E21. The Human Behind the Work with Michael Bungay Stanier

A while ago, I had the joy of recording a series of podcast-style conversations for the World Education Summit. The summit itself was a space for big thinking, learning and honest reflection and these conversations were no different. They were spacious, thoughtful conversations, less about roles and expertise and more about what drives people creatively and personally.

Now, I’m delighted to be sharing them as a mini-series within my Space to Think podcast: The Human Behind the Work. Each guest brings their own experience, perspective and pause-for-thought wisdom.

We explore what sits at the heart of their work. What influences them. How they create and think. What they value. What they’re dreaming of and what they'd write as their memoir in a sentence. Each episode begins with the same set of questions but where they go from there is wonderfully unpredictable.

And to open the series, I’m joined by someone whose work has been part of my own thinking for a long time: Michael Bungay Stanier.

You may know him as the author of The Coaching Habit, The Advice Trap, and How to Work with (Almost) Anyone. But in this conversation, we go beyond the books.

We talk about:

• The dance between simplicity and complexity

• Why he writes short books and how hard that actually is

• The challenge of asking for feedback and being bold enough to hear it

• His evolving “worthy goals” including the audacious aim to sell 10 million books

• And the small-but-mighty daily question he asks himself: What do I want?

Michael’s voice is warm, honest and deeply human. He shares the messy truth of the creative process, the power of asking the right questions and what it really means to do work that matters, or at least to try to.

One of my favourite takeaways from our conversation is this line:

“Wherever you're at and however you're doing… my fundamental belief is that you're awesome and you're doing great.”

I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Coaching Habit

• The Advice Trap

• How to Work with (Almost) Anyone

• Do Something That Matters Journal

• Two Pages with MBS podcast - episode with Austin Kleon

This conversation was originally recorded as part of the World Education Summit 2024. You can now access 4 years of Summit content free at www.weslegacy.com

Thanks for listening to Space to Think, a podcast where I create space to think through conversations with guests exploring their knowledge, insights and stories. Each conversation holds the potential for ideas to grow wild.