A longer episode than usual, like a lovely walk and talk, covering all manner of topics, human, messy and awkward, with loads of empathy and a shared passion for making connections, quality thinking and talking to strangers. Each week, Imran Rehman schedules time to talk to strangers, open to the adventure that a new conversation can bring. Enjoy. #DoTalkToStrangers #Connect
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Imran 0:01
She helped me and actually scared the hell out of me because she came up with this idea of saying, Well Imran what if you met new people every week? And you dedicated time to it, like you dedicate to having two, three sales meetings per day. You have to meet new humans. And you know, the underlying thing is that it tests your empathy, it grows your network, and part of it is just about giving you don’t take, you give first, you help, without any sort of intention of making money or monetizing.
Kerrie Phipps 0:34
Welcome my friends to connect with confidence and Kerrie Phipps and I’m so happy to be here today with Imran Rehman no, Let me try that again.
Imran 0:45
No, that’s correct.
Kerrie Phipps 0:45
that’s correct.
Imran 0:47
Yeah, you can see it goes into a Rehman and it can be quick or you can say Reman, it can go upwards as well. So that’s what many people say. So it changes depending on the language
Kerrie Phipps 0:57
And the the accents that we speak with.
Imran 0:59
Yeah, exactly. And That is that that is makes. That’s why best ones names are so beautiful.
Kerrie Phipps 1:08
Yes. And you know, while we’re on that, Dale Carnegie said, you know, the sound of a person’s name is the most beautiful sound. And, you know, it really matters to me that I use people’s names correctly. And, you know, as I’ve traveled out, sometimes encountered names that are so hard to pronounce with my Australian accent, English language. I did learn another language, but at sign language, and that can be helpful in different places. But it’s, it’s great if we can get people’s names. Right. So Imran, I’m so happy that you’re here. Because when we first connected thank you to Simon Jacobs in the UK. So I think he connected with you on LinkedIn. Correct? And
Imran 1:45
yes, he did.
Kerrie Phipps 1:46
Let’s have a conversation.
Imran 1:48
That’s how it started. Thank you.
Kerrie Phipps 1:51
Yeah, so then your two guys connecting, you know from Vienna to London and Manchester. And you Have a conversation. And I love that about LinkedIn that you often can connect with somebody, you look at their profile, you’re like, let’s have more of a conversation that’s actually really connect. And and so then he said, Kerrie you’ve got to meet this guy. So yeah,
Imran 2:13
Oh so kind.
Kerrie Phipps 2:15
so we’ve had one conversation, but I just felt like such a rich experience. So immediately I said, you know, will you please come on the podcast? There’s so much that you can share and rather than, you know, detail, your bio that’s on LinkedIn, people can go and find that, how would you describe yourself in a nutshell,
Imran 2:33
I think today, what I do is two things. Number one, I accompany people, either as a coach or a confidant. Sometimes I’m just a sounding board. Sometimes I’m just there to hold space, nothing more than that. And the other thing I do is, I feel we need to create tools of the future tools that our organization need to be able to create the robust and democratic alignment structures that will will take us into the future. I find currently what we have validates the leadership in. We have, there are some great leaders out there. But I find we have, we’re struggling, I think we are all struggling currently. And I mean that with compassion and with empathy, and not pointing fingers is we are conditioned by our structures and systems. The systems are bigger than us. And we are not able to see beyond the fence to see what we need in the future. And that’s what I take care of, in the company. I’ve currently set up with two other co founders and the great team of
Kerrie Phipps 3:38
That’s beautiful.
Imran 3:39
Called Kokoro
Kerrie Phipps 3:40
Sorry?
Imran 3:41
Called KokoroYou know the name Kokoro. The Japanese term we taken to name company.
Kerrie Phipps 3:47
So what’s the what’s that name the meaning of that Japanese name?
Imran 3:51
Well, the reason we ended up on that term there, you’ll see in restaurant names as well but in Japan Kokoro defines not the physical heart, it’s the heart something has when the head and mind and spirit is integrated in one, they use one word. And we need a sentence with two ands to be able to describe it. So if you want to, let’s put it in the in the sphere of innovation, and an innovation. They have an index in Japan called the kokoro innovation index. And if you have a product, it’s matched up against this index to see how much good kokoro has, how much of it is integrated with the head, the spirit and the mind of the human. And if that product reaches that, then it’s it is complete. I like that idea. Because I find that is exactly what we’re not doing in organizations. We’re not taking the complete human we’re not we’re not allowing the complete human to turn up and be there. I mean, I’ll take something very, very simple, which is very complex at the same time, is, do we really allow people to belong completely In every part of the organization, and in every part of the private labs, I think we don’t do that. Well, I think our structures do not serve us. And I find we don’t do it well, and when we talk about it, we get awkward. We find it very difficult. They’re all messy.
Kerrie Phipps 5:15
Yes. Well, I invite you to a messy, awkward conversation. So, Renee Brown has recently been ending her podcasts with “stay awkward, brave and kind.” I’ve seen that on her social media also. And I love that because in the last five years since I’ve been talking about do talk to strangers, I’ve noticed that people the questions that people asked they’re often fearful of an awkward moment. We just don’t want to be awkward. And so I created a hashtag to back be okay with awkward
Imran 5:51
that’s exactly that’s it Kerrie for me. It’s always been the thing. Like people, awkwardness. If you can create the space within seconds. People have Problems with being awkward. The awkwardness comes is when in their head, there is a simple sentence. I am currently being defined by somebody else who is judging.
Kerrie Phipps 6:10
Hmm.
