Consider The Adjacent Possible With Aaron Dignan, Author of Brave New Work

Thank you for listening this far and meeting some of the amazing people I've had the honour and privilege of talking to. Right now I'm sitting back, imagining what's next. I'd like to take a moment to ask for some feedback and point you in some cool directions for how to engage while we're on a brief break. You're awesome and you're doing great. This show is brought to you by The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay Stanier’s latest book. You can access a wide range of tools to help #TameYourAdviceMonster at www.TheAdviceTrap.com. If you’d like to spend more time with Michael and people he admires, sign up for The Year of Living Brilliantly. 52 teachers over 52 weeks, each teaching one brilliant insight. Absolutely free.

I recorded this episode in early July 2020, one year since I stepped away from being CEO of Box of Crayons and handed that responsibility over to today’s guest, Dr. Shannon Minifie. Now, most so-called founder transitions end up on the rocky shores of defeat for two reasons. First, most founders are a little bit like me: kind of neurotic and egotistical and wanting to keep our fingers in the pie. And second, it’s just a really hard thing to hand over an organization that is in many ways an embodiment of you, your values, and the impact you want to have in the world. So who did I trust with this and why is she doing such a brilliant job? In a word, Shannon Minifie is a Zenobia: a powerful, determined, unstoppable woman. Shannon began her career in academia, driven by her desire to be a part of conversations she thinks are important. In 2016, she joined Box of Crayons and started a career in corporate learning and development. Three years later, she became the CEO. Shannon brings to this role over a decade of experience in education, an incredible enthusiasm, and her superpower: a depth and rigor of thinking that investigates everything to its core. In our conversation, we discuss the three kinds of curiosity; the impacts curiosity culture can have on innovation, resilience, engagement, and connection; the relationship between curiosity and world-making; the importance of thinking of curiosity as a state, not a trait, and how that changes how you spark, peak, and cultivate it; and why curiosity is more important now than ever. You can meet Shannon at Boxofcrayons.com. This show is brought to you by The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay Stanier’s latest book. You can access a wide range of tools to help #TameYourAdviceMonster at www.TheAdviceTrap.com. If you’d like to spend more time with Michael and people he admires, sign up for The Year of Living Brilliantly. 52 teachers over 52 weeks, each teaching one brilliant insight. Absolutely free.

One of the phrases that struck me when I was interviewing Tom Kolditz was when he said that “the US military is very egalitarian, very much in a meritocracy. People are expected to never lean on their rank. The rank gives them a certain set of responsibilities. But it doesn't give them any advantage in the framework that we operate in our military.” Tom rose to the rank of Brigadier General, which should give you some sense of his calibre as a leader. I’ve had the chance to get to know him as he’s gone about scaling and reinventing the way coaching works to support students in university settings, and Iwas excited to talk to him about how to lead in the most difficult of times. Tom Kolditz is the founding Director of the Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University, named top university program by the Association of Leadership Educators. In 2017, he received the Warren Bennis Award for Excellence in Leadership, and has ranked among the top 25 global coaches for three years. The Doerr Institute is his fifth successful leader development start-up. His book In Extremis Leadership: Leading as if Your Life Depended on It has become one of the go-to texts for leading in the COVID-19 crisis. In our conversation we dig into the process for evaluating risk in a snapshot moment; the power of a premortem; how to enroll the most junior person in a room tocreate diversity of thought; and why feelings matter in a time of crisis. You can meet Tom at www.tomkolditz.com and see his institutional work at www.doerr.rice.edu and @doerrinstitute on Twitter. This show is brought to you by The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay Stanier’s latest book. You can access a wide range of tools to help #TameYourAdviceMonster at www.TheAdviceTrap.com. If you’d like to spend more time with Michael and people he admires, sign up for The Year of Living Brilliantly. 52 teachers over 52 weeks, each teaching one brilliant insight. Absolutely free.

