The Power of Perspective

This episode features Michael Roderick, founder of Small Pond Enterprises and Host of the Access to Anyone Podcast. Michael is a coach and consultant who knows how to design conversations large and small. We talk about closing the loop on free advice (let people know if it works…otherwise we’ll keep giving bad advice!), teaching through simulations and how to see patterns and build frameworks.

Michael sends a daily (yes, daily!) email that I actually read!

His claim to fame is that he went from High School English Teacher to Broadway producer in under 2 years, which is fast for *any* career shift, let alone a jump like that.

I first learned about Michael’s work years ago through his conference, ConnectorCon, which he designed to build a safe space to talk and connect, and to learn what it takes to be a great connector.

One of the reasons I was excited to bring Michael on the show is that he sees the world through a lens of frameworks, just like me! And we hit on several key ideas that resonate with some components of my Conversation OS, which is always nice.

1. The Power (and limits of) Narrative. We live our lives through the stories we tell. Stories help us build connections and relationships, but they can also limit us. A positive self-story feels better than a negative story, but it can also limit us and tell us what is and isn’t possible. It’s worth asking for time to time “what stories are serving me? What narrative can help me build a new future and a new identity? What do I believe is possible? What do I *not* try, because I believe it’s impossible?”

2. The Cadence of Connection. We talk about how Community is a resource you *can* draw from if you’ve built it up over time…and how you need to build it before you need it. Like sleep, it’s something you have to do regularly.

3. What’s On TV (or…the importance of perspective) Michael has many, many great aphorisms, but this one is amazing. The idea is that you will always be too close to your own issues to solve them… unless you take time to pull back and see the big picture. This is also why we’re always better at solving other people’s problems! And why having a coach is essential.

4. Competition doesn’t exist… just specialization and niches. We are in competition with ourselves, each of us trying to find our own niche. But watch out! All specializations aren’t compatible…what’s interesting about this to me is the idea that if we can’t connect with someone, it’s not always because of anything other than incompatible approaches, not something “wrong” with you or them.

5. The Power of Invitation. As Michael points out, “People love to feel useful, but they hate to feel used.” Pressure never works well as an engagement tactic, at least not in the long term. Asking permission, asking nicely and giving people the option to say no gives people choice and allows them to choose to be highly engaged.

You can find links to find Michael on the internet and some deeper learning points in the show notes.

Thanks for listening! You might have noticed I’ve been a little slow on the episodes lately…I’ve been focusing on my next book, due to come out next year! I’ll be kicking the podcast back into gear soon. 

Enjoy the show…and if you do, please take a moment and leave a review on iTunes.

Links:

Small Pond Enterprises

http://www.smallpondenterprises.com/

Access to Anyone Podcast

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/access-to-anyone/id1040351484?mt=2

Morning Pages

http://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/

Liminal Thinking: an interview with Dave Gray

http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2017/4/18/dave-gray-on-drawing-conversations-and-liminal-thinking

The Conversation Operating System (OS) Canvas

http://theconversationfactory.com/downloads/

Building an Ethical Sprint Culture

Today’s episode features Kai Haley, Lead of Design Relations and the Sprint Master Academy at Google. We talk about design sprints and building a “sprint culture” as well as a much bigger question: The need for ethics in design. If you can build anything, faster, it’s a kind of super power. And with great power comes great responsibility. While you might have heard Spider-Man say that, it also made me think of my favorite Plato’s Dialog, Gorgias, which points out that power without knowledge of good (and evil) is pretty dangerous. Kai believes that training a sprint master means giving them the tools to keep people honest and mindful of their choices.

What I really love about this episode is how open, honest and humble Kai is about how hard this work is. The Sprint can make it seem like solving big challenges is simple – all you need is five days and Google’s list of activities – widely available on the internet! (and in the show notes!)

But Kai makes it clear that any attempts to “copy & paste” the Sprint (just like any new way of working) into an organization will experience some turbulence.

Adopting a new way of work can create a wave of change that will ripple out into the organization. To find sustainable success means changing rewards and recognition practices, building training and management support and lots and lots of flexibility and patience.

We don’t get into the basics of the design sprint in the interview so I’ll say a few words of background. A design sprint is a structured process for getting a group of people to get together and make a big decision in a shorter—than—normal period of time. Sprints are a general term in use in Agile software development for some time and they have become really popular in the digital product design world as User Experiences Designers have had to contend with the spread of Agile in the world.

In the last few years Google has developed an approach to design sprinting that blends parts of design thinking and parts of Agile into a powerful structure; building a clear, compelling narrative thread in the process. Inside Google, sprinting has developed into a key part of their culture, and the world is starting to take notice – starting with the NY Times bestselling book “Sprint” by former Google Ventures employees Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky who took their own unique flavor of the Sprint and wrote a clear, thorough, check-list approach to the method that made it seem simple enough for anyone to try.

