The Conversation Factory

Critique is one of the most crucial conversations there is. How to ask for and get feedback when you need it is a core life skill. Without it, we’re in the dark. Setting up a special time and place with clear rules and goals to get the crucial feedback you need to move forward…that’s designing the conversation, and I can’t think of a conversation that’s more critical. Pun Intended!

My guests today are the authors of the wonderful (and quick reading!) book “Discussing Design: Improving Communication and Collaboration through Critique” Adam Connor, VP Organizational Design & Training at the strategic design consultancy Mad Pow and Aaron Irizarry, Head of Experience Infrastructure at Capital One.

Critique isn’t just “fancy feedback”….Critique is about asking for and the designing the conversation you need to have, with the people you need to engage. Do you want: a Reaction, a clear Direction or deep analysis? That’s Critique: it has rules and boundaries, and if you don’t ask for critique, you can’t get it.

We dig into the 3 myths of Critique, how critique isn’t really a designers skill, it’s a life skill for anyone trying to bust out of the status quo.

I want to highlight a few things you’ll hear towards the end. I asked Adam and Aaron to discuss how they handle a few key aspects of the Conversation OS Canvas in their critiques, like power dynamics, turn-taking, and interfaces and spaces for the conversation.

Invitation: The core point (and what the opening quote is all about) is that you get the critique you ask for. And that if someone *isn’t* asking for critique it’s pretty tricky to offer it to them successfully. In those cases, getting permission to give feedback is essential.

Power:  Adam sets the ground rules that if you’re invited to the critique session, your voice should be heard, and that in this session we’re all equal. The facilitator is there to balance voices, to call out people who are to dominating or hiding in the conversation.

Interface: I always say that when you change the interface you change the conversation. Adam and Aaron both prefer in-person critique conversations – email isn’t designed to support the depth of communication real critique requires and as they say “Asynchronous feedback will never be the same as a live conversation.”  But as teams become more distributed and digital, they’ve found some benefit in doing a “pre-read” and a “notation round” in a tool like InVision or Mural, and then moving to a video call.

Turn-Taking: While I am pretty obsessive about turn-taking, Adam says that he’s sensitive to it, but doesn’t want to over-control it, preferring an organic flow. He’ll sometimes use a “round-robin” to make sure everyone speaks in turn and at least once. Finding a way to balance voices within an organic structure requires a skillful facilitator.

Adam Connor, Mad Pow

https://madpow.com/about/team/adam-connor

Aaron Irizarry, Capital One

https://about.me/aaroni

Discussing Design

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033561.do

Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zahbC1Mfks

Our guest today is Dee Scarano, Head of Design Sprint Training at AJ&Smart. They're an agency based in Berlin that is 100% google-sprint-based. They have a *fire* youtube channel that you should check out if you want to run more sprints, well.

I met Dee at the Google Sprint Conference back in late 2017 and when I saw her run a large group workshop, I knew I had found a kindred spirit!

Dee is what I would call an Atomic Facilitator. Not because she's small and powerful (which she is) but because she has a tendency to break facilitation down into tiny, tiny components. I do the same thing, so it was fun (like, really fun: Bucket of puppies fun!) to sit down with her and dig into how she designs her group conversations and why.

Again - If you haven't checked out AJ+Smart's *aces* Youtube channel, you should - they have a boatload of helpful content, and they are launching an online course about Design Sprints which you'll hear about in the show and which I'll link to below.

Atomic Facilitators are different. Last week I was in Boston running a 3-Day Design Thinking Intensive at a giant consulting company and I was working with a facilitator who was a "big arc" facilitator. He gave the groups a task to do, a goal to get to, and didn't choose to manage the "micro process" of how they got there. Each team negotiated at their tables and chose a different path.

One isn't better than the other, but it's worth asking: Which of the tables had more fun? Which of the tables felt less tension? Which of the tables made a better decision? Atomic Facilitators like Dee have thought through and tested and tried many, many ways to get people to make better, smoother decisions together, and has chosen ONE that they love and feels great about. They hold that design choice in their minds and carefully guides a team through it, step by step.

