280 - Beyond Advice: The Coaching Habit for Facilitative Leaders with Michael Bungay Stanier

What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that sticks and leads to results? My name is Miriam Hadnes, and with the Workshops Work podcast, I'm on the mission to find the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Today with me on the show is Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit. And I'm excited to share this episode because he is sharing His insights about writing a book and becoming a bestselling author, a guru for many. We spoke about the facilitator as a manipulator, a theme that you might have heard on this podcast before. And we really dive deep into what it means to establish a coaching habit, to what extent it might be different to a facilitation habit, and the importance of staying curious to empower others. And finally, we conclude speaking about his newest book on how to work with almost anyone and the importance of having these genuine, explicit conversations on how we work together effectively and how we can make it easier to work with us. So stay tuned. And by the way, if you don't have pen and paper at hand to take your own notes, scroll down to the show notes to download my free And now, enjoy the show. Michael, welcome to the show.

Myriam, thank you for having me. I know I've been following some wonderful guests you've had before, so I'm delighted to be part of the show. Thank you.

Wonderful. It took me years to find the courage to finally get you on the show.

Oh, well, now you're stroking my ego, and that's one of the key skills of a facilitator is to make the other people feel good. So you see, you're already displaying your mastery.

Yeah, it's maybe because we're taught to leave our ego outside so we can focus on the others. Talking about facilitators, I always start with the same question. When did you start calling yourself a facilitator? And actually, do you?

I self-identify as a facilitator, or maybe a teacher, because I think those are very similar. And I probably do that more than I do a coach or a writer, even though that's probably what I'm best known for in this world is kind of coaching or writing books. But, you know, the essence of what I do is simplifying things for people, helping people try things and helping people figure out what works. And that's a very core facilitative move.

It is.

Yeah. I mean, I probably started calling myself a facilitator or even kind of going, oh, this is a thing, in my first job, which was in the world of innovation, but also in market research. What we would do is we would be hired by a company to invent a new thing for them. And we go and run a lot of focus groups with their target audience going, hey, you know, how do you feel about soup or credit cards or whatever it might be? And you'd be trying to glean insights about the future from their answers. And then we would run brainstorms and facilitate brainstorms around, let's have ideas. And we'd do it with our the company, but also people from outside the company. And we also trained people on creativity and innovation. So that's where I kind of formally took up the mantle as facilitator, because I think all of those 3 actions in different ways are facilitative actions. But I probably started learning those skills earlier. At university, I, in Australia, I I trained to be part of a youth crisis telephone hotline. So young people, I was a young person, young people calling going, I'm struggling for one reason or another. And that's the first time I kind of learned to listen and learned to direct a conversation and learned to try and listen, assume that the first answer wasn't their only answer. And I wouldn't have called myself a facilitator then, but I was starting to learn some very core behaviors that are essential to being a facilitator, I think.

And now I can already get the bits and pieces that then eventually led to the books you wrote, I guess.

Yeah, because, you know, to me, there's not a great deal of difference in the skills of a coach and the skills of a facilitator. You're thinking about the same sort of stuff. You're thinking about, where am I trying to get to? Or where am I trying to help this person get to? You're thinking about what's the energy in the experience. You're thinking about what's the role you are playing in terms of asking questions, in terms of creating space, in terms of giving advice, and are you finding the right balance for that? You are constantly going, am I doing this in service of the other person or am I doing this in service of myself somehow? All of those are exactly the same questions I think you ask when you're in a one-to-one conversation, or you're in a one-to-many conversation, or you're in a one-to-lots-of-people. Because when I give a keynote to 10,000 people, I'm kind of doing the same thing. I'm thinking about the same things. And there's this essence of being in service, I think, which is particularly powerful as a facilitator.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think this is where the facilitator and the teacher That's what they have in common. Where I see a core difference is that the teacher assumes that there's a knowledge gap to bridge, whereas the facilitator comes in and thinks, okay, all the knowledge we need is already there, and then it's our task to activate it.

Yeah. Well, I think with a facilitator, you're like, I'm working with what's in the room, because sometimes as a facilitator, I'm going, all the knowledge we need is not here in the room with us, but we've got what we've got. So how do we work with what we have? Yeah. Whereas with the teacher, there's a more prescriptive goal, which is like, I've got to download a bunch of content into your brains so that you can pass a test. But, you know, good teachers are great facilitators as well because they know that force-feeding content to people doesn't work that particularly well. But a facilitative approach often increases the sense of agency. And with a sense of agency comes a sense of a greater capacity to Yeah.

If we are thirsty for learning and if we understand the purpose, we'll be open.

And also you can be sneaky. If you know how to be a good facilitator, you're like, you don't even realize what you're learning at the moment, but I'm teaching you some great stuff. But I'm kind of, it's like a magician. I'm like, I'm doing misdirection here. You think this is what's happening. I know that this is what's happening.

Yeah, absolutely. And I had a podcast, um, speaking about the invisible facilitator. So letting the group design a process so that the group does something and they don't even realize that it's facilitated, and at the end go like, why did we even hire you?

Right. Yeah, it's a constant dance to try and find your position in, in, in the system. You know, I'm constantly, you know, as somebody who's a good facilitator but also as somebody who has a certain amount of status and authority because I've written books and I'm known and people are like, Michael, tell us the stuff. I'm constantly trying to find that dance between when am I in that kind of— when am I in the spotlight and when am I out of the spotlight? When do I get people to turn to each other and go talk about this? But it is a constant process to go, how do I make them not need me? And to what extent do I try and make myself redundant? And to what extent do I keep reappearing often enough to know that there's seen value in who I am?

Yeah. And I think that's, it's a very interesting aspect, this coming in as this almost a guru who knows it all and has all the answers, and then still keep this facilitative mindset like, okay, there's a lot already in the room and how can I activate what they already know. And I mean, that's what The Coaching Habit is all about.