While it’s often shorter inside Google and other organizations, the canonical structure is a five-day workshop that opens up a key challenge for a group or a company, explores several options to solving it and closes the loop with user research. Often workshops (that people like me run) *can* wind up feeling like Innovation Theater. Workshops can help teams get clear on a strategy and excited about big ideas. But those ideas can fade once the workshop ends. The ideas and the excitement get lost inside the organization. People who weren’t there can question the validity of the ideas and power of their shared conviction. The Sprint format helps a workshop gain momentum and power though a key difference from the average workshop.

For Kai, the key distinction between a workshop and a sprint is that a sprint develops a prototype and puts it in front of customers to get feedback on a key idea. A sprint helps end debate with evidence – and helps continue the conversation long after the workshop.

The Sprint makes use of the Conversation OS in some interesting (and totally unintentional) ways – pulling on a few key levers of conversation design:

 The cadence of work is sped up to force a decision and to create positive pressure, all while holding the work within a clear and powerful narrative thread. The visual map of the 5—day process helps get teams bought in on the power of working this way, establishing clear goals and agreements – regardless of how tough the middle of the week-long workshop gets, there are customers being recruited to test out the ideas, making it harder to give up and loose momentum!

Pair this episode with a few others for a richer perspective on these issues:

—> Conversation with Dee Scarano, who’s a Design Sprint Trainer and Facilitator at AJ and Smart, for more background on the sprint and being an awesome facilitator

—> Conversation with Alistair Cockburn, one of the original Agile Signatories, if you’re new to agile or want to go deeper into it

—> Conversation with Daniel Mezick, who uses a unique, open-space approach to bring agile practices into organizations at scale

Links:

Google Sprint Kit

https://designsprintkit.withgoogle.com

GV Sprint on Medium

https://medium.com/@gv.com

Sprint Stories on Medium

https://sprintstories.com/

The Sprint Book

https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/1442397683

Plato’s Gorgias

https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/gorgias/summary/

Gransfors Bruk Axes: We have unlimited responsibility for Total Quality.

https://www.gransforsbruk.com/en/about/corporate-responsibility/

Changing the Conversation with Sprints

https://medium.com/google-design/changing-the-conversation-with-design-sprints-3ba776145468

The Conversation OS Canvas

http://theconversationfactory.com/downloads/

Everyday Design Sprints with Dee Scarano

http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2018/8/3/everyday-design-sprints-dee-scarano-aj-smart

Agile and Jazz Dialog with Alistair Cockburn

http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2017/7/19/alistair-cockburn-on-the-heart-of-agile-jazz-dialog-and-guest-leadership

Agile as an invitation to a game with Daniel Mezick

http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2017/6/23/daniel-mezick-on-agile-as-an-invitation-to-a-game

Changing the Cultural Conversation About Men

This episode is about four really big conversations that are worth designing:

1.      How do you shift an entire cultural conversation?
2.      How do you build a sustainable business and team around it?
3.      How do you sustain yourself as an entrepreneur though all of this changemaking?
(that is, take care of your own internal conversation through it all!)
4.      How do you get the help you need to grow in all of these conversations?

Dan Doty is the founder of an organization called Evryman that exists to help change the cultural conversation about men, to help provide support, tools, and experiences for men to build deep connections that unlock and accelerate personal growth. And it’s something that’s really needed in the world. The current cultural conversation about men is about Toxic Masculinity. Dan’s work is about shifting the cultural conversation to what Healthy Masculinity looks like, and how to build it.

I’ve been to a Men’s Emotional Leadership Training with Dan and his team (also called MELT) earlier this year and it started a new phase of growth for me…and my own dad went to Evryman’s men’s weekend called the Open Source Weekend and he experienced a major shift. My mom noticed it the moment he came home! So I’m a real believer in this work. In fact, I just started co-hosting a men’s group recently with Evryman.

Together, we build a conversation map for Dan. A conversation map is a reflection tool for leaders to examine key areas in their work and life and to get them in order.  If you check out the video or the show notes you can see some of that visual work. I’ll link to some templates as well.

Dan is a coach and an entrepreneur, and he’s got an incredibly holistic approach to supporting himself as he leads change – one of the most balanced that I have seen. Of the four core conversations (Community, Team, Dialogue and Inner Dialogue) Dan is cultivating space and time for each. Leading a big cultural conversation while still making time for your internal conversation is a huge challenge for leaders.

Enjoy this episode and pair it with an episode from last season with Claire Wasserman, founder of “Ladies Get Paid”, an organization which works to eliminate the gender pay gap. There are a lot of similarities in the patterns these two change-makers are building to help them lead a BIG change in the world – changing the conversation around gender is no small task.

