#575 Oracy: How to improve your speaking and listening skills

14 Jul 2026 · 34 min · 27 chapters

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In short

Oracy (oral communication) as a learnable skill for improving speaking and listening at work, framed through Keith Grint’s problem types and “presentation vs conversation.”

Guests

Helen and Sarah (hosts of Squiggly Careers podcast).

Guest backgrounds

No external guests; both are career/learning practitioners who run learning-focused work and reference education/oracy research (Voice 21) and Michael Rosen’s school-based teaching style.

Key claims

Oracy improves creative and critical thinking; talking out loud reveals reasoning gaps; collaborative talk leads to better conclusions; it supports inclusion/social mobility; it’s not a separate subject but a way of teaching/facilitating.

Notable examples

Primary-school assemblies in circles vs rows; “think-pair-share”; work adaptations: one-to-one reframed as “one-to-many” discussion using a prepared question (e.g., sharing rejection coping strategies); team meetings replacing round-the-room updates with group challenge/build on a shared monthly summary; team away days starting with peer conversations about a past goal and what helped achieve it; using AI as a question “thought partner” rather than a full framework translator.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Introduction to Problem Types

0:00 to 0:45

Learn about the three types of problems and their importance in solving issues effectively.

“Tame needs the right process, critical needs the right response, wicked needs the right mindset.”

Exploring Oracy

1:18 to 2:16

Understand the concept of oracy and its significance in communication.

“Next week's is the one that I've chosen.”

Defining Oracy in Education

2:16 to 3:12

Learn how oracy is articulated and its application in educational settings.

“called Word of Mouth, which is on Radio 4 with Michael Rosen.”

Oracy vs Traditional Learning

3:12 to 4:14

Discover the differences between traditional assembly methods and oracy approaches.

“is articulating ideas, developing understanding and engaging with others through speaking, listening and communication.”

Oracy in Team Learning

4:14 to 5:00

Learn how oracy can improve team learning through conversations rather than presentations.

“Yeah, you were just on the floor, just sat on the floor, guys.”

The Importance of Oracy Skills

5:00 to 5:48

Understand the relevance of strong oracy skills for career progression and workplace dynamics.

“And it reminded me a bit of something we have in Learn Like a Lobster, where we talk about think, pair and share as a way of learning, which is, again, you'd set a question.”

Challenges of Integrating Oracy

5:48 to 7:14

Explore the challenges in implementing oracy practices in workplaces and education.

Addressing Social Mobility

7:14 to 8:06

Learn how oracy may influence social mobility and inclusion in education and work.

“and it's not something that kind of makes its way into work.”

Practical Applications of Oracy

8:06 to 10:25

Discover practical examples of applying oracy in everyday work situations.

“But I think if oracy, because I spend loads, I almost find it hard and I love words getting past the words.”

Reimagining One-to-One Meetings

10:25 to 12:10

Learn how to transform one-to-one meetings into more collaborative discussions using oracy.

Show all 27 chapters

Exploring Group Conversations

14:00 to 15:00

Learn how to structure group discussions for better engagement.

Facilitating Conversations in Meetings

15:00 to 16:00

Understand the importance of facilitation in team meetings.

Relating Personal Experience

16:00 to 17:00

Discover how personal experiences can enhance group discussions.

Redefining Team Meetings

17:00 to 18:00

Learn how to transform traditional team meetings into collaborative sessions.

Engaging Everyone in Team Settings

18:00 to 19:00

Explore methods to ensure equal participation in team meetings.

Using Summaries for Discussion

19:00 to 20:00

Learn how to use summaries to prompt group conversation and feedback.

Challenges and Builds in Team Meetings

20:00 to 21:00

Understand the 'challenge and build' approach to foster dialogue.

“I actually quite like to, like, you know, just in that very specific example there about, say, like a newsletter or something like that, like to do both.”

Bridging Personal and Professional Experiences

21:00 to 22:00

Discover how to connect personal stories to professional discussions.

“we had like presentation versus conversation.”

