How to Work with (Almost) Anyone

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Navigating the evolving landscape of work, the focus is increasingly on building meaningful relationships. In this episode we are joined by Michael Bungay Stanier, a thought leader on leadership coaching, he emphasized having intentional “keystone conversations” to align on how you will collaborate.

This involves asking and answering 5 powerful questions:

The Amplify Question: What’s your best? Understand what ignites someone's passion.
The Steady Question: What are your practices and preferences? Learn how someone works best.
The Good Date Question: What can you learn from successful past relationships? Draw on what has worked before.
The Bad Date Question: What can you learn from frustrating past relationships? Take responsibility for your role.
The Repair Question: How will you fix it when things go wrong? Have a plan to reconnect.

"Have these conversations before diving into the work. Set the relationship up for success," Michael advised. He also shared principles for maintaining connections, including openness, constantly adjusting, and repairing quickly.

Michael invites you to initiate these relationship-building keystone conversations. "Be the one who reaches out first,".

Want to work better with almost anyone? Enjoy the full discussion and be sure to grab a copy of his book, How to Work with Almost Anyone.

Episode Highlights

Why working relationships are so critical to your success and happiness
The Five Questions for Building the Best Possible Relationships
Practical exercises you can do to deepen self-awareness

Recommended Resources

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Grab a copy of How to Work with Almost Anyone
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🎙️ Automatically generated Podcast Transcript

Michael 0:00

When we say, gives me feedback, that might mean something very different to you than it might mean to me. Like I love feedback as well. But you might go, Look, here's how I like my feedback, somebody takes me down the pub tells me that I'm doing great. And then says, here's the one thing you should do differently. Whereas I'm like, here's what I love. I'm like immediately just be blunt and get to it. I just don't hear enough of where I couldn't improve. And I'm really hungry for that. So give me the three things and given to me fast.

Chris Rainey 0:35

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the HR leaders podcast. In today's episode, I'm joined by Michael Bungay. Steiner, who is a number one thought leader and keynote speaker on leadership and coaching. He's also offered the best selling books, the Coaching Habit, and the advice trap. And today we're going to be talking about his new book, how to work with almost anyone join the podcast, Michael shares, while working relationships are so critical to your success and happiness. The five questions are building the best possible relationships, and practical exercises that you can do to deepen self awareness. As always, before we jump into the video, make sure hit the subscribe button, turn on notification bell and follow on your favourite podcast platform. With that being said, let's jump in. Michael, welcome to the show. How are you?

Michael 1:21

I'm Grant. Thanks for having me back.

Chris Rainey 1:24

It's nice to see you again. I said to you before we went live two books in two years, or is it three books in three years? I

Michael 1:30

think it's three books in three years. I had this insight that of all the things I do, the thing they do that's most useful and most unique is being a writer, you know, actually having a book doesn't necessarily it's like a trailing indicator of success of a commitment to being a writer. Rather than trying to write books around all the other stuff that I I have done, I've tried to put writing at the heart of it and do the other stuff around the edges. And it means that at the moment, I'm on a bit of a run with books,

Chris Rainey 1:59

also the new book how to work with almost anyone, it's the best time I've ever come up with was almost added after. Oh, did you? Well,

Michael 2:08

yeah, exactly. We played around with it. And I was like, I can't call a book how to work with anyone. I don't know how to work with anyone. Yeah, but how to work with almost anyone. I'm like, I can take a good crack at that. Yeah.

