What if the friction in your team isn't a strategy problem? What if it isn't a structure problem either? What if it's a conversation you've been avoiding, a truth no one has been willing to name, or simply the widening gap between what gets said in the meeting room and what gets said in the corridor afterwards?

Most leaders invest enormous energy into policy, process, and planning, trusting that the culture will follow. But culture isn't built in documents. It's built in the thousands of conversations happening, or not happening, every single day.

Emma Gibbens is a strategic communications expert, author of Anatomy of Conversation, and someone who has spent her career helping leaders and organisations have the honest, courageous conversations that actually shift things. With a background in international political campaigning across multiple countries and cultures, Emma brings a rare combination of directness and warmth. She understands, from the inside, how conversations can build bridges or quietly erode them and she's passionate about what becomes possible when we stop avoiding what most needs to be said.

In this episode, you'll explore:

• How conversations function as the invisible infrastructure of culture, shaping what's possible long before strategy is ever implemented
• Why the cost of silence can be just as damaging as the cost of brutal honesty, and what leaders consistently underestimate about both
• How to distinguish constructive honesty from brutal honesty, and why the difference lives in intention rather than content
• Why creating a deliberate, structured container for difficult conversations is far more effective than letting them seep into gossip and corridor chatter
• How awareness of power dynamics transforms the conversations you lead, and what stepping out of the content and into the role of host actually looks like
• Why knowing what you want, and preparing your energy, matters as much as anything you say in a difficult conversation
• How fitting in and belonging are not the same thing, and what it takes to build cultures where people bring their full selves

References:

• Brené Brown: Belonging vs Fitting In
• Adam Grant: The "Mount Stupid" Model
• Murmurations (Starlings)
• Georgia Murch Episode
• Oscar Trimboli Episode
• Anatomy of a Conversation | Emma Gibbens
• White Paper | Emma Gibbens

Timestamps:

(00:00) - Conversations as Cultural Infrastructure

(21:24) - Conversations as Core Business Process

(28:45) - Creating a Feedback-Rich Culture

(29:59) - The Role of Conversation Containers

(32:10) - Power Dynamics in Conversations

(40:11) - Resolving Friction Through Conversation

You can find Emma at:

Website: www.emmagibbens.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-gibbens/

Check out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/

Subscribe to my newsletter https://www.digbyscott.com/subscribe

Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/

I'm really playing with this idea that conversations are cultural infrastructure, because you make a new strategy, you make a new policy, but that doesn't actually change the culture. And sure, it's a stick to hold people against, or it creates a minimum level of liability, but it doesn't actually shift things when it comes to how people talk to each other day to day, how projects actually get done. It doesn't actually prevent miscommunication or wasted effort.

dialing in on conversations as this invisible thing that actually defines your culture, so where I'm focusing.

What if the friction in your team or your most important relationships isn't a strategy problem? What if it's a conversation you've been avoiding?

Well, Emma Gibbens has spent her career helping people have those honest, courageous conversations that actually shift things. She's a strategic communications expert and author of Anatomy of Conversation. I first met Emma in a cafe in Perth and was immediately struck by her candour and her ability to cut through the heart of what really matters. And we had this great conversation, so I invited her onto a podcast. And in this episode, we're exploring why most leaders underestimate conversation as the real lever

of change, what stops us from saying what needs to be said, and how to address and fix what we haven't been willing to name. Hi, I'm Digby Scott and this is Dig Deeper, a podcast where I have conversations with depth that will change the way you lead.

Welcome to the show.

Woo, nice to be here. I'm a woo girl. can't hide it.

Love that!

I love that. Woo. All right. We're into it. Yeah. My question I want to get us into. What did you get in trouble for when you were a kid?

Oh, talking back for sure. You're having a clever quick mind and then being in that sort of teenager, gonna push back against authority. I only got in detention once in high school, but it's because I was talking back with a teacher and I, yeah, it was just about something dumb too, like a test or something in history that was the teacher it was. So yeah, I got in trouble for talking, which is ironic because my superpower is also talking. So, know, the double edged sword choose to be.

Good rather than the villain, I guess.

Well, it's interesting, right? Because like, you know, how often does our superpower or the thing that we're in trouble for become our superpower as an adult and the system that schooling is like not allowing that to come through. You know what's I'm curious about though, you said teenager. I'm like, what about the two year old talk back? I mean, was it there that early for you?

Yeah, yeah, certainly. I think more so than, what applies in my work now is it was the ability to name things honestly so that things could move forward. I played an integral role in running my family growing up, and so being able to name what was actually happening to move things forward rather than just spinning in an emotional whirlwind helped things progress.

Tell me more, when did you notice that that's what you were able to do?

Only in hindsight, really. My parents got divorced when I was five and then I was sort of thrust into this peacekeeper, negotiator, glue of many different moving pieces. And as a young person, you just sort of shut down yourself and do what needs to be done, right? To make things better, make things peaceful, make things happen, make everyone happy, healthy. And only in hindsight now am I kind of looking at those patterns of like, yeah, that's where I learned my diplomacy and bridge building and...

If there is friction, how do you name it so that we can work through it, particularly being surrounded by quite emotional people. And I myself have big emotions too, but emotions are useful, but they can bog us down if we feed the beasts too much. you know, naming it helps us move forward.

