Disruptive Conversations

Ep: 101: Rethinking everything you thought you knew about facilitation. A Disruptive Conversation with Adam Kahane.

In this episode, I speak with Adam Kahane about his new book, Facilitating Breakthrough, Facilitating Breakthrough: How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together. In the conversation, several things stood out for me. Here are a fewWhat does it mean to be a facilitator? Many years ago, when I first received training, I thought about this question a lot. Since then, I have taken its meaning for granted. Adam got me to take a second look at the word and its purpose. For Adam, his work is about facilitating collaboration with groups from different organizations and sectors who may not agree with, like, or trust each other but think they need to work together. In this book, he is trying to upgrade the meaning of facilitator so that anyone can be a facilitator. Secondly, it is a way of helping groups of people collaborate. The facilitator as a partner. In this part of the conversation, we refer to the insider/outsider tension that often pops us in change work. Adam reminds us of the notion first pointed to him by Bill Tolbert. It is not that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Instead, and more interestingly, is the idea that if you're not part of the problem, you can't be part of the solution. Your capacity to help a situation is limited if you cannot see how you are part of the problem - even if it is a small part. Otherwise, you are trying to bring about change by force. To facilitate effectively, you must move between an outsider and insider stance with whomever you work with. Adam calls this partnering. The role of polarities Facilitation does not involve choosing between one approach to facilitation over the other. It is knowing when to use a particular strategy rather than another direction. Adam reminds us to lean into tensions and avoiding the tendency to collapse polarities rather than hold their tensions. Perhaps most insightful about both the conversation with Adam and his book is the new casting of facilitation. He argues that there are only five dimensions of facilitation. These five dimensions involve ten moves. DimensionsMovesHow do we see our situation?Inquiring and AdvocatingHow do we define success?Advancing and ConcludingHow do we get from here to there?Discovering and MappingHow do we decide who does what?Accompanying and DirectingHow do we understand our role?Standing Inside and Standing Outside

Ep: 100: Creating a flywheel? A Disruptive Conversation with Paul Desmarais III.

