Daniel Stillman is a former industrial designer turned conversation designer, who wants to help leadership teams and entire organisations stop wasting their time having ineffective conversations. We spoke about the concept of Conversation Design, the Conversation OS Canvas, and the perils of "Sheep Dip" organisational transformations.
Episode highlights:1. Sheep-dip organisational transformation doesn't work
You can't send everyone on a 1-hour course, not talk about it afterwards or have any kind of follow-up, yet somehow expect to sustain organisational change. Transformation takes sustained effort & you need to keep talking.
2. All conversations are inherently designed, even the ones that aren'tThere's an implicit design in any conversation. You should use whatever works for you, but being aware of what isn't working allows you to re-design the conversations that don't work and get better results.
3. Leadership is the ability to create the conditions for a transformational conversationIf everyone's stuck, leaders can help people get unstuck by getting people to ask the right question to offer the right insight in service of what we want to create more of in the world.
4. We all have a mental OS running on a mental CPUAnd, like all software, and all CPUs, there could be problems with clock speed, or bugs in the system that prevent us from getting to where we want to go. Thoughtfully designing conversations allows us to iron out the bugs.
5. Active Listening is a great hack to help design conversationsGetting away from the desire to respond within 200ms, not tuning people out because you're formulating your next thought & playing back people's words can really help change your conversations for the better.
Buy "Good Talk""Life is built one conversation at a time. Learn which conversations matter, how to transform those conversations, and balance them all while leading change.
Human beings are conversational animals. Every day we're in constant communication with ourselves, other people and the world around us, and while not all conversations may seem important, they all have the potential to transform our personal, professional and cultural lives for the better. This book explains how conversations work and offers practical advice on how to improve the quality of our exchanges."
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact DanielYou can catch up with Andres on LinkedIn, or visit his website or The Conversation Factory.
Building High Performing Cross-Functional Teams as a PM (with Hanne Ockert-Axelsson, Senior Product Manager @ accuRx)
Why We Need To Stay Aligned to Avoid Product Failure (with Jonathon Hensley, author ”Alignment”)
The Importance of Making Design a Strategic Business Partner (with Wolfgang Bremer, Head of Design @ Elli)
How to Manage Imposter Syndrome in Product Management (with Phyllis Njoroge, author ”From Fraud to Freedom”)
Product Leadership is Hard - Let‘s Get Better At It (with Ebenezer Ikonne, author ”Becoming a Leader in Product Development”)
Building Effective Technical Skills for Product Managers (with Irene Yu, founder @ Skiplevel)
Leading & Evolving Product Teams Through Hyperscale (with Brian Shen, Product Director @ ClickUp)
Breaking Down Silos in Product Development (with Sigurd Seteklev, co-founder @ Kitemaker)
Can Sales & Product Really Get Along? (with Brendan McAdams, author ”Sales Craft”)
Protecting Vulnerable Users by Designing for Safety (with Eva PenzeyMoog, author ”Design for Safety”)
Creating Sustainable Products with Conscious Design (with Ian Peterman, co-author ”Conscious Design”)
Digital Pollution & The Product Hippocratic Oath (with Radhika Dutt, author ”Radical Product Thinking”)
Building the Future of Automated Crypto Trading with the DDDT Process (with Gabriele Musella, CEO @ Coinrule)
Helping Companies Scale by Automating (almost) Everything (with Daniel Cooper, founder @ Lolly Co)
Selling Product Thinking by Influencing Companies at the Right Time (with Anthony Marter, product consultant & chair @ Product Aotearoa)
Maintaining a Collaborative & Inclusive Product Culture at Scale (with Anna Curzon, Chief Product Officer @ Xero)
Building the Future of Professional Networking (with Peter Johnston & Matt Breuer, CEO & Product Director @ Polywork)
Optimising Product Planning with the Quartz Open Framework (with Steve Johnson, consultant & co-founder @ Product Growth Leaders)
Navigating the World of Product Management (with George Nurijanian, Product Owner @ Xero & Founder @ prodmgmt.world)
Fighting Fires in B2B Product Management (with Rich Mironov, Product Consultant & author ”The Art of Product Management”)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Commercial Edge: Unleash the Power of People
The emPOWERed Half Hour
Aligned Money Show
Gorse Culture PODcast : The H.R. Detective Agency!
HCI Leadership Revolution
The Ramsey Show
Planet Money