Imran 6:11
That’s what happens, isn’t it? You can always see a person when they are in a meeting or in a situation on talking to you and you realize very quickly that what’s actually happening is they are what others think of them. Yeah. And if you catch yourself in that, or she can feel that other people are not what can you do? To make that person feel knowing who you are with yourself? And it’s okay. And that no, one moment will I take any of your words and judge them, but I will try to understand them. empathize with them, Be compassionate with them. Yeah. And what very often happens is then when enthusiasm or or liveliness comes through compassion and empathy. It encompasses the other human and drunk in drain and almost like a magnet pulls them in. But if you’re driving a conversation with passion action is very dangerous, it hurts. Passion kills. And that’s why I’m always very, very careful with team leads or leaders or people in the community. And it’s and I really do work on getting to understand that passion is not the thing to drive community forward or team for because you run out of energy. Firstly, very quickly. It’s a passion should be used sparingly. But it is actually a double edged sword. One side is very beautiful. When we experience it from, you know, as a as an audience and say, Wow, look at that passion. Fantastic.
Kerrie Phipps 7:33
Yeah.
Imran 7:34
But it’s damaging, and it can hurt when somebody wants to go in a direction and wants to take the whole organization team or direction. And it’s done through passion, because it’s, it hurts, you will see things that will happen.
Kerrie Phipps 7:47
Wow. Yeah, so interesting. And can we just go back to the very beginning where you talked about how you hold space for people because there’s one of those phrases that we can use as a coach. And so if you can just explain what What do you mean by that? And what happens in that space that you’re holding for people?
Imran 8:03
Well, yeah, I mean, I think it’s, again, I get asked this question a lot by like, leaders who are transitioning maybe to the next big role and singing, right? I used to have two teams, now I’ve got a whole business unit, I can’t hold that space anymore. And that starts getting people to stop and I look at them and I go, Well, look, where are you struggling with this, though? And one of the things I’m always about is, I think one word you use, at see in everything you use Kerrie is the word confidence. And I think we may never really explore that word. We use the word competence very often through a personality diagnostic, or what we think is confident we confuse it with competence.
Kerrie Phipps 8:45
Yeah.
Imran 8:45
Very often, you know, we find very competent people who are not competent, but give them the job. But when we find very competent people who may be not confident, and we say, No, I don’t think they’ll do well in your organization. So we were confusing a lot of things. So for me is Holding space is always about building the unseen competence in a space with with living bodies. So how do you do that? And I think that is what it’s about. It’s about creating that confidence. And the confidence hangs in the room. And that confidence is what creates this feeling of flow that when when time suddenly becomes “Imran, we started it this morning. And now it’s 5, and I haven’t felt the day.”
Kerrie Phipps 9:21
Yeah,
Imran 9:21
That’s those are signs so you can’t see it. But like, you can sense tension in a room, and you can cut it with a scissor. You cannot sense when space has been helpful, because Time flies, and it’s only afterwards you experience it. It’s almost like, you know, belonging, like, when you feel included, you cannot know you don’t feel it. You only feel the pain when you’re excluded or ostracized from the community.
Kerrie Phipps 9:48
Yes,
Imran 9:49
these are the things so that’s what holding space for me it’s about that confidence in so people will come in and fill I can just be completely I struggle with the term sometimes to be whole. Because I don’t think anybody’s ever whole, I think somebody is completing that time. Because you might have had a dog might have bit you on the way to cook. You can only be so complete because you still limping on that left leg. And ensuring that there’s not enough for me sometimes.
Kerrie Phipps 10:17
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting when you said that I was picturing. It’s like when people are totally in their strength, and they just rise to the occasion that you know, it’s just this flow, it’s beautiful. And if you said, you know, what did you do? What, what made that work? It’s like, Oh, I just, I’m just being myself. You know, often people don’t see their strengths. And I think this is often why we lack confidence because when we’re doing a great job, we’re not seeing that we’re not feeling it. We just feeling the lack of friction of you know, being incongruent or something.
Imran 10:53
I agree with you completely and I’m going to pick up on that one, its strengths and I think we’ve got that a bit wrong. Now, I don’t mean what we say is wrong or our intention is wrong. What I find is that our school systems have not really shown us what is
Kerrie Phipps 11:13
yes.
Imran 11:14
So let me get Let me try to explain that as clearly as I can. So very often they somebody sees you doing something and they go, man, Kerrie you do that really, really well, you know, and I said, that’s your strength. And you go, No, I do this, because I’ve always been told to do this. And I’ve just become very good at it, because I’ve done 10,000 hours of it.
Kerrie Phipps 11:35
Yeah.
Imran 11:36
But I have no love in this. And I think that is the subtle difference between when you’re good at something, I’m very good and excellent at something. If there’s no love in it, it’s not your strength. You do not have to be good at something for it to be your strength. So let me say that you’ve always loved drawing you always love to see see how you draw perspective, but you can’t do it. But you know, every time you sit down and even if You draw your first pictures with pencil and you think they’re not the best. But you know what, I don’t feel time I feel absolutely relaxed, my heartbeat goes down. I have all this nostalgic feelings of my family and my past and everything comes out.
Kerrie Phipps 12:14
Yeah.
Imran 12:15
But I’m not happy with what I’ve drawn, but you have found love in what you do. And I think that is strength.
Kerrie Phipps 12:20
Yes,
Imran 12:20
Finding loving what you do, but it’s not what you love doing.
Kerrie Phipps 12:24
Yeah, that’s a great distinction, because you can love doing it. And then I think sometimes we look we judge it harshly because of the expectations of others because we’re comparing ourselves to others. And then we can lose the joy of it, but I think to just appreciate that it does have value.
Imran 12:44
You have just summed up something. I know you just touched something in my heart. You said compare comparing people.
Kerrie Phipps 12:51
Yeah.
