[00:00:00] Dan: Hello and welcome back to We Not Me, the podcast where we explore how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.

[00:00:13] Pia: And I am Pia Lee. I was listening to a really interesting podcast in the car today and I went to the chiropractor and I had such a bad back. It took two chiropractors of two sessions to stretch me out, but that's another story. Husband and wife team. If they'd seriously got a nine iron golf club, I think it would've had the same effect. But anyway, that was.

[00:00:36] Dan: could be a lot cheaper.

[00:00:37] Pia: There we go. Exactly. So, yeah, I was listening to this podcast about the Metaverse and it was a couple of reporters going on the Horizon platform with their virtual reality goggles. They went to a comedy club of which there were 20 people in there and no one said a word. And they tried to make conversation and people wouldn't respond back to them. And someone sort of did sort of go, Yeah, what are you doing here? And that was, deep. 

[00:01:08] So the sort of reflection of it was that, you know, it was. It was quite cool. And the graphics, you know, still sort of a bit cartoonish, but you know, still pretty cool. And of course, they couldn't get closer than four feet because there's already been inappropriate touching has been reported. So that was, yeah, correctly, the algorithms were changed.

[00:01:28] But it did make me think what happens if we get so seduced by this technology that we forget the art of human conversation? Is it a muscle that will atrophy as we go through generations? Because we just train our brain away from that. I dunno. I just got a little spooked. 

[00:01:49] Dan: Yeah, no, I'm sure. I'm sure. I mean, obviously, Well, we right to be spooked, aren't we? The last bout of social media that we all thought, Oh, brilliant, Facebook isn't this fantastic? I can see everyone's pictures of babies and things turned out to, of, because of the low standard of dialogue actually, and the low policing on that platform, you know, for truth and science caused all kinds of problems. So I'm sure you're right to be concerned. 

[00:02:13] I mean, I do think that the technology's very young, so I think what we're seeing now is just a sort of very embryonic thing. I'm sure it'll get better, but you are right to say, I think, Pia, that what we need to be working on a whole lot more, or at least in parallel, is how are we at interacting with each other? You know, how can we improve our dialogue, whether that's on social media or in person, Improve the quality of our conversations. And if we don't work with that in parallel, I'm sure. I'm sure your fears are not unfounded.

[00:02:44] Pia: I dunno. It's a, it's an interesting one and I think that we do need to become a bit more conscious of it, which is why we have Andy Chavis, the curiosity king that he is.

[00:02:58] Dan: Yes

[00:02:59] Pia: Expert on curiosity. Yeah, no, this is great. So Andy's uh, a senior consultant at LIW. We've known him for years, but, and he has an extraordinary understanding of the human dynamics and how that plays around in a team and what goes on and is unsaid. And he can withstand the silence of any man that I know and he can ask a question and wait. 

[00:03:27] Dan: Exactly. And I've worked with Andy with a client who who called him Mr. Headspace because his, also, his voice itself is just absolutely lovely to listen to, just like the man in the Headspace app. So let's give everyone a treat and go and hear Andy now.

[00:03:43] 

[00:03:46] Dan: Andy, it's an absolute joy to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

[00:03:50] Andy: Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this actually.

[00:03:53] Dan: Exit will serve. We strangely. So we.

[00:03:56] Pia: We've been counting down, it's been 221 sleep since we decided to have you on the show.

[00:04:02] Dan: But who's counting? But who's counting? So, Andy, tell us a bit, tell us why we've been so excited. Tell us a bit about yourself.

[00:04:08] Andy: Well, of course we do know each other very well, don't we? And probably most of my, uh, steepest learning curves been actually in the room with one of you two in front of a leader

[00:04:19] Pia: We didn't know what we were doing and we passed it over to you. 

[00:04:22] Andy: And I, I pretended I did and that's how we rolled. So very quick bit of background. Looking after mainly design and research now, uh, with LIW but still keeping my hand in with, uh, facilitation, working with mostly senior leaders. Certainly intact teamwork, thinking about how people. Work together to make the way that team hums in the most efficient way possible. So, feels sweet spot for this, uh, podcast. Last 20 years, I guess I've been thinking deeply about the active leadership, and more recently how that becomes a bit of a team sport and how the active leadership works when it's intermingled with other leaders. And of course, as we all know, how that creates all sorts of pitfalls. And I think the real opportunity is to increase our ability to have effective dialogue.

