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00:00:05.443Okay, everybody, welcome to Practical Wisdom for Leaders Special episode.
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00:00:07.250Today we have Dr Jennifer Garvey-Berger.
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00:00:19.625She's the author of four acclaimed books on leadership and she's co-founder and CEO of Cultivating Leadership, a consultancy that serves executives and teams in the private, nonprofit and government sectors around the world.
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00:00:25.489Her clients include Google, microsoft, novartis, wikipedia and Oxfam International.
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00:00:32.274She is Senior Scientific Advisor to the Interdevelopment Goals, an international personal growth initiative based in Sweden.
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00:00:38.453Jennifer, thank you so much for stopping by again and really, really looking forward to this conversation.
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00:00:46.125The second edition of Changing on the Job is out, and you know what I've been excited for this.
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00:00:54.951I was excited in the lead up because you've done such a beautiful job of kind of engaging the community and saying, hey, should I write about this, or should I go in this direction, or what should we?
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00:00:58.689So it was just a wonderful, wonderful lead up to the release of the book.
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00:01:08.186I know it's been out for a while now, but today we're going to talk about forms of mind, complexity, fitness For those of you geeks out there who are into adult development.
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00:01:11.683Bill Torbert and Bob Keegan endorsed the book, so that's a double win.
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00:01:14.272And, jennifer, thank you.
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00:01:18.784I'm going to stop talking and just let you say a quick hello from France.
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00:01:20.007What's going on?
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00:01:22.412Hey, scott, it's great to see you again.
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00:01:40.192There were parts of the book that were really fun to be working on and there were other parts of the book that were really unpleasant to be working on, but one of the most fun parts of it was when I would come to my wits end and I would turn to my LinkedIn community and say, literally no idea what to do now.
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00:01:41.986Can you people help me?
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00:01:46.691And it really did feel like I had a lot of friends helping.
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00:01:52.072Yeah, a lot of friends helping with this one, friends who I don't even I don't even know them.
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00:01:57.322Yeah, and in the background, everybody at Cultivating Leadership had access to the manuscript.
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00:02:10.790There was a Google doc and everybody was dropping comments into the manuscript the original changing on the job from whatever 15 years ago, and then the manuscript that was unfolding for the new one.
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00:02:13.908So I had a lot of support on this one.
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00:02:21.312Oh, that's great Crowdsourcing at its best, okay, so let's bring listeners in.
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00:02:22.801A little bit For listeners.
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00:02:29.411This is Jennifer's second time on the podcast, so if you're just dropping in push pause, go listen to that episode.
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00:02:30.786It's an incredible conversation.
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00:02:43.592There's a whole series that started with Jonathan Reams on adult development and have had Bill Torbert on the podcast, and so there's all kinds of opportunity to kind of get a little bit of a primer on adult development.
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00:02:49.772But, jennifer, I'm going to give you a challenge Can you do one or two minutes on forms of mind?
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00:02:51.981No worries.
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00:03:04.514I remember when I asked Bob Keegan how fast adult development could be taught and he said, yeah, I guess you could do it in like a two week long form course.
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00:03:08.765Guess you could do it in like a two week long form course, but I don't like to do it in less than a semester.
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00:03:16.847And I was like I was thinking like five, 10, 90 minutes, like I was in the minute space and he was in the week space, which I understand.
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00:03:17.709Okay, minute space.
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00:03:28.493So the idea here is that each of us has kind of a lens through which we see the world and we're unaware of it.
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00:03:31.568It's invisible to us, it's just how we see.
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00:03:38.027It shapes everything and it's very easy to recognize in children because their lens is so different from ours.
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00:03:44.770But it turns out there are these organizing principles that shape the lenses adults look through as well.
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00:03:54.941And I tend to kind of focus on four of those adult spaces, although two of them are much more common for adults.
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00:04:04.487The first one I focus on I call the self-sovereign mind, because it's the time when we are kind of the kings or queens of our own dominion.
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00:04:08.474But that dominion is just one, one person.