Evaluating Presentation vs. Conversation

22:00 to 23:00

Reflect on the effectiveness of presentations compared to conversations.

Transforming Away Days

23:00 to 24:00

Learn how to make team away days more interactive and engaging.

Creating Conversational Space

24:00 to 25:00

Explore ways to encourage conversations during meetings and events.

Setting Goals Through Dialogue

25:00 to 26:00

Understand the importance of dialogue in setting and achieving goals.

Prioritizing Conversations in Team Goals

26:00 to 27:00

Learn how to prioritize conversations when discussing team goals.

Smart Questioning for Engagement

27:00 to 28:00

Discover how to ask effective questions to promote engagement.

Exploring Oracy and AI Integration

28:00 to 29:50

Learn how AI can support oracy in team meetings and discussions.

Reflections on Oracy in Practice

29:51 to 31:46

Discover reflections on implementing oracy in professional settings.

“But you are good at it and you're good at making those questions.”

Practical Tips for Enhancing Conversations

31:47 to 33:45

Gain practical strategies for making conversations more engaging and effective.

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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Tame needs the right process, critical needs the right response, wicked needs the right mindset. what we're gonna do is talk about the three types of problems from keith grint's work when i talk about what they are how you can spot them like what they might sound like if you've got one of these problems and probably most importantly what you do to solve them you know when you're trying to think like well why why would i spend time like figuring out what type of problem this is it's like well almost if you haven't figured out the type of problem you might try and solve it in the wrong way and you sort of waste time and energy.

0:34What is good about all of these different types of problems? I know that this is a really learnable skill because I learned the critical problem solving skill. Problem solving, for example, is a no regret skill. It doesn't really matter what is going to happen in the world. Invest in that skill. You're going to have no regrets.

0:56Hi, I'm Helen. And I'm Sarah. And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly podcast where we borrow some brilliance from something we've been reading, watching, listening to, events we've been at, people we've been talking to, just wherever we take a bit of inspiration from. But the important thing is that we connect that to your career so that you've got some new ideas and actions so you can try out. And so regular listeners might guess quite quickly that I have chosen today's topic. Next week's is the one that I've chosen. That'll be good. Well, it'll be a very niche guessing game. Who do you think chose the topic?

1:31So today we're borrowing brilliance from a word. Lovely. Can't wait. No, I do like it. I really struggle to say this word. I keep feeling like I get it wrong. So the word is oracy. Yeah. And if we are pronouncing it wrong, we would like to apologise for that up front. Well, it was either oracy or oracy. Oracy. I thought it might be oracy because it's spelt more like oracy, but we're going to say oracy because it is about oral communication. To be fair, I listened to a podcast with two people who were experts and they did both pronounce it slightly differently. So I feel okay about going with Oracy.

2:09Okay. And then we hope for the best. So that's basically a boring brilliance for a word we can't say. So it is a concept that I came across through a lovely podcast called Word of Mouth, which is on Radio 4 with Michael Rosen. and unbelievably for someone who has never listened to our podcast my partner recommended it so I was like oh great so he obviously cares that he was like you might like this do you recommend it in the context of the podcast or just as a you might be interested in this Sarah you might be interested in this because he doesn't even know the format for our podcast right yeah there's no way he's not made those he can't connect those dots but what it is is the skill of speaking and listening well that is my short very simple version um and so it's sort of learning through talking listening and sharing um and the more sort of official definition which comes from voice 21 who are a charity um because a lot of this work pretty much all of this work actually is in education is in schools so they do they actually have a school but they also work with schools they say oracy is articulating ideas, developing understanding and engaging with others through speaking, listening and communication.

3:21And as I said, it's mainly used in education and it's not a skill that you learn separately. It's more about, from my understanding, like how you teach. So initially I was like, oh, is it like, you know, you have English and maths. Yeah. Were my obvious. I was like, oh, is this like another subject? But it's not really a subject. it's more of a skill and the example that really stuck with me that really helped me to understand this was um the lady from the charity was talking about assemblies and i don't know about our listeners but she said most assemblies like say at like primary school um you all sit in rows you know like facing the front and then you listen to the teacher is that what your assemblies were like at school yeah in the village not the village or the school hall the school hall yeah sit on the On the floor?