Dee and I talk about Design Sprints, but we also talk about how to take that Atomic facilitation style that's baked into the standard 5-day design Sprint process and bring it into your work, every day. AJ+Smart uses the same tools from the sprints to facilitate  their Friday retrospectives (they do a 4 day sprint each week, with a day for reflection).

The clarity and confidence that come from examining your approach means you feel comfortable teaching it, which is something Dee does a great deal of. As Head of Design Sprint training, she's responsible for helping teams get the knowledge *and* confidence to get started on their first sprint, which we talk about, too.

Some things to look out for!

Why it's critical (and maybe obvious?) to map importance before (and separately) from difficulty)

How trusting a process can help you relax

How Reflection is key to AJ+Smart's process

How taking care of the people in the sprint is essential

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vrePSmQnJw

Cultural Change and how building a small coalition, underselling and  over-delivering on your process can help you start a movement

Why 3 X 5 stickies *might* be better than 3 X 3 (the conversation interface matters, people!)

How Aj+Smart handles power dynamics in the sprint compared with Google vs GV Ventures

You can find her on twitter

https://twitter.com/dhyanascarano?lang=en

I hope you enjoy the show as much as I did making it!

LINKS

 9 Conversations pre-order: https://publishizer.com/nine-conversations/

Design Sprint Masterclass

https://ajsmart.com/ajsmart-design-sprint-masterclass/

Aj and Smart

https://ajsmart.com/

Sean Sankey/Form Studios

https://www.form.studio/

For some people, facilitation is a means to an end: Getting things done, more in less time. Taking the time to think and talk can seem like a luxury when your team just wants to just "get going". Facilitation, then, becomes like any tool like a drill, or a knife...you don't actually want the tool, you want a hole in the wall or a carrot sliced. When you're done with the tool, you go on to the next thing!

But for other people, this space between posing a challenge, thinking, talking and doing, is worth deepening. Facilitation then becomes more than a thing you do to get to the next thing...It becomes a way of being and approaching the world.  Facilitation becomes a core value, a principle.

The problem with facilitation as a means to an end is that facilitating well is a design problem in and of itself, which requires thoughtful work and practice. Focusing on the ends instead of the means, in this case, can cause people to give light consideration to facilitating masterfully. But when the conversation really matters, someone really should design the conversation.

It's really delightful to talk to someone like Alison for whom, like me, facilitation *is* the work...deepening it for ourselves and others is why we do what we do: Not just helping teams as a facilitator, but helping others to develop as facilitators.

Alison is the founder of Bracket, a consultancy based in the UK. She helps teams at companies of all stripes to work better together. She's also written a lovely book  “A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops”. Alison is also, like me, a workshop geek.

Facilitation is a design skill, and like any design process, each facilitator is going to bring their own assumptions, good and bad, into the process. So it's critical to be self-aware: Why do you make the design choices that you make? Alison is a thoughtful practitioner who helps other facilitators become the same way.

Design is about intention. A facilitator needs to be able to visualize each and every step through the workshop process... What size paper will people be using when and why? What color and thickness of pen?

The sheer number of design choices involved in the process means that facilitators *can* fall into a rut. Finding fresh perspectives and approaches is crucial...which is what this podcast is all about! I hope you enjoy this episode!

We talk about:

• The importance of making time for silence and reflection in reducing power dynamics and "groupthink"
• Finding your own unique "stance" as a facilitator
• The struggle to find purposeful energizers
• How crucial it is to get people in the room deeply connected with each other's expertise
• Knowing your workshop's narrative arc

Further Reading:

Richard Florida "The rise of the creative class"

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Creative-Class-Revisited-Anniversary-Revised/dp/0465029930

How to Kill Creativity by Teresa Amabile

https://hbr.org/1998/09/how-to-kill-creativity

Gamestorming (of course)

http://gamestorming.com/

Collective Genius by Linda Hill

https://hbr.org/product/collective-genius-the-art-and-practice-of-leading-innovation/13296E-KND-ENG

https://www.ted.com/talks/linda_hill_how_to_manage_for_collective_creativity

the Progress principle by Terese Amabile

https://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-wins

http://www.progressprinciple.com/

Twitter: @alisoncoward Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/alisoncoward

Website: www.bracketcreative.co.uk

Alison Coward is the founder of Bracket, a consultancy helping teams in the creative and technology sector to work better together, with clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to startups. She is a strategist, trainer and workshop facilitator and the author of “A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops”.

