Dialogue Facilitation

Speaking Truth to Power: How to Talk to Your Boss in a Way That Works

A common question among managers and agile coaches learning the skills of coaching others is, “How do I coach up”? In other words, “how do I coach my boss to be a better boss and tell them that I think they are the problem?”

There are two common reasons this question arises: the first is that there has been a specific interaction that has left someone feeling deflated or demoralized. Perhaps they were not heard and understood, or they didn’t like the way they were spoken to. The second reason is that they feel unsupported in their work, or maybe feel like they are being told to lead change while their boss’s behavior keeps rewarding old patterns instead.

This second scenario is part of a bigger issue—and one where it seems like the boss is the “problem.” Instead of creating change, it feels like you’re just slogging through the mud and getting your foot stuck with each step.

But chances are, what’s going on is not something that can be solved as simply as the concept of “coaching up.” In fact, there’s no such thing as “coaching up.” If what you’re actually looking for is the opportunity to give feedback about a specific incident, this is a feedback conversation. But when you’re addressing a bigger, systemic issue, it’s time for something more. Instead of trying to “coach up” or give feedback, try inviting your boss to a Thinking Together Conversation.

Speaking Truth to Power: How to Talk to Your Boss in a Way That Works

The Dark Side of Feedback

What’s missing most from feedback conversations in organizations today is the notion of inquiry. So many of us come into a conversation locked and loaded with our own perspective and the desire to just put our idea out on the table and have it heard. We expect the other person to make sense of what we’ve said and then take the action we desire.

While direct and candid feedback has a place and purpose, the common one-way delivery of one person’s experience can be unbalanced. It assumes that one person has the complete picture, that one person’s ideas are more “right” than the other’s, and that spending time asking someone else for their perspective or input is a waste of time.

This quick, get-in-and-get-out feedback style is what I call “driveby feedback.” It’s not really a conversation at all—it’s a one-way “download.”

No one wants to be told that they’re “doing it wrong,” and if you start from a place of assuming you know what the problem is—and only focus on telling your boss what they are doing wrong and what they need to do more of—it’s a monologic approach that makes you right and them wrong. You’ve invited them into a debate and set them up to either defend the actions they’ve taken or worse yet, just check out within the first few seconds of your conversation.

A Thinking Together Conversation: Speaking Truth!

So, what’s a Thinking Together Conversation and why does it matter? You’re thinking together with your boss in a way that can create real change.

Thinking Together Conversations require

all parties to come to the conversation with genuine curiosity
the assumption that solving the current problem or dilemma cannot be done by just one person
a broader, shared understanding of what’s happening

In a Thinking Together Conversation we

bring questions instead of solutions
invite others into a dialogue instead of a monologue
support the purpose of learning together to craft a better solution
engage in inquiry
engage in a real, meaningful conversation that can shift something important to the dynamic

3 Steps to a Thinking Together Conversation with your Leader: Speaking Truth

Here are some action steps you can take to invite a Thinking Together Conversation:

Step 1: Be clear about your intention.

Why do you want to have this conversation? How do you want to show up in it?

If your answer to either of these questions comes from a place of wanting to reprimand, punish, or blame your boss, then do some work on your own thinking before asking to have a conversation. Coming from that place will not serve anyone, and it definitely does not promote curiosity.

If, however, you’re coming from a place of genuine curiosity and seeking to understand—with a belief that there is more than one side to what’s going on—you’ll be in a much better position to start a real conversation. If you are willing to engage in a way that’s open to hearing different perspectives, both you and your boss will likely learn new information. From there, you will be far more likely to be able to create a new solution together.

Step 2: Create an invitation.

Invite your boss into a conversation for learning and exploration.

Behind every dilemma are multiple truths and perspectives about what’s creating the current situation. So make it inviting for you and your boss to want to come to the table.

Imagine that you’d received the results of a 12-month engagement survey suggesting that your boss’ lack of engagement was impeding progress. You could give driveby feedback that would get you nowhere, or you could create an invitation:

“We just got the survey results back. I would love to have a conversation with you about it and get your thoughts.”
“I notice that the engagement survey shows a ‘lack of engagement by senior management’ as the greatest barrier to our performance. I’m curious what you make of that?”

Understand that when managers are invited to a conversation, they are often expected to solve a problem or have some solution immediately. Instead of replicating that dynamic, try inviting them to a conversation for learning and understanding. Together, you might co-create a solution.

Step 3: Be prepared to offer your observations.

