42. The Top 3 Skills Change Agents Need in 2026

Summary

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At Work with The Ready – Episode 42: The 3 Skills Change Agents Need in 2026

Hosts: Rodney Evans & Sam Spurlin
Date: January 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin dive into the three essential skills that will define effective change agents and leaders in the evolving landscape of work by 2026. Instead of focusing on environmental or organizational change—which is their usual forte—they zero in on personal skill development: what individuals can and should cultivate in themselves to survive and thrive in the future of work.

They break down the conversation into three core skills:

1. Metacognitive Awareness
2. User Feedback (User-Centered Design)
3. Expert Facilitation

Each skill is discussed in depth, with practical tips, personal anecdotes, and lots of humor along the way.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Individual Skills Matter (04:00-05:30)

• Most work environments reward old skills, so protected, intentional skill-building is needed.
• Mastery of these three skills enables real work redesign: “By cultivating mastery of these skills, you will be more able to do the kind of work design that is necessary and that we talk about on the show all the time.” – Rodney [05:15]

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2. Skill #1: Metacognitive Awareness (05:38-21:02)

What Is It?

• The ability to “think about your own thinking”—noticing mental and emotional patterns, and consciously choosing responses over automatic reactions.
• Essential for noticing opportunities to use other key skills.

Why It’s Foundational

• “If you lack metacognitive awareness, then you won’t notice the opportunities to practice other skills. So I feel like it’s incredibly foundational.” – Sam [05:45]
• Rodney connects it to emotional flexibility: those who cultivate this skill can “really understand their own experience of a moment and also hold a counter perspective.” [07:00]

Practical Examples

• Instead of “Rodney’s just being difficult,” practice: “I’m interpreting them as being difficult right now and I’m also feeling defensive because my idea is all tangled up with my ego right now.” – Sam [09:06]
• Connect to systems thinking: Helps separate “your stuff from the system’s stuff.” [13:00]

Development Tips

• Cultivate reflection habits: do regular hot washes, weekly reviews, and retrospectives, asking:
  • When did I feel triggered?
  • What story was I telling myself?
  • What did I do next?
  • What would I do differently? [16:06]
• Use transcript tools and AI to analyze your behavior in meetings (e.g., feeding transcripts to GPT for feedback). [16:57]
• Slow down interactions at work: “The pace of our interactions at work is just generally too fast… Slowing the fuck down in most contexts is going to help you do that naming, do that reflection, take that moment to make some sense.” – Rodney [19:18]
• Name what’s happening for you in group contexts: “Narrating a little bit of what is happening internally for you in a group setting goes a long way for building trust and credibility.” – Sam [18:24]

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3. Skill #2: User Feedback (User-Centered Design) (21:05-34:32)

What Is It?

• Involves developing products, services, or processes with users involved throughout—not just asking for their opinion at the end.
• A critical discipline, often neglected, especially by internal org designers and HR leaders (“Listen up, nerds.” – Rodney [21:05]).

The 'Cake' Metaphor

• “We have an idea for a cake. We think everybody’s gonna love it... then we bring it out and we expect applause and delight. And what we find is a room full of people who did not ask for cake.” – Rodney [00:01] / [22:00]

Common Pitfalls

• “Here’s what I’m about to launch, give me feedback.”—that’s not user-centered design. That’s seeking validation at the wrong stage. [23:37]
• Soliciting opinions ≠ ensuring adoption or value.

A Better Approach

• Start with the problem, not the solution.
• Validate the realness, urgency, and willingness to invest in solving the problem—before building.
• “Talking about the financial realities of these things feels gross. But the products and services… are commercial.” – Rodney [25:03]

Case Example & Key Practices

• Rodney’s transformation after designing “The Future of HR”: ongoing user validation at every step led to actual market fit. [27:00-29:05]
• “We sort of got out of our own way. The ideas that we brought to market were the ideas that customers asked for, not the ideas that I thought were super neato.” – Rodney [28:33]
• Use four stages:
  1. Problem Identification/Validation
  2. Problem-Solution Fit
  3. Product-Market Fit
  4. Business Model Fit ([29:05])

Courage to Innovate

• Don’t get hung up on disruptive innovation myths (“if I asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse!”): Most work is iterative, not paradigm-shattering. [30:27-33:27]

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4. Skill #3: Expert Facilitation (34:33-52:10)

Why It’s Critical

• The most “learnable” of the three—anyone can start from scratch and get better.
• Goes beyond running meetings; encompasses workshops, asynchronous facilitation, setting group processes, and managing group dynamics.

Facilitation Demystified

• Not “standing at the flip chart capturing comments”—it’s about shaping both structure and “vibes.”
• “Everything that is true about your organization or about your OS is happening in the meeting.” – Rodney [37:10]
• Good facilitation is almost invisible—group feels progress without obvious steering. [40:26-41:45]

Key Moves & Approaches

• The facilitator’s job is to hold the outcome as the most important thing (not individual comfort).
• The macro (group culture, systems) appears in the micro (one meeting).
• Use of two-facilitator setups: one runs the session, the other captures/processes content. [40:02-40:26]
• Sensing when to deviate from the agenda based on group energy and need. [42:27]

Preparation and Relationship Building

• Prep calls with every attendee make a noticeable difference, especially in building trust and surfacing real group needs. [44:02-45:52]
• Short, pre-meeting chats help if prep calls aren't possible.
• Avoid overengineering the agenda to the point of rigidity. [46:31]
• Use what’s learned in prep to discover “leverage points” beneath the surface, not just stated agenda items. [47:00]