[00:05:21] Pia: Oh, well we haven't got much to talk about then, have we?

[00:05:24] Dan: This should do it. I think this is gonna be a long episode. And what got you to this point and what were you doing before before all that?

[00:05:30] Andy: So my background, I think a lot of people in our line of work, we come from some sort of people background, don't we? And uh, my background was HR director for an organization in the uk. Uh, and then again, uh, we set up an a business in Australia. That's what brought me over here. Student accommodation fully enough which I was perfectly Equipped for, Cause I was a student once and so I thought that was plum for the role really. But no, my role, way back sales, and I think that's where my interest in dialogue started because, you know, if we know anything about effective sales, it's really about relationships and being able to have a proper conversation with someone, an effective conversation, and all of that with a real lens of curiosity because we don't properly understand our customers, it's very difficult to meet their needs.

[00:06:20] And I think that's really flowed through my discovery of coaching really early on. And then I took that into my roles in HR and operations, and it's always been a, an ever present. Kind of piece of who I am. I think really, the constant attention to the way that we have conversations. And if we think about that in the team sense, then you know, that's how we come together. If we don't have conversation, if we don't meet, then it's very difficult to work out how best to interact and, and do great things.

[00:06:56] Dan: That's a lovely hint of what we're going to get up to in a 

[00:07:00] Andy: Oh, sorry. Did I get the game away? 

[00:07:01] Pia: No, that was the end of the, podcast. It's

[00:07:03] Dan: I know , 

[00:07:04] I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to avoid the conversation starter card game, which I'm now gonna play. 

[00:07:09] Andy: Oh, I can't wait. 

[00:07:10] Dan: Okay, so I'm gonna choose a card at random just to get to know you a little bit in a different way, Oh, this is a nice one. It's a green card and it's, I'm incredibly proud of.

[00:07:19] Andy: Oh, that's easy. I am incredibly proud of myself. No I it does come back to team. Actually. I'm incredibly proud of our history. If I think about us as a business that you two have been a very big part of until very recently, I'm incredibly proud of what we've done together and now continue to do and looking towards the future. I know, of course there's always a sort of a commercial element, but I truly believe that we are in it for the right reasons and we've sort of dedicated our lives to making other people's lives just that little bit better. I'm really proud of that. I think. We always had a saying, still have a saying that we hope every program that we run, every interaction changes people's lives in some way, shape, or form for the better. And that's something to be really proud of, I think. And by the way, we enjoy what we do, so that kind of makes it easy.

[00:08:13] Pia: Very lucky. Very lucky indeed. So, um, Andy, we are here to talk about the topic of curiosity so I'm gonna start this off. With, what is it? What are other words that describe curiosity? Because sometimes we default to only that word, and really we need to spread it out a little bit and look at different ways of looking at it. What is it first, before we start looking at why it's important? 

[00:08:39] Andy: It is a great question. I, I think you're dead right. We do need to separate it out because there's,, there's two elements to it really. When you think about we, we talk about effective dialogue earlier. And of course there's two elements that there's the listening bit and there's the talking bit. Both necessary, but one kind of a little bit more important and oddly in the converse a lot less demonstrated. And that's the listening element.

[00:09:09] Uh, I think we're actually quite good at talking. We're quite good at making noise. Not quite so good at holding this sort of open space that allows other people's talking to filter into our understanding. So other words for curiosity, that, that's quite a tough one actually. I, I haven't been asked that before, but the words that come to mind for me are things like learning, connecting, relating. You know, you think about, Covey's statement around empathic listening and it's all about getting, trying to get inside the experience of somebody else, another human. And so curiosity becomes a kind of a holistic pursuit, really, that our whole body is trying to engage in the activity of being curious.

[00:10:02] And I think that word being, we, as you well know, we talk a lot about doing and being and the world's absolutely obsessed with doing. But I think the curiosity piece has a, a much stronger leaning on the being bit. And so if I was gonna separate it out Yeah. Be listening big, big underlying in bold, and then talking, which of course is the questions bit.

[00:10:26] Pia: And why, Why do we do it? What's our under underlying reason for it? What's the value that curiosity brings to dialogue?