4:06We sat on the floor? Not even on a chair? Yeah, I think by secondary school we've got to chairs, but you're right, primary school is we're on the floor. Yeah, you were just on the floor, just sat on the floor, guys. In like age order. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The little ones at the front, all the way through to the oldest kids at the back. I think if you were in like year six or whatever, you could buy a seat. You got to sit in the back. Yeah. I think in year six we got to sit on wooden benches. That's a privilege. Which was exciting times. And so her point was, that's how assemblies happen. but if you were taking an oracy approach to an assembly and this is what they do with some kids rather than the kids sitting in rows they sit in circles and they have conversations together about a topic or maybe they respond to a picture they show a picture on the screen and um teachers jobs really here is to like question and to facilitate and so the kids talk to each other and then they actually share with other groups like what they've been thinking about um And it reminded me a bit of something we have in Learn Like a Lobster, where we talk about think, pair and share as a way of learning, which is, again, you'd set a question.

5:14What do we want to be known for as a team? You think about it first by yourself. Then you pair up and talk about what did you come up with? And then you share it with a wider group, which is not only Barbara Oakley's work, but that was sort of where certainly I came across it for the first time. so it's almost taking learning that would already happen in a school and then I'm obviously starting to think about learning that would already happen at work or in a team and just sort of going if you took an oracy approach what might you do differently so as I'm processing and I've got questions in my mind so my my simplest sort of mirror to the assembly example in a work context is that this is you know presentation versus conversation yes so if i'm trying to communicate an important message to a team i could do the presentation assembly straight at people you could just tell tell you this is it this is what you need to know this is what you need to know slide two is three four or i could have a conversation which is um there are three things we need to talk about in relation to this change i'm going to give you some questions for you to discuss as a group and then we'll bring that back together and and so presentation for conversation i was trying to think the work parallel and then the other thing in my mind is is a bit like the so what so okay so I could do that I could do a presentation but is it is the outcome people learn more when you do it that way what's the evidence of oracy so I the things that stuck out for me in terms of the skills were creative thinking and critical thinking and there are a lot more you can dive into this in much more detail um on the voices 21 website i actually thought was really interesting it's very education focused but i found that you know that's where most of the work has been done but then actually in things like i was reading an article in hr magazine they were talking about uh 87 percent of britons believe strong oracy skills are important for career progression and leadership but most people sort of don't know what it is like you and i didn't know loads about it before and it's not something that kind of makes its way into work.

7:22Also, it's not a very common word. Because I think the word is getting in the way of it getting into work. So what would be our word? Rather than oracy. Yeah. I think maybe conversations. I liked your conversation rather than presentation. You might need to add something to conversation because otherwise people are like, well, I already have conversations. Like a learning conversation or something. I mean, some of the things, some of the kind of builds in case it gets us to any of the thoughts were the things that you would learn to be better at, whether you're a kid or an adult, would be just the process of talking out loud helps you to spot gaps in your reasoning.

8:01We know that from things like self-explaining. You connect ideas together and collaborative talk builds better conclusions. so that's one of the reasons they want kids to do it is you know like I have my idea you have your idea but then actually if we both talk about it you know sort of the your overall then thinking progresses further I spot my gaps I see a perspective that I hadn't seen because you you saw something different in the picture that I saw um so you you're kind of better than when you would be by yourself and the point when you get to kind of work if you think about it is I feel like human skills are becoming more important than ever before every AI conversation I'm in at the moment everyone gets to what are the human skills we need yeah to compliment a presentation about that today yeah I mean I I you know that's sort of what everybody's focusing on and and I was like well actually some of the outcomes of like this approach I felt like were really relevant to work right now I wouldn't use the word oracy because I think you know we love everyday words that people find easy to relate to um so i wouldn't do like you said whether it's like collaborative conversations whether it's learning conversations like or even critical yeah critical conversations yeah is there some there's something i feel like i'm just thinking for people listening i don't want the word oracy to be a distraction for the ideas that we're going to share which is about how could you take everyday work situations and increase the amount of oracy that's going into them.