In this conversation with Paul Desmarais III, we talk a lot about Disruption. In this episode, he shared many unique insights. Here are a few that stood out for me. What is Disruption? Naturally, this podcast has explored the word Disruption and what it means. Paul describes it as adding more people into the majority. He even said it was like growth. This idea that Disruption is about breaking things needs to change. The idea that we are going to dismantle entire industries is not helpful. It should be about creating value and pausing patterns that no longer work for us. Exploring Disruption is fruitful. Playing the long game. As a coach, I often work with my clients to help them raise the level of their gaze. Help them play a long-term game. Paul Desmarais III is part of one of the most successful families in Canadian business. One of the things he points out in this episode is that one of the benefits of being part of a family-owned group is taking a long-term view. For those of us who can play the long game, it can genuinely change our destiny. Families in BusinessPaul reminds us that they are not a family business. They are family in business, and that is an important nuance. As Paul notes, being in a family business ties you to a specific company, industry or business. When you are a family in the connection is to values and a particular philosophy. A family’s goal is to transfer the entrepreneurial and philosophical approach to the next generation so that each generation can reinvent themselves. When family businesses can avoid the shirtsleeve-to-shirtsleeve pattern, they can truly build something great. The specifics of the business matter less than the entrepreneurial spirit. Focus on what you can impact. Particularly this year, I have been coaching my clients to draw three columns: Complete Control, Partial Control, and No Control. What you need to do is move as many things as possible into the complete control box as possible. Paul told a story about dining with David Rockefeller. David told him at the dinner to only worry about what you can impact. To worry about the things you can have no impact on is a waste of time and energy. Instead, the goal is to focus only on what you can impact. Over time, you succeed at what you are doing. Concentrate on the things you can have no impact on can be harmful to the here and now. Focus on what can I do not to impact my current reality? The power of infrastructures of serviceOne of the conclusions I have come to is that it is tough to disrupt infrastructure businesses. For example, it is challenging to disrupt whoever owns all the fiberoptic cables of the internet. They own the infrastructure. As a strategy for Disruption, what if you take a page out of Pauls book. He describes how the entire world of financial services was going to change in the years ahead. He also notes that most companies are playing a zero-sum game. With a small amount of capital, you could create a delightful experience in today’s world and could change how consumers interact with financial services. So instead, what if you focused on an adjacent area and find profit pools there? Creating a flywheel. I have always thought about innovation as affecting the way we live. With Paul’s Flywheel notion, he suggests that by partnering with marketing defining companies, they can create prosperity in the communities in which they invest. For example, in Canada, they want to make many jobs and a lot of wealth. They are creating a flywheel so that those entrepreneurs can create wealth, philanthropy and employment. So in their goal to create five unicorns companies, they are making a flywheel of prosperity. What is your superpower? Paul described his superpower as networking. He tries to deploy his network for good. Recently Paul co-founded the Black Wealth Club to leverage his superpower. He asked himself, how do you build a network with a group of people with who you have had very little interaction? Then, how you leverage your network to help a new group of people access new things. In this approach, it is essential to note that he is defining wealth as more than money. Wealth is about intellectual capital, human capital and relationship capital. Your most valuable asset is your people. In thinking about his own companies, Paul is making sure that he attracts the best talent. He wants his teams to behave lives that are in balance. He commented that “your most valuable assets walk in and out of the door every day.” His jobs, as he sees it, is to build a platform that makes them their best. He believes that nurturing talent means investing in talent. Not investing in people puts you at a competitive disadvantage. We approach every conversation with a bias. The question of imposter syndrome or doubt has been popping up for me more and more. Here you have one of the wealthiest men in Canada admitting that he has Imposter Syndrome. Sometimes his internal talk, when he walks into the room, is that people are thinking, “here is someone who has never done anything.” “Here is a rich kid playing with a cute idea.” We all have imposter syndrome. Well, maybe not all of us but at least those of us who love our work. After you get into the room, you then need to overcome the hurdle of internal doubt. Are you good enough? Are you worthy? None of us is alone with these thoughts. Seek to understand the drivers of your people. By default, we judge people as generalizations and not as individuals. Each of us needs to work hard to dismantle these trends. These stigmas permeate society, and it is horrible that people are often judged by generalizations. Fear of failure often cripples people. Paul admitted that he has learned to check his fear of failure and try things that are out of his comfort zone in our conversation. For him, fear is nothing but a lack of preparation. He likes to say that all of his success in life has come through luck. He tries to be prepared and positioned for luck. He is working on not fearing looking stupid for having taken a risk. He is also trying to ignore what people are going to think if he makes a mistake. Paying attention to the adjacent profit pools. There are substantial adjacent profit pools that we often ignore. Instead of a focus on each other, focus on a world of abundance. A lot of conflicts are about mindsets of scarcity. We can rethink how we build things. How do you help bring opportunity? Change the world view. Go where others are not willing to go. If you would like to learn more about Paul Desmarais III. Visit his website: https://www.sagardholdings.com/

S3: Ep. 99: Why we need philosophers in the board room? A Disruptive Conversation with Christian Madsbjerg.

