The Art of Staying Curious with Coaching Legend Michael Bungay Stanier

Leadership through powerful questions

Recipient of the Thinkers50 2023 Coaching and Mentoring Award and bestselling author of The Coaching Habit, and How to Work with (Almost) Anyone, Michael Bungay Stanier was one of the first inductees into Coaching Legends.

In this enlightening exchange with Marshall Goldsmith (Thinkers50 Hall of Fame), Michael reveals why curiosity is the ultimate leadership technology in today’s AI-driven world and shares some valuable tips for coaches and leaders to elevate their impact:

• “Tame your advice monster”: exceptional leaders “stay curious a little bit longer” rather than rush to give advice.
• Harness the power of simple questions: “What’s on your mind?”, “What’s the real challenge here for you?”, and critically, “And what else?”.
• Practice “fierce love”: show up in full and don’t let “being nice” get in the way of saying what needs to be said.

As Michael eloquently puts it, in an era where AI can provide answers to almost anything, your value as a leader and a coach comes not from having all the answers, but from “putting the humus back into humility” – and asking the questions that matter most.

WATCH THE FULL CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL BUNGAY STANIER BY MARSHALL GOLDSMITH:

Transcript

Des Dearlove:

Hello, I’m Des Dearlove, co-founder of Thinkers50, and I’m delighted to be here today to introduce the next episode in our Coaching Legends series. 

In these sessions, we talk to exceptional coaches, individuals who have worked with top business leaders. And our aim is to bring you insights and learnings from their experiences in the C-suite that can make you both a better leader and a better coach. This is a collaboration between Thinkers50, 100 Coaches and BetterUp. And we have a real treat for you today. I’ll be introducing our special guest in just a minute.

But first, a quick word about Thinkers50. Our mission is to be the world’s most reliable resource for identifying, ranking, and sharing the leading management ideas of our age, ideas that we believe can make a positive difference in the world. That mission dates all the way back to 2001 when we published the first ever global ranking of management and business thinkers, and we’ve been publishing a new ranking every two years ever since. In 2011, we introduced our Distinguished Achievement Awards and Gala, which the Financial Times called the “Oscars of Management Thinking”. Shortly after that, the Thinkers50 Radar, 30 exciting up-and-coming new thinkers, we launched as well, which is published every January, and the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame to honour the careers of exceptional thinkers. In 2023, then it was natural that with our friends at 100 Coaches and BetterUp, we added our Coaching Legends list, which recognises and honours the lasting influence and contribution of exceptional coaches.

So what’s the red thread that connects all our work? Well, I like to think the Thinkers50 connects the most practical thinkers with the most thoughtful practitioners. Our mantra is Thinkers + Doers = Impact, and that’s what this series is all about. Coaches play a vital part in developing leaders. They are the connecting tissue between the world of ideas and practice. As well as being originators of ideas themselves, coaches are also the honey bees of best practice, cross pollinating the leadership world with the best ideas wherever they come from.

So without further ado, let me introduce our special guest. I’m delighted to say that joining us today is the bestselling author of The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier. Amazingly, that book, which has sold over a million copies and been translated into 20 languages, is coming up on its 10th anniversary. Michael’s most recent book is How to Work with (Almost) Anyone: Five Questions for Building the Best Possible Relationships. Michael is the founder of the training and development company Box of Crayons, which has taught coaching skills to over half a million people across the world. Clients include Microsoft, Salesforce, Telus, and Gucci. A native Australian, Michael is a former Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and now lives in Toronto, Canada. In 2023, Michael was the recipient of the Thinkers50 Coaching and Mentoring Award and was inducted into the Coaching Legends.

And asking the questions today, we are delighted to welcome another legend of the coaching world, Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall’s New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers include one of my all time favourite book titles, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. After more than a decade in the Thinkers50 Ranking, in 2018 he was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame. Marshall, Michael, welcome.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Hello, hello. So happy to be here. Great to see you. And again, thanks to all the great work you and Thinkers50 are doing. So Michael-

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Marshall.