[00:10:34] Andy: Yeah, that's a good question because why do we do it? I'm not sure we're very clear on why we do it. I think I can answer that question in, you know, what could we get if we did it well? But it's quite interesting, isn't it, that in normal conversation, I think generally speaking, our experience of, especially senior leaders, they are very used to telling other people stuff. They're very used to having to be the one who has the answers and provides direction. And so why do we do it? Uh, my first answer to that is I don't think we know. I don't think generally we go about being really clear, uh, about why we should be curious, and therefore it just doesn't kind of become habit. 

[00:11:25] Why should we do it? Well, because otherwise leadership becomes a very lonely pursuit. You know, we can be in a room amongst a bunch of other people, but if we're not curious, we're still kind of on our own. We are with our own thoughts, with our own fixed points of view, with our own. Expertise and experience, and all we're doing is projecting that out. If we take a curious stance, then suddenly we are among other people, we're relating with other people and we're benefiting from all of the things that brings, and number one thing that comes to mind, as I said a little bit earlier, is learning, but I think just a feeling of connection, a feeling of support, a feeling of being in rhythm with somebody else, a, a sense of common ground, common purpose, all those things come if we take the time to be curious, to understand what's behind the behavior and actions of another person. So easy for us to make up our own mind and then listen from this fixed point of view. But actually, if we can cultivate this being of curious, then we often can prove ourselves wrong very quickly and then we'll start to learn.

[00:12:39] Dan: Soy. And what, does it look like in a group? You talked about leaders, interacting with leaders. What does it look like when it's working really well in a team or a group? And against that, what does it typically, how do teams typically operate against that, You know, how well are they doing? What do you see from your work with teams?

[00:12:56] Andy: So, I think the best indication of whether people are being curious is the amount of comfortable, quiet space between words and thoughts that are shared. I think the answer your second question is, what we typically see is a kind of a yes and situation where somebody says something and somebody else sees a gap in the conversation, a tiny chin in, you know, a little glint of sort of space between what somebody said or what the next person says, and they see that their opportunity to add their thought. And you know, that comes from a place of just wanting to share my expertise or establish some sort of credibility. So I will add something on top of what was said. Unfortunately, what tends to happen is because we weren't listening properly in the first place, we're focusing much more on, This is the thing I really wanna share. There's no guarantee that what I say actually adds anything to what was said before because I didn't really hear it. So I'm just gonna say what I wanted the first place. 

[00:14:00] Pia: the. light filler statements aren't there. They're just sort of like just adding a bit of fill onto the top of, you know, just not really adding any substance to it.

[00:14:09] Andy: Not really any substance and I'm laughing because we all do it all the time. I wouldn't wanna set out my stall and say, you know, I'm the world's for foremost expert in demonstrating curiosity. Cause I, I think the first step is to realize that we're really bad at it. A notice we're being really bad at it. Because we all do it all the time, don't we? But yeah we do these filler statements,

[00:14:34] Dan: But I mean, I have to say even recording these podcasts, you know, it's easy to drift off into what I'm wanna ask next. And actually what we've gotta do is listen to what you've actually just said, and see if we can build on that. But you know, right now is a live example of how, how well are we doing it. And rather than just a filler statement, actually build on something you've just said to honest. I dunno if I just did, or whether I just wanted to say that. But anyway, you get the point.

[00:14:58] Pia: matter. Um, 

[00:15:00] Andy: I actually really love what you said then, Dan, because I actually think that in essence is our way in which we get better at it. Because we have this sort of a phrase we've used time and time again over the years. This idea of doing to learn and this is the perfect example of the best way in which to get better at, effectively we're saying curiosity, but we're talking about effective dialogue. We're talking about progressive conversations that move us to a better place. And the only way you can do that is to practice, and that is being aware. Exactly those elements. We're, we're both trying to listen. We're trying to understand, we're trying to be part of the conversation. we're trying to work out how we can hopefully add some thoughts and all of those things are swirling around.

[00:15:49] Pia: And I wonder too whether our ego gets in the way and we're not really curious because we're a little bit terrified that we may not be enough, so we come up with the filler questions rather than actually withholding judgment, withholding our view, and actually getting really interested about somebody else. It's funny, isn't it? We're a bit fragile, i, I suspect.