Key Insights from Dan’s Conversation Map

We dig into a conversation map for Dan, looking at how he manages the four Core Conversations in my 9 Conversations modality:

1.      Self
2.      Coaching
3.      Team
4.      Community

1.      The Self Conversation: Pre-hab vs. Rehab

Self care is core to Dan’s work with himself. He takes refuge in green spaces, meditation and time with himself. His quote that self-care is either pre-hab or rehab is absolutely brilliant!

2.      Coaching Conversations: Asking for help is human

The “lone wolf thing” isn’t working anymore. Dan finds and integrates coaches and coaching for things he wants to excel at: for his TedX talk, for his business, for his emotions.

3.      Team Conversations: Finding the thread

Like many early-stage startups, they have a small team that’s spread out. Having a clear set of principles and goals helps them focus. What’s very cool about Everyman is they integrate team and community very intentionally, working with community members to build and extend the core team.

4.      Community Conversations: Building the thread and cadence to connect and build a culture

Dan’s organization is doing a lot of awesome things and doing them consistently, with a thoughtful cadence. The Open Source retreat happens on two coasts regularly, helping bring in new men to this work and helping reconnect people to the work and each other, as well as giving new leaders an opportunity to grow and practice.

The work Evryman is doing to connect to other communities of practice across gender lines is awesome as well, Women Teach Men for example, seems amazing.

They’re also giving back to specific communities, working on project for veterans and another project for Israeli and Palestinian men.

Enjoy this rich and deep episode!

---

Learn more about Dan here:
http://www.dan-doty.com/

Check out Dan’s Podcast here:
https://evrymanpodcast.libsyn.com/

Dan’s TedX talk here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdAHdbULmNg

Learn more about Evryman here:
http://www.evryman.co/

the MELT weekend we mention here:
https://evrymanswestcoastmeltretreat.splashthat.com/

and the Evryman Open Source retreat here:
https://evrymanopensourceberkshires.splashthat.com/

Women Teach Men:
https://womenteachmen.com/

And Owen Marcus, a co-founder of Evryman and leader of my MELT group:
https://owenmarcus.com/

And check out the episode about Claire’s Organization, Ladies Get Paid, here:
http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2017/10/24/claire-wasserman-knows-how-to-design-powerful-experiences-communities-and-organizations

The 9 Conversations Map v2.0 can be downloaded here, so you can build your own conversations map
https://gumroad.com/l/9conversationsmap

The Conversation OS Canvas can be downloaded here:
http://theconversationfactory.com/downloads

And you can check out the video of this episode here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-pdRRcCR_s

Designing a Culture of Critique

Critique  is  one  of  the  most  crucial  conversations  there  is.  How  to  ask  for  and  get  feedback  when  you  need  it  is  a  core  life  skill.  Without  it,  we’re  in  the  dark.  Setting  up  a  special  time  and  place  with  clear  rules  and  goals  to  get  the  crucial  feedback  you  need  to  move  forward...that’s  designing  the  conversation,  and  I  can’t  think  of  a  conversation  that’s  more  critical.  Pun  Intended!  

My  guests  today  are  the  authors  of  the  wonderful  (and  quick  reading!)  book  Discussing  Design:  Improving  Communication  and  Collaboration  through  Critique Adam  Connor,  VP  Organizational  Design  &  Training  at  the  strategic  design  consultancy  Mad  Pow  and  Aaron  Irizarry,  Head  of  Experience  Infrastructure  at  Capital  One.  

Critique  isn’t  just  fancy  feedback...Critique  is  about  asking  for  and  the  designing  the  conversation  you  need  to  have,  with  the  people  you  need  to  engage.  Do  you  want:  a  Reaction,  a  clear  Direction  or  deep  analysis?  That’s  Critique:  it  has  rules  and  boundaries,  and  if  you  don’t  ask  for  critique,  you  can’t  get  it.  

We  dig  into  the  3  myths  of  Critique,  how  critique  isn’t  really  a  designers  skill,  it’s  a  life  skill  for  anyone  trying  to  bust  out  of  the  status  quo.  

I  want  to  highlight  a  few  things  you’ll  hear  towards  the  end.  I  asked  Adam  and  Aaron  to  discuss  how  they  handle  a  few  key  aspects  of  the  Conversation  OS  Canvas  in  their  critiques,  like  power  dynamics,  turn-taking,  and  interfaces  and  spaces  for  the  conversation.  

Invitation:  The  core  point  (and  what  the  opening  quote  is  all  about)  is  that  you  get  the  critique  you  ask  for.  And  that  if  someone  *isn’t*  asking  for  critique  it’s  pretty  tricky  to  offer  it  to  them  successfully.  In  those  cases,  getting  permission  to  give  feedback  is  essential.  

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Power:    Adam  sets  the  ground  rules  that  if  you’re  invited  to  the  critique  session,  your  voice  should  be  heard,  and  that  in  this  session  we’re  all  equal.  The  facilitator  is  there  to  balance  voices,  to  call  out  people  who  are  to  dominating  or  hiding  in  the  conversation.  

