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Intro Welcome back for Season 5  Describe changes to show New website Patrons now guest on trade paperback reviews Ariel’s column - Some Of Its Parts Background (03:52) Maxwell Lord created by Keith Giffen, JM DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire in Justice League #1 (May 1987) Father was a businessman who committed suicide after a product he created caused cancer, and his mother convinced him that powerful people cannot be trusted In the post-Crisis world, he wanted to bring the Justice League together - was actually under the control of a supercomputer created by Metron Later breaks free of the control of the computer, and befriends the League Gains mild telepathy during the Invasion event, and instead of using the powers for good, begins to distrust the metahuman community - using the powers gives him a nosebleed After being injured in a battle, he gains a cyborg-like body, but has to battle Kilg%re the computer for control Countdown to Infinite Crisis - he kills Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle, and reveals that he is in control of a global surveillance network on the Justice League Controls Superman to have him attack Batman and Wonder Woman - Diana snaps his neck to stop him, but the footage goes viral and her reputation is destroyed Booster Gold tries to go back in time to prevent Lord from killing Ted Kord, but all it does is make things worse, so Booster realizes Ted has to die for a better future Lord is resurrected during Blackest Night/Brightest Day, and uses technology to boost his powers, making the world forget him - then uses tech to create an army of robots to attack the Justice League, and kills Jamie Reyes, the third Blue Beetle, the same way he killed Ted New 52/Rebirth - reboots him as head of Checkmate, a secret government organization - he is the Black King, and uses his position and power to pit metahumans against one another Later ends up as part of Amanda Waller’s Task Force XI, aka another Suicide Squad Issues (7:56) Distrust of metahumans despite being one of them Overbearing mother (17:30) Need to be in control (25:20) Break (33:43) Plugs for Not If I Reboot You First, Parent Quest, and Howard Mackie Treatment (35:53) In-universe - Use fibers of Lasso of Truth to keep Maxwell more honest and self-aware Out of universe - Use ketamine in place of lasso to help person experience things outside their immediate sphere Skit (42:14) Ending (49:52) Recommended reading: Justice League/Justice League International (The Giffen/DeMatteis years), Infinite Crisis Next episodes: Vision/Scarlet Witch relationship, Clones, Catwoman Plugs for social References: Booster Gold episode - Doc (6:28) “Parents Just Don’t Understand” - Anthony (25:12) She-Hulk episode - Doc (27:38) Lex Luthor episode - Anthony (41:49) Wilson Fisk episode - Anthony (41:50) Apple Podcasts: here Google Play: here Stitcher: here TuneIn: here iHeartRadio: here Spotify: here Twitter Facebook Patreon TeePublic Discord

2020 Cookbook Year In Review with Becky Krystal Staff Writer for Voraciously at Washington Post FoodPhoto credit- Tom McCorkle for The Washington Post; styling by Marie Ostrosky for The Washington Post. Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table, talking to cookbook authors,Becky Krystal: I'm Becky Krystal, I'm a staff writer for Voraciously at Washington Post Food.Suzy Chase: So Becky it's been a year since we last chatted about cookbooks. And I swear, it feels like it's been 10 years.Becky Krystal: Yes!! I was going to say that, it doesn't feel like normal time.Suzy Chase: It doesn't! How has your year been?Becky Krystal: It's been interesting like everyone else's. Our office closed very early on, actually probably before a lot of other offices so we lost access to our food lab and our kitchen and everything else all of our thousands of cookbooks in mid-March and I've been home ever since cooking in my own kitchen testing in my own kitchen. We've had lots of logistical challenges with regard to photo shoots and I was sending and driving cookies around to everyone for our holiday package and for about six months, I had my three and a half year old home with me. So it's been a year - 21.Suzy Chase: What is one of the hardest things you had to conquer cooking in your own kitchen this year? It'll make us all feel better to hear it.Becky Krystal: I think just figuring out well there's a lot, I guess, but figuring out where to put everything actually has been really challenging because I was testing recipe and I recipes and I also have my own cooking supplies. I have the food I was cooking for my family. You know, sometimes I'd have meat marinating for work and other dishes in various states of preparation and my refrigerator and my freezer were just overflowing and I knew I was going to be doing a lot of baking for cookies so I bought 50 pound bags of flour so I have these massive industrial size buckets of flour, basically still sitting in my dining room. So, uh, space is a pretty big challenge, actually.Suzy Chase: You and the Voraciously team put together your favorite cookbooks of 2020. Can you read us the intro to the article?Becky Krystal: Sure. Like all of you, we’ve been at home for most of 2020, cooking more meals in our own kitchens than we ever expected to. Many of us have turned to familiar ingredients and recipes time and time again, when we just needed to get dinner on the table or couldn’t run out to the store. Thankfully, we’ve also had cookbooks to help us get out of the rut. They introduced us to new dishes, new people and new ways to “go somewhere” without actually leaving our homes. Great cookbooks do a lot of things. They inspire us. They make us think. In 2020, our favorite books were tasty and timely, providing us with satisfying meals and food for thought about underrepresented voices and cuisines, how to make do with what you have, and more. We think you’ll find these 12 cookbooks, each selected by a staffer, just as inspiring this year — and beyond.Suzy Chase: So each cookbook was handpicked by a staff member, which I love. And you can read the whole piece over on Voraciously.com. Could you take us through the process of putting this article together this year? What was the criteria you had to work with and who was included in this?Becky Krystal: Yeah, obviously it was a pretty different year this year. Usually we're in our office and we are getting cookbooks so many in hard copies that, I mean, we're literally tripping over them. So we had to obviously shift that because there's only so much we can pile up in our own houses. So we got as many digital copies as we could. We requested hard copies when we wanted to. And it was just, I mean, we had like a Dropbox file with tons and tons of cookbooks. Basically we asked whoever sent us, can you just send us a digital copy? So all year we were looking at cookbooks, we were cooking out of them. Um, my colleagues Ann Maloney and Joe Yonan, as well as myself, would sometimes feature recipes in our columns over the year and that sort of helped us get a jumpstart on what books we were most interested in. It was just a lot of looking over books. And we had a bunch of meetings where we talked about them and what caught our eye. And we were recommending books to each other and dishes to each other. And then we just sort of looked at our most promising ones and what really spoke to us and what we made dishes out of that we liked and was sort of representative of the diversity of what was out there. And that was kind of how we came around to our list.Suzy Chase: I found it was so hard to cook out of the digital copies this year.Becky Krystal: It's really hard to get as good of a feel for a book in a PDF, which is why when we found one that we thought was especially promising, we would go ahead and ask for a copy. I mean, I still don't really like propping my Kendall or my laptop or my phone up in the kitchen to cook with. So it was really nice when I did have books that I could either cook out of, or I even take my cookbooks down to my printer and scan the recipe and then just have the sheet in front of me. So yeah, it is different both in a tactile sense and just like almost emotional sense to not have tons of books in front of you.Suzy Chase: With the pandemic and some cookbooks being postponed or some canceled all together were you able to spot any cookbook trends this year?Becky Krystal: I think once we start talking about some of these books this'll get into it, but you know, there has been more, I think, of an emphasis and interest on spotlighting cuisines and voices we might not have heard about, or as much about things that have not received the attention they obviously deserve in the publishing industry and even in food media. So we get into all the different African cuisines and In Bibi's Kitchen and obviously even the Russian cuisine and Beyond The North Wind and Korean food in My Korea so I think that's really refreshing. There was still a lot of obviously chef driven books, but like some of those books I just talked about, there's also more, I think of an interest in regular people cooking, right? You know the recipes coming from the Bibi's, the recipes coming from the home cooks in Russia, that's obviously appealing to a lot of home cooks who maybe are intimidated or even put off by these really chefy books. Pie. There was a lot of pie this year, which I think is just wonderful. I love that. So that obviously jumped out to me and bread too, especially sourdough, you know, there were books, I think that were already in the works that just happened to coincide with this uptick of people doing sourdough for the first time myself included. Um, so we had New world Sourdough by Brian Ford. We had Living Bread by Daniel Leader and Lauren Chattman. So I think those are the things that jump out at me in terms of what we could sort of spot this year.Suzy Chase: Okay. So we're going to chat about five of the cookbooks on your list. First off is your personal pick One Tin Bakes by Edd Kimber. What drew you to this cookbook?Becky Krystal: Well, it's baking book and I am a passionate baker. It's definitely my strongest suit. I love the idea that as the title says, everything is made in a 9 by 13 pan, which is not the most glamorous pan it's, you know, the brownies and the blondies and in England, they talk about the tray bakes and stuff, homier things but Edd just had so many different ideas for how to use this one piece of equipment that is inexpensive and really versatile. I mean, I looked through and I wanted to make almost everything in there, which is always a good sign. And I felt like I could, the recipes are really approachable and extremely well-written, which I think is not always the case in cookbooks. And it's not the like sexiest thing to talk about, but a well-written recipe is just absolutely priceless and it's a beautiful book to look at Edd shot all the pictures so it really draws you in. And I just, I think it's lovely. It's not huge, which I also like, because I can feel overwhelmed when I sit down with a book that's like 200 recipes, but there are 70 and you think I could make a lot of these and everything I've made has turned out really great so far.Suzy Chase: Well, baking is not my strong suit. So I loved this cookbook because it seemed super accessible. It wasn't intimidating for me at all.Becky Krystal: Yeah, no, that's, that's definitely true. I mean, they're really, really easy kind of one bowl, couple of ingredient recipes. There are ones that if you feel confident in your skills, you can tackle those. You know, there are a couple of rolled cakes or the layer cakes that sort of stand on their side. So there's a spectrum, but most of it is really approachable even for, I would say beginning bakers really.Suzy Chase: It's funny cause we were talking about the term tin and I said, you know, here in the U.S. we say the word pan and he told me the story about how he actually pitched the title one pan bakes to the publisher. And they were like, um, no, the word pan does not sound nice in the title.Becky Krystal: Yeah. Well, it's also like, it sounds a little more savory almost, you know, there's a lot of talk here people love one pan meals and stuff like that so probably if I heard that, I guess even if you said one pan bakes, but there's something more lyrical about one tin bakes. I agree.Suzy Chase: And I made my very first Dutch Baby out of this cookbook. Did you make the Dutch Baby?Becky Krystal: I did. I actually highlighted it in my regular recipe column a couple of months ago. And it was super popular. I mean, it actually is one of our most popular baking recipes of the year. It's great. I did it with berries. I even tried it with apples. It's so fun and so easy. I thought it was such a delightful recipe.Suzy Chase: I'm going to make that on Christmas morning because it's so easy and it's kind of a showstopper.Becky Krystal: Yeah. You got to get the picture right after it gets out of the oven because it does tend to start to like collapse a little bit. So get your Instagram picture right when you pull it out.Suzy Chase: That's a really good tip now too In Bibi's Kitchen by Hawa Hassan with Julia Turshen. So I think this book is a real gem of 2020, because it fills the void in the cookbook market for African cookbooks. So who chose this cookbook on your staff and why did they choose it?Becky Krystal: Yeah, this was the pick of my colleague Olga Massov who's an assignment editor with us. She is a cookbook author and co-author in her own right so she knows a good cookbook once she sees one. I mean, she just raved about this book. It's an extremely practical book because that's the type of cooking that these women do. It's a lot of pantry ingredients. It's not very long ingredient lists. There aren't a lot of expensive ingredients because often these are people just cooking at home. And even in some parts of the world where these women are from or where they live, they can't access certain ingredients. Even in some places, meat is a rarity. So it's approachable also. I mean, I keep using that word, but it's true. Obviously also with the Black Lives Matter movement, it was incredibly timely to showcase these women who are in Africa or who have immigrated to other places. It was very human, right? Cause each chapter highlighting each of the eight countries has interviews with the women. It's not like, you know, one of these glossy lifestyle books, it teaches you about the cultures. Each intro also includes facts about the countries like their economy and the religion and language geography, stuff like that. It doesn't feel clinical though. It feels like you're just learning something. And it also fights this misunderstanding that African food is all the same. It gets lumped together a lot. And there are obviously differences and each of these countries deserves to be looked at on its own as opposed to, I mean, a massive continent, right? I mean, you would never dream of saying, Oh, European food, but that's what happens with African food.Suzy Chase: Totally. That was my biggest takeaway. Just the diversity of the food on the continent. And it's not a country. Like people think it's a country. It's not.Becky Krystal: I mean, how many more people are in Africa then all the other countries and other places combined I mean, it's unfortunate that it gets lumped together. And I think we all need to do better about making sure we highlight these different cultures and recipesSuzy Chase: Now to My Korea by Hooni Kim.Becky Krystal: Yeah. My Korea was actually the pick of our restaurant critic, Tom Sietsema. It's funny because Tom loves doing stuff like this because he is always, well, I was going to say dining out, he's doing mostly takeout these days. So he loves being able to dive into a book that he can cook at home. And he went shopping at H Mart and got ingredients. And he loved the fact that this is such a great book for people to get a better idea of Korean food. You know, it's not quite the same as Africa, but a lot of us, we think, okay, Korean barbecue, maybe some kimchi, whatever. And there's so much more to this cuisine. And it's just a beautiful book to, you know, Tom, it's a very visceral book. When you look at the photos, there are lots of little things you can start adding to your pantry to add flavors like, you know, the goguchang and the chili flakes and dried anchovies. And a lot of this frankly, is very appealing to me right now in this winter weather, you know, he's got stews and short ribs and dashi. I actually talked to him when I, we ran his bulgogi recipe in conjunction with the story and he said, I wanted to write a book to introduce people to Korean food and I think he succeeded incredibly well.Suzy Chase: I had him on the podcast in late April when we were like the epicenter of the pandemic. And it was a really hard time for him, but he was so smart because he pivoted with his two restaurants to do meal kits and my family and I have gotten his meal kit about almost every week. It has gotten us through this pandemic. It's so good and it's so much food!Becky Krystal: It's also really smart because especially now when so many of us are not doing a lot of grocery shopping, not everything is going to be available when you take your one little trip to the grocery store so if he's helping people get access to these ingredients and dishes, they might not otherwise be able to do in their streamlined kind of shopping then yeah that's a really great idea.Suzy Chase: This is my favorite kind of cookbook because it tells his personal story and then weaves in the recipes.Becky Krystal: Yeah, no, that's really refreshing. I mean, if you want someone to commit to reading and cooking out of your cookbook, I think there has to be some kind of relationship with the reader. I think at least I personally enjoy that voice of the author and learning something about them and why this matters to them. I think it makes you want to invest in it more too.Suzy Chase: We love Hooni.Becky Krystal: Yeah. He's, he's great. I learned a lot from him just inspeaking to him, you know, about his, his recipes.Suzy Chase: Totally, I had him on again in September because I wanted to get an update and he's just so wonderful to chat with.Becky Krystal: Yea he is.Suzy Chase: So next is Beyond The North Wind by Darra Goldstein.Speaker 2: Yeah. This was the pick of Tim Carman who's one of my fellow staff writers. It's such a beautiful book to look at and to read. And like I said, there is a lot that I think people don't know about Russian cuisine and like some of the other books too, the recipes often don't have a ton of ingredients they're usually pretty accessible. You know, not a ton of us around here have access to buckthorn, which is like one of her favorite things to call for but she makes a point of saying like, okay, if you don't have like the horseradish leaves or currant leaves it'll be okay. And one of the things Tim pointed out and something that she sort of alludes to in the book is that, you know, how long, like Rene Redzepi has been teaching everyone about fermenting and foraging and stuff and that sort of caught our attention. People in these places in Russia have been doing stuff like this for a long time, fermenting things and kombucha and all this stuff and I think that's probably not something many people know about and you know, it's just the classic making do with what you have nd that's what these people have been doing for hundreds of years, especially in these places that are very far North.Suzy Chase: My two takeaways from this cookbook, um, were Russians love the taste of sour and they also love honey. I made her honey cake.Becky Krystal: Yeah. Honey cake is also think maybe having a little bit of a moment, you know, there was the Baking At The 20th Century Cafe book, which also had like a really famous honey cake recipe. I mean, I think that's incredibly timely. They've been doing honey using honey for, you know, hundreds of years. And, and I get questions from readers who don't want to use refined sugar and I feel like I should just refer them to a lot of the recipes in here because before they had access to the beet sugar and stuff, they were cooking with honey and it's trendy for some people, but not for these people who it's their tradition.Suzy Chase: This cookbook is almost like a trip to Russia. Her photos are extraordinary.Becky Krystal: Yeah. Actually I was reading it last night and it was called and I was under my blankets and I felt like this feels very appropriate and I could almost see, you know, the Northern lights and the snow. And you know, it's the same with My Korea also and In Bibi's Kitchen, I mean the photography itself also is really important to setting the mood and helping you feel like you're really going somewhereSuzy Chase: The last cookbook we're going to chat about as Modern Comfort Food. I mean, God love Ina for pushing up this publication of the cookbooks so we could all have it mid pandemic.Becky Krystal: So Modern Comfort Food was the pick of Mary Beth Albright, who is our food video guru. And I mean, it's delivers on what it promises, right? It's nothing in the right way. It's nothing that you're like, Oh, I've never heard of that. Right. I mean, she says, she likes to find the things that appeal to us and puts her twist on them. So yeah, tomato soup and grilled cheese. She's got a shrimp and linguine fra diavolo. She uses that same spicy sauce to do the spaghetti squash bake, which I've really been wanting to do since I have one from my farm box, it's friendly and it's not intimidating. And I think for those people who are turned off by extremely novel things or people who are just devotees of Ina, they're not going to be disappointed in this book.Suzy Chase: She's just so real. Like in the cookbook, she wrote about the evolution of a recipe with her Boston Cream Pie that she'd been trying to perfect for years. And I was like, you know, she didn't have to tell us that she's been like struggling to perfect this for years. So I was so thrilled to read that story, how she was chatting with Christina Tosi and she suggested something like a syrupy glaze that you brush on the cake to give it lots of flavor and it also keeps it moist. And so I love that story and how real Ina is.Becky Krystal: Yeah. I mean, we've all been there. Like, there's just this thing that's bugging us and we're trying to master a recipe. And so yeah, I found that very relatable and I found the idea of an orange scented cake and pastry cream in Boston Cream Pie, just, I mean, yeah, 10 out of 10 we'll eat.Suzy Chase: So I had on Trent Pheifer and he has his Instagram and blog called Store Bought Is Fine and he's cooking his way through all of Ina's recipes. Are you familiar with him?Becky Krystal: I am not actually. I think I need to, I know but yeah, it's like he's pulling a Julie & Julia thing, but with Ina which sounds really fun.Suzy Chase: Exactly. Oh my gosh, you have to follow him on Instagram. He's amazing. And he was so much fun to talk with. So what are you looking forward to eating in the new year and what cookbooks are you looking forward to in 2021?Becky Krystal: I am looking forward to eating anything that I don't cook. Um, I've been doing, you know, we've been doing takeout, but, uh, I definitely miss eating what my colleagues make for me. Um, I sometimes will get things that they drop off or if I take home from a photo shoot, but I definitely miss that. And yeah, sitting in a restaurant meal, definitely. Cookbooks. Obviously my list is a little baking heavy because I love baking. Uh, so the things that jump out to me there, Roxanna Jullapat who contributed one of the cookies to our holiday cookie issues has a book called Mother Grains coming out. A lot of whole grains. We previewed a recipe from there, with Linzer cookies that are made with corn flour and we're really excited about that one. The Cookie Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, who I know you've talked to I think. I mean, of course that's going to be good. Zoë Bakes Cakes by Zoë François who is someone who I absolutely adore. She's great on Instagram and I swear by her. Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day that she's done with Jeffrey Hertzberg, To Asia With Love by Hetty McKinnon, who also contributed a cookie to our package. She's great. I mean, she's one of those people who also seems to be always churning out books and recipes, and they're all interesting I mean, I just, and people are always making her recipes. I'm really excited about that one. Life Is What You Bake It by Vallery Lomas who is also really fun baker and she was a previous winner of The Great American Baking Show. Got a shout out to Dorie Greenspan who I know, and also just absolutely adore Baking With Dorie Sweet Salty & Simple, sort of more on the savory side. Julia Turshen who we talked about with In Bibi's Kitchen and she has a book coming out Simply Julia 110 Easy Recipes For Healthy Comfort Food. And then one of my other favorite people, Patty Jinich has another book coming out, Patty Jinich Treasures Of The Mexican Table Classic Recipes Local Secrets. I think that also has the potential to do a lot of what we've talked about with these other books in terms of introducing people to different ideas and sort of more home cooking. So those are some of the things I'm really jazzed about for 2021.Suzy Chase: For me, in 2021, I'm looking forward to eating a chef cooked meal inside a restaurant, not on the street or take out and I'm eagerly awaiting Water, Wood, and Wild Things, Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain town by Hannah Kirshner. I can not wait for that. So head on over to Voraciously.com to check out all 12 of their favorite cookbooks of 2020, and thanks so much, Becky for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.Becky Krystal: Thanks Suzy. Let's do it again next year!Outro: Subscribe over on CookerybytheBook.com and thanks for listening to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book.

Show Notes   00:00:00 -Intro: Welcome back Venom, Jeremy has lost his mind, Shipping prices is dumb, People are stupid for Slipcovers, Severin’s weak Black [...]

Show Notes   00:00:00 -Intro: Welcome back Venom, Jeremy has lost his mind, Shipping prices is dumb, People are stupid for Slipcovers, Severin’s weak Black [...]

“Through my continued research, I realized there's a way you can blend and merge identities. And actually that's your truest form of yourself when you're in the intersections of multiple identities. And that's the hybrid.” Sarabeth Berk   Sarabeth Berk, Chief Creative Disruptor of More Than My Title, is a researcher and innovation strategist demystifying the human experience. She is known for her research on the hybrid professional - people with multiple professional identities who integrate talents together and bring unique value to employers and clients. I had the pleasure of speaking with Sarabeth about the professional identity crisis that inspired her research on the hybrid professional, the increasing demand for hybrids in the job market, and how you can network to learn someone’s identity rather than their position. Listen in to find out if you might be a hybrid professional.   Show Highlights [0:59] Sarabeth’s professional identity crisis [6:25] Jobs of the future will always become commonplace [16:17] Emerging hybrids vs established hybrids [23:00] Identity work & being seen [26:25] Gaining clarity of self through misunderstanding [31:21] How to network with identity in mind   Links | Resources Sarabeth on LinkedIn More Than My Title Are You a Hybrid Professional? Sarabeth’s TEDx Talk   About the Guest Sarabeth Berk is a creative disruptor and innovation strategist who demystifies the human experience. As a researcher, she is known for her research on the hybrid professional - people with multiple professional identities who integrate talents together and bring unique value to employers and clients. Sarabeth is currently the Chief Creative Disruptor of More Than My Title, a professional coaching agency in Denver, CO that helps clients discover their truest professional identity. About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I’m with Dr. Sarabeth Berk. Dr. Sarabeth Berk is a hybrid professional, who also researches hybrid professional identity. She’s also the author of More Than My Title. Welcome to the show, Sarabeth.  Sarabeth: I’m so glad to be here. Thanks, Douglas. Douglas: So, tell us a little bit about how you got started in this work you do, this notion of hybrid professional identity. Where did that even come from? Sarabeth: Yeah. It's been a wild journey, and it really started with that age-old question: What do you do? And I was going through my own career-change transition and trying to figure out what my next move was. And when people asked me, “What do you do?” I just struggled. I didn't know who I was. I wanted to be seen as more than my current job, and at that point, I was a teacher, and I was ready to break out. I wanted to transform systems and do more strategy and design and innovation work. And so essentially, I was having a professional-identity crisis. I didn't know who I was.  And that led me onto this big research journey and interviewing a lot of people and starting to understand, what is this notion of professional identity? We just don't talk about it. And I looked at existing research. But what was fascinating to me the most was when I talked to other people, I thought they had it figured out and that I was the one that was confused, and this was a problem only I experienced. And that was so far from the truth. I quickly realized that people, many people, are more than their job title. That's just this kind of generic way that we give ourselves a frame and a label. And everyone I spoke to was so much more. So it gave me a sense of ease and peace to realize, oh, my gosh. Okay, it's not only me trying to figure out my identity.  And then it started to open up a lot of new questions and thinking of, why don't we talk about this, and why is it so hidden that people do many things. But beyond that—here was the real kick—I realized I have multiple professional identities. I was an artist and a teacher, and I was becoming a researcher, and I loved design. I probably had a handful of others. But I didn't want to be just one identity at a time. When I took a job, I didn't want to just be hired as the designer or the researcher. I loved using all of those identities together.  So through my continued research, I realized there's a way you can blend and merge identities. And actually that's your truest form of yourself when you're in the intersections of multiple identities. And that's the hybrid.  So that's sort of my short story on how I happened upon it. But now that I've unlocked it and I'm sharing it with other people that are trying to figure out how do they get their next job or how do they really explain and articulate what their value is, this notion of the hybrid is just the game changer, and I'm so glad people are liking it. Douglas: You know, I personally resonate with this a lot because my degree that I obtained in college was entitled multidisciplinary studies because I didn't want to be in school and get four different majors, but I wanted to study a lot of different things. And in fact, I had spent a lot of time in computer-science-type stuff in high school but enjoyed it so much I was just, like, figured that stuff out. I want to go study other stuff. And so I think I personally carved out this journey where there wasn't this one to one between my degree and my job. And I think a lot of folks, that's the classic route. And I felt a little bit different early in that journey. But it seems like it's more and more, we're finding whether you're a product manager or a facilitator or just this podcast is dedicated to, there are so many roles out there where you can't just go and get a degree in that role. And in fact, it takes a very diverse and well-rounded background to make you excel in the role. So I’m just kind of curious. How much do you think it has to do with these new types of roles that of themselves are not super well-defined. They’re kind of hybrid in nature. Sarabeth: I love everything you just framed because the truth is you're not alone. A lot of people are not the exact thing they went to school for or got a degree in, and they've changed jobs and accumulated so many talents over time that they are like, yeah, what am I now? And I just wrote a really popular blog post a couple weeks ago that looks at this issue of job descriptions and positions and the way that roles are being named.  One that really stood out to me is a company called Jump, and they do a ton of design and design-thinking-type work. And they were hiring a person to be an innovation strategist, which is something that resonates with me. And what I loved in the job description is the first thing they wrote is, Are you a hybrid thinker? They call that out. And then below that, they described it as someone who’s one part a humanist, one part technologist, one part anthropologist and filmmaker, entrepreneur. They kind of listed these identity mashups that nailed it for me because companies are starting to realize they need someone that is multidisciplinary or multifaceted. And that's actually the value when you can find a person with this crazy combined skill set and identity set. Douglas: You know, as someone who's hired a lot of people over the years, I hear that and part of me is reminded of this really, I would say, treacherous territory of carving out this unicorn that maybe doesn't exist, and then you have these unrealistic expectations on finding the person. But I think as the job market or the pool gets more and more sophisticated and people have more and more experience, these unicorns do tend to, they're out there.  Sarabeth: Yeah. Douglas: And so I’m just kind of curious of your thoughts on that. Sarabeth: Yeah. It's that notion that the jobs of the future will eventually become commonplace today. So an example of that would be a social-media manager. We never knew we needed that role 10 years ago. That was really outlandish and exotic. And now it's so normal that multiple people have that in their job description underneath other duties. And I think now we see things like a DevOps manager. Well, that's hybrid. You're doing development and operations. Or even a data scientist. What is that? That's a hybrid title that now is becoming more normalized because we're like, yeah, of course, you have to look at data scientifically with other methods and insights behind that.  So I think it's that notion that when things are hybrid, I'll use more of a product example for a second. When CamelBak created a backpack that had a water-bottle bladder inside of it, well, what the heck do you call that? That was a new product that combined two existing functions. And they named it CamelBak.  And that suddenly caught on as the new way to call that object. Well, the same thing goes for people in roles. We don't know what they are until we sort of adopt it and get used to it. So I believe the unicorns are out there. We just don't have enough language to define them. Douglas: Yeah. It's interesting. It's like, are we tapping into an emergent phenomenon or really just dreaming up something that some really crazy custom-fit jigsaw-puzzle piece that would just help our organization? Or are we tapping into some trends that are just starting to emerge? Sarabeth: Probably all the above. Douglas: Yeah. I think the risk is when we overfit that jigsaw puzzle, and it’s like, oh, here's this thing that's like—does that thing even exist? Maybe that’s two different people. Sarabeth: Yeah. No, and that’s part of the art and the science of this, so thanks for putting that into perspective. We can't say we need someone that is the jack of all trades and an expert in everything, because that's not realistic.  So my quick framework is that there's three types of professionals: people that have really one type of expertise, I call that singularity. People that have multiple things they do for work, I call that multiplicity. And then the hybrid is somewhere in the middle, where you're blending and combining multiple expertise as well as multiple areas of generalists. And so it’s sort of fuzzy. And so people say if you're a hybrid, then you're not an expert. And actually, I disagree. I think you're an expert in your own hybridity, because in that emergent space—I love that word you used—and you're in the intersection of multiple identities simultaneously, that's an expertise no one else can replicate.  And to your point a moment ago of, is it too crazy to ask for someone to be all these things? Yeah. I think it is. So when I work with people one on one or in groups, I say you have to first have a ton of self-awareness and know what are your core professional identities, the two, three, four at the most, that are really the ones you’re best at. They light you up. You want the world to know you for. If you stop doing any of those tomorrow, you'd feel like part of you is missing. Once you land on those two, three, or four, that's what makes your hybridity. That's kind of the ingredients of a mixture. So, yes, you probably can do more than those three or four identities, but that's not going to be the best use of who you are as a hybrid. Where I’m trying to go with this is that there is sort of—a hybrid needs to just be a certain set of components. It can't be everything. Does that make sense? Douglas: Absolutely. And I think that was the risk I was trying to point out to folks that wanted to tap into this phenomenon is temper your expectations. We can’t just sit there and just conjure up the most perfect combination of skills and experience, because the more things you layer on, the less the probability that someone in the world has accumulated those things and is available and is interested in working with you. Sarabeth: Yeah, that’s true. And people are fluid and dynamic, and as the workforce is shifting, people are changing industries. And so once you start not just getting new jobs, but you're going from finance into healthcare, into tech, now you have this whole different set of who you are and how do you articulate that value. And I think that's what I'm trying to help people discern is you need to tell a story of the relationships between the different identities you have. Douglas: I love that. Gosh, that brings up a lot of stuff for me. I was even thinking about internal family systems. But this notion of fluidity is really fantastic. And maybe the advice to hiring managers, and the thing I would probably internalize, is that if we're hiring people that are hybrid or have that hybrid affinity, it means that we can benefit from that fluidity and adaptability because they realize that they have this growth mindset and they are accumulating new skills. And so even though they're not this unicorn, maybe they're missing a few pieces, then they're going to grow into that, and they can adapt and they're not just fixed into this identity of who they are and what they do. Sarabeth: Absolutely. Identity is a really big spectrum, and we change depending on context and time of our lives. We are not the same individuals that we were 10 years ago, you and I. We have different tastes and interests and hobbies and probably even friends. So why would we ever think that our career stays stagnant too? Douglas: Mm. Also, just kind of tying this back to meetings and facilitation and also your comment around people saying that hybrids aren't experts, I would say that my interpretation of that would be hybrids are experts at gluing things together, because you may have—and in fact, a hybrid could be a deep expert in two things, and they're gluing together a bunch of other things. But even if they're not super-deep expertise in whatever is the topic at hand, their deep expertise might be somewhere else, even if they have the ability to span these different spectrums, it means they're going to be able to glue together the deep knowledge that others on the team have, and that is super powerful. And I would argue that hybrids make great facilitators because our role is to glue together, it's to understand enough to say, hey, what you're saying is contradicting this other person, even though you seem to be agreeing. And that takes some hybridity. You have to understand enough of each of these things and have enough experience to be able to call on that knowledge and apply it in a way that everyone can kind of come to the table and understand it. Sarabeth: Yeah. That's really a great insight and observation. I agree that hybrids definitely have one foot in different worlds, and so they get to be these master translators, which isn't the route of facilitation to make it easier. And so you're the person transferring knowledge between disciplines or industries or sectors or departments or whatever to help them make it easier of, What are these languages and ideas and concepts we're doing? How do they fit together? Douglas: Yeah, one thing I also say is one of the superpowers of a facilitator is really quick synthesis, to be able to take a bunch of inputs in, synthesize them, make some meaning of it, and then kind of spit it back out for the group to react to. And so there’s a balance between totally mirroring what you're hearing but also synthesizing some things to help spur and move things ahead. And I think a lot of, I would say, varied and diverse background and perspective can really make that synthesis easier, because it's not about necessarily how fast your brain is processing stuff. I mean, sure, there’s an element of that. But if you have different models and contexts that you can draw on, it definitely reduces the need for your brain to have to go into hyperdrive. Sarabeth: Yeah. I love what you're saying. That was one of the findings I had in looking at hybrids, and where does hybridity show up? And hybrids are masters at pattern recognition and meeting making. And you just said that in your own words. Douglas: That's fantastic. You know, I'd written down complexity earlier, for a different reason. And I think you could kind of map this stuff onto a Cynefin framework even, based on a few things I've heard you speaking about today already. Early on, before hybrid, we have a very simple view of the world. It's like I learn to do something, and I do it. And then as I learn more and more difficult things and get more and more specialized, moving into the complicated domain, that hybrids really thrive in this complex domain, where things are adapting and changing, and we have to respond to them. And we have that fluidity that we can lean on so that if something new comes at us, we don't just get knocked off. We kind of just, we remain in balance. Sarabeth: Yeah, definitely. I think hybrids are very adaptable, and they tinker and invent and hack, and they see the standard process, and they know how to kind of tweak it or make it better or change it completely. Douglas: The other fascinating thing about the Cynefin model is that in between the domains, because a lot of people look at it and think it's just a two by two. The lines between the domains is a domain in and of itself, so this disorder that you move through when you transition. And you were talking about these hybrids transitioning, and I think whenever we transition domains, there's some disorder. We have to, you know, like, Clark Kent can't just turn into Superman. He has to go into the phone booth and emerge as Superman.  And I think that that in itself, I mean, there's two things I think of that might be interesting to unpack from your work, which was, do you see that there is a transition, an uncomfortable transition, as people start to learn? As they're moving from a simple, like, “I know this one thing. I'm starting to learn, build this other skill,” it’s like maybe there's some identity crisis starting to happen. Sarabeth: No. I was completely agreeing. I have a table I created in the book I wrote, More Than My Title, where I talk about emerging hybrids versus established hybrids, because there is sort of this developmental thing that's happening as you're feeling the push and pull and tension of having multiple identities, but not understanding the relationship between them, how they fit together, and how to build that as the way you're working in the world. You're sort of stuck in this awkward phase. And there's a few different indicators I have of that. And one of it is this, I call it, crossover. It's like sometimes you know how to tie your identities together and you're in that zone of genius, and other times you don't. It's like you only are one or the other, and you haven't found that natural cadence or just natural ability to let it be simultaneous.  And one thing that just my kind of artsy head that inspired some of my research findings was I was looking at paintings by Rene Magritte, and he is one of the ultimate surrealists. And he had one painting where it's a sandy beach, it's the seashore, and there’s a doorway, just the frame of a door, and the door is open. And so you can walk through that doorway and get to the water or you can stay on the beach. It's sort of that moment of this invisible gateway between the two worlds. And that's my visual mental metaphor of us trying to figure out, How do we find these spaces of transition between the different parts of ourselves? Douglas: It's amazing. As you were sharing some of that I’m starting to formalize some of, like you were helping me articulate where my head was going previously, which is I think there's two modes, maybe. One is as you're first exploring the land of hybridity, it's almost like going through puberty because it's like, wait a second. This is a real awkward transition.  Sarabeth: Yeah. Douglas: And as you start to become more hybrid, so you're developing different facets of yourself, when you're in that zone, I would imagine early on that fluidity isn't quite so fluid. Being able to shift between those modes may be more awkward. I'm actually taking this hat off, putting it on the table, and putting this other hat on, and it's a little clunky. I have to maybe reboot a little bit. But then more and more you do it, the more skilled you are of just blending between the two to where it's almost like a dance. Like, you don't even notice that you're shifting between these modes. Sarabeth: Yeah. That's exactly right. The other tool that I brought into my work is this idea of developing your consciousness. Hybrids don't realize they're even hybrids. They have to learn that construct and realize, oh, my gosh, this might apply to me. And even once you learn the term, you still might not understand how it looks for you and what makes you a hybrid.  Oftentimes when I speak to people that they're excited and this resonates, and they go, “Of course, I'm a hybrid. I do marketing and sales, and I'm a gardener on the side. And I love to do graphics and computer animation,” but they don't understand how those things fit together or how they're using synergies and a marriage of all that. Then there's still that emerging phase. That's more multiplicity, in my mind, when you are just putting one hat on, taking it off, putting the next hat on. And the hybrid is literally wearing all the hats at once and has tentacles of skills.  Let me give a clear, concrete picture of my hybridity in action. So actually, when I'm facilitating a meeting and I start to do either some visual recording, graphic facilitation, or in the moment ask people to take on roleplaying, to play out different personas of stakeholders that we're trying to imagine how would they experience this thing, those are moments when I notice big shifts in the room, and other people don't run meetings that way. That's me and my hybridity because the researcher is turning on, the designer’s turning on, the educator’s turning on, in that moment to get people to do things they don't normally do to make sense of information we're struggling with. So that’s kind of how detailed I push people to see themselves in these moments of their hybridity, to reveal it to themselves. Douglas: You know, that reminds me of one of the thoughts that I had when we first met and I was starting to wrap my head around your work, and it was that this is in a way, is a really practical, pragmatic approach to personal branding. Sarabeth: Definitely. It has that connection, which I think is just one of the outcomes of doing the work. So I didn’t even really do my full hybrid introduction, but essentially I've designed my own title for my hybridity, and I call myself a creative disruptor because to me that encapsulates who I am in the intersections. And it's a unique name. It's not too out there or trendy, but it feels authentic and accurate, and it takes some practice and exploration to find that right combination of words.  And what my “creative disruptor” title represents is that I'm comprised of being an artist, designer, educator, and researcher. Those are my four primary, or core, identities that mean the most and I have to use pretty frequently in the work I do. If I don't, I get bored or I stop doing that job, or other things happen, more disengaged. So that’s really kind of the building blocks of this work is having self-awareness of your identities, and then asking yourself, Who are you in those intersections, and what do you call yourself in that bullseye of your intersections? That's your hybrid title, which then becomes a beautiful personal brand that all of your history and work experience connects to. Douglas: Yeah. I love this notion of authenticity in its purest sense, right?  Sarabeth: Mm-hmm. Douglas: A lot of times we hear that word thrown around, be authentic, etc., but I truly believe that if we're going to be great facilitators, we have to be authentic. And that means being true to ourselves and showing up in that way. And I love that your work is a tool for folks to do that self-reflection and think about, well, what are these elements that are critical? And I think in a way, it's not all that dissimilar than thinking about values as well. But I think that values is such an overused and diluted term that a lot of times people, especially when you're at the company and it's the things that are just hanging on the walls, and no one really lives by them. So I love it as a framework that helps us get to that same need, but it's not a bunch of handwaving stuff. Sarabeth: Yeah. And one other thing I’ll add to that would be I think it's about being seen, which ultimately is about belonging, right? And we know that's one of the steps to have safety and strong teams and trust is you have to feel like you belong and people understand who you are. And when we just walk around and know each other on teams or companies as you're the director of programs, you're the head of A.I., you do sales, I don't really know who you are, and I actually don't really understand your job. And I understand that we need a hierarchy of formal job titles, so I'm not pushing against disrupting and changing all that. But what I am saying and what I've started doing with more teams during workshops and companies is let's do some of this identity work to reveal your professional identity so your colleagues and peers see you the way that you want to be seen and know you for what you’re best at. And that’s more than just your StrengthsFinders or Myers-Briggs profile, which are other talents and skills. Your identity is something that just defines who you are and overarches your passion, your purpose, your skills, everything. Douglas: I'm kind of getting into my nerd brain now on the facilitation, but I’m starting to visualize. It could be—we've been building a lot of MURAL templates for various activities and a lot of the things we would do in real life. And one of them—you mentioned StrengthsFinder—one of them is based on StrengthsFinders, and there was another one based on the books everyone's reading right now. So how do we, coming together as a team, visually kind of exciting each other around possibility or around vision, around the makeup or composition of the team—I think it'd be really fascinating to do some of this exploration as a team. What you're talking about is deeply introspective, and I'm sure you coach a lot of folks and help draw that stuff out—I can imagine teams helping each other draw it out because they see things in their teammates that their teammates might not see in themselves or aren't recognizing. They're a little blind to it because it's things they do but don't perceive or don't say about themselves. Sarabeth: I just have a huge smile on my face right now. You couldn't have said it better. I think doing this work in collaboration with your teammates is one of the best ways because they mirror back to you how they see you and help you realize the truer parts of yourself that maybe you've never given a name to or wouldn't have called out. Like you said, they perceive things and they can reflect it back. Yeah, I think that's really powerful. Douglas: I think one of the thoughts I was having, too, is one of my favorite ways to dispel a conflict is something I call roles and coffee, and as two people were kind of at loggerheads or whatever. And I don't feel like—usually you can tell as a leader, is something bad going on here, or they just misunderstanding each other? Ninety percent of the time, it's just some silly misunderstanding stuff. And so I’ll just tell them to schedule a coffee. And there are no rules besides one simple rule that they can't talk about work or the task that they're doing. They can't discuss the project or anything. They can only discuss what they think each other does from a role standpoint. “I want you to sit down and tell me what your role is. I'm going tell you what your role is, and you're going to tell me what my role is. And you have to sit and listen.”  Sarabeth: Yeah. Douglas: And it can be very eye-opening to hear how people misunderstand what you do and what you bring to the table. Sarabeth: Completely. That is the beginning. I have a workbook that complements my book, and the first section is, What do other people say you do? Talk to your colleagues. How does your partner or family members describe what you do? How does a child, how does a neighbor? Trying these different scenarios to understand how people interpret and perceive you and what words they're using. And if they're totally vague or uncertain, that's also evidence as well. And it's not that everyone has to be super crystal clear, because it is really hard to define all the different things we do. But if people are that fuzzy and if you're not telling a story that's articulating the way you want to show up in the world, then other people won't get it either. So that's kind of why I think this is a really big deal of how you describe your hybrid identity and find language that you believe in will start to cascade to your boss, to clients, to everyone.  And the more I've talked about being a hybrid, I've noticed people start to introduce me that way, or they've walked up—I had a boss one time say, “Hey, Sarabeth. Are you able to use enough of your identities in this job? How is that going for you?” And that blew me away because when would you ever expect a manager or a boss to say that and to make sure you're feeling supported and seen? And I think the more we talk about this explicitly, the more we feel, wow, this is really what's been missing from our lives. Douglas: That’s amazing. You know, and it's like I think that to me the fascinating piece is absolutely others are going to help you identify things that you may not realize that you might want to kind of craft into that narrative. They may actually also point out things that they're perceiving that are incorrect or that maybe we're presenting things in a way that it's confusing or people are reading into it in ways that we don't want. We can repair those things as well. Sarabeth: Oh, definitely. Yeah. If people are reflecting back to you—like, I used to get called the design-thinking guru a lot, and it was kind of just a fun, easy way for people to reference me. But that kind of drove me crazy because that's not who I saw myself as. Like, yes, I know design thinking, but that wasn't the way I wanted to show up in a room or be introduced. So, yeah, that was good feedback where I needed to tailor and tweak how I introduced myself and how I talked about myself. And then it started to shift that introduction when other people said it. Douglas: Absolutely. I had the same thing happen to me when I first started Voltage Control, because I was doing a little bit of fractional CTO work, as well as facilitating and running design sprints. And I would tell people that, right? I would tell them that hybrid nature of, like, I’m a fractional CTO, and I do design sprints.  It is fascinating to me how people would always remember one or the other. And so I’d either get introduced as the CTO guy or the design-sprint guy. And as I was doing less and less CTO work, it was even more frustrating because people would still introduce me as this fractional CTO. And it's like, “Well, I’m not really doing that as much anymore.” It's a struggle, and it's real. Sarabeth: Yeah. And it just takes practice and experimentation. I tell people to keep iterating. It took me a while to even figure out my hybrid title. And if you don't have one, if that's daunting, because going into these intersections, I will say right now, is the hardest work. People get really lit up, and they're like, “Oh my gosh, you just want me to draw this Venn diagram and look at my overlapping identities. I love it. That's genius.” And then they start scratching their heads and go, “Oh, my god, I don't know how to do that.” But if you just want a starting point, even just saying, “Hey, I'm a hybrid. I work at the intersections of, in my case, being an artist, designer, researcher, educator,” that is a nice gateway, and that's a really simple way to start reinforcing this stuff. But I agree. It takes a while for people to actually, like, hold onto it and remember it. Douglas: So, I want to come back to something you mentioned in passing earlier as this kind of a setup to kind of explaining this work. And it really struck me, it brought me back to a place that I haven't been in a while, which is bumping into people in a networking environment or maybe at a party, and you just met them. You didn't get a really good intro. And the easiest, the most mundane question is, So what do you do? Sarabeth: Every time. Yep. Douglas: Yeah. And so, you know, I always kind of feel awkward with that question, but it was the thing I always wanted to ask, but I felt like an idiot asking it. And so now that we've advanced, well, (a) it's kind of difficult to even find ourselves in networking situations these days, but I guess in your work, have you found more interesting questions, better ways to probe into this hybridity and to learn more about people rather than, “So what do you do?” Sarabeth: Oh, definitely. I mean, a quick one that's not as much identity related is just, What do you love to do? Adding that love part shifts it more into hobbies and extracurricular activities. But if you're trying to stay on a professional note and especially hybrid stuff, I'd say, “What do you call yourself?” You know, that right away, I ask people, “What is your identity?” or just “What are your different professional identities?,” which right away assumes people are more than one thing. Some of those might need a little bit more contextualization to help people not feel affronted or thrown too far off. You might say, “Hey, I realize we're more than our job titles. Tell me about the different identities you use in your work.” And shifting to an identity conversation could be interesting. So those are maybe the top three that just came out of my mouth. Douglas: Yeah. As you were kind of sharing some of those, it reminded me my friend has a great prompt that I’ve totally stolen. And it's, What's lighting you up these days? Sarabeth: Yeah. I love that. Douglas: I find that people always have some really fun answers to that question. So speaking of questions, questions are kind of, I think, the facilitator’s Swiss Army knife. They get us out of a lot of trouble. They can kind of move us forward, etc.. So apart from just the breaking-the-ice, “I just met you” questions, what are some of the questions that you think are provocative or helpful when we're in meetings or just helping people work better together? Sarabeth: Yeah. One of the top things I notice when I'm working with groups and we're problem solving is all the assumptions that they're holding onto that they don't hear and kind of those limited beliefs. So probably a few of my top questions I ask the most is, How do you know? You know, just asking them if they're like, “Oh, we don't need to research that. We already talked to those people and they said blank.” And it's like, well, how do you know they really feel that way? Or what do you see that makes you say that? Getting really objective and moving away from their interpretations and subjective feelings so that they have to back it with actual fact and have a reality check and kind of question where did this story in their head start from?  And probably the last one, it's sort of a loose tool, and I adjust this in so many ways. I could use it for an interview script or facilitation and brainstorming. But these four words, I think, are my driving, just ideas when I'm doing facilitating. And they are needs, beliefs, pain points, and desires. I'm constantly returning back to those to understand, What does a user need? What are they believing? What are their pain points and desires? And I just found if we can answer those, we can reveal the next best set of insights to get us moving forward. Douglas: I think that's also true for the participants, too. Are we pointing that inward to what's going on inside the hearts and minds of the folks in the room as well as who this room is focused on solutioning for.  Sarabeth: Mm-hmm. Douglas: So I love that, yeah. Excellent. Well, Sarabeth, it's been a pleasure chatting with you today. And I'm sure if everyone enjoyed this as much as I did, then they're eager to find out where they can learn more and maybe also think about—I'd love to hear what you might be interested in leaving the audience with. Sarabeth: Ah, so many good nuggets. Douglas, you and I just have the best synergy. We could have talked forever. Let's see. So essentially the work I'm doing, go to my website, morethanmytitle.com. I just wrote a book with the same name called More Than My Title: The Power of Hybrid Professionals in a Workforce of Experts and Generalists, because essentially I think this is a movement of a hidden segment of the workforce, and I'm really trying to build awareness and give people practical tools to both help them with their own personal identity, but also to realize the workforce is made up of more than just experts and generalists. And then you can find my workbook, and I have online courses. So my goal is just to help people activate and learn about themselves and their identity.  And my takeaway for your audience today is my favorite question, which is, Who are you in the intersections of your multiple professional identities? And when you can start to answer that question, you are going to see a whole new side and really just version of who you are in the world. Douglas: Fantastic. Sarabeth, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. And I'm really excited to see how the listeners take this work to heart and what they find as they start to explore new identities. So thanks so much for being on the show, and we'll talk again soon. Sarabeth: I hope so, Douglas. I'd love to come back anytime. Just keep me on your radar. You're great. This is wonderful. Thank you. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

Pop-O-Holics Weekly Upload (11/30/2020) Intro: Welcome to A Pop-O-Holics Cyberpunk Christmas! Brian’s Wacky News Corner:News: Mobile Suit Gundam and more now streaming on Funimation (https://io9.gizmodo.com/step-aside-oldtypes-the-original-mobile-suit-gundam-is-1845747568)Steve McQueen’s Small Axe collection on BBC and Prime (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/arts/television/steve-mcqueen-small-axe.html?referringSource=articleShare)Movies:Mank (Netflix) 12/4Nomadland (Lincoln Center Virtual Cinema) 12/4-12/10TV:Selena: The Series (Netflix) 12/4What We’ve Been Consuming: ChrisAnimaniacs (Hulu) BD (episode 1 only)Marvel 616 (Disney+) BD (only the toys episode)The Mandalorian Season 2 (Episodes 3,4,5 SPOILERS) (Disney+) BDBrianAinu Mosir (Netflix)Christian Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War (PS4&5, Xbox One/X/S and PC)The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)Community Feedback Section: Poll Results! Social Media:Email: popoholicscast@gmail.comFacebook: @PopOHolicsTwitter: @PopOHolicsInstagram: @popoholicscast

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 42!03:00 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]03:30 - Review: Helstrom (S01)08:30 - Review: Run13:40 - Review: The Crown (S04)19:40 - Review: Unsolved Mysteries (S01)22:00 - Review: Mario Kart Live Home Circuit23:45 - Review: Demon’s Souls29:15 - Review: Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered33:00 - Review: Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War36:30 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]36:40 - LISTENER QUESTIONS39:00 - Given the option, who would you interview on GETL?43:25 - What skill would you learn from a different profession?48:00 - Are the 95% games still worth 95% now that we know what a 100% game is like?01:00:35 - Who built the pyramids?01:04:55 - Left or right brain?01:06:30 - What is the universal South African word for “go away”?01:07:00 - What is the weirdest thing you’ve seen in someone’s home?01:10:00 - How would you prove you’re from the future after travelling back 400 years in time?01:13:50 - What was your Vamers highlight of 2020?01:15:15 - New Years resolutions & going with the flow?01:17:20 - Would you have done anything differently this year?01:19:50 - Will you make GETL merchandise?01:20:35 - Weirdest thing you’ve seen when walking in on someone?01:22:15 - What does Ed’s Fiance think about his NSFW research?01:23:00 - Where do you see GETL in the future?01:24:15 - Who would review all the NSFW items for GETL?01:26:20 - What is your favourite episode of GETL & who is your Celeb crush?01:30:15 - THANK YOU!01:30:30 - GETL 2020: Retrospective01:34:10 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