I love to say that do you have emotions or demotions have you? And if emotions have got you, then that's pretty hard to kind of have something that's going to be sensible or practical or useful. But if you have emotions, it's like bringing out, actually, yeah, they are part of who we are as humans, right? This is thing. There's something about those two superpowers, one talking back and the other one of naming what's going on. And if you were to synthesize those,

What would be a word or a phrase that says this is what Emma Gibbens is about? Because clearly they're coming through into your adulthood.

Honesty is the word that's coming to mind, like truth. And I've gone through a learning phase of brutal honesty is unkind, like honesty without bounds is harmful. So when is honesty useful? How do you frame the truth so that it actually shifts someone or a situation? Not just because my ego says that this is a thing that's happening and aren't I clever for figuring it out? So I think honesty is probably the root.

Feels like that to me too, that if I was to use a word as something like truth seeker or honesty exorcist or something, making that up, know, bringing out the real. And there's an interesting distinction there between brutal honesty and I don't know what to call it, diplomatic honesty or kind honesty or something. How do you distinguish and how does a leader or anyone who wants to get to truth, how do you navigate?

walking the line between those two things because you know I've been accused certainly of being overly honest to the point of maybe being brutal which is interesting because I don't think that's naturally what I do but sometimes I can swing that pendulum and it comes out wrong and you know I try to avoid that yet on the other hand I don't want to avoid being honest. How do I navigate that?

when you're in conversation, I'm really focused on the essence, that intangible aspect. So it's not necessarily what you say, it's how you say it. It's how you conduct yourself, how you channel that rather than the content. And so you could say the same truth in two different ways and they would receive it differently. So I think that's the big thing I've learned is when is my intention to get them or to poke or to say, to slice almost to again, like

sometimes it's ego driven, like, look at how clever I am. Or sometimes it's like, oh, I'm to take you down a notch. Like that's the tone where it's brutal. Whereas when it's constructive honesty is when it has that intention of helping everyone feel more cohesive and move forward. I was just back home in the States for a month over Christmas, which was lovely. But I was just laughing recently, reflecting on how I was not policing my parents, but my dad and my stepmom were having quite a, they were getting quite ratty with each other. And I remember I was just like, Hey,

Dad, that was kind of aggressive for no reason. Like, what's going on? Why did you go that way? And then to my stepmom, I'm like, hey, you know, that was a bit dismissive when dad made that joke and then you kind of shut it down. Like, what's that about? There's a tone in the intention. Like my intention is to have them have a better communication because they've been married for 25 years. So of course they've fallen into patterns and norms, but how can I name it so that they can see it and work on it a bit more clearly? Yeah, if I had a different intention, it would have had a different result.

Tell me a time or a formative experience for you where you really appreciated that distinction. know, either you're on the other side of that conversation or it was like, hang on, this is important to get right.

don't have specific memories, but I remember early in my 20s, I lost a number of friendships in quite quick succession from being too brutal. Actually, I'll remember one specifically. I told one of my friends that her hair dye made her look bad, effectively. And she got a bad hair dye job and she was like,

And then she pulled back and I was like, Hey, how come we don't hang out as much? she's like, cause you were just rude. Like, why, why would you like, it's my hair. Obviously I chose this colour for a reason. And you said it made me look like, washed out. Like that was just rude and unnecessary. And so I started to see the consequences of me just stating what I saw or what my opinion was without considering the consequence, without considering how it would impact them. and that's, that's a really shallow example, but yeah, I guess I just started to learn the consequences over time.

I can relate to that. I'm also what comes up as you're talking is what about the other side of that pendulum swing where we're not honest enough because there's clearly a cost there, right? What do you reckon is going on there? What's the cost?

cost of silence is also losing relationships.

Yeah, there's something sometimes I stay silent, hoping that the person will come to their own conclusion. And I hear this a lot with leaders, you know, it's like they'll just have to figure it out. One day they'll get it. You know, and I think there's something about the cost of I mean, there's a productivity cost for that. There's a relational cost. There's a cultural cost for that. Right. It's.

Yeah, what gets in the way? mean, either one way or the other. You've talked about the ego thing. Is it the same thing when we're not calling it out? Is it that where the ego then is a protective mechanism not to lean in? You know what I mean? It's like, what's going on there?

Yeah, a couple of things come to mind is like, people want to avoid discomfort, right? It doesn't feel good.

Doesn't sound like you do though.

No, no, but that's why I do the work that I do. But generally, I think this is why people avoid having those hard conversations. And they avoid it because there's a perceived emotional relationship or competence risk. Like either they won't be able to handle the emotions or it'll feel really gross. It'll ruin the relationship or adjust it in a negative way, or they'll look stupid because they don't know how to navigate that conversation. And so that's what I think pulls people back, which is frustrating because

Giving someone that negative feedback and giving them constructive feedback more so helps them grow and develop. It's actually an act of love to give someone that feedback because you're helping them become a better version of themselves. If we look at the deep emotion within this, I think ultimately it comes down to rejection. You don't want to start those conversations because you don't want to be rejected.

That's really powerful for me. You know, it's the need for belonging, which is a fundamental human need. you know, this need that, you know, I matter and I matter to you. And the opposite of that is I don't matter. I'm feeling rejected. That's hugely powerful, right?

I always loved Brené Brown's distinction here between belonging and fitting in, and fitting in is changing yourself to match the environment, whereas belonging is being accepted as you are. And I've been really playing with this tension between polite cultures and how everyone thinks polite cultures are nice and there's no one rocking the boat. And so this must be a good culture, but actually it's everyone fitting in.