Mastery Advice

• “If you have five facilitation moves that always slap, do those a hundred times rather than trying to do a hundred things once.” - Rodney [51:15]
• Get comfortable improvising—prepare deeply, but also be ready to toss the plan.
• Use AI (GPT) as a sparring partner for agenda crafting. [50:38]
• Favorite facilitation resources: Liberating Structures (but note, “I probably use three liberating structures 90% of the time.” – Sam [50:07])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “We are cake bakers… and what we find is a room full of people who did not ask for cake.” – Rodney [00:01, 22:00]
• “By cultivating mastery of these skills, you will be more able to do the kind of work design that is necessary and that we talk about on the show all the time.” – Rodney [05:15]
• “The pace of our interactions at work is just generally too fast. Like it just generally is. It’s too fast to be good.” – Rodney [19:18]
• “The ideas that we brought to market were the ideas that customers asked for, not the ideas that I thought were super neato.” – Rodney [28:33]
• “Facilitation should actually be almost invisible.” – Rodney [41:20]
• “Everything that is true about your organization… is happening in the meeting.” – Rodney [37:10]
• “If you have five facilitation moves that kind of always slap, do those a hundred times rather than trying to do a hundred things once.” – Rodney [51:15]
• “Metacognitive awareness… helps you avoid over-personalizing everything (‘I’m failing’) or over-externalizing everything (‘leadership sucks’). The reality lives in the gray in between.” – Sam [13:00]

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Timestamps for Significant Segments

• Check-in & setup: 01:31-05:15
• Skill 1: Metacognitive awareness: 05:38-21:02
• Skill 2: User feedback / User-centered design: 21:05-34:32
• Skill 3: Expert facilitation: 34:33-52:10

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Additional Insights

• The episode shows a strong alignment between introspective (personal skill-building) and collective (systems and structural change) approaches.
• Both hosts stress: mastery of these skills is not about ticking off a box, but about ongoing, deliberate practice and reflecting deeply on one’s own role in change and collaboration.
• Many frustrations at work (organizational or product failures) are traced to skipping the uncomfortable, slow, iterative parts of these skills.

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In Summary

Rodney and Sam make a compelling case for focusing on three underappreciated but mission-critical personal skills for any modern change agent: being metacognitive about one’s own mind and group dynamics, genuinely centering the user in design processes, and mastering the art (and subtlety) of facilitation.

If you practice these three, you’re already ahead of the curve for whatever the future of work might bring.

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Transcript

[A]

We have an idea for a cake. We think everybody's gonna love it. We go into the kitchen and close the door and test recipes and build the most beautiful cake or bake it, I guess, that the world has ever seen. And then we bring it out and we expect applause and delight. And what we find is a room full of people who did not ask for cake. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to At Work with the Ready, I'm Rodney Evans and the man in the cardigan looking fresh to death is Sam Sperlin.

[B]

Hello, everyone. And hello to Rodney Evans.

[A]

Hello, Sam. AI and other things are rewriting work as we speak in the moment. And we feel like the future of work is here. So now the question is not really whether you're going to adapt or not, but how you're going to do it, how you're going to design work for what's coming.

[B]

You could say that work design is no longer optional. And the teams that treat it like a side project are going to get left behind. The ones that treat it like the essential thing that it is will keep up with the pace of change.

[A]

And so today we are going to do a slightly different kind of episode. But I would say if you looked at my DMs from listeners over the years, this is probably the number one question that I get. So the question is, what are the skills that you need to survive, thrive, navigate the future of work? And we've never actually talked about them with this level of specificity. So that's what we're going to do today.

[B]

Heck, yeah. But first we're going to check in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the check in question is what's good right now?

[A]

So many things. So many of you know that I have a full blown existential crisis every time I take a vacation. If I'm gone for long enough that I am fully back to the factory settings, I'm like, what am I doing with my life? And while there are downsides to having the existential crisis, what's good about it is that I end up doing a bunch of things that I really love that have nothing to do with what I should be doing. So I'm in the throes of redecorating this room that I'm in. I'm in the throes of writing a companion book to a new tarot deck that I bought in France. I'm doing a bunch of stuff with a lot of spaciousness and a lot of joy that Work Based Rodney would not be doing because the old brain is too crowded. And so it's good. It feels good to be sort of in this more like chill, generative, multidisciplinary space.

[B]

I love the juxtaposition of our check in question. Sometimes you always have these like so thoughtful and expansive answers. Here's my answer. This cardigan that I'm wearing, it is so good. I got it as a gift for Christmas from my mother in law. Completely unexpected. It's chunky, it's thick. It's a color that I don't normally.

[A]

Wear but it's sort of an oat color.

[B]

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, it's like an oatmeal. I kind of like have a bowl of oatmeal poured over me. Yeah, this is a good ass cardigan and that's what's look.

[A]

It's a great cardigan.

[B]

Thank you. Has a thick neck kind of cowl situation.

[A]

It's called the shop.

[B]

I feel very academic.

[A]

And you are. Did I see that you're going to be teaching the great minds of something, some thing somewhere.

[B]

I'm going to be doing a little bit of very, very part time teaching on kind of whatever I want to podcast listeners. It would be very familiar.

[A]

Probably you're not going to teach them about like hot dogs or I mean or something else that you love. Hockey.

[B]

I have true expertise in hot dogs and hockey. That is true. Uh, and so far I have not yet found anybody to pay me to do that teaching. But the search continues.

[A]

Look, if they said you can teach whatever you want, I think you see how far. You can see how far. Yeah.

[B]

So good point. I just find out bold enough. Okay, you're right.