“Life is gray. It's not black and white. It's possible to admit that the FBI made mistakes and at the same time recognize the ultimate responsibility of Koresh to have led his people out peacefully, as we encouraged him to do every single day.” Gary Noesner Gary Noesner, author of the book Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator, retired from the FBI in 2003 following a 30-year career. During this career, Gary was named the first chief of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. As a negotiator, he was personally involved in numerous high-profile crises, cases, and seizures, including the Branch Davidians in Waco, recently dramatized by the Netflix series. I had the pleasure of speaking with Gary about the gray nature of life, what distinguishes wants vs needs, and the game-changing power of making adjustments at half-time. Listen in to find out how Gary’s discomfort with conflict in his youth led to his career as a hostage negotiator for the FBI.   Show Highlights [7:29] The fatal mistake of assuming that high rank equals expertise [14:07] The realization that life is gray [19:00] Saving the most lives possible [22:29] Making adjustments at half-time [26:40] Distinguishing between wants and needs   Links | Resources Gary on LinkedIn Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator   About the Guest Gary Noesner, author of the book Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator, retired from the FBI in 2003 following a 30-year career. During this career, Gary was named the first chief of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. As a negotiator, he was personally involved in numerous high-profile crises, cases, and seizures, including the Branch Davidians in Waco, recently dramatized by the Netflix series.   About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I’m with Gary Noesner. Gary retired from the FBI in 2003 following a 30-year career, during which he was named the first chief of the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit. As a negotiator, he was personally involved in numerous high-profile crises, cases, and seizures, including the Branch Davidians in Waco, recently dramatized by the Netflix series. He's also author of the book Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator.  Welcome to the show, Gary. Gary: Thanks. It's a pleasure to be with you. Douglas: So, Gary, I'm always fascinated to hear how people got their start, especially in the world of facilitation. And I’m sure negotiators are no different. While there’s certainly a course at Quantico, there’s not readily degree programs, like, “Oh, I’m going to go become a negotiator or become a facilitator.” It's a quite circuitous path a lot of people take. And I'm curious. All the way back to the Lakeland High School, you know, talking about some of those early situations you found yourself in, at what point did you really start to realize that you had this gift of kind of working with people? Gary: Well, I think as an early age, I was always uncomfortable around conflict and always sort of stepped up to the plate to de-escalate confrontations and arguments, whether it's between friends or others. It just seemed like a natural and appropriate thing to do for me. So when I got into the FBI, after wanting to do that since I was young, I had no sense that anything about negotiation existed because it didn't when I joined. But when I first got in the early part of my career, the FBI had sort of taken on this hostage-negotiation concept that had been started by NYPD. And there's something about it that really attracted me, and I thought it fit my personality and skill set. So I got the early training, and it was an auxiliary function for me for many, many years. And eventually I became a full-time negotiator and chief of the Crisis Negotiation Unit for the last 10 years of my career. But it was very challenging, and, yeah, there's a lot of similarities with mediation, facilitation. It's all about building relationships and influencing people in a positive way.  Douglas: And it must have been kind of—it's like coming full circle as you were one of the first to take the course, and then you ended up taking the program over. What did that feel like when you remember it? Like, what was that like? Gary: Well, in those days, when I first got involved, the FBI, perhaps more so than today, played a pretty significant role in training police departments. Police departments didn't have a lot of money for training back then, so part of the FBI's mission was to provide it at no charge. And one of the areas, of course, was negotiation. It eventually became the thing we taught more than anything else, except for maybe firearms. And it gave me an opportunity to really interface with a lot of police officers in ways that I might not have had a chance otherwise. And that was a really valuable piece of my learning as an agent, as a human being. And, you know, I certainly got as much from those officers as I gave. It became apparent to me very quickly that the skills and the approaches we were teaching had a real impact. It wasn't theoretical. It allowed officers to exercise some specific skills to prevent violence and come home alive to their families. So immediately I recognized it as rewarding and meaningful and certainly something I always enjoyed. Douglas: Something that really caught my eye—and I kind of can parallel it back to even the theme of the show, which is control, and how much control do we lean into, and how much do we back away from? And I really struck a chord with this notion of maintaining balance. And you were talking about managing yourself and the people around you. And in fact, I think there is a quote that really caught my eye, which was, if you cannot control your own emotions, how can you expect to influence those of others? Gary: That's literally the first line that comes out of my mouth when I teach negotiations, because it's so true. I mean, if you want to influence others and yet you yourself are emotionally charged or dealing not in a logical, thoughtful, empathic way, then you're probably not going to be as successful as you would otherwise. So self-control is terribly important. And you tend to see people that perform at the highest levels in certainly law-enforcement negotiations are typically people who have a lot of self-control.  And one of the chapters in my book, Stalling for Time, I start each chapter with a quote. And a quote I always like, it's a partial quote from Rudyard Kipling about if you can keep your head about you when all else are losing theirs.  And I think that says a lot to me about the kind of person that makes a good negotiator and what is required. It's somebody that can think clearly in the midst of a situation where others might be so overcome with various forms of reaction that they're not optimally performing. You know, it's kind of like—I always do the comparison of a trauma surgeon. You know, when mass casualties are brought into an emergency room, the trauma surgeon, it's not that they're not human and don't see the damage that some people have suffered or perhaps been deceased, but they focus immediately on what has to be done, which is to save as many lives and determine which ones need their most immediate care. So they put those emotions aside so that they can function at an optimal level or highest level they can. And I think negotiations is very akin to that. Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of the, never confusing getting even with what you want. Gary: Yeah. And it's a good phrase we used to use for our commanders because even law enforcement, somebody can be a fairly high rank and have a lot of different experiences in an agency. It doesn't mean that they've had a lot of experience managing with these kinds of crises.  And law-enforcement officers are human beings, and when a perpetrator, particularly one that is maybe not a model citizen or somebody that may not have any attributes that we would find commendable, when they refuse to do what we want and they don't cooperate and they back out of promises, they engage in any number of problematic behaviors, you really got to maintain your self-control because if you respond and react to that, you may get even with them, but are you really accomplishing what your goal is, which is to get your way? And “to get our way” in the context of negotiation means we get people to peacefully surrender, to comply, to do what we think is not only in our best interest, but in their best interest. We don't want anybody to get hurt. So I found a lot of my career time was helping on-scene commanders and decision makers, chiefs of police, sheriffs, understand that concept.  There's always an assumption that people of a high rank know how to do everything. And of course, that's a fatal mistake you can make, because they don't necessarily understand, especially—someone might be a great internist as a doctor, but can they perform brain surgery? Probably not. So, you know, just because you have the MD in front of your name doesn’t mean you can do everything there is that could possibly come before you. So we have to know our limitations, and we have to understand that there are people who have more expertise that we probably would be wise to listen to. Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of your points in the book around just the crises within the crises and these other negotiations that have to happen. So you're managing quite a lot at the same time. Gary: Yeah. I mean, and of course, I know we'll be talking about Waco shortly, but I got asked this on a recent interview, and I never really thought about it from that complexity point of view that while out there, I had three very distinct roles. I had to manage the negotiation team, maybe 15 or 20 people, and ensure that it was functioning properly and proceeding in a strategic way, the way I wanted it to. And at the same time, I had to convey what we wanted to the bosses and convince them to support the strategic approach we were taking, and that could often be a challenge. And then, last but not least, is dealing with David Koresh and all the unique issues and problems that he brought to the table. So, you know, you find yourself sometimes being the ringleader in a three-ring circus, you know, and trying to keep everybody functioning in the right way so we can achieve the outcome we want. Douglas: Yeah. And speaking of Waco, let's talk about that for a moment. I was really curious to hear your thoughts on how well it portrayed the negotiation process, because from a storyline perspective, when I compare your book to the show, there's definitely some sensationalism on the Branch Davidian side. My depiction was that it demonstrated the conflict with the kind of more forceful approach and also just the kind of slow, intentional approach ya’ll were taking. But I’m just kind of curious as far as, like, anything about the negotiation process that you felt was maybe skewed in the presentation. Gary: It's a big question, and there's a lot of variables. Obviously, they bought my book to show the FBI side of the story and what perspective we had from outside looking in. And then they bought David Thibodeau’s book—he was a surviving Branch Davidian—to get the perspective of someone inside looking out. And I liked that approach, to look at it from both angles. But specifically addressing the negotiation part, they got a lot of parts of the negotiation very right. What was the Hollywood dramatization part is they had my character doing all these things on his own, when in reality I'm leading the team, and there's eight, nine negotiators per shift. It's quite a complex and many-moving-part operation. So obviously, Hollywood doesn't want to pay those additional actors and introduce their characters and get the audience to know them. It's a whole different level of challenge, that they wanted to showcase Michael Shannon, who was one of the two main stars of the TV show who played me.  Douglas: I got to say, if I'm ever played by anyone, I would say Michael Shannon wouldn't be a bad—that’s not a bad deal to get. Gary: I had seen Michael Shannon in Boardwalk Empire, that TV show.  Douglas: Mm-hmm. Gary: I was very impressed with him in that show, and I didn't even know his name, to be honest with you. And they came out and said, “This Michael Shannon's been hired to play you.” And I looked him up right away. I said, “Oh, it’s that guy.” Well, he is just an incredible actor and human being. And, you know, during my time on the set, we had an opportunity to become quite friendly and had basically drinks and dinner every night while I was out there. And what an incredible actor. And he certainly was not trying to imitate me, but he captured the tenor of my philosophy, which goes back to your earlier question. I think those issues that came up, including the conflict between the tactical side of the FBI that wanted to take a different approach, I think that's very accurately reflected. Again, not so much in the exact form, but certainly in terms of substance. And he had it down very, very well and, I think, did an incredible job. And let me add another thing, Douglas. You know, what I found is I felt that part of the reason I wrote my book was to educate current and future FBI leaders. And one of the things they need to be educated on is to understand not only the mistakes that the FBI made there, but the good things we did. And there were far more of those than not. But if someone doesn't write that down and record it, those things fall through the cracks and they're forgotten, and sometimes mistakes are repeated, and good behaviors are not appreciated or replicated. So I wanted to write it for that reason. And I also feel that in the FBI, we serve the American people. If we do something wrong, we should step up to the plate, admit what we did, demonstrate that we are making changes and corrections, and I think we owe it to the American people that we serve to do those things. So for all those reasons, I wrote that book and stand by the portrayal of the FBI overall.  What I'm not quite as happy about is I think the portrayal on the other side of David Koresh came up a bit short for me because in reality, David Koresh was a far more dark and sinister, manipulative guy than was portrayed. The other great actor there—there were several of them—but Taylor Kitsch, who played Koresh, was just phenomenal. And he's such a nice guy in real life that I think that came through. And the producer, directors wanted to show the charismatic side of Koresh, what allowed him to attract followers and gain their total allegiance. And they did that, but I just don't think they showed sufficiently. They showed some dark things from him but not enough to my satisfaction. And I talked to them about that and tried to change that. But what you find out is when you sell your book to Hollywood or somebody else, you have some influence, but you don't have control. Douglas: Yep. I think that echoes my read on it as well. It’s a little sensationalized on the, like, kind of making people want to have a little more sympathy than maybe you would have if you were watching it go down from the sidelines. Gary: You know, you’re into facilitation, and I think the biggest takeaway for facilitators, if you want to use Waco as sort of an example, is the realization that life is gray. It's not black and white. It's possible to admit that the FBI made mistakes and at the same time recognize the ultimate responsibility of Koresh to have led his people out peacefully, as we encouraged him to do every single day. So you don't have to say, “Oh, these guys were all good, and these guys were all bad. The big old bad government came in and just wanted to kill people.” I mean, it's actually intellectually lazy to take on those extreme views and not very realistic. There were good people in there who were practicing their faith, and there were highly dedicated FBI agents who wanted nothing but everybody to come out alive. So to make those general derogatory statements, I think, is just showing you haven't done your research, and you haven't read about what really happened, and you don’t understand. Douglas: Coming back to your goals for the book around really cementing the positive impact so they're not lost, it also jumped out to me when you were talking about these post-incident reviews and applying these lessons learned, it was interesting because it seemed like the popularity of the techniques within the FBI began to grow as you started to celebrate some of these wins. But the irony of it all was, maybe one of the ones that I was the most tickled by and I thought that you guys did such an amazing move was the steaks and gravy and cakes for the prisoners. So they're all having a Thanksgiving coma while the tactical thing went in, and clearly, not much credit was given after the fact for that. Gary: Yeah. You know, it's funny. A lot of people in law enforcement are really not well versed on what negotiators do and why we do it. It's sort of a soft science, and you know there’s more to taking action than here's a bad guy. We're going to do this to suppress them, arrest them, whatever we have to do. And, you know, when you do negotiate people out, which we do, in the 90 percentile, people say, “Well, it must not have been so hard. That guy must not have been that dangerous anyway.” And they sort of make some excuses for it. Of course, I always want to say, “Well, you try doing it when somebody's life is on the line.” But it's a hard thing to define.  But just as in facilitation, we're building relationships, and people expect in these situations law enforcement to show up and be very confrontational, very demanding, very dictatorial. You will do this and you better do that, or we're going to do x, y, z. And instead they get somebody like me show up and say, “Hey, David. This is Gary. What's going on in there? I'm here to help. I don't want to see anybody get hurt.” It's something they don't expect, and it gives us an opportunity to listen to them and to better understand what their motivation is, what their feelings are, how they interpret what has happened. It allows us slowly and steadily to lower the tension, to de-conflict and de-confrontate. And it allows us to begin eventually to have some influence over their behavior. And, you know, you typically will get to a point where a guy like David Koresh, which you didn't hear, he said, “You know, I just don't know what I can do. I don't know what to get out of, how to get out of what I got into.” And you say, “Well, you know, here's some ideas for you, and here's something you might want to think about. And come out to jail and tell the world your side of the story. It needs to be heard.” You know, those are things we did, and with some effect, we got 35 people out during the first half when I was there, including 21 children. That’s a fact that many people forget. And it was not an easy task, and I'm very proud of it. I’m no less disappointed that we didn't get more out or everybody out. But you got to recognize that human emotion is a really challenging thing. And when there's been loss of life, like it was at Waco before we even arrived as the FBI, I mean, we were already in a deep ditch, and we got to dig out of that. It's pretty tough. Douglas: You know, as you were speaking, it reminded me of some notes I wrote down around there's a lot of similarities between facilitation and negotiation, but there's some clear differences as well. We’re not dealing with—life and death is usually not at stake. And the fundamental contradiction that you mentioned, which I thought was really fascinating, we don't really struggle with that so much, right? Like, we're all about building trust, but we never, ever have to bend the truth, or we never have to potentially send them into harm's way. And when I think about that story, was it in West Virginia, where Cheryl's husband, her and her child. And there was a lot of interesting dynamics there from the perspective of opening up options and demonstrating a future when you know that that future may not exist. So I’m kind of curious how that unfolds, just as you're kind of regulating your emotions. Gary: Well, it's a tough case. And, you know, my book is about the importance of negotiation and how it is a tool that law enforcement should even use more, and then I start off the first chapter of my book with a situation where we have to use deadly force to resolve it. But it was a very dramatic case. It showed how even in those cases where the behaviors, the actions of the perpetrator are so extreme that our chance of getting them to comply and resolve it peacefully are pretty slim and, thereby, someone else is going to die. So then the negotiator has to segue into a role that allows you to become more supportive of the only option we have left, and that's using force.  In Sperryville, I talked him into coming out to a helicopter, where a marksman ended his life. In the Talladega prison, that you alluded to earlier, we knew hostages were going to die, so we gave in and gave them a very sumptuous meal for the first time in eight days to sort of, excuse the expression, fatten them up and to lure them into a sense of victory and empowerment. And they took the bait and gorged on the food and basically went into sweet slumber that allowed the Hostage Rescue team to make a really terrific, well-executed entry and save everybody's lives.  So there are times where negotiators have to recognize reality, that while we will be successful most of the time, there's nothing in what we do that guarantees success and certainly not 100 percent of the time. So we have to be adaptable and flexible. And the bottom line is, how do we save the most lives possible? Douglas: Yes. That was the thing that was going through my mind in both of those scenarios because Sperryville, you saved a woman and her child; and then the prison example, I mean, how much more carnage would have happened if they would have been bracing for it? Gary: That’s right. I mean, if we had continued to deny them food until they released the hostages, I mean, I think we stood a good chance of having them kill one of the hostages to try to force us to do what they wanted, and that's one less human being alive today to survive that. So we have to take all that into consideration. And you make the best decisions you can, and you have to weigh all the facts. That's why we function—in Waco, I get a lot of credit operating by myself, but in reality, we're leveraging a team of very skilled and talented negotiators that bring a lot to the table from their training and their personal experience. We said, “What do you think? What are your ideas? Did you hear something I didn't hear?” And we really use that to full advantage to try to come up with the best approach that we think will achieve what we want in this particular incident. Douglas: That brings to mind something else I wanted to bring up, which was the comment of you write good notes. And it really resonated with me because I often love to facilitate with a co-facilitator, and I find that when, especially when we're exploring really tough issues that, like, a team is really struggling, like, they can't seem to get past some personal issues, or they're just stuck on some things, when you’re there working directly, it’s sometimes hard to see the big picture because you’re in the content, you're in the moment. But if you're on the sideline kind of just observing, you can see interesting things. So I was just wondering, is that similar in the negotiation world? When you're observing and writing these notes, do you find that you see things you wouldn't have seen if you were just on the phone, in the moment with them, like, watching every word, that kind of thing? Gary: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's akin, Douglas, if you want to do a comparison, you think of a college or a professional football game. You ever notice how sometimes—not all the time—the second half is dramatically different from the first half? I mean, dramatically different? And you say, “Boy, what happened? That must've been a hell of a speech that the coach gave.” Well, what it really was is the coaches up in the booth, they’re studying what happened. They're making adjustments at halftime. It's coaching. It's not being personally involved in playing that position out on the field, but watching it and seeing where changes or improvements can be made to get the outcome we wanted.  So negotiations is no different. If I’m the negotiation coordinator, or the coach, it allows me to listen to the interplay between the primary negotiator on the phone and the perpetrator, and then either in between calls or through passing a short, cryptic note, help nudge them to something I've seen that I think they may not have fully appreciated.  The quote you're talking about is in Waco. This mother was very angry that her son was by himself. He had been released in the Child Protective Services, and we sent a video in of all the children. And she was very angry at us for his forlorn status. And, you know, rather than just trying to defend ourselves, I passed a note to John Dolan, our primary negotiator at the time, and he read it, and he smiled. And it just said, “You know, Kathy, what little Brian needs now is a hug from his mommy.” And you could almost hear the arrow strike her heart. And, I mean, it was the one phrase that kind of brought it home to her that she was the missing piece. It wasn't us that was causing trauma to her child. It was the fact that she sent him out, and she stayed in to fight for Koresh, that it was her maternal responsibility to do this. And I think that shot hit home, and she came out the next day, and she was the first, essentially the first, adult that came out. And that was a very meaningful goal that we’d achieved. Douglas: It really struck home for me when I read that because sometimes people aren't even necessarily self-aware or why they're upset. And if they're lashing out to you, and you can—it's almost like judo, which is redirect their energy, kind of become more aware of where the center is. Gary: Yeah. You know, when you look at negotiations broadly—I'm not talking specifically Waco here—really, very few of them are actually hostage-taking events, where someone's being held to force somebody else to do something. Probably 90 percent of what police do around the country are dealing with highly emotionally charged situations. Often the jilted lovers, romantic situation gone bad; somebody holding an employer who fired them; an argument with a neighbor. There are people who are expressing anger, rage, and frustration who don't even have a clear goal of what they're trying to achieve. In other words, they've gotten themselves into something they have no idea how to get out of. And that's the role that the negotiator could play to try to understand those emotions and those drivers of their behavior, and to try to deal with those and diffuse those. That's what makes us successful. It's an approach that people don't expect from law enforcement. We certainly got that from the mental-health counseling community. And it's very effective in getting people to, for the first time, hear themselves what is driving them, and they may not appreciate, you know? Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of another note that I had taken around you had talked about the role of the negotiator was to help people express their fears, so allowing them to open up. And it was interesting because as I read it, it was definitely similar to things that we're trying to do in the workplace, because often people have these unstated fears. It's just they're not vulnerable enough to say it out loud because they're worried someone's going to judge them or maybe they haven't even figured it out yet. And so simply stating what might be clear to you but not to them and allowing them to acknowledge it or even just to say yes, I thought that was pretty interesting.  Gary: You know, we used to talk about helping people understand the difference between wants and needs. So somebody involved in one of these situations may say, I want this and I want that, but it's our job to find out what they really need. Do they really need their job back? Or is it the loss of respect and the embarrassment of having to go home and tell your wife you haven't got a job anymore? I mean, you know, we don't always get that right. But that's kind of our goal, you know? And when we're communicating with them, and we say, “It sounds like you're really embarrassed by what happened,” and if he hasn't articulated that and that, in fact, is what he feels, then we've just really scored some big points because he said, “Yes, that's exactly right. I’m embarrassed by having been fired.” Well, that’s important for us to know if we're going to deal with how he's viewing what happened to him. Douglas: So, I had this—it was one of the last kind of sentences in your book. And I wrote it down because I thought it was pretty spot on. So I'm just going to read it, and then I'd love to just hear your thoughts today on this. But, “The happiest and most successful people are the ones that can remain calm in difficult times and put aside emotions like pride and anger that stop them from finding common ground. We need to be good listeners and understand the problems and needs of the other side.” Gary: Yeah. I guess it's never been more true than it is today in our very acrimonious political climate. And I'll bring up some recent events: the protests around the country. When people go out on the street and they carry signs and they're yelling and singing songs, whatever they're doing, what they're basically saying is, “We want somebody to hear us.” Douglas: Mm-hmm. Gary: And if instead of finding ways to creatively listen to them, we simply attack them, we're probably not going to be successful. I suspect if you had 100 people in a room and 50 were pro-life and 50 were pro-choice, you could even have great meaningful discussion all night long, and at the end of the evening, you'd probably still have 50-50. But that's okay as long as we've avoided name calling and shouts and threats and violence and so forth. That's the major goal. It's a slow, steady process to try to create an atmosphere where we can listen to others and appreciate their point of view, even if it's different. And I just hate to see that today, particularly in our political environment, we seem to be going in the wrong direction. Douglas: Yeah. I think that there's a real beauty—I had underscored the statement you made at the end of one of the early chapters, which was, “Listening is the cheapest concession we can make.” Gary: Yeah. It is. It costs you nothing. And, you know, you can acknowledge someone's point of view, “Let me make sure I understand. You're angry at your boss because he fired you. You don't think he appreciated your work, and you felt as though he mistreated you,” and so forth and so on. I'm not saying to him, “Yes, I think you should kill your boss.” I'm saying to him, “I understand how you feel about what happened.” I mean, that's a powerful thing. If you think about it, the whole evolution of communication between human beings, and we're social animals, we want other people to understand what we're saying and how we feel about it. And if you do that as a facilitator, as a negotiator, you're going to be successful. Douglas: Gary, it's been so great having you on the show today, and fun chatting and hearing about just the riveting life and career you’ve had in negotiation. Would you like to leave the listeners with any final words? Gary: Well, I would suggest that people really work on listening. Listening is such an important tool. So when you go out, not so much these days with COVID, but when you have an opportunity to have a social interaction, pick out somebody you don’t know very well or somebody that's a little quiet over in the corner or whatever, and go and talk to them and find out about their life and ask good questions. “Can you tell me more about that? That sounds very interesting. I'd like to hear about that hobby that you have or that trip that you took.” And you'll find that people are far more interesting than you might have realized, that people have done and seen things that you had no idea, and you will learn a lot. And they, in turn, will appreciate the fact that you have taken the time and demonstrated the interest in learning more about them. It is a very, very powerful tool.  And you know, what we all want to achieve is cooperation with other human beings, and we get that through being likable, plain old likable. Just be a person that strives to be likable and to automatically not think the worst of others and blame others, but seek to understand. Even the business guru Stephen Covey says, first seek to understand, then to be understood. So I’m not sure if that helps, but I would urge people to really make an effort at that.  Douglas: Well, thanks again for being on the show. It's been great.  Gary: My pleasure. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 41!02:25 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]02:30 - We are NOT infallible09:30 - REVIEW: PLAYSTATION 509:45 - PS5 Review Video10:10 - Hans’ impressions13:00 - Incredible hardware, half-baked software15:15 - Are next gen consoles worth it at launch?17:50 - Edward’s first impressions22:40 - Storage limitations & benefits27:35 - Entertainment media29:20 - Hardwired or physical is always best29:50 - Haunting menu music30:25 - Theme support?32:30 - Dual Sense delight!33:20 - REVIEW: Astro’s Playroom33:50 - REVIEW: Sackboy: A Big Adventure34:25 - PREVIEW: Demon Souls35:00 - REVIEW: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales37:20 - REVIEW: Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered38:20 - PREVIEW: The Crown (S04)38:05 - ONE MORE THING39:30 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]39:40 - Music, emotion and frisson43:50 - The song Hans is talking about45:00 - Growing bigger monkey brains49:00 - Nobody Live52:35 - DON’T SACRIFICE FRIENDS TO BEARS55:40 - NSFW [START]55:55 - Sex Bot AI & the elderly01:08:20 - PornHub Sex Education01:16:00 - Circumcision Diversion01:25:20 - NSFW [END]01:25:40 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

“I think that's where my background in behavioral science really helps me because we are very often just standing in our own way. So it’s uncomfortable to try to figure out the right question, because usually we satisfy this desire of instant gratification by just solving the easy question first.”   Myriam Hadnes is on a mission to change the world, one workshop at a time. She is a behavioral economist, podcast host, and facilitator in the Netherlands. She is also the founder of workshops.work, a professional training & coaching company based out of Amsterdam, as well as the host of a podcast called Workshops Work. I had the pleasure of speaking with Myriam about throwing idea parties, listening to what we don’t want to hear, and the hidden reasons that we have for holding meetings. Listen in to find out why being a facilitator is a lot like being a yoga instructor.   Show Highlights [6:10] Listening to what we don’t want to hear [12:27] Hidden reasons for having a meeting [14:30] Idea parties [20:27] Permission to interrupt [29:23] Transition moments in virtual meetings   Links | Resources Myriam on LinkedIn workshops.work Workshops Work Podcast   About the Guest Myriam Hadnes is a behavioral economist, podcast host, and facilitator in the Netherlands. She is the founder of workshops.work, a professional training & coaching company based out of Amsterdam. She is also the host of a podcast called Workshops Work and a Project Facilitator with the European Investment Bank. About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control     Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I'm with Myriam Hadnes, a behavioral economist and host of Workshops Work, and an amazing facilitator. Welcome to the show, Myriam. Myriam: Thank you for inviting me, Douglas. Douglas: Absolutely. I've been really excited about having you on the show. And so let's start by hearing just a little bit about how you got your start. It's always fascinating to hear how facilitators found themselves in the role of bringing people together to work better. Myriam: Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of the profession of facilitators, that it's nothing that you can study at uni or learn at school, so everyone comes with their own background and their own story. And usually we all had these moments where we realized how beautiful it is when we can help a group of people to co-create something or to come to a solution, and then started to become curious about the art of facilitation. And I think for me, it was similar.  Now, looking back, I think that I've been facilitating for over a decade. So initially I had a career in higher education. I actually left uni only maybe three or four years ago, and I was teaching economics in Vietnam. And now I realized that what I did was I facilitated learning to these students. When I then moved to Luxembourg, I still worked in higher education, but in university strategy, and this was the first time that I really got close to what a workshop was, where we had world cafes with professors and students and lobbyists and ministers in order to design a university strategy. And I got fascinated. And so when I decided that it's time for me to leave the public sector, I moved to Amsterdam.  It took me another year until I decided that I want to start my own business—no, that I had to start my own business because I was literally unemployable. I had no idea where to start because I was a public servant for my entire life. So I started to throw idea parties. I had a meetup, I invited people to show up with a challenge or a problem, and then at the group, we just brainstormed on solutions. And I was experimenting with different designs and different brainstorming techniques, all based on my background of behavioral economics and how our brain works. And suddenly people started to ask me for advice on how to design and facilitate workshops. Then they started to hire me to facilitate the workshops, and eventually they even paid me money to design workshops that I didn't even have to facilitate. I thought, “Hmm, maybe that's something that I can call my job.” Yeah, that was the very beginning of it. Douglas: It's really interesting that the tool that you started to lean on or bring to the question around, What should my business, or what should my job be? that tool itself turned into the job. That's really cool. Myriam: Yeah. Douglas: So, you know, I want to go back to that moment when you were in the world cafes and first getting exposed to this kind of thinking, this kind of working, these kinds of settings. Like, what did it feel like to experience that? Myriam: I think for me, it's this excitement that I still have when I am in a room where new ideas emerge. And funny enough, it was before I left my job, I took Simon Sinek’s WHY course, and what came up as my why is to bring people together so that new ways of being and doing can emerge. And back then, I was like, “Ah? What does that mean?” And today it perfectly describes my job.  But it was back then, already, exactly that, that we, through intervention, through smart design, we could help people who initially didn't have a basis to communicate because they literally didn't understand each other. A social-science professor and a physics professor discussing about a model university, it seemed impossible. And then you put a minister next to it and someone from the finance lobby, impossible to come to common grounds. And then magic happened, and they could find a way to communicate and to actually inspire each other and find meaning and value in each other's perspective. And for me, this is magic, and that's why I really believe that we can change the world one workshop at a time, because it's through this tool that we can help people to communicate in a constructive way.  Douglas: And the thing that comes to mind for me is it all just comes down to understanding. If we can understand each other, then we can build upon that foundation of understanding. Myriam: Yes. Yes, totally. And understanding. I think our understanding of understanding very often is too narrow because we're thinking about language barriers. But it's not about the language. It's about, What do we understand when we use certain words? Douglas: That's right. And mindset, even.  Myriam: Yes. And how can we actually start listening to what we don't want to hear? I mean, I talked on my podcast to Oscar Trimboli, who mentioned how quick we can speak, how quick we can think—and I don't know the numbers anymore—but we're just not able to listen at the same speed as we can speak and think. So we only hear what we want to hear anyway. Douglas: Wow. It reminds me of something I heard recently, which is, like, different cultures have different norms for how long a pause is acceptable. What I mean by that, or what I read or understood, was that in some cultures, even a half of a second is long enough to indicate that no one has anything to add. Or in another culture, it might be 10 seconds, no one has anything to add. Now, if you bring those two cultures together, that means the culture that has a snappier response time, the half-a-second response time, they're going to dominate the conversation because the people that are waiting 10 seconds are, you know, the other culture’s going to assume they don't have anything to add. Myriam: I love that example. And then translate this into the online world, where already every time that there is a pause, we get anxious, so we start asking, “Are you still there? Can you hear me? Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”  So the value of silence and thinking pauses, it's a totally different meaning suddenly. So we don't have the cultural differences only anymore, but we also have all the noise that is attached to it. Douglas: That's right. And I think, you know, one of the things that's not talked about enough in the facilitation space is just the role the facilitator in setting expectations. And sometimes they're called ground rules or operating principles or operating agreements or whatever. But at the end of the day, we're setting expectations, even sharing the purpose before the meeting or setting down ahead of time to make sure people know what we're going to do or kind of what the arc of the event's going to look like. But if we're more intentional about that stuff, then, you know, silence, 10 seconds, that's what we're doing here. Myriam: Yes, so true. If we know why we're here and what our goals are, then silence doesn't feel as uncomfortable anymore.  Douglas: Especially if we know it's providing a function and we explain that. Myriam: Yes. On online meetings, we have to be much more explicit than we used to be in order to take away this uncertainty and this anxiety. And I think regarding the ground rules, I totally agree with you, and I would even say that the thing that is even more neglected than the purpose is the role of participants. I don't know where I read it once, that the question, What is worse than being in a meeting? It’s not being invited to a meeting. And I think it’s hilarious because it describes exactly what happens in so many whatsoever. You have a meeting, you have a purpose, and then, “Oh, yeah, but if we invite him, then maybe we should also invite her because otherwise she complains,” or “If he knows that we're meeting, then he also wants to be there, and we want to avoid a conflict, so let's invite them all.” And then you have these overpopulated meetings, and then all these individuals who, actually, were not supposed to be there, they start with comments like, “Are we again discussing that? Oh, if you had asked me before, I could have told you,” or “We are discussing about that for the last 20 years.” And all of this can be avoided by just not inviting them, but nobody has the guts. Douglas: Yes. And we often refer to that as, or at least a cousin of that, is something we refer to as meeting FOMO. And there’s kind of a, if you will, that the pendulum can swing, because then on one side you've got a lack of inclusion, and that's a problem. Then, when companies become aware of inclusivity and how important it is, they can swing the pendulum in the other direction, and now everyone's got meeting FOMO, and everyone wants to be in every meeting. And we have to find better ways to scale our time.  And then, you know, you've got these other issues that you're talking about that are related, which is if we invite the wrong people, then we're not going to have the right meeting, or we're not going to get the right work done. Myriam: Yeah. And not the right conversations. And I wonder whether—I think this has actually reduced with the working-from-home times we're currently living in, because back in the days in an office, running from one meeting to the other was a perfect excuse not to do the work. “Oh, I'm so busy. I have so many meetings,” constantly complaining, always having an excuse why pushing these kind of uncomfortable tasks away. So it was actually a nice thing, and I think it’s related to cognitive dissonance. You just want to be the person who is engaged with the work, and you don't want to be the person who is actually avoiding work, so you accept all the meetings and have a fantastic excuse. And now with working from home, I think we realized what the real opportunity costs of a meeting are because we can either enjoy family time or we can do the work that we try to avoid or we can have a meeting. Douglas: Or we can do the work in the meeting. If we truly need to collaborate, let's come together and do the work. I think so many meetings are status updates or informative, and they're not really serving a greater purpose. Myriam: Yeah. Most meetings are actually emails. Douglas: Mm-hmm. And if they're not, let's honor that. Let's be explicit of why an email is not going to suffice, because if there's a reason it's not an email and we don't communicate that, then no one understands, and it's not going to live up to its potential. Myriam: Wonderful. And this is exactly, I think, where the art of facilitation comes in and where facilitation must not necessarily be restricted to an external facilitator you hire— Douglas: That’s right. Myriam: —but it's the responsibility of every team leader or manager to facilitate to speak out these hidden reasons why we meet. Maybe we want to meet because it just feels good to be surrounded with some human beings and to share how we are feeling. And even if it's just for a boring status update that could have done by email, yes, but we enjoy wasting our time for half an hour. Douglas: You know, the BBC did a report, and they said that most dysfunctional meetings were actually a form of therapy. And, you know, it rung really true for me. It's like, man, the people need to come together and connect. They just throw a meeting on the calendar, and they make an excuse to have it. Well, if that's the case, let's honor that purpose. Let’s really unpack it and say, “The real reason that I'm bringing folks together is I want to connect with the team.” Well, then, let's just say it's a team-connection meeting. Don't give some other guys or some other stuff that no one wants to talk about and everyone's going to hate anyway. Let's really say, “Let's just talk about the weather.” And if it's going to build trust and connection on the team, then there's a benefit to it. But let's honor what we're trying to get out of it. Myriam: Totally. And I think it's so true, and it's not only true for meetings. I think the moment we are just not honest about the purpose, why we're doing something, and we try to hide it, where we lack integrity, something happens to our mind that we are not as calm and focused and empathetic towards each other. So I think if we are then suddenly having a room full of people who are spending time for a reason that they actually rationally know that is not the real reason, I think, obviously, most meetings turn out to be very undelightful, to say the least. Douglas: So, I want to come back to your idea parties. That sounds fun. How did it work? Myriam: It was fantastic, actually. I booked a room in the coworking space where I was, and provided beer and sticky notes. So everyone came with a challenge. They had two minutes to pitch their challenge, and it could be whatever, from “I want to build a business” to “I want to stop fighting with my boyfriend.” And then, we had three minutes of brainstorming with everyone who was in the room. Everyone had a block of sticky notes. And we were first brainstorming on questions, because I realized that we are so quick in giving solutions to people and feedback and it's totally unsolicited, and in two minutes we don't understand what the problem is anyway. So what we are lacking is not ideas how to solve it, but we like perspectives on how to look at our problem from a different way. So we would brainstorm for two minutes on questions. So everyone would just shout out a question that comes to their mind, write it on a sticky note, and at the end of the three minutes, the person in the spotlight or hot seat received a bunch of sticky notes to take home and to reflect on. So we did this, and everyone could just jump in the spotlight and share. And in the second round, we, then, did a kind of premortem brainstorm. So they would pitch their goal, “I want to be a millionaire tomorrow.” And then we would do the same thing with, “Okay, what can you do to fail for sure?” And then they would get a bunch of Post-it Notes, how they can fail. Douglas: I love the lateral-thinking-type stuff, like, how can we fail in liberating structures, TRIZ. Like, what are we doing today that resembles any of these counterproductive behaviors? It's really cool stuff.  And then also the questioning. I love question storms or just getting folks to focus on thinking about the problem framer and the questioning. My favorite—Einstein has that quote. If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask. And then once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes. Myriam: Yes. And it's so true. It’s so true until today that I think that's where my background in behavioral science really helps me because we are very often just standing in our own way. So it’s uncomfortable to try to figure out the right question, because usually we satisfy this desire of instant gratification by just solving the easy question first. I was sitting in these board meetings in my life in the public sector, where the tiniest problems or challenges got blown up and took 80 percent of the meeting time just to avoid the actual really important topics that were kind of hairy. And I think this is just how our brains work. So the role of a facilitator is, How can we actually help the group to get out of their own way? How can we make it easier to address these hairy problems? And how can we use the way how our brains are wired in order to solve the problems? And a question storm or a premortem are just perfect ways to use our instincts in a kind of efficient way. Douglas: Absolutely. And, you know, I think back to your statement around, it doesn't have to be external; it can be internal facilitator. And I think the thing that so many folks miss is that you don't have to have facilitator in your title. Anybody who books a meeting as a facilitator, the question is, Are you being intentional about it? Are you doing a good job as a facilitator? Are you just setting a meeting and then showing up and, at best, pointing them an agenda?  Myriam: And are you curious about the outcome? Are you open for whatever shows up? And I think even as a parent, you can be a facilitator. Educators are facilitators. Maybe a spouse is a facilitator. Douglas: Yeah. I mean, if you look at the definition of to make easy, I mean, I think anyone can facilitate almost anything, right? Like, how can we support and coach and guide things to their natural resting place? Myriam: Yeah. And I have many conversations around the question whether it is actually a goal to make things easy, and then we often end up in technicalities. Okay, replace easy by simple, or— Douglas: Yeah. Myriam: —replace complexity. But I think that's the essence to make it less frictionous.  Douglas: Yes, exactly. When I hear to make easy, it's not that we're going to avoid complex or complicated things. It's not that we're going to avoid discomfort.  Myriam: Yes.  Douglas: We're just going to make it easy to sit with that discomfort. We're going to move through it. We're going to sit with it. We're going to walk with it. But it would be a lot harder if the facilitator wasn't there, if that guide wasn't with you. And it doesn't mean we're not going to take a—we're going to avoid this strenuous hike. It just means that we're going to have a guide that's going to point out where the rattlesnakes are or help us kind of stay together as a pack. Myriam: Yeah. And sometimes it's just good to give permission to someone to interrupt us, to be provocative, to be strict with the time to tell us to come back, to ask us the uncomfortable questions. I think it's like a yoga teacher or a gym teacher. You hate them for 59 minutes, right? You just don't want them to be there, because they push you a little further, and they make it really difficult for you. But that's why you're going there, and that's why you love them at the last minute and for the entire week before the next workout. Douglas: That’s right. I love it. So let's shift gears a little bit to thinking about the future and sort of, like, what's on the horizon? What are you exploring right now? What risks are you taking? I'm really curious about how people are just embracing the future. I know you have Never Done Before coming up, and I just want to explore some of the future a little bit with you. Myriam: Yeah. I think the future's really been so abstract and uncertain at the moment, where I think very few people plan longer than two weeks. So I think my future started in March this year, when the first lockdown happened, and I lost, within a week, about 50,000 Euros in expected income. That's a lot of money for a solopreneur. And I realized that I have to shift gears very quickly and to become very creative.  At the same time, I also realized that from a mindset of desperation and anxiety, I won't be able to actually move forward, because it's like in dating. If someone is desperate, everyone can smell it, and they will never hide it. Nobody will date a desperate girl or a desperate guy. Nobody will hire a desperate entrepreneur. So you have to be in this space where you dance with this uncertainty and where you dance with fear and just embrace everything that comes, trusting that something great will come out of it.  I think what drove me back then, and it's still what drives me now, is the observation that it's a fantastic opportunity that COVID presents us, despite all the misery, of course, and despite all the health issues and economic implications. But the shift that we really have to reconsider the way how we communicate, how we meet, and how we make use of our time together, I think this is a great opportunity. And for me personally, it was a learning journey. Before March, I was a pen-and-paper facilitator, and suddenly I became—I didn't even know how to create a breakout room before March, to be very honest. And I was very lucky that I had very early a mentor on MURAL because I had to translate my offline mastermind into a virtual mastermind within a weekend, and it magically worked. And since then, I was still thriving. I was absorbing everything that was coming up.  And then, luckily, I found encouragement in my network to bring the idea of the Never Done Before Facilitation Festival to the online space. So basically, the idea was, what if we rethought the way how we organize facilitation conferences? What if we do it differently? What if we provided space where we can try things we have never tried before, where we can really find design, explore the new trends in facilitation? And it started with a crazy idea. And then others called me brave. I think I was just naive enough to underestimate the effort and the risk of doing that and starting with such a bold statement. But now it's, yeah, it will happen. We have the Never Done Before Facilitation Festival fully online, 24 hours, around the globe, 30 facilitators from all continents joining. And we do everything differently. And yeah, we dance with the status quo of facilitation. Douglas: I love it. I love the whole idea of pushing the boundaries. And you had this concept before COVID hit, and then it became even more poignant in the sense that we're doing all these things we've never done before. And it crossed my mind that I wonder how many people had ideas that they wanted to try, that they were planning to do for the Festival, and then they actually had—they were forced to do them because of COVID so they could no longer say they were never been done before. Myriam: Yes, that’s true. On the other hand, and this is funny, despite the fact that we are, on a daily basis, I think, all of us are doing stuff that we've never done before.  Douglas: That's right.  Myriam: Still, most of the stuff that we see online is all of the same, and been there, done that, so many times because I think the first month, or the first six weeks, and this was the beauty of the first wave, was that we had permission to try and to be imperfect and to fail because we're in this boat together. And now, suddenly, second wave, kind of everyone expects us to have figured it out. So we are less prone to take risks— Douglas: Mm. Myriam: —maybe less happy to experiment, and I think it’s time to revive that because there’s so many things we can do online that are impossible to do offline. And this is something we haven't explored enough yet. We are so much focusing on how can we translate our offline stuff into the online world, ignoring that maybe offline, it wasn't that grand anyway. Douglas: Yeah. You know, the thing that comes to mind for me is just also how the tools can guide so much of the way we think, because it's like, oh, I'm assuming I use MURAL, I'm assuming I use Zoom, and then I sit down and look at those tools and think, well, what can I do here? versus just starting first with a concept, with the purpose, and walking around with that for a little bit and thinking, how can I create something and then force the tool? You know, I can bend the tool to my will. Myriam: And also, there are so many new tools out there. I mean, it's a vegetable garden of mushrooms. I don't know how you say that in English. Anyway, all these tools are emerging. Douglas: Wait. So it literally translates as a “vegetable garden of mushrooms”?  Myriam: No.  Douglas: No, okay. Well, that was a literal translation. I think that would be awesome, and I will start using it. Myriam: You can start using it anyway. Never used before. Douglas: Right. Yeah. There you go. Myriam: Yeah. So for instance, because of Never Done Before, I'm experimenting with a lot of tools, and I found myself in these situations where I just host a workshop or meet up on a new tool. So recently I was on ____(27:43), which I love. So it's totally avatar based. It's perfect for fishbowl or world cafe, but it's very new to facilitators. So there I was, with a room full of professional, expert facilitators, without video and a tool that they didn't know. And I was amazed by the dynamics it took and how quickly, then, we actually also learned to adjust our facilitation side because we have to communicate differently. So that's what I like about your prompt because let's first sit down and think about the purpose and the desired outcome in the group and then find the tool that actually enhances that, because I think for many conversations, we actually don't need a video, and we would have much more focused conversations if we don't have to try to look good all the time. Douglas: That is true. And, you know, the other thing is while video’s great, it's also pretty exhausting when you compare it to someone being in a meeting room, because in a meeting room, you don't feel like—you could do this, right? Just kind of slump over for a second, lean over on the table, put your head down and just kind of listen for a second. But when the video’s here, no one does that, you know? Like, no one does that, because they're like, oh, I'm framed up. I got to stay on—oh, law of thirds. I got to keep my eyes right here. So it's a whole different dynamic. And I think that's another reason why we have to plan so many breaks and give people opportunities to just check out of that little zone of, I don't know, insanity that we're stuck in all day. Myriam: Yes. And I think there's one more thing that we neglect tremendously is that we are missing these transition moments that we walked into a meeting room and then our brain knew, okay, new topic, new group, new focus, peace, free headspace around now because we are in a new setting. With Zoom or with our computer, our brain literally thinks that we are still in the same room with still the same thing happening because we haven’t moved. But we stop one meeting, we start the next meeting, and we expect our emotions and our minds and brains to adjust. But we don't give it space. To start meetings, online meetings, with a very clear check in, I think, is more important than ever just to create this transition moment. Douglas: I’ve been saying that for a while, too. I couldn't agree more, because even an in-person meeting, everyone is just running from meeting to meeting. And even though there was that transition where you're walking is a physical shift, I don't know if it's enough time for people to mentally prepare. So I used to call it the boot-up time. Actually, we give people time to allow their brains to soak up this new topic, because we don't know what they were just—they might have just been on the phone, walking into the next meeting, you know?  Myriam: Yeah. Douglas: So, yeah, it's important.  And the other thing I've noticed personally is since I don't have to drive into town anymore—I had about a 20-, 30-minute drive in the morning and in the evening, and it sort of acted as a transition moment. If you look at complexity theory—I love the cynefin model—how they have in between each domain, there’s that disorder. So you kind of have to go through that transition through to switch domains. And it's sort of like Superman changing into—Clark Kent has to go into the telephone booth to become Superman. He can't just instantly switch, right? And so when I switch between husband Douglas and Voltage Control Douglas, now it's me just walking in and shutting that door, right? Before, it used to be me getting in the car, and I would listen to some music or a podcast or something. I don't have that anymore, you know? I probably should invent something new, whether it's a walk around the block or something that could replace that, because I think that ritual's important. And it's very similar to what you were talking about, these transition moments. Myriam: And I love the example, actually, where Superman, Clark, and the telephone booth. And I think you're fortunate that you do have the door you can walk through to separate your professional from your private life— Douglas: Yes. Myriam: —because I work for some who would use the kitchen table for breakfast in the morning— Douglas: That’s right. Myriam: —then it becomes the office, then it becomes the playground, and then it becomes the dinner table. But I read this book, Alter Ego, where he explains that very often we have these items we use, and they trigger something in our personality. So, for instance, Martin Luther King, he actually didn't need glasses, but once he put on his glasses, he had the confidence to speak like he spoke. And for instance, I realized for myself that at one point I could better focus on the person I was talking to in a video conference when I had my microphone in my hand, because this put me into my, okay, I'm a podcaster now, so I'm totally focused on my conversation partner. So what if you could have another pair of glasses so that, okay, when you switch from Voltage Control Douglas to Daddy Douglas, you can just change your pair of glasses or you can put the head on of. Douglas: That’s right. Yeah, for sure. That’s amazing. I love it. Well, unfortunately, we have come to the conclusion of our conversation, and it's been so much fun, Myriam. I think we could go on for hours, of course, but here we are.  And I want to just give you a moment to share a message, a parting message, to our listeners. So what would you like to leave them with? Myriam: We can change the world one workshop at a time. I truly believe that. And I believe that we don't have to call ourselves “professional facilitators” to do that. But I think if we bring the facilitator’s mindset to the table to make conversations easy, to highlight different perspectives and co-create solutions, I think that the world would really be a better place. Douglas: Awesome. Well, hopefully, listeners and everyone in our networks will take that to heart because I agree. I think if we can be more intentional, we can change the world.  So thank you so much for being with me today, Myriam, and hope to talk to you soon and see you at Never Done Before. Myriam: Thank you, Douglas. Looking forward to seeing you there. Thanks for the conversation. Loved it. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 40!01:25 - Ask us anything!02:55 - 1K Milestones03:45 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]03:53 - Review: Alex Rider (S01)07:10 - Review: The Queen’s Gambit (Mini-Series)10:35 - Review: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla11:20 - Vamers Playlist: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla13:45 - Preview: Nintendo Maria Kart Live14:10 - Preview: PlayStation 5 - WE UNBOXED IT!17:00 - Preview: PS5 hands-on discussion24:30 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]24:40 - GTA IV callers were real!27:40 - Apple’s M1 Event & iPhone Filmography33:00 - New Mics & Exorcisms34:40 - Back to Apple’s M137:05 - “You’re wrong about Apple Silicon”38:00 - DMCA Notices40:00 - PS5 RANT: Sony, what are you doing?48:00 - Copyrighting Cartographers50:40 - Korean people don’t smell!55:30 - Church of the SubGenius01:00:00 - NSFW [START]01:00:20 - Sensation Play01:22:50 - NSFW [END]01:23:00 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

INTRO:Welcome to Surveillance And The City, your glimpse at the technology tracking us all. I’m your host, Albert Fox Cahn. With me today A.I. activist Liz O’Sullivan, and journalist Ali Winston.This week, we look at the impact that policing and surveillance had on the recent election. Then, we look at the ways that technology impacted the vote. How did Americans navigate record levels of misinformation, disinformation, and the all-too-real threat of electronic election meddling?  And for Stranger Than Science Fiction, we look back at the Robert Heinlein classic: starship troopers. What does a futuristic tale of battling bugs in outer space have to do with democracy, you’ll have to stay tuned to find out. Part 1 - Policing as an election issue:How did BLM protests impact the outcome?90% of voters said it was a factor.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/us/black-lives-matter-protests.html“Among those who cited the protests as a factor, 53 percent voted for Mr. Biden, and 46 percent for Mr. Trump”Do mass demonstrations move the needle on election day, are we too partisan for it to have an impact?Does that even matter, or is that besides the point of mass demonstrations? Ad break:We don’t pay for targeted ads or sketchy ad tech, we rely on you to help grow our audience. Please take just 3 minutes to share us on your sketchy social media platform of choice. And if you really want to help, leave a 5-star rating and review to help train the podcast AI that we’re awesome. Part 2 - Election Technology:The real risk of cyber attacksWhat went wrongnothing it seemswhat could have gone wrongvoter registrationDDOSvoting machineshttps://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/04/initial-signs-point-to-surprisingly-hack-free-election-but-risks-remain-434094Imagined claims of voter fraud and other disinformationHow is this impacting the legitimacy of the outcomehow have media outlets handled itFox NewsTwitter / FacebookLive video platformsHow do we improve this in the future? Stranger Than Science Fiction - Starship Troopers:With trump trying to litigate “election fraud” claims against “out of state voters” who were actually allowed to vote because of the military, it's an interesting time to think back to the premise of Starship Troopers, a world where only veterans were allowed to vote.At a time of fracturing civil society, does some sort of national service campaign make sense?Should we allow military votes to be received later than others? OUTRO:As a reminder, make sure to share our episode with your friends and leave a rating on your podcatcher of choice.We are brought to you by STOP, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, and The Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at NYU Law. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 International License.Our Production team is: Producers Alex Brook Lynn of Racket Media and Fabian Rogers of STOPSound Engineering by Adam ChimeraResearch Assistant: Carrie MageeVideo production support from Alexia Hall Additional Reference Materials:Starship Troopers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(film)LA Times Article on Signature Verification - https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-28/2020-election-voter-signature-verification

00:00-Intro-Welcome to ZTO Radio03:32-Asher Gemini LIVE @ #GROAMYSHOW06:12-Asher Gemini interview @ #GROAMYSHOW13:23-Asher Gemini-"Holy Ghost"17:20-ZTO-Radio-"Amateur plumbing and 3D movies"20:10-Hells Fire Sinners-"Sunday, October 9th"23:50-Etc. Etc.-"Summer Webs"26:09-ZTO-Radio-"Billy Joel in a bikini"28:16-Deadwood Floats-"Between Two Summers"31:35-Brian Clash & the Coffee House Rebels-"Reason In Rhyme"36:21-George Smed-"Slappy Guppy Puppy"39:03-True Stories We Just Made Up podcast Highlights48:13-Ghost Town Railroad-"Turn A Phrase"53:39-Mississippi Bones-"Butcher Of The 9 Lunar Mansions"57:19-ZTO-Radio-"We are the sugar water hummingbirds"1:01:34-Outro-vulgarity

00:00:00 Intro / Welcome, Tim! + Rumors overview 00:24:23 redfactor3's take: as a 100T fan, I would rather they not even try to compete for Perkz 00:38:09 Wafflefoot's take: the new LCS format will either kill the bottom 2 teams of the LCS, or force them to take big risks on new players 00:53:58 WH Pieman's take: There will always be a tenth place team in the LCS, but it is not healthy for the league for any org (CLG) to stay in tenth place consistently. 01:07:52 Mahmoud returns to say: C9 Perkz would allow C9 to regain dominance in NA and internationally. 01:26:07 bluefrost asks Tim: do you think preseason and the changes to itemization have driven the search for data/stats-driven people like LS, and do you think analysts will have a much higher premium this offseason? 01:33:40 Cistara's take: ESPN letting go their esports journalists is a huge loss for not only ESPN for also the esports scene in general 01:45:46 whitetigress's take: If Perkz goes to C9, the LCS will turn into a two-team region like LEC, but with TL & C9. 01:53:25 Cap Ahab's take: League of Legends statistics will never be prescriptive enough so they make weak arguments and can push way more harmful narratives than helpful ones 02:03:15 Outro