When you ask “what makes a leader?” you will hear back, almost immediately, “vision”. Show us the way! Shine the light! “Without vision, the people perish” or so it’s written... But, perhaps not. What if “vision” was overrated ... and that another leadership behaviour was shown to be much more important? Today I’m speaking to Gianpiero “GP” Petriglieri, Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour at INSEAD, Europe’s preeminent business school. A recent article of his on HBR.org laid down the gauntlet: vision is overrated. Trying “holding” instead. In our conversation GP and I dig into the dangers of vision, and the dangerous story that many visions hold; what he means exactly by “holding” and its two different components; a favourite model of mine, Karpman’s Drama Triangle; and why we shouldn’t think of “holding” as being soft, because of the importance of challenge in this concept. You can meet GP at www.gpetriglieri.com and on Twitter at @gpetriglierito say hello. This show is brought to you by The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay Stanier’s latest book. You can access a wide range of tools to help #TameYourAdviceMonster at www.TheAdviceTrap.com. If you’d like to spend more time with Michael and people he admires, sign up for The Year of Living Brilliantly. 52 teachers over 52 weeks, each teaching one brilliant insight. Absolutely free.

I’ve been busy all my life. And quite frankly, I’ve enjoyed it. Teetering on over-commitment ...there’s an exhilaration to that. And gosh, I’m tired sometimes. Part of the self-growth work for me right now is creating space in my life to think, to regenerate, to allow what’s next to emerge. And, frankly, I need help because of my lifetime habit of filling my calendar. That’s why I’m talking to Juliet Funt today. Juliet is the CEO of White Space at Work, an organizational efficiency consultancy to organizations big and small. She is a tough yet loving guide to thousands of white space learners and fans, and a globally recognized warrior in the battle of effectiveness versus reactive busy-ness. She's been working at home full time for 24 years and running 100% virtual teams since the day she launched her organization. When we talked she was seeing out COVID-19 in New Zealand. In our conversation we look at the diminishing cycle of busyness and exhaustion we can all find ourselves in; what she means by “white space” and why it’s so essential at a personal and an organizational level; and why a critical question is “how much is enough?” You can meet Juliet at WhiteSpaceAtWork.com where you can also find a complimentary assessment to help you take the temperature of morale in your team and organization. This show is brought to you by The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay Stanier’s latest book. You can access a wide range of tools to help #TameYourAdviceMonster at www.TheAdviceTrap.com. If you’d like to spend more time with Michael and people he admires, sign up for The Year of Living Brilliantly. 52 teachers over 52 weeks, each teaching one brilliant insight. Absolutely free.

Hard as it is to believe, We Will Get Through This is not the only awesome podcast around here. Really, it’s true. Once a season, I’ll be sharing an episode from another podcast I listen to and admire, and there’s no better place to start than with Dave Stachowiak’s Coaching for Leaders. I’ve been a guest four times, and that’s not a scheduling error on my part. It’s me delighting in being in conversation with a smart, prepared and engaged host. I asked Dave which episode he thought we should feature, and his first suggestion was this conversation with Shelley Winner. It’s an absolute beauty. Shelley was caught in a downward spiral, and had ended up in jail. Statistics would suggest she’d be kept down in a vicious circle: you go to jail, you can’t establish yourself once you’re out of jail, you find yourself using old behaviour to survive, you go back to jail ... and so it goes. In this conversation Dave explores with Shelley why prison was the easiest part of her journey; how she took her first step towards working with one of the world’s biggest tech companies; the battle that almost cost her everything; and exactly why organizations should consider hiring past offenders. You can see Shelley’s excellent TEDx talk at http://www.tedxfonddulac.com/speakers/shelley-winner/. You can subscribe to Dave’s podcast at https://coachingforleaders.com/. This show is brought to you by The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay Stanier’s latest book. You can access a wide range of tools to help #TameYourAdviceMonster at www.TheAdviceTrap.com. If you’d like to spend more time with Michael and people he admires, sign up for The Year of Living Brilliantly. 52 teachers over 52 weeks, each teaching one brilliant insight. Absolutely free

