Joel Monk: [00:00:24] Michael, it's a real joy to be with you as I often feel and I really feel that with you in a little check-in just now, we've got some good topics to explore today, so how are you doing first of all?

Michael Hudson: [00:00:37] I'm doing really well. I've got the kids after school already this morning. I'm feeling great. It's great to be with you, Joel.

Joel Monk: [00:00:44] I mean, that's a good thing, isn't it? You know, like, there's nothing like the kids in the morning, and then also the feeling when they're at school and you can just sit down and, yeah, have that time. It's the first success of the day, for sure. Let me read your bio, and then I've got some questions to ask you, so those of you don't know Michael Hudson is the CEO of the Hudson Institute of Coaching. [00:01:09] Prior to this role, he spent 10 years in social entrepreneurship across Southeast Asia and East Africa. leading research programs on microfinance in Vietnam and later serving in a key leadership role at One Acre Fund. He helps scale that organization into Africa's largest direct service NGO impacting over a million farmers annually. Currently, Michael continues to support startup founders and social entrepreneurs in navigating leadership challenges within complex environments.

Joel Monk: Something we're going to talk about in our conversation today more. As an expert in leadership, coaching and human development, he regularly writes articles for the American Business Magazine Forbes. And I, you know, people listening if you haven't seen Michael's writing, I, on LinkedIn, it's really great. It's really fantastic. [00:02:00] I recommend you take a look. So, let's talk about your journey into becoming the CEO of the Hudson Institute. Could you tell us a little about that?

Joel Monk: Because you know you've had this beautiful journey, it sounds like as I wrote the bio there.

Michael Hudson: [00:02:15] Yeah, thank you, Joel. Well, so you covered a little bit of the high points, but the truth is I had no intention to be involved in coaching. I grew up around it. You know, the organization I now run was founded by my mother and father in 1986. And so they used to run seminars and I would have. I would be running around outside throwing rocks at birds and catching lizards. And so I grew up around this stuff, but I had no intention to pursue it and no pressure to pursue it, I received the instructions from my parents to go pursue what I was passionate about.

Michael Hudson: And so I took that seriously and I got out of the country and I got involved in development at Vietnam and then Kenya. And I was lucky enough to join this organization, One Acre Fund in Kenya, that [00:03:05] It was just a group of really smart people, really passionate smart people doing interesting work around helping smallholder farmers produce more food. And when I joined, it was maybe a couple hundred people. And over seven years, it was suddenly 6,000 people and a hundred million dollars annual budget. And I was one of the general partners overseeing that. Only one of us was over 30 years old. at the time and we thought he was like totally overbale and I was on a trip actually with my mother and she was asking you know what what do I think she could do to make a difference in the world and I said well I think our organization has a lot of potential but I don't know that we really have figured out this leadership thing.

Michael Hudson: And so what what happened was she ended up setting up this relationship between Hudson and one egg or fun where they would coach our top 30 leaders every year. [00:04:09] And and and then train our managers in basic coaching skills. And what I found in that experience was that I hadn't really understood coaching. You know, my entire life, like 20 something years, I hadn't understood coaching, even though I had grown up around it. Because development is kind of, it takes a little bit of life. You know, you have to live a little bit of life before you understand what development really means and how important it is. Once I had experienced it in myself and in that organization, It really sparked something in me, you know, for my impact perspective.

Michael Hudson: What if I could play some role in helping leaders and organizations unlock perspective and growth in the way that I was experiencing? And so for me, that was the moment or the experience that started to tug on my shirt, [00:05:00] and bring me back home from I was living in Nairobi at that time and make my way back first to San Francisco and eventually down back to Santa Barbara where I grew up. And that's been you know going on 10 years now here in this role and it feels so natural. I feel so lucky to have found it.

Joel Monk: [00:05:20] Before we talk about leadership and coaching more explicitly, I'm curious if at all, being in those different cultures and how they view what it is to be a human being living life, how that might have impacted your sense of being in the world and coaching itself, like, yeah.

Michael Hudson: [00:05:43] Yeah, it's a great question. The first thing that comes to mind, Joel, is the, in the US, We're very... the individual perspective, sort of rules all here. [00:06:04] And if you go to a place like Vietnam, it is such a communal environment and relationships matter a lot and conventions around how different relationships work. Even in the language, you would refer to everybody based on their age, what their age is in relation to yours. And so before you can refer to somebody, use a pronoun to refer to them. You have to know what their age is in relation to yours.

Michael Hudson: And so there's this sense of community and family that sort of weaves through that culture that that really felt different and it taught me a lot and you know, I think I At that age, you know, early 20s, I learned a lot about the power of relationship of, you know, not just digging into skills and learning and getting better at stuff in sort of an achievement way, but investing in relationships to see what might emerge. and that has given me a lot in life by just sort of trusting that. [00:07:01] If you immerse yourself in good relationships and in community, good things will happen. And I don't think I knew that before spending time there.

Joel Monk: [00:07:11] Do you think, because, you know, one of the things we talk about on the podcast is it's not just coaching, but what's the context within which coaching is occurring and, you know, in the way you can't separate the two, and so, you know, right now, obviously we're in a time where, you know, people, it's it we're in flux, you know, there are certain tiers is as high, maybe it always was, and we just, you know, we had there was enough stability to kind of, hide that but it feels like we're in a liminal space and I think what you're talking about around relationality maybe is one of the deep questions people have you know what are the costs of how we viewed what it means to be a human being in the West you know this hyper individualistic sense of self in the peace and pursuit of success you know and what gets lost inside

Michael Hudson: [00:08:10] Well, the achievement thing lives in me for sure, right? I mean, I, I love learning new things and feeling like I'm growing at them and I think that will always live in me, right? And so I don't think I'll grow that necessarily, but I think that it can be a little bit too dominant at times and it can crowd out other ways of learning and growing or experiencing the world, right? I mean, maybe just like even the obsession around development and growth. You know, sometimes just being an experiencing joy and we, you know, we started this conversation talking about kids. There's no achievement that I have. You know, that is not a lens that exists because I'm so humbled by the experience of trying to raise two small kids.