This can be one of the most challenging aspects of a Thinking Together Conversation. It requires you to both be curious about your boss’s experience and perspective and candid about your own observations. David Kantor calls this the speech act of Bystand—a morally neutral observation about what’s happening. To pull it off, you need to be prepared to share what you notice. Pulling from the scenario described above, here’s an example of how you might offer a morally neutral observation about what you see happening while remaining curious about what’s happening for your boss:

“Would it be helpful if I shared what I’ve observed? You asked that we schedule more collaborative planning meetings and include you. We now have these meetings booked every two weeks. However, you have attended 2 of 12 meetings in the past 6 months, and it’s left the team feeling confused and unmotivated. What’s happening on your end that’s pulling you away from these meetings?

Thinking Together Conversations move us away from looking for someone to blame and hold us accountable to the kind of inquiry that supports meaningful dialogue. When we seek to understand multiple perspectives and learn more about what’s happening in the current situation, it’s much easier to discover a new solution that might not exist yet. It’s an effective way of speaking truth to power while creating space for real results.

Speaking Truth: How to Talk to Your Boss in a Way That Works

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Leadership Lessons: The Art of Being with Other Human Beings

Leaders lead companies, boards, teams, groups, cohorts.

In other words, leaders lead… people.

How do leaders do it? How do leaders connect to and stay connected with the people they lead?

Keep on reading!

1 Listening, Not to React, But to Hear

Leaders should be curious. They should listen with intent to hear, not to respond and react to what is being said.

How do you do this?

Intentional listening is a skill that involves suspending judgment while focusing on the person who is talking, giving them undivided attention. Intentional listening is a way of listening to understand what is being said.

Learn more about international listening and curiosity here.

2 Dare to Dialogue

Leaders, I challenge you. Dare to dialogue.

Having real conversations with real people is a leadership skill.

“In dialogue, like in debate, you can have a perspective, but your viewpoint doesn’t guide the conversation. In fact, in dialogue you suspend your point of view, not only to hear the other’s perspective, but to ask them more about it. This is the space of curiosity and inquiry and listening without resistance, because this is where new thinking and innovation live.”

Dialogue is where leaders gain greater insight and agility.

3 Shared Common Interests

The art of being with other human beings requires you to be human. That means showing up as a human and being willing to share that side of you with your team.

Leaders inspire by doing, by leading, by setting the right example.

If you are active on LinkedIn, you will know what I mean. There are so many wonderful leadership stories on LinkedIn these days, great examples of how leaders share common interests, and are showing up for their teams.

4 Body Language

While in 2022 more and more people are working from home, and meetings are often conducted behind a screen, body language continues to be an important tool for leaders to connect with the people on their team.

Sitting behind screens vs being in the same room, makes reading body language a bit more complicated.

In this recent article about hybrid meetings, we emphasized the need for the meeting facilitator to recognize the importance of the webcam!

“As the facilitator, you will have some specific requests for participants in order to make the session the most effective. Be sure to share these, along with other logistics and joining information, with participants ahead of time.”

One camera, one mic, one mouse per person

Be on camera
Be off mute
Be prepared to be called on

Whether you meet with the team you lead in person, virtually or in a hybrid form, being able to read body language is of utmost importance.

Why?

This “7-38-5 rule” states that 7 percent of meaning is communicated through spoken word, 38 percent through tone of voice, and 55 percent through body language. This 7-38-55 rule was developed by psychology professor Albert Mehrabian at the University of California, Los Angeles, who laid out the concept in his 1971 book Silent Messages (1971).

5 Keeping the Connection

Last but not least, leaders put effort into keeping the connection with their team! Everything you do, including the words you use and the energy you have, matters!

Leaders bring the weather!

“Early in my career, I worked at a small startup and we had a private chat channel. When the CEO arrived each morning, someone would give a weather report in the chat. It’s cloudy, it’s sunny, it’s stormy, literally what the mood of the CEO was. This weather report informed my plan and others for the day. On sunny days, I knew I could have important conversations that mattered. If the weather was stormy or cloudy, those were the days that I wanted to lay low and go home early if possible. As leaders, you don’t have to have a title to be a leader, but you bring the weather. So, your words, your energy, your tone, all matter. When you are frantically running down the road, too busy to pause and ask questions, you send the message that there’s no space for conversation here.”

Bring the weather, day after day and stay connected to your team by meeting in small groups like Ahmed Sidky did.