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00:04:11.588We don't take the perspectives of others.
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00:04:16.732We are not yet able to internalize the perspective of somebody else.
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00:04:21.593We're not able yet to see abstraction, complexity.
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00:04:31.992All that stuff strikes us as problematic, probably untruthful or in some way manipulative, because people are describing a world we have no access to.
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00:04:43.524So this is the self-sovereign mind long recognized in children and only more recently recognized as a full-fledged adult way of seeing the world.
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00:05:03.345I think it's probably more common now than it used to be, because people are under so much pressure, and with pressure we can either metabolize pressure into development or we metabolize pressure into fallback, and the easiest way to metabolize pressure is into fallback.
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00:05:09.630So I think we're seeing more of this self-sovereign form of mind than we have seen before.
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00:05:12.447Most adults move past that.
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00:05:24.531Most adults reach into the place where they not only take in other people's perspectives but kind of swallow them whole and live inside the perspectives of others.
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00:05:29.906There are clues about how I'm doing in the world, what's good and bad all come from something outside them.
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00:05:42.531We call that the socialized mind, because it allows us to live in societies, because for the first time we're able to subordinate our own interests on behalf of a collective, because the collective is us in many ways.
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00:05:51.125Yeah, so if I grow up in Tennessee in a Baptist community, that's conservative, that's the waters I'm swimming in, so to speak, and I take that in correct.
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00:06:02.790You take that in and for most of human history that was probably the best, most expansive thing you needed to do, because your community in Tennessee was going to hold you for the rest of your life.
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00:06:04.694You're going to live there, you're going to work there.
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00:06:11.101You're going to live there.
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00:06:12.586You're going to work there, you're going to die there.
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00:06:13.567That was where you were going to be.
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00:06:19.601Now that set of perspectives is probably too small for many people trying to function in this crazy, mixed up, unimaginable world that we live in.
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00:06:31.992So many adults get kind of tired or overwhelmed by trying to take in the perspectives of others and find their way that way and they pick up the pen and begin to write their own story.
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00:06:48.663They say, wait, I'm not going to look out there, I'm going to look in here, and in that way they are able to kind of decide what their values are, how they want to see the world, how they want to be in themselves.
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00:07:03.581And then for very few adults, but maybe more than has been true before, you get people who stop thinking oh, my writing my own story isn't actually the truth of the matter.
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00:07:07.091The truth is I both write and am written by.
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00:07:10.226Both of these things are simultaneously true.
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00:07:31.307We call that the self-transforming mind, because that's the mind that is constantly kind of flowing with complexity, change, uncertainty, uncertainty, and doing that dance in order to grow themselves as they find innovative solutions to their challenges.
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00:07:33.487That was totally not three minutes.
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00:07:39.406But it was awesome, okay, wonderful.
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00:07:41.528So we've got the forms of mind.
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00:07:55.004Now let's talk a little bit about complexity, fitness, and then we're going to move into the conversation for the day about how do we, with a group of human beings, design programming to help facilitate.
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00:07:59.466So let's talk a little bit about complexity, fitness, and then I think we'll have the foundation set.
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00:08:00.887Awesome.
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00:08:12.713So complexity fitness, which was actually a term brought to me by my colleagues and friends Carolyn Coughlin and Patrice Laslett, with my work at Cultivating Leadership.
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00:08:29.588This is the idea that each of these forms of mind are like different fitness levels for facing the complexity of the world, and you can imagine this earlier one that I described, this self-sovereign form of mind, doesn't handle complexity very well.
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00:08:38.447Not a lot of fitness for complexity, a lot of fitness for lots of other great things, but for complexity not so much.
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00:08:52.693And as we grow through these different forms of mind that I've just described, it's almost as if we reach different levels of capability and fitness for handling a world that is increasingly complex.
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00:09:04.562So you and I are both working with organizations and you're in an organization and we're doing some type of programming and it could be for those who are doing coaching.
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00:09:08.365I know in the book there's a lot of kind of work on look if we're coaching.