Bill Carrier is someone you’ve never heard of. Years ago, as a counterintuitive marketing strategy, he decided that he’d do no marketing. No website. No business card. No social media. You found out about Bill through word of mouth, and word of mouth only. I met him when we both worked with TED Fellows on a retreat, and we had the opportunity to work together. I was struck by his generosity, his big heart, and his wisdom. Bill is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, a former army officer and a Rotary international ambassador scholar. He anchors his coaching work in extensive practical leadership experience and the firm belief that we're all part of something bigger than ourselves. He also contributes to the coaching profession in many ways: he's the co-founder and co-editor of the Future of Coaching magazine and a Founding Fellow of the Institute of Coaching at the Harvard Medical School. In our conversation we start with the importance of character and strategy (and why character matters the most); how to be generous and still give direction and hold people accountable; the difference between empathy and multi-perspective; and how to set yourself up to perform at the highest level. It’s tricky to find Bill online, but the best place to connect is via LinkedIn. This show is brought to you by The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay Stanier’s latest book. You can access a wide range of tools to help #TameYourAdviceMonster at www.TheAdviceTrap.com. If you’d like to spend more time with Michael and people he admires, sign up for The Year of Living Brilliantly. 52 teachers over 52 weeks, each teaching one brilliant insight. Absolutely free.

I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Dave Snowden a few episodes ago. I loved it, although I admit I was a little intimidated by engaging in conversation with someone who has such a sharp mind and who’s thought about the challenges and possibilities of complexity for so long. You might have gotten to the end of that episode and asked ... “and now what?” Let me introduce you to today’s guest. Aaron Dignan is the author of one of the most exciting books that I’ve read in the last number of years. Brave New Work lays down the challenge (and shows the way) to build an organization that is both “people positive” and also “complexity conscious”. In our conversation we talk about the idea of the adjacent possible and why it’s a helpful alternative to the classic “five year plan”; the power of constraints, and how they define systems (and why that matters); why “tension” gets a bad rap; and how to acknowledge and navigate the resistance that this type of change will always engender. You can meet Aaron at www.BraveNewWork.com and learn about his firm The Ready at www.TheReady.com. You can also listen to his podcast, Brave New Work. This show is brought to you by The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay Stanier’s latest book. You can access a wide range of tools to help #TameYourAdviceMonster at www.TheAdviceTrap.com. If you’d like to spend more time with Michael and people he admires, sign up for The Year of Living Brilliantly. 52 teachers over 52 weeks, each teaching one brilliant insight. Absolutely free.

I originally invited Kerry, today’s guest, because she’s one of the world’s top financial bloggers. Truly. Her blog is one of the most visited websites in the world. But in setting up the call, I discovered that she had another story she could tell in the context of We Will Get Through This. It’s the experience of surviving one of the most virulent forms of breast cancer. Kerry’s an absolute pro at talking to the media ... but not about cancer. So this is a rare and precious conversation. In it we discuss that moment when you have the worst possible news confirmed; what it is you can actually control, and why that really matters; how to ensure the uncertainty of the future doesn’t steal away the joy of the present; and what Kerry learnt about her own tendency to perfectionism. You can meet Kerry at her blog SquawkFox.com. This show is brought to you by The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay Stanier’s latest book. You can access a wide range of tools to help #TameYourAdviceMonster at www.TheAdviceTrap.com. If you’d like to spend more time with Michael and people he admires, sign up for The Year of Living Brilliantly. 52 teachers over 52 weeks, each teaching one brilliant insight. Absolutely free.

I hope you’ve had that experience of walking into somewhere special; a place that has a resonance, and a capacity, and a potential. But where does that special something, that sacredness, come from? Is it just a trick of architecture? What role do we have in creating sacred space ... and why would we want to? Pamay Bassey is the CLO of Kraft Heinz and a lifelong learner who loves laughter, words, big ideas and serving her community. She is also the Chief Experience Officer of the My 52 Weeks of Worship project, which you can learn more about through her TEDx talk. In our conversation we talk about why we might create sacred spaces and what purpose they serve; the core requirements needed to create sacred space; the role of learning in a modern organization; and how learning and generosity are fundamentally connected. You can meet Pamay on her LinkedIn page and learn more about her year of worship at My52wow.com. This show is brought to you by The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay Stanier’s latest book. You can access a wide range of tools to help #TameYourAdviceMonster at www.TheAdviceTrap.com. If you’d like to spend more time with Michael and people he admires, sign up for The Year of Living Brilliantly. 52 teachers over 52 weeks, each teaching one brilliant insight. Absolutely free.