Speakership in the Time of Change

Although Mitch Teich has done more than 12,000 interviews, his deepest fear is speaking without a safety net. Across a career in public radio, from unpredictable interviews to an historic ice storm to recent major budget cuts at North Country Public Radio as station manager, he’s had to communicate under pressure. Along the way, he developed a set of principles to build his own net.The kicker: his principles mirror what researchers found happening in the brains of improvising jazz pianists. Margaret explores the neuroscience of creating and what it reveals about preparation, flow, and leading in moments of change.This episode is for any leader who has to communicate in real time: an interview, a team meeting, a difficult conversation, or a hard announcement. You’ll leave with Mitch’s three principles for building your own safety net and bringing your team with you:Be honest about what you don’t know.Understand what matters to people and meet them where they are.Know the boundaries of your sandbox, including what you won’t do.After that, it’s time to let your words flow. Go down the dark alley, discover what’s around the next corner, and let the surprises delight you.Mentioned in this episodeNorth Words, Mitch’s interview podcast and radio show: https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/shows/north-wordsMitch interviewing Margaret’s on North Words: https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/54129/20261023/north-words-meet-the-woman-who-helps-storytellers-prepare-for-their-ted-talkNorth Country Public Radio: https://www.northcountrypublicradio.orgThe study: Limb & Braun (2008), “Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation,” PLOS ONE (free to read): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001679Coverage of the study in Diagnostic Imaging: https://www.diagnosticimaging.com/view/brain-stays-cool-jazz-man-jamsCoverage of the study in The Hearing Review: https://hearingreview.com/hearing-products/accessories/headphones/in-jazz-improv-large-portion-of-brains-prefrontal-region-takes-five-to-let-creativity-flowWant to learn more and join with other leaders preparing to speak in moments of unknown? Sign up for our newsletter and join our Open Office Hours. https://thespeakershiplab.com/join-our-newsletter-and-office-hours/

Chris Hutchinson calls himself a "recovering engineer." He was three years old the first time he took a vacuum cleaner apart, and has been looking deep into how things work ever since. From building a cabin with his grandfather, Air Force ROTC, to Motorola, and now supporting leaders and teams across industries, Chris loves looking closely at a system to see how it can work better, even if that means facing the stickiest cog in a teams’ flow: Real talk traveling up, from a team to the boss. How do leaders set the context to open up these valuable sources of information and relationships?This episode is for anyone who has ever been certain they were right, until suddenly recognizing you weren’t. You'll leave with a name for that blind spot and three concrete moves for inviting other people's reality into the room before you make the call.LINKS: GuestChris Hutchinson, Founder, Trebuchet Group: https://www.trebuchetgroup.com/chris-hutchinsonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/rippleleader/Ripple: A Field Manual for Leadership That Works: https://www.rippleleader.com/orderTrebuchet Grouphttps://www.trebuchetgroup.com/Connect with Margarethttps://thespeakershiplab.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaretwattsromney/ResearchRoss, L., & Ward, A. (1996). Naive realism in everyday life: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding. In E. S. Reed, E. Turiel, & T. Brown (Eds.), Values and Knowledge (pp. 103–135). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Angelica Cortez learned how to get a bunch of people in a room with different opinions to come together and produce good work. Her leadership lessons didn't first come from a seminar, book, or podcast, but from watching her grandfather. He was a strict, no-nonsense man who tested his grandkids on bones and motherboards, but he turned soft and unguarded the moment he picked up a guitar. Researchers Guy Itzchakov and Avraham Kluger found the same thing in their work on listening: how a person is received in a conversation changes whether they keep talking and how much of themselves they're willing to share. Cortez turned that strategy into a process for her board to create a new strategic plan, when no one walked in with the same ideas or values. It's proof that you don't need to win the argument to align your team.This episode is for anyone leading a room that's giving you less than you know they have. You'll leave with a clearer sense of what actually makes people show up fully, how to ask questions with clarity without needing to correct anyone, and what it looks like to become the kind of trusted leader people stop editing themselves for.LINKS:GuestAngelica Cortez, Executive Director, Suzuki Association of the Americas: https://suzukiassociation.org/journalarticle/meet-executive-director-angelica-cortez/https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelica-ivonne-cortez/Suzuki Association of the Americashttps://suzukiassociation.org/Connect with Margarethttps://thespeakershiplab.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaretwattsromney/ResearchKluger, A. N., & Itzchakov, G. (2022). The Power of Listening at Work. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 9, 121–146.https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-091013Music acknowledgmentsCircle of fifths / scale practice — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3GiWauofIA

You already know how to push yourself. You've earned the wins nobody saw, the early mornings, the extra hours, and the miles all alone. But now you're the one leading people, and a harder question shows up. When do you let someone struggle their way to their own belief about themself, and when do you hand them the positive reflection they need to hear from you? This episode follows former Olympic Gold Medal swimming coach and current executive leader coach Steve Mellor through both sides of that question, in his own life first. Steve built his self-belief alone, five a.m. after five a.m., before he ever coached a single swimmer. Then he had to stand across from swimmers who looked at him and said, "I can't do this without you," and tell them the truth: they could.Steve built a respected career across collegiate and international swimming before he ever coached a single executive. He made the leap anyway, one guest conversation at a time, until the podcast he started as a side project became the thing that told him who he was becoming next.You'll hear the real research behind why some belief has to be built alone to count, and why some belief only becomes real once someone else hands it to you, and which one should come first.Note: There is another British swimmer named Steven Mellor who competed at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Our guest is a different person."Note on Olympic gold medal: Steve Mellor coached Brooks Curry, who swam in a qualifying heat at the Tokyo Olympics in place of Caeleb Dressel, specifically so Dressel could rest for the final. The US Men's team then won gold in the relay, with Dressel leading off. Right after the medal ceremony, Dressel walked off the podium, found Curry in the stands, called him down to the first row, and tossed him his gold medal, saying, ‘I felt like he deserved that a little more than me.’Steve Mellor Growth Ready coaching: https://growthready.com/Steve Mellor Growth Ready podcast: https://growthready.com/podcasts/Brain activation from positive self descriptionshttps://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2021.700046/fullSocial rewards same place as money: "The findings suggest that social and monetary rewards are processed by the same population of neurons within these regions of the striatum. "https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/12/10/1558/3980284?login=falseBandura on Self-efficacy:https://www.google.com/books/edition/Self_Efficacy/eJ-PN9g_o-EC?hl=en&gbpv=1

Have you ever been in a conversation that suddenly went somewhere you didn't expect, and felt yourself go completely blank?Most of us have been told that the answer to high-pressure communication is more confidence: more talking points, more volume, more assuredness. So when a conversation goes sideways, and none of that seems to work, it feels like the floor has dropped out.But what if there's a structure underneath every moment of change? A pattern you already know? What if the skill of speaking through pivots and surprises isn't about having more answers, but about knowing what questions to ask to see the bigger picture? To see the bigger story you're in. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:Why story is the simplest and most powerful map for navigating moments of changeThe three elements of every story, NOW, UNKNOWN, NEW, and how naming which one is shaky can help you find your footing againWhat WALL-E and a cat covered in red sauce teach us about our brains and what goes wrong when two people are living in different stories at onceThe next time something goes sideways in a conversation, you don't have to reach for more content. You just need to ask who and where you are in the story.Follow me on Instagram so you can see behind the scenes of how I help leaders communicate with clarity, confidence, and connection and how you can too.LEARN MORE FROM MARGARET: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaretwattsromney/  Instagram: @thespeakershiplabOTHER LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:AmeriQuest "Don't Judge Too Quickly" ad  Episode 1: What Is Speakership?