If you open up space, you're a hop, skip and a jump away from some really serious existential questions like what should we do? What if we don't know? What choices have I made that haven't gone well? What will I need to change? These are questions that we are brilliant at avoiding. Welcome to Changing Conversations. The podcast where we bring you insight into how to harness the power of conversation to make change happen. Today, we're joined by Megan Wright, Associate Professor at Saeed Business School, Oxford, and Professor of Leadership and Dialogue at Halt Ashbridge Executive Education. Megan is the author of multiple books on leadership, speaking up, and organisational dialogue. Her latest research focuses focuses on spaciousness, a different quality of attention that allows leaders to see relationships, interdependencies and possibilities that remain invisible when we're operating in constant doing mode. So in this conversation, we're going to explore how a relentless push for speed and execution might actually make us slower and less effective. And how you can create space when everything around you is pushing in the opposite direction. Megan, welcome to Changing Conversations. Lovely to be here. Thank you for inviting me. So we wanted to start out by just asking you, so what is spaciousness? And why do we need it so much right now? Before I answer it in a kind of annoying way of just going in a different direction, I'm going to just pose a question to people listening to the podcast first. And the reasons why I'm doing this will become apparent, hopefully. I'd like if you're listening to think about an experience that you've had where you felt a sense of spaciousness. So think back to a time and don't worry for the moment about what is spaciousness and what's the definition and all of those things. I just want you to notice what comes into your mind when I ask you to recall an experience of spaciousness. And actually, I'd love to ask you that question right now. What comes to your mind? A meeting a couple of nights ago with some like-minded people that I haven't met before and we were exploring crazy ideas as to what we could do together. And it was outside the domain of business. It was more philosophical and almost spiritual. So I kind of, yeah, it was that level of thinking and it just kept singing in me the days after actually. Lovely. I was taken somewhere very different and taken to being out in the mountains, breathing fresh air. So a little out of the corporate context, but that was my first answer. Lovely. Thank you. In our research over the last three years, we purposefully haven't started with a definition because ironically, as soon as I define spaciousness for you, I've already closed it down. And honestly, we are more interested in asking people what it is to them and for them to explore that first before we start putting boundaries and definitions on it. Having said that, we're interested in two modes of attention. You could call them ways of encountering the world, but perhaps people might be a little bit more comfortable with modes of attention. We have a mode of attention which we call the doing mode. And this is an instrumental attention. We're looking to achieve a goal. So we're looking for control and predictability. We tend to notice separate parts. It's quite a mechanical view on the world and ourselves in it. It tends to be quite a narrow perspective. We've got something to get done and we want to tick the to-do list. That's utterly vital to survival. Another form of attention is what we call the spacious mode. And this is when we are paying expansive attention. We tend to be present moment. So we're not hurrying for the so what and the what's happening next. So both of your examples sounded like you weren't, you know, your mind wasn't taken over by, oh, what am I going to do with this experience? And what's happening next? And how can I make sure this happens again? You know, all of those doing things that occupy us so much of our lives. In the spacious mode, that's paused. And we are looking out. We're more expansive. We tend to notice interdependencies and relationships. So we look out and we see flow. We see the world changing in front of our eyes. And the spacious mode tends to be, tends to be where we see insight. We have moments of insight. It tends to be moments where we really encounter one another. We really pay attention to the other person without looking at them thinking, right, what are you going to do for me in this workplace? Have you achieved what I set you to do yesterday? You know, much of the time we see one another in a doing mode. And spacious mode is different to that. So it's open, curious, expansive and unhurried. And it's also a mode for many that is being squeezed out, particularly in what I call pathologically busy work systems. So that's kind of our definition, having asked lots of people about spaciousness. But I reiterate, actually, we're far more interested in asking people, well, how do you experience your attention? And can you think of times where you are really in this sort of doing mode? And can you think of other times when you're in the spacious mode? What's the difference there? And what's the importance of both? They are both hugely important. I love the both end of what you're just saying here. I think for me, what really resonates or makes me think about that, this thing about what type of invitation do I carry as a human? And what type of invitation do I take into my conversations? And it just makes me think