You have to choose to commit to the conversation first, the people second and your idea third, and that's the only kind of way you can actually kind of go into a conversation. My name's Katrina. And I'm Steve. And we are curious about how changing conversations can change organizations. Yeah. And together with our community of transformation nerds, we're exploring how to leverage conversations to make our workplaces more fit for humans, but also more fit for the future. We'll use our podcast series to do just that, while being in conversation with business and thought leaders who have interesting perspectives on the topic. So without further ado, let's start the conversation. Today's guest is Fred Dust. Fred Dust is the founder of the company Making Conversation and the author of a book with the same title. His book introduces seven essential elements of meaningful conversations. Fred comes from a design background. He is the former global managing partner at the design firm IDEO, and he now works as a dialogue designer with companies, a dialogue designer with companies, governmental institutions, and several prominent foundations. We are so excited to talk to you. I am delighted to be here. And we were super curious to get in contact with you when we saw that you'd written a book called Making Conversation, where you've laid out some essentials to great creative conversations. So we just thought we had to get in contact with you and talk to you about. Talk about that and what that's all about. I'm delighted to be here. And it's just a really funny little story. Originally, the book was called Designing Dialogue. And we sold the book. And I was sitting with my publisher and she was like, the book's great. You can do anything you want, except for you can't say design and you can't say dialogue. And so we had to think of a whole new title, which is The Making Conversation. That's fascinating. That's fascinating. But also, because actually, that was one of the first things that I wanted to ask you about, which was this term, creative conversations. You give kind of an intro to that in your book. And, you know, what are they and what are they not? Because you also assign a purpose to creative conversations. So would you be able to tell us what a creative conversation is? Yeah, no. And I think it's a really great point. I mean, there's so many times I'll come into an organization and people are like, oh, wait, I have to like now learn how to have conversation, you know? And the whole point is that, no, we don't want you to kind of like relearn conversation. There are all kinds of conversations you have that are like perfectly good. You know, I think there's gossip. There's kind of like whisper. There's kind of planning and all the kind of fun conversations you have. And those are those should be left alone. However, I think in our lives, we find these conversations that are a little bit difficult or hard. And I think in the book, I talk specifically about all the conversations you find yourself in a room where there's a lot of difference in the room. And that can be that the room looks different from you. The people are acting different from you. There's different power dynamics. There's difference of opinions. And those are the things where I feel like we really need to kind of start to get creative around the conversation, where you really do want to put together a plan. You do want to think about how you might design that so it can feel less difficult, less different, more fun, more compelling. And one of the reasons I really like the notion, Katrina, of kind of thinking about a conversation as a creative act is that sometimes we, because creativity is fun, it's joyful, it's exciting. And I think rather than just kind of think of this as like a hard conversation that we just have to face, thinking about it as something that we can make together, I think is actually more exciting. It's so true. And also in the context of, you know, we're talking about how you might shape a conversation to help transform your organization, transform your team, or even yourself. And that kind of being that specific about it, I think is really helpful. One of the things I'm testing at the moment is two dimensions that those conversations might be made of, which is, does it feel meaningful? Does it feel meaningful? And is it productive? And perhaps at the interception of those two things might be somewhere to play. And I just wondered what you think about that also in the context of the way you see creative conversations. Yeah, I mean, I think those are two, I mean, great categories in which you kind of want to sort of say, well, if those two things are intersecting, you'd want to kind of think about them, the conversations creatively. I also think, Katrina, of things that are even, simpler, which is like the conversations that you go into where you have a kind of pit in your stomach, where you're feeling a little bit nervous about it. And those are the conversations you should pay really close attention to, because that's your body telling you that there's something that you're uncomfortable with. And so you really need to kind of begin to prepare for it. I once was in a really significant, like a serious conflict with a board of an organization that I was working with. And I remember talking to the chair of the board, and being, and I had that pit in my stomach before going into the conversation. And I was like, hey, let's make a plan for this conversation. This is a difficult conversation. And he was like, we don't need a plan, just be charming, and everyone's going to be happy, and we'll go along. And I was like, that's not a plan. And I'm not good with that. And I didn't go into the conversation. Yeah, it's just like, like, when somebody does that, when they're like, they're like, oh, don't worry about it. Just