Changing Conversations

Sheila Heen is the founder of Triad Consulting Group, a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and Co-Author of “Thanks for the Feedback” and “Difficult Conversations”. She is consulting with companies ranging from Pixar, Hugo Boss to the NBA around difficult conversations, negotiation and sound decision-making. We have invited Sheila Heen to talk about the conversations around feedback and specifically how we can each be better feedback receivers.  

The key topics covered in this episode are: 

• How do we move away from being dismissive in the way we receive feedback to genuinely being grateful and appreciating the feedback 
• Feedback as a learning and leadership skill 
• The three types of triggered feedback reactions: Truth triggers, relationship triggers and identity triggers 
• Asking for the feedback you want 
• Enabling feedback in your organisation 

 For references, links, and other episodes, visit the podcast homepage here. 

Gail Gallie is the co-founder and creative leader of Project Everyone. Project Everyone is the organisation behind the campaign launch of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Previously, Gail has run marketing and advertising practices, but she is now focusing on how to drive solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. In this episode, we have invited Gail Gallie to talk about the conversations that led up to the big success that is the Global Goals and how it changed global conversations.

The key topics covered in this episode are:

• The conversations that led up to the creation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• The power of conversations, trusting your instinct, keeping it low-fi and listening
• How visuals can help fuel a conversation 
• The importance of making things granular 
• How we can engage everyone in changing global conversations 
• How to enable a global ecosystem of changemakers 

For references, links, and other episodes, visit the podcast homepage here. 

Julie Diamond is the founder of Diamond Leadership. She works as an executive coach and international leadership consultant, and she authored the book: “Power - A User’s Guide”. Her focus is on creating transformational learning and leadership solutions across sectors. In this episode, we talk with Julie Diamond about the power of power in conversations and how each of us can become better power users.  

Key topics covered in this episode are:  

• Understanding the difference between social and personal power
• Advice on how to be more inclusive as a person with high social power
• Speaking up as a person with low social power
• Addressing power when it comes to difficult conversations, for example conversations in a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion space

For references, links, and other episodes, visit the podcast homepage here.

Fred Dust is the founder of Dust&Co. He works as a designer and advisor to social and business leaders and he authored the book “Making Conversation”. Fred works at the intersection of business, society, and creativity where he tries to implement the craft of humancentric design. In this conversation, we talk with Fred Dust about the importance of committing to the conversation and thinking of conversation as a creative act.

Key topics covered in this episode are:

• Building a space for creative conversations
• Committing to the conversation first, the people second and your beliefs third
• Making friends with the unknown
• The importance of being a good listener

 
For references, links, and other episodes, visit the podcast homepage here.

David Whyte is a philosopher and poet. He explores the conversational nature of reality, focusing on the relationship of human beings to their world, to creation, to others, and to the end of life itself. In this conversation, David challenges us to think of conversations not as an exchange of words but rather as a lens through which you can look at your life and way of being. 

Key topics covered in this episode are:

• Being in conversation with the things that are other than us
• The concept of a beautiful question
• The conversations you need to stop having
• The invitation you bring into a conversation
• Letting the conversation do the work

For references, links and other episodes, visit the podcast homepage here.

Elizabeth Stokoe British is a scientist and Professor of Social Interaction at Loughborough University where she studies conversation analysis. In this conversation, we explore how Elizabeth’s research and experience could be applied to better understand and change conversations. 
 

The key topics covered in this episode are: 

• Our ability to predict the way a conversation is going to go
• The way that one word can change an entire conversation
• Mapping conversations to better understand which parts of them work less well
• The importance of “recipient design” in shaping great conversations

For references, links, and other episodes, visit the podcast homepage here. 

In this episode we meet with conflict resolution facilitator and author, Priya Parker. We discuss takeaways from her book, “The Art of Gathering” and how to make a gathering meaningful, effective and engaging. 

In the pursuit of designing more transformational conversations and meetings, Priya encourages us to address the deepest need of the moment in our gatherings, to name a meeting according to its purpose, and to think about when a conversation or a meeting should take place in the context of the “arch of the week”.

For references and links, visit the podcast homepage here.

Hosts Katrina and Stig are joined by renowned strategy advisor and author Professor Roger Martin. Roger Martin is former Dean and Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto in Canada.  

In this episode, we discuss Roger Martin’s 5 strategy questions laid out in his book “Playing to Win”. We talk about a case example from the book through the lens of changing conversations: how strategic conversations might have been problematic in the past, what the resulting conversations looked like, and what it took to change those conversations.

For references, links, and other episodes, visit the podcast homepage here. 

In this episode, hosts Katrina and Stig are joined by former CEO of Ørsted Mads Nipper. The episode explores how leaders are never not in conversation and Mads’ perspective on how he engages in those hundreds of touchpoints each day. 

In conversation, Mads lives by three principles that we can takeaway from the conversation: 

• Leave people with more energy
• Be present
• Strive for balance.

For references, links, and other episodes, visit the podcast homepage here. 

In this introductory episode, hosts Stig Albertsen and Katrina Marshall Dyrting discuss Changing Conversations in organisations and lay out the foundation for this podcast series: why focus on conversations, what could be possible if we do and who we will meet in the coming episodes? 

The key topics covered in this episode are: 

• Organisations are conversations
• If you want real change, change the conversation
• That conversations are the smallest biggest thing we can play with when it comes to change.

For references, links, and other episodes, visit the podcast homepage here.