about how different those invitations are, depending on which of those modes I kind of, I was just about to say arrive in as if it was God given more than, you know, a deliberate choice. Almost like, OK, I'm victimized by the pace. And it's part of my success formula is to carry myself in a way where I am super busy and I get shit done. And so, yeah, so it's just it made me think about how much I would actually like to make a more spacious invitation and what it does to me when I have the courage to do it. Yeah, thank you. And it links into some work that we've done over the past decade on speaking truth to power. In particular, we're interested in how we show up with one another and the impact that then had that has on others. And a story I have told very frequently because I love it is a conversation that I had with somebody called Ian Wilkie, who is the chairman and founder of a charity called 50 Million Voices. And that charity seeks to support about 50 million adults that stammer across the globe. And Ian, who stammers in that interview with me, said words to the effect of, Megan, how you're showing up right now affects my voice. So if you show up, you know, bored, frustrated, distracted, judgmental, Ian said, look, I'll literally lose my voice. And it is possibly the most powerful, I suppose, metaphor for leadership that I've come across in my work. And that is how you show up affects the voices of people around you. Yes. And a lot of the time we kind of show up on autopilot, but actually we can train our attention. And more of the time we can make a choice to show up in a certain way that helps others to find their voice, helps others to see the world in different ways. And in doing so, of course, we see the world in different ways. And if we're a leader, we are likely to hear what we really need to hear, as opposed to the narrow sorts of conversations that are still important, but they're narrow. And they can be, you know, you can have real blinkers on if you're just following the sort of instrumental doing conversations. And I think it also has to do with whether one at all have explored, when we're talking conversations, this thing about when I enter a conversation. Do I enter to convince you about something that I had in my mind to begin with? Or do I actually enter with an intention of creating something together with you that none of us could have done alone? I think unless you somehow connect with that intention, a lot of your, or nine out of ten of your conversations tends to be monologue, kind of entwined, less really us creating art together. So there's something about actually having a language for what type of conversation do we want to shape here? Yes. And when and what does the context demand of us? You know, another quick comparison, I suppose. I work with a big energy company who, in their operations teams, they have a Monday morning huddle. You know, and I'm sure lots of people listening here will be familiar with the huddle. You know, when they remove the chairs to make sure that it's as efficient as possible so nobody can sit down. And it's a, you know, it's a 15 minute power. What are our targets for today? You know, let's really put them in front of our eyes. Now go. And so that, which is fair enough, you know, in a particular context and a particular operational context, that might be exactly what we need to do. In that situation, the managers were a little bit frustrated that psychological safety wasn't being developed and that the team weren't a bit more creative. So I was turning to them and going, honestly, in terms of where you're pointing their attention at the beginning of the day, of course, of course, they're not focused on those things. They are focused on the task. If you want them to focus on something else, then you're going to have to bring that into their attention very purposefully and show that it matters. We work with a hospice organisation, you know, opposite end of the spectrum here. And on a Monday morning, their team come together for an extended period of time where they simply check in with one another about how they're showing up. Because, of course, they have to, because they are dealing with such extraordinary relationships. They have to show up in such a way that it's vital for the team to know how the others are and for the team to have that space where they kind of notice that and go, OK, this is how I'm showing up. This is what's going on in my life. Here's a choice point. This is going to be really important for the work that we're doing here. So they're very, very, very different sorts of conversations that start at the beginning of the week. They're very different contexts. Again, they both have their role. But I'm consistently surprised at just how much we leave our attention up to chance. You know, just how much we kind of just have the same old meetings without really noticing that we have a choice in what we pay attention to. And that choice will be a defining moment in terms of how we work and we work with one another as well. So how do we bring this in in an organization where you're really being pushed hard, whether it's by needs in the markets or whatever it might be driven by. But the narrative and the intention is, you know, deliver, execute, speed and all of these words. And while you're telling that example about the people checking in at the hospice to take ownership about the way that they show up, I started thinking, you know, why would you need that less to do the execution thing? But at the same time, it's