[00:00:00] Christy: Welcome to Leaders Get Real, inspirational interviews with today's authentic leaders. I'm your host, Christy Tonge, bringing you insightful interviews with bestselling authors and with leaders who are purposeful, passionate, and authentic. Gain compelling insights as they share the challenges and rewards of leading with authenticity and impact.

My guest today is Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit, which is the bestselling coaching book of this century.

And we talk about his brand new book, The Advice Trap, and how to get out of our own way by taming our advice monster. You'll love Michael's Australian accent and his lively personality, but even more, you'll gain great insights about being a better coach every day if you're a time crunched manager, a colleague, a friend, or a parent.

Michael, welcome to Leaders Get Real.

[00:01:02] Michael: Happy to be here. Thank you. Well,

[00:01:04] Christy: Michael, I have been looking forward to having you on the show ever since Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers, talked about your book, The Coaching Habit, in my podcast episode of authors sharing their favorite books. Yeah. So it's great to have

[00:01:19] Michael: you here.

You know, Liz is a force of good in so many ways in this.

[00:01:24] Christy: Now I'm excited to talk about your new book coming out, The Advice Trap, but I'm also eager to talk about the first book of yours that I encountered, The Coaching Habit. And what a great subtitle. Say less, ask more, and change the way you lead forever.

And it was so good to find that book because for so many years, leaders I coach have asked me to recommend a good book on coaching. And I'd never found a book on coaching that I was eager to recommend because so many books on coaching, they're geared for being a professional coach, but not for, How does a time crunch manager be more coach like or a mom or a dad or a friend?

How do we be more coach like every day? And your book does that. And it's so relevant for anyone. So let's start with that.

Oh, what propelled you to write? the coaching habit.

[00:02:26] Michael: Yeah. So years ago, I wrote a book called Get Unstuck and Get Going on the Stuff That Matters. It's my first book, all very exciting.

And so when you write a book, as hard as the book is to write, You then face this awful moment where you're like, well, how does anybody know that I've written a book? How do I market it? And what you do is where most people start is they go, well, I go and get blurbs from famous people. And so I'm like, Oh, who do I admire in this world?

And I went through a list of people, one of whom was a guy called Peter Block, who is a great writer and thinker in organizational development and accountability and what it means to show up as an adult. In your own life. And so I wrote to Peter Block thinking I've got no chance here, but why not give it a go?

And he actually wrote back with a really nice blurb.

And in there he said, this book shows us that coaching is not a profession, but a way of being with each other. And this kind of struck me like a thunderclap because I was like, wow. That's true. And I didn't even know I believed that, but this is, feels like a creed of core, you know, like a calling forth of, of who I'd like to be and what I'd like to stand for in the world.

And so from that time on, my work seems to have got increasingly focused on, on kind of coaching as a way of. Being a way of showing up for everybody. Mm. Rather than coaching as it sometimes happened, being something that's a bit exclusive. You know, if in the world of business it can be a bit exclusive 'cause it's like, well, you're a senior leader, you get coaching, or you are a high potential, you get coaching.

But how do you make, how do you make it accessible to everybody? Or maybe you're in life coaching, you're like, well. You kind of have to be middle class to be able to afford a life coach. So that's a privilege in itself. So I'm like, how do you make coaching and the power of coaching be accessible for people?

And, you know, the work of my company Box of Crayons ended up being having that at its heart. And having done that work for quite a few years, it just felt right to say, look, I've learned a bunch now of what needs to be burnt away from the mythology and the BS and the black boxness of coaching to have a bunch of people go, Oh, if that's what coaching is, I could probably do that.

I'm trying to un weird coaching. So, and you know, I had this, this driving kind of, ethos when I was writing the book to say, what's the shortest book I could write that would still be useful for people? And what was so powerful about that as a, a way of moving, working forward is to say, I just got to keep cutting out all of the extra bits that I keep wanting to add in, because I'm an add in sort of guy.

I like, I like cool stuff. So I'm like, Oh, he's a shiny thing. Here's another shiny thing. But in the end, the coaching habit became, look, here's a chapter on behavior change. Cause we're asking you to change your behavior. And then here are seven good questions that if you can build that into the way that you work, it will shift the way that you lead.

And I spent three years trying to get a publisher to publish it. They kept turning me down. So finally I got to a point where I went, right, that's it, I'm just doing it myself. And that turned out to be a brilliant move in retrospect because it sold, you know, nearly three quarters of a million copies now.

Mm

[00:05:47] Christy: hmm. Yes. And it is compelling. And I had mentioned, I have, you know, been looking and looking for a book to recommend leaders on coaching. And you know, This is what I've seen. And, and I've taught, I've taught many courses on coaching to managers to help them be better coaches and all the experts on coaching.