It's a performative and shallow way of connecting and getting things done rather than true belonging is where you can show up as your full self. We all show up as our full selves and we play to those strengths and weaknesses, knowing the entirety of each other. Again, these are those intangible, these tensions that bubble under the surface that we don't look at or we don't name explicitly. And when we do, it can be really powerful.

change it. It's interesting. I reckon there's a degree of fitting in that perhaps all of us need to do. We join a new organisation or a new team, move to a new country, and there's an adaptation element, which means you got to go first. The culture is what it is. You adapt, you fit in. I certainly noticed that 18 years ago when I moved to New Zealand as someone from WA, I realised I had to adapt, you know, change how I talked.

There's a different way of speaking here. There's a different pace. There's a different narrative that's going on here. I'm spending more and more time back in W.A. as you know, we live in Perth and I'm noticing that there's a way of being there that if I'm going to come and spend a bunch more time there, which is my intention, there's probably some readaptation. So the fitting in feels like it's not a necessary a bad thing. It's almost like a thing that

comes with a territory with change, yet by itself, it's not enough, right? There's something about that idea of being accepted just for who you are. And it makes me wonder, how do we create cultures where that's more than norm? You know, that allows a person to be who they are, because of course, that's when they bring their best.

I can relate, of course, I've moved to a number of places. I've lived in Perth now for 10 years, but coming from the States, I would maybe even argue my cultural jump was a lot larger. We can go into that. That's a really interesting line of inquiry, but the same with polite cultures, right? Like, yes, of course you don't want to show up and be a dickhead, right? Be polite, you know, adjust to the norm. Like there is an adaptability and adapting to fit where you are so that you are accepted, so that you do get a minimum level of trust.

Suspects.

and connection with people. Absolutely. And then once you get there, how can we go deeper? And I think it's kind of like, I was just talking to someone the other day, how they told a joke to someone who they just met and the person didn't get it. And it kind of had this weird mismatch where they were like, like, that's a bit douchey. And he's like, no, wait, I was making a joke, but dang, you don't know me. You don't know that that's a joke.

Once you get familiarity, once you get more exposure, more proximity, and you can intentionally build it within an organisation by creating more connection exercises, not just icebreakers, but shared experiences, honest experiences, honest conversations. But yeah, once you have that level of familiarity, then you can move deeper.

Yeah, so there's kind of like a staged approach to this, right? There's first, I need to know you and the familiarity. I think about no like trust, right, as a model. It's that idea, isn't it? like, first, I just need to know who you are and a little bit about you, and then we can go a bit deeper. How important is it to be able to be fast through that process, know, accelerate that process? Because I imagine we could stay at a safe level that's not necessarily super productive.

Firstly, every person, every culture moves at their own pace. Like if I'm thinking of a team of technical introverts, like they're gonna have a very different way of going about it than a bunch of comms people who are used to talking all day to the media or to each other to design something, right? So it's gonna be cultural. Expediting it is a pace. And to go faster, you have to slow down. And when you're pushing for productivity, you're pushing for outcomes and like we're hustling, we're go, go, go. The demands are higher than ever. You're really extracting every minute out of every person.

That's where it becomes more more transactional rather than a transformative conversation or space. So if you want to make it go faster, slow down, take a Friday afternoon off and go play darts. Give people two hours in their week to work on a side project that they find interesting. You know, that's a classic Google example. Give people a full hour break, but encourage them to go and go with a buddy, get out of their desk and go walk outside for lunch. Like, so in order to build that

cultural fabric quicker, you have to slow down and make space for it.

Yeah, slow is smooth and smooth is fast, right? It's like once we remove the friction, we can get into the real work. Coming from the US, what do you reckon the main differences are now that you live in West Australia, you've been there 10 years. What do you see in terms of the cultural differences that are in the way we are together, the way we have conversations?

Yeah, and I remember coming here, was like, Australia is going to be easy. They got McDonald's, got grocery stores, like it'll all be the same, right? I suppose McDonald's is universal. But the key cultural difference is that in the U.S. there's inherent individualism as the cultural undertone and in Australia, it's collectivism. And you see this in policy, health care is an example, Medicare versus the complete dog's breakfast of the U.S. Even socially, Australia, this concept of shouting rounds.

you know, being collectively responsible for each other. So if everyone else has bought around and it's your shout, you're not going to duck out on it, right? You are committed to that collective. So that's kind of the cultural undertone that I noticed. And it has, yeah, it has a lot of impacts in how I navigate and how I orient people here.

Yeah, well, mean, give me, because we're talking all about the power of conversations here, right? Tell me how that difference, how do you need to think about it when you're working with people on how they're having conversations? Where do you need to put more attention in terms of how you do that work?

It's actually a strong not wrong sort of situation. So because I am different, because I do think it's important to talk about yourself and to put your, you can talk about what you're doing well. It's okay to brag, you know, that's very much a U S sort of trait. A lot of what I do is helping Australians make it okay to talk about themselves, make it okay to say something outside the norm or what's culturally acceptable to push back perhaps, or to say something difficult.

This place is quite prosperous. It's quite peaceful. And so doing anything that rocks the boat feels really extreme and just lowering those stakes and making people feel it's okay. It's not going to break everything if you say what you actually think.

That's true. know, it's interesting as living in New Zealand, I would say being in Australia and being from Western Australia and having spent time in the States, I reckon there's a continuum which Australia is probably in the middle somewhere compared to New Zealand at one end, the US at the other. I reckon the collectivism is really strong here, potentially because of the multicultural influence. It's quite a conservative culture compared to Western Australia. I notice more championing individual heroics in Western Australia than I do here.