Interface:  I  always  say  that  when  you  change  the  interface  you  change  the  conversation.  Adam  and  Aaron  both  prefer  in-person  critique  conversations  –  email  isn’t  designed  to  support  the  depth  of  communication  real  critique  requires  and  as  they  say  Asynchronous  feedback  will  never  be  the  same  as  a  live  conversation. But  as  teams  become  more  distributed  and  digital,  they’ve  found  some  benefit  in  doing  a  pre-read and  a  notation  round in  a  tool  like  InVision  or  Mural,  and  then  moving  to  a  video  call.    

Turn-Taking:  While  I  am  pretty  obsessive  about  turn-taking,  Adam  says  that  he’s  sensitive  to  it,  but  doesn’t  want  to  over-control  it,  preferring  an  organic  flow.  He’ll  sometimes  use  a  round-robin to  make  sure  everyone  speaks  in  turn  and  at  least  once.  Finding  a  way  to  balance  voices  within  an  organic  structure  requires  a  skillful  facilitator.

Also: There's a video, if you prefer watching over listening! 

Everyday Design Sprints with Dee Scarano

Our guest today is Dee Scarano, Head of Design Sprint Training at AJ&Smart. They're an agency based in Berlin that is 100% google-sprint-based. They have a *fire* youtube channel that you should check out if you want to run more sprints, well.

I met Dee at the Google Sprint Conference back in late 2017 and when I saw her run a large group workshop, I knew I had found a kindred spirit!

Dee is what I would call an Atomic Facilitator. Not because she's small and powerful (which she is) but because she has a tendency to break facilitation down into tiny, tiny components. I do the same thing, so it was fun (like, really fun: Bucket of puppies fun!) to sit down with her and dig into how she designs her group conversations and why.

Again - If you haven't checked out AJ+Smart's *aces* Youtube channel, you should - they have a boatload of helpful content, and they are launching an online course about Design Sprints which you'll hear about in the show and which I'll link to below.

Atomic Facilitators are different. Last week I was in Boston run ning a 3-Day Design Thinking Intensive at a giant consulting company and I was working with a facilitator who was a "big arc" facilitator. He gave the groups a task to do, a goal to get to, and didn't choose to manage the "micro process" of how they got there. Each team negotiated at their tables and chose a different path.

One isn't better than the other, but it's worth asking: Which of the tables had more fun? Which of the tables felt less tension? Which of the tables made a better decision? Atomic Facilitators like Dee have thought through and tested and tried many, many ways to get people to make better, smoother decisions together, and has chosen ONE that they love and feels great about. They hold that design choice in their minds and carefully guides a team through it, step by step.

Dee and I talk about Design Sprints, but we also talk about how to take that Atomic facilitation style that's baked into the standard 5-day design Sprint process and bring it into your work, every day. AJ+Smart uses the same tools from the sprints to facilitate their Friday retrospectives (they do a 4 day sprint each week, with a day for reflection).

The clarity and confidence that come from examining your approach means you feel comfortable teaching it, which is something Dee does a great deal of. As Head of Design Sprint training, she's responsible for helping teams get the knowledge *and* confidence to get started on their first sprint, which we talk about, too.

Some things to look out for:

My book! In pre-order! Just saying!

The Lightening Decision Jam in Detail (mentioned in the opening quote)

Why it's critical (and maybe obvious?) to map importance before (and separately) from difficulty)

How trusting a process can help you relax

How Reflection is key to AJ+Smart's process

How taking care of the people in the sprint is essential

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vrePSmQnJw

Cultural Change and how building a small coalition, underselling and over-delivering on your process can help you start a movement

Why 3 X 5 stickies *might* be better than 3 X 3 (the conversation interface matters, people!)

How Aj+Smart handles power dynamics in the sprint compared with

Google vs GV Ventures (Also, the GV collection on Medium rocks)

You can find her on twitter:

I hope you enjoy the show as much as I did making it!

Alison Coward on the Luxury of Facilitation

For some people, facilitation is a means to an end: Getting things done, more in less time. Taking the time to think and talk can seem like a luxury when your team just wants to just "get going". Facilitation, then, becomes like any tool like a drill, or a knife...you don't actually want the tool, you want a hole in the wall or a carrot sliced. When you're done with the tool, you go on to the next thing!

But for other people, this space between posing a challenge, thinking, talking and doing, is worth deepening. Facilitation then becomes more than a thing you do to get to the next thing...It becomes a way of being and approaching the world.  Facilitation becomes a core value, a principle.

The problem with facilitation as a means to an end is that facilitating well is a design problem in and of itself, which requires thoughtful work and practice. Focusing on the ends instead of the means, in this case, can cause people to give light consideration to facilitating masterfully. But when the conversation really matters, someone really should design the conversation.