Imran 12:51
I, I struggle. I struggle that we are still using external benchmarks to compare people In any moment, if I have to evaluate you against an external benchmark to see how good you are, and only only evaluating myself number one. Secondly, and this is the thing, which I do not understand is why can’t we separate? Two things? Why have we not understood the difference between temporal comparison and social comparison? Social comparison breaks people? So let me explain that one very, very simply. It’s when my parents used to say to me, Imran, my son, and I go, yeah, my dad, how you doing? He goes, look, you know, the son up the road? Yeah, I didn’t know. I mean, from Auntie, and I go, Yeah, well, he’s such a wonderful man. And we’d like you to be more like Him. That social comparison. And my parents could have said, and asked me, him on how could you be a better son and got me to reflect what they compare them to somebody outside and I sat there thinking, well, then why don’t you hire him as your son. Just go for a walk and not come back.
Kerrie Phipps 14:04
Yeah.
Imran 14:05
And then people then say, Well, how do you expect humans to grow? And I go Walton Paul comparisons. That’s when humans will have to compare themselves to themselves. Yeah, it’s when an environment a space that gives you confidence, to be able to look at yourself and see and work out who you are. And then what happens is people generally reply, yeah, but what if you’re lying to yourself and you’re just beating yourself up? That’s okay. Let them keep lying to themselves. It’s okay. Because that’s the power of comparison. One day you will wake up in the mirror and realize that you are lying to yourself. But if the environment around you gives you that space to be, then reflection will kick you may not do a bad job in developing us. I mean, 300 million years. I think nature made us into some of the we were the best learning machines ever. Sometimes you just gotta get out. We just have to get out of the way.
Kerrie Phipps 14:56
Yes, yeah. And taking that time to reflect honest with ourselves is is a incredibly powerful
Imran 15:04
that comes right to space again, isn’t it? And how can you speed that up? Well, if you create confidence in a space,
Kerrie Phipps 15:09
yeah,
Imran 15:10
that’s how you speed up reflection. So whenever I’m Why do I create space? Because if I can get people feeling confident in a room, and that is directly linked to psychological safety, and what happens? It speeds up. Yeah, people start reflecting, they start getting in when I can force them. I don’t want to have this thought, but Okay, I’m gonna have it, I’m gonna express it, and then a tear falls out of it, or they’re gonna get up and leave the room and come back in, because they’ve suddenly felt something they’ve never thought before.
Kerrie Phipps 15:36
Yeah, that’s really powerful. And I was just actually going to bring up psychological safety. It’s something that I first heard about in 2011, I was at the neuroleadership summit in San Francisco. And as we unpack that it was in like a corporate space and looking at, you know, and I had my own experience, I just related I was like, Oh my word. I spent years of my life in a work environment, of it really lacked psychological safety, so I just got it straight away. But this is something that you work in a lot too. And I was thinking it would be really valuable to hear your thoughts on how we create psychological safety for strangers, because, you know, I saw something just this week on online online. I think it was the guy who did videos called conversations with a black man. And he said, there’s a couple of different guys that I saw speaking up and he said, he just mentioned that he sits in his car and waits for his neighbor to go inside before he, you know, gets home is kind of common complaint like he sees her because he doesn’t want her to feel threatened. And I felt really sad that he would feel like that but I thought his you know, I guess in some, some ways you might say he’s, you know, being the bigger man or you know, he’s thought he’s creating a sense of safety for her. And this is what we can do for strangers all the time. If we see that, I mean, even I, I don’t think that I would be a threat to people. But I know that I can be if I just ask a question that maybe, you know, put some on their guard or something. And when we encounter strangers, we don’t know what’s on their mind. We don’t know what they’ve just been going through. And so my innocent question might put the walls up, you know, so I need to be very aware of creating that space. And I hadn’t really made the connection of like, you know, I’m creating a space of psychological safety in those momentary encounters with strangers. But we do, we can. And I would really love to unpack this more with you so that we can be more aware, regardless of what culture people are from, because we don’t know anyone’s story when we’re first encountering somebody on the street, in a conference, wherever. So tell me your thoughts on this.
Imran 17:59
You touched on number of points where I need to correct people on science a little bit first.
Kerrie Phipps 18:05
Yeah.
Imran 18:06
So like, one of the things they this feeling of that I don’t want to hurt somebody even before you’ve actually met them. I don’t want to be an annoyance. I don’t want to be, it’s very anglo saxon I don’t want to be a burden. And you see it in a normal daily conversation like, Look, join a cup of tea Kerrie, and you go, I don’t want to bother you and run. But if you want making one to make me one cup of tea Kerrie, you want a cup of tea? Yeah, exactly. As you see that that sort of behavior that happens when exactly so you can see that sort of I don’t want to be an inconvenience to somebody else. I think that’s also a result of us not understanding something that the human needs a stimulus and then has to be a response.
Kerrie Phipps 18:47
Yes,
Imran 18:48
No, that’s wrong, that scientists wrong you don’t create a stimulus and the response happens. We don’t construct emotions like that. Our body nature is not linear in that way. We Have something you have a sense before you walk into a room before you meet somebody, something happens, you feel your body change. When you walk up to somebody, you can say, here, I feel safe, or as you walk into somebody’s thing. I don’t know, I don’t know if this is gonna be a good idea. I don’t know if it’s gonna work. And that’s even before the stimulus has started. That is not nature, as creative in us.
Kerrie Phipps 19:23
Yeah.