With over 15 years’ experience working in, leading and facilitating creative teams, Alison is passionate about finding the perfect balance between creativity, productivity, and collaboration.

Today I talk with Matt Mayberry, Head of Business Development at Boundless Mind. Boundless Mind popped up on my radar when their awesome and free ebook on Behavioral Design shot up to #1 on Product Hunt.

I'm thrilled Matt came on the show and shared his story. His own passion for behavioral design came from his experiences watching critical patients resist changing behaviors that would save their lives. Even with death staring people in the face, changing deep seated behaviors is hard!

Behavioral Design was something I was aware of as a UX designer but was by no means an expert. Behavior design researchers like BJ Fogg and his behavior grid was something that inspired me early on in my UX career. Since then, behavior design is something I infuse into my  innovation consulting: Big change takes a big impulse. Smaller changes are easier and can snowball with the right motivation and momentum. Sitting down with Matt helped open up some new avenues to think about how behavior design is everywhere you look!

Boundless mind is fascinating: They serve two sides of the challenge, for companies seeking to change behavior AND consumers wanting to reboot their addictions. The Boundless API helps companies find the optimum timing for motivating rewards and the app Space breaks that timing cycle when you need some freedom from the apps that grip your brain.

We talk about how choice architecture in the real world can help shape behaviors, from organ donation rates in Germany vs Austria to how supermarkets get you to wander the whole store and buy more than your intended. Giving people too many choices makes choice harder: Architecting or limiting choices is a form of behavior design. Pulling back, Matt places *all* design into behavioral design: Industrial, UX, Service and Conversation Design *all* seek to shift behavior!

One big take away I had was how small acts of mindfulness can have a big impact. Matt's CEO keeps a database of how people in his organization take their coffee and other preferences. The idea of keeping a Delight Database is amazing. While the ideal of behavior design might seem like manipulation, in the end, it's about understanding what will delight people and giving them more of what they want, at the right time. I hope you enjoy the episode as much as I did making it!

Key Ideas:

Delight is Delight: Our Brain Lights up based on the timing, not the size of the reward

There are three types of rewards: Rewards of the Self, Rewards of the Hunt or Rewards of the Tribe

(more here: https://www.slideshare.net/nireyal/hooked-model/83-3_types_of_VARIABLE_REWARDSTRIBEHUNTSELFHabitforming)

Rewards are *not* incentives: The "hit" from expected Incentives get dampened over time, variable rewards do not.

Choice Architecture is simple way to bring behavior design into your work: Just Ask Thoreau!

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8203-i-had-three-chairs-in-my-house-one-for-solitude

Show notes and Links:

The Behavioral Design backstory:

How a 1930's Harvard Student laid the ground work for Modern Phone Addiction: More about BF Skinner

https://www.boundless.ai/blog/how-a-1930s-harvard-student-laid-the-groundwork-for-modern-phone-addiction/

Bj Fogg's Behavioral Grid http://www.behaviorgrid.org/

BJ Fogg's Behavioral Model http://www.behaviormodel.org/

Learn more about Boundless at: https://www.boundless.ai/

Read the ebook: https://www.boundless.ai/ebook

get Space at: youjustneedspace.com http://youjustneedspace.com

Find Matt Mayberry (if you Google him, you'll find there are several very famous people named Matt Mayberry!)

twitter.com/mattmayberry

medium.com/@mattmayberry

 Much Much More on Behavioral Design, persuasion, and habits.