just it's just not what happens. So how can we how can we invite this in when when it's all about speed? That is a very good question. And we will probably be researching that for the rest of my life, I think. Where do I start with it? The first thing to say is that we have a whole lexicon of words in the doing mode and the doing mode and things like efficiency and productivity and delivering. Those are very credible words. We use them a lot in the workplace and we have become to you know, we've got to the stage where we equate success with activity. There is a number one step that just enables us to pause and say, OK, that is one mode of attention and it serves us really well for a particular thing. But there are different forms of attention. And the spacious mode, part of what our research is trying to do is trying to put some more credible language around the spacious mode so that it's let in in the first place into some of these systems that are so focused on the tangible and the targets. So there's an awareness thing in the first place. And that is a big thing because most people's attention is is truly on autopilot. It is literally like stopping the goldfish and saying, what's the water like? And you get people going, what do you mean? What do you mean? What's my attention like? We don't even we don't. Many of us don't even notice our attention and how that attention is influenced. I was going to use them and manipulated. Let's face it out in our world, in social media and at work. So our leaders, our managers, our influence inside work influence what we pay attention to the whole time. Amazingly, most of the time we don't notice it. So that's the first thing I would say is, come on, we need to get this on the table. We need to get a lot more awareness around it. The second thing is to notice that we it might sound a little bit like spaciousness is really lovely and blissful. And it's, you know, in completely counter to this hard nose doing world. And oh, my gosh, wouldn't it be lovely if we had more of it? Actually, many of us are absolutely expert at avoiding space. As somebody in our research wonderfully said, they said, if you open up space, you let doubt in. And who wants that? Which pretty much nailed it, really. If you open up space, you're a hop, skip and a jump away from some really serious existential questions like what should we do? What if we don't know? What choices have I made that haven't gone well? What will I need to change? What will I have to admit to? These are questions that we are brilliant at avoiding. So the second thing I would say is that we've got to recognize why we don't create space. And there's a whole pile of stuff around there where, you know, we've trained managers and leaders, obviously, that somehow through business schools and various other ways, we seem to have imbued them with the understanding that they have to have the answer. And so, obviously, if they open up space and then things become rather uncertain and uncontrollable, that is regarded not, you know, as poor management or poor leadership. So that would be the second thing I'd say. And maybe I'll pause there because I have got, don't worry, I have got a very practical little kind of model acronym up my sleeve for those who ironically want to know how to do space quickly. Quickly. That's what it's about. It's a cliffhanger. I can't help but think about, because when we talk about spaciousness, I also just can't help thinking about the way that you make spaciousness in your own life, almost as preparation for making space in the workplace as well. And I'm not going to sit here and pretend to anyone that I also don't sit and scroll and fill my time with external, you know, things that are better than sitting quietly or sitting with boredom. So I really think it's something that needs needs a lot of practice. And, yeah, and then the way that it's received as well, because I'm thinking about, you know, the management conversations or executive talks that take place. And I know that this is something you try to invite into those spaces. So how do you do it without people looking at you going, yes, but no? I try to feel the other person, who he or she really is. And then I also try to create a space that is a little informal, but also has an intimacy to it. So, for instance, yesterday I had a meeting with a guy and in the beginning of the meeting he asked me, have you ever read the book called Sin and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? And that just opened up a relationship between us because I had, and it changed my life, it changed his life, and suddenly we have something, and it creates a foundation and you could say a spaciousness in our conversation, a kind of a layer of both of us relaxing a little bit. We have something in common. We are both weird, fell in love with the same book. So I try to create something that is unique between me and someone else. And I would actually, what I thought about when we were having this conversation is that I had a conversation with a CEO of a big organization a couple of weeks ago, and I think it plays perfectly into this. He had recently been sacked from the CEO job and was being replaced, and this was maybe three weeks, four weeks after. He had been there for many years. And he said to me, if I was to take on another CEO job in a month's time, I would be a better CEO job there than I was in the job I was in a couple of weeks ago. And I said, hey, tell me more. I mean, you have to unpack that. And he said, someone had to stop the