That's right.

And still, it sounds like it's 2 opposing approaches. So using the methods of coaching or facilitation to help them find their own answers while they are sitting there waiting for yours, because it might be easier?

Yeah. So broadly speaking, yes. The thing that I'm mulling over is that phrase, helping them find their own answers. Because what I'm mostly trying to do is help them own the process and stay engaged in the process. Because sometimes they find the answers and sometimes they don't find the answers. And sometimes what I need to do is come in at the end and give them some answers. I'm not opting out of advice and I'm not opting out of giving guidance and direction and teaching, but there's a way that you're trying to increase agency And increase a sense of, I'm going to try and wrestle with this and figure this stuff out myself. You know, one of the greatest, a really subtle but very helpful technique, a really experienced moderator, as they're called, running focus groups. Because what often happens in a focus group is you ask a question to somebody and they give you an answer, and then you ask another person a question and they give you an answer. And you become the hub that people keep going back and forth to. And it has a kind of a power dynamic of like, I'm extracting the information from you. And my friend Anton, who is a wonderful moderator, what he would do, he'd do a couple of, he'd do a number of things. One is he was a tall guy like me, but he'd make himself small. He had this hunch, so he kind of lessened his actual physical presence. But what he'd do is he would ask a question to somebody, and then he would just look down at— he'd be sitting down, but he'd then look down at the ground and he wouldn't engage in eye contact with that other person. And what that person would be doing is they'd be talking to Anton, but it'd be weird because Anton wouldn't be looking at them. He'd be looking at the floor. And then inevitably the person would cast around the semicircle of people sitting down and find somebody else's eye and end up kind of giving the answer to them. And then Antoine would just stay quiet and then somebody in the group would pick up that answer and suddenly you've moved the conversation into the group. And that exchange in the group is actually where interesting things start to emerge. And so it's this kind of these little techniques that make it easier for the group to keep taking, even if they're not quite sure why they're doing it, taking the ball further down the field. Yeah, beautiful.

And there are 2 things that I find particularly interesting in this anecdote. One is the power of presence and how you can play with it to put yourself into it with your authority by starting with a question and then removing yourself with these small things.

Right.

And the other one is that some things that we learn that we have to do, like eye contact, connection, can be necessary in one situation, but then actually in other situations we have to consciously withdraw from that, although it might be difficult.

Yeah. Whenever I'm interacting with a group, I am constantly manipulating it. Like, that's my job. I'm manipulating this experience constantly for them because I want them to be engaged in different ways. And at different times, I need different types of manipulation. So, you know, if I'm, if I'm doing an in-person event, I will always greet the group at the door.

Hmm.

Um, you know, I gave a keynote speech at a big conference. I had some 1,000 people, let's say, in the company thing, and they were all lined up outside because the doors open at a certain time. And I just walked, walked the line greeting people and shaking hands, and everyone was super excited because they're like, oh my goodness, he's come out to greet us. He's a human being after all. But actually, I mean, there's part of that kind of lowering my status and raising their status, which is what I was doing. I was deliberately increasing their status because I know on a neuroscience level, when people have a higher status, they're going to be more engaged. And with most people, I shook their hands because that little physical contact also creates a sense of tribiness, a sense of belonging.

Yeah.

And if people feel in a tribe, in a group, then they feel safer. And if they feel safer, they'll feel more engaged. So I was like, I wasn't just being a nice guy. I was being a nice guy, but I was also going, I'm doing this because this will mean that you'll be more engaged and find this session with me more rewarding and give me a higher review and have me hired back again. So it's like deeply manipulative. And then at other times I'm like, great, now I'll look at the ground or I'll, I'll get you to turn to yourself or I'll be quiet, um, and do things that, that force them to break the connection with me but create the connection with somebody else. So, you know, when I'm teaching facilitation skills, I know that the people who I'm teaching it to, particular, or training skills in particular, when I'm like, you, we gotta take people through a learning experience, the people who are being trained are very focused on the content. And I'm like, that's important, but the contents are the bricks in the wall. And what actually holds this together is the mortar holding all the bricks together. And that's in the energy in the room and the experience people have and in the transitions you create between the different bits of content. And so I'm always overemphasizing that as the thing to work on because everybody gets to master the content quickly enough. That's straightforward, but learning how to cement it all together so it all holds together in a firm way, that is more masterful.

Absolutely. And I love that you consider yourself as a master manipulator because when I first said that I believe that facilitation is a form of manipulation, people looked at me like, what are you saying?

Yeah, it's 100% manipulation. I mean, we're always— everything you're doing is influencing everybody else, so why not do it deliberately so you get the effect that you want?

Yeah. Yeah.

And if you're doing it from a place of service, then you're like, I mean, you can use all of these skills as acts of evil to kind of become a supervillain if you really wanted to. But that's probably not the people who listen to this podcast.

Hopefully not.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Maybe we have a supervillain amongst the audience going, look, I'm going to take over the world, but I also want to know how to get a group to gel.

Yeah, yeah, the master facilitator dictator.

Yeah, exactly.

And, um, yeah, it emphasizes the process. And I do believe, as you said, if they're just there for the content, they can watch a YouTube video, they can go out there, all the content is out there. But I think what really helps us to absorb the content is how it's facilitated, how the process goes, and how the facilitator can help the learners to connect it to themselves.

Yeah.

Otherwise, it's useless.

Yeah, that's right. And that's why in The Coaching Habit, one of the techniques I'm teaching in The Coaching Habit is when you ask a question, add the phrase for you onto the end of lots of those questions because it moves people from answering the question to answering the question in the way it impacts them specifically. It moves it from abstract to very personal and it can become a much more powerful question. The question I teach this on in the book is rather than just asking, what's the challenge here? Which invites a kind of more abstract response to what's the real challenge here for you? It sounds like the same question. It's kind of a different question.