“We're doing all of our education right now remotely, using Zoom and thinking through, okay, how does learning happen there? What's kind of uniquely possible—I like those words—with that medium? And how can we capture those moments? It's not a replacement. It's like, oh, it's going to be just like things that happen face to face. Like, no, it’s different, but also good. And how do we get to that different-but-also-good place?” Dr. Dawan Stanford   In this episode of the Control the Room podcast, I’m pleased to be speaking with Dr. Dawan Stanford of Fluid Hive, a design-driven innovation company. As president of Fluide Hive, Dawan helps organizations to see, solve, and act on challenges that are complex, dynamic, and interconnected. Dawan and I talk about pushing energy into a room, checking in with people, and his experience with remote learning as the Design Studio Director of Georgetown University’s Learning & Design program. Listen in to find out how Times New Roman ended his legal career.   Show Highlights [1:30] How Times New Roman ended Dawan’s legal career [10:33] What’s in it for the Participant [18:39] Cut the Tools Some Slack [24:56] Writing a Detailed Agenda, then Adjusting it [28:36] Pushing Energy into the Room [33:29] Checking in with People   Links | Resources Dawan on LinkedIn Fluide Hive   About the Guest Dr. Dawan Stanford, President of design-driven innovation company Fluid Hive, helps organizations to see, solve, and act on challenges that are complex, dynamic, and interconnected. He has experience in Silicon Valley and international business that he combines with design, design thinking, and academic research in his work at Fluide Hive. Dr. Stanford is also the Design Studio Director and a Professor of Learning & Design at Georgetown University. His studio serves as a space where students integrate their core coursework in the program, develop as learning practitioners, and develop their leadership, collaboration, and facilitation skills.   About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I’m with Dawan Stanford, president of Fluid Hives. Welcome to the show, Dawan. Dawan: Hello. Thank you for having me. Douglas: Of course, so excited to talk facilitation with you. And for starters, one of the things I love hearing from guests on the show is how they got their start, because there's not really any college out there that you can go take a facilitation degree. And so most people find themselves in this work through many different channels, and there’s always an interesting story, and so I’d love to hear how you found your way into this amazing work. Dawan: Well, I'm a designer, and my path into design started many, many years ago with some professional training and photography, and that led to looking at layout and then studying color and then studying graphic design. And as I progressed in that career, I had a legal career for a while, and I realized that I stayed late to design the closing binders for the client because the normal design was Times New Roman, centered, and you put some things in bold and underlined them. Like, oh, no. We can do something better than that. And after spending a couple hours designing closing-binder covers, I got a look from one of the partners: Maybe you're not one of us. Like, maybe I'm not. So I found out like, no, I'm not one of you.  And as I started doing more and more work, I was looking at more and more moments where it was design together, creating together, bringing groups of people together to understand how they need to work, how they are working, how they understand the context where they're working. And so I began to take a very close look at my role in those moments, those conversations, and how to be very intentional about constructing them, because it's a precious thing when you have a handful of people in a room, or more, focusing their attention on one endeavor. And to be offered that gift is something that I want to take seriously and treat carefully. Douglas: Yeah, it's interesting. I love this notion that it wasn't that long ago when we started to have a plural form of priority.  Dawan: Mm-hmm. Douglas: I think focus is the same way, right? And so this notion that, hey, we can have more than one focus or more than one priority is very modern thinking. And I think it's a disservice to us, and facilitation techniques can help us get back to that, like, and get everyone kind of aligned in thinking in the same way so that we can actually make some real progress. Dawan: Yeah. Making those choices ahead of time and those tradeoffs. I often look at the situations where I'm leading a group through something and kind of start to think about all the different people involved, because often the person who's sponsoring, has asked me to come in and help, isn't necessarily going to participate. Sometimes they do. So you have the sponsor, you have participants. Then, there's often someone that the sponsor is reporting to, which may be one or more organizations or maybe someone in their chain, and starting to think about how all of these people have expectations and needs. And there may be people downstream from the event or facilitated moment that need to do something with what was created. So how to think about what gets built and passed on and how that is captured and packaged is also a piece of it. Douglas: You know, I love this. That's your design background coming into the center, right? It’s like, how do we make sure to design in a way that considers and accommodates all these various people, because they're all going to come from different perspectives, different roles, different needs, and how do we design for them? Dawan: And so often, people will be asking for an event or a workshop or a moment, and I'll hear a lot about the thing, and “We want people to do this. And we have this much time, and this, this.” “Well, what problem are you trying to solve? Let's talk about sort of the thing that individually or organizationally you are hoping to accomplish. How will the world be different, how will your world be different when we're done?” Then we can start talking about like, “All right, well, what kind of thing actually solves that problem? And maybe it's a four-hour thing instead of a two-hour thing. Maybe it's a two-hour thing instead of a four-hour thing. Maybe it's something that we need to come back to over a series of weeks.”  But one of the first conversations I often have is, number one, listening to how people are framing up the problem they think they're trying to solve, because people don't like to hear that they're wrong about that. And so it’s how you listen. And I say, “Okay. How do you know?” Because what I want to know is, okay, here's the problem you think you're trying to solve. What evidence do you have about that? And sometimes they’re, “Oh, well, this is what's happened in the past. Here's what's led to this. Here's how we decided that this would contribute to this trajectory.” Okay, I can kind of take that as a given. But often I hear like, “Oh, well, we had some space in the schedule, and we were hoping to…” Then I want to dig for a meaningful problem for both them and the participants, for the sponsor and the participants, so that I don't come and do something, and then afterwards people are, “Hey, wait a minute. That wasn't a great experience for us. You didn't do a very good job.” Like, “Oh, because I helped you solve a problem you didn't really have.” So that's a key first step in the conversation for me. Douglas: Absolutely. You mentioned, how do you know? Another question that I think is similar to that is, how will we know? And it’s the, how will we know if we were successful, and did we actually get the outcome we were seeking? And if we're not clear on the outcome, we can't even articulate that ahead of time. So, you know, how do we design in some of these assessment points so that we can tell if we did a good job or not? Dawan: Sort of following on pretty much on the heels of the, “what problem are we trying to solve?” conversation, beginning to map out high-level options on an experience and suggesting, “Okay, here's where we might end up with this path,” and suggesting a couple of different paths so that the sponsor can start to have the conversation about like, “Okay, does this look like a win for you? We're heading toward, we can achieve this, this, and this in this amount of time and with this level of resourcing. Is that going to be worth it? Is that going to be a worthwhile use of both time and money and energy?” And having those conversations explicitly on the front end makes things so much easier, because once you have clear objectives, once you have a clear idea of the problem that you're trying to solve with the experience, then you can say, okay, I can get into design mode with what's happening from minute to minute without having to sort of guess and hope, and, like, show up on a day physically or virtually, and say, “I hope this works out,” as opposed to, like, “I'm fairly confident that this is going to work,” barring the usual emergencies that we encounter during facilitation. Douglas: Yeah. The thing that was kind of coming to mind for me as I was listening is this kind of scenario that you're creating, where you're allowing them to peer into the future, but let's consider that this is the outcome that we’re at, and they can kind of sit with it, because you're right. So many people get so fixated on the thing that they need to go do, especially if something becomes really hip and really, I don't know, there's really trendy. Like, for a while it seemed like everybody was doing hackathons. I think some people still do them. But when do you think to yourself, “I need to have a hackathon,” and your thoughts are so focused on the what that you're not actually peering into, well, what's that going to generate for us? What's that going to...? What kind of new opportunity or a new position does that put us in? And I like the framing that you were sharing around, because we talk a lot about purpose and outcomes, but the way you were describing it was really about setting up this kind of vision into this future scenario, where it's like, oh, this is the way the world will be if we do this. And how does that make you feel, or what does that create for you? Dawan: Yeah. And it's helping the sponsor articulate what is uniquely possible with this group of people in this moment, and how can we start to approach making that happen? because it's, you’re just like, oh, insert hackathon here. Well, no. What is the thing that we need and this group of people needs from this moment? Douglas: Also, earlier, you were talking about what I translated to be buyer versus user, at least that's the language we would use in the startup world, the software world. In the facilitation world, I guess we would say sponsor or stakeholder and participant. And coming back to that design background you have, I think it's really fascinating to think about, if we're not considering both in our outcomes and how we structure the flow of the day or the flow of the event, then we could potentially design something that's at a disservice or is not properly tuned for one versus the other. And often I think the sponsor is the one, or the buyer, is the one that gets a lot of the attention. Dawan: Yeah. The sponsor gets a lot of the attention because they're kind of in the room when you're designing. But the participants have to have not only have a good experience, but you have to understand what's in it for them so that they're going to bring the energy. They're going to be open to the flow of experience. They're going to be open to doing hard work at an intense pace, because the pacing of the events that I build is really, really tight. It's flexible, but tight. And we can we can talk about the mechanics of that, but it's mapping out who all of the people are. And you could say stakeholder or user or customer, but all the people. And that includes sponsor, participant, any people upstream who will be using what you produce. Sometimes it's also the people who are served by the people in the room who will be, perhaps, the ultimate beneficiary of some of the ideas that are put together in the room. And it's, “Okay with all of these people,” and then you can start to map out, “Okay, here's what this person needs out of the situation. The participants kind of need these things.” And you can also start to think about all the different relationships to the work, because sometimes part of the responsibility of the facilitator is to deepen relationships between participants or to help amplify ways people have connected in the past to do a particular bit of work. Douglas: I love this notion of thinking about relationships or the interconnectedness of the group, or the lack thereof, and how that impacts the work to be done or how the work that is done is impacted, impacting the future states of those relationships. I think that way of thinking, almost, like, you know, it's a micro social network, and you’re applying some almost network theory to it a bit and thinking about how you mend relationships or how you lean on existing ones. I think that's a really powerful design tool or lens to apply, and I like that way of thinking about it. I hadn’t really thought about it from that perspective before. Dawan: I owe many debts of gratitude to different designers and design researchers, in particular, Indi Young, and she really talks about the difference between the problem space and the solution space, and people like to race into the solution space without doing the hard work to understand the people and how people are making decisions and why people are behaving the way they behave. And if part of the work is getting into behavior change, to even more wanting to understand the people before you start setting up what happens in the room or what happens online, and especially her work around listening and how to listen well. I've taken that both into the sponsor conversations but also into the room, when I'm thinking about how to bring the deep listening that helps everyone really be fully present in the space. Douglas: It's amazing how much presence and deep listening could just have vast impacts across all meetings. And I often love to ask folks, if you could change one thing about any meeting, where would it be? And I think that might be—it’s hard for me to choose because we think about and work in this space so much, it’s like, oh, man, there's so many issues. But I tell you, that's so prevalent, this attendees just spending majority of the meeting thinking about what they're going to say next, and a lot of it's just because they don't want to sound dumb or they want to say something impressive in front of leadership. But I think there's a real missed opportunity to not worry about those things and to create safety for people just to speak however they speak and let the ideas flow.  And so I guess I'm curious. That brings me to that thinking around these moments in meetings that could be so much better. What kind of things start to surface for you as you think about things that could be and people could just do in their everyday meetings? Dawan: Oh, my gosh. Here comes the avalanche. Well, it's starting off before the meeting, what problem are you trying to solve? What is it that can only be done by bringing this group of people together and being clear about that before people get in the room or on Zoom or wherever? And then it's being conscious, like giving people space to think. And one of the things that I do in most of the events that I create and sometimes in meetings is give people a moment to write down what they're thinking. And it's just a few minutes, sometimes 10 minutes, depending on the length and depth of what we're working on. But then you give everyone a chance to get their thoughts down. That says a couple of things. You have people who are reluctant to speak, and that's because of power in the room, because of personality, because of relationships, because of trust, because of a whole bunch of things. So you have reluctance to speak. Then you have people who are—just need a moment to get a handle on sort of, “All right, what do I think about this? What do I really think?”  And the other thing that you get when you do that writing, especially in longer events, is you're able to capture some of those individual thoughts to process later after the event. So you're setting up what happens after, depending on how you structure what's captured. So that's one thing. Make sure there's enough space for people to think.  And then there's time and being disciplined about time, saying, okay, we have this list of things, and this isn't necessarily an agenda, but it's saying what's most important for us to get accomplished and then allocating your time across those most important things. That way you can say, “All right, we're confident that we're going to get these most important things done. And these couple other things, maybe we can take care of those offline or in a different way.” Those are a couple of things.  The other thing, and this is perhaps harder—can be harder—in meetings, depending on who you are. But it's just looking at the energy of the people who are in the room and helping people come into this space well. And sometimes that's taking moments so everyone can check in with each other. And those couple of minutes to reset and be human can help people attend to the business at hand faster and better. And I've noticed that when I've given people those, a little bit of a buffer and a chance to be human, it just made what follows really, really nice. And that's one of the advantages if you're meeting remotely and every everyone's remote, you can put people into one-on-one conversations for a couple minutes, because often you have the meeting dynamics of, oh, my people come in and they sit by who they sit by, and they say hello to say hello. But, you know, people get patterns. They have people they're closer to and people they know better. And you have the opportunity to force some of that mixing and build some of that team cohesiveness through those conversations, just with a couple of flicks of a switch in your favorite meeting software. Douglas: Yeah, it's interesting. Brings up two things we spoke about in the preshow chat. And the first is anytime we're thinking about design, space becomes a very critical element, whether we're talking about negative space or what have you. And I think in the virtual world, the tools we use can impact the space that we provide for our attendees and for people who are experiencing the design that we've laid out for the meeting and the session. And one of the things you mentioned was there's just too much blame being pointed at the tools themselves. Dawan: Yeah. Taking your in-person meeting practices and not changing anything and just dumping them into—I think everyone’s in front of a laptop. Everyone’s in front of a camera—probably not going to work so well. And there's a decent chance that the meetings weren’t so great to begin with, and now you're expecting that to work better in a different context, where you have different kinds of feedback, different kinds of interactions.  I've been watching the sort of emergency online-education conversations play out. There’re lots of people saying, “See? This whole online-education thing doesn't work.” Like, well, when people have three days to take an entire university online, I don't know, who might want to cut them some slack on that because what can you do? But people are starting to see other deeper examples of designed online education where you have the instructional design team working with faculty. And these are conversations we're having a lot where I teach at Georgetown in the master’s in Learning, Design, and Technology. And we're doing all of our education right now remotely, using Zoom and thinking through, okay, how does learning happen there? What's kind of uniquely possible—I like those words—with that medium? And how can we capture those moments? It's not a replacement. It's like, oh, it's going to be just like things that happen face to face. Like, no, it’s different, but also good. And how do we get to that different-but-also-good place? Douglas: That's amazing. You know, so much of the work we do is about kind of accelerating innovation, and so people can get it in their heads that it's about moving quickly. And just because we're accelerating action doesn't mean that it means that everything we have to do must be fast. And in fact, a lot of it is about taking the time it requires to design things carefully. But what we don't want is analysis paralysis, where we're just kind of spinning our wheels and just thinking about things. As long as we're making progress and doing things, then allowing the design process to take the time it requires, that's goodness. That's good stuff. It results in better outcomes. Dawan: And I like that, allowing the process to take the time it needs. Because I— in one way or another, I often said, like, listen, you're going to kind of pay the price of this now, or you're going to pay later.  Douglas: That old analogy or that old saying of, if you think an expert's expensive, try working with a novice.  Dawan: Yeah. If you don't take the time— I remember a conversation. It was like, “Well, we really don't have time to really do this work you're talking about around the problem we're trying to solve, the problem space. We really need to just get in there and do this and that.” And I say, “Okay, well, I understand what you're saying. How much time and resources do you have to do all of this over again?” And they say, “What?” It’s like, “No, no, no. I just want to make sure that if we're taking this approach, that you can reinvest all of this to do all of this work again in case we get the problem wrong, because then we can just sort of jump in and guess because you have this huge stack of resources to burn.” And usually they're like, “Oh, no, no, no, we don't have extra money. We don't have extra time. So, yeah. Maybe we should spend a little time increasing the chances that we're solving problems that are worth solving.” Douglas: Yeah. It's always a Tilt sign for me when someone comes in and they've got it all figured out and they just want a price. It’s like, hey, I'm not selling cars here. I can't just say, this is what it’s going to be. And, you know, it's always, how much is it? And I think that mentality of innovation in a bottle on the shelf is something that would give the allure that that's what's happening, but it takes a lot of care and a lot of time to design and extract out where the there is. Dawan: Well, I've learned to be very clear around the expectations of what's possible within the boundaries of the work, because there is this—I think we're past the moment a little bit. But there was this moment maybe five years ago when it was the design as magic. It was like, oh, it's magic. It's the Silicon Valley juice, and drink it. You will sprout innovation. You will sprout market cap. Like, it's amazing. Like, oh my gosh, an IPO just fell out of my body. No. It doesn’t work that way, and there are some people who also, like, heard that, went out and bought some, it didn't work. Like, oh, this doesn't work. And it’s like, “Oh, yeah.” And it’s like, you probably said, “I will pay x,” and someone said, “I will take x,” and then you were surprised you didn't get the results, as opposed to someone who says, “Well, what problem are you trying to solve? What are you hoping to accomplish? What are you looking to invest over time in doing this work well and building the skills of your team to do this well?” because ideally, after working with me for a while, people no longer need me. I hate to want to do that to myself, but if I'm doing my work well, eventually it seems like, “No, we've got this. We can build on our own,” or “It's been built into the organization.” Sometimes people will just want me to come in and do. But those are the things that I get happy about. Like, “Oh, you want me to build something that will last longer than I'm there? I like that.” Douglas: Yeah. There’s legacy. We're making a difference in the world. Dawan: Yeah. And it’s also seeing what good design can do once it takes root in a culture. It's not, once again, going to be somehow magical, but I would say it will be better. And better varies from place to place. But I like to see that, or even just to see people taking away little things.  One of the things that I do with all of my engagements is I create a very detailed facilitation guide, and I have it all the way down to one-minute increments for different things. And I showed one of the—someone I work with one of these. They’re like, “Are you crazy? People will be late for this, and this will run long, and that will...” I know. But now that I've thought through it at this level, I know that when something goes wrong here, I know where to adjust and how to adjust. And so once you have that problem to resolve in the outcomes, then you can say, “Well, these people are trying to get to know each other, so a five-minute break here isn't really going to work. They kind of need 10 minutes. And how can we make sure the mingling happens? How can we make sure that people are in the relationship-building phase as opposed to a relationship deepening? So how do we build that into the breaks, or if there's a lunch or whatever the moments are? And that requires getting really granular on paper so that during the event you can roll with the opportunities, whether it's a tech fail or sort of one moment that is better than you expected. I don't want to interrupt this, because the thing that we wanted to happen at 4:00 p.m. is now happening at 11:00. So I'm not going to get in the way of it. I'll just have to redesign.” And it gives you something to tweak, something to adapt. Douglas: And I love this mantra from, I think it comes from complexity-in-form thinking, and definitely heard it in the Liberating Structures community. But what happens was meant to happen. And it's very much akin to what I heard you say earlier around embracing the uniquely possible.  Dawan: Mm-hmm. Douglas: So going back to this concept of participant energy and taking into consideration all the fatigue we're all experiencing, and also someone could have had a crises, even though we've done some upfront research and exploration into where the team’s at and the dynamics, when we walk into the room, things could be quite different. So I'm curious to hear what you've done in scenarios like that or what you do to prepare for things and be ready for the unexpected. Dawan: Well, I leave a cushion in every event of a certain amount of time, knowing that sometimes different things will run over. I design every break. So if I have a five-minute break in the schedule, and I tell everyone, “Hey, it's time for five-minute break,” I have 10 minutes built into the schedule because five-minute breaks always take ten minutes. And those are some of the mechanics on the how I'm connecting with people. I'm assuming, and especially sort of now as we're recording in the summer of COVID, that people are coming into the event fragile and burned out. And so one of the things that I try to stop and do is give people a chance to check in and talk. I'm assuming they’re, like, “Hey, your social interactions are kind of not happening the way they used to. Your coping mechanisms have all been broken and reshuffled.” So it's helping people have just very human conversations and easing into the work, and I also find taking more breaks, not expecting people to sustain the intensity as long.  When I'm in the room with people, it's very easy to read the energy. And I find a lot of the work is me sort of pushing energy into the room. And you can do that to an extent. You’re like, “Well, what do you mean, pushing energy? Is this some sort of mystical, reiki thing? What are you doing?” Well, it's making that eye contact, giving people the big smile, and getting the big smile back, and doing that with lots of people moving around in the space, giving people a different place to focus in. And when I'm doing that virtually, it's a lot of time sort of scanning the faces on the screens, but recognizing when like, “Oh, you know, we need to do sort of an impromptu small-group thing,” and mixing up the types of interaction, the types of things people are seeing on the screen, so it’s not just, oh, you’re seeing other faces. Sometimes there’s going to be oh I don’t know, images, diagrams, but also using if you have any kind of whiteboarding or drawing overlay in the software that you're using, I take it home to mark things up. One of the things I do in small groups, we’ll actually get giant sheets of paper and draw with each other, and that pulls people in. And you can do the same thing virtually.  You know, those are a couple ways I think about just the energy in the room and keeping it going. And also, you have to recognize that there may come a point where people are just done, and it may come before you want it to, but there's nothing you can do about that. The thing I do structurally is I try to put sort of the high-intensity generative things earlier in the schedule and the playing with, making sense with, tweaking of things that are sort of already out there later in the day so that it's kind of organizing and making sense of and playing with so that you're not being called upon to do the mentally intense things or the things that are going to rely on a lot of your interpersonal skills around negotiation and figuring things out late in the day. That tends to be, oh, if people are going to run out of steam, you start to see it in the outputs late in the day. So I try to push some of that earlier in the day so that by the time we are getting toward the end of things, it’s like, okay, these are lighter-lift activities and exchanges. Douglas: Even during break times, I like to remind people to turn off their video and step away to remind them not to go, just jump in the email or whatever, because it’ll only contribute to the fatigue later.  Dawan: I've had a sort of working-from-home career, so the adjustment wasn't quite as brutal for me. I've done my share of time in the office, but I was just used to sort of having my studio in the house and doing everything that I needed to do with the short commute and managing the time and interaction and getting my people time in and having the energy flow. And when you're having to learn those things and adjust those things, especially if it doesn't suit your personality, that's when it can be difficult. And in meetings, it's recognizing that you might have some people who are very comfortable with the screen and the environment and how the technology flows, and other people may be just straining against it because they're desperate to be within touching distance of another human being and get that high-fidelity interaction with micro expressions and scents and all sorts of things.  Douglas: Yeah. The dynamic’s completely shifted. And in the in-person realm, you could have folks that are quiet and don't ask a lot of questions. Those same folks might ask a lot of questions when they're virtual because just that layer of glass and many, many miles of air is separation enough to where they feel more comfortable speaking up. And other folks, you know, like you say, are debilitated because they don't have all the signals they're used to having. I think it's a great reminder that facilitators, we just have to listen, and we have to bring in as much data as we can from the signals we have. And you mentioned reading the room. I'm curious which signals that you use to read that digital room, because that can be problematic. Dawan: Well, in some ways, they're the same signals. I'm looking for, for example, give a set of instructions. I'm looking for the brows that are suddenly furrowed. And usually when people are sort of squinching their eyebrows together, that's their way of saying, “Those instructions were unclear to me.” But people are reluctant to say that. They'll sort of dive into it, thinking that they're the only one who didn't understand. And probably not. It's probably that your instructions were unclear, and you need to try that again.  And another thing is just actually checking in with people. The underutilized chat function, for example, in Zoom, there’s so much that you can do with that, because when you're in a sort of face-to-face environment, you have kind of one channel in terms of, there's like, yeah, there’s sort of visual cues and all that. But let's just say that there's, like, okay, you're going to say something or make a gesture in some way. But if we're actually going to talk, it's going to be voices. Whereas in Zoom you have the voice, you have the chat feed. Sometimes there’s another backchannel if everyone is, say, in Slack. And so you have all of these multiple channels. And that's a different kind of conversation because now you can have people dropping in web links as someone is presenting, asking questions that can be picked up later, and so you have these multiple threads going on. And if you're looking for, oh, we want this to be just like our in-person meetings, that's really distracting. Like, well, that's a huge opportunity for people to just drop in questions as they think of them. And you come back and weave them in. You have if one person is presenting, you have someone else on the team keep an eye on the chat. So there are, I think, huge opportunities presented by that in the different channels. So the reading the room becomes kind of an interactive, participatory process. Instead of one person reading in the face-to-face contacts, you have sort of multiple people nurturing the conversation via those multiple channels. Douglas: Yeah. And those things become elements you can design for, because I think in real life, we've spent years and years so it’s in a lot of ways just second nature, so we don’t consider it much like when we just walk into a room, because we can rely on our innate skills at relating. And sure, as facilitators we sharpen them, but we kind of have matured to a point, I feel, that it's not always a consideration, but in the digital space, you know, thinking of how many co-facilitators do I want? Do I want someone on Slack or Zoom chats, watching that stuff? So to me, it's really become a design consideration before we even enter into the meeting itself. Dawan: And we're still figuring out the opportunities. I like to say, okay, well, before I sort of add other tools, add other functionality, what are the ways we can sort of tweak what we have, twist what we have so that everyone's like, “Oh yeah, there's these simple tools”? Sometimes it's as simple as “Okay, get a piece of paper and a pen, and everyone turn off your cameras and sketch out how you think this holds together for a few minutes. And then we'll have the conversation,” so that you're even having someone, they’re not stepping away from the meeting, but they're stepping away from, “I just have my keyboard.” You're like, “Oh, I get to draw for a minute.” And it's using those simple opportunities to make the exchange extremely rich the same way it would be if everyone was in the room.  And there have been a couple of instances where I was happy that everyone was online, because I knew that their interactions, we wouldn't have been able to have if everyone was face to face. So like, for example, having 20 people have one-on-one conversations and doing several rounds of those, after you've done that and everyone's had a chance to chat for a few minutes with three different people in the room, now you're set up differently as a group for what happens later, as opposed to if you were sort of face to face in a room doing that and having 10 conversations all going on in a conference room, it’s just like, oh, you can't really, like, having trouble hearing, and there's overhearing, and you can't just focus on one person. There's all this distraction. So people are able to connect that way really fast, really deep, which is nice.  So it's finding those things that are the opportunities presented by the challenge of leading and collaborating as we sort of adapt to our world as it changes. Douglas: Yeah. To use your words, we're embracing what's uniquely possible with these new tools. Dawan: Yeah. Douglas: Excellent. Well, I think that might be a great spot to stop here on today's show. But before we go, I think listeners will be really curious how to find you, how to connect with you. You're doing some great work, and I know some people are going to want to know how to reach out. Dawan: Oh, thanks. While I'm easy to find at fluidhive.com. If you search my last name, you will get a university. But Dawan Stanford, there aren't many of them, so that's another easy way to find me. LinkedIn and Twitter are good places to look. You can also learn more about the learning-design work that I'm involved with at Georgetown in the master’s in Learning, Design, and Technology at Georgetown University. And you can also check me out on the Design Thinking 101 podcast, where I am hosting that show. Douglas: Excellent. Yeah, definitely check it out. And Dawan, it's been a pleasure chatting with you today. I hope we stay in touch and continue the journey together. Dawan: Oh, well, thanks for having me. It’s been a ball. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

We had a lot of lag in this episode, hence the lack of 'discussion'; but we may have a fix for the next episode.Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 39!01:30 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]01:50 - Review: XBOX SERIES X REVIEW17:20 - Preview: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla18:15 - Embargo Drama19:30 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]19:35 - South Korea’s Spy-cam Problem23:10 - Computer Generated Influencers26:00 - Climate change and Super-white Paint29:25 - How Corona Virus spreads in the Air33:25 - NSFW [START]33:40 - Oops! Your browsers aren’t really private!40:40 - STOP CLICKING ADS46:25 - Ose: scam or revolution?55:50 - Men, stop it.01:01:10 - NSFW [END]01:01:15 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

INTRO:Welcome to Surveillance And The City, your glimpse at the technology tracking us all. I’m your host, Albert Fox Cahn. With me today A.I. activist Liz O’Sullivan, and in her podcast debut, Professor Rashida Richardson of Rutgers Law School.This week, we pick apart the charred remains of this week’s election, discussing what it means for potential privacy laws in DC and at the state level. And for Stranger Than Science Fiction, we look back at Franchise, the Isaac Asimov story that asks if in the world of computers we would even need elections. Part 1 - FederalJUSTICE IN FORENSIC ALGORITHMS ACTBillSummary: would require that source code be made available to criminal defendants in all cases in which such algorithms are used (Harvard Data Science Review)Introduced by Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA-41) who won reelection on Tuesday with 64% of the votePart of the Vision for Black Lives policy platformTakano talks about reaching out to Republicans but does not reference actually having any; this piece of legislation was considered to be something that might have come to more prominence if the Senate had gone blue, which was at least a possibility to occur on Tuesday night (but didn’t). Given the gridlock in Washington inherent with a Republican Senate and a Democratic House and President, this is now considered less likely.FACIAL RECOGNITION LEGISLATIONBill: would ban the use of facial recognition technology unless a federal law existed laying out standards for the use, access and retention of the data collected from biometric surveillance systems; standards for accuracy rates by gender, skin color and age; rigorous protections for due process, privacy, free speech, and racial, gender and religious equity; and mechanisms to ensure compliance with the act.Would demand state/local gov’ts also comply or risk federal funding for police training and equipmentSenators Markey and Merkley introduced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act in June (NBC)Merkley held onto his seat by a healthy margin on Tuesday, up against a Republican Qanon believer, Jo Rae PerkinsSimilar to Forensic Algorithms Act, it may have done better in a Democratic senate, which would have a smoother legislative path forward. It will need at least some Republican support to leave the Senate, and so far its only supporters are Democrats and Senator Bernie Sanders, who is registered as Independent.The bill has languished before the Senate Judiciary since June.WaPo’s Editorial Board endorsed it in JulyThough there re no Republican sponsors of this specific bill, there is Republican support for restricting the use of facial recognition:Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH-4) (who won handily against Democratic challenger Shannon Freshour Tuesday night despite ongoing accusations of covering up sexual abuse at Ohio State University): “Seems to me it’s time for a timeout,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on, this should concern us all.”Then there are the local bills that could become a template; they’re already spreadingSF to other citiesWA State bill by Microsoft touted by Brad Smith as template for federal legislation during the BLM FRT backlash Ad breakWe don’t pay for targeted ads or sketchy ad tech, we rely on you to help grow our audience. Please take just 3 minutes to share us on your sketchy social media platform of choice. And if you really want to help, leave a 5-star rating and review to help train the podcast AI that we’re awesome. Part 2 – State LegislationCALIFORNIA PROPOSITION 24Status – As of 11/4/2020 at 3:07pm ET, with 99% of precincts reporting:6,347,485 (56.09%) in favor4,969,444 (43.91%) againstSource - https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_24,_Consumer_Personal_Information_Law_and_Agency_Initiative_(2020)ProvisionsCCPA cutoff goes from 50,000 people’s data to 100,000.limits CCPA to businesses that earn most revenue from selling consumer dataCops can order data held for 180 days in anticipation of court orderAllows personal information to be shared with the government if a person is at risk of danger of death or serious physical injury, with certain limitsAdditionally requires businesses to:Upon a consumer’s request, not share the consumer’s personal information;Provide consumers with an opt-out option for having their sensitive personal information used or disclosed for advertising or marketing;Obtain permission from a parent or guardian before collecting data from consumers younger than 13; andUpon a consumer’s request, correct the consumer’s inaccurate personal information.Eliminates the 30-day period for businesses to fix CCPA violationsEstablishes California Privacy Protection Agency to implement and enforceMICHIGAN PROPOSAL 2Status: As of 11/4/20 at 12:23pm ET, with 69% of precincts reporting:1,890,107 (88.80%) votes in favor.238,303 (11.20%) votes against.Source: https://ballotpedia.org/Michigan_Proposal_2,_Search_Warrant_for_Electronic_Data_Amendment_(2020)Provisions: The Michigan Constitution is amended to:Prohibit unreasonable searches or seizures of a person’s electronic data and electronic communications; andRequire a search warrant to access a person’s electronic data or electronic communications. Part 3 -  Stranger than science fiction OUTRO:As a reminder, make sure to share our episode with your friends and leave a rating on your podcatcher of choice.We are brought to you by STOP, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, and The Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at NYU Law.This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 International License.Our Production team is: Producers Alex Brook Lynn of Racket Media and Fabian Rogers of STOPSound Engineering by Adam Chimera Research Assistant: Carrie MageeVideo production support from Alexia Hall Additional Notes:The Domain Awareness System:https://www.stopspying.org/latest-news/2019/9/26/domain-awareness-systemThe Surveillance Assemblage: https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF3700/v17/bakgrunnsnotat/the_surveillant_assemblage.pdfFranchise by Isaac Asimov:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchise_(short_story)Know Your Rights Video Series:https://youtu.be/EBNH7S-1pMs

“You already have this constellation internally that is very capable, and you and me and everyone we know. But some of it is burdened. And so it has intense emotional charge that hasn't been released, or it has belief systems that are old and archaic and need to be discarded. But then once they're unburdened, the energy and the natural expression of that aspect of you is just available.” Sunni Brown   In this week’s episode of the Control the Room podcast, I’m delighted to speak with Sunni Brown, founder of Deep Self Design and Sunni Brown Ink. Sunni has been named one of the 100 most creative people in business and one of the 10 most creative people on Twitter by Fast Company. She is a best selling author, speaker, and expert meeting facilitator. We talk about the fallacy of using buzzwords in value statements, Cobra Kai, and the tango of co-facilitation. Listen in to find out what The Karate Kid remake can teach us about the complexity of people.   Show Highlights [8:23] The proven power of taking notes by hand [15:45] What is authenticity? [21:27] The fallacy of buzzwords in value statements [27:38] Cobra Kai, the more naive Karate Kid [36:47] The tango of co-facilitation [45:28] Dusting off your inner mirror   Links | Resources Sunni on LinkedIn Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers The Doodle Revolution SB Ink Sunni’s TedTalk, Doodlers Unite!   About the Guest Sunni Brown, founder of Deep Self Design and Sunni Brown Ink, is a best-selling author, speaker, and expert meeting facilitator. Fast Company has included her in “100 Most Creative People in Business” and “10 Most Creative People on Twitter.” Sunni, author of Gamestorming and The Doodle Revolution, leads a worldwide campaign advocating for visual, game, design, and improvisational thinking. She lists empathy, emotional intelligence, collaboration, and effective communication as some of her most sought-after leadership skills.   About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. This episode is brought to you by MURAL, a digital workspace for visual collaboration. At Voltage Control, we use MURAL to facilitate engaging and productive meetings and workshops from anywhere. MURAL gives teams the means, methods and freedoms to collaborate visually. Use their suite of facilitation superpowers to control the virtual room and solve tough problems as a team with their pre-built templates and guided methods. To see for yourself why companies like IBM, Atlassian, and E* Trade rely on MURAL, start your 30 day trial at mural.co. That’s mural.co Douglas: Today I’m with Sunni Brown, founder of Sunni Brown Ink and the Center of Deep Self Design, where she helps people design their best selves.  Welcome to the show, Sunni. Sunni: Can I call you D? Douglas: As long as you don’t call me Doug— Sunni: Dougie Fresh. Douglas: —I think I’ll be okay with it. Sunni: Okay. I might slip up and call you D. Douglas: D’s perfectly fine. So, how did you get started? How did Sunni Brown become Sunni Brown Ink? Sunni: Well, there were many roads that led to that incarnation, but first was that I could not keep a job. So I was fired many times. So there's, like, the shadow side of it, and then there's the accidental, you know, serendipitous aspects of it, and then there's the origin story, like the conditioning-from-family stuff. So there's all wrapped up in that, you know? But first and foremost, I could not—I got fired a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean definitely over 13 times. And so I was good at getting jobs, but I wasn't good at keeping jobs, which is a hallmark of entrepreneurism, but I didn't realize that at the time. I just thought that everyone was an idiot, and somehow I didn't belong in a cage or whatever. I was very unruly as an employee. It was actually legitimately hard for me to keep a job. Even though I was good, I was insubordinate. And so eventually I just recognized that, oh, I need to be my own boss. I didn't know the boss of what.  But serendipitously and sort of circuitously, I ended up in the Bay Area, which is rife with ideas and opportunity and innovation and potential, and that was a great place for somebody like me. And so I ended up working at The Grove, which is a visual-thinking company, and that was my introduction to visual literacy and visual thinking. I only worked there two years, and then I left and I started my own company, which again, I think—I mean, I think unless you have entrepreneurism in your family, it's almost always accidental. And it’s not— it's accidental and on purpose, but it's not necessarily something—it's, like, something that finds you and you find it, you know? There was a lot of ingredients that made that thing come to life. Douglas: So, tell us about the experience at The Grove. How did that shape what you're doing now? Sunni: It was a great experience in the sense that I was from—like, I had just graduated with a master’s in public policy, which always surprises people. But I was kind of working in the public sector, and I didn't even identify as a creative at that time. I didn't like the term creative. I didn't like the term artistic. I was very pragmatic and practical. And so I was not looking for anything of the sort, in terms of ending up at The Grove, and so I was very skeptical.  So when I was first there, I was just hired as the executive assistant because I had been other people's assistants, but I didn't always mention I’d been fired a lot. So I was very questionable about my job-acquisition ethics. But I did always end up getting jobs. And so eventually I was working for the president, which was David Sibbet, who's, like, the grandfather of visual thinking in the United States. And I was very lucky because I was mentored by him and then eventually mentored by Dave Gray and other kind of like—he wouldn't want me to call him a grandfather, but another godfather, if you will, of visual thinking. Douglas: Sort of a luminary.  Sunni: Yeah, absolutely. So those were events happenstantial. But when I first was at The Grove, I was really skeptical about visual thinking, and I thought it was kind of silly, to be honest. Douglas: So what was the thing that really changed for you? You said you used to think “it was kind of silly.” What really connected the dots for you to realize, like, “Wow, this is something deeper”? Sunni: Well, so, it was like application. I was first a graphic recorder. I don’t know if you know that about me, but I started as a graphic recorder. So a person would go and do live large-scale visualizations of auditory content. And what I observed in the process of learning how to be that, which did come naturally to me—it was a skill that kind of mapped itself onto my own skills readily, which was surprising—but through that process, I recognized that there was a lot of benefits of visual thinking that were happening to me cognitively. So I was remembering content really well. I was organizing it in my mind and on paper really skillfully. I was comprehending it and sort of like getting insights. And when you’re a graphic recorder, you go and you listen to every topic imaginable. So I noticed that my relationship with the content was really rich and really substantive. And I had to attribute it to what I was doing visually because it wasn't like I was special, you know? It was like, “Oh, my god, there's something meaningful to the brain about this way of thinking.” And that's when I became a convert. You know, I was converted. Douglas: That's incredible. It makes me think about something that I've been talking with a lot of folks about lately, this notion of multithreaded meetings, where when we're in MURAL and everyone is Livescribing and at the same time—now, it's certainly not at the level of proficiency and craftsmanship that, you know, you were taken to the job as a graphic recorder—but if we're all visually working in the meeting through MURAL or Mirro or any of these other tools and live capturing what we're hearing, we are unsynthesizing on the fly, we're adding nuance to what we hear because it's our own, like, filter. Even if we are attempting to be purist as possible, something's going to happen there. And when you look across the room of what everyone wrote down, you get this really rich picture of what was said, because it's, like, not only what was said, but this diversity of thought layered on top of it. Sunni: That's cool. That's cool that you're doing that. And absolutely. It makes complete sense, right? It's like this beautiful display of insight that is unique to each person. But it's not a thin relationship. It's a really thick relationship between you and what you're trying to understand. And that's why it's so valuable. And so, then, of course, I became an evangelist about that, and that was in a different chapter of my journey. And I'm really grateful for that, because at this point, I don't do anything without having some visual-thinking component. It’s just how I work and how I think and how I explain things to people. So it just changed everything about how I function. It's really grateful.  Douglas: That's really cool. You know, it also makes me think about active listening and how one of our skills as a facilitator for active listening is paraphrasing. And if you think about it, only one person can paraphrase at one time because if we were all doing that, it would be cacophonous insanity and the whole power of paraphrasing would be diminished because we're all talking over each other. But if someone's Livescribing or if the whole room is Livescribing, everyone's essentially paraphrasing but in a non-auditory sense, right? Sunni: Mm-hmm, yeah. That’s why I teach it to educators and then they teach it to students, because when you're typing—I mean, there's a lot of research about typing versus writing in terms of notetaking, and the research is very clear that when you use visual notetaking instead of typing on your laptop and just trying to, like, bang out as much as you can based on what the teacher’s saying, and similarly with handwriting, the knowledge and the insight is much, much deeper when you're using visual networking because you're synthesizing. So you're actively distilling content on purpose, and you're discerning what to believe and what to put on the page, and then you map it to some kind of icon or image so it comes to life. And so I think that that experience is true for everybody. I mean, I taught it all over the world, and it's not ever been somebody who was like, “No, I prefer my laptop typing in terms of knowledge acquisition.” Like, I’ve never met that person, you know? Douglas: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it also dawned on me. Has the research explored the notion of the spatial aspect of— Sunni: Uh-huh. Douglas: —handwritten notes? Because if you think about typed notes, it’s direct to linear; it’s always left to right; it’s up, down— Sunni: Yeah, totally. Douglas: —it’s squares; it’s edges. Sunni: There’s no structure. Douglas: Yeah. You have that structure is enforced upon you. Sunni: Right. Douglas: And if you're having to think through that structure or just flow through it and even move your hand to the upper right and over here and down, it's not so liberal—it's more liberating, maybe. Sunni: Yeah, that’s right. And Tony Buzan has this great page where he talks about that most kids perceive notetaking as punishment. They refer to it as punishment because that's how it feels, because they're confined and constrained by what you can do. And so when you make the page like a blank space, it's basically a field to plan, and then you can show relationships between things, and you can show spatial content that has an architecture that is inherently not in listing or in writing lists. And so there's, like, nine other things that he—He has a great book, Mind Map that he’s original. But it just describes how it’s like a black-and-white versus a color television. It's just a whole different world. And so it's universally impactful in that way.  So it was easy for me to fall in love with it after I got over myself, you know? I was like, “Oh, shit, this is like a power tool, and nobody knows it.” Like, very few people were interested in it or thought it was worth exploring, and it was sort of something you put on the side, like you go to art class and do that, or you be weird and do that. Like this guy— Douglas: Or these geeks in the corner of the conference just plugging away. Sunni: That’s right. And so I was, like, well, I would like to normalize the shit out of this. And so I was very passionate about it for a long time. And at this point, I've exhausted that passion. But I don't need to have it because other people have it now. So I’m like, “Cool. The torch has been passed, and more power to all of you.” Douglas: And we talked a little bit about that earlier in kind of the preshow chat. We both have books coming out on the non-obvious press, and I was asking you about— Sunni: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You’re writing the one I wanted to write, you old buster. Douglas: You know, you were writing a book on graphic recording. Sunni: Yeah. It was, like, rapid doodling. Yeah.  Douglas: Yeah. And I was curious to hear about that. And you said, “Oh, I wasn't inspired.”  Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: I mean, you were explaining how you kind of lost the flame a bit— Sunni: Right. Douglas: —because you've been doing it for a while— Sunni: Yes. Douglas: —and you know it in and out.  Sunni: Yes.  Douglas: And it's hard to take that kind of new— Sunni: Yeah. Like, the beginner’s mind. It’s such an important state of mind and that my relationship with that is not in that state. So I couldn’t strongarm my way into writing that book. Douglas: And I love how meta that experience for you and going through the conversation with the publisher was in relation to the topic you're actually going to write about, because you talked about not being part of your being or your state right now, the passion right now. And so it must have felt inauthentic. Sunni: It did. Yeah, it did. It felt forced, for sure. And I told him that I could do it. It's like, it's not that I don't have the ability to sit down and type some shit on a page that makes sense. Like, I can do it. But why would I do that? What is the value of a factory? Like, I'm not a factory. And I mean, I can be, but I don't want to be. And I just was like, fuck it. I'll just—you know, he can get mad at me. I mean, I literally woke up that morning. I was like, what if he sued me? I was like, I don't know what he's going to do. No idea what he was going to do. Because he had the whole—all of our books were going to be published in a certain time, remember? Like, all together. So I didn’t— Douglas: And then COVID happened. Sunni: That's right. And I was hoping that he would have considered that and that some of his other off—because you turned yours in on time, did you not?  Douglas: Yes. And— Sunni: Well, that's what I mean. So it didn't affect you. Ugh, god. Douglas: Well, we’re not on time. Sunni: Yeah, but you’re— Douglas: We turned it in, but then there was a lot of edits— Sunni: Right, right. Douglas: —so we’re still hard at work on it. But it’s great.  Sunni: That’s awesome. Douglas: I found working with them to be really fantastic from a— Sunni: Oh, good. Douglas: —get it right—let’s take the time to get it right. Sunni: Uh, yeah. He’s awesome, and he really impressed me that day. And so it was nice to arrive at the topic that I am interested in, I have something to say about. And for me, the most energetic time when I'm learning something is where I'm completely convinced that it's valuable. I have internalized quite a bit of it, but I haven't, like, reverse engineered what it is that I did. So it's like when I was a graphic recorder, I was doing that. I had some training, but I basically trained myself. And then I studied what I was doing. And then I was like, oh, wow, that's really interesting. So for me, it's like that was similar with the deep-self-design stuff. It’s like I've been applying and practicing this stuff for, like, 13 years, and now I'm studying what I'm doing because I want to teach it. So I apparently have these cycles of that. And I was not in that cycle with rapid doodling for problem solving. And I was like, why would I fake this? This is just completely not true for me at all. So thankfully, Rohit was awesome, and he was, like, “Great. I don't want you to write that.” And I almost kissed him through the screen. I was like, “God bless you,” because it was getting painful. Douglas: And what’s the title of the new book? Sunni: Well, I don't know yet exactly. It's still in process, but it's something about the “non-obvious guide to being confident,” or maybe “to enter confidence.” And then the subtitle is “without being arrogant or inauthentic,” something like that. Douglas: Yeah. And I love this notion of confidence is really important when it comes to facilitation. That’s why we both run facilitation practices just to get people experience with the tools and with new ways of doing things. And I also feel that authenticity matters so much. The authenticity allows us to be confident and vice versa. They kind of have this interesting dual purpose or this kind of linked connectedness. Sunni: And I’ve always been confused by, what is authenticity? What does it even mean? And it’s similarly with integrity. So this is just like a sort of weird question philosophically, which is, if you're authentically being manipulative, like you're totally committed to that activity, then that's not inauthentic. It's un-optimal. It's suboptimal for who you're dealing with. But, like, Trump is authentically an asshole. Do you know what I'm saying?  Douglas: Mm-hmm. Yes, I do know what you’re saying. Sunni: So I don’t even know when people describe—because I do often get described as authentic. My mother-in-law—well, she’s family so she could be blowing smoke up my ass—but she’s often like, authenticity is just your engine. And it took me a while. I was like, I don’t even know what she's talking about. But then finally, I came up with this definition, so I want to run it by you and see what you think. So what it is, maybe, is—and I’m sure there are people who’ve done this research, so I'm right on the edge of doing all this great research—which is your internal experience is matched to your external expression. So in other words, what I'm feeling internally—so if I'm feeling disappointment because somebody didn't respond to my text—when I talk to them, I say, “I'm experiencing disappointment about your lack of responding to me, and I'm interpreting it.” So I'm just saying what's true for me. I'm just speaking what— So I think that's what it is. And that's really hard for people, apparently. What do you love about it? Douglas: Well, you know, it's the same thing as like I think people as a society, we have been primed to not disappoint people and to avoid conflict, and so that forces people to be inauthentic— Sunni: That's true. So true. Douglas: —because they’re in pursuit of this vibe or this experience or to avoid. It’s like to minimize your— Sunni: Yeah. Conflict avoidance is huge, yes. Yes.  Douglas: Yeah. And it's the same thing as you get a birthday present you don't like, and you’re, “Oh, I love it.” Sunni: Right. Douglas: It’s like that incongruency of what you're saying and what you’re feeling.  Sunni: Yeah. Right. Douglas: And imagine you walk into a room and you know that you need to pump up that room and get everyone excited.  Sunni: Right. But you're not feeling it yet. Douglas: You're not feeling it. And there’s a pit in your stomach that you are not that is you're not being authentic. Sunni: Well, that, I think, creates anxiety, though, right, because when we’re trying to defy our actual internal experience, that is anxiety provoking. So that’s problematic. And it’s not like I nail it every time, but I definitely have a high fidelity to what my experience is and what my truth is, and then I share that. But I'm not undiplomatic.  So it's interesting what you're saying about the gift. When somebody gives you a gift and you don't really love it, but you're honoring that they gave it to you, that can still be an authentic experience because you may not love it, but you love that they gave something to you, that they thought of you, right? Douglas: Right. So why not? Why is it not customary that we say that? Sunni: I don’t know. I don't think our culture is skillful. I think our culture is really immature in a lot of areas. And communication and conflict is one of them, a big one. Douglas: Yeah. In our facilitation training, we often work with folks to think about how they can tap into their inner self. And you go much deeper into the internal family-system stuff. The stuff that we're saying to do is at least just check in. Sunni: Yeah, totally. Douglas: Does your foot hurt? Sunni: Right. Douglas: Does your stomach hurt? Sunni: Yeah. Connecting to your body. Douglas: Does it feel hot? Is there a tension in the room? Are you bringing that tension? Are you noticing it? Is that tension impacting you? Sunni: Yeah. Right. That’s so helpful, though, Douglas. People are so oblivious to their own states. And that is also anxiety provoking. When you’re divorced from your own experience, how could you not be stressed? How could that not be stressful?  To your point, I do go deep, and I love that. But it's also, what you're doing with people, that's a revelation for a lot of people. Just like, oh, oh, I do. I am hungry. Oh, I have no idea. Or oh, I am disappointed that I wasn't seated with my friend. You know, just anything. And then I often do at the beginning of sessions, I will have them name something that's true for them. And just that simple act of checking in, becoming aware of your state and yourself, and then declaring it, it's like returning to yourself just for a second. And it brings you into the present moment, and it's really helpful. Douglas: Yeah. Any time we can have some sort of presence-ing activity in an opener, it's really powerful. Sunni: I know. And you know what’s funny, talking about authenticity? I think I was with you one time when we—I have people often draw, like, just in virtual facilitation, they’ll draw some emotion on a sticky note. And I will just ask, “What is your state of emotion right now?” and then draw an emoji. And then, you know, the ones that are permissible, right—there's permissible, social, emotional experiences. So it'll be like, the craziest one might be that someone's frazzled, but they would never be like, “I’m depressed,” you know? Douglas: Mm-hmm. Sunni: No— So there's social norms in that. And again, it’s like, is that inauthenticity, or is that caretaking of the group, or is that not even knowing maybe how you feel? It's like, just, it’s complex, you know? Douglas: Yeah. It’s interesting because if you're intentionally trying to deceive you being authentic—there's different levels, are you being authentic to yourself? There is intention. And then someone else could perceive you as being inauthentic because you're like, wait, he's totally lying to me. So, yeah. Sunni: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That’s right. Douglas: And integrity, I think, is easier for me because I always define integrity—because it shows up on so many companies’ values statements, and I don’t even know—I think most of the time they don’t think about what it means. It’s like, oh, yeah. It needs to say integrity. Sunni: They don’t even know what it is. Douglas: Resourcefulness.  Sunni: They’re like, everybody wants that, for sure. Douglas: Integrity is just you do what you say you’re going to do. Sunni: Say you’re going to do? So, okay, what if I say I’m going to throw water on Chet when he’s sleeping?  Douglas: That’s integrity. Sunni: And then I do it. Douglas: You follow through. But if you say you’re going to build a wall and you don’t build a wall, that’s not a lot of integrity. Sunni: But that means that Hitler had integrity, right? So it’s like if you say—and it’s controversial, but based on that definition, that would mean that, that he followed through. Douglas: Yeah. But that’s the thing. I think people that take these words and they glorify them as being good qualities. Sunni: Yeah, they don’t mean anything. Douglas: And sure, if you have good intent—like, you had to combine them with other things because—that segues nicely into something that we were getting excited about during the preshow chat. And this is just good versus bad, and in binary thinking, how dangerous it is. Sunni: Yeah, it is. It's one of the thinking distortions. So there's a really great list of thinking distortions that has, like, eight on it. But this also segues into Zen practice, which is central to my entire life. But one of the thinking distortions is making things binary. And it's so tempting. And I do it even though I have a devout practice around not doing that, where I'm seeing the nuance. It's still, it's the brain. Like, we are wired to summarize very quickly for survival purposes. It’s not like we’re bad if we do that. That is just biologically, it's like a biological imperative. And so in order to soften that inclination to just label somebody as, like, stupid or smart; or a desirable, undesirable; or deplorable and undeplorable; or whatever, we have to practice. You actually have to activate the antithesis of that way of thinking by purposefully seeing the shades of gray. It is a practice, and it's super powerful.  And so I like that you're interested in that, too, because as facilitators, I gamify this stuff. I try to teach people that in gaming. That one in particular always blows people's domepieces off because they're like, “Oh, my god, I completely thought my boss was a jerk just by definition.” And I'm like, “Did you consider all the other facets of your boss?” And they're like, “No.” I'm like, “Why would you? It’s not a practice you have.” Douglas: You know, I think that it applies across the spectrum, too, right? A lot of times, especially folks that are brand new to facilitation, they're so curious. Like, how do I deal with difficult people? And that, first of all, is binary thinking. The fact that you’re asking that question means that you’re thinking there’s non-difficult people and difficult people. Sunni: You’re assuming. Right, yeah. And it’s funny because when I started facilitating, I never asked that question. I wasn’t worried about it. And I think that has to do with conflict avoidance, too. So if people are asking that question, underneath it is a fear that they're going to have to deal with conflict or perceived conflict. And conflict avoidance was not my family strategy. So I usually turn toward it and address it, depending on the depth of the wounding or whatever. But it's like, it's not fearful for me.  And also, I haven't encountered these “difficult” people. I know there are people that can talk over other people, and there are people that want to ask a lot of questions and sort of can derail some of your activities. I know there are people that try to sidle up to you and make alliances with a facilitator. But I don't think of them as difficult. I think of them as people, just human people. Douglas: What about the people that are desperately trying to help you? Sunni: Oh, I love those people. It’s always—that's so, so sweet because it’s like, how do you say “No, thank you. You're going to make it way harder on me if you try to help”? Right? Because when I was a graphic recorder, I used to always carry these big walls, you know? You got to carry these 32-square-foot walls everywhere, and you would not believe how many people tried to help me because I was 5’5” and they’d be like, “She can’t carry that up four flights of stairs.” And I’d be like, “It weighs two pounds. It's not hard.” But I would always just very gently be like, “No. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your interest. But it’ll go smoothly if I just do it because I've done it so many times.” But there are all those types in meetings.  But to your point, what does it mean if they're difficult? Maybe they just need something, and they need you to be aware of it. And you just look for the need, the underlying need, and see if you can support that or not. Douglas: You know, I really liked Michael Wilkinson's framing on this. I think in his book—I forgot. It’s so many secrets of facilitation. I can't even remember how many there are. There might be, like, let’s just say, so many secrets of facilitation. Sunni: They’re secrets? Douglas: Yeah, well, he's unveiling the secrets of facilitation. Sunni: What?! The secret teachings? Douglas: Yeah. It’s amazing. So, his whole thing is dysfunctions. How do you deal with dysfunctions? And so I liked that framing a lot better because there’s all sorts of them, and how do we think about addressing them as they happen? And the individuals aren’t dysfunctional. Sunni: Right.  Douglas: Maybe eliciting a dysfunction at that moment. Sunni: Yeah. Or like a malfunction, yeah. Douglas: Yeah.  Sunni: You know? A little breakdown.  Douglas: A little short circuit, which is an amazing— Sunni: And I have those, too, you know? Douglas: I mean, when are they going to come out with, like—so they've done E.T. with Stranger Things. They've done Karate Kid with Cobra Kai. When are they going to come out with the Short Circuit, like the modern Short Circuit? Sunni: Oh, dude. How can they top the original? It’d be so hard. It’d be impossible. Oh, my god, I’ve got to watch that tonight. It’s Friday night. Thank you for picking my movie. Douglas: There’s something about Cobra Kai that I was— Sunni: Dude. Douglas: —thinking about earlier. But— Sunni: Oh, my god, yes. Douglas: —I think it’s just this notion of this good versus bad. Sunni: Yes. Douglas: You know, I was thinking about that when we were talking about good versus bad.  Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: And it's really interesting to me how the more naive Karate Ki— even though, like, look, let's face it. Cobra Kai is like a series that is not really any kind of profound wisdom. But it's funny that the more naive version of Karate Kid was, like, Danny’s just like, and Miyagi, are just like the source of good. Sunni: Yes. Douglas: And now, the more modern portrayal, as they're older, they're much more complex, you know? Sunni: Right. Douglas: They’re both doing things that you’re like, why? Sunni: And that’s the truth about people is that we’re complex. And that’s what people don't want to grapple with, because it requires an awareness of things that can't be tucked into a box really neatly. And the brain, it does not like that. The brain is—I mean, sometimes it's stimulated by it. But ultimately, it needs a summation. And so it's like that's why you have all these characters that are easy to hate, like in Inspector Gadget. What’s the dude, Claw? He doesn't even have a face. He's just the bad dude behind the desk, without a face. And then when you look at comic books or graphic novels, they always go into their backstory. I mean, Black Panther, they nailed it by making those characters so complex. That, to me, felt relatable. So it's, like, so fascinating how that starts from storytelling when you're five, you know? Even Star Wars. But I love Star Wars because, dude, I don’t— Douglas: Hero’s journey.  Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: I mean, you kind of can’t go wrong with the hero’s journey. In fact, that's something Daniel Stillman and I talk about a lot, using that in your workshop design. Sunni: Mm-hmm. Hm, interesting. Like, taking each person through some transformational experience related to the content? Douglas: Yeah. Basically, from start to finish, we're going to go through this hero's journey, where we go into the abyss and come out together with the elixir. Sunni: Oh, that makes me just want to weep, it's so beautiful. And it's like even if you don't choose—because part of the journey, you have to answer the call. So life will probably summon you. But if you don't answer, then you don't go on the journey, you know? And I've always been fascinated by people that are not available for the journey, because it's just not safe. I mean, it's not, by definition. But for me, it's always worth it to step into challenges. And I think that is also a quality of entrepreneurs, is that we are kind of thrilled by freaking ourselves out. Douglas: Uncertainty, ambiguity. Sunni: Yes, dude. We’re like those people that like it. We're kind of into it. And over the years, I've had to temper my own instinct to do that. And I know you have too. I mean, I've been a workaholic for a long time, and I'm, like, in recovery. But it's also just because I like being challenged, and I like not knowing everything, because it's such a thrill when you get some new insight or knowledge. It's like, I feel like I'm like the Hulk. I'm like, whoa, I’m growing muscularly. I'm huge. But you could get addicted to that, so it's like every now and then I'm always, like, on a weekend I'm like, girl, you don't need to, like, read 40 sutras this weekend. You can just be an idiot, just be an idiot, you know? Douglas: Yeah. Just give the brain a little break. Go on a nature bath. Sunni: Yeah! You know, I told you I’m going to install my hillbilly hot tub. Is that okay to s—? You got—I know. I want— Douglas: My sauna’s getting installed right as we speak. Sunni: Oh, dude. That’s amazing.  Douglas: It’s important.  Sunni: It is.  Douglas: Yeah. As you were talking about this, some metaphors were coming up for me, around we're taking people through this risky kind of thing, and there is risk that you're taking. And it reminded me of rapids, right?  Sunni: Yeah.  Douglas: So whitewater rafting. And you always hire the guide so that you don't go kill yourself.  Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: Facilitation’s like the mental equivalent of the whitewater-rafting guy.  Sunni: Yeah, yeah. Douglas: If we're going to go on this risky mental journey, let’s make sure we have a shepherd or that guide to make sure that—we're going to wear helmets, of course, but we're going to make sure that we don't bash our heads on the rocks even if we have helmets on. Sunni: Well, and that’s why the facilitator is so important, because they have to trust you completely. And I don't mean they have to, meaning you can't conduct a meeting, but for a successful experience, they really need to trust you. And you, the way that I think about it, is that I demonstrate how I want them to be. So if something goes wrong, I will name that and own that, you know? If I don't have the answer to something, I will not pretend that I do. If I want somebody to collaborate with me, then I will invite them to come and collaborate with me, and then mimic that in their group. So it makes you more human in some ways if you're—I mean, there's every kind of facilitator under the sun, so it’s not like there's some gold standard or whatever. That's just my style, is I want them to understand that perfection is not what we're up to. We’re up to being humans. And so— Douglas: I think that’s authenticity, right there. Sunni: Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. But I could be being, like, what if I had an inner—because I have an inner perfectionist. I'm actually working with this part of me that is authentically perfectionistic, you know?  Douglas: Well, I meant the vulnerability you're talking about. Like, if you don't know the answer— Sunni: Yeah, let’s just name it. Douglas: —we’re going to talk about it. Sunni: Yeah. And I've been making so many bloopers. Douglas, you would not believe the bloopers on the United Nations project, because I'm learning as I go. And I told you that. It’s like we're leaping, and we're building our parachute while we’re falling. And the client’s not that aware of it. That is an internal awareness that Jessie and I both have. But for me, it's like, oh, my god—it's like I'm back to being a newbie, like, the stuff I do. Like, the other day, I just flung everyone into breakout rooms, just because I impulsively pushed the fucking button. It was like, what do you do? And then— Douglas: Well, that’s the world we’re in.  Sunni: I know. It’s so crazy. Douglas: It's going to happen, even—I've run the breakout rooms in Zoom daily— Sunni: Yeah, I bet. Douglas: —and I still hit things accidentally. And that’s partially because—here’s the thing. I don’t know if you've seen the book, The Design of Everyday Things.  Sunni: Uh-uh. Douglas: Oh, man. It's a classic design book. So great. Sunni: I know. I’ve heard of it. I don’t have it, though. Douglas: In fact, the doors that are poorly designed are actually named Norman Doors, after the author. Sunni: Aw. Douglas: Well, because he points out, don’t blame yourself because the door is poorly designed. Sunni: Right. Douglas: If there is a giant—like, you ever gone up to a door that has a giant handle on it? Sunni: Uh-huh. Douglas: And you’re supposed to just grab the handle and pull it toward you? Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: And you pull it, and then it doesn’t move because you’re supposed to push it? Sunni: Push it. Douglas: So on the push side, there needs to be a push plate, and on the pull side, there needs to be a pull handle. Sunni: Right. Like, you’re not the dope here. Douglas: Yeah. Exactly. You’re not the dope. He said, never blame yourself for bad design if someone designed it poorly. And so that's what everyone does. Like, my mom always tells me, I don't understand computers. I’m like, well, that means they didn’t design it so that you could understand it. Sunni: Aww, that’s very nice of you to say that. Because it does make people feel stupid when they can’t do things. Douglas: Yes. People always say they’re stupid when it’s like, man, someone did a poor job of getting you there. Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: And I think Zoom breakout rooms have a lot of room for growth. Sunni: Yeah. And I think they're working on that, and I know they're making new features and changes to how it— Douglas: Yeah. Sunni: Like, they just did the Gallery View. You can shuffle it around. Douglas: That’s right. Sunni: That's another thing, too, though. It's like all these new things constantly coming, so there's capabilities you don’t even know you have, and then there's some that fall off. So it's just a constantly changing environment. And so I've just made mistakes left and right, and then I remember what it's like to be a beginner. And thankfully, I have this foundational practice and that confidence about facilitating and making mistakes and just knowing that it's okay. But if I were a beginning facilitator, it would be so stressful. It’d be super stressful to try to step in. Douglas: Absolutely. And the thing is, you just found—in a way it's almost like fracking—you hit the depths of what's possible. You would become an expert in facilitation. And then this new fissure opened up because of remote, and now there is a new area to play in and a new area to fail in. But at the same time, you weren't building a parachute while falling. You know what I mean? You were in the squirrel suit, already at terminal velocity— Sunni: I was already in my gear. Douglas: And as you’re floating down, you’re like, “Oh, let me assemble a parachute, because then I’m going to float down even slower.” Sunni: That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. Douglas: So I think there’s something beautiful in that, right, because you can lean on the experience you have to then go into new, uncharted territory. Sunni: Yes. Douglas: And that uncertainty, while it’s scary, also leads to a lot of opportunity. Sunni: Totally. And that's why I love facilitating with expert facilitators, because we all know that. A lot of the stuff, a lot of the terrors and the weird delusions and the distorted ideas you have about the practice when you first go are gone. They're just burnt off by experience. And then, so, it's just, there's a lot of joy for me, because I online I always have a co-facilitator if it's longer than, like, an hour and a half. You know what I mean? And I love trusting the capacity of that person, because it's crazy, because the other day, Jessie and I were like, I could tell she was looking for something in the back end of Zoom, and I could see from her body language that she had no clue where it was. And so I just started talking. I was like, “Here's why we're doing this, and this is the value of it. And I ask the people questions.” And I was just doing it to fill in the gaps so that she could—because I looked at her again. I was like, “Okay, she found it,” and now I'm going to close. But that's like a tango that we have because we work together so often. But it's just, it’s very sweet. It's a very sweet process to have. Douglas: What you're describing is so much harder in the virtual space, too, because of the signals we have. When we're in the room together— Sunni: Totally. Douglas: —and vibing, whether it's Daniel or John or Eli or any of the facilitators I’ve facilitated with quite often, it's like you can feel it almost in the air. Like, we don’t even have to make eye contact necessarily. It's just like, “Oh, I know they're still riffing.” And then, you know, it's almost like when you can tell someone's looking at you. So when they're done looking at you and ready, like, better if you just got the— So I feel like what you were doing is a pro move to be tearing through the tools and trying to revisit the vague signals we do have in virtual. Sunni: Yeah. It's so funny you're talking about this because Jessie and I were talking about this this morning. When you're asking about my origin story, so part of my early conditioning had to do with hyper vigilance. So I was very aware of what emotional state people were in and what their next move was likely to be. So I'm really attentive to body language. And that, for me, is still very available in Zoom. I mean, I can tell—and Jessie was making fun of me this morning. She was like, “Oh, my god, girl. You name people that they have a question before they have even unmuted themselves or even know they have a question.” But it's because I'm watching their body language. When people are about to ask a question, they do things. They move forward. They lean toward the camera. They kind of, like, gesture in these bizarre ways. Sometimes they stop and start. And so for me, that visual and gestural information is still there. So I’d just be like, “Hey, Frank, it seems like you want to say something.” And then Jessie was just like—she was making fun of me, because she was like, “That is so weird that you—” but I’m so sensitive to it, you know? And I thought that was normal, but then I realized, oh, yeah, no, that's my trauma. Basically, that’s the gift of trauma. Douglas: You know, that was one of the things that really jumped out to me when you were telling me about internal family systems and giving me the whole low-down there, and I found it really fascinating that things that were previously traumatic or these—I can't remember the Internal Family Systems parlance—but these guards, these managers, that were created because of old wounds are part of yourself. And they can be, they can sometimes be disruptive, but they can also serve a function. They can give you superpowers that other people don't have. Sunni: Yeah, they do. Absolutely. They’re 100 percent really powerful. And that’s one of mine is I have a manager who's very watchful, and so it is a super power. Now, the problem is I can't turn it off. So, like, if I’m, for example, in mediating between my husband and his mom, it will kind of be exhausting for me because I know that they're going to have an argument 10 minutes before they do, because I can see where the tones are changing and what the language, how the language is changing. I can see them turning, body language turning away from each other. I can see a color of their skin gets redder and redder. But they're not, like you were saying, people are not aware of what's happening internally to them. So they're not yet aware. So for both of them, the energy, the intensity has to be a certain threshold before they even notice. But for me, I notice it way early. And it's exhausting because I'll just be like, “Dudes. I'm going to walk out now. Five, four, three, two. Okay, your mom's pissed.” It’s funny. But as a facilitator, it's really useful. It's a really useful skill, and I'm grateful for the spontaneous—like, going back to IFS, the spontaneous creation of these skill sets based on—and it’s not always from trauma. It’s just from navigating life, you know? But there is a spontaneous creativity that the body and the mind does to meet whatever circumstances are there. And that's why I have such gratitude for how wise and skillful all of our systems are. So even if a person is “difficult,” I respect that there's some aspect of what they're doing that is a protective function and that that's quite healthy for their system. So I just have a deeper, a kind of an abiding appreciation for malfunctions and for strategies that people have, because I'm like, dude, I am the same way. We're designed the same way. I get it, you know? And I just respect it. Douglas: Yeah. It's amazing to see what strategies other people use and which ones that we can authentically borrow versus things that maybe I don't want to touch that. Maybe that's not such a good tool for me. Sunni: Yeah. I wonder how many you can borrow, because there are qualities that other people have that I wish that I had. And I kind of admire that they have them, but I don't personally have them myself. Like, what example? Douglas: From an internal family systems, I doubt there's much borrowing we can do unless we do some deep, long work. I was thinking more from the surface level of, that's an interesting strategy. Ooh, I like the way that they're asking folks to… Who haven't we heard from next? I think there’s a lot of fun little prompts and questions and things that we can borrow from folks. But it's critical that we do it authentically. If it doesn't feel comfortable in your belly when you're saying it, maybe leave that one at home. Sunni: Right. Aww, I know. It's so insightful what you're saying about you can't really borrow them, because I always think about coaches and coaching and why would that work in terms of if you're trying to say, like, if somebody hires a coach to be more assertive, it's like, well, you could hack it. You could put on an assertive demeanor. But it wouldn't really be born of your essence. You wouldn't really be the source of it. So I always think it's interesting, the methods that coaches use to attempt to get great things from people. For me, it has to be natural for them. So you just want to unlock their natural strength. Douglas: I like that word natural. I think that's very similar to how I think about authentic, is of being natural.  I want to talk about the coaching thing for a second, though. You know, I think part of it is people not taking a robust definition of greatness. They've found some thing that they think is greatness, and then they're glommed onto it, and they're like, teach me how to… I think you were talking about, like, being more confident or whatnot. But what if people more generally said, “I just want to improve. And what does that mean to improve? And let's explore things more openly.” I think that kind of coaching can be really, really interesting, right? Let's see how I can explore where my strengths create weakness. In some of the coaching work I've done, it's about how I figure out what I'm not good at, and then is it something that I can improve on? And if not, if it's truly a deep-seeded weakness, let's delegate that. But let's let that be a part of my self-awareness. Coaching should be about becoming more self-aware. Sunni: That's right. And unburdening some of the parts of you, because you already have this constellation internally that is very capable, and you and me and everyone we know. But some of it is burdened. And so it has intense emotional charge that hasn't been released or it has belief systems that are old and archaic and need to be discarded. But then once they're unburdened, the energy and the natural expression of that aspect of you is just available, which is crazy because that's what Zen practice is all about too. Zen practice, there's the metaphor they use is like wiping dust from a mirror. So your mirror is already there. You can't change that. It's just who you are. It's part of the natural emergence of an incarnated being, is that you're like a reflection of the universe. And it just has dust on it. So the practice is about getting some of the dust off.  There was a big reversal of the way I grew up, which was, like, oh, you're born in sin. And I was like, wait. So I'm just fundamentally fucked up? I was like, oh, I can't relate to that. But people do, you know? And so I think the approach of assuming beauty in the person and then just helping them release some of their inherent capacity is just a really benevolent way to approach coaching. But it's not that common. Douglas: Sunni, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you today. And just want to give you a chance to kind of close out, leave anyone with any final thoughts. Or I know that we've probably got a lot of folks that are really interested in how they can find out more about your work and what you do. So anything they should keep in mind? Sunni: Well, I was thinking about your audience. They’re mostly facilitators, right? They’re people who are interested in that practice? Douglas: Yeah. Our listeners are facilitators as well as leaders that are interested in these techniques and how they can improve their meetings and their employee experience. I think, generally, the audience are growing into just a general appreciation of how meetings could be better. Sunni: Yeah. You're so good at what you do. If people are interested in a lot—I mean, you and I covered so many great topics that I'm like, “Oh, is our time up? It's so sad.” But deepselfdesign.com has some good resources on it. And my other business that is the original venture is sunnibrownink.com. Those are both resources. And you can find me all over the Internet. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com][PS: Apologies for the poor audio. We are working on a fix]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 35!01:40 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]01:55 - Review: On The Rocks04:00 - Review: The Witches07:20 - Review: American Murder - The Family Next-Door11:35 - Review: Call My Agent16:50 - Review: Watch Dogs Legion21:21 - Watch Dogs Legion PR Drop Short22:20 - Revisiting Super Mario… because Porn23:30 - UNBOXING THE XBOX SERIES X26:45 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]27:00 - Just the darn recipe!30:00 - Leave the leaves alone!32:50  - Brain Control41:35  - The End can Die46:30 - NSFW [START]47:00 - Authentic Penis Size56:30 - Porn proves people cannot spell59:45 - Browsers & Safety01:03:00 - Super Mario Porn01:09:47 - NSFW [END]01:10:00 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 37!02:00 - WE CANNOT CONFIRM OR DENY YOUR STATEMENTS02:45 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]02:50 - Review: La Revolution (S01)09:00 - We still can’t say much else…09:40 - Preview: Razer Blade 1510:40 - Reviewer Insight: Not as glamorous as it seems14:00 - Future content & more teasing14:45 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]14:50 - A cure for Tinnitus?20:30 - Frog sounds around the world24:30 - WAIST-ED!29:25 - 35 is peak brain36:30 - United States of Placebo44:20 - Devil Spock48:00 - Travel through time with Merriam-Webster53:40 - SIKE54:00 - Viggo the Polyglott57:20 - NSFW [START]57:35 - The  many different kinds of Penises01:05:45 - Smaller is actually better01:13:00 - Even more Penis Facts01:20:40 - Penis Break01:20:48 - Back to Penis Facts01:26:30 - NSFW [END]01:26:45 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

