Questions need silence. Great questions are provocative. Great questions defy easy answers. Answering them takes time - they can be the work of a lifetime or a workshop. A great question can guide an organization, a Design Sprint or an educational program. Great Facilitators ask great questions - on purpose.
In this episode I sit down with the effortlessly scintillating Nancy McGaw, Deputy Director of the Aspen Institute Business & Society Program (Aspen BSP). Nancy also leads corporate programs designed to cultivate leaders and achieve Aspen BSP’s mission of aligning business with the long-term health of society.
In 2009 she founded (and still directs) the First Movers Fellowship Program, an innovation lab for exceptional business professionals who have demonstrated an ability and passion for imagining new products, services, and management practices that achieve profitable business growth and lasting, positive social impacts.
I would suggest you listen to this episode at 1X speed if for no other reason than it’s good to slow down sometimes - it’s a point that Nancy makes early on in our conversation.
Nancy and I meditate on the power of questions: Asking instead of telling lights people up and will surprise you, the asker, if you design your questions with care.
Nancy shares three of her favorite questions.
Tell me about a time when you were working at your best…?
What would have to be true…?
Why do you do the work you do?
Starting with Stories
The first question shows the power of Starting with stories. Any user experience researchers or Design Thinkers listening will know this to be true - if you’re talking to a customer or a client, the best way to get rich and detailed information is to ask a “tell me about a time when…” question. Stories light up our brains in ways facts cannot, and starting our gatherings with a story is a luxurious and powerful way to generate energy and connectedness.
Appreciative Inquiry
This first question also connects to one of the most important ideas in this episode - even though it’s mentioned only briefly: Asking with focus on the positive and the functional over the negative and dysfunctional. Appreciative Inquiry is a rich body of work and a unique approach to change.
The Art of Possibility
Nancy’s second question is an excellent act of conversational Judo. Asking “What would have to be true…” can transform conflict into collaboration...or at least, honest inquiry. Asking this question can allow skeptics to dream a little and open the door into possibility.
That question came out of another question, from Michael Robertson, who attended the recent cohort of my 12 week Innovation Leadership Accelerator. He wanted to know if an “us vs them” mentality is ever appropriate when trying to lead deeply important change. Nancy’s answer is profoundly empathetic. As a side note, the next cohort of the ILA is in February - we’re accepting applications through January. If you want to dive more deeply into your own personal leadership, head over to ILAprogram.com to learn more and apply.
Why over what
I love the idea of asking people “Why do you do what you do?” without even knowing what they do. This question also points to understanding people’s history, which is one of the key components to change - how did we get to now? What was the arc of the story?
Nancy has added some amazing books to my reading list - check out the show notes for links to them all and enjoy the episode!
First Movers Fellowship Program
The Four Quadrants of Conversational Leadership
The Four Truths of Storytelling
Carmine Gallo’s Storytelling Secrets
Rosamund and Ben Zander’s Art of Possibility
Leading change with and without a Burning Platform
Hal Gregersen’s Questions are the Answer
Elise Foster’s The Multiplier Effect
Full Transcription
Daniel: I'll officially welcome you to the Conversation Factory. Nancy, I'm really so grateful that you made this time in your schedule, and even moved it back or forward in your calendar depending on how you look at time.
Nancy: Great.
Daniel: So, I wish we could have recorded our first conversation in some ways. Because those are the improvisational unexpected conversations. But I was really, really grateful to get connected to you because you're the dialogue person and the conversation guy as our mutual friend described. So I'm wondering, why is dialogue important to you?
Nancy: You know, when I came to the Aspen Institute 20 years ago, I realized that dialogue was much more than just a way to bring people together and get them to talk. That it was really an opportunity to imagine future, and sort out differences, and explore possibilities. And that actually learning to structure a dialogue, it was a revelation to me that you could think about it in very different ways, and that it mattered to the outcome. So, I just became fascinated by this notion. I think it went back to my days, my early days as a teacher, when you're thinking about how the classroom is going to go. It was just so much fun to begin to imagine what we could do in this space. And of course, I was leaning into when I joined roughly 50 years of practice in dialogue that has been true with the Aspen Institute since its founding in 1950.