Imran 19:23
And it helps us to sense things before we walk in you sometimes I’m going to help is in trying to guess how it is in Australia now. But say you’re out in the wilderness. And you have a sense that hang on this could have a snake underneath it under this. Don’t be careful. Why can we sense that? There’s no stimulus. What happens is the stimulus happens afterwards, you pick up the stem and there is a snake and you will write and then you run. And the snake is already realized as well. And I think that’s the first thing to remember is that you start listening to your body yourself before you meet. So you’ve got to know that person, no matter who you meet. You got to be in touch with yourself before you go up to anybody and everybody in the room or in the street. And I think that is the first thing that I find that we keep forgetting when you walk up to somebody. And the other part and I forgot the other part now, but hopefully it’ll come back to me, but it’s carry on. And so that for me is one of the key things. So when I do meet people, one of the things that I keep realizing that that works is, is I’m really fascinated in what I can learn from them. So their uniqueness they I remind them of themselves. That’s why I know that in every conversation I’ve had I, I know that the minute I walk away, I should have this feeling inside me that I’ve grown as a human. And I’ve learned from him. Yeah, and I think that is the thing is helping a human feel unique in what they are and tired of having every human is an all rounded, perfect individual. And we can’t produce them. We’ve created in organizations this this concept of leadership and everybody has to fit into this concept of leadership. So I’m getting every leader to fit into leadership. But when but we’re not like that seem. I mean, make it plain. So very simple sentence Kerrie, if I went away with you for a whole day, what how would I come back as a human? And how would I have grown? What what what I’ve learned from that is what you do? And how do you do that you? And one of the things we do all the time is we ask people things like, what are your values? That is a really hard question to ask.
Kerrie Phipps 21:25
Yeah.
Imran 21:26
So make it easy to say, look, what can I learn from you? Like, if I spent the day with you? What would How would I you know, what would? Why would I be a better person by the end of it? And then they could start I mean, there’s still people look up, look away, the eyes go funny. When they then suddenly have to talk about themselves and you’re, you’re surfacing raw emotion, and and you’re reminding them who they are. And once people are reminded of who they are, and you start realizing that the space fills up with competence, and it’s got to hold on.
Kerrie Phipps 21:55
Yeah, cuz it sounds like
Imran 21:56
it’s the best one of the things.
Kerrie Phipps 21:58
Yeah, that’s beautiful. You reminding people of their best self?
Imran 22:04
Well, I mean, yeah see the word best day is very Anglo Saxon to me.
Kerrie Phipps 22:09
Yeah. And how many languages do you speak?
Imran 22:12
Well, okay, let’s say, I grew up on four. Yeah. So I grew up on English, Hindi and Punjabi. And then I learned Spanish, because I worked out in Spain for four and a half years, and then I went gym. So I’m hitting six, six and a half.
Kerrie Phipps 22:27
Wow. So I get that our English language is so limited. And sometimes when I’m coaching someone who is, especially in emotional language, when I’m coaching somebody who’s multilingual, then I might say, you know, how are you feeling about this? Whatever it is, and as I see them pause, I’m like, any language, because sometimes you might need to say something that I don’t need to understand it, but you do and when you articulate why That is in your language. I mean, hopefully you can pretty much stick to English for this. I think we have an English audience. If you feel like you just need to try something out there
Imran 23:10
there is that there is something I can say a German word and one of the I find it really hard to translate. No, I was talking about stimulus and response what happens before stimulus and response is in German called an ahnung, we have an ahnung something you sense it, you have a feeling that this is something is not right, something is right or something’s great. You feel it inside your whole body starts vibrating. Your body tells you something and you’re listening to it. And some people call it intuition. Some call it you know, it’s the particular the nerve that goes from from here, right down to your belly into your gut that the vagal nerve or something, I guess,
Kerrie Phipps 23:45
Vagus nerve.
Imran 23:45
Vegas, Vegas snake. Exactly. And all these things come up with Yeah, so ahnung is the German word. So I find that what is a lot easier to to say that sentence is a lot easier to say in German and in English.
Kerrie Phipps 23:58
Yes. And so this is great, we’ve we’ve used China Japanese word sorry,
Imran 24:04
German word
Kerrie Phipps 24:05
And a German word. What will we cover by the time we get to the end of this conversation? And if it’s such a rich conversation. So I guess one of the stunning things that I learned when I first connected with you, I’m not sure if it was Simon or it is you that told me, you deliberately connect with strangers? Every week? How many
Imran 24:26
Yes
Kerrie Phipps 24:26
of you actually give time to going out and connecting with strangers? Can you tell us about that?
Imran 24:30
Well, yeah, exactly. So what happened about 14 years ago was, I was tired of having sales numbers and being driven by metrics that were not indicators. They were targets and targets create no learning. And there’s a very famous thing of like, when a measure becomes a target, it’s not a measure anymore. And I’m a big fan of that. So I was thinking, Well, how do I create something that helps me measure and working with a mentor because I’ve always had mentors and coaches in my life. I wish she helped me and actually scared the hell out of me because she came up with this idea of saying, Well what if you met new people every week? You dedicated time to it, like you dedicate to having two three sales meetings per day. You have to meet new humans. And you know, the underlying thing is that it tests your empathy, it grows your network it and part of it is just about giving you don’t take you give first
Kerrie Phipps 24:31
Yeah,
Imran 25:24
help without any sort of intention of making money or monetizing and, and I thought I could do that for a week. Then I said, hang on, but for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks why we hang on every week. I’m on listening to be strategic since I’ve got to watch that and I then at that point, I got scared. And I put it in the cheesy little tray. And then I started and it it built my confidence a lot because I was like, Oh, do they really want to speak to me? Will they find me annoying? You know, all these English sort of things I’ve been brought up with suddenly started pouring I mean, I started realizing, but I’m not like that. And my family is not like that. You come from a family of just going out there and talking to people and talking to anybody and everybody. And I mean, where does this Englishness in me, and suddenly take root and take hold of me? And that’s what started happening. And I started saying, okay, every week, eight hours, it still is the same. It’s eight hours of my week, needs to be spent with people I do not know. It cannot be a friend I have not seen for 20 years with somebody. I know. It’s got to be somebody completely and utterly new.