“I can readily admit that I have been scared to break the firewall between where I stand socially and politically in my private life, with my friends and family and stuff, and this sort of professional, polished persona that I've had, that I've built my livelihood on. And one of the really significant things that is different for me personally about the latest sort of, like, unprecedented wave of national interest in supporting black lives and being anti-racist is that I, among many others of my colleagues, have really started to knock down those walls and be much more public and much more vocal.”    In these week’s episode of the Control the Room podcast, I am so excited to speak with Startup Patterns Founder Sam McAfee. Sam is a Silicon Valley veteran of 20 years and has worked with companies such as Adobe, Teach for America, and PG&E. Sam and I speak about how a Craigslist posting launched his tech career, how the internet changed the way companies are shaped, and how he is working to be a better ally to people of color in his professional communities. Listen in to find out how he is tearing down the firewall between his personal values and professional persona.   Show Highlights [2:35] A Craigslist resume & the beginning of Sam’s career in tech [8:14] Startup Patterns: Sam’s first book [12:14] How the internet changed the way companies are shaped [19:30] Building the next generation of leaders [24:35] The critical role of purpose in change processes [31:55] Time & space for reflection [41:05] Being a good ally & anti-racism policies   Links | Resources Sam on LinkedIn Startup Patterns   About the Guest Sam is the founder of Startup Patterns, a company that helps organizations build and scale new digital products, find product-market fits, improve software development processes, and master teamwork while scaling. He has worked in Silicon Valley for 20 years; some of the companies he has worked with include Adobe, Teach for America, and PG&E. A community activist, he is committed to making the world a better place to live.   About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I have Sam McAfee, founder of Startup Patterns, where he helps companies build and scale digital products, and recently has been helping teams through leadership development. Welcome to the show, Sam.  Sam: Thanks, Doug. Great to be here.  Douglas: Absolutely. So I'd like you to start off with a little bit about Sam and how you got to where you are today.  Sam: Sure. So, yeah, it's a fairly circuitous route, but, basically, I grew up on the East coast of the U.S. and came from a fairly social activist kind of background. One of my family members and friends were kind of in that scene around the Boston area. And I went to school originally in social sciences and had no idea that I would end up in tech. I did not do C.S. as an undergrad. It wasn't really my plan.  I came out to California after graduating because California seemed like a cool place to do some sort of social-impact work, looking at a lot of the organizing that was going on out here around climate and sort of prison reform and all kinds of other subjects that I was into. And so I came out here and kind of knocked around for a while at the end of the ‘90s, trying to figure out what I was going to do. And all of my friends that I made socially here, they were all engineers, and they were all here for the dot-com boom that I was sort of only dimly aware of. I was like a starving B.A. graduate trying to find a job with nonprofits and stuff like that. And they were all making three times as much as I was, running code for all the crazy startups that were going on here. They were like, “Hey, Sam, if you just learn a little bit of web programing, you can get a real job, and then it won’t be, like, scrimping and scraping.”  So it was really out of economic necessity that I grudgingly picked up a couple of books on web design and hashed together a couple of toy websites over a weekend. And I put my resumé on Craigslist with HTML under “Skills.” The next morning, I had 50 emails from recruiters. And I'm not really exaggerating. It was that crazy.  So I consider it beneficial that I kind of got sucked into the demand for technical labor that was going on at the time. I had no idea what I was doing at first. As I started out, I was a freelance web developer, picking up contract jobs here and there. But I did learn fast, and I learned on the job. And I'm sort of a book learner, so I bought all the books on full-stack web development, such as it was in those days, and very quickly became a pretty proficient contractor. And I managed somehow to survive the dot-com, initial dot-com, crash.  Gradually, my freelancing work turned into setting up a little agency. So I found that my people skills were good enough that I could talk to clients and customers and get work, be able to translate that layer between the sort of the business and the client and the technology. So there was a comfort level with working with me. So before long, I was bringing in more work than I myself could do. And so I started recruiting some of my friends who were other engineers to work on projects with me. And that just kind of organically grew into an agency that I ran for about 10 years, from 2002 to just the end of 2011, where a lot of changes were taking place. So during that time, technology scene changed a lot. You know, Cloud and mobile and lots of things kind of grew up during that decade. I also went back to graduate school to fill in my C.S. gaps that I was really insecure, that I didn't really have, like, data structures and algorithms and distributed programing and all that stuff. So I did some grad work to fill in those gaps. And, you know, I also consider myself fortunate that by the time I was putting a team together to work on projects and had to look up on the Internet, “How does one organize a software project?” that was when Agile was really gaining steam. So I didn't unlearn any previous methodologies. Agile was the thing right from the beginning for me that was the go-to methodology that was really becoming more popular for really good reasons. So I've been kind of steeped in the Agile knowledge base and community, really, since, let's say 2003 or 2004, somewhere around there. And so that for me really was the way that I learned to build projects and the way that I learned to write code, and all the way from the technical practices of test-driven development, etc., etc., to the process approaches.  And so we built really great software in my agency for many, many clients over those years, and one thing that really I noticed a lot was that clients would actually ask me to go out to their team and help them with their process as well. So I ended up sort of farming myself out a little bit as a coach or consultant as well on top of the work that we were doing in-house. Somewhere along the line, I got exposed pretty early on to the lean startup stuff. I had a buddy who had been reading Steve Blank’s book. And this is back when Eric Ries was really just blogging at the time. And that stuff really blew my mind because by that time I’d had enough experiences of building software that nobody really wanted so many times. And granted, we were an agency, so usually it was our client who lost money. We were sort of mercenarial. We still got paid, but it really felt crappy to make stuff that nobody used or wanted. And so I'd had that experience. And so the idea of testing your concept before investing a lot of time in building the code made a lot of sense to me viscerally. So I really got involved with the lean startup kind of community pretty early on, started going to the conferences and meet ups and stuff like that. That stuff really resonated with me.  Eventually, the recession really caught up with us and just kind of slowed business gradually year over year until about 2011 or so. I was pretty burnt out on running my own agency. And so I went off and had a series of adventures as a senior technical person of one sort or another in a couple of different companies in a row. I ran the engineering team at change.org for a while as they were in a period of growth. I was sort of co-founder in a couple of small startups that went the way that startups typically do. I got a chance to work for what was a much more real and polished consulting agency called Neo. A lot of my colleagues these days are sort of alumni from Neo from those days where I sort of learned a lot about how to be a real consultant, how to be kind of polished in front of executives from bigger brands like Adobe and Toyota and places like that, sort of bigger fish than I had been working with myself in my earlier agency. So the Neo days are really great. And then, basically, in 2016, I went back out on my own and had been working ever since. Startup Patterns actually is my book that while I was at Neo, a number of the folks there were writing books, and they formed a little book writers kind of club to keep us going. And I heard about the club, and I’d always wanted to write a book. That was sort of my trigger to start writing the book. And so the book was self-published, and it took me about two years to finish, and it was called Startup Patterns. And so when I went out on my own, the book title seemed as good a brand as any to use as my company name. So that's why the book and the company are named the same thing.  And so I just have been doing my own sort of coaching and consulting since 2016. And whereas I initially started out really focusing on process on coaching teams, either as startups or bigger companies that were doing innovation labs around how to ship digital products quickly, how to do sort of the Agile-delivery stuff, and how to incorporate that successfully into lean startup, build-measure-learn-style customer-development approaches, that gradually shifted about a year and a half ago more and more into leadership stuff, which I think we'll probably end up talking about a bunch more, which is that no matter how good these teams got with coaching, when you're trying to really be successful in building digital products, the barriers that I kept running into as a coach and as a consultant were in the structure of the organization, in particular the leadership, and whether the leadership of the organization, whether that's middle management or the senior executives, really support the kind of transformation and change that is required for an organization to fully embrace digital and fully embrace Agile leadership was constantly the barrier there. And so I just got more and more interested in putting my attention on, why is it so hard for these organizations to change? And so since then, I've pretty much been focused almost exclusively on working directly with technology managers who are trying to effect change in their organizations and how to kind of become better leaders and all that that entails. So that's what brings me here. Douglas: Excellent. Well, I want to dig in a little bit there on this concept of structure and how that plays a role and kind of stifling change or, like, embracing change, and you mentioned that in passing as you were starting to talk about this new leadership work that you're doing. So I'm curious to hear how structure plays a role specifically and what leaders can do or what they should be thinking about as it relates to the structure. Sam: Yeah, absolutely. The structure of the organization is really important. So when you look at—just kind of stick with Agile, but I mean sort of digital-product-development methodologies broadly, but let's kind of hang it on Agile for a bit. There's sort of this notion of the cross-functional, self-organized team that's building software that the customer wants and able to kind of ship things reliably with high quality and sort of business success. And so a lot of—in the early days of Agile, we were talking a lot about, well, if you want a cross-functional team, you have to break down silos. So, like, you've got sort of design in one area. You've got product management in another area. You've got the business units that are sort of the stakeholders. You've got the engineering or developers in sort of a different area. And how you sort of get across that.  And I think what I found is that those silos are very rooted in sort of a legacy of the corporate culture in most organizations. So you can kind of draw a line at where the Internet becoming a big thing, where companies are sort of digitally native, that came up after the boom of the Internet—so the late ‘90s, early 2000s—tend to be shaped differently than more traditional, older industrial or consumer or financial companies that have been around for a while that are really only trying to go digital now. And I think what we need to understand is that there's sort of like a couple of major legacy—let's just call it baggage—organizational baggage that's been around since the early days of the 20th century, with Taylorism and Ford, that there's sort of this notion of a very top-down command and control style of organization, where the people at the top are making all the decisions, and the people at the bottom are just doing the stuff that they're told. So clearly, you can't really have a self-organizing team that's embracing agility or trying to move toward agility if they're being told what to do all the time. So there's sort of this conflict between a command-and-control culture and the levels of autonomy that are necessary for a team to be self-organized. And then with the cross-functional stuff, what you end up having is I.T., as we think of it in generic corporate terms, really grew up out of the finance department. Like, we started using computers in corporations because we needed to crunch numbers. So software development emerging necessarily out of an I.T. function, that is really different from a tech company that was sort of natively starting with a cross-functional team as a startup and sort of grows from there. You know, now with startups, you do have to fight against the sort of silos that grow organically. But I think for big companies that have been around for a while, that are struggling through transformation, what is happening is just the whole structure of the company has to change. And that's really scary for people who have been in an organization for a long time, you know, run a particular department, a lot of their identity is wrapped around, “Well, all these people report to me. I'm the V.P. of whatever it is. So my sense of self and my value as a person in this company is based on my authority, that people will do what I say, and that I have this big department of people that report to me.” And so we really have to unlearn that stuff if we want to build an organization that's more flexible, that's more resilient, and that can adapt to change in the way that a digital or agile or lean sort of transformation would require. Douglas: What are some of the signs that you might see that an organization is not autonomous enough, or they might be trying to make some of these changes, but they're just not successful? Sam: There's an interesting set of patterns that I do see. One in particular springs to mind as you ask the question, which is that even in organizations where—so there’s sort of like two things that can happen, I think. One is the organization doesn't really want to change from being top-down command-and-control style but still wants the Agile teams to deliver or wants the product teams to build the right thing. And so you've got a culture where the folks on the ground who are doing the work are used to being order takers. Like, there's a big difference between being a sort of short-order cook and being a chef. Like, being someone who is just sort of following instructions, you get one style of work coming out of that. And folks who are making a lot of decisions on their own and being more collaborative, you get a different result.  And then, also, I think you have times where the leadership team maybe suddenly becomes enlightened. I don't know if they read a book about autonomy on the airplane ride back from wherever, and they decide, like, “Okay, we have to announce that we're going to do all these new innovative things.” And so, you know, I've seen it where the top leadership says, “Okay, everybody, we're taking off the shackles. You're all now free to innovate. Please go forth and innovate.” And what you have is an organization full of people who just yesterday were being shouted at and told what to do and are now suddenly being told that they need to be free, independent thinkers. And it's a really abrupt shift in the culture. And so that shifting to an autonomous kind of organization takes time and patience and requires a lot of support and a lot of, what would you call maybe, baby steps. Like, small wins and gradual sort of earning of trust. You can't just sort of like throw everybody free and expect them to know how to operate collaboratively when they're used to being told what to do for years on end. So I think that creates a lot of challenges.  By the time I get there, it's usually because things are broken or something's on fire. So, like, a lot of time—and I'm sure I'm not the only consultant that feels that way. You know, it's like often it can be a rescue job. But what has often happened is that somebody’s made the decision to go sort of go Agile, if you will, and they got some shiny consulting company to come in and give them a diagram of how you do it. They try it for a year or two. It doesn't really work. It doesn't really stick. Things are broken and on fire. And then, I show up and I look around, and I realize that it's really because there's not the shift in values from top to bottom in the culture. There's not a shift to—it's like we want the fruits of autonomy, but we don't necessarily want people to really have say over their work. And that just creates a lot of froth and friction. And then people say like, “Oh, well, we tried Agile, and it didn't work.” Douglas: Let's talk a little bit about the shift of values. And so what does it look like when it's done correctly? And I imagine it's somewhat driven around the fact, the notion, that, well, as a leader, this notion of, well, what is my responsibility as a leader now? What does it mean to even be a leader in this new world? And also, I'm on the hook for making sure that the numbers come out correctly in this quarterly report and that we meet expectations for shareholders, etc. And so how do we balance giving over control with being responsible for outcomes? I'm pretty sure that aligns with what you're talking about around this, like, the shared values not being met. So just kind of curious to understand that more. Sam: Yeah. I think that's really important. If you look at where the leadership literature is going these days, like if you did a search for top leadership books in the last 10 years or so, there's a really consistent pattern, and that pattern to me is a focus on relinquishing control of all the decisions and focusing instead on the leader acting as a coach to grow other leaders. So, like, the real hallmark of a good leader is that they can build the next generation of leaders below them to take their place, that they're focused on succession, they delegate well, and they help solve problems without directing and without micromanaging, but giving people room to grow. So we can actually connect it directly to say Carol Dweck's Mindsets, this concept of a growth or fixed mindset in an individual extends for sure to the organization and its culture as a whole.  So I think when it's done well, people are approaching coaching teams and coaching new leaders that are emerging with really a growth mindset and with a focus on having some space to experiment and some safe-to-fail constraints. So you can draw a line around these experiments. You don't want to make them too big that, as you said, you're in danger of missing your numbers. So, like, we're talking primarily about businesses here that have to ship products and make customers happy and increase their market share and post earnings and post profits.  And so there's always going to be that pressure to perform economically. I think that where the old style of leadership is falling away is that the world has become so complex and even the internal aspects of companies have become so complex that you can't be directive and prescriptive in the way that you can if you're sort of running a more traditional brick-and-mortar, manufacturing organization. In the world of digital in particular—frankly, let's face it. All companies are basically going to have to be digital now—the complexity is massive, and workers are doing work that's much more creative and knowledge work than moving widgets around, and so that kind of work has to be more emergent and collaborative. It's a team sport, especially in design and product development. And so you can't lead that kind of effort with commands. It has to be more like coaching.  Frankly, I use a lot of parenting metaphors. When you think about what you do with your kids, I definitely had experiences myself with, my son’s trying to learn how to tie his shoes or something, and I'm sitting there, having to bite my tongue and not just reach over his shoulder, like, “No, give me that. Here's how you do it.” It takes a lot of patience for a leader to sit back and watch the people that report to them struggle. But if they don't struggle, they're not going to learn. So that's sort of where this growth-mindset stuff is really critical. Douglas: So, let's go back to some of these baby steps. You talked about it being an anti-pattern to just read the book and to come in and say, “We're going to go autonomous. There's a new way of working, and we need to adapt or we're going to fail.” So what are some of the things that folks can do to get started, and how do they move more intentionally? And I know you get pulled in a lot to kind of fix the fires, but how can they avoid the fires in the first place? How could they do this more intentionally? Sam: I think that it requires really acknowledging where you are, right? So it's critical to take stock of the current state, and that's the current state of, like, really, for me, that's typically three big pillars in my head of the technology, the process, and the people, the culture, the sort of communication styles and values, and really understanding what the current state is and having some idea of, if we're in a place that has rigid process and a culture of fear or toxicity or even just kind of like polite, passive aggressivity, which I actually see more often than anything else, and we have technology that's legacy and hard to change and brittle and antiquated, it’s really going to be dangerous to just dive in and try to change all of those things wholesale all at once. And so we can have a vision, we have to have a vision, for what we want our organization ultimately look like, or at least what we want it to feel like to work there. And I think that's actually a really important distinction. You know, people focus a lot in tech on sort of the left brain. They’re like, let's draw a diagram, and let's have maps and charts and spreadsheets.  But I think there's a lot to be said about getting in touch with how we want to feel as a team. Like, what does it actually feel like to come into work every day? Are these people we want to work with? Is this work we want to do? Is there meaning and purpose to what we're trying to accomplish? Are we committed to being in this organization, given its stated mission and values? So I think they, like, having some vision of what the future looks like is really critical for any kind of change process.  And then I think that we have to really only bite off as much as we can chew. Like, this is something, I'm almost saying this to myself because this was a hard lesson for me to learn even as a coach or consultant, where like, look, man, I live in Silicon Valley, and I've been in startups a lot of my career, and I've seen what a small cross-functional team of super smart, fast, flexible people can do in the marketplace. Going from a big old-fashioned organization to that sort of sexy-startup-looking organization is not an overnight thing. And I think I, maybe when I was first doing this work, was really impatient with my clients. I'm sort of like, “Look, I'll tell you how it's done, and I'll show you what good looks like. Let's just go, go, go.” And it's been a process for me to learn how to actually be really patient as well, that it's going to be a long road, it’s going to be very challenging, and all of those little steps are meaningful along the way.  So if you have a manager, for example, like an engineering manager who's got a bunch of engineers that report to them, and they're trying to work with those people, just getting that engineering manager to think about and embrace their own fears and hopes and dreams and aspirations and think about what kind of leader do they want to be and just having them learn how to, okay, so you're going to have a one on one with your people. How do you make that one on one structured so that the person who reports to you is getting the most value out of it as possible and growing as an employee? So talking to an engineering manager who’s a client of mine for an hour about how to have a good one on one and how to start that process seems like a small thing to do in the context of a huge organization, but it's incredibly meaningful, and it's incredibly impactful. And now I've changed the way that engineering manager is thinking about leading their people forever, you know? It's like they'll never look at a one on one the same way. They'll always have a different, more valuable set of conversation.  So for me, that's an example of a baby step, because really, like when we're in an organization, organizations are made of people, and people interact through conversations. And so you can think about like, oh, we're going to change the process or we're going to import this new shiny technology or we're going to make org-chart changes. But really what happens is organizations, as they're more fluid and they're more like squishy tribes or villages where the real work happens often one on one or in small groups of people having real conversations with each other and making decisions about what they believe is true and what they believe is not true and what they're willing to commit to in terms of change. Douglas: Yeah. I once heard this quote that goes along the lines of, if there's more truth in the hallways than there is in meetings, and it kind of comes back to the point you were just making and- Sam: Oh, for sure. Douglas: I'm always curious to hear from folks, if you could change one thing about meetings, what would you change? Sam: Oh, man. Boy, I think that—so with a little context, there is a lot of anti-meeting sentiment in my field, in tech, and I think it's misplaced, and I think it's probably because people just had a lot of bad meetings. I actually really enjoy bringing a small group of people together to have a conversation. That is typically what we might term a meeting. So I think the concept of having group conversations of some sort or another, there's nothing wrong with that. I think that, you know, where it runs all crazy is when, like, people are there that don't even need to be there. It's not clear why we’re there. You know, somebody thinks it's a discussion, and someone else thinks it's a one way update of information.  So I think that it’s really hard to pick one thing, but I think that if everyone who came to a meeting decided when they were showing up that they were going to be totally honest and authentic and transparent in their communication at that meeting, like, just, say what is on your mind, if people could be really real in those conversations, it sure would change the tone of a lot of meetings. You know, because I think the opposite is what we're used to, which is everybody's kind of not sure if they should speak up. Maybe they're sort of issuing platitudes. Maybe they're kind of speaking out of one side of their mouth. Like, if all that stuff—that could all go away if everyone's like, “I'm just going to say 100 percent of what I believe 100 percent of the time. And then we'll negotiate the rest,” meetings would be a lot more—I mean, some of those conversations would be tougher, but we have better outcomes at the end of the day. Douglas: That's right. And I think that's very, very possible, when you take a facilitator approach when you think about, like, never starting without a clear purpose, and being really intentional about how you structure the meeting, and you hold space for people to behave those ways. I think it's all possible. And it makes me think about the point you made earlier about in order to identify or prescribe those baby steps that are necessary, we have to take a close look at our current state and just get honest about where we are. I think that is an opportunity for starting the work that needs to be done. So if we're going to be more collaborative, more autonomous, why not create a collaborative group to do this current-state analysis? Let's launch off with these behaviors that we want to model and start doing them organically and build from there, and then the output of that yields more opportunity. It's almost like the kata in a way, right? Like, we're going to take a small incremental step, and then it builds on the next one and builds on the next one.  Sam: I think piggybacking off of that reminds me that one of the things that's really missing in a lot of organizations is time and space for reflection. Whether it's collective or individual, I think that you can't really be aware of your current state unless you can sort of slow down, put the tools down for a minute, and look around and have some reflection time. And as an individual, I know that certainly the people that I coach, the number one problem that most of them have is that they don't have time or they don't demand time—they don't take enough time. Let's put it that way—in their schedules for reflection. All the leadership books are like, leaders got to take an hour and block off their calendar and sit and stare at a blank piece of paper or go for a walk or whatever just to let the brain catch up with what's been going on. Like, the neuroscience is well established. Reflection is critical. So is rest, you know?  And so I find that as individuals, we’re so rushing through the rat race, that is our economies all the time and under so much pressure to perform and give in and show up, that taking a little reflection for yourself, it feels selfish, it feels irresponsible, and it's completely the opposite. It's critical. You know, that phrase, like, look, when you're on the airplane, they say put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others. Like, that's a good metaphor for thinking about leaders needing to take some time, really anyone, but certainly folks who are in a leadership position, to look back at how we're doing and also for the organization itself, kind of back more specifically to your point, having group or organizational reflection time. I think that if we want to enact change, we need to be able to stop sawing—to take a page from Stephen Covey—and sharpen the saw a little bit. That requires a slow down and reflect. So I think if we were to build that into our company cultures and our values more explicitly, I think it would have a huge impact, a positive impact. Douglas: Yeah. You know, it definitely resonates with me. We often think a lot about even moments of reflection, debrief, when we’re designing meetings and workshops, because that's the moment where people integrate. Like, if we just teach, teach, teach, teach and cram stuff in, well, that's just horrible anyway, but there's no moment for them to really integrate what they've learned. So ideally, there's a lot of practice. They're going to hands on and doing things. But then we want to have them take a step back and go, “What does this mean? How do we make sense of all this?” and then translate it in, into the work at hand. And so I think not only when it's about picking up new skills or coming together on a challenge or some sort of opportunity, it can be everyday work, but taking a chance to reflect. I think for a lot of us, the drive home or the subway ride home after work was that moment where we could do that, and now we don't have that affordance, and so being, especially in this time of the pandemic, let's be intentional about these reflection times and moments.  Sam: Yeah. That's created a lot of pressure on people, I think. It's interesting to look at the required remote work that we're all doing. I mean, I definitely, like, I have an economics background, like a political-economy background. And so I remember back in the day, a lot of people really being worried about, oh, your work is bleeding over into your personal time. The boss is able to call you at night or send you an email, and we all got our smartphones. And so the line between work and life outside of work is really blurry. And actually, I think that there's a huge risk, despite a lot of probably warranted cheerleading about how cool remote work can be and that people are learning how to be distributed teams, and I think a lot of that can be great, and it's really great for the business to not have as much pressure on maintaining an office space like they used to. But for the individual folks doing the work, do they actually feel like they can turn the machine off and have their own lives? And so I do worry about that blurry line, I guess, where we sort of, the diplomatic way to talk about it in Silicon Valley would be work-life balance. There are other more sharp ways of saying that.  But I think that's really important that when you think about reflection time, the conversations in the hallways rather than the meetings, or often at conferences, it used to be that you go to all these talks, and it’d be really interesting one-way communication, but the real cool stuff would be at lunch or outside or on walks or in the hallways between sessions. That's people talking to each other and processing what they just learned and figuring out how to integrate it, as you said. And that integration is really critical, and so if we were actually able to build reflection time more intentionally into our workflows, in our process, and our company culture, that would, I think, soak up a lot of that need that people have to chat with each other and process and have that moment of reflection, that sharpening the saw that we all need to do both as individuals and as organizations.  Douglas: Yeah, I think it's interesting, this notion of not only reserving the personal time, but accounting for and reserving time for the group to do it so that there can be a group synthesis. It reminds me of the Agile retrospective. I think if you really get down to the principles behind it and why we do it, I think there is very much one and the same with what we're talking about right now. I think the problem that I see that’s super pervasive and pathological, really, is that people use the retrospective as a way to just address problems that have arisen, and they don't actually do it on a frequent-enough basis to where they are celebrating the wins, integrating the wins, realizing when they slip through by the skin of their teeth and being able to make incremental change. That's one of the things I can easily get on a soapbox about. When I’m working with teams, it’s like, man, you got to do this frequently, and it can't be just a tool that you pull out when something goes wrong.  Sam: Yeah, absolutely. And it can be a forum for a lot of blame and shame, too, like, whether it's explicit or just kind of under the covers, the idea of not taking responsibility ourselves for what we want to do better or want to make better. And I think there's a lot of pressure on a facilitator for sure, retros probably more than anywhere, except maybe like an actual conflict resolution, that facilitator to make sure that people are learning how to listen as much as they're learning how to express. And I think that's a big thing we're also missing in corporate culture.  I make it a big part of the sort of the curriculum and coaching work that I do in leadership is around empathy and learning how to listen and learning how to listen in a way where it's not just waiting for the other person to finish talking, but actually trying to put yourself in their shoes and hang on their every word and really integrate what's being said, like, really build some empathy there. That's real listening. And so I think the onus is on us, as coaches and consultants and facilitators, to teach people in our organizations how to do that. You know, that's something that doesn't come out of management school, doesn't come out of technical school, barely comes out of social sciences, if at all.  Douglas: That's a nice segue because I was going to mention we've had discussions over the past few weeks just about the social unrest in America and how we play our part in breaking the silence and not being complicit and trying to be anti-racist as much as possible. And I remember in those discussions, whether at—various books came up, and you make comments about, “Oh, I read this in school.” And so it makes so much sense now that you studied social sciences and were really focused on kind of social justice, social-good-type work before you got into tech. And so I just wanted to touch on this because I know that we've both been grappling this and figuring out how to engage in anti-racist policies and just bring that into the work we do, port it, and just be good allies. I'm just wondering what you’ve found to be successful and what you might have to offer others that are listening and are just looking to add to their toolkit. Sam: Yeah, yeah, definitely something that's really important to me. I mean, I think that my perspective has really shifted over time but also in these last few weeks. I read a lot. In college, I studied social sciences. I read a lot about social issues like racism and sexism and other isms in school. And I think that when I got into the tech scene in my mid 20s, I was doing organizing and stuff when I first came out to California. I was kind of a rabid activist, if you will. And when I got into the tech scene, I think that a transformation happened where I erected a firewall between my personal and political and social values and my professional persona. And so for many years, and I've been in tech for 20 years, so let's just say for 20 years, I've experimented with ways of getting involved in merging sort of social-impact stuff with tech. Working at change.org was one way. There were a couple of other examples of sort of trying to figure out a way to bridge those two worlds.  But I really know that I stand on a mountain of privilege, right? So, like, I'm a white guy. I'm hetero. I’m in tech. I work for myself. Like, you could just pile it on, right? And I think that what this latest wave of organizing, you know, and I don't even really necessarily like the term social unrest so much. I think it's sort of maybe accidentally demonizes what is a long tradition of grassroots organizing to change things in this country, whether it's the civil-rights movement or the anti-war movements or the labor movement. I mean, there’s a rich tradition of people coming together across many social lines to change things in the conscious. Really, ideally, I mean, really, that's the only way change has really happened for real.  And so for me, I think that what I've been really grappling with the last several years as there's been increasing polarization in the country, is how do I leverage my privilege and my platform to weigh in on the conversation. And I think that I can readily admit that I have been scared to break the firewall between where I stand socially and politically in my private life, with my friends and family and stuff, and this sort of professional, polished persona that I've had, that I've built my livelihood on. And one of the really significant things that is different for me personally about the latest sort of, like, unprecedented wave of national interest in supporting black lives and being anti-racist is that I, among many others of my colleagues, have really started to knock down those walls and be much more public and much more vocal.  And so I've been trying to do that, and I've been trying to be fairly deliberative and careful about how I do it. One of the things, I think—I’ve never seen so many people in my professional circles grappling with, how do we as white people support movement for black lives? You know, how do we be good allies? And people are really trying to learn, really trying to be sensitive, knowing that it's uncomfortable and making a lot of mistakes. And I've been really impressed, to be honest, with how much the folks that I spend my time with are embracing the challenge of fighting against racism as white people who, let's face it, it's our problem. It's our responsibility, and we benefit from it, and to sort of say, “Look, we're not going to do it right. It's going to be hard. Not to guilt, shame, embarrassment, all that stuff. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to put your foot in your mouth. You’re going to have—people are going to criticize you no matter what you do.” And that's part of the process. That just has to be okay.  And so I think the big shift for me internally is I'm not scared anymore. I don't really care anymore. This is—I'm seeing now how important it is for people like me to really say something and take a stand. And I feel like I've got to a point, not just professionally, but in my life, sort of personally, morally, spiritually, whatever you want to say, where I'm going to say the right thing, and I don't care what anybody thinks, you know? And I think that really—I'm fired up. I want to try to contribute in whatever way I can. And I am happy to join up with other people that want to have these difficult discussions and figure it out. I'm a little dismayed in some ways that more folks from the tech community, the innovation community, the sort of Agile groups in the world haven’t readily come out and been more vocal about these sort of social issues. For folks who really purport to be all about data and continuous improvement and a growth mindset, like, the writing is on the wall. It’s right there. Why those folks can choose to be silent, it boggles my mind.  So I'm pretty committed to being out there and being a lot more noisy in support of anti-racism and in support of Black Lives Matter for sure right now, among a number of other social forces that are changing our world right now. So this is a new time, and I’m really embracing it. Douglas: Yeah, absolutely. I think to your point, whether it's intentional, people are afraid of those firewalls, or definitely afraid of dismantling them. And they're put there. And I’ve been talking a lot with folks around this notion of professionalism and what it means to be professional. And I think that we've created this dynamic where it's unsafe to be human. Like, we’re not supposed to bring our emotions. We're not supposed bring “politics.” And sure, we don't want to get in massive debates over who we’re for, etc. But I think caring for our neighbors and making sure that we create a safe environment that's inclusive and supportive of everyone goes beyond politics, and that's just human decency, and I don't see why human decency is unprofessional. And so I'm with you in solidarity on tearing down these firewalls. I've been actively working on it as well.  And, you know, I'd like to say thanks for joining me today. It's been a real pleasure. I'd like to just wrap with any—well, I want to make sure that the listeners know how to find you, and you mentioned your book. And then if there's anything you want to leave us with, a parting message. So how can they find you, and what do you want to leave them with? Sam: Sure. So I'm easy to find. Two different ways. You can search for Startup Patterns, startuppatterns.com. We'll come right up in the search results. That's my site. A big LinkedIn user, Sam McAfee. It’s very easy to find on LinkedIn. I really encourage people to reach out to me there, connect with me. let's have a conversation. So there's just are the two easiest ways to get connected with me.  I think that what I would want to leave people with is this is a time that we are in that is unlike anything the world has ever been through before. And it's there for a number of reasons. The pandemic, for sure, is a giant change. It's sort of incomparable to historical events. The sort of associated economic turmoil that comes with it. And now this major social movement that was a long time in the making, but it's really broken the surface. And I think people are thinking and rethinking how they feel about what we want, what kind of world we want to have in ways that they've never been doing before. And I think for me, the personal is political and the political is personal. So there's a lot of internal and individual transformation work that goes along with changing the world. And I just don't want people to forget that. It's not all about going out there. It's not all about the public conversations, and going and being at the rallies and writing and reading and posting and discussing are really important. There’s also a lot of internal grappling that we all need to do and just know that you're not the only one. And a lot of us are going through this major reckoning with things that we thought we believed or we thought we valued and really thinking about transforming ourselves from the inside. And so that's a lot of what I focus on, the folks that I work with and friends of mine, around, how do we support each other through that very challenging but necessary personal transformation so that we can really build a world that we all really want to live in? Douglas: Awesome. Thank you for being on the show, Sam. It's been a great opportunity to talk with you. And I really enjoy the conversation. Sam: Thanks. Me, too. This has been really great. Thanks for having me.  Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

Useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 36!03:00 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]03:35 - Review: Utopia (US S01)08:20 - Review: Transplant (S01)13:30 - Review: The Boys (S02)18:10 - Review: Haunting of Bly Manor21:00 - Review: Pokemon Sword and Shield24:40 - Preview: Monster Hunter [Movie]26:20 - Hans VS Edward when it comes to reviews29:13 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]29:17 - WHAT SECRETS ARE WE HIDING!30:30 - Make your PDF looked scanned33:35 - Murder Hornets40:00 - Dragonfly: The Ultimate Predator41:47 - Megalodon Digression42:15 - Back to Dragonflies48:20 - Doomed Potato51:30 - REAL-LIFE LIGHTSABER54:00 - Human Micro-Evolution56:30 - NSFW [START]56:50 - Continuing the Micro-Evolution Discussion57:30 - Goodbye Ryan Creamer01:01:00 - Vagina Masks01:06:00 - Hacking Chastity Belts01:13:00 - Sex Toy Security & Smart Devices01:16:30 - Funhaus Digression01:18:20 - Sex Toy Privacy & Apps01:21:25 - NSFW [END]01:21:45 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

