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Podcast Summary: The Art of Charm - Episode with Michael Bungay Stanier
Podcast Title: The Art of Charm Episode Title: 5 Questions to Work With “Almost” Anyone Guest: Michael Bungay Stanier, Author and Founder of Box of Crayons Host: Johnny and AJ Air Date: [Insert Date] Sponsorship: BetterHelp, Nom Nom, Peloton, Caldera Lab, Factor
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Episode Overview In this episode of *The Art of Charm*, hosts Johnny and AJ engage with Michael Bungay Stanier, an expert in leadership and author of "The Coaching Habit" and "How to Work with Almost Anyone". The discussion focuses on building and repairing relationships, particularly in the workplace, emphasizing the importance of effective communication and strategic questioning.
Key Concepts and Themes
- Psychological Safety in the Workplace
- Importance of a safe environment for open discussions.
- Negative impacts when psychological safety is lacking.
- Building Relationships
- Seeking relationships beyond mere safety.
- Strategies for working harmoniously with diverse personalities.
- The Keystone Conversation
- A pivotal discussion about how colleagues work together.
- Sets the stage for improving or repairing relationships.
- Encourages vulnerability and openness.
- Five Key Questions for Stronger Relationships
- Amplify Question: What's your best?
- Focus on individual strengths and flow states.
- Steady Question: What are your practices and preferences?
- Discusses working habits and preferences for better collaboration.
- Good Day Question: What can we learn from past successful relationships?
- Reflects on positive experiences to guide current practices.
- Bad Day Question: What can we learn from past frustrating relationships?
- Encourages self-reflection on personal contributions to conflicts.
- Repair Question: How will we fix it when things go wrong?
- Establishes a framework for addressing and repairing issues.
Practical Takeaways
- Self-Reflection:
Before initiating a keystone conversation, individuals should prepare by reflecting on their responses to the five questions.
- Communication:
Clear and open communication is essential for maintaining healthy relationships.
- Managing Expectations:
Acknowledge that misunderstandings and conflicts will occur; the focus should be on how to navigate and repair them.
- Regular Check-Ins:
Establish a routine to discuss the health of relationships and adjust approaches as necessary.
- Seeking Feedback:
Encourage transparency and feedback within teams to prevent and resolve issues early.
Conclusion and Next Steps In the closing remarks, Michael emphasizes the importance of fostering adult-to-adult relationships, where individuals feel empowered to ask for what they want, even in the face of uncertainty or possible rejection. This episode is a robust guide for anyone looking to enhance their interpersonal skills and navigate workplace dynamics more effectively.
Additional Resources
- Michael Bungay Stanier's Websites:
[bestpossiblerelationship.com](http://bestpossiblerelationship.com) [mbs.works](http://mbs.works)
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Listener Engagement The hosts encourage listeners to rate and review the podcast on platforms like iTunes to help spread the word and connect with a broader audience.
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Next Episode Teaser: Stay tuned for more insights on self-improvement and relationships in upcoming episodes of *The Art of Charm*!
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
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2:55so you can start winning today. Let's face it. In order to be seen and heard, your communication needs to cut through the noise. And we're going to show you how. I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here at The Art of Charm. And for the last 15 years, we've trained thousands of top performers and teams from every background. We have dedicated our lives to teaching men and women all they need to know about communication, networking, and relationships. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary.
3:31Welcome back to the Art of Charm podcast. Today, we're speaking with Michael Bungay-Stanier, an expert in teaching leadership skills and habits. He's the author of the bestselling book, The Coaching Habit, Say Less, Ask More, and Change the Way You Lead Forever. And his latest book is titled How to Work with Almost Anyone, Five Questions for Building the Best Possible relationships. Michael defines a keystone conversation and how we can build the best possible relationship with our work colleagues. Five key questions to ask your team members to build a stronger working relationship, what to avoid, and a simple strategy to reset the relationships at work that have gone off track.
4:11Welcome to the show, Michael. So great to have you. Thanks, AJ and John. I'm really happy to be here. We have to talk about, obviously, when it comes to peers and then it comes to superiors and the hierarchical structure, that is on any team, how do we build psychological safety first at our level? And then what happens if it's not upwards? Because a lot of our clients will say, hey, listen, I get along great with my teams, but I have a terrible manager. Or my manager's manager doesn't allow me to actually express myself in a meaningful way. And that's often where the pushback on the culture that you're trying to build at your level really happens.
4:48So the book is called How to Work with Almost Anyone. I can see you kind of smiling as you see that because I have to say, it's like of all the books I've written, this is the title that rocks because everybody laughs when they hear that title because I think everybody imagines the almost. And I'm like, yeah, I know you've got one or two or three people where you're like, whatever you're promising in this book, it's not going to work with that person. I'm like, yeah, I get that. That leaves everybody else. So how do you think about this and how do you think about the power dynamic? And it's a really essential question.
5:20If you're leading a team and you're choosing to try and build the best possible relationships with the people on the team, you obviously have the balance of power. So there's something very interesting for you to think about, which is like people are probably going to say yes when you say, let's talk about how we work together. But now you have this decision around how much do you reveal? How vulnerable do you be? How open-hearted and open-minded are you to this? because the extent to which you will be vulnerable is the extent to which the people on your team will be vulnerable. You absolutely set the limit around that.