It's really delightful to talk to someone like Alison for whom, like me, facilitation *is* the work...deepening it for ourselves and others is why we do what we do: Not just helping teams as a facilitator, but helping others to develop as facilitators.

Alison is the founder of *Bracket*, a consultancy based in the UK. She helps teams at companies of all stripes to work better together. She's also written a lovely book  “A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops”. Alison is also, like me, a workshop geek.

Facilitation is a design skill, and like any design process, each facilitator is going to bring their own assumptions, good and bad, into the process. So it's critical to be self-aware: Why do you make the design choices that you make? Alison is a thoughtful practitioner who helps other facilitators become the same way.

Design is about intention. A facilitator needs to be able to visualize each and every step through the workshop process... What size paper will people be using when and why? What color and thickness of pen?

The sheer number of design choices involved in the process means that facilitators *can* fall into a rut. Finding fresh perspectives and approaches is crucial...which is what this podcast is all about! I hope you enjoy this episode!

We talk about:

• The importance of making time for silence and reflection in reducing power dynamics and "groupthink"

• Finding your own unique "stance" as a facilitator

• The struggle to find purposeful energizers

• How crucial it is to get people in the room deeply connected with each other's expertise

• Knowing your workshop's narrative arc

Further Reading:

Richard Florida "The rise of the creative class"

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Creative-Class-Revisited-Anniversary-Revised/dp/0465029930

How to Kill Creativity by Teresa Amabile

https://hbr.org/1998/09/how-to-kill-creativity

Gamestorming (of course)

http://gamestorming.com/

Collective Genius by Linda Hill

https://hbr.org/product/collective-genius-the-art-and-practice-of-leading-innovation/13296E-KND-ENG

https://www.ted.com/talks/linda_hill_how_to_manage_for_collective_creativity

the Progress principle by Terese Amabile

https://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-wins

http://www.progressprinciple.com/

Twitter: @alisoncoward
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/alisoncoward

Website: www.bracketcreative.co.uk

Alison Coward is the founder of *Bracket*, a consultancy helping teams in the creative and technology sector to work better together, with clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to startups. She is a strategist, trainer and workshop facilitator and the author of “A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops”.

With over 15 years’ experience working in, leading and facilitating creative teams, Alison is passionate about finding the perfect balance between creativity, productivity, and collaboration.

Behavioral Design in the Real World with Matt Mayberry

In this episode, I talk with Matt Mayberry, Head of Business Development at Boundless Mind. Boundless Mind popped up on my radar when their awesome and free ebook on Behavioral Design shot up to #1 on Product Hunt.

I'm thrilled Matt came on the show and shared his story. His own passion for behavioral design came from his experiences watching critical patients resist changing behaviors that would save their lives. Even with death staring people in the face, changing deep-seated behaviors is hard!

Behavioral Design was something I was aware of as a UX designer but was by no means an expert. Behavior design researchers like BJ Fogg and his behavior grid was something that inspired me early on in my UX career. Since then, behavior design is something I infuse into my innovation consulting: Big change takes a big impulse. Smaller changes are easier and can snowball with the right motivation and momentum. Sitting down with Matt helped open up some new avenues to think about how behavior design is everywhere you look!

Boundless mind is fascinating: They serve two sides of the challenge, for companies seeking to change behavior AND consumers wanting to reboot their addictions. The Boundless API helps companies find the optimum timing for motivating rewards and the app Space breaks that timing cycle when you need some freedom from the apps that grip your brain.

We talk about how choice architecture in the real world can help shape behaviors, from organ donation rates in Germany vs Austria to how supermarkets get you to wander the whole store and buy more than you intended. Giving people too many choices makes choice harder: Architecting or limiting choices is a form of behavior design. Pulling back, Matt places *all* design into behavioral design: Industrial, UX, Service and Conversation Design *all* seek to shift behavior!

One big takeaway I had was how small acts of mindfulness can have a big impact. Matt's CEO keeps a database of how people in his organization take their coffee and other preferences. The idea of keeping a Delight Database is amazing. While the ideal of behavior design might seem like manipulation, in the end, it's about understanding what will delight people and giving them more of what they want, at the right time. I hope you enjoy the episode as much as I did making it!

Key Ideas:

Delight is Delight: Our Brain Lights up based on the timing, not the size of the reward

There are three types of rewards: Rewards of the Self, Rewards of the Hunt or Rewards of the Tribe

(more from Nir Eyal here)

Rewards are *not* incentives: The "hit" from expected Incentives get dampened over time, variable rewards do not.

Choice Architecture is simple way to bring behavior design into your work: Just Ask Thoreau!