Kerrie Phipps 26:30
Awesome. So tell me we find these people.
Imran 26:33
Oh, it goes through LinkedIn, as you said before, has been a great, great, great help. But what also happens I read an article, or somebody gives me like last week, two weeks ago, my wife read a book called ethical design. And in there was a chapter about something SAP have done around humanizing business. And the person behind it was a guy called Toby and woman behind Toby who prints all the metrics is his wife. Natalie are the genius as he calls her. Yeah. And, and I just approached him and his name was there. I tweeted, I don’t know how he did it, either Twitter or something. He switched. He wrote back straight away and said it monitors Connect. This is interesting what you’re doing.
Kerrie Phipps 27:15
Yeah.
Imran 27:16
I’ve looked at yourself and we connected with his partner. Last week, we had an hour and a half an hour, an hour and a half conversation. And now we are going to be meeting again in three weeks to dig deeper. That’s how it happened. This was one example. Then what happens is, I meet people in the dog zone where I go with my dog.
Kerrie Phipps 27:33
Yeah,
Imran 27:34
this I take opportunities. Now. This week, something very, very special happened is the ex Buddhist counselor of Austria, the guy who ran Austria, walked into the doctor, when you know, the President, Prime Minister of the country walked into the dog zone with his dog and, and he looked at me and the first thing I said to him was so lovely to see you here. And he smiled and smiled back and then our dogs were playing with each other, and he asked me, I asked him a couple of questions about his dog, he asked me a few questions about his phone. And then I said to him, You know what, as you were in office, I really as somebody who is European cannot vote in this country. And because I English and you know, you can’t vote in a different country, and for for, you know, for the leading party. We got into a conversation and he says, what do you do? And I, just, every time I had the con every time I said something, I tried to end so I intentionally do it. But I always find myself ending the question with a way of getting other like, it’s a question. So they have speak. Yeah. So I’m somehow dragging them in or pulling them in. I don’t know why I’m doing it. But I find people do it. And some other times somebody might, you know, my daughter, and my friends sometimes say, Imran, you hold the space and then you provoke that’s how they define you. Sometimes they go up, I don’t provoke they go, Yeah, but you provoked with empathy and compassion. They say, you don’t provoke by wanting to hurt them. But you’ve got them. You’ve got them in a state. Take space and then you start provoking. Yeah, I don’t know, I do that. And I think it’s just after, you know, so many years of doing it, you’re you’re realizing that provocation helps you. provocation with empathy, compassion, helps us change. And I know then I looked into the research, and I dug deep and I found that even within any sort of speaking therapy, you go through provocation is a tool that you have to use, but it can’t hurt the human. If the if the place is safe, if you feel safe, and then provocation will make you laugh, it will make you so you’ve got you worked me out. I hate when people do that. But you reflect on that and work on that. Can I work with you Kerrie or can you work with me and help me work through this what I’m doing to myself where I sabotage myself in certain situation, in my family or in my team, and and I can grow and help others be successful and myself be successful. So you need to come back to your question about what do i do and i think i’ve been thinking a lot of About varying sort of empty words like deep listening. And I like that. I like the term deep listening. I like the term listening.
Kerrie Phipps 30:07
Yeah.
Imran 30:08
But I find it empty. Nobody knows how to do it. And I, I’ve been looking for years to work out how to get will how to put content into this. And in the way I currently do it is what I realize is, it is one thing if you want to work out if you’re listening well, or listening deeply or listening at all,
Kerrie Phipps 30:30
yeah,
Imran 30:31
check in with your head and see if you’re not trying to fix the other person. So you’re listening to fix somebody, somebody is talking at the same time your head is already fixing them, or the situation. And if you ask it
Kerrie Phipps 30:42
Yeah, absolutely.
Imran 30:44
So I didn’t think Okay, so what do I need to listen to and listen, to fix, going to listen to understand, listen, to care, listen, to feel and hear the other person listen to whatever you want to but I think we don’t do it. Well. I think most of us have when we bit like looking at the anglo Anglo Saxon culture. We are, you know, in sentences like the early bird gets the worm. Yeah, we’re very productivity focused. So it’s all about fixing.
Kerrie Phipps 31:11
Yes,
Imran 31:12
being our private being pragmatic, is not isn’t is for us just getting stuff done. But it’s fascinating to see how that impacts human health, the health of the community, the health of a population. And if we don’t move on from what how we’re going to fix it, what’s the solution? Now let’s not see people confused and fixing things for the sake of fixing them with small fixes with a quick plaster is not a solution.
Kerrie Phipps 31:38
Yes, this past week or two, but all year really, this has been so much noise and so much rage and, and borrowed outrage on the internet. And I just feel that we need to listen, we need to really develop our listening skills. And like you say we’re not good at it. I’ve spent 15 years 16 years practicing it. You know, as a coach, I think you realize, what am I listening for right now? am I listening to say something clever to ask a great question to, you know, to get somebody to an outcome, but just to listen, with curiosity, openness, empathy, it really does mean that we also have to listen to ourselves and hear what’s coming up. So that we can let go of it and fully be in the moment.
Imran 32:29
And it’s not prescriptive.
Kerrie Phipps 32:31
Yeah,
Imran 32:31
you won’t be able to Yeah, and it’s always been taught to me my sales courses and myself seminars is something prescriptive is how you listen properly. You know, you don’t know if you think you’re better than the person in front of you. How can you work that out? I can. It’s very, very simple. And for me, this is one of the biggest, biggest, biggest problems I have with the workplace. And I think people are gonna give me a hard time on this one because I think praise is in line with pride and punishment. It’s they all belong together. So if I pray somebody that means that I’ve already done it before, and I bet better than and you’re getting there slowly, you’re reaching my level of maturity slowly Kerrie, because I’m praising you now. But if you don’t get it right, I will punish you. And I would say, Well, what is the thing that you need to do to create relationships? So we see eye to eye? No, we don’t we we sit here and we’re itI we’re equals in the room? Does it matter if I carry 26 years of experience and you’ve only to what I do know today in the complex world is my experience is not going to help us create solutions of the future. Because we’ve never been there before. So what is it and I keep pushing people and they they sit there and look, when I’m when I’m praising sometimes complimenting somebody, no, you know, you’re setting the position and you’re telling them where you belong. And you’re saying that they belong below you your words, and they go Yeah, but they they struggling, but what am I supposed to do and encourage people?
