The Conversation Factory book club is an experiment I’ve been running for a few months now. I’m experimenting with deeper conversations and collaborations with the subscribers of the Conversation Factory Insiders group as well as working to go deeper with some of the ideas that have been shared on the Podcast.
This is a round-table conversation with Fred Dust, author of Making Conversation, with a few special guests from the Conversation Factory Insiders group. If you haven’t listened to the interview I did with Fred OR read the book, I think you can still enjoy the conversation.
LINKS, QUOTES, NOTES, and RESOURCES
Making Conversation by Fred Dust
Debt, the First 5000 Years by David Graeber
Otto Scharmer's Presencing Institute
Minute 3
is that it's like all I think we've learned is to just be as human as we can possibly be. It's just to be so deeply embedded in who we are as people, as our own individuals, and pick up what we're feeling and really pay attention to that, and that's a change. It's almost like being really, really, really human is a superpower. Isn't that weird?
Minute 8
The other thing that I really liked in the constraints was that boundaries are required for growth, and as a student of yoga, I always think about that as nirodha, which are the ... Those are the bounds from which you begin through which you also experience infinity, because if you didn't have those bounds, you couldn't experience infinity, and so you can translate that physically for people in a practice to say, "It's really not about touching your toes. If you can, fabulous, but if you can't, the experience is the process. So don't get hung up on it," and so I really loved that idea.
Minute 10
The last part of that story, the person who I was talking to who I said, "You actually have to think about this," ... What was interesting is they were being attacked by their staff and really in a depressed, bad position and really cynical and unhappy, and then they said, "Okay. Got to go into the staff meeting. Got to just be perky and open and excited," and I'm like, "What about that's going to feel authentic to the staff? They know you're being under attack. Why would you feel that way?" and that's ... The HR person later on was like, "We've been trying to say that for 10 months," and so it was just this thing where I'm like, "Why not be human in front of people that know they're attacking you, and what could that do in terms of disarming them in some way?"
Minute 15
This was a piece of feedback somebody gave me for me as a coach. They were like, "Well, look. At the middle of any challenge is a conversation. That might be a conversation with yourself. It might be a conversation with your boss or whatever, and if you can actually define the way you'd like it to feel, then the question of 'How might I create that feeling?' is a whole other exploration, and that is the creative part of designing a conversation." Well, if I'd like this to feel like my client doesn't think I'm an asshole, because that's a risk with some clients all the time, how do I make this fun? How do I make it feel egalitarian? How do I make it feel safe? Those are questions that then I get to sit with. Well, how do I make this feel safe for me and for them?
Minute 16
Yeah, and I think, on the back end of that, Daniel, is the notion that we often don't think that we can ask for the conversation that we want to have, and I think that one of the things you realize is that it's like you absolutely can. It's like once you know where you want to go, it's like it's well within our power to be asking for the conversation we need or want to have, I think.
Minute 38
I had a really interesting experience where I was hired to be the CEO of an organization that focuses on global conversations and convenings, and I came into the institution. I was like, "Oh, there's some really messed up things here," and was like, "There's a lot of things that are wrong about it," and I said it to some people before we began to... So already I had ... There was anger in the institution on the first day I was going to go, and I basically said to the chair of the board ... I was like, "Okay. We're going into this really hard conversation tomorrow. It's going to be really rough, and what's the plan for the conversation?" and he was like, "There's no need for a plan. You're utterly charming. You're going to be fine," and I'm like, "That's not a plan. Let's put together a plan, or else I resign," and he was like, "I don't see why we need a plan. We hired you because you're charismatic and charming and you can handle the situation," and I'm like, "Nope," and I resigned.
Minute 47
and so we're trying to figure out a way that we can message the United States like, "Hey. Let's take some time before." I've been doing a lot of lectures and am doing a three-part essay series on why stay hybrid, which is ... Hybrid workplace has been a kind of holy grail for workplaces for forever, and now we're seeing people being like, "Nope. Everybody comes back in," and I'm like, "No, no, no, no, guys," and so we're writing some evidence-based pieces on why we shouldn't be doing that.
Daniel's Notes:
The biggest vision: to see conversations as an act of creativity. We are never just participants in a conversation...we’re co-creators. And we can step up and re-design our conversations if we look with new eyes.
P. 20 "I want this book to give you the hope I’ve found..."
118 - the ideas of compression and expansion. How does space now play a role in our conversations!?
"If you could choose 3 adjectives to describe how you want your reports to feel after this conversation, what would they be?”
Danny's Notes:
Listening should be a form of exploration, but it has become a form of consumption. P. 47
Constraints (or rules) are important in conversation. P. 105
When we make conversation, we’re ultimately aiming not necessarily for action but advancement. Moving an idea forward, exploring that idea but not necessarily just making it happen. P. 155
Maaike's Notes:
More about Fred Dust
Fred Dust is the founder of Making Conversation, LLC and works at the intersection of business, society and creativity. As a designer, author, educator, consultant, trustee, and advisor to social and business leaders, he is one of the world’s most original thinkers, applying the craft and optimism of human-centered design to the intractable challenges we face today. Using the methodology in his forthcoming book Making Conversation, he has been working as the Senior Dialogue Designer with The Rockefeller Foundation to explore the future of pressing global needs; and with The Einhorn Collaborative and other foundations to host constructive dialogue with leaders ranging from David Brooks, Reverend Jenn Bailey, and Vivek Murthy to rebuild human connection in a climate of widespread polarization, cynicism and disruption. He is also proud to be faculty at the Esalen Institute.
Full Transcript
Daniel Stillman:
I think it's like ... I'm going to respect Fred's time as much as possible, and we have about 45 minutes together, and I think this is ... If I haven't done it this way, I want to reflect on how Making Conversation has changed all of us and how we make conversation. I want to start with Fred, actually, and say, "How has making conversation changed you?" What have you learned since making Making Conversation?
Fred Dust:
Yeah. It's interesting. I'll give you a funny little anecdote, if that's cool. I'm not sure this'll totally answer the question, but so last week I was in New York. A friend of mine who's in the media ... She's the CEO of a media company. She and I were having dinner, and she was like, "What do I do? We're having problems with the news room," and dah, dah, dah, dah, and I was giving her insight, and then she ... As we're leaving, she's like, "You have to come in. You have to come talk to me and my staff tomorrow," so I was like ... Just the leading staff, and so that was bizarre.
Fred Dust:
I'm literally showing my ID, and then I'm going through a turnstile, and then I'm having small chit chat in the elevator with somebody, and then I'm walking to an office, and then I'm in a board room, and then there's a table, and then there's a white board, and there's three other people, and it was just really interesting, and we were working through what they were grappling with, and each time I would go through it, I'd be like, "Well, what if we designed a conversation that was like this?" and we would just sort of try it on, and then we would do it again, and we'd do it again, and we'd do it again.
Fred Dust:
Two things were interesting about it, which is that it's like I realized that whether we've been in rooms or not, I felt like I knew we were going to get there. We were going to get to the right structure for them to have a conversation. I had full confidence, and as did they, which was actually really interesting, and it's only, I think, because they had taken in the book and were really engaged with it. But what I didn't realize that was really interesting is that not only was I able to help do that, but I could actually see that one of the things that was a flaw in ... So some of the staff are saying that there's a flaw in one of the leaders.
Fred Dust:
At some point I was like, "This is a real problem for you. We need to work on how to fix this," and she was really surprised, and I was like, "No, no. Actually, what they're seeing is, in fact, true," and so it was this funny thing where I was like ... I feel like this is a bad thing to say. I feel like I got it, like I got this, because we have yet to have a failure. It's bizarre, and what's funny about that ... That sounds like bragging ... is that it's like all I think we've learned is to just be as human as we can possibly be. It's just to be so deeply embedded in who we are as people, as our own individuals, and pick up what we're feeling and really pay attention to that, and that's a change. It's almost like being really, really, really human is a superpower. Isn't that weird?
