Episode Transcript
00:00:00:18 - 00:00:30:27
Peter
Welcome to the Humanizing Workshop. I'm Peter Green, and today's episode explores a skill that I've always admired in others. And Richard is particularly good at this skill. You can ask Richard a complex, nuanced question, and without preparation, he often crafts a really elegant, deeply reasoned answer. He sounds kind of like he hit the pause button on the timeline for the rest of us, and writes 3 or 4 drafts of an answer,
00:00:30:27 - 00:00:48:12
Peter
edits it , gets it just right, and then reads that back after he hits resume on our timeline. So today I'm going to interview him about that skill and how he developed it, and what advice he has for others on how to develop it. To demonstrate this, I've got a question that I haven't shared with him ahead of time, and we'll see how he answers it.
00:00:48:14 - 00:01:11:06
Peter
I suppose this could go really poorly. Maybe this is the one time I ask Richard a hard question and he totally trips over his words, but I bet that won't be the case. Before I bring him in and ask that question, though, just a quick reminder that the Humanizing Work Show is a free resource sponsored by the Humanizing Work Company, where we help organizations get better at leadership, product management, and collaboration.
00:01:11:08 - 00:01:34:28
Peter
Visit the contact page on our website. Humanizing work. Com and schedule a conversation with us if your organization wants to see stronger results in those areas. And if you want to support the show, the best thing you can do if you're watching on YouTube is like and share the episode. Subscribe to our channel, click the bell to get notified of new episodes and drop us a comment with your thoughts or questions about today's topic.
00:01:35:01 - 00:01:50:00
Peter
If you're listening on your podcast app, the best thing you can do is rate and review it in your app and share the episode along with your thoughts and questions on your social media. All right. Back to the content of today's episode, Richard. Welcome to our show.
00:01:50:03 - 00:01:56:01
Richard
Hey, Peter, it's good to be a guest on my own show for the first time.
00:01:56:03 - 00:02:29:12
Peter
All right, so I've been lauding your skills at responding extemporaneously to kind of challenging questions. I've seen you do this over and over again when we're working with clients and just in sort of day to day conversation. And I thought I would test this out by asking you a question about our current United States political parties. I'm curious, Richard, how do you see the current political parties, Republicans and Democrats in the United States as having drifted from their original values, sort of the traditional what it means to be conservative, what it means to be liberal.
00:02:29:14 - 00:02:32:14
Peter
Easy one. Right. Softball? Yeah.
00:02:32:14 - 00:02:41:16
Richard
Thanks for the softball, Peter. this is hard in different ways than the hard questions I would typically answer.
00:02:41:22 - 00:02:44:14
Peter
I wanted to actually put you on the spot and see what you did.
00:02:44:14 - 00:02:52:16
Richard
Yeah. I feel that, the stakes feel a lot higher than questions I typically answer. And distracting in a lot of ways.
00:02:52:18 - 00:02:55:22
Peter
Well, let's work through it and then we can cut it if we want.
00:02:55:24 - 00:03:41:29
Richard
So in in my education on this I've studied conservatism much more than I have studied kind of progressivism. And so I, I can't give a really comprehensive answer to this. But the thing that immediately came to mind is that the history of conservative political thought and, and I studied this in grad school all the way back into the medieval period, was very much focused on you've inherited and chosen obligations to the people before you, like your family, your community, your religious heritage, the place that you're in, whatever sort of imposes obligations on you that you're not free to choose.
00:03:42:01 - 00:04:29:29
Richard
And because of those obligations, you are meant to take your inheritance and then empirically see if there are better ways to do things and evolve from what you've inherited. But you have this starting point that you've picked up with this whole collection of obligations that you think about as you experiment with what's better for us. And it feels like the modern version of conservatism in America is maybe more self-centered and focused on individual liberty, and not so much focused on its obligations to others in family, community, and place, and not so much focused on iteratively and empirically improving things on the inheritance we received.