be charming. That's something where you're like, yeah, no. But Fred, are there any conversations in an organization that are not, that cannot be creative? Like, is it so that any conversation you have, really, would benefit from, you know, being more creative? Yeah, and I think that there's a bunch of actually, I write quite a bit, there's a chapter in the book about space. And I think there's something about some organizations where depending on where the spaces are happening, and where the conversations are happening, and are they happening in a corridor quickly, and things like that. There are a lot of things that actually automatically instill a kind of like uniqueness or creativity to the conversations. But yeah, I think, in fact, we need to get way more creative. I think you need to be creative about the way you hire and the questions you ask when you hire. I think you need to be really creative and thoughtful. And one of the things I write about in the book quite a bit is setting up the kind of constraints and rules around critique, so that critique can feel like it's fun and generative and two-way as opposed to painful. And as you know, like, I'm an architect by training. Like, so many architects go, like, literally, like, have breakdowns because of the kind of the brutality of the critique structure within an architecture program. So I really focus on thinking about how you can shift those things. And we even, we did a workshop where we asked people what were they longing for, yearning for in their conversations. And one of the things that came very strongly from a lot of people was surprise something. You need to add something to the conversation that changes the perspective, that brings something novel, new to the conversation. And what wears you out is the repetitive element of a conversation. And it actually made me think that maybe you need to reshuffle all your conversations now and then, even the ones that you're having on a continuous basis, like, you know, operations meeting every month. Maybe it has to change radically for people to stay engaged. I think that's right, Stig. And it's really interesting. It's kind of a delight to hear that people are sort of what one of the things they yearn for in a conversation is surprise. One of our clients right now that we're working with, we were describing the way we were building the conversational methodology, which is a thing we're using called intentions, which is about kind of pulling out the tensions within an institution. And we talked about it as a magic trick, literally, like the three parts of like a kind of a good magic trick, where it's like there is kind of a prestige moment, and then there is this kind of a magic trick. This kind of like surprise element that's really essential. And so I think that's right. And, and Stig, I think it's especially true with the conversations that we treat take for granted the most in institutions that often by by connecting to them creatively, like, what would happen if you did an ops meeting, and it was the fastest possible meeting, you could do it, you know, it's like, like, it's like, what happens if you're going to play with speed or slow things down? Or Katrina, I think last time we talked about pause a bit, you know, it's like, or putting pause in. And I think there's like a lot of really interesting things that are going to be like, and that's the point here is these do not have to be spectacular tricks, they can be simple tricks, or simple things that are placed into a conversation that give people a little bit of surprise and a little bit of excitement. So I would love to just take us back to because you mentioned one of the things within constraints, which was how to make critique more joyful or a nicer process. And I'm thinking if you're listening to this, oh, what's that? Tell me more. So would you be able to guide us through maybe some of your your tips on on how to do that? Yeah, yeah, it's it's really it's something that we just we don't think closely about, I think a lot and something that I had to in my life, and still almost daily, I'm giving critique to my teams or vice versa. And we're having to figure out how to do that in a way that feels constructive. There's a bunch of baselines on critique, and they actually kind of apply to a lot of things, which is like, you really don't want to give critique at the end of the day, you really don't want to give critique at the end of the week, like it's like, there's a lot of kind of just time constraints. I mean, there really are moments in our day where we're more primed to kind of be generative and proactive and creative with with critique. So I would say like, mid morning is a really nice time to actually kind of early mid morning, like you don't want to get into that kind of the hunger slump thing. So anyway, so there's a lot about the physiology of it. But you know, one of the things that I've always done, it's a very simple rule set that I actually follow when I kind of give critique, which is that I basically am like, okay, I'm coming in, I'm going to be giving you some feedback, critique on the work. But by the way, that's one of the critical things is if you're critiquing somebody's work, you're focusing on the work, not on the person. And we often kind of construe those things together. So that's one of the very first things you have to hold in mind is like, I'm not critiquing you, Stig. I'm not critiquing you, Katrina. I'm critiquing the work. And we're all kind of focusing on that. And the goal of that is to make it feel better and to make that as good as it can possibly be. But often, when I come in, I'll basically say, okay, you know, I'm about to kind of give you some feedback on the work. Let me hand it over to you for a moment and tell me the things that I can't touch, the things you don't want to hear about