Kerrie Phipps 33:59
Yes.
Imran 34:00
encoragements builds relationships.
Kerrie Phipps 34:03
I love this yeah
Imran 34:04
Very simple
Kerrie Phipps 34:05
You’re asking yourself the question I’m gonna ask you. Here, I’m just sitting here and just watching this q&a play out with that. Because Yeah, I can hear people going. But I What do I do if I don’t praise people? And then it is your encourage, you know, which which puts courage in, you know, and I’ve seen acknowledgement, be something of a learning point, like for both of us, you know, so when I see the way that you engage with people, and I acknowledge that and say Imran, I love how you listen and how you, you pose ideas without, without judgement of or assumption about how it will land, you’re just offering it and so I can acknowledge that not to just go You’re so clever, but to, to say thank you for that, I see that. And that’s helpful. And so it’s learning for me. But also, I think it can be learning for you too, because when people acknowledge us for something, or they encourage us, we can learn from that. Because again, back to 20 minutes ago, you said that people don’t see when they’re in that zone of really being, what was the word you know and then I said, you know, strengths are in flow. You don’t see it. So when somebody can observe it and just go, what you just said they are created. That was magnificent.
Imran 35:37
That’s it. That’s exactly that. And then you can, you can add something else on top of it. You can keep adding things over the years things have been adding. So I’m going to add another sort of like you know, and then you can observe whether the conversation is spiraling upwards, or you can observe the conversation spiraling downwards, or it’s just bringing in a circle. We think this is not going to move. I’m going to continue talking about the weather for the next 20 minutes. I am going to leave this person’s in to you and you know what we’re going to be happy for. And that also happens so don’t get me wrong but what isn’t interesting thing is always looked at the fuel that drives upwards
Kerrie Phipps 36:12
Yes,
Imran 36:12
the interesting thing is I’ve been looking at what drives the compensation outputs and it’s vulnerability. It’s always have fun Rupali won the situation yeah fight and suddenly vice in a conversation share something with you not Kerrie I’m gonna share with you like, you know, and I don’t think I can feel how you’re feeling but I lived with the Father for over 40-50 years. He’s been suicidal, manic depressive, and, and how many times I have to save him from hurting himself.
Kerrie Phipps 36:43
Yeah.
Imran 36:44
And then I open up a touch I show them that. I struggled as a human. I’ve been through a phase i’d haven’t been through it. My father’s been through and I have not been through what you’ve been through. But I’m really I’m trying to empathize. I’m showing my vulnerability and I could never, ever, ever Understand, but ever in my life, understand what somebody who’s got any form of anxiety, any form of depression goes through. I really had to live with somebody who has been my father. I’ve only had such friends, but I’ve never had it. And that helps a conversation to go up because what you’re saying, through this vulnerability is, look, I’m gonna let down my guard. And it is there I feel I can open up a touch and I can I want to feel this conversation, but I want to feel it in the right direction. Because through that, in what I’ve just said, is the encouragement. It’s hidden them.
Kerrie Phipps 37:37
Yes,
Imran 37:37
I didn’t, isn’t it for the person opposite for the person I’m talking to? on the receiving so they suddenly feel encouraged and being able to say, who maybe within one I can look further than the standard conversation after seven glasses of wine I generally have in the pub and just met this person.
Kerrie Phipps 37:51
Yes. Yeah. No wine in this conversation for anyone who’s wondering
It’s the morning for you.
Imran 38:00
Yeah, exactly. I’m still on my herbal tea.
Kerrie Phipps 38:04
And I’ve got my evening herbal tea.
Imran 38:06
Brilliant. So we’re here at the opposite ends of the spectrum in the most beautiful way.
Kerrie Phipps 38:10
Yeah. So I’m wondering about, I’d love to hear more of your stories. And this podcast is going longer than my usual ones. But I just thought, let’s just have this conversation that maybe people are walking with us right now. Or maybe they’re just sitting in the lounge and, you know, pressing stop and start every second day or something. But you have so many extraordinary stories, and I would love to hear more about the strangers that you’ve been meeting and how that empathy has connected with them and lifted them. What have you noticed?
Imran 38:46
Hmm, a number of things, it goes in all different directions. Sometimes it leads to me ending up, going having going through some shopping and we go and grow something together.
Kerrie Phipps 39:00
Yeah,
Imran 39:01
we you know like I’m we end up having an evening and then you know my partner joins me or something happens it leads on sometimes when the strangest things happen I don’t realize I’ve been in the toilet for for an hour because I’ve just had a chat with somebody when we’re washing our hands. My daughter has to come into the into the bathroom and it says I guess right you’re you’ve met somebody that and we’re laughing You know I’m laughing saying I’m so sorry my daughter says I come to have lunch with you and the family and I’ve ended up having a conversation in the men’s toilets. And it happens in the most on the plane and I think one of them very special conversation I had on the flying to to New York. Next to me, I had a very large gentleman very well built and I was like looking thinking logically be an elite soldier. And he was a soldier and
Kerrie Phipps 39:55
good pick up
Imran 39:55
and he never had the authorities anyone I’ve never ever and he’s not allowed to have He goes underneath and he can’t talk about when he does. But he says, I’ve never had a conversation about what I as an as a team lead within the navy seals, over 200 missions had to do from an empathy point of view. And, and we touched heart and it was really, really, really powerful. But you know, eight hours flight, and it keeps going, and then I’ve got worked through it. I’ve
Kerrie Phipps 40:30
Can I just pause on that?