[A]

Let's find out what the constraints are. I love it. Okay, well that was a really hilarious check in. And also props to your mother in law. I was wearing almost the same sweater before we started recording. Um, so the pattern here, the meta pattern that I'll name is the following. Most of us work in environments that reward and perpetuate the skills that we've developed in order to get into our positions. And so while a lot of this show and a lot of yalls work is focused on changing that environment, we also have noticed more recently that people have a real need for individual skill development that's in a protected space. Space. So that is outside of the environment. That is nudging them towards things that they already do comfortably. What we have found is that in these protected spaces as people build more capacity and more confidence, they are in fact more prepared to make those changes to the environment that then can reinforce a new set of Skills. So today we're sort of flipping our usual work design on its head to say by cultivating mastery of these skills, you will be more able to do the kind of work design that is necessary and that we talk about on the show all the time. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Uh, so fun fact, we guessed what each other were going to say privately in a DM before this. And that was an interesting team building slash hazing ritual that I enjoyed very much. Um, Sam, do you want to go first?

[B]

Sure, yeah, I'll go first. And me being me, I couldn't just pick a very discreet like learn how to do this one thing. My first skill is quite meta because it's metacognitive awareness. And what metacognitive awareness is is basically thinking about your own thinking. It's noticing what is happening to you as it's happening and then choosing how to respond rather than just running kind of a default pattern. And in many ways this is the like most upstream you can go in terms of skills because if you lack metacognitive awareness, then you won't notice the opportunities to practice other skills. So I feel like it's really, it's like it's incredibly foundational in that way. What comes up for you when I bring this as a topic? You know, what does metacognitive awareness mean to you?

[A]

What's always interesting to me about this concept? I was first exposed to this when I was doing a lot of like content development and sort of instructional design work a long time ago in the context of Bloom's taxonomy. So do you know that one? It's like basically vaguely maturation of learning and it's like you learn the least from reading, you learn a little more from writing, you learn more from teaching, then you learn the most from reflection on blah, blah, blah. I don't remember, but that's where I first learned about this concept. And what I think is really interesting about it is it seems on its face to be quite intellectual, but where I see it show up the most actually is in people's emotional reactivity. So people who have a very highly developed metacognitive awareness I find are able to really understand their own experience of a moment and also hold a counter perspective or someone else's perspective at the same time and think about the gaps between those and sort of hold themselves back from being reactive and like have self inquiry in a way that people who don't have or practice the skill don't. And so what I think is interesting about it is it seems on its Face like it's thinking about thinking. But I feel like the way it shows up in people who have very high degrees of this is like a level of like, emotional flexibility and sort of like psychological adaptivity. That is actually pretty rare. Yeah, well.

[B]

And I think the whole part about noticing about what is happening in you is often a physical feeling. I'm feeling my chest get tight. I'm feeling my heart rate go up. And that's not a cognitive thing really. That's like a, oh, I'm noticing this. And now I'm using that as a trigger to like, check in with myself and see, like, what is actually going on here. I thought maybe I'd throw down just a couple of examples to help people throw down their mind around or what this could look or sound like giddy up. So one, you know, let's say you're doing some sort of work and you find yourself thinking like, ah, leadership just doesn't get it. The metacognitive awareness that you may have around that is something like, okay, I'm noticing that. I'm telling myself this story that they don't get it. And it's making me shut down. You know, is this actually true? Is that actually useful right now? Another one. Like, someone's just being difficult. Rodney's just being difficult.

[A]

Always.

[B]

The, the more aware thing may sound something like, oh, you know, I'm interpreting them as being difficult right now. And I'm also, you know, feeling defensive because my idea is all tangled up with my ego right now. I could pause, I could ask a question instead of explaining harder. These are just really kind of simple examples of, like, what is presented to you at first is very rarely what is actually going on. If you have this ab to think about what is actually happening. And I almost put a kind of a subtitle on this section, which was going to be systems thinking because I think it. They fit together really well. Because usually in an org design context, the more metacognitively aware you are, the more you're seeing the system behind what is actually going on. So it's not, oh, Jim and Sue are having a disagreement because they don't like each other. And it's, oh, there's something actually going on in this system of roles and authority that is probably a more fruitful place for us to dig into than just kind of skating along the surface of these two people are fighting right now.

[A]

Yeah, that's so interesting. You know, this gave me a thought I've never had before, which is Sam.

[B]

Is very cool and awesome.

[A]

It's so cool. We'll see. We'll see. It was cool. But I do feel like a lot of people who are drawn to the kind of work that we do do come at it from a more psych oriented perspective or like a coaching stance or like a supportive interpersonal stance. And sometimes those people really annoy me. And you just explained to me why that is. It's because the way that you described like in those examples is like, okay, they're being difficult. And then the next step is like, I'm interpreting them as being difficult, et cetera. So if you think about this like a little decision tree, what I find too often with people who are in helping professions and ours can be that way for sure is like, they're being difficult. Okay, why are they being difficult? Let me explore their conditions and their psychology and their motivations and also incidentally project my beliefs onto them so that I can go and fix them to be not difficult. And those people irritate me because they don't treat other people like fully agentic adults. What I love about this concept and part of why it's like landing so much with me is like, it's the same trigger, it's the same like inception point at the top of the decision tree. But the next step from there being difficult is like, why is this my interpretation what's going on for me that I am feeling away about this? And like, I think fundamentally that is just a much. First of all, it's a much more satisfying and it's a much more productive way of sort of being in the world than this person is being this way that I don't like. So I am going to, with all the love in my heart, fix them right well.

[B]

And if you connect that with the larger idea of org design, the fact that these two people aren't getting along and may not even freaking matter. In fact, there are, there are lots of places in the operating model of a fully functional organization. Functional in the sense that it's working, not functional in the organization organizing, principal sense, where there should be conflict, like my role and what I care about and your role and what you care about are designed to be a little bit at odds. And the way that we show up to that quote unquote conflict is actually an important part of this whole thing actually working because we counterbalance each other. And the goal is not. We're all just like super aligned and happy all the time. Which I think sometimes gets lost in this. I think this metacognitive awareness idea. Another way I think to say what you just said, which I think is a great observation, is it helps you separate like your stuff from the system's stuff. So the way that I've seen that for myself is that it helps you avoid over personalizing everything which in my, my brain shows up as like I'm failing or over externalizing everything which is, you know, leadership suc. And there's a whole realm of gray in between those two ends of the continuum where the reality actually lives and is actually space where we can like make choices and do things.