9:33But I think if oracy, because I spend loads, I almost find it hard and I love words getting past the words. So I think maybe if you just kind of take that word and around it in your head as you're kind of listening or watching to this, you kind of think, oh, it's, they mean critical conversations or they mean connecting conversations. They mean these kind of the ability to add a discussion into a situation that creates a better outcome. It's that sort of a thing. And the one thing we're not going to talk about today, but I will just give it a quick shout out in terms of you asked the question why should we care one of the things that you do see in the research is there's a lot of evidence around social mobility and this approach to learning and actually that also relates to work so in terms of inclusion and everybody getting to learn and there's arguments for and against and they were kind of very um they're very balanced on the podcast about saying does it definitely do this what what kind of what does it do because initially I think when you first hear it you think oh does this only work for the confident kids and i was thinking that would work as well does this only work for the confident people that want to have the conversation because you're asking people to speak to listen really well those things don't always go hand in hand but you know those are the two things and it is all about you know like talking listening and sharing i was like oh that's interesting if you're not feeling very confident or you don't feel like you belong those three quite hard skills to do really well work and i was like oh they would be um their argument would be actually this approach helps everybody to kind of get better at those things it's sort of you know all of the boats right sort of thing so I was like oh it's just it's um definitely not our expertise but if you're interested in that there's quite a lot of connections to be made there too we'll put all the links to this we have a pod sheet so if you are a new listener to the podcast all of our episodes come with a pod sheet which is a one-page summary and we'll put the links to the research the websites that you've mentioned in there to make it easy for people so we're now this is where I got creative so I was like this is fascinating and it did start it really got me challenging myself on the way that I work the way that we help people to learn you know like what what would you do differently so to try and make this then very practical to sort of move from something that might feel in some way sort of philosophical into okay what does this mean for me tomorrow at work we've picked some examples of meetings and moments that we hope everybody will be able to relate to and will feel relevant for everyone Helen is going to talk about what do we all typically do yeah um including us like what does it look like today and then I've had a go at going and if you were taking an oracy first approach what would you do differently and some of it then actually is quite you know you have to take a deep breath you're like oh that feels quite challenging yeah um and if anyone listening to this actually knows their stuff you know in terms of works in oracy um because i have seen people with job titles who are teachers who are like yeah head of oracy um i'd love your challenge and builds on this so please email us uh helen and sarah at squigglycareers.com tell us what we have got right tell us what we have got wrong um and yeah i think it's something i'm sure we all keep coming back to because we're genuinely really interested to learn more.