Show notes and Links:

The Behavioral Design backstory:

How a 1930's Harvard Student laid the ground work for Modern Phone Addiction: More about BF Skinner

Bj Fogg's Behavioral Grid

BJ Fogg's Behavioral Model

Learn more about Boundless

Read the ebook

get Space at: youjustneedspace.com

Find Matt Mayberry on the internet! (if you Google him, you'll find there are several very famous people named Matt Mayberry!)

Twitter

medium.com/@mattmayberry

 Much Much More on Behavioral Design, persuasion, and habits.

Hooked by Nir Eyal

Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Predictably Irrational by Dan Airely

Nudge by Richard Thaler

About Matt:

Matt Mayberry is a Behavior Designer and Head of Business Development for Boundless Mind, a persuasive and behavioral technology company using Artificial Intelligence to drive behavior change in technology products. You can find his sporadic 140 character short-term writing here and his 1400 character longer form writing here.

Seeing the Structure of Conversations with Marsha Acker

What is your conversation lens? How do you even see what's happening in a conversation at work or at home? How do you know it's going well or awry? How do you get conversations "back on track"? And how do you see and *shape* how *you* show up in them? How do you know what you bring into the room, good and not so good? In short, how do you become a mindful facilitator?

Conversations impact the outcomes we get: Conversations propel people  and organizations forward, or they get stuck: The groundhog day conversation! Marsha Acker, the CEO of TeamCatapult, sat down with me to talk about her unique view on these things and much more, along with her passion for ending stuck conversations in organizations. Marsha has over 22 years of experience designing and facilitating organizational change initiatives and TeamCatapult has been helping develop leaders and transform organizations since 2005.

 Meeting someone with a *totally* different "heritage" who has come to some very similar conclusions about the nature of conversation design is truly delightful!

What I loved about chatting with Marsha is connecting around a sound that's deepening in me:

That facilitation is about being conscious of what conversational  tools you pick up: Knowing where and when you're stuck and picking up the right tool for the moment, instead of the habitual one.

The Structural Dynamics concept (scroll to the bottom for a nutshell description) of a conversational operating system is deeply resonant with the three creative energies of Open, Explore and Close that I sing about non-stop and it was amazing to get her take on the Four Conversational Actions, which give a better shape to idea of "threading" in a conversation than any model I've encountered yet. It's really profound to see how each time someone speaks they are shaping the course of the conversation, helping it to slow down or speed up. I geeked out pretty hard with her...nevertheless I think you'll find a lot of amazing tools to bring into your own work!

I'll link to some of her upcoming workshops in the show notes: Her company offers a host of amazing experiences, from a 2-day Advanced Facilitation workshop to a 5-day Agile Facilitation and Coaching Intensive with several dates coming up in May and June.

Do check out the show notes, where I'll break down some of Marsha's points on Structural Dynamics and share lots of other links.

You'll also learn about:

The Facilitator's Stance: Finding another place to lead from. The "front" of the room is familiar to most, but facilitation can increase your "range" of leadership capacity.

Developing a shared "pool of meaning" to help people get to the same "place" together

Setting agreements with your group: Asking people to  say what needs to be said *in the room* so it can be processed and worked with.

Marsha's Three key takeaways to transform conversations at work:

1. Start with the Tusks: Find the conversation that matters - the critical or most stuck conversation. Start where it's hot. Go to the elephant in the room!

2. Look at how *you* show up...how you are is how you'll facilitate.

3. Bring Your Authentic Voice: Find your natural stance and work from there, instead of trying to imitate someone else's.

Structural Dynamics in a Nutshell

1. Action:

A move (sets direction)

A follow (continues)

 An Oppose (offers correction)

A Bystand (morally neutral comment)

2. The Language or communication domain is where we're speaking from or our goals in talking

Power: Using language in order to get something done.

Meaning: Asking for evidence and action that can support their desired outcome.

Affect: This is about using emotive language to affect feeling and to develop connection and intimacy with others.

3. The Operating System:

Open

Random

Closed

Links and Workshops from Marsha

Advanced Facilitation: Self-Mastery and Reading Group Dynamics is June 27-28, 2018 in Washington, DChttps://teamcatapult.com/workshops/advanced-facilitation/. Sarah Hill and I will be co-leading this workshop. You will learn about your own model for communication and how to shift the nature of the discourse in conversations and how to work more deeply with group dynamics to become a more confident and effective facilitator.

Reading the Room by David Kantor. This books tells the story of a coach working with an executive team and how they learned to see and shift the structure of their conversations https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Room-Dynamics-Coaches-Leaders/dp/0470903430

Where did you learn to behave like that? by Sarah Hill. https://www.amazon.com/Where-Learn-Behave-Like-That-ebook/dp/B076NTJXY5/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524220764&sr=1-1&keywords=where+did+you+learn+to+behave+like+that

In the fourth level of structural dynamics is the important role that childhood stories play in how we behave in the room today. Sarah tells many stories, including her own, of how she worked to become aware of the story and change the narrative.