Marshall Goldsmith:

… welcome, welcome. Great to talk to you. Now-

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Always good to see you as well. Thank you, Marshall. I know this is Coaching Legends, and I’m being admitted into it, which is amazing, but I feel like you’re the legend of the legend. So thanks for being a champion and a mentor and encourager of me in all of this.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Now, one thing before we get onto the questions I think is great about you is what you do, which I think is of interest to our listeners, is not just provide input for coaches who are coaches your work is really great for leaders who are also coaches. So I like to think about both, because I think you are very unique in our field, providing leaders for input about how to be better coaches as well. So before we get into the questions about coaching and your books, just if you had to have a couple of insights, not for coaches, but for leaders who want to be coaches, and a lot of listeners are leaders, what advice would you have?

How to stay curious a little bit longer

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Well, I think one of the challenges with coaching is if you’re not part of that world, it kind of can show up with a whole bunch of baggage. Lots of people have heard of coaching and they kind of know what it is, but they’re not quite sure what it is. And they’re a bit worried that they have to light incense and wear a kaftan if they’re going to become a life coach or they have to be hardcore and driving if they’re an executive coach.

And what I think that does is it scares people away from a really powerful technology, and that technology is fueled by curiosity. So I often say to managers and leaders and individual contributors, basically anybody who works with other human beings, “The goal is not to turn you into a coach. The goal is to have you be more coach-like. I’m not trying to change your job. I’m trying to add a leadership behaviour to the work that you do.” And when people go, “Well, what does that even mean, Michael? What is more coach-like?” I think it’s a really simple behaviour, simple but difficult.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

And it says, “Can you stay curious a little bit longer? Can you rush to action and advice-giving a little bit more slowly?” Because the truth is most of us are advice-giving maniacs. As soon as somebody starts talking, after about five seconds, you’re like, “Oh, look, I already know what I need to say. I’m going to pretend to listen to you for a little bit, but actually I’m just waiting to interrupt.” And these days, Marshall, answers have never been as cheap and as accessible, and therefore as non-unique, as they are right now. Because honestly, we all have AI on our devices and our computer. Most of the time, we can ask it a question. It’s going to come back with a pretty good answer. So if you think you add value by your answers, I think you may be kidding yourself. I think you add value by the questions that you ask, and I think that’s what I want people to do. Just stay curious a little bit longer.

Marshall Goldsmith:

I love that. I love that. And you mentioned AI, as you know, I’ve got my own AI, MarshallGoldsmith.ai. And Marshall Goldsmith can answer it. My goal was it would answer 80% of the questions as well as me about 80% of the time. Now, it can answer any question better than me.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Exactly. It can answer 120% of the questions 120% better than you. It’s really… It’s extraordinary. But it also means that we just have to… And it’s very disruptive, because a lot of us feel that our value lies on our history and our expertise and what we’ve learned. But rather than thinking of that as, “This is what fuels my answers,” it’s like, “This is what allows you to be present, to hold context and to ask great questions.”

Marshall Goldsmith:

Well, and to connect what you’re saying with one of my books, one of the things that I talk about is don’t add too much value.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Right.

Marshall Goldsmith:

And a classic problem of smart, successful leaders, especially by the way engineers or people with technical background, adding too much value.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

That’s it.

Marshall Goldsmith:

So what they don’t think about is let’s assume that my comment increases the quality of the idea by 5%. It may not, but let’s pretend it does. 5%. You may decrease the commitment by 50%.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Exactly right. So it’s about understanding the game that you’re playing. And if you have somebody who, through the way that you show up and the way you’re more coach-like with them and you guide them, they increase their level of commitment, even if their answer isn’t quite as good as yours but it still gets the job done, you win a much bigger prize. Now, it’s fair to say, Marshall, that, look, I’m not saying coaching is the only way to lead.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Daniel Goleman years ago wrote an article in Harvard Business Review called Leadership That Gets Results, and he said, “Look, six different types of leadership, the very best leaders use all six in the appropriate moment.”

Marshall Goldsmith:

Of course, yeah.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

“The typical leader uses one or two of those. But coaching was one of the least utilised, even though it has a real impact on engagement and impact and bottom line, the 2 DNA strands of a successful organisation.”

Marshall Goldsmith:

Yeah. I highly recommend what you have written, not just for coaches, but for leaders who need to be better coaches. Now, speaking of your books, taking a cue from your book, let’s start with the first of five questions from How to Work with (Almost) Anyone, what you call the Amplify Question.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

That’s it.