Chris Rainey 2:18

What was the inspiration behind this book,

Michael 2:20

it kind of had a long term inspiration and a kind of catalyst to actually write the thing that the long term is, for 25 years, I've been doing something that I was taught by Peter block, who's a great management writer and thinker called Social contracting, which is how should we work together? It's kind of building that. And I thought it was a really powerful tool, but not well known. And not well explained, was kind of a casual throwaway thing from Peter rather than a central part of what he teaches, with people in my team and with bosses and with clients. And with vendors. I've been having these conversations about how do we work well together, then the catalyst was a couple of years ago, my dad was dying. And I was back in Australia, living in my family home helping mum and dad with that terrible process. And for all sorts of obvious reasons, mum and dad were a kind of bit a bit fractious with each other, you know, Dad had survived a stint in the emergency unit, the ICU, and he'd come home and he was living in a hospital bed, we knew dad had a terminal illness, we knew that we didn't know for how long and mum and dad were having to live and operate in a new way for each other. They had 56 years of a really great relationship. I mean, they are a real kind of role model couple, they loved each other, they supported each other, they parented well, all sorts of great stuff. And I didn't want that to be the last memory for dad or for mum. So I actually suggested based on this idea of a conversation about how you be together rather than the stuff that needs to be done, that they sit and have that conversation, how do you want to be together for the last weeks or months of Dad's life, and it was absolutely as awkward as you would imagine. This is not something that my family does, particularly they're like mum and dad were like, that sounds terrible. And I was like, it does sound terrible, but it sounds better than what's going on at the moment. And so they had that conversation they did brilliantly at it. And it has created a connection and a piece in the last weeks of of Dad's life. And so I started writing another book. And it turned into this book and I think because of what was going on with mom and dad and me being part of that with them. So that was the kind of the catalyst that made the book happen.

Chris Rainey 4:29

Wow, that's such a powerful So firstly, sorry to hear about that. But what a powerful story and you know, just sort of lasting emotion, etc, that you've then translated into the book. It's truly part of you. You know, we say boo sailor books are part of you. But this is really, truly it says,

Michael 4:51

I'm really proud of that moment. You know, there's a bunch of reasons I'm proud of, but you know, when you do something like that, and I'm like, I'm helping my dad and my mom I'm manage my dad's death with some equanimity and a way of close to having a better memory of how that was, that feels like a really good contribution to the world. So yeah, I'm proud of that.

Chris Rainey 5:12

Love it, break that down a little bit more, you know, why are our relationships so critical to our success and happiness,

Michael 5:19

I just I, you know, our work happens through the people with whom we work, I mean, think of your best working relationship, and how good those are, and how they stretch you and challenge you and grow you and make you feel safe and make make you feel like the best of who you can be. Maybe like your relationship with your founder, you know, your co founder, you're like, This is great. I like doing this work. But I really like doing it with you because we elevate each other. And then if you flipped out and you think of like, the worst working relationships you've had, and we've all had those where you're like that I I lose my sense of self, I lose my confidence, the quality of my work drops the courage I have, you kind of get diminished. John Dunn said years ago, no man is an island, no person is an island, we work through people, we are interrelation, that is the nature of human beings. But with our working relationships, most of the time, we just cross our fingers. And we hope for the best. We're like, Okay, hopefully this won't suck. Hopefully, this will be good. And rather than being passive about it, I think there's a way that you can more actively shape the key working relationships you have so that they can be the best version of whatever that relationship might be.

Chris Rainey 6:31

Before we get into that part, what are the signs of a great working relationship?

Michael 6:37

Well, let me ask you that, you know, when you think of the best working relationships that you've been in, how do you know what's what's the what are the clues, you pick up

Chris Rainey 6:47

someone that I can be vulnerable around? Yeah, you know, not not worried about me, you know, they're gonna judge me, and I'll be worried about making mistakes. I think that'd be one. People that have empathy, that have been super important people to give me feedback, brilliant value that those of you that just immediately he does it immediately.

