#541: Why the Best Teams Have Keystone Conversations, with Michael Bungay Stanier

Episode Notes

Transcript

Zack Glaser (00:12): 

Hi, I’m Zack. 

  

Stephanie Everett (00:13): 

And I’m Stephanie. And this is episode 541 of the Lawyerist to Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today I’m talking with Michael Bungay Stanier. For those who don’t know, he’s the author of The Coaching Habit and we’re discussing his latest book, How to Work with Almost Anyone. 

  

Zack Glaser (00:30): 

So Stephanie, coming up in a couple of weeks, we are going to a conference that’s being put on, I guess by Ka Moon and Vandy, it’s Women in AI Summit. This is pretty cool. I like this. 

  

Stephanie Everett (00:48): 

I am super excited for anyone who knows Kat at Over at Vanderbilt Law, she’s putting together an amazing group of people. I guess primarily women since we’re calling it the Women in AI Summit, 

  

Zack Glaser (01:01): 

Hopefully, right, 

  

Stephanie Everett (01:02): 

But allies, but an amazing group of people to talk about ai, I think differently. It’s not limited just to legal. There’s going to be other industries there as well, and I’m super, super excited that Lawyerist is the pioneer sponsor of this event. So we are really jazzed about it. 

  

Zack Glaser (01:28): 

That makes me really happy because we are, Lawyerist is women, women-owned company. I work around and with many, many, many women and we definitely want to promote female voices. And I think in this landscape right now of artificial intelligence, there needs to be a place where female voices can be promoted because there’s plenty of them out there, but we don’t necessarily hear from them all the time. 

  

Stephanie Everett (02:01): 

Yeah, and I think too, I mean I feel like some listeners may be like, God, they’re talking about AI again, aren’t beating and yes, yes, we are. Just back in the day, to me this is, remember when we told you all to buy the scan snap scanner or that the cloud was safe and it was okay, you needed to go to the cloud and you need it to be paperless. This is like you have to use the internet people. That’s how I think ai, it’s already so intertwined into our work and we don’t even realize we’re using it. So it’s that important to me. 

  

Zack Glaser (02:36): 

Yeah, I think this is a pivotal moment. We’re going to look back and say that the introduction of chat GBT and these large language models and the kind of advancement of artificial intelligence really made us work differently. And being candid, I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like necessarily in the future, but I think that if you stick your head in the sand, you’re going to be out of luck 

  

Stephanie Everett (03:07): 

For sure. And if you don’t, don’t stick your head in the sand, but actually embrace some of these tools. You’re going to have a competitive edge here, at least in the near future until other firms realize it and catch up. But good news, I mean, you have the opportunity right now to join this conversation. So it’s happening February 1st in Nashville at Vanderbilt, and I think that Kat’s announcing today because of our generous support, it’s not even going to have a registration fee. She’s limiting attendance because she wants to make sure that we have really great meaningful conversations in the room. But I think it’s now going to be a free event to attend, but you do need to register. So we’ll make sure to put the registration link in the show notes if you can be there and with us in Nashville, come hang out. Zack and I are going to be there. Maybe we’ll even take you out to Zack’s old stomping grounds afterwards. He has taken me to a few in the past when we were in Nashville together, and it’s quite fun. 

  

Zack Glaser (04:08): 

It’s a fun little place, fun little place. Well now here is Stephanie’s conversation with Michael. 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (04:13): 

So I’m Michael Bungay Stanier, and I’m happy to be here. Now I’m best known if I’m known at all for a book called The Coaching Habit, which is about helping unw in coaching so that if you are a regular person, say a lawyer or running a law firm, you can actually bring some of the power and the skill of coaching in a way that won’t scare off your lawyers and all your other folks that are helping you out. So I write books often about trying to bring better management principles, more human management principles into the work that’s getting done. I’m Australian, I live in Canada. I actually studied law at law school in Australia. Not very well. I had literally finished law school being sued by one of my law professors for defamation, which is a whole other story. And I was saved from the law profession by winning a scholarship that took me to Oxford to study where I did a master’s degree in literature and then stumbled through various careers as in the world of innovation and creativity. For a while, I helped invent what’s been called the world’s worst single malt whiskey. I’ve been in the world of change management for a while, trying to figure out how to actually shift cultures and make organizations better. And then for the last 25 years or so, I’ve been writing books and a running training off the back of those books. 