They provide categories of questions you can ask. You know, you know, one of the better books that I came across was the book called Ask More. Frank Sesnos has written this and he's got 11 categories like diagnostic questions and strategic questions and empathy questions. And you know, then there's all these examples of each.

So 11 times, you know, now you've got a hundred and something questions you can ask. So they go through this process of like, okay, it's about crafting good questions.

[00:06:41] Michael: Yeah. I try to write that book.

[00:06:46] Christy: And so you, you have a totally different approach, which is. You just give seven questions and you're totally prescriptive and so you, you even get really detailed about the precise wording of the question.

So let's talk about some of those questions. But before we dive into the details, let's give headlines of what the seven questions are.

There's the kickstart question. the ah question, the foundation question, the focus question, the lazy question, the strategic question, and the learning question. What's one that you'd want to start by telling us about?

[00:07:29] Michael: So the first thing I'll tell you before I jump into the seven questions is I, I almost wrote that big book that you were talking about on with all the questions in it, because I went through all sorts of iterations going, how do I write a really good book? And there are so many good questions out there.

So I was like, okay, this is excellent. I'll lay out my top 150 questions. It's a one page explanation on why each one is so useful. And when I wrote that out, all you got was overwhelmed. I'm like, I can't, it's too much. I can't remember all of that. So. I am always trying to seek, as somebody once said, simplicity on the other side of complexity, and that ability to go, how do I keep reducing this down to the, an essential number of questions?

And I tried around, you know, I tried nine, I tried three, I tried five, and finally seven felt, you know, seven's a bit of a magical number. And I'm like, we'll go with seven. So if I could only offer up seven questions for people to have in their repertoire, what questions would they be? And so it needed to be questions that felt like they could cover different scenarios.

They could be appropriate in, in lots of scenarios and in a more general way, but also they'd be different from each other. So there's no kind of redundancy in the list of questions. And hence we came up with this list of seven questions that they're prescriptive in the sense that I say, look, if you can be clean and clear and crisp about the way you ask a question, that makes a big difference.

Yeah. It's also true that people step on their own toes a little bit when they're trying to ask questions by overcomplicating it. So there's a, there's a theme that goes through the book about, let me show you how to ask a question well. Yep. You know, don't do the five minute introduction on why you're asking the question, just ask the question.

Yep. Don't, don't. Ask, don't do a drive by shooting of questions where you're like, here's 18 questions, pick one to answer from. Just ask a question. Once you ask a question, shut up and listen to the answer. These things all sound pretty obvious and they are. It's just difficult because we're trying our best to move a conversation forward and it can be a little anxiety provoking.

[00:09:39] Christy: Yes. Yes. And I think the path that happens When there's, you know, all these possible questions and, you know, now it's like, okay, jump in and try it out. The path that happens is, oh, I've got to come up with the right quest. If, if I craft some good questions, then I'm gonna help understand the situation and I'm gonna help them solve this problem.

And your minimalist approach is, Hey, if you just hang on to these seven questions and you're nimble and you're present and you're creating the space for them, that's where the magic's going to happen. It's not about you being brilliant to solve their problems. It's about you creating the space.

[00:10:30] Michael: Well, here's the core insight behind it.

If you're teaching somebody how to be more coach like the problem isn't do you know any questions because everybody knows questions It's easy. Yeah, if I said to anybody write down your 10 favorite questions, they come up with some pretty good questions That's the easy bit and it is seductive into thinking that that's the teaching that needs to be that will make the most difference It's not come up with questions is the easy The least useful part of all of this, understanding that we're asking behavior change, we're moving people from, well, the way we talk about being more coach like is can you stay curious a little bit longer?

Can you rush to action and advice giving a little bit more slowly? And what we're really trying to do in the book and in the other stuff we do at Box of Crayons is to create behavior change. And now the question is not what are the best questions, but what prompts behavior change? Yes. And having a whole bunch of stuff isn't helpful for behavior change.

People it's already hard enough without overwhelming them with content. You're like strip content out, create opportunities for experience and practice and feedback, create insight about why it's a benefit to them to change their behavior. And then you've got a better chance of actually making a difference.

Mm.

[00:11:47] Christy: Yes. And that goes back to the Peter Block comment that your book is about a different way of being with people.

[00:11:55] Michael: Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's not about the doing, it's about the being said, but yeah. Yes.

[00:11:59] Christy: And that's a different kind of change. And there's, you have some great stuff. Your book is brilliant because, you know, you talk about the simplicity behind the complexity, but you weave this whole.

concept about behavior change and rather than talk about that here, I want to send people to your website. Oh, perfect. Because you've got all these great videos and you've got, you've been, you know, a connoisseur of all these experts, BJ Fogg and Charles Duhigg and all these, you know, researchers on behavior change.

So you get at the heart that this is about change. I also love that you talk about hard change versus easy change. Right. And you, I love this concept about the present you and the future you. Right. You want to share a little bit about that?