Michael 7:08

So what here's what's interesting about that, this, Chris, that is both generically true for the most part for most of us, and also specific to you, if you and I were looking to work together, if I was like, Hey, I've got this idea of a new podcast that will supplement this one brilliantly, it'll be like, it'll be that it'll be like the spin off. It'll be, it'll be like the Better Call Saul, to your to your Breaking Bad. And so how do we work well, together, what I would do is I go, so when you work with somebody, and you partner up with somebody, and it's been really brilliant, what happened? What did they do? What did you do? And then you would tell me some of that stuff, and you tell me more. And then I would say, now, let me tell you what's true about me. And I tell you my best and the probability is a bunch of stuff that would overlap. But there's a bunch of stuff that would not quite overlap, or when we say, gives me feedback, that might mean something very different to you than it might mean to me like I love feedback as well. But you might go, Look, here's how I like my feedback, somebody takes me down the pub tells me that I'm doing great and then says, here's the one thing you should do differently. Whereas I'm like, here's what I love. I'm like, immediately just be blunt and get to it. I just don't hear enough of where I couldn't improve. And I'm really hungry for that. So give me the three things and given to me fast. You know, it's it's same but different. Everybody knows everybody's had experience, I hope have some working relationships that were really great. Part of the work for you to do is to become articulate about it. Because Chris, you know, when I asked you, you're like, Oh, you went up into your head, I can see your eyes go up. Oh, let me let me figure that out. What what are the attributes of a best working relationship? What makes our conversation more powerful is if you already know that you've already done the work, you've got more specific and more granular, and you have some stories to tell me. Then I'm like, I really get what lights Chris up? What what's the nature of those relationships? He really gets what lights me up, now we've got a better chance of actually doing some magic together.

Chris Rainey 9:12

And it is that what you refer to as the Keystone conversation,

Michael 9:16

that's part of the Keystone conversation. So the key idea in the book is this idea of building a best possible relationship, a relationship that's safe, and vital and repairable. In other words, we're not in some weird fantasy where we're like, oh, every relationship is going to be amazing and full of you know, unicorns, burping rainbows. I mean, that's not how life works. But every relationship can be the best possible version of itself. And then the key tactic is have a conversation about how you work together before you get into the work, or if you're already into the work, pause and have a conversation about how you want to work together. So you and I started a conversation and we're starting with one of the great questions which is like the I would call it the good day. Question number three. He says like, what can we learn from past successful relationships? And when you and I traded information, we're already off to a great start. Because we're like, Well, I'd like this to be a successful relationship. So we should do more of that. So that we weren't, we have the best chance of hitting it out of the park.

Chris Rainey 10:16

And I like the fact that you before we started the podcast, you asked me that question. What's right, what makes a great podcast guest?

Michael 10:23

Thanks for bringing it up. Because sometimes when you when you hear this idea of a keystone conversation, it feels like Oh, that feels like it's gonna be big and heavy. And we've got to be in a therapists couch or something to have. But actually, I mean, you and I just did a three minute check in before we started. If I had been on my game, what I would have done is I've gone brilliant, I've got it. Let me tell you what makes a great host for me. Oh, yeah, that'd have been great. Yeah, I didn't play do my bit, which was to not only ask but also to answer. Because if I said, Look, here's what I love and a host, I love it when they pursue whatever interests them. So they don't have to rattle through the list of questions, but they're like, ah, let's geek out about this thing. There's a bit of banter. There's a little bit of banter back and forth. I'm like, I like that because I like you. I'm Australian, I like a bit of banter. And if they get me to teach something, or talk about something that I might not have got to in other podcasts, then that's cool as well. If I if I done this properly, I would have given us something to work with as well, whereas you gave me something to work with? I'm

Chris Rainey 11:25

gonna start asking that question to my guests. I love that question. Firstly, how do you prepare for a keystone compensation? What things you're thinking about before that,

Michael 11:34

there's a few things you want to think about as preparation. One is, who are the key people who the people whose relationship with you drive some form of happiness and success. So sometimes that's short, if you lead a team, that can be the people on your team, if you have a boss, it can be your boss. If you're working in an HR function, it can be the partners that you're working with, you know, if you're an HRBP, you're like, who am I? Who my clients and who do I serve? It's like, as you look around, there are people with both direct lines of kind of reportage and got headlines really like these people influenced my success and happiness. So that's the first preparation, which is like, who, where do I start? The second might be to go well, who's on my almost list? In other words, I'm just looking to have a conversation with that person, it's too hard, too big to broken to rubbish. I'm not I'm not up for that. You might have one or two or three of those people. But that leaves everybody else, you got a lot of people where you can actually go, what if we were more active about shaping this,

Chris Rainey 12:38

the first person against my mind was my wife. Right? That one first, in terms of the impact on my life, and vice versa? I