Danny Kim:
Sounds like a title of the next book.
Fred Dust:
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman:
Being really, really human is weird.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. It's like, yeah. Exactly, but it's what we're good at. If we just leaned in, we'd be really good.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Do you feel like you're more supercharged coming out of the pandemic and then going back into physical spaces with physical, breathing people and-
Fred Dust:
Well, that's actually what was really interesting is that what I've realized is I was picking up ... Because we were sitting at a table, which means sometimes people are behind you a little bit depending on where you're looking any moment, and so what was interesting is I was picking up a vibe I was getting from the person who was sitting behind me who I couldn't even see, and that's something that I think you really need a room to do. I mean, I can sort of pick up the vibe because you're all focused on me, but if you're sitting behind me, it's like the fact that you could pick up a vibe in that context was like ... I don't know what that is.
Fred Dust:
One thing I've been wondering ... Sorry, and then I'd love to hear from you guys [inaudible 00:04:19]. I think, in general, I wonder whether or not this whole last 18 months has changed the way we experience sensations in general, and it's certainly remapped our neurochemistry. It has to have.
Daniel Stillman:
Fred, thank you for that, and thanks for, as David Whyte likes to say, starting close in. I'm really glad to be hosting this conversation about how your book has changed how we've thought about making conversation. Kathleen, you were stuck in the matrix for a few minutes when I introduced just the fact that we're going to be first names for as long as possible. I mean, I do want to talk about how you've brought it into your work, and that's been transformative, but I think maybe we can just start with ... Since you're here, Kathleen, what have you been imbibing from Making Conversation by Fred Dust? What is it changing for you? What's waking up for you in the way you approach this thing we do, being as human as possible?
Kathleen Rutherford:
I mean, well, I want to say two things. Technically, I'm in my mom's house, and so I'm rigged up on my phone. I'm hoping this connection stays. There's a big storm, just FYI in case I disappear, and also our realtor's going to bring a vacuum by at any moment, which I'm desperate for. So I'll jump off for that. That aside, I listened to the book, Fred, and I have about an hour left. So I sometimes like to read books, and as I ... I don't know. I guess, as I get older or I'm more slow at doing tasks, I really enjoy listening to audiobooks while I'm doing things, and I think the thing I've picked up that I really vibe with in your approach ... I mean, I appreciate a lot of the methodologies that you talked about and tools, and I'll talk some about that. There's the vacuum, but what I really-
Daniel Stillman:
[crosstalk 00:06:17].
Kathleen Rutherford:
... [crosstalk 00:06:17] curiosity, was this constant-
Fred Dust:
Curiosity.
Kathleen Rutherford:
... curiosity that's very childlike and full of wonder, and that is so affirming to me in terms of thinking about design. So BRB.
Daniel Stillman:
This is the best bell to keep people short. So Danny, that's short.
Danny Kim:
Yeah. That's [crosstalk 00:06:39].
Daniel Stillman:
That's your opening. That'll be your opening introduction. If you can get the bell-
Fred Dust:
Can you have a vacuum delivered? Is that possible?
Danny Kim:
This is so funny. Yeah. I love it.
Daniel Stillman:
The real question is what was she listening to your book on if not vacuuming? How did she do that without the vacuum?
Fred Dust:
I know, and I want to talk about her topic, because it's something I'm writing about right now.
Danny Kim:
Cool.
Fred Dust:
[crosstalk 00:07:02].
Danny Kim:
Cool. Kathleen, do you have anything else do you want to add?
Kathleen Rutherford:
If I can, sure.
Danny Kim:
Sure.
Kathleen Rutherford:
So I took notes on what really stood out to me, and is that relevant right now, what sort of [crosstalk 00:07:15]?
Daniel Stillman:
Sure. Yeah. This is like our opening statement, so whatever you'd like to include in your opening statement, that's fine.
Kathleen Rutherford:
I've studied two things for a long time, yoga and poetry. So I love the haiku not only as a tool, but also as a form of expression. Just I really love that, and I love that as a way of simplifying complexity, and I can expand on that, so just to put a pin in that. The other thing that I really liked in the constraints was that boundaries are required for growth, and as a student of yoga, I always think about that as nirodha, which are the ... Those are the bounds from which you begin through which you also experience infinity, because if you didn't have those bounds, you couldn't experience infinity, and so you can translate that physically for people in a practice to say, "It's really not about touching your toes. If you can, fabulous, but if you can't, the experience is the process. So don't get hung up on it," and so I really loved that idea.
Kathleen Rutherford:
There's a thread for me, I think, in your work which is ... I think the biggest anchor was really about that curiosity component, that great wonder, and there's a thread for me too of, within that great wonder, having the presence and stability, sort of like what you were talking about in the part of your opening remarks that I heard, to be able to reflect, to be sufficiently present as to be able to witness what's happening around you and be cognizant of what is engaged in you and what's not when you're designing the conversation, so not denying your presence on the one hand, but also having a distinction about that presence that helps you observe, direct, et cetera.
Fred Dust:
Thank you.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Yeah. It's super fun to have you on. I was so excited when I saw that.
Danny Kim:
Yeah. It's great.
Daniel Stillman:
One thing I want to just connect back, because what you said, Fred, about being as human as possible, "How could that fail?" and what you said, Kathleen, of like, "Well, we're touching our toes, and as far as we get touching our toes is our experience of touching our toes," ... I see this like I'm trying to be as human as possible, and to the extent in which we do that, that is the extent which we can. That's what we did. We were as human as we could possibly be. If we get further and deeper, then that's great, and if we're just surface-level humans, then that's what we did, and that's what we could achieve in that moment. So it's a win.
Fred Dust:
Well, can I just ... The last part of that story, the person who I was talking to who I said, "You actually have to think about this," ... What was interesting is they were being attacked by their staff and really in a depressed, bad position and really cynical and unhappy, and then they said, "Okay. Got to go into the staff meeting. Got to just be perky and open and excited," and I'm like, "What about that's going to feel authentic to the staff? They know you're being under attack. Why would you feel that way?" and that's ... The HR person later on was like, "We've been trying to say that for 10 months," and so it was just this thing where I'm like, "Why not be human in front of people that know they're attacking you, and what could that do in terms of disarming them in some way?"
Daniel Stillman:
I really feel that in my chest when you said it. It's like you could try to fight the fight or [crosstalk 00:11:08].
Fred Dust:
Or recognize that you're being hurt. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman:
Go fight the feeling.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Yeah. Such courage to be vulnerable like that, actually.
Daniel Stillman:
Danny, what's up for you?
Danny Kim:
Thank you. Yeah. No. Fred, thanks for being here with us and just writing this great piece for us to chew on. For me, I mean, I have about one more chapter left. However, I think that, for me, what's really stood out was really the idea of creative listening, and I love attention. I love your first quote that you use, "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity," I mean, I think, even more so today with these guys around and Zoom and Slack messages and notifications. I feel like that is what it means to be human is to give each other space and listen.
Danny Kim:
I love the premise of the idea of create a conversation is not about holding true to your beliefs, but being willing to let go and hold space for possibility, because I think that's where a lot of tension and or disagreement arises. Really, that's the center of it is when we're not willing to let go of core beliefs. As important as they are to you, to be human means to show up and be willing to listen and say, "Your perspective is different than mine," however you argue truth and however you argue beliefs.
Danny Kim:
So I mean, I'm dealing with that in some ways in my organization as we complete Pride Month this month, and what a beautiful conversation that we get to say, "Listen. The point of, for example, our diversity, equity, and inclusion committee is not to should say you have to believe what I believe. It's to say 'Are you willing to show up and listen to the conversation?'" and I think ... So that has been such a ... and then your journey weaved into the story has been really cool for me to even reflect on, and thank you for the gift that it was for me during Pride Month to listen to your journey all marked throughout. It's just been perfect timing. That's the way the world's supposed to work, you know?