today, the things that you feel really strongly about, and tell me the places where you feel like you need the most help. And so they kind of lay that out. And I'm like, and then they what happens is I passed the rules over to them. I'm like, I have control. Now I'm passing the control over to you, the person whose work I'm going to review. And then you pass it back to me, but you do it in a way that you've kind of framed what you feel comfortable with. And what's interesting about that is that that simple pass of power back and forth really levels the way the conversation happens. And you find it being much more expansive, people being willing to have a much further and furthering conversation about the work, but do it in a way that feels kind of like as though you're collaborating as opposed to just kind of receiving something. But I think that's interesting because what I've experienced is that if I start a meeting by asking what conversation should we have? Like, what do we need to talk about? And how should we talk about it? That layup in itself kind of a little bit to what you're saying, at least offers, you could say a common ground for defining, and it really invites the other person in. Maybe I need to take leadership and say, I've been thinking about this subject. And I would like us to explore it in this way. But maybe you have a view on that. And it kind of elevates this thing about us owning this space. And actually allowing ourselves to think about, we could talk about many things. And we could also talk about those things in many ways. I really like that frame. And I think what you're doing when you do that is really establishing, you're kind of inviting the notion that everybody is a creative collaborator in the conversation that's happening. And so you're basically building a creative space, which I think is a, that's, and just that's, and that's a great example of just this incredibly subtle shift that can kind of create a much more dynamic space. Much more inclusive and much more involved conversation amongst the people that you're with. Yeah. And it actually, it actually opens up. I had a, I had a dinner with, with a client not long ago where I, I had prepared. So, so I would even make the layup and say, we could talk about things that you're struggling with in your job. That's one conversation. We could talk about ideas that you're fascinated by in general right now. Or we could talk about who are you? Or we could talk about who are you? And what made you, you? And then I could, we could take turns. And just that invite in itself kind of made him want to go for the more advanced in this case, who are you? And what made you, who you are? And I'm, I'm quite sure that had it not been kind of us actually allowing ourselves to think about where could we go? We would have just have had a plain kind of, you know, la-di-la-di-la and it would have been fine. I think that's awesome. You, you gave him a menu for conversations as you were having a meal, which is kind of amazing. You know, you were like, here's, here's three different ways that we could actually kind of approach this conversation. It's, it's, it's like a, and you think about how often we, we don't feel like that. You know, you don't, you don't actually even know the options that are on the table and literally, so to speak, given, given the context that you were in. But I think one, so this happened to me today. So I was in a meeting and I went into the meeting with one plan for it. And then I found out from the other three people in the meeting that, that firstly, we'd set aside two hours and it turned out they only were going to, we were going to be there for one hour then because they needed to go somewhere else. And that what we were going to spend our time on was not like I, what I had in mind. I just kind of went around and said, okay, well, what would you need? What, what would you need? What would you need? And, and so this thing about, you know, I think Fred, you call it asking for the conversation that you want. And when you are multiple people and having to balance what everybody wants, and then me as the meeting leader, I have to kind of deal with my own, oh, this is so annoying. I wanted to talk about this thing. And you guys are not playing along with it. So maybe just like inserting a little moment of reality of it's easier said than done. It, you know, it is, although I think that's, that's a really interesting kind of thing. When it, one of the things that, um, that story kind of reminded me of, and your kind of point around asking for the conversation that you want. And I'll go back again to this kind of really simple tool of pause. Um, one of the places where that really emerged for me was like having some somebody who was yelling at me, um, who I just met. And it was this kind of like horrible experience and me being ready to just kind of yell back at them, you know, in this kind of like extreme way. And I took a breath and in that breath, it was long enough for me to basically be like, wait a second. And I actually said to that person, is this the conversation you want to have? And she said, no, it's not. And it changed it. But what I think is interesting, Katrina is also kind of like in that flummox state, in that kind of moment of kind of pressure where there's three different things, it is a really good moment to get into it. You're going to basically say, okay, maybe let's take a couple minutes, which is interesting. You have an hour. So like, let's take like four minutes and let's write some thoughts on how we could actually address all the topics on the table or of these things. I think to Stig's point, what are, what are the things that we feel like collectively we agree is the most important thing. So you may actually kind of use a moment like that to kind of pause, reset, and then recalibrate the