Christian Madsbjerg is a professor at the New School for Social Research in New York City, where he teaches German and French philosophy from the 20th century. He has also founded a company called Red Associates. Red Associates is a Social Science-based or anthropology-based company to advise on human behaviour and how humans make sense of the world, and what is meaningful and important to them from the level of experience.In this conversation, we explore perspectives on the role of social science in business. Here are some of the things that stood out for me.Design systems, products and services for humans?This might sound obvious or, as Christian described, banal. Yet, much of the thinking around organization has come from management science. In many ways, management science attempted to bring the rigour of science to the business world. As a result, the field has been influenced by disciplines like economics, engineering and Mathematics. Social Science has much to contribute to the study of human arrangements. The proposal is simple. Reduce risk by using social sciences to produce new products and services in the business world.Do not pass judgement too quickly.Understanding people is about waiting, careful observation and not passing judgement too quickly. To find insight, we have to observe humans slowly, intentionally, and patiently. We need to be open to the first judgement not being true. Building your capacity to suspend judgement is the core to finding good insight.Seeing things work.When you see things work, it can be transformative. Using slow observation, you can find frugal, novel or simple insights that can be transformative.Disappointment is a better source of innovation than wonder.Where do people find inspiration in their search for innovation? It is an interesting provocation to ask the question, what disappoints you? What are you disappointed in, and how can you change it? Think for a second about where you find your inspiration. Where are the philosophers?The technologies of tomorrow will transform our future in ways we cannot imagine. What if we had philosophers at the decision-making tables? For example, what if there were philosophers in the room when we first launched Facebook? What questions might they have asked to help curtail some of the unintended consequences of technologies like social media?Insights can spread like wildfire.When an organization can find beneficial insight, it can spread throughout the organization. Insights can be fuel for transformation.Who is too comfortable in their power?Christian gave the example of what happens when Finance and Technology are too comfortable in their power. When one of these becomes too comfortable, it does not end well. This might be true of any domain. When people are too comfortable, especially too comfortable in their power, it can increase their blind spots. How do you notice when you are too comfortable in your power?Be interested in humans. We often find comfort in abstractions, models, or systems when we need to be focused on humans. When need to be interested in the things humans do, feel and say every day. We live in a world that has placed enormous trust in abstractions that don’t often get us as far as we thought.You are probably wrong.Christian tells a beautiful story about working with Samsung. At the time, he thought it was a terrible idea to put a camera on the phone. What he learned is that it is better to go with observation and analysis than intuition.Tap into talent as it is globally.It cannot be that the best people in the world all come from the same country as you. It does not work that you tap into talent globally. Learn to tap into global talent.Questions can change your world.Christian shared a story about working with Adidas. They asked the question, “Is Yoga a sport?” That question took the company on a journey to explore sports that are not about winning. Today, 60% of their revenue comes from sports that are about winning.What is like to be?The central message from Christian is to observe. His favourite quote is, look, don’t think. As I understand it, he is on a quest to understand why people do what they do? When we observe the everyday activities of real people, we gain real insight. We need to start with observing everyday human interactions. Questions bring perspective. They often can lead to insight or something new.To learn more about Christian Madsbjerg, visit:https://www.redassociates.com/

S3: Ep. 98: Conversations create a new way of seeing. A Disruptive Conversation with Paul Pangaro

Paul Pangaro has a deep interest in the relationship between machines and people. He describes himself as an interaction designer, pragmatist and practitioner. He thinks, like me, believes if you have a good theory, you can then make progress. Currently, he teaches at Carnegie Mellon in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute there.In this conversation, talk about how conversations help us make sense of the world. Several things stood out for me, and here are just a few of them.Conversations are not just between human beings.In referencing Gordan Pask, Paul makes the argument that conversations are not just between us as individuals. We can have conversations with objects in our space. We can have conversations with ourselves. One school of thought can have a conversation with another. It is these conversations that make us human.Without conversation we cannot learn from one another.The thing that distinguishes human beings as an animal from other animals is our capacity for language. Language gives us the capacity to create agreements, actually to agree and to collaborate. For him, conversation is the essence of all things human.If you wish to accomplish something design the conversation.What is the action you take when you want to accomplish something? For most people, the default is to assemble a team. Here Paul puts forward what might seem like an obvious provocation. What if you started with designing the conversation? What if you thought about the cadence of the conversations you need to have. Everything we ever hope to accomplish is done through conversations. So why not pay attention to how you design your conversations. In doing so, you increase your capacity to act. We need to think about the goals, means and classes of conversations.What do we need to learn or what did we learn?What if you ended each conversation in your organization with what we need to learn or what did we learn? Do we or did we have the right people in the room? New conversations and language help you see things in completely need ways. Conversations can help you rethinking distinctions, relationships, and values. Business gets better at doing the same thing better and better. They thus do not see what the new is.We ask the wrong people to come up with innovation.When we ask people who are operational to thinking about the new way forward, we ask the wrong people. These people are two caught in the existing paradigm. Getting people to think in new ways is to remove the conflict of their day to day activity with the future you hope to bring forward.Language helps us create new language.We need to use conversation to create what we do not know we are going to create.Find your misfits.We cannot expect the people who invested in the current paradigm to help you imagine the new world. To do this, you need to find your tribe of misfits. Our self-interest always drives us.There is a distinction between choice and options.Paul references a quote by Heinz von Foerster, which says, “I shall always act to increase the total number of choices.” Paul points out that the quote is really ethical imperative. Where we help people make real choices in a world that generally gives us options.No matter the change you wish to make, it should be couched in your values.If you are always honouring your values, you will still have your values no matter what you do in the world.A great quote referenced in the episode by Heinz von Foerster, “Person A is better off when person B is better off.”For more information about Paul PangaroVisit his website: https://www.pangaro.com/