Michael Hudson: They're three and five. And the only thing I'm sure of is I have no idea what I'm doing. [00:09:01] But I love it. It's the greatest source of joy that I've ever experienced. And so to me, actually, you know, that experience with kids, I think has offered me a different lens. that I can sort of try to remind myself of, even just talking about them, it's sort of like changes how I feel in my body, because it reminds me that there's so much more to life than this sort of rigid, serious achievement stuff, which, you know, has its place and is important and it leads to progress, but it's not everything. So, yeah, I think there's an opportunity for more balance, both in myself and probably out there in society.

Joel Monk: [00:09:39] Yeah, I mean, I relate to that. Yeah. Totally. Let me let me actually take us in the direction now of Like, maybe we go in the deep end, we're going to talk about leadership, but something you said when we were checking in, I want to see if we can kind of flesh that out. You said something like, you know, coaching has all the right ingredients to really support in our times. [00:10:03] Maybe we need to reorganize in a little way what coaches do, how they do it. Could you kind of riff on what you didn't really go into what you meant by that?

Joel Monk: Could you riff on on that?

Michael Hudson: [00:10:15] Yeah, would it be okay if I kind of step back just a little bit from the question because I think the context of our world as I'm experiencing it and as my clients are experiencing it sort of informs why I said that and I think it for me it's this idea that change change has changed in some way in our world. So like if you look at the old models for change it's kind of like. There's a change coming that you can see coming. You make a plan, you execute the plan, and then you return to stasis, to some normal, to something stable. And do you have any changes in your life that feel that way right now? [00:11:01] I think I'm feeling left about six years ago. I was like, five years ago, I felt like, yeah. I was actually on a walk with a mentor of mine.

Michael Hudson: five years ago, and I said to her, I can't wait for things to go back to normal, and she, she did not let that sit for a second, and she looked at me and said, Michael, get over it, things are not going back to normal. And for me, that was kind of the spark that helped me start to realize that in my own life, my own experience of the world, this thing of, okay, there's going to be a disruption, but then we're going to go back to normal. It's gone. I don't think that it exists anymore. It's not in my experience because we have disruptions coming from multiple directions and they're layering and the next one has arrived before the last one has resolved. and it's unpredictable and non-linear and it's also exciting, so I don't mean to make it seem like it's just a negative thing, but it's hard. [00:12:00] And I think that we have not cultivated the capacities in ourselves to navigate the world that is changing in this way and at this pace.

Michael Hudson: And so I think something new is needed, you know, that the old change models, I think are insufficient for what we're experiencing now. I think coaching is really valuable. So coaching as a developmental intervention, developmental practice is really valuable. And I think that coaches have the opportunity to do more, like in a way, I think that coaching was designed for this time, this moment in our world. we are perfectly positioned to make an impact. And yet, I think we have to challenge ourselves. We have to ask ourselves, what does the world need from us? What of our capacities can we bring to life, or emphasize, or reorganize, to make a greater impact?

Michael Hudson: [00:13:01] And so that's really where my thinking is. Is, from what we know, from our toolkit, if you look at coaching not as a methodology, but as a tool kit, all of these different things we know, like how to engage with empathy, how to support a client's inner work, how to contract really well. You know, all of these things that we know, if it's a tool kit, how can you sort of draw on that tool kit creatively to serve this time? And so from that has come this, this idea of change fitness that I've been working on, which is really a framework, it's capacities that leaders can cultivate in order to better navigate change. And I think that the crux of it is the dominant perspective on change is that it's something that needs to be managed or [00:14:01] Um, that it's a disruption that we need to sort of figure out and then move on from and what I'm thinking now is, you know, how can we help leaders instead of manage change metabolize it.

Michael Hudson: So, so take the disruption and turn it into something that's productive like learning or growth or innovation and I think we've all had this experience of being disrupted by something. And it's always hard when we're disrupted by something like the loss of a loved one or layoffs in our organization or a massive re-org. These things are really hard, but I think most of us have also had the experience of learning a lot of growing a lot from them. And so what are the capacities we can cultivate to really help leaders do that intentionally? So I'll just stop there because I've sort of talked a lot about that. But if I, yeah, I have like specific dimensions that I'm working on that do all of them tie into coaching and some really clear ways.

Joel Monk: [00:15:03] Yeah, beautiful. I want to ask you about those dimensions and how coaches could. support leaders to metabolize change, but just a reflection, I think that's something I've noticed too, which is the gift of our times is like, it's just in my face, you know, like the, so, like I just can't ignore. the intensity in the ways that I used to and that meant to literally sit down and metabolize change you know like sit sit down and feel what I'm feeling in my body is what one way of doing that for me yeah so I'm just curious for you like yeah you spoke of these like there's different dimensions of new capacities and ways that coaches could support leaders and where would Yeah, how change has changed and what's needed. [00:16:02] Yeah.

Michael Hudson: [00:16:04] I think it kind of goes, it starts at the emotional level. So the first dimension that I'm working on is what I call contain, but it, you know, contain being sort of an illusion to contain psychological theory of containment, which is, you know, When we're disrupted, we're typically overwhelmed with feelings, difficult feelings, that if they're not dealt with, make it very difficult for us to be receptive to what's actually happening. And this is true of change, right? If you imagine a leader who's just announced that the strategy is changing, everybody's work that they've done up to this point is not gonna be used, and now we're gonna do something completely different. [00:17:00] Those leaders are going to be angry, right? There's going to be a lot of anxiety and fear in the room. If the leader of that team goes straight to, here's what I think we should do.

Michael Hudson: They've completely missed the boat. Because containment is where that needs to start with the team just processing what is going on for them. Like just as you said that you've been doing, right, in your own body. Those leaders need to space to process what's going on without solving anything. Right, it's not a cognitive experience contained. It's an emotional experience of putting your feelings about the experience out there and seeing that it's okay to feel that. and seeing that, yes, whether or not things are gonna go my way, there's gonna be a way forward. And this, I think is something that is just sorely missing in the business world right now.