[A]

Yeah, I love that. So when I worked at MG one million years ago, one of the concepts that was discussed a lot was situational awareness. And obviously it was like coming from a military discipline. But the idea that like there was sort of like shared consciousness and shared context about what was going on and that a high degree of situational awareness would allow you to act appropriately. And I often thought, because I did a lot, a lot of research while I was there about self awareness and what sort of the ingredients of self awareness are. Is it fair to say that metacognition is like the intersection of self and situational awareness? Like, I know what's going on in me, I know what's going on out there. And I'm like looking at both of them from the balcony to consider.

[B]

Yeah, I think so.

[A]

Whether to act, what to observe, et cetera, et cetera.

[B]

Yeah, I think so. I think what you're saying is so holding like the object level and the meta level at the same time, I guess meta would be more situation and object level could be like the self at the same time so that you can then make decisions about it. I think the kind of specific example that I always think of in all the roles that we tend to play are something like, okay, I just sat through like a real shitty meeting. So the object is the shitty meeting. The meta level is like, okay, what is everything that was like not happening in this meeting that contributed to why this meeting was this way, you know, why the leader showed up the way they did, why the metrics we looked at are the way they are, why even this group of people is meeting on this sort of cadence. It's all of that other stuff that contributed to the object level. And then you then get to kind of decide, like, what does that mean for me? Maybe it was just a shitty meeting and it was like a one off and I don't have to get wrapped up around it, like, great, that'd be cool. Or maybe it's telling us something Else that is more interesting than just, well, that was a bad meeting.

[A]

Yeah. Cool. I love it. What else do we need to know about metacognitive awareness? Except that you clearly need a blazer with elbow patches if you're going to keep talking about this.

[B]

Totally. Maybe I can get some retroactive elbow patches on this cardigan. Yeah, I thought we probably want to hit like some specifics, like, how do you like, develop it? Like we're talking about.

[A]

Oh, good idea.

[B]

So let's, let's hit a couple of, like, here's how you could actually practice it.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

So metacognitive awareness really benefits from all sorts of reflection habits. So hot washes, weekly reviews, retrospectives where you are asking yourself questions like, you know, when did I feel triggered this week? What story was I telling myself? What did I do next? If I could replay it, what would I do instead? It's basically like revisiting things that happened over the last period of time from that balcony position, from that third person, and exploring, like, what was actually going on here. Because when you're actually in the midst of it, in the moment, it can be hard until you've really developed the skill to step back. So forcing yourself on a rhythm to be reflective, using question prompts like that, and then literally, like writing out answers, I think is one way you start to build those muscles.

[A]

This is also a great use case for some of the transcript tools. Like, I often will feed a recording or a transcript to a private GPT and be like, tell me how I showed up. Often I'll be like, these are the specific things that I'm concerned about. Like, was I over responsible? Was I clear? Was that blah, blah, blah. And you can also do this if you use a tool like granola inside of that tool. It's pretty astounding what kind of data you can get. And so even though I am someone who does a fair amount of practice around this, and I would say I have like reasonably solid skills, I find having that additional layer of data super, super useful. Because if, like, if what the GPT tells me at the end of a team meeting is basically like, it was clear that you had an agenda and that you were driving toward that agenda. And that because of like the power you hold and the airtime you took up, you got your agenda done, I'm like, oh, shit, okay. And so even just like, that's data that is very difficult to get in any other way because even if I watched a video of myself in that meeting, I wouldn't notice the same things That a transcript notices and no other human being is ever going to give you like that level of fidelity around how you were in a place.

[B]

Yeah, well. And if you build a body of these transcripts over a long period of time and use the tool to look for patterns across lots of meetings, that also would be. Be very interesting. The other thing that I'll throw out here, and I think this might actually be a good segue for your first skill, is that I think naming what is happening for you is a way of practicing this as well. So, like you're in a meeting, you're in some sort group context and you have that awareness of like, oh, I'm noticing a thing. You don't have to just keep it to yourself. And yes, there's lots of context here about like when and how you may want to do this. But I think just narrating a little bit of what is happening internally for you in a group setting that is practicing and I think also goes a long way for like building trust and credibility with a group. If you're able to kind of shine a light a little bit on what's going on internally for you, I think that's really smart.

[A]

I think that's really smart. And also I think a big part of this, this is probably like my hottest pro tip. It's going to come up in other skills, I bet too is the pace of our interactions at work is just generally too fast. Like it just generally is. It's too fast to be good generally. And we prioritize speed over depth and we prioritize completion over sense making and we prioritize closure over quality. You know, and I think to your point, even to be able to name something as simple as like, I'm noticing that I can't move on to the next thing because my brain is still on the last thing. Or like, I'm not quite ready to say yes to this. I need more time. Like, increasing your metacognitive awareness takes actual space. It takes space for awareness, which requires reflection, which is very difficult to do while you're talking or while you're listening or while you're acting. And so I just think in general, slowing the fuck down in most contexts is going to help you do that. Naming, do that reflection, take that moment to make some sense.

[B]

Yeah, it's almost like the equivalent of. I know I've heard this advice somewhere and I don't even know if it's good advice or it's just a thing that I've heard. But like, if you really Want someone to pay attention in a conversation or like in a group setting, like basically get really quiet, essentially whisper. Like that's the equivalent of that, I think, in a, you know, like a different context.

[A]

Yeah, it's like whisper in your mind. Let your mind whisper. I think that's great. I love it.

[B]

All right, let's move on to one of yours.