And it does 2 things from my perspective. One is it gives them more confidence that they don't have to answer the question for the entire world. So it lowers a little bit the stakes.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah.

And it gives them agency.

Right. It also, and it gives them agency. It also puts them in the situation. So now they're no longer separate from what's going on. They're part of it. It's like, here's what's hard for me in this moment about this thing. I'm like, great. So what do we want to do with that?

Yeah, because I mean, in the facilitation world, if we work with facilitators, coaches, there's a certain degree of self-awareness. But once we move to the outside world, to the real world of corporates, it's so easy, what I observe, for groups to then hide in the abstract and to talk about the entire world, the entire organization, and leave themselves out because it's, it's dangerous.

Yeah. And you then set up this dynamic of, let's talk about them, or then, or let's talk about us in that kind of broader sense. Like, we need to do something about this. I'm like, well, when you say we, is that you and me, or is it you and the team, or is it who are we talking about? And there is a way that I'm just repeating what you said now. Yeah. So exactly.

And you may.

Yeah. It's like, It is easy to spend a time in the abstract and also in a time where you put yourself as a kind of in the role of the victim often, which is like, well, what can we do because of them? And you set up a dysfunctional way of seeing the world or dysfunctional way of working with other people like that.

Interesting. And this polarity then also takes away the space for creativity? Because then we quickly get into survivor mode.

That's right.

Yeah.

So when you're in victim mode, you're never operating at your best. Everything gets a bit narrow and a bit tunnel vision, and your capacity to sit with ambiguity and generate and create from that space becomes much more limited.

Yeah. So we're talking about The Coaching Habit, and I'm really curious what got you to write that book?

Well, it was not my first book. It was my, depends how you count it, but maybe 4th book. And so I'd already broken the first barrier, which is, can I write a book? Because that's the first challenge. People who toy with this idea, which is like, I want to write a book, and your first book's always a little overwhelming, but I already knew I could write books. And I also knew that writing books is a pretty miserable experience. Even for people like me who can write books, I'm like, it's kind of miserable. Like, you spend a lot of time— I'm trying to write a book at the moment and I'm like, I'm right in the early stages where I'm like, oh man, I can't— I don't— is there anything here? It's full of gaps. I thought I knew what I was talking about, but apparently I was jazz-handing my way through the whole thing. I mean, I'm like, it's a challenging process. Made more so because even as hard as it is to write a book, it's even harder to get people to buy a book. And then once you've They buy a book, it's even harder to get them to read a book. So, I think the number is like 93% of books sell less than 1,000 copies. So, writing a book is mostly a terrible idea for almost everybody. I mean, generating idea and generating content and generating a point of view like you and this podcast, great idea. Find your medium, find the thing that you want to stake a claim on and you want to create new language or new insights around and develop that for sure. But don't assume that a book is the best way to get it out in the world because it's hard. It's probably easier now that you can just get ChatGPT to write a book for you, but it's still hard.

Yeah.

Really hard to write a good book. But with The Coaching Habit, I just knew that there was something valuable in trying to unweird the idea of coaching. I'd been teaching this content for 3 or 4 or 5 years, So I knew that it had been polished by reality and polished by experience. And in fact, the experience of writing it was I pitched it to my publisher because I had a New York publisher then, a company called Workman. They'd published a previous book of mine called Do More Great Work, and it had done okay. It had sold at the time, I think, 50,000 copies. So It's a solid B-list book, maybe a C-list book, but a solid book. It's more than 1,000 copies. And they kept turning it down. I kept coming up with a new way of teaching this content and they kept saying, well, no, go away and give it another go. And that was like a 2 or a 3-year process of me going back and forth with them continually rejecting my book. And finally I went, all right, here's the idea. It's a yes or a no. I can't be doing this back and forth. And they said no, which was a shock to me. I thought they would say yes. So I ended up self-publishing this book, which turned out to be great because it sold more than a million copies now. So on a financial level alone, that makes a big difference. I earn more money when I self-publish a book than when I go through a regular publisher.

Yeah.

But I was really driven by the sense of like coaching is a powerful tool, a powerful technology. It comes with a lot of baggage for a lot of people. Like, it's kind of a bit woo-woo. It's a bit hippie-dippy. It's a bit touchy-feely HR. It's, you know, there's too much incense and caftan wearing. There's all sorts of reasons why people kind of like, yeah, coaching. Yeah. I've met some coaches and it's clear that this is not my reality. So I wasn't really writing it for the coaching world. I was writing it for normal people who wanted to be more coach-like, stay curious a bit longer in their behavior. And I wanted it to be a success, but I want all my books to be a success. But I also knew that even if I didn't really sell very many copies of it, it'd be a tool I could use to market and manage and promote the training that the company I set up, Box of Crayons, does. That's what they do. They train the IP that's in the Coaching Habit book and the sister book to that called The Advice Trap. So, there was a higher purpose trying to own Weird Coaching, but there was also just a business purpose, which is like, I don't need to sell any books. I can just— but if I use, you know, if 1,000 of these books sell 1,000 of these programs, then I've completely won.

Yeah. Thank you for the story and the transparency.

Yeah.

And I was wondering while you were sharing the story of your early days at high school or university where you hosted the Yeah, university.

Totally.

Yeah. I was wondering whether this was already the starting point that had inspired it, because what I find so compelling in the book, it's— and maybe that's why the publishers didn't want to publish it, because it's not the general book that is filled with anecdote after anecdote where you have the impression— most of the books, after you read the first third, you know everything, but it's filled with just yet another story. And yours is like the Hemingway style, You did have more time to keep yourself shorter.