Michael Hudson: And it's not really anybody's fault. [00:18:01] I think this is very hard to do, and it's counterintuitive, right? Because when we're disrupted, human beings have an instinct to get out of the anxiety. It just doesn't feel good. And so every single one of us has an instinct to get out of it. And the way that we do that is stuff like problem solving, making a plan, developing that Gantt chart that shows exactly what you're going to do and when you're going to do it, it feels so good to have some sort of certainty. But it's also an illusion in most cases. We don't actually know, just like in coaching, if a coach offers a solution to their client,

Michael Hudson: pretty much impossible that that solution is going to be of use to that client, but it feels good to the coach to give that because it takes anxiety out of the relationship. It creates some certainty, something solid. And so, you know, I think that that's where I think we need to start is with this idea of contain and teaching leaders. [00:19:05] I think sometimes when I've talked where people say, well, you know, I work at so-and-so company, and I can't imagine, you know, this this level of vulnerability, being present, where I work, and I think fair enough, right? It's not that every leader is going to lead to their teams, completely opening up and pouring their hearts outside on the table, but I think there's an opportunity to think about what's the minimum effective dose. of this, you know, wherever the baseline of your organization or your team is, what would it? What would it look like to just sort of lean into this a little bit on the margin?

Michael Hudson: Because I think that's all that's needed to move the needle, you know, to just stimulate the system a little bit with a different way of relating to the change. And the idea here is just to prime people so that they can actually start to make meaning, right? [00:20:00] Because meaning making is not going to be super productive. when people are being overwhelmed with their feelings that have not been processed or dealt with. So, that's where I would start.

Joel Monk: [00:20:14] I think that's beautiful. I've got a question, but I'm just thinking of Raja Selvam's work on embodying emotions where he's speaking about, And data research findings in neuroscience now at point to how emotion is the foundation from which behavior and cognition arises. So, you know, that points to me towards the importance of including it, you know, and not kind of having it just be unspoken Therefore, I'm just a question, I can imagine, how would you feel therefore about coaching coaches supporting leaders to work with their emotional life? And because the same thing you could say on an individual level, yeah, it's like the individual client might be experiencing a challenge and then reaching very quickly to solve it like a problem.

Michael Hudson: [00:21:06] Yeah. And I think in a lot of ways coaches do this, right? It's more of a by-product of what we do, by-product of most coaching methodologies, hopefully. And we're not going in with the explicit goal of containment. But I don't know how you could coach somebody to a developmental outcome without creating containment either. And so I think what I'm sort of saying is, how can coaches in their work be more explicit about this as a goal of their work? And the great thing is we've got the tools to do it, right?

Michael Hudson: Coaches have already figured out how to not solve problems. had to sort of resist the temptation to be the problem solver through the understanding that only the client sees what's getting in the way for them. And coaches already have the capacity to talk about feelings, right? [00:22:02] In some way, how does that make you feel? What's coming up for you? What does that stir in for you? We have the training to go to the emotional realm. And so I think,

Michael Hudson: It's sort of a process of maybe linking some of those capacities to what is the point of containment for the leader who's disrupted. You know, how does that actually serve them? And I think when it's happening organically in the methodology, sometimes it just works. But I think if we can be more clear about why it works, how it works, why it's important, I think we might spend more time there and be more deliberate about it.

Joel Monk: [00:22:47] Beautiful. Yeah, I can imagine therefore containment is helping a kind of regulation of the nervous system in some way, you know, there's some kind of challenge, you know, disruption. [00:23:02] And instead of rushing towards solution immediately, there's a process of just including what's arising for people, which I think then, can open up certain capacity. So maybe we could talk a little bit more about these capacities that you feel are becoming important. We've talked about emotions. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Hudson: [00:23:24] Just one more thing on containment. If you don't mind, there's a thinker psychologist British psychologist from a huge fan of a Wilfred Bion. And he writes that people basically have two jobs. first job is the job they think they're doing. So the task that they have set themself up to do or whatever's written in their job description. This is what most of us think we do. That's what I think I do when I sit here at my desk. But then we have a second job which is to avoid discomfort and anxiety.

Michael Hudson: And that second job is unconscious. [00:24:02] And most of us, when we're disrupted, spend a lot more time than we realize doing that second job. So we're actually taking actions and organizing our work and approaching our tasks through the goal, the unconscious goal of avoiding anxiety. And so it's taking us off of that first job completely and changing our priorities, but we don't know about it because it's not happening And so I think that's the way that I come at the importance of emotion. It's not because I love talking about feelings, although I think that that can be an interesting thing to do. But if we want people to be focused on the task at hand, we have to work through the emotional realm, or else we're going to be driven by our unconscious. And that's worth thinking about.

Michael Hudson: It's worth being creative about and developing capacity.

Joel Monk: [00:25:01] Yeah, that's powerful. So, therefore, do you have a view on like the, I don't call it the opposite of that because that could make it seem oppositional, but are you an advocate, therefore, of leaders building a capacity for us being centered or self-aware and learning to shift? become aware and shift out of that, you know, that being driven in a particular way.

Michael Hudson: [00:25:32] Absolutely. So when you say that, what it brings up for me is we got to start at home, right? So if I want to do this for you, if I want to help create containment for you or for my team or for others in any way, and I haven't figured out how that mechanism and process works in myself, I'm not going to get very far, and the same is true, I think, in coaching and developmental work, right? You can't take others on a path that you have not traveled yourself. And so, you know, in the context of containment, I need to explore for me, you know, what are the emotions that are triggered in me when I'm disrupted? [00:26:10] What does that lead me instinctively to do? And what are the capacities I have in myself to get back to center?

Michael Hudson: I think that that personal work is, it's necessary before you can succeed at that work with others.

Joel Monk: [00:26:27] Let's talk about some of those other capabilities. I've seen you write about negative capability, sense-making, change fitness. Some of the capabilities that you think have been coming more important.