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00:09:17.811This is ways to be thinking about this and what I love about your work, and have always loved about your work, is that it is really nicely grounded in look.
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00:09:22.094We are working with organizations and we are embedded in that context.
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00:09:32.169So how do we take this thinking, which is beautiful, wonderful, awesome thinking, and actually operationalize it, actually design programming that?
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00:09:36.609And for listeners, you can imagine you're sitting in a room and there's a hundred people.
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00:09:38.988Well, think of the different forms of mind.
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00:09:41.586If we could visualize that people's minds are in a lot of different places.
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00:09:44.215How they're internalizing literally what you just said it's happening are in a lot of different places.
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00:09:50.090How they're internalizing literally what you just said it's happening in different ways, correct, jennifer?
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00:09:51.393Yeah, absolutely.
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00:09:59.863And so how do you design in a way where you can communicate with those four general frames of mind or forms of mind?
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00:10:08.154How do you design in a way that's communicating and helping each of them progress or develop?
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00:10:10.264Tim O'Brien was on the podcast.
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00:10:13.351I was telling you and it was great because he wrote this paper.
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00:10:19.089It was called Looking for Development and Leadership Development so that it's developmental.
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00:10:20.726It's a developmental experience.
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00:10:23.706So bring listeners into a few ways.
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00:10:26.582You're thinking about that because I just love, love, love that.
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00:10:29.335Yeah, I have been thinking about this question.
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00:10:39.519You know, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on this question, whatever 20, several years ago it was terrifying.
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00:10:41.282You know, I still think about it all the time.
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00:11:03.082We just designed a totally new program, meant to be developmental for 200 leaders at a time, and we really thought about this question of how do you get it developmental for 200 leaders at a time when those leaders are likely across a spectrum and depending on what you had for breakfast one morning and what you have for breakfast the next morning, you might be in a totally different place, you yourself.
00:11:03.082 -->
00:11:10.695So the first thing I think we have to get clear on is what do we mean by developmental?
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00:11:11.296Yes.
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00:11:14.065Right, what is it that we're on about?
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00:11:31.732And so those folks who think about the difference between what is often called horizontal development and vertical development right, horizontal is kind of I think of as informational learning, like you'll learn more stuff, you'll learn to do a new task.
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00:11:33.543It's super important.
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00:11:35.346We're pretty good at it.
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00:11:40.784By the time you get to be the sort of leader you and I work with in organizations, you're super good at that.
00:11:41.346 -->
00:11:45.614The thing that they call vertical development is on a different axis.
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00:11:52.942Right, it's this question of not am I learning new stuff, but am I learning to see the world in a new way?
00:11:52.942 -->
00:11:57.057The way I see the world now becomes visible to me in some way.
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00:12:03.450You can't actually learn to see the world a new way until you notice that you've been seeing the world this way.
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00:12:20.643It's not up for grabs, and so I think the first thing is for us to agree that something that we're going to call developmental offers people a chance to look at and potentially update or alter the way they've been seeing the world.
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00:12:35.525This means the assumptions they're making, the implicit rules they live by, the way their identity is hooked onto this external thing or that internal thing, depending on their particular form of mind.
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00:12:45.347So somehow we have to help make something visible for them and offer them a set of choices.
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00:12:55.193So that's like just table stakes If you're going to be doing a thing called development, leadership, development.
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00:12:57.966I love the fact that you just kind of situated us in.
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00:13:08.831Look, if we're going to be talking about development, we have horizontal, we have vertical, we're talking about vertical development, or at least baking that into the learning experience, correct?
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00:13:12.870That's right, and it doesn't mean that the skills and knowledge aren't incredibly important.
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00:13:27.542It's just they're easier to access and you don't need to think so much about forms of mind If the thing that you're helping somebody learn to do is kind of frame a really good town hall.
00:13:28.163 -->
00:13:39.221Let's say I'm just naively doing a session on influence tactics with a group of human beings Great, you could go to some Robert Cialdini and his work on influence, but we could talk about influence.
