Who Inspires Me 1: Michael Bungay Stanier

This is the first of a series on the people who have inspired me which I will be writing over the next few months. I hope you find it useful and look forward to your reactions.

I can’t remember where I first came across the work of Michael Bungay Stanier. I suspect it was through a reference from another blogger or podcaster. I started to follow his blog because he had some interesting things to say. From a bit of googling I found a few videos of him at work. There was a really interesting film of him working with a team at Google itself.

Michael was also touting a short animated film which captured some of his coaching messages about success – it was the 8 irresistible principles of fun. And that seemed to resonate so well with what I was about and how I liked to work.

Then after a short while Michael launched his first full length book “Do More Great Work” and with it a new podcast series with the same title. I bought the book and started to listen to the podcasts. At first they came at a phenomenal pace – I suspected that he had been stockpiling interviews so that he could share them at a rapid pace as he launched the book. The book – was really good, a very practical workbook approach that set out clearly how to get things done with exercises to complete.

I liked the quirkiness of Michael’s approach mixed with the real insights that he shared. I was also impressed with the willingness to share that Michael showed.

Then one day, 3 years ago, I took some books into a team meeting at work to show who influenced me. Amongst them was ‘Do More Great Work’. The team’s reaction was to suggest that we read some of these books and discuss them. We read Michael’s book – and then one Friday afternoon I had an idea (Fridays are my inspiration time!) I sent an email to Michael to ask if he would be prepared to work with us. The result of this email, after some negotiation and a few discussions was a workshop which Michael delivered via Skype from Toronto, Canada to the team in Manchester. The topic he chose was ‘courage’, one of the three key features of great work (the others being focus and resilience).

That workshop had a huge impact on the team. It also massively influenced me.

Since then I have continued to follow Michael’s podcast, his blog, his daily Great Work quotes, Tools for the Time Crunched Manager. The list goes on and on.

And then, there was a remarkable piece of work produced by Michael in November 2013. Working with Brian Johnson’s En*Theos platform, Michael produced a week-long virtual conference called the Great Work MBA in which he interviewed 25 people about great work. It was a beautifully constructed learning experience which had me watching each day’s videos on the train to and from work. I learnt a huge amount and also responded to Michael’s call within the programme to buy the book he had edited as part of Seth Godin’s Domino project. The book was called ‘End Malaria’ – a set of articles about leadership by an amazing array of names with all the profits going to causes that support the fight against malaria. The conference was watched by 10,000 people!

There’s so much more than the headlines I have written about with Michael. I’m inspired by so much of what he does. For example, he introduced me to the idea of a Mastermind Group, and I am in the midst of setting one up.

Michael’s influence is ongoing. If you haven’t come across anything he has done, go take a look.

Going back to that Skype workshop, I remember being sent a note by Michael. He is always self-effacing with a rich Australian sense of humour. Rather than talk about his achievements, he wanted to be introduced like this:

George Orwell said, “An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.” In that vein, Michael was banned from his high school graduation for “the balloon incident”, was sued by one of his Law School lecturers for defamation, and managed to give himself a concussion while digging a hole as a labourer…

I love that sense of fun and irreverence – and look forward to continuing to be inspired by and learn from Michael Bungay Stanier.