Daniel Stillman:
[inaudible 00:13:11].
Danny Kim:
I love the anecdotes. I think the one question that I'm mulling on is ... I don't know where I ... I wrote page 61, but this idea of how do we ... The question I had emerging was "How do we listen with our bodies remotely in this Zoom world?" because I wonder if there would have been an appendix or if there was another ... like, "How do we do some of these practices in a virtual context?" knowing that we'll probably be most likely hybrid to a certain extent.
Fred Dust:
Well, you haven't read the last chapter.
Danny Kim:
Oh. There you go. I was asking questions before they're ... Well, I'll have to get back to you on that then. Yeah.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. Because it happened-
Danny Kim:
Right during [inaudible 00:13:57]?
Fred Dust:
I finished the book. They were supposed to be published last year. I was like, "There's going to be a pandemic," and so I was actually doing changes to ... George Floyd is in there. That happened during-
Danny Kim:
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I saw that. Yep.
Fred Dust:
So I was doing changes while it was actually supposed to be locked down. So there's a short chapter that's all about that.
Danny Kim:
Perfect. I can't wait to read it. Yeah.
Fred Dust:
By the way, thank you, and I will tell you I hate praise. So it's like it's not something that I ... It makes me very uncomfortable.
Daniel Stillman:
You're welcome, Fred.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Fred, this will be good practice.
Daniel Stillman:
We're going to start heaping more on you, so-
Danny Kim:
Yeah. Exactly.
Daniel Stillman:
The thing that I've actually found myself using the most from the book ... Here's the thing. When I met you, Fred, as you know, using the language and the mindset of design on this very mushy thing that [inaudible 00:14:54] conversation, a friend of mine ... I think I told you this ... was like, "Don't write a book about conversations." It's just like they're just amorphous, and people don't get it, and the idea of being able to zoom in on the tactical level of a conversation to be able to actually make it as you choose, either magnificent or hubris, and I think the idea of knowing your three adjectives ... It's so simple, but it's the essence of the idea of what are your design heuristics, and I think people ... I've found in coaching conversations, people get it. At the heart of any real change is a conversation, and just I've been working on some of my own languaging.
Daniel Stillman:
This was a piece of feedback somebody gave me for me as a coach. They were like, "Well, look. At the middle of any challenge is a conversation. That might be a conversation with yourself. It might be a conversation with your boss or whatever, and if you can actually define the way you'd like it to feel, then the question of 'How might I create that feeling?' is a whole other exploration, and that is the creative part of designing a conversation." Well, if I'd like this to feel like my client doesn't think I'm an asshole, because that's a risk with some clients all the time, how do I make this fun? How do I make it feel egalitarian? How do I make it feel safe? Those are questions that then I get to sit with. Well, how do I make this feel safe for me and for them?
Fred Dust:
Yeah, and I think, on the back end of that, Daniel, is the notion that we often don't think that we can ask for the conversation that we want to have, and I think that one of the things you realize is that it's like you absolutely can. It's like once you know where you want to go, it's like it's well within our power to be asking for the conversation we need or want to have, I think.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah.
Danny Kim:
It's interesting. One note I made too on the concept ... I forget. It was where you were talking about words and the power of words and change. I think it was in section of change, and I think that goes down to the premise of that actually our words matter. I think so many people ... They think, to your point about conversation, it's like yes, and I've jotted down a note, because once upon a time I was studying speech act theory and the idea that our words have power to change reality. So when you say, "I will do this," and you don't do it, you've broken a promise that ... You know?
Fred Dust:
Yeah.
Danny Kim:
So it's fascinating that you were talking about that, and I was just like, "Wow." I think we have to, one, believe that our conversations and our words have power to make an impact versus something that is just normal and ... You know?
Fred Dust:
Yeah, and you know what's interesting, Danny, is it's ... I was on the phone. A friend of mine is the surgeon general, and he summoned me to his office today. So we were on the phone planning a national strategy on some work, some really interesting work, and one of the things I was talking about is it's also recognizing the power of the words that you might want to remove. So for instance, if you talk about divide, you see divide. That's the frequency illusion notion. It's like 11:11, and so one of the things ... I was like, "If you guys go out with divide, gap, loss, conflict," dah, dah, dah, "then all you're doing is calling attention to it. So it's counter to being therapeutic in that construct," and so it was a really great conversation and really interesting, I think, too.
Danny Kim:
That's cool. It's kind of like your one point about front porch. I forget exactly, but renaming it and being like, "We're going to relabel it in order to change the way we experience this." That's one word.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. It's funny because it's like sometimes ... I have a quiz for you at some point, since you guys are so deep in this, but I feel like sometimes I feel like the book is almost like a little set of magic spells, because sometimes our team will open up and will be like, "Let's go here," and then we'll throw it into ... and it's a funny little thing.
Kathleen Rutherford:
That doesn't feel very different than how I approach my work, and I actually have a couple of magic wands.
Fred Dust:
[crosstalk 00:19:27].
Danny Kim:
I believe it. I believe it. Vacuum, appear. I'm just kidding.
Fred Dust:
What's cool, actually, about the evolution of my work that I think will make you feel better or even better is that I have a neuroscientist on my ... I have a death doula and neuroscientist. I have a bunch of different people on my team, but the neuroscience backs up a lot of what's in here, which I was just like really ... Writing without a neuroscientist, I was like, "I don't know," and now it's like it's been really interesting to [inaudible 00:19:55] affirmed in it for sure. Can I give you guys a little quiz.
Danny Kim:
Sure.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Sure.
Daniel Stillman:
We're all co-designing this conversation, Fred, so-
Fred Dust:
Okay. Cool. So you guys have read the book and you've read far enough. There's one section that's the most important section. It's a very short section.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Which section is it? Is that the quiz?
Danny Kim:
Is that the quiz?
Fred Dust:
That's the quiz.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Okay. Wait. Wait.
Danny Kim:
Oh, man.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Nobody answer until I can pull mine up in front of me.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. I feel like, Kathleen, you're at a slight disadvantage because audiobooks are not as-
Danny Kim:
Harder to ... Yeah.
Kathleen Rutherford:
I have an outline though. I have an outline.
Daniel Stillman:
[crosstalk 00:20:35] or at least scannable.
Kathleen Rutherford:
I have a good gut. So let's see.
Daniel Stillman:
A short chapter. I mean, I'm like-
Danny Kim:
[crosstalk 00:20:43].
Daniel Stillman:
I know where I put my-
Danny Kim:
[crosstalk 00:20:44].
Daniel Stillman:
... [crosstalk 00:20:44], but I'm not [crosstalk 00:20:45].
Danny Kim:
It's a quiz.
Fred Dust:
[crosstalk 00:20:46] shortest ones.
Daniel Stillman:
One of the shortest ones.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Well, I have times on mine, so-
Danny Kim:
Yeah. There you go.
Kathleen Rutherford:
... I don't have to do math.
Fred Dust:
I will tell you that it is almost precisely, almost precisely, 10 pages off from the center of the book, not including all the extra material.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Oh, that makes it complicated. Okay. I'm ready.
Fred Dust:
Okay. Do you want to guess?
Kathleen Rutherford:
Do you know that I was always the kid in school who was the [inaudible 00:21:24], by the way? [crosstalk 00:21:25].
Fred Dust:
Go for it.
Danny Kim:
[crosstalk 00:21:26]. Just go for it.
Fred Dust:
I was the one in school who my report card always said, "Disturbs others."
Kathleen Rutherford:
I just want to give you this quick anecdote. I'm down cleaning my parents' house out to prepare it for sale, and I found my older brother's fourth-grade report card. It was so hilarious. The first quarter was ... Well, anyways, it was just hilarious-
Fred Dust:
Was it accurate?
