humanity and equanimity. His unique blend of Buddhism, Jungian therapy, and entrepreneurial know-how has made him a sought-after coach and leader, working with some of the largest firms in the country. In his work as a coach, he draws on his experience in Venture Capital as Co-founder of Flatiron Partners, one of the most successful early-stage investment programs. Later, he was a partner with J.P. Morgan Partners, the private equity arm of J.P. Morgan Chase. As a partner with J.P. Morgan Chase, Jerry launched the Financial Recovery Fund with The Partnership for the City of New York, a $10 million-plus program aimed at creating grants for small businesses impacted by the attacks on the World Trade Center. Along with a strong commitment to the nonprofit sector, Jerry is the author of two books: REBOOT: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up (2019) and REUNION: Leadership and the Longing to Belong. (2023) Reboot was met with critical acclaim, stirring up a big question in the hearts and minds of people: "How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want?" Jerry's second book builds on this question, asking us what benefit we get from the conditions we say we don't want - the systems of oppression that those who have eyes to see, can see. Reunion is a highly personal book that asks us all to examine our history of longing to belong - and the ways in which we have been excluded or excluded others. Key Threads in the Conversation We discuss Jerry's Journaling practice and how it is an essential conversation he has with himself, each morning. We explore what it means to be a "good man" - and how in his first book, REBOOT, he questioned whether he was a good man, while in REUNION, he built upon the assumption that he is a good man and explored (and expanded) what it means to be a good man in a world where there is division and polarization. And I get Jerry to coach me on one of my favorite questions: understanding the disowned parts of ourselves, exploring the reasons behind disconnecting from them, and the importance of integrating them back without denying them - very much in line with the process of REUNION. All while working to authentically grow in ways that matter, without self-abuse or denial. Those parts of ourselves we wrestle with wrestle back at us. Many leaders I coach want to be feel or been seen as more or less of some quality or another - they, like so many of us, feel they must be other than they are in order to belong. In my experience, fighting against our parts without understanding and loving them is a losing battle. Jerry asks us to understand the stories behind our self doubt, and to honor the ways that part of us has sought to care for and protect us in the past. I find great empathy and lovingkindness in spending time nurturing my denied parts and my clients do, too. I'm so grateful to absorb Jerry's approach to self-integration, and to expand our inner work towards creating not just a life we love, but a world we want to live in. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links Reboot Jerry's profile at Reboot Some other solid interviews with Jerry: On Being with Kista Tippett: Can you really bring your whole self to work? Noah Kagan, from AppSumo, interviewing Jerry on being a better human and a better leader

The Intentional Conversations that Build Powerful CoFounder Relationships

2024-04-1548:41

My guests today are Rei Wang and Anita Hossain, Co-founders of coaching platform The Grand, which was seed funded by Alexis Ohanian's firm Seven Seven Six in 2023. Rei is the Chief Product Officer and Anita is the CEO. I met Rei ages ago, in her early days in NYC at General Assembly, where she worked as a Product Manager and Global Community Lead, developing educational opportunities for students. And I was excited to interview her about her work as the CEO of the Dorm Room fund at First Round Capital a few years back to get her perspectives around the intersection of community and product design…especially when the community IS the product. Check out that conversation here. Rei cultivated a vibrant startup ecosystem, mentoring over 250 entrepreneurs on various aspects of business management and fundraising. Their leadership garnered recognition, including the Forbes 30 under 30 award. Rei and Anita met during their time at First Round Capital, where Anita was the Head of Knowledge. While there, she helped hundreds of entrepreneurs connect deeply and vulnerably, to share their concerns and to learn from each other. Anita was also an executive coach with the renowned coaching firm, Reboot, and is a certified Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner. Key Advice for Working Through Challenges Prevention is first and foremost! Speak early and often to reduce buildup, bottling up and boiling over of tensions Make feedback about actions and behaviors, not about the person or their personality Rei suggests that using a simple framework like SBIO is a great way to frame feedback. (Situation or data, the Behavior you see, the Impact it has on you, and the Opportunity for improvement or transformation) Make sure feedback conversations are two-sided, with both partners regularly asking for and offering feedback Anita underscores the importance of Co-Creation of resolutions to challenges instead of telling someone to be different. Working on these tensions with a sense of collaboration can lead to reduced defensiveness. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links The Grand My previous conversation with Rei Wang