kind of tone even of the conversation that's happening in the room and the ways that you're talking about what you need to have. So yeah, it's, it's not easy. And it, but it, it takes more patience and reflection than it takes kind of quickness on your, on your feet. You know, it's like, I think that that's one of the things that you can give yourself is like, give myself a little bit of time. Don't feel like I have to respond to this right away. When I've been mapping out, like when I've been sitting in on conversations, overhearing two leaders or more, and I've tried to say, I've tried to map out. You can either, you can either, you can either be curious, have a question, investigate something, or you can have a point of view, or you can advocate something. It's kind of those two extremes. When I've been doing that, the rule of thumb is that when in a meeting, people in general have 90% advocacy. So 90% of, of the times they open their mouth and say something, they are advocating something. And only at most 10%, they're really curious as to understanding the other part. So I've been really thinking about whether you see the same. And if that's the case, I mean, I was just thinking the other day, when you go into a meeting, most of the mental preparation is what's my thinking on this. And I spent the majority of time on making my mind up as to where do I want to take this? What's my point of view? I spent rarely any time on defining where am I curious? What is a beautiful question I can bring into play? Literally, I'm just looking at myself. I'm not preparing it that way. And I guess other people are not as well. So no wonder it turns into a tennis game of advocacy, advocacy, advocacy, advocacy. And we keep reminding ourselves we should ask questions, we should be curious, but it doesn't happen. So help me here, Fred. Stig, I mean, you're describing one of the things that I see kind of most frequently, which is this notion that we go into conversations, all conversations, meetings, other things, and we're really waiting to talk, right? And it's like, and in essence, we're sort of even taught that in the classroom, which is that it's like, there's going to be an answer, and I'm going to wait to talk, and I'm going to raise my hand, and I'm going to do that. And so that has actually been ingrained well, well, well, well, well, into our kind of like youth and childhood. And so it's like, what you have to do is do a lot of breaking to make that work. One of the things I think that can actually help is begin to establish frames for conversations, methodology, structures that actually people know beforehand. And so you basically say, that's great. There'll be advocacy conversations. Those are always important. However, we're going to have a conversation that's more framed like this. So I'll give you an example, one that I use quite a bit, which is that we have a structure for conversation called Hunch Hour. And the premise is, we come into a room, and it works phenomenal with leaders. And actually, what's really nice is it's quite level setting. But you can go into a room, and it can be with experts, leaders, non-leaders, family, friends. And you can basically, the rules for the conversation are quite simple. Everybody kind of throws out a hunch. And a hunch is important. The words of it are important in the sense that a hunch is not a hunch is not a hypothesis. It's not your life's work. It's like, here's something that I'm speculating that maybe could be important for us in the work that we have. But it's a hunch. I thought about it this morning. And what you do is you go around and you allow people to complicate or confirm. So I'm going to complicate your hunch by, or I'm going to confirm your hunch. But here's the thing. You can't complicate or you can't confirm unless you have evidence. And the evidence doesn't have to be like data or a white paper. It can be like, I talked to this person yesterday who gave me this kind of data point. And so what's interesting about that method, first of all, you lay that out beforehand. As I talk about it, it's like, I don't consider myself a facilitator. I consider myself a designer. It's like I'm designing the formats that will work. And by doing that collectively in a group, you get people into a really, and that's not brainstorming, right? You're not just kind of like, don't judge. You are saying, no, you can judge. Let's have a conversation. Give yourself opinions. But you do it in a way that feels kind of very structured, almost kind of gamified. And it really does release things. So one of the things, Stig, that I think is interesting is once you start to introduce like three or four different ways of having conversations on different topics, the intentions one is another example where it's like you start to express the tensions that you have in the room. You tell stories about it. You understand why those tensions exist. And you understand also that tensions always exist. That's like something that just like it's part of life. Then you start to kind of say, wait a second. Here's, let's imagine you have four of them in your organization. You're like, well, here's four different ways to have conversations. Whenever I'm just having this one, which is just us sitting around advocating for ideas, that ends up honestly feeling like one of the most boring conversations that you can be in. So you kind of appeal to, as you were saying, Stig, like the desire for surprise, the desire for something kind of exciting by like painting a landscape of like all the conversations you could be having. And then this is the one you're having, which is like you're sitting waiting for 40 minutes to kind of finally say what you think is the right idea. It makes me think of, we worked a lot with Roger Martin, who was an apprentice of Chris Argyrus for many years, who kind of