5:54So you've got some choices to make around how much and how far you're willing to go. If you're working upwards, and this is less common for sure, but if you're looking at your boss and going, what if I could build a better working relationship with my boss? There's some people who go, it's never going to happen. Have you met my boss? It's a nightmare. It's just not going to be. And I think that might be true some of the time. but I know because I am a boss that if somebody came to me and went, I want to build an even better working relationship with you because you determine my success and my happiness.
6:25I'm a big influence on your success and happiness. How do we work better together? I get really excited about that because that's somebody taking responsibility for the quality of their working relationship. That tells me that these people have a maturity and a potential and a way of strategically thinking that is very exciting for me. I think we are often a little too quick to go, this probably won't work. And part of what I'm hoping is to expand people's courage to say, it might work. It might be worth me reaching out. It won't work every time, but it might work enough for the times where you go, this risk I'm taking, inviting people to talk about how we work together pays off because I might lose two out of 10.
7:11But if I win eight out of 10, that absolutely shifts the quality of the working relationships that I have. And it all starts with a conversation. So your ability to communicate both your wants and needs, your struggles, your frustrations at any capacity at your level and above is really going to determine this relationship. And you call this a keystone conversation. So let's unpack the keystone conversation, how we can start to build and repair relationships that we have in the workplace. If you're looking for the one idea here, this is probably it, which is have a conversation about how you work together before you plunge into the work itself.
7:51And know that the work is always calling you, right? It always feels urgent and important and a crisis or exciting or just there and just the thing that you're used to talking about. So there's always a reason where you just like, let's just leap into it. Let's just get into the thing that needs to be solved or fixed or, or made progress on. And I'm saying, take a beat and look the other person in the eye and go, what if we talked about you and me working together before we get into the stuff? Even if you're in the middle of a working relationship, you and John, AJ, you know, get together and go, we've been working together 17 years, but what if we stopped and we looked at each other and went, is this it?
8:30Is this as good as it gets? What could we do to build the best possible working relationship between the two of us, even with 17 years experience behind us? Now, it's called a keystone conversation for two reasons. People have heard of the keystone. You have two pillars and they kind of bend into each other. And the keystone is a thing that brings the two pillars together and locks it in and makes it stable and makes it strong and makes it resilient, makes it able to bear stress. So it totally works. as a metaphor there. But it also works in the world of ecology. So if you more prefer a kind of more natural metaphor, there's this idea of the keystone species.
9:07The best story around this being the introduction of gray wolves back into Yellowstone National Park. There's an amazing film about this, how the whole ecology changed. Because prior to the gray wolves being there, basically the elks were kind of like roaming free, eating everything, kind of destroying the habitat. hat. Everything was getting kind of worn down. The wolves get shown up again. Elks start getting eaten. Elks get frightened into higher mountains. Trees blossom. Birds show up. Fish show up. The river changes course. Beavers show up. The whole thing becomes diverse and resilient and better able to bear stress.
9:47So all of that is just what we want this conversation to do, which is like, your relationship is an ecosystem. How do you get it to better able to best dress and flourish? And this keystone conversation, five questions to ask and answer are one of the ways that you design a better working relationship together. So let's go through these questions because I know that they're going to be highly impactful for everyone listening to this episode. Perfect. So the starting question is called the amplify question. And here it is. It is, what's your best? What's your best? And, you know, it's designed to feel slightly awkward and a slightly unusual question because I didn't want to ask, what are you good at?
10:27Because actually that's not that useful a question. And I didn't want to ask, you know, what are your values or what are your strengths? Because, you know, lots of us have done the strength finder thing and have our top five strengths, but I never know what to do with that information. I'm like, okay, I'm thrilled that you got those five strengths, but that doesn't tell me how to work with you. What's your best is asking, when do you shine and when do you flow? You know, this idea of the flow state, mihej, chiksem mihej, which is, you know, I'm in the zone, time speeds up and slows down. I'm doing my very best work.
11:01I'm excited, but I'm growing and stretching. You know, it's like, tell me about that. You know, and the shine is like, you know, if I'm watching you, when do I see you lit up? When do I see you excited? When do I see you elevated? Tell me about that moment. Tell me about the work you're working on. Tell me about the people you're working with or maybe not working with. I know for me, when I'm answering this question, I'm like, one of the best times I'm shining and flowing is when I'm alone doing creative work and I'm not with people. You know, I know it's ironic. It's like how to work with almost anyone.
11:34Best way to work with me is sometimes not to work with me. Just let me in an office and let me do my own thing. And, you know, it's also kind of like, you know, what's essential about how you best show up in the world? So that question, obviously, part of this conversation that we're excited about is, okay, I'm going to get to talk to this team member. I'm going to get to talk to my boss. But that question requires a lot of self-reflection and preparation before the conversation. Because in order to have this conversation, you have to actually identify your best. And for some listeners, maybe they haven't experienced their best in the workplace yet.