Hooked by Nir Eyal https://amzn.to/2KPZgKs

Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg https://amzn.to/2jKSM3c

Predictably Irrational by Dan Airely https://amzn.to/2I7Y4V2

Nudge by Richard Thaler https://amzn.to/2rub6C3

About Matt:

Matt Mayberry is a Behavior Designer and Head of Business Development for Boundless Mind, a persuasive and behavioral technology company using Artificial Intelligence to drive behavior change in technology products. You can find his sporadic 140 character short-term writing here http://twitter.com/mattmayberry and his 1400 character longer form writing here http://medium.com/@mattmayberry.

What is your conversation lens? How do you even see what's happening in a conversation at work or at home? How do you know it's going well or awry? How do you get conversations "back on track"? And how do you see and *shape* how *you* show up in them? How do you know what you bring into the room, good and not so good?

Conversations impact the outcomes we get: Conversations propel people  and organizations forward, or they get stuck: The groundhog day conversation! Marsha Acker, the CEO of TeamCatapult, sat down with me to talk about her unique view on these things and much more, along with her passion for ending stuck conversations in organizations. Marsha has over 22 years of experience designing and facilitating organizational change initiatives and TeamCatapult has been helping develop leaders and transform organizations since 2005.

 Meeting someone with a *totally* different "heritage" who has come to some very similar conclusions about the nature of conversation design is truly delightful!

What I loved about chatting with Marsha is connecting around a sound that's deepening in me:

That facilitation is about being conscious  of what conversational  tools you pick up: Knowing where and when you're stuck and picking up the right tool for the moment, instead of the habitual one.

The Structural Dynamics concept of a conversational operating system is deeply resonant with the three creative energies of Open, Explore and Close that I sing about non-stop  and it was amazing to get her take on the Four Conversational Actions, which give a better shape to idea of "threading" in a conversation than any model I've encountered yet. It's really profound to see how each time someone speaks they are shaping the course of the conversation, helping it to slow down or speed up. I geeked out pretty hard with her...nevertheless I think you'll find a lot of amazing tools to bring into your own work!

I'll link to some of her upcoming workshops in the show notes: Her company offers a host of amazing experiences, from a 2-day Advanced Facilitation workshop to a 5-day Agile Facilitation and Coaching Intensive with several dates coming up in May and June.

Do check out the show notes, where I'll break down some of Marsha's points on Structural Dynamics and share lots of other links.

You'll also learn about:

The Facilitator's Stance: Finding another place to lead from. The "front" of the room is familiar to most, but facilitation can increase your "range" of leadership capacity.

Developing a shared "pool of meaning" to help people get to the same "place" together

Setting agreements with your group: Asking people to  say what needs to be said *in the room* so it can be processed and worked with.

Marsha's Three key takeaways to transform conversations at work:

1. Start with the Tusks: Find the conversation that matters - the critical or most stuck conversation. Start where it's hot. Go to the elephant in the room!
2. Look at how *you* show up...how you are is how you'll facilitate.
3. Bring Your Authentic Voice: Find your natural stance and work from there, instead of trying to imitate someone else's.

Structural Dynamics in a Nutshell

1. Action:

A move (sets direction)

A follow (continues)

 An Oppose (offers correction)

A Bystand (morally neutral comment)

1. The Language or communication domain is where we're speaking from or our goals in talking

Power: Using language in order to get something done.

Meaning: Asking for evidence and action that can support their desired outcome.

Affect: This is about using emotive language to affect feeling and to develop connection and intimacy with others.

1. The Operating System:

Open

Random

Closed

Advanced Facilitation: Self-Mastery and Reading Group Dynamics is June 27-28, 2018 in Washington, DChttps://teamcatapult.com/workshops/advanced-facilitation/. Sarah Hill and I will be co-leading this workshop. You will learn about your own model for communication and how to shift the nature of the discourse in conversations and how to work more deeply with group dynamics to become a more confident and effective facilitator.