conversation, really, for me to see clearly all the interdependencies that I was locked into, all the promises that I felt I'd made that kind of tied me up and so forth. So just talking about spaciousness, I think it's interesting to think about. If that's a common truth that we are kind of so absorbed in our doing mode that we actually lose. You can't go to the balcony. You can't go to the balcony of your job, really. If that's true, then I think there's something about, okay, how do I find a way to make that spaciousness in my life before someone has to give me the call and say, hey, you got to go. I think that that story is fabulous. And it links in to quite a few of the things that have come up in the research. And by the way, just before I do that, it seems it's important, I think, to mention power. As well, because our research report published at the beginning of 2025 was called Permission to Pause. And it's a phrase that's come up a lot in our research. And people very often need to give themselves permission to pause. And they feel that they need permission to pause inside organizations as well. And I'm very interested in pausing as a radical act. I can't quite believe it should be so radical, but it is, actually. And very often, it is the people that are in the most powerful positions who can pause without it being career limiting. You know, it's the leader who sits back in the chair and goes, I think we should just think about this for a moment. And suddenly, they're amazingly strategic and wonderful. But if it was a junior employee that had just been asked to do something and they leant back in their chair and go, well, I think we should think about it, they'd probably lose their job. So there's something really important here to understand around who owns the space, who deals in the space. Sometimes, much to the bemusement of people that I work with and research with, I put a photo of a vacuum cleaner up on the screen. And I just talk about, you know, there are some people in spaces, there are some leaders and managers that suck the space out of the system. And we've all known them. And there are some leaders and managers that somehow manage to do what they have to do. And they tick all the boxes and they're high performers. And they create the space for themselves and others to actually think inside those sort of systems. And we're still interviewing and researching with those people who somehow, and we all know them, we all know people in our lives that somehow manage to do both. And we're very interested in what's going on there. But let me quickly tell you, I'll whiz through it and then you can ask if you want me to pause on any of them. We have an acronym. Amazingly enough, it spells space. I can't imagine how that happened. But space is a framework of five factors that seem to really impact whether we can open up space and hold space in a system. The S stands for safety. So a lot of my work is on psychological safety. If we feel anxious, our attention narrows. You can't ask people to have expansive awareness and awareness in relationships and innovation and various other things if they're anxious. If we're fearful, our gaze narrows. So I won't go into all of that work, but I've done a lot of work over the last 10 years. There's also, obviously, Amy Edmondson and a variety of other people that look at how do you create systems where people aren't consumed by fear? If they're consumed by fear, forget about space. P stands for people. So there are people that we have around us at home, in society and at work that are excellent at waking us up, enabling us to just see the wood for the trees, you know, and going, hang on a second, look around. There are people that take us off the dance floor and they lead us up the stairs onto the balcony. And some of these people are very credible and recognised inside workplace systems, such as coaches and facilitators and mentors and therapists. These people, it's their job to kind of open up space for us. It's their job. And we would be very wise to make sure that we schedule in those people regularly. OK. And for ourselves, but also for our teams. So there's who can we bring in that forces us, if you like, disciplines us to look up and look around. And similarly, who are those people that really narrow our attention? This is social on the social media side as well as it is at work. You know, who do I hang out with? What's the impact of those people? Do they narrow my attention or do they expand my attention? So that's people. A is attention. And we can train our attention. So a lot of my research is on mindful leadership. And we talk about how we can actually train attention. We can not leave it up to chance. And one of the great things with this research is, as well as looking at mindfulness practices that make a difference, it's also we're looking at what we call speed bumps. So speed bumps are these things that can disrupt our attention. They wake us up. So, for example, in our research, we had people that describe the situation of coming home from a really bad day at work. And they have the key in their hands and they put the key in the front door and they charge into the house. And of course, it takes about 15 seconds before everybody in the house is in a foul mood. Well, these people that we researched with learned to use the key in the door as a trigger, as a speed bump. And all they had to do is simply ask themselves, OK, what am I about to take into this house? So we can always have these little speed bumps before we work