Daniel: So can you talk a little bit about the dialogues that you structure at Aspen, the two programs that you have your hands in structuring for us?
Nancy: Well, sure. Dialogue can mean a lot of things. And so I may deviate from what you're thinking about in terms of dialogue. But when we're bringing people together, we really try to think about who's in the room, and to create a space that will make it possible for the expertise of all of the participants in the room to emerge. If we do that, I feel like we've succeeded. And to let that expertise emerge in a way where everyone can feel engaged. This isn't about sharing insights. It's really about sharing knowledge so that others can learn and in a way that allows them to share something that makes you better at what you do or think more broadly about who you are in the world. And that's putting a lot of emphasis on dialogue. But I think that's what's possible in the dialogue space.
Daniel: Yes. Very much so. And this actually goes to the quote you talked about right before we hit the record button, but from Edgar Schein's, Humble Inquiry, perspective. Ask people questions to which you do not know the answer.
Nancy: Right. I think that dialogue is about talking, of course, it's also very much about listening. And one of the things that I've been focused on since I came to the Aspen Institute, and it's become even more important to me as I've learned more and more about how to facilitate conversations is the importance of question. What questions you ask and how you frame those questions is enormously important to the outcome. And if you ask a question, you really are not interested in hearing the answer, then you might as well not bother.
Daniel: Right. So I'm curious... Oh, sorry, please go ahead.
Nancy: No, I was just going to say Edgar Schlein, in this tiny book that I recommend to everyone, Humble Inquiry, he says we have a tendency to ask, but to tell rather than ask and we need to shift the balance there. And really to ask, with intent to learn.
Daniel: So this is fascinating because this is one of the primary structures I've been using to get people to think differently about how they communicate. And it's actually even helped my dad in his relationship with my mother, who will be listening to this podcast and will be very gratified that I drew them a two by two matrix which was asking versus telling, and problem focus versus solution focus. And pointed out that my father was in a different quadrant than my mother was, and this was a revolution for him.
Daniel: And I find that structure can really help people take this amorphous thing, which is dialogue and asking, and narrow things down. What are some of the ways that you structure these dialogues when we're looking at the Leaders Forum and the First Movers Forum, what are some of the structures you apply to help you make sure that the right types of conversations are happening?
Nancy: Well, first of all, I have to say I love that story about your family because I think asking questions isn't just about doing this in a professional setting. It's engaging with the people that you love the most, and who may frustrate you the most.
Daniel: Oh, yeah.
Nancy: And I would love to have been a fly on the wall when you had that conversation with your parents. Because sometimes we don't even realize we are telling more than asking. Because no one's asked us to slow down enough to really think about that. And so when you talk about the structure of dialogue, I think that's one of the first things is just slow down.
Daniel: Yes.
Nancy: And realize something about the way that you interact with others. And when you can do that and really be genuinely interested in the other people who are in the conversation with you, something happens. So, we try to do that in a way that provides space for everyone to contribute, but doesn't put any pressure on anyone to be the person who has the right answer.
Nancy: I think there are so many things I think about when we're putting a seminar together. And if you're doing a seminar that goes over several days, you have to have a variety of experiences for people. So there's no one formula that works. But there are a couple things that we keep in mind. One, of course, the questions that we hope will be interesting enough to people and prompt enough reflection on their part so that they feel that they want to participate in trying to find answers to those questions.
Nancy: We believe in the power of silence. This was really difficult for me when I first started facilitating. If you start out a particular conversation and you're asking a question of the group, you need to give people an opportunity to process the question. And my tendency was to cover up the silence. So if I didn't get an immediate response to a question, I would explain it further, or ask the question in a different way. And I have learned, sometimes you just sit with a silence. And that's particularly true when we do something that perhaps seems quite unusual to those who work in a business setting.