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00:13:54.028The person who you first described as you were talking about the model might take that information in as oh, here's how I get what I want, here's how I can manipulate, here's how I can use this against them.
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00:14:02.894Versus the person who's in a very different form of mind, the self-authored is taking in that same information, fundamentally a different way.
00:14:03.900 -->
00:14:04.964And then we are shocked.
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00:14:06.067Yes, At the end.
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00:14:06.889That's not what I meant.
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00:14:30.967I didn't mean to unleash that right Exactly, which is why I find the line which is nice in theory between vertical and horizontal development much more blurry, because, as you said, the thing that you were just talking about is looks kind of informational strategy.
00:14:30.967 -->
00:14:33.874Information looks like skills.
00:14:33.874 -->
00:14:36.967Actually, there's quite a lot of perspective taking and feedback skills.
00:14:36.967 -->
00:14:42.107There's quite a lot of meaning making in, feedback taking and giving.
00:14:42.107 -->
00:14:54.842So, anyway, I offer vertical and horizontal to get us into, kind of, the big room that we're in, but even once we're in that big room, there's gray, as you're pointing out.
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00:15:18.850I think the next thing to know, though, is that when you know that people are going to be taking in information in all these different ways, making meaning of it in all these different ways, you have a choice, and a lot of the programs I see are what I think of as psychologically narrow.
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00:15:36.373They have as a goal, very often in leadership development, an implicit goal, sometimes even an explicit goal that, in this program, you are going to find your own leadership voice, for example, which sounds to me like we're going to help you from the socialized to the self-authored space.
00:15:36.373 -->
00:15:39.081Right Right now, you don't have a leadership voice.
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00:15:41.628You're kind of embedded in the world out there.
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00:15:49.201I am going to hold your hand and lead you to a place where you're going to have your own voice and you're going to be embedded in a world in here.
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00:16:04.419I have questions about whether this could be done in like a three-day program, but anyway, you see a lot of that, and the problem is that misses out such a huge percentage of the group that might be in front of you in that moment.
00:16:04.559 -->
00:16:14.783There might be those who haven't yet internalized the voice of the organization, and teaching them to bypass that is problematic for all kinds of reasons.
00:16:14.783 -->
00:16:23.413There might be those who had done this step that you're talking to a long time ago, and then they cross their arms and they're like leadership development is stupid.
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00:16:27.268It crossed this bridge, I don't need to cross this bridge again.
00:16:27.268 -->
00:16:39.683And so I think we have this question about do we want to create psychologically narrow leadership development experiences or psychologically spacious leadership development experiences?
00:16:39.683 -->
00:16:55.628I think both of these are fine choices, but if you're going to create a narrow experience, you want to come up with a net that nets you the participants who are inside the band you want, and not outside that band, because that's what you're designing for.
00:16:55.628 -->
00:17:04.023And if we're going to create something spacious, then we need to understand that the content we offer and the way we offer it is going to be consumed in many different ways.
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00:17:29.028Yes, and just us understanding that that's such a beautiful insight as we then continue to design yeah, I think the thing adult developmental theory did for me when I came across it now, almost 30 years ago, was it shattered forever my hope that I could design something so good it would reach everybody in the same way.
00:17:29.028 -->
00:17:32.932I hope people make this sense of the thing I'm doing.
00:17:32.932 -->
00:17:35.936That's okay, that's off the table.
00:17:35.936 -->
00:17:54.573But actually that shattering is incredibly liberating because it means okay, I get to think about in these very flexible ways about exactly what is it, what is the next step?
00:17:54.573 -->
00:18:03.640How do I design a next step program instead of an A to B program where everybody starts at A and everybody ends at B?
00:18:03.640 -->
00:18:12.431How do I design a program where everybody starts at today and ends at something bigger than today, plus one right?
00:18:12.431 -->
00:18:19.605And I totally believe that design is possible.
00:18:20.047 -->
00:18:22.009Yes, Talk about that.
00:18:22.009 -->
00:18:22.991What are some things?
00:18:22.991 -->
00:18:24.535How do you think about that?