It's a little bit more tall poppy here, I reckon, than you get in Australia. But again, compared to the US, both Australia and New Zealand are definitely leaning more towards the we than the me in the conversation. I love that idea of it's OK to share what you think and how you've done what you've done and teach us some stuff. You know, it's all about the framing. What are you working on at the moment? What's fascinating you that you'd love to dig into with me?

I'm really playing with this idea that conversations are cultural infrastructure, because you make a new strategy, you make a new policy, but that doesn't actually change the culture. And sure, it's a stick to hold people against, or it creates a minimum level of liability, but it doesn't actually shift things when it comes to how people talk to each other day to day, how projects actually get done. It doesn't actually prevent miscommunication or wasted effort.

dialing in on conversations as this invisible thing that actually defines your culture. So where I'm focusing and within that, particularly there's a phrase I'm playing with quite a lot. You know, we can't fix what we can't talk about because this naming the hard thing, saying what's real, calling people out, calling people in, like there's a lot of courage that's required for people to all be custodians of the culture equally, but there also is quite a lot of structure to it. doesn't have to be this.

only informal way of communicating. can also be quite formal and skilled. So I'm playing with that tension.

I love that conversations as cultural infrastructure. And there's a parallel one to me, which is conversations are a core business process. And what if we treated conversations as cultural infrastructure, like we treat the finances of a business or what financial infrastructure that that's fundamental to the lifeblood of a company. You could argue that conversations are in more so because we're not having conversations about finances, then we're probably don't have a company. So they feel like.

fundamental building blocks, fundamental, they're almost the atoms. The words we say are the atoms that make up the body, you know.

And they're assumed, right? Like, yeah, we're going to promote this person. They know how to talk, of course. No, man, when you become a manager, your whole job becomes conversations and people management. And those are completely different kinds of conversations than just small talk or being able to communicate in a presentation well. So there's this like undervaluing, underappreciating, overlooking conversations as the real lever of change.

Yeah, you know, it's often I hear managers talk about, I've been in meetings all day. When do I get to my real work? It's this. Well, hang on. That is your real work, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was coaching a leader the other day and helping her identify as a leader. And so was like, what are some leadership activities you've done lately? And she's like, well, it's mostly been conversations. I'm like, yep, that's your job now. Not technical output, not doing the thing, it's talking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what's the challenge do you reckon that we're up against with that? Because I love the idea and it feels like an aspiration to treat conversations as cultural infrastructure. Cool concept. Yet that feels like a mountain to climb. Am I right?

It's one of those things where people say, yeah, I totally get that. You know, we can't talk about, that makes sense. But then putting it into practice, actually doing it is where the rubber meets the road. And that's where you get the most friction is implementing it because it is uncomfortable. This is the whole like psychological safety doesn't mean being nice all the time. It means holding discomfort and making a space where people feel safe to say what doesn't feel good or what isn't easy.

And so there's quite a lot of integrity almost required or again, strength perhaps to hold commitment to that idea of investing in your conversations, both the capability and skilling people up to do it, but also encouraging the will, making people feel motivated to go and say something early.

If I could expand that a bit, let's kick this around. Is there also an awareness thing? Because just the way you say, you know, that conversation with the manager, what are the leadership activities and they go conversations and your comeback? Yep. There's an awareness raising piece there that it's like, that's my work. Now, I reckon plenty of people don't even think of that as their work. So do we have to start with this awareness that

actually, this is your work. And so you need to pay attention to how you're showing up, as you said earlier on, right? The way in which you're having conversations is the thing that's going to make the difference. I reckon there's plenty of people who don't think about that. They'll show up, they'll have their PowerPoint or their, you know, their talking points for their one-on-one or whatever. I've got to deliver this, got to get these words out. And that's as far as it goes in terms of prepping for a conversation. What's the real challenge? Is awareness something that we need to be

raising here.

Yeah, it is. Education was actually the first thing that popped to my mind. I'm like, isn't it education? Yeah, definitely it is. And I like how you said conversations are atoms. They're just that small to where they don't actually realise that it's important. so I take, actually, I'd argue any process, Like trying to reduce the escalation of incidents, right? Or trying to reduce wasted effort in projects. I reckon if you took any of those issues and worked it all the way back,

conversations would be at the very base of that. Again, psychological safety is a workshop I ran earlier this week. If you want safe cultures, you have to have trust. How do you build trust? It's how we talk to each other, relationships. How do you build relationships? It's how we talk to each other. I've got those zigzagged around. But if you dial it down, the root is all about how we talk to each other.

Yeah, in line of Susan Scott's work, she wrote that book, Fierce Conversations. And, you know, the conversation is the relationship. You know, again, the building blocks of a relationship, the conversations and the relationships, how we relate to each other is essentially what culture is. So there's again, fundamentals. I think we agree on that point.

The barrier is it is unseen, it's overlooked. And so again, I think just shining a light on it, putting focus on it helps elevate.

I remember doing a bunch of work with Chevron years ago, know, oil and gas company, and they had this thing at the end of their meetings called a plus delta. And it was unusual to see that back in the time, maybe plenty of companies do that now. I don't see much of it happening here. Plus delta is at the end of a meeting, you go, well, what was good about how we had that meeting? What was good about how we had that conversation? What worked? And the delta is

what would we do differently? What do we learn? What would we change about how we had that meeting or had that conversation? And you weren't allowed to leave the room without doing a plus delta. It was part of the culture and man, it made such a difference to, it's almost like a contemplative nature to the work that was a slowing down actually before rushing off to the next thing. It was like, well, let's slow down and get on the balcony about how that went. And that was an awareness raising tool that

was just embedded into their process. And I thought, this is cool.