12:09Maybe they're in between roles or they're joining a new team and that's not quite clear to them. So how do we go through that self-reflection process and preparation for this conversation? I admit it. I've kind of been a sneaky and I've snuck in a personal development book inside a business book because I'm like, the thing is like, here's how you have the conversation at work. But each of the five questions has three exercises associated with it to help you create new and find new language and more nuance and grittier understanding about yourself so you can communicate it to other people. As an example, for this first question, what's your best?
12:46There's an exercise that teases apart what are you fulfilled by against what are you good at? Because particularly for people who are like me, who like I'm now getting old, I'm like, I've just been on the planet long enough that I've got good at a bunch of stuff just through like time and exposure. Like it's almost impossible that I wouldn't get some degree of confidence and a whole bunch of that stuff I never want to do ever again. Like I'm like, sure, I can do it. I can feel the life draining from me as I do that. But here's what we do with other people. When we see that they're good at it, we assume that they're fulfilled by it.
13:23When we see that they're good at it, we assume that they're the person I should delegate that thing to. So this exercise is like a classic consultant two by two box. Imagine a square and then imagine a cross inside the square. and along one axis is good at yes and not so much one is fulfilled by on the vertical axis good at and not so much so in the top right hand corner hopefully there's a bunch of stuff where you go you know what this is what i am currently both good at and fulfilled by you know what i like doing it lights me up and i do a pretty good job hopefully there is very little in the bottom left-hand corner, which is I am not good at this and I'm not fulfilled by it.
14:06Because like, why are you doing this? Like, not only does it suck you dry, but you suck at it. It's like, nobody's winning by having you assigned these tasks. And then you've got something really interesting in the other two boxes. You know, what are you good at, but not fulfilled by? That is a very helpful thing to communicate to somebody going, look, I'm good at this. I could do it in an emergency. I could be a safety net, but I could coach or mentor or teach people on this, but do not assign this to me. Or at least if you do assign it to me, know that the consequences, this impacts my sense of self and happiness and fulfillment.
14:44And then in the other box you have, this is what I'm fulfilled by, but not yet good at. And that's really helpful because that's actually your learning edge, right? This is where you want to learn and grow and develop mastery. You know, Dan Pink's book, Drive, is all about, we get motivation from purpose and autonomy and mastery. And so what this is giving you a clue is around, this is where mastery lies for you. But at the same time, you're like, but I'm not yet good enough to be trusted by myself on this. So give me safety net, give me guardrails, give me teaching, training, you know, keep an eye on me, give me the support I need so that I can get good at this.
15:26So you're right. You know, all of these questions you can answer quickly, but if you spend some time reflecting and going deeper, that's helpful for you just to get a better sense of who you are. And it's going to make your answers to the other person that much more helpful for them. Yeah, that's great. So the second question is called the steady question. And the question is what are your practices and preferences? So here you're talking about the mechanics of how you work together. So we've all got these ways of working. It's like, this is how I do email. This is how I show up for meetings. This is how I like feedback.
16:00This is my name. I've got a complicated name, Michael Bungay Stanier. You know, when I got married, I took my wife's name. And so I got this weird double-barreled name that doesn't have a hyphen. And honestly, it intimidates people. I once got a letter addressed to Michael Banging Spaniel, which is both a high point and a low point in terms of how people have maimed my name. So I'm like, look, here's what you need to know. My surname is Bungay Stania. It's like there's an invisible hyphen. So don't just call me Stania. Don't call me Bungay. It's Bungay Stania. And don't call me Mike. I've got seven people in the world who call me Mike and it's my brothers and their kids and my mom.
16:38That's it. My name is Michael. And it's like, it's just one of those tiny little things that stops unexpected irritations appearing. And so now you're trading these kind of mechanical things going, oh, great. We're both morning people. Oh, interesting. You're a morning person. I'm an evening person. How will we navigate that? Oh, you love meetings? Oh, I hate meetings. Oh, I'm good at texting, but I'm terrible at slack. I mean, there's just this way of going, how do we work out the mechanics so that we don't tread on our toes and we give each other the best possibility of creating the best way of working together that that plays to both of our kind of our practices and our preferences and a lot of these things are unconscious for many of us like we we might even think about them because we just do them naturally it's like you are a morning person or you aren't you might even not even be conscious of how productive you are in the morning maybe like doing your deep work after lunch uh and you want meetings in the morning.
17:36It's just clarifying for those who are on the opposite side of the table who don't see the day-to-day, and especially in a hybrid environment where a lot of this stuff is now happening outside of the office, it really alleviates any pain around those habits that each one of us have. Exactly. I mean, here's a very minute, specific example. I use Asana as a way of managing tasks and projects. I have an assistant. I grew up with a guy called David Allen who wrote Getting Things Done back in the year 2000. He was kind of the productivity man of the time. And what I learned from him is every to-do should start with a verb.