12:41So the first situation, like an everyday work situation is the one-to-one. We've actually got rid of these in our companies because we found them like not that helpful, but most companies still have them. So normal approach of a one-to-one, I don't know, what, half an hour, 45 minutes. And we are just talking through a list of sort of what I need to work on at the moment. So it's your task. Here's some tasks. I might ask you some questions, but I'm probably leading it if it's my one-to-one and I'm probably doing probably quite a bit of updating because I'm thinking this is the time for you for me to tell you say you're my manager um what I'm working on yeah so here this is this my new idea if you were taking an RSC first approach I think you could use something like a to think list so let's imagine you're my manager for a moment I've got my to think list and I come to the one-to-one and and what I want to do is talk about something on my to think list so we're not going through tasks or updates we're taking a question and then we're sort of having a conversation where we're both we're both sharing even more radically is and I was again I was trying to take inspiration from sort of the assembly idea is does it have to be one-to-one or could it be well I've got this question on my to think list I actually feel like there are a couple of people in the team who could contribute to this so I bring them with me to the one to many as it is now rather than one to one and actually we discuss it together and we include the leader as part of that conversation and maybe my job because it's my it's my priority it's the thing that I need to make progress on is I I've got the questions prepared beforehand maybe I even share them beforehand so people have got a bit of time to think and to bring that thinking to that conversation because that feels like two different things I'm thinking would I actually do this is what's going on in my head like because it feels like two different things there because you've got to think list which is a new concept and then you've got one-to-many rather than one-to-one yeah so could you to make that easier it's a normal so you know normally in a one-to-one you're just going through your list of stuff yeah could you kind of do that but in a one-to-many format so I've got my list of stuff but like everybody in this one-to-many meeting is going to take one thing off their task list talk about it like in a but talk about it in the one-to-many meeting but it becomes more of a conversation so I might say one of the things on my to-do list this week is that I need to submit a proposal for an article to a magazine that we are published in um and in my one-to-many conversation I want to have a discussion with this group about what you think about that what you think could be differently and what you like and what you don't like so it's still it's still something that was already on a list that I had you know so it's not it's like one thing's the same and then one thing's new yeah or do you think that wouldn't be your see um I well I think if you go back to like the well what is it it's about talking listening and sharing it you've included more people in that conversation your people are sharing their kind of thoughts with you I think what you'd probably want to do um the thing that really struck me when I was learning about it is I think this is probably a real skill that teachers have in terms of you know facilitating obviously like the questions that they ask and so that's the thing that you need to think about beforehand is like well what are the questions that I'm going to ask the group so that they can contribute meaningfully because what you don't want to do is like you're not doing what do you think you're not yeah yeah you're not doing it for the sake of yes sake of it it might be um well i've i've submitted a proposal for a few like we've had this right you submit pros for articles um and we've had a few rejections that would be true for us we've had a few rejections um and everybody might talk about a time when they've been rejected and what helped them to move forward because you're asking people to relate to the rejection not necessarily the specific help me with my yeah my specific thing I think okay so that might be more and then that might be more useful right because then I hear like oh well every we can all relate to being rejected and what helps is perspective um laughing about it I don't know doing something different like just even distraction and so what I might then get in return is coping strategies for rejection rather than necessarily a practical take this action now so you don't get rejected next time okay I'll hold it I'll hold it in my mind um let's do another situation I think I I definitely feel like I'm learning as I go in this conversation with you about oracy I'm just thinking could could I do could I be a teacher I'm holding you up as like my oracy expert I'm like but what but what about this Sarah it's very helpful i do feel like i'm learning more from doing it let's take a team meeting then so typical team meeting probably happens on a monday normally at the start of a week um we are going like round the room we're all sharing our priorities for the week and then probably kicks off with maybe the manager maybe the manager starts it but then everyone goes around and then that's the end of the meeting see you next monday um if other meetings run differently to that i would love to hear about it but most most team meetings particularly like the update ones kind of feel like they go like that so what's our oracy first meeting going to look like so i've tried to make this really specific we now um create a monthly squiggly summary so um i'm not making this up we actually do we do you're not nodding i'm like hello we actually do we actually do have this i shared it on linkedin today i thought you were like setting your scene imagining i'm like you don't even imagine we actually do see my face it's just like no no this is a real i'm like no no that thing that you said so we actually do do this so like at the end of every month like we create um a summary because we know that sometimes people find it hard to like navigate and find things so we already we have this right as a team um so an oracy first approach to a team meeting would be we put that up on the screen um some people will have spent time creating that or working on that some people have been more involved or kind of less involved and then you would do and so everybody's seeing kind of the same thing and then you would do like a live challenge and build together as a team so you're ditching updates you're ditching a manager go first it's a sort of very everybody's opinion is valued and equal what you might do is let's say you've got quite a big team well I don't know even if you've got like 10 people that's quite a lot of people you might initially go right we're going to split into groups and we want you to sort of share one word to describe that monthly squiggly summary um what stands out to you as being most useful and if you were going to change one thing what's one change you would make and so I split off with somebody else in our team we then go and have that kind of conversation together we listen to each other we then come back everyone comes back and then we all kind of share where we got where we got to a very very different team meeting everybody gets the chance to contribute we're all listening we're all kind of sharing on something that feels kind of useful for all of us um that's still probably it's quite quite a practical one but I was trying to make it very relevant to you know like you you pick a piece of work if you wanted to be more zoomed out or potentially even like abstract what you might do is pick something that wasn't yours so yes we do that summary but you might pick um a summary that another company does or a newsletter that somebody else does and then you use that rather than kind of necessarily using your one because you're trying to get people to zoom out but I think you can do different things but I I was like oh I could really imagine us doing that in a team meeting um and I felt like that would I I would look forward to that team meeting, I decided.