[00:12:50] Michael: Sure. So there's a bunch of people, lots of people who go, look, I liked your book, Michael.

And the seven questions, they all sound fantastic and congratulations. But I haven't actually changed the way I show up in the world because it's hard to actually do that. And I really wrote the book going, what is stopping people staying curious a little bit longer? Because it sounds easy enough. I'm like, come on.

How hard can it be? Just stop leaping in and giving advice in the first 10 seconds. That's all I'm asking. Turns out that that's actually quite a thing to be asking. That's actually quite difficult. So easy change versus hard change. The metaphor I talk about in this new book, The Advice Trap, is the difference between downloading an app and installing a new operating system.

So let me take you through this. Easy change. No, not surprisingly, most of us find that relatively easy, hence the name. We do it all the time. It's any time you bump into something slightly unfamiliar and you figure it out quickly enough. It could be anything from having a new phone and learning how to operate it or moving to a new office space and changing that or starting with a new client and working with a new client.

These are all moments where you're like, Hey, it took a bit of figuring out, but I worked on it. I read a book. I watched a podcast, listened to a podcast, watched a video. I practiced I went from being not that good to being better at it and I got it to be good enough. The metaphor I compare that to is like it's downloading an app on your phone.

What you're doing with easy change is you're adding to future to current you. You know, it's like it's a little bit of a, an add on to what, who you already are and what you can already do. Hard change is, is as the name suggests a little trickier than that. And you know, you and I are recording this interview early February.

So. People are just in that moment where they're going, Hey, all my news resolutions. I failed all of them again, even though I don't even make news resolutions, I still somehow failed all my news resolution. And if any, if you've ever had that news resolution, which you make year after year, you know, this year I'm going to write the book and lose the weight and pick up running and tell my parents, I love them.

And. Whatever it might be. And you're like, even though I know how to do all of those things, I just don't do them. You're like, well, this is because it's hard change. And when you're facing a hard change, actually, what, what is not as useful as you, you hope is technical knowledge on how to do it. Because you actually already know how to do it.

Like, you know how to lose weight. You know how to eat healthily. What's hard is to kind of rewire yourself. So that you actually do it. And this is where this concept of future you comes in, which is easy change, you're adding to current you. Hard change, you're rewiring yourself so that you can become a better version of yourself, a future you version of yourself.

If easy change is downloading the app on your phone, future you and hard change is installing a new operating system. It's a whole different way of working. And, you know, in the context that we're talking about, and the advice trap, and being more coach like, I think this call to be more curious is actually hard change for lots of people.

Because they're like, you know, I get, I mean, I get the questions, they're, they're, they're easy enough, you know, seven questions each. five words long, it's 35 words of content about. It's not, it's not that difficult. But to actually rewire things so that you can say, I am a more curious person, that is actually trickier for some people than you might think.

Oh, yeah. Yes.

Just to be really explicit about it. There is always a really good place for good advice. I'm not saying as part of the advice trap to never give advice. Yes. And I honestly think that's ridiculous and frustrating and irritating and vaguely irresponsible. That is ridiculous. What kills us is when we have this default response and we all have this ingrained behavior, which is like Oh, no, no.

My job is just to, anytime somebody starts talking, I want to tell you what to do. I'm going to, I want to share my ideas with you. And that ability to unlearn that way of, I'm doing air quotes here, add value by giving advice and go, actually, I can add so much more value so much of the time. If I stay curious just a little bit longer, not, not for, not for days or weeks, but I'm talking like, you know, If you give me three minutes of good questions before you start giving advice, I would take that as a big win every time.

Yes.

[00:17:31] Christy: Yes. And I think that's the power of this. You know, it's changing our way of being with other people. Yes. I think that I still fall short in this whole arena because I may not go to advice. But I, I don't stay curious a little bit longer. I go, like, I move on to the next thing. It's sort of, I ask a few questions, and we explore it a little bit, and then, you know, I'm like, oh, well, you know, they're busy, we're time crunched, you know, they want to feel productive, and so, boom, we just start moving on.

Even if it's, even if it's helping them solve the problem. Right. I don't create that space that I think your questions and even repeating some of those questions can do. So let's, let's talk about some of those questions. Tell us about which ones of the seven you want to talk about

[00:18:26] Michael: first. Sure.

Before I give you a talk about one of the questions, can I just reflect on what you just said there? Because I think it's really insightful, you know, that sense of, and I'll just play back what I heard, you know, you're going, look, I asked some questions, but at a certain point I'm like, we're a bit time crunched and we made some progress on this and can we just move on?

And one of the more profound pieces of teaching. I received when I was training to become a coach and in that learning space was to recognize my ability of projection, meaning I'd go, Oh, the client isn't comfortable with this or the client wants to move this on or the client is like feeling bored by this.