Michael Hudson: [00:26:44] Yeah, so the three that I really talk about are contained and then something I call connect and conspire. So these three things. And I think within. Connect, oh, I'll go to connect. [00:27:00] So connect is really the meaning-making layer in the process. So once you've got through contain, hopefully you have individuals or your client that they are primed to be receptive to what's actually happening. They're not driven by their unconscious. And so they're prepared to actually start evaluating.

Michael Hudson: I'm hesitant to say reality, but they will do their best to now start to evaluate reality. But I think within this connect, and when I say connect, I'm really talking about connecting the dots as opposed to connecting others, although there is a relational component to it. There's this old idea that we all live with in the business world, and I think in leadership They're supposed to know what to do. And so, you know, time and again, in my coaching work, I find clients who are brilliant people who are struggling with the situation and whether or not they have fully thought this explicitly, they're approaching it from a perspective of, I have to figure out what to do. [00:28:11] I have to analyze the data and come up with a thing to do. And so it's this thing that's ingrained in us and Joel, I've been there before too, right? I mean, I've put myself in that spot who knows how many times.

Michael Hudson: And it doesn't work that well in general, because it's just one frame sort of leading the charge. But it really doesn't work well in this context that we're talking about, where change is layered and the next one is arriving before the last one resolves and all this stuff, when change is perennial, One frame can't hold it all, right? It's just a two brittle. And I think we're seeing that. I'm seeing that with clients and client organizations where they're trying to execute change processes using this sort of approach. And it just doesn't really work. It kind of bounces back.

Michael Hudson: [00:29:01] And I think connect is about saying, hey, you don't have to do that. In fact, it's counterproductive to try to be the one who knows what to do. This is not an easy thing, right? A lot of these capacities are easier said than done. But, but I think what we're inviting is more of a sense-making process. And, you know, what that is is a social meaning-making process that really puts an emphasis not on data collection, although data collection is part of it, but it places the emphasis on interpretation. And so, bringing a group together who's working on something and asking many people what they are seeing, why they think it's important, what meaning they make of it, how they interpret what they're seeing. And maybe for you, this seems like, of course a leader would do this, but I think out in the world, it's quite rare to see that.

Michael Hudson: [00:30:01] And I think there's one final thing I'll say on this, there's still a really important role for the leader. So it's not like a communal decision-making process that I'm describing. It's a social meaning-making process, but the leader still has to decide where we go from here. It's not that we're gonna take one piece from every single person and put together a mosaic that we're gonna move forward with. It's that we're gonna gather all of the interpretation and then the leader's gonna decide in most cases where we go from there. And so I think it takes the team off of the leaders back. And, you know, Hermione Barra has this line that I really love, which is the leaders of the future, cannot be executing what they think they know through the people who work for them. But instead, they have to leverage their people to unlock what they don't know yet.

Michael Hudson: We have to figure out what we don't know yet. [00:31:01] And that's a really simple way to think about what this connect capacity is, but just like contain it goes against our instincts. And so how do we help people learn to do that? We need to figure out how to distill this into leadership practices that people can actually wrap their head around and go back to minimum effective dose. This is not about mastery. It's not about being the best in the world that can contain connect to conspire. It's about understanding what's your baseline and what would just a next increment in this dimension be. Because I think that's all that's needed to stimulate a change and to get a different behavior out of it.

Joel Monk: [00:31:42] It's really powerful what you're sharing. I'm getting a lot of insights. And as someone that, you know, you said like, oh, maybe this sounds obvious to you, but I can just see how I do this, you know? It's so ingrained to, to kind of feel like I should know the answers and be telling people what to do. [00:32:01] And, you know, of course, You know, that doesn't mean, again, it doesn't mean like you said that it's all certainly about a collective kind of consensus decision making. That can be useful. But yeah, I find it, I find it really powerful what you're sharing.

Joel Monk: So could we talk about sense making a little bit more. I think it's such a rich area. How would you invite leaders to go about sense-making in terms of, you know, we've talked just I think before in our checking about the connection between systems and individuals and, you know, how that's kind of messy and some people say it's all about the individuals and some people say it's all about the systems and, but I think this is where the rubber meets the road for me. We're operating what's the system we're operating within and what wants to emerge and how each of us can play a role in that. [00:33:10] So I love this topic.

Michael Hudson: [00:33:12] I love this topic. I think the system lives in all of us. Right, whether we know it or not, the systems we participate in live in us, there are things that are in us, but not of us. And that's really important to know, right? And so, you know, you could be in an organization where something happened 15 years ago that was a big deal. None of those people are still at that organization and that story or or some of what follows from it, lives in you because you're part of that system, a way of thinking about the work or what you can expect of others. And so that's a really big deal to think that the system lives in each of us.

Michael Hudson: [00:34:00] And then conversely, we all influence the system. The system is a group of individuals and we all have the opportunity to influence it. Some have a huge opportunity to do it. Others do it in smaller ways. Um, but that's important to know as well is that there's a, there's a, there's a back and forth an advent flow where we're shaping the system and the system is influencing us and living within us. And so that's kind of hard to make sense though, I think, but I think when, when we engage in sense making, uh, ambitiously, we invite, uh, imagination into the process. And I think that is a way to invite the system into the sense-making process. So I was once, I think I mentioned I did my master's at NCAD in systems, psychodynamics.

Michael Hudson: And we used a process called an interpretive phenomenonological analysis, which is a mouthful, an IPA study. [00:35:02] So when we were writing our thesis, And this is sort of a process of starting with an association. So you have a business challenge, like a strategy that's not going well or whatever. And instead of analyzing the data and arriving at some sort of a conclusion, you start with an association. So you sort of sit with it and you think, what does it remind me of? It'll remind you maybe of a movie you saw an image that appears in your mind. And you start with that.