Nancy: One of the things we do, on occasion, is to introduce a poem into the group to prompt a different way of thinking about things. And some people feel quite uncomfortable with that, with memories of being in an English class in high school and having to do the heated discussion about some poem. But it works, surprisingly. In fact, it's so popular a part of the First Movers Program, that the First Movers themselves, who are fellows in this program of innovators within business, they've created their own poetry circle. But the point I was going to make was, if you introduce a poem, and you read the poem, and you ask someone else to read the poem, and then you say, "And what thoughts emerge for you as a result of reading this?" And there's silence in the room, you can assume that people just don't have anything to say. Rather, you need to assume that they needed a few minutes.
Daniel: I think that's so beautiful. Is there a specific poem you find is one that you enjoy sharing with people often?
Nancy: We have a lot of them. Mary Oliver, of course, is beautiful. She's lyrical and she's not esoteric. So, she's great. We try to use selections from different traditions. There are translations of some of Rumi's work that works well in a group. There are many. One of the-
Daniel: I'm going to try to get you to read a poem for us by the time this call is over if we can manage it.
Nancy: Well, I don't have any handy but I would be glad to do that at some point.
Daniel: Okay. So, I'm curious about the First Movers Program because it is like a longer arc. When you were talking about seminars, and that's multiple days of people coming together to talk or reflect on a specific topic, but the First Movers Program is once a year long arc. How do you hold that conversational space? The word sometimes people use is container. How do you keep that container together over such a long period of time?
Nancy: Well, let me, if I may just say a word about what the First Movers Program is.
Daniel: Yeah, that'd be wonderful.
Nancy: Which has been in existence for over a decade now. So, way back in 2007, we started asking ourselves at the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, what if we were able to find people in business, from all different places in the business, not solely in the sustainability or corporate responsibility. People in business who were doing innovative things to create new products, services, or management practices that achieved a great result for the business, and a great result for the world?
Nancy: And when we started as a pilot, we started this program as a pilot, we didn't know if we could find good people, if the companies would support our participation, but we set out on this class. And we are now with our 11th class of fellows. And we have found these people in companies that the competitive process we select a class each year. And these First Movers, who we also refer to as corporate social entrepreneurs, become a part of a community that we're building and our objective is to build a community of business leaders who really change the way that business operates and also the way that success is measured. So that's just a little bit about this First Movers Program.
Nancy: Our intent was to learn from the First Movers from the innovators in business, but also to help them be more effective and more courageous in the work that they're doing in company. And to do that, we decided to offer a fellowship program where they continue to work in their companies, but they participate in three seminars for the first year of the program. And I could talk at great length, Daniel, about the structure of this. So, I don't want to get carried away, I'll just say, just start and then stop and see if I'm moving in a direction that's useful for you.
Nancy: When we decided that we wanted to create these seminars, we believe that there was four themes that we really wanted to integrate into the programming. And those things were innovation, of course, that was the core of the program. What does innovative practice in this space look like? Leadership, because each of these people we knew would have to be leading change within their companies. Even if they were people who didn't have a team, they were still trying to create space for new ideas to be considered.
Nancy: So, innovation and leadership, reflection, this is consistent with the tradition of the Aspen Institute to offer people an opportunity to think about their decisions and their life in a broader context. And that is actually probably much more important a part of the program that I might have envisioned at the beginning. And the fourth theme was community, so we build this network of people who support each other. And so the content in the seminars that we designed relate to one or more of these themes. I'm just going to stop there and see if I'm moving in the right direction.
Daniel: Oh, absolutely. I mean, because I look at those four; innovation, leadership, reflection and community and from my own perspective, I look at each one of those as a type of conversation, right? Reflection being a conversation with myself, community being this multi node nonlinear conversation. We've had some episodes where we've talked about people who try to shape community and what it means to shape a community and innovation is definitely, from my perspective, a conversation between somebody who wants to make something and the person that they're trying to make it for. At least in the product design world of innovation, we always try to focus and personify "recipient of the innovation." So, those are all... We will be lovely to dig into all of these individually if we have time, but in any case, it'll be interesting to look at the arc that's tying all those things together. Because there are three seminars and these four topics, do they show up in each one or is it like a sort of a rising and falling arc where we address one, and then another in series?