18:12It needs to have an active word right at the start of it. So it tells you what to do. And I am unreasonably irritated by to-dos that don't actually have a to-do in them. I'm like, so I go with Claudine. I'm like, Claudine, it's a small thing, but it makes a big difference to me. every action you assign me has to start with a verb. And she's like, I got it. I would never have thought of that. I don't care. I'm like, I do care. And so it's just one of those small negotiations that makes both of our lives a little easier. That's great. The next two questions, I think we can combine together. It's the good day question and the bad day question.
18:50So they're kind of either side of one coin. And the key insight behind these questions is our patterns from the past repeat again in the future. They just will. Even though the past relationship was like a different person in a different time and you're a different person, you live in a different country, different company, all of the stuff is going to be repeating again in the future. So let's name it and talk about it and share it. So the good day question is, what can we learn from past successful relationships? And the bad day question is, what can we learn from past frustrating relationships?
19:28Because imagine this, AJ, you and I are about to sit down together where we're about to launch a joint podcast together. You finally had it with John. You're like, I'm done with this stuff. The other charm, it was a good run, but it's all over now. And Michael was amazing. So let's talk about it. I'm like, okay, so tell me about a really good working relationship you've had when you've been co-creating something and you'll tell me a story and I'm like this is so helpful to understand you did this you didn't do that you said this you didn't say that I'm getting a real clue into the how the we flourishes and then I go but you've probably tried to collaborate with people and it's gone a bit south it may have been a disaster it may have just not been frustrating tell me about that tell me about a bad working relationship and you get to share some of those stories I reckon and this is a bit about this kind of the way our cognitive biases work when you're talking about a bad working relationship start with your role in that bad working relationship because just as you said right at the start of the interview it's so easy to just blame the other person oh they were a nightmare they were a psychopath they were power hungry they were the reincarnation of Napoleon I mean who knows what's going on you can just point the fingers a lot but If you go, here's how I contributed to a dysfunctional working relationship, what a powerful gift that is.
20:52When you're talking about a really flourishing working relationship, start with what they did. Start with what that other person contributed to building a great working relationship. You'll find yourself talking about big things and small things. Like as a very small thing, one of my least successful working relationships came about because the woman I was working with was scared. of me. Why was she scared of me? Because when I think, I get this kind of grumpy look on my face. You know, I'm like, I'm normally a pretty smiley guy and I nod and I'm encouraging. But when I'm thinking, when I'm trying to figure something out, I get this kind of grumpy, frowny, angry, bitter, twisted look on my face, which I was completely unaware of.
21:38And kind of when she quit, she's like, yeah, I've been afraid of you for six months because you always look so angry. And I'm like, I'm the least angry person in the world. How did this even happen? But the gift, I guess, for me from that was I now get to talk to people and say, look, this is what it looks like. So it can be as small as understand this about, this is what gets misinterpreted about how I show up. Or it could be a bigger thing. Like in my organization, I am known as the vice president of bottlenecking. because sometimes I'm like brilliant at kind of moving stuff along and getting things off my plate.
22:14Other times they just come and they sink to the bottom of my inbox and I ignore them and I know I'm ignoring them. And I'm like, okay, so let me tell you how to manage me when I'm bottlenecking because rest assured, I will bottleneck you at some stage. It's like you do this, you set a date, you tell me, Michael, you don't, you don't, you don't wait and apologize. You nag me. And then you go, Michael, if I don't get this by the end of day Thursday, we're just moving ahead of it without your approval. And that works really well for us. So we get to preempt all the stuff that's going to derail the conversation and figure out ways of working together around that.
22:56I just want to mention that you are talking about when you're processing, right? You're in your head. You're going over stuff. What that produces intimidates everyone else around you. And in our work, we call that processing phase. And there's a lot of people who don't realize that about themselves and have never been told that about them. So what they see are these, they're recognizing certain patterns of interacting with people that always result in going south because they don't have that reflection. They've never been told that. And so all they see is dealing with people from that state and the reaction that comes with that.
23:38And I was recently, we just had this happen in our X Factor. I was talking to one of our clients who was having trouble putting himself out there, going to some networking events. He's doing a great job of putting himself out there, but the results were a mixed bag. In my dealing with him, he's not very expressive. And this is in a group of people on our Zoom calls, and it's very hard for even me to get a read on him. He's engaged. We always have a great session, but I spend a lot of time looking at him and not connecting, right? And so I imagine that I find it difficult to get a beat on him when I'm working with him on Zoom.
24:24So I can only imagine with that, if he carries that same disposition out into his networking events. He's going, oh my God, this explains everything. Nobody's ever told me this. Everything. So all of a sudden, he's able to easily fix that or compensate for that because now he understands that. And that wall where that pattern has now been broken and everything just starts falling into place. And again, this comes with some self-reflection and figuring out and getting feedback and being able to receive that feedback because you want a different result. So you're going to need to do things differently.
25:09If you get that feedback and you're like, that's not me, well, then you're going to continue then getting those results. But it's a small thing like that that triggers an avalanche of new experiences and an opportunity to finally work on things that you have felt that were out of grasp because of this hurdle that you continue to run up against and it never changes. I love that point. And I never heard that term processing face before. So that's really helpful for me to learn about. But your bigger point is how small it can be that can derail a conversation, set expectations, and our ability to take one small piece of data, they're not smiling, and turn it into a whole story.