From Transaction to Participation

2024-02-2053:36

My guest today is James Rutter, Chief Creative Officer at COOK, the pioneering frozen food company, where he oversees internal and external branding and communications. COOK is a founding UK B Corp, committed to using its business as a force for good in society, and has been ranked in the top 100 Best Companies To Work For every year since 2013. COOK's award-winning frozen meals and puddings (which are desserts, btw) are made by hand in Kent and Somerset, and sold from 98 of its own shops nationwide, in 950 concessions and through its own home delivery service. James joined COOK in 2010 after 15 years as a financial journalist and editor, and he speaks and writes regularly about purpose-driven business and brands. You should really follow him on LinkedIn! James and I talk about the glory that is a proper Fish Pie, and about citizenship and participation. James' leadership philosophy for his internal team is grounded in a sense of play and a recognition of community. He shares some of his favorite insights from Peter Block's book, "Community: The Structure of Belonging" and the deep value he's found in working with Jon Alexander on Citizenship and Participation. Jon Alexander is the author of the bestselling book, "Citizens." James references Jon Alexander's Participation Premium Equation in the opening quote. There is so much goodness in this episode! At Minute 27 James shares his community and transformation insights from Peter Block, including the essential idea that a small group, a community, is the fundamental unit of change, especially when that group is grounded in possibility. He also goes to share the impact that Block's ideas of Inversion have had on him: As James says, summarizing Block: "It's not the performer who creates the performance, but the audience… And again, in a conversation sense… it's the listener who creates the conversation whereas we often think it's the speaker who creates the conversation… it's the child who creates the parent, not the parent who creates… this is (not) some kind of answer, but… a thought to play with. What if that's the way it works? How would you approach it differently? If the audience creates the performance, then how are you seeking to bring the audience into it? How are you giving them the power?" At Minute 42 we discuss the importance of Connection over content: "...you've got to seek to build the human bonds first before you seek to do whatever the worky thing is you want to do." In essence, we are marinating in Danny Meyer's ideas of an Employee-First workplace, which is why we talk, at the end of the episode, about how Happy Cooks make Happy Food, referencing an earlier conversation we had. And James insisted on talking about my Mom being on the Mike Douglas show with John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Chuck Berry in 1972, hosting a historical cooking segment - this episode is famous because it's the first time John and Chuck met and Played together. You can see A Tiny Video Clip of my mom on TV here (most of them seem to get pulled down). At a crucial moment in the cooking segment, my mother, just 22 and not actually my mother yet (or anyone's!) realized that the studio band was playing chaotic music, and that everyone was in a chaotic space, and she announced that unless we had a calm, peaceful environment, the food would taste chaotic - our intention and our energy would flow into the food. The Host, Mike Douglas, asked the band to play something quieter and more mellow, and John Lennon, assigned to cut cabbage, began reciting the mantra he wanted to suffuse the food: "Rock n Roll…Rock n Roll…Rock n Roll" What do YOU want to suffuse your work with? Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links James Rutter on LinkedIn Fish Pie Recipes! Peter Block on Community: The Structure of Belonging Jon Alexander's book Citizens Jon's Agency Equation: A Proposal Agency = Purpose + Belonging + Power Agency: the ability to shape the context of one's life Purpose: the belief that there is something beyond your immediate self that matters Belonging: the belief that there is a context to which you matter in turn Power: practical access to genuine opportunities to shape that context Exit, Voice, Loyalty: An essential book on people and organizations Finding flourishing and play at work - inspiration in https://www.punchdrunk.com/work/ Quotes no one said: "Teach Them to Yearn for the Vast and Endless Sea" Via quote investigator: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/08/25/sea/ Minimum Viable Transformation Matt LeMay on Agile Conversations Happy Cooks make happy food: On Daniel's Mom being on the Mike Douglas show with John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Chuck Berry Hosting a cooking segment: Context and History! Why this episode is famous - it's the first time John and Chuck met and Played together. A Tiny Video Clip of my mom on TV! (most of them seem to get pulled down)