Nancy: They show up in all four, but we emphasize maybe one or the other. Obviously, community cuts across all of that. Well, all four of the things are visible in each of the seminars. But in order to build community, you have to, as you know so well, you have to build trust. So certainly in the first time we come together, that's a big part of what we do is just sharing and getting people to be comfortable sharing with others whom they've never met. And it's amazing how that can happen. And people value that opportunity to learn from others and to share what they know. And that emerges very vigorously in the first seminar.
Nancy: I just want to go back to your point though, about conversation being a part of each of these themes. I think it's so true and you can have conversations in so many ways. And especially in the innovation piece, we all talk about it. Everybody loves innovation. And one of the things that becomes so apparent when you're talking about innovation in any space, but certainly in this social innovation space that is our focus. It really does not work to have a great idea that you try to convince others to embrace. The only way that this kind of innovation can happen is when you invite others in to co-create possibilities. And that is very much rooted in conversation.
Daniel: Yeah. I mean, you've used my... I don't know if you can hear the rain that's happening above me. There's no way to remove that from the recording. Everyone will know it's raining hard today.
Daniel: You've used one of my favorite trigger words, which is invitation. And this idea that you can't force real interaction, you can only invite it. And I'm wondering, this is such an interesting question of how these first movers are guided to invite people into the challenge that they want to create. Because I know when you're creating big change, there's often this idea of immunity to change, or resistance to change, or people who don't see the need for the change in the same way that these people might.
Nancy: Right. And we talk about that in a variety of ways. It might be useful just to talk a little bit about how we start the first seminar. Because I think it speaks to this notion of invitation and getting people into a conversation. And you and I have talked before about the power of something called appreciative inquiry, which is a foundational approach that we built into the First Movers Fellowship Program designed.
Nancy: And so the first thing we do in the seminar is to invite each fellow to tell a story. And the prompt for that story is to reflect on their own personal experiences and tell the group in five minutes or less a story about a time when they were working at their best in order to create some kind of change that was good for the business and good for the world. And sometimes they go back to an experience they may have had in college, which isn't really a corporate experience, but it's something that has stayed with them. At the moment the important piece of this is to tell about a time when they were working at their best.
Nancy: And what happens in that room when everyone shares their stories is quite remarkable. No one's bragging. They are just reflecting on a time when they were able to achieve a result that made a difference for them, and for others. And we ask them too, as they tell their story, just to tell us three things about themselves that made it possible for them to achieve that particular result.
Nancy: And I'm grateful to the scholars, particularly at Case Western, David Cooperrider and Ronald Fry, who ran a seminar that I had a number of years ago on appreciative inquiry, for giving me this powerful framework for thinking about organizational change. And one of the ways of doing organizational change, you know, is to figure out what's wrong and try to fix it. Another way of thinking about organizational or personal change, for that matter, is to really reflect on what work and build from that foundation.
Daniel: And so I presume, what do you do with all of those stories after all the First Movers share the stories? What do you harvest from that?
Nancy: I'm losing you, Daniel.
Daniel: Oh, can you-
Nancy: There's connection. There, that's better.
Daniel: Okay. Hold on-
Nancy: And there seems to be a lot of background noise.
Daniel: Yes, that's the rain. There's not much I still can do about that. But I'll try to talk louder.
Nancy: That's fine. Sorry, ask me the question again. I lost track.
Daniel: Yeah. I mean, my curiosity was around, once you've heard all of these stories, what do you harvest from them? What's the aha that comes from all of those stories?
Nancy: I would say the aha is that each of the individuals in the room has worked in a way that already reflects success and possibilities. And because we ask each to share some, just short insights about what made it possible, begin to build a sense of the qualities that the group brings to the challenge of corporate social entrepreneurship. And there's quite a lot of consistency we found over the years in the qualities. And there are things like institutional savvy, real vision for possibilities, some passion for doing work that matters to them, persistence. And so then these qualities can become something that gets discussed as well. How do you build on those strengths? How do you amplify those capabilities in the next challenge that you face?