Kathleen Rutherford:
... and I sent it to his wife and to other members of my family, and everyone was like, "Yep. That sums it up." So should I say my guess? Or should I put it into the chat?
Fred Dust:
No. Say it.
Danny Kim:
Yeah.
Kathleen Rutherford:
I mean, I'm going to guess, because you're saying it's ... My first guess is going to be commitments, but then you said it's more towards the middle of the book. So I'm going to say it's the clarity.
Fred Dust:
Cool. It's a part of clarity. So you're close.
Danny Kim:
Oh. It's [crosstalk 00:22:16].
Kathleen Rutherford:
Oh. Part of clarity.
Daniel Stillman:
[crosstalk 00:22:18] part.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Yeah. I can't get that much more ... Let's see if I have notes on it. Okay.
Danny Kim:
Oh. So it's a section within clarity.
Fred Dust:
It's a section within clarity.
Daniel Stillman:
[crosstalk 00:22:24].
Danny Kim:
Oh, man. This is a-
Daniel Stillman:
So what you're saying-
Danny Kim:
I will say this, Fred. As you're talking about clarity, I was going to pick clarity as the section, but I didn't realize ... It was ironic to me on 87 where-
Fred Dust:
I know.
Danny Kim:
Okay. I literally called it out. I was like, "This is funny. It says 'Talk clearly. Talk normally,' and then it says 'Obfuscate.'" I was like, "What?" like "What?"
Fred Dust:
I know. It's so funny. I was like, "Could you have caught that, editors?" I was-
Danny Kim:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Fred Dust:
It was just funny. I'm glad you saw that.
Danny Kim:
I was like, "He probably did that on purpose just to-"
Fred Dust:
No, but I laughed when I saw it in the final thing. I was like, "Oh, yeah. I could have probably caught that.B"
Daniel Stillman:
Yep. Talk normal. Are you talking about a subsection of a section?
Fred Dust:
Subsection. Yeah. I'm willing to give you ... You guys got the chapter. You all got the right chapter. So do you want me to tell you what it is?
Daniel Stillman:
Well, I mean, we're talking about giving it a name, right? I mean, that's the magic spell, right? This is the Ursula Le Guin concept, right?
Fred Dust:
That is true. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman:
The true name for something summons it.
Fred Dust:
Well, go to page 102, if you can. Sorry. This is super self indulgent, but there's a reason I want to tell you about it. It's kind of interesting.
Danny Kim:
Yeah. That's good.
Daniel Stillman:
Script spotting.
Kathleen Rutherford:
No. That's the thing I want to ... I wanted to come back to script spotting whenever that's appropriate.
Fred Dust:
Yeah, and so I did this quiz with my team, and they were like, "The one part that we didn't get was this script spotting thing." It was so funny, which is really interesting, and so if you noticed, the book goes through things that are very personal. They're all things that you could do on your own, and then at some point you transition to things that you have to do as a collective, so there was ... In country music, there was this thing called, I think, the hinge, where it's like the song is going in one direction, suddenly there's a flip, and the song goes in another direction or it changes level.
Fred Dust:
So in order to proceed into context, change, create, you have to recognize and see the scripts that are embedded in a conversation, and so you can't ... For instance, in the chapter on change, which is my favorite chapter, actually, it's like it's only by ... The scripts are one of the things that help you notice change. It's when things actually play off across that. So it's this really interesting tool that had to be there, and it was ... I wrote this out of order and the rewrote it in order, and this, we knew, is a really key point, but we didn't know where it needed to land, and we realized [inaudible 00:24:59] to be the hinge in the book, where it shifted the way you practice.
Daniel Stillman:
Interesting, because yeah. After you talk about spaces here, then you talk about context, and actually that was a question I caught in ... There's a Google Slides that we've been collecting some of our thoughts. On page 118, you talk about the feeling of compression and release, the very architectural concept, the very Frank Lloyd Wright compress and release, and with physical spaces, it's easy to do that. Obviously, with virtual spaces, I feel like the only way to do that is with pacing, with cadence.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. I think that's one. I think there's definitely rules. You can establish rules for the way things that you want to do. I actually feel like that there are also things like, to be honest, even like the rooms I'm in are ... This room is the room I want to be in, and I don't want you to see the bookshelf. I want you to see the full room. So I actually choose the backgrounds of the rooms that I'm in. This is my office up state, but then the other thing, for instance, is if you ... In my real life, my desk would be a mess, but actually I clean my desk before I have a serious conversation.
Fred Dust:
So there's all kinds of things that can actually affect your own psychology or even ask other people to do that. It's like maybe, "Everybody, just clear your table for this conversation," if there's something that you ... So there's actually things you can do, but you'll see a ... Danny and Kathleen, I talked a little bit about context. I thought context was going to be out the door when the pandemic happened, but it works really well especially with people who are in isolation and need to have conversations with family members and things like that. So every night, my husband and I ... We make the table for the conversations we want to have. We set our table, and my guests, if they come ... We set the table together, because I believe it's something that we should be doing to establish the platform for which we'll have the conversations.
Kathleen Rutherford:
We do the same in my household, and when my husband and I are having ... When there's difficulty, there's negotiation about dishes and who sets the table and where you put the ... It's so funny how there's so much meaning in that and so much energy.
Fred Dust:
So much energy. It's actually really true. Yeah. Well, okay. I've got a bunch, but you guys [inaudible 00:27:28].
Kathleen Rutherford:
Well, I'm going to jump in, and then, again, I'm open to being facilitated, Daniel. So if I'm taking up too much time, just tell me. So the script ... Can we talk a little bit more about that? I'm going to try not to talk about work, but just thinking-
Daniel Stillman:
We have about 15 minutes left. So at some point we can transition into the who we are and how we've brought it into our work. So if you want to bring that thread in-
Danny Kim:
[crosstalk 00:27:55].
Daniel Stillman:
... you want to start-
Kathleen Rutherford:
Okay.
Daniel Stillman:
... leading-
Fred Dust:
Yeah. I'd like to know more about that. So yeah.
Daniel Stillman:
Fred might be curious at this point. What's your line?
Fred Dust:
Yeah. Exactly.
Kathleen Rutherford:
I paid so much damn money to a coach to be able to deliver that, and I still can't do it, Daniel. So might have to [inaudible 00:28:10], but I kind of get paid to be me. I'm trained as a mediator, facilitator. I just am apparently getting hired to do this big DEI thing, and I was like, "I'm not a DEI person." They were like, "No. We need you." So I don't know, but that is my training. I work in really complex areas, climate change, land use, clean energy, also violence prevention, gender equality, other social justice things. Haven't been so active in those of late, but apparently I'm getting back into that game.
Kathleen Rutherford:
When I think about scripts, I think about narratives, and when I think about narratives, I think they're embedded in this social ecological system. So they have lots of expression. They could be individual, community, more broad national identity or global, can sort of scale, but I don't know ... I came away from the scripts thinking, "How is that different than a narrative?" Do you delineate between, and if so, how or why?
Fred Dust:
Well, it's funny that you say that, because actually what's interesting for me is that increasingly I feel like our world has been dominated by a singular script writer, to be honest, and I would sort of ... So the book has a lot of history. It looks back at where I think conversation de-evolved, which is [inaudible 00:29:45] where I think that did happen, but I do think ... In my most recent work, one of the things I write about is where the places that most likely are going to set the script for you, and that's typically media and then, as a side of that, politics. It's like those are the two places that are establishing your script.
Fred Dust:
So I wrote a piece on Medium a couple weeks ago on ... I don't think I saw the story in the New York Times about ... It was like, "Are you languishing?" Did anyone see that story? It was a big story. It was basically being like, "Oh, you're at a certain point, and you're not really exploring, and you're not really ..." and it was like this diagnosis piece about how you might feel where you were, and so I had a friend who came over, and she was like, "I think I'm languishing. I read this article, and it's said-"
Kathleen Rutherford:
Oh, I read that. Yes. Languishing. Okay. Sorry. I misheard. Yep.