Reading the Room by David Kantor. This books tells the story of a coach working with an executive team and how they learned to see and shift the structure of their conversations https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Room-Dynamics-Coaches-Leaders/dp/0470903430

Where did you learn to behave like that? by Sarah Hill. https://www.amazon.com/Where-Learn-Behave-Like-That-ebook/dp/B076NTJXY5/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524220764&sr=1-1&keywords=where+did+you+learn+to+behave+like+that

In the fourth level of structural dynamics is the important role that childhood stories play in how we behave in the room today. Sarah tells many stories, including her own, of how she worked to become aware of the story and change the narrative.

Diagnosing and Changing Stuck Patterns in Teams https://teamcatapult.com/2016/08/

What to do when change requires a new operating system. https://teamcatapult.com/what-to-do-when-change-requires-a-new-operating-system/

Big Apple Scrum Day, New York May 11, I’m giving a talk on Diagnosing and Changing Stuck Patterns in Teams. This is a brief introduction to the model of Structural Dynamics https://www.bigapplescrumday.org/speakers

Marsha's Full Bio and Additional Links

Marsha Acker is a leadership and team coach whose passion and expertise is helping leaders and teams identify and break through stuck patterns that get in their way of high performance. Marsha is the CEO of TeamCatapult, a leadership development and organizational change firm, founded in 2005. She has over 22 years of experience designing and facilitating organizational change initiatives.

She has served for six years as the track chair for defining the ICAgile Coaching and Enterprise Coaching learning objectives and is currently a member of the ICAgile Agile Coaching Expert Certification panel. Marsha is a Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF), Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), Professional Certified Coach (PCC – ICF), Certified Interventionist in Structural Dynamics and Changing Behavior in High Stakes (Kantor Institute and Dialogix), Organizational and Relationship Systems Coach (Center for Right Relationship), Certified Change Management Professional (CMP), and an ICAgile Certified Expert Agile Coaching.

Website: www.teamcatapult.com

Twitter: @marshaacker and @teamcatapult2

Facebook: @teamcatapult2

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Head over to http://theconversationfactory.com/think-alone-think-together/ to watch the other videos and check out the medium articles in all their glory. Below is a striped down version of what's in the medium article!

One of the things that’s most challenging for me about facilitating transformation in organizations is that it’s hard to know *why* something worked, when it worked. There are lots of articles to tell you *what* to do and *when*…even studies proving that whatever method works statistically. But that doesn’t tell me why…a question I’ve been asking since… forever!

That’s one reason why I’m enjoying the Conversation OS Canvas that I’ve been developing. It helps me see the why in all the things I do.

Visual Conversations: The Human Centered Design Hallway

This week's video was on Visual Conversations, which you can watch here. I talk about how being visual transforms conversations by transforming the interface they happen in. Paper has a better memory than I do. Most conversations are like drawing on water…the air holds our conversations and then our brains do the best they can! Memories fade faster than sharpies on sticky notes. It’s a simple reason *why* shifting a conversational interface shifts a conversation. In this case, it makes it last longer. But shifting the interface in other ways can help dialog of all types. Like when an exchange on text messages seems to be going off course, you make a call. Texting is a “narrow pipe” while talking on a phone is a “fat pipe”. There’s a lot more information, more bandwidth, in a phone call than in a text. And even more in a face-to-face meeting. 

If the interface for your conversation isn’t supporting your communication needs, shift it. Sometimes a narrow pipe is better — it’s direct, to the point. The idea is to be mindful of your choices and aware of their effects.

Working at the Wall

I wanted to share a recent post about a Public Library turning a staff maintenance corridor into a canvas for an ongoing human-centered design effort. In their own words:

My team was taking an online course in human-centered design, and we got an idea: this hallway would be an ideal location to make our work visible as we started to explore human-centered design.

We put books, resources, and materials in the hallway, located on makeshift tables made of shipping crates. We have a stack of Post-its and pens, and any staff member can add thoughts or insights when passing by.

We also have personas posted in the hall so we don’t forget who our users are. Now, every time we walk through the hallway, we think about our specific users, like “Kate,” the working mom.

You can read the rest of the quote/article here. Honestly, my heart melted reading this! This is such a simple way to shift conversations: make it visible. The hallway becomes a huge interface, holding the memory for a large group of people.

How can you shift the interface of your conversations to make them more powerful, durable and effective?