“We work with the agencies who are culture driven, meaning that, yes, we can make more money, but we'd rather make a little less money and put culture first, because we understand that it's a marathon, right? Like, we understand that if our employees are happy, it's going to make our situation a lot better.” Kaleem Clarkson This week on the Control the Room Podcast, I’m excited to speak with Kaleem Clarkson, COO and Co-founder of Blend Me, Inc., a consulting firm that cultivates remote employee experiences from onboarding through off-boarding. He has a particular interest in culture-driven organizations. Kaleem is also the COO of RemotelyOne, a members-only community on a mission to end remote work isolation by connecting and building relationships between location-independent professionals. Kaleem and I speak about the different types of remote work, why some companies are struggling to transition to remote work, and why it’s so important for a job posting to accurately represent your organization’s culture. Listen in to find out how Kaleem’s experience as a member of a college metal band led to his career as an employee experience expert.   Show Highlights [2:43] Blind Melon, Slick Rick, & Warped Tour [13:43] The Teleworks Big Three [20:16] The commonality between organizations struggling to work remotely [28:56] Company culture clubs [34:48] Handling employee anxieties during COVID-19 layoffs   Links | Resources Blend Me, Inc. RemotelyOne Kaleem on LinkedIn   About the Guest Kaleem Clarkson is an employee experience expert and remote work advocate helping organizations build intentional employee lifecycles that begin at initial job postings and end after off-boarding. He is the COO and Co-founder of Blend Me, Inc. a remote employee experience consultancy. He is also the COO of RemotelyOne, a members-only community for location-independent professionals. About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I’m with Kaleem Clarkson, co-founder and chief operating officer of Blend Me, Inc. He is a remote-employee-experience professional, and developing RemotelyOne, a community for location-independent professionals. Welcome to the show, Kaleem. Kaleem: Douglas, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I hear this crowd applause in the background. Let’s get that in post-production. I love it. Douglas: Awesome. So, Kaleem, I'm really curious to hear how an employee-experience professional gets their start. How do you find your way on this path?  Kaleem: That's a good question. I probably should have this ready by now. But I guess I'll start my origin story. I guess this is my origin story. So born and raised in Bangor, Maine. I’m going way back. Bangor, Maine, represent. I always love to throw it out. My home state, I love it. But I ended up going to college in Massachusetts. Got a chance to play at Western State University. Got a chance to play some college football there. And during that time, we all had a very good time. Let's put it that way. I enjoy having beverages with people, making sure that everyone else is having a good time, and we ended up throwing a good amount of gatherings, should you say, in college. And started getting into a metal band, believe it or not. Just got into a metal band and started rocking out. Love the stage. Love that whole feel to it. And that led me to starting a nonprofit organization called Concerts for Charity, which I think we started in ’99. And we started putting on different concerts with different charities across New England. We got our 513(c) status and started donating to different charities, and we got to work with a lot of cool bands in different areas—you know, a lot of jam bands, a lot of hard-rock bands. We worked with—jeez, I'm trying to think of some bands that we booked in the past. I think we booked Blind Melon on their comeback tour, which was pretty cool. Chk, Chk, Chk out in Sacramento, I remember back in the day. I think we booked Slick Rick, a rapper. If you don't know, some of the old-school folks. Douglas: Colleague of Doug E. Fresh, if I'm not mistaken.  Kaleem: Yeah. Yeah. You know, what's funny is we went and picked him up at the airport or whatever, and he gets in the car, and total British accent. You know? So, you don't think about that, like, dude's been living in England all these years. And gets in, and he’s like, “Hello.” Horrible British accent, by the way. That’s horrible.  But anyway, yeah. So I got a chance doing that, and that was really kind of my first experience with dealing with virtual volunteers. VolunteerMatch at the time, we ended up connecting with the Warped Tour, and were able to register people to vote through a group called HeadCount as well. Anyway, it was great. It was a cool experience. We got to do a documentary that featured Trey Anastasio from Phish, Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead, and Bela Fleck and the Flecktones—really big artists in the jam-band scene. And we got to debut it at HBO. So it was cool. I was probably only, what, 21 years old, 22 years old? I really got my first taste of putting on events and just kind of sitting back and watching everybody having a good time. And I think that's the common theme, right? Everyone was just having a good time. Everyone has that cup, that Red Solo Cup, and that really cheap beer. But everyone's having a good time, generally.  And yeah, so I kind of move on. Moved to Atlanta, my partner and I, and get a job at Kennesaw State University at Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. And that's like a faculty-development center. They basically teach faculty how to teach. I don’t know if you knew that, you know, a lot of people may not know this, but college professors, they graduate with a PhD, and they put right in the classroom, so they don't go through any teaching training or anything like that, a lot of them. So, yeah, yeah, it was cool. I got to put on a lot of international conferences there. Again, I'm putting on parties again, right, except in a different setting. That was the kind of interesting, or educational piece to me. I didn't realize faculty also enjoy having a good time, and they do.  So, yeah, all these professional conferences, got a chance to put some of those on, and really kind of just didn't even realize that—I was there for 10 or 12 years. And I would have to say in 2012, I believe, during my work at Kennesaw, I got heavily involved with the Drupal community, and Drupal’s an open-source website-application tool, kind of like WordPress, build websites with it. So kind of got involved with that community. And again, that was another experience of being with like-minded people. It was outside of my previous experience of concerts and the entertainment industry, and then getting in the higher ed around faculty in the higher ed industry. Well, now I'm around other computer digital marketers and digital professionals, you know, developers. And yeah, I got heavily involved with Drupal and started building websites, and I kind of became a Drupal developer. And last year, or probably a year and a half ago, yeah, a year, I left higher ed and decided to get involved with a company called Oomph as a UX engineer and started doing some front-end development work. But the cool thing about Drupal and open source is, again, the networks of people that you meet. And during that time, it was 2012, that I was at a conference in Denver, DrupalCon Denver, and I heard a talk by, his name is Matt Westgate from a company called Lullabot. They’re a big development firm. I think they did the Grammy’s website and some other big ones. But anyway, yeah, I went to that talk, and he was talking about how to run a virtual organization. And he talked about why they weren't using the word remote and why they were using the word distributed and how those words, what those words actually could mean to people. And I recall him saying remote felt like you were distant from something. Douglas: Mm-hmm. Kaleem: You were away from a group of people. So it was fascinating. Like, at that time, 2012, it seems like 100 years ago, but there weren't very many people talking about how to work remotely. So I came home, and my partner, she had graduated two years before that, in 2010, with her master's degree from Yukon in organizational development. And she actually wrote her master's paper thesis on virtual volunteerism, because my charity had hooked up with the Warped Tour, and we had virtual volunteers all over the country. So I came home from that, and I was talking with Jen, and I said, “I think we found something. I think we should do our own thing,” and she was all about it.  She was looking for strategic HR jobs, and there weren't very many. People love those jobs, by the way. I’ll use VP of people and CHRO of people; they don’t really leave those jobs, because those jobs, they’re great. Strategic HR’s obviously a much bigger thing now. So we just decided to create Blend Me, Inc. I kind of took care of the marketing, and then she would take care of the engagement, and that's how we kind of came up with the name.  So she worked for a while at a company that was all distributed. And, you know, we kind of did some consulting on the side with some diversity inclusion. And at the end of the day, you realize all of your experiences are kind of what, together, are who you are, and I was very fortunate in that I had been at companies for—I was at Kennesaw for a very long time, 11 years, and it was because we had a great time. And now, if I'm looking back, you asked me the origin question of how you become an employee-experience professional, you just look back and think about all of the situations and the moments you had that were special with a special group where you accomplished big goals. We accomplished a lot of great things there, and a lot of it had to do with the fact that we were all having a really, really good time.  So this year, with COVID, I decided that it's time to go full time, that we no longer had that obstacle of proving to people that remote work, you can be productive. That has always been an obstacle. And honestly, what we decided from day one, 2012, when we're writing our mission statement, we said we did not want to work with agencies that wanted us to prove that remote work was the right answer. We didn't want to get into that type of work, because trying to prove to somebody that, no, you could do this, it’s just not really in our—we want to help people that have already kind of gone over that hump or already believe that it can be successful, because if there's not a belief from the very top all the way through the organization, it doesn't come through as authentic.  So what's interesting is for all these years, there's been a very small market. But I firmly believe, and I think we can all agree, that from March of 2020 on, I don't think any manager—well, in certain industries, I shouldn't say that—but I'm going to say in 90 percent of jobs today that we have behind a desk or in an office, it's going to be very difficult for managers to say that you're not productive.  So, yeah, that's the whole origin story. I think I got it in, like, eight minutes. I got to work on cutting it down a little bit. But, yeah, that's how we kind of came to this point. Douglas: Yeah. And I really want to dig in on the definition of remote versus distributed. And, you know, even virtual is kind of mixed in there as well. I ran into this when I was first venturing out of my own and kind of exploring this kind of concept of fractional CTO. And at first I was calling myself a virtual CTO, and someone asked me—it was a junior developer—they said, “So does that mean it's all in the cloud?” And so I thought maybe this word virtual is not a good fit here.  That story or that notion of misinterpretation of the word virtual is I know exactly what you're getting at around remote versus distributed. And I think that a lot of those notions really held us back. But now that everyone's been thrust into this experience where they've been forced to grapple with it, to wrap their hands around it, they're starting to understand that there are some benefits, and things maybe aren't as bad as they might imagine. Kaleem: Absolutely. And you know what really the difficulty with our industry—and when I say “our,” I just mean remote work or telework industry—is that we don't have an association now. I know Laurel Farrer has just created the Remote Work Association, and I give her kudos to that. And I believe—what’s her name from FlexJobs?—Sara—can’t remember her name, but she started FlexJobs. They created the one-million-person march campaign. There’s been different, like, spin-off campaigns. But one thing that I've learned from higher ed is when you have the National Society for Statistics, Mathematics and Statistics, you know, that's an organization that spits out all the knowledge. When you have SHRM—Society for Human Resource Management—or you have these major-field associations, there is research. There's guidance. There are definitions. There are thought leaders.  And for me and for us when we were trying to talk to clients about the different types of “remote” work, we just always got stuck. Me, having that thought of, well, let's find the history, and realizing that, oh, okay, well, outside of the U.S., a lot of countries use the term telework. The government agencies use the word telework. You know, there's telework guidance guidelines for the government—well, before, but I'm pretty sure that they still exist somewhere. So then we were struggling with that.  So for us, we just figured, okay, we need to come up with our own definitions for when we're working with clients. And we wanted it to show homage to Jack Nilles for coming up with the word telework in 1973. It's kind of a little outdated definition, but we just kind of thought, like, okay, all of these different things of telework, and when we're thinking about the different types, we realized that a lot of the terms are related to a central workplace. So for us, what we decided to do is come up with our own definitions.  Here we go. We call them teleworks big three, right? So we kind of go with, all of it’s telework work, but a distributed company doesn't have a centralized workplace. So when we’re talking with our clients, we’re like, “Oh, yeah. We’re a remote company. We don’t have an office.” We’ll say, “Okay, well, for our purposes, when we’re in our meetings and when we’re talking about the programs that we have, we’re going to refer to your agency as a distributed company because you don't have a centralized workplace.” So employees, they work from wherever they're the most productive and the most comfortable. So that's distributed.  Then we came to the common word of remote. And what drove us to this was back to that 2012 talk of the reason why they don't use the word remote was that it felt like you were away from the centralized workplace. Well, Lullabot was 100 percent distributed. They didn't have a central workplace. But remote employees are away from a centralized workplace. So to me and to us, when we're talking to—not to me, but internally speaking—remote employees are people who work away from the office. So you have a centralized office, there are people that are going into the office every day, but you also have some remote employees. So that's how we kind of label that.  And then our last one is kind of like the telecommuter, telecommute. You know, telecommute employees share their time between a central workplace and working wherever they feel comfortable.  So to us, that's kind of how we've broken it down. I’d be awesome if everybody out there in the whole remote workspace would say, “Hey, this is great. Let's all agree to this.” As far as posting social media, remote work is very popular, the term remote work. And we’re kind of still in that space as well, so we understand. But when we’re internal, I kind of feel like there are definitely differences. Another word that we've seen before to replace kind of remote employee is maybe hybrid. You know, we've heard people talk about a hybrid setup and a hybrid setup means half the people are in a central workplace and half the people are not.  So I do feel like it's really important. I wish, I hope somebody steps up and maybe the Remote Work Association will be that governing body for all of us, where we can all post our research too and be a place. For right now, I guess we'll use the term remote work when we're talking to the rest of the world and just try to clarify the differences between the different types, because there's a major difference in communication facilitation and how you're going to manage your team based on the types of telework that you’re implementing. Douglas: Absolutely. And I would imagine that the tactics would be quite different and maybe even the programs which you might use to address the concerns or the needs.  So when you think about these three, this taxonomy, when you're working with clients, is there one category that you find is most popular? Kaleem: Yeah. There's no doubt that what we call remote or “hybrid” is the most popular, especially like today—you know, so it's kind of a difficult question because it's like, well, are you talking about before or after? So before; let's just talk about before. Before, and I'm saying just so the world knows I'm talking about before COVID-19, okay? Before COVID-19, I would say there were definitely more hybrid companies or remote companies where they had people working in a central workplace and some people working remotely. Telecommuter, it's kind of, you know, I would say a lot of agencies allow their people to work from home a couple of times. So I would say definitely between telecommuting agencies that lets you work from home a couple of times a week and the hybrids were by far the most popular. Douglas: And what do you think folks are learning as they're shifting a bit, as far as their ability to set the frequency at which people were remote? They went from being a part-time, somewhat sometimes kind of thing to being a full-time thing. And I'm sure you've seen them kind of struggle from—because I would imagine some of the practices and approaches they were using, let's say the weaknesses maybe started to show more once they started to lean more heavily into it. So I'm curious what you noticed. As folks have been forced to be more remote, what have they noticed that broke down? What was no longer working for them? And I’m interested from a pattern standpoint. Like, what's been consistent across most of your conversations? What are you hearing that’s like a...kind of a very common issue that's been breaking down for folks as they have become more remote? Kaleem: There's no doubt it's been communication. We kind of used to brand ourselves as an internal-marketing agency, and we still do a lot of internal marketing. But there's no doubt that the communication has been one of the biggest breakdowns, because you weren't set up to do this. One of the things that we talk about when you're designing your employee experience is you have to look at it from the day they look at your job ad to the day that they are departing. And if you don't have a plan—and you know this with meetings—if you don't have an agenda, right, or you don't have a set of goals that are intentional, then your product’s not going to most likely be as good. And then that goes for the same thing with internal communication and doing remote work.  The ones who are struggling are the ones who did not have good internal-marketing practices in place. The organizations who are struggling are the ones who don't trust their employees. The ones who are really having a tough time are the ones who did not take on the responsibility of providing enough resources, enough training, enough documentation to allow you to be distributed now.  So it's really interesting to see the companies who haven't even missed a beat. A lot of the Drupal companies in the web-development space, I'm learning a lot of this, the culture and the practice and stuff, from some of these companies. They’re going on—you know that talk that I’m telling you about is 2012. Another company, Four Kitchens, I mean, they’re another Drupal company. They’ve been distributed now for, jeez, probably eight years. And the company I work for, they've had distributed people.  So the organizations who are not having a challenge at all are the ones who are already prepared to be remote already. So, you know, just to kind of re-emphasize, the ones who did not have their internal-communications strategy set up are the ones who are struggling the most. There's no doubt.  Douglas: Yeah. And so what are the hallmarks of a good internal-marketing program? How do we bolster those communication plans? Kaleem: Whew, yeah, that's a deep one. That's a deep one. So just not just internal marketing. I probably shouldn't say the ones who didn't have the internal-marketing plan, but more along the lines of, you didn't have your whole employee experience planned out, because you can have the best internal marketing set up, but if you haven't explained how your culture works or what your culture’s like, a remote employee can't feel that. So I guess I should say, you know, yes, internal marketing is critical because it's part of communication. That's a huge piece. But in the whole employee experience, there are a lot of steps.  And I would say Gallup, for all you researchers out there, Gallup, we've been quoting Gallup a long time for all of the awesome research they've done on remote work: how many people work remotely? They're one of the best that have been producing it. They kind of came up with this great diagram of what the employee experience is like. I'll just kind of go through those different spaces, because internal marketing kind of fits kind of within these things, right? So their first thing that they talk about is attract. How is your job description written? Does it reflect the type of people that work at your agency? And are you attracting the type of people that you want to be at your agency? So what's your culture statement look like? Do you have a page that talks about your culture? Do you meet every single day? Is it more of a Netflix—work-90-hours-a-week-type culture, or are you more like work whenever you feel comfortable? So that's important that your website’s set up right.  Then, you got to hire. Is your hiring practice matching what you’ve already talked about? Are you interviewing with multiple people on the teams? Are you meeting those people? Do you have a chance to talk to the culture club or people outside of your team instead of just your team?  Then, you have to onboard the people. So now you're only at step three. Onboarding and onboarding alone are very, very thorough. Onboarding program can be up to 18 months. You're talking about, okay, you’ll get 30-, 60-, 90-day reviews, and you have to kind of establish what your goals kind of were. And so onboarding can be long. Then, you have engagement. You got to make sure your employee’s engaged. So you have engagement pieces.  Then, you have to set up and go to performance. You got to make sure your performance evaluations are set up correctly. Make sure that everybody understands what is expected of you to be successful at that organization. And then you have to develop them, right? And then they depart at some point.  So this huge step of, like, seven steps of the whole employee experience, what we’ve realized from remote work is that you have to have trust. Trust is even more critical. Trust is even more critical because, you know, are you an agency that is going to try to have a piece of software that takes snapshots of your individuals every 90 seconds? Or are you a results-only-type agency that cares more about the results and understands that, hey, with school the way it is in some places, people may not be able to work all day. You know, people may have to work at a different time. So trust is critical.  And then, we kind of talked about responsibility earlier. You have to have this—you know, to work remotely, there's a sense of responsibility both on the employee and on the employer. It's a very two-way street.  So, like, this whole, whole thing is kind of what is the pillar of the remote-employee experience, kind of something that we're kind of labeling as “tree”, trust and responsibility. In order for you to get that set up, you just have to start at the beginning, and you have to be intentional of what it is that you're trying to accomplish in each step.  So, I know I didn't answer your question specifically about, like, what are some of the pillars in establishing a good internal-marketing strategy? But, you know, I just kind of wanted to really emphasize that you need to think about this whole thing and not just the internal-marketing side. You have to think about this whole thing, because now we don't have those office places that people can talk to and interact with. You know, now people are distributed behind a computer. So you really do have to think about the whole spectrum.  Douglas: Yeah, that makes sense. What is that journey the employees taking, and how can you meet them at various moments in that journey with intention? Kaleem: Yeah. Yeah. And we're just seeing it right now. The groups who really, really, really care about their employees, that are—what we like to say is we like to work with agencies who are culture driven. And to us, what that means is, listen, we all want to make money. I kind of feel like people trip sometimes when you talk about we care about people. Even nonprofits, people—look, nonprofits make money, people, just so you know this. And I used to tell people about this all the time. A nonprofit, a 513(c) is an IRS designation. All that means is that entity does not have shareholders. Charities make profits. Your business has to make profits to be sustainable. So with all of that said, we work with the agencies who are culture driven, meaning that, yes, we can make more money, but we'd rather maybe only make a little less money and put culture first, because we understand that it's a marathon, right? Like, we understand that if our employees are happy, it's going to just make our situation a lot better. So I think one thing I like to talk about is culture-driven agencies. Douglas: Yeah, I like that, this notion that that's a priority and a focus for the leadership.  So I want to talk a little bit about some tactics. And something that we talked about, or that I noticed, in some of our preshow exchange was around the use of Google Docs and how you can, as a remote tool, use that to focus the team into a common task. So I’m just really curious around what are some things that people can go do today, whether it's, like, use Google Docs in this fashion, if you want to elaborate on that, or it could be any other tactic or approach, but what's something that they can just go literally try out and improve their employee experience?  Kaleem: All right. That's cool. I like that. I like that. So I'm just going to kind of go through each one of them. I think that kind of will make a little bit more sense in my brain.  So the first thing that you can do to attract the type of employees that you want, I learned this, actually, with Oomph, inc. is they created a culture club, which I thought was pretty neat. Get some of your team together, make it voluntary, and say, “Hey, you know what. We want to kind of rewrite what our culture statement is like to better fit who we are today. And we want to kind of better illustrate what it's like to be a part of this team.” I like to use team instead of family. Sometimes families…you know. So, yeah, “What is it like to be a part of this team?” so that you’re attracting the right people.  The other thing, too, is to kind of attract some of those people that you're looking at, get outside of your normal bubble and market yourself, but—we love to say, and now I’m going to kind of talk about engaged—look for people that are going to add to your culture instead of culture fit. So we like to use the word culture ad versus culture fit. Culture’s great, but we all talk about why is culture great aside from the obvious reasons from a personal and emotional level.  Back to business, you want as many different people on your team so that you have different perspectives. Like, if you want to just talk about “Straight cash, homey,” T.O. quote, it's more about having people, more variety of people, on your team so that you have different perspectives. You know, just think of Corn Pops. If Corn Pops would've had maybe more people on their marketing team, they wouldn't have sent out that Corn Pops box years ago, where the only brown Corn Pops person as the janitor. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's a huge gaffe, right?  So that's attract. So that's one thing that you could do. Maybe get a culture club together, try to rewrite your culture statement. With hiring, I would say a good one is—oh, yeah. This is a simple one. This is more probably along the lines of in your wheelhouse of facilitation—do not, by all means, do an interview with—and I'm sorry to say this, Owl Labs, because you have an awesome product, but it feels awkward—don't do an interview with your team at a conference table and the employee remote. I understand—I think Owl Labs cameras are the best. Now I can't get it out of my head. It's an unbelievable product, in my opinion. You know, it kind of jumps around to the person that's speaking, and the camera shows the whole room, and it kind of goes back and forth. It's super cool. Like, I would suggest it for any agency that has multiple board rooms in different places that are meeting and talking. But when you have an interviewee, their first impression, and they're trying to talk with you and you're at a conference-room table with eight of your colleagues side by side, there is already an us-versus-them experience. So it's already a “I'm here, and you're there.” So my suggestion is just get everybody on Zoom or whatever video system you're using. Equality, it's about the same. So put everyone on the same call, the same platform, the same camera. Everywhere the same.  Douglas: Yeah. You know, I’ve said that for years. Like, if we're facilitating and someone's remote, everyone should be remote because we want to level the playing field. Otherwise, it's going to be hard to empathize if we're not all experiencing what everyone else is or what those few individuals are experiencing. And it reminds me of all-hands meetings years and years ago, where people would dial into it. And then I thought to myself, what is it like to actually dial into one of these things? So I dialed into one, and it was—I mean, I couldn’t hear anything. It was [muffled]. And then you’d hear people talking like that, and you’d think, oh, I don’t know. I don’t even know what anyone’s saying. And maybe every now and then you could make out a few things the CEO said but definitely didn't hear any questions or any dialogue. And it's, like, really not great. And so I love that point of, like, let's level the playing field.  Kaleem: Yeah. Yeah.  So then for onboarding, so you're kind of talking about Google Docs and stuff. But for onboarding, simple solution, like, you got to have a place where someone’s going to learn about the organization. Believe it or not, a lot of companies don't have a moment to hear the origin story. Like, we talked about my origin story earlier. And to a lot of people, they may fast forward, but, like, hey, I love to rep Bangor. You know, there's an emotion to why a business got started. You know what I mean? There's something outside. There's a story. And if people don't know that story,  then they may not understand what it is, you know, what are the values that are driving the organization?  So to me, I know onboarding is not the initial, it's not the first interaction with the agency. It's not even where first opinions happen, because it's in the third step. We’re in the third step, right? I mean, we understand that your first impression is definitely the job description. I mean, when people look at the jobs, their first impression is the job description, and then they go on your website. But when you’re onboarding, this is kind of like the first time that employees get to interact or participate. This is the first time that the individual’s participating. So this is a really, really, really crucial moment to let them know what that origin story is and let them know what values are driving your organization.  So one of my first recommendations is just record a video of the founder. I mean, it doesn't even have to be crazy. Just record a video of when the founder got the idea for the business and why the founder started it, and then maybe a little bit about what drives the company. Because right now, COVID-19, if you have to let go of 20 people, or maybe you have a staff of 100 and you got to let go 20 or 30 people, those other people that are there, they go through all sorts of emotions, never mind the people that you let go. But the people that are staying there are going through some stuff. They lost some friends that are no longer employed. There’s a little bit of uncertainty about the future. If all your employees know what drives you even during uncertain times, a lot of these anxieties that make people nervous and get people looking for other options will be erased.  So onboarding is so critical, and I can't give away all my secrets.  Douglas: Sure, sure. Kaleem: So I would say the video is something simple. If you don't have a quick little video that somebody can watch or even, like, a couple paragraphs, how you got started and why you got started and then what drives you. And I know people use the word values all the time. I’m trying to use different words than mission and vision and all that stuff. But what drives your company? Douglas: Yeah. And a couple things I would add there. It’s like so many companies talk about values, and even in the job description, they'll describe things that are aspirational and not necessarily—they're not really conveying the fact that we are that culture that's working 60, 80 hours a week. And if you plan to retain people and you’re doing that, you should be pretty honest about it up front, right?— Kaleem: Right. Yes, be honest. Douglas: —rather than tricking people into coming in. And then the same thing with values, right? If they’re just some words that we adopted because they sound like stuff that, you know, you put on values— Kaleem: Hardworking, go-getter. I mean, like, what is that? Douglas: Yeah. And integrity.  Kaleem: Yeah. Like, what is that? What is that?  Douglas: So if you can make them authentic, then I think people are going to resonate with those. And if they’re shared values that they hold, then it can get people really excited. So I think that's really great.  Kaleem: Yeah, yeah. Douglas: And one thing that I saw a company do here in Austin I've always been a fan of is they created a scavenger hunt, and, essentially, new employees were given this scavenger hunt. And the cool thing about the scavenger hunt was that it included different aspects of the company's history. The way that they got to the answers or found these things, they would have to go talk to other employees in other departments. And so they got— Kaleem: Nice. Douglas: —to know so much about the way the company worked, the way the company— Kaleem: I love this. Douglas: —had evolved over time, and they made friends and connected. And it was very participatory. So I love it because it’s like a facilitator's dream to do those kinds of things. And so if more companies could institute these types of more participatory onboarding practices, I think you’d start to get into what we talk about as facilitator leadership. Kaleem: I love that idea. You’re definitely going to have to send me some—maybe you can remember the company and send me some stuff on that. I think that's a great, great idea.  So then, yeah. So then you have engagement. And there's a million different ideas for engagement. One thing that I love for remote work that—I don't know, maybe this is more in performance—so engagement, you've got to keep your remote workers engaged. So do you host an annual retreat? Do you host a quarterly retreat? You know, how many—do you have—I don't want to say happy hour, but that's no good. The link to—Zoom happy hours have been pretty tiring of late.  Oh, on engaged, this is my tip for engaged. Something very simple. Ask your employees how they're feeling. Like, literally, you could not imagine how many companies just don't send a very simple employee engagement survey out to their employees. Like, all of us consultants in H.R. are like, “Yo, stop talking, Kaleem.” But the fact that you just don’t do that, it’s so easy. Just write, like… And the other thing that I would suggest is if you’re going to use a survey, if you’re going to have a survey, you got to have a plan of what you’re going to do with the data. So come up with a very simple survey. And I would say ask that question, ask that survey, the exact same time next year so that you can have some sort of benchmarks. You know, doing a survey for no reason, you need to be able to have some data. And  I actually suggest surveying people frequently. There's a lot of great survey software out there. Like, I don’t know. Was it Officevibe? Culture Amp? All of these softwares that send random questions to employees. You may not have that software, the budget for that, but you can come up with a very easy SurveyMonkey or Google Forms with four or five questions and ask your employees every quarter. And they could be the same questions. Maybe you’ll find out that in the fall this one question’s being answered, and they’re lower in this for some reason. So for engagement, that would be my one tip is you got to ask your employees how they’re feeling. Douglas: Awesome. We've definitely covered the gamut, from starting off with a good impression on job descriptions; making sure we're thinking about that human connection in the remote landscape; the taxonomy—making sure we think about what bucket we're in, what is our style of remote work, and how can our approaches and tactics be tuned to be appropriate for our style—all the way through to making sure that we are engaging folks and even understanding how they're feeling, especially in this time of a global pandemic that can be damaging morales and stuff. So, wow, covered a ton, and it's been a blast thinking about all this stuff, Kaleem. And I know that the listeners are probably curious how they can connect with you, learn more, maybe end with a little bit around how they can find you. Kaleem: Yeah, sure. You can find me personally anywhere: kaleemclarkson. So I’m @kaleemclarkson on Twitter, LinkedIn. And you can find our company at blendmeinc.com. And also Remotely One. If you are a remote location, independent professional, and you’re feeling the pains of isolation and loneliness and you want to still kind of build your network, come join Remotely One. We’re a members-only community for location and independent professionals. So you can find us at remotelyone.com or @remotelyone.  And yeah, I guess if there was something that I wanted to kind of sign off on, I guess that would be, let's not all go back—if there was a piece of advice that I could give to organizations out there, don’t go back to the way it was before COVID-19 “just because.” So let me repeat that. Don't go back to business before COVID-19, don't go back “just because.” And what I mean by that is take this time as an opportunity to further develop your organization to be prepared for other disaster contingencies. They’re going to happen. If you're up in New England, you deal with the snow. Midwest, you deal the snow. I mean, there are disasters all the time. Hurricanes. Remote work, as you all have noticed, can help you make it through those times. So take this time to figure out how you can be better when you go back, when we go back, to the “new normal,” and maybe think about how you can reuse your space or reuse some of the things that you used to do before. So let's just not go back to the way it was before COVID-19. Douglas: Kaleem, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. Thanks for joining. Kaleem: I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me on. Come back anytime. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 35!02:35 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]03:00 - Review: Enola Holmes05:00 - Review: I’m Thinking of Ending Things11:20 - Logitech G Content Creator Academy14:50 - Review: Logitech G73318:20 - Review: Logitech G10219:25 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]20:00 - Control Your Dreams28:00 - No heartbeat required38:00 - Spotlight Effect42:00 - Understanding Dogs47:30 - Breathe out your fat55:00 - Habitable Planets59:20 - Baptising Aliens01:03:30 - DNA from Resin/Amber01:09:20 - NSFW [START]01:10:00 - Dinosaur Erotica01:14:30 - POUNDED BY A PEGASUS01:17:40 - Thanos is THICC01:19:45 - Sex in movies & TV series01:21:30 - Sex, discharge, smells and scents01:31:25 - NSFW [END]01:31:50 - End of episode postulation01:33:50 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

“A lot of times, people will think that they're experimenting because they're being scrappy and moving fast, but they're not learning as they go. The fundamental benefit comes when you stop and reflect and learn and improve.” Kai Haley This week on the Control the Room Podcast, I’m excited to speak with Kai Haley. In addition to being a founder and leader of their Sprint Master Academy, Kai is Google’s Head of UX Methods and Processes. Through the development of design sprint and design thinking curriculum and training programs, she has created a community of expert facilitators at Google. Listen in to learn more about Google Sprint Masters, the delicate balance between data and design, and how knowledge sharing creates resilient product teams. Show Highlights [5:27] The delicate balance between data and design [11:08] The advent of the virtual facilitator [21:35] Google Sprint Masters [26:13] How knowledge sharing creates resilient product teams [31:31] Embracing asynchronous meetings   Links | Resources Kai on LinkedIn About the Guest Kai Haley, Head of UX Methods and Process at Google, works with teams to define product visions, drive successful user-centered products, and develop an innovation culture across all of Google. As Lead of the Sprint Master Academy, she also develops curriculum and training programs for Google’s expert team of facilitators. About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I’m with Kai Haley, head of UX Methods and Process for the UX community at Google. She co-founded and leads to Google Sprint Master Academy, where they train and mentor facilitators within Google. Welcome to the show, Kai. Kai: Thank you for having me. Douglas: Of course. So, Kai, let's share with the listeners a little bit of a backstory around how you became such a mover and shaker at Google. Kai: I joined Google about nine years ago. And prior to that, I had been at Yahoo! for six years, working as a visual designer on the front page there. I started my design career right out of college by starting a design studio focused on complete communication and branding programs for startups in Silicon Valley. So I got my learning on the job initially, which was an amazing experience. Not always advised, though. And while I was at Yahoo!, I went back to school and got my masters in design at CCA, when I realized I really wanted to formulate my design process and practice. And at CCA, I was actually introduced to a designer and teacher from IDEO, and that's where I learned about UX methods and process and got very inspired by the IDEO method and what they were doing there. So I brought some of those back to Yahoo! but really found when I got to Google that there was a much more nurturing environment for design thinking and that kind of collaborative work. Douglas: You know, it's so important to have that nurturing environment and the support to do the work. I was recently reading a lot of material around an FBI negotiator who was there in the early days, and there wasn't a lot of support, you know? So it was like kind of two jobs. One is learning the material and getting really good at the craft, but then also the diplomacy of trying to convince everyone around you that this new approach is much better. Kai: Absolutely. And I'll be honest. When I first got to Google nine years ago, the UX community there was quite small. So they were just starting to develop the design-sprint way of working then. And a lot of the hard work that was done at that time was kind of building that culture or building the buy in of better ways to work together. So it wasn't necessarily a smooth and easy sailing process, but the environment at Google has always been receptive to experimentation and working on how to work better together. Douglas: I think that's pretty clear from the Project Aristotle and all the research that goes into psychological safety and work rules and all those things definitely seems to be a culture of, how do we have better workplace culture and collaboration? Kai: Absolutely. And that's actually one of the areas that I am focused on right now. In addition to, obviously, making better products, we always want to make more user-centered products, and that's one of our principles here. But my focus is on helping to make a great space for cross-functional collaboration, to really support the UX role and the UX discipline, both inside and outside of Google. Douglas: So, I’m really curious. As an insider, you probably have some really interesting insight into this, but one thing I've noticed is this paradox between data-driven decisions and then kind of more qualitative type of decision making. And UX tends to kind of sit at the boundary of that, right? There's things that UX does that's quantitative and things that they do that’s qualitative. And Jake Knapp always talks about design sprint being so good at quick-and-dirty data before we're waiting around for perfect data. So I’m kind of curious what you found, having to use and leverage qualitative methods and approaches inside a company that's been known publicly to be so data focused and data driven. Kai: You know, that's a really interesting question. Actually, there's a great video from my series Design Is […] called Design is [Data], if anyone is interested in deep diving into a case study on how design uses data to drive great design. When I was first—well, my second year at Google, I joined the search ads team, which is an incredibly data-driven team. And so that video outlines a project that we worked on, where we looked at how to leverage data to develop a design hypothesis and then use the data to push that design forward, meaning inform our decisions about design. And working on Search at Google was incredibly transformative for me as a designer because it is so data driven and because it is so large, the user base is so broad, you really had to rely on the data to inform your intuition as a designer. So the qualitative aspect is really important, and we balance that at Google, where we do a lot of user interviews, more foundational research, where we try to understand how people think about things. And then we do experiment-focused either usability tests or we run an experiment on a specific portion of the traffic, like we would do a search, to take that hypothesis and see if it's working. So I always see it as like a balance of both and sometimes quite a delicate balance, especially if you are a UXer, which involves a really strong collaboration with your engineering team. Douglas: Yeah. I remember reading this blog post years ago that I think came out of Google—yeah, it was Google Maps—and they were talking about drawing together. And so rather than the designers just sketching something, some brilliant solution, it’s like, well—and rather than just sitting down and talking—they're like, “Well, sketch out. Can you sketch with me while we're talking?” And they noticed this pattern that came out of a lot of their conversations, and they just took a step back and looked at all the drawings that their interviewees had sketched out while they were talking. They all had this dog-bone shape to them. So there was like this epiphany that, oh, wow, everyone has this kind of dog-bone kind of reality, where it's like you do a lot of stuff around your house and a lot of stuff around your work. And then there's this tiny little connection between the two. And then that epiphany that comes from some of the qualitative stuff could then be married with some data, even ML type stuff, that you feed in this insight into something that's more data driven then you could get some really powerful things out of it. Kai: Yeah. And that's where the design sprint as a structured collaboration process is really helpful because you can bring the data into the UX conversation early, and you can bring UX and data into the product conversation, right, the product-strategy conversation. So that convergence in an efficient and fast is really where we see a lot of benefit. And to the point you were making earlier about fast-and-dirty data, sometimes it's also making the time to engage with it, because we're always working against a deadline or moving very quickly. But if we don't stop and analyze what we see and what we know together with different perspectives, we miss a lot of opportunities. Douglas: Absolutely. And I think that not only taking the time to smell the roses, but like you say, if it's this confluence of threads, because the product team's thinking about a certain set of concerns, the data team has concerns, the engineers have concerns, the designers have concerns, and that's the power of the cross-functional teams. But we don't always, even though we're working as cross-functional teams, we don't always take the time to stop and then kind of look around and ask some of these questions. Kai: Yeah. And that's where that—I mean, I had a real aha moment in the sprint with one of our partners, where we had a data analyst in the sprint. And, you know, I asked this question, like, “Well, where is the drop off happening? You have this funnel, and people are coming in here. Can you go see what is the level of drop off?” And she pulled up the computer right then and there and said, “Wow, actually, we've got a 40 percent drop off at this point,” and that helped us to figure out what was actually going wrong with the design, and we could use that to help problem solve. So I was so excited by the data-analyst role after that. I was like, can we get a data analyst in our sprint? Douglas: Isn’t it amazing when you get the teams together with different capabilities and then folks within different parts of the organization are going to ask totally different questions, but they might ask questions that they can't answer, because you've got the whole kind of, let's say, a gamut of capabilities brought together, amazing things can happen just in those moments. And, you know, I've seen things within a design spirit that were orthogonal to the work we were doing. In fact, it just happened earlier this week. John's facilitating the design sprint, and I was dipping in here and there just to see how things were going. One of the times I was listening in, I heard them say, “I should totally use this in that community outreach project we're working on.” So it’s like they're making these discoveries that on the surface feel fairly trivial, but I'm convinced that without the design sprint, they would not have made those discoveries and that project would have suffered, or it would have been mediocre and not as good as it could have been. Kai: Absolutely, yeah. Douglas: I notice it because I love this stuff, but I think a lot of times folks have these tangential benefits that they don't even realize or definitely don't necessarily associate to the design sprint because it wasn't even the core product they were working on. There’s just these ancillary benefits. Kai: Yeah. It’s interesting how we get so many ancillary benefits from design sprints, particularly also with relationship building, shared vocabulary building, shared knowledge. But now that we are not able to all actually be in a room together, at least at current, at present time, we don't automatically get those benefits. We actually have to think very intentionally about what do we need to get out of a session and design for it, whereas we used to get these added benefits without even necessarily looking for them. We would come in with, well, we need a product outcome, and then benefit from all these side conversations and the increased team building and all that stuff. But now if we need to build relationships, so if we have a new team or we have new people that we're working with that we need to actually form stronger connections with, we have to intentionally design that because the virtual experience doesn't create it in the way that just being together does. Douglas: 100 percent. And, you know, we've talked a lot about this notion that ultimately all of these virtual tools are in their infancy. It's sort of like the way e-commerce was in the early 2000s. We were still trying to figure it out, and what are the models that are going to stick? And Daniel talks a lot about, we've had thousands and thousands of years of learning how to meet in person, and we can lean on that knowledge and those customs. But virtually, we don't necessarily have the tooling and the skills where we can just walk into a room and it just naturally happens, like you're talking about. And so I agree it has to be highly designed in and really thoughtful. And we talked a little bit about that in the preshow chat. It’s had an impact on the training programs. I guess I'm just curious what you found you now have to focus on to make sure that Sprint Masters is successful in this virtual world. Kai: Well, we have to teach them to pay closer attention to that, whereas initially we would sort of take that for granted. You're going to get this by bringing everyone in a room together. The difficult conversations are going to happen. You just have to nudge a little bit to make space for it, to ask the right questions. Now you have to teach not just how to be a facilitator but how to be a very mindful facilitator that's aware of the science and psychology of the virtual space, which, as you said, is very nascent. So we are teaching something as we're learning it. We're modeling it and learning as we go, which is amazing. Also, I can't say that we've gotten it right right now. We're trying it out. But at the same time, we also need to teach people, Googlers, the methodology, so we have the foundational knowledge that they need to gain, which is, what is a design sprint? When do I use it? What do I use it for? How do I scope it properly? All the basics. And then, how do I be a good facilitator? And then, how do I be a good facilitator in a virtual space that I'm maybe not comfortable in and maybe I have to find new tools and techniques for how to build presence or even to consider, what do my facilitator values like and how did they play out here? Douglas: Yeah. I love this notion of values-based facilitation. It can be really powerful because you can show up in a real, authentic way. Kai: Yeah, absolutely. And everyone has to find their own way, and that takes time to build your practice and what you feel comfortable with, your authentic self. Douglas: Absolutely. I think there's a reason that the notion of having a practice is to label it with the word practice because it takes practice. You know, we can't just read a book and expect to be a great facilitator. We have to try things on for size and see what doesn't fit and actually go do the work. We're going to have to be willing to stumble a few times, pick ourselves up, and learn, okay, that didn't feel very authentic. Let me try something different. Kai: Yeah, it's amazing. And the different ways that people learn is a thing that I have to always remind myself of, because how I learn is not the same way as how other people learn. So we're trying to make space for sort of a diversity of approaches. Douglas: Yeah. I think as much as we can be multi-sensory as possible to where no matter where someone's at at any particular time, they relate to what we're trying to convey. I think that's pretty huge. And the training, you talked about connection, being able to observe people and draw them in. Have you found any good tactics or are there things you're recommending to your Sprint Masters around how to think about that in the virtual space or what the tools can allow us? Kai: Yeah, I think there's a lot of great resources out there, but one of the things that we, just at a basic level, are trying to teach our facilitators is this idea of creating. I mean, we talk about creating and holding space in the physical space, but creating and holding the virtual space and making not just room for voices, but giving each person the opportunity to speak and be present. And we have such limited time, so it can be really hard to balance that. And I think that's really forefront on my mind right now because the getting the product outcomes and asking the strategic questions and pushing the thinking, we all feel relatively comfortable with that. But to do it in a way where you create and hold this space, where people feel safe to be creative, they feel connected, like you’re saying, it really involves a delicate balance of speaking, being present, being called on, and a combination of, I hate to use the word icebreaker, but it's like activities that can be used to help us get to know each other better. Douglas: Yeah, you know, it's funny. Icebreaker. Some folks dislike the term. And my perspective is that those are typically things that people throw around without much intention. Being true to what you were saying earlier, the virtual space requires even more intention than the physical space. And when we put those things in, we should be careful about what we're trying to accomplish and just be honest about it and communicate it so that it's well known. Kai: Yeah. It's a great point about, I think especially in my early days of being a facilitator, I didn't have as much clarity when to use something like an icebreaker or an energizer or a “pair people up and talk about this thing” kind of activity and building that sort of the intuition of knowing, what do you need to do during, at what point throughout the sprint? When do you need to give people quiet moments to reflect? When do you need to build energy and get them feeling inspired and feeling seen or heard? Those are really nuanced things, and that's why I say I hate to use the word icebreaker because an icebreaker is something that you can just be like, “Oh, yeah, everyone stand up and organize yourself like a fruit.” Sort by size and color or flavor. And that's fun, and it builds energy in a room, but it's not the same in virtual. So you have to pick very carefully. Douglas: Absolutely. Even turn taking can be challenging in the virtual space. It's like in the physical space, you can say, “Okay, let's just go in a circle.” In the virtual space, we have to think about new paradigms and what's our cadence and what are our signals. Kai: Yeah. And it can be awkward and take extra time. And I'm just thinking, “Normally, this would take five minutes.” Douglas: It's amazing because some things move a lot faster. You know, if we’re voting inside of MURAL or some other tool, it can go quite fast. And so we might have to intentionally slow it down so that it becomes more thoughtful. Kai: Yeah, absolutely. Douglas: You know, I think you guys share something in common with us in the sense that you tend to sometimes, or even often, have larger workshops, whereas a classic design sprint’s seven people. We've discussed in the past how we've both had workshops that are quite more numerous than that. And I'm curious what sorts of things that you're doing in the virtual space to accommodate for larger audiences. Kai: Yeah. It's hard. I'll just acknowledge that because we used to do 20-, 30-person sprints. And also, when it comes to training, I used to—I’d be like, “Sure, I could train 60 people. No problem,” by myself in a room. But in the virtual space, because of the breakouts and it, just, it's different, so I have not run as many large sprints, though I did do a 45-person one two weeks ago. But what we do is we really rely heavily on breaking out into groups of five with facilitators within it. So it's just the scaled model. I just lean on my facilitator's more, and we'll make sure that each team has a POC or a lead of some kind. I think it's possible—a lot of our Sprint Masters right now are just saying don’t do it, which I understand that. And I think we used to say don't do virtual either, because it's just too complicated. So I think eventually we will find ways. And I really appreciate some of the tips and tricks that I learned from your large-virtual-meetings workshop. Seeing how you manage a group of that size I think is really helpful because you do want to approach it really differently. You're not going to do the around-the-room “show me that special item off your desk and tell me the history” when you've got 45 people. So you are approaching it from a different perspective, but it can be scaled. Douglas: Absolutely. So coming back to the Sprint Master training, I’m curious. Ultimately, Google is supporting this initiative, so there's clearly an identified business value. For the business folks that are listening, what's the real purpose behind—like, why spend the time to train all these folks? What does that really open up for Google? Kai: Well, it enables us to work more effectively cross functionally, and I think I've—I don’t know how many times I've said the word cross-functional already. You can keep count—but there is so much value we all know that comes from that. And as a larger company, it's not a standard way of working. I think smaller startups will in general work more easily more cross functionally. But when you're in a larger organization with multiple product areas, working across products and working across end product and UX, more marketing, it's really critical to the success of the company. It's critical to understanding the business so that everybody who is working on product teams has that viewpoint across the company to working across those silos. As the company grows, we need more and more people to do that work, to help with that work, and that's where the Google Spirit Masters come in. We train people across all the PAs, primarily in the UX discipline, but we do folks in some other roles as well, provide the training to them. And ultimately, they're not just running design sprints for their product area. So if you’re a Sprint Master on Photos, you might raise your hand to go run a design sprint for Maps or for Cloud. And that also creates cross pollination of ideas and allows you to leverage solutions that have worked in one part of the company in other parts. So there's a lot of value there. It allows us to work, we say, to accelerate our collaboration, accelerate our innovation, because it helps us to work faster as well. And it's not just faster, but it's more effectively as a group because teamwork is always harder than individual work. Douglas: I guess one thing that I always loved to visualize the positive impacts is this notion of kind of flipping around your discovery process, because so often integrations start to happen later in the cycle. Even if we're doing continuous integration and all these good things, it's like if we’re not doing a lot of this upfront discovery work together, then we discover those kind of break points later. And anyone in this, doing this work at all, knows that the later the discoveries happen, the more expensive they are to address. And sometimes it's too late because it's not going to make or break the project, but it would have created a little extra delight for the user, and it would have been cheap to do if we would've known about it early. But now it's too late. Kai: Yeah, absolutely. And users don't care that the Photos team is different than the Maps team, you know? Users don't care that Search is a whole other team. Those product lines are not valuable to them. They pop back and forth across multiple suite of products, and we want that to be seamless for them. We want it to be the best experience it can. And when they're owned by different teams, that requires a lot of coordination. Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of Conway's Law. I don’t know if you’ve run across this, but most people that have actually written software have seen it numerous times. It's basically the statement that says that any piece of software is going to resemble the structure of the organization that wrote that software. And so what you're describing is exactly the manifestation of Conway’s Law, right? You've got these teams that are working on different portions, and at one level you could say they're working on different applications. But when, to your point, one of the user’s using it, they're using the system, not an application. And so they're kind of moving fluidly around that. And how cohesive it is is going to depend on how much you can bridge those boundaries of the organization structure. Kai: Yeah. And that's, in some ways, what the Sprint Masters are an antidote to at times, right? Douglas: That's amazing. Kai: Yeah. Douglas: So you talked a little bit in the preshow chat about this notion of resilient product teams and how the sprint can help with that process. So I’m curious. I think our listeners would enjoy hearing a little bit about that because I think it's fascinating. Kai: Yeah. Actually, when I think about the resilience on my side, it's maybe less about the sprint process itself and more about how you build a self-sustaining community. And that resilience comes from operating as, like, a learning organization, which means taking the time to reflect on what's working and what's not working, and then focusing on improving the process as you go. You know, that's very standard when you think about a learning organization. But the example that we recently had was as we had to pivot to moving all of our sprints to virtual and helping 400 Sprint Masters build confidence in the virtual world, also not being experts ourselves, we really turned to this group to build a platform where we could learn from each other. And that's where I see a lot of resilience happening, when you have a system in place for people to solve together the challenges or the things that they're facing, which means it's not me coming in and saying, “I know the answer here, and I'm going to teach all of you how to do this,” but people joining forces and saying, “I'm trying this thing over here. I’ve got an experiment running. I'm going to feed it back in.” And my team being that central hub that creates a space for that amplification and knowledge sharing so that we can rapidly adapt and build new ways of thinking. And that sort of comes from how you approach that evolution, how you approach a learning organization. Douglas: Wow, yeah. I love this concept of the learning organization and this group that can facilitate and be a conduit for these learnings, to kind of come and be dispersed throughout the other teams and whatnot, I think that's a fantastic concept. And we talked a little bit also about embracing the experimentation mindset. And I've been referring to this as the sprint mindset in the context of design sprints and how it's so critical for folks to not only see the benefit. You know, we talked about the direct benefits of how it's moving your project forward and getting people aligned. And then also the ancillary benefits of, like, these weird connections or these epiphanies you have that influence other projects. Then, if you can leave that workshop and have these mindsets permeate all the work you do, then it has this kind of like compounding effect throughout the organization. Kai: Yeah, absolutely. And it's something I've been thinking about a lot recently, and I think you know because I reached out to you for more resources, because I think this is something that it's not as easy as it sounds. You're like, “Yeah, just design and experiment and learn from it.” There’s a way in which oftentimes we will do things and we haven't fully articulated what it is that we want to learn from it. And I think that is one of the benefits or it's sort of the strength of the sprint process, where you go in and say, “What do we know, what do we don't know, and what do we want to know?” And a lot of times, people will think that they're experimenting because they're being scrappy and moving fast, but they're not learning as they go. And that's, like, the fundamental benefit comes when you stop and reflect and learn and improve. So I think it's incredibly valuable for any organization to look at how do we embrace experimentation and really figure out how to bake it into the way that you work. Douglas: Yeah. I love that. We picked up this concept from the military, which is, you know, people always talk about lessons learned, but basically their stance on this is, like, people use the term lessons learned inappropriately. And most of the time, what they're talking about are lessons identified. And we haven't really learned the lesson until we've actually addressed it and done something about it. So we can identify it all the time, but if we don't actually make the change, we haven't actually done anything about it. We haven't addressed it. We're just located a problem. Kai: Yeah. And that happens a lot. We're like, “There's a problem. There's a problem.” You move on to the next thing, and then you're like, okay. It's human nature, too, you know? Douglas: Absolutely. And, you know, I think that's one of the beautiful things about facilitation and a lot of these methods is they're designed with human nature in mind and how we can take advantage of the good parts and use them against some of the things that are not so great about human nature. Kai: Yeah, absolutely. I spend a lot of time saying, you know, “I'm trying to combat design fixation here. Don't spend too much time on that sketch. I don't want you to get too attached to that idea.” Douglas: Yeah. I ran into a term recently called street psychologist, which I thought was pretty incredible. And I think essentially to be a great facilitator is you have to kind of have to be a street psychologist. Kai: Kind of like an armchair— Douglas: Yeah, exactly. Kai: —an armchair psychologist, but we’re doing it from the street. I like it. Douglas: I don’t know just enough to understand what we're dealing with. Kai: Absolutely. Douglas: So I'm curious. If you could change anything about most meetings, what would it be? Kai: Well, that's a very broad question because I have all kinds of different meetings. A lot of my meetings are not bad currently. But I would say I find really, really large, kind of all handsy-type meetings to be ones that I often wonder why we do them. So I think there is a way in which sometimes we have meetings that don't really need to be in person or synchronous, as we say. And I think we could be more creative about how we deliver content asynchronously to people and that when we do bring people together, we design for people being together as opposed to a one-way delivery of content, because I often feel like now, even more than ever, a one-way delivery of content is consumed one way. So I would say really embracing when things are bi-directional or multidirectional and designing for that to make the most use of people's time when they're all actually being asked to be together at the same time. Douglas: Absolutely. We often talk about, is a meeting purely informative, and if so, there's probably better vehicles than bringing everyone together unless we really want to get people's reactions. But if we're truly wanting to get everyone's reactions, like you say, it needs to be designed in a bi-directional way. Kai: Absolutely. Douglas: Excellent. Well, Kai. It's been a pleasure chatting with you today. And I'm sure people are curious how they might be able to follow your work or get in touch or just kind of see more about what you are working on. How can they find you? Kai: You can always find me on Twitter, @kaihaley, and LinkedIn. And then, of course, the designsprintkit.withgoogle.com is a great site where I post case studies and content for folks, if anyone’s interested more in our design-sprint information. Douglas: Excellent. Thank you so much, Kai. Kai: Thank you so much for having me. It was such a pleasure. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working b

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 34!01:45 - BONUS EPISODE IS REAL: PS5 vs Xbox Series X02:45 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]03:15 - Review: WWE Battlegrounds07:08 - Why the GamePass model works07:40 - Reviews you can trust08:43 - Review: Mafia Definitive Edition13:20 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]13:25 - PlayStation Girl is hilarious14:56 - Find something to read with Whichbook18:40 - The unusual real-life relationship between Darth Vader & Princess Leia21:50 -  Carbon Based Computing25:55 - Paradox Free Time-Travel30:00 - NSFW [START]30:38 - Invention of the SIlicon Dildo36:30 - Avenger Dildos37:00 - Superhero Penises44:45 - 99% ACCURATE SEX DOLL50:40 - Airwave Orgasms59:40 - NSFW [END]1:00:00 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 32!01:46 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]02:00 - Comic Con Africa - No baby, what are you doing?06:37 - RAGE is also going online for 202008:40 - Review: Ratched (S01)12:18 - Review: This is Paris17:07 - Review: Raised by Wolves20:52 - Review: Paper Mario Origami King25:08 - Review: Tell Me Why28:40 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]28:55 - MICROSOFT ACQUIRES ZENIMAX MEDIA!32:40 - THE TRUTH ABOUT FIREMAN POLES!36:10 - Most Dangerous Action Heroes45:25 - Interdimensional Hypothesis48:05 - Mandela Effect49:10 - Time Travel Digression50:50 - TRUE TO LIFE GUNDAM ROBOT54:50 - Water on Europa? Maybe even our moon?56:16 - Dark Side of the Moon56:55 - PLANET PI!59:25 - NSFW [START]59:50 - Mass Effect Garrus Body Pillow01:02:50 - PIERRE THE PENIS PILLOW01:05:20 - WIAFU & Japan01:06:45 - Cyberpunk Genitals and Brothels01:11:25 - Boobs & Running01:15:50 - NSFW [END]01:16:10 - Olfactory Fatigue01:19:30 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