00:04:30:00 - 00:04:35:07
Richard
So it almost feels like we we don't have a conservative party in that sense.
00:04:35:10 - 00:04:43:24
Peter
Interesting. As you studied that, I'm curious how that contrasted with more traditional definitions than of progressive or liberal approaches.
00:04:43:26 - 00:05:09:27
Richard
There I think are are two different threads in progressivism that I see. one is a kind of collective thread which is often sort of utopian and, making a better world from first principles, which you see in a lot of the enlightenment heritage of progressivism. Like, we should have a better society. Let's reason about how to do that, and let's kind of create that top down.
00:05:10:03 - 00:05:33:02
Richard
And you see that in a lot of the government centric social programs and a desire to make a better society and imposed sounds pejorative because and that's not the way people would reason about it. It's like make that happen at a large scale so that it has a lot of benefit for people. And we can talk about side effects and unintended consequences and all of that.
00:05:33:05 - 00:05:52:08
Richard
But trying to put it in in the best light, I think there's that thread of let's create a better society from first principles, at whatever scale we can. And then I think there's a second thread of individual liberty and freedom, and you see this showing up in a lot of ways to and sometimes in conflict with the other.
00:05:52:10 - 00:06:01:24
Richard
Yeah. Because once you start thinking about a better society, you bump up against the limits of individual freedom. And that feels like a tension in that thread right now.
00:06:01:26 - 00:06:24:11
Peter
Yeah. It's interesting the way that I would describe you contrasting the traditional definitions of these things and the way that current political dialog happens, is that you describe different starting points, this ideal versus this ideal, but you're able to frame it when you speak of it that way, in a way that acknowledges the benefit that each ideal is attempting to create.
00:06:24:13 - 00:06:34:05
Peter
And current political dialog seems to do the exact opposite. That which is build up a straw man of the worst right characteristics of each one, and try to tear down the straw man.
00:06:34:07 - 00:06:54:05
Richard
Yeah, and I think it's important that this is one of those mental models I use when I'm thinking through how to answer a question is if I assume everybody involved in this as well intentioned and wants to do the right thing, how did well-intentioned people end up believing something different from me, or end up doing something that doesn't make sense to me?
00:06:54:05 - 00:07:01:14
Richard
And so as I'm processing the question, I'm trying to think through things like that so that I can answer in a useful way. Yeah.
00:07:01:21 - 00:07:16:20
Peter
This is a skill that you seem to have developed over the years. And I'm curious, when you first recognized that you had a talent for it, or maybe you failed miserably at it in some situation. What was the Genesis for you starting to develop this skill?
00:07:16:23 - 00:07:47:11
Richard
I think I probably experienced some early bright spots with it where I'm systems thinking and objectivity is a natural strength of mine and a weakness. And in terms of distance from what's actually going on, I can kind of be too objective and disconnect from the people and the feelings. especially earlier in my life. And but that did allow me to think about what's, what's going on here and reason quickly about it so I can process pretty quickly.
00:07:47:11 - 00:08:08:16
Richard
And there is some natural talent there. And I can also think of a lot of occasions early on. The thing that made me want to systematically develop this was where I would give an answer that might be true, but not useful. And like here's a glimpse into what I'm thinking. And I wasn't thinking enough about the people involved.
00:08:08:16 - 00:08:36:25
Richard
I was thinking much more about oh this is an interesting problem. Let me play out the all the things that may be going on here. And I'd give an answer that was packed with nuance and detail and different models and not really be in service of somebody who is asking me a question. So reflecting back on those things where I may have thought I gave a good answer, or I realized in the middle that it had gone off the rails, and I reflect back on it and think, how could I be more useful in that situation?
00:08:36:27 - 00:09:02:06
Richard
So it wasn't usually being, speechless. Although my wife will tell me that when we first met, I would, give painfully long pauses before answering questions. Sometimes, and I may still do that while I'm processing things, but apparently 25 years ago it was a lot worse. Yeah, so there was probably some awkwardness there, but I didn't have the sense of I have no idea what to say.
