Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]: Of course, you've heard that being curious and coach-like will help in leadership, but sometimes the very thing we think we're doing well is actually getting in the way. In this episode, The Kind of Curiosity that Leaders Often Miss. This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 760. Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential. Dave Stachowiak [00:00:30]: Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren't born, they're made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. A conversation that we have been having throughout the time this podcast has been airing as a conversation about curiosity. How do we do a better job as leaders of being curious? Yes, because we learn more, we discover more, but also because it actually helps our organizations to be more effective and to perform better. Today, a conversation on how we can do a bit better on an aspect of curiosity sometimes we miss. And I'm so glad to have an expert back who's right in the middle of helping organizations, teams and leaders do this better. Dave Stachowiak [00:01:20]: I'm so pleased to welcome back to the show Shannon Minifie. Shannon is the CEO of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps unleash the power of curiosity to create connected and engaged company cultures. They are the team behind the bestselling Coaching Habit book by Michael Bungay Stanier. Shannon and her team recently released a report along with the Harris Poll titled Navigating a Fractured Workplace: How Relational Curiosity Increases Engagement, Trust, and Productivity. Shannon, what a pleasure to have you back. Welcome. Shannon Minifie [00:01:53]: Dave, thanks for having me. Dave Stachowiak [00:01:55]: Yeah, indeed. And, you know, we've of course, had Michael Bungay stand. You're on many times in the. In the past, we've. We've all learned so much from you and Michael and your team. As I was thinking about our conversation, I'm in Box of Crayons is one of the organizations that I have probably learned more from in the last 10 years than anywhere. And so when you all do something, I'm always interested in what you're finding. Dave Stachowiak [00:02:20]: And you partnered up with the Harris Poll recently to do a little bit of research and look at just what's going on. We're going to get into some of the details of it, but what prompted this partnership to really look at this and get into some of the details of what's happening in the workplace? Shannon Minifie [00:02:36]: Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you. That's really nice of you to say. I think that one of our design philosophies is what's the least amount of information that's most useful? So we don't pump out a lot of new content all the time. But I think what we do do well is to simplify and make really clear and actionable some of the things that really matter for leaders. So anyway, thanks for saying that, Dave. Shannon Minifie [00:02:59]: So we partnered with the Harris Poll last year to really to conduct some research on current workplace challenges and what could potentially solve them. And in terms of what prompted it, I mean, we had several goals for the partnership. We wanted to validate the distinction between two forms of curiosity. And we'll get into this. We wanted to really validate the distinction between two forms of curiosity that we saw, as well as their prevalence in the workplace, and to understand what role curiosity of either form could play in helping organizations overcome those challenges. And it was kind of an existential moment that might be too strong a way to put it. But basically, Box of Crayons is all in on curiosity. So we exist to unleash the power of curiosity for organizations. Shannon Minifie [00:03:47]: And we had this moment about a year ago where we thought, amidst all of macroeconomic uncertainty and geopolitical uncertainty and AI, and do organizations care about developing the skill of curiosity, this set of capabilities around curiosity? And we thought better to answer this question now and know it now. And so it was really prompted by that. And the findings really did give us a clear picture of the challenges that are weighing heavily on leaders and workers minds at that point in time. It told us whether leaders and workers saw curiosity skills as valuable and urgent to solving those challenges. And it also helped us drill down to this question of whether relational curiosity in particular is a valuable solution to those challenges. So that's kind of what prompted it. Dave Stachowiak [00:04:37]: You write in the white paper. "New data from our partnership with the Harris poll reveals that powerful forces are disrupting the workplace. Pervasive and unrelenting fear, the inability to appreciate and contend with disagreement, an overwhelm caused by the pace of work, and a lack of skills to navigate these challenges." When I looked through the data and reflected on it, my first thought was, wow, there is some good news in this and we're gonna get to it. But the news is sort of not great for a lot of these things. And one of the