[A]

Okay. I'm gonna do user feedback first because y', all, we're bad at it as a people. And done check as a people, we're bad at it. Look, this is a fucking hard won skill for me. And so I'm going to talk about it because I did it so bad for more than 20 years of my 25 year career. I did a really bad job at this. When we're talking about, you know, user centered design or getting user feedback, what we're talking about is developing or evolving products and services with the user involved, not just in mind. That's a big mistake people make. They're like, I think I know what he would want. That's what I'm going to build. And this is a real discipline and it is one that very few of us learn. And. And it is the reason for all suffering at work. Not really, but it makes life really, really hard. So there are a few things that happen. And I'm going to say this as my caveat because those of you who are listening right now and you're like, I'm an internal org designer. I'm an HR bp. I'm a chief of staff. This doesn't apply to me. This applies to you more than anyone. So listen up, nerds, because here's the thing, y' all are cake bakers. And I've talked about this before on the show. I am one of you. We have an idea for a cake. We think everybody's gonna love it. We go into the kitchen and close the door and test recipes and build the most beautiful cake or bake it, I guess, that the world has ever seen. And then we bring it out and we expect applause and delight. And what we find is a room full of people who did not ask for cake. Yeah. And it doesn't mean the cake's not good. It probably is. What it means is that the users don't give a shit. Which also means they're not going to eat it and they're not going to pay for it. And this is something that, like, product groups suffer with enablement groups suffer with, internal teams suffer with. Like, we just want to make a solution and find a problem, not the other way around.

[B]

Well, and crucially, in that example also, what you are not doing is baking this cake and then bringing it out and being like, what frosting do you want on it? And like, oh, we did it, we did it. We checked in with our users, we got the frosting that they want on the cake, so now we're good to go.

[A]

Well, Sam, I think it's. That's like a really salient point that I would not have made. And you're absolutely right because, like, having done this wrong so many times, the bad version of this is, here's what I'm about to launch. Give me feedback. That is not user centered design. That's. I don't really know what that is. That's like better than nothing. That's research. Customer research, maybe. And listen, everyone on this earth loves to give opinions. Everybody loves to be asked for their opinion. Anyone will give you feedback on fucking anything. But that probably has little to nothing to do with whether they will use the thing that you're making or pay for the thing that you're making. So, like, to your point, people really confuse these things. HR people are the worst offenders of this. They're like, we're going to create this new performance management system and obviously we're going to get manager feedback. And what that looks like is them presenting a process that they have baked to a group of managers and being like, would you like chocolate or vanilla frosting? And then going like, we did this in partnership. No, you did not.

[B]

If presented an opportunity to make a choice or give feedback, people will do that. But let's not confuse that with actual user centered design.

[A]

The really big unlock for me around this, and this was an Aaron Dignan joint from a long time ago was reading the MOM test. And it has. I mean, just go read that book. It's kind of the only one that you need to read about this topic. But the thing about it that flipped for me was part of the MOM test is asking users or customers about their problems, which all of us do, right? All of us know how to be like, tell us about your tension. Tell us what you're trying to do. But then asking them how they've already tried to solve it if they've paid anyone else to try to solve it, either through technology or through a service. And my personal add on what they would pay to solve it. And here's the thing, talking about the financial realities of these things feels gross. But the products and services that y' all are developing are commercial. They're not just like for the common good. And so if I say to a user the READY is developing an AI course, would you take it? And they say yes. That is not user feedback, that's not useful information. Because I don't know what problem they're trying to solve, I don't know how much money they have, I don't know if they've already taken 10 courses that they're dissatisfied. I don't know literally anything. And to your point to the frosting problem, that's what people do. They go, do you like this? And people go yes, and change this 10%. And then they go okay, cool, nailed it. And then they try to launch it into market and are just shooketh when no one buys it.

[B]

Yeah. What was your like breaking point on this? You said you for a long time you did this really poorly. So that book you just mentioned, is there anything else where like, oh, I've actually got to like do this or where you started to do it and it like worked really well and like the scales fell from your eyes.

[A]

Launching the future of HR was the first time that I really did this the right way. And that was partially because Matt Basford and I worked super, super closely together. I mean we didn't really know what we were doing and yet we did it right from the beginning. We started with a customer problem that we were seeing repeated a lot in the environment. That central problem was HR is designed to do two things, be strategic problem solvers and triage and mitigate risk. And once we had that problem statement, we tested the fuck out of it before ever building anything, before building one single perspective on what the solution was. And we validated and validated and validated with hr. Yes, this is a problem. Yes, we have to solve it. Yes, there are consequences if we don't. Yes, there is budget to fix it. No, we don't have an answer. Blah blah, blah, blah blah. Before we started to create solutions. And then as we created those solutions, I was talking to HR people all the way through launch. As that work got iterated, I was talking to them about the maturity model, about the skills, about mission based teams, about how they, what they would use a mission. Like there was so much going on that by the time we launched it, we had clients who were ready to do it. And it wasn't just because it was a good idea, even though I would argue it was. It was because we sort of got out of our own way. And the ideas that we brought to market were the ideas that customers asked for, not the ideas that I Thought were super neato.

[B]

Yeah. What I just noticed in the way that you described that is that it was not just a discrete phase at the beginning of a project where you did this. You just described interactions throughout the entire experience of ideating, designing, building, launching thing. That conversation continued on throughout.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. And I think, you know, I've shown this like, chart 1 million times to people and like every client I've ever worked with has seen this chart. But it's basically like, you know, the journey to business model fit. And, and people want to start with like product market fit. But before you get to product market fit, like the stages as I conceive of them is like exploration of problem, like problem identification as a first gate and real validation that it's a problem worth solving. Because it's like, think about how many problems there are on this earth and how many problems human beings are willing to live with. We're just like 99% of the problems at work we're just not going to do shit about. We're just like, that sucks. Anyway, let's go to a meeting. So like real problem validation, then problem solution fit. Here's my idea. Back to the users. Does this really actually solve the problem that you have then product or solution market fit? Okay, can what this costs me work with what you'll pay for it at a margin that I can live with. Can it be deployed? Can it be blah, blah, blah, blah, then business, business model fit? Do we have the kind of organization that can deploy this product or service at scale to a lot of customers? And each of those phases requires another whole round of user feedback? Yeah.