[00:16:15] Andy: Yeah, we are, aren't we? I think it's a mixture of that and habit. You know, we're really good at just reverting to our habitual behaviors, aren't we? And so, It's easy to fall into. And I think the thing that really props up that habit is exactly as you say, What got us here was being clever at something. And so we almost see our currency, our value as being what we can offer to other people. Uh, and we forget that actually they're probably thinking the. So then we just talk at each other instead of actually doing what you just described Pia, where we kind of stop and go, Wow, this is really actually quite interesting. I, I could learn something here and oh my goodness, I've gotta learn something. Does that mean that I'm not valuable anymore because aren't I supposed to be the one with the answers? And we're having this argument inside our head, uh, at the same time as we're trying to listen and try to offer and.

[00:17:12] Dan: This sounds like Andy, like our brains might be undermining us in some way here. Is, Is there some sort of neuroscience, some evolutionary defense mechanism that leads us into that? Is there something going on in the brain that should be aware of?

[00:17:26] Andy: Yes. So we all know about threat state. We, We know that when we perceive some kind of threat we respond to that and generally speaking, we'll respond in a, a defensive manner, but either aggressive or passive. And so we either kind of retreat out the conversation and therefore we're not really listening. We're just thinking about, Whatever I do, I'm not gonna say something wrong. I'm just gonna retreat out, disengage, and be quiet, Or, we're aggressive, defensive, and therefore we're moving forward and we're thinking, Well, I'm gonna get my thought in first and seem really smart. And so, yeah. So that's going on all the time. And we also know that you don't always know you're in threat state, so you're not that aware of when you are taking those sort of defensive actions, you know, whichever way it might be.

[00:18:16] I also think that, we've got very used to not being listened to very well, so we have a low expectation of being listened to in the first place. So if we're trying to get better at being curious and listening really well, we don't even have people able to give us feedback on when we're not doing it because people don't really notice that they're not listened to so much anymore either. And so it's kind of on us to stop, pause, to really take note of, you know, how well we are listening and being curious.

[00:18:51] I also think that there's this sort of inbuilt need to hold onto some sort of position. And so that works against us as well. And I think that in some ways talks to your point about the way our sort of brains work and creating our own little sort of bubble a psychological safety. Because if we have a thought that we believe to be right, it immediately makes us more confident. The problem is we then wanna share that with everybody.

[00:19:22] And so Otto Sharma talks about this idea of, you know, being aware of where you're listening from. And so, you know, if you are your own point of view, you are listening from a very fixed place and therefore you, you're not even realizing that other people even have a right to have a point of view because you are so right that either everybody's agreeing with you or they're nowhere. And so the practice is to kind of recognize when you might be a little bit stuck and that being your sort of trigger to go, Oh, hang on, I need to probably hold that a little bit lightly. And then that opens the kind of the doorway to being a bit more curious, more willing to listen.

[00:20:06] Dan: Think that's a really good lead in actually, Andy. How, how, how do we move through into that? You've started to talk about that, your awareness, how as individuals or as groups and, and maybe this is drawing on your own practice with, with, um, with leaders and teams, How, how do you help them to sort of move into a more curious.

[00:20:28] Andy: I think it comes back to the point about psychological safety. The first step is for you to realize that you are actually not on the hook to have the answer. And so in answer your question, how do we do that with leaders? Well, we just make it really okay to not know. If we can let go of this kind of tight hold we've got on needing to know the answer or feeling like I have to be the one who provides this expertise or this worldly knowledge and tell everybody else what to do. If I can hold that really lightly, then I'm immediately giving myself the kind of permission to not jump in, but also making that really clear to everybody else that we can actually come into a reciprocal conversation rather than a sort of a a fight really. It often feel, feels quite sort of pugilist the way we have conversation, certainly in business.

[00:21:25] Because everything's so aligned to getting things done, task, and so the pace is always cranked up. So this idea of slowing down, stopping and actually listening is so foreign to the way we go about doing business. But when we talk to leaders, we hear all the time that we're actually, the time and space to plan and properly discover and make really good choices is something we'd really like to have. So first step actually is giving you self permission to not know the answer. To not feel like you have to pretend to know the answer, which is often what happens. That's kind of step one really.