Leadership Lessons. A Journey to Agile Team Facilitation

We invite you, the kind of leader who wants to continue on their leadership journey to check our offering of workshops.

In particular, our virtual Agile team Facilitation Workshop touches on many of the leadership lessons mentioned in this article. If you are a team leader, don’t miss this chance to learn to design and lead engaging, purposeful and fun meetings…and achieve results every time.

3 Reasons Why Leaders Should Never Lose Their Curiosity!

“Curiosity killed the cat”

As a child, I more than once heard this from teachers and adults in my life when I asked questions they didn’t want to answer. Children were to do as they were told, no questions asked.

Back then, children were not to be heard or seen.

What a shame! At no time in our lives is curiosity more powerful than in early childhood as children pick up new language skills, taste new foods, learn to walk, talk, run, ride bikes and explore their surroundings. Children learn by touching, tasting, smelling and seeing. During childhood, they learn more, and faster, than any other time.

Things have changed since I was told that ‘curiosity killed the cat’! Our current generation of children is encouraged, and expected, to ask questions, thank goodness.

While new generations are encouraged to develop their curiosity, there seem to be several generations in leadership positions who still believe what they were told in childhood. These leaders have held onto the old saying that asking or answering (too many) questions is a bad thing.

I am ready to help change that! Let’s explore 3 reasons why leaders should never lose their curiosity!

What Does It Mean to Be Curious as a Leader?

Curiosity is defined as ‘a strong desire to know or learn something.’ That ‘something’ to know or learn about can be anything, including team members and their perspective! In the first episode of my new podcast ‘Defining Moments of Leadership’ Mark Franz and I talk about this very topic. Mark shares how his genuine curiosity eventually led to acknowledging the humans behind the work that needed to be done.

Listen to the FULL EPISODE right now!

1 Curiosity Leads to Intentional Listening

In this article, guest blogger Leslie Zucker further explores this concept of intentional listening.

“If you’re thinking listening is hard with certain people, there is good news! The good news is that to have curiosity in a conversation is simply a relief! It means that you don’t need the answers. You can slow down and relax into the conversation, and simply rely on your innate sense of curiosity.”

I recently had a conversation with Kevin Eikenberry about this topic: “Why is Listening an Important Interpersonal Skill?”

When we master listening, we are able to reach new levels of conversations; most likely deeper and more meaningful ones.

2 Curiosity Leads to an Expanded Leadership Range

With curiosity comes lifelong learning. Leaders who continue on the path of advanced facilitation, coaching and self-mastery, will find that curiosity is often what sets them apart from other leaders in their industry.

“Advanced Facilitation is about increasing self-awareness so you can read the room, name the hidden dynamics beneath the surface, and effectively help groups modify their behaviors to achieve the best possible outcomes.”

Those leaders who are curious enough about their team to read group dynamics do this by focusing on something other than their own ego or personal agenda. Reading group dynamics leads to identifying communication challenges in groups in order to help them unlock the wisdom that resides within; ultimately leading to an expanded leadership range.

3 Curiosity Leads to a Human Approach to Leadership

Isn’t all leadership about humans? You’d think so. However, it’s easy to forget about the human factor when stakes are high. Leaders who are pressured to deliver. Even those with leadership range and listening skills can quickly lose sight of what’s important. A high-pressure situation can create a vacuum of curiosity because leadership becomes more about the work that needs to get done, the product that needs to be delivered to a client, or the data that stakeholders are looking for.

Only when genuine curiosity is applied and leaders start listening to their team members, can transformation take place.

Leadership Conversations

While launching the ‘Defining Moments of Leadership’ podcast, we saw a need to create a dynamic space for leaders to continue the conversation. We have created a Facebook Community for leaders to learn, join conversations with other leaders, and expand their leadership range. You are invited to join us. Apply and become a member today. I can’t wait to see you in the group.

How Do Conversations Work? The First Steps to Effective Dialogue (Part 3)

In the first article of this three-part series, we identified five types of conversations, while in the second article, we looked at examples of these five types of conversations, and what could be accomplished.

In this third and final article in this series of “Daring to Dialogue”, we continue by looking at dialogue more in-depth, trying to gain an understanding of how this conversation works.

Structure of Conversation Determines Performances or Outcome

The first step when we’re aiming for dialogue is to understand how conversations work.

Conversations have a structure, and it’s the structure that actually determines performance or outcome of a conversation, and whether we are more in monologue or dialogue.