Yeah, I love that as like a structural example of how to implement it was also coming to mind for me is yeah, conversations are viewed as a linear transactional thing. Whereas that example that you had is actually a circular model. You know, like think of the seasons like, yeah, spring is coming. We're generating all these good ideas. Okay, we're about to wrap up the meeting, but let's just take some time in that winter phase to just reflect and figure out what seeds we need to sow next. There's a circular shape versus that linear.

I love that. So you're kind of like closing off before moving into whatever's coming next.

Closing the loop, you know, the classic, that's been commandeered as. I know, I know, but like, and I hate that that's been commandeered, but it is true. Like circular models are the most sustainable, you know, they self-perpetuate, whereas linear is like constantly always pushing upwards to what end.

Just as a sidebar, I think we could learn a lot more from metaphors from nature, right? You know, like the cycle of the seasons and what if we allowed a season for everything, including how we have conversations. I mean, we have cycles around one-on-ones and PDPs and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, there's an informal part of it, not just the structural piece right here. And I know this is something you're interested in, this kind of formal versus informal stuff. Tell us about that.

Just two quick like nature things if you are curious about that look into fungi and like mycelium and also look into murmurations like those are two really interesting I'm pretty sure starlings It's a pack of birds where there's like thousands of birds in the sky and they all move because not that they're coordinating with each other and we know the strategy is because they say seven inches away from the

What a murmuration.

Right. Isn't that three rules? Don't crash into the other birds. Follow the bird in front. And there was one other one. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. And what if we could allow that to be how we organised, you know, as opposed to here's the org chart, do this. Cause we always know the org charts, not the reality.

Stay so far away from the other bird

Yeah, but this formal informal tension came from, yeah, performance reviews is sort of the classic and it has this really high stakes because it happens once a year and it's a really serious thing. goes on your record. Whereas can we bring the risk down by making it informal, making a feedback rich culture?

where everybody's telling everybody, you know, from peer to peer, up and down, they're giving each other feedback as they go. And that really lowers the risk so that when you do have the performance review, it doesn't feel as heavy as intense, but it creates this distance, I guess, or yeah, de-risk it. But how this came up too is the idea of, you you have the meeting and maybe you have the meeting and no one talks, right? That's a classic one. No one's engaging in the conversation. The manager says the whole piece and then at the end says, okay, any questions?

and there's crickets. But then what happens in that scenario is it all becomes informal and it's gossip and it's said in the back rooms and on the coffee chats and in the teams chats. And so it kind of seeps out. So if you aren't creating a formal structure, it seeps into the informal. It's not going anywhere. It doesn't go away. It just changes the place. And when it's informal, it's harder to control. It festers. It's a far more uncontrollable beast. So creating a formal structure or naming the hard thing within a group setting,

is far more effective than just avoiding it, pushing it away.

I love that. I've never thought about that before. That this is this idea of you can create a container that's mine. Yeah. And if you can name the container, we're here to talk about this and here are the boundaries and here's the time or whatever we've got.

Conversations are containers.

I was talking this morning with a future guest, actually, Christian Penny, about this idea of our role as host of a conversation, which is something I'm big about. And we're hosting the conversation in a container. And our role is to set what the boundaries are, to set what happens in that container at a structural level, but not control it. It's allow it to happen. what I'm

hearing you're saying is we need more deliberateness around the structures for conversations that we have rather than, you know, there's that lovely saying water will find its way. If it's not happening in the formal meeting, it'll happen somewhere else. So you might as well create the space for it to happen so it can be productive rather than leaky.

And one piece I add just on this container. So of course it's the how you set up the container, as you said, opening, framing. But one thing I'd also encourage for leaders here listening is be aware of the power dynamic. Because if you're leading the meeting, they're going to wait for you to speak and what you think is the right thing. Whereas when you're a facilitator, you're actually stepping out of the content and just holding the space. You're observing how people are talking. Hey, you haven't voiced anything. Would you like to bring it in? Or hey, I'm seeing these threads connect.

So if you can do some mechanic or over time create an expectation where it's not you are more powerful than them, so they must shush and listen to whatever you say or think. And that's difficult for a lot of people, of course, especially when you are the leader and it's your responsibility ultimately. But if you can step out and be outside of the content, that's often where the most powerful things emerge.

I love that it gets me thinking about even if it's a physical room you're in, where are you sitting? If it's a big old board table, are you sitting at the head or are you sitting?

on one corner, where do you place yourself? And I'm really conscious of that when I facilitate to really try to set up the room in a way that minimises, at the very least, any power dynamic that's coming from me that says that I'm the boss. It's like, if I can get a circle of chairs, I'll create a circle of chairs. If we don't need tables, let's get rid of tables. I don't think people really think about that stuff. But it's such a simple thing, isn't it? Where you're positioning yourself, how are you positioning yourself?

role we play.

And I'll reflect when we caught up, said, just a classic line, your role is to shut up and ask more questions. If you want, take it straight from Digby here, shut up and just ask more questions. That's a great way to reset the power dynamic.

Absolutely. Stick a question marker on the end of that statement, right?