[00:22:03] Pia: do you think that generationally, you've been in this business sometime like us, do you think we're getting better at this or do you think that the recent events, particularly around sort of in a lot of fears being raised around the pandemic, we had a shift to the way of working, Do you think to some ways relying heavily on technology and social media, it's dumbing down our capacity to be curious? Because it's actually, it's a bit more like grenade dropping sometimes in some of those situations, isn't it? And so if, what are we learning here from each other about what's important in a conversation?

[00:22:46] Andy: I think as you're answering the question, almost heard you sort of exploring and answering yourself. I completely agree. I think

[00:22:54] Pia: That wasn't very curious, was it? I, I didn't even ask you a proper question. I just started answer it. Sorry. Everybody

[00:23:02] Andy: we're all practicing pier, we're all practicing. Um,

[00:23:05] Dan: journey. 

[00:23:05] Andy: no, I think you're dead, right? I, Okay. I'll speak from my own personal experience. Either I've become increasingly more sensitive to it, or we've got a lot worse at it. Because the work that I do, especially with really senior teams, it's the number one thing that gets in the way of great relationships and a shared purpose. And we know the role that purpose of relationships play. I mean, you look at the elements in Squadify, it's so clear. And often we also know looking at the importance that teams place on certain elements that they don't even value the things that actually the key drivers to being really successful as a team. And so not only the, not value, but don't, don't really see the absence of it.

[00:23:59] And so I think. We've got a lot worse at it and the obvious culprits are information overload, social media always on distracted, that kind of default network. We can find our brain in, the internal chatter, the imposter kind of soundtrack that we play to ourselves. All of this stuff's just noise, all of which kind of works against our ability to calm, present and interested. Everything's sort of on high speed, so the idea of slowing down just feels wasteful almost.

[00:24:31] Dan: And yet this is when we need it most, would you say? I mean, this increase in complexity and speed. When we, I'm guessing, need this time to reflect and on all those multiple inputs, so we've sort of heading completely against the tide when we should be swimming with it.

[00:24:48] Andy: Well, I think that's so interesting, Dan, because it's a bit of a myth, isn't it, that if we stop, slow down and create some space that equals a slowing of pace of performance, slowing of pace of decisions. Truth is when we are not being curious, what I find with leadership teams especially is that they just go round and round in circles. So waste an infinite amount of time in misunderstanding in a agreements that are revisited or agreements that we think are made and then people go off and do something different. Breakdown in relationships. Lack of common purpose. All of these things occur when we're trying to go too fast. Because we're just spinning our wheels, repeating ourselves. It's a bit like the, you know, the myth around the amount of time it takes to trust someone. Actually, it takes a nanosecond to trust someone. I can just decide I trust you. And now that may backfire, but if we both decide to do it, there's a very strong chance that trust will grow extremely quickly. But we think, Oh no, it's gonna take a long time, we need some things in place before we can do it. Well, what do you need? You just need intention and action following action.

[00:26:05] And I think curiosity, effective dialogue is exactly the same. We can actually make some decisions incredibly quickly if we stop and listen to what someone else is saying for a second. And if you're listening from that point of view of a sort of an open will, an open mindset, then you might just find that someone else has got a really good idea and that is actually the answer. But if I'm not really listening to this and I feel more need to defend myself by having a better idea or trying to build back to your point Pia about the fillers, if I'm just providing some fillers, how do we decide, how do we decide anything? Our decision making is really compromised.

[00:26:45] Pia: And there's also another angle to this, which is we've come across few people like this who ask the question to make themselves look like amazing question askers. You know, that they just, they become the most clever person in the room because they've asked a really probing question and they're not doing it really for the intent and purpose of being curious are they? 

[00:27:09] Andy: is that the one where someone's puts, I'm really curious 

[00:27:13] Dan: Yes, 

[00:27:14] Andy: of.

[00:27:15] Dan: And it's, the word is being weaponized, doesn't it? You sort of just run for the hills at that point.

[00:27:24] Andy: I'm curious about how I can get you to see my way. It's interesting isn't it? I think we're just conditioned back to the point about having the answer. And, and the thing we haven't touched on so much. I've sort of probably overemphasized the listening piece, but of course we said there were two parts to it. And the other bit is the talking bit, the making noise bit. So if we've established that creating some space, some calm, present awareness and attention and interest, that's the listening bit largely taken care of, what we tend to find then is those questions that you mention are infinitely better quality. We don't have to actually think about and plan the questions we're gonna ask or be really clever. The simplest questions are often the best, and they just flow from our level of interest. They flow from our attention, our being present to another person. And as I say, they're often very, very simple in their nature, but unlock the most complex situations. 