“We are both in this radical honesty together where...we have a structure that's going to hold us as we evolve and change together and as individuals...I witnessed that many people don't feel safe to evolve and change and be themselves. So if you can't change with the people around you, I don't know that you are allowing yourself to change.” Alexandra Jamieson Today, I’m excited to speak with Alexandra Jamieson of Super Size Me fame. For two decades, Alexandra has worked professionally as a coach, driving creative women to build their visions for success. She is also an award-winning author, a podcast host, and an artist. She says she is on this earth to help others be rid of imposter syndrome and claim their worth (and wealth!). In today’s episode, we speak about effective communication, couples’ coaching, and meeting snacks. Listen in to find out how to hone your communication skills like a professional musician mastering their instrument and why a movement break is like MiracleGro for your brain.   Show Highlights [0:55]  Supersize Me & going viral for quitting veganism. [5:05] The tiny thing that makes couples communicate effectively. [14:51] Why effective communication is like playing an instrument. [18:10] How going to bed angry can actually benefit your relationship. [29:35] No more conference cookies. [34:52] The All-In Method. [37:56] Alexandra’s challenge for the listener. Links | Resources Alexandra on LinkedIn Radical Alignment: A book about difficult conversations Alexandra’s podcast, Her Rules Radio, on Stitcher About the Guest For 20 years, Alexandra has coached creators, founders, and leaders on the rise to use their strengths, values, intuition, and creative thinking to achieve success on their own terms. She loves championing women and their creative visions by helping them feel worthy of their desires, allowing them to begin bringing their visions to reality and transforming the world. Outside of her coaching work, Alexandra has hosted her #1 podcast Her Rules Radio for 6 years and written 5 best-selling books. You also may know her as co-producer and co-star of the Oscar-nominated documentary Super Size Me.   About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I’m with Alexandra Jamieson, coproducer and costar of Super Size Me. Today we're here to talk about her fifth book that's upcoming, will be released in August, called Radical Alignment. Welcome to the show, Alexandra. Alexandra: Thank you so much for having me. Douglas: So, for starters, I'd love to hear about how you got started in the work you do. Alexandra: It's been a long and tangled road to be an author and coach. I've been an author and a coach for over a decade—as you said, this is my fifth book—and I really started in the health-and-wellness world. And we were about the same age when you and I both discovered we had these massive health issues in our mid-20s and that food was the answer. So I dove deep. I'm a two-feet-in kind of person. I discovered food is healing, food is medicine. Went to culinary school, became a vegan chef, did catering, etc.. And right around that time, I met my now ex. But we made the movie Super Size Me together. He ate nothing but McDonald's for a month, for anybody who remembers that. He got really sick, and I put him on my vegan detox plan afterwards to, like, clean up his liver, his high cholesterol, all the stuff that happened to him so quickly from eating terrible fast food all the time. And I was also a budding health coach. I was working with people one on one to help them figure out their nutritional needs but also their emotional eating life. So it was a very interesting mix of coaching techniques that I was bringing to people. But after being vegan for a decade, I started to get really sick again. I was chronically anemic. I had all these health concerns, and I really tried everything in the vegan framework to fix it. But it turns out I am one of those people that has to eat things like chicken liver and organ meat. That's the only way my body can absorb iron. So I had this kind of infamous coming out as no longer vegan that went viral. You know, we all want our stuff to go viral, Doug, but this I really didn't want anybody to see it. I was like, I just have to be honest. I had written three vegan cookbooks at this point, so it was a bit of a shift, you could say. And it really blew up in, first, a very kind of over-the-top, extreme way, like people wishing me death, losing friends because I wasn't vegan anymore. And that also led to my fourth book called Women, Food, and Desire, which is this real examination of women's cravings and our relationship with our bodies. And around that time, I was now getting divorced from Super Size Me husband, and I met Bob, my new husband. I stepped it up, upgraded a little bit. And Bob came from this design and agile consulting, facilitation world, and I have been in the coaching world for just over 10 years at that point, and we began to realize as our relationship grew that we were talking about a lot of the same things. Even though I was doing kind of life coaching, health coaching, he was doing real, like, solid business design kind of consulting, it was like, we’re using a lot of the same tools to help people figure out what they want, what they need, what the challenges are, and move forward. So that's kind of the seed that led to this book that has some really powerful tools at the heart of it. Douglas: That's amazing. I echo that similar sentiment in my journey at Voltage Control, just as a facilitator, not wanting to just be too dogmatic or aligned with one specific discipline. And the more I sought out and the more I learned in all these different silos that there is quite a bit that's common, but there are some stuff that people were doing a little differently. And when you combine those things together, you can get these real awesome, emergent qualities that you wouldn’t have otherwise. So, I'm curious. Can you tell a story or is there a tool in particular that when you think about the fact that you came together, that the sum’s greater than the combining of the parts, per se. Alexandra: By the request of some of our friends, we actually led a couple of couples workshops. And I'll be honest. It was usually the women, like, dragging their boyfriends or husbands to come to these workshops. And we realized they were there for very different reasons. One person wanted one experience, and one person was there for a completely different reason. And so Bob had this kind of tool from his past life. I think he was also a newspaper design director. Anyway, he said, “You know what, we don’t need to get on the same page. We need to get into alignment.” And we started teaching this very simple conversation tool to put all the information out on the table. Why are you here? What do you want? What are you worried about? etc.. And after a couple of workshops, we realized, like nothing else from those workshops really took off, but this one simple conversation structure that we taught, people kept texting us and emailing us and saying, “What was that four-step thing that you took us through, again? because I have this other conversation that I need to have.” So over the course of the next two years, people kept bugging us for this thing. We're a little slow on the uptake. I’m like, “All right. Let's just put this in a Google Doc because then we can stop explaining it to everybody. We can just say ‘Here it is; here it is; here it is.’” But we kept getting these incredible stories from our friends who were using it, that it was helping them in their marriage, that it was helping them with negotiations at work, that they were using it like Bob was using it, teaching it in these high-level, CEO boardroom kind of situations. And then the CEO would say, “That was amazing. I'm taking that home to my husband, and we’re going to use that conversation at home.” So I  was like, “Oh, my goodness, this one little thing,” sometimes it's just this tiny thing that people keep asking for. We didn't even see how valuable it was. And that's the genesis of this whole project, this book. Douglas: So what are these four steps? You've got me very curious. Alexandra: So it's a really simple, guided conversation that helps two or more people get really clear and develop just a deeper understanding of or appreciation for each other. It really creates team psychological safety. And there's some very specific things about that in terms of how you run it, right? You're the facilitator guy, so you totally get it. There's some ground rules that you got to set up. You got to set the stage. And, you know, one thing is, I always tell people, first, never say to someone, “We need to talk.” That's the wrong way to introduce any kind of conversation. Douglas: That’ll ruin the rest of my day. All I can think about is, “What are we talking about? What things?” Alexandra: So, think about how you want to invite someone to a conversation or a meeting. Have a comfortable, distraction-free place. And believe me, we use this in business and in our personal lives, so we're very clear to make sure everybody is well rested. We do not do meetings at the end of the day. We just don't. Make sure you're fed. Make sure no one has had even one glass of alcohol. Those are three very basic things. Because we are human animals, our bodies are very much aligned with our brains. And if we're not fed, if we've had even a little booze, and if we're exhausted, we're not going to be present or clear. So think about those things before you get to an important conversation. And then, get clear about what the point is. “What are we talking about and why?” And just, we're very specific. “Okay, we're going to talk about project x so we can become a great team, or we're discussing our summer vacation so that we can both have a wonderful time.” That level of clarity. And then, you go into the conversation. A minute ago I said team psychological safety, and one of the things that we’ve learned in all of our practice and all of our research is that there is a real inequality of power in most rooms. There’s somebody who's got the power, and there's somebody—and there's extroverts and introverts. So we actually request that you time everyone, that everybody gets two or four minutes per share so that it is very equal. And some people have—it's funny. In Bob and my relationship, he's an incredible verbal processor. He talks it out and gets clear. And I actually need to sit and be quiet for up to 15 seconds sometimes to know what I'm going to say. But when you have a timer and no one else is speaking, there's no crosstalk. It’s like, “Okay, I’ve got this space where I can just relax and think about what it is that I need to say.” So give each person the same amount of time. That is true equality. And then, you go into the four-part conversation. So that's all the set up. And you each share your intentions, concerns, boundaries, and dreams. And you can think of intentions of, why do you want to be a part of this project? Why can this project support your personal values or your goals? What led you to get involved in this? So what are your intentions in being a part of this? And it can be super simple, like, “I want to have fun. I want to learn something, and I want to make money.” And again, you all go around; you all share the same amount of time. And then you go into your concerns. And this is where we encourage you to start being very vulnerable in the spirit of, let's really try to discover who we are. And luckily, the human brain is incredibly good at coming up with fears and worries and concerns. In fact, it's probably the best thing that our brains are good at. And let’s tap into it. Let’s tap into that negativity bias that we have. Because actually, when you say your worries and concerns out loud in a safe space, and let's really set up these conversations like, “I want to know what you really think. You're not going to get penalized for this. Let's not take anything personally in this room,” when you say it out loud, your brain hears it, and it actually has the effect of calming down your amygdala. Your nervous system can chill out a bit. And that way you can actually get clear and calm, which leads to better decision making by the end of it. Douglas: Well, there's a lot there to unpack. Not only the setting—the one big one is setting the initial conditions. You know, you talked a lot about being well fed, no alcohol, a comfortable space. The invitation, I think, is so critical. And I love that you use that word. Liberating Structures talks a lot about crafting a really good invitation. I think there's some real beauty in that word because it's not that we're telling you what to do. We're inviting you in. It's very open. And also, I love this notion of starting with gratitude and appreciation. Kudos for that because there's some really great design elements at play in that activity. And when you think about the components that kind of came into this, how did you end up developing that? What did you draw inspiration from? Was it just like you just sat down and it just kind of came to you, or was there a process to kind of develop it and refine it? Alexandra: So Bob and I have been through so many trainings and coaching programs over the years, before we even came together as a couple. When we started teaching these couples workshops, there was the seed of it. It was like, “Okay, why are we here, and what challenges could we have in getting to what you want?” Those kind of—I mean, those seem like pretty basic questions. But it took some time using it and then teaching it in other settings and boardrooms and with my clients, etc., that we’re like, “Oh, it needs to be this order: intentions, concerns, boundaries, and dreams.” It took a little time to figure out kind of the magical recipe. Like, you don't want to add the salt at the end of a recipe. It’s got to go in at the beginning so that it can spread throughout. So it really became clear through doing it what the order needed to be. Douglas: I love that you say that, because we're big believers that facilitation requires practice and you have to develop those skills and you have to get comfortable, and a lot of it has to do with confidence. And, you know, it's similar to a musician that’s improving, right? You had to get so comfortable with your instrument that you can perform in a very rigid style. Then you're able to, then, let go and kind of flow with the moment and find what lands. Can you tell any stories about some of the formulas that you tried that just didn't work out and why, and what the lessons to learn from that would be? Alexandra: Actually, I want to go back to what you just said about playing an instrument. We really describe this four-part structure, we’re like, this is playing scales. You know, every great musician still practices their scales. You go dah, dah, dah, dah, right? We do one, two, three, four. And then, eventually, you can improvise. We're now so practiced with it, we'll just—let's say we had a conversation two weeks ago about visiting the in-laws, and now one of us comes up with, “Oh, you know what, I have a new boundary.” We can just, like, drop into that conversation at point C instead of point A again. So we have this shared vocabulary where we're kind of always in the conversation about different topics. And that's just— What's really, really helpful—I'll tell you what my life was like before I learned how to have tough conversations using this structure was I just didn't have tough conversations. I just avoided hard topics. This has given me a sense of—like you said, you have to become confident as a facilitator—I just become confident. Okay, I have four buckets to put all my thoughts and feelings in. And now I know that the science to a good conversation is coming back to the topic, not letting it get off and create—I think that's one of the reasons why I avoided emotional or high-stakes conversations, because I thought I'm going to have to prove everything I believe is right and have logical arguments for everything, and somebody is going to win, and somebody's going to lose. With this structure, it's like, no, we're just in information-gathering zone. And we develop empathy for each other through it, which is so important. That's like the sweet spot of alignment. Douglas: Yeah. That’s amazing. I was thinking a bit about this notion of being afraid to have some of those conversations, and maybe it's not like people might hear that and think, “Oh, I'm daunted by all this fear,” but sometimes it's just subconscious, right? Sometimes we don't even entertain the thought, because our brains are protecting us from that thing that we're deeply fearful of or just avoiding. And I recently saw some really awesome facilitation guides. It was a guide, but it contained some prompts. And it was written by DiAngelo, who is the author of White Fragility, and these prompts were for basically starting conversations that are hard to start. And she called them silence breakers. And as you talked about being more equipped to have these conversations now, it got me really excited. It reminded me of this notion of silence breakers. And I think it's really important and it's amazing to hear that your work is headed in that same direction. So as folks start to think about being able to open up in this way or what that experience is like, what should they consider or how should they—what are some things that they need to keep in mind? Alexandra: I’m so glad you asked that. So we covered intentions and concerns, the first two steps. The third one is boundaries. And that is a very challenging topic for people to come up with answers for. What are my boundaries? And it's not like ordering off a menu, where I’m going to say something and it's a demand of, this is what you're going to do for me or this is what I must have. Think of it like, what are the things I need, the conditions that help me show up to be my best? What are the way—think of them as starter boundaries, right? Take the pressure off of things to be perfect. Think of it as, what do you need to be your personal best? What will help keep us from reaching burn out? What rules or standards help us work together best? One of the things we discovered, and I cannot believe it took me until my 40s to realize this, but do not start an important conversation at bedtime. Don’t. Just don’t. It's okay to go to bed angry or unclear, truly. That has been a game changer in my marriage. And I've seen it happen in the workplace, too. People are like, “We have to figure this out today. We're staying until it's done.” Actually, everybody's exhausted, and nobody is going to show up and be their best right now, so it's okay for us to take a break and for us to honor the exhaustion that's present. Douglas: Yeah, I love this notion of boundaries. I'm a big fan of compartmentalization, so what is the right way to—like, where do we put this thought, and what's important right now in this moment? And if we can constrain things and really just kind of neatly package them up, then we can better be in service of the work that we're doing. Maybe we need to put some things aside. Maybe some things are off limits. That's really, really awesome. The thing that I'm curious about is, just to get your reaction to this idea of honoring yourself, and authentic relating, they have this notion—well, this ground rule—of honoring yourself. So if someone asks something of you, because this is very deeply relating kind of work that they're doing, and so someone could ask you a very personal question because we're trying to build connection, and so there's this notion of, if you don't feel comfortable, then just pass. And so only contribute at the level that you feel comfortable contributing. I think there's some beauty in that. And it's similar to this being gracious with each other. Alexandra: Well, there’s two things that you're reminding me of that I think are so important. Generally, in the room, if there is a designated leader in a work situation, that might be more obvious, right? Like, the team leader or the C-suite-level person. But in our relationship, perhaps the leader could be considered the person who's bringing this topic up. So they're leading the initial situation. That person, we realized, they need to be the most brave. They need to be the most courageous and the most vulnerable. They need to set the tone for, like, “I am going to be super vulnerable here. I'm really going to share my heart and my truth here,” so that everybody else is like, “Oh, wow. Okay. This person has been really vulnerable. I'm going to maybe go an inch further in sharing my truth now.” So that's one aspect. But the other one is we really encourage—and this is something I do personally all the time—I go through these four steps by myself, and I write out my thoughts. And we will often—I've definitely coached my clients to do this. We've even done it as a couple, even though we've used this hundreds of times now. We will, like, “Okay, you know what, tomorrow we're going to talk about this topic,” to give ourselves some time to think about our intentions, concerns, boundaries, and dreams, before we meet so that we just have some time to gather our thoughts and maybe be more coherent in how we express ourselves. And that is very compassionate and very thoughtful, because not everyone is a verbal processor. Some people need to write it out or take a walk and think about it first. Why not give people a little more time if you're able to? Douglas: Absolutely. And we often think about multisensory experiences because there's kind of a myth that some people are visual learners and some people are auditory learners. The fact of the matter is we all learn through many different forms, and in any given moment, we may be more attuned to a different style, and we kind of need it all. And so if we as workshop facilitators and designers want the best out of our participants, we need to consider those things. So I think that's really fantastic. And we've even been asking people to do that silent solo work as part of the workshop, because, frankly, people are jam-packed schedules and are super busy, so the pre-work rarely gets done. So to be in service of those people, like you say, that are slower or need more reflection time, just bake it in. And the people that don't need it, well, they'll be fine. Alexandra: Yeah. You can doodle— Douglas: Yes, exactly. Alexandra: —while the rest of us write. Douglas: That’s right. So I wanted to come back to this comment you made about being authentic. And I think it might have been in the preshow chatter. But when you brought it up, it was around this notion of, you had this strong pull to be true to the brand you've built and true to this identity that was out in the world, and being authentic to your body, to your DNA, to your cellular—like, everything that was physical about your situation was screaming that you needed to behave in a certain way. If you were going to be authentic to that, you had to leave some other stuff behind. In fact, potentially friends and it could have had an impact on livelihood. And that must've been a really challenging moment. And if I really compare it to some of the challenges other people face, it trivializes some of these situations people find themselves in, yet they can't be authentic. And I think it's just may be a beacon to those that are in meetings and not being authentic, because the best way to get to where you want to go and to build strong teams is to be authentic. Sure, you can be a role model in the work that you've already done. But are there any tactics or things people can think about as to how they can really tap into what it means to be authentic for them? Alexandra: And I can't understress how—and this is true for me and my life. You know, I am myself, and you may have a very different, unique experience. But when I feel I am living inauthentically, I am just incapable of being happy. You know, there was a year and a half where I was hiding that I was eating meat. My business was suffering. My energy was suffering. Everything about my life felt frustrating. And I would rather blow up my life by being really honest, and not honest in a way like, I’m going to tell you what I really think about you. No. Me being honest to myself. I would rather have to deal with the repercussions of that. But I tell you how I've been able to—I mean, since I met Bob and since we've been using this format of communication, I feel so incredibly safe and held because we are both in this radical honesty together where it's very clear, like, we're allowed to evolve and change, and we have a structure that's going to hold us as we evolve and change together and as individuals. I didn't have that in my first marriage, and I witnessed that many people don't feel safe to evolve and change and be themselves. So if you can't change with the people around you, I don't know that you are allowing yourself to change. Douglas: Yeah. That's interesting because I think that applies deeply inside teams, too, especially as we find ourselves in more and more complex situations. We're not in the days of the factory, where things are repeatable and the same widgets coming down the assembly line every day, one day after the other, or we can just follow a recipe. And so the change itself is changing, and teams have to be able to adapt. And I think the willingness to reinvent the team and be different tomorrow than we were yesterday is really important. Alexandra: And the last step of the four-part conversation is probably the most important, and it definitely needs to happen at the end, which is you share your dreams. And this is very specific. If this goes incredibly well, what will be true for you as an individual, for us as a team, for the people impacted around us? How will you feel? What will have shifted? You really get into best-case scenario, imagination land, and you start to feel the oxytocin flowing, the connection. And when I hear from you what your dreams are, and I really feel you connected to that, it's almost impossible for me to not want that for you, too. And it really, even if there are concerns and boundaries which seem to be in conflict, and you know that you've got some figuring out to do after this conversation, the dreams brings you all back together. Okay, how can we work together to make this work? It's a really foundational. Douglas: I'm going to switch gears a little bit, though. Food's been a pretty core part of your life, and it's hard to do work and it's hard to meet as a team without eating, without having food. And when we met in person, when we had workshops in real life, we had to think about, what's for lunch, and what's the catering, what are we going to order? And that's not as much of a concern anymore. In fact, I've seen some jokes around the Internet. I think it was a lady. Her husband was attending a virtual conference. And so she prepared a bunch of horrible food for his virtual-conference experience. So like, soggy wraps. Yeah, exactly. Dry chicken, soggy wraps. Alexandra: Really bad chicken. Douglas: Had some pudding in a little cocktail dish. But all joking aside, what is your recommendation, as a health coach, for teams that are wanting to think about, what is a great workshop diet? What should they be thinking about eating when they're wanting to concentrate more, to work together, stay focused? Alexandra: I'm so glad you brought this up. This is one of my favorite things to talk about. No conference cookies. Just keep the sugar out of it. Seriously. It does not help in the long run. Everybody crashes. Fruit, for sure. Have some of those natural sugars. Have some in-season, good-quality fruits. Variety of things. People do need a little bit sugar. But if you eat two cookies, half an hour, hour from now, you're worthless. Douglas: As a diabetic, I've had to dive into a lot of this stuff. And the thing that really clicked for me, it's okay if you have a little sugar. It's okay if you have some fat. But when you mix fat and sugar, that's doing a major whammy on you. And I think that's where desserts really kill us. And it’s like if you're eating fruit, it's literally no fat and it has fiber, which is good. It's going to slow down absorption. But man, the fat actually hijacks your system, and you absorb the sugar slower, but it really hits you harder on the end because your body can't pull it down as fast because it really stays with you a lot longer and just, I mean, it really does a number on you. And that's where the cookies are different than the fruit. Alexandra: Yeah. So I recommend, get the sodas out of the room. Have iced tea. Caffeine, I think, is the drug that we all got to keep in the room, in some form, but have it be unsweetened stuff if at all possible. And have high-protein stuff. Have good-quality meats and veggies. Keep the sugar as much out of the room as possible. And the other side of it is it's not just about the food that we eat. You've got to include movement breaks regularly. Do not make people sit for an hour, even. Do some kind of, “All right, everybody’s going to stand up, and we're going to stretch at the 30-minute mark.” It releases BDNF in the brain, brain-derived neurotrophic factor. It's like Miracle-Gro for your brain. It really gets you back up. Do a little bit of breathing exercises. That's as important as what you eat. Douglas: Yeah. I love that. We love the stretch-and-share fun activity, and especially in the virtual space, because cadence and turn taking can be strange and foreign, and you can't just go around the circle. So, yeah. Getting out of the chair. And as a facilitator, I think it's really important to really model that behavior and encourage it, and make sure that people know that, man, this is serious stuff, Zoom fatigue and other things. It's not only the—you talked about the benefits of getting the movement so that it's improving our thinking and that we're coming with better ideas. But there's actually a negative consequence of not doing some of this stuff, making sure people don't just use the breaks as an opportunity to say, “I’ll tab over their email and just start doing more text stuff.” Excellent. Alexandra: Yeah. Douglas: I want to talk a little bit about differentiated learning and just to hear a little bit about the work that you're doing around supporting folks that might have different needs. And so when you're working through some of this alignment stuff, do you ever run into situations where maybe someone's struggling with concerns or boundaries? And how do you help those individuals that just maybe need a little something different than the rest of the group? Alexandra: That's a really great question. And I can actually bring an example from my 13-year-old son. He has dyslexia and ADHD. So he thinks differently than I do. His brain just works differently. And I find that breaking it up into actually two or three versions of the same conversation over the space of a couple days. Like, I pre-set the scene, day one. “Hey, we need to talk about,” like we just did today, “We need to talk about going back to school in the fall because we don't know what schools are going to look like here in New York City. There's all kinds of ideas, and nobody knows what's up. And we know there's a couple of options on the table. So here's what I know so far. Do you have any concerns or questions about that before we talk about it in a couple of days with your dad? Just to drop it in there and ask him the open-ended questions so that in the background it's running. His brain can be prepared to think about it in a day or two. Douglas: I love that. I always talk about the best workshop homework is where they don't really have to do anything, but they’re doing it. Alexandra: Yeah. Douglas: Right? Because if it's just enough to plant the seed in their subconscious, they're going to be able to participate more deeply when the time comes, versus giving them a bunch of busy work or having them go do things that require present, hands-on stuff, which no one does. Alexandra: Yeah, yeah. I've learned so much from being his mom and helping him learn to think and me understanding how he thinks. And I've been working with women as a success-in-life coach for over 10 years, and 10 years as a health coach before that. And I just realized that different people need different versions of the same question. Actually, in the book Radical Alignment, we give dozens of options for different scenarios. We talk about how people have used the, we call it, the all-in method. Those four steps are the all-in method. People have used it to plan their weddings, like, huge multi-continent weddings, and they planned with this. But people also use it for their design teams, and they use it in H.R., and they use it at home. So through the book, there's just dozens of ways to ask the same question, depending on your circumstances. So be willing to be flexible and curious. What’s another way I could ask this? Douglas: Wow. I love this notion of, what is another way I could ask this? And I think the hallmark of a great listener, a great conversation, is fantastic questions. So what are some of your favorite questions? Alexandra: I actually really love the dreams questions. What are you doing, and what would be the most amazing outcome for this? I don't think we often get the opportunity to really dream big and share it out loud in a way where we're not going to get shot down. So like, the “Oh, you, Pollyanna,” or “You're crazy.” I'm also an artist. I come from a family of artists. It's kind of a miracle that any of us became artists, considering this culture we live in that is so down on artists. Like, “Oh, you better have a backup plan,” or “You're going to be a starving artist.” You know, those ideas just get woven into the culture. So I love the invitation. Just say, like, “What would you like for Radical Alignment to happen when it publishes?” I’m like, “I would love it to be a New York Times’ bestseller. I want this in every middle school in America. I want every eighth grader learning how to have tough conversations in a way where they feel capable.” Like, that is my dream. That’s absolutely my dream. Douglas: That's phenomenal. So good. And let's talk a little bit about—one of my favorite questions is, if you can make meetings better, any average meeting—because as you know, I'm on a mission to rid the world of horrible meetings— Alexandra: God bless you. Douglas: —if you were to do one thing or just change one thing about meetings, what would it be? Alexandra: For people to feel really safe to be themselves. I think people are dying for an opportunity to really be safe, to be themselves, and be accepted. I mean, that's the bottom line. Douglas: So I'd love to end with a message to the listener. So if there is anything that you’d want to leave them with, what might it be? Alexandra: I want to invite you to try to bring structure to your conversat—I know I sound a little over the top, but this has truly changed so much about my life. It has changed decades-old family dysfunction, and it has changed my work and how successful my business is. Bring this structure to try it. Try this four-part conversation. Try it a few times. It has absolutely changed my life, my friends’ lives. The woman who wrote the foreword, she will inspire the heck out of you. An entrepreneur, who is a mom of five, she's, like, “This saved my marriage.” I’m like, that’s a great testimonial for this book. Bring a little structure to your conversations, a little bit more professional structure to your intimate conversations, and a little bit more vulnerable intimacy to your professional conversations. Douglas: It's been a pleasure chatting with you today and hearing about your approach and your structure. I'm a huge fan of structure, and this falls right in with the work we do and what I love to talk about. So it was a tremendous pleasure chatting with you today. And one last piece of housecleaning. How can folks find you? How can they get the book? I know it's not quite out yet. Give us a little bit to go on. Alexandra: We would love people to go preorder the book, actually. You can go to radicalalignmentbook.com. Listen, if you buy one or a couple copies and you just give us your little order number on the website, you get a free workshop with us. If you get 10 or more copies of the book, you get an eight-week training with me and my husband. So go to radicalalignmentbook.com, order the books there from wherever you love to get books. We are going to help you use this in your life and in your business beautifully. Douglas: Excellent. And amazon.com, other suppliers as well. Alexandra: Amazon, Kindle, Audible, your local independent bookstore, you can order it all through radicalalignmentbook.com. Douglas: Radicalalignmentbook.com. So incredible. And I wish you the best of luck. I hope you do make the New York Times’ bestseller list. And again, it was a real pleasure to have you on the show. Alexandra: Thank you. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working bett

Episode 189 (Top Ten of 1991) Show Notes   Intro: Welcome back 22 Shots, How many films we watched, Overall Thoughts on 1991  Top Ten of [...]

Episode 189 (Top Ten of 1991) Show Notes   Intro: Welcome back 22 Shots, How many films we watched, Overall Thoughts on 1991  Top Ten of [...]

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 32!00:40 - EMOTIONAL PSA: WEAR A MASK + WASH YOUR HANDS + SELF-ISOLATE03:20 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]03:42 - Review: Ghost Recon Breakpoint: Red Patriot04:20 - SPLINTER CELL SEGWAY08:00 - Back to Breakpoint: Red Patriot09:45 - Review: The Social Dilemma11:45 - Review: WRC 913:20 - Review: Away21:06 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]21:10 - Apple’s iOS 14 is here!21:42 - Apple Watch Series 622:10 - Apple Watch SE22:28 - Is Hans upgrading his watch? Why CERAMIC is best!25:40 - Apple iPad Air28:20 - Apple One29:35 - PlayStation 5 Pricing and release date31:48 - Why Xbox is better in terms of value34:00 - Sony doesn’t believe in Game Pass37:55 - PS5 Launch Mess & Lies about Next Gen44:30 - COVID MASKS & IMMUNITY47:08 - 3D Printed Shape Shifting Wool50:35 - Using Anime as a graphic medicine53:44 - Harry Potter Legacy RPG53:05 - Bottled Butterbeer55:40 - Life on Venus?58:26 - Rivers on Mars?59:55 - Were human’s once a space faring civilisation?01:01:54 - Golf Balls on Ice01:03:00 - Spooky Black Ice01:03:43 - COGNITIVE BIASES AND DECISION MAKING01:08:30 - Potato Tomato01:09:40 - NSFW [START]01:10:00 - CHRIS EVANS’ PEEN01:15:10 - Erykah Badu’s Mythical Ass Pussy01:19:45 - PUSSYPEDIA01:21:33 - Ethical Porn01:24:24 - NSFW [END]01:24:37 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 31!02:25 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]02:29 - Review: Mulan09:27 - Review: Star Wars: Jedi - Fallen Order12:33 - Review: Vampire The Masquerade - Shadows of New York13:46 - Review: Project Cars 316:30 - Review: Fitbit Charge 421:15 - Preview: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint: Episode 322:50 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]22:55 - How is Edward’s Russian coming along?23:35 - Assassin’s Creed Lessons About Life: Part III32:20 - Xbox Series X & S: PRICING & RELEASE DATES36:00 - Game Pass improves & why Series S is so good!39:05 - We all need Xbox All Access!40:00 - Series S is tiny, X is larger and PS5 is just…41:15 - CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME: AMD & Next-Gen43:05 - FLYING CARS ARE FINALLY HERE!45:57 - Bullet Plane hopes to democratise private flight49:30 - Rich vs Poor & issues of relatability56:56 - The Peak End Rule01:01:53 - DOOM NOW RUNS ON PREGNANCY TESTS01:03:15 - NSFW [START]01:03:27 - The Bold & the Beautiful’s mannequins should be Sex Dolls01:06:09 - The rise of Technosexuals01:08:30 - EXTREME LOVE & INANIMATE OBJECTS01:03:23 - That GOOP Life01:14:35 - Posh Spice enters Sex Toy Industry01:16:50 - NSFW [END]01:17:03 - CURE FOR BOREDOM! YOU’RE WELCOME!01:19:03 - One more question & Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

"What I found is that the workshop format is perfect for a creative team." -Alison Coward Today my guest is Alison Coward, founder of Bracket, a consulting agency that helps teams in the creative and digital industries to work better together. Alison helps organizations build highly collaborative cultures and high-performing teams. She is a strategist, workshop facilitator, coach, trainer, keynote speaker, and author of "A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops."   She works across corporates, start-ups, agencies, and public institutions, and her client list includes Google, D&AD, Barclaycard, Wellcome, and Channel 4. With over 15 years of experience of working in, leading, and facilitating creative teams, Alison is passionate about finding the balance between team creativity, productivity, and collaboration.   While researching how creative industries could flourish, Alison came across the idea of collaboration, which she focuses on today. The first iteration of Bracket was a virtual agency that brought freelancers together into teams to deliver collaborative projects for clients.   "As a facilitator, you're not there to contribute content, and you're not there to tell people what to do, you're there to create a space where all of your ideas can come to the forefront," Alison told me. She further dives into the role of a facilitator, explaining that your role is objective–you need to stay focused on what you need to do to get people communicating. It’s also important to consider what is necessary for your team to get to know each other, and to be able to contribute ideas and feel at ease to speak up.   We also talk about how to make space for constructive conflict, why there is power in the introduction, and how your team can define who they are as an objective. Listen in to find out how to understand the context of what you're working in, how you can create the environment to do your best work as a team, and why shared empathy across a team is so important.     Show Highlights [00:57] How Alison became a leader in building high-performing teams. [02:45] Alison’s workshops: teaching others how to create teams that work together. [04:48] Matching skills to brief and character in a team. [06:54] Assembling successful teams from people who don’t know each other. [08:09] Alison’s go-to strategies for getting members of a team on the same page. [11:30] How your team can define who they are as an objective. [14:33] Using the empathy map to dig deeper with the people you work with on your team. [16:00] Emotional baggage tied up in teams and how you can bring that into work. [19:10] Turning off the negative and looking at the positive to see the beauty we want to pursue. [23:46] The value of having differing perspectives in a team environment. [26:52] Developing behaviors and making them habits. [30:19] To increase your chances of success you have to be intentional about what you’re doing in a team environment. [33:55] Managers are there to clear the path and make work easy. [36:39] Alison’s advice in how to gain facilitation in a meeting room. Links and Resources Meeting Solutions Online Lynda Baker on LinkedIn About the Guest Alison works across corporates, start-ups, agencies, and public institutions, and her client list includes Google, D&AD, Barclaycard, Wellcome, and Channel 4. With over 15 years of experience of working in, leading, and facilitating creative teams, Alison is passionate about finding the balance between team creativity, productivity, and collaboration. About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I’m with Alison Coward, founder of Bracket, where she helps organizations build highly collaborative cultures and highly performing teams. Welcome to the show, Alison. Alison: Thanks, Douglas. Douglas: So, Alison, tell us a little bit about your journey. How did you get started in this work? Alison: It is a bit of a journey, actually. So, I didn’t fall into workshop facilitation because I intended to. Actually, the angle that I came with it was because I was so passionate about collaboration. And I've actually done an M.A., which was related to my previous career in the creative industries, did lots of research about how the creative industries could flourish, and came across this idea of collaboration. And, actually, the first iteration of Bracket, when I set out 10 years ago, was a virtual agency that brought freelancers together into teams and to deliver collaborative projects for clients. And at the start of each of those projects, because each of these freelancers never worked together before, it made sense and it was really logical for me to get everyone together to meet each other, but, then, also to have, I guess, a brainstorming session where we talk about what we were going to do for the client and how we were going to work together. And because I wasn't a creative producer myself, I was the person that kind of convenes every one. I was the facilitator, but I didn't know I was doing that at the time. And actually, that's what people picked up on. They were asking me to facilitate their workshops. So rather than me bringing together teams, they were saying, “Can you come in and work with our teams to do what you're doing with those teams? because we need that as well.” It just kind of went from there, really. I kind of realized what workshop facilitation was, started to do more of that. And I wrote a book, A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops. And then over the last couple of years, I've kind of brought it back full circle—I'd say, over the last kind of three to four years—brought it back full circle to the original core of the idea, which was around collaboration. So whereas the workshops that I ran previously were—they were innovation workshops, maybe brainstorming workshops, or strategy sessions; now a lot of the workshops I facilitate are very much about how teams can gel and form and create new ways of working together. Douglas: Yeah. I wrote the word forming down, as you mentioned, gel and form, form and gel and work together, that makes me even more curious because I've always found that model of forming, norming, storming to be kind of interesting, like this maturity curve that a team goes on. And so what did you find when you were assembling these kind of creative groups and facilitating them, as far as patterns and, I don’t know, maybe norms, that work that you could lean on in this forming stage or when you're starting to get them to gel? Alison: That's a really brilliant question because, first of all, what I found was the workshop format was actually perfect for a creative team, and I don't think I'd really made that connection before. The thing is, is when you're facilitating a workshop as a facilitator, you're not there to contribute content, and you're not there to tell people what to do. You’re there to create a space where all of the ideas can come to the forefront. And I think I instinctively knew that, but I hadn't realized it so clearly because I wasn't a creative producer. It was my job for everybody to come together and create the best platform for this team to do their best work as people that had never met before but people that were experts in everything that they did. So I think that was the first thing was that, as a facilitator, your role is very objective, and you've got a specific role, which is about process of what do you need to do to get these people communicating, getting to know each other, being able to contribute ideas and speak up, and also make the space for that constructive conflict that is so important in innovation as well. So I say that's one of the things, particularly in terms of the form, is such, some stuff that came before that in terms of kind of understanding the brief and then matching skills to the brief and then kind of having a little bit of a background knowledge about the characters and kind of matching it that way. But, really, the work started in the room, or just before the room, when I would sort of plan that workshop out and figure out, I need to get these people working in the best way possible. How can I make that happen? Douglas: Yeah, it's interesting. I think that you mentioned it's important to understand the brief, and I feel like that's where so many people focus. It’s like making sure we're aligning on what exactly needs to be done versus the best way for us to come together and work together, understand each other, and do our best work. Alison: 100 percent. I mean, that's the work that needs to be done before you even really start talking about the ideas, or maybe done in tandem. But you're right that the emphasis is on the content and not on the how. It's one of my favorite phrases, which is how you work together has more of an impact on the success of a team than what they're working on and even who's in the team. And I use lots of research to back that up. But it’s so important. And I think the emphasis for me was that, one, these people were specialists. I'd brought them into the room for a specific reason, and they were cross-disciplinary as well, multidisciplinary teams. Secondly, they'd never met before, and they were going to be working on a high-value client project together. So it's not that there wasn't room for mistakes, but we had to kind of get together and start working together very quickly. We didn't really have the luxury of years of getting to know each other. We had to kind of get together, know each other, and start working together all in the same day. So it was very much emphasis on the kind of the forming part. Douglas: Yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned this situation where we don't have years to get to know each other. We have to assemble and move pretty quickly. I would hazard a guess that we'll see more of that in the future as the different models emerge for finding work and doing work. To me, the future work is about more kind of open talent. Alison: Yeah. And temporary teams as well. I mean, I think the challenges that we're facing and the problems that we want to solve and how we want to innovate, we're going to need to bring different skillsets together. And that means that it's going to be teams that are made up of people that have never worked together before, because we're going to need to bring skills together in new ways. It's almost like different jigsaw puzzles or different recipes, if you like. The raw ingredients, but mixing them up in different ways, and you get a different result. So we're going to have to get much more used to working with people that we don't know and, therefore, understanding what it takes to get a team up and running more quickly, which, like you say, it's less to do with the content and more to do with the process of how. We need to get better at having those kinds of conversations. Douglas: Yeah. To me, the word trust comes to mind. How do we get to that point of trust quickly? And I'm curious of what your go-to strategies or what you found to work to kind of really kick start some of that. Alison: Yeah. Well, there's a few things. I mean, I always talk about the value of a check in at the start of a meeting and finding a question that everyone can respond to, which not only kind of creates a moment for people to kind of focus and say what we're going to—we’re in the room together, and we need to give our attention, but also an opportunity for people to get to know each other. The book The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, he did a lot of research in hospitals, and he found that the teams that were going into surgery, the doctors and nurses and anesthetists that introduced themselves at the beginning of the surgery before they started operating were more likely to have a successful surgery because the fact that they spoke up at the beginning and got to know each other, got to know each other’s names, meant they were more likely to speak up later on during the surgery if they saw something going wrong. There's a real power in that kind of pause at the beginning of a session. And I don’t mean those introductions where you go around the room. I mean, I think I find those kind of quite daunting, actually, when I’m in a room of people that I don't know and I'm under pressure to introduce myself in a really effective way. But finding an interesting question that you can talk around. I mean, I think the other thing as well, which goes back to social psychology, is that finding ways that people can find things in common with each other, whether it's two brothers or their parents grew up in the same town or their birthdays are in the same month, even things like that can start to help to build that connection which will then lead to trust. So as a facilitator, again, it's about finding those questions. And I don't really like to call them icebreakers all the time. And I know that there's value in icebreakers, but I feel that this is really part of the work. It's not just something that's breaking the ice. It's something that's really helping people to get together and to focus on the work. And there's so much out there. There’s so many questions that we can pick up on. People have created kits for questions that you can ask at the start of a meeting. So they can ware short on those kinds of questions, but I think the fact is we need to design something at the beginning to open up those kinds of conversations. Douglas: I think you're so spot on. You know, if we can tie it to our purpose and have it align, and there’s a broader intent or reason why we're doing that work, then icebreakers, whatever you want to call it, they have value. But if we’re just going to throw them in because, “Oh, we always do this,” then we're just kind of going through the motions. I really would love to talk a little bit about—I was thinking about those—I had written down the word team charter. And I was thinking, also, about Patrick Lencioni’s organizational health is so important versus operational excellence. And so I'm curious to just hear your thoughts on this notion of the team really kind of coming together and kind of defining who they are as an objective. Alison: Absolutely love it. Yeah. It’s one of the key principles that I have is that in order for a team to identify how they’re going to work, how everyone's going to do their best work, they have to sit down and really explore, first of all, who's on the team and what each individual is bringing to the team, as well as each of those individuals, how they work and how they do their best work. They also need to consider, therefore, what everybody looks like, what that looks like as a team, when you bring all of those people together, because that's going to be unique. Because if we're working in these temporary teams and each team is going to be made up of different types of people, which means each team is going to be different as well, then you need to think about what is it that you're actually working on—some projects are more fast paced than others. Some are more pressurized than others, that require more creativity and innovation than others—but really understands what it is that you need to do together. And then, also, understand the context that you're working within as well and whether that's going to influence the way that you work together. And then once you've got all of that, once you've kind of discussed that as a team and understood it, that's when you’re in the position to really start designing, okay, so this is a situation that we're in. How are we going to do our best work? How can we create the environment for us also individually, do our best work within the way that we can, acknowledging that we’re going to need to make some compromises, and, therefore, what does that mean as a team for us doing our best work as well? So I actually love the idea of a team charter and particularly the idea of getting to know everybody's working styles so that there's that shared empathy across the team as well. Douglas: Yeah. It reminds me of this technique where managers will write a manual on how to understand them, and give it to their employees or their direct reports. And I think that being able to do that as a team and get to a high-level understanding can be really powerful. There is a technique I always loved to use as a manager if I had two employees that were struggling. Most of the time, it came down to a lack of understanding about role and perspective and capability, skillset. Unless there was something pathological going on, I would just ask them to go to coffee and tell them, “You can't talk about work. I don't want you to talk about your tasks or what's going on. I just want you to take turns telling each other what the other person does. Describe the other person's role, in your words, and just listen to each other. And once you're done sharing back and forth, then discuss that.” It's, like, 99 times out of 100, they come back, and they're like, “Oh. You know, I had no idea.” Alison: Yeah. I love that. I love that. The other tool that I've used as well—and these are particularly across teams, actually, that have conflict, like maybe a marketing or a sales team, or I've done it with a research department in a university that had relationship with the academics they work with—I use the empathy map, which is, like, a really great way to kind of sit down, use the empathy map usually with your potential customers or clients if you’re service, but using the empathy map with people that you work with. Again, really trying to dig in deep and to really see things from their point of view. Again, you can kind of help to smooth some of those conflicts over. Douglas: Yeah, that's great. It reminded me of how awesome it is when organizations and consultants are using design-thinking tools to point them inward and start thinking employee experience versus customer experience. Alison: That was—you’re talking about all the stuff I love talking about and writing about. I mean, I literally just wrote a post about design thinking and using design thinking as a way to build resilient teams. And again, one of the main things that I talk about a lot is that we've got all of these innovation tools which help us to create amazing products and services and innovate in those areas. If we turn them inwards, into our team, then actually we can innovate the way that we work as well. Most teams, if you think about UX or products, they're used to using these tools. They’re kind of second nature to them. But often, they haven't thought about just flipping them internally and using them to really create new ways of working together, and they can be really powerful when used in that way. Douglas: Absolutely. One of my favorites—we were talking about starting meetings earlier—one of my favorites is starting with hopes and fears, because you talk about feeling strongly about something, this is your career. You spend more time with these people than you sometimes do with family because, frankly, there's eight hours of your waking day is at the office, or at home, logged into a virtual session. And so there’s going to be a lot of emotional baggage tied up in teams and things. And so just giving people space to express those things can be really powerful. Alison: 100 percent. And, you know, I think that's the key, right? We spend so much of our time at work. We often—I think people don't have the awareness or feel that they have the permission to make work better. And, you know, one of the thoughts is that if you make it work better—because we spend so much time at work and particularly in the area that we work in, a lot of our work is done with teams—if we spend the time making teamwork better, it will change the experience that we have of work. And because we spend so much time at work, it's kind of going to change the experience that we have over all of our lives because if we're spending so much time at work and if we don't like our jobs, then, actually, that has an impact on how we feel generally. If we love our work, we feel that we're able to go and express ourselves, and we have the opportunity to thrive, do our best work, have amazing conversations with our colleagues, which push us and challenge us and enable us to grow. And that's going to have a knock on effects in our lives outside of work as well. And that's one of the things that really gets me going. I actually did a bit of an interview earlier, and one of the questions was, what's your biggest delusion? And my delusion is, is that one day everybody goes to work or looks forward to going to work and has brilliant days every single day. I don't know. That's kind of like a utopia. But that is, you know, that's my biggest delusion. Douglas: You know, I think that's really beautiful. And I was just coaching someone recently on leadership, and they had, not that long ago, been promoted. They're a software developer, and they're kind of on the track to become V.P. of engineering at their startup. And the thing that I noticed, this trend, was they were from a background of just big company, corporate gigs, where the hobby or the pastime is to sit back and just complain about all the things that are wrong. All the things about work and all the things the boss did and someone else did and blah, blah, blah. And that stuff’s addictive. That mindset, that behavior, that pastime is super addictive. And I'm a big fan of positive deviance as a workshop technique, and it can be a way of life, too, if we just reflect on what's working rather than what's not working. But as, especially as engineers, it can be really difficult or really easy, I would say, just to fall into that trap. And I'm trained and lifelong engineer, a software developer, and we've spent our entire career building our abilities to figure out what could go wrong and to plan against it, and find the bugs and fix them. And we have to be able to turn that off and look at the positive sometime, because if we're always looking at what won't work, then we'll never see the beauty that we might be able to pursue. Alison: Mm, yeah. And I even like what you said about looking at finding the bugs and fixing it. You can even kind of put a positive spin on that. If we look at that as work, what's not working in work, and kind of think what we want to problem solve and the things that aren't working to make it better, that's the kind of really good way of looking at is, is also a positive spin. But I do agree that it feels quite addictive, and it almost feels like there's a kind of element of that's what work’s meant to be. We're not meant to enjoy it. We’re meant to moan about work. We’re meant to moan about our colleagues. But what if we weren’t? What if work was meant to be this place where you go to where you are fulfilled? It enables you to sort of, not in a, I guess, in a controlled way, but enables you to be a better human. It enables you to kind of search for what it is that you want to do and kind of grow and develop and explore and become a better communicator. So therefore, you can contribute in better ways to your family, to your community, to society. I'd love for companies to see themselves as having that role. Can you imagine if companies, alongside, see companies have to make a profit and they have to survive, otherwise they can’t employ people. But when they do kind of get to that stage, it's like, what if we saw ourselves as a place where people come to thrive, because we see the impact that that's going to have on society? Douglas: That's beautiful. I love it. I'm going to switch gears a little bit and come back—it's something I was thinking about when we were talking about the forming and just understanding each other and some of the things that are required to build trust. And it struck me—and this is something that we've been doing in some of our workshops. I've found great results with it, and I'm sure it's found your way into your work—where usually when people get along or there's disagreements or they're disgruntled by someone, it's because they have a weakness of their teammates. It's the behavior that their teammate or someone on the team’s exhibiting is hurtful or doesn't connect in some way, and it upset someone. And usually, I've found that those behaviors are the exact opposite manifestation of a strength. So, for instance, let's take one example, which is I'm an achiever, so I get a lot of stuff done. So then my expectations on others can be quite high, unless I check myself and say, “Not everyone is going to be functioning on this achiever level as me. And even when I keep taking them into account, it can potentially still come off as overwhelming to others. And it's one thing for me to carry that burden and do my best to take care of others, but if we talk about all of this as a team, now everyone else can understand that ‘Oh, I don't need to interpret this as an attack on me. That’s just Douglas being an achiever. And that's great for the team.’” Alison: Yeah, absolutely. Douglas: Yeah. Alison: Of course, I’ve a bit of a love-hate relationship with personality tests. Well, I’m kind of addicted to them because I love doing them for myself, but then I know that they have their limits in the past— Douglas: Yes. Alison: But I think that they’re a good entry point into self-awareness. And what happens—I remember when I did my first one, which, I think, was Myers Briggs years ago, and it was kind of mind-blowing for me because we need, sometimes, need these kind of assessments. How did they get that so right? But what it did for me was, as well as kind of creating that self-awareness, with Myers Briggs, for example, you've got those 15 other personality types. And you're like, “Oh, right. The reason that person and I clash all the time is that they were on the opposite end of the scale. So they just see things in a different perspective from me.” So that, actually, that's the most powerful outcome of the personality test, I think, second to the initial self-awareness is the awareness that other people see things and work in different ways. And the more that you can understand that, the more that you can benefit from collaboration, because in a collaborative team, you don't want people that all work in the same way. And that's the whole point of collaborating, that you get different perspectives. But the nature of having those different perspectives may cause conflict if people haven't taken the time to get to know each other and understand how people see things and, therefore, how valuable that is to have those different perspectives. It also comes back to the debate around diversity at the moment, which is the value not only from a moral standpoint, that people, the team should be diverse because we are globally diverse, but at the same time, the opportunities that come from inviting or including people into a conversation that have different perspectives and being able to hold those types of conversations. And we've seen that it's pretty challenging, but it’s something that we have to learn to do, not only because we want to make the world better, but also it just makes better workplaces. Douglas: So, when we talk about working together and how we're going to do that, we've spoken a lot about the soft skills and the understanding around coming together and understanding how we're going to work together. I think there's also some very, I would say, more hard skills that go into how we're going to work together. Even deciding, are we going to use Google Docs and do some real-time collaboration, or what tools are we going to use? When are we going to meet? When does it make sense to have certain types of meetings? And I think that that causes a lot of strain on teams when they don't have those conversations and they take it for granted or they let things evolve organically versus having some upfront conversations around, what's the best way for us to share these things, and what is our iteration cadence, etc.? Alison: Mm. So, here's the thing, right, is that this can be seen as a design process. You can create and design the way that you work together as a team. And, you know, all those kind of factors I mentioned before—the individuals on the team, the project that you're working on, the context that you’re working with it—what do you need to design to enable you to reach the outcomes that you set for yourself? And that might be looking specifically at how you meet, when you meet, what types of meetings you're going to have, what tools you're going to use, and how you're going—but not even just what tools you're going to use, but how you're going to use those tools. We're going to use Slack for this, and we’re going to use Google Docs for this. The other thing is what kinds of mechanisms and, perhaps, rituals can you put in place to foster that communication and the connection and trust—we’ve seen this a lot with remote teams. We've seen it a lot in remote teams in the fact that, you know, people aren't in the office as much, and they’ve really been missing that connection. And it's not that you can necessarily replicate those water-cooler moments in the office, but there is something that you can create to try to ensure that you're checking in with your colleagues, for example, or you are having those kind of social chats, and being really intentional about how you work together. And then thinking, “This is all a behavior-change piece.” So not only do we want to collaborate better, and, therefore, that means we need to have this meeting then and that meeting then, but actually really be specific about how and when you're going to start to develop these behaviors or make them habits. Douglas: Mm. I love this notion of developing behaviors and making them habits. Alison: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is it. You know, if we want to work differently, then we're going to be changing the way that we work, and, actually, we know that as humans, we find change quite difficult to do off of our own backs. However, when change is done to us, like we’ve seen in the recent situation, we’ve had to change quite quickly, when we're trying to be proactive about change, then we have to be a lot more, I guess, disciplined with ourselves about how it's going to take place. So it's not just the conversations with your team of saying, “We want to be a good collaborative team.” It’s saying, “Well, what does collaboration look like to us, and what do we mean by collaboration? And on a practical level, what actions do we take in order to make that happen? And then, when are we going to do those actions? And what does it look like? How do we know that it's working?” and making sure that you're having those kind of regular conversations as a team to review how you're working and what you need to improve or what you need. It's right on. Douglas: Yeah. Speaking of change, if you could change anything about most meetings, would it be? Alison: When I say most meetings, I'm talking about the team meetings that are kind of big parts of projects because the “getting to know you” meetings are slightly different than presentation meetings. But I would say that I would love teams to look at those kinds of meetings and approach them as if they were workshops. So that means taking each of those meetings and thinking, “Right, okay, what is the purpose? What is the outcome? What are the things that we need to discuss? And what are the best ways to discuss those different points? And then, how can we make it engaging, and how can we make sure that everybody gets the chance to have a say?” So I think that's one of the things that I would like to see change in meetings is that how can we make some of our meetings more workshop like? because that's what we need. If you want collaborative discussions, that's exactly what a workshop achieves. Douglas: Yeah. We're going to increase participation that way, for sure. Alison: Right. Douglas: I love that. It’s like, can we unleash everyone? because I think so many meetings provide too many opportunities for social loafing. Alison: Mm. And for people to dominate, as well, the conversation. And that's the special role of a facilitator is that they are there to keep an eye on these things and make sure that the conversation is inclusive, kind of draw out the things that aren't being said and the people that aren't speaking, and understand why they're not speaking. Douglas: Yeah. How have you noticed some of those dynamics change now that we're in the virtual space so much more often? Alison: Yeah, no less people being intentional about it, then it doesn’t change. I think that was one of the big mistakes that happened is that everyone got very excited by having these online, virtual meetings because we had Zoom, and we've got Slack and those kinds of things. But they didn’t—if meetings are terrible face to face anyway, then they're not automatically going to be amazing because they're virtual. You've still got to apply the same principles of planning those meetings and making them better. I think it's the same conversation that we have around collaboration. You know, just by putting great people in the room doesn't mean that they're automatically going to work well together. It can happen. But actually, if you want to increase the chances of success, then you've got to be intentional about it. And it's the same with our online meetings. So where people were feeling, perhaps, that they weren't able to contribute in online meetings, in fact, it's been accentuated. So where they weren't able to contribute in face-to-face meetings, it's been accentuated in online meetings. And all of the kind of cracks in cultures, in meeting cultures, in team cultures, have just been highlighted and enhanced even more in a situation where we have to work remotely. And I do believe that a lot of this stuff—I mean, I know I'm biased, but I think what I learned from facilitating workshops was really transformational for me. I said that I started off my career, but I was working with creatives. I was working with freelance creatives. These are people that worked for themselves. They were their own boss, and they were specialists. So I knew, as somebody who didn't have any knowledge about how they did their work and how they got their results, there was just no point in me telling them what to do. I didn't want to tell them what to do. That's the whole point. I got in there because I wanted to kind of draw on their expertise. Now we're finding ourselves in a situation where the workplace looks a little bit more like that. We are bringing together multidisciplinary teams. People are specialists in their own areas. And the way that we've managed in the past through, or the traditional idea of the manager, i.e. telling people what to do and making decisions, won't work in an environment where we want innovation. And what I learned from facilitating workshops was transformational because for me a workshop is the exact same feeling and environment that you need to lead a creative team through uncertainty is exactly what a facilitator does. So it’s almost like, how do leaders take on some of those principles of facilitation and apply them to how they work with their teams? because that's kind of what we need. We need to make that shift from the tell-and-sell manager to a manager or a leader that is more facilitative and creates the space for people to do their work and enables those conversations. Douglas: You know, I recently had Lynda Baker on the podcast, and she loves to share this definition of facilitation to be to make ease. Alison: Yeah. Douglas: And I'm pretty fascinated by this definition, and especially as it relates to what you were just talking about around, how can leaders improve their teams by adopting these skills and this way of working? And tying back to your point around, can we help teams and employees and workers enjoy their work more and not feel like they're dreading work? And if management is less about like—well, leadership is less about managing and having you under their thumb, and more about, how can I make this easy? that seems like it would bring about more delight. Alison: Absolutely. Do you know that that—I talk about this all the time. If anyone's heard me speak at events, then you know that I talk about this all the time, but it just made me think about Teresa Amabile’s book The Progress Principle, where she identified that the thing that knowledge workers want more than anything or the thing that ignites most joy in people's work is that they've made progress every single day and it, therefore, changes the way that we look at managers, that managers are there to clear the path to make that progress easy, which goes back to Lynda Baker's definition of facilitation. Douglas: Mm. It also reminds me of—I think Gallup did a study and came up with these twelve questions that were the critical questions that you could ask of employees to kind of rate their satisfaction. They kind of presented a little more negatively in the sense that, like, if they answer no to more than one or two of these questions, then they're probably likely to leave. I always found them to be really powerful questions, the pepperin and one-on-ones and stuff. But I've never used them in workshops, and I just jotted it down because I think it could be interesting to start kind of bringing those in and thinking about, could they be almost design principles? So instead of using them as a reactive measure, we actually use them as a standard to, like, well, how do we design situations that ensure we're all yeses on all these questions? Alison: Yes. Yeah. Douglas: One of them was, do you feel that you're doing your best work? Alison: Mm, yeah, yeah. If you're kind of looking at that from a design point of view, again, it comes back to that self-reflection. It’s like, how can you be sure that you're doing your best work, or what do you need to be able to do your best work? Douglas: Yeah. And are we making sure we're putting people on the right teams? Like, if we’re routinely reassembling and looking at projects, who should be on the projects could be highly informed by the fact of, well, where could Susan be doing her best work? and not necessarily what’s most convenient for me as a leader or for whatever reasons, we can kind of consider some of these things when we're allocating resources. Alison: And that's what makes me think that that's what work should be about, because you’re going to get not only engaged employees, but if you kind of bring someone in that is able to do their best work on whatever projects that they're doing, then that's going to benefit the company in the long run, obviously, because you've just got all these people that are just doing amazing work wherever you put them. Douglas: So, I want to wrap up with one question, which is, if you're thinking about a leader who’s just starting to hear some of these things, and they're curious about how facilitation could play a role in the future of their organization, or it could even be someone in the trenches that just wants to be a facilitator, what's your biggest advice as far as how to start to gain the benefits of facilitation and start to practice some of this stuff? Alison: I would say, don’t feel that you have to only practice facilitation in a workshop setting. There are skills in facilitation, which is, I guess, what I've been saying throughout our chat is that the skills of things like asking great questions and listening, I mean, they’re very aligned to coaching, actually. But actually, if you start with those two, that for a week, every conversation that you have with one of your team, just ask questions and listen and see how that changes and shifts the dynamic. That's a key skill that a facilitator will have to use in sessions anyway, asking questions and listening to those responses. And that's, again, what makes facilitation really powerful because people are being listened to. So I’d say try to extract some of those skills. Definitely look at how you command your meetings to be more facilitated as well. So some of the kind of classic ways of designing workshops and facilitation skills. But I would say, also, look at the opportunities outside of those workshop settings for using facilitation skills where you can apply them. Douglas: I love that. People can go to all the training they want. And I've talked to countless facilitators who have gotten lots of training and even multiple levels, and are still daunted when they're asked to plan a meeting with the CEO. They’re asking for advice of, what do I do? And I think you're right. Practice matters so much, and you don't have to wait for the meeting, the big event, the big workshop, to your point earlier. The best way to improve meetings is to make them feel more facilitated, make them feel more like workshops. So start practicing this stuff on everyday meetings, where the stakes are a little lower. And quite frankly, the stakes are higher than you might realize because doing that’s going to unleash so much value, as you previously mentioned. Alison: Absolutely. Yeah. Douglas: Excellent. Well, this has been such a pleasure, chatting with you today. How can the listeners—how can they find you? Alison: You can find me on LinkedIn, Alison Coward, on LinkedIn. You can also find me at my website, which is bracketcreative.co.uk. And my email address is alison@alison@bracketcreative.co.uk to get in contact with me. Douglas: Excellent. Well, it's been a pleasure, chatting with you, Alison. I really enjoyed the conversation. Alison: Likewise. Thank you so much. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together. Voltagecontrol.com

INTRO Welcome to Season 2 of Let’s Talk Gender. I’m Meaghan Ray, a nonbinary person. My husband Jake is a trans man. We have been together since before either of us began exploring our gender identities. I co-hosted Season 1 with Jake where we discussed our experiences through the gender transition process. Season 2 will be radio host monologue style and is all about life as a nonbinary person. To start off Season 2, I … Continue reading Let’s Talk Gender S2E1: Nonbinary Identities and Labels

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 30!02:30 - Interesting facts about 30!09:45 - Pringles + Xbox = PRIZES!11:10 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]11:20 - Review: Freaks - You Are One of Us14:09 - Where are the reviews for Velocipastor and The Guadrians?15:10 - Review: Archive18:00 - Review: The Secret Garden22:10 - Review: Frostpunk On The Edge [Expansion]24:34 - Review Forecast25:15 - Preview: The Boys (S02)28:10 - REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]28:14 - Manholers?!34:31 - Assassin’s Creed Lessons About Life: Part II39:32 - LOADSHEDDING PANIC SETS IN40:10 - Microsoft’s Anti-Deepfake Tech42:45 - The Riker Maneuver is Star Trek’s best kept secret!44:40 - Fall asleep in 10 seconds50:15 - Do you sleep with White Noise?51:00 - Soothings sounds of Rain in Games52:40 - Do/Don’t these things to sleep better57:40 -   NSFW [START]58:42 - The Brain on Masturbation 01:01:30 - Tired after sex? This is why!01:04:25 - NSFW [END]01:04:40 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

Some useful timestamps:[Links not showing? Please visit: https://getlpodcast.com]00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 29!REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]02:25 - Review: Parasite06:05 - Review: Gamescom Live 202006:30 - Gamescom 2020: Car for gamers?09:15 - Gamescom 2020: Game… Awards?09:50 - Gamescom 2020: Tell me why?13:10 - Gamescom 2020: General Overview14:00 - Gamescom 2020 : Ratched & Clank Rift in Time17:04 - Preview: Project Cars 318:00 - Preview: Frostpunk: On The Edge18:30 - Vampire The Masquerade: Shadows of New York [Expansion]19:22 - Preview: Paper Mario Origami King19:30 - Preview: Call of Duty Black Ops Cold WarREVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]20:20 -  Next Gen-Upgrade Cash Grabs22:52 - CoD BOPS Cold War Pre-Order Debacle25:10 - Activision’s CEO is overpaid for a reason25:50 - Consoles are like PC’s, so why the difference?27:40 - Assassin’s Creed Lessons About Life: PART I {#ACLAL)31:40 - #ACLAL - AC133:20 - #ACLAL - ACII36:05 - #ACLAL - ACII Brotherhood37:40 - #ACLAL - ACII Revelations41:13 -  Not wearing a mask? You might be a sociopath.45:20 - Psychoacoustics & the perception of value49:25 -  How much data is generated per minute?52:41 - Artificial Photosynthesis and the future of power57:00 - Mixed-Name GeneratorNSFW [START]01:00:48 - Yonic Imagery01:01:30 - Gerbilling… you don’t want to know!01:06:50 - Watch your babies, rats will eat their fingers!01:08:35 - Watching porn with your partner: good or bad?01:13:15 - Sex Doll Brothels - THE FUTURE IS NOW!01:16:05 - Aura Doll Brothel is leading the pack!01:20:00 - Would going to a sex doll brothel be considered a form of cheating?01:21:00 - The incredible work of KINKTOKNSFW [END]01:25:25 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