Fred Dust:
Yeah, and I was like, "I'm a little confused. You're a documentary filmmaker. You just made your most recent documentary. You're dating again. You've gotten hired by a big client." I'm like, "Tell me what's languishing about where you are," and so I wrote this fairly angry piece, because not only did the New York Times write this piece, which is I think is actually coining a term from Adam Grant, who I really like. I mean, he's a friend, but nonetheless. But then the film critics used it to describe some movies. They're like, "Oh, and this character is languishing," dah, dah, dah, and then they started writing all the articles that were like, "Oh, are you languishing? Here's how to fix it," and I'm like, "That's not journalism. They're selling you a script. That's marketing," and so it's like-
Daniel Stillman:
Oh. Is this the one about the story's telling you how you feel?
Fred Dust:
Yeah. Exactly, and it just ... That makes me furious. When you start having media being the thing that ... So in essence, that is narrative, right? So it's like wherever our dominant narratives come forward, that's actually one of the things ... I can't say whom, but I'm working with a foreign policy ... Not foreign. Diplomatic corps for a country, and we're reinventing statecraft, because we realize that it's like the old scripts just don't work in this construct, because it's-
Kathleen Rutherford:
So needed.
Fred Dust:
Yeah, and what we're doing, frankly, is we're gamifying it. We basically [inaudible 00:31:52] a deck of 90 cards that each day gives you a different practice and a specific task of what to do. So anyway.
Daniel Stillman:
This is where metaphor and narrative and the giving it a name, the front porching of something, becomes the transformation.
Fred Dust:
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman:
I always give a shout out to ... I did an interview with a man named Ian Altman where he talks about sales as same-side sales. Most people are like, "I hate selling," because the narrative of their head is the person coming with a vacuum cleaner not to loan it to you, but to make you buy it versus [inaudible 00:32:28] what's the real problem, and everyone loves telling people about things that they love that they think are going to help them. That's another metaphor for sales is like, "Hey. Let's play the game of what problem is there and how can we solve it together." It's easy to say that. It's hard to do that, and we all feel anxiety over selling our work, but when you change the metaphor ... Ian really helped me to ... Yes. It's a puzzle we're solving together, not a game to win, just like-
Kathleen Rutherford:
I love the collaborative game stuff that you talked about too, by the way, and I've worked on those things. So cool.
Fred Dust:
Yeah, and it's like we have two new games coming out soon. I'm really excited about that, so one that's like a very personal game and one that's actually a professional game. So I'll let you know when they're out. It's weird. Also, to the clarity point, one of my favorite parts of doing this is we'll write proposals, for instance, and at the bottom of the opening paragraph, we'll be like, "And by the way, every consultant says that, but what we're saying is this." We're teaching them how consultants talk, and we're like, "But we don't talk like that. What we really mean is this is how we do it." So it's like it's been this really funny meta narrative in the proposals of unpacking what people always say and what we're saying.
Danny Kim:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:33:50].
Daniel Stillman:
That's funny.
Fred Dust:
Danny, tell me a little bit more about you.
Danny Kim:
Sure. Sure. So my background is in organizational psychology, and so I was working in a consulting firm for many years doing organizational design and leader development and recently transitioned out right before the pandemic as a director of people and culture at a branding and advertising agency. So the script spotting is actually really relevant to the work we do, because we write lots of scripts for production work and ... But my job, I think, and the way this works for me is elevating high-contact conversations and providing frameworks for people to be better leaders, and I think, if you just give people ... I guess my intention, my hope, is to continue to provide tools so that I can continue to develop leaders in our organization to lead feedback conversation, performance reviews, to developing emotional resilience and ... You know?
Fred Dust:
Yeah.
Danny Kim:
To hold some of our beliefs loosely as we enter into different kinds of conversations that ... So yeah. So I love what I do. I'm a culture creator within our agency and hired about 40 people since January, and I just hired my first talent acquisition manager. He started like two weeks ago. So it's kind of like thank you, you know?
Fred Dust:
Yeah.
Danny Kim:
I've gone through a lot of what does it mean to build a world-class culture. That's our hope.
Fred Dust:
That's fantastic. Yeah, and it's a great moment, I think, to be really working in that space, I think.
Danny Kim:
Yes. It's beautiful. Yep, and then DEI has been a huge part of my reality. So maybe, Kathleen, if you want to talk through that, I'm happy to share any thoughts, but leading a couple different initiatives on our end, and it's been a beautiful exploration as I try to figure out how do I give people a greater voice and impact, and I think that's what part of conversation is is sometimes allowing silence to be the note that we play and me being very intentional by saying, "Listen. My job is to empower these four women to be the leaders of this conversation, and my job ... I'm not being quiet because I'm not invested. I'm being quiet because I'm empowering you," and I think even just naming that is part of creating space for conversation.
Fred Dust:
That's really interesting. Yeah. No. Kathleen, I'd be curious. I mean, it's funny. I'm not going to say the name of the organization. Well, I'm going to say it, and you can bleep it or whatever, but it's like I'm on the board of National Public Radio, and I got a call-
Kathleen Rutherford:
You say that in your book.
Fred Dust:
Oh, okay.
Kathleen Rutherford:
So we already know that.
Fred Dust:
[crosstalk 00:36:33].
Danny Kim:
Yeah.
Fred Dust:
But this part is the part where it's like [inaudible 00:36:37] is like, but the chair of the board called me the other, black man, and he was like ... Whenever somebody calls me, I'm assuming they're going to fire me. That's just like I'm always [inaudible 00:36:44] like, "Oh, god. They're going to [crosstalk 00:36:53]."
Daniel Stillman:
That's so normalizing.
Danny Kim:
[crosstalk 00:36:53].
Kathleen Rutherford:
Dragons. Big Dragons. Very successful.
Fred Dust:
They're going to kick me off the board, and he was like, "Well, I was hoping you would join the DEI committee," which we're just starting, and I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Of course." It's like I'm on the DEI committee for most of the organizations that I work with, and he's like, "Yeah, and then I was thinking it'd be great if you would be the chair," and I was like, "Uh," and then I just basically was like, "Let me think on that one." I'm not going to do it. It's like I'm not going to be the chair of the DEI committee [inaudible 00:37:20], but ...
Kathleen Rutherford:
Yeah. It's a very interesting ... That part of our conversations right now, I think, in terms of how we show up around power and how we recognize it, respond to it, share it or not, including saying no, I think, right?
Fred Dust:
Right.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Like, "Yeah. I'm the easy one, and I'll find other ways to support you, but it can't be me." I kind of-
Fred Dust:
That's [crosstalk 00:37:51].
Kathleen Rutherford:
... [crosstalk 00:37:51] backing out on this one, and I was like, "I'm not trying to shirk duties," and we'll see. I'm talking to those folks later today, but I was like, "I'm a white woman. I'm not really sure. I mean, I can definitely whip some white women into shape who are acting badly on this board, but I think maybe a woman of color would be better than me, and I know you know me and you trust me, and that's awesome, and I'm honored, but I'm not sure if it's the best, and I'm not sure I'm the one to make that call either."
Fred Dust:
Yeah. It reminds me. I had a really interesting experience where I was hired to be the CEO of an organization that focuses on global conversations and convenings, and I came into the institution. I was like, "Oh, there's some really messed up things here," and was like, "There's a lot of things that are wrong about it," and I said it to some people before we began to... So already I had ... There was anger in the institution on the first day I was going to go, and I basically said to the chair of the board ... I was like, "Okay. We're going into this really hard conversation tomorrow. It's going to be really rough, and what's the plan for the conversation?" and he was like, "There's no need for a plan. You're utterly charming. You're going to be fine," and I'm like, "That's not a plan. Let's put together a plan, or else I resign," and he was like, "I don't see why we need a plan. We hired you because you're charismatic and charming and you can handle the situation," and I'm like, "Nope," and I resigned.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Not doing the work for you.