[00:28:41] So there's some sort of indicators of how well someone's listening, I think, in the questions that they ask. And often if the question feels really complicated, it's probably a pretty good indication that the person hasn't really been listening. Cuz I don't know how you do that. I don't know how you listen and construct this really amazing, very clever question that somehow manages to make you look like a bit of a guru at the same time. I don't know how you do that. I'd love to know.

[00:29:10] Pia: No I'm, I'm still figuring that one out. Dude.

[00:29:13] Dan: There are the people who can do it. Walk among us.

[00:29:17] Andy: They do. Yeah. I think in a really practical sense, there's a couple of other indicators when you think about the construction of a question, a Question that can be truly unlocking in terms of learning new things, finding common ground are as simple as, Oh, that's really interesting. Could you tell me a bit more? Or how did you feel about that? Or what happened next? That they're just simple questions and they're built with the prime intention of getting more useful information from the other person.

[00:29:52] When you hear a question like, do you think that? It's like this immediate Belisha beacon flashing, that this person isn't really interested. Person is trying very cleverly to suggest something to you, but by putting a question mark on the end, it immediately becomes a question. Um, not true. Not true. There are some questions that are simply not questions, they're just statements with a little bit of sheep's 

[00:30:19] Dan: did a bit of Australian rising intonation at the end to make it sound like a question. Yeah.

[00:30:26] Andy: That's absolutely 

[00:30:27] Dan: Very good. Excellent. This is an amazing topic and you've, I think you've really helped us to see, I'm sure our listener will see that if this could exist in the groups of um, people they work with, it would transform things. Where do they start? We've, we've talked about a lot of opportunity here. What, What would your tips be to, for you to get on the road?

[00:30:48] Andy: It really would transform things, wouldn't it? What amazing place if people were truly curious with each other. I sort of, as you say, it's an amazing subject. I don't really feel like I've done it justice, but your question is, what's the sort of the first step along the way? Well, number one we said was permission. I think that sort of shared agreement that we don't have to have the answers and actually agreeing the value of listing and being curious with each other. So, so there's a permission and agreement that needs to be in place. But it purely in one's own practice, it has to start with practicing being aware of what you're actually doing. 

[00:31:31] So I have a favorite phrase. Do whatever you want. Cause I, I'm a big believer in personal choice. Do whatever you want, just know what you're doing. And so that fits so perfectly as an answer to your question, sort of first step is try to get better at realizing what you're doing. Try to notice when you are genuinely holding your own views lightly, and you are genuinely, you can almost feel yourself physically leaning in, and hearing for almost for the first time sometimes, the communication from another person, not just their words, but what's behind the words, their intention, the emotion, their thinking, the potential of what they're saying. If you can feel yourself doing that I think on some of my best days, I'd notice I do that. I think, Oh, I'm listening really well. Oh, well bud, I'm 

[00:32:25] Dan: Oh. Oh. 

[00:32:26] Andy: I'm doing it. 

[00:32:26] Dan: While I was thinking that I wasn't listening. Damn. 

[00:32:29] Andy: Oh, I know that's it. I know you've drifted. Actually, that's a really good point. The second thing that I would say, you've hit the nail on the head. I remember really, really early on in my coaching training actually, somebody said to me once, you know, the best coaches are not the coaches who are amazing at listening and focused and never, ever drift, and are always on point with their questions. They are not the best coaches. Best coaches are the ones who realize when they're not. The best coaches are the ones who realize when they've drifted, when they've asked a poor question, because it gives them choice. And if they've got a bit of confidence and they've got a, they've agreed a relationship with the person they're talking to, it's actually really fine to say, I'm really sorry. Was a terrible question. Can I try again? Are 

[00:33:21] Dan: Yeah, 

[00:33:22] Andy: stunned. People are absolutely stunned when you do that because there's normally no social contract that allows you to say, Actually I didn't do that very well. Can I try again? But you imagine the un what that would unlock if we could give each other permission to do that and say, Oh, I'm sorry, I drifted then I'm really sorry. Do you mind just saying that again? And I'm really gonna try hard this time.