26:00They don't like me. They're not engaged. They're grumpy. it's like, it's extraordinary. We are, we are story making creatures and that is both a gift, but sometimes it backs us into a corner. And what you're doing here is you're helping in this conversation, understand each other's stories in a way that you might not otherwise understand and helps you deconstruct some of the stuff you've made up about that other person. So you can get a more accurate read on what's, what that person, what really matters to them, how they really are in the world. Absolutely. And the other thing about it is everyone thinks they're smiling, right?
26:37They're in a social place and they're like, oh, I was smiling. I'm like, I can tell you that I've been working with you for weeks and I can't get a read on you. And if I can't, how is anyone else going to? So he had made the conscious decision at that point to make sure that he was extra smiley to the fact that his jaws and cheeks were hurting. But that small shift changed the complete experience around him. All of a sudden, now people are approaching him. And other folks that he had met previously are now more engaged and coming up to him. And it just, it changed everything. You know, one of the exercises in the book is called How Am I Misunderstood?
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27:22and what most people realize is like people keep getting this wrong about me and it's so often it's like and what is wrong with them i mean it's like i'm surely i am this clearly transparent most obvious person but no you're the you're this messy confusing mystery and enigma so it's really helpful to say when i do this it generally means x not y when i look serious it generally means i'm thinking, not that I'm angry. And that's just a great gift to give somebody else because so often we get triggered by these small things. A lot of times our strengths will often lead to our biggest blind spots.
28:03So our clients, very analytical. Some of them are introverted and they're deep listeners, deep thinkers. And oftentimes it's great to get all of that data, synthesize all that information, analyze it, and then come up with the perfect answer. But in the synthesis, the signal that's going out externally is a stoicism, is a negative furrowing of the brow, and it's not letting the people in the audience that you're communicating with feel that they're heard. In fact, they're interpreting it in the exact opposite. But this they would identify as a strength, like I'm a great listener, I'm super analytical.
28:42So we challenge a lot of our X Factor members to look at those strengths and see, is there another side, a double edge to that sword that you might not be thinking about? And if not, that's a great opportunity for you to survey other team members or other experiences or past coworkers to understand, well, what's going on behind my strength? Is there something that I'm missing? Are there some gaps to how I'm perceived so that I can bring that to someone's attention in a new working environment, in a best possible relationship opportunity? Yeah. So, you know, if I was to take that to me, one of the things that, one of my strengths is having ideas.
29:18Like I'm great at it and I love it. I get super excited about it. And it's like, here's the problem. This is the real challenge. I'm like, oh my goodness, here we go. And what happens, because, you know, in my companies, I'm often a more senior person. What that does is it will suck the oxygen out of the room. Because, you know, when your boss has an idea, it's like, they're not brainstorming. They're telling you the idea. And you're like, okay. You're like, oh, great idea, boss. Yeah, actually, that is the best idea. We should definitely do that idea. Thank you, boss. And I'm like, okay, so part of my negotiation with the people I work with is like, when I'm having ideas, it generally means I'm enthusiastic, not that I want my ideas to be, I have to do a lot of work to diminish the weight of my ideas.
30:05They're just random ideas from Michael. They're not the best idea in this conversation yet. And it's one of those learned experiences where somebody going, you're killing me with your ideas. Because I'm like, A, they're all pretty good. B, I can't do all of them. C, there's no space for my ideas. So I'm like, oh, I've got to manage that about how I am. It's a strength that has a double edge to it, just as you were saying. Yeah, that's a beautiful example. And it's something that I've experienced on our team myself, being someone who loves ideas and solving problems. and oftentimes those problems aren't necessarily the most urgent to be solved, but it's an opportunity for me to create an idea and use that creativity in business so it's exciting and that excitement and enthusiasm can overpower the communication of what the team needs to get done or what their priority is.
30:54My team is terrified every time I get on a plane that doesn't have Wi-Fi because it's like, oh my God, he's got four hours of unbroken thinking time. He's just going to come back with random ideas again. So we have this conversation. I'm like, these are ideas I had at 30 ,000 feet. I'm probably a little oxygen deprived. So they're probably A, terrible and B, overwhelming. So I'm just going to tell them to you and then we can just ignore them for now. So it would be amazing if every relationship was perfect. You set the tone and just maintained it in a steady state throughout life. But we know they're not.
31:29We know that you're going to need to repair things. Things are going to go awry. So what is the fifth question and how do we start to manage the repair? So the fifth question is exactly that, the repair question. And it is, how will we fix it when things go wrong? And there's an unexpected success in this question because actually it's a hard question to answer. It's like, I don't know, how will we fix it when things go wrong? But it starts a conversation. All of these five questions are all about starting a conversation. You're like, you can get curious, like, tell me more about this. What else?
32:03Oh, this makes me think of. Often they will open up quite a rich, diverse conversation. How will we fix it when things go wrong? Part of the power of this question is we, how will we fix it? There's a kind of a shared commitment being implanted here, which is like, we will fix it. The other thing that's amazing about it really is it says things will go wrong. Because often when we start working with somebody, you're like, I'm in the honeymoon. I like working with this. This is exciting. We're at the start of something cool. And I'm like, but it will go wrong. Sometimes it's an explosion, but more often it's like it's a dent.