Yeah. Well, part of it's just a design principle I have, which is what's the least I can teach that would be the most useful? So it's a little bit about rooted in this idea of how do I be of service to the people for whom I work? And I know most of the people who read books, none of them are going, I hope this is a really long book. Most of them are going, I'm hoping this is a short book because it's hard to finish a book. And success for me is having somebody read the book to the end.

Yeah.

And so there's a degree of just ruthlessness around continuing to cut away stuff, content and words around that. And, you know, my style of book is, this is what I aspire for it to be, you know, practical, A light touch, so a sense of humor coming through, finding simplicity on the other side of complexity, and practical. So people kind of can go, I know what to do having read this book.

Yeah.

And so I'm striving to do all of that, and I'm striving to remove as many words as possible so that people can pick up a book and go, oh, I could probably really read this on the flight I'm about to get on. Or at least most of it, and they'll get on a plane. And I wrote it for, you know, it's a small book, so it fits in a woman's handbag. So they're like, this is great. I can just pop it in my bag, carry it onto the plane, read it on a 2-hour flight, and that will feel like a useful investment of, you know, €15 or whatever it costs in Amsterdam.

And practice while with the person sitting next to you.

Yeah. Yeah.

I hear the facilitator's mindset coming through in all of the process, being in service of the reader, making it accessible, as short as possible. So I appreciate that.

Yeah, it's— I, I would call it a consumer-centered mindset. So that's part design, that's part facilitator, that's part just trying to imagine what's, what's most useful for them and what problem do they want solved and what will get in the way of them Doing that. And also it's a marketing mindset, which is like, how do I make my book stand out from other people's books? I want it to feel different from other people's books so that all of those things kind of combine the creation of that.

Yeah. So the coaching leader has become kind of a tagline. Every leader or every manager now wants to be a coach or is supposed to be a coach. And what do you think is the biggest trap in that?

Well, it depends what angle you come from to answer that question. One trap is lots of managers and leaders don't want to be coaches. They're like, I'm a marketer or I'm a salesperson or I'm a research person. I don't want to— I'm not a coach. I'm a professional doing my job. And often people get super excited by, okay, we found a new thing for you to do. And they're like, okay, so I don't want to be a coach. And by the way, I don't have any time for this. You've already overloaded me with all the stuff I currently have to do.

And now you're seemingly— They have to talk about their feelings.

Yeah. Now you're seemingly adding it to, on top of everything else, of my already full schedule. So I think there's a trap in that when organizations are asking their managers and leaders to take up the mantle of coaching. They don't make a very good case for why they would do it and what needs to be different. So the first thing I'd be thinking about is saying, look, we're not turning you into a coach. We just want you to be more coach-like. So bringing the power of coaching to the way that you manage and lead and interact with other people. And the definition I have for that is, can you just stay curious a little bit longer? And can you rush to action and advice giving a little bit more slowly? So I'm just trying to unweird coaching for them because when you ask people, what's your definition of coaching? Everyone's like, I don't know, the wind beneath your wings. I don't know, unlock the highest potential of other people. It's all a bit kind of abstract and kind of self-helpy. Yeah. And I'm like, let me give you a really clear behavior. It's like, stay curious a little bit longer. 'Cause most of us are not that good at staying curious. Most of us love to leap in with advice.

Exactly.

So, and then I'd say the— so we're doing 2 things so far. We're saying don't become a coach, just be more coach-like. Secondly, we're defining coaching as a very specific behavior. And the 3rd thing to say is, and this is kind of combined, which is like, first of all, you can coach in 10 minutes or less. So what you're imagining of coaching, which is like an hour-long conversation with somebody lying down on a couch, isn't that. It can be a really fast conversation. And secondly, you're not adding this to your current responsibilities. You're transforming the way you currently work to be more coach-like. You're not pouring water into a full glass. This is you going, oh, this is how I do my one-to-ones at the moment. But I'm now going to do it to be more coach-like. So I'm just going to add a bit more curiosity and stay curious a little bit longer.

Thank you. And what immediately comes up to me is you're not adding to their task, but you're actually indirectly removing. Because if leaders stay curious a little bit longer, they empower their people who feel better about themselves, go on and resolve their problems maybe by themselves, have less stress.

Because what also happens is when organizations get excited about their managers and leaders being coaching, they're like, they don't give a what's in it for me for those managers and leaders. It's like, yeah, we know we're going to be a better organization and the people you coach are going to be happier. So, you know, crack on with that. That person's like, okay, so it's upside for everybody except me, apparently. And I'm like, look, I reckon if you are more coach-like, you can stay curious a little bit longer, what you find is that you'll have the people on your team be more competent and more confident and more autonomous and more self-sufficient. And what that actually means is not only— you'll have more impact and you'll work less hard. So if you'd like to have more impact and work less hard, would it be useful if I taught you some good questions? And there aren't that many people who are like, no, I want less impact and I want to work even harder. So there's a marketing thing to this.

There is, and I think there's also a cultural thing to this. I had a conversation with Mike Parker the other day, and he pointed out that most organizations are awful to work in because people don't feel safe, and it doesn't feel safe to ask questions. So if we are trained to always have the answers, to always give advice, then we are building this shield of protection. As the untouchable. And the moment where we ask questions and stay curious, it's out of our control.

Yeah, that's a really nuanced insight. It's the, you know, part of why people find it hard to be more coach-like, it's just habit. You know, they've spent a lifetime at jumping in and proving their value with the answer. So, you know, they've been trained that this is the thing they should be doing since, you know, early school. But at that deeper level, there's these core insights that When you ask a question, it is an act of empowerment. And an act of empowerment is actually giving up some of your power to the other person. Because even when you are, and this happens all the time, you're providing a not very good answer to solve the wrong problem, you still feel pretty good about it. You're like, look at me, I've got the answer. I've sorted it out. I've solved it. I'm still adding value. And when you ask a question, you're in a place of more ambiguity and more uncertainty and less power and less comfort and less status. And so there's a lot of kind of a deeper level of resistance. I did a TEDx talk some years ago called How to Tame Your Advice Monster. And in that, I talk about these 3 different advice monsters, tell it, save it, and control it. And the advice ones is, you know, a metaphor for these kind of deeper ego states, let's call them that, for why people like to lead with advice.