And then going, wait, that's not the client. That's just me. I'm, I'm worried. I'm not adding value in this conversation. I'm worried that we're feeling a bit stuck. I'm worried that whatever it might be, but I'm going to project it onto the client and go, no, no, I'm in service to the client here. Why don't I move things on?

And that ability to. Own and recognize your own discomfort and anxieties and uncertainties when you're in a coaching mode can be really helpful because here's the thing, when you are being curious, it is a uncomfortable place to be because it is an empowering place. To be what I mean by that is you are empowering other people, but he's a, and everybody's like, well, I'm, I'm, that's great.

I'm kind of pro empowerment. And in fact, everybody's pro empowerment. Nobody's like I'm anti empowerment, disempower people. But here's, here's the reality of empowerment. It actually means giving up your power and giving up some of your control and giving it to the other person. And that is a whole lot trickier than we'd like to admit.

And even when you maybe have the type of relationships you do, Christy, where you're like, actually, I've got a commercial relationship with somebody who has hired me to be their coach. There's still some part of it going. Well, I'm going to prove that I'm adding value. I'm going to prove that I'm in control.

I'm going to prove that this is a worthwhile investment and that anxiety can drive patterns of behavior that get in the way of a deeper form of curiosity.

[00:20:47] Christy: Yes. And here's an example of this. I've been committed. to trying on these seven questions and this happened just yesterday. So one of your questions, the focus question, I have to say that's kind of been my favorite to experiment recently because I haven't used this in this way.

And that's the question, what's the real challenge here for you? And so I was coaching someone yesterday and I asked that question and it's, and I would say that. One of the ways I have approached things in the past is, let me ask some really good questions to help uncover what the real challenge is.

Yeah. And instead, your question is brilliant. Ask them directly, straight up. So. I love that. So there it is. I asked her and I said, what's the real challenge here for you? Right. And she. Answered the question. She paused. And at first she was like, that's a good question. I don't know, which is wonderful. Right?

When the best questions of all is when it's a stop them in their tracks. Right. So she paused and she. Went on to answer it and she had quite, you know, it was quite descriptive as she was exploring it. And then I knew that One path I could take was to ask that question again, right? Yeah, as you talk about and I had that conversation in my head, which was You know, if I ask that question again right now, she's going to be thinking, what, weren't you listening?

Like, didn't you hear I already answered that question. And so I had that moment of pause where I was like, she's going to feel like I wasn't listening or that, you know, I don't get it. Right. And so then I went, wait a minute, let's stay curious a little bit longer. And I said, you know, well, What's the real challenge here for you and thinking like she's going to feel like this is repetitive and boom, it just opened up the conversation in an entirely different level.

And she, it was like, it didn't even hit her that she'd already answered the question, you know, and then. And, and I did it a third time and, you know, Oh, of course. And then I asked the awe question, which you'll have to tell us about, which is, and what else? And she got to a place that was so different than if I would have heard her first response.

And gone with

[00:23:32] Michael: that. I love hearing that story, because that's exactly what I hope for people. And there's so much that's valuable in the story you just told, Christy. The first is, their first answer is almost never their only answer, and it's really their best answer. Mm hmm. And we get seduced into thinking that they know what they're talking about, both sides of the conversation do.

And they might, I mean, occasionally the first answer is the real answer, but it's actually pretty rare. And there's nothing wrong with just testing that just a little bit and just asking and what else or asking, okay, but what's the real challenge here for you as a way of testing that. Secondly, I love that you pointed to the anxiety or feeling in just repeating the question.

You're like, Oh my God, they're going to cap. Catch on that I've only got two questions to ask and how is this, how's this adding value? Well, you know, you, you're actually adding value by holding space for them to reflect and think, you know, they've got a champion in their corner who's going, no, our time is precious and it's time to have a chance to hold a mirror up and reflect on what's going on.

That's actually the value. The questions are just the tools to help you get there. But yes, you know, a friend of mine once explained and it was perfect. He said, look, in an exchange like this, they're in the land of the answer, but you're in the land of the question. And they're two different lands. You know, when you ask the question, you're like, Oh, was it a good question?

Did it land? Did they notice it was the same question that I just asked two minutes ago? What, where's the question going? What's their answer going to be? You got all that kind of swell of kind of uncertainty. Whereas they're just like, Oh, that's enough. That's a good question. What is the real challenge here for you?

Yes. And part of the power of this exchange, you didn't mention this, but this sometimes happens is when you get them to go, okay, yeah, but what's the real challenge here for you? And they like, Oh, and it kind of drops in actually half the time they know what to do about it. They're like, I figured out what the problem is.

Now, you know, Christy, could you just stop talking because I actually want to go and deal with this now because I'm alive and I'm energized by this new insight that I've got. Yeah. So this piece around, in some ways this conversation points to the, the behavior change difficulty, which is when you are staying curious longer, it brings up all sorts of doubt and uncertainty and adding value and this is uncomfortable.