statistics that sort of leapt out at me is the finding that "14 and a half percent of the work week is lost to a fear of making mistakes." Which is like, depending on how you calculate it, five to six hours a week. What is it that people are afraid of? Shannon Minifie [00:05:26]: Yeah, yeah. I mean, just before I go there, just to quickly say yes, it doesn't seem like a good news story off the top. And certainly one of the sort of paradigm shifts or ways we want people to think about it is we know about all of the external challenges already. Right. But organizations only work if people work. And so this was really about uncovering all the things going on inside of organizations that, you know, we know companies are obsessed with looking at what the external disruptors are coming at them, but you've got to get this inside stuff right as well. So. Yeah, so fear, you're right, fear was one of the key challenges that showed up. Shannon Minifie [00:06:05]: And you're right, 14.5% of the work week, they calculated that to be for an organization with a thousand people, six thousand wasted hours, and seven and a half million dollars annually. So, yeah. What's leading to all of that fear? Like, we saw people fearing negative outcomes. They procrastinate. So that contributes to time that workers report just trying to motivate themselves to be productive. They feel frozen, they feel overwhelmed, unable to make decisions. I don't think it pointed to exactly what's causing that fear, but our sense is that a lack of relationship, a lack of trust, a lack of connection among colleagues and between leaders and their teams could be one of the main things behind that. Shannon Minifie [00:06:50]: Right. Like, why do you hide? Why are you afraid to ask for help? Why are you afraid to come forward and say, I don't get it? Right? Dave Stachowiak [00:06:57]: Yeah. Shannon Minifie [00:06:57]: So we saw that sort of all of those wasted hours as symptomatic of doubt and anxiety and. And blame and things like that. Dave Stachowiak [00:07:06]: Yeah, that was my sense too. And just looking through the data and sitting with it and reflecting on it and. And I think that leads into one of the other statistics that came out of this is the finding that 70% of leaders say many don't understand the value of listening to those that they disagree with. And. And I was thinking about that, and there's a really interesting dichotomy in one of the findings in the research, in that a strong majority, like almost 80% of leaders say employees are expressing a desire for more feedback and more growth pathways. But then at the same time, a majority of them also say people they work with are unable to receive hard feedback. And it's sort of this really interesting struggle point. Dave Stachowiak [00:08:02]: Point of, like, on one hand, people are asking for feedback, want it, say they espouse that, but then when they give it, people are really struggling with actually being able to accept that. That's a real issue, isn't it? Shannon Minifie [00:08:16]: Yeah, absolutely. And going back to what you asked about fear, what's at the center of that? Right? Like, what's at the source of, on the one hand, wanting more feedback, and on the other hand, outright saying that they are unwilling to listen to people that they disagree with or leaders saying their people are unable to hear difficult feedback. And for us, what we see that pointing to is, again, that lack of relationship, lack of trust. Think about who you've received feedback from in your life, and maybe it was tough feedback, right? Some of the best feedback you ever get is hard feedback, right? Dave Stachowiak [00:08:49]: Oh, yeah, for sure. Shannon Minifie [00:08:51]: It's what you always struggle with, right? And on the one hand, it's hard. It can be hard to hear, but I think it can also really make you feel seen. Right? Like you really see me in my wholeness and my complexity that you're able to deliver that hard piece of feedback to me. But it's only. You can only really receive it that way if you hear from someone with whom you already have a good relationship, by which I mean you trust that they care about you, that they want something better for you from knowing that feedback. Shannon Minifie [00:09:26]: And so for us, we just feel like whenever there's a lack of positive feedback culture and positive. I don't mean all the feedback is positive, but that people are able to give and receive feedback readily points to a lack of relationship and trust in that team because people are afraid giving that feedback will break the relationship. You know, the relationship can't withstand it. Shannon Minifie [00:09:46]: Or there's just not enough of a relationship there in the first place for people to even notice and give good and meaningful feedback. Dave Stachowiak [00:09:53]: One more piece of bad news, then we're going to get to the good news, I promise. But. Shannon Minifie [00:09:57]: Okay, good. Yeah, we're almost there. Dave Stachowiak [00:09:59]: Yeah, we're getting there. But it is important to frame this the. You also write in the report, "the emphasis on leadership