Daniel: Yeah. And how do we learn from and adapt other's excellence for our own?
Nancy: Yes, absolutely. You know, when you hear other tell these stories, you think, well, that either sounds like me, or maybe that could be me, or maybe I need to think about my own personal narrative in a different way. So, yes, there's a lot of learning that happens.
Daniel: I love starting with stories, because you could start with a framework, you could start with, here's a diagram of the strengths and capabilities. And I think that would put everyone to sleep.
Nancy: It is amazingly powerful. And I will tell you, in the first seminar that we did with the first class, and we set out this question and ask people to start, the design team, the facilitation team, we weren't sure where this was going to head. I mean, sometimes you just have to experiment, right?
Daniel: Yes.
Nancy: And you have to trust that the process is going to take you where you want to go. But we didn't know. It happened to the person who stood up to tell the first story. We don't stand up necessarily, but she did, in my recollection. And she was a wonderful storyteller. And that set a tone. But also it allowed us to relax, even if she hadn't been such an accomplished storyteller, because she was telling something that mattered to her. Then there's just a level of engagement that is so palpable in the world, and encourages others to really lean into these stories and to reflect on their own experiences.
Nancy: And you would think... we are usually a group of somewhere between 20 and 22 people. You would think that 25 minutes stories would make people want to climb the wall, and it's true, we do take a break in the middle, but stories are powerful. I would love to be more of an expert in storytelling because I think stories are conversations too. I guess we could say everything is conversation, but.
Daniel: I mean, I would, but I feel like stories are an interesting element of a conversation. I feel like that's one of the things that we communicate in dialogue is the creation of a story together is an ideal. I'm wondering, I'd like to link this back to the other book we mentioned in our conversation about the fourth draft and this idea that a story should be compelling and short, and cutting stories and teaching people about storytelling intentionally seems like an important aspect of talking to anybody about innovation, is learning how to tell stories. What are you learning about stories right now?
Nancy: Right. And you're referring to something I put on my email. This is a another way to have a conversation, I think, is to-
Daniel: It's a conversation starter.
Nancy: ... dare to put on your email what you're reading. And I started doing that several months ago, and it's given me an opportunity to have a number of conversations I wouldn't have had otherwise. The book you're referring to is John McPhee's, Draft No. 4. It is a series of essays written by someone who is an extraordinary writer who wrote for The New Yorker and for Time magazine for many years, and who taught writing at Princeton for a number of years as well. And I was trained, my undergraduate work was in English. So I did a lot of reading, did a lot of writing when I was in College, and have continued to do that since. But it's always fascinating to me to read about the art of writing and to realize how one has to continue to cultivate the ability to do that. And John McPhee is a master.
Nancy: And it's sort of odd, I suppose, to say that John McPhee talks so much about cutting content, because articles for The New Yorker can be 40,000 words and you think, "Gosh, that doesn't seem like they've done much cutting." But he is so focused in these essays on how you structure the written word, and the choices that you make, and what you say versus what you don't say. And I found it... and is surprisingly witty. Very charming.
Daniel: Yes. Well, he seems to find moments. He captures witty moments as well.
Nancy: Yeah, he does. He does.
Daniel: So what are you learning from Draft No. 4? How are you applying that in your own work? How is narrative enhancing your dialogues?
Nancy: Well, narrative, another powerful word. We think a lot about narrative, and storytelling, and how we communicate the work that we do, and how we help others in the seminars that we put together communicate what it is that they're trying to do, but also how they think about who they are and how they show up in the world. And I think just focusing on how that appears on a page in the written word is one way to think about how important it is to be a craftsman and not to be intentional about choosing the way that a narrative comes together. And so that's one of the big things I'm learning from him.
Nancy: And also, it's encouraging to know that someone as accomplished a writer as John McPhee was, that he struggled. And it's important to realize that the struggle is part of the process, no matter what it is you're trying to do. And sometimes you shouldn't fight that, rather you should embrace it.