"I just started to see really smart, prolific, skilled people who shared my values." -Lynda Baker I'm excited to have Lynda Baker, IAF Certified Professional Facilitator Master, meeting leader coach, and founder and president of Meeting Solutions Online on today’s episode of Control the Room. As a certified professional facilitator, she creates collaborative client relationships, plans appropriate group processes, creates and sustains a participatory environment, and guides groups to appropriate and useful outcomes. She also trains meeting leaders and managers who want to remove blocks that prevent them from running productive meetings. While a freshman in college, she wanted to be an orientation leader. She volunteered to work at the admissions office at the State University of New York, who had an excellent peer advisor orientation. Lynda learned about active listening, leading groups of students, and parent groups. The program equipped her with the skills to engage others in conversation. Additionally, she and several peers from this group volunteered to be response volunteers at a local crisis center. These experiences planted the seed to be involved in her career. Working in an incubator, "I found myself demonstrating these really amazing pieces of technology in a room that was an intranet because the internet wasn't even that powerful in those days." We talk about her early days of being seduced by technology, why she clicked with the IAF, and how the IAF holds people accountable. Listen in to find out how Laura teaches the concepts of facilitation, why "your" meeting isn't "your" meeting, and why you don't have to manage or control every part of the conversation.   Show Highlights [00:55] How Lynda started her career path to a group facilitator. [03:58] Her journey from her early experiences to what she does today. [07:24] How Lynda got started and what she would do differently if she were to relaunch now. [10:14] IAF and understanding facilitated values and facilitated behaviors and the impact of engagement. [13:26] Differences between a moderator and a facilitator. [15:35] Laura speaks about her experience with training facilitation. [18:36] Leaders and how they can harness the power of facilitation. [21:30] Why engagement is not entertainment. [25:48] Having operating agreements instead of ground rules.  [29:47] Gratitude in facilitation and recognizing the contributions of the group. [34:22] How can participants be better participants? [38:27] Behaviors that go unchecked during facilitation. [41:50] Why Laura believes that a Master’s degree in Leadership Change is the most critical degree needed for our world today. Links and Resources Meeting Solutions Online Lynda Baker on LinkedIn About the Guest Lynda facilitates well-designed meetings, face-to-face and on-line, that create actionable results. As a certified professional facilitator, she establishes collaborative client relationships, plans appropriate group processes, creates and sustains a participatory environment, and guides groups to appropriate and useful outcomes. She also trains meeting leaders and managers who want to remove blocks that prevent them from running productive meetings. Proudly cited as a creative senior-level organizational development professional with a passion for finding the right process to engage collaboration for problem-solving, decision-making, and action planning; her superpower is surfacing clarity that leads to productive outcomes and action plans across organizational levels. About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I'm here with Lynda Baker, IAF-certified professional facilitator-master, meeting leader coach, and founder and president of Meeting Solutions Online. Welcome to the show, Lynda. Lynda: Thank you, Douglas. I’m happy to be here. Douglas: So, Lynda, tell us a little bit about how you got started. Lynda: Well, I really was a wee tot, I must confess. I think I really got started as a facilitator when I was a freshman in college. I was one of those enthusiastic freshmen who wanted to be an orientation leader someday, and so I volunteered to work in the admissions office at this wonderful institution, the State University of New York at Stony Brook. And they had an awesome peer-advisor, peer-counseling orientation. And I learned about T-groups and about active listening and about leading groups of students who were coming to the university in conversations and leading parent groups, talking to parents who were interested in coming to the university, or having their children come. And even though there was a certain amount of content that we were sharing, we were also equipped with lots of skills to engage these students, prospective students, and these parents, in conversations. So there was that piece. And the other piece was that it was the early days of creating what I think are now referred to as I&R services, information and referral services, like people who call crisis lines and want information. And there was a crisis line that was being created in the town of Stony Brook called Response, and several of my peers and I volunteered to be trained to be Response volunteers on the phone. And I think both of those activities as a college student really planted the seeds for me to be passionate about this field, although I didn't find that out until a little bit later in my career. Douglas: And so tell me a little bit more about—I mean, I think it's fascinating to think back around some of the early seeds that are planted and how they start to grow and develop into something that's ultimately a beautiful, flowering career in facilitation. You kind of mentioned that there was a moment much later on that it became more obvious. So was there something that was transformative later, or how did that journey from those early experiences flow into where you are today? Lynda: Well, I think that the professional career that I chose and my academic training had very strong elements of facilitation, and my master's degree is in Higher Education Administration. So I was a student personnel worker, and I worked with college students and really did a lot of shared leadership. I did leadership training with them and empowered them to make decisions. And trained resident advisors. So I had that background. And then I was in a graduate program in counseling psychology. So my academic background dovetailed quite well. But I think it was when I was working, very interestingly enough, I was working at an organization called the Austin Technology Incubator, and it was in the early days of what we now call remote workshops. In those days, we called it electronic-meeting software or group-decision-support software. And I found myself demonstrating these really amazing pieces of technology in a room that was an intranet because the Internet wasn't even that powerful in those days. The Web wasn't even that powerful in those days. And I would demonstrate this really cool software that companies at the Incubator were developing. And I worked for the Incubator as their external relations assistant. I did public relations, and I worked with students. And people would say, “You're really good at that. Do you work for this company?” And I would say, “No. I work for the Incubator.” And I started realizing that I could do something that I really loved to do that lots of other people didn’t necessarily like to do or were not necessarily that good at doing. And it occurred to me: I'm at this incubator that's incubating businesses, starting businesses. I'm getting feedback that this is something I'm really good at. Maybe I need to just go out on my own and do more of this in another way. So I actually started my business in the ’90s, thinking I was going to do electronic-meeting software. I was going to haul around 20 laptop computers and set them up in rooms, or I was going to buy a boat load of keypads, and we were going to do—you know, of course, now people laugh at that, like who needs that? Just log on. So it's really exciting to see what's happened with this field and what's going on now, particularly in 2020 when everything is “electronic meetings,” when everything is digital and virtual. Douglas: I find that remarkable, this idea that incubators are there to help startups get launched. But I often find that people share that experience that you had, where they're part of the startup or a part of the support environment. They're an employee of the incubator, and they learn by watching these startups, and then that gives them the confidence to go start their own thing. So it's awesome that this has been happening since the ’90s. I hadn’t heard a story quite like that. That's incredible. So when you were making that shift to start to have these electronic meetings with clients, and you had this dream of putting together these laptops, what was your first step in starting a company? There's a lot of folks out there who want to start facilitation companies, and that's pretty early in the game. So how did you get started, and what would you do differently if you had to start over now? Lynda: Well, I think one of the things I did was I did a lot of work aligning with the handful of companies that were in the marketplace, who had software that enabled people to collaborate together—I wanted to say online, but I'm not even sure that that was an accurate statement—on a shared network of computers. And at the time, looking back on it, I think that I was a little bit more seduced, I think, by the razzmatazz of the technology. And it was later that I became more developed in terms of my own skills. And I got that, in large part, through affiliating with the International Association of Facilitators. They were having their second, I think, or third conference in Dallas. Douglas: So what was it about the International Association of Facilitators that allowed you to kind of take a step back from the razzmatazz of the software? What was that thing that really clicked for you? Lynda: I think I was introduced to the founders of IAF, actually, were the founders, and many people who were involved with the Institute of Cultural Affairs, which is this global organization of people who were doing lots of facilitation and said, “You know, there are other people out there doing facilitation, too. We are doing it to try to advance participation in communities, to advance participation as a sort of a social movement. But there are lots of people out there also doing this. Maybe we can create an association.” So they were really, many of those people from ICA were the founders of IAF. And I think I was realizing that there were lots of people who shared the same values that I shared about collaboration, about engagement. And then I also met some of the people who've now become stellar luminaries in my field. I met Sam Kaner and I met Roger Schwarz, and I met lots of people, Ingrid Bens. I just started to see really smart, prolific, skilled people who shared my values, and they didn't need the razzmatazz of technology necessarily, but they understood what facilitative values were. They understood what facilitative behaviors were, and they understood the impact of engaging participation. This notion that the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts, which is, actually, the topic of my recent MURAL talk is the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We, the people means we, the people. It’s not just a platitude. You can really make a “we, the people” occur in a meaningful way in a meeting room. Douglas: That's brilliant. And it sounds like the community and just the amazing people that were coming together to talk about these things and how they were shaping the craft, if you will, it really spoke to you. Lynda: Well, yes, it was the community, and it was a community and still is a community that holds people accountable to some standards. When I got involved, they first started talking about what are facilitator competencies? How do we collectively define this body of knowledge, these abilities, behaviors, skills? How do these things fit together to really define what a facilitator is? I think about the ways in which certain words are used in our culture. Counselor is a good one. You go to the doctor's office or you go to some place, a medical place, and they say, “Oh, the financial counselor would like to talk to you.” It's, like, that’s not a counselor; that’s accounts receivable. But people use the word counselor so loosely. And I think facilitator is like that as well sometimes. People think everybody's a facilitator. And everybody's not a facilitator; this is a profession. And IAF got out there and said, “We're going to define what these competencies are, what it means to say you’re a facilitator. And we have standards.” And I really appreciated that, and I appreciate it being a part of that movement in our field. Douglas: The word moderator came to mind when you were talking about words that kind of get thrown around. And I know my heart sinks whenever I coach someone that is looking to improve their meetings; or even a lot of virtual stuff these days, where we get pulled in just to coach and help people. A lot of times, people don't have budget, but we can still help them out and point them in the right direction. I was helping out someone recently and kind of explaining how some of this stuff works. And they were like, they came back to me and said, “Oh, we found a moderator.” And I was just like, “Well, you know, you can you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, necessarily.” Lynda: You can't make them facilitate. They might just want to moderate instead. It's an interesting thing that you bring that up, because I will say to people, sometimes, “I think you don't need a facilitator. I think what you're talking about may be, in fact, a moderator.” In other words, I think it's up to us as a profession to try to educate people, and I think that's another reason why I appreciate the designation, is to help educate people about, I'm not a presenter. And yes, a trainer may use facilitative techniques, but someone who's delivering training is not a facilitator of training. They are a trainer who's using facilitative techniques. So, I'm a former president of the Austin chapter of the Association of Talent Development, which used to be Society for Training and Development, so I have a lot of strong feelings about training, and I understand what training is, and it's not the same as being a facilitator. So it's to your point, this is like a moderator, trainer, facilitator. It's like, oh, they're all the same thing. No, no, no, no, no, no. They’re not the same thing. Douglas: So, you teach a class on facilitation, or facilitative leadership, I think, to be more specific. And I'm really curious. We never spoke about this, so I'll be learning on the fly. Students usually have aha moments, and usually they're fairly common threads from semester to semester, cohort to cohort. What's the thing that keeps just recurring as you're teaching this class that are just, like, pivotal moments for students as they’re embarking on learning about facilitation? Lynda: So you were asking about my class that I teach. I teach a class called Facilitation as a Tool for Strategic Leadership. And my colleague, Dr. Tom Sechrest, had me come to speak to his classes in the master's program in leadership and change at St. Edward's University many years. And after several years of enthusiasm in these students, on Tom's part, he said, “Maybe you ought to teach a special projects class on this subject of facilitation. I knew it was important in my class as a speaker, but it could be a whole class.” So I embarked on that three years ago. And of course, this year it was totally online. And as of two days ago, my students’ final projects are due, so I’m going to be reading about their aha moments any moment. But I think that what I've observed that's been very interesting is having trained facilitation, teaching people techniques, for many, many years—I teach the technology of participation, which is an ICA methodology—I now am really teaching more concepts of facilitation. I'm not necessarily teaching skills. And I think what's been really fascinating to me is students will say, “I took conflict resolution, and we learned a little bit about action learning. But the way you teach this class, I sort of see how it is applied in interacting with people. You demonstrated a lot of that to me.” And I have to be honest, Douglas. I don't realize that I'm doing that intentionally, but I've been very gratified to see how people seem to say, “Hmm, if I’m going to be a strategic leader, I may not be a facilitator in the traditional sense of being what a facilitator is, but if I really understand what facilitators do, there are foundational principles and values and behaviors that I can shamelessly steal from that profession and use as being a really good strategic leader.” I mean, I think that that's interesting now that I think about it—I hadn’t thought about it except about our conversation we had before we even started this recording, when we were talking about Roger Schwarz’s book Smarter Leaders, Smarter Teams. I mean, I think his first book was The Skilled Facilitator, but he's teaching leadership now. I hadn't really thought about it, frankly, until this very minute, that synapse, or that connection—that if more leaders were facilitated, we'd probably be in a lot better shape. Douglas: Absolutely. And we've been talking a lot about how that's the future, right? We're looking at so many ineffective meetings and wasted time. If the leaders understand these things, then they can enact more change across the organization and influence direction through more participation. And I think that's where true innovation can come from. I guess, looking through that lens of leaders harnessing the power of facilitation, what do you think that can unlock for organizations as far as— like, what is the specific future you could imagine? How would you see organizations starting to change if more leaders were facilitators? Lynda: Well, I've always said that it's curious that people crave community and yet they abhor meetings. And I think if more leaders understood that people are passionate about getting things done, and they know that they must get them done with other people and cannot get them done alone, and that the reason why they abhor meetings is that there are so many blocks to their productivity in those sessions that they become frustrated. So I think that the secret sauce for a facilitator and for a leader is to learn how to remove obstacles and blocks rather than put things in that are irrelevant or clever or entertaining or the many things that people do. “Oh, I think I'll do an icebreaker.” It's like, “Is there any ice in the room?” I mean, people, I think, need to understand that their jobs are not to be necessarily entertaining, but engaging in relevant ways and listening to what people's needs are and responding in meaningful ways to what their needs are. So I think if leaders begin to understand ways to not be afraid of learning what those obstacles are, not be afraid of being humble, that’s the big learning I've had, to be honest, living in this virtual space right now. I told my students this summer, “I think I’m the Brené Brown of facilitators.” I will just come out and say, “You know what. I just left a breakout room, and by mistake, I left the whole meeting. I needed to get back in.” And then they feel comfortable saying, “Really? I didn't know where the Chat button was. Thank you so much for admitting your vulnerability and your…” You know, I think we need to be more human with each other. Douglas: Absolutely. My speaking coach even gave me advice. He’s like, “You don't want to be the hero. No one wants to hear about how awesome you are. But if you show how fallible you are, they'll listen. They'll eat it up.” And I think that's just to better engage the audience in the speech, but on the facilitation side, we absolutely need to show our human side because it's not about us. It's not about us entertaining and what not. And you talking about the obstacles and removing those reminded me of our preshow conversation and the definition of facilitation being to make it easy, and I think more facilitators need to meditate on that one. Lynda: I think, when I first started working in this field, one of my very good friends and colleagues said to me, “You have to remember that this meeting isn't your meeting. It's their meeting.” And I kept thinking, “Yeah, but they've hired me to help them with their meeting.” Said, “Well, your job is to hold the space and be good at process, but it's their meeting.” And I think when I've trained facilitators to hold their breath—or not hold their breath, perhaps—but take a breath and not necessarily intervene quickly in a quiet space in the meeting, that the group will pick up, eventually, the thread of that conversation. Roger Schwarz once said, “If you don't intervene at a particular moment and you think it's a really appropriate moment, there's a good chance that whatever that challenge is, it will come back again.” But it's this notion that there are times to intervene that are appropriate. It also is that you don't have to manage or control every part of this conversation, but you develop a sensitivity to when you can move in and move out. I think you talk about tight control and loose control. It's kind of like the dance, how you really move in and move out. And it's one of the things that IAF promoted at early conference, I think. They talk about the art and science of facilitation. And it really is both an art and a science, I think. Douglas: It reminds me of how Keith McCanless talks about falling off the horse and getting on the horse. And sometimes you lose control, and sometimes you—and you have to just be at peace with that. But my whole philosophy is you don't want things to be out of control. We want to unleash everyone. We want to distribute control. But as soon as things veer into—in the form of if we're looking at complexity theory, if we get into chaos, that's not generally a good thing. Wading into complexity and allowing emergent phenomenon, that's all good stuff. And how do we as facilitators maybe surf that line and balance around just enough support where we don’t deep into chaos? So we control it just enough so that beautiful things can happen. But we'd all over control it, where we get into the simple demand, and now it's just, you know, obvious solutions that are going to stifle everything. Lynda: I think that there is a skill to managing conflict, for example, as opposed to trying to cut it off or fearing it. I think that oftentimes there are undiscussables or conflictual undercurrents in a group that can be very illustrative and educational and healing if dealt with appropriately. And oftentimes, that's why people bring in facilitators, because there's something up—they don't quite know what, or they don't know how—but they know they can't do it themselves. And so I think that the degree to which we can hold the space and manage those situations before they are chaotic, but they are conflictual in some ways, that we can guide people to learn from conflicts and not be afraid to talk about difficult things. One of the expressions that I've heard people talk about when they talk about ground rules—which, I don't like that phrase. I like to call them operating agreements rather than ground rules—is when people say, “There's no such thing as a bad idea.” And I often find that to be very—it's really a superficial comment. There are some ideas that are better than other ideas. And if we want to get really good ideas, we need to be comfortable talking about an idea that maybe has some aspects of it that are not going to help us advance to our desired outcome or to advance the results our company needs or to advance to a higher place. So I think that words matter a lot. I think it’s up to us to try to help—I made that comment earlier about we, the people. If we really want to have free speech, we need to be really skilled at communicating with one another and deepening the dialog, agreeing on what important words mean, and that's what helps contribute to getting to the bottom of issues and not being afraid to go there. Douglas: So I agree that words matter, and you have some opinions on ground rules don't set the right tone and your preference for operating agreements. I think that's awesome. What other sorts of verbal judo do you have or kind of words in your toolkit when you're dealing with, let's say, conflict or needing to maybe shift energy in the room? What are some of your Lynda favorites? Lynda: The first thing that came to my mind, and I'm not even sure if this is what I would call verbal judo, is I often will say, “You need to complain to the person who can do something about the complaint.” I think that some of the operating agreements that I talk about—although Schwarz calls them ground rules, but actually he's calling them eight behaviors for smarter teams now. They used to be ground rules, now they’re behaviors—are agreeing what important words mean. The famous Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes guys, talk about focusing on interests rather than positions, sharing relevant information. A lot of those, even if a group’s not necessarily embracing those kinds of practices, I do my best to try to promote the use of those words that become—you become more unconsciously competent about it. If you use it for a long-enough time, you start to develop your own skill in actually doing those things. In the beginning of my career, I used to say, “I'm going to share relevant information right now,” or “I’d like to focus on an interest rather than a position right now.” And it felt very mechanical. I'm more comfortable saying things like, “This is what I'm interested in. Help me understand what you're interested in, or “This is how I see it. Do you see it similarly, or do you see it differently?” Douglas: I like that, framing it really clearly and then asking, inviting people to challenge it and correct and maybe nuance. I think that's powerful, for sure. And I guess, I want to come back to this notion of facilitation making leaders better. And I think that one thing I've noticed in facilitation a lot of times, facilitators talk about holding space, facilitators practice active listening, and I think there's a general thread of gratitude in facilitation, just being grateful for everyone's contribution and recognizing everyone's space and contribution. And I think that alone has a very powerful impact when leaders practice these things, specifically the gratitude. So I say all this out of curiosity around your experience with the, I would say, the overlap between facilitation and gratitude. Lynda: Wow, that's interesting. I hadn't really thought about the connection between the word grace and gratitude until just now. I think that the current world that we are operating in is a world in which we are called to give one another grace. To me, that means that we are as grateful as we can be for their circumstance and situation, and I think that as a facilitator, we need to be grateful for people giving us the authority, if you will, to lead their meetings. I learned many years ago that a key to introducing yourself to any group is to express your appreciation to them for giving you their attention. And that is a gift for which you need to be grateful because it's very easy for people to tune you out as a speaker, as a trainer, as a facilitator. So I think we need to express our gratitude for people's time and commitment and earn the right to be in front of that room. There's a lot of humility that I think goes a long way when you realize that for a certain amount of time—an hour, two hours, a day, several days, a couple of weeks—you are being given a lot of attention, and that is very precious. Douglas: If you could change anything about the way most meetings are run, what would it be? Lynda: Wow. I think the simple slowing-down-to-speed-up philosophy would be a good way to start. That means listening to what is said and periodically pausing and summarizing what you think has been said and checking back with people and seeing if you are tracking with them. I think that would go a long way if people did that. And I don't only mean meeting leaders. I mean, attendees could do a little bit more of that as well. Douglas Yeah. So let’s talk about that. John Fitch and I have a book that we are working on called The Non-obvious Guide to Magical Meetings, and we have a whole section on how to make meetings better as a participant, so I love the fact that you brought up this notion of participants. So as facilitators, we end up in other people's meetings. And what's some of your advice to folks that want to be better participants in meetings? Lynda: I almost feel like, I don't know, maybe a charlatan, answering that question, because I don't think I'm a very good participant. I have to confess. Douglas: So what makes you a bad participant, Lynda? Lynda: Well, I get very excited and passionate as the participant. I think I have a lot of needs for attention. And when I get excited in a meeting, I sometimes get carried away, and I think that I'm the kind of participant that some people who are not experienced facilitators think are those people who go on and on, and you have to shut them up already. And so I think that's why I'm a really good facilitator, because I have sympathy for those people, because I am one of those people. But that's not what you asked. You asked, How could participants be better participants? So now that I've confessed—I did tell you I was the Brené Brown of meeting facilitators—now that I've confessed that I need to teach myself some behaviors, I've been doing a little bit more of this. I have been. When I'm ready to say something in a meeting and I get really excited about it, I've tried to take a few breaths and think to myself, “If you don't say that right now, why don't you wait for two or three more people to say something, and see if maybe someone else is going to say it first.” So that would be one thing. When you're really excited about saying something, you can write it down, and then wait a few minutes. That’s one behavior. Another one would be the very thing I said before, which is if you don't feel like you want to—some people say, “Well, I don't really have anything to contribute.” I think a good participant can also be a good-enough listener to say, “Although I don't have any ideas directly about what's just been discussed…” I can hear you typing over there. You might be jotting down some really important notes. Although a participant may say, “I don't have much to contribute,” they can listen and do that observation. “I seem to hear a theme. I seem to hear a theme right now in this conversation,” or “I heard this, this, and this. Is that what people are saying?” So that’s another way. And I think the other great thing everybody can do is to learn how to ask better questions. What I tell my students is, questions are the Swiss Army knife of a good facilitator. Douglas: Mm. I think it's really great, too, when participants start asking really great, great questions. And I will often—that's one of my operating agreements. I'll stop saying ground rules. I encourage them to, if they have something to share, that they can share in the form of a question, it's best to ask the question. If they think someone else maybe has more details on something, they can poll the group with this. And often, you will learn something because someone answers your question, they're going to answer it slightly differently than you would have shared. And I just think that's a super-amazing alignment tool is getting the team to ask questions of each other rather than just spewing facts over and over again. Lynda: I think that is also that combination approach of combining advocacy and inquiry, advocating your particular point of view and asking questions. I think you pointed out before, when I mentioned, that you said being able to pose your opinion and then ask people if they see it that way or they see it differently. And that requires sincere curiosity. It's not, “I have a technique. I'm going to tell you what I think. And then I'm going to ask you if you see it similarly or differently.” You have to really be curious about whether they do see it the same way or differently. Otherwise, it doesn't really work, you know? And I think that's the idea of being a values-based facilitator, that if your values are really to seek transparency and to share relevant information, then you really are curious. You really want feedback. Sometimes we don't want feedback. Then it would not be a good idea to ask for it. Douglas: Let's talk a little bit about values-based facilitation. Lynda: I think that we often have behaviors that go unchecked. We don't necessarily align the way we behave in interactions as well as in facilitative skill or facilitative behaviors as human beings interacting with one another. And I think that really getting to the bottom of what we believe, what our values are, what our code of ethics is—I mean, the IAF has a code of ethics. We believe in the power of collaboration. We believe that it is important to disclose conflicts of interest. We honor the integrity of all participants in a group—you start to have to, in a way, hold yourself accountable to, how do your behaviors align with that? And I think that as a culture, we're looking a lot more closely at, how do our behaviors align with our values? That's why I think that a meeting room, whether it's face to face or virtual, really needs to reflect values or principles that are way bigger than just your personal opinions about how to manage participation. And as I mentioned earlier, that whole idea of, what does it mean that everyone is welcome? What does that mean, really? If you really believe that everyone is welcome, how do you equitably welcome everybody to the table? How do you respect people who do or do not want to have their cameras turned on? How do you connect with people and welcome people? And how do people want to be welcomed? The difference between the Golden Rule and the Platinum Rule—the Golden Rule is treat others as you would like to be treated. But the Platinum Rule says treat them the way they want to be treated. It may not be the same as the way you want to be treated. So I think that's the best I can do on values-based facilitation. There's certainly authors that have written extensively. And I think looking at organizations like the IAF or ICA or looking at basic beliefs of an organization or the underpinnings of a philosophy. Douglas: Yeah, that's great. What's something that you recently discovered that has given you hope or making you really curious? Lynda: I think it's the gift of being able to teach at the university at this time. For the first time in the years that I've been teaching at St. Edward's, this year I was able to say to my students, “You are all learning about facilitation as you are earning your master's degree in leadership and change. I know that you thought this degree was important when you began to pursue it, but I want you to recognize right this minute that master’s of leadership and change is the most critical degree needed for our world today. And you are all earning that degree, and you're learning about facilitation as you're doing that.” And there were many students who looked back at me on, as I refer to it, the Hollywood Squares of Zoom, and their eyes lit up. And I think that as a mom and as a professor and as a professional in this field, I feel like there are lots of young people who really understand the value of engagement and participation. And our world really needs engagement and participation and compassion and empowerment today, not just young people, but thinking about cities and counties that have discovered, “You know, if we don't have strong leadership beyond our city or county or state, it's up to us. It's up to each individual to step up to the plate, and say, ‘Yes, I can. And yes, I will.’” And I think facilitators are needed more now than ever before to help people realize that, yes, they can, and yes, we will. Douglas: Lynda, thank you so much for this great conversation today. It's been such a pleasure to have you on the show and to talk with you. I just want to give you a moment to let listeners know how they can find you. Lynda: Sheltering in place, they can find me. They can find me at meetingsolutionsonline.com. My email address is lynda.baker@meetingsolutionsonline.com. And I would love to hear from your listeners. I'd love to hear what they heard, what they thought, what they agreed with, and what they maybe wanted to hear more about, or even disagreed with, because I'm aspiring to learn more about this field myself always. So, thank you so much for the invitation to speak with you, Douglas. It’s been really, really exciting and intriguing for me to hear from you as well. So thank you very much. Douglas: Always a pleasure, Lynda. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better 

Some useful timestamps:00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 28!REVIEWS & PREVIEWS [START]03:20 - Preview/Review: Absentia [S01]08:10 - Preview: Tony Hawk10:38 - Preview: Battletoads11:38 - Preview: Netflix’s Cuties14:01 - Review: Mortal Shell16:07 - Review: Burnout Paradise Remastered [Switch]17:53 - Review: Microsoft Flight Simulator 202022:28 - Review: Project PowerREVIEWS & PREVIEWS [END]26:18 - Worrying about The Batman27:00 - Cinema Atlas29:30 - Hollywood’s “yes” men30:24 - How ‘The Mandalorian’ is spearheading innovation36:06 - Disney’s new robots are astounding39:30 - Disney’s Mysterious Cruise Disappearances42:55 - Survivorship Bias48:00 - Fanta: The Nazi’s Favourite Soft Drink53:20 - Are geniuses born or made?57:50 - THE TRUTH ABOUT BODY ODOUR01:02:44 - Dogs and Barrier FrustrationNSFW [START]01:06:43 - The Khurramites & gods of ‘tits and wine’01:11:44 - Robot Sex Dolls are here, and they are EVERYTHING!01:19:00 - Artificial Companionship and the future01:20:54 - Are Harmony dolls more real than real life?NSFW [END]01:22:22 - Google ‘poephol’ :-D01:23:28 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

Some useful timestamps:00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 27!01:37 - Reviews and Previews [START]02:30 - The great DC Universe Digression03:20 - Monster of the Week VS Narrative Arcs07:00 - Does maturity influence TV watching habits?08:10 - Binge watching VS weekly watching09:30 - FOR REAL THIS TIME - Reviews and Previews [START]09:45 - Reviews: Swamp Thing & Doom Patrol11:40 - THE REAL REASON WHY DC UNIVERSE IS IN TROUBLE15:33 - Review: Perry Mason16:10 - Review: The Great19:00 - Review: Devs21:12 - Preview: Mortal Shell22:00 - Preview: Parkasaurus22:55 - Preview: Avengers Game23:05 - Preview: The Boys [Season 02]23:55 - Reviews and Previews [END]23:56 - DC’s Arkham was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft26:22 - DISCUSSING THE LAST OF US PART II [START]28:00 - Quick recap of TLOU Part I29:12 - Connecting TLOU Part I with Part II30:50 - The start of Ellie’s Revenge32:50 - Abby the Killer33:33 - Illusion of choice and “necessary” violence36:26 - Gaming as an engrossing interactive medium37:35 - From Ellie to Abby: the circle of revenge39:00 - Abby’s redemption40:15 - Abby or Ellie’s story?42:50 - The merger of the two narratives44:40 - Selfish regret46:52 - Regret, blame and self-loathing49:15 - Will the cycle of revenge ever end?51:22 - DISCUSSING THE LAST OF US PART II [END]51:23 - GREEN NEEDLE OR BRAINSTORM!53:40 - NEW NETFLIX SOUND56:19 - Mayan Quetzal Temple58:45 - NOKIA’S SECRET!01:00:15 - REFACE APP IS AMAZING!NSFW [START]01:02:30 - The real reason Deepfakes exist01:07:36 - Why always porn?01:07:55 - Erotic audio podcasts01:15:45 - French Goodbye01:16:50 - Harry Eats You Out01:17:40 - Lit EroticaNSFW [END]01:18:30 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

"I had this moment of really enjoying the launching of ideas within existing structures " -Karen Holst I'm excited to have Karen Holst with me today. She is an entrepreneur turned intrapreneur and helps companies drive product innovation as a product strategy leader. Karen has deep expertise in human-centered design strategies, creative problem-solving, and product innovation. She worked on Ex-IDEO led innovation at Autodesk, for the CA Dept. of Education and is the co-founder of MyEdu. She currently teaches at LinkedIn Learning, and most recently, we co-authored the book Start Within: How to Sell Your Idea, Overcome Roadblocks and Love Your Job. If there was one thing she could change about meetings, it would be "that everybody comes in with an understanding of the goal,” Karen says. “I think that sounds so simple, but I think that having the same meeting over and over again and feel like you're not moving the ball any further down the field is one of the most frustrating experiences." In today’s episode, we talk about how you can energize the life of your job and the work you are doing. This is advice Karen also gives for using our book, Start Within, and how it can help you at any part of your growth journey. Listen in to find out how you can use an anthropologist's view of running a meeting, how to focus on the one element that can make the most significant impact for leading a meeting, and how to shift your expectations to fit another company’s culture meeting process.   Show Highlights [01:15] Karen’s genesis story. [03:58] How egos can get in the way of meeting productivity. [06:04] How to dive into Start Within. [10:12] Understanding meeting culture for the purpose of co-creation. [16:08] Removing the lense of how to lead a meeting “the right way”. [19:25] Running meetings how your boss expects them to be run. [21:54] Go beyond the cookie cutter approach to meetings to create your own leadership style. [24:50] What Karen learned about meetings during her first start up. [26:55] Being interested equates to asking questions and discovering purpose. [29:55] Tactics Karen has seen groups implement to get unstuck with their vision. [34:52] Other books suggestions to move your vision forward. Links and Resources Karen on LinkedIn Get a Copy of Start Within About the Guest Karen Holst is a product leader with deep expertise in human-centered design strategies, creative problem-solving, and product innovation. She has taken her career from a business strategy and entrepreneurship to strategic partnerships and market communications. Karen loves to create technology with a broader impact. She is a leader in her work, co-founding a startup and launching a new technology within a government agency.  About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today, I'm with Karen Holst, entrepreneur turned intrapreneur. She co-founded an education-tech startup in Austin, Texas, and later went on to join IDEO, and then, led innovation at Autodesk. She's currently teaching at LinkedIn Learning, and most recently, coauthored the book Start Within: How to Sell Your Idea, Overcome Roadblocks, and Love Your Job. Welcome to the show, Karen. Karen: Hi. Thank you. Douglas: So, Karen, I'd love to start with a little bit about how you got started. Karen: Sure. So I, my junior year in college, had met two guys at my rival university. I went to the University of Texas, and they went to Texas A&M. I’d heard about a company that they were thinking about starting. And I just had—I was brimming with ideas on what I could do to make this happen. And I approached them and said they needed to bring me on board. And we just clicked, and I became a co-founder, and we launched the company. We, then, grew it through multiple rounds of funding and then ended up seeing a successful exit. So my first job was really a job I created. And then from that point on, saw that over and over throughout my career. Joined the California Department of Education and helping lead educational technology within the state, and that was really about bringing new tools and services into the classroom and figuring out how to make that process more smooth and get through the red tape. After that, joined IDEO and helped them launch IDEO U, which is an online-learning platform, teaching design thinking and creative problem solving. And had this moment of really enjoying the launching of ideas within existing structures, that being an entrepreneur, I thought I needed to own the idea, but it shifted. I could own the idea anywhere that I work. So then I was able to just go follow the shiny problems. Later joined Autodesk in their media and entertainment space and helping them innovate, and gotten to do lots of projects within corporations, nonprofits, government agencies since then. And that all led to writing the book, Start Within. Douglas: Exciting. So if you could change one thing about most meetings, what would it be? Karen: That everybody comes in with an understanding of the goal. I think that sounds so simple, but just having the same meeting over and over and feeling like you're not moving the ball any further down the field is one of the most frustrating experiences. Douglas: Yeah. And I think that aligns with quite a few of our meeting mantras and philosophies about meetings. And two that come to mind is this idea of never starting without a clear purpose. So purpose and goal are at least cousins. And then, also, you talked about how this Groundhog Day kind of feeling, just like the meetings just kind of repeating themselves. And I think, often not being clear on if we're ideating or making a decision, and if we’re making a decision, what's the process by which we're going to make that decision? Karen: Yeah. And I feel like people get in the way of the goals. So even when they're well communicated in advance and alignment, egos can get in the way, where either people are just really married to their ideas and wanting that to try to drive the meeting around that notion, or they're just blindly and accidentally, perhaps, getting in the way of progress because they're just stuck in the ego side of things. Douglas: Yeah. And I didn't intend on it, but the Groundhog Day analogy came out, and we talk about that in the book, this notion of, is everything kind of repeating itself? Are you just kind of stuck in the hamster wheel of the day to day and feeling just inundated with monotony? And so maybe let’s talk a little bit about that feeling and how the book can kind of help guide you out of that feeling in that situation. Karen: Yeah. So as humans, we are wired to innovate. We're wired to see creativity and make the mundane not mundane. And you think about while we're recording this, it's during the COVID pandemic, and we're seeing this everywhere. People are taking up new hobbies. My toddler son is asking me to read the kids’ books in different voices or to change the ending of the book, just because we're so bored of everyday feeling like the day before. And if we're wired for that, what's holding us back from actually doing that? And I think meetings, being such a big part of our work, are a key place to really energize the life and job and work that you're doing. And a lot of what we talk about in the book is to find that purpose and breathe new life into your job so that you love it, so that you feel passionate about it. So there's lots of steps in that process in how to make that happen throughout the book. Douglas: And when you think about all the steps and someone wanting to just get started, in your perspective, is it just to pick up the book and jumping into the first chapter, or is it more of a choose-your-own adventure, where it’s like, this might apply more to me? Maybe help guide the reader, the doer, into how they might dive in. Karen: Yeah. That's a great, great analogy, the choose your adventure. I say it’s more like that. The process and work of bringing an idea forward is not linear, so there's different places that you're going to start from, and that you're going to get stuck and need assistance. The book reads that way. You can just jump in where you need to. And then I say proceed with caution, because as humans, we're also wired to kind of go after the things that we're most comfortable. And that's okay to start where you're comfortable, but not to ignore the places where we need to grow. So as an example, I think about the structure of the book. It's set up in three sections: get ready, get set, and go. And I am a “go” gal through and through. I want to start prototyping and experimenting my way forward. And it takes discipline to do the work of the “get ready” and “get set.” And if I pick up the book as a lay reader, I might just dive right into the “go” because that's where I want to get started. But that's a place that I'm already pretty skilled at, and where I would really benefit is perhaps starting there, but then making sure that I'm going back through the other sections and phases of this work and building those muscles as well. So it's very similar to working out, you know? We feel great when we do that same elliptical machine or whatever, weights that we're into, but when we challenge ourselves to do a new machine or new exercise, our muscles start to learn new ways of working. Douglas: Yeah. I love that analogy of kind of cross training. It's incredible. And I often like to think about the maturity of a project. And so if we're two years into something, the book might mean something different to us than if we're about to start something or we’ve been afraid to start something. So I like the fact that can really help folks no matter where they are in the journey. Karen: Yeah. That's so true. I was talking to someone about this. And in the book we talk about when you're doing a new idea and trying to push something forward, that there's this, for every 80 hours of work that you put towards your project, there's two hours of work in communicating that with your team and bringing along stakeholders. And I've gotten pushback from people that said, “Wow, that's a lot of communication that you're spending time on,” and then others saying, “That is totally not enough to bring stakeholders along.” And I think that rule of thumb can be shifted based on where you're at in the project and trying to make new things happen, and that context is important as you go through this work, right? You’re going to have a playbook through things like Start Within, and then you have to intuit what is and isn't working, and then, kind of fine tune things beyond that. Douglas: Yeah. Also, think about—was it Malcolm Gladwell that said 10,000 hours of anything will make you an expert? And there have been people that have pushed back on that concept, like, “Well, if you're doing it wrong for 10,000 hours, you’re just going to become an expert in doing it wrong.” And I like to think that this book has provided folks with some real tactical and very actionable advice to where, as you're getting your reps in, you can start to tweak the way you go about it. Karen: Yeah, absolutely. To that point of the 10,000 hours, it's definitely about the practice of doing the work, and it's also letting go of the idea that this is only for the charismatic, extroverted people, that the one that you see standing out there and getting to do new things, it does not have to be exclusive to certain types of people. It can be learned. Douglas: Yeah, I love the idea that we can put it into practice, and we can hone that skill—to bring back the fitness analogy—we can strengthen those muscles. Karen: Right. Right. Douglas: So, you've had experience at small companies and big companies, public and private, even consulting and in-house. I’m really curious. With your vantage point across all these different types of companies, what are some of the differences that you've seen as far as meeting cultures and ability to co-create and collaborate? Just what kind of patterns have you noticed? Karen: Yes. I love that idea of a meeting culture, because going in, understanding that and even using that term for yourself really allows you to then go in with the anthropologist view of, like, here's how it's done, and where can I find opportunities of changing that and making it better? So every company I've ever worked with—nonprofit, large, big, small—have different ways of doing their work, right? The informal and written rules of how meetings should run, it changes based on team, it changes based on who's running it. But the theme at the bottom of all that is you're having these meetings in expectation that it will lead to something. So if you can take a step back and look at how meetings are being run and how efficiently and quickly you're able to go out and do the work post meetings, then you have the opportunity to reflect and say, “Where are there opportunities to make the improvements?” I think the most stark difference was at the California Department of Education. So I was coming from a startup, where we're doing scrum, we're doing standup, we're doing lots of fast-moving meetings. And then at the California Department of Education, they weren't. And it wasn't a criticism; it was a different way of thinking, a different framework, that when I went in, felt so uncomfortable. I was like, “Hey, when are we going to start picking up the pace and start taking action?” And if I went in there and behaved like that, like a cowboy here to change things up, it would have really turned people off. I needed to learn how they did things to then be able to create the right changes and grow together. It allowed me to be more thoughtful in my approach. It also allowed the team to evolve in how we did our meetings. Douglas: Yeah. And that's something we've talked about extensively, and I think it's a really keen insight that people really need to consider, which is you can change the process. You can change the method. You can change the corporate goals and objectives. But if you seek to do those things, that's going to be really difficult to also push your idea. In fact, the method, the process, and the goals and objectives, those are two separate things that are best done in isolation. If you're trying to change all that at the same time, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle. It's hard enough to make any change, much less just blowing a bunch on at the same time. Karen: Imagine going into a room, and you look at a person who is writing with their right hand, and you say, “All right, switch. Switch to your left hand. And I want you to close your eyes. And instead of writing in English, write in a different language.” That would just overload the person. How do I think about all three of these things you're trying to get me to do? And in pushing an idea forward within an organization, whether that's improving meeting outcomes all the way to launching a new idea, if you're trying to bend and shape things in multiple areas, you're just going to overload the humans that you're trying to bring along in this. So it's really about focusing in on the thing that can have the biggest impact, and then you can go back and after having made that change and seeing the change in place, reapply and do different layers of changes. Douglas: That's right. I'd even take the analogy one step further, which is, if they're doing all those things, and then we're also trying to tell them, “Let's actually write some different things on the wall. Let’s bring on a whole new concept and put that up there,” you can see how it just starts to get absurd. And yeah, that's a trap that a lot of people fall into because when—it's almost like, well, we've got the patient open; let's go ahead and make all these changes. Like, we're operating on their lungs; let's work on their heart, too. It’s maybe not the best decision. Karen: Right. Yeah, I mean, meetings, it is such a part of our work and the culture of where we work that at the very root could be the cause of dysfunction in what's going on. So I love that being in a place of leaning in and trying to improve. Douglas: So let's also take a step back and think about—I love this notion that you talked about, being an anthropologist. And in the book we talk about this element of house rules and understanding how things work at your organization so you can navigate it better. Then, we were just discussing this need to clarify and understand, are we changing the process, or are we pushing some other idea forward? And I think that metaphor of the anthropologist is really powerful because we at Voltage Control do a lot of work where we're were analyzing the meeting systems or helping people understand it, and what does that culture look like, and what sort of systems are going to support a culture that we are aspiring to be, to have? instead of just kind of going full force into the change. Like, really thinking about, do we need to be that anthropologist, or are we actually going in to make change? And so if we're in that mode of anthropologist, what sorts of things do we need to do? How might we put that anthropologist hat on and be really successful at understanding what's in front of us and how we might take advantage of it or how we might just respond to those understanding? Karen: So in doing this work, it's very hard, but you have to take out your experience elsewhere. So typically, when I coach people through trying to do this kind of work, there’s an urge to think back to where you saw it working. Like, great meetings, so we want to do it like that. I came from Amazon. We did it like this, and it was great. We got really far, and we were able to make changes and go out, do quickly. That doesn't mean it's going to work somewhere else, so you have to remove that lens of what I've seen is the right way, and I'm going to figure out how to force that fit, that puzzle piece. Instead, being an anthropologist is really trying to just open up and learn. So it's not directing learning. It's not that one person’s going to teach you, so you want to lean in on that person. It's really just trying to open the aperture and figure out where are there these aha moments on what is and isn't working? And, you know, just going back to the root of that word. If you are going into a village, you wouldn't go into a remote village and expect to be able to instill your values and how you do things and expect this group of people that have a completely different background to take that on. Instead, you're going in to learn from them and build something together. And I think that's hard to do. So it's starting with that beginner’s mindset. Douglas: We also talk about cross examining the silos and then questions that get to real learning. And I think that questions can be really powerful, and listening and observing, as kind of the anthropologist hat that you kind of speak of. And my perspective, if you can get down to actual first principles and understand what are people already upset about, if there are things about the meeting systems or the methods and the process that your organization is using that everyone's already disgruntled about, then that's low-hanging fruit to go after. But you can't learn that stuff unless you get curious and start to examine the silos and start to listen and learn. And to me, I think that's a real powerful opportunity. I'm just curious to hear if you have anything to add there. Karen: Yeah. I think the other opportunity in all this, if you're going in with this mindset, it allows you to make changes without authority. So even if you're not the person who's running the meetings, you can affect how they're run and how effective they are over time. Now, certainly it might be easier if you're the person of authority to do this work, but it's not a barrier to making things change and happen. You can lead by example. And this all starts with learning and listening and figuring it out as you go forward. But I think that is one of the biggest barriers to this kind of work. And making change within an organization is the belief that if you don't have a title or permission, then you’re just kind of an active participant that has to go along with the way things are. Douglas: Mm, yeah, that’s an interesting meeting dynamic, too. Like, if the meetings are set up such that there are active participants and not-so-active participants, the distribution of control and influence and participation can be quite skewed. I'm just curious if you’ve experienced that, and what thoughts you might have to offer there. Karen: Yeah, of course. I mean, whenever you're not in charge and someone else is, it might be a meeting you called, but your boss or leadership come into the room as well, that shifts everything. You look at them, and they have an understanding of how the meeting should go, and you report to them, so there's an understanding that you will run the meeting the way they expect it. So you kind of have to shift your own expectations and your own approaches to fit what they believe is the right way forward, even if it isn't sometimes. And so all of that just points to these baby steps, these baby experiments, that can get you closer to making those changes if you don't have the authority to make it happen, and even when you do, that there's, again, ego in the room or belief systems in the room that there's a way to do it. The little experiments, the small steps, are what can lead to big change over time. Douglas: You know, it's funny that you say that because it reminds me of times as a leader when my intention was to coach and to show alternative ways of doing things, but I basically just created a little mini-me versions of me, and that can be difficult to notice sometimes. And so we talk a lot about how the book was really inspired by this idea that so many innovation books are focused on the leader and innovation culture and this kind of top-down, like, how are we to shift the organization? And our belief was the best way to shift an organization is a direction from leadership, but empowering the doers to go do the work. And so we really wanted to have a manual for the doer. Now, even though it's a manual for the doer, this is a great tool for the leader because they can take this book and give it out to their folks and use it as a guide for them to be a better coach. And as I've thought about my coaching, even sometimes the best intentions can backfire, and just really paying attention, that have I created a mold of myself that needs to be broken so that they’re free to go about doing things the way they would do them so that we have true diversity? Karen: Yes. I advise startups, and I just had a session this week with a startup that is in the educational technology space. And so it was one that I was really well versed, but also a few years removed. And he wanted to talk about some of the approaches to funding, and then later, marketing that we did. And I went into some coaching lessons, and then I paused and said, “You're in a different time and different products. So here's what we did. Now I’m going to start asking you questions that are kind of the extreme other sides to this. Don't just follow the cookie cutter of what I just shared with you. What are ways that you're going to be different?” And I think if you intuit your way that you're creating many yous—which is a great eye opening, like, how do I not do that? because we just don't want a world full of people like ourselves—a lot of that is because we've got experience in what does and doesn't work for ourselves, and so we reflect that on others. But if we can pause on that and say, “What did and didn't work on me might be in opposition to the person I'm talking to,” can we just reframe the question to say, “How might we…” and then don't lead it towards your solution. Instead, think about these might be the ideas that do work for them, or what worked for me is not going to work for them. Douglas: There’s another really beautiful way to approach that, which is just being appreciative. Karen: Right. Douglas: Recognizing and being appreciative of everyone's input and contributions. And sociologists have a term called positive deviance, and basically, it sounds almost like deviant, but it's really about making sure that we look at those positive differences. Like, what are those deltas that are positive. So when things have been working well, what were we doing? And often, I think it's easy to look at, “Well, when I did it this way, I got this positive outcome.” Having that dialog with others can be really powerful and really kind of lifting them up on a pedestal, and then it kind of relinquishes that burden to feel like, “Hey, here's this process that I need to burden you with.” Karen: I love that. Yeah, that word needs to be rebranded so that people will be more open to it. But yeah, I think there's opportunities to reflect on what does and doesn't work and how that reflects on yourself and the people around you. So, again, it's not the cookie-cutter answer and formula that works for me will work for these other people, but instead, it's framing it in questions to allow them to explore that on their own. Douglas: Yeah. I love this. I’d already written down questions and underlined it because I wanted to come back to that because you were starting to give some advice to your mentee, and then you stopped yourself and said, “Well, let me ask some questions.” And I think that is the hallmark of a really great leader and a great facilitator is to ask really incredible questions. And I think this advice—it just dawned on me—can apply to not only the leaders—because it's very clear, like, “Hey, leaders, ask more-provocative questions of your people,”—and for the doers, it can be equally as powerful, because if your boss, if your leader, is not asking you tough questions and they're doing nothing but giving you advice or criticizing, perhaps you can prompt them to ask you questions. Karen: Ooh, I love that. Yeah, get them curious. So, in my startup days, there were really tough meetings with our board, with our investors, and I learned early in my career how to handle those types of meetings. And then later, I started working at IDEO and had a meeting with Tim Brown and other people that were—I'm doing air quotes—"invested in our idea” because we're launching this idea within the company. And so I was ready for what questions I would hear based on that experience of these tough investors and what they asked me in my years prior. And Tim Brown and the leaders there asked such thoughtful questions that floored me, and it really shifted my thinking in how to do this work. I thought it had to be bottom-line growth. And there's other questions around this kind of work and pushing ideas forward that are far more thoughtful around the humans you're building it for that will lead to growth and business strategy. So it's not leaving it up on the table. But instead, it's more thoughtful and deeper than that. And I think when we have productive meetings and great purpose in our work and what we're doing, at the root of it, somebody was asking very thoughtful questions. And you can choose to be that person. And if you are that person, I think, to your point, you can get others around you very curious. Like, it's contagious. When you're being a thoughtful person and really trying to understand things, you'll start to see that shift among others as well. Douglas: You know, I think that, especially in your LinkedIn Learning course, and a good chunk of our listeners are product people, and I once heard this really profound description of a great product person. And it was that a product person is interested, not interesting, meaning that if you come to a conversation and you try to be interesting, then you're going to share a lot of things. You're going to talk a lot. You’re going to tell stories. You’re going to try to be cool and hip and, like, “Oh, I know this. I know that.” Whereas if you're interested and you're curious, you’ll ask lots of questions. You discover all the pertinent things. That always just really stuck with me is that even if I'm in the room with someone who is intimidating and I feel like I need to impress, the best way to impress them is to ask them great questions. Karen: So, I went to a Super Bowl party. I was living in Canada, and it was at my neighbor's house. And they're not really into American football. It was just something to do on a Sunday. And in the room was a former astronaut and minister, I believe, of transportation—I'm sorry, I don't know his title—who has one of the most fascinating backgrounds. And he asked me—I couldn't get to questions about his background and what he did. He wanted to know more about startups and the book I was writing. And we get about an hour in. I'm like, “Okay, can we talk about what it's like to be an astronaut?” And I just remember leaving there, thinking he was so gifted in exploring the world around him. And it made complete sense that he had gotten to the point that he had in his career, but that he could have very well have been a person that was full of himself and talking about all the important things he's done. And instead, he wanted to learn about me. Douglas: That's the hallmark of an amazing person. And that's cool that you got to witness that, especially with someone who has already made such great accomplishments, because sometimes those traits, that innate curiosity can wane with popularity and accolades. So it's always amazing when I find someone that's had some amount of fame and notoriety and they've held on to that, because it's a gift, and it's pretty rare. Karen: I think they're also gifted at finding time and space for allowing those conversations. So, on the other end of the spectrum, a CEO or someone very busy and important can brush you off and make you feel unimportant and not be listening to your answers or not even interested in having the conversation in the first place. And when you are tight on resource for time, that can change who you are, and you have to find opportunities to still be productive, but also learning and listening from each other. Douglas: Yep. That aligns with one of my philosophies, which is that when you create space, that's when innovation can rush in. If you're constantly whizzing and whirring to and fro the next thing and pressing the buttons, there's really no opportunity for change or new things to develop. Karen: Yep. If you think about it in meditation or yoga, it's the space between breaths. We're doing this work of breathing and being thoughtful, and then it's in between those moments that you have these eye-opening, kind of out-of-body experiences. Douglas: So, I’m going to shift gears a little bit here and just talk about tactics. So really curious about what you've seen teams use to get unstuck and start building on their vision. Karen: So, we recently talked to a woman within a software company, and they're a very large company and been around for many years. And she was really excited about bringing back to her product teams our chapter in work around busting assumptions. And that was so refreshing. You know, this is a company that has figured out a way forward. They can continue to build and move beyond doing things the way they had been. But instead, she and the organization realized they needed to reflect on what's holding back their ideas, what's holding things from becoming something bigger, and how they're holding back innovation. And I think that's an exercise we could do with our teams—get out of the rut of what things should look like and have looked like, and how you might do things differently. In thinking about assumptions, there's this onion of layers, right? At the very core is the assumptions that you hold on to. And then as you build out, it's the assumptions of the team, of the organization. And then you go all the way out to the world that we live within. And if you can think about each of those layers and how they're blocking you from change, from seeing things, from understanding each other, then that can unlock you, the team, and how you work together, the work that you're doing. There's so many—it's exponential levels on ways of thinking. And it's a great framework for just moving forward and doing things differently. Douglas: It makes me think that earlier we were talking about meeting systems and meeting culture, and when and why we meet, and what's the goal, and what's the purpose. And so often meetings are just called to discuss something or make some quick decision. I get really excited when people start to open the aperture and to think about, “What if we meet to talk about our assumptions?” or “How about we make a team charter?” so these more kind of meta conversations about the team, the way we work, and things that might be getting in our way, because those types of things can have really profound ripple effects versus just being so into the tactical, like, moving things forward or, heaven forbid, a status report. And so this idea of coming together around assumptions, even applying some of the tools in the book that are designed for an individual, just kind of repurposing that for the team. Karen: Yes. Going back deeper into the tactical and beyond assumptions, one of my favorite exercises in the book that you can do solo or that you could bring to a team and do together is “No, because. Maybe if. Then, what?” And you start with these three columns of “No, because. Maybe if. Then, what?” And you think about something that's blocking you and your team from moving forward on something, and you just brainstorm all the “no, becauses.” No, because we don’t have the resources. No, because… You capture each one of those on a Post-it Note. And then you pause and you go into the next column, “Maybe if.” So, no, because we don't have the resources. Maybe if we prototype this smaller, that didn't require as much resources. Or maybe if we found funding outside of our organization. Or maybe if… You go through that same exercise for each “no, because,” and you start to brainstorm the “maybe ifs.” You can take a step back, and when you're doing this by yourself, kind of circle where there's heat, or if you're doing this with the team, you could do voting, but moving beyond and really counter attacking the “no, because” with a “then, what?” You know, what are the small experiments that you could be doing to get past this roadblock, if you could pass the barrier that is seemingly holding everybody back? And doing this work over and over with different people in teams, you see this very simple exercise open up people's thinking and to, “All right. I tangibly have something to go after.” This feels so much better than the crossed arms, and “This is hard,” and the roadblock being right in front of them. Douglas: It's really cool. And I'm excited because we're working on some templates on MURAL. They'll be launched. And if someone's listening to this in the future, I would say just go and check out the MURAL templates, because they're probably ready at that point. Karen: Yep. Start within. Douglas: The other thing I was thinking about was this notion of unlearning and constantly be curious and open to reinventing ourselves. And I think that kind of aligns with a lot of the stuff we've been talking about today, whether it's creating that space as a leader or coming together as a team to look at these assumptions, and just making sure that we've got some time reserved to just allow some of that stuff to happen and being curious about what we might not realize about the world or about our idea or about our team. I guess I'm curious to hear of what else folks should be thinking about in that regard. Karen: So I do have on my reading list Barry O'Reilly's book Unlearn, and so I haven’t read it. I'm going to stop with that because I think that is so hard to do. Even when you say it, you think, “Okay, I've accepted that I'm going to let go of my assumptions and try to lean in and unlearn some of the bad habits, or maybe good habits, so I can find new ways of doing things.” We are, again, we are wired to take the inputs that we've had over our lifetime and have that help us move forward. And it is not always obvious where those are, how they're holding you back, or how they might be helping you, too. So that's a book I want to lean into this year and see if that's a place of exploration. But where I try to do that is stepping back and creating different roles for myself. So when we talk about this in the book, if you're a person who is very positive, a “yes, and,” and trying to push things forward, could you go into a meeting before it even starts, say, “I'm going to be the naysayer. I'm going to poke holes in some of these ideas. And you, person over there, you're going to be the positive person.” Or we have different roles, and maybe we're shifting what we typically lean into and think about things differently. And how would that dynamic change the meeting? It's not meant to be comical and necessarily a strange meeting that is just run amuck and feels like a comedy show because you're trying to be a naysayer and you just aren't. It's really just about trying to turn your brain into thinking one way, into thinking a different way, and how that helps lead the team in a different direction. Douglas: I love this idea of examining the roles, and even shifting them and trying on different roles, and I think, not to overload the term role, but role playing can be really a phenomenal way to have a new lens into the world, and also, certainly will disrupt how your teammates think. And we also have talked about the idea of taxonomy, and so how can even the words that we use to talk about meetings can have an impact? So, for instance—the problem is that we just gravitate to using the word meeting, and it's just what we naturally do. And so it doesn't matter if we're assembling 20 people to talk about how well the product went or it’s just two of us having a quick chat about what we're going to have for lunch; we call it a meeting. And I think that is a disservice because it doesn't allow for a clear understanding of the purpose. And that's something we kind of started off with when I asked what was the one thing you would change about meetings is about, you said we need to be more clear about the goals. And so I really love this concept of shifting the roles, examining what those roles are, and trying new things on, because that can really align with us understanding our purpose and even pursuing our purpose more deeply. Karen: Yes. And that jargon, again, comes back to the meeting culture. So you say meeting. It means one thing at one company; it means another at another. And I saw this happen with calling it brainstorm. So doing a brainstorm from one company where we're standing up, we're active, we're putting Post-it Notes up. There's lots of conversations happening, lots of ideation. And then you go to another company that doesn't brainstorm that way. They do have brainstorm meetings. You go into it, and people are sitting, they’re taking notes on their little notepad, and it can be frustrating if that's not—it was frustrating to me. I was like, “Why aren’t we all standing up and talking?” And to them, they're like, “Why are you trying to force this other way of doing a brainstorm?” So I think the terms also have different meaning within teams across an organization and certainly within an organization. Douglas: So, Karen, in closing, what would you like to leave with our listeners? Karen: I think what's key in this moment, whenever you're listening—if it's recent to when it's posted, it's around the COVID pandemic, and we're working from home, and things are very confusing. Or we're beyond that—there's going to be these times of uncertainty and wanting to hold back on changing things within our team, our organization because we're waiting for things to smooth out. And this opportunity for while things are uncomfortable and uncertain to be when you make the changes and be thoughtful on how big those changes are and how you move forward into them, but that's really what Start Within is all about, and the importance of finding in yourself, that you can affect the change and with the right playbook and tools in hand, you can see it through. Douglas: Karen, I wanted to double stitch on something you said there, which was, we are living through an unprecedented time right now, and I just wanted to say that I've been grateful to have you as a copilot through some of this, especially as we've looked at inspecting and exploring our own white privilege together, what that means for speaking out around the book and the work that we're doing and supporting others who are struggling through this and needing the help, and how can we be better allies. So I just want to express a little gratitude on the air that it's been phenomenal to work through these challenges with you. Karen: Yes. I echo that as well. It's uncomfortable and challenging, for lack of better words. And just finding other people that are struggling through this is—finding your community and knowing that you're not alone and doing this kind of work is so important. Douglas: So, Karen, in closing, how can folks find you and find out more about the book? Karen: Sure. I'm on LinkedIn, very active there. So, Karen Holst. You can find me. We also have, for the book, the website is start-within.com. You can find it on Amazon to purchase it. And yeah, we have lots of conversations with people that are trying to affect change and bring new ideas forward within organizations. So love connecting with people on that front. Douglas: It’s been great having you, Karen. Karen: Thank you, again. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resource

Some useful timestamps:00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 26!02:06 - Reviews & Previews: Let us know what you think02:50 - Review: Umbrella Academy (S02)06:00 - Review: Lovecraft Country (S01)12:30 - Review: Horizon Zero Dawn [PC]14:30 - Preview: New ASMR incoming!15:35 - Spider-Man’s Exclusivity is a problem25:15 - Terms of Service; Didn’t Read28:40 - Physical Attractiveness Bias and Sentencing35:10 - LISTEN TO YOUR PILOT40:19 - Harry Potter with Guns41:41 - Cardi B as the sounds of Star Wars43:05 - How to save yourself from the effects of a shockwaveNSFW BEGINS48:08 - The meaning behind Sexual Moaning01:01:38 - The Truth about Female Ejaculation01:10:37 - Benefits of Oral Sex (according to science)NSFW ENDS01:23:15 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

Intro: (Welcome back Mr Venom, What we’ve been up to, and history with Guillermo Del Toro) – (0:00 – 0:26:49 Cronos (1993): – (0:26:50 – [...]