Every sentence that we say can be coded into one of four actions, and that’s what makes conversations effective is when we’re able to voice all four of these actions fluently in a conversation. When we’re able to do that, the nature of the conversation changes, and we move from monologue to more skillful conversation and dialogue.

Next, we’re going to walk through these four actions and notice, as I tell you about them, where you might start to place some judgment on one or more of them.

The First Conversation Action Step is ‘Move’

The first action step is ‘move’.

Move initiates. It suggests a new direction or introduces a new idea or concept in the conversation.

For an example, “Let’s go to lunch.” This is a move.

After a move, there are different responses.

Next comes ‘follow’.

For example, “Sounds good,” this is a follow.

Oppose challenges, oppose pushes back on ideas, providing alternatives or corrective action. For example, “No, I can’t today.” This is an oppose.

Bystand bridges. It provides a neutral perspective or inquiry.

For example, “I notice we have two different points of view here,” this is a bystand.

Move and Oppose. Follow and Bystand

Move and oppose are the vocal actions of advocacy or similar to defending, like we have in debate, and follow and bystand are the vocal actions of inquiry.

Here’s the thing, we need both advocacy and inquiry in order to have a skillful conversation.

Skillful Conversation With All Four Actions

My husband and I had a trip planned to Bora Bora, which was a consequence of the pandemic. The other day he said, “Let’s go to Bora Bora.” That was his move. And I followed and I said, “I would love to.” And then I said, “I wonder what the current travel requirements are.” That was my bystand. And then I opposed, and I said, “But even if we could get there, I don’t really want to wear a mask on a plane for 15 hours right now.” It’s just not what I had envisioned. Next, I made a new move and said, “Let’s come back to this in six months and look at it.”

This is an example of a conversation where you can see all four actions happening and we need all four to be voiced and active in the conversation in order for it to be a skillful conversation.

Dialogic Approach vs Monologic Approach

What can a dialogic approach versus a monologic approach get you?

Engaging in dialogue comes from a belief that human beings create, refine, and share knowledge through conversation. And to illustrate the need for dialogue, I want to tell you a quick story.

It’s a tale of two companies. The first one I’ll call “Blue Ocean Tech” and the second I’ll call “First Stack”, both are in the tech sector. These two companies had several similarities, both are about the same age. They were founded about 11 years ago. International organizations with offices worldwide, and Blue Ocean was a bit larger with about a billion in annual revenue and First Stack was about 200 million in revenue.

Both companies were also experiencing what I call a front page crisis. This is where the executive team gets feedback from their organization via the media, on the front page of paper. And as you might imagine, this induces high stakes and it causes a great deal of disruption. So, executives in both of these companies were feeling called out, very blindsided. And as is often the case, one side of the story played out in great drama over the media and the other sides of the story remain untold. Just imagine; for the story to have made its way to the press, there is a great deal of frustration, a lack of feeling heard, and not valued by the employees. And in both cases, a belief that a moral crime had been committed by the executive team.

Here’s where the similarities of those stories end because each company had a choice to either suspend or defend.

First Stack chose to defend. They publicly defended their position and explained why the issue had happened. First Stack hired a consultant, a mediator, and the legal team to draft new policies and processes to fix the problem that they believed had created the mess in the first place. This might sound great, but it has kept the organization stuck in the same dysfunctional patterns that created their crisis in the first place. That was top down, in other words, the chances of them having another Groundhog Day moment are high. First Stack has returned to their old behaviors of monologue and protection. However, they’re filling in their mind, the roles expected of leaders, and yet both sides, employees and executives feel greatly misunderstood and deflated.

Blue Ocean Tech made the choice to suspend. And they publicly took responsibility for what was happening, declined any further comment, noting that they were turning internally to listen. The executives of Blue Ocean Tech began to hold listening sessions in small groups across the company. Executives cleared their calendars and wanted to hear firsthand from employees what was happening. Blue Ocean Tech took action from their first round of dialogue, and then actually continued using that dialogic approach, engaging the whole company from the get go. The conversations have actually shifted the culture in the organization and changed the leadership team for better. They are still working on the outcomes of the story, but the end is pretty promising and the change feels sticky and real, because they are too changing mindset and thinking, not processes and rules. And they are moving forward, but with a very different energy and outcomes than First Stack.

Defend vs Suspend. Different Action, Different Outcome

Let’s get into what happened here. The executives in Blue Ocean Tech are no different from me or First Stack or you, but they had something in place that was different. They had a few key people around them that they trusted, who pushed back and opposed. Their very first instincts encouraged them to start listening without answers or solutions, just listening.

