To understand your question, do you mean in general? Or to go into the details of how it looks to apply the ideas? In general, I’d say my advice is to read the book Crucial Conversations and the book The Fearless Organization and learn the ideas in there. How does it look? From afar, Crucial Conversations and psychological safety look like better conversations. I can’t say they’re perfect, but at least I avoid some pits I fell into before.
Oh, and I can think of a few more:
Some time ago I learned about psychological safety and Crucial Conversations. Since then, I’ve seen them improving my life.
To test whether they actually work, I did a little experiment in my life. For some time, I played a little game where sometimes I followed the opposite advice to see what happened. And yeah, I saw the conversation quality go down. It really is not inconsequential to have a common purpose and being open to wild takes.
So yeah, I realized how powerful Crucial Conversations and Amy Edmonson’s research are and applied them to my life. And naturally my quality of life improved quite a bit.
I have a couple of examples, but here’s one that’s close to my heart (and that, sadly, hurts my heart).
I know someone who overheard the following conversation in a workshop on global policy. In one of the tables, there was a prominent doctor and one of the richest people on Earth.
The workshop went on as normal, until at some point the discussion turned to poverty and malnutrition. The rich person asked “What do you mean, malnutrition?” and the doctor politely explained the basics of acute hunger and chronic malnutrition. At the end of the explanation, the rich person asked “How can you believe any of that?” and explained that malnutrition was made up by “envious leftists” to steal from the rich.
The doctor tried to explain that malnutrition was real, and even pulled up their phone to search for a picture of a malnourished child. When the rich person saw the picture, they said “Well, I don’t know about this, but if you’re hungry, wouldn’t you just go to a store and buy food? If someone can’t figure that out, they’re just not cut out to survive”.
At that point, the conversation was cut short because the workshop organizers required them to move on.
You might be wondering who this rich person was. Here’s what I’ll tell you: their family extracted a lot of wealth in colonial times and, since then, they have used their power and wealth to remain powerful and wealthy.
Finding a good therapist. Within those sessions, some moments stand out: the ACT exercises that were experiential. Those exercises transformed many fucked up beliefs. I went from “the world is shit and I’m fucked” to “the world’s complex but I commit to be a kind person”.
I can’t recommend it enough: experiential ACT exercises.
and that “most mainstream scholars of the era” agree with OP
Totally! I really like that the article explains that Trump doesn’t lie, but he bullshits. Apparently the reason is that lying means the liar knows what’s true, while a bullshitter doesn’t care if the bullshit is true or false. This is one of the reasons Trump is unique.
Oooooh. Those boxes would be useful. Thanks for taking the time to document them!
Huh. Interesting. It seems like you’re fully digital, then. Maybe I should try that sometime!
It sounds like you’ve got a comprehensive solution!
Do you prepare scenarios by exporting to PDFs? I ask because I tried using regular Markdown for my sessions but it didn’t work. I couldn’t get nice boxed text nor could I define when I wanted a page break. None of the Markdown solutions seemed as elegant as Quarto (which I know from learning to use R) and Typst (which seems a little simpler than Quarto). Maybe there are solutions that I missed.
I ask that, but that doesn’t mean that Markdown isn’t a great solution to many problems! In fact, my daily note-taking is done in Markdown!
In case you’re curious, here are my Typst settings. I write them at the top of every new scenario I build.
#set text(font: "Atkinson Hyperlegible Next")
#let title = [The Name of This New Scenario lol]
#set page(
header: align(right + horizon, title)
)
#set pagebreak(weak: true)
#let box_text(content) = block(
stroke: 1pt + black,
inset: 10pt,
radius: 4pt,
width: 100%,
content
)
#show "GM Note": phrase => strong(phrase)
I’m glad you’ve seen positive results with physical therapy.
I’d argue that a good physical therapist will understand the cause of the injury, so that they make a good treatment plan. Similarly, a good (contextual) behavior analyst will understand the causes for their patients’ difficulties, so that they can make a good treatment plan. When you know where you’re standing, it’s easier to move forward. That is why evaluation is crucial in both physical therapy and programs like AIM and PEAK.
Ah. Thanks for the recommendation. I looked it up and the noun definition was “a substance obtained by a chemical process or producing a chemical effect”. So things like sucrose in a banana, protein in eggs, and even fiber in vegetables are all chemical.
I understand that you’re trying to make the point that Nutella is not healthy, and I genuinely think you can make an effective argument for that (in fact, I agree with you!). In particular, I think you can argue with evidence-based arguments. However, do you think accusing Nutella of being made of chemicals (when practically everything in this universe —including healthy food— is made of chemicals) is the best way of making an evidence-based argument?
Just to understand better what you’re saying, what does the word “chemical” mean?
Or we can take the process-based approach, where we stop caring about defining boxes perfectly and we start caring about patterns of thoughts and behaviors. This may sound woowoo or without empirical basis, but some of the most successful programs for verbal autism are based on these ideas, the AIM and PEAK programs.
This study is from 2015.
Right?
I think it’s exactly a decade later, 2025. https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/evaluating-impact-ai-labor-market-current-state-affairs
Fiber. Fiber helps you feel full, so it is harder to over-eat fruit in comparison with chocolate bars, gummy bears, or even fruit juice.
I thought about you when this video came out 🙂:
Gear I wish was more travel friendly? Sure! Sturdy clipboards, good pencil sharpeners, good office chairs, and height-adjustable tables (although for height-adjustable tables I can settle for good adjustable keyboard trays, which are quite portable).
And regarding your board, it makes sense that it’d be for sitting in your recliner. It sounds useful!
I agree with you and think it’s worthwhile to critically evaluate fonts.
So what happens if we evaluate cursive font? Well, for most people, loopy cursive is hard to read.
To understand why loopy cursive is problematic, here’s an excerpt from two experts on handwriting:
So loopy cursive sucks, but does that mean that we should straight up ditch cursive altogether? Are there fonts that are quick to write and legible? Turns out, those same experts built a handwriting system, the Getty-Dubay system. Their writing system does not seek to “look pretty and fancy-pants” (to quote you). Instead, their writing system tries to “communicate clearly” (to quote you again). They built something logical and pragmatic.
How can you be sure of what I’m saying? Well, you be the judge!
Here’s a picture of the Getty-Dubay fonts, both print and cursive:
Here’s a comparison of different cursive fonts:
If you want more information, here’s a resource you can check out: https://handwritingsuccess.com/why-cursive/
So yeah, the way I see it, loopy cursive is hell, and italic-based cursive is the best of both worlds: italic-based cursive is fast to write and easy to read.