Michael 12:47

mean, I draw a lot on people who write about intimate relationships. So you know, people like Esther Parral and John Gottman, basically all these people carry real people who study couples write about couples talk about couples, you know, I dug into all of their work in preparation for this. So it is true. I think that some of this work moves over to those more intimate relationships. I mean, my wife and I are going through these five questions of the Keystone conversation as we speak. She's like, dude, you've written a book about this. Why are we having these conversations? I'm like, I know, because I'm coward. But I should do this. But you know, the books written for for work relationships in particular. But if it's into into relationships, that you and your wife, then that's a that's a, an extra wind for me. We spoke

Chris Rainey 13:38

about number free, remind me the name. Yeah, remind me of that question. Again,

Michael 13:42

I call that the good day clickbait question, what's the learn from successful past relationships? Okay,

Chris Rainey 13:48

so what's number one? Let's go through them.

Michael 13:49

This is the next phase of the preparation, which is like know, the five questions and think about your answers for them, spend a bit of time with them. And in the book, there are kind of three exercises for every question. So you've got a chance to get more practical and more tactical and more specific and more granular about your answers to these questions. So number one is the AMPLIFi question. It's a little similar to the grid day question. But now the question is, what's your best and what I mean by that, Chris is when do you shine and when do you Flow? Know that your flow state we've heard about that from just how I mispronounced that check psychologists name me he sent me Hey, that's approximately go read time speeds up and slows down and you're in the zone and you're like, stretch, stretch too much. And you're like, Oh, I love this stuff. That's me in the flow state. And shine is more a kind of outside in thing which is like when you see somebody light up when you see them get excited when you see them kind of go, wow. in HR, we often are asking people things like, you know, so what are you good at? Or what are your values or what are your strengths? I don't I don't really love any of those questions. I mean, what are you good at? I'm good at A bunch of things that I would be happy to never ever do ever again in my entire life. So I don't actually want to tell you all that.

Chris Rainey 15:06

That's a good point. Yeah, it doesn't ever want to

Michael 15:08

tell you stuff that I'm fulfilled by and lit up by and kind of puts me in the flow state. You know, when people come to me and they go, Well, let me tell you my five strengths, because I've done the StrengthsFinder thing as I buy, I'm like, first of all, I can never quite remember my five strengths, when I think forgetfulness is one of them. And I can't remember the other four. But when they go, Well, Michael, here are my four strengths. And I'm like, that's cool. It, I'm glad that's helpful for you. It's not helpful for me in terms of actually knowing how to work with you. But when you say, tell me when you shine, tell me when you flow, then I go. So how do I get you into that state as often as possible? So let me put you on the spot. You know, if I asked you when you shine, when do you flow? What would come to mind for you,

Chris Rainey 15:54

I would say in sales, is I love I like this quite a strange thing is that a lot of people like hate the whole idea of seven, eight. I love selling like it gives them so it's like Shane, my co founder is the opposite. He doesn't like it, you know, whereas I love the whole the science behind it. The relationships, the value we bring our clients, like just everything is technology surrounding it, anything and everything.

Michael 16:19

Here's what's cool about asking that question, people shine, and they flow when they tell you the answer. Oh, yes. Visibly, you visibly lit up on screen as I'm working. Yeah, talking about that. You're like, I love this stuff. Yeah. And you're right. You know, this is what I would not have guessed that about you. I would have guessed. You're doing podcast interviews, because I'm like, that's how I know you. And that's, that's

Chris Rainey 16:43

part of it, though. Right? So I didn't realise until a few years ago that this the same thing? Because I'm asking open questions during my sales process, right? I'm having great conversations. I'm learning more about you. And the work that you do that's super closely linked it. So my passion for sales is about extracting value, and understanding the puzzle and talking to