00:09:02:06 - 00:09:09:15
Richard
It was more like, let me sort out the thing I'm going to say. But then it wasn't always the most useful thing. So I wanted to get better at that.
00:09:09:18 - 00:09:14:24
Peter
What are the things that you did as soon as you realized you wanted to develop this skill? Right.
00:09:14:26 - 00:09:40:18
Richard
Right. Background. one of the things that I learned in music is that if you want to be able to improvise in a style, you have to know the vocabulary for that style first. So you start by learning other people's songs, by learning sort of the words and phrases that people say in that style. So early on for me that was bluegrass and Celtic music and grew up going to jam sessions.
00:09:40:18 - 00:09:53:21
Richard
And the first time that I had to try a solo on guitar, I had no vocabulary and it was awful. I think the only vocabulary I might have had was the song that's in deliverance, that idiot. T t t t.
00:09:53:21 - 00:09:54:18
Peter
T dueling banjos.
00:09:54:18 - 00:10:14:06
Richard
Yeah. Dueling banjos. That's what it was. The only phrase that came to mind, and it was totally useless for the song that I was in, so I just didn't have any words to say. Yeah. it was like you should join CrossFit. Like, wait, nobody's asking about fitness right now. The only thing I knew to say and that didn't work.
00:10:14:13 - 00:10:31:27
Richard
And then eventually you build up the vocabulary and you're able to say things on your own. And so that pattern came to mind when I was thinking about how to develop the skill. And I realized, and I needed to have the vocabulary, but in this case, the vocabulary needed to be, what are the things I say about these kinds of topics?
00:10:31:29 - 00:10:54:28
Richard
So I wrote out a list of questions that people had asked me or might ask me. And every morning I would write about or try to answer one of those as a way to just figure out in the the quiet of my own workspace, what do I even say about this thing? And over time, I started blogging some of that stuff.
00:10:55:03 - 00:11:08:14
Richard
And, at this point, I have probably written, I don't know, a couple million words on the kinds of topics that people ask me about, and I think I'm drawing from a lot of that when I answer questions. Yeah.
00:11:08:16 - 00:11:11:05
Peter
Besides writing. What other things have you found useful?
00:11:11:12 - 00:11:32:13
Richard
I've recorded myself answering questions out loud. I'm never go back and listen to it. Especially before we had a show. and before I had recorded a lot of music, I really didn't enjoy listening to my own voice and didn't have the patience for it. But even having to say it to the recorder was a way to get clear on it.
00:11:32:15 - 00:11:53:02
Richard
And then once speech to text became a thing, I would go out for a walk with a question in mind and I would just rambled to myself, recording into like an otter or something, and it would transcribe it, and then I'd come back and I'd see what I said, and how do I feel about that? And what's a clearer way to say that and kind of added it a little bit.
00:11:53:04 - 00:12:09:20
Richard
certainly having conversations with people is useful, in safer settings. And so going to conferences and having, like open space style conversations about things allowed me to think out loud and work through some of those as well.
00:12:09:22 - 00:12:17:13
Peter
one pattern I noticed there is that when you're journaling to yourself, that's incredibly safe. Nobody will see it. Nobody will criticize it.
00:12:17:15 - 00:12:18:09
Richard
Right.
00:12:18:11 - 00:12:35:01
Peter
as you explore these other ways, each of them raises the stakes in some way, but not so much that it's anxiety producing, I'm guessing. So as soon as you hit the record button, the stakes are higher. The conversations with people that you trust, the stakes are higher because now you have to pay attention to how they're responding to it.
00:12:35:01 - 00:12:40:14
Peter
And yeah, even if it's a close friend, you do know that the stakes are a little bit higher. So each of those raises the stakes a little bit.