  

Stephanie Everett (05:32): 

Yes, I am honored to have you on the show today. If you can see on the back here, I keep a couple of my favorite books right behind me, so they’re always in camera view. And beside my book that I wrote is, your book is The Coaching Habit, and we’ve used it. We’ve given it to members of our coaching community who we coach. We give it to them when they come to our conference because it’s such a great little tool of how to have conversations with team members and how to coach instead of giving advice. 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (06:05): 

And I think we’re all up against the comfort of certainty and the comfort of giving advice. And what I’m really conscious of is that in some professions, and I would put the legal profession being one of those advice and certainty is what people pay you money for. For lots of people you’re like, look, I’ve got a reputation and I’ve got a decade or two decade or four decade practice of going, let me tell you what I think. Let that tell you what I know. And there is absolutely a place for advice giving. There is absolutely a place for certainty, but when it comes to managing people, actually learning how to stay curious a little bit longer and rush to action and advice giving a little bit more slowly is more powerful. Honestly, that’s true with your clients as well. If you’re front facing, when you lead too quickly with advice, mostly you’ll bring actually probably not very good solutions to solve the wrong problem. That’s what I’m up against. I’m like, stay curious a little bit longer. That’s the core behavior change. 

  

Stephanie Everett (07:16): 

Yeah, I love that. It’s so powerful and it’s hard to do. I mean, it’s easy to say it and so hard in the moment when that team member is coming to you and you’re like, I can solve this for you. And instead you say, tell me more. What’s the problem 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (07:31): 

Here? When they come to you and they go, how do I, and by the way, that means that your team person has been training you for years so they can work less hard and you can do their work for them. So they love it. They’re like, oh, this is great. I’ll just go and get this person to tell me the answers. But there’s a price that gets paid for that. One is they don’t get to develop, they don’t get to grow, they don’t get to learn. You pay a price, like I’m busy solving other people’s problems for them, and there’s a way that you can still be very supportive, a great manager and a great leader, and you can lead with curiosity 

  

Stephanie Everett (08:08): 

In your newest book. I think this is your newest book, how to Work with Almost Anyone. 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (08:15): 

I love that. I’ve got a journal coming out in two weeks time, so it won’t be my newest book for long, but it’s right as we speak right now. It is my newest book. 

  

Stephanie Everett (08:25): 

I love it. And it’s all about building relationships, but specifically you talk about business relationships. Sure. Because I think sometimes, again, and you said this, and maybe I should have just asked you, but I loved what you’re like, we just show up to work and we kind of hope for the best. Like, oh, we got to work with a whole bunch of people. I hope that’s good. Hope it works out. 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (08:44): 

Yeah, exactly. I mean, our happiness and our success, I mean, I know they’re two different things, but let’s tease them apart. The success you have at work, the impact you have and the happiness you have at work, just the joy you feel about going into work is strongly influenced by the quality of your working relationships, not just the people you manage, not just the partners you oversee, but your colleagues, your peers, your clients, your prospects. All of these make such a big impact on your happiness and your success. And what you hope as a lawyer is your deep knowledge of legislation or case law or whatever else is going to get you through it. But actually, if you can build really strong working relationships with the people with whom you work internally and your clients as well, everybody wins from that. Your people are nicer to work with. Your people are more competent and more confident and more autonomous and more successful. Your clients stick around longer. Your good, your bad clients go faster. So you have more good clients and fewer PYA clients. It’s a win. But most of us don’t have the confidence or the expertise or the tools to actually shape these working relationships. We just cross our fingers and we hope for the best. And I’d like to increase the odds in your favor. 

