You have to have the courage to be honest about the real issues. And you have to, at the same time, have the humility to be open to being wrong.
Because ultimately, candor is about trying to figure out what’s true in order to serve a greater good. And the ability to do that is really a fundamental reprogramming of ourselves.
It’s also a skill—and it’s learnable, thankfully. Very learnable. And that’s part of the reason I’m writing the book. Because I want to explain to people the do’s and don’ts of effective conversations, based on our work and research for the last 30 years. I want to have a place where people can go to get useful information about this.
And it doesn’t always have to be about being “courageous” or “radical” or anything extreme like that. It’s actually a learnable skill. So here’s what it actually looks like. And maybe the book can do some good in developing people—although there will be limits to that.
I’m also developing an AI app, so that people can get developed in this at a low cost, in the flow of their lives. Any important conversation you want to have, with anyone, about anything—you could bring it to her, and she’ll prepare you to do it. You’ll also role-play in a very realistic way the heck of the conversation you’re going to have, and she provides you corrective coaching in the moment. Each time you use her, you’ll get better and better at having the conversations that matter most to you in your life, inside and outside of work.
Amazing. And when will that app be out?
Man, I do not know. What I’m hoping to do is—by this time next year—the book is out, and then I could offer the app for free to all people who buy the book, so that they can get some real training. Because I don’t like the fact that we train only a couple of people every year.
My firm—I have a 13-person global faculty, in the UK, Europe, and America. More than half of them are not in America, although I live in Manhattan. But what I don’t like about that is: still, only our clients—the top 1%—get access to this.
And again, coming back to your first question: what is leadership? We need leadership from people at all levels, in all directions. And right now, those folks get crap. Yet we need more leadership from them than ever.
So we’d better put up or shut up. We’ve got to create mechanisms that are scalable and affordable—but that are actually good, as opposed to some vanilla online training that isn’t going to make a difference.
That’s why I’m doing that.