Yeah, it feels so comfortable and it's safe. And with the questions, I think it really depends on the question. So yes, in general, I would agree asking questions is a leadership skill, but then on the other hand, There are some questions that can function as a weapon, and then there are the questions that are actually disguising advice with a question mark. Have you thought of doing this?

Yeah, exactly. Have you considered? Yeah, so those aren't questions, obviously. That's just advice with a question mark slapped on the end. So we can put those off the table. That's not what we're talking about. And there are questions that are not in service of the other person. It comes back to that question around what's in service. Like often the The question why, it's very hard to make the question why be of service because it's very hard to ask it in a way that isn't about one of two different things. And the first is, isn't about you trying to get more information so you can give them a better answer. So you're like, I'm asking why for me, not for you.

Mm-hmm.

Or asking it in such a way that feels like an attack on the other person because why did you do that? will just sound very similar to why the hell did you do that? And so now you're like, justify yourself. And that's a question, but that is often a question that's less helpful for people. So, you know, as a general rule, I'm assuming that the best question for me to ask starts with the word what. If I'm asking questions on how, then we're into the kind of, so the action part of it. And that assumes that we know what problem we're solving. And so sometimes that's entirely appropriate, but what I've definitely learned is most of the time we haven't figured out what the real challenge is. So that's why one of the questions in the Coaching Habit book is, what's the real challenge here for you? And if you're asking why, sometimes that works really well. I mean, there's that very famous ladder of inference where it's just like, ask why 5 times and you'll get to the root cause of things. And so If everybody knows that you're doing root cause analysis and you're trying to get to the heart of it, then there's a way of doing that. But in everyday conversation, the why question normally makes people defensive.

Because it allows only, or it implies only one answer.

Well, it implies, which is like, you better explain yourself because this is inexplicable to me. And that doesn't feel like an adult-to-adult conversation.

That's true.

That's why one of my favorite opening phrases is, out of curiosity. Out of curiosity is a very nice way of leading into asking a question because as soon as you say, out of curiosity, you're saying, you're kind of neutralizing some of the power, that exchange that's there. You're just going, look, just out of curiosity. What was going through your mind when you made that decision? Which lands in a very different way of, what was going through your mind when you made that decision? Yeah.

Because you show that you're compassionate, you're really curious about this other person, and you're—

You're like, I'm genuinely interested. I'm not trying to attack you. And that's what out of curiosity signals.

And you explicitly say that there's no agenda.

Yeah. And people will either believe that or not. And you often have an agenda, but it's as much a reminder to yourself that you're asking this question just to understand some more context, not to try and put them on the spot.

Yeah. When I sent you the sample questions, I was thinking, oh, what would be an interesting question that I would be curious about? And then hearing so much about The Coaching Habit, I have read it years ago and just Recommended to everyone. And then I was wondering, what would be a facilitation habit?

Well, you tell me. I mean, you know more about facilitation than me. You've talked to lots of brilliant people. Where would you start with that?

And I think, thank you for putting—

Classic coaching move right there. It's like, oh, good question. That's really interesting. What do you think? Yeah.

Feels like Aikido.

Yeah, it is. It is facilitation and coaching is Aikido because you're constantly figuring out where the energy's coming from and you're constantly going, how do I less resist it and more just turn it in on itself?

Yeah.

So as soon as you're resisting things in facilitation or coaching, you're into a different dynamic. My friend Mark taught me this idea of a yes state. So I just never say no when I'm facilitating or coaching. When somebody goes, I'll ask a question and somebody says something that is patently ludicrous and absolutely wrong. I'm not going to say, well, not that. I'd go, oh, interesting. Oh, maybe. Oh, sure. Okay. Possibly. Oh, okay. That's an interesting perspective. I'm nodding my head and kind of looking kind of excited about it. And I'm not kind of going, that's right. I'm just going, I hear you. And now I'm redirecting it to kind of go, look, it's still there. I haven't gone enthusiastic, yes, you're absolutely right, but I also haven't created resistance to your answer, so I've kept it safe for you.

Yeah. It reminds me of the moment that I experienced the power of yes, and was, I was a PhD student in a summer school with this brilliant Harvard professor, and he asked a question. I raised my hand, maybe a little bit too early, and I replied to his question, and he looks at me and says, Yes, Miriam. And have you thought of— and said the exact opposite of what I just said.

Right, exactly.

And I think it's brilliant because if he had said no, as you say, I would have shut down and be in my head and say, why did I raise my hand? Why didn't I do the homework? Just in my head. And with the yes, and have you thought of, I was open, I leaned in. And everyone else felt safe enough to also answer a question because they know they won't be blamed for that. Yeah.

And so as part of a facilitator, part of what you're doing is you're constantly managing the energy in the room. You've got all these levels, right? You're managing the content, you're managing the interactions on a kind of small group level, you're managing the interactions between you and the participants, and then you're managing the kind of the general vibe in the room. As well. And you're like, how are my volume levels at all these different places? And if you want to be a successful facilitator, you have to keep it feeling safe all the time. Now, that's interesting because often as a facilitator, you're also like, and I need to challenge and I need to be provocative and I need to kind of go, we're all going down the wrong path here. I need to pull us back onto what matters most. So you can't just be nice, but you also have to keep it safe. So all of this is an interest, it's part of this kind of human dynamics around that. And these little techniques like yes, and, or the yes, they, which is, oh, fascinating, that's an interesting perspective. All of that allows that to continue.