  

Stephanie Everett (10:08): 

And so how do we start thinking about being intentional in crafting these relationships and making them better? 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (10:15): 

Yeah. Well, you’ve got to be thinking about, first of all, you’ve got to go, okay, it’s not just going to happen. I mean, sure, sometimes it does. Sometimes you get lucky and you get this kind of fantastic working relationship. But if you just sit back and wait and hope, well, then you’re going to get the usual bell curve of relationships, a few really good ones, a few really terrible ones, and then a bunch of them in the middle. So the goal, it’s useful just to have a goal here, is to build the best possible relationship with your key people. And so you notice here, I’m not saying best relationship. I mean, not every working relationship is going to be amazing, but every working relationship has potential, and you’re trying to fulfill that potential. You’re trying to get it to be the best version of itself. 

  

(11:04): 

So A BPR best possible relationship. So if you’re listening now, you can go, okay, so with this key partners, who are the bpr, who are the people? I’d love to have bprs here. And if you’re client facing at all, which of the clients would it be really useful to have BPRS with? And the people who I manage and on my team, who should I be thinking about there? Now, what’s a BPR? Well, there are three qualities to it. It needs to be safe, it needs to be vital, and it needs to be repairable. So let me just talk you through those one by one, safe means you’re removing the fear. People get to show up and do two things, be as much of themselves as they want to be, and secondly, be able to talk about what’s not working. So safe has been in the awareness of the world for a couple of decades. 

  

(11:59): 

Amy Edmondson, who’s a professor at Harvard, really kind of popularized this idea of psychological safety, this idea that from her research, it’s like the teams that are able to talk about what’s not working, other teams that are most successful paradoxical, I know, but if you can talk about it, you can fix it. If you can’t talk about it, it just lingers and cause damage. So safe is a key part of it, and I’d say it’s one of the big shifts in organizational cultures over the last 20 years is just a much greater awareness of the importance of psychological safety. But I don’t think that’s enough. I mean, safe is good and necessary, but not sufficient. So the second element is vital. So this is almost psychological bravery, the sense of I can challenge, I can push, I can provoke, I can step into ambiguity, I can actually have the hard conversations, say the hard things. And a great working relationship has this balance, this dance between safe and vital and psychological safety and psychological bravery. 

  

(13:09): 

The third element is repairable, because here’s the totally unsurprising news flash for everybody. Every working relationship at some stage goes a bit haywire, goes off the rails a little bit. Somebody hasn’t had breakfast, so they show up hangry at work. Somebody misunderstands a commitment, somebody forgets a commitment, somebody says something that somebody takes the wrong way. Somewhere down the line, the fabric rips, something gets dinged and dented and cracked. And when you look at all the work that the true experts and relationships and kind of romantic relationships do, people like Esther Perel and Terry Reel and Dan Siegel and others, what’s common across all of their work is the relationships that last and the relationships that thrive are the relationships that get repaired. So being able to fix it when it goes wrong to fix the cracks is really powerful. And if you’ve got safe and if you’ve got vital, and if you’ve got repairable, then you’re really trending towards being able to build a BPR best possible relationship with people. 

  

Stephanie Everett (14:17): 

When I started reading this in the book, I immediately thought of the person, it’s funny, I just hung up with this person. We just finished a call and I was like, I have that with this person. It just works. It clicks, it’s easy. And it really started making me think, how do I recreate that with other people? Because how amazing would it be if all of my work relationships were closer to that? I appreciate not all of them will reach that level, but how do we make that happen? 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (14:48): 

And even with this really strong relationship that you’re talking about, it’s helpful to talk about that as well because there’s part of you that goes, alright, don’t mention this to anybody. This is going really well. If I mention it, I’m going to jinx it somehow and it’s going to kind of spoil the magic. But if you’re going to have a conversation with somebody, if it’s not going well, if it’s going okay or if it’s going brilliantly to actually make more explicit, make more conscious the how do we keep this, how do we improve this or how do we keep it as good as it is, then that just gives you both more agency in terms of shaping this relationship. So this is the key tactic that’s in the book, which is if you’re interested in A BPR, if you think that might be helpful, then building something called a keystone conversation can be really powerful. 