Fred Dust:
Because I was like, if the chair of the board won't sit down to make a plan for the conversation, and we're just [inaudible 00:39:22] whatever, it's like then that's not an organization that's going to be the kind of caring organization that I need to do the work I needed to do.
Daniel Stillman:
You being charming is a plan.
Fred Dust:
It's his easy-
Kathleen Rutherford:
It's fantastic.
Fred Dust:
It's his easy plan, right?
Daniel Stillman:
Right.
Fred Dust:
But it's not a plan for me. There's nothing in it that protects me as an individual. It just-
Daniel Stillman:
Right. You wanted an equal conversational partner who was going to bring his own heuristics, his own energy into the conversation so you could co-design it.
Fred Dust:
That's right.
Daniel Stillman:
Versus like-
Fred Dust:
Exactly.
Daniel Stillman:
... [crosstalk 00:39:51].
Danny Kim:
That takes effort.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. It does, and-
Kathleen Rutherford:
And be willing to do it, not relying on you, right?
Fred Dust:
That's exactly right. It's like I think that really ... It feels like that felt extractive, and it was like, if this is an indication of what it's going to mean to be working with this person and this board, then this didn't feel like the right thing.
Daniel Stillman:
Speaking of extractive, we only have about five minutes left, because it's Tuesday night. It's 5:55 on the Eastern Seaboard.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Tuesday night.
Daniel Stillman:
I know. I'm-
Fred Dust:
I have hours more. Honestly, this is really fun for me because I'm like, "Oh, we're talking about things that people like about me," even though, I mean, I'm red as can be and so embarrassed, but it's like at the same time, I'm like, "Oh, this is ... I kind of like this."
Daniel Stillman:
Push another 15 if you can, Fred. I just try to respect everybody's time.
Danny Kim:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Fred Dust:
I mean, I'd love to just hear a little bit more about the work you guys are doing, and just if there's anything I can learn or whatever, I'd be down for staying a little longer. It's up to you guys.
Danny Kim:
Yeah.
Kathleen Rutherford:
I would too.
Daniel Stillman:
Yay.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Daniel, are you willing to host for a little bit longer?
Daniel Stillman:
Oh, totally. In full disclosure, my wife is getting a massage from my mother. So I have nothing to do. The two most important women in my life are entertaining each other, and I don't have to have dinner. There's food in the fridge. So-
Fred Dust:
Can I-
Daniel Stillman:
... go ahead. I can totally be here a little while.
Fred Dust:
Can I tell you a really funny story about that since ... It's kind of just like sort of weird intimacy story, but it's like [inaudible 00:41:18].
Danny Kim:
Oh, my gosh. Fred, we're still recording, by the way.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. Yeah, and over full disclosure. Yeah.
Fred Dust:
It's okay. I think that it goes to Kathleen listening to the audiobook of the book. So when I did the audiobook, I did it last summer in Maine, and they wanted me to put me in a big studio in New York, and I was like, "No. I just want super small, minimal contact audio studio," so the place ... Because I was just like whatever. So the place I was in was a little glass booth. It was about 110 degrees in Portland, Maine. It was [inaudible 00:41:57] ever been. They can't run the air conditioning, because if you run the air conditioning, the sound-
Danny Kim:
The sound.
Fred Dust:
The sound.
Danny Kim:
Yeah. Yep.
Fred Dust:
That's why I have mine off right now, and the booth had heated up so hot, and they decided they wanted to compress three days into two days. So it's like the room had heated up so hot that there was condensation on the walls. I wasn't allowed to eat, because of stomach noise. I wasn't allowed to ... Which I'm actually better if I don't eat. I wasn't allowed to drink too much, because you start to get clacking in your voice, and finally I was like, "I'm dying." I'm like, "It's so hot in here," and they're like, "We can't see you. If you want, take off your clothes," and so the funny, intimate secret is that the book you're listening to, Kathleen-
Danny Kim:
Oh, my gosh. I love it. I love it.
Kathleen Rutherford:
That changes the whole thing entirely.
Daniel Stillman:
I hope the fabric-
Kathleen Rutherford:
[crosstalk 00:42:52] hilarious.
Daniel Stillman:
... [crosstalk 00:42:52] the seat wasn't too sticky.
Fred Dust:
It was a wool fabric seat. It was gross.
Danny Kim:
Oh, my gosh.
Kathleen Rutherford:
I would expect nothing less in some sound booth in Maine.
Danny Kim:
I don't-
Daniel Stillman:
This doesn't come up in most podcasts. This is good. This is-
Danny Kim:
I don't know if I want to listen to it or if I shouldn't listen to it, because now I just can't get that-
Kathleen Rutherford:
Oh, you should totally listen to it now.
Danny Kim:
Maybe I have to listen to it now that [crosstalk 00:43:18].
Kathleen Rutherford:
This gives a whole new spin on the closing chapter for me.
Fred Dust:
Honestly, Kathleen, what's funny is that I've been stuck in a monsoon in a taxi for 18 hours in the most rural parts of India, and I think reading my audiobook was the most extreme experience I ever had. One of the things that you might hear in the thing is when I was reading about my grandmother seeing Jesus, I was like, "I'm seeing Jesus," [inaudible 00:43:44], and It's like when I started to tear up about something, the director would be like, "Go deeper. Really. Go ahead. Tear up more." So it was intense.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Well, and that does convey. Your emotional range really is conveyed [inaudible 00:44:03], and I love that. I mean, that's why I still ... On occasion, I do like to listen to books, because otherwise I'm inferring that and it's my voice, and yeah. So that totally worked.
Fred Dust:
It's really interesting. When I was editing the book, I sent it to a couple friends, some of their quotes. Casper, I sent the thing on pilgrimage, and Andrea [Lean 00:44:26] I sent the-
Daniel Stillman:
This is Casper ter Kuile, author of The Power of Ritual, also a ... I think you introduced me to him.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. Casper's a [inaudible 00:44:34].
Daniel Stillman:
Wonderful guest. I really loved his work.
Fred Dust:
But so Casper's quote and then Andrea Lean's quote. In Andrea Lean's quote ... Often when she'll talk about kids, she'll be like, "And they're like," dah, dah, dah, "and I'm like," dah, dah, dah, and then with Casper, he has this long thing about pilgrimage, and it starts with um and a pause, and then it goes into it, and so they both wrote back, and they were like, "Can you take out um," and I was like, "Casper, if you went into a super long monologue about pilgrimage and didn't stop to say um beforehand, which you actually did say, it wouldn't sound like you were human," and with Andrea, I was like, "Andrea, you work with teens. You say like. It's like it makes you sound more human." So I had to coax them to let me leave some of their colloquialisms in so you could actually hear their real voice. Otherwise, they would sound too expert.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Yeah. Really interesting.
Daniel Stillman:
Speak as human as possible, to the-
Fred Dust:
That's right.
Daniel Stillman:
... very first point.
Fred Dust:
Exactly. So anyway.
Kathleen Rutherford:
I always love the invitation to be who you are. I mean, I tend to like people who show up as the best version of themselves, but whatever's going on for you is going on for you when you're in the room, and I don't know. I feel like the pandemic in particular has spawned this whole new emerging field. I'm not sure about that. I might be getting old and grouchy, but at any rate, I've been on a lot of calls and webinars about this emergent field of ... Much of this, I think, links to Otto Scharmer's work at MIT, so presencing. He has this thing called the Presencing Institute. I don't know if any of you have seen or heard about that, but I really like that work.