00:12:40:16 - 00:13:04:12
Richard
Yeah. There are some people that I have conversations with where I feel like I can say something. I'm not even sure I believe yet. Just to see how it sounds when I say it and how they respond to it, and we can talk our way into what I actually think. You and I obviously have that relationship. We work out our thoughts together a lot of times, and that's akin to what I would do when I'm writing.
00:13:04:15 - 00:13:28:07
Richard
I'll sometimes write something I'm not sure I believe and see once I've written, then do I actually think that or what do I actually think? Whereas if I'm doing this in a conference session, Q&A, or a meeting with a client, the stakes are definitely higher and I'm probably not going to float something that I don't believe and talk my way into what I actually think.
00:13:28:07 - 00:13:33:23
Peter
Yeah, I find the same to be true of writing that. As I write, I learn what I actually think about the topic.
00:13:33:26 - 00:13:48:25
Richard
Which is probably a good reason to write a lot before you publish. The first thing you write probably should not be the first blog post that's going to appear on your website or LinkedIn post, or whatever, and it's give yourself the freedom to write a lot of things that will never see the light of day.
00:13:48:27 - 00:13:59:05
Peter
Or at least do multiple drafts of that thing. You've been interviewing folks that are in coaching roles for a while now. you want to talk a little bit about those interviews and what you learned.
00:13:59:06 - 00:14:22:01
Richard
Right. One of the themes that has come up in the the interviews I've been doing with coaches, largely people who would consider themselves agile coaches and typically internal agile coaches, a theme that came up and interviews a lot is this sense that they know a lot more than they're able to share, and that might be they don't have the settings in which they could share it.
00:14:22:01 - 00:14:40:18
Richard
But a really common example of this that came up was people ask me a question in a meeting, maybe it was, a meeting where I was prepared to talk about something completely different. And then now that they've got me, they want my input on this situation that's happening with their team or how we should do things in this part of the organization.
00:14:40:20 - 00:14:55:28
Richard
And I know I have opinions about this. I have useful things to say, but I can't think of them in the moment. A couple people I interviewed described it as waking up in the middle of the night after the meeting, thinking, oh, I know what I should have said. Yeah, but of course it's too late at that point.
00:14:55:28 - 00:15:12:08
Richard
And coming back and saying, let's have a redo probably isn't going to work most of the time. So this was a theme that showed up over and over again that I should have said feeling. So it wasn't that they wanted to be able to talk about something they didn't know, or wanted to be able to bluff or seem smarter than they were.
00:15:12:15 - 00:15:22:09
Richard
So they were objectively capable of providing a useful answer to that question, but not in that moment when they needed it on the spot.
00:15:22:11 - 00:15:42:26
Peter
And so we decided to put on a workshop to help coaches develop this skill. And I guess really anybody that has that experience, I think most of us have had that experience of, oh, I wish I had said that in this conversation. So, tell us a little bit about what, you know, give us a preview. I guess we don't want to give away the whole show, but yes, a little preview of some of the things that you'll focus on in that workshop.
00:15:43:02 - 00:16:07:26
Richard
I think there's several parts to being good at this. We've already talked about just figuring out what you have to say about things so that you have that vocabulary of, words, phrases, stories, models for things. even visuals. Often drawing a picture of something helps you get your thoughts clear. And, being able to jump up to the whiteboard and visualize something.
00:16:07:26 - 00:16:09:11
Richard
Sometimes it's a great answer to a question.
00:16:09:11 - 00:16:15:22
Peter
I appreciate you putting that in third person, because that is certainly the case for me. I always feel like if I can't draw it, I don't understand it.
00:16:15:22 - 00:16:36:13
Richard
Right? Yeah, I've done a lot of that over the years too, and it's helpful. So that's the content part of it. But I think there are a lot of skills around this. one of them is getting yourself in the right internal state to actually be present and helpful. sometimes the impediment to being able to have a good answer is just you're nervous.
00:16:36:13 - 00:17:01:23
Richard
You're insecure about whether you can bring something useful. you're just maybe too aware of yourself, and so you miss what the person is asking. So getting yourself in the right state is part of it. how you listen to questions and hear what's being said or not being said, how you you pull together the information and think about what would be a useful answer or ask a follow up question to get more information.