20:42I actually quite like to, like, you know, just in that very specific example there about, say, like a newsletter or something like that, like to do both. So you kind of do the discussion on yours and then you do the discussion on someone else's and then you're like, and then you could have what's the kind of shared insight across them because you've got two data points. I was just thinking, I keep going back to at the start, we had like presentation versus conversation. So, and it made me think just as you were framing that, we've talked before about challenge and builds. Yeah. And actually that, so the challenge and build is someone put some work up in the team and openly is asking for people to challenge it and then build on it.

21:18And the other little insight that is sticking with me from what you said is that to go prepared with questions. So I could just say, challenge and build this, everybody. But that's not what you're saying. I think what I'm hearing is for Auresee to be effective, whatever you put in front of people, you then need to provide some questions that create the conversation. Yeah. And that's part of your responsibility. The kids are not just being, it's not like a free throw. Can you imagine? When I was listening, I mean, both Michael Rosen and the lady from the charity were both very, they do teach in, he teaches, Michael Rosen is a poet and he goes into schools and talks to kids about poems in this way.

21:58Yeah. And so the thing he describes is what I don't get them to necessarily, the kids necessarily do is be like, right, I'm going to tell you what this poem means or I'm going to necessarily ask you, you know, like I'm going to take line three what do we think line three means what he almost gets them to do is to go right well in this poem this person's talking about you know finding life hard like when have you all found life hard yeah and they sort of talk about that first and they sort of get into the poem in like a completely different way and I was thinking that's genius right because you've kind of related it to yourself and those things sometimes can be quite hard to connect to and back to your presentation versus conversation I was I think another question you could just ask yourself is for things that you are doing like how conversational are they so I thought about our team meeting and if I was saying the hard thing about our team meeting it's very presentational we go around and everybody goes here's my what one thing for this week here's my high energy moment have I got anything on my worry list and there's not really any conversation around any of that yeah occasionally like you and I might make the odd comment but there's no conversation so why couldn't that all just be done in a team's message and I'm like well if something could be done in a team's message you're sort of wasting a chance to come together and have a conversation so this was the you know like sometimes even just going through these things like what do you notice it made me think oh I'm always like upbeat about our team meeting structure I'm like oh that feels really good we create clarity we talk about energy and that's one of our values but the way that we run that meeting is not designed for conversation it's designed for presentation this is true i was trying to think about what's a meeting where there's no oracy and i was like is it noracy