Kathleen Rutherford:
There's accordingly this field of ... I guess, most simply put, it identifies as a field of transformation and systems change and talking about how do we design a visual language for that and how do we identify as a field, and sometimes I get off those calls, and I feel like I found my tribe, my actual people, and then other times I'm like, "What the hell are we all talking about?" So I kind of swim along there, but I think it's an interesting ... It's not for nothing that that is coming online as we're coming out of the pandemic, I guess is my point.
Fred Dust:
I think that's right. I mean, that's actually the work we're talking about right now with the surgeon general, frankly, is basically how not to just jump back into normal-
Kathleen Rutherford:
Yeah. Going back.
Fred Dust:
... best, and so we're trying to figure out a way that we can message to United States like, "Hey. Let's take some time before." I've been doing a lot of lectures and am doing a three-part essay series on why stay hybrid, which is ... Hybrid workplace has been a kind of holy grail for workplaces for forever, and now we're seeing people being like, "Nope. Everybody comes back in," and I'm like, "No, no, no, no, guys," and so we're writing some evidence-based pieces on why we shouldn't be doing that.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah, but we have a lease on this office. So we have to use it. That's a constraints-based ideation. That's really important.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Totally.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman:
Danny, I want to bring in ... because it feels connected. I was looking at page 155 where you were talking about moving an idea forward, exploring the idea, not necessarily making it happen, and ironically the surgeon general's quote about having a minute of silence in a staff meeting is on the opposite page, and I think a lot of times people want forward-moving conversations and this idea of making conversation does feel like making something happen and moving things forward, versus circular conversations, which nobody really wants. But it seems like, Danny, what you picked up there is the importance of creating a space to marinate. I don't know if there was something more you wanted to say on that and then maybe [crosstalk 00:48:45].
Danny Kim:
Well, it's interesting. So I'm a musician, classically trained violinist, and in music, silence is a note, and so I think, in conversation, I mean, and even giving feedback to one of my team members, you can't just always talk, and her thing is like, "I get nervous if there's silence," and whatnot. How do I help develop her as a leader into this next evolution of herself of silence is key to conversation? Give space for other people to share their voice. But for me, I think I take that note, no pun intended, to heart, because I think there is ...
Danny Kim:
I mean, as a violinist in an orchestra, I mean, I would be sitting there with like 18 bars of silence, and I'm waiting my turn, and I have to count every single beat, "One, two, three, four, two, two, three, four," and then if I'm off, I miss my note, and so it's really interesting how that plays into conversation. It's scripted, Fred, to your point, I mean, as we were talking about. There's a very clear way of how we will play this piece of music, and yet there's artistry in that, and every note has its own space in that.
Danny Kim:
So anyways, and then I think that, to me, is where the ... I mean, as we talk a little bit about DEI, but for me, that's where asking people to step back from the conversation at times versus stepping in and leaning forward and giving space for that, and so I don't know. I've been thinking about that a lot, Daniel, and I'm glad you called that out in 155, and I did highlight that. Too often we prize decisiveness in leadership, and sometimes we just need ... I don't know. Let's just be present together and figure this out together, and let's circle back to it later.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. I mean, I had the, I mean, the good luck, I guess, of working with the prime minister of Greece when he was going through the crisis, and what would happen is that he would make an announcement. He would say something like, "We're not going bankrupt," and in the time that he was finishing that statement, it had been misinterpreted by the press to be already in the aether saying, "The prime minister just said that they're going bankrupt," and so it's just like this speed just builds on itself in this way that was really intense, and so I think what's really fantastic about being able to coach conversations when that's happening is when you see a leader become like, "Oh, we're planning things for four years out," then in five minutes because they're feeling crisis, you can always be like, "Let me just tell you this story about Greece in crisis," and everyone's like, "Oh, right. Well, we don't want to be Greece in crisis."
Daniel Stillman:
Well, speed's a virtue, but where, speed to where?
Fred Dust:
Exactly.
Daniel Stillman:
Always a-
Kathleen Rutherford:
[crosstalk 00:51:26]. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman:
... [crosstalk 00:51:26] asking.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Speed to where and to what end? I mean, I feel like so many of the systems that are falling apart right now ... The tendency is to reify those systems and how we think and speak and act and organization and move and talk, and if we don't take advantage of the disruption to really think about what do we want, what should our social contract look like with government, how are we actually going to deal with a wildfire, then we're just going to keep repeating ourselves.
Kathleen Rutherford:
But it's a really scary thing, I think, also, because I'm working on wildfire. This is in my portfolio right now with the US Forest Service. How do they not respond like they always have while also addressing real infrastructure, real human health concerns, and in the context of climate change? All the easy work has been done. We are entering a stage of civilization that is far more complex and interconnected, I believe, I than it ever has been, so how do we ... Where I want to go speedy, Danny, on organizational culture is how can we speed up the organizational culture change-
Danny Kim:
Yeah. Nice. Yeah.
Kathleen Rutherford:
... so that it's commensurate with what we're seeing outside, you know?
Fred Dust:
Yeah. Well, it's pretty interesting, because one of the things that we've been ... So one of my clients is Rockefeller Foundation. So I've been running all of their major global convenings since March one, and so our first series was on pandemic prevention and awareness. So that was happening back in the fall of whatever, or spring of 2020, and it was really interesting. So that was fascinating because you had people from all over the globe. You had people from Google. You had whatever, and I was basically ...
Fred Dust:
One of their first comments to me when I was like, "What do you want us to design here?" is they were like, "Well, we want a situation where, for instance, the movement for Black Lives is going to give us their data," and I'm like, "Well, if that's what you want, then we're going to have the movement for Black Lives in the room," and so basically what we did to speed up the dialogue is I invited a bunch of different people who are the users. So I'm like, "If you want to hear what Black Lives feels about that, talk to the head of coms for Black Lives. It's like [inaudible 00:53:43] for Black Lives."
Fred Dust:
It was fascinating because we were able to speed through the solutions within a three-week period of two 90-minute conversations a week [inaudible 00:53:50] a pandemic institute, which we stood up, but it was because we were like, "We don't have time. We're going to collapse users into the room with the leaders and the thinkers, and you're going to ask the users directly, and they're going to tell you what they agree with and what they don't." So it's like there's some really interesting things where we were able to really speed to solutions in really phenomenal ways by bringing in different kinds of voices than would be in the room typically.
Daniel Stillman:
I think that might be one thing that ... I was just taking a look to see if I'm missing this, but in terms of the chapters, commitment, creative listening, clarity, context, constraints, change, and create, is there a C that represents participants, the who is in the room?
Kathleen Rutherford:
The collective?
Daniel Stillman:
The collective. There you go. Can we add another C? Are we allowed to do that? Because there's this question of who's in the room and who's not in the room and how do we bring them in the room, and-
Fred Dust:
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman:
... [crosstalk 00:54:44] way to bring their voice into the room. Is it a persona? That might not be enough. They have to be in the room.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. It's funny. I write about it in create, which is basically like looking at the idea of bringing a second in or whatever, and going back to the commitment notion and even in the last micro chapter on the pandemics is I'm like ... I basically say, "Commit or don't, especially now. Make your lives less busy unless you're the voice of difference in the room," because it's one of the things ... The whole first chapter is like, "How do you get comfortable with the fact that there's different people in the room? They look different from you. They might act different from you. They talk differently, and how do you deal with it?" That's kind of where we got to in the pandemic is like, "No. We need to broaden the net in a huge way to actually have the conversations that need to happen."
Daniel Stillman:
Well, just it increases speed, because it's a game of telephone. Every time someone who's not in the conversation has a relay back and forth, it's a lossy process.
Fred Dust:
Totally. I'm like, "Don't-"
Kathleen Rutherford:
[crosstalk 00:55:45] balancing feedback loop too, right? I mean, there's a dynamic that happens in the conversations.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. Exactly.
Kathleen Rutherford:
[crosstalk 00:55:51].