Michael Hudson: You start with the association. And then you work backwards to try to make sense of where did that come from, what does it teach you? What can actually inform in this business situation, or coaching situation that you're in? And that brings the system into play, because when we allow imagination, we start to see [00:36:01] different elements of our thinking that are living there and influencing us that don't show up in our concrete analytical minds. And I think what it leads to is newness, right? Because when we analyze stuff, and the way that we always have, we're sort of producing the answer that we always knew. It's just old stuff.

Michael Hudson: And it's not bad. Sometimes we do need that, but it's it allows for people to say things, the meaning that they're making from it that doesn't quite make sense in the moment or that's not clear or not perfectly positioned or perfectly articulated. It's messy. And I think from that you can see, oh okay, there are stories here existing that aren't coming from one individual that are showing up in all of us. And I think that's the system, that's the system that's influencing how we're thinking about what we're doing. And conversely, we'll see the individuals in what they bring from their own backgrounds and their own narratives. [00:37:03] So, I don't know if that answers your question, but I think that sense making ideally, and it has to be social, right?

Michael Hudson: You have to do it in a group, you don't do it alone. Ideally, it's this messy space that allows for sort of this bidirectional learning and meeting making where you're taking bits of the system and taking bits at the end of the jewels.

Joel Monk: [00:37:28] And it feels very, also embodied, you know, you talk about the imagination in that way. It's got a greater range of sense-making than just the data, the analytical data it feels. Feels kind of like what we were talking about earlier in our conversation that you're seeing, there's a chance to see the relationship between things. Yeah. And not just the kind of hot-cold, hard data itself,

Michael Hudson: [00:37:57] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I was, so in one of these conversations that in Seattle, I was sharing a case with the class and they asked what associations do I have. [00:38:09] And what I shared and I was really stuck on a work thing, really stuck and I shared it feels to me like I'm driving in the middle of the night with my headlights on and all I can see is the 25 feet in front of my car. I can't see anything else, and that led me to a completely different place in that situation. Um, because it was really how I felt kind of like, you know, in my heart, I felt a little bit lost. I felt very alone. I felt like I only had an incomplete picture of what was going on. But if I started with any of those more practical ways to describe the situation, I would end up in a practical way to deal with it.

Michael Hudson: And this driving at night with headlights, interestingly, just led me to a completely different insight around it. [00:39:01] And so I think that's. You know, at its best, I think that's what sense making can offer people is a place to let go a little bit from the need to know and the need to be smart and the need to feel like you're putting it all together and instead take it all apart, right, and share kind of bits and pieces and understand that you're with a group and the group can put things together when the time is right. And it can happen in big ways in small ways, right? It doesn't need to be so ambitious and it doesn't have a complex name, like an interpretive phenomenological analysis, right? But, but I think that core idea that no one person, no one framed can do it. And we need to invite newness and messiness in.

Joel Monk: [00:39:50] I think, you know, it's as simple as that. Yeah, beautiful. How would you invite a leader to... [00:40:03] act on that sense making process. Like in a sense I'm hearing there's a imagination, there's a kind of almost in the description you had of driving that car, there's like a sense of feeling, like palpating that image, you know, and then it leads to a qualitatively different insight than just describing what you already know. I'm wondering how that process begins to re-consolidate may be around a new course of action. Is that even the right way to think about it?

Michael Hudson: [00:40:39] I think about it. I think so. The words I'm using right now are like, what is the leadership practice? What's the actual activity? I'm trying to be cautious not to be too prescripted with it, because every context is different. You want to be able to offer a leadership practice that is [00:41:00] but that also feels flexible enough that leaders can do it in big ways and small ways, formal ways and informal ways. But I think, you hear a lot of like, what's the point of a meeting in organizations?

Michael Hudson: And it's like, to make a decision. If you're not making a decision, you shouldn't be meeting. It should be an email. There is something like that, right? I probably said that before. But what if you had a meeting and you said we're not making a decision? We're just going to kind of, um, we're going to share the different ways we're interpreting what's happening. There's no action.

Michael Hudson: The goal is not action. It's not really a brainstorm either because we're not trying to come up with ideas. But we're going to share the ways that we're interpreting what's happening. And I'm going to ask you what you think that that means. And I'm gonna listen to you and not just accept it, but see what I can learn from it. [00:42:05] See what it teaches me about my own frame. And I think the idea is like, we each have our own narrative that we are like a meaning-making lens that we use to interpret reality.

Michael Hudson: You know that the old line of, we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are. And so we're interpreting the world through our own narrative, whether that's an achievement's narrative or a go-it-alone narrative. We're interpreting it through that. And when we're using our own frame, we're only benefiting from that one frame. And so, I want to use your frame too. Whatever it might be, I want to know what's filtering through yours. And what are you getting on the other side of it? We need to know that if we're going to be at our best.

Michael Hudson: And everybody else is ideally. And so why would we limit ourselves to one lens? And so I think that the US about one's the leadership practice, I think it's the practice of getting together and being explicit that we are going to do that. [00:43:08] And then probably there's a huge element of modeling it because everybody in the team is gonna be looking at the leader and thinking, this seems a little weird. I'm willing to do it if they do it. And so I think you have to sort of put yourself out there and really believe in it. And then I think you have to sort of bring us, bring the group back to center because the human instinct is gonna be to get to safety, which is like some sort of certainty or some sort of clarity or some sort of decision or action.

Michael Hudson: We want to get there when we're in a group, it just feels better. And I think the meaning making process that I'm describing, this connect process is intentionally open-ended. It's intentionally just putting things on the table and playing with them and shaping them together. [00:44:02] And so I think that's kind of the leader's job there is to, you know, when things view off course, remind the group, bring us back, keep us on that task that might feel counterintuitive, but if we don't do it, we're limiting ourselves.

Joel Monk: [00:44:23] And I do want to talk about conspire, but I just want to talk about, again, the equivalency with coaching here, an individual that maybe we've already said this, but supporting, in a coaching session, a similar kind of sense-making where, you know, we're not immediately kind of diagnosing the problem to create a plan to, you know, to solve the problem. But actually, standing in that kind of open space of sense-making and, you know, I found that to be one of the most potent places my coaching can stay. [00:45:05] process for the leader because, you know, they may come in with that tendency of like, okay, come on, you know, I've got all these problems. We need to solve these problems and get to a solution. So I can get all my things, you know, and it's that way again. So yeah, yeah, do you see that?