  

(15:41): 

And a keystone conversation is simply having a conversation about how we work together, not just what we’re working on. And when I say it like that, I hope for a lot of people you’re like, oh, well that makes sense, people, we plunge into the work. We should talk about how we best work together so that we have the best chance of success. But honestly, it happens pretty rarely because work shows up on your desk and you’re like, all right, here’s the thing. When you sit down with a client, if you’re client facing, I bet you don’t go, Hey, let’s have a conversation about what it’s like to work with me as a lawyer. When you’ve had good working relationships with a lawyer before, what happened? How did you really flourish in that? And when you’ve had bad working relationships with a lawyer before, because lots of people have had that, what happened? What did they do that was disappointing? And now let me tell you what it means to have a really great client relationship. Let me tell you about my favorite clients and why I love them. And now let me tell you about my terrible clients and why I hate them. And so this keystone conversation, how do we work together? Before we plunge into the what of the work gives you the best chance of explicitly playing to your strengths, avoiding your weaknesses, having the opportunity for repair and building a sustainable BPR best possible relationship. 

  

Stephanie Everett (17:01): 

I love it. It really requires, first, I think probably getting a little in tune with yourself. So before I can ask you to have this relationship with me, I need to think a little bit about what does this look like from my end? 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (17:17): 

Well, that’s exactly it. I mean, honestly, how to work with almost anyone is, it’s like a business book with a bit of a kind of self-development book wrapped in the center, because the keystone conversation has five questions to ask and answer so that you can trade information. But as you say, the more about yourself, the more specific and granular and on the point you can be about who you are and what you want, then the better you’re able to communicate that to other people, and therefore the better they are able to give you what you want. But you have to know what you want. You have to know who you are. And so in the book, each of the five questions has three exercises attached with it to help deepen your own. 

  

Stephanie Everett (18:00): 

Yeah, I know I lead a team of people and recently I got assigned some new folks on the, I took over a team when their leader left, and one of the first things we did, we had one-on-ones, and I asked each of them, what are you going to need from me? I didn’t have the book at the time, so I didn’t know the specific questions I asked, but I remember I just said, what do you like from a leader, a manager? What helps you succeed? And I think really only one, maybe two people had an answer to that. Everybody else was like, oh, that’s a good question. No one’s ever really asked me that before. I don’t know. Let me get back to you. And I feel like that’s pretty common. 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (18:41): 

I think so. And here’s what I’d be curious about. Did you also say to them, let me tell you what I love in a team person. When I’m leading people, I’ll tell you exactly what I love and what I don’t love in the people that I lead. Were you able to communicate that with them? 

  

Stephanie Everett (18:59): 

Yeah. I don’t know if I did it. I don’t know that I hit all those boxes, but yeah, I’m kind of usually pretty clear. I feel like some of those, and I know some tendencies I have where I’ll say, so I did share with them, for example, listen, sometimes I can be moving really fast in the day. I mean, you and I, when we got on, I was like, Hey, I just had five back-to-back calls and I needed a second. A lot of times I don’t take time to stop and be like, Hey, how’s your day? How’s it going? I’m just like, whoa. Agenda, agenda. What are we doing? And so that’s one of the things I shared with them is I often have to be intentional about pausing. And it’s not that I don’t care about you, I just kind of get stuck in the agendas of the meetings. And so lemme tell you one thing I know that I’m working on doing, which is stopping and being like, okay, how’s your day going? What’s happening? 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (19:55): 