00:18:24.535 -->
00:18:32.767I imagine you are consistently experimenting because there's no one in the world you can call to say, hey, how do I design this?
00:18:32.767 -->
00:18:33.789Can you give me the four steps?
00:18:33.789 -->
00:18:38.102You're that person, you know.
00:18:38.102 -->
00:18:39.387How do you think about that?
00:18:39.387 -->
00:18:43.652What are some things that you've learned in that work, in that experimentation?
00:18:44.420 -->
00:18:53.634Yeah, so I'm lucky enough so that I can call people when I'm stuck and say let's talk it through, you know?
00:18:53.674 -->
00:18:53.815Yeah.
00:18:55.141 -->
00:18:57.048Because there are a lot of people who've been stuck there before.
00:18:57.048 -->
00:19:07.271So I think one of the one of the things I talk about in the book is you have to think about how people are entering and what is the thing you're selling to them.
00:19:07.271 -->
00:19:16.311Because whenever anybody walks into a room on a program, you're kind of selling them something or, as I like to think about it, you're kind of leasing them something.
00:19:16.311 -->
00:19:28.902They don't have to buy it, but they're going to rent it for the day, take it around the neighborhood, kick the tires, pop the hood on this thing, and they need to care enough about it to bother.
00:19:28.902 -->
00:19:52.832The more critical they are of what we're on about, probably the more they're bothering, which is super helpful, and so I need to understand what the promise of the material is for them, how to offer that promise, like, for some people, an influencing skills workshop is about selling more stuff or getting your way more often.
00:19:53.353 -->
00:19:53.554Yes.
00:19:54.121 -->
00:20:07.093For some people, it's about doing your job better so that you acquire a better reputation and the kudos and appreciation of those around you.
00:20:07.093 -->
00:20:29.405For some people, it's about being able to influence people in the direction of your values and so you can see, that's a kind of self-sovereign, socialized, self-authored framing, and you can say it in 20 seconds at the beginning of a day and make space for all of those interpretations and say whatever you came for.
00:20:29.405 -->
00:20:32.980I hope to get you a little further down that path.
00:20:33.482 -->
00:20:36.998Yes, and that's a really, really interesting way of just framing the day up.
00:20:36.998 -->
00:20:46.263Whether you're here to learn how to sell more widgets or co-create with others more effectively, there's going to be something for me here.
00:20:46.263 -->
00:20:46.886I love that.
00:20:47.790 -->
00:20:49.478That's right, because all those minds are in the room.
00:20:49.659 -->
00:20:50.362They're all in the room.
00:20:50.743 -->
00:20:59.973All those minds are in the room and very often I think some people have a reaction against developmental theory because it feels hierarchical.
00:20:59.973 -->
00:21:05.189I think humans are constantly hierarchical and developmental theory gives some form to that.
00:21:05.189 -->
00:21:09.891I think it helps us be thoughtfully non-hierarchical.
00:21:09.891 -->
00:21:11.634It helps us be thoughtfully non-hierarchical.
00:21:11.634 -->
00:21:16.698I don't know very many leadership development folks who would go in thinking the height of my day is helping people sell more widgets.
00:21:16.698 -->
00:21:25.019That's not why we get out of bed in the morning, but it behooves us to remember that for some of our clients that is why they get out of bed in the morning 100%.
00:21:25.019 -->
00:21:30.413And if we can offer them something that makes their lives better, we've done something.
00:21:35.720 -->
00:21:37.326And to your point, in the book we talk about meeting people where they are.
00:21:37.326 -->
00:21:44.473I mean, I think at times it can come off as a little judgmental that there are people where, that's why they're getting out of bed and that's the motivation and that's their lived reality.
00:21:44.473 -->
00:22:00.054And are we meeting them where they are and then providing a learning experience that potentially opens their eyes to different ways of thinking, to nuances in some of that way of thinking, other forms?