Michael Hudson: [00:45:21] I mean, I think that's, that's the part that I love about coaching, what you're describing. It's like, that's, I mean, it's the hard stuff and it's the fun stuff and it's like in See, they're narrative. That's the term that we use often at Hudson, but you there are a lot of different things to call that, right? But helping them see their narrative, the story they tell themselves about who they are and what they can expect from the world. And it's only by seeing one's narrative that you might get a little bit of elbow room to make some changes, right? Kind of like you can't see the label of the jar that you're in. [00:46:02] And so in coaching, I mean, so much of our work is around helping people see their narrative, the story they're telling themselves, you know.

Michael Hudson: For me, growing up, I've been really achievement oriented since a young age, I used to be so serious about playing tennis. My coach had picked me up at 4 a.m. before school and sixth grade. Take me to practice, pick me up from school, we'd go practice again and he dropped me off at home and I'd go do my homework. That was my life as a sixth grader. Um, every weekend going and playing tournaments, I was obsessed. It's something in the way that I see myself and I have seen myself growing up and it served me when I was young, but then that narrative follows you into adulthood and your context changes, you change in certain ways, but your story is still there. James Hollis says, you know, we, uh, we outgrow our adaptations. And so I think in coaching, it's about helping people see that your situation or the way that you understand your situation is a story that you're telling yourself.

Michael Hudson: [00:47:10] It's not wrong, but it's your story. I can't do fill in the blank. I should do fill in the blank. And most cases, these are our perspectives, And so, to me, I think this is the sense making process because when you ask somebody to really explore how they're understanding something, you cannot avoid pushing up against that lens, that narrative. And I think my experience over the course of a coaching engagement is almost like a polishing of the narrative with the client, where at the end I'm going to be getting some rough thing that maybe it's crossed their mind once or twice, but by the end it's this shiny, clear thing that they can see and they can see when it shows up. [00:48:04] when it's driving their thinking or behavior. And it's that awareness, like, it's, it's Silsbee talks about, Doug Silsbee, a little bit of awareness that that narrative is there.

Michael Hudson: When it's playing a role, gives you the space to maybe try something different, to be a little bit more intentional. And so in coaching, I think this is, this is how I think about sensemaking is really a deepening of ones understanding and awareness that they're narrative. so that you can develop a little bit more space and a little bit more ease. I don't think we ever just kind of replace it with something else, right? It's part of who we are. But we can grow and we can develop and evolve. Mm, beautiful.

Joel Monk: [00:48:44] Yeah. Yeah. Again, I'm seeing the You know, the connection between the individual narratives that we grow up with, which can be unique but also the collective narratives that we hold, you know, that you alluded to at the beginning, you know, when you're in Vietnam, you know, there's a different collective narrative there, which probably leads people to emphasize different things and [00:49:09] I think right now in our world, you know, we're questioning some of the deep narratives we've helped and are they the things that will actually create in the conditions that, you know, potentially leading us down a very difficult road. I mean, we're on a difficult road, but you know, what, what, what, what, what collective narrative upgrade might be be wanting.

Michael Hudson: [00:49:34] It's a really good question in my country. I think a lot of people are asking that right now.

Joel Monk: [00:49:42] Can we talk about conspire? Yeah, so what do you mean by conspire?

Michael Hudson: [00:49:47] The word conspire might trigger a group of evil villains sitting around a fire, plotting a plan to do something. But what I discovered is that the word conspire comes from a Latin word that actually means to breathe together. [00:50:01] And when I discovered that, I fell in love with the word out of a deep-seated nerdiness that I have in me, and to breathe together. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so How do you move forward when you don't know exactly where your destination is? I think we could pretend we know where we're going, right? But like think about an organization right now. How many organizations have a 10-year plan?

Michael Hudson: When I started at Hudson, I built a 10-year plan. You know, 2015 or 2016 or something like that. I built a 10-year plan. And that seemed like just an normal thing to do at that time. I don't know anybody who's doing that now, right? So we don't know the destination. I think everybody is sort of thinking on a six-month, 12-month time frame. [00:51:01] And you know, you ask experts in their fields where we headed and they'll say, I have no idea.

Michael Hudson: I'm not sure. And so I think we can say that we don't know exactly where we're going. But leaders still need to have some sort of a capacity to act. We need, it's not just about contain, you know, engaging with the emotional realm and connect engaging in meaning make it. We actually need to do something, right? To move forward, to move in the direction of something that we want. And so that's what conspire is, is what are the capacities needed to move forward when we cannot see the path ahead. And I think a little metaphor is, you know, the old way it was maybe a roadmap, where you could see the road and you can see where we're ending up.

Michael Hudson: And I think the new way is more like a compass, like how do you find enough confidence in your direction, that you can step forward confidently. [00:52:06] Without knowing exactly what the journey is going to hold and exactly what route you're going to take. Peter Block talks a little bit about possibility thinking and he says that problem solving is the enemy of possibility. Problem solving is like sort of optimizing yesterday's thing. It's optimizing the stuff that we already have and it's not like We do need that problem-solving for some stuff, but if we are trying to create something new, for trying to act into something that is new, we have to separate ourselves from that problem-solving mindset and get into something different that is more creative and more emerging. And so I think this is what conspire is, is the capacities that we can cultivate to sort of be confident in that. And there are some ideas that fit into this.

Michael Hudson: [00:53:00] You know, some really interesting thinkers that have informed how I'm thinking about conspire. But it's at its heart, that's how I would describe it.

Joel Monk: [00:53:11] Really cool. Let's unpack. I mean, who hasn't spotted you around this? Yeah. Curious about that.