S3: Ep. 97: Be a billionaire of influencing positive outcomes. A Disruptive Conversation with Joel Solomon

Joel Solomon is a financial activist and co-founder of a mission venture capital firm called Renewal Funds. He is also the author of The Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power, Purpose, and Capitalism. In this episode, we explore many a wide range of topics. Here are some of the things that stood out for me. How do we make money a force for good?The question can seem so simple. It is loaded. In our conversation, Joel and I discuss the notion that money as a force for good should be the status quo. For example, his company invests in clean food, nontoxic households and climate. I love that he is walking the walk and trying to bring others with him. On his journey, he spends time ensuring that as many people as possible can do things that matter, something they genuinely care about and invest in businesses or organizations that do things that matter. It all starts with his story of origin. When I asked Joel how he got into the work, he talked about early life experiences. He admitted that early childhood experiences of seeing African-American’s hosed in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He also referenced the Vietnam war and hoped for a career in creating a kinder and gentler world. The Golden rule vs The Platinum Rule. Joel and I talked about how his life has been informed by “do onto others as they would like have done onto them”. We discussed the Platinum Rule, do onto others as they would like done onto them. These rules have informed both our lives. The prospect of death can give us great perspectiveJoel told the story of how he was diagnosed with a genetic kidney disease. The diagnosis was, he could die soon, or he could live long. And there’s not a lot that he could do about it. Having to live with that from an early age greatly influenced him. Joel described how it caused a certain kind of awakening in him. He was keenly aware that time was limited. A question he posed was who you would like to have been? Ib considering that question, it became salient for him that death was around the corner. I ask the silly question, what it was like to be living in a way where death was always imminent. Joel reminded me that it was true for all of us. We just live “as if” it could not happen to us. When death becomes salient, it becomes influences our choice and our perspective of the world. The inner work is the most critical. Joel admitted that he works with four different professionals who help him do inner work, reflection, and seek insight. For him, some of the most critical work is to be questioned by experienced, intelligent people who work to support him. The goal for him is to move from challenge-based seeking help to anticipatory practice. For many of us, we seek help when trauma, fear or other challenges arise. It is an important question to ask, what if you instead worked from an anticipatory lens? How did I get to be who I am and how I am? I thought this was simply a wonderful question to consider. What is the role of purpose and vision in capitalism? Joel describes himself as a financial activist. He believes that capitalism can bring out humans’ very worst aspects without a clear motivation and purpose. For him, the goal of merely accumulating money without a clear purpose is an empty choice. We all die someday, and we cannot take all with us. In my own words, I understood his comments to mean that some questions require deeper or continuous reflection. Questions like, how much is enough? Why am I here? Are not questions that can be answered quantitatively. For Joel, he prefers to have influence, especially to influence positive outcomes in the world. We are ancestors of what’s coming. His fundamental belief is that we can do better. The goal for him is to choose a path he can be proud of on his deathbed. A few question he posed in our conversation were, “How do I want to be thought of, felt, and known when I die? How did I impact the world? How did I first find myself? Joel considers his job to be a good ancestor. The test for him is when he walks into a room, how does the room respond? In this is grounded in his belief in the inner work. The tragedy of the under-examined human species. When we have not taken the time to examine ourselves, we are driven by emotions, reactions, responses, and interpretations of the world that generate unhappiness, poor health, poor relationships, and harmful practices. How do you work on yourself, so you become proactive about how you respond to the worldDisrupting by being. I found this idea to be powerful. One quote that stood out for me was, “the inner work leads to the ability to, first of all, choose what must be disrupted and then ultimately not even to choose it, to just be it.” For Joel, he has come to the stage of his life where he would prefer to be disruptive in subtler and gentler ways. Ways in which the advances and success we make, make us inherently disruptive. Learn more about Joel you can visit his company website and his personal website:https://joelsolomon.org/https://www.renewalfunds.com/