pioneered, you could say the physiology of a conversation. And he, Roger actually shared a sentence that kind of does a little bit the same that you are exemplifying by your hunch idea. Because what I hear is that when you're hunching your way into a conversation, you're holding your point lightly by design. So, so, so Roger basically put it this way. You can't make an advocacy without twinning it with something like a cherry on top that is curious. So you can say, this is my point on this matter, but I might be missing something, which is an invitation even to say that I know that I'm not seeing the full picture. You will have different views. And I'm just thinking that you're setting up a rule for a conversation. That's also a kind of a rule setting that if you have a point, then at least twin it with curiosity. Because that opens up and it just literally invites people to co -create around your point and you get more clever and something emerges. Yeah. And I've seen Roger do this. And I also think that there's, there's, there's a really even more sophisticated thing you can do, which is basically like, I have this idea. Here's three flaws I have. Like, so you can, you can invite people to kind of like begin to help work on the things that you're kind of struggling with. Nice. And so it's like, and so it's like that invitation can get like really tuned based on kind of where you need to go with it. So I really love that. It's actually, it's actually an element, you're adding an element of vulnerability into the conversation by design. It's so psychological safety. It really is. It really is just such a really easy example, a simple example of how to do psychological safety as maybe the leader. or as someone who might tend to advocate a lot. That's, that's something to practice then either add a question or mention a couple of flaws in your idea from the get go. And I love that. Yeah. Especially if you are the most experienced or powerful or you're, or you're maybe holding the space for the conversation by you doing that. I guess everybody has the courage to lean in more. Yeah. No, I think it's really interesting. And Katrina, I think you're right. It's like these, these things are actually kind of safety mechanisms in essence, because they're also about ways of kind of making it feel kind of like it's like, like it's well-structured and you're, you're going into a safe space for it. So yeah, it's, I think they're one and the same. Absolutely. I think one of the things that inspired me most in your book was within reading about commitment. And in particular, there's a headline there, which said, commit to conversations first and beliefs second. And, you know, this, this idea of, you know, idea about how I just love that idea of committing to the, to the act of the fact that we're going to talk about this and not being married to my belief from the start. So would you be able to explain what that is about? Yeah. And there's kind of a funny, it's so funny. Cause it's like, it's been a while since I looked back at the book. So I was like, I keep being like, Oh, what if she asks a question? I'm like, I have no idea. But what's funny is that it's like, um, that idea came out of a very funny moment. I was lecturing on the, um, when you write a book, your publisher is like, don't lecture, don't lecture, don't lecture. But it's like, for me, without lecturing, I couldn't figure out which ideas were going to be appealing or sticky or kind of simple enough. And so I gave this, um, lecture for Aspen that was on, um, making conversation and how to, and how to do it. And so, and by the way, there were only six chapters of the book at that point. There was no commitment chapter. Um, and so, uh, at the end of the, at the lecture, so somebody raised their hand and they were like, Hey, you're living in the political world that we're living in right now. You're seeing the conversations that are happening. Like what happens if like you go to a conversation and people just don't want to commit to you. They don't want to listen. And I basically was like, you have to choose to commit to the conversation first, the people second, and your idea third. And that's the only kind of way you can actually kind of go into a conversation. And so what that means, and this is, there's a really interesting component to this. That means either in a personal conversation, you have to be saying, you have to say, I'm going to be in this conversation. And my goal here is not to change your mind. And so people often here will ask, how is it that you have conversations with people who are so politically different than you in my, my political context. And I was, I've just always been like, my goal is not to go in and change their mind. My goal is to go in and just kind of understand, understand them, build compassion for them. Understand them as an individual. So there's that. And what's interesting, Katrina, is that when you approach a conversation with, with that kind of ethos, the people feel it, you get a really different conversation and you find yourself having incredibly open conversations around things. So that's one thing I will also say, and I think I say this in the book, if you can't commit, don't go in. Like it's like, and my general feeling, and I, this is how when, when we had to pivot all of the work for Rockefeller, like two years ago, obviously when the, when the pandemic hit and and one of the first principles I put out for Rockefeller is like, if you can't commit to the conversation, if you're not going to be there to really kind of support and help the conversation work, don't come. It's totally fine. Like, it's like, and, and it'll give you more time. It'll mean that the people who are there are committed to the conversation and it actually kind of creates a different kind of context. And so it's a weird thing