This was daring and brave, and it was completely outside their comfort zone, but they did do it, and the executives in Blue Ocean Tech listened. It seems like the simplest thing in the world to do, and yet it was the hardest for them. They struggled with all the assumptions and the stories that we talked about earlier. But the impact was immediate and people really appreciated being respected and heard.

Listening and asking questions are undervalued and underused because somewhere along the way, we have this story that heroic leadership looks like leading from the front, large, visible, making moves, setting direction, having all the answers.

We also have a story about what unhelpful leadership looks like. It’s passive, it’s not leaderful, it’s not knowing, it’s listening, and that’s the story that First Stack bought into. In First Stack the executives didn’t see at all how prioritizing voices of those lower on the totem pole would align with the internal vision that they held about what leadership should look like and do in this kind of situation. And they were incredibly afraid of opening Pandora’s box if they involve staff. Instead of listening or asking questions, they just moved forward with what they thought should happen.

Leaders Bring The Weather!

The moral of this story is that leaders bring the weather.

Early in my career, I worked at a small startup and we had a private chat channel. When the CEO arrived each morning, someone would give a weather report in the chat. It’s cloudy, it’s sunny, it’s stormy, literally what the mood of the CEO was. This weather report informed my plan and others for the day. On sunny days, I knew I could have important conversations that mattered. If the weather was stormy or cloudy, those were the days that I wanted to lay low and go home early if possible. As leaders, you don’t have to have a title to be a leader, but you bring the weather. So, your words, your energy, your tone, all matter. When you are frantically running down the road, too busy to pause and ask questions, you send the message that there’s no space for conversation here.

But when you show up willing to suspend your viewpoint, ask questions and listen to those around you, you are signaling to others that their point of view is important and that they are valued, and you are actively creating the space for dialogue to happen.

The weather you bring is not about what happens to you, it is how you choose to respond.

What if instead of focusing on the solution in monologue, we focused on creating the space for dialogue, with the belief that on the other end of the dialogue would be a more sustainable solution that no one person could have thought of on their own?

Your Leadership Challenge Moving Forward!

I have a challenge for you as you move forward.

Be intentional about choosing monologue or dialogue. Remember, there is a use for monologue, like when you want to get a bunch of information out, but where monologue does not serve us is in the complex, repetitive, no easy answer conversations.

When a conversation matters, remember these key takeaways, suspend rather than defend. Suspend your viewpoint rather than defending it, this way you can hear others. Stay in the conversation. Remember Blue Ocean Tech and their commitment to staying in the conversation, even when they were hearing things that were hard to hear. Voice all four actions, move, follow, oppose, and bystand. All four actions are needed to be voiced in a skillful conversation. Listen, rather than having an answer.

It Takes Courage to Lead!

Again, Blue Ocean Tech courageously took a seat and listened to the voices and experiences of employees. This is where real potential for change comes in. Create a space for dialogue, and you have to go first!

Think about Katherine, who made the choice to create space for dialogue, even though it had not been part of her previous leadership style. She recognized that big, bold vision she had for the company, depended on engaging all voices. And she had to make space for that to happen. Here’s the deal, we will not consciously choose to be a victim, and yet when we defend, this is the role we are taking unconsciously in lots of ways. For far too long, we have and continue to talk about agile as frameworks, practices, and tools. And then we wonder why changing culture and leadership style are still cited as the top challenges to achieving business agility.

Conversations Are Our Interactions

In order to courageously lead transformational change, the kind that supports organizations seeking agility in our fast paced world, we really need to take seriously from the agile manifesto that it’s about individuals and interactions. Conversations are our interactions and they require bravery.

They are the core practice of how we learn, how we solve complex challenges, how we make meaning of our current environment, and how we innovate moving forward.

I ask you: How can you be more intentional about choosing dialogue?

If you missed the previous articles in this series, you can find them here.

Part 1: How Daring to Dialogue Improves Performance and Creates a Culture of Agility

Part 2: The Most Effective Approach of Continued Dialogue: It’s Where Change Happens!

If you’d like to watch Marsha present this, click here for a video!

The Most Effective Approach of Continued Dialogue: It’s Where Change Happens! (Part 2)

In part one of this three part series on ‘Daring to Dialogue’ we looked at five types of conversations.