32:40It's a crack. It's a misunderstood request, a misunderstood expectation, a slightly, you know, a careless word or a careless action. Something gets torn and dented and ripped. And what this does is it says, let's fix it when things go wrong. Let's actually have a commitment to say, don't walk away from it. Don't pretend it hasn't happened. Don't overreact to it. Let's see if we can build back together. And I think, you know, if people are like, I don't know, how would I fix it when things go wrong? I think there are three broad actions that you can think about. One is speak up if you've been hurt.
33:19You know, that is in itself quite a gift because so often, and I would count myself amongst these people, you kind of swallow it down. Maybe I'll ignore it. Maybe I'll pretend it hasn't happened. Maybe this is the way it always happens. And so I just kind of get death by a thousand cuts. So it's finding a way of naming the experience and naming what happened. The second thing that you can do is being curious if you think something might have happened. This is something that I've had to work on a lot because there are times I'm just a bit obtuse about what's going on. But I will sometimes pick up that something's a bit off.
33:57And one of the questions that is a favorite one of mine in this context is to say, what needs to be said that hasn't yet been said? Because it's this invitation to say, is there something that's tender or not quite articulated or just beginning to appear that might be helpful to put on the table. One of my team members said, I need to have a conversation with you. And she's opened up and goes, Michael, this is what needs to be said that hasn't yet been said. And it was so good hearing that phrase because it actually told me how to behave. It's like, Michael, you just need to be present and listen because it's taking her some courage to say this to you.
34:38She's being really brave here and she's talking about something that will help us strengthen this relationship. So speak to the pain if you've been hurt, be curious about what's going on on the other side. And the third thing is like, learn how to give a really good apology because you can be too little or too much. You know, we all have seen the, the apology, which is like, sounds basically like, I'm sorry, you're a loser. Sorry, you feel that way. Yeah. I'm sorry. You feel that way because you're weird and you're a loser and you're pathetic. And I'm like, that's not really an apology. But you can go to the other side, which is like you start apologizing for everything.
35:22And what I'm always trying to bear in mind is I am responsible for my side of the table. They're responsible for their side of the table. And my job is to understand where I went wrong, apologize for my behavior, understand my intention, say I'm not going to do it again, or I'm going to do my best not to do it again. But actually there's a way that I'm like, I'm not going to apologize for the things that I'm not actually responsible for. I'm trying to find that sweet spot between a heartfelt, genuine apology about what you're responsible for is a really powerful place to stand. Now with this conversation, there's some preparation on our side, but it also sounds like it's not something you just want to surprise someone with.
36:04So, you know, and I've had this habit being very busy, being like, hey, can we meet real quick? And then getting into a deep conversation like this without letting the other person know, well, meet real quick actually means I want to talk about some heavy stuff or I want to get into something that's been really bothering me. So how do we prepare for this conversation? And then what do we do to prepare the other side for the conversation to really make it meaningful? You know what drains your energy faster than a bad networking event? An overpriced phone bill. The big wireless companies love taking your money.
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38:59Use code charm at monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50 % off your first year at monarch.com with code charm. Yeah, so that's great. I think the preparation we've almost covered already, which is like know the five questions, start building your answers and building your understanding of yourself to answer those five questions. So thinking about it and going, how would I answer that? What would I say? What would I choose to say? Really powerful. But you're right. I think most of the time, you don't want to be surprising the other person. Now, sometimes though, AJ, I do.
39:33Like just the other day, I had a conversation with somebody who is going to build a new website for me. And they showed up and they're like, here's the deck. We're super excited. Here's stuff about websites. And they were like, let's get into it. And I'm like, look, I'm as keen as anybody to see this deck. But before we go there, when you've had a great client before and you've loved working with them, tell me what that was like. What did they do? What did they not do? And now let me tell you when I've had a really great vendor before and we've had a really spot on vendor. And I'm like, I've wanted to work with them for years and I've wanted to refer them.
40:11Let me tell you what they did and what they didn't do. And also let me tell you when I've had a really bad vendor relationship and I've been thoroughly underwhelmed by it. Let me tell you what that's like. And you tell me what what a client that sucks looks like for you. So I know about that as well. And, you know, honestly, when I started that, their eyes popped open a bit. They're like, what the hell is going on here? But we had a really good conversation. And in part, the power of this conversation is it gives us permission to keep talking about the strength and the health of the working relationship.
40:48You know, somebody was filming a course for me the other day and they, something screwed up. And I was actually able to say, let me tell you why I'm disappointed about this. Cause we talked about this and this is the thing that drives me nuts. And you're now currently driving me nuts. And he's like, I hear you. I get that. And I can hear it as a part of our commitment to a working relationship that really thrives. But AJ, to your point, if you're particularly, if you're kind of, this is a, a relationship there might be more than just a vendor transaction, but it's like, this matters to me. You're like, how do you make this safe for people?
