Episode 72: Having weird conversations with Laura Crandall

Wanna make work suck less? Start asking weird questions.Like, totally bizarre, off the wall stuff like:🙀 Do you understand what I’m asking you?🙀 What does productive mean to you?🙀 What does it mean to be on time?🙀 What does success mean to you?🙀 What assumptions are we making?Nuts, right? It’s so weird to ask these basic, foundational questions about how we communicate with each other. The shared language we rely on to get things done. The stuff we all skip over because we think we should just “get” each other.Like, have you met other human beings? I’ve known some my entire life and still don’t fully understand them.Fortunately, Laura Crandall has cracked the code. Today’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast is a consultant and author who has spent years helping humans resist the urge to make assumptions and actually have those weird conversations with each other.Which makes everything at work, work better:🐱 It reduces workplace friction🐱 It saves time🐱 It lowers frustration🐱 It eliminates office politics🐱 It keeps us from creating dartboards with our coworkers’ faces on them that we eventually rip to shreds because we are terrible at dartsUltimately, having weird conversations gives us room to do the truly hard stuff at work we should be doing. Solving big problems. Inventing amazing things. Doing work that, as Laura would say, is fruitful.Fruitful. What a wonderful word. And what a wonderful conversation. Let’s take a listen.You can follow Laura on LinkedIn. And check out her site at lauracrandall.com. While you're there, take a look at her book, Working With Humans: Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed for Conversations You Never Expected to Have. So good.If you enjoyed the conversation and would like to dive deep into some of your own challenges at work, I invite you to schedule a free half-hour discovery session, where we can explore new, desuckified possibilities for your future.Bye, everyone!Bonus questions from Laura to our audience:* If your day were more fruitful, if that were the driver rather than productivity or busyness, what would that do for you, your team or both?* How would you use the word adult or the word mature in a way that felt empowered and interesting and helpful vs. being punitive or pejorative?To watch the episode on YouTube, please click here. #desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #findyourwhy #executivecoaching #weirdconverstations #workcommunication #workingwithhumans Get full access to DesuckifyWork® at tjbennett.substack.com/subscribe