Yeah. And I loved how you just paused when you said you have to manage the energy between you and the participants.

Yeah.

Because I think there's so much in there as well. We have to manage the energy within us and not to get triggered, not to get drawn into the energy, not to suddenly follow our own agenda.

Right. Yeah. So my friend Mark again, so this is a guy called Mark Bowden. His company is called Truthplane. He has a great TEDx talk as well called Truthplane, I think, T-R-U-T-H-P-L-A-N-E. It's all about how do you use your hands in particular to manage the energy in the room. That's kind of the key insight around it. But part of what— and Mark comes from the world of theater and drama and movies and stuff. And part of what he taught me was the room responds to the strongest signal in the room and you are the strongest signal in the room. So you need to be the energy that you want the room to be. So if you are slightly nervous and twitchy and anxious and tight because you are worried about how the session's going to go, your room is going to reflect that because you are, you are, the room picks up on that. So even if you're feeling all of that, part of your mastery is to show up. That's part of why you shake hands at the front because it actually relaxes you as well. You're like, look how relaxed I am. No, I'm not even, I'm not, I'm not worrying about setting up my computer or worrying about looking through my notes and my flow of how this is going to go. I'm here and I'm present and I'm relaxed and I'm interested and I'm ready to go. And you're putting out an energy that makes people go, I'll have the same energy as you.

Yeah. Being aware of the contagiousness.

Yeah.

So yeah, to come back to the facilitation habit, I think I think in its core, I think it's very similar to The Coaching Habit.

Yeah.

And maybe with the addition, no, not even because even the coach is in service of the individual or group.

Yeah.

And so I think it's very similar. So I was wondering whether you had some—

Yeah, I think it's totally the same as well. I mean, there's, the difference is that I would say that you can be more coach-like in every interaction that you have with people, on email, on text, in person, in the kitchen, with your spouse, with your kids, with your dry cleaner. Because being more coach-like is saying, can you stay curious a little bit longer?

Mm-hmm.

Can you rush to action and advice giving a little bit more slowly? So it is an everyday Quotidian way of framing your relationship with the people with whom you interact.

Yeah.

Somebody sends you a message on Slack, you can go, hey, this looks great. What's the challenge here for you? And you send them a Slack back. You're being more coach-like. A facilitation tends to be a rarer occasion because it's like you and a group of people is how I think about it.

And while listening to you, I was also wondering whether there is a bigger trap for having a facilitation habit, in the sense that facilitation is a lot about the process. I think for coaching, you can be in the moment and you work even more with what's there. As a facilitator, you set up a process and it has more of this manipulative aspect.

Right.

And I think why you spoke about applying the coaching habit to your spouse and your private part, applying a facilitation habit to your spouse and to your family and your friends can really generate this itchy feeling because they might feel manipulated because it's too much in the process and looking ahead of what's happening.

Right.

And thereby losing a little bit of the presence, maybe.

I think so. I mean, it depends a little bit. I mean, I think of the work of Priya Parker and her stuff on gathering.

Yeah.

And she's like, if you're gonna be a host, be a host.

Yeah.

And what she's really saying is facilitate.

Yes.

When people come over, don't just leave it to chance. Set up some things and you can do it with a very light touch that give you a better chance of everybody having a better experience around that.

Yeah.

But, you know, if I spent my time facilitating my wife— Might not be married for long. That's possibly a career-ending move or a marriage-ending move. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. What makes a workshop fail for you?

Well, when I think of the failed workshops I've had, it mostly comes down to me not understanding how the power is working in the room. I've misunderstood who has the power. I misunderstood what success looks like. I misunderstood where the points of resistance are going to be around this because On a contained scale, I just don't have workshops that fail because they're always going to feel pretty good. They're always going to be well facilitated. People have a decent experience, you know, as best as can be. Because, you know, I've got enough— I'm old enough and I've got enough swagger and experience to kind of go, look, I'm probably going to run one of the better workshops you've had because I've just done this a lot of times and I know a bunch about facilitation and I know how to do it. But if I haven't really understood what's actually going on, then I'm like, I ran a great experience. It just wasn't at all helpful for the people. And in fact, has created more resistance rather than more progress. So more time going, who really matters here and what do they really care about and who will resist this and how will they resist it and how important is that resistance or not? Those are the questions that I need to be more conscious of to ensure success in that bigger picture.

Makes total sense. And how do you then work with the power in the room? So there are obviously power dynamics.

Yeah. Well, mostly it's you need to have done some of that stuff before you're in the room, because if it's down to you being in the room, I mean, if you had no chance to work with it before in the room, you're just being attuned to, oh, where's the resistance and where's the power and who do I need to make happy here? And then I'm doing things like in the break, coming up to the person and going, how are you finding this? Is this giving you what you want? Is there anything you want me to be doing differently? I noticed this about how you are showing up. Is that intentional? Do you want to shift that at all? Here's a request. I noticed that you're checking your phone the whole time or whatever. So there's ways of kind of manipulating that. But if I've been hired, and people don't hire me as a facilitator, so this hasn't happened for ages. But in the good old days when I'd be hired to come and actively facilitate some sort of board or team or something like that, I just try and do a better job at going, tell me what's invisible that needs to be visible to me so that I have a better understanding of what the what the real landscape is like.

And I think that's one great facilitation skill or even capacity to embrace is to make the implicit explicit.

Yeah. Even if it's not something I want to make it explicit in the session itself, because that just may not be appropriate, but I'm trying to gather as much data as I've got so that I've got a greater capacity to understand what's going on and therefore a more nuanced response to what's going on.

Yeah. You wrote, I think, is it your latest book with the How to Work with Almost Anyone?

It is. That's the latest book. Yeah.