becomes even more critical as two and three business leaders observe a growing gap in fundamental leadership and communication skills among younger employees." And I was thinking about this, too, and there is today more content and resources for leadership development out there than there ever has been in recorded history. And yet it seems like a lot of organizations are struggling to really, like, bring this in to support not only their leaders, but also less experienced younger employees. We're just seeing a disconnect there, aren't we? Shannon Minifie [00:10:43]: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you're right. There's more access to information than Ever before. But investment in learning and access to information are going to be two different things. And I see this as both a bad and good news story. So I know you said one more bad piece of information, one more bad thing before we go to the good stuff. But I think that on the one hand this is tough, that one of the finding is that there's this dangerous leadership skills gap. I think the good news story is that leaders want more opportunities to learn for themselves and their teams. Shannon Minifie [00:11:11]: Right. And the vast majority of them said that new ways of training are necessary for them to adapt to the changes that are happening, but also that it contributes to their overall satisfaction in their role, becoming a better manager, which was great to read, especially reading that alongside, I think other evidence piling up that fewer people want to move into manager roles. They don't want that burden to hear from current managers now that over 90% of them that being a better manager is actually something that increases their overall satisfaction and they're eager to learn and get better. Shannon Minifie [00:11:46]: That's a good news story, I think. Dave Stachowiak [00:11:47]: Yeah, yeah, it is. And I'm glad you said that because I definitely see that with our listeners, our members that I work with. I mean, it's really, it's so heartening and hopeful to see how many of them just have this great desire to learn, to grow, to recognize the things that they struggle with, as we all do. And the willingness to really move forward on that, which is a great segue to the good news part. And the good news is that curiosity is good for business and that headlines like really front and center in this report and anyone who listens to this show, that is not going to be a surprise at all. Right. That, that we've been talking about that for years. Dave Stachowiak [00:12:29]: You and I have. Michael has. What might be new, though, is the distinction, and we mentioned this very briefly earlier, but the distinction that shows up in the research between intellectual and relational curiosity. Could you tell me about that distinction? Shannon Minifie [00:12:45]: Yeah, absolutely. So just to reiterate what you're saying, I think this idea that curiosity is good for business, you're right, this is not a new news story. This is decades worth of research telling us that curiosity is good for business. I think what we started to pick up on, curiosity as it relates to organizational effectiveness, to your point, has been something that people have been looking at for a while. We know that curiosity is good for business. There's whole HBR issues dedicated to this topic. Shannon Minifie [00:13:14]: Right? Dave Stachowiak [00:13:14]: Yeah. Shannon Minifie [00:13:14]: But as we started thinking more about the kind of curiosity we teach in our learning experiences in box of crayons, the kind of curiosity we teach in the Coaching Habit. What I started to sense when I was reading through the curiosity literature, both the sort of academic literature as well as the business literature, is that there is a form of curiosity that is sometimes sort of obliquely referred to or referenced briefly and then moved on from. But that is actually the central kind of curiosity we're talking about a box of crayons. So what is this distinction? So intellectual curiosity is the kind that you're probably most familiar with. This is what is most commonly called information gap curiosity. So this comes from psychological neurological studies. So what motivates curious behavior and what does it look like in the brain? Shannon Minifie [00:14:05]: And the simple definition of it is that it's a motivation to acquire and accumulate knowledge. Right. So it's that thing that lights you up when you've learned a little bit about something and you want to go learn a lot more. It's that feeling of satisfaction and wanting to satiate that desire to know something. So it's really that- it really does bend back onto the curious person, this form of curiosity. And one of the things I came across in early research was this idea that the word curiosity actually means to care. Shannon Minifie [00:14:41]: And I thought that that was so curious because I found myself wondering, like, okay, sure, if I'm being intellectually curious and I'm asking questions because I want to know something and I want to fill an information gap, I care about the information, I care about the