Michael 17:04

curiosity. And we I think you and I agree violently, that curiosity is this thing that just unlocked so many interesting things. And it's not just a kind of I'm coaching you in the workplace, it is like, if you can be a curious salesperson, then you're just going to be successful. Because, you know, the one of the key flaws in sales is people like I've got a thing. I'm going to sell it to you. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, why don't you find out what my problem is first. And when you've got that, then you'll know whether you want to sell me something or recommend something else, perhaps. So you laid out when your sales? And I'm like, How brilliant is it for me to know that because, you know, for me, I would tell you where I love is heading over to my little desk over there. And designing the next thing, like creating something that has a really clear arc to it that feels practical and useful of stripping away excess content, because they're all my books and programmes I'm like, What's the least I can teach that would be the most useful of finding metaphors or, or language handles so people can get their mind around an abstract thing. I mean, in some ways, this book, how to work with almost anyone is how to do psychological safety. And so psychological safety and Amy Edmondson 's work exists as an idea and a theory for most people. Everybody's for it. But if I guess but how do you do that? It was like that. And I'm like, so a BPR best possible relationship is an embodiment of psychological safety manifests between two people, that moment where I'm like, Oh, the best possible relationship, that is a cool way to describe that. That's when I'm shining and flowing. I'm like, I love that design stuff.

Chris Rainey 18:46

Now I know that about you, I can see that also reflected in your work now,

Michael 18:50

like the Coaching Habit, which is the book I'm best known for. It's like it and weird coaching. So a whole bunch of people who are like, I don't want to be a coach at some weird HR stuff. I like, Oh, if this is a coaching, I can probably take a crack at that. Love that I can do that. I can love that moment. And so if you and I figured out how to work together, we're like, okay, how do I get you into that sales role in a kind of more broadly defined way that we've talked about? And how do you get me into that design role? Now, we're both giving this relationship the best chance to be the best it can be because we know how to bring out each other's best. What

Chris Rainey 19:29

are the exact words you'd use to invite someone to a keystone conversation? How would you position it?

Michael 19:34

I think it depends on the person. And it depends on the moment on the context. Like I didn't use any words, to invite you to a keystone conversation. I just said, Hey, before you hit record, what what what's your What are your best guests for you know, if you're thinking of your very best guests, how do I be that for you? So we had a kind of mini Keystone conversation without any pallava without any preparation without any kind of awkwardly phrased email For relationships that may be going a little deeper and a little longer. I just tried to make it feel as useful and accessible as important. So I'd say, Hey, Chris, I'm excited to start working with you. What would be really helpful for me is if we just had a conversation about how we best work together before we get into the work, because I really want this to be a great working relationship. And I've just learned that when we talk about how do we bring out each other's best, that's actually really helpful. Love. Here are five questions that I'm thinking about. Maybe you want to have a think about them, too. And I reckon if we put aside half an hour to get that conversation started, that could be really helpful. Yeah, what

Chris Rainey 20:38

a great way to start a relationship or project or etc.

Michael 20:41

Because the thing is, the work is always screaming at you come and do the work. Because it's exciting, or it's a crisis, or it's important, or you're overwhelmed, and you're like, Alright, man, we just gotta get on with it. Let's crack on with it. And hopefully, you and I will get along fine. But we've got to solve this problem out. I mean, even know, the Coaching Habit, one of the very first questions is, what's the real challenge here for you? It's, it's about the work. But if we go, Hey, we've got to crack on with this. But before we do, how do we best work together so that when we turn our attention to the work, we've got every chance of doing our very best for that, that's powerful for the work, but it's also powerful for me making a long term, longer term statement about I value our relationship, I'm going to do the best I can to make this awesome for you.

Chris Rainey 21:25

And we say all the time, right? It's normally it's not the work itself, that normally is the is the is the weak link. It's the people exactly in the process. People

Michael 21:34

join organisations, but leave managers. I mean, we've all heard that. I mean, in HR, you hear that every day, like, so help your people, be the managers that people don't leave. And if you are a manager, don't be that manager. And one of the ways you do that is more actively shaping the working relationships that you have that are important. Are

Chris Rainey 21:57

the questions in a particular order for Is there a rationale behind asking them in the order of one to five, they don't