Yeah. I mean, when I’m having this conversation with the people on the teams that I’m part of or leading, I’m saying things like, so here’s one of the things I communicate. It took me a while to figure this out or to learn about it, but I’m normally a pretty happy smiley person. I’m going to have a good vibe, a good energy, or at least I think I do. But when I’m in conversation and somebody’s making me think, I have an angry thinking face, I look kind of grumpy. I’m old enough that I’m actually starting to develop kind of grumpy wrinkles on my face. It’s really annoying. I’m not even aware I’m doing it. This is what it looks like when I’m in engaged. And finally, somebody was brave enough to say, look, it’s terrifying talking to you at times because you look really kind of annoyed. 

  

(20:42): 

I’m like, I’m not annoyed. You’ve literally never seen me angry. I know. I just don’t tend to get triggered or angry very often. So now when I’m talking to people, I’m like, so if you’re seeing this face on me, it means that I’m interested and I’m trying to figure stuff out, not that I’m angry or for instance, one of the other things I communicate is I am very relaxed when things go wrong. For the most part, I’m like, look, we’re all doing our best and stuff doesn’t always work out. That’s okay. But what kills me is if I don’t find out about it and I have this open loop and I’m like, what happened to that thing? And then I find out and it’s like, oh yeah, we decided not to tell you that. That’s the kind of bug bear for me. So just being able to communicate that really helpful. 

  

(21:28): 

A third thing just to give people role model this, I lead effectively three companies. So I’ve got too much on my plate most of the time. And on days when I’m good, I’m very good and I’m good at kind of processing stuff and moving stuff along. But then when occasionally things go bad and when they do, they go really bad and I become the king of all bottlenecks and people send me emails and polite emails, and then I’m maybe voicemail, and then they’ll just kind of like, okay, well he’s the boss, so we better not bug him. And I’m like, no, I need to be bugged. So I tell people, look, if we’re on the third nudge, I need you to nudge me like this. Michael, I need your sign off on this. If I don’t get it by Friday at five o’clock, I’m going to assume it’s okay and I’m going to go ahead and publish it. And so I’m teaching people how to negotiate with me. I’m teaching how to work with me because if that works, if they understand that, then they win and I win. And everybody wins by just being really explicit about let’s figure out how to work well together and how to work when I’m screwing it up or you are screwing it up. 

  

Stephanie Everett (22:45): 

Yeah. Yeah, those are great examples. Now I’ve thought about 10 more, but we won’t cover all my weirdness in working. 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (22:54): 

But you can see that partly why I can do that is I have a pretty good self-awareness around what I’m like at my best and what I’m like where I screw it up. I’ve been around long enough that I’ve been thoughtful enough and I’ve got feedback enough that I’ve just accumulated a whole bunch of things that I can say, here’s my operating manual. Here’s the keys to me working. 

  

Stephanie Everett (23:19): 

And so in the book, you lay out this formula for the keystone conversation and you walk, by the way, it’s very simple. You walk people through these five questions, but then you also say, this is how you get it started. You initiate it. You can send them a copy of the book, but you can reach out and send this email and say, here are the questions that I want to talk about. So you give them time to prepare as well 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (23:45): 

To what we were saying before. This isn’t that common a conversation. And it is simple, but it is also not easy. It’s difficult because it’s rare. And so even people listening now, they’ll be going, look, in theory, this sounds really good in practice. I don’t know. Have you met my boss? Have you met my partners? Have you met these people? Can I tell you about whoever, I’m not sure they want to have a conversation about how we work. That’s going to be feel a bit weird. And so my invitation for people is to go, look, if your happiness at work and your success at work matters to you, this is something worth thinking about and trying out. There’s risk involved for sure, because I can tell you that not all of these are going to work perfectly well. So two things. First of all, be the person brave enough to reach out and start this going. 