Un-weirding coaching: it’s not just the thinking, it’s the doing that increase the impact

Marshall Goldsmith:

What is your best? What are you good at, but also fulfilled by?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Well, it’s an interesting setup, isn’t it? Because it’s not just what am I good at, but what am I fulfilled by? Because one of the things is that when you hit a certain age, and I’ve hit that certain age for sure, I’ve actually become good at a whole range of things that quite frankly I’d be happy to never do again in my life. And I think one of the things that makes for a successful life is when you’re doing things that you are fulfilled by and you’ve got a mix of stuff, some of it you’re going to be good at, some of it you’re learning to be good at. If you had to pin down what accounts for some of the success I’ve had, after you’ve taken luck off the list, because there’s been a whole lot of luck, as timing and luck is a significant influence in everything, one of the things that I think I’m pretty good at is trying to find simplicity on the other side of complexity.

So what I do is I try and take big challenges that feel a bit abstract and a bit hard and a bit overwhelming, and I go, “How do I make this feel practical? How do I un-weird this for people?” One of the… The engine behind me writing The Coaching Habit was I wanted to un-weird coaching, make it feel accessible and doable and practical for people who might be otherwise a bit skeptical about coaching. And then ability to sit with ideas, wrestle with ideas, and try and turn them into something that’s actable on, doable. It fits really well with the whole Thinkers50, which is like, it’s not just thinking, it’s the doing that increases the impact. You need both thinking and doing. And my work is often a bridge between the thinking and the doing to try and increase impact.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Yeah. I like this idea of taking the complex and making it simple. So let’s do that right now. Let’s assume that I am a manager, and I have someone coming into me to discuss a potential issue. I’m a great believer in just write down little notes to remind yourself, because people have good hearts, but they forget.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

I mean, the engineer gets excited with the content and blah, blah, blah. They start talking. What are a couple of little notes that that leader might write down to his or herself at the meeting? Just keep it in your mind, the stuff you’re talking about, being a great coach.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Well, I’m going to say there are two bigger picture things to remember, then two really tactical things that they can keep in front of them.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Good.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

The big one is just to notice that the way they’re probably going to add value is not by having the answer, but by asking the great question.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Okay.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

So stay curious a bit longer, not for hours, not for days, not for weeks. I’m just talking for 90 seconds.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right, right, right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Stay curious for 90 seconds, that’s a win.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

And then to make that practical, your goal is to notice your advice monster. Your advice monster, that thing that loops up out of the darkness and goes, “I’m going to add value to this conversation.” So here we go. So that’s the kind of big picture, which is like, “Stay curious, tame my advice monster.”

And then what I’d be doing is I’d be writing down two favourite questions, two questions just to remind you what the questions are that you want to ask.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Good.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Now, a great one to start almost every conversation is simply, “What’s on your mind?” It’s the kickstart question. It accelerates people into talking about the thing that’s most important for them. Another great question is, “What’s the real challenge here for you?” That’s the focus question. That’s when you kind of like, “So what’s hard about this? Let’s actually get into what the challenge is.” And the third great question is, “And what else?” I often say that it’s the best coaching question in the world, because their first answer is never their only answer, and it’s rarely their best answer. So if I was guiding this manager, I’d say, “Pick a question, or pick two questions if you have to, and maybe just keep those in front of you and see if you can ask them at least once in this conversation.”

Marshall Goldsmith:

So I like that, because again, the people that I work with are very bright people, as you’ve met many of the people I’ve coached, they’re very smart people.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

And they’re all good-hearted people. Yet, they’re busy and a thousand things are beating them over the head at once. So I like the idea of just some very practical little suggestions, little questions. And as you said, they go into the meeting, just a reminder to breathe, slow down that 285 mile an hour brain just a little bit.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Right.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Breathe. So I like that. Now, the world is changing.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

It is.

What sort of leaders do we need in the new world?

Marshall Goldsmith:

What sort of leaders do we need in the new world?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

That’s a very juicy question, because I don’t know about you, but when we were together two years ago in the Thinkers50 Gala, it just felt like a very completely different world than it is now. And it’s changed in so many ways. So I suspect me, like a lot of people, I look around going, “What is happening right now?” Because it all feels like it’s accelerating and becoming a little… The centre is not holding, to quote Yeats. So if I’m to trying… So I’m giving myself this advice as much as I’m giving it to anybody else, Marshall. And I think the things I’m trying to say is I want to stay curious, because under stress, under chaos and in ambiguity, our curiosity has a tendency to shut down. So I want to understand context as much as I can.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Okay, let’s stop. Tell everybody, what do you mean by the word context?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Well, we have a way of projecting onto a situation what we already know. And if I step back and I go, “What’s the context? What’s really happening? What other weak signals can I pick up from here?” What I’m attuning to is the complexity and the ambiguity of what’s going on and actually trying to stay in the grey a little bit longer rather than rush it to black and white.