Divorce by Design - Shifting the Default Conversation with Suzanne Vickberg

2024-02-0556:43

Today I share my conversation with Suzanne Vickberg, aka Dr. Suz. She is a social-personality psychologist and a Research Lead at Deloitte Greenhouse. Along with her Deloitte Greenhouse colleague Kim Christfort, Suzanne co-authored the best-selling book Business Chemistry. But there's another type of Chemistry - or Alchemistry - that I sat down to talk to Dr. Suz about - shifting the default track of a conversation from protection and opposition to collaboration, Some years ago I interviewed Dr. Elizabeth Stokoe, a Professor of Social Interaction at Loughborough University, who speaks in her book Talk about conversations as having a landscape or a "track" that participants asses and orient to rather quickly…and that we glide down that track, while we monitor the texture of that landscape, and navigate the bumps in the road…so that we can keep things on safely on track. Check out our podcast conversation here and her TEDx talk here. In the opening quote to this podcast, you can hear Dr. Suz describing this process of "landscape orienting" happening very rapidly in a divorce context. Knowing the default path is very helpful when navigating a "hello, how are you?" kind of "small talk" conversation in a non-wierdo-way. Knowing the default track can help make things smooth and easy…when you're visiting the store, or a bowling alley. And when you don't know the basics of the track, things can be hard - Doing simple things in a different culture can be surprisingly slippery to navigate when you don't know the basics of the track. But sometimes the default path can be extremely detrimental - especially when the default is ineffectual or becomes unconscious and habitual - we keep doing things out of rote, not intent. In business, a common default/habitual conversational path is looking at an underperformer and putting them on a Performance Improvement Plan in order to be able to fire them more easily, A non-default, more conscious conversation is taking the time to learn *why* they are underperforming and helping them actually transform themselves, their work performance and their lives….and in the process deeply benefiting the company and even the community. Seems impossible, right? Or grandiose? Carol Sandford, in her book about Regenerative Business talks about an organization that did just this… a manager discovered that a chronically underperforming and late employee was just functionally illiterate. That employee, once they felt safe to share more, helped that manager learn that many of their employees were facing similar issues. Instead of a PIP, this employee got literacy training, and became an advisor to a new literacy program developed inside the organization, which spread out to the larger community, in ripples of growth and transformation. That is a *non* default conversation - turning a PIP conversation into a community-transformation conversation. On a micro-scale, Dr. Suz's book tells the story of rethinking or re-designing the "default track" for a very, very common conversation - Divorce. When that word gets said out loud, people find lawyers, put up a shield, and start digging trenches. There is a better way! It takes effort to deeply empathize with your "opponent" in a difficult conversation. It takes patience and imagination to collaborate with your "opponent" to design a win-win scenario. But the default design for divorce doesn't usually create ideal outcomes…just conventional ones. It's possible to create something better than you can imagine if you create the space for a transformational conversation. Dr. Suz helps break down how "design" in these situations just means really understanding the REAL problem we're solving and what our IDEAL outcome really could look like… BEFORE we jump to solutions. Also check out my podcast conversation with Adam Kahane, author of, among many other amazing books, the book Collaborating with the Enemy - which is what I know a divorce can feel like. Some of his perspectives take this "divorce by design" mindset into the broader business and strategy arena. Enjoy this conversation as much as I did…and think about how you might transform the most challenging conversations in your life and work. With more conscious creativity and intention, with empathy and collaboration…with more design you can create more of what you really want, just like Dr. Suz did for her own divorce and for her own life. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links https://www.divorcexdesign.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannevickberg/ https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/profiles/svickberg.html https://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/facilitating-breakthrough-with-adam-kahane

Conversation Wisdom from an AI-savvy CEO

2023-11-0757:33

My guest today is Jay Ruparel, co-founder and CEO of VOICEplug AI, a Voice-AI company empowering restaurants to leverage AI and automate food ordering using natural language voice ordering at drive-thrus, over the phone, websites, and mobile apps. VOICEplug's technology integrates with existing systems and apps, allowing customers to interact with the restaurant using natural voice commands, in multiple languages and be serviced seamlessly. I wanted to sit down with Jay to unpack what he has learned about how conversations are structured (for computer-to-human interaction) that he brings into his CEO (human-to-human) conversations - crucial conversations, with his senior leadership team and his broader organization - does an AI-savvy conversation-aware CEO approach conversations and interactions with a different eye? We also focused on a few questions of deep concern for our culture today: the responsible and ethical use of AI and how it might impact the future of work. Through our conversation, it became clear that: AI is great for: Repetitive or highly similar and constrained tasks. Ordering fast food at a drive-in, VOICEplug's use case, is a perfect context for AI. In these kinds of conversations, there are boundaries on the scope of the interaction and a clear set of intents and possible goals. Jay also points out that his AI is trained on many, many different instances of people ordering food from other people. So,the voice-driven bot can get better and better at these kinds of conversations, all the time. Humans are best for: High-risk and high-complexity conversations with no clear comparables or no clear scope. For Jay's conversations with key industry stakeholders, at company-all-hands, and with his leadership team, AI can give him ideas or first drafts, but ultimately, he needs to navigate nuance with his human conversational intelligence ++++++++++++ AI is great for: Crunching lots of data (which is always from the past) and summarizing it. Humans are best for: Deciding what kind of future they want to create. Jay points out in the opening quote that the Human mind can think, reflect, envision and CHOOSE an ideal future, creatively. AI can do a lot of that…but it can't choose the future it wants. That is still a uniquely human strength - to dream and to choose to create that dream. Jay dreams of a future where work is a deeper and deeper collaboration between humans and AI, where humans focus on higher-value activities while AI takes over repetitive tasks. Jay goes on to suggest that curiosity and powerful questions are THE most critical of human skills. When I asked Jay to share his favorite ways of designing conversations, he shared three tips: Take just a few minutes before a meeting to be very clear about your key one or two objectives for the conversation. In other words, start the end in mind. Another way of putting it is to take time to set an intention. You might enjoy my conversation with Leah Smart, the host of one of LinkedIn's top podcasts, on just this idea. If Jay is meeting with folks he doesn't know as well, from outside the company, like new clients or stakeholders, he'll deliberately slow down the conversation and delay getting to the core objective. Instead, he'll spend 20-30% of the meeting time getting to know them, talking about other things, all in service of trying to understand them as people, and their conversational style Jay consciously chooses some conversational areas to NOT be highly scalable or automated - he shares a story about being offered an AI tool that would send automated and personalized birthday emails to his employees. As he says "What is the point of me having to use that as the CEO (when)…that relationship, that wishing someone on their birthday as a personalized conversation means so much to me. That's the last thing I would want to ever automate." Not all conversations, even ones that can seem small and inconsequential SHOULD be automated. It is possible that a real, human touch will be the ultimate in luxury in the future. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links https://voiceplug.ai/ Jay on LinkedIn