Diagnosing and Changing Stuck Patterns in Teams https://teamcatapult.com/2016/08/

What to do when change requires a new operating system. https://teamcatapult.com/what-to-do-when-change-requires-a-new-operating-system/

Big Apple Scrum Day, New York May 11, I’m giving a talk on Diagnosing and Changing Stuck Patterns in Teams. This is a brief introduction to the model of Structural Dynamics https://www.bigapplescrumday.org/speakers

Marsha's Full Bio, Credentials and company links:

Marsha Acker is a leadership and team coach whose passion and expertise is helping leaders and teams identify and break through stuck patterns that get in their way of high performance. Marsha is the CEO of TeamCatapult, a leadership development and organizational change firm, founded in 2005. She has over 22 years of experience designing and facilitating organizational change initiatives.

She has served for six years as the track chair for defining the ICAgile Coaching and Enterprise Coaching learning objectives and is currently a member of the ICAgile Agile Coaching Expert Certification panel. Marsha is a Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF), Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), Professional Certified Coach (PCC – ICF), Certified Interventionist in Structural Dynamics and Changing Behavior in High Stakes (Kantor Institute and Dialogix), Organizational and Relationship Systems Coach (Center for Right Relationship), Certified Change Management Professional (CMP), and an ICAgile Certified Expert Agile Coaching.

Website: www.teamcatapult.com

Twitter: @marshaacker and @teamcatapult2

Facebook: @teamcatapult2

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Building a Group Mind with Steve Portigal

It's always such a pleasure to get to sit down with one of your heroes...and it's especially wonderful when they are just warm, wonderful people. Steve Portigal is a prominent author of two excellent books on user research ( Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights and Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories) and Steve also speaks prolifically on the conference circuit. And while he maintains a solo practice on the west coast, he somehow makes time to also give a lot of his knowledge away, blogging, podcasting...When I was coming up in the design world, Steve's writing was always clear and helpful. And when we first met, he was approachable and human. Steve is a model for the kind of design thought leader we need more of!

Sitting down with Steve for this episode was an interesting risk, though. We ran into each other in SF and talked about the possibility of an episode grounded in a topic Steve is an expert in, but indirectly. Let me explain. Steve is a User Researcher, heart and soul. And he talks and writes about it, fluently. Facilitation is something that he *has to do* in order to bring people together. He's an extremely reflective practioner  about research, but about facilitation, less so. For me, it's fascinating to see that divide. I think there are a lot of people where facilitation is a means to an end.

Steve illustrates something I coach people on often - you have to be your own kind of facilitator. I can be theatrical and energetic. Steve is more introverted and centered. My way of solving for group work isn't Steve's : he's adapted his own approach that feels natural and gets the job done.

There are a few key insights I got out of this conversation that I want you to look out for:

Treating Workshops as a series of games with clear rules and goals

Steve breaks his time with groups up into "beats" or "scenes" just like an improv person would. Each scene has a focus, an outcome and rules. It breaks the time up and keeps energy moving.

Narrow Ranking

0, 1, 2: If you're going to get participants to rank things solo before comparing, make the structure simple. 0 is meh, 2 is awesome. 1 is good. That's it. Too much granularity confuses things.

Direct vs indirect facilitation

Steve talks about comedic scolding of groups, pushing teams but using humor, vs letting them do their own thing, watching and listening…and stopping the room to call attention to something worthwhile that group is doing. One way might be called extroverted or direct facilitation  and the other introverted or indirect facilitation. Steve says that the extroverted practice of calling people out, using names is "not in my energy." Facilitation is about using what feels natural to you.

Being conscious of your choices as a facilitator

What are you doing, when? And is it working for you? Why or why not? What to absorb or drop? I know that facilitation is a means to and end for most people, but taking time to reflect on your practice can provide significant dividends

The "chef's roll" of facilitation

Bringing what you really need into the room. The tools make it go smoothly. Some people love 3 X 5 stickies, others want black, or manage color in other ways. I hate pop-up notes with an undying, smoldering passion. The tools matter.

Insights generate energy and clarity by making things simple

Steve tells a story about how one woman's insights infused the room with energy and clarity. My feeling is that insights pull multiple threads together, grouping complex behaviors into a simple narrative core. Is it the management of too many mental/narrative threads that's exhausting? And the reduction of threads that gives cognitive release?

Expand the frame of your work

Steve is a researcher, but he doesn't let his work stop there. He knows nothing will happen with the research unless he pulls the work forward into the org. Running ideation or concepting workshops can tip the energy of the team forward and shift the momentum

Links:

Steve on the Web

Steve on Twitter

Steve's Podcast: The Episode with EBay's Pree Kolari

Interviewing Users

Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories

Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies on WikiPedia and the App I use! (android)

DSchool Facilitation Guide

The McDonald's Theory

Jim Kalbach gets teams to map experiences

Today I talk with Jim Kalbach, author of Mapping Experiences, an amazing resource for anyone who wants to help a group of people gain alignment..alignment on what's actually happening in their organization, with their customers, and alignment on where to go next.