[B]

Let me channel one of the most annoying types of people and say you.

[A]

Don'T have to channel. Hey.

[B]

All right, so one of those likely apocryphal quotes, I think, Henry Ford. You know, if I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What that is trying to point to is the idea, you know, the innovation. You know, how you can't just kind of iterate your way into something that is qualitatively different or new. Like, how do you, how do you think about that?

[A]

Yeah, I think about it in two ways. So one is most of us aren't inventing automobiles. And I don't say that to be dismissive of the premise, but like, most of us aren't actually in jobs where we're inventing whole cloth, a new paradigm shifting something. So like, yeah, Henry Ford and like, yeah, Steve Jobs, like, nobody asked for an iPhone. Like, I I get it. And that's not gonna be applicable in most of our jobs. So it's probably like not the most helpful mental model to have.

[B]

Yep, yep.

[A]

The posture that I would take is like from where I'm sitting and what I am capable of offering because it's like I can't go out and do user feedback and then just like, you know, build you guys a home gym. I don't have any capacity or foundation to do that. I'm still working within the spectrum of what I could actually build for you. We're all going to be limited in some way by that. So like, let's start from the constraint of what is your job and what is the kind of stuff that you can make for customers. That's a great constraint. And then from there the laws of physics basically. Exactly. Start from the laws of physics.

[B]

Let's take a. Given the laws of physics, start with.

[A]

Gravity and go from there and then from there. What are the really gnarly problems that your customers have? And like, maybe Henry Ford is right. And maybe, maybe if he had been doing customer discovery, I'm willing to bet that people were like not all that thrilled traveling by stagecoach and like that those very multi day, bumpy, exhausting, dusty, hot journeys were unpleasant. And that maybe if he already was in the transportation business, if he had said to his customers what would make for a better journey, they would be like something that's not like this.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I don't know enough about automobile manufacturing or cell phone manufacturing to really back this up. However, I'm going to say it anyway because this is a podcast.

[A]

Yeah, that's.

[B]

I have a feeling that yes, both Henry Ford and Steve Jobs are also underselling the amount of iteration that happened on pre existing technology in order for their capital I innovative thing to come to life.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's not like every aspect of the first iPhone and the first Model T was invented from scratch. So let's not throw that baby out with the bathroom.

[A]

Right. And it's also like there were precipitating events in terms of power sources that made a combustion engine possible that weren't there before. So it's like, yeah, customers didn't ask for a car, but also like there was no way to build an engine like that before that period of time. Anyway, I'm glad that you acted like a butt for a minute. It's a useful, it's my specialty. It's a useful mental model. And I think the one part of that that people should hold in mind is like, you have to be careful when you're developing products and services to not be so wedded to your core product that you stay in lowercase I innovation too long. I see too many people who are like, ugh. But the core is still, like, delivering X revenue, or it still has these three important customers, or it still employs this team, and it's like, we already know that it's, like, dead, but, like, we don't want to let it go and really pivot to the next thing or really even explore what the next thing is. I would say 60% of my clients get hung up in that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so the last skill that we're gonna hit, we're gonna do together because we both agree that it's so, so critical. So, Sam, walk us in to expert facilitation.

[B]

Well, now I feel extra pressure because I feel like I need to facilitate this conversation really well. Otherwise, I'm just. Just failing. What I love about this one, as compared to user feedback and metacognitive awareness, is this one feels like the most crisply, like, a thing that you can learn and do. You can kind of, like, start from zero or scratch and, like, put yourself through the paces and actually learn how to do it really well.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

So when I think about facilitation in terms of kind of the work that we do or just being an internal change agent, it shows up in a couple of different ways. So obviously, you know, meeting facilitation, but also workshops, which I distinguish a little bit from just like a typical operating rhythm meeting. There's also something to be said for kind of just having, like, a facilitator's mindset, even in, like, asynchronous work. Like, an asynchronous facilitator is also, like, a thing that maybe we'll touch on a little bit here. But basically, this is the role that is looking at the process and the structure we are using to accomplish something. So the structure of the meeting that we are using to accomplish a certain goal or a set of goals or a set of outcomes for the meeting, not just the structure, but also the vibes, so to speak, inside that structure, what is actually happening in that structure and trying to essentially hold the outcome of what we are trying to do as the most important thing, not the individual feelings of the people who are experiencing the meeting or the workshop. That was my completely unprepared and rambly way of teeing up facilitation. What would you add?

[A]

You did a great job. I would probably just, like, click into a couple Things you said. So, one is the thing about facilitation that people don't understand who either just don't think it's hard or are bad at it. It's that the macro is in the micro, in facilitation more than anywhere. So if I'm facilitating a group that is trying to get clear on the direction of their organization for the next year, I am using, like, literally the next 15 minutes and the 15 minutes after that and the 15 minutes after that to, like, chip away at the block of marble until they have a statue to take home at the end of it. And I have to, as a skilled facilitator, hold in mind that very lofty outcome and what I am going to do with these nine people who have different styles and different ideas, different ways of thinking for the next 15 minutes to get incremental progress toward that thing, and hopefully, inshallah, to get the outcome in the time allocated. The other way that I would talk about sort of the macro and the micro is everything that is true about your organization or about your OS is happening in the meeting. It's happening in every meeting. So when people are like, come, do three months of analysis. I'm like, I'm good. Show me a meeting, and I'll probably have 80% of what's there. It's just unavoidable. Like, it's just. Maybe I can't totally see, like, the comp structure, but, like, almost everything else that's going on is very visible when the people get together to talk about the work. And so that's why facilitating that in a different way can start to change all of the other things in a different way. And that's when clients are like, you guys seem expensive for facilitators. I'm like, yeah, bro. Like, the idea here, though, is, like, you get the big thing from changing the small thing.