What makes people or what makes us difficult to work with?

Well, you've worked with human beings in your time. What have you found hard about working with other people?

Many of the things that we have already mentioned. So the Not listening, jumping into advice, interrupting. So a lot is communication-based. Yeah.

I mean, people are messy, irrational, confused, confusing, erratic, emotional. I mean, people are a mess.

Make them beautiful.

Yeah. And beautiful.

All of that.

Yeah. It's like the full catastrophe, as somebody once said. So working with people, it's not like moving chess pieces on a board because a chess piece, a pawn is a pawn and a a rook is a rook. People are just complex creatures. And so their behavior is emergent rather than predictable. And you also are all of the above, right? You too are messy, irrational, erratic, complex. So when you've got 2 different people coming together to work together, you've got all of who they are in the moment, You've got all of the stuff they've learned in the past. You've got all of the stuff that they think is really obvious but isn't really obvious. So the more I thought about it after I wrote that book, I'm like, it's a miracle that any of us get along at all. It's a miracle the human race is even existent because I'm like, there's all sorts of reasons for you to go, look, I'm done with interacting with human beings. That's just too confusing. So yeah, I'd say the reason what's hard about working with other people is everything.

So how can we make it then easier?

Well, you know, in this book, you know, the general thesis of the book is that, you know, our working relationships really are such strong drivers of our happiness and our success. But mostly we don't do much about that. We just hope that we get lucky and, you know, we get what we get. And the idea of the book is that you want to set yourself a goal to build the best possible relationship with your key working relationships. So relationships that are both safe, And vital, meaning full of life, and also repairable. And we've kind of touched on some of those attributes in our conversation so far. And the kind of the key tactic in the book is this idea that have a conversation with that other person about how you should work together before you start working together. So it's a little bit what I was just talking about around understanding the power in the room. When you're hired as a facilitator, somebody will say, we need you to help us come up with a strategic plan. And you're like, so what's your strategy now? And what's your strategy and what resources do you have? And you're into the work immediately because it's there and it's interesting and it's urgent and it's important and you've got to figure it out and you're feeling the pressure of performance and all of that sort of stuff. You're like, okay, so let's, let me figure out how I can get you to get a strategy.

Mm-hmm.

And what you don't do is go, look, before we get into that, tell me what it means to hire a really great facilitator. What is a great facilitator for you? When it's been really good, what, what does that look like? And when it's been underwhelming, what does that look like? And now let me tell you what it means to have a, you have a really good client from my point of view. This is what a really great client does. This is what a really great client doesn't do. And when I disappoint you as a facilitator, how will you let me know? And what will we do about that? And how will we repair it? And when you've pissed me off as a client, how will I let you know? And how will we get through that? And how will we have those conversations?

Yeah.

And so this conversation about how will we work together before or in partnership with a conversation about what are we working on gives you a better chance to have more of your working relationships be better than they are.

Yeah. And I was just wondering, it could also be a relationship book.

Well, yeah, exactly. It could. I have a 30-year marriage and a great 30-year marriage, so I've got one data point, but I'm also a bit resistant to all those people that go, I did this once, so here's the truth of it. So I know more about working relationships and I can talk about that, but I read all of the big names in relationship stuff to write this book. So Terry Real and Esther Perel and Dan Siegel and the Gottmans. So I feel like it is soaked in the very best of kind of more intimate relationship insights.

And I wonder whether it all boils down to just finding this shared humanity again and allowing the other person to just put down the mask. You can put it on later, but let's put down the mask for a moment. Stop being so professional and uptight.

Yeah, I think that's a key part of it. And this is the link to The Coaching Habit book and the other stuff, which is you can call this relational curiosity, which is like a curiosity about the other person. That's what you're doing when you're being more coach-like is you're staying curious about who they are and what they're really going with. And in this book, you're staying curious as to, well, who are you really? Because mostly we just make it up. You get hired by a client to be a facilitator and you're like, yeah, I already know. I know who they are. I know what they I know what they need from me. You've already made up all this sort of stuff and they've made up all sorts of stories about you as well. And some of them will be right, but some of them will be slightly not right.

Yeah.

And this is a better chance to kind of go, let me tell you what I'm really up about. So, you know, the How to Work with Almost Anyone book, it's a business book, but it's kind of got a self-development book wrapped into its core because there are 5 questions to ask and answer for the keystone conversation. And each question has 3 exercises connected to it, so you get a better way of answering. You can answer more specifically and more granularity and with more kind of connection to reality. And so it's an encouragement to know yourself more deeply, and it's an encouragement to share yourself more deeply.

Yeah, beautiful. Which makes me actually think that Where it's usually us who makes it difficult to work with other people because nobody is difficult in a vacuum. If we're just about— well, I'm sometimes also difficult to be with just for myself.

Yeah, that's true. And I would like to get out of my own way.

But in general, it's the, as you said, someone we put so many assumptions or beliefs that we understand that then either it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, Or it is behavior that reminds us of our past where our dad talked to us in a certain way and explode.

Well, what all you can end up controlling is your own behavior and your own response and your own ability to ask for what you want. And when you and your glory and messiness come together with somebody else and their gloriousness and messiness, Well, it's gonna be— I just listened to a podcast this morning that talked about how our Milky Way has over time consumed a bunch of other smaller kind of galaxies as part of the process of becoming the Milky Way. And there's a thing called astrological archaeology where you can actually look at different stars and go, this came from that previous galaxy and this bunch of stars came from that other bunch of galaxy. But when you bring— what we're doing is we're kind of— these 2 galaxies are combining and getting spaghettified and ripped apart and reformed together as a whole. And, you know, they bring their mess, you bring your mess. All you get to do is control your behavior and what you ask for and how you show up. And you invite them to be the best version of themselves as well. And they'll either do it or they won't do it. But the odds are is they'll get closer if you're having an explicit conversation like this.