[00:33:49] Dan: I love it. It would transform things. 

[00:33:52] Andy: So curiosity is a practice and, and needs to be practiced. You could call it a skill, but I think skill comes after practice. The first thing that is a huge stride in the right direction is just get really clear on what you want. And I think there's a bit of sort of soul searching almost about what kind of a person do I wanna be in this world? What kind of a person do I want other people to experience? What? What do I want to unlock? How do I want to be a catalyst for change? Because I think if you explore those thoughts, it's so much easier to realize that, well, my job here isn't actually to tell people what to do, especially from a leadership point of view, my job is more to help people do their own best thinking and gain agency in what they do, and confidence and just thrive. I don't create that by telling people what to do or being smart. I create that by helping other people realize actually they're the ones who are the experts in their own life, and they're really smart. 

[00:35:08] And so we've used this sort of theme of curiosity, but I think it really boils down to intention if I'm really clear on my intention, it's really easy to listen. It's really easy to ask simple, fantastically unlocking questions because I know what I'm there for. And I'm not sure we often enough stop and think, What is my intent here? What is the outcome that I'd really love to happen? Well, if I was honest with myself and I said, My intention here is just to make sure this other person knows I'm brilliant, well have at it. But my guess is that's probably not what most people would discover as being their key intent.

[00:35:54] When I talk to leaders, there are amazing people out there who really just want to change other people's lives for the better. And I think if you just dial back into that this curiosity thing becomes a whole lot easier.

[00:36:08] Pia: It's a real question actually. It's it your curiosity says a lot about how comfortable you are with yourself and as you say, not knowing and the ability to ask a question. How interested are you about other people? There was that famous Jim Collins quote when he was, somebody heard him talking as a young professor and they said, How interesting are you, Jim, or How interested are you? And I think that's a keep up. You know how interested are you, and how interested are you in, as you say, enabling others? And I think that's a, it's a very different angle to take.

[00:36:54] So Andy I'm gonna ask you top three things a team leader out there to become more curious what's some of the baby steps we need to take?

[00:37:06] Andy: This is probably the opposite advice from every other coaching program, every other leadership program. The first step isn't actually to think about what the core tenants of quality questions or active listening are. Because that for me kind of runs totally counter to what we are really looking to create here. Actually step one is just to decide what kind of leader do I wanna be? What impact do I want to have? And when I'm really clear on that, that's, that's step one. Because I think that drives a level of curiosity and ability to listen.

[00:37:50] Second thing I would say is, all of this is relationship based, so focus on the type of relationships that you want with other people. If you want a relationship with people where they just do what they're told, and they come to you all the time, and they ask questions that they probably actually know the answer to, but they're so used to just being told what to do they come to you anyway, then you can go down that route. But actually, if you're in a relationship where other people develop and they think for themselves and they make your job easier as a leader, then that's gonna really change the way that you interact with them.

[00:38:28] Third and final tip would be, don't worry about it, just practice. Try not to judge yourself whether you're doing well or not, and in fact, you probably would find that as you start to practice, you think you get worse. My advice would be, don't worry about that. You're not getting worse, you're just becoming more aware, and so you are much better equipped to notice when you are doing a good job, when you're not doing quite such a good job. So don't be discouraged as you start to notice the nuances of how you operate as a leader. Just put it down to increasing awareness, which should be a bit a pat on your back really.

[00:39:14] I did notice I used the word judgment there and that's one thing we haven't talked about really clearly. But I think that if there's a fourth step, I'd really check in on your level of judgment that you are kind of carrying when you're interacting with other people, because I think if you can be aware of that, judgment is a really big blocker to curiosity. If you're, if you're judging things, then really you are deciding before you are exploring and learning. And so of course we judge. Of course we do all the time. But again, it's back to just practice noticing when you do it and then you could choose to use it a little bit more judiciously.

[00:39:56] Four steps for the price of 

[00:39:58] Dan: four. I was gonna say a little 33% bonus there on the top tips front. So, but, but Andy, seriously, it's been, uh, a delight to hear from you and I'm sure our listeners will take a lot from that at all levels. So thank you so much for joining us on We Not Me today.