And it's so easy to go, you know, it'd be so much easier if I just told them some stuff. So why don't I just do that? It relieves the pressure on me and relieves the pressure on them. But actually you're, you're, you're role modeling for us beautifully. The power of saying, the discipline of asking a few questions, well, isn't remarkable.

[00:26:20] Christy: Yes. And then the phrase you said, and then holding the space. Right. And that I just keep seeing again and again, again, how powerful that is.

And like you said, you know, a lot of the emphasis is on what are the questions you ask, but this concept of holding the space. And I had a similar experience with some of that.

conversation, you know, going on in my mind about whether to create that space. I was doing a leadership coaching workshop with some senior executives at Dolby and these are a bunch of smart, you know, PhD types.

And I'm thinking typically I would do an exercise on asking questions here. And I thought they, and the way it is, it's a paired exercise.

Each person just comes up with, you know, an issue, a challenge and something they would like some coaching on. The only rule is you can only ask questions, right? Right. So it's really about taming the advice monster, you know, you can't give any advice, even though I'm sure you've got some brilliant things to share with them.

Yeah. And we were about to do that exercise and I doubted it. And I thought, you know. Should we skip over this exercise? You know, these guys, they're going to feel like, is this really a good use of our time?

[00:27:37] Michael: What is this weird touchy feely HR stuff? Damn it. I'm a scientist. I got a PhD in audio something or others and physics.

Yeah. Right. Right.

[00:27:47] Christy: And so I'm thinking, you know, should we just, you know, scoot through this one or will they think this is a waste of their time? So I introduced the exercise. With the intent, like, let's give them the chance.

Afterwards, I said, oh, so how was that for you? And they said, that was so valuable, that was so, and I said, for the people who were being coached, you know, how was that for you?

That was so valuable. And I said, why? And they said, it is so rare, right? To actually have someone ask questions and have a sounding board like that. And they said, just talking it out, I got so much clearer on this dilemma. I got so much clearer. And that left such a deep impression on me. It's like, it doesn't even matter what questions you're asking, but if you actually create the space and hold it, brilliant things happen.

I love it.

[00:28:43] Michael: And we, you know, we do something similar in the stuff that we teach and how we teach and. We have a similar rule, which is like, okay, I'm going to give you some questions. I'm actually going to give you the question you're going to ask. And the rule is you're just not allowed to add anything other than the question.

Your job is to ask the question, then actually listen. And of course, you know, it's like three minutes long and their heads explode because they're like, it's killing me not to talk. But on the other side of the conversation, people are going, it is so refreshing to have somebody actually listen to what I'm saying without kind of trying to interrupt me to get the next.

Peace going forward, because when you say, you know, like, this is it, this is your one question that you'll have to ask, you take away all the other options. So all they can do is listen. And it's, it's a eye opening experience on both, on both sides of the exchange.

[00:29:32] Christy: Yes, that less is more. Yeah, and there's so much brilliance that happens when you actually get down And allow people to get to the core where they've got a deep sense , they weren't even aware of it.

Right. That it was a much more direct path. Yeah. To the best

[00:29:51] Michael: answer. Yeah. I love it.

So you, you asked feedback, you asked me about questions. You want me to share a one of the seven questions? Yeah. Give people Absolutely. I mean, you and I have talked about two of them. The, the focus question, what's the real challenge here for you and the OR question and what else?

And just giving people a kind of sense of how you can combine those two to be so powerful. So, I won't rehash those. I'm going to talk about one other question, which is number four in the book. We call it the foundation question, and it is, what do you want? And I love this question. I think this is the hardest of all the questions to answer and you don't use it quite as much as you might use some of the other questions, but when you do use it, it's like earth shattering or at least it can be.

Wonderful.

What do you want is this foundational question because it asks people to get grounded about where, where, where are they at, what's their motivation, what would engage them, what's at the heart of this conversation for them. And it's a way of making any conversation personal. And part of the work that I would like to think that I'm doing is trying to make our organizations just a little more human.

And part of that is about bringing. forth what's really going on for the people in these conversations. You know, what's the real challenge here for you? When you add for you onto that question, it becomes a more personal question. That's part of where the power of that question comes from. So what you want, it can really stop a conversation.

You know, you're like, okay, so what's the real challenge, Greg? So if that's the real challenge here for you, what do you want? And you can just feel people going deep in themselves going, Oh my God, what do I want here? And when they find an answer to that, it really does open the sense of progress and confidence and confidence and autonomy.

But I also love this question to ask yourself. So if anybody here has ever been had a working relationship or any relationship and it's kind of gone off the rails just a little bit, you know, it's, it's a bit irritating, it's frustrating, discombobulating, you're sad, you're angry, you're frustrated, you're irritated, whatever it is.

