You can improve almost any working relationship...really! It just takes time, effort and some good conversations. Michael Bungay Stanier joins host Brett Hendrie to talk about his new book, How to Work With Almost Anyone: Five Questions for Building the Best Possible Relationships. In it, he encourages everyone to ask the sometimes difficult question: Can our working relationship be better? 

Much of his book comes down to the need for better conversations — because it turns out, we’re probably not having enough of them.

The entire 25-minute conversation is well worth the listen, but key take aways include:

1. When it comes to working relationships, we’re not spending enough time talking about how we work together. Lots of energy tends to be spent on projects and assignments, but few people take the time to learn about how they can better support their teammates to make sure the relationship is the best and most productive it can possibly be.
2. Bungay Stanier shares the five keystone conversations he believes everyone should have with their colleagues, employees or managers — including questions he thinks we should ask of our peers. What does your best look like? What are your preferred processes and practices in a working day? What can we learn from past frustrating relationships and how can we improve on it for this one? And he has plenty more.
3. It’s important to ask yourself, what are the risks of having those difficult conversations with your boss. Is that uncomfortableness we feel when we say, “We should talk,” worth never seeing an improvement in the relationships you value? He has some suggestions on how to ease into hard conversations, and whom to choose if you’re just looking for a bit of practice.

This episode kicks off our second season of backstage conversations with guests of our acclaimed speaker series. New episodes of Rotman Visiting Experts are released monthly on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts. Desktop listeners can also tune in on Simplecast.

Would you rather read than listen in? Check out the full transcript of the episode here.