Michael 22:04

have to go in that order. But the first question, what's your best deliberately starts with? How do we amplify what's working? The second question, which is the study question, which is, what are your practices and preferences? Is there because it's a relatively easy question to get into? Because like, you know, what are the what's the minutiae about how you work, you know, it's like, my name is Michael, it's not Mike. My surname is Bungay Stanier. That's how you say it. And even though there's no hyphen, it's actually my surname, it's like an invisible hyphen, your 10 years ago, nobody talks about pronouns. But now you might want to go here, my pronouns, because that's just one of the courtesies that we show with people now. And then they can get into little things like, you know, I'm not that good at Slack. I'm better at email. I tend to send emails from 6am onwards, but I don't expect you to respond to them. I do like a response to an email within three days, like I just had a conversation with my assistant, or we use Asana, which is like a project management task thing, she's regularly putting things on there for me to do. And I'm super fussy about how it's written. I'm like, A, it needs to start with a verb. Because years ago, I studied with a guy called David Allen, who wrote getting things done or get things done, which is like one of the first productivity books and he's like, if it's a to do list, you have to have the verb, otherwise, you don't know what to do. And I'm like, That's right. And also, I like my two dues to start with a capital letter, not a non capital letter. So I know it's like, weirdly specific, but I get really irritated. If I don't have the

Chris Rainey 23:43

same note like leat with Lisa, my assistant, she will write me things to do, but not be specific about what it is. And I'm like, oh, now I'm spending a lot of energy trying to figure out what is the thing I need to do? And if

Michael 23:56

you have a conversation with Lisa, right at the start, or now where you're like, let me tell you what an amazing to do list looks like for me. She's like, Oh, I didn't even occurred to me. Why would it not?

Chris Rainey 24:09

We did it, we did have that conversation. And it's been amazing, since part of the value

Michael 24:13

of preparing this and also just getting old, is you just learn a bunch of what your quirks are. And like this is just how I work. This is what it means. This is what this is how we don't weirdly step on each other's toes by not understanding our working practices. So number three is a good day. Question number four, which is the flip side, the bad day question is what can we learn from past frustrating relationships? So with the good date and the bad day question, the key insight is that our patterns from the past repeat again in our future, so rather than pretending that they don't learn from it, and have a conversation about the best and the worst from your past, and my recommendation, here's the kind of twist on this one. When you talk about your, your really good working relationships, put more weight on what the other person did. Because that's really helpful for me to hear, which is I, how do I make this relationship great for you, when you talk about your bad or frustrating working relationships, put more weight on your role in that. Because, you know, when you talk about your frustrating working relationships, a temptation is to say, the other person was a complete sociopath, they were a nightmare. They were terrible. They were horrible. I hate them. And I'm like, That's against that. But it's not that useful for me. If you then if I go, Hey, Chris, this is how I tend to screw up relationships. These are my patterns, here's how I collude with a relationship being less than it might be. So if you see me doing that helped me get out of that, because I'm not deliberately but I have a pattern of undermining relationships by doing that. That is like goodness, what a gift that is, what a patent and what an act of vulnerability and

Chris Rainey 26:01

the vulnerability and trust that that builds, that you'll be invulnerable straightaways is very important.

Michael 26:07

When I asked you, you know what, you know, when you think of your best working relationship, you're like, the first answer you had was that there's a degree of vulnerability. So I'm like, let me tell you how I screw up relationships. I know that's useful for you in the moment. But I also know that it is contributing to something that really matters to you, which is me being vulnerable in a relationship. And so I'm kind of doubling down on this, I want to work well with Chris. And so I'm trying to give him what he wants, so that he can see my commitment to this working relationship.

Chris Rainey 26:38

You mentioned, you've got exercises for each question, what would be an exercise? Yeah, that you could do for that. The first