If that's ever happened to you, you're like, how am I going to process this? One of the most powerful things you can do is ask yourself, so what do I want? What do I want here? And my big belief is that one of the reasons that feedback is done rarely and done poorly in organizational life is not that feedback is a scary conversation and they might cry or sort of unleash an emotion or something like that.

As much as anything, it's you haven't got clear on the request you want to make. As soon as you get clear on what you want, the conversation kind of opens up in terms of this is what needs to be said, this is what needs to be explained, this is what needs to be exchanged. And progress can happen from there.

So I love the idea of people taking what you want as a question and adding it to their repertoire. Mm.

[00:33:04] Christy: Love that. Love that. Wonderful. Oh my goodness. Each of the questions, we could spend a lot of time talking about each one of them because it's so rich.

Now let's maybe go big picture about some coaching principles.

Sure. We actually, you've got. Three coaching principles you talk about. We've talked about curiosity. That's big. And then another one that I love is be lazy. And so tell me about this because of course, you know, you've got all these hardworking managers, executives that are really productive and your advice to them is be lazy.

And so what do you mean by that?

[00:33:45] Michael: Yeah. So the three principles we have around thinking about being more coach like and be lazy, be curious. Be often. So being curious, we've been talking about, you know, it's a, how do you tame your advice monster? When that urge to tell people what to do, how do you stay curious just a little bit longer?

Be often is actually perhaps the most radical of the three principles. Because what it says is every interaction with somebody can be a bit more coach like because if being more coach like simply is being curious longer, then it doesn't matter if it's your boss or your colleague or your team or a vendor or whoever it might be.

It doesn't matter if it's done by phone or in person or text or whatever. Every interaction, you can bring in a little more curiosity. So that's kind of, is this provocative statement. And when I came up with be lazy, I was like, Oh, people are going to love this because everybody who's showing up and who's engaged in this is not a lazy person.

They're hardworking, they're committed, they're ambitious. And being lazy is like, what are you talking about? I'm like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to get you uncomfortable. I'm trying to disrupt things just a little bit. And fundamentally, what I'm saying is stop working so hard to solve other people's problems for them.

Because our lives, organizational lives and beyond organizational lives are rife with people going, no, my job is to rescue you, to save the day, to solve the problem, to fix the thing. And everybody pays a terrible price for that. You know, if you're the person who's being rescued, it's just a deeply disempowering thing.

You're getting this message that you're not good enough to fix it and solve it yourself. If you're the person who's doing the rescuing, not only are you creating disempowerment and bottlenecks all around you, but you are now overwhelmed and stuck and fingers in too many pies and not actually able to focus on the work that makes a difference for you.

And of course, if you're the organization, you've got a whole bunch of people not living up to their potential, bottlenecks everywhere, your organization's not coming to full potential as well. So being lazy is really a call to arms to say. Look, I know it feels good that you're so, so busy because you're trying to help everybody out, but it's not scalable.

It's not sustainable. It's not functional. So stop that.

[00:36:06] Christy: This resonates for me so much, you know, even more than taming my advice monster. It's this one. And I, when I think about my own, you know, downfalls as a coach, you know, one of the things, the phrase that I've come down to at times is, I think sometimes I want what they say they want more than they do for them.

[00:36:35] Michael: Nice. Good, good

[00:36:36] Christy: insight. Yeah. And so, you know, whatever it is, you know, if it's a leader I'm working with where they're like, you know, I want to change the culture of the company or I want to go global, you know, with this or, you know, they've got this vision. Or if it's my own child, you know, my daughter's in college, Shayla saying like, I want this kind of internship.

And I get so excited for them about this dream they've got or this vision. And then suddenly before I realize it, I've taken that on and now I'm working harder than they are. To help them achieve that, you know, I'm giving them resources.

[00:37:13] Michael: And

[00:37:15] Christy: then suddenly I realized like, wait a minute, like I'm working harder.

And when you said be lazy, I was like, that is it. Somehow I need to let go of this idea that like, I'm going to help them, you know, it's going to be me that helps them achieve this dream. It's like, no, go back to your, you know, go back to one of your questions. What do you want? And hold the space long enough so that they're truly owning it and they're driving it versus me trying to spark

[00:37:48] Michael: it.

It's this weird combination of you want to be fully invested in a success and you also kind of want to be dispassionate about it as well. You're like, I want to be. Compassionate and hands off at the same time.

[00:38:01] Christy: Yeah.

[00:38:02] Michael: It's a paradox. And there's a, there's an inherent tension there. You know, I, I when I'm coaching people, which I don't actually do that often, but I will often say that for me, coaching is a relationship of fierce love, love, meaning I am all for you to get what you want and be who you want to be, particularly that latter bit.