00:22:00.054 -->
00:22:22.132Because, again, I can imagine you create an experience where we have a group of six people at a table, those minds are going to be in different places and if all of a sudden I'm sitting at a table and my only motivation is selling more widgets but I'm hearing some others at the table discuss this topic and different ways, that's a learning opportunity for me.
00:22:22.132 -->
00:22:27.131That's a perspective out there that isn't just kind of a transactional mindset.
00:22:27.751 -->
00:22:49.670Yeah, and this is why one of our core rules is design for connection, yeah, so how do we design so that people feel more connected to, more seen by their colleagues in the room and also get a chance to see those colleagues and take on their perspectives?
00:22:49.670 -->
00:22:52.957Because that's super developmental Actually.
00:22:52.957 -->
00:23:02.217It's great for the organization, it's great for knocking down silos, makes teams more effective, obviously, but it's also a fundamentally developmental activity.
00:23:02.217 -->
00:23:12.123If I feel like my perspective is well taken by you, I open to the possibility that this is a thing I have a perspective.
00:23:12.123 -->
00:23:15.736You are taking it, I see that and I see what that feels like.
00:23:15.736 -->
00:23:28.421And then, if I open to taking your perspective, as you said, our differences become small things for us to push against and learn from in ourselves.
00:23:29.365 -->
00:23:54.999And that individual who may be a little further down the road can make a comment and that might resonate, that might nudge, and again for that individual who is only there to learn how to sell more widgets, I think that's a reality and so I think at times to your point, we can poo-poo that, but that's a reality and that exists in organizational life.
00:23:54.999 -->
00:23:56.220It's a thing right Now.
00:23:56.220 -->
00:24:09.569It becomes problematic if you put that in a person in a position of authority, of authority, pretty interesting adventures ensue sometimes.
00:24:09.569 -->
00:24:10.372But no, I love that.
00:24:10.372 -->
00:24:15.806How about one more just kind of design, not rule, but design consideration, as you're thinking about doing this work?
00:24:15.806 -->
00:24:17.289I mean, I find it fascinating.
00:24:17.289 -->
00:24:18.472I really really.
00:24:18.472 -->
00:24:20.478Do Anything else come to mind?
00:24:21.085 -->
00:24:37.366Another thing I think we don't think that much about as we go about our day as leadership development folks is what is our participants relationship to authority and to something like the truth?
00:24:37.366 -->
00:24:42.334How do we get authorized to mean something for them?
00:24:42.334 -->
00:24:49.270I often ask people who introduce me to introduce me in a way that credentializes me with the group.
00:24:49.270 -->
00:24:51.415For some groups that's my education.
00:24:51.415 -->
00:24:54.529For some groups it's the client list I serve.
00:24:54.529 -->
00:25:04.807For some groups it's something about me personally that gives me some kind of my the organization I started and what that thing is like now and what I've done as a leader.
00:25:04.807 -->
00:25:12.691But you can hear that each of these relationships to authority is going to matter differently to different forms of mind.
00:25:13.172 -->
00:25:13.372Yes.
00:25:14.032 -->
00:25:18.307And similarly the concept of truth, like what is the truth?
00:25:18.307 -->
00:25:25.019Earlier in our developmental journey we have a very black and white relationship to the truth.
00:25:25.019 -->
00:25:28.112There is truth, there's falsehood.
00:25:28.112 -->
00:25:30.136There's nothing in between those things.
00:25:31.046 -->
00:25:45.307Later on we develop shades of gray, we understand there are whole areas that you can't know what's true, what's not true, and later the whole concept of truth begins to be like interestingly problematic truth begins to be like interestingly problematic.
00:25:45.327 -->
00:26:47.233We have to be able to dance with every one of those perspectives and not find ourselves trapped by our meaning space so that we only live inside one of those perspectives, because what tends to happen is without reflecting on it the leadership development expert comes in, is in one of those forms of mind him or herself they design for that and then when somebody pushes against that, they know that person's wrong headed or an idiot in some way, and so then they need to push against that pushing against and you get this like very unproductive conflict in the room as opposed to knowing I'm designing from my form of mind, making space for other relationships people might be having to these things and then dancing with these different perspectives in a way that makes clear that we have these different perspectives and that there are multiple possibilities there and that in the room you could surface these many possibilities, and that itself would be developmental and interesting.