Michael 26:43

exercise to work on is this idea of what was my role

Chris Rainey 26:49

in, in, in the schools, write it down? Like write down literally write

Michael 26:53

it down? What did I say? What did I do? What did I not say? What did I not do that contributed to a relationship falling apart? And what you'll notice over time, is that there's, there's patterns that repeat, this is the thing you always do, if you want to go deeper, or kind of kind of slightly adjacent. One of the exercises is how do I get misinterpreted? Because you have this moment where you're like, somebody goes, Oh, you did the thing. And it means this, and you're like, I don't remember doing the thing. B, it definitely doesn't mean the thing that you're making it up to be this idea of when I do x, it means this not that is a really powerful piece of self awareness. I'll give you a very specific example. When I am thinking, when I'm kind of wrestling with a challenge, trying to figure something out. I get a really grumpy face on it most of the time. I'm like, Yeah, I how I'm known as, like, pretty positive. And I'm pretty animated. And I'm pretty smiling cuz like you're getting me. And when I'm, we're in a conversation. I'm trying to figure it out. I kind of get this, you know, what do they call it? Resting grumpy face. Yeah. And I remember having this conversation with somebody who was on my team. And kind of in the exit interview, really, she was like, how are you? You're always so angry. I'm like, I'm the least angry person in the world. I've like I have literally never lost my temper with you or anybody on this team. Because I am I do not have anger issues I have. I was so taken aback. And I'm like, what, what do you mean, she's like, got this stormy face. And it was always like, you're so angry. And I couldn't even say the things I wanted to say. I was like, What is that about? I'm like, Oh, my goodness, that's just me just actually being engaged in what she was telling me. So having that degree of self awareness, which is like, look, when I do this, it means this, it doesn't mean that when I don't return your email, it doesn't mean that I hate you, or I think your email sucks or your idea is bad. It means that I have regular periods where I just get besieged by email, and I become a bottleneck. And somebody wants to call me the vice president of bottlenecking of my company I'm like, so it doesn't mean it's about you. It often means about me, here's how you manage that. I'm just learning from the screw ups. Let me tell you how I screwed it up. Let me tell you how to manage me when I screw it up because I will screw it up.

Chris Rainey 29:28

I love that. You're saying upfront. It's so interesting to use that exact example like I was speaking to Lauren Chu Sousa, Chief People Officer of Lego, and that was actually

Michael 29:38

he blurbed the book. Oh, Diddy. Yeah, it's like he

Chris Rainey 29:42

that's one of his that's one of his ones that he thinks when he when he's, you know, he's rested. His face looks like he's angry or upset. But he's actually just thinking and comfortable letting you know what you've just did conversation. And actually that means

Michael 29:55

pretend that my book which he's read inspired him to have So, Self Realisation which he's been sharing with you. Yeah, I think that's probably not true. But it's a man can dream. Love

Chris Rainey 30:06

it, you speak about the six principles of maintenance, you kind of walk us through that

Michael 30:13

the principles are split into two groups. One is a kind of being principles is like your mindset around how you do it. And then there's some kind of practical things to do as well. But the starting point is, is to realise that having a BPR best possible relationship kind of has these three phases. One is you do some preparation, thinking about your answers to the questions thinking about who you want to have a keystone conversation with. Secondly, you have a keystone conversation where you ask and answer the five questions. The fifth question, by the way, is the repair question, how do we fix this when things get wrong? And then the third phase, which is the longest and ongoing phases maintenance, which is like so how do you keep this in kind of fine tuned, because I mean, it'd be nice if you just had one conversation, and then it was miraculously amazing Forever After, but that's not how it works. You need to look after it, you know, like a gardener does, or like a mechanic does. Everything needs fine tuning, the being principles, being open hearted, meaning being generous to what's going on, being open minded, meaning being curious as to what's going on, and being open handed meaning to kind of share what's going on for you and not be to ward off to kind of be vulnerable to the extent that is appropriate in that relationship. So there's just a ways of showing up around an openness, because at the heart of this, and building relationship is an invitation to be more open, to be more connected to be more human. And then there are the kind of practical things that you you want to do, which is like, adjust always, you're constantly want to be fine tuning relationship, if we were doing a podcast together, and we were like, We were co hosts, this is our first episode. At the end of it, I'd be going so how do we do? What should we do more of what should we do less of? Or what should we stop doing all together? If you had one piece of advice for me around how I could be a better co host for you? What's the one piece of advice you'd give me I'd be like, constantly doing this kind of little check ins around that. The second of these doing principles and maintenance is to repair often, the Inside Out offer offices that are working relationships are constantly getting little ripped and a low tone, and a little dented and cracked. Sometimes it's because there's this kind of huge blow up. But that doesn't happen that often. Mostly it's because you know, Miss read email, somebody didn't have breakfast, somebody, somebody's kids are difficult at the moment. And so there's stress at home and misunderstood promise, a minor screw up, which is being kind of was more important to the other person than you realised. This is an ongoing way that, you know, the fabric gets ripped a little bit. And this whole idea of continuing to check in. This is the fifth question, how will we? How will we repair it when things go wrong? It's like it will go wrong to how do we do the small on the big repairs to kind of make it work? You know, one of the questions that I often ask the people I manage and work with is what needs to be said that hasn't yet been said. Oh, I like that one. Yeah, it's really helpful if you are the person in the more senior position, like, you know, I have two small companies. And so and I'm the founder for both of them. So I am the senior person. Not to mention, you know, I've got all the cards of power like tall, straight, white old overeducated, blah, blah, blah, middle aged dude, you know, I got all of that. So I've got to keep finding ways to make it easier for people to tell me the stuff that I need to hear. Because there's all sorts of reasons that I pull some of the oxygen out of the room. So what needs to be said that hasn't yet been said, is understood by the people who I asked that too, because this is part of our Keystone conversation, which is like, what do you need to say that is hard to say? Or fragile or tender, or not yet fully thought through your what's there? Yeah. And then the third and final maintenance principle is something occasionally effectively, like reset as needed. Which is like sometimes you're like, This is broken. We need to stop this, or this is broken, we need to do a proper reset on this which is like, and we need to get somewhat something off my chest, we need to clear the table. We need to do a reboot of this relationship or we need to end this relationship because it's not working before