Yeah, Australians in their statement questions, honestly.

come on, tell me what are you talking about?

Australians put this upward inflection and call it a question. Do they? You knew the expectations? Did you know the expectations? What were the expectations as you understood them? Those are actual question words, just not just, you knew the expectations? Yeah. Where do I go with that?

I know you

Yeah, it's kind of passive, isn't it really?

Yeah, and it doesn't, because who told you the expectations? What were the expectations? Where did you find the information about expectations? All of those give you different answers. So when you're building your questions, think about the answer you actually want. And that helps you form a better question. Whereas if you just do a statement with an inflection, it's confusing. Where do you go?

You know, if there's one set of skills I would want leaders to develop, there's three in the set. There's listening to yourself, to the relational dynamics, to the direction of conversation, all that. Number one, listening. Number two, asking better questions. Get beneath the surface. Ask questions that elicit what's really going on and elicit possibilities, you know, that kind of stuff. And the third one is voicing. Say what you mean.

say what you mean in a kind yet clear way. So there's no second guessing, you know, listening, asking, voicing, if you could master those three things, then your whole culture can shift. You know, again, they're the atoms, right? Or maybe they're the molecules in the atoms, know, you don't want to talk about.

Yeah, there's so many metaphors. That's the thing with conversations, they can go a whole bunch of ways. I'll add one piece here because there's a lot of discussion, of course, about AI integration and work and how it's going to change how we work. And certainly, I'm not anti AI, because I think AI can help with a lot of those transactional conversations, a lot of those meetings that should have been an email. And just talking about figuring out what you want, AI can be really helpful with that.

You know, like I'm feeling really ticked off about this and da da da da. Like that's where you draft the first email that you walk away from and delete, right? But then I've used this too, where like Claude is an example, an AI tool helps me tease out, well, here's what I'm hearing. Is this what it's about? And then it gets me clarity on what I want. So then when I go into the conversation, which is the human aspect, only you can have the actual conversation. It gives you a bit more of that clarity.

Love that. You know, it's kind of like Claude is the coach where the coach is asking you as a human, the questions that will get you to think. Right. That's really how I prefer to use it rather than give me the answer. I mean, yeah, when it's kind of a heavy lifting, kind of like manual processing of create me this thing. Sure. But when it comes to communication and clarity of thinking, I want to do that myself. And Claude can help me.

get to clarity faster through really good questions. And actually I'll steal questions from Claude. When it asks me a good question, I'm like, man, that's a good one. I'm going to use that.

Yeah. And I add a nuance here too, that the output of the AI is not what should be communicated per se, because particularly if it's something complex or emotive, everyone can read if it's AI generated, right? Someone was telling me, I've been playing with this phrase, you know, this email should have been a meeting. You know, so when are those conditions when this email should have been a meeting? And usually it's about when it's opinion-based or when it's feedback about a project or a person.

these things where there's an emotive quality, there's a relational quality, subjective quality. Yeah, so AI can help you figure it out, but my goodness, don't copy paste that and send it to the person is what I would recommend.

I love that flip. This email should have been a meeting. I really love that. That's something we undervalue in an environment of efficiency, You're clearly passionate about this stuff, right? Your energy, the way you talk. You've done so much thinking. You've done so much work in this space for so long. Why does this matter to you?

Firstly, it matters because I've seen it work. My background is in international political campaigning. So I've worked in many cultures, in many countries, seeing how communities of individuals come together around a common cause and create positive change for the world, for their community, whatever that might be. So conversations are the root of that. Conversations is the thing that creates that change. But at a deeper level though, like my purpose here is to heal.

right, to bring people together, to bring people back into that middle space so that we can all live a more prosperous, loving life. And conversations are that bridge, conversations are that container where we can find common ground. And particularly looking around at the world today, it's more and more divisive. People are more and more disrespectful of difference. And we are mostly the same. We are all made of 60 % water, you know? We all care about our family and our loved ones.

are afraid of things we don't understand or we can't control. Like those are common human traits. And so my work is to bring people into the middle so we can see each other honestly. And that will heal both us individually, but heal us as a collective.

That idea of bringing people into the middle, that's beautiful. It's not me versus you. It's like, come and meet me in the middle of the court, right? Let's be together. Let's not be on two sides of a net. It's like, actually, why don't you step over the net? Hang out here for a bit.

It's, it's, that's the thing.

remove the net. Yes. man, it reminds me of a session I was facilitating a group of leaders on Wednesday, a leadership team. And I asked the question towards the end of the day, we've done some great work. And I said, you know, is there anything about how you're organised, how you're set up your structure that might inhibit you achieving these things you want to say you want to achieve?

Yeah, let's dissolve some of these boundaries that we've made up. You know, and I think the same goes for countries. goes for organisations that compete, but actually that could potentially collaborate. It goes for teams and so it's the same stuff. It's all stuff we've made up in service of perhaps efficiency or focus. Yet there's a cost that you're saying, meet me in the middle and let's see what's possible. That's kind of what you're doing, hey?

Yeah, and it's double edged, right? And same with like identity, right? It's useful to a point. It helps you understand yourself. It helps you research. It helps you find people like you. But then when it becomes weaponised or too forceful, then it actually creates further division. Because you're like, you're a man. I'm a woman. You must be so much worse than me, or whatever it comes judgmental. And I think, in that collective sense, tribalism exists. That's how we come together. We create these norms and rituals so that people

We have a sense of security and being seen or belonging, right? So it does, it happens for a reason. But then when that becomes weaponised or calcified, that's when it becomes destructive and divisive. So how can we hold it, yet either change those, be more open to it? Nothing's a binary, right? So I'm conscious of that as well. I wanted to name the complexity there.