23:50another word that we can't say probably not for today all right let's take another context team away day so typically we're going somewhere i don't know random hotel that's got a conference room and uh everyone's there maybe there's been an agenda that's gone out beforehand um there is probably the leader's gonna kick things off yeah maybe a bit of a business update our team away this is what's happening yeah always a business update uh maybe there's a bit of a cheesy activity of some sort um icebreaker icebreaker favorite icebreaker um and then we're just going to work through some things on the agenda and then maybe we're going to go for drinks at the end of the day and probably not always because we we go to some of these days right and we do work at some of these days um usually quite a lot of listening it did strike me recently this wasn't a team away day this was a event just how much listening people were being expected to do and just how little conversation was part of that day I have to say the session we did on learn like a lobster there was lots of conversation but it was noticeable that I was the only person that day that got of people talking to each other and I was like oh that's I don't know it's just it's just interesting isn't it like that's sort of the opposite basically what we're talking about today so I was thinking here typically when you're getting a team together you want to talk about goals of some description like what are our team goals what are our company goals what are our business goals so you could start the day in quite a different way you could be like well we it's not that you ignore the thing that you want to talk about I think that's like important to say you can still you can still talk about your business goals or your team goals but maybe you would start with um getting everybody to talk together on like tables so the first thing you are doing before the leader goes before the leader goes the first thing that happens is people are talking to each other controversial about a goal that they have set in the past and achieved at work or at home and what helped them achieve that goal so if you were going to answer that for example tell me about a goal that you've set and achieved like what would you be saying to the group a work one or an outer work you can choose oh a goal that I've set and achieved um a probably like a house-based one like a goal like I've got a big goal to renovate my house and then I've broken that down every year into like a particular thing so like last year it was the garden this year it's the bathrooms next year it's the bar like there's I've got some specific goals and so far I've achieved each one which takes quite a lot to make to achieve those things but yeah that would be my goals that I've achieved and so I've already heard you say one thing that helped you to achieve the goals so far you were like you talked about breaking them down yeah one of the things that's helped you to achieve those goals I mean prioritizing saving money for them to be honest like that's had to be um my husband's that's so good he's I mean probably my husband's helpless because and we were sat there last night and a bill came in and i was like well can't that just come from the savings he was like no because that's what they say the savings are for the goal that you've got so no that needs to come from your salary and i was like oh damn it so probably the fact that there is a distinction between like stuff that comes out of my salary and stuff that goes in saving and my husband helps protect that yes it's that's interesting there's a bit about prioritizing protecting like breaking things down and so already you imagine those conversations and team everyone has a goal right yeah and i bet you a lot of people would talk about ones maybe outside of work not not universally but i can imagine you know almost like that's often things that people no but you're right though because that makes me think like if we were going to talk about our company goals now i would probably take some of those concepts and i think okay so how can we protect it how can we prioritize it how do i break it down yeah and i wouldn't if you'd said how can we achieve the goal this year without that thinking yeah i wouldn't have one of my better ideas I think because I was going through they're all good ideas but I think you have to kind of just but what it I think back to your point the thing my own note to myself was you have to really think about the questions you know as in like I had to think quite hard I was like right okay of course you're going to want to talk about team or business goals but like where would you start that still feels connected but is more is very conversational will get people listening and sharing you can imagine that having quite a lot of energy in the room and then actually it doesn't feel like a massive leap then to then go okay so we know as a team these are our three goals based on what we've just talked about like what do we need to do and it feels so much more shared than a leader just going well here are some goals talk let's all talk about how we're going to get there um question and reflection for you yeah my question is because i think that skill is hard like knowing what question to ask is hard i just wondered whether you thought do you think ai could help you if you were like I've got this team meeting these are things I want to talk about but I want to take a more oratic that can't be right an oracy first approach to this meeting um how could I talk about goals differently what are some questions you think AI could help you because it's a skill the leap you've made with the question yeah so I didn't do that what I did with ai is i put so um voice 21 who are the charity have an oracy framework very very educational oracy framework so i did upload so you can download that and i uploaded that into claude and then why was i doing that oh yeah i just try i was actually just i was trying something out i was seeing whether it could convert that framework into something that was more like work-based rather than education based and it turns out not not that useful so that's why i didn't put it in the but I didn't think to because what you could do I was like you'd sort of need to train I think you'd need to train your agent what you probably could do is build an oracy AI agent which you trained on these these are the principles these this is the approach here's the framework there's quite a lot like freely available yeah and then you could sort of use it as a thought partner for like the questions I personally quite liked the intellectual challenge of yeah myself Yes, I agree.