Designing Conversations to Unlock Strategic Foresight and Innovation with Kevin Bethune

2023-10-3154:401

I'm excited to share my conversation with Kevin Bethune, a multidisciplinary design executive, entrepreneur, best-selling author and keynote speaker based in Redondo Beach, California. He's been a VP of Strategic design at BCG Digital, A global process product manager at Nike and a Nuclear Engineer at Westinghouse. He currently leads his own firm, https://dreamsdesignandlife.com/ One of his key ideas is "Open your aperture." -ie, shifting the lens that you are looking at a problem from or through. Design and Design Thinking has so many tools to help us do just that, and find creative approaches to our biggest challenges. In our conversation, we discussed the importance of embracing creative approaches (since our habitual approaches most likely can't solve them!) and the need for bold leadership to optimize for curiosity and creativity - because going with business as usual is usually a lot easier than spending time on curiosity. It takes a willingness to slow down to optimize for curiosity in a business environment that is often so focused on quarterly capitalism. We also highlight the lack of diversity in design and innovation, particularly in black representation, and the cognitive dissonance of claiming to serve certain communities without actually representing them - an unresolved critique of many innovation firms. The S-Curve and the Cone of Possibility Kevin's book, Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation, is CHOCK A BLOCK with diagrams (and I love diagrams!) that will stretch your thinking, but we spent some time on one diagram in particular that combines two classic models of thinking: The cone of possibility and the s-curve. The Cone of possibility is a cone on its side, with the tip at the present, and the sides of the cone stretching out like rays of sunshine to the right. The rays represent possible futures along the timeline. There are many versions of this diagram online. Kevin's version calls the center of the cone the "most likely" or projected future. The cone of possibility invites us to consider widening edges - future scenarios that are plausible and even impossible or preposterous futures, not just the projected or ideal future. Opening our aperture to consider multiple possible futures means that our plans can be more resilient, adaptable and even antifragile. The S-curve is a visual representation of one of my favorite Shakespeare Sonnets. #15: When I consider everything that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and check'd even by the selfsame sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory; Things are born (or emerge), they grow, mature and then fade away. Kevin's version of the S-curve includes more detail: Emergence A dip - the trough of disillusionment A hyper-growth phase that slows into.. Maturity and then… Decline, or retirement. Kevin overlays the cone of possibility with a set of cascading s-curves, representing a host of possible trends rising and cresting as we look out into the possible futures. As Kevin describes this diagram in our conversation, his hands are making waves of opening and closing, diverging and converging. That's what he's seeing when he looks along the cone of possibility: all of these different trends, multiple pathways. It's this complex, undulating space that he tries to illustrate for the teams that he works with to help them see a bigger aperture to think inside of. These diagrams, these mental models, help redesign the conversation about strategy and innovation. We're not designing for a single, simple, ideal future. We're looking out at a complex landscape with multiple possible twists and turns. That is how you unlock strategic innovation - step back, widen the aperture and change the conversation. In short - creative visualization facilitates dialogue and widens perspectives. Head over to theconversationfactory.com/listen for full episode transcripts, links, show notes and more key quotes and ideas. You can also head over there and become a monthly supporter of the show for as little as $8 a month. You'll get complimentary access to exclusive workshops and resources that I only share with this circle of facilitators and leaders. Links https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbethune/ https://dreamsdesignandlife.com/

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