00:26:47.785 -->
00:26:48.508Oh, 100%.
00:26:48.508 -->
00:26:59.326That's one of those moments where I'll move into facilitation mode sometimes, because I may have a participant ask a question and, as you know, those questions can feel left field.
00:26:59.326 -->
00:27:00.528They can feel on target.
00:27:00.528 -->
00:27:03.356They can feel like, oh geez, that's not what I'd meant at all.
00:27:03.356 -->
00:27:04.832Field, they can feel on target.
00:27:04.832 -->
00:27:07.565They can feel like, oh geez, that's not what I'd meant at all.
00:27:07.565 -->
00:27:11.288This person internalized this way oh, wow, Okay, we're off.
00:27:11.288 -->
00:27:12.531So I love that part because it's a little bit of improv.
00:27:12.531 -->
00:27:17.550But I often then go to the room, I just move into facilitation mode and I say, okay, how do other people internalize that question?
00:27:17.550 -->
00:27:18.634How are you all thinking?
00:27:18.634 -->
00:27:26.939And it's beautiful how those different perspectives will pop up and kind of take care of that space for you much of the time.
00:27:27.326 -->
00:28:09.868And you're using the diversity of perspectives in the room, and diversity is such an important piece in helping us expand our own view, and so just making it manifest, making it an object of everybody's reflection in the room is, like, incredibly developmental, and it again is the thing that you're pointing to in that move that you're making is, I think, the fundamental developmental impulse in a really developmental leadership, development person or leader or therapist or teacher or whatever profession you might be in.
00:28:09.868 -->
00:28:16.039But this fundamental idea I don't have the right answer in my pocket.
00:28:16.039 -->
00:28:18.226Collectively.
00:28:18.226 -->
00:28:29.059There's a whole lot of wisdom here that we could make sense of together and that will advance each of us a little bit farther than we were before.
00:28:29.621 -->
00:28:31.391Yeah, it's so interesting too.
00:28:31.391 -->
00:28:42.234But even sometimes in those answers from people in the room, you get the individual who says, well, you just need to do X, and their form of mind is kind of in a space.
00:28:42.234 -->
00:28:47.355And then you get the individual who says the company always says that we should be doing this right, okay.
00:28:47.355 -->
00:28:50.954And then you have the person in the room who says you know what it depends.
00:28:50.954 -->
00:29:06.191So it just highlights the importance of us as designers and us as facilitators being super self-aware and having done the work and continuing to do the work ourselves so that we can be of best service in the moment.
00:29:06.732 -->
00:29:11.449And again there's this paradox that developmental theory looks kind of judgmental.
00:29:11.449 -->
00:29:20.976But without developmental theory, there's surely one of those participant voices that you would be saying you're right, you're wrong.
00:29:20.976 -->
00:29:23.067I have to figure out how to fix that one.
00:29:23.067 -->
00:29:25.173But this one's a real problem.
00:29:25.173 -->
00:29:35.440This idea of, oh, this is a problem, I need to deal with it, I need to fix it in some way, Is, I think, what's going to be just in us if we're not careful.
00:29:35.440 -->
00:29:50.549And developmental theory, I think, softens that and says oh, that is a human being with a fully intact meaning system, and they're speaking from that fully intact meaning system.
00:29:50.549 -->
00:29:57.708My job is to admire that and hold space for maybe that meaning system to grow a little bit.
00:29:57.708 -->
00:29:58.730That's my job.
00:29:58.730 -->
00:30:01.897My job is not to fix it, correct it, alter it.
00:30:01.897 -->
00:30:07.568My job is not to fix it, correct it, alter it, poke at it, prod at it, break it open.
00:30:07.568 -->
00:30:14.680All these other things we might think of as our job then kind of fade away when we take a real developmental view.
00:30:15.887 -->
00:30:16.672Yeah, incredible.