with another leader who, you know, as with many leaders, has an absolutely packed diary. She was usually the one that sprinted into the meeting about two minutes late and was always aware that she had a negative impact on others. So she learned, you know, as she was going for the door handle with the best of intentions, wanting to be on time, she learned to pause, make herself about five seconds later. But ask, how am I going to go into this meeting? How do I want to show up? So there's loads around attention. And also, obviously, the metrics that we have in organisations, they grab our attention and very often we don't pay enough attention to those. C is for conflict, which is an unusual one, but it's really about dissonance. So sometimes when we encounter a different environment or a different perspective, we realise that we were stuck in a particular way of thinking and doing. So how can we bring in conflict and different perspectives and different understandings, again, as individuals and in teams? And then E is environment. So you mentioned the walk in the mountains. You mentioned being outside. Pretty much everybody I speak to around spaciousness mentions the physical environment that they're in. It has a huge impact on the way that we pay attention. And yet we are stuck inside systems that are remarkably uncreative around where and when we speak and converse with one another. So environment is all about, you know, noticing that impact and changing it and shifting it about purposefully, depending on the kind of conversations that we need to have. I came to think about, you know, how often I expect my leader or my organisation to provide these things for me versus how much actually every single element there, there is something I can do myself to build that space. And I think maybe in my own experience of trying to be spacious or trying to bring in that. I think sometimes you also can get tired and fall into that victim mode of like, I'll do it the moment that Stee leads the way and or the moment that he makes that space for me. But I think there's something about the agency that we all have and what is it that I can do on every single of these parameters. That's what came to mind for me. Yes. Yes. And I, it made me think about at a very deep level, I think all of us, I can say, I can say for myself that I've in a weird way made some promises to myself and the world as to who I am and what I think I need to do to be a success and even to be worthy to be here, really. And part of those, at least in my case, I actually married very much to the doing, even though that I think that the truth is that my deepest identity actually comes from a more reflective, spacious ambition, so to speak. But I've just, I think for me to go there, I need to go pretty deep because I need to let go of some promises that I've made and some strategies that have worked really, really, really well. And I can, I remember at one point that I got feedback because all of this also has a physical side. So the way I look, the way I carry myself, the way I walk, the way I arrive into a meeting, all of these things very often we don't think about the invitation or lack of that we actually carry. And I remember I got some feedback that I walk fast and I kind of almost lean a little bit forward to, I mean, I don't run, but the image I leave is that I'm busy. That's part of my survival strategy. That is a subtle way or not subtle way to tell people stay away, whereas the real me don't want you to stay away. It's good feedback then, because you don't always know these things. No, you don't. And that's one of the things in our speak up research actually is we say we sometimes send shut up signals rather than speak up signals. And that example, you know, you know, again, the number of managers I've worked with who are wanting their teams to spend more time being creative or relational or whatever it might be, or talking about mistakes and reflecting and learning. And when they look at the manager, they can't find time in the manager's diary and they are literally sometimes sprinting between meetings. And so it's sending a signal, you know, actually, this is what I find really important. This is what I think success is. And I've been promoted to this role. So this is probably what you need to do. So there's a lot of managers and teams that are disconnected with the manager not quite realising that the signals that they're sending, of course, is like holding a flashlight, pointing it in a particular direction, and then wondering why the team is going in the other way, so I'm so, so interested and passionate about how we can enable ourselves to pause just a little bit more often to notice how we're showing up in particular. I love that. Yes. Yes. And I think in many cultures that in organizations that I've worked with over the years, I think there's also a cultural thing to this that it almost feels like there's almost like a physical panic part of me when you start talking about spaciousness mode. There's like almost a physical reaction immediately in me. It sounds like if we entertain that, then everyone will sit around drinking tea in full lotus and ask each other, how do you feel? And nothing will get done. So I think there is something about almost like a fear of, I mean, if we don't keep the, yeah. Keep the prison closed. Keep the doing mode kind of at bay. Then, you know, really embrace that. If we don't entertain that language around that all the time, like please execute, do, do, do, that whole lingo. I think there's