Imran 40:32
It just didn’t stops.
Kerrie Phipps 40:34
Yeah. So as you share that story, I remember being on a flight from Dubbo to Sydney, where I live, and I live in Dubbo flying to Sydney and, and I chatted with this woman on the flight and you know, she was going to the theater, etc, etc. and she asked what I was doing, and this is probably half an hour into the one hour flight. And you know, I think I said I’m doing something speaking about my latest book and It’s like, Oh, what is that? And then sometimes I just hold up the business card that has the book on it and, and people just go, Oh, do you talk to strangers? And then they start laughing because they’re like, this is what’s happening. This is what we’re doing. And she said, Oh, I don’t usually talk to strangers. No, she didn’t. She just said, I don’t talk to strangers. And I said, and yet, we’ve just had a wonderful conversation. And she said, Oh, but that’s different. And I said, What’s different? Because I’m wanting to learn what is the experience that people are having, when they have this great conversation with me, tell me that I talk to strangers, and yet, I was a stranger, like 20 minutes ago. And she said, when you didn’t ask the usual questions, you didn’t say what do you do? And she said, You know, I hated going to parties, because people would say, what do you do? And I just would say, I work in an office, because her job was one in the legal profession where she, if she talked about what she did, the stuff that she could actually talk about, then people would start pulling out their stories and all their legal cases. Everything. And you know, everyone’s got a cousin who had a mistrial or something. And it’s just not a fun party. And so when you connect with a navy seal on a flight, they can’t talk about their job, the things that they just cannot discuss. And so they just think strangers is going to ask all these questions and I can’t go there. And I’m not inspired to go there. But when you start having a meaningful conversation, they are so grateful. He obviously was so
Imran 42:30
this is one of the I once went to a lecture where it was a psychologist who works with people and we know what he’s worked with people like you who have been serial killers who have you know, they’ve gone through people who have done have killed other people. And and, and one of the things that we don’t want to go along to this session was I’m always fascinated by in extreme situations. Whether it’s in a hospital where people are wheeled into a into a room where group of people save their lives and stabilize them. So the intensive care unit, elite soldiers who, whether you’re a pacifist or not, it says an extreme situation. People who work with people who have done wrong in our society, or have been, whatever, it’s always extreme situations, and this guy really got me because his opening line was okay, you sit in front of a serial killer. And first of all the picture, my head was already in front of circle, okay, and you look obviously, look, these people next to you, you do not know anything about your serial killer now. And then he says, okay, start a conversation. Right? What’s the first thing you say? What is the thing that you will do? And obviously, what from my head was, God? I can’t I can’t talk to several of us what was wrong with you in particular, I had all this conversation, had more conversations with myself that I could actually get to the point then and then and then really what the sense of relief came when he just said, Look, all I do and is I find a common ground. Yeah. And I, I sense, I say something cases it could it’s not about the weather, I say something that will give us a common ground to speak on. And we engage. And I think that’s it’s, you sit there for a while and before bloating, open your mouth and say, ah, and you talk about yourself. We sense and it’s anything hang on this person doesn’t want to speak. Yeah. And then what you might say is if you allow your body and you allow the space, and you just sit there for a while and you think, Okay, I think I’m going to say something. And when you do say something, what comes out is some which is, which they’ve listened to and they go, I didn’t expect that from you. I expected you know what, you know. Hello, what do you do? Yeah, where you going?
Kerrie Phipps 44:50
Yeah, we need to be comfortable with silence. And of course, we try not to have too much silence on a podcast because then people will like is it still playing with You know, in, like when you’re talking about sitting down with somebody, and just sensing the moment that that again, it’s coming back to being okay with awkward because we rush to fill the space, don’t we? We’re afraid of a moment of silence. But just to take a moment and I think this is something because I would like to wrap up with some practical tips for people like how can we, you know, create a safer space for people to connect in, you know, when we do encounter people on the street, then how do we, how do we connect?
Imran 45:34
Okay, I’ve got something, you know what I do more and more, you know, I do more and more at the moment. I mean, let’s look at the current context of Corona as well. And bring that in, because I think this is super hands on and very, very practical. And you can play with your words and apply it to the way you use your language and how you, yourself like to connect with people. What I found is I’ve been Looking at helping surface the emotions we’re currently having? Because, you know, I’m going to segment people into three categories. And I don’t want to offend anybody in either of any of them is that you know, there’s people who are it’s the concentration frightens them, it puts them in if it brings out all the anxieties of the future and everything, can it, it does a lot. And they feel it. And they sent every little thing that everybody does outside. And they struggle with them selves when they see themselves policing other people, because they see why they’re doing that why dummies are stupid, but you realize that at the core of it is some more fair than the ones who trot along can be equally super easygoing and pragmatic and get on with it, and deal with it. And there’s the other group where after two weeks, they can’t standing inside. The walls are closing in on them. And the whole system says, Do you think God I need to get out and meet people and have people in touch people?
Kerrie Phipps 46:57
Yeah,
Imran 46:58
and the thing is, and what I’ve found super practical is like, think of it like this. I want to actually talk about four things. And as I go through the four things, number one is the easiest number four is a very deep conversation. So the first thing is ask people about their uncertainties, say, look, what uncertainties are you carrying currently Give me something very simple. surface it and share yours share your uncertainty and they’ll share it.
Kerrie Phipps 47:22
Yeah.