00:17:01:25 - 00:17:28:09
Richard
So everything that leads up to your answer, I think is important. And then there's just how you deliver a useful answer. So stories checking whether you're actually producing understanding and insight versus just soap boxing. and then I think an important thing to talk about, which we'll address in the workshop, is what do you do when you don't have an answer that you feel like is polished and useful, but you still want to be helpful in some way?
00:17:28:12 - 00:17:45:11
Richard
you don't always have to have the humdinger of an answer that somebody is going to want to record and carry around with them. There are still other ways to be helpful in those moments. Yeah, and that's ultimately what I think this comes down to. It's people are asking you questions because they perceive that you can help them with something.
00:17:45:13 - 00:17:47:21
Richard
So how do you show up in a way that's helpful.
00:17:47:28 - 00:18:08:29
Peter
It reminds me of the advice from Ben Zander which is just be a contribution. Yeah. And as soon as soon as you shift from I have to perform or the stakes are high, reduce the stakes and just say, how can I be a contribution right now? Maybe I have a mental model I can share. Maybe I have a clear answer to that question, but maybe just a good follow up question to help them think more clearly about what the problem is, right?
00:18:09:01 - 00:18:16:23
Peter
It also occurred to me, as you were sharing, that, that what you're trying to do when you're getting your mental state right is reduce the stakes to match the level that you've practiced.
00:18:17:00 - 00:18:43:11
Richard
And, you know, as a musician and speaker that you don't want to reduce your anxiety all the way right. When I get on stage for a music performance or a speech or record a show or whatever, I need a level of, kind of mental and emotional arousal that is going to lead to a good performance. And I can harness some of the anxiety, some of the stakes towards that end.
00:18:43:14 - 00:18:52:26
Richard
If I feel like I'm just sitting on the couch with a bag of chips watching YouTube when I'm up on stage, that's not going to lead to a good outcome for the people who are there with me.
00:18:52:27 - 00:19:16:14
Peter
Yeah. I cannot picture you laying on a couch eating a bag of chips, watching YouTube. be. Yes. And I think, most people that I talk to have the opposite problem. Not that they can't keep the anxiety around at all, but the anxiety is so high that it becomes paralyzing. And I found as a musician that there were some situations where the anxiety was high enough that it was decreasing.
00:19:16:14 - 00:19:34:04
Peter
My level of performance, and I needed the mental skills to drop the anxiety. And being a contribution is one idea there. How can I just be a good member of the band? How can I just make a difference for one person that's listening to this music? Right. Those. Yeah, those, thinking skills. Right. We're able to bring it down.
00:19:34:05 - 00:19:39:04
Richard
The last one is close to what I often use. I wonder what they need from me right now.
00:19:39:07 - 00:19:40:12
Peter
Yeah.
00:19:40:15 - 00:19:43:14
Richard
I'm more curious, more focused on them than I am on myself.
00:19:43:16 - 00:19:56:14
Peter
That's great. I was going to ask if you had one practical tip, and that sounds like a great one, which is to get curious about what they need and be a contribution, even if it's just for that one person. What other tips do you have?
00:19:56:16 - 00:20:18:09
Richard
let me extend that one a little bit, and then maybe I can offer a couple more. The mental model kind of behind that one. Like be a contribution. Wonder what's going on for them is show up. Curious. I wonder what's really going on there. I think I just get myself in a, in a state where I am more curious than anything else, because that just gets me outside myself.
00:20:18:12 - 00:20:41:15
Richard
Like, I really wonder what's behind that question. I wonder why that feels so hard for them right now. And I just become interested in them and forget about myself. And in the process, I'm going to share what seems like it might be useful. So that's one tip. another tip is think about your thinking. Start becoming aware of your mental models.