a deep, deep fear in many leaders as to if we don't say that all the time, then we think that people just sit and stare into the air. There is a really basic misunderstanding around what spaciousness means. So spaciousness is doing nothing or spaciousness is indulgent. But of course, it's the spacious mode where we look up and look around. Yes. And then that, and this is in McGilchrist's work, really, in The Master and His Hemistry. Ian McGilchrist talks about the left and the right hemispheres. And he says it's the right hemisphere, in other words, a spacious mode that needs to be in charge. And they kind of look up, look around, see what's going on. And then the doing mode should be instructed by that. Again, both are really, really important. But we need to tackle absolutely this assumption that we have to do the whole time. Because if we're doing the whole time, we're really, really likely to be busy fools. We're really likely to be doing the wrong things very fast. But it's a difficult one. It's a really difficult one to crack because we've so embedded this success equals activity assumption. And just to really, really land, we're not talking about not doing. We're talking about doing much more relevant things, as John Viveki would say, rather than salient, which are the things that are around that grab your attention. And so you just go for it. Yes. The relevant things are the things that connect with the insights that you have when you are in the spacious mode. So it's the choice of how we do those modes of attention. We need to be strong in both. Yeah. And I think just talking about the doing mode and the spacious mode, almost like they present themselves as if it's either or. Like either you're this or that. And I love the way you talk about it. Spaciously doing. Yeah. Spaciously doing. That's a thing. But we think that, OK, either I'm sitting doing nothing or I'm in my doing mode. And the invitation you make is different. It's actually to invite me to think about what does that combo look like? How can I be in a spacious doing mode? Yeah. How can I be aware whilst I am doing and still choiceful in that? So how do we pay attention to how we're paying attention is a really key question here. But if you are to just do two things differently, I think it's to pay attention to what you're paying attention to. And it's to consider how am I showing up as you go into your next sort of interaction. And those are some of the things that I think, you know, I really hope that people take away from this conversation, which leads me then to the closing of our talk, because we do often end these podcasts by asking, what is it that I'm going to take into my next conversation? So I did those two, maybe on behalf of what I hope people will take away. But what I am taking away for myself is that I need to step up a little bit more in taking responsibility to create space for myself. So I'll use this as a nudge to do that. How about you, Steve? I think it's tied to what you said about permission to pause. The word give myself permission to pause, it touches me at a very deep level. It's almost like there's, it's a very, very, like just saying that does something to me. And I know that when I have the courage to start a meeting by actually asking, what's the conversation we want to have you and me? What would we like to talk about? And how would we like to talk about it? If I have the courage, and I think you actually framed that question way back. So if I have the courage to do that in the beginning of the meeting, the meeting just almost always materialize in a more spacious way. How about you, Megan? I think the unanswered question, and obviously I've done a lot of research in this area, and I will continue to do so. But I'm constantly surprised at how easy it is to leave our attention up to chance in this world that we live in, that's kind of getting crazier and crazier. And I'm increasingly convinced that that is the thing that we will have to pay far more attention to going forward, is how do we catch ourselves? How do we give ourselves that moment to be more choiceful? And so that's the thing that I'll continue to work with, and I continue to work on myself. You know, I'm the mum of two teenage daughters. I'm working. I've got quite a lot going on. I research this, and I forget it frequently. So what does that mean? You know, what is going on there? Why is it so damn hard to do what we're talking about? We found definitely some ways that help, but there's lots more work to do, so that's what I take away. I'm kind of relieved that you're saying it's hard for you too, and we're not alone. Thank you so much for your time, Megan. It's really been a pleasure talking to you today. Really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you. Likewise, thank you. Hi, everyone. I'm back with a quick update. The whole premise of this podcast is that a conversation can change you. That after we've spent time together, none of us leaves unchanged. In the checkout of this episode, I said that I'm the only person who can give myself permission to pause, and that thought landed deeply in me. And a couple of months after recording it, I've decided to honor that realization and take a break to create space and see what emerges. I'm really happy to say that the podcast will continue with Stee and a new host, my good friend and colleague, Katie. Thank you for your time together. I hope the conversations we've shared have changed you in some small way, as they've certainly changed me. See you out there.