Marshall Goldsmith:

I see.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Now, that’s less comfortable, but it’s actually a way I think of staying more attuned to the nuances of what might be happening.

Marshall Goldsmith:

I see.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

I think there’s something around courage here. Because what happens when things are chaotic, when things are ambiguous, often one of the things we do is we freeze, that classic fight or freeze response. So I think it takes courage to say, “I am going to take an action. I’m actually going to move on something around this.”

And then the third thing, I think it’s about maintaining a moral compass. This will sound a bit… I’m not sure what it sounds like, but it’s like, “So what does it take to be good in this world?” What does it take to… To quote a writer and a talker and an executive, Jacqueline Novogratz, the CEO of Acumen, it’s like, “What does it take to give more to the world than you take?” And it feels like there’s a way in this world has shifted a little bit that people are looking to take more than they can give. And I would love us to kind of go, “Well, how do I give more to the world than I can take?” So curiosity, courage, and that question around, “How do I give more than I take?”

Marshall Goldsmith:

It’s a great way to look at leadership. Okay. Speaking of leadership, how about some new skills leaders need to strive in today’s environment, especially, what about the impact of AI?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah. Well, I think, again, we’re all going, “Holy cow, that came up fast.” I mean, I know for the people in the AI world, they’re like, “No, we’ve been working on this for 20 years.” But for normal people, it’s like suddenly AI has shown up. So where I would start instead of, “What are the new skills I need?” I might do an inventory of what skills I currently have and go, “Which skills do I no longer need? Which skills can I let go of?” As human beings, we are very wired to always look to be adding on, add, add, add. I mean, if you read Leidy Klotz’s work, his wonderful book called Subtract. He’s like, “Oh, well, we are just wired to assume that adding on is always the answer.”

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

And I wonder, it’s like, “What do I need to stop doing? What do I need to remove? What skills no longer serve me?” And I think it’s harder than ever to, for instance, lead change by decree, “We’re doing this now.” I think more and more there’s going to be a need to move over and go, “How do we get this done together,” as a way of doing it.

So this invitation to perhaps look at some of the different forms of leadership, the Daniel Goleman forms of leadership, and go, “Of those forms of leadership, which one am I less strong in at the moment?” And it might be a leadership which is more invitational and collaborative, but it also might be an invitation to willingness to step up, take the lead, make a decision, and be bold. Great leaders have this faceted approach to what it takes to lead. And in this new world, I think perhaps we’ve got to look at our mixing board of leadership skills and go, “Where do I need to make some changes?”

Marshall Goldsmith:

Yeah. I like that, because you said, just information, information’s going to be accessible to everybody and at a level beyond any normal human can even pretend to compete with. So one of the things you talked about is elimination, letting go. In one of my books, I talk about the wheel of change. One part of it is creating. What do I want to create?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

One of them is what I want to preserve or keep. And what do I want to let go of, and what do I need to accept? Just make peace with. Maybe I’m not going to let go of it. I’m not going to change it. It’s bad, and there’s nothing I’m going to do about it.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Right.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Let it go. Well, letting go is a very big challenge. I do LinkedIn surveys. And in my last LinkedIn survey, I said, “What is your biggest challenge? Is it creating, or is it…” The biggest challenges were two, which are both related, they were either eliminating or accepting.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Right.

Marshall Goldsmith:

And I think you’re right. We have a tendency to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, to just do more and more and more, as opposed to saying, “What do I want to get rid of here? What do I want to get rid of?” Or in a way parallel, “What do I want to just make peace with?”

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Right. And for me, Marshall, in part that comes back to a more profound question, which is, “What do I want?” Which is… That has a resonance that is in part going, “What does success look like for me?” But it’s kind of like, “What’s calling me forward? What matters most to me? What’s the impact I want to have?” It’s an existential question. “What do I want?”