Daniel: Yeah.
Nancy: And trust, trust that if you put your mind to it you'll get there.
Daniel: I mean, my brain is lighting up so many things. One of the things I loved about the small section of Draft No. 4 that I read was his diagrams of how he was thinking about his essays. Where he put the person a little circle, the person, the profile was about, and then all these X's around them, all the other people he was going to talk to triangulate the truth or the narrative that he was talking about. And then it's like, "What if I did two circles?" And then he had this third version where he was like, "It's so elaborate that I decided not to do it." And this is where structure gets in the way of content and our mental model doesn't help, it hurts. And I guess I'm wondering like, do you have a narrative, a mental model for storytelling that you use to help you tell and share compelling narratives?
Nancy: I don't think I have a mental model for that. But I think I have an appreciation for the discipline. And there are people whom I've learned from other than many other people. I read a lot. So every time I read, I try to think about the choices that the author made. When I hear people tell stories, I think about the choices that they made. And there's some great... In the seminars we do with First Movers, we use background readings.
Nancy: And one of the old pieces we use is a Peter Guber article from the Harvard Business Review that talks about the four truths of storytelling. That you have to be true to yourself and true to the listener. That it's just helpful to have someone who does a lot of storytelling, give you a framework that can prompt you to think about what your approach is. It doesn't have to be the same as that. But something that gets you thinking. Carmine Gallo work, The Storyteller's Secret has been so informative to me about, again, the choices you make, and how you need to think about how it is that you're framing the material that you want to communicate.
Daniel: I mean, yeah, I love that it's an inquiry instead of an end point for you. And it almost seems like you're using appreciative inquiry as a lens for any story that you encounter is looking at and saying, "Well, what's working here? What's lighting me up?" And that's really, really powerful.
Nancy: You know, I hadn't thought about it that way, but I think that's true. And I think it's also, another thing that I try to keep in mind is to be in this space of possibility. I love Ben Zander, Rosamund Zander's book from a number of years ago, The Art of Possibility. Which is very much linked to appreciative inquiry too. They talk about people living in a universe of possibility, as opposed to a universe of metrics and measurement. And in this universe of possibility, you can see abundance rather than scarcity. And when you do that, what door is opened for you.
Daniel: It's really beautiful. I'm wondering if... One of the things that's interesting to me about your work is, it's a little more personal for me now because my fiance is getting her master's degree in... she's getting an MBA in sustainability. And sometimes we talk about whether or not these regenerative businesses are possible. And if it is possible to change how things are being done. And it seems like one of the ways that you're, I mean, these First Movers are living in the world of the possible, they're doing it and you're trying to spread the narrative that it is possible. I'm wondering what you say to people who feel like it's not possible. That we can't change the way things are done.
Nancy: Wow. I probably I'm selective in the people I hang out with because I like to be amongst people who say, "This is really hard. This may take generations. Or it may take decades. But it is possible and we can change." And I have the pleasure of working with a network of people who are in sustainability or corporate responsibility, our Leaders Forum Network where these are people who are devoting their professional career to a belief that it is possible to change. And it's remarkable to see what's happening. So, I don't have a good answer to the question about, what do you do when you are working with skeptics?
Nancy: Well, I do have a response to that, actually. So one of the things we... It's not the answer, but it's a response. One of the things that we suggest with First Movers and others when they have an idea, they want to innovate in a particular direction, to find the skeptics in their organization, and really listen to where they're coming from. And there are questions that can be asked that will shift the conversation. And one of them that I love is, "Well, I understand where you're coming from, but I'd really be interested in understanding from you, what would have to be true in order for our organization to..." whatever. And that allow people to... even if they're totally [inaudible 00:37:39].
Daniel: I see what you're doing.
Nancy: If they don't initially believe it, they will go into that space. Well, what would have to be true? Well, that's a pretty provocative question. And if you ask it genuinely wanting to hear what they have to say, then they may provide an insight that you wouldn't get from somebody who's more on board with an idea. I mean, you come from the world of design. I think in design, the how might we question is a driving factor, right?