00:30:16.672 -->
00:30:24.898And as we begin to wind down our time, is there anything else that you want to say about the second edition that we haven't gotten to that listeners might be interested in?
00:30:45.621 -->
00:30:49.067Anything else, come to design whatever you wanted to design.
00:30:49.067 -->
00:31:02.756That's kind of what I was on about when I wrote the first edition and over the years, I've discovered that there weren't enough instruction manuals in the atelier that I had created.
00:31:02.756 -->
00:31:17.190This new edition is really meant to be useful for leaders, for people with a vague interest in development, for people with a passionate interest in development.
00:31:17.190 -->
00:31:20.837It really is meant to be psychologically spacious.
00:31:20.837 -->
00:31:29.489Psychologically spacious, filled with entry points connecting as possible.
00:31:29.489 -->
00:31:41.638That's what I was on about, and I hope that those of you who are reading it are finding their way through it as a useful companion to make the world you're trying to make better.
00:31:42.425 -->
00:32:05.075Again so appreciate your work, because there isn't enough out there that I know of, at least, that is really trying to help people think about operationalizing some of this work and creating learning experiences with this in mind, and so I have always just very, very much appreciated it and can't thank you enough for the work that you do.
00:32:05.075 -->
00:32:13.893I always close out our conversations by just asking what have you been listening to streaming reading what's caught your attention in recent times?
00:32:13.893 -->
00:32:20.948It may have to do with adult development, it may have nothing to do with adult development, but what might listeners be interested in?
00:32:20.968 -->
00:32:22.048but what might listeners be interested in.
00:32:22.048 -->
00:32:34.501I have to say, lately, given the world that we live in right now, I have been reading a lot of fiction, and particularly a lot of fiction that takes place in.
00:32:34.501 -->
00:32:41.730I'm more drawn to fantasy than I have been before, in science fiction than I have been before.
00:32:41.730 -->
00:32:58.349And here, you know, I live in this odd communal space and we we've developed kind of a book club for escapists who who want to spend some of our reading time escaping the current world and give our minds a break from it all.
00:32:58.349 -->
00:33:03.233So that has been what I'm on about.
00:33:03.233 -->
00:33:14.462The next thing I'm going to read which I've read excerpts of on the way out but is just out, is the new book from Adam Kahane.
00:33:14.462 -->
00:33:25.945Adam always has really interesting things to say about the world and I'm super interested in the way he's thinking about how do we actually create social change in this moment.
00:33:25.945 -->
00:33:28.931So that's just out.
00:33:28.931 -->
00:33:31.095Maybe this week, maybe next week.
00:33:31.516 -->
00:33:31.635Okay.
00:33:31.997 -->
00:33:35.568So I'm keen for that thing to be released in in my hands.
00:33:36.130 -->
00:33:38.233Awesome, jennifer, as always.
00:33:38.233 -->
00:33:40.519Thank you so much for stopping by today.
00:33:40.519 -->
00:33:48.833Again, appreciate you, appreciate your work and keep it up your gift of sharing how you're thinking about the world with the world.
00:33:48.833 -->
00:33:51.748It's a wonderful thing, and so I appreciate you.
00:33:52.509 -->
00:33:55.807Thanks so much for getting up so early this morning, Scott, to hang out with me.
00:33:56.468 -->
00:33:57.990Of course, anytime.
00:33:57.990 -->
00:34:01.499If you can't tell, I am a huge fan of Jennifer's work.
00:34:01.499 -->
00:34:04.465She's doing incredible things out there in the world.
00:34:04.465 -->
00:34:15.313Helping us think about this topic of horizontal and vertical development in new and different ways Definitely gave me plenty to think about and reflect upon.
00:34:15.313 -->
00:34:17.237I hope you as well.
00:34:17.237 -->
00:34:20.349So, jennifer, thank you so much for the good work that you do.
00:34:20.349 -->
00:34:29.195For me, the practical wisdom is keep exploring, stay curious, take care everybody, be well, bye-bye.