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

And once you understand what you want, then it becomes easier to understand what you might come to acceptance with. “This is the way it is, I can’t do much about it, so I just have to let go of my need to change that.” Exactly. This is the famous Marshall Goldsmith hand move, which is like let it go. Or it might be something where it’s more actively like, “I need to remove this. I need to get this out of my life somewhere.” It might be a person, it could be an experience, it could be stuff. But there’s this idea of once you understand what you want, then it becomes that much clearer to understand what you need to say no to, so you can say yes to the stuff that matters most.

Harnessing the power of questions for continuous learning

Marshall Goldsmith:

Martin Lindstrom is a good friend of mine, who… You know Martin.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Just a great guy.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Brand thinker. Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

And it relates to your next question, how can leaders ensure that they continue to learn during their career and learn to change over time? I asked Martin, I said, “Look, shit, I’m old, right? I’m 76. How did I keep going this long?” I mean, usually, I’d fade away at a certain point in time, but I just sort of keep bumping along. How’d I do that? One thing you said is, you’re curious.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

You’re always learning, you’re always doing new things, you’re never really just sort of coasting along. So I think that’s a really important point for leaders. How can leaders ensure that they continue to learn throughout their careers and change over time?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

And I think a variable that’s changed, that’s always been an important question, but I think if I had to give my thought on it’s the speed of doing that has changed.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Right.

Marshall Goldsmith:

In the old days, yeah, you still needed to learn over time, but the rapidity of learning wasn’t as high as it is today.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Today-

Michael Bungay Stanier:

I’ve got a couple thoughts on that, Marshall. Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

So what are your thoughts? How can leaders continue to learn throughout their careers and learn to change over time?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Well, a couple of things. One is building a regular practice of asking questions that force you to stop and reflect. Now, you and I have had all sorts of back and forth around this. We both have different morning questions that we ask and answer. I’ll tell you the three questions that I ask myself every morning, well, Monday through Friday, I sit down. The first is, “What do I notice?” And that question makes me check myself internally, what’s in my head, kind of what ideas are rattling around. “What am I feeling?” I’m not that good at connecting to my feelings, so this is helping me actually try and get some emotional intelligence there. “What do I see out of my window, which is just over there?” It’s really kind of a, “Be present, Michael. Be present to what’s happening inside you and outside you. What do I notice?”

The second question I’ve already talked about, and I love it, hate it every morning, it’s, “What do I want?” And it’s like, gosh, if I had to, it’s always challenging to answer that question, but it forces me to start seeing patterns in my answers to that.

A third question I ask in the morning is, “What’s the one thing today that actually matters?” Because I tend to chronically over schedule rather than under schedule my life, and I could easily spend my days ticking off miscellaneous to-do tasks. But never quite get to what matters most.

And then the question I ask at the end of the day is, “What made today a good day about?” It’s kind of a build on Teresa Amabile’s question, which is like, “How did I make progress?” Her Progress Principle. People want to make a little bit of progress every day on stuff that matters to them. But it’s like some days you don’t make progress, but it can still be a good day. So what made it a good day? So that’s the first thing, which is regular questions.

And then in the coaching experience, the last question in The Coaching Habit book is, “What was useful or valuable here for you?” It means that you are constantly seeding learning opportunities into every conversation you have.

And then the third thought for me, Marshall, and I’m looking down there, because I have a ukulele down there. And I am a bad ukulele player. And I take some delight in being a bad ukulele player, because in the learning step up, it means… There are four stages. You are, first of all, unconsciously incompetent. In other words, you don’t realise you suck.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Then you move into consciously incompetent. You realise you suck.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

That’s absolutely where I am with the ukulele. And what I like about that is it makes me be an amateur. It makes me struggle. And I’m in that place in my life where actually I put myself in situations where I’m pretty good. I’m pretty good at coaching, and I’m pretty good at speaking, and I’m pretty good at writing. So most of the time, I’m just setting myself up to get this nice reinforcing, “Well done, Michael. You’re so clever. You’re so good at this.” And to stay consciously incompetent at something and just be like, “Man, this is hard, and I’m bad at it. Nobody’s going to be admitting me into the hall of ukulele legends anytime soon.” And I think that’s a really important discipline, which is keep finding the stuff that you don’t need to be good at that you need to keep learning.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Next question. You mentioned coaching. What is the toughest coaching challenge you ever had, and how did you handle it?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Well, I’ve had plenty of coaching conversations that seem to go really well. A lot of coaching conversations that felt thoroughly mediocre. Just somehow the conversation didn’t catch, I couldn’t find the way in. And that’s frustrating for both the person coaching and the person being coached. But I think the hardest situations for me are when I realise I’m out of my depth when I’m dealing with something that’s beyond my level of expertise.