[B]

Yeah. Facilitation is one of those things where I think it is often, I think, disrespected, kind of in the way that you just described there. And yet, if you talk to somebody who has just experienced some really good facilitation, everybody raves about it. Everybody loves being in a meeting or in a workshop where there is really strong facilitation. And I don't mean strong, like, overbearing, but just, like, you feel held, like somebody is keeping track of, like, what we're trying to do here and has the larger picture in mind. So that, yeah, when that role does not exist, part of everybody's brain is, like, running on the like, what's the larger thing that we're trying to do here? Should I, like, steer us back to it? Is someone else going to steer us back to it? When you have a good facilitator, everybody else's brain can let go of that part and focus really on the thing that we're actually trying to do. And it always feels good. Even though I think the role is often not given its flowers the way.

[A]

It should be given its flowers. You're such a nerd. Yeah, I agree with you. And in fairness, I think there are a couple of valid reasons for that. One is a lot of people still picture a facilitator as being, like, someone standing at the whiteboard or the flip chart with a marker and just, like, capturing what the group says and then playing it back or, like, mirroring or something. In my facilitation, that is 0% of the work.

[B]

Yeah, but say. I would say absolutely not what the facilitator should be doing. And I think that's one of the reasons why we actually, you know, at the ready, have co Facilitated both things, because that is a useful role for somebody to be doing, but it's not the person who is actively facilitating. So a lot of times you'd be the person who's kind of in the backseat for this section, is taking notes and reflecting things back, while the actual head facilitator is, like, doing the facilitation.

[A]

Exactly. And, like, as a side note, truly, the only time that I, like, write down what a group has said and show it to them is when I can sense that they're talking past, past each other and that they think they agree, but they don't. And I'm like, okay, so it's this, and then it's just to start a fight, which is really helpful. And nobody does that part. So I think people assume that it's that. And then they also assume. And I think this is why a lot of times, especially at executive team level, they're hesitant to have a facilitator. They assume that the facilitator is really going to play a driving role. And I think that good facilitation should actually be almost invisible. Like, when I am being facilitated, well, I am only aware of, like, my own motion and progress. And I don't feel led by someone or steered or like the facilitator. If you're really good at this, you should not have to be overbearing. You should be able to sort of be like, all right, everybody, here's the three prompts. I want you to do it this way. Come back in 10 minutes, and then we're gonna do this thing and that, like, the vibe of it should be like, you're so grounded in what is going to happen and what's next that you are holding the room without trying to control it.

[B]

Yeah, I think I agree with that 99% of the time. And I think in the 1% where things are unruly or it feels like things are getting out of control, the role of the facilitator there is not to go back to metacognitive awareness, but basically hold up a mirror to the group and be like, yo, yeah, we all kind of agreed that we were on it to like, do this thing and this thing or be this way with each other. And y' all aren't or we're not. What do you want to do with that? And we can either use that as a moment to, like, refocus in on what we're actually trying to do, or maybe that's decision point to like, we're either going to close it here or we're going to shift gears entirely because something else has come up that is also what good facilitation sometimes has to look like.

[A]

I think that's right. And I think, like, you know, you have a structure, you have some kind of meeting design that's like, we're gonna do this thing for an hour and a half, and then we're gonna do this thing for an hour, we're gonna have lunch. But the pro move is like sensing in the room what the fuck is actually going on and having enough back pocket moves that you can pivot.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The thing that's interesting, Sam, about what you just said is like, I feel like I used to have to do that a lot, and I can't remember the last time I had to. And I don't know why I was.

[B]

Thinking the same thing. I think I'd maybe know why for us, from the work that we do. So I think if you are coming in purely as an external facilitator and you don't have a preexisting relationship with the org or anybody in the room, and you're truly just kind of the hired gun to facilitate this thing, I think you may find yourself in the position we just described more often. I think our facilitation is almost always in the context of a larger project and we have some pre existing relationships with people in the room, or we're going to continue on with the work. And I think there's Something about. I don't know if it's a combination of the folks in the room showing up differently or if. Because we have Org design hats on in the moment, if things are going off the rails, that's just data.

[A]

Like, I don't.

[B]

I can, like. I can, like, be much more chill about. Like, okay, this moment is kind of like getting away from us, but also, this is a smaller part of a larger project, and this is actually telling me a lot more useful information that I can then use later on. So maybe it just feels different. I know that's my hypothesis.

[A]

I definitely think that's true. I also think, you know, I did not used to do prep calls. Like, I used to just do a prep call with, like, the sponsor and maybe, like, team lead, and now I'm really insistent on doing a prep call with every attendee. And a lot of times they're like, 15 minutes. It's not, like, a big thing. But one of the shifts that I've noticed is, like, you know, human beings, like, we're very judgmental, and I'll just use myself. Like, if I'm brought into a room and a third of the people already have some exposure to me from the sales process or from the podcast or from a preexisting relationship or whatever, from a referral or whatever, like, those people are kind of on my side when we start. And depending on the rest of the relationships, that can actually be a detriment to me because maybe I'm brought in by the COO and everybody kind of thinks she sucks, and now I'm her person and I'm an extension of her, and everybody's like, boo. And now I'm already on the back foot with two thirds of the room as I'm getting started. What I've been doing in prep calls that are like, 15 minutes before a first workshop where I'm not already working with a group is just like, what's going on right now for you? If this day went, like, amazingly well, what would you get out of it? And also just some, like, general vibes. Like, a little bit of general, like, look, I'm a human. I'm hilarious. We're gonna have a good time. If you hate what's going on, you can tell me at the break. This is gonna be cool. And the feeling in the room at the first meeting is very different than when I used to go into rooms. Cold.