29:51But you are good at it and you're good at making those questions. My reflection is, I was just thinking about this podcast. And like, do you think this is like in this situation? Is this Oracy on Oracy? Like this? Is it meta? yeah is it do you think because are we not doing you could have presented to me about oracy right and you could you could just said this is or but then we're having this conversation about it if i kind of go back to that present conversation not presentation and that we are it's interpretation that's another word that i've heard you talk about like the michael rosen poetry example and then it's also kind of connecting and critical they're all words that came up when we were kind of teasing around what it means we're probably getting some of the way there i think um you don't i think you'd have to go even i'd want to go even you're asking an even different question yeah i think i think you would i think you'd ask because i was thinking we're definitely not in presentation mode with our podcast probably listeners are thinking i wish i wish they would to be honest just give me a slide with the answer it's on the pod sheet everyone probably just like i could have done with like this being half the length they could have a lot less conversation and much more presentation tell me what i need to know so it's definitely conversational but I think you might ask each other some different questions kind of along the way okay so I feel like that we have enjoyed it I feel like we've pulled it you know like yeah like little strings and threads yeah I feel like we pulled it around a bit and I've quite enjoyed that because I definitely came into it thinking so it's an interesting word but like what what does it mean for me like in work and I definitely feel that I would recommend that podcast um so if you if you are interested that word of mouth podcast episode that that was my sort of introduction to I felt like the examples they gave I felt like I got upskilled quite quickly you know to have something to like have a play with or have an experiment with you know feeling massively far from being an expert definitely in the kind of beginner mode um but it's a it's a really good listen what's your one thing you're taking away then having pulled the strings mine is to both in our company but also with the learning we do with other companies continually ask that question around what would an oracy first approach look like i don't think it's a word that i will start necessarily using but i do find the the question and the framing a really helpful one because i think i do believe in the usefulness and I think the quality of the conversation the listening and the sharing will be better because of it and I feel like this is so important for for learning for teams for kind of where we are um and so I really like that kind of challenge to myself to be like am I presenting or is this actually a really good quality conversation and I think I'm in quite a lot of situations we both are where we could facilitate this and we we have the ability to bring some of this into the work that we do um and i think i'm very feel very motivated to do that yeah it's got a little sarah sparkle when you talk about oracy um i think mine i've obviously got two even though i'm supposed to have one well i've got an easy one a hard one my easy one is just to kind of go how do you make it more conversational like you know in situations how do you make it more conversational because i feel like that's like oracy with a small o um but i think the oracy with a capital o is like how can i start what's a question that could help me start this differently you know because i think your questions i feel like are really interesting and the michael rose and things i'm like oh if i was leading a meeting or doing the presentation and i think what's a question that i could start this off which would like just just start it differently than if i didn't do this like make people think differently i'm gonna but that's hard so i might just pick like one a week you know rather than trying to do it in every meeting just like in that that's going to be the meeting where I'm going to ask a question just to take people's brains to a different place before we talk about the thing that I think is important for us to talk on.

33:47Thank you. So that is everything for this week. We hope you're finding these Borrowed Brilliance episodes useful. You can always email us at helenandsarah at squigglycareers.com if you've got any questions, insights, ideas for things that we could get curious about. But that's everything for this week. Thank you so much for listening and back with you again soon. Bye for now. Bye everyone.

34:10Thank you.

From the publisher

Do you often feel like you are just waiting for your turn to speak, rather than truly listening and learning? In this episode, we explore the power of oracy and how it can change the way you think and work.

Drawing on the work of Voice 21, Barbara Oakley, and research from More in Common, they explore what it means to develop this skill.

🎯 What You'll Learn

– Define oracy as the essential skill of speaking and listening well to build better conclusions.

– Discover why talking out loud helps you spot gaps in your reasoning and critical thinking.

– Identify the difference between a standard 121 and an oracy-first approach to problem-solving.

– Learn how to facilitate meetings that ensure equal contribution and stop interruptions.

– Practice using oracy in team settings to move away from directive leadership.

– Apply oracy techniques to your squiggly career story to articulate your value more effectively.

For questions about Squiggly Careers or to share feedback, please email: helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com

Need some more squiggly career support?

1. Download our free career tools: https://www.amazingif.com/toolkit/

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3. Sign up for our Squiggly Careers Newsletter, a weekly summary of the latest squiggly career tools: https://bit.ly/squigglynewsletter_pod

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