41:25So, you know, there's different ways of doing it depending on the person and the context, but saying to them, Hey, I want to build a really great working relationship with you. I found having a conversation about how we work together before we get into the work is really helpful. I'd love to have that with you. I reckon giving it 30 minutes at minimum, maybe an hour to get into this would be really great. And by the way, here are the five questions that I'm going to be thinking about and trying to answer. It might be helpful if you have a think about that as well. The more you can be transparent about that, the safer it's going to be.
42:00Well, with this, of course, you know, conversations are great, but then actions matter far more. So I can see situations where you have this great conversation, you both leave on a high, you feel like you're really understanding the person, and then urgent tasks get in the way, stress, outside forces, whatever the case may be, you get to a place where it's not the best possible relationship. You're actually struggling quite a bit. How do you approach that around repairing a relationship after having this great conversation where things have really broken down? So you're right. I mean, it'd be lovely, AJ, if you could have this conversation, and then you're like, this now future-proofs this relationship against all things bad.
42:42It's now just going to be farting unicorns and rainbows from now on. That would be amazing. And also that is not reality. So maintenance is a key phase of this relationship because it's not a maybe. It will be hard at times. There will be times where you struggle. There will be moments of frustration. So the rule I have is adjust always. So there's a constant process of going, hey, how are we doing? How's this working for you? Is there anything we should be doing more of? Is there anything we should be doing less of? I don't ask this every single conversation I have with the people with whom I work, but monthly, I'm kind of checking in on the relationship, not just the work.
43:25Hey, how are we doing? We need to do anything differently. Is there anything that needs to be said that hasn't yet been said? It's repair often. So I just always repair often. I've had to learn the hard way that I need to talk about disappointments as soon as I can so that we can get through them and process them because it turns out I do actually hold a grudge I'm like there's part of me that goes look I want to be this noble selfless creature that allows us to shake it all off and put it aside but there are times where I'm like I can't shake off the disappointment of this experience I want to talk about it I want to fix it because I've come to learn that willingness to fix it often improves the quality of the relationship.
44:12You know, in the retail experience where if you're a brand and you screw up, but you do an amazing job of fixing the screw up, people are 10 times more likely to promote your brand than if you've never screwed up in the first place. So honestly, if you're building a retail experience you want to design a minor screw-up early on so that you can then amaze them and they're like ah you should see how they fixed it it's fantastic there's there's a there's a way that in a similar way which is like if there's a minor screw-up and you go let's really get this sort this out and repair it and make this clean and clear that that relationship is even better because you've had that practice at repairing you've shown that commitment to repairing And then I think the third element of maintenance is reset as needed.
45:03And sometimes that is, this relationship now needs to end. So how am I choosing to end this working relationship? Because sometimes they come to the end or sometimes it becomes untenable. Or sometimes it's like, you know what, we have gone badly off the rails here. What do we need to do to almost restart this and get back on track and acknowledge that? We're like, it's a bit of a mess here. Are you up for a reset around this relationship? One of my first teachers in this was a guy called Peter Block, a great writer in this space. And I remember him talking about what he called social contracting, which is a similar idea.
45:41He said, what you do and you don't talk about in that first social contracting conversation becomes the things that you can and can't talk about in all the conversations going down the path. So part of what a keystone conversation does is it allows you to keep talking about the health of the relationship. It allows you to keep adjusting and repairing and resetting as needed. Not because every relationship is going to be perfect, but in fact, because every relationship is imperfect. And what you're striving for is this best possible relationship, the best possible expression between you and that other person of a relationship that is safe and vital and repairable.
46:21One thing that really strikes me in all of this is, and certainly social media online, there's a lot of labeling of toxic culture, writing people off, cutting off coworkers. What do you use as sort of that internal guide or metric to go, you know what, this relationship is completely broken and I'm going to fire this vendor. I got to leave this team. I should start looking for new prospects. Versus, you know what, this is repairable. How many tries are you going to give it? What does that look like for you? One of the concepts I do hold is the idea of every choice I make has prizes and punishments.
46:57So I can choose to not end this relationship and there'll be prizes and punishments to that choice, risk and reward. I can choose to end this relationship and there'll be prizes and punishments. I can choose to attempt to reset and have a keystone conversation and there'll be prizes and punishments. And what I try and do is weigh up the prizes and punishments. What's the potential upside of this decision? What's the potential downside of this decision? What I find is often, if I'm noticing that the upside is that I keep myself safe, I don't expose myself, I don't be vulnerable, I don't take a risk, I don't assume positive intent, I'm like, I should probably do this because it seems like I'm protecting my ego more than I'm committed to the bigger picture here.
47:50Often, if I'm unwilling to fire somebody or let them go, it's often, again, I'm like, oh, the reason I'm not doing this is I'm protecting my ego. I don't want to have that awkward conversation. I don't want to be shouted at or accused of something or blamed of something. So often what I'm doing is I'm trying to weigh up how much of this is protecting me and how much of this is actually in service to the bigger game that I'm trying to play. I have absolutely not fired people when they should have been fired. I have probably fired people who I should have given a better chance. I've probably got this wrong a thousand times.