Fred Dust:
Yeah, and I'm sort of like, "Yeah. Well, you waited for a year to talk to USAID, and now you're surprised by what they said. We could have had them a year ago, and we would have been starting from a different point.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Could have started a decade ago with AID.
Fred Dust:
Oh, my god, and don't get me started on-
Kathleen Rutherford:
Okay. I won't.
Fred Dust:
I will say really interesting the parts of government. I'm going to meet live with immigration, and-
Kathleen Rutherford:
Oh, fascinating.
Fred Dust:
... one of my first conversations with them on the phone was like, "You know you need to change your name," and they were like, "Yeah." I just think ICE in general doesn't work for immigration.
Daniel Stillman:
Oh, yeah. That's the acronym. Fair.
Kathleen Rutherford:
No. The thing that you have to put on your face after somebody just threw you into a locker? No.
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. It doesn't pass the Ursula Le Guin test-
Fred Dust:
It does not.
Daniel Stillman:
... by any stretch of the imagination.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Most of my career has been working with government. They are my primary clients in the US and other, and it is, I think, such an amazing ... So Danny, I know so little about corporate life, for example. I know about corporate life through multi-stakeholder dialogues, and on occasion I'll work for a company, but if I'm working for a company, it's because they want me to help them do something with government, but it's a really fascinating ... They play such fascinating roles in designing our reality, actually, and so much of it goes unquestioned. Or when it is questioned, the constructs with which or by which it's questioned are so weak, feeble. They're not-
Daniel Stillman:
These are fundamental metaphors. Sorry for interrupting, Kathleen. I just started reading the free chapters of debt, a history of the first 5,000 years. I don't know if you've read this or come across it. It's one of Bill Gates' top books or somebody. I'm amazed at how much of the book is available as a free sample on the Amazon Kindle, just for the ... So you can get pretty far in and get a lot of the goodness, and the fundamental idea is the notion that a debt is a moral obligation is a shocking one. When-
Kathleen Rutherford:
So effective.
Daniel Stillman:
And super effective, and it's really old, and the myth of money and the myth of what is forgivable and what's not forgivable and who gets bailed out when things go awry ... Spoiler alert.
Kathleen Rutherford:
The wealthy people are not suffering in that way.
Daniel Stillman:
Right, and so this ... You talk about changing the metaphor or changing the conversation around something like money. We just literally cannot see another reality. He does this hilarious bit where he goes through half a dozen economics textbooks where they just basically all share these same metaphors of like, "Well, the barter economy is insane and it's impossible, so we need money, and we have to have this medium of exchange, and this is why things are the way they are," when history, apparently, and that's why you need to buy the book and read all the chapters about all 5,000 years of history is there are tons of examples of Mesopotamian cultures that did it differently and had a very effective medium of exchange that thought about debt and forgiveness of debt.
Daniel Stillman:
Spoiler alert, again, if you've read the Bible, it's in Jewish law. Every 50 years, there's a jubilee and all debts are forgiven. That was something that used to be part of certain cultures, and it was just a completely different narrative about what money is versus a permanent binding moral obligation to pay the French government back if you're Madagascar, regardless of the fact that all of those debts are based on colonialism and extractive relationships.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Right, and they've commodified the extractives they've gotten out of your country and made-
Daniel Stillman:
Correct.
Fred Dust:
[crosstalk 00:59:50].
Daniel Stillman:
So you have to-
Fred Dust:
So that's the thing about naming is it cuts two ways, which is that it's like ... One of the things I did with Skoll World Forum is we did two-word things that established the destiny of humankind, and one of the things was manifest destiny, and it was like these superficial labels that basically push us forward. Danny, can I ask you a quick question?
Danny Kim:
Yes, and then I have to go. I'm sorry.
Fred Dust:
I do too.
Danny Kim:
Yeah. [crosstalk 01:00:24].
Fred Dust:
Given the context of what you're doing, I'm curious. What are you seeing? How has this changed the stuff that's happening over at IDEO? How's that affecting the ways that you're thinking about your work?
Danny Kim:
Can you say that one more time?
Fred Dust:
I don't know. Have you been following what's been happening over at IDEO at all?
Danny Kim:
I have not, actually. Tell me more.
Fred Dust:
Check it out.
Danny Kim:
Okay.
Fred Dust:
So basically what's happened is that there's been a whole Medium stream called Surviving IDEO, which actually ... I'll tell you honestly, and I wrote a piece about this that got a lot of traction, and I read the first article in it and was like ... I had a lot of glee because I was like, "Oh, yeah. I saw this happen. I saw this happen." I mean, just to be honest, I hired the first black designer at IDEO, and for years, my practice was called the Benetton ad, and it was derogatory. It was derisive in the way that it happened. So I was really loving it until I got to the last story, which is about me, and so then I wrote a Medium piece about it and was like, "Yeah. This happened. Here's what I learned," and that was my response, but-
Danny Kim:
I'd love to check it out. I'm sorry. I don't have much more context on it, but-
Fred Dust:
Yeah. Take a look. But the Medium piece was basically like ... It's like, "What happens when you get called out as a bad leader in a viral article."
Daniel Stillman:
Yeah. George Aye, I think, started the-
Fred Dust:
Yeah, [crosstalk 01:01:53].
Daniel Stillman:
Apparently, there were some more written before that that didn't go viral.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. Yeah, and then what happened? Oh. Fast Company reprinted it.
Daniel Stillman:
But I mean, it speaks to the challenge of an outside group thinking that it can solve any and all ... I mean, these are also the critiques of design thinking, which we talked about. If we can't have an inclusive conversation with all the stakeholders in a conversation, then it is a exclusive not conversation.
Fred Dust:
Yeah. No. It's funny. I mean, it's like that's the premise. I mean, with our consultancy, it was sort of like we're the last consultant you're ever going to hire, because our job is to teach you to actually do this ourself so that you can ... Yeah, and again, that's why people have been hiring us. They're just like, "Yeah. We just need to do it ourselves."
Danny Kim:
Yeah. Thank you, Fred.
Fred Dust:
Thank you [crosstalk 01:02:47].
Danny Kim:
I appreciate your time. This was awesome.
Fred Dust:
Thank you. It was [crosstalk 01:02:50].
Danny Kim:
I really enjoyed your book.
Fred Dust:
It was just so fun, and now I have to go do more work, but ...
Daniel Stillman:
Fred, do you want to have a two-word checkout?
Fred Dust:
It's the end of a long day. Peace out.
Daniel Stillman:
Kathleen, what's your two-word checkout?
Kathleen Rutherford:
Gosh. The word that's coming to mind is blessings, blessings and light.
Daniel Stillman:
Mr. Kim?
Danny Kim:
Mine is more work, but I mean, and I say that positive.
Kathleen Rutherford:
More work for-
Danny Kim:
I say that positively. I say that like there's more work to be done, more good work to be done.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Yes.
Daniel Stillman:
With just this last conversation, it seems like what I'm checking out with is inclusive conversations. That's a really good thing to meditate on. Fred, you are, as my people call it, a mensch for hanging out with us. Kathleen, Danny, thank you for donating your time to this conversation-
Danny Kim:
So good.
Daniel Stillman:
... and I'm so excited to share this conversation with other people as soon as I can get it into the universe. Happy Tuesday.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Yeah, and I think, for hosting, I'm looking ... This is a great start for me-
Danny Kim:
Thank you.
Kathleen Rutherford:
... and I look forward to more, and Fred, thank you so much for coming-
Danny Kim:
Thanks, Fred.
Kathleen Rutherford:
... in person. What a great gift.
Fred Dust:
Nice meeting you guys.
Danny Kim:
Bye.
Daniel Stillman:
[crosstalk 01:04:19].
Fred Dust:
See you soon. Bye-bye.
Kathleen Rutherford:
Ciao.