This season, I'm investigating ideas and tools around thinking alone and thinking together.

Thinking together matters because whenever we meet, it's a chance to make a choice...and if our thinking is habitual, based on power dynamics or just plain haphazard, the choices we make will be habitual and haphazard! Great facilitators help groups of people think together in amazing ways...Jim is an ace facilitator and I'm thrilled to talk with him today! If you want to see our faces, there is a video in YouTube of our conversation.

As Jim said (to my heart's delight) It's not the map, it's the conversation *about* the map that creates real change. The map is just a durable artifact of the conversation, and lasts longer, communicates better, than a report or slide deck. It's also something people build together, so it gains power from the IKEA effect...people love what they invest time in.

We also talked about the powerful draw the idea of "mapping" has for people: It's like asking for a name brand mustard! He got a call from an amazing organization called Hedayah way out in Dubai to do a mapping workshop for former radical extremists to talk about their journeys out of radicalization and into helping others. He Had to figure out *where* in the long journey of the extremist's experience the work needed to be focused...and we talk about how he got it wrong and how it got it right.

Some key takeways from our conversation are in the show notes on the conversation factory.com:

1. The Map Frames the Narrative,  but leave it incomplete, creating  a  lean forward Conversation

This is one really interesting takeaway from our conversation: Jim is very intentional about how much to do *with* the group, live and in person and how much to build *for* them, through research and his own reflective  process. Leaving it incomplete helps people enter into the world of the map and make it their own. Showing a perfect artifact is *not* the point of these tools. He sees it as a proposal, an opening to the conversation, like a first offer in a negotiation.

2. Alignment is not Groupthink: Breaking the team up helps them work together honestly

Jim calls these maps he makes "alignment diagrams" because they help the team see the same world. But the time spent with people in the room isn't about getting everyone to agree on your map, it's about getting everyone's perspectives out and up on the wall and rebuilding the map to match everyone's understanding, knowledge and experience

3. Where to play, how to win: Focus on a portion of the map for clearer insights

Hendauah asked him to come to Dubai and bring together former gang bangers, white supremacists and Al Qaida members to talk about and map their experiences. T here's a long arc of that experience...and the organization wanted the focus on a particular *moment* in the journey: Not the radicalization journey, not the de-radicalization journey...but the journey of those who choose to help de-radicalize others. Figuring that focus out took a lot of conversation with his partners in Dubai. The more specific you are about your journey "moment" the more clear your work can be...you can zoom in on what's really crucial...and situate that moment in a larger arc.

4. Map the workshop experience, manage the energy

Find an arc and a flow for your mapping workshop: Just like your customers have experiences that you can map, you can map the experience of the team as you think about how they will enter into the workshop, what the flow of energy will be...and always have a plan B: keeping things moving along. Jim talks about shifting the energy and activities between introspective, conversational and game-based.

We also talk about remote workshopping and more!

Links and notes

mapping experiences: The book!

Hedayah: The NGO Jim worked with to map the experiences of violent extremists

this book isn't just about software, it's about any challenge with people: brand, customer experiences, social challenges

the hero's journey

star wars and the hero's journey (a fun episode of the ted radio hour)

being thoughtful about who to bring along with you on the pre-work interviews

it's not the diagram, it's the process of building the diagram

The chronology of the experience phases  follows a certain logic (although arbitrary), along with tracking Doing/Thinking/Feeling at each moment

The 5 Es of Experience Design: A handy framework

Experience Inventories with the 5Es: a conversation guide

Facilitation Means designing conversations

Have a Goal at the end of the map, use Verbs

Shout out to GameStorming: Looking at Game Mechanics to get teams to work together better

To get the team to read the map, get the team to give themselves (ie, their company) a letter grade at each moment in the map

How do you keep the momentum of the conversation going? The Map can be the compact, compelling artifact that keeps the thread of the conversation going: A touchstone

How can you get from the map to an experiment?

Remote can work with the right tools, enough focus and time: Don't try to replicate the in-person experience...but a mapping workshop is a good reason to get a geographically spread out team together.

Mural.com is a great tool for this, but you *must* rethink your methods, cycle through your participants and break exercises into much smaller chunks of 3-10 minutes.

To get remote to work, weave multiple tools together to give people a multi-tasking mindset *on the workshop*...using chat, surveys, mural and other tools.

The remote design thinking workshop with Glenn Fajardo and Kal Joffres with the D.School.

Don 't have mixed remote/located teams: different paces of communication make it very hard

The experience map can become a container for the interviews, empathy and notes as the workshop progresses.