I'm like, I want the best version of you to be showing up. And so that fierce love, which is like. You got to know that this flame burns brightly because I want the best for you. But you got to know that this is your life. I mean, to go all the way back to Peter Block, which is where we started, I heard him once say that he saw his job is giving people the freedom to take responsibility for their own freedom and the dynamic that you're pointing to.

is when coaches and leaders, their good intentions get in the way of people being able to take responsibility for their own freedom. Cause you're like, I'm going to take responsibility for your freedom. And then it doesn't work.

[00:39:05] Christy: Yes. And Oh, talk about pearls of wisdom for parenting. Oh, I love that. If, you know, if I take that.

That, that vision of, you know, taking, helping my kids, Shayla, Trevor, helping them take responsibility for their own freedom. And it gets muddled sometimes, right? Because I care so much about them, like achieving that dream or, you know, being able to. Do what it is that they, you know, they envision. And then I step in and I start taking responsibility for that.

[00:39:39] Michael: And it There's all that good research about parenting. I'm not a parent myself. So, you know, I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I have seen the research that says actually people are better off when they have gone through some struggle. You know, and there's a, it's like a Goldilocks zone of struggle.

You don't want it to be too much because that can be all crushing. But actually if it's too easy, if people have been, if their lives are filled with people who are rescuing them, they actually just don't grow. They don't get to fully express, they don't get to find their own path, they don't get to own their own destiny.

And you do them a great disservice if you don't allow them to, to wrestle and struggle and figure stuff out themselves. Mm hmm. That's what the research says anyway.

[00:40:23] Christy: Yes. Absolutely. Wonderful. So many good things to talk about.

Now let's talk about your new book, The Advice Trap.

[00:40:35] Michael: Yeah. So the book's called The Advice Trap, and the key theme of the book is definitely how to tame your advice monster.

And this is just kind of getting into what hard change is because the advice monster is in some ways the metaphor, the symbol of what it means to do the hard change of changing your behavior to be more curious a little bit longer. You know, in the book we say, look, it's actually got three different personas and we've kind of been talking about them leading up to now.

The three personas are tell it, save it, control it, tell it the, you've got the message that the only way you add value is to have the answers, always have the answers, save it. You got the message that the only, the only way you succeed is by rescuing everybody and you're responsible for everybody's success.

And the third one, control it. You've got the message that you've got to stay in control and never lose control, because if you lose control, you fail. And of course, all of those feel very real. But what you notice is when you tame your advice monster and you give up the need to have the answer and to save the person and to control the situation.

Actually, you give people, just as we were saying before about Peter Block, responsibility for their own freedom. And you, you, you're freed up yourself to say, look, I don't have to save the world. I get to do my own work and show up in a way that makes the most difference to the work that I'm doing.

Wonderful.

[00:41:57] Christy: Wonderful. And there's elements of each of those that we can identify with. They're all true. Yeah. You've really named them.

[00:42:06] Michael: You know, if people are interested When the book Bookside is live at theadvicetrap. com, there's actually a questionnaire people can take to figure out which of those three personas.

means most to them, feels most real and most true to them. So if people are like, ah, tell it, control it, save it, I like the sound of those, but which one am I? Well, look, it's a questionnaire, you know, questionnaire, it's not super scientific, but it's pretty interesting. Won't take, it'll take you five minutes or so to complete and you'll get a report saying here's your advice monster and here's how you here's how you might go about taming it.

Yes.

[00:42:41] Christy: Wonderful. Well so many good things in The Advice Trap and, and, and of course, it is ironic that you've got a book giving advice about not giving advice, right? But one of the chapters that I came to near the end, I absolutely loved. I was so happy to see it. And it was titled, after 200 pages of describing how to not be an advice giver, it was called Be an Advice Giver.

Exactly. So, I love that, be an advice giver, and I think that comes back to this whole paradox around coaching, you know, where it's like, wow, that's a whole different way of being is to stay curious and ask these questions, but then on the other hand, there's times to just be. Straight up, be direct and say, Hey, you know, just saw you in that meeting.

You did a fabulous job on these things. I also saw some real opportunities. I'd love to give you some direct observations, boom, and then tell them what they are rather than trying to fish around for it. So I thought that was brilliant that you have a chapter

[00:43:50] Michael: on that. Yeah, totally. Daniel Goleman who is the man who kind of made emotional intelligence accessible for people years ago, like almost 20 years ago, wrote an article for Harvard Business Review called Leadership that Gets Results.

And he says in this article, look, there's actually six different styles of leadership. They all have their, they all have their moment. There are pros and cons, prizes and punishments for each type. And coaching was one of the six styles of leadership. And he said, you know what, the least utilized, even though it has great kind of correlation to profitability and a strong culture and all that good stuff.

But the point is that there are actually five other styles of leadership that are really useful and really effective in some situations. And it would be a terrible mistake to say, abandon everything you've ever learned about leadership and now only ask coaching questions. That is a surefire way to irritate everybody around you and to become a less effective leader.