Yeah. I love the anecdote with the Milky Way and the—

Yeah. That's just all this stuff. It doesn't even fit. I just heard it this morning and went, that's so interesting. That's so cool how our universe came together. Yeah. You'd asked me a question around, are we when it comes down to it, is it all about us making relationships difficult to work with? And I'm like, for sure. And we bring all of our complexities into our working relationships.

Yeah. And what you just described also reminds me of what you mentioned earlier about our nervousness and our own energy, air quotes, that spills over to the group even when you speak and that they will pick it up. And I guess even in these one-on-one difficult work relationships, if we don't feel comfortable, confident, trusting.

Well, so the first question of the 5 is the question, what's your best? Which is like, tell me when you shine and tell me when you flow. And why that's a really great opening question is when you're describing those moments when you're at your best and you're kind of showing up as the way you want to be, You start showing up in that, in the actual conversation. So I get to see you at your best. So it kind of lays down this kind of emotional, it paints the background of the conversation of both of you showing up, kind of giving us a clue as to who you are at your best. And that helps the rest of the conversation along.

And it helps, it facilitates each other to be their better version and to see this. And I also recently, I think it was also Mike Parker who mentioned that apparently even when we think of something positive, like it can be as easy as a cup of coffee that we enjoyed, our brain will produce serotonin already and make us happy. So by thinking when are we at our best, we think about all these circumstances.

You get a flood of good chemicals in your brain for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Beautiful. What remains your facilitation challenge?

Well, I think that one we've already talked about around power, and then the dance that I do, and we've talked about this briefly as well, is just for me finding the right balance between time in the spotlight and time out of the spotlight. I like being in the spotlight. I like performing. I like speaking. I like people laughing at my jokes. I like that center stage piece, I also know that for me, particularly as somebody who is representative of the way power works in the patriarchy, so straight, white, old, male, English-speaking, book-writing, Rhodes Scholar, blah, blah. I've got all these kind of— I've got all the cards. A big part of my job is to vacate power so others can step into it. That's why I think coaching and facilitating are such great technology because it's a way of redistributing power in our organizations and in the world that we live in. And so just finding the balance between those 2 things is an interesting dance for me.

That is a very interesting aspect. Thank you. Which then makes me think, Would you think that the habits you describe and the strategy you describe in your books apply for those in the majority, so the cisgender white male, to the same degree as to someone who might be in a more marginalized— so let's say a Black woman or a Black male? How would the world react to them if they applied these strategies?

Yeah. So you are constantly trying to figure out how much power and status do you have to give away? I know I've got a lot, so I do all sorts of things to diminish my status because diminishing my status raises other people's status, but I don't diminish it so far that I I lose control or influence because that would be a self-defeating act. And I think, you know, for people who have less or fewer of the cards that I've got, you have to think differently around that. And there may be techniques you're using to increase your authority and increase your status. So you're finding that sweet spot between being able to use your authority in service of the people you're trying to help. And you're just trying to calibrate what that is from where you are now.

Yeah, which is a very sensitive dance, right? Because sometimes when we, even if we ask someone a powerful question that helps them to introspect, find an answer, feel empowered, all of these kinds of positive things, I think they will also increase the status of the person who has asked because it feels like a gift.

Yeah, agreed.

Yeah. And in other circumstances, asking questions can feel as if someone doesn't know. And I think there's a lot of unconscious bias there actually, that if we have a professor asking a somehow naive question, we think, oh, he's just asking because...

Right, yeah.

And if another person asks that question, we think, oh, Stupid question. They don't know.

Right. I think that's right. I think context really matters, but there's also a way in which your presence or your energy, the way you show up to ask the question, just helps people interpret how it's being asked or not.

Yeah. So much going on.

Exactly. People. Can't live with them, can't live without them.

And apparently even our brain is so fast in making the connections to see whether someone is authentic and genuine or not, that if someone doesn't speak the truth or is not authentic, our brain makes the connections and feels distant or disconnected, doesn't trust.

Yeah, I know less about that, so I'll take your word on it. There's lots of people who are very good at not telling the truth and making it sound like the truth. So, you know, we like, our brain likes certainty. And so when we pick up somebody lying or what we think is lying, because they could be telling the truth but telling it badly, that moves us into away from behavior rather than move towards behavior. What's challenging, of course, is that We're actually pretty poor at picking up when people are telling the truth and when they're not.

Because we are not present enough because we don't listen or?

No, it's just hard. It's just, I mean, all the people who are experts are not that much more successful than random people guessing. So we're just not that good as human beings at picking that up. There's all sorts of things we think we know about body language and the like, but most of them are just wrong. So, and we have a bias to wanting certainty. So we have a bias for finding truth and we have a bias for pattern making. So we have a bias for going, oh, this was probably true because it fits this pattern. And so there's all sorts of wiring we have. It's kind of like, you know, thinking fast and slow. You know, we've got our thinking 1 and thinking 2 going on. And thinking 1, our fast way of thinking, is what we rely on almost all of the time. And it's really fast. And when it's right, it's really right. But when it's wrong, it's really wrong.

That's true. Yeah. One final question. What would you have liked to know before when you got started?

As a facilitator?

Or a coach or a writer or speaker?

Yeah. I think one of the things that I'm becoming increasingly aware of in the kind of coaching, teaching, facilitating world that I mostly exist in is how often I don't need to have an answer for people. How often being present to people and what's going on is often the starting point for a really successful interaction with people. And a kind of anxiety to know the stuff, to have the answer, to be helpful just becomes less important. So, broadly speaking, relax a bit. Just be present to the person in front of you.

Beautiful. Thank you so much.

Yeah, my pleasure.

For your time, for your presence.

For a lovely conversation. I appreciate it.

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