outcome, and I care about that satisfaction, that moment of closing that gap. But it wasn't really curiosity that was about bending to other people or about being in the service of other people. And this is what we mean by relational curiosity. So relational curiosity is about motivated by a desire to support and connect with others. So they both present the same. Shannon Minifie [00:15:20]: They both look like asking questions. But relational curiosity isn't about satisfying my need to know something. It's really about helping something. Dave Stachowiak [00:15:31]: And what a helpful way to think about this, of what I'm trying to figure out for myself versus what I'm trying to help you to figure out for yourself. Right. And I was really, by the way, I was struck by something you wrote as a letter as CEO in the report about missing this distinction yourself. Like coming to Box of Crayons. Having come from the academic world and having done graduate degrees, you, of course, like, did a lot of intellectual curiosity, because that's what you do. And you went through this journey of also recognizing this distinction in coming into this work, didn't you? Shannon Minifie [00:16:11]: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean that default to being inquisitive, borderline interrogative is still something that I would say is pretty hardwired in my being. And I think the reason why the distinction matters is because the motivations of each of them are different, the practice of them is different, and the impact that each of those forms of curiosity has is different. So if you're a leader and you're thinking about what's the impact that I want to have, it seems obvious, and I'm not negating at all, that an organization needs to be intellectually curious, but relational curiosity is really about how do I help empower other people, how do I have other people on my team also know that they have answers, that they have answers I don't have. Right. Because as leaders I feel like we're going to fall quickly into feeling like we need to know the answers to everything. Like how am I going to pivot my organization in AI times? We can't know all the answers to that. We need to have the team help us with those things. Shannon Minifie [00:17:18]: We need to trust that the team knows things and has ideas and has questions to ask that we don't have ourselves. And so asking the kinds of questions that create space for other people and help other people do their best thinking and solve their challenges, it has a different impact than the intellectual curiosity. And it's definitely going to be needed. Otherwise leaders are going to get crushed. Dave Stachowiak [00:17:38]: Yeah, and I'm so glad you mentioned both because neither of us are saying the intellectual curiosity isn't important. It's as you said, it's essential. It's really important. This is very much a both and, right. And it's, it's just that a lot of times we, we assume that if we have ended a sentence with a question mark, we have done our work on curiosity. And, and it's one of those like yes, and sort of things like yes, that asking a question is a really good starting point for this. Dave Stachowiak [00:18:14]: But a lot of times we don't think to do the relational part or even the intellectual part. You know, there's a lot of ways to ask very self affirming questions too. Right. But the relational part we're not thinking about am I asking a question that really helps someone else to discover something and I'm not just thinking about it through my own lens of curiosity and the information I need? Shannon Minifie [00:18:35]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's very easy to end a conversation with a question that's really just confirming what you know or why did you do that, Dave? Very right. And I think just like this is, this is getting a, like a little bit more specific about the relational curiosity skill that we teach. But coach like curiosity, which is this ability to slow down the rush to action and advice and stay curious longer. This is really about how do we move away from inserting ourselves into the driver's seat of those conversations? Like our default as leaders, and also just as like intellectually curious people is going to be to go into a problem, you know, meeting a problem to be solved, and to try to quickly satisfy our own desire to learn something, to close an information gap, to steer it the way that we think it should go, to project onto our direct report what we think they should be doing, and we don't possess all the information. Shannon Minifie [00:19:37]: And I think that one of the things that we need to come to believe is that we need to stop thinking that we have the answers. Not even that we need to have them, but that we actually have them, that our advice is necessarily good or that our experience is necessarily valid. And so if we can ask the kinds of questions that take ourselves out of the equation, take ourselves out of the driver's seat, then that is a way of being relationally curious because it's privileging the person in front of us learning something and exploring and