  

(24:49): 

And it can be just as innocuous as, Hey, before we plunge into this new working relationship together, can we just have a chat about how we best work together so we can figure each other out and give ourselves the best chance of success? It doesn’t have to be a super formal thing. It can be a casual thing. Invite somebody down to the cafeteria, go for a walk together. It doesn’t have to be summon them to your office and have the conversation. And then it’s in the book. There are these five questions, but you don’t have to ask and answer all five of the questions. I mean, I think it’s great if you can get through all five questions over the course of a working relationship, but you may just at the start, pick one question. Go look, let’s start small and easy. Let’s just answer this question together. It could be the amplify question. The very first question, the amplify question is simply going, what’s your best? When do you shine? When do you flow? When do you rock it? Because implicit in that is also when do you not rock it? 

  

(25:52): 

And if you know all the people that you are managing, if you know exactly what it is about them when they light up, when they’re in the zone, what it takes for them to be at their very best. And you’re like, so my job if I’m managing a law firm is to try and create as many of those conditions as possible. So all of my key people are at their best as often as possible. Well, everybody’s going to win from that. Your firm’s going to win. You are going to win. They’re going to win. But mostly what we do is we make it up or we project. And when you have a conversation and find out about this, then you’ve got more specific data to do something with. 

  

Stephanie Everett (26:32): 

Yeah. And you talk in the book also about this concept of a Read Me, which I know we tried out once on our team, and I think which is a document as a manager you create and it’s all about you, right? This is what I, and when we started that though, we were like, man, the trap here is to kind of say, I do these terrible things, and because I’ve put it on paper, I’m now excused from my behavior. So you guys, it’s fine. Just get used to it. This is how I am. And I love that the approach you’re taking is like, no, this is a conversation and it’s a give and a take, and it’s about me moldy. How do you want to be treated and how can I show up differently? But both of us do 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (27:17): 

That. Yeah. I mean, anything could be weaponized. Kim Scott, who’s a friend of mine, she wrote a book called Radical Candor, which is like, look, be clear and be kind, and that’s helpful. But lots of people have gone, oh great, I can just be an A-hole and call it radical candor. And she spends a lot of time going, no, no, no. It’s not being an 

  

(27:44): 

Being heart led, but also clear and specific around stuff. So this isn’t, well, there’s always an opportunity where particularly if you’ve got seniority in your firm, you go, look, this is who I am. Take me or leave me. Whatcha going to do about it? Look, you should be grateful that I’m even telling you about my bad behavior. But mostly what you’re trying to do is go, look, I want the best version of me to show up. And if you are in a conversation with somebody, then there’s this likelihood that you’re working on the relationship to figure it out together. Part of the flaw with the Read Me documents as well is that the very unilateral, you’re like, here we go. Read this and figure me out. And if you get it wrong, that’s on you. It’s not on us. And what the conversation does is it creates a shared commitment to building a working relationship. It’s loud, here’s how you work with me. How do we work well together? 

  

Stephanie Everett (28:51): 

Love it. If people want to learn more, if they want to embrace some of these ideas, obviously we’ll put a link to the book in the show notes. And I love your books too. They really are more working books, right? They’re guides. You’re going to get this. It’s simple it, it’s not a long read, but it’s actionable. This and the coaching habit are favorites. Yeah, 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (29:15): 

I appreciate it. I mean, when I write a book, I’m trying to A, write the shortest book I can, and B, make it useful. So it’s not just here’s the theory, but I’m like, here’s the practice. Here are some actual scripts and stuff that you can use. So you can find [email protected]. There are downloads and resources and stuff that you can get there. And if you want more about me, just in general, the other books and whatever else, my general website is mbs.works, W-O-R-K-S. 

  

Stephanie Everett (29:44): 

Well, thank you. Thank you for being with me today. I was super excited to have this conversation and for the work that you’re doing. I think it’s so important. Like you said, it is simple, but it is hard, right? It does take work and intention, but I think it will make us all better in the end. 

  

Michael Bungay Stanier (30:03): 

Yeah. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. 

 

 

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