that I think it's something that we should, we should get really good up front, which is like, are you here for the conversation? Are you here for what we're doing? If not, feel free, don't come or like go, go, go, go. Go do other work. I know it's busy. And that sounds, that sounds so harsh, but I don't mean it that way. I just feel like it's like, if you can't, then it's better that your voice goes elsewhere. So often in our work, I don't know if you guys have feel this. And it's something that I had to kind of grapple with very seriously in my work over my life. You're in a conversation because you feel like, yeah, obviously I should be here. It's like the closed door, most senior people. Like if I'm not there, it's like, you know, who am I? And even then you can say, well, should I be there? Do I need to be there? Yeah, I think in parallel to reading your book, I was reading one of Steve's favorites, Chasing Daylight and kind of trying to catch up on why you're so obsessed with that book. But one of the things that I had read almost in parallel with reading your chapter on Commitment was, I think his name's Eugene O'Kelly, the author of that book. He defines commitment and he defines it as not a measure of the time, you put in, but as a measure of the life you put into it. You know, so pay attention to the quality, not to the quantity of time. And it's not exactly what you're saying, Fred, I think, but I just thought it was a really nice compliment to the point you had made. It's lovely. Yeah, no, I think it's a really lovely thought. And I think that's really true. I think it's like, and that goes back to the notion of kind of like, when you go into a conversation and you're clearly, committing to the person or committing to the conversation that's happening, I think that's what people feel probably is like that you've got, you've put your life into that conversation for a moment. Here's a thought on this thing about commitment, because we had a conversation with David White on an interesting thing. He was talking about you can't change a conversation unless you stop a conversation. So the first step is actually stopping a conversation. So the first step is actually stopping a conversation. And then in that void or that silence, a new possible conversation will emerge, but in that order. And he had a fun point that he made. He said, if you get a bunch of people together from the same organization and ask them, what's the conversation that we simply won't have in this organization? That we can't have. And you give them 10 minutes, they come back and they point to the exact same conversation. And the same actually, it applies to me. If you, if the 10 people that are closest to me, that see me most clearly, get them together for nine minutes and ask them, what's the conversation Steve simply won't have in life? They, they all know, my kids know, my wife knows, you guys know. And so, so my point, my question here is, I need, you're telling us that we need to commit to the conversation. We need to step in. But very often the big opportunity here is actually getting into a conversation that you don't even know that you need to step into. That's right. And so that's like where, and so that's, there's two things there. And it's, that's, first of all, I just, I want to, I love that as an insight that it's like, if you kind of ask 10 people about the conversation that you won't have, like they'll all know the conversation that you, which is, it just reminds me of a methodology I use. It's, it's based on divine reading, which is something that often happened in religious practices where you would pick a passage and you would read it four times or five times for different meanings. But I did that once with a journalist with a newsroom and I asked them to kind of, and they thought just really quickly, I just think it's a really funny anecdote. And they all were like, they assumed that they had huge conflict in the newsroom, that they had different stories that they cared about and different ways that they wanted to write. And so I asked them all to pick two stories that were like, like religious texts for them, kind of like the basis of what they wanted to write. of the work that they do. Everybody chose the same two stories. And so suddenly like the whole moment where basically they are, their, their construct was we disagree because we're different generations, different, whatever. They immediately saw that, no, they actually found that the same two stories had value and we're like the ones that are. So it's just a great example of kind of when you, when you collectively ask people and wait, and then what was the question you asked? How can you, how can you commit, how can you commit to a conversation that you don't even know you need to have? You don't even know that you're not committing. You don't see it. I don't see the conversation that I need to have. And again, this is where I think design becomes a really interesting component or creativity. Like quite literally, I think as you were talking, I was like, just imagining sitting at a table with you and laying out 10 conversations, like putting them down as cards almost and be like, here's the conversations. And basically, and almost, and so I'm making this up, but it's like, could you imagine gradually like being like, okay, I'll take, I can take this one on and I'm ready for it. And then it's like, and so you kind of like build to it until the place that you do it. And so one of the things I'm really a big advocate is like, that's a fascinating question. Let's collectively build a structure that makes it feel like it could be an interesting way in. Is there like a kind of gamification of it? Is there like a, I mean, one of the things that my, my team, works on is like, we do games as well because, and we call them dangerous games because we believe