discovering something as the kind of main actor in that, as opposed to ourselves. Dave Stachowiak [00:20:13]: There's the old saying that "the greatest enemy of communication is the illusion of it." Shannon Minifie [00:20:18]: And yes, the illusion has taken place. Yes. Dave Stachowiak [00:20:20]: Right. Yeah. And I think we could easily substitute in the word curiosity there, that the greatest enemy of curiosity is the illusion that you've been doing it like you've asked a question. Because. Okay, I've been curious. I've been coach like, because I was asking questions. And I'm thinking about folks going into the workplace today and thinking, all right, I hear you intellectually, both of you, on not stopping the intellectual curiosity, but adding in some of the relational curiosity into interactions today and in conversations. Dave Stachowiak [00:20:52]: And we've hit on this a little bit. But as you when you see people make this shift and start to do a little bit more of the both and what's different about what a leader thinks that helps them to start doing a little bit more of the relational curiosity? Shannon Minifie [00:21:11]: Yeah, I think that what's different about what they think, and I like that you started there, right? This idea that their mindset might come before a shift in the behaviors. What's different about what a relationally curious leader might think is that there are critical ways that they add value that aren't just about telling people what to do or guiding people to the answer or giving people advice. So I think that a lot of what we're helping leaders overcome is this really ingrained trained from school age to why they got promoted and are in their current job, this feeling that their default way of responding to things is to have to add value by telling people what to do, having an answer, giving advice. And so I think a relationally curious leader understands that there's a place for their experience and their advice. Right. Like they see things from a different vantage point that can certainly make their advice and their experience worthwhile, but it's not at the very top of the conversation. And sometimes it's never, right. Like, I've gone into conversations before where I've gone in very clear into, in my mind about what the problem is, and I've been totally wrong because as soon as I give the other person space to explain what's happened, I realized that if I had gone in, said what I thought the challenge was, and started solving off the top of that, we'd be solving the wrong thing. Shannon Minifie [00:22:37]: Right. So a relationally curious leader, it has some humility around the extent of their own expertise, experience and advice. And they recognize, they're comfortable that they add value in other ways. They add value in being in the service role of really facilitating other people's insights and facilitating other people's empowerment. They recognize that they can't do things by themselves. And so they're going to have to lift up that team instead of creating this cycle of overwhelm and over dependence in the team, which is what happens when you become the single point of telling people what to do. Dave Stachowiak [00:23:14]: Yeah, what you just described happens to me multiple times a week because one of the pieces of my work is facilitating our academy conversations with the leaders that show up in a small group. And we work with over time. And as part of that, we are talking about real time situations. And we have a rule in those conversations. They're usually 30 minutes, the first 15, 20 minutes. No one's allowed to give any advice, no one's allowed to make any suggestions or suggest the next step. It's only listening and asking curious questions. And the reason I'm saying that this is my experience a couple times a week is I'll often go into those conversations having read the notes of what someone's shared and we start with a question or two. Dave Stachowiak [00:23:58]: And my first Thought is, oh, I know exactly what they need to do. Like having read, like having gotten some information, and it's really interesting to me, and I sort of am amused by it now, like how multiple times a week we'll get through the first 15, 20 minutes of questions. And I think to myself, if I had said the first thought that was on my mind before we asked questions for 15 or 20 minutes, how wrong I would have been and how stupid my adv would have been in that moment. Right. And it's happened enough now that I'm not surprised by it. And it sort of now it's trained me to really not give advice or input before I've asked two or three or four clarifying questions, but it, it took a while to get there. And I just think, like, how often we, and I see in our members, like, as they get better at doing it, they're like, oh, I've. Dave Stachowiak [00:24:54]: We've never really practiced this in our organization. We've never stopped and just been more curious. And it really does make a big shift when you start do that as a practice. Shannon Minifie [00:25:02]: Yeah, yeah. And I would actually say that, that there's two scenarios worth contemplating here. So one is the scenario