00:20:41:18 - 00:21:04:29
Richard
I think a lot of people just think and don't really know why they think about things in certain ways. And I've discovered that having a, a toolbox of mental models that I can try on quickly allows me to make sense of what's going on. I'll give you a a couple easy ones. one is assume positive intent. Like, I'm gonna try that on a little bit.
00:21:04:29 - 00:21:31:18
Richard
It may or may not be true that everybody has positive intent, but when insight do I get when I think about if all the players in this painful situation somebody asking me about are well-intentioned, what does that tell me? Or another one that I think is pretty widely applicable? Is this idea of trade offs or tensions. It's like, what are two things that people value in here that seem to be in conflict, and is there a way we can thread that or get both of those at once?
00:21:31:20 - 00:21:53:26
Richard
So when I'm listening to a question and the story around the question, I'm often plugging the facts into these different mental models and seeing what gives me insight here. And that might unlock something for the person that I'm talking with. And so I've got my set of mental models that I use, but they're not the same as the ones that you use or that somebody else uses.
00:21:53:29 - 00:22:14:14
Richard
And as you become conscious of the ones that you have, instead of just having tacit knowledge where you use them but you don't know they're there. You become more conscious about them. You're able to plug them in and unplug them faster I think. Yeah I think that's what's going on a lot of times where it feels like I've thought through something a lot before.
00:22:14:14 - 00:22:22:25
Richard
I answer, it's because I have this bundle of shorthands that I can use to think through something quickly and then stick with the one that gives the most insight.
00:22:22:27 - 00:22:43:16
Peter
That sounds a lot like having the vocabulary for an improvising musician. When I'm improvising, I'm not thinking, what note am I going to play next? No, I get a general shape in my head and that shape is so under my fingers in every key, right, that I just do. I just go play it and it sounds like mental models are functioning the same way for you in these types of conversations.
00:22:43:18 - 00:22:46:09
Richard
They chunk the information for you in that way.
00:22:46:12 - 00:23:11:12
Peter
The maiden voyage of this workshop which we're calling on the spot strategies for articulating the answers under pressure is happening on September 19th 2024. You can get more details and register on our website. Humanizing work. Com and go to the events page if you're checking out the show after that. I bet the future's awesome. B check our site anyway, maybe we're running it again or contact us.
00:23:11:15 - 00:23:29:10
Peter
We often bring workshops like this in house. Richard, is there somebody that you would really hope to see? I'm not talking about a name, but a type of person that you really hope shows. Yeah. You so and so. We want you to be there. We noticed you stumbling on your answers a lot now. who do you really want to be there?
00:23:29:17 - 00:23:33:03
Peter
What's what? Describe somebody that that would really benefit from this.
00:23:33:06 - 00:23:56:01
Richard
I think in general, it's anybody who has things they know that other people would benefit from, and they end up having to talk about those without warning. But, a couple categories where I see that a lot. Obviously coaches we've talked about, find themselves in that situation all the time, but the other group that I would love to see well represented at this workshop is nonprofit leaders.
00:23:56:03 - 00:24:15:27
Richard
I think there are a lot of people who are doing things that matter that can have a big impact in the world, and they're good when they have their prepared speech, but when they're on the spot, they may not have the words to bring somebody else along and explain why what they're doing matters and how somebody else might contribute.
00:24:15:27 - 00:24:26:19
Richard
And so I would love to see nonprofit leaders represented here as an example of people who need to bring their knowledge to bear in the moment, to have a meaningful impact.
00:24:26:20 - 00:24:46:05
Peter
All right. So if you fit into any of those categories or if you found this discussion helpful, we invite you to join us on September 19th for the workshop. We also invite you to join us in our mission to make work more fit for humans and humans more capable of doing great work. Visit our website at humanizing Worldcom for more resources, articles, and training opportunities.
00:24:46:07 - 00:25:02:06
Peter
And don't forget to check out our other episodes. We cover a wide range of topics to help you and your team work more effectively. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time on the Humanizing Work Show.