Michael Hudson: [00:53:18] Well, so like Peter Block is one of the, you know, he is like one of the first people that I got really excited about with possibility thinking and we actually organized a conference around it around possibility thinking had him speak there and I think that was kind of the the starting point and, uh, really leaning into the idea that for newness, we need to have imagination and a willingness to kind of step away from the thing that we had yesterday. I think coaches do that really well. By the way, I mean, that's what we're doing, right? When we're doing our job well, we're engaging in possibility thinking. So when I say this is a reorganization of things that coaches have in their bones, I mean, this is one of the great assets of a coach [00:54:06] support our clients to imagine something new, that they don't have yet. They're not sure how they're going to get it.

Michael Hudson: But they walk away with some alignment that they're going to stretch for that thing. That's possibility thinking. There's a guy, Stuart Kauffman, a complexity scientist, who he writes about the adjacent possible, are you familiar with that phrase?

Joel Monk: [00:54:28] Yeah, I've got quite a few

Michael Hudson: [00:54:33] Yeah, so I really like this idea of the adjacent possible and for me this is kind of like, you know, one of the starting points for like integrating action with possibility thinking, which is, you know, we have to get to the next step before the next set of options emerge, it's only by acting that we we uncover what what is going to be possible next and it's never going to be the full set of things it's just the next set of things. [00:55:02] And so I think the adjacent possible really helping leaders understand that that's part of living in a complex world and that's where we are right now. I think that it gives the license to take small steps. And I should say, you know, there's nothing wrong with having a plan, having done the thinking and the scenario planning, right? I often can't resist scenario planning either. It's just to know that we shouldn't take it too seriously because it's probably not correct. right? It can teach us something, but it's not actually what's going to happen.

Michael Hudson: Whereas the adjacent possible gives a way of thinking about how we act into possibility that is actually resilient enough, I think, to tolerate the complexity of our world. Say, I think I know what direction I want to go in. I'm going to execute this part of my plan or this step, and then I'm going to see what's there. I'm going to take stock. Instead of just moving on to the next row in my Gantt shirt and executing my change process that we came up with six months ago, I'm going to stop and I'm going to take stock and I'm going to see what we can learn now and I'm going to update my thinking based on what I see now. [00:56:15] I think that's what Kauffman is teaching me and I think that that's really extremely relevant and also uncomfortable for leaders because you stand at the front of the room and you talk to your team about what we're going to do and where we're going to go and we're talking, we need to inspire, we need to know where we're going to go, what's the endpoint that we're going to get people fired up about? And then we should have some clarity, strategic clarity around how we're going to get there.

Michael Hudson: And you know, on some level, these things are really important and they're helpful, but they're not realistic right now. And so if not that then what? And Yeah, so I think that's a practical way of thinking about conspire.

Joel Monk: [00:56:59] I want to deepen into that. [00:57:02] This is a really important topic for me because I wrestled with this as a coach for a long time because I always had this idea, hey, you know, create a vision for your life, you know, why do you want to be ten years from now, for example, you know, and then trying to make your life get to that place, close the gap, you know, and then I read people like Stuart Kauffman, Dave Snowden, kind of, challenging the idea that, you know, we can know where we're going to end up and, you know, and especially second order change. And so, therefore, how could we relate to these desires and visions that we have, you know, these sense of possibility? And for me, it became, the answer became in, it's a place to live from, you know, that there is a compass, as you said. So, It's not that you don't have a vision of what could happen, but you're living from it as a sense of possibility here now.

Joel Monk: [00:58:05] And then sensing it, you take action and does this feel like, you know, what arises from this, you know, and I think it's a, it's a good heuristic, you know, for, for personal coaching and individual change, too.

Michael Hudson: [00:58:18] I mean, in some ways, I totally agree, Joy, and in some ways, I think that it's kind of how life plays out, you know, I started telling you about my own journey, right? That I had no intention to be a coach or to run a coaching organization. And it sort of found me, right? And so I don't think I ever had a 10 year plan in when I was in my 20s. But I had some sort of idea of where I was going to go and I thought maybe I'll one day raise a family in Kenya and spend my career in social entrepreneurship. And this is what I saw for myself. [00:59:00] And then, you know,

Michael Hudson: There's a lot more going on in the world and there was a lot more going on in me that I didn't know about. And so when this coaching thing came and hit me over the head and then tugged on the shirt saying, Hey, there's something over here. It helped me discover something about who I was and what I cared about. But I think that my rudder and this is easy to say in retrospect, right? My rudder, my compass was like, I want to do something useful in the world. want to, I really want to figure out how I can use what I have to offer to make some impact in the world. And I like building stuff and I like being creative. And so, you know, these are really simple things, but you can see those ingredients in every single thing that I've done along the way.

Michael Hudson: And those I think come from me. But where I've ended up has been so influenced by the communities I've been a part of and what I've been exposed to that luck that I've had along the way or, you know, all of these other things in my environment. [01:00:07] So I think I was probably using a compass all along, but I didn't really have an awareness or a language around that. And I think in this moment that is, I think, more challenging, you know, for a 20-something-year-old today, it's a lot more challenging than it was when I was in my 20s. I think teaching them what it's like to use a compass and what the practices are around how to do that well and with intention in a way that's not willy-nilly. I think that's a really important thing right now. Or else we're likely to swirl around under have rigid plans that don't go any more.

Joel Monk: [01:00:50] I see how contained connect and conspire all a line really for this process, that if you're able to become emotionally aware and regulate, then that's, you've got the nervous system that can open to that sense of possibility and it can stay in the uncertainty and sense [01:01:14] what might be the way forward. So I think that's beautiful. So just In terms of the adjacent possible, you mentioned we can have a plan or we can have a vision or imagination, a sense of possibility and then we, how would you say someone, could you describe that practice of moving from the sense making them to enacting that adjacent possible?

Michael Hudson: [01:01:51] with some of my team around the importance of values in the conspire phase. Because on some sense, on some level, I don't think I have argued that I don't think values are important there because this is not a prescriptive thing about what people should do. [01:02:10] It's about helping them locate something in themselves. However, I think I've been convinced over time that values are really important within conspire. Because actually, when I told you, my compass was, I want to do something that's valuable in the world, I want to be of service somehow. That's a value that I have. And so I think it's kind of hard to know what your compass could be, what it might be without first figuring out what your values are, what is ultimately important to you. cannot be prescripted, that's something for each of us to reflect on and to uncover and to develop over time are our understanding of that.