that sometimes games allow you to have structures. Games are structures. They're rules for conversations. They allow you to have conversations, Stig, that you might feel uncomfortable with, but it gives you the kind of the right kind of structure and way of kind of engaging with it. So I just feel like what you're pointing to is exactly valid. Also, I don't think you should just kind of walk into a conversation if you don't feel like you can trust that the people there have kind of built a construct or built a kind of a frame or, or are committed to you. And so what you need to do is kind of like build that trust up. And maybe that's by kind of playing out the nine other conversations before you get to the 10th one that you just don't want to have. Well, it makes me also think about, we also already mentioned silence and I think I read, and actually I don't, to be honest, I don't really know what Quaker religion is. So I apologize for my non-knowledge there, but you, you, you write about your experience of how they set this up with quite a long period of silence, which just made me think that is also very David White in, in what he's saying. And in terms of what are the conversations that you don't dare to have. So could you just quickly tell about, you know, what was the, how much time was it actually that you sat in silence there? Yeah, I just felt like I had to do Quaker meetings to understand the kind of notion of silence also because in, so interestingly, I think the reason you don't know Quaker so well is that Quakers really are kind of like, we're an American export. I mean, they were exported to America. Like there were some practitioners that were practicing in Europe. They were the first religion that actually allowed women to preach. And there was the first religion that actually allowed women to have rights to land and things like that. This was back in the 1600s. Their basic premise is, if God is talking, God has always been talking and God has always been talking to you. So it's like through you. So basically it's like trust the voices that are coming through you. If you believe that God is talking to you, God is talking to you. And so the way that they get to that, and obviously that's, you have to, you have to take that very carefully if that's your premise, because something like that could very easily lead to kind of like societal destruction, which is the exact opposite of what Quakers are known for. They were able to kind of create really strong bonded communities. And so if you go to a Quaker meeting, you sit and it's typically the first half of the meeting and you're sitting there in silence. And what you're listening to is what is being said to me. Is that like 30 minutes or like? It can be, it's like, it can be as longer. It can be 40 minutes. It can be, it's, it's until somebody feels moved to speak and they can basically say, wait a second, I'm hearing this voice inside me that feels like I should stand up and say this. And so that's, you get, you kind of testify and the rest of the group has to witness. And when you witness, you're listening to the person who's talking. And Stig, this is really interesting, I think related to kind of like, what are you listening for? But you're also listening to what's going on in your gut. And you're like, wait, it's what this person's saying and what I'm saying meshing up. And if you're a witness and it doesn't, you stand up and you say, no, this doesn't actually mesh. And so it allows for a very interesting and provocation, provocational conversation about what's happening in the space. And that goes on for about 57 minutes. And then invariably what they do is they let all the children in. And suddenly it's like, there's the whole mood is like lifted up into this kind of element of joy. And it's just kind of this lovely moment. It's actually, it makes me think of two things from our conversation with David White. One was this thing he said that in order to change your conversations, you need to make friends with the unknown. So that is silence. And many of us, you know, don't consider silence a friend. We're actually afraid of it. Yeah, I can feel sometimes physical, almost panic, physical sensations when silence is there. So I think there is something. But imagine, like, think about the day. So we're in the evening here. So you've just gone through a day of meetings. I have two, or even thinking back to last week, how little silence there is in our corporate conversations. In our meetings. I at least have not experienced except for maybe on a design sprint type of brainstorm where they're like, write down your thoughts individually for two and a half unbearable minutes or something like that. Then, you know, but when did you last have a silent moment, Steve? Yeah. When did you, when did you, Fred? You don't want to know. When I was 16, you know, one Thursday, yeah. Well, you know, it's funny because it's like, that's one of the reasons I always like, I take an hour to go for a hike. And I really like, and it's, it's cold as it is here right now. The silence when you're in a kind of snow, like a snowbound kind of existence is just like, it's spectacular. But here's something that actually will help you kind of make an argument for putting silence into meetings, which is that the, the psychology of creativity, when you look at kind of like how it really dictates that actually some of the most creative thinking happens in silence. spaces in moments where there's actually like no conversation. And the reason is that it's in these kind of silent meditative, like the moments that you go for a walk, taking a shower, all the moments where you have ideas. It's in those moments that your mind will make connections that are kind of unusual connections that they would make. This is like really honestly in the, in the psychological theory