They might say in adult development psychology, transcend and include. So, you know, the individuation you get from having your own team. Yeah, this is our identity. And then we need to include that, but also transcend it into and we are part of a bigger thing that's fundamental that we connect. And your work is about bridging. It's about that transcendence. So I can hear why this matters to you. For anyone listening, I guess, two questions and maybe you answer them separately. One is, well,

Why should I care? Why should it matter to me? I'm a senior leader. I've got a team and got an organisation running. Why does this matter? Why should I care about conversations? And the second question is, so what would be my first step?

I still don't have quite the words to describe this, but the what's in it for you or the why it matters is because any friction in your life can be resolved through a conversation. Conversations can fix anything, personally, professionally, there's any friction. You don't like how your partner does the dishwasher. You don't like how that team member never speaks up or you think your executive team are all siloed in fiefdoms and fighting for resources against each other rather than working cohesively. Any friction in your life.

can be resolved by talking about it. And of course our fears, whatever emotions get in the way, our competence gets in the way, we don't feel confident in holding that space. But the very first step I reckon is to figure out what you want. What do you want? What do you want to change? And that's a hard question, hey, I think that's the question people mostly hide from. Because if you know what you want, then you recognise the gap between where you are and what you want. And then you either have to go get what you want or you have to live with where you are.

and recognising that gap conversations can help move that forward. Of course, other actions when it comes to actually starting the conversation, where do you start is preparing. think that's another sort of people think that, I'll just rock up and talk and it'll be fine. Or, I kind of know what I want to have happen. Let me just see how we get there. Whereas preparing for it, thinking through the opening, thinking through the frame, what's going to make it the most productive conversation, thinking up a couple of questions that

don't lead or persuade, but create a channel, a boundary perhaps for that container. So where to start is to start preparing. Prepare for the conversation. And then when you actually go into it, prepare your energy. Because your intention, your energy, that's actually what changes the tone and the outcome.

So know what you want, prepare what you want to say or ask so you can create the container and then prepare your energy. Not easy questions to nail, particularly that first one, because I just want this to go away. This problem, I want this friction to disappear. Yeah, but what do you want to have in its place? You know, that's a fundamental question. And it's Robert Fritz who wrote The Path of Least Resistance. He said,

What do I want is the hardest question in the world to answer. So yeah, we have to answer it.

And I would even tease out like, what do you want? I want the problem to go away. Do you want your team to feel slighted? Do you want your team to feel empowered? Do you want like, there's a tonal quality as well of what you want as the outcome. I had an example over Christmas. My mom did something that was hurtful and I had to think through like, okay, the outcome is I want a relationship with my mother. You know, I don't want to yell at her. I don't want to make her feel guilty. So I'm going to structure the conversation.

The way I framed it in the end was, hey, mom, I really want to connect with you. You've done something that makes it difficult for us to connect because of these logistics. What can we do to get around that common goal of connection? What's my outcome? I want to have a relationship with my mom. I don't want to ice her out. Right. And so again, those tonal qualities rather than just the outcome of, I want her to change her plane ticket. No, what's the actual higher outcome that I'm going for.

That's great. We've covered a heap of ground. These are always learning conversations, right? It's like we're exploring territory together. I'm wondering what's come up for you that you've learned or been reminded of? What kind of got you thinking? I noticed quite a few pauses for you in this conversation, which I love.

I'm a poser, yeah, I'm a thinker.

Yeah, what's what's come up for you that you might be chewing on for a bit after this?

Yeah, Brené Brown is infamous for her pauses in podcasts too. So I'm like, I'm in good stead. What's been reinforced is the invisible nature of conversations and their importance, which again works for the infrastructure metaphor because it's unseen. You know, don't see the steel beams. You don't recognise that the roads are essential infrastructure until they get broken. Yeah, don't. Yeah. You really don't see those. We have those tiny, tiny building blocks. And so

it's taken away from me like, oh, maybe education awareness is still quite a large part of my work to take forward. And how do I do that effectively? How do I communicate that? Yeah. Conversations, you know, there's so many shapes and spaces and so I'm always both excited and overwhelmed, you know.

Good questions.

I think Adam Grant has a model where it's like two lumps, you one is a small lump, one's a larger lump. And it's like, it's called Mount Stupid. Like you get to the top of that first hump and you're like, my gosh, I know everything about this. Yes. But then once you get there, you can see the rest of the valley and the mountain range in front of you. And you're like, gosh, I know nothing. So like, that's how I feel whenever I get into this. Cause yeah, sure. I've learned some stuff. I've seen a lot in practice. I know a lot of what to do and how to do it and how to shape it. But then when you zoom out, you're like,

my goodness, there's so much more. So that's sort of the sensation I have.

I reckon that's why people would love working with you because you've got this humility. You know some stuff, but you've got wonderance, right? You've got confidence and wonderance together. know, confidence. I've got some stuff I can share with you. Wonderance. I don't know it all. I'm still climbing with you, right?

I like to say, conversations are craft, right? Like a carpenter or whatnot. I'm skilled at it because I've done my 10,000 hours, but I often say like it's 10,000 hours of awkward conversations. my goodness, I have had so many awkward interactions. So through that learning and that practice that it develops.