you've just outlined, right. Where I cannot possibly ask any more curious questions. I, I can't be curious. I need to give advice. And then the advice ends up being wrong or stupid and, and they only solve the wrong thing or they do the wrong thing. So that's one scenario. Shannon Minifie [00:25:24]: And yes, best to avoid that. And you might even avoid that with intellectual curiosity alone. Right. Like you said, asking clarifying questions. Right. So someone comes and says, should I do X or Y? And you say, well, what about abc? What about def. Okay, yeah, do X. Right. Shannon Minifie [00:25:38]: So maybe you did that. And maybe you actually, you stayed in intellectual curiosity that whole time because you asked clarifying questions. You asked questions that helped you better understand so you could give better advice. So it's still beneficial to be curious there for a little while. But did you really only ask questions that turned over decision making to the other person? And so the reason why the second scenario matters so much is, let's say, your advice. You know, by the end of the conversation, you've been asking just relationally curious questions. So you've been asking, you know, what's on your mind? What's the real challenge here for you? What do you want? Things that keep you completely out of it. Let's say by the end of that, they come up with the solution and it's the aame solution that you were thinking of right off the top. Shannon Minifie [00:26:20]: So that's great. So your years of experience would have saved 15 minutes or whatever. Dave Stachowiak [00:26:25]: Yeah. Shannon Minifie [00:26:25]: But when it really did, the real impact there is that that person came, they got there themselves. Dave Stachowiak [00:26:32]: Yeah. Shannon Minifie [00:26:33]: And that's the win as well. Right. Like, now they. They feel emboldened. They feel like, I know what I'm doing. Ha. I worked through that. I got to another level of thinking. Shannon Minifie [00:26:44]: And now your role is to help them get there rather than to tell them what to do. And that is so different and important. So I think that it's that second scenario that's really worth contemplating too. Dave Stachowiak [00:26:55]: Yes. And that's the part I probably still miss. And need to get more consistent at it. And, and when you, when that's done well, that person has ownership over that idea. They have agency over it. They're so much more likely to move on it when it's there. I mean, Marshall Goldsmith taught us all this, like, 20 years ago. And what got you here won't get you there. Dave Stachowiak [00:27:16]: But we still, like, all fall into the trap of missing this regularly. But if you allow the other person ownership and it's their idea and it's their boy, that's so much more powerful. Shannon Minifie [00:27:27]: Yeah. And, just to remind leaders, too, it's so much more powerful for, for the people on your team, they are way more committed to that work. But also, leaders are tired, too. It's a really stressful thing to feel like you have to come up with everyone else's solutions all the time. Right. So it's, it's also a way of helping you to relieve yourself of that burden. Right. Shannon Minifie [00:27:50]: Like, you don't have to work so hard. You have to work harder at trying to stay curious in this really specific way and less hard at trying to come up with solutions for other people. So it's shifting where your energy is and where your focus is as a leader and how you're thinking about how you add value. Dave Stachowiak [00:28:06]: Yeah. And so a lot of that's kind of the thinking, the mindset. What's different about what we say when we're really in the moment and asking more relational curiosity questions. What does that sound like? Shannon Minifie [00:28:21]: Yeah. So questions that are. So. So we make this really proof in, in. In the, in the work that we do with organizations. We give people questions and a question we get a lot from. From leaders we're working with and folks we're working with is, you know, can I just riff off of this question a little bit, and there are probably some edits to the questions that would make sense. But most of the time we say, you know, just try to ask these questions because they leave you out of it. Shannon Minifie [00:28:48]: So a relationally make sure that you're not driving where the conversation is going. Right. So a conversation that narrows in on a specific item or that asks why. Why questions are often less relationally curious because they're clarifying for you why someone did something as opposed to what questions. So the seven essential questions for us are all what questions? What's on your mind? What's the real challenge here for you? What do you want? What is the same across all of these kinds of questions? Is that the person asking the question, none of their interest is in that question. None of the thing they want to clarify. No rabbit hole they want to go down. Shannon Minifie [00:29:37]: They haven't inserted themselves into those questions at all. Dave Stachowiak [00:29:40]: Yeah. And that has been one thing that I've been so grateful to learn