of creativity. And so basically you want to build in silence. I mean, often one of the things that I'll do, Stig, and I think it relates to some of the things that you were bringing up earlier is I'll be like, Hey, let's just spend like, it's the end of the day. Let's spend like 10 minutes before we go have cocktails. What are the worst issues we're grappling with? Let's just get them out. And what's interesting is like, boom, it does not take long to diagnose the problems that you're dealing with as an institution. Like if you don't know them, then you shouldn't be in the room. Like people, people have it. And then you're like, okay, let's come back tomorrow and we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll think about it. So basically you don't think of them and say, now let's dive into how we're going to solve them. You say, all right, go sleep on it. And what you get is a really interesting and fresher perspective when you then bring people to solve them. go back together in the morning to talk about what they were, what were these intractable problems in the evening suddenly become like places to have real exploration and creativity. So even that kind of structured build, sometimes I'll just do something like, let's take a bathroom break. You know, it's a sneaky way of being like, let's get everybody out of here for five minutes. And then let's kind of like refresh. But there's also an element of not just the silence. There's also an element of what's the consciousness you bring into the conversation. And, and David, I think, David White nailed it, at least for me, when he, when he talked about the difference between listening to and listening with. So you're in a conversation and you can listen to, which is kind of, I'm really, really leaning forward and looking you into the eye and listening. And you can also listen with where you basically accepting that we're creating something together that's beyond you and me. And I'm trying to lend my ears to that as well. And it's just a fundamentally different way of listening. At least that's how I experience it. I agree. And so it's interesting, like I'm, I'm, the next book I'm working on is actually almost entirely on listening. I mean, there's a funny story about why that's the case. But it's a, what's interesting is that when I go back to that example of Quaker, the Quaker meeting and the silence and the Quaker listening and the way that works is that you're not sitting there listening and not judging. They're not saying, oh, don't judge what the other person is saying. They're saying, no, no, no, listen. And does this relate to what, and so you are absolutely creating something together. Like listening is not a passive act. And that's one of the things I really, I really don't like about things like active listening. The idea of just kind of nodding and saying yes and say, go on or whatever it's like, is like those kinds of things just are like, that is not participatory. You're not there for anybody. You're just kind of letting them talk. And the idea of kind of participation in the listening and kind of, and listening itself as a creative act is really essential, I think, to, to, to at least the practices I think that we all carry. So. David White talks about listening as an intimate act, which did something for me, just putting that word to it. Like, wow. Think about listening as an intimate act, not just active or whatever. That's right. Oh, it's like, it's, it's, it's so true. It's like, it's such a rich topic and one that, that it's so funny that we, we, we just don't like look at as, I mean, actually what's interesting about it is like, I think if you think about listening and the role it plays in our daily life, so often we put listening or that silence or the, all those things into the role of the mystical, as opposed to basically saying, which is fine. That's, that's a, that's a lovely place to kind of whatever, but basically like, no, but it has so many other aspects of the way we can actually kind of embrace it in, in the work that we do. Well, I think we might be coming towards the end of our conversation this time around. And what we'd like to ask is on the balcony of this conversation, what will each of us be taking into the next? So, Sti, what, what are you going to be taking with you? Definitely this thing about adding granularity to listening or mastery in listening, understanding what it is and the depth of listening is something that I think I have a very shallow understanding of today. So it made me super curious to, to, to dive into that. Cool. Thanks. What about you, Fred? I mean, it's funny. I was like, my mind was going everywhere, but I still think that the, that was it Eckhart Tolle? Like the, the premise of the intimacy of listening and the, and the, that, that if you treat it like an intimate, I think it kind of relates back to this notion of like being committed. It's like that if you treat listening and, and having conversations as an act of intimacy, no matter who you're having it with, then you actually commit in an interesting way. So I think there's really something quite compelling. I mean, I'll tell you, my mind's all over the place. I'm like, wow, we can talk about this. Do you know what's funny is that I had, I have the same, the same one around, uh, you know, if listening is an intimate act that cannot be possible if you haven't committed to the conversation. So that's a little link that I thought was really interesting. So taking that forward into, into, uh, my next conversation. Thank you so much for your time, Fred. It's joy. It was really fun. Thank you. If you're interested to follow up on any of the references in this episode, follow the link in the episode description. Thanks for listening. Remember, you're never not in conversation. So stay curious out there. See you next time. Bye.