I mean, just the other day, I was working with somebody and it’s quite clear she had PTSD from a traumatic incident from six or seven years ago. And I’m like, “I know just enough about this to be dangerous.”

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

And part of it is around being able to recognise this and to stop and to say, “Here’s what I’m seeing. This is the support I’ve got for you around this. What additional support do you need? How can I help you find the additional support you might need from this?” Because that’s the danger with some of this stuff is you wander into dangerous places, and you don’t even realise that you are potentially not in service to the person you’re trying to help.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Yeah, it’s very interesting. I think that, in my case, I’ve seldom had what you mentioned, because people I work with are usually so high up the food chain that that’s usually not their real issues.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

On the other hand, I have business issues they bring up, as if somehow I knew what they were talking about. And as you know, know absolutely nothing about business myself. So I think it’s a great discipline to say, “I don’t know about that field”-

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

… as opposed to talking, which is a temptation, just don’t talk. Alan Mullally, our friend, who was CEO at Ford, had a great discipline. Somebody asked him a question, his first comment, “Does anyone in the company other than me… Who’s the most qualified to answer that question? Anybody more than me?” Well, there always was.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

So he said, “Well, why don’t we just talk to them?”

Putting the humus back into humility

Michael Bungay Stanier:

So one of the words I love is this word of humility. And humility often shows up badly representated, because sometimes people think humility means kind of being self-effacing and groveling.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

And I don’t think it means that. And sometimes people go to a humble brag, which is like humility.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

But for me, humility, which has the same origin in its root word as a kind of humus, the rich soil, so I always think of it as humility means you are grounded, you have your feet on the ground, which means you have a clear-eyed view of what you’re good at and what you’re not so good at, and you’re quite comfortable at owning both of those.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Right.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

I know what I’m good at and I’m comfortable claiming the moment around that. I’m also very aware of the many, many, many things, ukulele and more, around the stuff that I’m not so great at, and I lose no status by acknowledging that and saying, “I don’t know.”

Marshall Goldsmith:

Oh, I think quite the contrary. I think anybody in a thought leader position that says, “I don’t know” gains status, not loses status. Because number one, you don’t know everything anyway. I mean, there’s only a very tiny amount any of us actually know.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

All right. Speaking of learning, what was your biggest mistake, and what’d you learn from that?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Oh, Marshall. So many mistakes, so many lessons learned. I rarely frame things as, “This is the big mistake I’ve made.” I do go, “There are moments that I would be very happy not to repeat again. And how do I learn from that?”

The mistakes that have lingered longest, the wounds that have felt hardest to heal, have typically been when I have hurt another person. And that is because I have typically wimped out of doing something or saying something that I should have done. When I talk about coaching people, I talk about a way of being in a relationship with them, which is fierce love. I want to show up with fierce love. I want to love them fully. I want to see the very best for them, to champion them, to help them become the very best version of who they are. And I want to do it fiercely, meaning I don’t want to let nice get in the way of me saying what needs to be said, showing up how it needs to be said. It’s not about fierce to them, it’s about a fierceness, it’s a standard to hold myself to.

So I would say that if I think back on mistakes I’ve made, the lesson I’ve learned from there is to try and hold myself to the standard of fierce love to the people with whom I interact. Because they’ll get the best of me that way, and I’ll get the best of me as well.

Marshall Goldsmith:

On a one to 10 scale, ten is high, one is low, what score do you give yourself on, “I do a good job of forgiving myself”?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

It’s pretty close to 10.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Good. Me too. I thought you’d get a good score on that one.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

And people-

Michael Bungay Stanier:

I’m very generous. I’m like, pretty much all the time, I’m doing the best I can in the moment. And that doesn’t mean I’m doing the best I ever can, but it’s like what’s the point of beating yourself up from this? It’s like be kind to yourself as you would be kind to others. Be generous. And if you’ve screwed it up, try not to screw it up that way again.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

I would say sometimes I’m not even being the best I could be in the moment. I’m an asshole. But I still forgive myself.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah. Yeah. Like you say, let it go, right? Let it go.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Yeah. Why does it matter anyway, right? Forgive yourself. Hey, back to my surveys. A lot of the people are not like you and me on this one. I mean, I’ve been shocked at how hard people are on themselves.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Let me give you one survey I just did on LinkedIn. I’d love your thoughts on this. I asked a question, “If you were as hard on yourself… If your manager was hard on you as you were on yourself, how would you feel?” Happy, sad.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Right.