[00:40:15] Andy: Well, as I pause to stroke my chin thoughtfully and curiously I've realized I really enjoyed this as well. Thanks so much for having me. It was a real pleasure. I've enjoyed myself immensely.

[00:40:26] 

[00:40:26] Dan: That was just a lovely exploration of that rather large and really important topic. And I think, you know, on one reflecting about it, I realized, Pia, that it's sort of, you know, we think of these three dimensions very often, system, team, self. I think curiosity land sort of, there's relevance at all of those. You look at that system level to start with. The complexity that we, that exists now. Even what you talked about at the top of the show around, you know, what's going on, the metaverse, this is a time when we need that space and curiosity. It's tempting just to try and keep up, but actually we need to slow down in order to make better decisions and, and connect with others.

[00:41:09] Pia: And I think, um, contentiously, What I think we've gotta give ourselves the allowance to be curious and not think that we are a sort of conspiracy theorist in that process. Do you know what I mean? It's like we gotta question convention. 

[00:41:24] Dan: Talk a bit more about that.

[00:41:27] Pia: Oh, you're getting good. You're good. I like that.

[00:41:30] Dan: I learn fast.

[00:41:31] Pia: You did. You did. You did. Um, Yeah, I just think that, I think if we're on a system level, we can't take everything at face value, and we have to be interested about why things may be and challenge those norms. Not, not to be difficult, but to just for the, for the evolution. The betterment of humankind because we sometimes as history will tell us, take shortcuts and we do things that are not and, and do we really have to wait 50 years, you know, till we're not here and then our children just go, God, I can't believe they did that. You know? Whereas in actual fact, I think we we're just, we should be asking, curious, be interested enough to ask those type of questions. So I think that's a really good, 

[00:42:24] Dan: And find the truth in the other side. Yeah. 

[00:42:27] Pia: how do you think this operates at the team?

[00:42:29] Dan: Well, so I loved what Andy said about this actually, how, um, when you know it's not working, when there's no space and, and people are filling in the gaps and, and that sort of moment of when team or others when you're with someone else, are you really paying attention to them? Or are you thinking about what you're gonna say next? I, I thought those, that's gonna make it huge. You know, it's gonna make a massive difference to the, to the dialogue that you have in, with, with others or, or with the team. 

[00:42:58] Pia: I think the last one that you mentioned, individual. So you know, just that self. It starts with us really, 

[00:43:07] Dan: It really hit me the way he put it actually, because I've always thought of that, that as Right, you know, the B of curiosity, I'm gonna be curious. Actually, he went really deep and said, What kind of person do you want to be, you know, It. That's pretty, you know, what, what impact do you want to have? Do you wanna be the person with the answers or do you want to be that person who, who leads the way, is curious, gives space to others, and allows them space and time to think. So I thought that was pretty profound and I thought, um, that went, that went to a few extra, sort of extra yards, which could be quite painful, but really, um, really 

[00:43:43] Pia: And it challenges convention because we typically rewarded people who are clever, who have the ideas and who tell us what to do. And so we gotta slightly get off that crack habit. All of us have, we've got, we've got to challenge that as well. Because that's really self-serving in many respects, which is not curious. And because that's quite defensive behavior in many respects. So yeah, I, I think that's, I think it's a great challenge. Absolutely great challenge.

[00:44:09] And even if you just become a bit more aware of the questions that you're asking and what the impact is on the people that you are doing that, and then, I think to, to, to be observant and to Seek the feedback from that and build that into a practice.

[00:44:28] Dan: And as Andy eventually, I'm sure a lot of our listeners, I certainly count myself in this, I got where I was by knowing things and actually that's not gonna get me to the next place. I need to be doing something. I need to be being something different. But those neural pathways are well, sort of quite well established. So start to um, yeah, be aware. As he said of, of your sort of curiosity at all times is going to really help people to make a start on this really exciting, um, and promising journey. 

[00:44:55] But that's it for this episode. You can find show notes and resources at squadify.net. Just click on the We Not Me podcast link. If you've enjoyed the show, please do share the love and recommend it to your friends. And please also give us a rating on your favorite podcast platform. You can contribute to the show by leave us a voice note with a question or a comment. Just find the link in the show notes. We Not Me, is produced by Mark Steadman of Origin. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye for me.

[00:45:22] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.