from you and Michael over the years of just that invitation to substitute the word why with the word what. Because when we ask the why, there's the tendency to put the- especially when there's a power dynamic at play, like, you know, manager in play, there's a tendency to put the other person on the defensive. Why did you do this? Like, sounds very. And tone obviously matters too, but it's very different than what led you to go down this path. Dave Stachowiak [00:30:17]: There's a very different context and tone of the conversation that emerges that tends to be more relationally curious than if you're just trying to, like, figure out what happened. Shannon Minifie [00:30:26]: That's right. And it continues to uncover things that the, you know, that the person might not have thought of themselves. So asking a question like, what led you down this path? You might have some idea about why they're down that path. And then you're about to be proven wr wrong as they contemplate that question anew. So I think the what questions continue to peel like an onion. Things that, In a way that just relinquishes control from the asker. So I know that feels like a vague, too theoretical of an answer, like, oh, relationally curious questions allow you to relinquish control. Shannon Minifie [00:31:01]: But I think the easiest thing to do is grab the seven essential questions and any of the other questions we have to offer and try those out. Shannon Minifie [00:31:10]: But the other thing to do is to ask yourself, what is my goal in. In asking this question? Am I asking that to confirm something I already think? Am I leading people down? You know, am I trying to control the situation we, we talk about like being aware of and trying to tame your advice monster. So this is the habit around giving advice or, or steering people toward a specific end, Right? So are you wanting to give advice because you want to look smart? Do you think you need to have the answer? Are you trying to save the situation? Like, you're worried that you don't trust this person and so you need to jump in and intervene? Are you trying to control the situation and guide it in a certain direction? So maybe just being aware of what am I doing when I'm doing what I'm doing and then think about what's motivating you asking those questions. Dave Stachowiak [00:32:06]: Thank you for painting that picture. And we're looking at the big picture here, the mindset for all of us. And the beauty is, of course, we've talked talk with Michael before on a past episode on the details of those seven questions. We're going to post them in the episode notes for everyone. But also I'd invite folks to go back and listen to a couple of those conversations. I'll mention them at the end that will be helpful. And speaking of resources, two things we'd love to point everyone to that would be great starting points for this. Dave Stachowiak [00:32:34]: One is if you go to the Box of Crayons website. It's boxofcrayons.com Go to the website, you're going to see a link right on the website to download the white paper we've been talking about. And so there's a ton of research and data and statistics we didn't even touch on in this conversation. There's a lot more there. That's a good starting point for getting access to even more of the research and the details of where to go next. The other resource for those who are motivated, Shannon, and want to like, get into something maybe even a little bit more helpful is you all do something called a monthly learning preview. And folks could access that too. Could you share a little bit more about that and how folks would find it? Shannon Minifie [00:33:14]: Yeah, absolutely. So like Dave said, we have a monthly interactive learning preview. It's an opportunity mostly for folks that work in learning and development and HR who are thinking about bringing the coaching habit into their organizations. It's a chance for them to do. It's an hour long. It's about 20, 25 people to do a real deep dive into how this content works. So authenticating through their own practice the kinds of questions that you ask Dave. Right. Shannon Minifie [00:33:40]: Like what's a relational curiosity question? How does that work? How, you know, how does that conversation go? So it's a facilitated, brief learning experience where folks have a chance to actually try some of these questions, understand some of the concepts a little bit more deeply. And we have a specific URL to sign up for that. And I can share it with you, Dave, if you want to share it in your show notes or wherever else you include resources like that. Dave Stachowiak [00:34:02]: Yeah, we'll go ahead and just put it in the links for the episode notes and we'll also have it in our guide as well. So be watching for that when you grab it. Shannon, just one more question for you. One of the things that is true for all of us is we're all learning, we're all growing as we move forward. If you think about just this poll, thinking about the research that's come out of it, and just thinking about your own experience leading Box of Crayons over the last couple years. I'm curious, what, if