Welcome to episode 25 of GETL.Some useful timestamps:00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 25!01:15 - The mess that was 2405:40 - Review: Herman Miller COSM07:15 - Vamers Transparency Policy08:40 - Review: Destroy All Humans09:18 - Review: Deadly Premonition 213:50 - Review: A Brave New World17:17 - Preview: The Great17:39 - Preview: Lovecraft Country18:40 - Preview: Russian Avengers19:16 - Preview: Velocipastor22:15 - HAPPY 40th HARRY POTTER!23:00 - Homemade Butterbeer Recipe23:45 - Run Windows 95 in Minecraft!28:20 - Point Nemo31:20 - The mystery of vanishing eels39:30 - What does Military Grade rally mean?42:40 - The Barry White Effect47:50 - The Peak Shift Effect49:10 - Deep Voices, Sperm and Privilege51:05 - Ben Heck’s Automatic Mask54:00 - Longest period of silence in Human History56:30 - The truth behind ‘Riding Shotgun’01:00:00 - Fashion brands and the waste of artificial exclusivity01:04:40 - Better understand others with ‘TheirTube’01:09:07 - Where is the NSFW segment? GOSH DAMN!01:10:00 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

 “No one wants a boring facilitator, right? It's about being effective. It's about getting their goals accomplished. But if someone's going to be in a room with you for four to eight hours, to an extent it would be nice if you can entertain.”  -Harold Hardaway I'm excited to have Harold Hardaway with me on the Control the Room podcast today. Harold is the co-founder and CEO of Cardigan, a branding and internal communications company that "Inspires Brands that Inspire Employees." Cardigan has deep expertise in working with companies with non-desk employees, multiple-location businesses, retail brands, and professional companies with remote workers.   Harold started his career in banking and found his way as the Director of Corporate Communications and Culture for H.E.B. before co-creating Cardigan. He currently oversees research and strategy for all client projects at Cardigan, and he is also a speaker and thought leader on corporate communications and culture.  On today’s episode, Harold and I talk about how to utilize quiet during facilitation, how to bring subjects and jokes back around when presenting, and how to have a "full circle" moment. Listen in to find out how Harold uses ingratiation in his facilitation, how to use equifinality, and why acknowledgment is so powerful.     Show Highlights [01:58]  Harold’s genesis story. [03:33] How personality traits assist Harold in his career. [06:42] Creating a better experience for clients. [09:07] Planning ahead of time and getting to know your client. [14:03] How to change your language to fit your audience. [16:15] Harold shares about facilitating and racial unrest. [18:27] How professionalism has crept into the workplace as a form of insensitivity. [21:35] The power of acknowledgement for yourself and others.  [30:22] Advice from Harold about facilitating during COVID and into the future. Links and Resources Harold on LinkedIn Cardigan CG on the Web About the Guest   Dr. Harold Hardaway is a speaker and thought leader on corporate communications and culture. He believes that everyone should “Chase the Good” and centers his work on helping organizations create spaces wherever possible. Today, he serves as Co-Founder and CEO of Cardigan—an internal communications and employer branding firm—and he was previously the Director of Corporate Communications and Culture for H-E-B. Harold has been featured in San Antonio Magazine and Business.com, and his writings have been featured in the Austin Business Journal, SHRM’s People & Strategy Blog, and Recruiter.com. He was recently recognized as a Finalist for the 2019 Austin Under 40 Awards, and he is on the Board of Directors for Leadership Austin, Creative Action, and Equality Texas.  About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. Douglas: Today I’m with Harold Hardaway, CEO of Cardigan, where they’re cultivating brands that inspire employees. Welcome to the show, Harold. Harold: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. Douglas: Excellent. Well, I wanted to start off by hearing a little bit about your history. I’m always fascinated by how facilitators find their way to their roles, because, let's just face it, there's no degree at any college where you go to become a facilitator, so there’s always a fascinating journey. And especially when we're looking at all these different silos and different methodologies, people come from totally different worlds. So I'm really curious to hear how you got here. Harold: Yeah. I probably stumbled into it like most people, like you're saying. So no degrees here to kind of get there. So when I first started out in my career, I worked at a mortgage bank, and they didn't have a training department. It was a new division, and so in the absence, with no one raising their hand, to develop training, I raised my hand, and I was the trainer for that particular group. And so I think through that I kind of learned how to explain things two, three different ways to someone. And at the same time, I was in a group with business analysts, and through that process, they were working on developing systems, and then I would have to sort of train the system. But I would be in the room when they would start working on what that was going to look like, how it was going to operate, and so being able to really translate how the business was using the tool versus how they were designing it. So between the business and I.T. and translating there and being able to speak both languages really helped a lot.  After that, I worked at a large grocery retailer here in Texas—so I’m sure everyone can probably guess who that is—in the I.T. department, and H.R. was my customer. So you can imagine with developing technology with them, there was a lot of translation needed. Like, “I want this.” And then I.T. saying, “Well, we can't necessarily do that.” And it’s like, “Well, what they're really asking for is this. And can you live with this, because I think it'll still get you the business outcomes that you want.” And so being able to hear both sides and translate and help them negotiate an 80 or 90 percent solution was really important.  And then, once I got taken off of H.R. technology, H.R. just kind of hired me to go work in that department. And through the rest of my career, there was a lot of translating and taking big ideas, which is how I ended up in communications, taking big ideas and being able to kind of translate that down and then navigate people through a process to get to a business outcome. So honestly, most of the times it's because someone didn't raise their hand, and in that space, I did, and figured I'd give it a shot. And I learned a lot, and I ended up facilitating.  I also am a little bit of a ham and an extrovert, and I don't mind being upfront. Douglas: We talked about that a little bit, the importance of being this unbiased third party that’s kind of coming in and helping the team be the heroes. But there is still an element of performance you have to prepare, be on your game, get up there, and even if you’re kind of stepping off to the side a bit at times or a lot of times, there is still that moment of, hey, the show’s on, and I’ve got to be there. And before we started recording, you were mentioning that you had some experience in standup comedy, etc. And so just curious to hear how those experiences related, if you've actually dipped into any of that when you’ve been planning sessions. Harold: Yeah. You know, a lot of times when you're up there, no one wants a boring facilitator, right? It's about being effective. It's about getting their goals accomplished. But if someone's going to be in a room with you for four to eight hours, to an extent it would be nice if you can entertain.  So, way back when I kind of was living in Dallas, it was this mortgage banking crisis, and they laid off all support functions. So, like, 600 of us kind of in one day. And in that space, I was like, “What are some things I've always wanted to try?” And it was standup comedy. So I did that. Actually got paid to do it, so I am a paid standup comedian. It was just 100 bucks, but I'll take it and I'll claim it any day of the week.  But I think what that really allows me to do is pay attention to what's happening. Timing is important to kind of like lay down the joke. And I think timing is also really important when it comes to facilitation, right? So when are you quiet? When do you give space? When do you step in and say something? Also, listening to what other people are saying, and how do you bring things back around? So part of a comedy, right, you'll say something, and then you'll navigate people through a process, and then, you bring the joke back around, and then it hits harder the second time because people kind of feel it. So with facilitation, you'll set something up at the beginning, and then you’ll kind of have, hopefully, this full-circle moment where the light bulb goes off for everyone.  So I think not being afraid to be in front of people, some comedic timing, understanding sort of that cycle of bringing things back and helping people kind of understand and the light bulb goes off helps a lot when it comes to facilitating. Douglas: So I want to double stitch on that bringing things back, because you talked about in the preshow kind of prep conversation, you talked about this notion of cultural inside jokes or the words they use or getting to know them. And so I thought that was really, really neat, and how can I not only come in as an unbiased outsider and be that person that doesn't necessarily have any stake in this decision so that I'm not going to influence it, but at the same time, how can I be a friend, an ally to, then, so that everyone feels comfortable and vulnerable? So how much does that bringing it back, the timing, the improv comedy stuff, align with that ability to kind of like dissect the culture and then imbibe that into the experience? Harold: Yeah. I think it's really important. I think they're equally important. So timing is huge, but also, if you're an outsider, you need people to trust you, to your point. You need them to open up. You need them to be vulnerable. So ingratiation is actually kind of an impression-management technique. So part of it is—I’m also a teacher at some of the universities, so you'll hear some nerdy stuff come out of my mouth every once in a while. But how can I ingratiate myself to someone quickly? So I can do it with a smile. I might be able to say, “Oh, look, I've done this for so many people,” but at the same time to say, “Hey, I did my homework, and I know a little bit about you. I know the words that you use. I know what's important to you.” Makes people think, “Oh, wow,” and you can see it in their face, where they start paying a little bit more attention.  So an example of that. I had a facilitation. I was actually speaking, just speaking. But it was a little bit like some workshop fun activities in there. And so I was like, “Well, give me three—” we were talking about personal brand. “Give me three words that you would say describe who you are, or someone would say, ‘That Harold. He’s blank, blank, and blank. How would you want them to fill that in in terms of personal brand?’” And they had this whole thing called “more.” They were like, “Well, if we were to do more,” you know. And so I said, “I'm asking you for three. But if you'd like to do more, you could do four.” And everyone in the room burst out laughing and thought it was the funniest thing ever. But it's just because I asked, “What are some things you say culturally? What are some things that you do? What are the inside jokes? What are you working on? What's important in terms of an initiative? If you’ll share some of the last emails that have gone out, if you want to, then I can kind of work all that in.” And so it doesn't feel so much like an outsider, but a continuation of where their organization is really headed. And so that was just kind of a fun example that always sticks out in my head. Douglas: Yeah. I love this notion of not only adding levity to the situation, but also getting people to really resonate with these broader themes and these broader objectives, or how does it tie back to whatever the business outcomes are? And you mentioned the importance of that in this notion of planning. And the purpose of the planning is to have the plan, but we want to be skilled enough that we can deviate from that.  So we often talk about antifragile agendas. We want to build our agenda so that we can blow them up if we need to. And I strongly believe that if you're not focused on the outcomes, you can't do that. So that got me really excited when you were talking about those things. So I'm curious to hear how you think about plans, how you think about outcomes, and as that relates to just having a great facilitation. Harold: Yeah. So, from a client perspective, I will always say, like, “What are one or two things that, at the end, if we accomplish this, you would be like, ‘Wow, I didn't waste my money on this guy’?” Right? Or if it’s my partner, Shannon on Cardigan. And be very clear about those and come up with the plan about how we're specifically going to get there. And what that really does is, I think as a facilitator, allows you to number one, not get frazzled and know that you have a path to get there. And I'm going to say a path because you know what I'm going to bring up in a second. You have a path to get there. And if there's a process and you've planned for it, I always say, if something goes wrong, if I planned enough, plan A, plan B, then it's going to be easy for me to pivot. And so I've also been responsible for corporate events with 2,000 people in a room. And so I'm like, “We are going to kill ourselves to try to make this ‘perfect.’” And I always say, “It doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to have the appearance of perfection.” But once we got started, I was like, “If the roof falls in, oh well. At least we exhausted every opportunity.” So to me, the plan is an outline, is a structure. You have to be able to—like we talked about comedy—read the room. What's going to work? What's not working? And be willing to say, “It's not going to work.”  The other thing, though, with the plan—and I love this concept that I learned in school called equifinality, and there can be infinite ways to get to the same ending. So just because I had this one particular way I thought we can navigate people through the process, if I've done a good job creating space, if I've done a good job aligning people, getting people to open up and speak up, then maybe someone else is going to throw something out, it's going to spark some sort of creativity, and my plan is no longer the best one. But just recognizing and realizing that there's multiple ways to get there. The plan is a framework to kind of keep you on track, and, also, to get your customer to understand where you're going as well. But throw it away if it doesn't work. So don't stick to it, and don't feel like you have to cleave to it, because I've seen so many facilitators do that, and then at the end, you didn't accomplish anything you want to accomplish, but you stuck to your plan. And that's not what you were really getting paid to do. Douglas: When you started talking about equifinality earlier, my brain started doing this thing because it's kind of meta, if you think about it, because when we're planning, we want to make sure that we don't have this fixed mindset, that we can be adaptable and willing to adjust on the fly as needed. But also, all of these facilitation approaches, no matter if you're in design land or liberating-structures land or wherever, they're kind of based off this concept of equifinality, right, because you want to make sure we bring everyone to the table, and what happens in the room happens. So there's these emergent qualities that we're there to seek out. And so if we come in with this fixed mindset around what the outcomes going to be specifically, then the session’s not going to be very valuable. Or the deep work doesn't happen that we’re kind of seeking for. So I thought it's really interesting that that concept works on multiple levels. It’s, like, at the participant level, it's at the facilitator level, and we all have to embrace that if we want to really get the interstellar outcomes. Harold: Yeah. And I think that comes from, to your point, the process. I think it also comes from language. And I'll give you an example. You know, we've recently done a lot of webinars on navigating through crises, etc., because there are multiple going on at one time now. And then we're like, “How do you talk to your people that relates to your brand?” And so one example we'll use is, “Do you talk to them like a cheerleader? Do you talk to them, like, familial?” But that was when we were talking to H.R. leaders. When we were speaking to people maybe in oil and gas, we were like, “Do you talk to people like a coach?” You know what I mean? When you start changing language, because words matter and people can receive them. So are they all men? Are they primarily women? Are they CPAs? Are they advertising people? And kind of getting that understanding that the exercise changes the words, the language that you use changes, so it can be received well by the receiver, because that's the point, right? You don't want to alienate someone with language as well. So language, also, is a big part. Douglas: It also, I was beginning to think about, like, not only what's happening in the room, what's happening to your agenda, to how you're just even approaching the facilitation, what's happening in the room with the participants, but also what's happening to all the participants outside the room. So all the stuff that they're dealing with and the baggage they bring in, the trauma, the stress, etc. And I think that has an element of equifinality to it as well, because, those things are going to have a way of resolving themselves, and all this lives in this ecosystem. It’s like Russian nested dolls or something, right?  Harold: Yeah.  Douglas: And so it brings me back to this thing you mentioned around acknowledging and creating space for these things that everyone's dealing with, whether it be racial unrest or whether it be some bomb just blew up at work. Like, there's a production outage. People are bringing stuff into the room, emotions into the room. I loved your word acknowledge because I think a lot of facilitators will say holding space. And that's kind of a very facilitator-centric term, whereas, acknowledge, that’s a term everyone can understand. And we just want to take some time and honor it and let people have that transition moment, because we can’t expect them to flip a switch and just throw this stuff to the side.  So, I know you had a recent moment that felt kind of special around giving people the ability to acknowledge. Harold: Yeah. I was in a meeting—and I borrowed this from someone, so it’s not a Harold Hardaway original, as I like to say—everyone was, I realized, feeling some type of way about something, with all the racial unrest. And knowing you have introverts and extroverts, and maybe some people want to talk; some people don't want to talk. And it was on a Zoom meeting, and we've been on so many of those recently. The thing was, “Hey, think of one, maybe two words that describe how you feel, and type it into the chat. And you don't have to say it,” but as the facilitator, she read them out loud. And when I did it and borrowed it from her, I read it out loud. And people were like, “tired,” “exhausted,” “hopeful.” And there's just something really powerful about reading those things out loud, acknowledging where people are in the space, and so you as a facilitator kind of know what people are bringing with them. And at the same time, I'm opening it up and thanking everyone, acknowledging where people are, and then saying, if there is someone who wants to expand on how they're feeling, give them the opportunity and invite them to do so. Some people, at one meeting, a few people really chose to do that, to the point of tears. And another meeting, no one did, but they were saying, “Thank you for at least allowing us to say this and acknowledge where we are,” and how that really is kind of the lens and the emotions that people are kind of bringing to the work, “Even though we're all there for the same purpose, this is where we are and how we feel.” And sometimes just the act of acknowledging something is really powerful and gets it out there. Douglas: You know, it's like recently ran into this concept of silence breakers. And I instantly fell in love with it because it's so easy to be silent because it's the safe thing to do. And also, I think in, definitely in my career, just this reinforcement of what professionalism is and professionalism became this thing that was so inhuman. Like, we weren’t supposed to bear our feelings or touch on some of these sensitive issues. And I think we do our best work when we're the most human we can be, and, to your point, creating these moments of acknowledgment can get us there.  And I wanted to just observe something that I've been tracking on, whether it's appreciative inquiry, or there's a really great Liberating Structure called seen, heard, and respected, and this moment of reading those feelings out loud means that the people that wrote those, they're feeling heard. And I was recently in an alternate relating workshop, and a gentleman pointed out how emotional it was to hear his story repeated back. And really struck me because I do a lot of this work, and so I'm around this type of stuff a lot, and went back to that moment. And I put myself in that gentleman’s shoes and thought, “Wow, if that is an emotional moment, the reason that's emotional is that it doesn't happen much. So that means that he’s experiencing hearing someone really empathize, really unders—there's evidence that he was heard, and that was touching.” And if we can create more moments like that, I think we can drive much more business value. But the problem is everyone focuses so much on the business value, they can't set the initial conditions to where that stuff can thrive and become outside. Love this notion of acknowledgment. Harold: It doesn't 100 percent relate to business facilitation, but I went through a leadership development sort of class process. And there was this moment where it was like, “What's one thing that you would like someone to acknowledge you for,” or something. And so you write it on a sheet of paper. And you didn't even know why you were writing it, right? “Who would you want that person to be?” And so I remember I wrote down that I was a good dog dad because my dog had passed away. And I would want it to be my pet, right? Douglas: Sure. Harold: And the interesting thing was, hours later, she picked them up and she read them, and then I had to choose someone to play the role of my pet and acknowledge me for being a good parent, a good pet parent. To him—because I was carrying a lot of guilt. Don't get me wrong. We went to all the vets. I got all the medication. I did everything. But I couldn't change this outcome. And, you know, it's like a type A person, who is so used to making things happen for everybody, for companies, I couldn't save, you know. And so someone acknowledging me like they were my pet broke me down, you know? But it was the most healing thing I think I had experienced in so long. I slept like a baby. I forgave myself. So that idea of acknowledging and kind of hearing things back—I know it's a little bit off topic from business work, but there is a lot of power in that. And I think even from an employee perspective, you want to be acknowledged for certain things from certain people. I mean, how do we allow that to be expressed in some sort of way? So sorry for making a baby left turn there, but it was really powerful. Douglas: I agree. And these powerful moments are critical if we're going to build really resilient and really strong teams. And that's the kind of stuff that I think that I'm willing to invest in my team. The trust falls and the rope courses, yeah, whatever. But if we can authentically come together and be there for each other, if there is some weight on your shoulders about the end of life around the dog, them taking the 30 seconds over the—or the two minutes or whatever it took to say that—it’s, like, a very small investment that could have huge ramifications on your ability to work more closely together and drive those outcomes. And so if we focus on the health of the team first, we can have these profound impacts versus just trying to utilization, like treating everyone like a factory and just like, go, go, go, go. And so I think that, in a lot of ways, this is the best stuff we could be doing for business outcomes. Harold: I think so. No one in the room picked anything business related. Douglas: Right. Harold: Not a single person. It was like, “I said this to my grandmother, and I didn't have a chance to say something else before she died.” This is, like, where people were going, and this was like a three-month process, two weeks but three months apart. But that's kind of, to your point, what people were bringing in, right? What they were carrying. What needed to be acknowledged. And then after that—I'll speak for myself. I can't speak for everybody—but I know I felt dramatically better, and I felt sort of like healed, and I wasn't, to your point, carrying that around with me all day and trying to do that and still facilitate for other people. Douglas: You know, it brings me back to this notion of human connection. And when we held the big workshop, right at the beginning of the lockdown, for facilitators to kind of have a conversation on the future of facilitation, the one big, big thing was human connection. It was interesting that on the spectrum, some folks were really concerned about losing it to the in-person human connection. Like, “We're really good at this digital stuff. Will we ever be able to come and have these moments we love?” And so it was kind of like this fear of this dystopian future. Then, the other side was just this notion of like, “Well, are we actually going to be able to do it? Can these tools support real human connection?”  It's interesting. We talked about this acknowledging and unburdening and supporting each other. But it really does come down to this human connection, and that's where we are most creative. That's how we solve stuff together, is when the connections exist. And so I’m curious to hear about your journey through the virtual space and how you've been able to maintain human connection. And do you have any tricks up your sleeve? Are you still experimenting with things? Just kind of what's there for you as far as human connection in this virtual world? Harold: Yeah. So, I mean, I'll be honest with you, personally. So all my friends will do Zoom things multiple times a week. But then I actually saw one of my friends and got a hug. And I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I haven't had a hug in eight weeks.” And I freaked out at first because just not used to it. So I don't think there's necessarily a substitute. But one of the things we've been doing is, from a facilitation standpoint, trying to mix it up. So there’re random breakout rooms and maybe prompts that you can send people and bring them back in. There's videos. There's shorter timeframes. All of that stuff has been working, but you're still sitting there, behind your computer. So those things have kept it more interesting for people. Also, limiting the size of groups. So I know there are the webinars, but also being able to see someone's face. And I know one of your articles that I think you just posted to LinkedIn, I read it earlier. It was, like, cameras have to be on. If your camera's not going to be on, then you don't need to be on the call for certain things. But usually we try to limit—because we do focus groups and research as well, and it actually has worked out pretty well to make them engaging, but I can't say that there's necessarily the human connection.  I think part of it is that thing about being an invitation, looking for the connection that I have with someone. So whenever I have an interview for a focus group or research, do a little bit of what I call appropriate stalking, meaning I went to LinkedIn, I read some articles on folks, and they try to figure out, did we go to similar schools or do we have… and try to make that connection and really talk about all of that first. So you know how sometimes at work, what would happen in a meeting is everyone talked about their weekends and all the things that had nothing to do with the meeting because everyone needed that. On Zoom calls, I try to facilitate that, and I’ll do my homework, even if it’s someone I don’t know for sure, do my homework and figure out, well, how can we make that connection, and how can I recreate that sort of experience where we waste the first 10 minutes? It just—it's not a waste, right? It really does establish that human connection, and we laugh and we joke. And then we're able to easily transition into work because I know something about you, you know something about me, and it kind of gets back to sort of ingratiating yourself to someone else. So I just try to think, how can I recreate that first 10 minutes of every meeting that we all sit through, over Zoom? And that requires a little bit of homework, and I’m okay with that. Douglas: Yeah. It kind of parallels this kind of researching their cultural norms, the words they use, so that if you can relate to them and make them feel like you care and you spent some time, that's a great way to open. Really love it. And I agree, having that time up front, whether it's the weather report or some sort of way for them to transition in, sometimes people just need boot-up time. They’ve been running from meeting to meeting, and just kind of just jumping straight into it, that's not always the best place to be. Harold: And I will say, the extrovert in me will write down, and someone, one of my coaches—I feel like I've had a lot of coaches in my life, Douglas—but one of my coaches would say write “Wait” on a sheet of paper. It stands for Why Am I Talking? I don’t know if you’ve heard this or not. I will usually write that, Wait. Why am I talking? And it's another way of saying hold space for people. But I don't have a problem talking, so if I just, like, shut up for a minute, usually someone's going to speak, or they'll keep talking, or so... Yeah. Wait. That's another little technique that I have. Douglas: You know, it's such a powerful facilitation technique just to use silence. And I was recently facilitating one of our weekly facilitation practices. So we'll host a free event every Thursday, where facilitators can come in and just try stuff out. We used to do it once a month, but now that everyone's virtual and trying to figure out this virtual stuff, we just started doing it every week. It's been really fun because we’ve got a global audience and everything. But I was facilitating something, and while I had folks doing solo work and adding stickies to this MURAL, I was telling some stories just to kind of entertain folks. And then, when we did the critique, because we always do a critique. After people go, we’ll do a Rose, Thorn, Bud, just so that people can kind of learn because that's the whole point: come, practice, learn. One lady's feedback was, “Your stories were so interesting that I couldn’t think of what I wanted to write.” And I thought, oh of course, I should shut up.  Harold: Well, but you have great stories. And nothing else, she’ll remember the stories, right?  Douglas: That’s right.  But, yeah. I love this acronym, WAIT. This sounds so important. I haven’t heard that one before.  So other tips? I guess from just navigating this crazy virtual world and launching out on your own, building your own company, what advice might you have for the facilitators out there that are following in your footsteps? Harold: You know, I always try to think of any meeting as an experience. And so to me that's really important, whether it's the music that's playing when someone comes in. I mean, even when we've hosted webinars, we'll have music playing to kind of like set the tone and let people know we're about to have a good time today. Some of the questions at the beginning. So I think if anyone can think about it as an experience and walk people through it and navigate them through the process, that would be my first tip for anyone getting into this space.  Number two, I would say think of yourself as a quarterback. For our company, we do a lot of work with culture as well, branding, etc., and we're always like, hey, we’re a quarterback. We need a team, and nothing's going to get done without the people in the room. So even if you're at the front, reading the room, reading the defense, calling the next play is really important. And so those two things, you know.  And I would also say—oh, gosh. Well, where I said knowledge feelings, but also kind of getting people centered is another thing, in terms of the podcast. Not podcast, but meeting. Get people moving. If you can get people moving, that's fun. And so, I mean, we've done things by daring people to stand up, because most people have on random shorts, even though you’re business on the top and, like, party on the bottom. Well, work-appropriate party on the bottom. But, you know, like what kind of PJs are you wearing? And to your point, I mean, in the practice that you all they're doing and getting together with ideas. I've had friends who've done things from, like, quarantine kitchen, and it's like a random kind of a game.  So like, I think this idea of prototyping. I think that's what I want to settle on. I’ve probably rambled. So prototyping is the one thing that one of my friends mentioned to me, and he's the person I call all the time. You know, he's very good at games and gamification. And we brought him in on projects. And the idea of thinking, just try it and prototype something and see if it works, and if it doesn't work, scrap it. But sometimes perfect just gets in the way of progress. And for me, I want things to be perfect. But once I just tell myself, “It's just a prototype,” then, I'm able to move quickly and get feedback on it. And then, I have the next iteration. And so for me, I think that's really important. And in this space, and I know my company and my business partner, what we've done is, let's try this, let's try this, let's try this. And I just tell myself, “It's just a prototype. It's just a prototype. It doesn't have to be perfect,” because that has been the enemy of progress, for me personally, in a space where you have to respond quickly. So that would be my one big thing that I’ve learned in the middle of COVID, specifically, in transitioning to virtual is prototyping. Douglas: Awesome. I love it. As you know, I'm a big fan of prototypes.  Harold: Yes.  Douglas: And so I will double down on that answer. Absolutely. If you're curious about something, afraid of something, a prototype can be really powerful because it can give you the confidence to go give it a spin and see what works, see what doesn't work. Definitely, perfection can be paralyzing and prevent it from trying and making that first step.  So, Harold, it's been a pleasure chatting with you today and hearing about the importance of timing, acknowledging, ingratiating your participants. Such an awesome concept. And then, equifininity, equifinality— Harold: Equifinality, yeah. Douglas: —is now in my vocabulary. I love the word. It is a— it is something that explains something that I've known to be true, but in a way that packages, I think, it up in a really nice little box. I love it.  And so, just in closing, how can folks find you? How can they get in contact and potentially work with you? Harold: Thank you for that. So Harold Hardaway on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on there. I work at Cardigan, so you can find us at cardigancg.com. We help organizations with branding; internal communications, whether that's campaigns, change management, been getting a lot of calls, obviously, for the DEI space. You know as well. Find us there. You can email me at harold@cardigancg.com. And so, yeah, find me in all of those places.  Thank you so much for having me on the show. I was excited and honored when you reached out, wanted to know what little ole me had to say about anything, so thank you for that. Douglas: Yeah, absolutely. It's been a pleasure chatting today, Harald, and I look forward to talking more soon. Harold: Yes, we will. Thank you. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

Some useful timestamps:00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 24!01:50 - Review: Palm Springs (2020)04:00 - Review: Artificer Science of Magic06:12 - Preview: Destroy All Humans [Reboot/Remaster]07:20 - START: Xbox Series X Conference09:15 - Halo Infinite doesn’t look great15:30 - Xbox GamePass is incredible!18:08 - Where is the promised “gaming bonus episode”?18:40 - END: Xbox Series X Conference18:45 -Visible science of wearing masks21:30 - Robot Hairdressers are here!28:00 - What it means to be a pathological liar34:54 - Flying Dutchmen and the Fata Morgana40:00 - Solar Powered breakthroughs44:20 - Vantablack fish and thalassophobia 50:00 - Jamie Oliver’s Chicken Nuggets51:30 - KFC’s 3D Printed Chicken Nuggets59:00 - Stay safe, use Glory Holes01:05:20 - How taboo are your sexual fetishes?01:11:40 - Outro - Thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

Some useful timestamps:00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 23!01:15 - Life as a professional video game reviewer01:40 - Review - Ghost of Tsushima03:30 - Review: Paws and Soul06:00 - Preview: Deathground07:10 - Hans is back on Twitch08:45 - Llamas hold the secret to combatting COVID1917:00 - WEAR A F#$%ING MASK!20:00 - Understanding the Dunning Kruger Effect (Why do incompetent people think they are competent?)29:10 - Exploring the secret Gladiator 2 film37:37 - The Problem with Sequels44:25 - Weirdest Celebrity Gifts from Fans55:55 - PORNHUB’S BIG PACKAGE!01:00:46 - Cool guide to Superhero Powers01:03:45 - Seven Wonders of the Geek World01:11:11 - Outro, shout-outs and thanks for listening!If you enjoyed, please rate and subscribe :-)

Some useful timestamps:00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 22!02:30 - BREATHE PROPERLY = KILL VIRUSES09:50 - Why humans evolved to sleep less16:00 - The Multitask Illusion22:30 - How culture affects Hallucinations30:40 - DEEP FAKE YOUR VOICE33:22 - Disney’s Deep Fake Tech is incredible!36:15 - JIGGLE MODE39:00 - Shepard Tone Illusion42:26 - Inception Dream Sequences in Real Time43:00 - Sounds of Space45:25 - Why haven’t we found aliens yet?49:57 - Comet NEOWISE: Now Showing!52:32 - Animal Crossing’s Aurora Borealis53:35 - PROJECTILE PENGUIN POO!59:45 - PLEASE KEEP YOUR SEX TOYS CLEAN01:08:50 - Thank you for listening! Slide into our DMs.If you enjoyed, please give  us a good rating.

Some useful timestamps:00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 21!00:55 - GETL YouTube now features our faces02:20 - How would you answer this question about time?11:11 - The illusory perspective of time14:25 - Time is a constant, but age changes perception17:00 - Time and the Mind’s Eye20:45 - Marvel’s Infinity Stones: what happened to them?27:45 - Game of Musicians: the Secret life of GoT Stars35:20 - TLOU2 guitar covers are incredible!40:20 - Batteries in the Apocalypse41:25 - Post-apocalyptic uses for urine and faeces [Thanks Rome]48:30 - ANIMAL CROSSING BUTT PLUGS52:40 - Sex + Interactive gaming?53:50 - Rona has a new symptom: ERECTIONS!57:35 - How to get rid of awkward erectionsIf you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

Podcast: Top Tips for Negotiating Divorce Settlement Agreements In this podcast, Sharon Klein, a Family Wealth Strategist and Trusts & Estates Attorney and Michigan family lawyer Mark Bank discuss top tips for negotiating divorce settlement agreements with Dan Couvrette, CEO of Family Lawyer Magazine and Divorce Marketing Group. Hosted By:  Dan Couvrette, CEO, Family Lawyer Magazine Guest Speakers: Sharon Klein, a Family Wealth Strategist and Trusts & Estates Attorney, and Mark Bank, a Family Lawyer in Birmingham, Michigan Full transcript and video interview available at https://familylawyermagazine.com/articles/top-tips-for-negotiating-divorce-settlement-agreements/ Read the Transcript of this Podcast Below. Intro: Welcome to Family Lawyer Magazine’s podcast. This episode is on Top Tips for Negotiating Divorce Settlement Agreements.  Your host of this episode is Dan Couvrette, the publisher of Family Lawyer Magazine and Divorce Magazine. His two guests are Sharon Klein and Mark Bank. Sharon Klein is president of Family Wealth, Eastern U.S. Region for Wilmington Trust. She coordinates the delivery of all wealth management services by teams of professionals and heads Wilmington's National Matrimonial Advisory Solutions Practice. Beginning her career as a trust and estates attorney, she is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and chair of the Domestic Relations Committee of the Trust and Estates Magazine where she sits on the board. Mark Bank is a founding partner of the law firm Bank Rifkin in Michigan, and focuses on complex divorce cases in Michigan and nationwide. He is a diplomat of the American College of Family Trial Lawyers and a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Here’s the podcast. We hope you enjoy it. Dan: Sharon, what services do you offer and how do you work with family lawyers? Sharon: Wilmington Trust provides the full spectrum of wealth management services and through the matrimonial advisory practice group that I lead, we work with family law attorneys like Mark to provide a comprehensive suite of services for clients who have recently been divorced or in the process of getting divorced. And that could be everything from investing the settlement proceeds to acting as a neutral, impartial trustee to reviewing business valuations, to reviewing insurance, to providing family office services and also private banking services. And in particular, in the pre-divorce context, we have very sophisticated proprietary analytical tools where we can run comprehensive financial projections that take into account all assets. That could include private assets like a business as well as showing detailed cash flows, which take into account tax impact and also changes on the investment horizon. So, we could stress test the portfolio depending on what's happening in the investment landscape. And that typically gives attorneys wonderful information to take to the negotiating table in order to best position themselves and their clients at that table. And then post-divorce, we could use those same analytical tools to craft an investment strategy that's designed to ensure that a portfolio will sustain a certain lifestyle Dan: And Mark, what is the focus of your family law practice? Mark: My firm handles complex divorce cases, not only in Michigan but nationwide. The complexities that we handle, they're really two-fold. One focus would be on the financial end, and the complexities might involve business valuation, differentiating income from cash flow, understanding the tax consequences of a certain transaction, or understanding certain parts of an executive compensation package. The other part of the complexity would involve children and working out custody arrangements, parenting time arrangements with the understanding that there's no one size fits all when it comes to divorce. Dan: That's great. So Mark, how would you work together and when would you recommend this approach of collaboration? Mark: I think when it comes to divorce lawyers, in working with financial advisors, one of the most underutilized synergies in my particular industry, there are really two different aspects that would come up with this. The first would be while the case is going on. As a divorce lawyer, what I'm looking at is building a statement of net worth, understanding the cash flow for the client, and understanding that client's expenses. And working with someone in Sharon's industry, that person would be able to help me understand what passive income can be generated from the assets in this particular estate. And then also working with her and the client to understand what are the client's expenses going forward, what budgeting we need to do as part of the case so that at the end of the case, the income meets the expenses, and not only looking at it for a particular year but trying to take it out for the rest of the client's life if possible and making sure that the client's financial needs are satisfied long term. Dan: Sharon, can you describe how Wilmington Trust approaches the analytical analysis that Mark has referred to? Sharon: Well, I think Mark’s given a great summary of how colleagues could work together to best support clients. And I think that any analysis has to be grounded in realistic expectations. Typically in the divorce arena, it's very important that a pool of assets generates a specific level of income and that level of income can sustain a lifestyle for a period of time or the client's life. And that leads to the question: how is it possible to sustain a portfolio given a particular set of cash inflows, which can be alimony, can be child support, can be a salary, and other particulars like living expenses, taxes, educational expenses. So, the analytical tools that I've been describing, they project the cash flow on a year by year basis as my access. Or you could plan out way into the future and have a year by year breakdown of what to expect. And as I mentioned, this typically provides an attorney negotiating a divorce settlement agreement with wonderful information to leverage to best advantage for their client. Dan: So that sounds very necessary and very thorough to me. Sharon: Absolutely. Because at the end of the day, it's all about the data. It's all about making a case for what your client needs, and if you could show the data, which is sophisticated data, not an Excel spreadsheet, but data that is impacted by different market environments and by different needs and expectations of clients, you could really have a dynamic presentation that adds a lot of value to those discussions. Dan: So Mark, can you describe to me what the second part is? Mark: Well, the first part I mentioned was working with someone in Sharon's industry while the case is going on to plan for the future. But the biggest mistake people in my industry make is at the end of the case is they just hand the client a check and say, have a nice life. And that's not where it should end. That should be the halfway point. We put together a plan and now we need to make sure that there's somebody out there who can implement it. So, it's important to take that plan and sit down with someone in the financial services industry and say, how do we make this plan come to life? And that takes the transition from the divorce lawyer to the financial service industry and making sure that the cash flow that I was projecting is there for the client, they understand the budgeting, and that there's somebody there in the long term to implement the plan and look over the plan and make sure the client's taken care of. And this is something that a lot of divorce lawyers, in my opinion, don't think about. And they just get to the end of the case and say to the client, here's your money and have a nice life, and it really can't be that way. I personally think that's irresponsible and really the best practice would be to work with someone in Sharon's industry while the case is going on to do the planning and then at the end of the case to implement the plan. Sharon: Right. And I've actually seen Mark in action in that regard. So, it's not just advice that he's giving that he doesn't fully embrace. And it was wonderful to see Mark in action taking the client through the whole phase of pre-divorced, divorced, and afterward to show that he really cared about her and helped her move on with it. So, I'm a big proponent of Mark's advice and, as I say, I've seen him in practice, and it worked out really well for him and his client. Dan: It sounds like it's a way to do it. Mark: Well, in most instances, you're working with someone who has no experience in managing their finances, managing their money, doing their financial plan. And not only don't they have that experience but when they're coming to see me, they're scared to death about what their future's going to look like. So it's my job to be able to say there is a future after divorce and to be able to take the resources that they bring to the table, whether in terms of their net worth or in terms of their cash flow and be able to have it make sense to them and be able to show them what it's going to look like going forward. So, you can see somebody take a deep breath. When you start doing that, they come into your office and they're just scared of what's going to come. And to the extent that you can put together this plan or talk to them about how you're going to put together the plan, you can see somewhere to go. And they know there's somebody out there that understands what their problems are and then how to solve them. Sharon: And let me just add on to that because I totally agree with you. And oftentimes in my seat, I see people come to me and they've not been handling the financial side of a marriage. A spouse has been handling that, so they feel overwhelmed, they feel alone, they feel like they're not able to handle it. So, you have to take the time to educate people and to describe the process against the backdrop of what they're going through, and you have to be sensitive to where they are in their lives. But oftentimes when you do that, you actually see a transformation into a poised self-confident person who, although they're going through a very sad phase in their lives, they're actually glad that they had a chance to show that they can do it, that they've proven it to themselves. And it's very rewarding to see that transformation for someone who, even though they're going through a very sad time, was able to view the future with some optimism. Mark: But to be able to do this right, this synergy between the two industries is most important. There are divorce lawyers out there who just get started, but they don't understand anything about finance, so they can't say anything intelligent to the client to take the edge off. On the other hand, there are financial planners out there. Clients say, tell me what I need for the future. And they start putting together a financial plan without talking to the divorce lawyer and have any clue what the assets are, what the income is, and what the expenses are. And this really needs to be done together to put together the best long term plan for the client. Sharon: So, collaboration is the key. Well, just really to add on to Mark's comment, which is in sort of phase two post-divorce, there is so much that needs to be done in order to help clients move on with the rest of their lives. So, for example, all of their estate planning documents need to be reviewed because typically they all need to be updated to reflect new beneficiaries. Insurance needs to be reviewed, and oftentimes, as I was mentioning, one spouse hasn't been involved with the financial side of the marriage, and they may not even be used to writing checks. So, oftentimes we find that clients really want family office services. They want bill pay, they want advice about taxes and tax preparation. So, we help bring it all together so that they feel comfortable and so that they have all the advice they need to move on to the next chapter. This is critical. Dan: Sounds essential to me as well. Sharon, let's talk about trusts for a minute. Do you have any tips for dealing with a trust created during the marriage when negotiating a divorce settlement agreement? Sharon: Yes, absolutely, and there has actually very recently been a very significant change in the law regarding the taxation of trust income after divorce. Individuals can create trusts and transfer assets to those trusts, and those assets will be out of their estates for estate tax purposes if structured properly, but they can continue to own the trust for income tax purposes. And that's a so-called grantor trust. And you might ask, why would anybody want to give away assets and remain on the hook? And the answer is that's perfect estate planning because the individual who creates the trust pays the tax liability of the trust and relieves the beneficiaries of the trust from that tax burden. So, in essence, the trust is allowed to grow tax-free, and of all the estate planning techniques that we have in our arsenal, tax-free growth is the best of them all. And in actuality, the grantor or the creator of the trust is making a gift to the beneficiaries of the trust in paying those taxes. But the IRS does not consider it a gift. And that's why I say it's perfect estate planning. Now, the way it impacts the matrimonial situation is if spouses created a trust while they're married, one spouse creates a trust and the other spouse can potentially receive income from that trust. By its nature, that will be a grantor trust. The problem becomes when the spouses get divorced because grantor trust status is determined at the time the trust is created and it doesn't take into account the fact that parties get divorced. So, if parties get divorced and grantor trust status remains, it means that the person who created the trust will continue to be liable to pay the taxes on distributions received by a beloved ex-spouse forever. And that's a horrendous result, and obviously not a result that the creator of the trust would have anticipated. Until December of 2018, there was a section of the Internal Revenue Code, Section 682, which saved the day. And section 682 said in that scenario, if people get divorced and a distribution is made to an ex-spouse, the ex-spouse picks up that distribution in her income and it is not attributable to the creator of the trust. Unfortunately, as I said, the protection of that section has ended, so if people get divorced beginning in 2019, every trust that was created during the course of the marriage needs to be looked at by the matrimonial attorney to see what are the tax consequences of that trust. And note that the triggering date is divorce beginning in 2019. It applies to a trust created at any time during the course of the marriage. So, a trust could be five years old, 10 years old, and you could have this terrible tax result. So, it's something, and this is a great place for matrimonial attorneys and estate planning attorneys and investment advisors to collaborate because there are some potential fixes to this situation. But you really need collaboration across disciplines. One thing that's possible, and you have to be very mindful not to trigger adverse tax consequences, is terminating the trust on divorce and equalizing with other assets or perhaps modifying the trust and again, equalizing with other assets. Or perhaps including a reimbursement provision in a settlement agreement that reimburses the creator of the trust for the ongoing tax liability attributable to distributions to the ex-spouse. The point is though that if matrimonial attorneys and family lawyers finish the divorce and then say, we'll send you to your trust and estates and investment advisors to redo your planning, the opportunity to fix that skewed tax result will have been lost. This is something that needs to be addressed during the course of the negotiations, during the course of the divorce proceeding. Dan: So I know Mark wouldn't make that mistake. Mark: You're exactly right in the comment that you made. I'm working more and more with trust lawyers every day while these cases are going on, part of my job is to look at the assets of the parties and decide what's a marital asset, what's not a marital asset, but separate from what are the assets of the parties. There may be something that somebody says, that's not one of our assets anymore because it's an irrevocable trust. And something that's an irrevocable trust in most States is outside of the marital estate, and it's not divisible by the court incident to a divorce. So, one of the things we're looking at is if there are millions of dollars in the trust that may be outside of the estate, was there any element of control that was retained by either of the parties that may bring that asset back within the marital estate? And frankly, I was working on a case not too long ago, and I happened to read Sharon's article on the change in the tax law, and that triggered something and I said, wait a second, the spouse having to pay the tax and perpetuity going forward, that's an element of control that we need to look at. And I don't know yet whether we'll be successful in bringing that into the marital estate, but the idea wouldn't have been there without working with Sharon on that particular issue. And because of that, I've been working more and more with trust lawyers every day. Dan: That makes sense. Mark, do you have any other tips for practitioners when negotiating divorce settlement agreements? Mark: Well, I could go on and on with that for days and talk about finances in particular provisions to include in the settlement agreement pricing. I think the single most important thing is managing expectations. And that's what lawyers don't do a good job of is telling clients what they need to know rather than what they want to hear. So often clients come into your office and say, I want this, I want that. And too often lawyers out there are saying, sure, no problem. I can get that for you. Rather than sitting back and managing the expectation from the beginning and say “let's talk about what's real and let's talk about what you really need to know”. Because when the client, when the lawyers don't manage the expectations, it gets a bad result for the client. Even if it looks good on paper, the client's not going to appreciate it in relation to what otherwise would have been achieved. And the way I'm always looking at this, the analogy I use is going to the optometrist's office. You walk into the office, and you think you see things clearly, and suddenly they start dropping these different lenses in front of you and they put one lens in and it looks a little different. They put another lens in, and it looks a little different and they put in the final lens, and suddenly you're seeing a whole different picture. And when a client comes into the divorce lawyer’s office, it's the lawyer's job to say, this is what the law is in your state. This is what this judge in your case might likely do. In this particular case, this is what's happened. In other cases, this is what happens with this particular lawyer on the other side of the case, and it really changes what the client's expectations may be at the end. And to the extent that a lawyer can manage those expectations from the beginning and paint a real result for the client, they're going to more satisfied clients at the end of the day. Sharon: I couldn't agree more. And actually, I think this sort of plays back to the analytics and the importance of having data to put things in context and running different scenarios. So, when you're running cash flow projections, you have to show a client several different scenarios to show what's possible. And the expectations have to be grounded in reality. Cash flow projections might have to take into account the cost of living adjustments, may be an expense that's going to be incurred somewhere down the line that you want to take into consideration there and then. You've got to make some assumptions about what the market is going to deliver. Some assets like retirement assets can grow. You also have to build in actuarial assumptions about taking required minimum distributions from certain assets once you reach the appropriate age. So, there's a lot of different moving parts, but I think if you show people the data in different scenarios and what they might expect, I think those lenses become a little bit clearer. Mark: And this goes back to what I was talking about at the beginning. A lot of times people come to me and they've already met with a financial planner who's put something together with just no clue about what the reality is. And the client comes in and says, well, you know, based on this, I need $400,000 a month and $20 million in my bank account to start. I'm like, that's nice, but you don't have that kind of money. And to the extent that a lawyer's working with the financial advisor or the financial advisor, if that's where the client goes first, brings in the lawyer, and they can work together. They can really manage those expectations from the beginning to create a satisfactory result where the client at the end of the day is proud of what their team accomplished. Dan: It certainly is abundantly clear to me that you combine knowledge of the law with passion and compassion for your client and that you're truly looking out for their best interests. And so, I think that's also why you think that you should bring professionals in throughout the process that can help, and not just try and handle it all on your own. You recognize it. You can use a professional like Sharon and need a professional like Sharon to truly do a great job for your clients. Is there anything else that you want to add to this conversation that we've missed? Mark: I would just add this final thought. I was talking about how at the end of the divorce case, that's only halfway through the process and it's important then to work with a financial advisor to implement the plan, but that's not necessarily the end of the divorce lawyer’s role. And I think it's important that there be annual follow up meetings with the entire team to say is the plan working? Do we need to make any changes to the plan? In some cases, we go back to the court and we can modify child support. We can modify spousal support in order to get more money if need be in order to make the plan work. And sometimes there needs to be changes made to the estate plan and to the extent the whole team can get together on an annual basis. It serves the client's best interest, I think in the long term. Sharon: I couldn't agree more. I think it's so important for the whole team to get together periodically to review where the client is because a plan is dynamic. It has to change with family circumstances, with the investment landscape, with other things that are individual to each particular client and getting together with a team of professionals, each of which is a specialist in his or her own area of expertise really means that you're bringing all the information necessary to best serve the client together. And oftentimes it's a matrimonial lawyer, it's a trusts & estates lawyer, it's the investment professional, it could be an accounting professional, but I think everybody needs to be on the same side of the page in order to coordinate all those different moving pieces for our clients. Dan: Well, you certainly have proven that to me here today. And, Sharon, I can't imagine anybody that would do a better job than you would in taking care of a client and their financial concerns. You lost me in many parts of the conversation, and I'm not disappointed with that actually. I like to work with professionals who know more than I do. And you certainly fit into that category. Well, both of you do. So, thank you so much for your time today. It's been a pleasure. Outro: This concludes today’s podcast. Family Lawyer Magazine and Dan Couvrette would like to thank our listeners for joining us in this episode. To learn more about our two guests and the services they offer, please visit Wilmington Trust’s website at www.wilmingtontrust.com/divorce and Mark Bank’s law firm’s website at www.bankrifkinlaw.com.   This presentation is for informational purposes only and is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the sale of any financial product or service. This presentation is not designed or intended to provide financial, tax, legal, accounting, or other professional advice since such advice always requires consideration of individual circumstances. If professional advice is needed, the services of your professional advisor should be sought. There is no assurance that any estate planning strategy will be successful. The information in this podcast has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy and completeness are not guaranteed. The opinions of the speakers other than Sharon do not necessarily represent those of M&T Securities, M&T Bank or any of its affiliates. IRS Circular 230 Disclosure: To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS, we inform you that, while this presentation is not intended to provide tax advice, in the event that any information contained in this presentation is construed to be tax advice, the information was not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding tax related penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing, or recommending to another party any matters addressed herein. Wilmington Trust is a registered service mark used in connection with various fiduciary and non-fiduciary services offered by certain subsidiaries of M&T Bank Corporation. Investing involves risks and you may incur a profit or a loss. There is no assurance that any investment strategy will be successful. ©2020 M&T Bank Corporation and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved.

Some useful timestamps:00:00 - Intro - Welcome to Episode 20!02:00 - Thank the pagans for the days of the week04:30 - Portuguese Days07:14 - HALLOWEEN’S CURSED MOON!10:00 - 2020 gets TWO Halloween moons!14:45 - The US President’s Car is BOSS!20:45 - AEROPLANE’S HAVE HOOTERS22:05 - Pirates RUINED America’s Metric System28:08 - What is in a name? BARBIE EDITION30:30 - THE TRUTH ABOUT SILICA GEL35:10 - Cloning and the myth of aged DNA43:43 - WATER BOTTLE EJACULATE47:37 - PornHub for Couples?51:43 - Share your fantasies for better sex52:40 - 2020 as a Disaster Movie Trailer54:10 - Thank you for being you, and for listening!If you enjoyed, please give us a good rating.

It's a special edition of the Unofficial 40. For the first time in a long time, no coronavirus talk on the podcast. But we are joined by longtime media favorite Zack Sanchez who gives his perspective on that turbulent spring during 2015 when the team turned in their helmets for the right to protest after a racist incident rocked the OU campus. We talk with Sanchez about what it was like then and what the team is facing now as social unrest in intertwined with athletics all over the country. We also wanted Zack to give us some insight into his days at OU including what it was like to watch Trevor Knight and Blake Bell battle to replace Landry Jones before the start of the 2013 season and a much rumored incident between OU and Clemson before the 2015 College Football Playoff game in Miami. Bob and Josh join in to talk recruiting as Josh has been on the road all week in Oklahoma checking out the top talent in the state. It's a different format, but we hope you'll take something away from our talk with Sanchez to give you a little insight into the mind of young, Black athletes during an interesting time in our country. The full rundown follows below: INTRO - Welcome to a little bit of a different Unofficial 40 this week 00:02:35 - Looking back at the SAE incident from 2015 00:10:00 - How the demonstrations and protests helped the team get through that time. 00:17:00 - The difficulty in reaching out or speaking up for so many 00:21:00 - The message for young, Black players who will be in the shoes of OU players one day 00:26:00 - His expectations on what we will see from players moving forward into the season 00:29:00 - His thoughts on LIncoln Riley in 2015 and how he's handling things now 00:31:00 - "I don't hate white people." - Zack Sanchez 00:32:10 - What it was like watching Trevor Knight and Blake Bell battle to replace Landry Jones in 2013 preseason camp 00:35:30 - 2013 was an underrated season overall 00:39:50 - The real story about Clemson, Charles Tapper and the bus 00:44:10 - Bob and Josh talk recruiting. We start with Kendal Daniels 00:46:30 - 2022 class and Gentry Williams. Can he be a 5-star? 00:48:45 - Josh's in-person thoughts on Jordan Mukes 00:53:10 - Could OU offer an in-state QB in 2023? 00:55:45 - July 4th predictions 00:58:50 - Isaiah Coe is now a take for OU?