Michael Hudson: But I think first we need to understand that part of ourselves to then figure out which direction are we trying to act in which direction do we want to go to uncover the next set of possibilities. [01:03:09] And so I think values, for me, despite my initial resistance to it, have become sort of the starting point for conspire. And the same is true if you expand out from the individual level to the team, right? What are we trying to do? What are we care about? What is most important for us to be doing? Or the system, the organizational system? The same questions can be asked and attempted to answer.

Michael Hudson: And so I think that's kind of like what sets the direction that you start stepping in. is figuring out what you care about. And I think if you just think about that for a second and how different that is from problem solving, from saying we have a goal that we have, we want to reach like, you know, a hundred million dollars and whatever. [01:04:07] And what are the different work streams that we need to develop in order to get there? let's list out the top five work streams that are gonna be important and then set a metric for each one. And, you know, go through this process that we all know how to do. We've all done a million times and it gets you somewhere. It's not bad.

Michael Hudson: Sometimes it's the right thing to do. But that is refining the stuff that is already happening. Versus going to your values first and then figuring out, how can I act my way? into a new way of thinking about this thing. So we want to grow, okay, so the $100 million go, we want to grow. And instead of pretending that I know everything that we need to do, what is something that I could try that feels new? And then how can I then get to that point and ask myself, what am I learning here? [01:05:03] What do I know now that I didn't know before that I can incorporate into my approach?

Michael Hudson: This is how I would think about it, I think it's of all of the three, it's kind of the murkyest because possibilities inherently murky, right? We're talking about newness and so I think it's hard to give a recipe for creating newness. And one of the easiest ways is to create that contrast with the way that we typically think about it, the problem-solving and analysis approach. But I think, you know, I think it's actually that line that I just said, I think there's a harmony bar line. You can't think your way into a new way of acting. You have to act your way into a new way of thinking. And I think that's at the heart of this, right? So we have this illusion in she's talking about career transitions, right?

Michael Hudson: But, you know, she's saying, we have this illusion that we need to like sit in a room, lock yourself in a room and think for as long as it takes to figure out what you should do next. [01:06:10] what's the next step in your career and it's going to hit you. And then once you've got it, go do it. That's not how change and transition happen. It just doesn't work that way. She says she talks about outside instead of insight. So how can I act and collect data from these experiments that I'm running? And use that data to inform how I'm acting from there.

Michael Hudson: and engage in communities that are going to teach me something new about what I'm interested in and so on and so forth. And so I think it's shifting from that, lock yourself in a room, figure out the grand plan and go do it to run a lot of experiments, iterate, let failures happen, and integrate what you're learning into how you're approaching it.

Joel Monk: [01:07:08] I love that idea because I had this, I was in this insight camp for a while, long time, it's like, and coaching can kind of get in that place sometimes. It's like, we just contemplate and reflect enough. Then boom, you know, a lot of people treat life purpose like that too a bit. It's like if I just open enough, it's out there waiting for me just to, Discover it, but it's actually something that unfolds and refines through action in the world and through experimenting in the way you're describing and I think, you know, it's a beautiful way to describe it and, you know, to, you know, that's just something. Maybe this is where it gets a little more mysterious. And that's why I love Stuart Kauffman's work where it writes about biology and how life evolves. [01:08:01] It's like, what is it behind that?

Joel Monk: There's a kind of, we don't have to necessarily get religious or spiritual, but there's just some kind of intelligence that play, and we kind of know when we know, don't we? There's a response, you try one thing out, and boom, it takes off, you try another, and it doesn't, It's been driven by something like a passion and orientation we have. You know, we set of values we have. So, yeah, it's wanted to appreciate the journey you've outlined.

Michael Hudson: [01:08:35] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's really hard to believe it right now. Like it's a really hard time to be a leader in an organization. I really feel for them. You know, when I'm talking, whether you're an manager or a senior executive, it's just like really hard time to be out there for so many different reasons, right? But I think all of this stuff that I'm sharing, I think comes back to this point that we all have internalized [01:09:10] And those approaches are not working very well right now. And so there's this huge opportunity for each of us to make shifts, small shifts in a lot of cases, that can help us develop a different relationship to navigating disruption, navigating challenges and organizations or leadership challenges in general.

Michael Hudson: And I think that's what it is, and I'll say I'm as much in this as anybody else. I find it a really hard time to be a leader. And I fall into these traps over and over again, right? So I don't think this is about mastery. You know, it's just that our instincts lead us to a certain place and we can deepen our awareness of that. And more of the time, we can maybe shift to a more intentional stance around how we're navigating change, but it's not really about perfectionist, just about doing that a little bit more, a margin.

Joel Monk: [01:10:06] Beautiful, it feels like a good place to bring our conversation to a close. And yeah, Michael, I just want to share my appreciation for the work you're creating, the whole conversation to the heck and feel your passion and love of this work. And yeah, thank you so much.

Michael Hudson: [01:10:26] Thank you, as well, Joel. Thank you for all the work you do in the world.

Joel Monk: [01:10:30] beautiful. Where can we find out more about your work and, you know, the Hudson Institute and yeah.

Michael Hudson: [01:10:38] So Hudson Institute.com. is our website. You can check out our coach training offerings and corporate offerings as well. I am a contributor at Forbes so you can check out my articles there and then stay tuned for a book that's going to be coming out next year on this topic. [01:11:00] Thanks. Good. Thanks, Joel.

Joel Monk: [01:11:03] Here we are, we're at the end of the podcast. Just have a heads up again. If you're not on our mailing list and you want to stay in the loop about other things we create, then head to coachesrising.com. Put your name in the sign-up box there. You'll also find some of our other offerings or online trainings for coaches there. And just want to end by wishing you well, and I'll see you again next time.