anything, have you changed your mind on recently in just relation to curiosity or just maybe big picture in your work? Shannon Minifie [00:34:37]: What have I changed my mind on? I think this isn't directly related to the research, but I think one of the things that I'm finding myself needing to be very flexible about is what are the positive impacts of AI? So I think as somebody who comes from the humanities, from the arts, the immediate business uses for productivity and all of that, the medical research, there's all these great uses for generative AI. And I think I found myself immediately worried about the arts and my friends in the arts and all of that and in learning as well, where AI is disrupting learning and disrupting education, but also presenting really new and interesting opportunities. I think I'm trying to remain malleable about what the opportunities, the good opportunities are for generative AI in learning and development and for the way that we continue to shape the kind of value that we can add as learning and development professionals in a GenAI world. So I'm trying to keep an open mind as I learn constantly and every day. Dave Stachowiak [00:35:47]: Yeah, it's a journey we're all on in this process as the world changes, isn't it? Yeah. Thanks for saying that. Shannon Minifie is the CEO of Box of Crayons. The new white paper is Navigating a Fractured Workplace. It's at boxofcrans.com. Shannon, thank you always for your work and sharing your time with us. Shannon Minifie [00:36:04]: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. Dave Stachowiak [00:36:12]: If this conversation was helpful to you three additional episodes I'd recommend one of them is episode 237. These Coaching Questions Get Results. I did a deep dive with Michael Bungay Stanier in that conversation on the seven essential questions from the Coaching Habit. We mentioned those in this conversation. A lot more detail in episode 237. A great starting point, as is the book the Coaching Habit. Another conversation with Michael, episode 458 will also be helpful to you. The Way to Be More Coach-Like we had a conversation in that episode about Michael's book the Advice Trap and the trap that we often fall into of giving advice, of feeling like we are the smartest person in the room. Dave Stachowiak [00:36:55]: We have the most experience sometimes, and yet oftentimes that causes us to miss the curiosity we talked about in this conversation. Episode 458 A great complement to this. And then also recommended episode 454 How to Ask Better Questions. David Marquet, bestselling author of the book Turn the Ship around, one of the best leadership books I've read in the last decade, walked us through how he invites leaders to think about asking better questions in order to be curious and to hear the things that we often miss. This I think it is one of the most important conversations we've had on the podcast over the years. And if you took one step from one of those actions that David recommends in episode 454, I think you'll find yourself asking substantially better questions and more importantly, hearing the things you're not hearing today. All of those episodes, of course, you can find on the coachingforleaders.com website. And speaking of David and Michael and Shannon and so many of the experts in that have come on the show over the years, I've been so fortunate to be able to recommend. Dave Stachowiak [00:37:59]: I don't know how many times I've recommended the Coaching Habit and Box of Crayons to so many of our listeners and organizations. And folks always come back to me and say how helpful the book, the work they've done, has been in supporting them. So thank you Michael and Shannon for all the support over the years. And of course I've had the opportunity not only with them, but with many experts who've come on the show to build partnerships over this time. And if you are looking for a partner right now, maybe it is a keynote speaker, maybe it is a coach for yourself or perhaps a coach for someone in your organization. If you're on a talent development or HR team or you're looking for an expert in some other capacity. Our Expert Partner Program is a good place to start. Dave Stachowiak [00:38:40]: Just go over to coachingforleaders.com/partners. You'll see some details there on how to tell us what you're seeking. I'll review your request, come back to you with some recommendations of folks who are expert partners of Coaching for Leaders that might be supportive to you. So if you don't know where to start, that's a great place to start. Again, go over to coachingforleaders.com/partners to get in touch and to discover a bit more. Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Kroeger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. Next Monday I'm glad to have Steve Blank back on the show. Dave Stachowiak [00:39:13]: We are going to be talking about how to innovate better through disruption. Certainly a lot of disruption happening in the world right now. Steve and I will be talking about what we can do in the midst of it. Join me for that conversation with Steve and see you back next Monday.