It's always such a pleasure to get to sit down with one of your heroes...and it's especially wonderful when they are just warm, wonderful people. Steve Portigal is a prominent author of two excellent books on user research ( Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights and Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories,   linked below) and Steve also speaks prolifically on the conference circuit. And while he maintains a solo practice on the west coast, he somehow makes time to also give a lot of his knowledge away, blogging, podcasting...When I was coming up in the design world, Steve's writing was always clear and helpful. And when we first met, he was approachable and human. Steve is a model for the kind of design thought leader we need more of!

Sitting down with Steve for this episode was an interesting risk, though. We ran into each other in SF and talked about the possibility of an episode grounded in a topic Steve is an expert in, but indirectly. Let me explain. Steve is a User Researcher, heart and soul. And he talks and writes about it, fluently. Facilitation is something that he *has to do* in order to bring people together. He's an extremely reflective practioner  about research, but about facilitation, less so. For me, it's fascinating to see that divide. I think there are a lot of people where facilitation is a means to an end.

Steve illustrates something I coach people on often - you have to be your own kind of facilitator. I can be theatrical and energetic. Steve is more introverted and centered. My way of solving for group work isn't Steve's : he's adapted his own approach that feels natural and gets the job done.

There are a few key insights I got out of this conversation that I want you to look out for:

Treating Workshops as a series of games with clear rules and goals

Steve breaks his time with groups up into "beats" or "scenes" just like an improv person would. Each scene has a focus, an outcome and rules. It breaks the time up and keeps energy moving.

Narrow Ranking

0, 1, 2: If you're going to get participants to rank things solo before comparing, make the structure simple. 0 is meh, 2 is awesome. 1 is good. That's it. Too much granularity confuses things.

Direct vs indirect facilitation

Steve talks about comedic scolding of groups, pushing teams but using humor, vs letting them do their own thing, watching and listening…and stopping the room to call attention to something worthwhile that group is doing. One way might be called extroverted or direct facilitation  and the other introverted or indirect facilitation. Steve says that the extroverted practice of calling people out, using names is "not in my energy." Facilitation is about using what feels natural to you.

Being conscious of your choices as a facilitator

What are you doing, when? And is it working for you? Why or why not? What to absorb or drop? I know that facilitation is a means to and end for most people, but taking time to reflect on your practice can provide significant dividends

The "chef's roll" of facilitation

Bringing what you really need into the room. The tools make it go smoothly. Some people love 3 X 5 stickies, others want black, or manage color in other ways. I hate pop-up notes with an undying, smoldering passion. The tools matter.

Insights generate energy and clarity by making things simple

Steve tells a story about how one woman's insights infused the room with energy and clarity. My feeling is that insights pull multiple threads together, grouping complex behaviors into a simple narrative core. Is it the management of too many mental/narrative threads that's exhausting? And the reduction of threads that gives cognitive release?

Expand the frame of your work

Steve is a researcher, but he doesn't let his work stop there. He knows nothing will happen with the research unless he pulls the work forward into the org. Running ideation or concepting workshops can tip the energy of the team forward and shift the momentum

Links:

Steve on the Web

Steve on Twitter

Steve's Podcast: The Episode with EBay's Pree Kolari

Interviewing Users

Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories

Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies on WikiPedia and the App I use! (android)

DSchool Facilitation Guide

The McDonald's Theory

In this week's episode I delve into the Conversation OS Canvas and how to take a holistic approach to rethinking how you get creative with others. You can download the OS Canvas here. Medium Post pending...it'll be in the link below when it's ready to rock!

http://theconversationfactory.com/think-alone-think-together/

Detailed write up is here: https://medium.com/@dastillman/how-to-warm-up-a-room-fec124f131dc

Other episodes in this series are here: 

http://theconversationfactory.com/think-alone-think-together/

Week 6 of the Think Alone, Think Together Series!

A Write up can the video link can be found on Medium:

https://medium.com/the-conversation-factory/using-abstraction-laddering-how-to-build-the-right-question-and-stick-to-it-c0efb012248e