[B]

Yeah. No, I love that. I definitely agree. And when I've been able to have those prep calls, it does go better. If you don't have the ability or the time for whatever reason to do those calls. The really small version, which I have used quite a bit in like an all day workshop situation where people are showing up early for coffee or breakfast is your goal is to meet as many of those people in the 30 minutes before that actually starts as you can. Introducing yourself, you know, getting a name to a face, having that really short positive interaction with somebody to establish your humanity before the actual thing happens.

[A]

Yeah, because like I want people to know going in that I'm not going to be a butt head standing at the whiteboard just like writing down what they say. I want them to understand like, like, you know, a little bit about like how I think and who I am and like what I'm there to do, blah, blah, blah, blah. The other thing is not to make this part just be about prep calls because y', all, they can really go wrong. Like prep can go the other direction and can get over engineered and overly grippy. And you don't want the agenda to feel so fixed that you can't like caution, caution tape. But the other thing that has happened in a couple of workshops I've facilitated in the last year is what the sponsor told me was needed was true, but not the most important thing for the group. It was either the most important thing for them or it was the thing that the group was willing to say out loud in public. So like, the group out loud in public is always going to say we should do strategy work. They're always going to say we should get clearer on role clarity. Like, those are just easy things to admit. When you get people one on one and go like, what's really going on? They tell you. And I think as a facilitator, again, we are uniquely positioned to go back to a sponsor or like the CEO and go like, look, here's what you asked for. You can have what you asked for because you're paying the bill. And here's what I'd recommend based on what I've heard, because this is what the whisper in the hallway is. And if you don't solve this, the rest of it doesn't really matter. That I think is where you can bring a lot of value as a facilitator without diming anybody out. But really to find a leverage point through those conversations that's not apparent to the people who are planning the meeting.

[B]

Yeah, it's a useful reminder that not every meeting or every workshop can be everything to everyone at all times. That we're not going to Solve everything in a workshop. And sometimes what the team actually needed was a day of them working constructively together in a way that they haven't before, regardless of what the actual artifacts are that they walk out of the room with.

[A]

Exactly. I think that's so. Right. And just to, like, double down. The worst kind of prep is when you get requirements from all of the participants and then you try to make an agenda that meets all of them. Like, that's the most JV version of facilitation, which, incidentally, I used to do. Like, okay, so they want 20 things, so I'm gonna figure out how to clump them together and get all 20 needs. Don't do that. Like, the pro move, again, to your point, Sam, is like, really hearing what's going on maybe one layer below the surface conversation. And this is where systems thinking as a skill really comes into play. Being like, what is really the lever here that we could tackle in this meeting? Look, it's riskier. You're way more likely to fuck it up. But when you get it right, it's amazing.

[B]

Yeah, I'm realizing how much what we're talking about here gets easier if you can have ongoing relationships with the organization or the teams.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

And I just think. I mean, of course, it's like, almost too obvious to say, but I think about, you know, going in to facilitate what would seem like a really high stakes thing to an outsider. But I know the team and they know me, and I have, like, zero stress about it versus going in to do something that seems like it should be pretty rote with a team that I know nothing about. And I'm much more likely to have a restless night's sleep before that.

[A]

For sure. 100%.

[B]

All right. Anything else on facilitation? I mean, learn some moves, right? It's helpful to have some moves in your back pocket and be comfortable using them. Liberating structures is definitely a site that I'll peruse from time to time just to get my brain firing on other ways to do things. I would say I probably use three liberating structures 90% of the time, and then the rest very, very infrequently, or maybe never. But I'm always glad to have scrolled through them to get my brain juices going.

[A]

Yeah, this is also where I use GPT a lot now. You know, I do a lot of, like, feeding it transcripts and sample agendas, and I never, not once yet, have been able to just, like, use what it spits out. But as a sparring partner, for agenda design. It's really, really good. It's really good. And it often does pick up on things that like, I sort of were like quiet signals that I put to the side and GPT is like, no, no, it's that one. And so I think this is a place I am still such an over preparer for things like I have like full facilitation guides, full timing written, and then I always don't do almost any of it, but I have to have that or I literally won't sleep the night before. I think though, this is where like before you improvise, you get really good at fundamentals. And if you have five facilitation moves that kind of always slap do those a hundred times rather than trying to do a hundred things once because you'll just be much more able to build from there. And it's like learn how to do three really solid kinds of retros. Learn how to develop principles, learn how to draft outcomes. These are things that are always going to be useful in so many contexts. And figure out your way of getting to a couple of things that most groups need and then just do those again and again and again until you get so awesome at it. Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

[B]

All right, so metacognitive awareness, user feedback, facilitation. Three skills that have incredible amounts of depth and complexity once you start digging into them, that'll keep you busy until we do another version of this episode. I think in like a year it'll keep you busy.

[A]

Go practice.

[B]

All right, so we're always looking for new topics for the show. So if you have an org pattern that you're having trouble changing, shoot us a [e-mail] if you have any interesting stories as you start to develop these three skills or any follow up questions, send those along too. We could do a follow up episode on what we on the feedback that we hear from you all.

[A]

Also, we covered three out of like 10, so if you like this, we might do the rest of them later. This show is engineered by Taylor Marvin and produced by our friend Jack Van Amber, who just had a birthday that I missed. Happy birthday, Jack.

[B]

I didn't miss it.

[A]

Oh, you suck. This is my fault for being on like Tech Blackout. I work with the Ready is created by the ready where we help organizations around the world change the way that they work. Thank you so much for listening.