Imran 47:22
And what that does uncertainty brings is trying to get an understanding of the current situation. So uncertainty is the search for understand isn’t it that’s what you’re doing. So that’s you don’t need to show so much vulnerability though. Then the next one is about worry. Ask people like you know what you’re worrying about? Because worry is one of those things that we all have. But it’s a bit more than uncertainty, isn’t it? You can already see yourself your body like going back to about my worries. Can I speak and don’t don’t do I have to be careful about what I say. And if you can get to that point, then take it a step further and see if you can talk about and what the person currently fears Because what you’re getting into is the space of anxiety now again to the space of, look, if I have to open up about what is painful for me, and I got to talk about my face. So you’re already pretty deep there. And there is a level deeper, you could also go. And you could say, Well, look, hang on, I feel really comfortable with you. Look at what you’re thinking, but not saying about the situation. And then go silent.
Kerrie Phipps 48:23
Yeah.
Imran 48:25
And then you could go even deeper. But the thing is, the whole idea behind this is that if it’s also you’re, you’re you’re you’re putting yourself into a situation where you’re saying, look, if I ask you that question, I really have to share that as well.
Kerrie Phipps 48:38
Exactly.
Imran 48:39
If you see what I mean. So it’s just with the current situation. If you do it with children, you find children, maybe if you do it with young people are amazing as well. And adults struggle a bit more because the frontal lobe controls a little bit more. And they open up are they going to use this against me? But do it with your team. Do it with anybody But wrap it in empathy and compassion, wrap it in making sure it’s just the right spaces is the right time.
Kerrie Phipps 49:07
Yes,
Imran 49:07
and, and you’ll find something like that can be super, super helpful at the moment just to surface them. And then the next step comes with how you want to structure that data. So you’ve got this data now. And if you want to structure that data, try to pull out just encouraging data and apply it. You don’t have to not pick up pick up what’s relevant to your conversation and feel the conversation with encouragement. And then you’ve got what they call in another word, appreciative inquiry if people haven’t heard of that.
Kerrie Phipps 49:39
Yeah,
Imran 49:39
that’s what you’re doing an appreciative inquiry because you get to talk about the best moments but this when you ask them directly, though, most people struggle with best moments because they have to the way we’re set up, we record bad moments better. Our brain cannot record good moments. Well, because bad moments is what protects us.
Kerrie Phipps 49:58
Yeah, it’s interesting because often You know, encourage people to ask questions around, you know, what’s your favorite or what’s your best? You know? Because if you ask somebody like, what’s the best cafe around here, they’re so happy to share. You know, it could be a good little connector, but yet to have these conversations with empathy, I have to underline that empathy and compassion because sometimes people want to take a tip, or they want to take your questions and go, Okay, everyone gave me some great questions. I’m going to try this out today with a stranger. Well, if you don’t bring that empathy and compassion at the heart of it, then it’s going to just get messy.
Imran 50:33
Like the whole thing about start with uncertainty. Do anyone make mistakes fall into I mean, it’s not I have never offended anybody. It’s not I mean, I’ve like I can, I can think of a gentleman I really offended and, and then I was lucky enough to because we were on the same platform in London. I went up to him the next day and apologized and he says, We hadn’t known we saw each other every day. We kept on saying hello and and then at one point You know, two months later, and we talked about that situation. And sometimes things just don’t work out. It’s okay. But very often, the thing you have to always remember is when you walk in and conversation hasn’t worked is I’ve, I’ve never ever looked at myself. I’ve looked at why. What what happened to me Was I being arrogant was I fell on myself was I broken has to do with my own arrogance and my own ignorance and not understanding what somebody else is going through and struggling as well in my head because I grew up in a culture where in a school system where people would all if you did something wrong, that was they would ask you what’s wrong with you, then? What’s wrong with you? rather than asking the question, What happened to you?
Kerrie Phipps 51:45
Yeah,
Imran 51:46
That everybody out there is doing the best they can in the moment in the second they are in history.
Kerrie Phipps 51:51
Yeah, thank you. I love a conversation with you. You know, I was just, we make assumptions like we need to know You know, to be aware that we make assumptions, we have bias. But if we’re going to make an assumption, let’s make a better one. And that is a really powerful assumption to, to work from that everyone’s doing the best they can. You know, it gives us grace for ourselves and gives us grace for others. And, you know, I really love so many of the things that that we’ve meandered through today. I mean, we started this conversation before recording talking about you know, that nature, going for long walks, and I was glad to do that today, but I feel like that’s what we’ve done this afternoon.
Imran 52:32
Thank you Kerrie it’s been lovely so many questions. I’m awake. Now. I realize I’ve had like, a coffee enema. My head’s like buzzing now. So I’m gonna take the dog for a walk now My head’s buzzing. So thank you. It’s been so fine that it’s worked in amazing technology, how it works. You know, you’re on the other side of the world. I’m on the side of the world. And this works. This is amazing.
Kerrie Phipps 52:54
Yes, well, feel free to send me any photos from your walk in Vienna and
Imran 52:59
tell me I find this For you, I’ll find because I haven’t been found the ceilings as well. So I’ll see if I can find one and send you want to like the article ones in Vienna when you find them.
Kerrie Phipps 53:07
Oh my gosh, I’m sure you’ve got so much beautiful artwork there that I’ve never seen.
Imran 53:10
It’s just crazy thing.
Yeah,
Kerrie Phipps 53:13
yeah. And of course do tell me if you make them great strangers in the next 24 hours.
Imran 53:19
I will do I will do
Kerrie Phipps 53:20
You made some really great people out there. Well, thank you so much.
Imran 53:24
Thank you as well.
Kerrie Phipps 53:25
We’ll talk again soon. Thanks Imran
Imran 53:27
Take care Ciao, ciao. Bye
Kerrie Phipps 53:29
Ciao. Ciao.