Daniel: Yes. Well, and so I'll put a really fine point on this because I have a question here. I'm running Innovation Leadership Accelerator right now. And I promised my participants that if they had questions for you, I would pass them along. And Michael, had this provocative question of, is there ever a time for an us versus them mentality? And the example he gave was Greta Thunberg, you adults are ruining the world for us kids. And she has a very strong narrative. And what I just heard you say is, take your thems, when there's an us and a them, and go to the thems and say, "Tell me more." But sometimes we want to say to the thems, "Screw you, get out of the way?"
Nancy: Yes. All of that is true. And we can't just turn off our dismay, or our disappointment, or our anger, but I think, if you really want to drive change, you have to at least get into the space where you begin to think, "I can't just react, I have to be strategic." And it's hard. We talk a lot about listening just as an example. And you can learn to be a great listener, but you're not always going to be with people who return the favor. And that's hard.
Daniel: Yeah. So that, I mean, that goes to the... Oh, sorry. Please proceed.
Nancy: No, I was done.
Daniel: Well, because what's lighting me up there is this question of reflection and self care, because maybe we talk about anger and processing that anger. Sometimes anger can be effective, but asking the question, "Will this help me get what my goal is? What I want." It's a tough question to sit with sometimes because the anger feels pretty righteous.
Nancy: Yeah. Self righteous probably doesn't get you anywhere. Although in, I think in classic change management theory, the John Kotter approach. This notion of creating a sense of urgency, what he calls the burning platform, can be very powerful. And Greta of course, was boring. She was creating a sense of a burning platform. People may not have liked the way she was delivering the message. But sometimes maybe that is necessary to get people to think differently. I think a little of it probably goes a long way.
Daniel: Right. Yeah.
Nancy: And some people are better than others. And I think you do have to be true to yourself. I've never been one who operates in that way but I have been moved and changed by people who do.
Daniel: I mean, I think I'm going to look into those four truths because I think being true to yourself and saying what is true, those are really powerful places to start from. But then this question of, will you incite action or resistance is a really important one.
Nancy: And you have to be prepared, I guess, for whatever comes your way. That's part of being open to the dialogue.
Daniel: Yeah. So we're getting close to our time. It's swept through rapidly. Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you think is important to touch on when it comes to facilitating deep and powerful dialogue?
Nancy: I touched on it, but I think I would just emphasize again, the importance of studying questions. And there are a couple of wonderful books out there. Hal Gregersen talks about this. As does Warren Burger. And the notion of studying questions and becoming a better question crafter is so important to learn. And it's one of those things perhaps we don't think we have to think about, or master. But in fact, that's a skill too. And I have been... my work has been enriched by that idea of, what does it mean to craft a question? And how do I do it better? And what possibilities does that open up?
Daniel: Do you have a favorite question that you ask people?
Nancy: Well, I think the question about when did you work at your best? Or what would have to be true in order for something to happen? We also ask people, why is it that you do the work you do? And that's important because, again, we get so busy with our daily lives that we don't necessarily think about why we're doing it. And I think it's very important for all of us to ask ourselves that question and answer honestly.
Daniel: I had a conversation with Elise Foster, who I'm hoping to have on the show soon. She co-wrote a book called The Multiplier Effect. And she use this lovely phrase around, how much space does the question create? And we talked about open versus closed questions. But I never heard somebody talk about, well, is it this idea of an expansive question, one that really cracks open a new horizon? And it's okay to ask somebody a more narrow question, I think. It's about being intentional. And that's a really powerful thing to take care with.
Nancy: Yeah. I love that idea of opening up space. And of course, we ask narrow questions all the time, and we need to, but I certainly didn't think very much about the possibility of asking questions that opens space. And I think it's a powerful notion.
Daniel: Yeah. Well, I want to officially close out our conversation. And thank you for your time and creating the space for dialogue with me. Nancy, it's a real pleasure.
Nancy: Well, it's been a great pleasure. Thanks so much, Daniel, for making this conversation possible.