Yes. So. It is true, also, that for most people, that act of curiosity is one of their least developed muscles. So it's like, work on it. Don't pretend that you heard this and go, well, see, that's my justification for never asking questions. It's like, it's not. You need to be more curious, but don't think you can only be curious.

[00:45:11] Christy: Yes. Yes. And that's that nuance, right? This is an art and not a science, but like being able to hold that space, stay curious, really let them solve the problems. And then at other times, you know, be very direct and be courageous and say something that's hard for them to hear and be authentic and show up with your point of view.

I love it. And that, you know, that is this advanced capability, right, that we're all striving to continue to figure out how to show up in that way. Wonderful. Well, oh my gosh so many good things that we've been talking

[00:45:49] Michael: about. And we've barely scratched the surface. Yes.

[00:45:53] Christy: Now, after writing this latest book, The Advice Trap What have you become curious about?

[00:46:00] Michael: Well, that's a great question. So, you know, one of the fun things I'm doing at the moment is a little video series called My Best Question. I'm posting it on LinkedIn and Instagram as well. Hmm. And my best question is a one to two minute video of me going, hey, here's something that occurred to me today.

It's a cool question that's related to that. So if the coaching habit is all about here's seven essential questions. My best question, which, you know, we made into a little hashtag on LinkedIn and Instagram is all about here's a whole different range of questions. That just might be interesting for you to.

Reflect on or add to your coaching practice or just to ignore. Oh, I love it. So if people are like, I'm jonesing for the next question, then my best question is the thing to check out.

[00:46:45] Christy: Oh, fabulous. When you said that, I had this flash of a best question that I stole. Yeah. From Tim Ferriss, author of The 4 Hour Workweek.

And one of them that I just thought was brilliant that I had never thought to ask is What would this look like if it were easy?

[00:47:07] Michael: It's perfect.

[00:47:08] Christy: And I thought, you know, I do a good job of complicating things. Yeah. You know, I'm trying to, you know, do things with such depth or with, you know, you know, to get it right or effective.

And I've been using that question, which is, huh, Christy, what would this look like if this were easy? Right, exactly. And it has just. Turned things upside down for me a few times where the path I had in mind had, you know, all this complexity and rigor and I was like, Oh. I could just do this, right? And it was like, wow, that's

[00:47:42] Michael: mind blowing.

You know, if people are interested Tim wrote this article, I think in like 2016 or 2017, something like that called 17 questions that changed my life. And that's one of the 17 questions that Christie's pointing to. And if you just Google 17 questions that changed my life, plus Tim Ferriss, you'll find that.

And actually all 17 of those questions are pretty good questions. I have to say, he really nailed that. Mm hmm.

[00:48:09] Christy: Mm. Wonderful. Well, one question that we didn't talk about of your seven is the learning question. Yeah. What was the most useful

[00:48:18] Michael: for you?

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, for the people who, who've listened to this interview all the way to the end here.

I mean, we covered a lot, a lot of different topics, a lot of different conversations. And if you don't do something now, it'll all kind of just blur into a kind of mass of, that was a pretty good conversation, but I can't remember any of it. But if you're willing to stop for a moment and go over everything that Christy and I covered, what was most useful and most valuable for you.

And actually take the time just to answer that question. Yeah. What you're going to find is you're more likely to remember that useful thing and use that useful thing and actually get a better return.

[00:48:56] Christy: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And on that note my listeners do love to have something very practical.

And when I think about you being able to share, you've shared a lot of great nuggets all throughout. But when I think about offering an idea or a challenge for something they can do immediately or we can do immediately, of course, you know, go buy your books. Of course. Go check out your websites, which all that info is in the show notes, so they can have a lot of great tools.

But what's something you'd say, an idea, a challenge that we can do immediately?

[00:49:35] Michael: Well, there's a lot. I mean, pick what you want from the interview. But if you're like, I don't know, there's so much good stuff, I don't even know where to start. I was like, okay, if you're going to start, start by trying out the and what else question.

What that means is after you ask a question, just ask one more question, and that is, and what else? All I'm asking is you to experimentally get used to the insight that the first answer is never their only answer, and it's rarely their best answer. So, that's often a really good, solid, practical place for people to start, which is like, I'm going to ask, and what else, at least twice a day.

[00:50:13] Christy: Fabulous. I love that. I love that. And what else? The awe question. That's exactly what that is. And it's brilliant. So a wonderful challenge for us and so many good things here. Michael, I cannot thank you enough for taking time to share so much good wisdom.

[00:50:33] Michael: My pleasure. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having me on the conversation and for championing the two books.

I appreciate that

[00:50:38] Christy: as well. And I'm going to leave with that mantra to be curious a little bit longer.

Be sure to check out the show notes in the podcast at leadersgetreal.com, where you'll find a bounty of resources from this episode, including all seven questions, articles, links to Michael's videos and more. And until next time, be curious just a little bit longer.