That's cool. I'm wondering, what do you want to ask me? Yeah, because I know you wanted to come with some questions and maybe there's a question you could get me to think about be vulnerable about because I'm curious about what's on your mind at the moment around that.

We're very similar in our skill set and in our knowledge. What's your irony? Like, where do you fall down in conversations?

for an eyebrow pause.

Yeah. And again, speaking of humility, like this is a question I ask myself or that I self reflect on. So I can, I can go in there with you or I can vulnerably lead if you prefer rather than just shoving you off the deep end.

I think that something is emerging here for me, which is I reckon I know it's irony, but I hide behind curiosity. And what I mean by that is I'm bloody good at asking questions. Yeah, we went straight into this conversation with a bunch of questions. And I think I can hide behind that, you know, talking about listening, asking and voicing. I'm pretty good at listening and asking, but the voicing thing.

That's something I need to build my muscle on. Maybe the irony is I've got a podcast. I'm putting my message out in the world. I write a newsletter every week. You know, I'm doing keynote speaking. Yet when it comes to the one-on-one stuff, I reckon I'm leading with asking and listening, which I think is good. Yet there's a safety in that that I reckon I could round out. I could open up myself a bit more through the voicing.

Do know what that is? Like, why don't you?

I think it's the fear of being judged to be silly or not fully thought through, so incompetent. Not necessarily being wrong. I'm okay with being wrong, but it might be misinformed. What pisses me off is that someone is asserting a view as the truth, yet it's clearly an opinion.

And to me, there's something about I'd rather hold back and have it fully thought through rather than asserting something. And that's the middle ground there, right? It's like, here's what I'm thinking. And I think beautiful dialogue is here's what I'm thinking, yet I might be missing something. And there's something about that for me, which I still put the foot on the break a bit. Thanks for the question.

Yeah, how I'm relating or what might help the leaders in the room too is that the stakes are high or they feel higher than ever of saying things that are informed or that might be misinformed because cancel culture, gotcha culture, being called out for something is really heightened. And that's what I see gets in the way of people saying what they think, saying what they mean. You if you think about a brand about to put out a new campaign, they take their message.

They polish it. Okay, how will this not offend anyone within any possible frame? You pose it through and they put up something that's beige and no one connects to it because it doesn't mean anything. So taking an actual position or perspective, that's where people are hesitant and that's what we actually need a whole lot more of. And then for the receiving, for the rest of our culture, I would say like, hey, we all need a lot more grace. Like, you know, that person didn't mean to cause offense when they accidentally said that word or when they phrased it that way.

look a bit deeper than just the words and trying to getcha or gotcha.

Where's the intent, right? And that's helpful for me because I might frame things. Look, here's my take. It may not be fully informed. I'm willing to be corrected. Teach me more. Here's what I'm thinking. And there's something about being able to say that in a confident way, but also with some humility or wonderance, right? And I think it's, yeah, just drink my own medicine there a bit more, I reckon.

That's why it's beautiful to examine because then again, it's fun to do the work if you go into it with that positive, constructive approach.

Yeah, and a learning mindset, right? Let me learn, you know? It's improve not prove, as Adam Grant would say. Emma, awesome. We've had a journey and I suspect there'll be, I was thinking as we were talking, I'd love to hang out with you more when I'm in Perth. And let's do some stuff together, because like you say, we've got really similar approaches and mindsets around this stuff and there's so much more we can learn together.

For others who want to hang out with you, get to know you, how can people find you?

LinkedIn is probably the primary channel where I hang out. post my articles, I post videos, I post interesting tidbits and tips and tricks and tools. So LinkedIn's really solid. I do have a newsletter where I post a article every week. They are a bit like last week I wrote about hypersensitivity in our culture. The week before that I wrote about Minnesota's political organising history, because it's in the national news. I sort of, it's really where I'm feeling.

It's a smorgasbord. Because as saying with you, I'm very curious about lots of different things. This week, it was about the Cuban health system and what we can learn from that about preventing problems. That's a fun ride. My website as well, Emma Gibbens.com.

Awesome. So we'll put links to the show notes and all of that stuff. So here's to your work continuing well into the future because your passion is driving you forward a pace. I'm sure we'll see a heap more from you and looking forward to catching you next time in Perth, which is not far away. Yeah. Thanks, Emma. See you.

Let's do it. Sounds good. Digby.

Reflecting on that conversation with Emma. One thing that I loved is that question she asked me towards the end where she really got me thinking and it shows me the power of someone who knows what they're about. Just by asking a question like that that really got me thinking. When was the last time you asked a question where the person went, huh, that's a good question.

And I reckon that's something we could all get better at is just asking questions that make people think stop in the tracks because learning happens there, insight happens there, new possibilities happen there. It's such a great skill to have. So thank you, Emma, for doing that for me. The other thing I'm taking out, well, many, many things, but one, this idea of any friction in your life can be resolved through conversation. What a powerful statement. Yeah. So if you want to

get rid of stuff that's bugging you, have a conversation, learn how to have the conversations that can help you navigate, wayfind through that stuff. So good, awesome. Couple other episodes, actually three that I reckon you'll like if you found this helpful and useful and you want to go further, listen to Georgia Murch and I talk about the idea of kind versus nice conversations and cultures.

Another episode is with Oscar Trimboli where we get into really what is great listening all about. And then finally, an episode I did by myself around the idea of brilliant surface peers and questions, questions that get beneath the surface into the real stuff. I'll put links to all three of those in the show notes so you can.

time, go well.