48:26I'm just trying to take my best guess to get it as right as I can most of the time. I think with all of this, for me, the metric is how does that communication or conversation lead to change? And is there effort around change? So you can have the same conversation over and over again, and the intent can be, yeah, we want to change things, but if there's no action and there's reluctance to change, and when change is brought up, there's finger-pointing, blaming, externalizing, all of it, then for me, that says, okay, this relationship, you're not willing to put in the same amount of effort that I am to maintain and repair this relationship, so it's probably not worth it for me to continue in this relationship, whether it's working together, whether it's a friendship, intimate relationship.
49:11And I think for many of us, it's so easy once you get good at communicating and maybe you're listening to this podcast because you want to get really good at communicating, that's actually the easier part. If you haven't done it before, it can be the challenge. But the real challenge is how does that lead to behaviors in that relationship that allow you to maintain and repair it? And I'm curious for you, after all of the work you've done in this book, how you approach personal and intimate relationships. I know it's not your expertise, but what are the learnings you've taken from this work and applied in your personal life?
49:42The foundation of all the work I do, you know, through the coaching books that I'm best known through this book, is often about how do we build an adult-to-adult relationship with the people with whom we're interacting with. So this is people at work and also people outside work, your friendships and your intimate relationships. relationships. And adult-to-adult relationship has roots in therapy, transactional analysis, parent-child relationship versus adult-to-adult relationship. And when people ask me, well, that sounds good, but what does that even mean? One of the best definitions I have for an adult-to-adult relationship is being able to ask for what you want, knowing that the answer may be no.
50:26it's quite hard to figure out what you want and it's quite hard to ask for what you want and it's quite hard to hear no sometimes it's quite hard to say no even though you want to say no if I have relationships with my wife of 30 years with my friends with my colleagues where I'm like I feel like I'm doing a decent job but knowing what I want and asking for what I want and sometimes hearing yes and sometimes hearing no and understanding the consequences of that. It's going to come back to your point around change, AJ, which is like, so we're negotiating this relationship. Now I'm going to ask for what I want.
51:06I need you to do this differently. And you're welcome to say no. But there's a consequence to this, which is we may not be able to work together. I may have to fire you or I may have to quit depending on what kind of what's going on. I think it probably boils down to something as simple and as difficult as Ask for what you want, knowing that the answer may be no. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing all these great tools. We love asking every guest what their X factor is. What do you believe is your unique component that makes you extraordinary? I sign my emails. I have a standard sign-off, and it's, you're awesome and you're doing great.
51:45And my mom hates it because she's like, it's not even grammatical. And I'm Australian by birth, and she's like, and you sound like a North American. And I'm like, I've lived in Canada for 20 years. I kind of am a North American. But I think there's something around being able to see the best in people and inviting that forward and encouragement for them to be the best version of themselves. And you're awesome and you're doing great somehow sums up. It's like, no matter where you are, no matter what's going on right now, you're awesome and you're doing great. Feels like a message I'd like to be associated with.
52:18It's a great starting point for Best Possible Relationship. That's right. Work at our audience, find out more about you and the great work you've done and all the books and coaching. If you want some of the bonuses associated with the book, bestpossiblerelationship.com is there. There's some downloads, but there's also a video of me role modeling a Keystone Conversation. And then if you want more of me in general, my website is mbs.works, and you can find links to books and social media and all of the usual stuff there. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.
53:00This week's shout out goes to George, who writes in to let us know. Hello, AJ and Johnny. Thank you for the amazing content that you guys have put out over the years. Listening to your show has helped me get over my own limiting beliefs and gave me the skills to control my emotions and focus on my efforts to be giving value to those around us. The biggest reward has been helping raise my son with the right ideals and concepts to model and his own behaviors to help him with his own successes. Well, thank you very much, George. And I gotta say, over the years, it's amazing. Such appreciation for AJ and I to be able to help multiple generations at this point.
53:42Wow, you guys are making us feel old. All right. Now, if you want to help us out, head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen to our show and rate and review our podcast. It means the world to us and it helps others find the show. All right. Now, before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. All right, everybody. Head out there and have an epic week.
54:36I'll see you next time.
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In today’s episode, we cover relationship building and repairing with Michael Bungay Stanier. Michael is the founder of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company, and the author of several books including his bestseller The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever and his newest title How to Work with (Almost) Anyone: Five Questions for Building the Best Possible Relationships.
Relationships are not easy to maintain and the best relationships take work, so how do you build the best relationships, what can you do to repair broken relationships, and how do you know you should just walk away?
What to Listen For
Introduction – 0:00
What are the negative impacts of not having psychological safety in the workplace?
Why is it important to seek relationships that go beyond safety?
What questions can you ask so you can work with almost anyone?
Increase productivity with language – 15:20
What is the best way to make a to-do list so you’ll actually complete it?
What question can you ask to understand why people don’t like working with you?
Repair the relationship – 31:20
What questions can you ask to stop a relationship from failing?
What questions can you ask to repair a broken relationship?
Can you reset a relationship?
Choose your battles – 41:37
How do you know when you should walk away from a relationship or friendship?
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