They include:

Monologue
Debate
Discussion
Skillful Conversation
Dialogue

In the second part of this series, I will be going through examples of each of these types of conversations with you, and what these types of conversations accomplish.

Are you ready for change to happen? Dare to dialogue!

The Monologue Conversation: an Example

When we sail with my daughter, we are very clear about communication expectations.Once we leave the dock and we’re under sail, we expect all instructions that we give to be followed. We do not expect a conversation, no pushback, just compliance with instructions. It’s not a space for discussion or dialogue, it is a monologue.

Now, my daughter is 12 years old and she is a master at debate. When we established this agreement with her, she had some questions and pushback. What we did is we slowed down enough to have that conversation with her and to create space for her to push back and also for us to offer our perspective about why.

The outcome of this conversation was that we all arrived at a deeper understanding of what was needed from each of us once we were underway, but once we were underway, it’s monologue.

The Dialogue Conversation: an Example

Now, let’s look next at an example where dialogue is the most effective approach.

Katherine is an executive I work with. She has been actively working to bring more dialogue into how she leads. And before we met, she operated in a very closed system. She told people what she wanted them to do and sent them on their way.

She has a really big and bold vision for the future of her company and she has learned the value and impact of asking people to participate in co-creating that with her. Recently she said to me, “We are really grappling with what our culture will look like post-pandemic.” Two months ago, she held a very definitive view of what she thought culture would and should look like, but now, after holding a number of dialogues on the topic, her thinking is really different and it’s changed.

This is what was so striking to me, because I truly believe that dialogue is where change happens, and what matters is that she’s wrestling with this question that has no easy answer. There is no one solution. It’s not a question like what color should we paint the walls or should we have offices or open spaces, this is a complex dynamic question that encompasses many moving parts with lots of uncertainty and things like, how do we want to interact? How will agility support us? What’s the best way to collaborate moving forward? She’s now leading her team through a co-created process to imagine what their culture, what they want their culture to look like in a post-pandemic world. And this includes carving out time and space to have continued dialogue and their culture will be so much more effective and innovative because of it.

Dialogue is Where We Gain Greater Insight and Agility

I don’t want you to get rid of all those conversational skills you have, but my goal is to stretch your thinking about the kinds of conversations you have and how you might expand your skillset to bring more dialogue when it matters.

While there’s a use for monologue and maybe even debate and discussion, what I’m proposing here is that dialogue is where we really move toward greater insight and agility, but it does require being intentional.

During every conversation we make a choice, it can be conscious or unconscious, but it is a choice about what kind of conversation we want to engage in. And when we choose to become curious, listening and asking questions, we are actively suspending our point of view in favor of hearing other points of view.

Groundhog Day Conversations

When we decide not to suspend, we are choosing to defend our position or point of view instead, and this leads to Groundhog Day conversations. Those are those conversations that you have over and over again.

What conversations are you facing right now that might need more dialogue?
Do you wonder what our work will look like after the pandemic?
How will we be navigating change and transition moving forward?
What does agile transformation look like for us?
How can I engage and energize my team in this dispersed world?
How will we bring more innovation into our organization?

If one of these conversations is what you need to have right now, you’ve come to the right place, because there are some common assumptions that makes dialogue less likely.

Here are examples of these common assumptions.

I don’t have time right now
I’ve got too much going on.
Don’t bring me problems, just bring me the solutions.
I’m right and they’re wrong.
My view is the only valid view here, there is really no other way of looking at this.
I’m the boss, it’s my job to decide.

We could’ve taken that route with my daughter (as her parents) about our sailing, but it would’ve been a slightly different outcome than the one we ended up with.

Assumptions block true dialogue and lead to defending, which again, leads to the Groundhog Day situation, which we don’t want to be in. And none of us want to be having the same conversation over and over again, and yet we do, it happens to all of us.

How Leaders Can Support More Dialogue

It’s for this reason, the most important activity of leaders, especially in the context of agility, is to create an environment that supports more dialogue and less monologue and debate.

It’s the approach that executives and leaders must cultivate if they actually want to create the change that they say they want to see.

Conversations, whether we are or aren’t having them and how we are having them are one of the greatest predictors of success. If we can learn to be more intentional in how we invite, cultivate, participate, and facilitate dialogue, there will not be any challenge or change that an organization cannot skillfully navigate to produce an effective outcome.

How does this work? Read part 3 of this series to learn more about what dialogue looks like in practice!

If you’d rather take 30 minutes and watch Marsha present, click here to watch a video!