Marshall Goldsmith:

80% sad. Now I’m not in that 80%.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

No, me either.

Marshall Goldsmith:

You’re not in that 80%. But 80% of the people said, “If my manager talked to me like I talked to myself, I would be sad.”

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Yeah.

Marshall Goldsmith:

So what’s your thought about that?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Well, first of all, this is why you and I don’t have managers, because we are both unemployable. So nobody in their right mind would want to manage us. That’d be a nightmare.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Well said!

Michael Bungay Stanier:

I have a standard sign-off on my emails, and it came from teaching. I was facilitating a session, and I was getting people to practice coaching, and they did a bit of back and forth, which is great. And then I said, “Now, look the other person in the eye and say to them, ‘You are awesome, and you’re doing great.'” And it was extremely awkward. The first time, they were like, “I don’t know. This feels bad. And why would I do that?” And by the fifth time, because they went through five cycles of practice, the room was filled with this enthusiastic appreciation.

And one of the things that is often unspoken about the power of coaching, beyond the help you get to the heart of what the challenge is and help you bring out the best of another person, is when you don’t rush to give advice, when you stay present and ask to stay curious, you help people feel seen and you help people feel heard. And people are so hungry for that.

And this idea of… So I moved this, “You are awesome, and you’re doing great,” into the sign-off line of my email. And three times a week, I get somebody emailing me back going, “Thank you. I really needed to hear that today.” And what it is, is an unconditional, “I see the best of who you are. Whether it’s going well for you or whether it’s not going well for you, you’re doing great. I bet you you’re doing your best or as close to it as you can.” And it’s like, “Keep going. I see your essential awesomeness around that.” And I realise that I’m lucky to have that as an ongoing talk track in my own brain, because fundamentally, I’m like, “Michael, you are awesome, and you’re doing great.” Thank you.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Yeah. Now, finally, one bit of advice for the coaches that you haven’t already given maybe and one bit of advice for the leaders.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Well, I mean, what I’m hoping people have already heard is the power of fierce love, being present to that, the power of humility, being clear eyed about your own strength and your own weakness, and the power of staying curious a bit longer rather than rushing to advice.

I think the thing I would just want to end on and really emphasise, Marshall, is you have to realise that just people are not as interested in your advice as you think they are. And your advice actually isn’t as good as you think it is. So there is still a place for advice, absolutely. It’s the Thinkers50, people with ideas that they want to share. So there’s a lot of wisdom that can be passed on through advice and through teaching. But there’s a way of slowing down so you actually know what’s going on, you know what’s at the heart, you know what they’ve already figured out that can actually elevate you as a coach and as a leader.

Marshall Goldsmith:

One of the things… You’ve been a member of our thinkers, our 100 Coaches group for a long time, what’s one of the things you’ve learned being a member of that group and hanging around with all those other people?

Michael Bungay Stanier:

I would say, and this is actually the experience of being part of Thinkers50 as well, which is, you are elevated by the people who are in your close circuit. So find great people to hang out with and see if you can spend as much time as possible. And related to that, having both you and Des as part of this conversation, which is learn how to be a good host. Because both you and Des invite people in and you gather people together and you celebrate people. I’ve had many lovely meals with you, sometimes with the big group, sometimes it’s just you and me in Nashville. I’ve had the same with Des coming to Thinkers50 for a number of years now. And that willingness to be the person who reaches out and says, “Hey, come. Why don’t you come on in and spend time with me and other people I know?” That is a great and generous gift.

Marshall Goldsmith:

Thank you. Thank you. Well, it’s been my honour to talk with you, as always. You’re a great guy, and I think you’ve given a lot of great messages to both coaches and leaders. And I think it’s something we can all take back and use, including me, including me. So thank you so much. Thank you.

Michael Bungay Stanier:

Thank you, Marshall. It’s lovely to see you. Bye-bye.

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