Chris Rainey 34:48

I let you go kind of what was the what's the one thing you really want people to take away from the book. Now if you if you if people could take away one thing, what do you want them to take away? We've

Michael 34:56

covered a lot of the book so I'm going to allow people to make their own In choice about what's useful for them to take away, it might be the idea of a best possible relationship when it is safe, vital and repairable, it might be the key insight that are working relationships as such key drivers are our happiness and our success. So don't be passive about them, be active about them. It might be getting into the Keystone conversation about how you invite somebody and the five questions. It's like, take the thing that feels most useful for you. But I do have an invitation not what to take away. But what to do. Now an invitation is to be the person who reaches out because it will have occurred to many people here that a keystone conversation feels like a slightly unusual, slightly awkward thing. And it is, even though you can see the power of it and how useful it will be, is not a common thing. Because the work always seems the most important thing. And we put the relationship aside because the work is more urgent. And the relationship is trickier and harder thing to manage. Particularly because so many people listening to this podcast are HR professionals, it's like, take the lead on this be the person who reaches out, somebody said people don't like to be the first one who says hello. But everybody loves to be greeted. So if you're brave enough to say, let's, hey, what if we had a conversation about how we work together? Most of the time, you're gonna have people going short, that sounds really good. The conversation won't work every time. This isn't a kind of plug and play foolproof thing for the 90% of the time that it does work, the benefit for that more than outweighs the 10% of the time where you're like, just didn't quite didn't quite work.

Chris Rainey 36:45

Where can people grab a copy of the book and also connect with you? If they want to learn more?

Michael 36:50

You know, the books are in all the obvious places where you find books, there's a tonne of resources for free at best possible relationship.com. So you can download the five questions. There's like three or four different designs. There's also a video of me role modelling a keystone conversation, actually with one of the people who I work with Ainsley. She's just been promoted to this new role. And we just we just filmed the conversation of her and me going how do we work differently now. So you can see her kind of Keystone conversation in action as best possible relationship. And then for me and my other books and other resources connected to those books. NBS dot works

Chris Rainey 37:29

amazing. And as always everyone listening all those links are below, wherever you're listening, watching whatever platform they're all below. Also, I would say follow me on LinkedIn. I think you do a lot of work on LinkedIn, you create great content now so definitely follow you there but obviously it's a pleasure chatting again, and I'll probably see you soon you're gonna be in London for thinker's 50 All right, yeah, I'll think it's 50 I'll see you in two weeks until my experience is perfect. In a week or so. Yeah, bye bye.